A Book Recommendation

By Bruce Mills

I am reading a book with a very intriguing title: Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be). It is written by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, and published by Moody Publishers. These are two young men (both are 31 years old) who hold to reformed doctrine and explain well why it is incompatible with the fluidity of the Emergent Church. The book is endorsed by such stalwarts of the faith as D. A. Carson, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, and Justin Taylor.

DeYoung is the pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan. I have listened to one of his sermons on-line and I predict that he may become one of the well-known conference speakers of the future, in the pattern of Piper, MacArthur, Mohler, Sproul, et al. He is a superb teacher of the Word.

Ted Kluck is a professional writer, having authored a couple of sport-related books. His personal experiences of flirting with the edges of the Emergent church movement provides the basis for his witty and somewhat sarcastic viewpoint.

I am not finished reading the book; in fact, I’m not even halfway through it yet. But it is an excellent book. It is well-written and explains clearly what the problems are with the Emergent Church. DeYoung and Kluck tackle the writings of Emergent leaders such as Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, and Ron Bell with a clear understanding and perception of what the implications are in what those men have written. It is not written as a scholarly work such as D. A. Carson’s Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Rather, it is written for the average person in the pew who struggles to understand the latest trends and fads in the American evangelical church. The chapters are alternately authored by DeYoung and Kluck, with DeYoung providing the meat and Kluck providing the wry smiles.

I highly recommend this book to you. In fact, I intend to use it as a resource in my own teaching ministry. It retails for $14.99, but it is available from www.amazon.com for $10.49.

The Obedience of Faith

By Bruce Mills

I have begun teaching through the book of Romans in my Sunday School class, and was quickly impressed by a statement Paul made in the opening verses of the first chapter. He stated that, through Christ, he had received grace and apostleship “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (v. 5).

That phrase, “the obedience of faith,” is an extremely significant statement. Paul was the apostle sent to take the good news of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, and he uses this term as a synonym for true, genuine salvation. So, we must ask, what then are the implications of that term? I think it is rather clear. Paul is saying that true faith will result in an obedient life. Genuine believers will struggle with sin, but the orientation of their life is toward Christ. As they grow in their knowledge of Him and His word, they will turn from sin and obey God’s moral standards because the indwelling Holy Spirit will give them a desire to do so.

This phrase is significant because it indicates that the person who claims faith in Jesus Christ but whose habitual pattern of life is utter disregard for and disobedience to God’s Word gives evidence that he has never been truly redeemed and is living a lie. Faith that does not manifest itself in obedient living is spurious and worthless (cf. James 2:14-26).

Don’t misunderstand: we are not saved by works, no matter how seemingly good; but we are saved to live a life characterized by good works. Genuine faith is obedient faith. It is not that faith plus obedience equals salvation, but that obedient faith equals salvation. True faith is verified in obedience.

By making obedience a part of genuine faith, Paul is letting us know that faith is not an easy out for those who find the strict moral standards of the Christian life to be a burdensome thing. When anyone is saved through faith, it is with a view to obedience. Faith, if genuine, always has obedience as its outcome; obedience, if it is to please God, must always be accompanied by faith. Faith and obedience are two sides to the same coin. They must be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.

Now, let me address a corollary issue. To belong to God in a relationship of obedience is to recognize that salvation includes being in submission to His lordship. When we come to Christ initially, we come to One who demands total allegiance. This allegiance is something we learn to live out as God begins His work of transforming our minds so that we do His will. But never can we obey without believing. If obedience is implied from the beginning of our faith, faith is always essential for any true obedience.

Some people who claim to be Christians may appear for a while to outwardly conform with the demands of the gospel. Not too long ago, I was involved in a situation involving a couple from another church who had separated. He claimed to want to reconcile the marriage; she showed no interest in doing such. He got involved in our church’s biblical counseling ministry, but after great efforts on the part of our counselors to work with this couple and the elders of their church to bring about reconciliation, in the end, both of them refused to obey the hard demands of the Word in regard to their relationship to one another. Two of the counselors involved told me, “After a while, it just seemed to become evident that regardless of how much they professed to be Christians, their refusal to obey Scripture demonstrated otherwise.” I’m not saying that I know they are both unbelievers. I can’t know their hearts. But the fruit they demonstrated in this situation indicated that regardless of what they professed, they may not have been genuine believers. If either of them are, then I would expect that others will begin to see the discipline of the Lord in their lives as He chastens His children in order to bring them back into conformity with His holy standards of righteousness (cf. Hebrews 12:4-11).

A theology that refuses to recognize the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ for every believer is a theology that contradicts the very essence of biblical Christianity. In Rom. 10:9-10, Paul declares, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

With equal clarity and certainty, Peter declared in his sermon at Pentecost, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). The heart of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is that faith without obedience is not saving faith, but is certain evidence that a person is following the broad road to destruction rather than the narrow path of righteousness that leads to eternal life (Matthew 7:13-14).

On the other hand, merely calling Jesus “Lord,” even while doing seemingly important work in His name, is worthless unless those works are done from faith, in accordance with His word, and are directed and empowered by His Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

So, genuine faith issues from a heart which has submitted itself to Christ’s authority and the result will always be obedience to Christ’s commands. That’s what Paul meant by “the obedience of faith.” He presumes that those who are true believers will obey Christ. But those who claim to have believed yet are characterized by a lifestyle of habitual disobedience and a refusal to submit to God’s moral standards are not true believers.

Purveyors of a False Gospel

By Bruce Mills

A good friend and brother in Christ sent me a link to a video with John Piper speaking on his feelings about the prosperity gospel. It is quite strong and forceful. You can view it here. It takes less than three minutes. Watch it and then come back and read the rest of this article.

As I watched it, I was thinking about how the American church is so caught up in the glorification and accumulation of wealth and the opulent trappings of our culture that we have forgotten that Jesus said that no one can serve God and wealth (Matt. 6:24). So instead of condemning materialism as sin, the false teachers of the prosperity gospel glorify it and build an entire theological system around it.

It is time for those within the evangelical church who hold to the true gospel to stand up and condemn this heresy just as Piper has done in this video. So often we are unwilling to speak out against those who teach this garbage when friends or family members speak affirmingly of them. But we must be willing to stand for the truth, regardless of what others may say. Because when we allow this heresy to go unchallenged, all we are doing is allowing those men and women to continue to put more and more people on the broad road to destruction, when our call is to lead them to the narrow path to righteousness.

So who are some of the false teachers who are promoting this heresy? They include T. D. Jakes, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Paul and Jan Crouch, Joyce Meyer, Randy and Paula White, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, and others. These are the names who, today, are most often associated with the prosperity gospel or, as it is otherwise known, the “health and wealth” gospel. They are teaching a false gospel which panders to the unregenerate heart’s love for that which benefits itself. They do not preach a gospel which proclaims the utter depravity of man who is dead in his sin, hopelessly on his way to hell because his sin has offended a holy, righteous God, and that he needs a Savior, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. You will not hear them mention the need for people to repent of their sin and turn in faith to Christ for forgiveness of that sin, trusting Him and Him alone for salvation, and you most certainly will not hear them say that following Christ may cost you everything you hold dear, including your family, your possessions, your job, even your life.

Instead, they proclaim a false gospel in which there’s really no need for Christ as our mediator, since God isn’t really all that holy and we aren’t so morally perverse as to require the death of God’s Son in our place. God is our buddy who just wants us to be happy, and the way to be happy is to cash in on God’s blessings of health and wealth by recognizing your own potential and living in accordance with it.

Dr. Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, explains that the gospel being proclaimed by these people reflects the broader assumption among evangelicals that individuals are saved by making a decision to have a personal relationship with God. He comments that in this approach to salvation…

If one’s greatest problem is loneliness, the good news is that Jesus is a reliable friend. If the big problem is anxiety, Jesus will calm us down. Jesus is the glue that holds our marriages and families together, gives us purpose for us to strive toward, wisdom for daily life. And there are half-truths in all of these pleas, but they never really bring hearers face to face with their real problem: that they stand naked and ashamed before a holy God and can only be acceptably clothed in his presence by being clothed, head to toe, in Christ’s righteousness.

This gospel of “submission,” “commitment,” “decision,” and “having a personal relationship with God” fails to realize, first of all, that everyone has a personal relationship with God already: either as a condemned criminal standing before a righteous judge or as a justified co-heir with Christ and adopted child of the Father. “How can I be right with God?” is no longer a question when my happiness rather than God’s holiness is the main issue.[1]

The issue, then, is that these prosperity gospel teachers, as well as most other evangelicals, have the gospel message wrong. We need to get back to a gospel message which confronts people with their sin and the serious result of its offending God’s holiness, and then explains how Christ took the place of sinners and offers eternal life through His substitutionary atonement.

Sadly, when you go into every “Christian” bookstore in most cities, you will find the shelves stocked with the books of the prosperity gospel teachers, thus providing affirmation that they are “accepted” as “Christian” leaders and authorities. I am convinced that one reason they are so popular is that American Christianity is so weak. People call themselves Christians and attend churches where the service focuses on the music and emotional worship, yet the inspired Word of God is never opened and taught in an in-depth, verse-by-verse manner so that those who are there are instructed in what God has actually said. I love good Christian music. I even like Christian music with a good beat and tempo. But the teaching of the Word is to be the priority of our worship—not the music. Only when we get back to emphasizing the teaching of the Word will evangelical Christians learn that the trash being passed out by these false charlatans is worthless for their spiritual growth.

[1] Horton, Michael S. “Joel Osteen and the Glory Story.” http://www.wscal.edu/.