Apostasy From The Gospel.

Correspondent, John, in a comment to my last blog presents his perceptions of two past correspondents to the yoursydneyanglican website. I am not prepared to go so far as John, except to say I see a serious theological error being propounded by those correspondents.

However, there is no comfort to be found for them in my perception. In a blog posted by me here on 14 May 2007 I quoted from "Apostasy from the Gospel" - John Owen - Puritan Paperbacks published by The Banner of Truth Trust - abridged and made easy to read by R.J.K. Law. It is a reliable translation of a portion of Owen's "Works". I draw from that blog and provide it hereunder.

Before proceeding further I urge readers to have in mind the various excuses for escaping the historical reading of Genesis 1 now accommodated within Moore Theological College (all designed to accommodate the monstrous theory of evolution) and set that against the errors and causes of error which John Owen says lead to "Apostasy" or "Partial Apostasy".

Speaking on the topic of "Darkness and Ignorance a Cause of Apostasy" and with reference to Sceptics on page 66 Owen says "Scripture, the Trinity, Christ and his offices, justification by grace and all the other great truths of the gospel are weighed and examined in the defiled, tottering scales of bold, irreverent sceptical discussions. They may be teachers of religion, but they show their ignorance of the fundamental difference between truth and error. They cannot see the glory, beauty and power of truth, so it is all one to them whether it is truth or whether it is error". The office of Christ as Creator is considered part of the gospel and ought not be subjected to assault just as Christ as Redeemer or other office ought not be subjected to assault.

Speaking on the topic of "Pride, Neglect and Worldliness, Causes of Apostasy" on page 79, Owen says "The corrupt mind exalts its own ideas. It loves, applauds, dotes on and firmly embraces its own ideas and opinions. This is the origin of all heresy," and on page 80 "The corrupt mind exalts itself as the sole and absolute judge of God's Word....... whatever the mind rejects as not in agreement with its own ideas and system of logic is scorned and despised". On the same topic on page 89, Owen says "(2) Secondly, God delivers up willful apostates to false teachers and deceivers. These, deceived and taught by Satan, are used by God to carry out his just displeasure on wicked apostates whom he delivers into their power. The deceived people exalt these false teachers and deceivers into high positions in the church and then submit implicitly to them".

Speaking on the topic of "Apostasy from the Doctrine of the Gospel" on pages 92, Owen says "So none will remain constantly faithful to Christ who is not able to spiritually discern the glory of his person and his offices" and on page 93, "The whole foundation of all gospel faith rests in the glory of Christ's person and offices (Heb. 1:2, 3; Col. 1:15-19)". Note that Owen specifically cites passages of Scripture addressing the creative work of Christ in this assertion.

Speaking on the topic of "Apostasy from the Commands of the Gospel" on page 103, Owen says "By the Word of God and the Spirit of Christ, multitudes have been made holy, and multitudes more are still being called out of this world to holiness of life. These shall never utterly and finally fall away from true holiness, but shall be preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation. Yet even these may fall away from wholehearted obedience to the holy commands of the gospel and become for a while unfruitful in their lives. In every backsliding there is a partial apostasy, with much dishonour to Christ. Nor does anyone know whether his backsliding will not end in total apostasy".

These and so much more are sober words from John Owen for reflection on all aspects of our life and testimony to Jesus Christ. In connection with the full gospel of Jesus Christ, they have relevance to the glory that is His in His office as Creator and are a caution against diminishing the glory due Him.

Objective readers will observe that the Anglican (Episcopalian) Diocese of Sydney is in grave danger due to a shameful corruption of the glory of Jesus Christ as Creator and the roots of the corruption are to be found in its theological seminary.

Sam Drucker

For the Love of God.

The reaction of several Sydney Episcopalians (Anglican) toward Biblical Creationists leaves many of us to wonder just what is in play.

Newer readers may not be aware that the yoursydneyanglicans website had a forum thread some six years ago which expressed comfort with trying to hold to the integrity of the Bible while also holding to evolution as the means by which God created. That proposition was gently challenged by some who may have been Biblical Creationists but the reaction they got - to the point of ridicule and one correspondent insulting Biblical Creationists by accusing them of being parasites - was way over the top. That was the seed for establishing the Sydney Anglican Heretics blogspot and then commenced some strong debate here but not for long.

The existence of a blogspot which had the affront to criticize the Diocese and, by title, publicize a perceived problem with the theology of many within the Diocese was a dent to the pride. The recourse was to shut down any dialogue and not mention this site in public discussion so as to limit any airing of the 'not-so-evangelical' thinking in the Diocese. Some here took up discussion on blogspots managed by some of our protagonists who blogged on the subject of Origins. Again, it wasn't long before they shut down discussion and banned some here from their blogspot. Again, name calling occurred - we were labelled "Trolls". Go figure! They raise the topic of Origins, undermine the integrity of the Word of God, invite correspondence, know our views yet because we are prepared to debate their stance we are accused of being "Trolls". Again, go figure!

The whole history of engagement with Sydney Episcopalians is full of wonder for me. Why is it that so many Sydney Episcopalians are resistant to the Biblical Creationist position? Why are so many on the one hand declaring themselves evangelical, reformed and conservative yet abandoning (even aggressively) the historical evangelical, reformed and conservative interpretation of Genesis 1? Why won't they thoroughly investigate the scientific positions on Origins?

The answer to those questions have a range of answers and some have already been discussed here previously but there is one more answer/explanation which has not been addressed. It is my task to address that tonight. I draw the attention of readers to Judges 2:1-3.

To that scene I now quote an extract of a sermon by George Smeaton (1814 - 1889) of the Free Church of Scotland:

"Look at Israel, on entering the land of promise. Unmindful, after first success, of their work of vengeance on the doomed nations round them, they neither work for God nor in God; and when the angel tells them in Bochim, for their punishment, that they should not drive out those nations any more, such a day of weeping followed - such a day of repentance - as has seldom been in this dark world. But why did they not return to their first works? It seems that the courage once given them was not given again - the Lord was not with them in such measure any more. Is this a new thing in the earth? Ah! it is common to lose first love, but all do not regain their former place. Many are but blasted trees - melancholy monuments of what they were, or might have been. Some all zeal once are now lame in every effort, ..."

I just wonder about those Sydney Episcopalians we encounter who bear such a rigid resistance to the Word of God on Origins. Just how many are there who have come to Jesus Christ with something of the world still in their heart? Have they come not fully mourning, poor in spirit, meek and hungry because they have something of their pride in man's knowledge over the knowledge of God. As such, are they not like Israel at Boachim? Are they not left with that which will become a snare to them until they feel how uncomfortable that half-hearted faith is that they profess? Surely that is an uncomfortable existence? Is God not loving to leave them in such a condition in hope that they repent and submit in full faith to receive all the joy and comfort to be found in the Word that is Jesus Christ? Yes, God is loving. The Father's love toward the Son is the foundation of the gospel and for man to experience the love of God is to receive Jesus Christ, the Word of God, in all His fullness. So it is that God will punish by allowing such darts to discomfort them in hope they will cry out to Him for that which is true.

Sydney Episcopalians, the Word of God is true and everlasting. We who provoke such reactions of abhorrence in you may pass but others will arise by the Will of God and the spurs and snares of worldliness will continue to react within you and against what ought to be an encouragement for faith which leads to comfort and joy in the Lord.

Sam Drucker

To The Glory of God.

That phase in Christian life we call Puritan Christianity was the product of the Holy Spirit responding to the Church of England having succumbed to a corrupt ministry. Puritanism is most identified with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century.

Rev J. I. Packer once said "the Puritans were strongest just where Protestants today are weakest, and their writings can give us more real help than those of any other body of Christian teachers, past or present, since the days of the apostles."

The Puritans were concerned for the glory of God in all aspects of life. Rev Packer went on to say "They yoked their consciences to His word, disciplining themselves to bring all activities under the scrutiny of Scripture, and to demand a theological, as distinct from a merely pragmatic, justification for everything that they did. They applied their understanding of the mind of God to every branch of life seeing the church, the family, the state, the arts and sciences, the world of commerce and industry, no less than the devotions of the individual, as so many spheres in which God must be served and glorified."

In a paper presented to a conference at Westminster Chapel, Buckingham Gate, England, in 1958 to remember the work of the Puritans, Evangelical Pastor Paul Cook said, among other things, " Puritan thought on this [the office of a Minister], as on all other religious matters, was consciously based on and controlled by the Bible. It is essential for a right appraisal of the Puritans to realize that, for all their often immense learning, they depended for their guidance wholly upon the infallible revelation of God's will recorded in the Scriptures."

At the same conference Rev J. I. Packer presented a paper on "The Puritans as Interpreters of Scripture" in which he said "To the Puritans, Scripture, as a whole and in all its parts, was the utterance of God: God's word set down in writing. His mind opened and His thoughts declared for man's instruction. The content of Scripture is God's eternal truth, for the historical process which the Bible records and interprets is just the temporal outworking of God's eternal plan, formed before the world was.", and "To the Puritan Bible student, it was God who had uttered the prophecies, recorded the histories, expounded the doctrines, declared the praises, written the visions, of which Scripture was made up; and he knew that Scripture must be read, not merely as words which God spoke long ago, in the actual inspiring of the biblical books, but as words which God continues to speak to every reader in every age.''

A subject so controversial today, as it has been in times past, and which Puritans had to bring light in their time, is that task of Interpretation of Scripture. Again, Packer informs us of the approach of the Puritans - "The Reformers had insisted, against the Mediaeval depreciation of the 'literal' sense of Scripture in favour of the various 'spiritual' (allegorical) senses, that the literal - i.e., the grammatical, natural, intended - sense was the only sense that Scripture has, and that it was this sense that must be sought in exposition through careful attention to the context and grammar of each statement. The Puritans fully agreed. 'If you would understand the true sense ... of a controverted Scripture, then look well into the coherence, the scope and the context thereof (W. Bridge, Works, 1845, I. 454) .''

Packer commented that there were some places such as "Song of Solomon" where an allegorical reading had merit but he puts forward the qualification of James Durham, circa 1840, who, in speaking of the approach of the Puritans, said "there is a great difference between an allegorical exposition of Scripture and an exposition of allegorical Scripture."

Packer said the Puritans interpreted Scripture consistently and harmonistically and "If Scripture is God's word, the expression of a single Divine mind, all that it says must be true, and there can be no real contradiction between part and part." To demonstrate this point Packer again quotes William Bridge who, advises us of a helpful principle when considering external contradictions and occasions of seeming internal contradictory passages of Scripture: "When he [Moses] saw two men fighting, one an Egyptian, and another an Israelite, he killed the Egyptian; but when he saw two Hebrews fighting, now, saith he, I will go and reconcile them, for they are brethren; why so, but because he was a good man, and gracious? So also it is with a gracious heart; when he sees the Scripture fighting with an Egyptian, an heathen author, or apocryphal, he comes and kills the heathen ... the Egyptian, or the apocrypha: but when he sees two Scriptures at variance (in view, though in truth not), Oh, saith he, these are brethren, and they may be reconciled, I will labour all I can to reconcile them; but when a man shall take every advantage of seeming difference in Scripture, to say, Do ye see what contradictions there are in this book, and not labour to reconcile them; what doth this argue, but that the corruption of a man's nature, is boiled up to an unknown malice against the word of the Lord; take heed therefore of that (I. 459)."

Packer notes there a striking thought and an acute diagnosis.

I could go on citing other Puritans to substantiate my case but space prevents. That which I would have readers draw from this essay is that those today who are feted as evangelical scholars but who reinterpret Scripture in Genesis 1 to justify an external proposition on Origins are in breach of principles the Puritans laid down for interpreting Scripture. The absolute consistency between Genesis, Exodus 20:11 and 31:17-18 stands as a bulwark against that infidelity which interprets Genesis 1 as conveying any other view of God's creative activity but that which occurred over six days each of approximately twenty-four hours duration and all of which occurred only thousands of years ago.

The Puritans, aided by God's Holy Spirit, redirected the Church's attention to the glory of God and left a legacy of doctrine and means to interpret Scripture which stands the test of all ages. An age today when degenerate theology is overturning all that is good from the Church's past is an age in which faith in God's Word is widely undermined and the glory of God concealed.

Sam Drucker

Division not Peace.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, at Luke 12:51-52, says: "Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three."

J. C. Ryle, Anglican Bishop, speaking to that utterance of our Lord said "Thousands of well-meaning persons nowadays are continually crying out for more 'unity' amongst Christians. To attain this they are ready to sacrifice almost anything, and to throw overboard sound doctrine, if they can secure peace. Such people would do well to remember that even gold may be bought too dear and that peace is useless if purchased at the expense of truth."

Richard Bernard, Puritan, once said "Too many Ministers are men pleasers, not the servants of Christ." William Gurnall, Puritan, said "A man who fears God will be bold first, in asserting the truths of the gospel ... and secondly in reproving sin, and denouncing judgment against impertinent sinners."

Indeed to preach the gospel earnestly, in all its fullness, is bound to stir passions in the heart of man somewhere on a scale between - agony of soul leading to full acceptance or to anger and outright rejection. Bernard wisely cautions against, for the sake of peace, trying to please all at cost to the truth of the gospel.

And so we must be prepared to stand firm on the truth of the gospel. Now, I remind readers of the words of Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones who said "The gospel does not commence at 'come to Jesus', there is a whole history which comes before." Dr Lloyd-Jones was speaking on the subject of Genesis as history. The good doctor was not suggesting, in evangelism, we should regale a hearer with the whole sweep of biblical history. What he did say was that there were facts contained within the first three chapters of Genesis which we should not shy away from in sharing the gospel.

I would now like readers consider recent events in two Uniting Churches in Australia - one in Sydney and one in Brisbane. I attended one event and someone I know attended the other. The first event, in Sydney, I wrote about a few weeks ago. A Christian woman of only four months, brought to the Lord with the aid of Biblical Creationist resources and speaker, organized a Biblical Creationist speaker for her church. It had to be outside normal church service times - a Saturday evening. The church Minister did not attend nor did most of the congregation. However, fifty adults did attend, most of whom were unchurched. In fact, most were Atheist. The event went very well.

The other Uniting Church, in Brisbane, has a long standing Christian man who felt the church needed to hear a Biblical Creationist speaker. The means to have such a speaker again had to be outside normal church service times. A Saturday morning church breakfast was the means. I am told about thirty-five people, males and female, attended. Again, the Minister was not present but three retired Ministers, three lay preachers and a Choirmaster were present.

The audience respectfully listened to the speaker until question time which became loaded with as many statements as questions from that grouping just mentioned. Despite Richard Dawkins being exposed by the speaker as weak on science one of the group went on for some time praising Dawkins' book "The Greatest Show on Earth". Again the speaker calmly and skillfully exposed the weakness of Dawkins and his book. One retired Minister, most surprisingly, said "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God created the world in six days." The speaker gently pointed to the relevant passages of Scripture and declared that we Christians stand on the Word of God. More pointed questions/statements were aired and the deliverers of them got heated. One of the other retired Ministers, though not holding to the views of the speaker, tried to calm others down but received criticism in return for his trouble. Things continued to be tense so the Christian man who organized the event had to get up and bring things to a close. In closing, he urged people present to be always willing to examine themselves and what they believed compared to what God says.

Private conversations continued and the speaker was the focus of questions and opinion. I am informed that the speaker, when the organizer later privately apologized to him for the difficulties encountered, said "No, don't apologise, it was great!"

The next day, after the church service, one woman said to the organizer "You really set the cat amongst the pigeons yesterday!" The retired Minister who tried to take the heat out of the discussion at the breakfast told the organizer that he went through theological college with one of the retired Ministers who got heated at the breakfast and said that neither of them heard at College anything such as what the speaker had said.

For me, the two events demonstrate a few things:

1. The absence of the Minister from the event at each church shows they did not support the Biblical Creationist i.e. evangelical, interpretation of the Word of God in Genesis.

2. The Ministers, both serving and retired, are a product of liberal theology at theological college.

3. The means of bringing these churches under the teaching which had been the mainstream Christian teaching up to the last century was through lay members of the church.

4. Any retort that having a Biblical Creationist speaker in a church service is divisive is really an admission that Ministers (and others) are more afraid of men than of God and that such respondents do not have the courage to stand with our Lord Jesus Christ - the Word.

Readers, that assessment can be equally be applied to the bulk of Episcopalian (Anglican) churches in the Diocese of Sydney. The only difference being that the Uniting Church Ministers may be a little more willing to allow the lay people to 'do their own thing' whereas the Episcopalians are more inclined to control all events themselves and that they do this to keep peace with as many people as possible - Christian or not.

Sam Drucker

A Test of a Christian's Great Interest.

No-one knows the mind of the man except the spirit which is in him. It is not for me to say with any certainty that someone other than myself is Christian or not. The issue of whether trust in God's Word is a characteristic of being Christian is perplexing at times.

For example, how does one consider the condition of a man who grew up in a Christian home, goes through all the experiences of church life, goes on through theological training to be ordained a 'Cure of Souls' and then proceed to lecture at a theological seminary only to write and speak in a manner which leads others to doubt whether God is actually saying, in the Holy Bible, what He (God) appears to be saying?

It is perplexing.

Puritan, William Guthrie, when writing "The Christian's Great Interest" knew of these complexities and wrote of those who had faith but were in need of assurance and of those who were "... living under the ordinances, pretending, without ground, to a special interest in Christ ...".

The best I can do is to lay before all what I believe Guthrie had to say about the latter 'hypocrites' and leave it for them to examine themselves to see if they need to cry out to the Lord in prayer for help.

(a) The hypocrite's conviction. Guthrie recognizes the difficulty of giving sure distinctions here; what follows the conviction is a surer test of its character. But he mentions three things rarely found in the stirrings of reprobates but generally found in the person who becomes a true believer.

(i) Hypocrites' convictions are usually either of a few gross transgressions only (as Saul admits no more than persecuting David, or Judas than betraying innocent blood), or else of sinfulness in general without any specific sins; but the law-work which has a gracious ending comprehends both (cf. 1 Tim 1:13).

(ii) Hypocrites' convictions seldom reach the recognition of inner corruption, inability and helplessness; so that they still 'go about to establish their own righteousness' (Rom.10:13) by works.

(iii) Hypocrites' convictions are often put right out of mind by other matters (Gain goes and builds a city and no more is heard of his conviction; Felix waits till a more convenient time and we hear no more of his trembling). Or if conviction grows, it produces utter despair of relief (thus Judas hanged himself).

(b) The hypocrite's faith. Hypocrites may reach a kind of faith; but:

(i) They never abandon works, forsaking every other ground of confidence to close with Christ alone.

(ii) They never receive Christ ' as anointed to be a King, to rule over a man in all things; a Priest to procure pardon and to make peace upon all occasions; a Prophet, to be wisdom, and a teacher and counsellor in all cases to man : so they do not receive Christ, especially in the first and third offices' (p.12).

(iii) They are seldom prepared to accept all the inconveniences that result from following Christ, but shy back at certain points..

(c) The hypocrite's reformation. Hypocrites may appear changed men, having much knowledge (Heb. 6:4), receiving the word with joy (Matt. 13:20 f.), eschewing the practice of many sins and giving themselves to religious duties (like the Pharisees, Luke 18:11 f.), and approving in some measure the things of God (John 7:46). They 'may have a great deal of profession,' talking of the law and the covenant (Ps. 50:16), confessing their sins (1 Sam. 26:21), humbling themselves (1 Kings 21:27), giving much, perhaps all of their goods to God and to the saints (Acts 5:2, 1 Cor. 13:3), and submitting even to martyrdom (1 Cor. 13:3). They may have great convictions, tremble at the word, and find peace and quiet in the hope of Christ's return (Matt. 25:1); and they may enjoy striking experiences and ' tastings of the good word of God' (Heb. 6:4), 'the powers of the world to come, working powerfully on them, with some flashes of joy arising thence (p. 93). They may have something very like the saving graces of the Spirit - a kind of faith (Acts 8:13), great fear of God, like Balaam, a sort of hope (Job 13:13), some affection for the godly (Mark 6:26) : indeed, ' they have counterfeits of all saving graces' (p. 93). But, says Guthrie, invariably ' they want the three great essentials of religion and true Christianity : (i) They are not broken in heart, and emptied of their own righteousness, so as to loathe themselves . . . (ii) They never took up Christ Jesus as the only treasure and jewel that can enrich and satisfy . . , (iii) They never in earnest close with Christ's whole yoke without exception . . . Therefore, whoever thou art, who can lay clear and just claim to these things, thou art beyond the reach of all atheists, hypocrites and reprobates, as having answered the great ends and intents of the law and gospel' (p97).

I do encourage all to test themselves and specially implore those who, in mangling the intent of the Word of God, demonstrate a lack of faith in the Word of God.

Sam Drucker

Aging Disgracefully.

While most Biblical Creationists will be aware of Radiometric Dating's 'skeleton in the closet' concerning reliability of the method I think it beneficial to revisit it here. I am prompted to do so after reading an interview with Dr Brandon van der Ventel, Nuclear Physicist, in Creation Magazine this month.

Dr van der Ventel is just another scientist who, upon hearing a Biblical Creationist explanation of the world, abandoned his long held belief in Evolution and Long Age view of the age of the earth. Having taken up the Biblical Creationist position he has continued to have research published in peer reviewed journals.

On the subject of Radiometric Dating he recently had this to say:

"Radiometric dating does not measure the age directly, but rather the ratio of the radioactive (unstable) parent nucleus to the stable daughter nucleus, as well as the present decay rate. However, several assumptions need to be made to proceed with the calculation:

First, one needs to assume that here were no daughter nuclei present at the start; that is, the presence of the daughter nucleus is entirely due to the decay.

"Second, there had to be no leakage of either parent or daughter nuclei into or out of the sample. But how can we be sure of any of these assumptions if no-one was present when the rocks were
formed or if the change in the elements were not monitored over the entire geological history?

"Third, the equation is valid only if the decay rate (λ) is a constant, and there is much evidence against this."

While each point is equally valid, that people can assert millions or billions of years age for a sample on the presumption of no consequential leakage of parent or daughter nuclei in all those millions or billions of years is just plain ludicrous!

Little wonder that Dr van der Ventel went on to say that a radiometric 'date' for rock layers near a fossil is accepted only if it fits into the grand evolutionary scheme of things. If this is not the case
then either new samples are taken or a different dating method is used. Notice, this is not akin to a system of 'checks and-balances' but rather a situation where results are 'reinterpreted' in order to obey the evolutionary dogma.

Also, radioactive 'dating' methods have also been known to give incorrect ages for samples of known age.

It is disappointing that Christians relinquish faith in the Word of God for such a flimsy explanation for dating rock samples and, indeed, the age of the earth.

Sam Drucker

Blessing the West.

My sources inform me of a Biblical Creationist speaker addressing a large Western Sydney church this weekend on three occasions - Friday evening through to Sunday evening.

The report I have is that each event was very well attended and much enthusiastic responses from the several hundred attendees.

One man, Christian, who attended Friday night had been a science teacher in a State school who carried his science and Christianity in two boxes. He never delved into Genesis because he feared what it would say in contradiction to what he had learned in science. For some reason he made his way along to the Friday night event and was, so he later said, absolutely astounded at what he had heard and how credible the Biblical interpretation of Origins was as opposed to that of Evolution.

The man returned to hear more at the Sunday morning event and was elevated in spirit at the strengthening of his faith in the Lord he received over the weekend.

Apparently, a nine year old boy was in the audience on the Friday night and all the way home he was full of excitement and could not stop telling his mother about all he had learned about Cosmology. The next day he told his friend but encountered resistance through the suggestion of a limitless universe. He faltered but, upon speaking again to his mother he received wise advice (all based on what the boy had told her the night before). He was reassured and negated the suggestion of his friend. He was back again on Sunday morning growing all the more in knowledge, faith in the Lord and developing a passion for science.

My confidant did not get all the feedback from the weekend but I am sure there is much fruit to bear as Christians go on in faith in our Lord. Such an assertion is backed up by revelation of very many of those attending being well resourced through purchases of thousands of dollars worth of Biblical Creationist material.

Christendom is not dead. You just need to look in the right places.

Sam Drucker

"What is Truth?"

About a week and a half ago I posted a blog about an article written on the Sydney Anglicans website by Michael Jensen, a current lecturer at Moore Theological College on the subject of Christ and Creation.

My concern was with most of the content of the Comments Section. I can't bring myself to let the matter go just yet and provide the comments of most concern hereunder and I draw readers' attention more particularly to those of the Moore College lecturer:

Mark Baines

Hi Michael,
Couldn't help but notice that you mention Adam in your article. Is it always necessary to go back to Adam when discussing the fact of sin in creation and the necessity of Christ for reconciliation? I'd have thought "yes" as to sin's entry into the creation, but "no" purely as to the fact of sin in the world. Could you have argued the same proposition without mentioning Adam?

Michael Jensen

Mark - The Adam/Jesus pattern is clearly important for Paul, especially. I could have made the same point without Adam, but the sense of the sweep of biblical history would be lost, perhaps.

Les Grant

I thought the majority of Christians who now accept evolution think of the creation story (inc Adam and Eve) to be more symbolic than literal. If this is correct, does your reference to the 'mythical' Adam weaken your argument? Also, if Adam is symbolic (or mythical), is not Adam's sin also mythical?

Les Grant

I see Adam as either existing or not existing. What other options are there?
I see Genesis (especially the first 11 chapters) as mythical, others may say is it historical. What other option do you see?

Michael Jensen

Adam may be poetically described, but actually historical. One suggestion, by Reformed evangelical scholar Henri Blocher, is that the name 'Adam' could be a way of representing the whole race at the time of the fall. 
Myth is not the opposite of historical. Myth is a literary genre which may describe actual historical events.

Michael Jensen

@ Les [asked] Would you agree that Adam either is or is not historical?
Do you believe that the story of Adam and Eve is historical fact or 'poetry'?

[reply] No I wouldn't.

And yes, Genesis may be entirely fictitious. I don't think it is.

You aren't really challenging my assertion, because you haven't understood what I am really saying.

Gentlemen, we are NOT going to be debating young earth creationism here. I have much sympathy with Les on this, actually.

So ends the comments upon which I draw readers' attention.

Mr Jensen presents to me to be seriously under influence of Post- Modernist thinking and dangerously applies that to the Word of God. All propositions seem possible unless it is one which asserts the Word of God makes absolute truth claims.

As such he is not of the select group of Christians (should I call him sa cholar?) who were blessed by God in the life of the Church to strengthen faith and resist the assaults of the enemy against the Church.

Just look again at Mr Jensen's comments and run them through this sieve of thought from W. S. Plumer:

"Of all the dispositions requisite to success in the study of religious truth, none is more important than a sincere, constant, and ardent love of truth. No qualification is before this. He who loves his own opinions because they are his, or is greatly attached to views which are of high esteem in his sect or partly because they are a Shibboleth, is a candidate for shame and error. Without strong love for the truth, no man has ever made any considerable progress in knowledge."

W. S. Plumer was Professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, South Carolina from 1867 to 1880 and, to my mind, spoke against a climate of thought to arise in the Church as much as 100 plus years after his time.

What the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney needs today is more of the thinking of Mr Plumer and less of Mr Jensen.

Sam Drucker

A Walk in the Park for a Biblical Creationist.

It was a lovely day to go to the park so there I was today and Biblical Creationist material is most times useful so I had some with me. Along came a young man who was open to conversation.

I was able to elicit from the young man that he regarded himself to be Christian but did not attend church. I cannot be confident he is Christian but the topic of Creation came up as one might expect it would if one knows me. The young man seemed really interested and commented that this was a subject he wondered about but didn't know where to find out about it.

A fulsome explanation was given to the young man and, given he had Chinese heritage, he was particularly interested to hear how the ancient Chinese language, in written form, has characters relating to the Trinity, the creation of Eve from Adam's side, and The Flood. He was interested in more so I gave him the resources I had and he gave me his email address and asked me to send him more information. He also indicated he would like to join with me during the week to see about obtaining a book dealing with the ancient Chinese language and Creation.

I am keen to pursue further discussions with this young man so that I can ascertain his discipleship needs and means to being firmly anchored in faith in Jesus Christ, Creator, Lord and Saviour.

This was an encounter which went somewhere in conversation and which has much follow up potential because of the introduction of a subject which he had keenness to pursue further - Jesus Christ Creator. This was an encounter which, according to Sydney Episcopalian (Anglican) methodology, should have not taken the course it did.

Let's see where it goes.

Sam Drucker

A Prickly Problem for Gap Theorists.

Gap Theorists are those of the church who dismiss Biblical chronology in favour of the world's view of an old (billions or million of years) age for the earth. Traditionally, the Gap Theory proposes a long age between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 during which the earth and all its inhabitants (pre Man) were destroyed by God and most, if not all, fossils found today are relics of that destruction. Generally, Gap Theorists will accept thousands of years passing from the appearance of Adam to the Incarnate Son of God.

Commonsense adherence to the reading of the Word of God speaks against their preferred position and, increasingly, the fossil record indicates likewise.

One example from the fossil record is revealed in the following article.

In accepting the long ages of the geologic column, Gap Theorists are confronted by cactus fossils found in the Eocene ('dated' 35-55 million years), rose fossils from the Miocene (5-23 million years) and Oligocene (23-35 million years), plus many others dated prior to the alleged appearance of man. However, the Word of God says that thorns and thistles are a product of the Curse (Genesis 3:17-18).

In agreeing to the ages of the geologic column and consequent ages of thorn fossils found therein, Gap Theorists are putting a product of the Curse for Adam's sin prior to Adam's sin. This is a nonsense and demonstrates the danger of not accepting the Word of God as intended - be sure your sins will find you out!

To accept God at His Word one is obliged to regard the thorns found in fossilized form being, not millions of years old, but thousands of years old and buried in the rock strata subsequent to Adam's sin - possibly buried in the Flood of Noah's time.

An even greater disparity of dating arises with respect to spiny plant fossils found in strata assigned to the Devonian Period ('dated' 360-410 million years). Again, well before the appearance of man according to the world's current dating method.

By taking God at His Word in Genesis 3:17-18, Biblical Creationists have been subjected to criticism from Theistic Evolutionists and Gap Theorists of having to assert that God created thorns and thistles after having rested from his Creation activity. This is a false argument and proven so by scientific observation. Thorns and thistles are not a new creation but a mutation - degenerative leaves or parts of leaves that didn't unfold properly or bases that have failed to grow into leaves or are left over when leaves fall off or failed branch development.

Being mutations, thorns and thistles are in accord with other mutations which came upon living forms because of Adam's sin and have caused disease, suffering and death ever since. As such, the existence of thorns and thistles are testimony to the Word of God and the need to take God at His Word.

Gap Theorists (and Theistic Evolutionists) are left to the embarrassment of inadequately explaining nature when putting the current world view (the splintered reed of Egypt) above faith in the Word of God.

Sam Drucker

Fools for Christ Used of God.

A quick scan through all, bar one (Andrew Mackinnon), comments flowing from this article written about Jesus Christ and Creation give much reason to question the future of the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney. While the reader might give some assent to the content of the article, the author gives himself away in subsequent commentary as being so flaky in his doctrine and reading of Scripture that you just couldn't accept anything he said with any conviction. In short, his words are no more than litter blown about in the breeze.

As the Diocese continues to go backwards in doctrinal standard its effort to be an instrument of God in the building of the Kingdom bear little blessing. Just realistic thought of drawing the ungodly in any number to sit attentively under the gospel of Jesus Christ is beyond reach for the Diocese. Drawing the already churched who bring with them distorted doctrine from churches abandoned by God may be a possibility but the ungodly is another matter.

Contrast that with my encounter last night.

A young woman wanted to resolve the question of whether there was a God. She was of an Atheist inclination but wanted to dot the i's and cross the t's. Her first resort was to science. She read books and magazines from secular sources but eventually became frustrated at the lack of case for ruling out God. Eventually she was invited to hear a Biblical Creationist speaker. The content of the message led her to reading Biblical Creationists material. She became a convert to Jesus Christ. That occurred in April, this year.

Just four months later, the church of which she was now part permitted this alive and enthusiastic convert to conduct last night's event involving a Biblical Creationist speaker. She advertised the event beyond the church and attracted some online discussion and, to my observation, Atheists or, at the least, Sceptics and other non churched in attendance - all in a church building. I counted fifty adults present of whom, by the degree of engagement and my later inquiries, a quarter of which I can confidently say were ungodly.

To give occasion to the event the young woman dressed smartly in a colourful court jester outfit - declaring tongue-in-cheek she was a Fool for Christ - and gave her testimony before introducing the speaker. The speaker had been an Atheist for longer than most in the room had been alive giving some credibility to be able to speak of the two states of belief.

The ungodly were really polite and attentive listeners. They afforded the speaker opportunity to give a beautiful and complete gospel message (Creation to Resurrection) which the Biblical Creationist position, and thus God, upholds. Question time was a probing time with several questions from the ungodly. Again they were really polite - a credit to their nature. About an hour later, question time finished as did the event as a whole. Ample supper was taken and opportunity presented for more questions and purchasing DVDs and books while free literature was also available and sought.

One of the ungodly was heard to say of the speaker "He was really persuasive!"

I also later learned that there were others present linked to the young woman who were church attached but not necessarily Biblical Creationists.

This was an event, I am confident, used of God for Kingdom growth and it was a joy to be part of, if only by being in the audience to observe and hear how things unfolded.

The Bible doubters of the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese who I refer to at the commencement of this blog run last.

Sam Drucker

True Evangelism

Last month under the heading of The Need for Preaching the Character of God I posted an extended extract of Walter Chantry's 1970 book "Today's Gospel - Authentic or Synthetic?". Despite being an observation from more than forty years ago I regard it to be an incisive essay on much of the state of evangelism today.

I provide herewith a much shorter extract from the book:

"Sincerity and genuine conversion are not the only qualifications necessary for the work of an evangelist. An ability to convey the Biblical gospel is essential.

Since evangelicals are honestly asking why God has not attended their giant projects with His power, it is time to re-examine the content of the gospel most popularly preached. We must plunge beneath the superficial reports on methods and unity to focus attention on the foundational issue - the doctrine fostered by our evangelism and missions. Surely no issue can supersede the necessity of preaching the truth Christ delivered to His disciples!

Needed most of all, then, is the demolition of the dreadful trend that sees the gospel as simply a few facts. True evangelism preaches the whole counsel of God with explanation and application to sinners."

It speaks for itself.

Sam Drucker

Raising the White Flag Sydney Episcopalian Style

From what I have heard about the expressed views of the Rector of St. John's Anglican Church, Ashfield, Sydney, on Genesis I should think the Sydney Atheists are right to champion the seeming sentiment of the sign on the church property.

Sam Drucker

Thirty None Articles of Religion

Some weeks back my attention was drawn to a blogspot entitled A Restless Faith authored by a former Moore Theological College lecturer by the name of Keith Mascord. Not only I but others around the world took interest in and were disappointed with the author's attitude to the Word of God disclosed in a blog entitled Noah, Gender Roles and Same-Sex Marriage and subsequent comments to that blog.

Looking back at comments from others I have pondered a response given by Keith Mascord to a question from a man named Trent. The fellow Trent asked Keith Mascord "You move in Sydney Anglican circles and seem to have done so at various levels for some time. You would have a pretty fair idea of what is going on within that Diocese. The points you made to me today on the Thirty-Nine Articles, Article 9, justification by faith, Reformation understanding on doctrine and bible teaching, the question mark over whether Adam was a real person, unbaptised babies who die going straight to hell – are these thoughts the general thinking of the Diocese?" to which Keith Mascord replied (in part) "I am still an Anglican minister/priest. Re the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, it has been a while since I have read through them – but did a few years ago in the context of a discusison about tightening adherence to the 39 Articles here in the Sydney Diocese. From what I remember of the discussion (and there were a lot of Sydney Anglican ministers there), it was acknowledged that the Articles, though a fair articulation of Reformation convictions, nevertheless need to be understood within their historic context. Most would have had trouble saying a straightforward YES to each and every one of them. Moreover, the Articles themselves acknowledge changes in understanding over time."

It is my understanding that the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion were devised by the newly Reformed Church of England in the Sixteenth Century as a standard of doctrine to which Clergy of that denomination must ascribe upon ordination - even in Australia.

The perception of Keith Mascord as to the general feeling within the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney toward the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion presents an ominous future for this link to the Reformed doctrine of the past.

Other comments by Keith Mascord on his blogspot and his citing of the view of a present Moore Theological College lecturer on Inerrancy of Scripture and Homosexuality give cause for concern and have been dealt with here subsequently.

However, it is worth reminding readers that what we have reported on is just more of what has been happening across Christendom for some centuries. Churches and denominations are falling like 'nine pins' to the world. For so many, the doctrine and creeds arising from the Reformation are proving an embarrassment to those today wanting more relevance to the world rather than to God and to those who spent their blood achieving the Reformation of the Church in the Name of Jesus Christ.

For an example in that regard take a journey back forty years to see how one writer, John R. de Witt, described the outlook in the Presbyterian Church in the USA:
" ... we should resist with all our power the drive to re-write the standards of the Church because the motives for doing so are wrong. What I have said before is, as you see at once, immediately related to this. What we are facing at the present time is a desperately serious state of affairs within the historic institution of the Church. I have yielded as much as I could to the sincere men of evangelical profession who would like to re-dress our holy faith in modern garb. We must try to understand them, to appreciate them, and to deal gently with them. But we must also warn them, and warn them as solemnly as we can. For they are playing into the hands of those who would detach the Church from her historic, constitutional position, and loosen her from the carefully wrought out, longsomely acquired, biblical foundation upon which she has always rested. The power of the ecclesiastical establishment at the present time, even in the bulk of the Reformed churches, is not in the hands of men of evangelical faith, but in the hands very often of apostates, heretics, men who have departed from the position of their fathers and who now want to drag down the Church as a whole after them. I do not impugn their sincerity. That is not in the province of any one of us to do. But I do denounce their doctrinal corruption and their unfaithfulness to the Word of God. And I do declare that, insofar as they believe the lie rather than the truth, they are the enemies of the souls of men. We are therefore to give them no countenance at all, and to resist their machinations, their projects, their plans now specifically with respect to the re-confessionalization - the which is really the de-confessionalization - of the Church. I can speak most knowledgeably of my own situation, of course, and I have very little acquaintance with your own. But I know that in the Southern Presbyterian Church what men want when they speak of writing a new confession of faith is to do away with the Westminster Confession, and with a binding obligation to it, and to be free to believe what they wish, to be free from the Word of God and from the gospel of Jesus Christ." (extracted from "Does the Church Today Need a New Confession of Faith?" by John R de Witt in June 1972 issue of Banner of Truth)

Keith Mascord discloses a similar trend within the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney and he is pleased to be part of it. That at least one present lecturer of Moore Theological College is similarly minded to alter doctrinal positions established in the Reformation is a portent to the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion soon becoming Thirty None Articles of Religion.

Sam Drucker

A Time For Reflection.

Rev James W. Alexander was the eldest son of Rev Archibald Alexander, First Professor of Princeton Seminary. James was born in 1804 and followed his father into ministry in the Presbyterian Church in America. He finished his ministry at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York when passing from this life in 1859 - a momentous year.

Among his works, James Alexander had this observation to pass on to following generations:

"All defection from the faith begins in decay of piety. Sound doctrine is a plant that will not flourish in a soil which has lost the warmth of gracious affection. There may be scriptural creeds, in the very words of the venerable reformers; such are the Confessions of Germany, Holland, and the Swiss churches; but the body of the people, and especially the clergy, will go off into the most destructive errors. There was a period of 'dead orthodoxy', as it was called in Germany, which preceded the grand apostasy. For a time there was fiery contention for the symbols, resulting in the unrelenting persecution of such men as Spener, Francke, and Canstein; but shortly the door was opened for the irruption of a rationalistic deism. Decay of vital godliness leads rapidly to heterodox teaching. Times of outward prosperity are seized by the adversary for carrying on this disastrous work. Wealth flows into the church, and Christian professors, forgetting their vocation as a 'peculiar people', emulate the world, in their expenditure, their possessions, and their entertainments. The question which is common among us, as to the lawfulness of certain frivolous amusements, is a question which could not be so much as agitated in a flourishing and spiritual church. No man can think of it as mooted among the Apostles or early martyrs, among the reformers or covenanters. But at a certain stage in the declension, we find members of the church opening their houses for the midnight dance; then going freely to the theatre, and to games of hazard; and finally, making
shipwreck of the faith. As piety decays, there are great tenderness for error, and great latitude in the exposition of doctrine. A spurious charity forbids every word of harshness towards even gross error. Indifferentism is the mother of heresy; as we may read in the annals of Wittenberg, Geneva, and Cambridge; and both have their descent from worldliness in the church. Whatever, therefore, promotes piety, in the same degree promotes the belief of truth."

As the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney pursues relevance, while having a present and past Lecturer of its theological seminary confessing doubt on 'Inerrancy of Scripture', while having suffered extraordinary constraint on its finances due to high exposure to the Global Financial Crisis, while having little to show from its endeavour to have 10% of the population of Sydney in Bible 'believing' churches and now proposing a tax on parishes to buy land for church buildings in developing areas (a cost previously met from investment returns) surely the time as come to reflect on the words of Rev James W. Alexander.

Sam Drucker

Past & Present Ministers Compared.

Living in a time, as we do, when the Church struggles to reach the lost in effective ways it can be helpful to see how others in times past saw similar times. We may even see the problem today had its birth in an earlier generation.

J. C. Ryle, Church of England Bishop of Liverpool in the late Nineteenth Century in England had a few words to say about his observation of the Established Church in his day. I repeat his words herewith:

"Would we know why the ministers who profess to follow the evangelical fathers are so much less successful than they were? The question is a delicate and interesting one, and ought not to be shelved. The suspicion naturally crosses some minds, that the doctrines which won victories a hundred years ago are worn out, and have lost their power. I believe that theory to be an entire mistake. The answer which I give to the enquiry is one of a very different kind. I am obliged to say plainly, that, in my judgment, we have among us neither the men nor the doctrines of the days gone by. It is a humbling conclusion; but I have long felt that it is the truth. Give us like men and a like message, and I have no fear that the Holy Ghost would grant us like results.

Wherein do evangelical Churchmen fall short of their great predecessors? Let us look this question fairly in the face. Let us come to particulars. They fall short in doctrine. They are neither so full nor so distinct, nor so bold, nor so uncompromising. They are afraid of strong statements. They are too ready to fence, and guard, and qualify all their teaching, as if Christ's Gospel was a little baby, and could not be trusted to walk alone. They fall short as preachers. They have neither the fervour, nor fire, nor thought, nor illustration, nor directness, nor boldness, nor grand simplicity of language which characterized the last century. Above all, they fall short in life. They are not men of one thing, separate from the world, unmistakable men of God, ministers of Christ everywhere, indifferent to man's opinion, regardless who is offended, if they only preach the truth. They do not make the world feel that a prophet is among them, and carry about with them their Master's presence, as Moses when he came down from the mount. I write these things with sorrow. I desire to take my full share of blame. But I do believe I am speaking the truth.

It is no use trying to evade the truth on this subject. I fear that, as a general rule, the evangelical ministry in England has fallen far below the standard of the last century, and that the simple account of the want of success to which so many point is, the low standard both of doctrine and life which prevails. Ease and popularity, and the absence of persecution, are ruinous to some. An extravagant and excessive attention to petty details withers up the ministry of others. An absurd straining after the reputation of being 'intellectual' and original is the curse of others. A desire to seem charitable and liberal, and keep in with everybody, paralyzes the ministry of others. The plague is abroad. We want a revival among evangelical ministers. We are where we are, because we have come short of our fathers.

I repeat it emphatically, for I believe it sincerely. The first want of our day is a return to the old, simple, and sharply-cut doctrines of our fathers; and the second want is a generation of like-minded and like-gifted men to preach them. Give me in any county of England and Wales a man like Grimshaw or Rowlands, or Whitefield, and there is nothing in the present day which would make me afraid. Let us ask Him who holds the stars in His right hand to revive His work among our ministers, and to raise up men for our times. He can do it. He waits to be entreated. 'Then let all who pray cry night and day to the Lord of the harvest, "Lord, send forth more labourers into Thy harvest."

What Bishop Ryle saw in his day has as much import to the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney and its theological seminary - Moore College - today.

Sam Drucker

A Strange Message Coming Out of Moore Theological College.

Readers will be aware of concerns we have with doctrine being taught these days at Moore Theological College - the theological seminary of the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney - particularly with regard to the Office of Jesus Christ in Creation.

Attempts to point out the doctrinal problem in person to person dialogue with graduates or lecturers of Moore Theological College result in frustration because of a clear disjunction on their part between the Word Written and the Word Incarnate. They will not admit to a disjunction but attempts to expose it on the subject of Origins meets with evasion because of an incomplete, thus unsustainable, Christology on their part - the cause being their incorporation of the world's view of Origins into their reading of the Word Written.

It is with intrigue therefore that we read in the August 2012 edition of Southern Cross an article written by Rev Dr Mark Thompson, Head of the Department of Theology, Philosophy and Ethics at Moore Theological College under the heading "Supernatural".

Dr Thompson either inadvertently or covertly exposes an "Achilles' Heel" of many within the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney who have deserted their Reformed roots on Origins but declare themselves to be Reformed and Conservative Evangelicals. The bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ after three days dead, as recorded in the Word Written, is upheld by most within the Diocese despite scientists declaring no basis in science for belief in such a notion. Yet the many have willingly cast off the testimony of the Word Written on Origins in deference to scientists who declare no basis in science for belief in such a notion.

Dr Thompson does not come out and say what I have just said but I invite readers to get a copy of the August 2012 edition of Southern Cross and see how, in arguing for belief in a supernatural as opposed to a natural understanding of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and other recorded phenomena in the Word Written, Dr Thompson either inadvertently or covertly exposes the dichotomy that exists within the Diocese.

In case readers can't get hold of the original article I will provide some extracts which take nothing away from or distort the original intention of the author. In speaking to the Resurrection being the centrepiece of God's eternal purpose and this being the common confession of Christians over the past 2000 years, Dr Thompson says:
.
"The resurrection is most certainly not a natural event. People who have been dead for three days do not suddenly get up, walk, talk and eat breakfast with their friends."

and:

"The resurrection makes clear that Christian faith and the focus of Christian faith are both profoundly supernatural ... It is this supernaturalism at the heart of our faith that is all too easily forgotten by some."

and:

"The challenge can be seen in the way we approach the miracles in the gospels. Through the centuries there have been attempts to explain the miracles of Jesus in terms of the regularities we observe in our world. Some suggest that the miracles weren't really miracles at all. Others insist that it is only as the miracles are explained in terms of the world as we normally experience it that they become believable. So the miracles are only believable once they cease to be miracles." At this point one hopes that Dr Thompson would not neglect the first recorded supernatural act of the Word in the gospel according to John viz. the creation of all things (John 1:3).

Almost as if he is taking a swipe at Theistic Evolutionists, Dr Thompson goes on to say:

"Yet once we accept the argument that an event, a series of events or an idea can only be believed if it can be explained in terms that we dictate we have, consciously or not, raised questions about the supernatural dimension of the Christian faith. We've actually accepted one of the fundamental tenets of today's scepticism. It is not just that human reason has become the ultimate determiner of what is acceptable and what is not (an attitude strangely reminiscent of the Garden of Eden), but today's consensus on how the world works becomes the standard that our reason uses. Claiming to stand in the heritage of Galileo, we become more like those who opposed him because they were wedded to a view of the cosmos they had inherited from Ptolemy. The supernatural doesn't easily fit into a view of the universe we have embraced and so it is dismissed without further consideration."

and he then goes on to say:

"The right use of reason is an important part of our response to the gospel. The capacity to think is a good gift from God with which we can serve each other and him. The difficulty arises from the fact that every part of us, including our reason, is affected by the consequences of the Fall. Our reason can become self-centred and self-serving. We can also make our reason the arbiter of truth and error, of good and evil. We can forget that we view everything around us from a limited point of view. We cannot escape our location in history, in particular community, or in a 'tradition' of one kind or another (even if that tradition is simply a repudiation of all tradition). Yet God suffers no such limitations and his words never prove mistaken." [emphasis mine]

Finally, I cite the following from Dr Thompson:

"If the supernatural dimension of the Christian faith exceeds our capacity to reason that should not surprise us. We may not be able to fathom how a man could rise from the dead after three days. The creation of all things from nothing by the word [Word] of God might boggle our minds. The mechanics of the flood or the Exodus or the miracles or the resurrection of all to judgement might elude us. Yet we cannot be satisfied with what we can explain in terms of our experience of things. We cannot afford to dismiss the testimony of Scripture because we can't figure out how this or that was done. Instead we need to trust the one who gives us these words in order to understand who he is, what he has done for us and how we ought to respond to him."

It would be interesting to engage with Dr Thompson to ascertain how complete is his argument, whether he consistently applies it throughout the Word Written and whether he makes a seamless connection with the Word Incarnate.

Nevertheless, any thinking person within the Episcopalian (Anglican) Diocese of Sydney upon reading Dr Thompson's article should be asking themselves the same questions I would be asking Dr Thompson.

Sam Drucker

A Prophecy on Britain.

Notwithstanding current excitement and delight in Britain generated from performance success by its Olympians there remains, on a broader scale, a shadow over the nation. A prophecy some 75 years ago is working itself out in the decline of Britain. Without dramatic change the result will be fatal.

J. H. Merle D'aubigne had this to say in 1847:

"There is no people to whom religion [Christianity] is so necessary as to the British. The material, agricultural, manufacturing, and mercantile interests are so predominant, that, were not religion [Christianity] to counterbalance them, the nation would be undone. The energetic activity which distinguishes the Britons; those gigantic enterprises that characterize them; the founding of an immense empire in India; the gates of China, which her powerful hand has wrenched open; that creation of Australia; those expeditions to the poles and to every climate; that abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself-all these giant-like labours require that a pure religion [Christianity] should animate the people, that oil should be always pouring into the lamp, and that a truly moral force should inspire, moderate, and direct all these efforts. If the Britons, and even the Germans, are much better colonisers than the French and the nations under the Papal rule, it is to the Gospel that they are indebted for it. Neither is this all. Even the admirable political institutions of Britain have need of the rule of faith; the liberal in States, notwithstanding their many elements of disorder and dissolution, are not only still in existence, but increasing more and more in power and importance, it is because they are the sons of the Puritans.

From the very moment that England begins to yield; nay, from the moment she ceases to press onward in religion [Christianity], we think she will decline towards her abasement, perhaps to her ruin. Evil elements are not wanting. She possesses, to a greater extent perhaps than any other country, a low, impious, and impure literature; and the efforts made to diffuse it among the people are very great. If once the mighty flood-gates, which religion and morality oppose to these infamous publications, are thrown down, the torrent will break forth and overwhelm the whole nation with its poisonous waters."

That which is overhauling Britain has also reached those nations identified as Western in culture and which have their historical roots in a once Great Britain.

Pray in all earnestness for revival of Reformation faith in the preaching and teaching of God's Word accompanied by an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit. Anything less is death by however many cuts.

Sam Drucker

Down For The Count..

On June 22, 2012 I posted a news flash revealing a result of the most recent Census of Australia showing people with "No Religion" now exceeding those ho declare themselves to be Anglican (Episcopalian).

Delving a little deeper into the statistics, a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald produced an article in last Saturday's edition of the newspaper which can be found here.

I wish I could report better news. The Lord our God deserves to have His Name identified with a more triumphant cause. Additionally, the Church of England cum Anglican cum Episcopalian Church has had some faithful and helpful Ministers of the Word in centuries past. Even here in Australia the Church of England has had a more glorious and influential role in the life of the Great Southern Land that became Australia.

One cannot help but notice that in the Diocese of Sydney - which has prided itself on being the Conservative and Evangelical hub of the Anglican Church in the world - just about all is going wrong.

Consider for a moment the declaration more than ten years ago by the Archbishop of an initiative to get 10% of the population into Bible-believing churches. As the ten year period was approaching the Archbishop, fully supported by the Diocese, launched into Connect '09 for the purpose of connecting with people who were outside the Church. Here it was, the Church now fully engaged in evangelism and fulfilling the Great Commission albeit in Sydney.

However, who, except God in Heaven, would have envisaged the Global Financial Crisis and the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney found exposed to huge liability through what many would regard as dubious financial investment practice. All this on the eve of Connect '09. Was there not a message in the timing of the burden then imposed on the Diocese?

Year 2009 came and went with efforts from parishes to connect with the surrounding community. There were occasional reports in the Diocesan newspaper Southern Cross of events and connections but it was all far from declarations of the Spirit of God mightily at work. At best one could regard the effect as underwhelming. The Archbishop later studiously examined parish annual statistics and thought he saw a small amount of church growth. Nothing was shown as to the extent of transfer growth (those moving in from declining denominations) included in the 'increase'.

Now comes the stark Census figures showing the greater number of "No Religion" to Anglicans for the first time in the history of the nation and, according to the Sydney Morning Herald article, the Diocese of Sydney cannot just pass off cause to the inclusion of high church and liberalism of other Dioceses in Australia for the reduced Anglican (Episcopalian) statistic because the influence of the Sydney Diocese is diminishing as well.

Isn't it time for the Diocese of Sydney to recognise that something is seriously wrong! What it is doing is not working. There is hardly a sign that the Lord is prepared to bless the work of the Diocese. Ask yourselves, "Would the Lord be prepared to bless an endeavour if the church is not prepared to take Him at His Word?" Repent! Throw out of your theological institution those lecturers who demonstrate they do not trust the Word of God but reinterpret it in the light of what the world tells them. A clean out in ministry throughout the Diocese is also necessary - a Reformation.

Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney you need to know the times. Repent and believe.

Sam Drucker

Christianity and Culture (2 of 2)

This is the second part of an extract from an address entitled "The Scientific Preparation of the Minister" by J. Gresham Machen, former Professor of New Testament, Princeton Seminary, 1906 -1929, who had been put out of the Presbyterian Church in the USA for resisting the Church's drift into Liberalism has been quoted here before. The address was given to the one hundred and first session of Princeton Seminary on September 20, 1912:

"Christianity is the proclamation of an historical fact - that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Modern thought has no place for that proclamation. It prevents men even from listening to the message. Yet the culture of to-day cannot simply be rejected as a whole. It is not like the pagan culture of the first century. It is not wholly non-Christian. Much of it has been derived directly from the Bible. There are significant movements in it, going to waste, which might well be used for the defence of the gospel. The situation is complex. Easy wholesale measures are not in place. Discrimination, investigation is necessary. Some of modern thought must be refuted. The rest must be made subservient. But nothing in it can be ignored. He that is not with us is against us. Modern culture is a mighty force. It is either subservient to the gospel or else it is the deadliest enemy of the gospel. For making it subservient, religious emotion is not enough, intellectual labour is also necessary. And that labour is being neglected. The Church has turned to easier tasks. And now she is reaping the fruits of her indolence. Now she must battle for her life.

The situation is desperate. It might discourage us. But not if we are truly Christians. Not if we are living in vital communion with the risen Lord. If we are really convinced of the truth of our message, then we can proclaim it before a world of enemies, then the very difficulty of our task, the very scarcity of our allies becomes an inspiration, then we can even rejoice that God did not place us in an easy age, but in a time of doubt and perplexity and battle. Then, too, we shall not be afraid to call forth other soldiers into the conflict. Instead of making our theological seminaries merely centres of religious emotion, we shall make them battlegrounds of the faith, where, helped a little by the experience of Christian teachers, men are taught to fight their own battle, where they come to appreciate the real strength of the adversary and in the hard school of intellectual struggle learn to substitute for the unthinking faith of childhood the profound convictions of full-grown men. Let us not fear in this a loss of spiritual power. The Church is perishing to-day through the lack of thinking, not through an excess of it. She is winning victories in the sphere of material betterment. Such victories are glorious. God save us from the heartless crime of disparaging them. They are relieving the misery of men. But if they stand alone. I fear they are but temporary. The things which are seen are temporal; the things with are not seen are eternal. What will become of philanthropy if God be lost ? Beneath the surface of life lies a world of spirit. Philosophers have attempted to explore it. Christianity has revealed its wonders to the simple soul. There he the springs of the Church's power. But that spiritual realm cannot be entered without controversy. And now the Church is shrinking from the conflict. Driven from the spiritual realm by the current of modern thought, she is consoling herself with things about which there is no dispute. If she favours better housing for the poor, she need fear no contradiction. She will need all her courage, she will have enemies enough, God knows. But they will not fight her with argument. The twentieth century, in theory, is agreed on social betterment. But sin, and death, and salvation, and life, and God - about these things there is debate. You can avoid the debate if you choose. You need only drift with the current. Preach every Sunday during your Seminary course, devote the fag ends of your time to study and to thought, study about as you studied in college - and these questions will probably never trouble you. The great questions may easily be avoided. Many preachers are avoiding them. And many preachers are preaching to the air. The Church is waiting for men of another type. Men to fight her battles and solve her problems. The hope of finding them is the one great inspiration of a Seminary's life. They need not all be men of conspicuous attainments. But they must all be men of thought. They must fight hard against spiritual and intellectual indolence. Their thinking may be concerned to narrow limits. But it must be their own. To them theology must be something more than a task. It must be a matter of inquiry. It must lead not to successful memorizing, but to genuine convictions.

The Church is puzzled by the world's indifference. She is trying to overcome it by adapting her message to the fashions of the day. But if, instead, before the conflict, she would descend into the secret place of meditation, if by the clear fight of the gospel she would seek an answer not merely to the question of the hour but, first of all, to the eternal problems of the spiritual world, then perhaps, by God's grace, through His good Spirit, in His good time, she might issue forth once more with power, and an age of doubt might be followed by the dawn of an era of faith."

I think J. Gresham Machen 'nailed' a significant problem for the Church in the Twentieth Century which has continued into the Twenty-First Century. The Church lacks sufficient good thinkers and marginalises the few who are good thinkers. As such, it reaps what it sows - poor thinkers elevated to positions of influence who, through influence, spawn their own.

It was not like this in centuries past. Great advances were made in the world of scientific endeavour and it was Biblical Creationists who were leaders.

The decline commenced in the early Nineteenth Century as men of the Church with scientific interest began subordinating the Word of God to their own thoughts about the geological processes and, by extrapolation, the age of the earth. They were joined by men such as Charles Lyell who wanted to remove the testimony of Moses, in Genesis, from influencing science. In the long term Lyell was successful but, for a time, the Biblical account of Genesis was deferred to as defence against the propositions of Darwin. However, earlier destabilisation of the Word of God as basis for interpreting the observations of geology had made the way for eventual acceptance of Darwinism in biology, anthropology and other scientific endeavours. Along the way, increasing numbers of Church thinkers were compromising the Word of God to accommodate Darwinism. They had forsaken their first love and made it acceptable for those who followed them to think likewise (punishment for the sins of the fathers visited upon the sons and daughters to the third and fourth generation?). Most of those entering tertiary studies have been ill prepared to challenge the current world view and resort to accepting what they are taught to fashion some compromised understanding of God and what He has done in the world as recorded in the Word of God. Those who then enter theological studies are primed for lecturers who present one or more means to depart from the Reformed reading of the Word of God when it touches on matters of earth history.

What had been a high time for the Church has been reversed and the Biblical Creationists are regarded as pariahs not just by the unbelievers but by most within the Church.

How are we to measure the situation? Just look at the state of the Church, the influence of the Church on the nations. Never has there been a lower time in the history of the Church since our Lord Jesus Christ established it some 2,000 years ago. Atheism grows while the Church compromises.

J. Gresham Machen saw the problem well early last century and one hundred years hence the grapes are all the more sour.

Sam Drucker

Christianity and Culture (1 of 2)

J. Gresham Machen, former Professor of New Testament, Princeton Seminary, 1906 -1929, and put out of the Presbyterian Church in the USA for resisting the Church's drift into Liberalism has been quoted here before. He had something to say of merit in his address "The Scientific Preparation of the Minister" to the one hundred and first session of Princeton Seminary on September 20, 1912. It was a declaration of a failing of the Church then and has ramifications for the Church today.

I have extracted part which will be delivered in two instalments and I will make a summary comment with the second.

"During the last thirty years there has been a tremendous defection from the Christian Church. It is evidenced even by things that lie on the surface. For example, by the decline in church attendance and in Sabbath observance and in the number of candidates for the ministry. Special explanations, it is true, are sometimes given for these discouraging tendencies. But why should we deceive ourselves, why comfort ourselves by palliative explanations? Let us face the facts. The falling off in church attendance. the neglect of Sabbath observance - these things are simply surface indications of a decline in the power of Christianity. Christianity is exerting a far less powerful direct influence in the civilized world to-day than it was exerting thirty years ago.

What is the cause of this tremendous defection? For my part, I have little hesitation in saying that it lies chiefly in the intellectual sphere. Men do not accept Christianity because they can no longer be convinced that Christianity is true. It may be useful, but is it true? Other explanations, of course, are given. The modern defection from the Church is explained by the practical materialism of the age. Men are so much engrossed in making money that they have no time for spiritual things. That explanation has a certain range of validity. But its range is limited. It applies perhaps to the boom towns of the West, where men are intoxicated by sudden possibilities of boundless wealth. But the defection from Christianity is far broader than that. It is felt in the settled countries of Europe even more strongly than in America. It is felt among the poor just as strongly as among the rich. Finally, it is felt most strongly of all in the universities, and that is only one indication more that the true cause of the defection is intellectual. To a very large extent, the students of our great Eastern universities - and still more the universities of Europe - are not Christians. And they are not Christians often just because they are students. The thought of the day, as it makes itself most strongly felt in the universities, is profoundly opposed to Christianity, or at least it is out of connection with Christianity. The chief obstacle to the Christian religion to-day lies in the sphere of the intellect.

That assertion must be guarded against two misconceptions. In the first place, I do not mean that most men reject Christianity consciously on account of intellectual difficulties. On the contrary, rejection of Christianity is due in the vast majority of cases simply to indifference. Only a few men have given the subject real attention. The vast majority of those who reject the gospel do so simply because they know nothing about it. But whence comes this indifference ? It is due to the intellectual atmosphere in which men are living. The modern world is dominated by ideas which ignore the gospel. Modern culture is not altogether opposed to the gospel. But it is out of all connection with it. It not only prevents the acceptance of Christianity. It prevents Christianity even from getting a hearing.

In the second place, I do not mean that the removal of intellectual objections will make a man a Christian. No conversion was ever wrought simply by argument. A change of heart is also necessary. And that can be wrought only by the immediate exercise of the power of God. But because intellectual labour is insufficient it does not follow, as is so often assumed, that it is unnecessary. God may, it is true, overcome all intellectual obstacles by an immediate exercise of His regenerative power. Sometimes He does. But He does so very seldom. Usually He exerts His power in connection with certain conditions of the human mind. Usually He does not bring into the Kingdom, entirely without preparation, those whose mind and fancy are completely dominated by ideas which make the acceptance of the gospel logically impossible.

Modern culture is a tremendous force. It affects all classes of society. It affects the ignorant as well as the learned. What is to be done about it ? In the first place the Church may simply withdraw from the conflict. She may simply allow the mighty stream of modern thought to flow by unheeded and do her work merely in the back-eddies of the current. There are still some men in the world who have been unaffected by modern culture. They may still be won for Christ without intellectual labour. And they must be won. It is useful, it is necessary work. If the Church is satisfied with that alone. Let her give up the scientific education of her ministry. Let her assume the truth of her message and learn simply how it may be applied in detail to modern industrial and social conditions. Let her give up the laborious study of Greek and Hebrew. Let her abandon the scientific study of history to the men of the world. In a day of increased scientific interest, let the Church go on becoming less scientific. In a day of increased specialization, of renewed interest in philology and in history, of more rigorous scientific method, let the Church go on abandoning her Bible to her enemies. They will study it scientifically, rest assured, if the Church does not. Let her substitute sociology altogether for Hebrew, practical expertness for the proof of her gospel. Let her shorten the preparation of her ministry, let her permit it to be interrupted yet more and more by premature practical activity. By doing so she will win a straggler here and there. But her winnings will be but temporary. The great current of modern culture will sooner or later engulf her puny eddy. God will save her somehow - out of the depths. But the labour of centuries will have been swept away. God grant that the Church may not resign herself to that. God grant she may face her problem squarely and bravely. That problem is not easy. It involves the very basis of her faith."

Concluding extract and comment to be posted on the weekend.

Sam Drucker

Sydney Episcopalians Desperately Seek Support From Anywhere and Anybody.

An inability to see departure from Reformation orthodoxy as reason for failure to reach the people of Sydney in the Name of Jesus Christ often drives the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney to go to any length for ideas. A few years ago the Diocese fawned over American, Mark Driscoll. One of our old favourites, Gordon Cheng, seemed so impressed with an address given by Mr Driscoll in Sydney in 2008 that he dutifully noted and published what Mr Driscoll had to offer as advice to the Diocese.

A writer on the Diocesan website was... shall we say ... gushing in her report on Mr Driscoll.

I wonder how the Diocese now identifies itself with Mr Driscoll now that some evangelicals in the USA are seeing flaws in the stature of Mr Driscoll. One flaw, if accurately identified by TeamPyro ought to be of concern to the Diocese.

Sam Drucker

C.A.S.E. and a Lie.

It was Dr Henry Boynton Smith, Professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in the USA from 1854-1874, who prophetically said "One thing is certain - that Infidel Science will rout everything excepting thorough-going Christianity ... The fight will be between a stiff thorough-going orthodoxy and a stiff thorough-going infidelity". Speaking to that statement on a later date, B. B. Warfield, Professor of Theology at Princeton Seminary, 1887 to 1921, originator of the term and declared 'Fundamentalist', said "This witness is true".

Well more than a century later and the battle, predicted by Dr Henry Boynton Smith and affirmed by B. B. Warfield, is on in earnest and from one side it has got dirty.

C.A.S.E. (Centre for Apologetics Science and Education) is an outpost of those representing the force of "a stiff thorough-going infidelity" operating with access to vulnerable residential students at New College, University of NSW, Sydney, Australia. C.A.S.E. has 'form' which has been highlighted two or three times at this blogspot in the past. C.A.S.E. continues to warp the evangelical mind of students of New College and a recent instance warrants mention here.

Once again running with the hound of ISCAST (Christians in Science and Technology), representatives of C.A.S.E. put together a panel yesterday, 19 July 2012, at New College to discuss "The questions students ask: Science and faith in the classroom". As could be expected, nothing of faith-building in the Word of God was fed to students because trust in the thoughts of men over and against the Word of God was the menu.

Add to that a blatant lie went unchecked by C.A.S.E. and ISCAST as one of the panelists Vaughan Brown, Science Teacher at Sydney Church of England Grammar School, alleged that Biblical Creationist scientist, Dr Jonathan Sarfati, "teaches that you can't have eternal salvation without believing in a literal six day creation". This is false. A reading of Dr Sarfati's writings will readily disclose the truth.

It is a sorry state of affairs when those who say they are Christian resort to telling a lie, and that about another Christian, to achieve their agenda. C.A.S.E. and ISCAST, you should be ashamed to allow this to occur under your watch.

The one good thing to come out of the event was the lament by Mr Brown that an increasing number of students he encounters in his classroom are questioning evolution. What Mr Brown sees as bad, God works as a good. At least while a degenerate spirit works in areas of the church a Spirit of Truth is working to bring light in the life of some students.

Once again, shame on you C.A.S.E. and ISCAST. I remind readers of what I heard a few years ago. A fellow Christian had tried to obtain permission from a principal of C.A.S.E. for Dr Jonathan Sarfati to speak to students of New College. His request was denied. It seems C.A.S.E. is more comfortable with allowing a lie to be fed to New College students than to hear the truth from the original source.

Shame on you C.A.S.E. and ISCAST.

Sam Drucker

The Christian View of Missions.

Writing more than a century ago, J. Gresham Machen (formerly Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary) observed, in his work "What is Christianity?" observed an unhealthy trend in church mission in the USA. Little or no lesson has been learned in the century that followed - not only in the USA but in other nations, including Australia.

I cite herewith an extract from Machen's work:

"Some nineteen hundred years ago a remarkable movement emerged from the obscurity of Palestine into the cosmopolitan life of the Roman Empire' That movement was the Christian Church.

What were its characteristics in those first glorious days ?

This question is important for at least two reasons. In the first place. the Church in those first days had everything that it so signally lacks today. It had joy, it had power, it had life. Perhaps that life and that power may be regained if we return to what the Church was then. In the second place, by considering what the Church was then we can answer the question. What can rightly bear the name 'Christian' today. If we have a new thing, let us use a new name; but if we claim to be Christian, We must show some conformity to that to which the name 'Christian' was first applied.

But what was it to which the name was first applied; what was the Christian movement when it first appeared ?

With regard to that question, there may be a certain amount of agreement even between historians who are themselves Christians and historians who are not Christians, even between historians of widely diverse views. Difference of opinion prevails about the question whether Christianity is true; but about the question what Christianity is and what it was in those first days a certain amount of agreement may be attained.

One thing, at least, is clear, on the basis of all our sources of historical information. The earliest Christian Church was a missionary Church. If Christianity ever settles down to be the religion merely of one nation or of one group of nations, it will have become entirely untrue to the tradition which was established for it at the beginning. There was evidently a tremendous urge among those early Christians to carry their message to the ends of the earth.

What, then, was the mission of that missionary Church ? What was the Christianity that it propagated in that ancient Roman world ?

In the first place, the Christianity that it propagated did not present itself as a new religion. On the contrary, it appealed to an ancient revelation; and it claimed to stand in the full continuity of an age-long plan of God. It should never be forgotten - though it often is forgotten - that the Christian Church at the very beginning had a Bible. Its Bible was the Old Testament; and it regarded that Bible as the Word of God, just as Bible-believing Christians regard the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments today.

In so regarding the Old Testament, it was in exact accord with the person whom it presented as the foundation of its life - namely, Jesus Christ. One thing is clear to the historian. Jesus of Nazareth, whether we like it or not, did hold the view of the Old Testament which was generally accepted in the Israel of His day; He did hold the Old Testament to be true throughout; He did hold it to be authoritative and divine. When He said that some of its commands were temporary, and were to be superseded or modified in the new era which His sovereign coming ushered in, He did not at all mean that those commands were not commands of God, absolutely valid in the sphere and in the time in which they were intended by God to prevail. It is a fact of history that Jesus as well as His first disciples held the loftiest view of the divine authority and full truthfulness of the Old Testament Scriptures. From the beginning Christianity was a religion founded upon a Book.

That Book proclaimed, and the early Church proclaimed on the basis of it, in the first place, the one living and true God, Maker of heaven and earth; and that proclamation was the basis of ever5rthing else that the Church proclaimed. 'Ye turned to God' says Paul, in describing his missionary preaching, his preaching to unconverted people at Thessalonica, ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.'

I know that some men have represented that as though it were a mere piece of metaphysics that the Church could and can do without. The doctrine of 'fiat creation,' they tell us, has nothing to do with vital religion; and even in those early days, they tell us, Jesus could be accepted as Saviour-God without any settlement of the question regarding His connection with the Creator and Ruler of the world. But men who tell us that are entirely wrong. Certainly Jesus was God; but calling Jesus God has no meaning unless one first tells what one means by 'God'; and calling Jesus God while one is indifferent to the existence of a God who is Creator and Ruler of the world runs directly counter to the teaching of Jesus Himself. No, both Jesus and His earliest disciples were first of all monotheists; they believed that before the world was God was, that this universe came into being by the fiat of His will, and that He is eternally free as over against the things that He has made. That is what the Bible means by the living and holy God; and it was that living and holy God whom those first Christian missionaries proclaimed."

It is disturbing to see how far removed the so-called evangelical church, including the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney, has removed itself from the early Church. Ask most within the Diocese "Is Jesus Christ the Creator?" and you will get hesitancy followed, at best, by a grudging affirmative in reply. Similarly, ask them "Was man created at the beginning of Creation?" and you will again often get hesitancy and even denial - this actually being denial of the view of our Lord Jesus Christ (Mark 10:6). Only when the words of our Lord are cited do you get any intellectual 'feet-shuffling' and reluctant admission.

In eagerness to dismantle the Old Testament, particularly the first eleven chapters, just to stay in with the world there are many who contribute to a degenerate church far removed from that Church which began small some two thousand years ago yet conquered the world in the Name of Him Who is True.

Perhaps if several graduates of Moore Theological College would ditch their faith in Karl Barth (of whom Machen was a critic) and drew more from J. Gresham Machen's works the Diocese would be better equipped in faith in the Word of God and more useful in declaring that Word to the lost.

Sam Drucker

THE NEED FOR PREACHING THE CHARACTER OF GOD.

The story of the frog in the pot of water increasing in temperature to the boil would not have a fatal outcome were it possible for the frog to, as it were, to have understanding and take the temperature of the water in stages. In so doing the frog would realize something abnormal is happening and take evasive action. Likewise the church should be gauging, at times, where it has been, where it is now and where it is heading.

Although he was speaking of evangelicals in the USA some forty years ago, Walter Chantry, in his book "Today's Gospel - Authentic or Synthetic?" identifies a problem with the 'Four Spiritual Laws' approach to evangelism which has its parallel in approaches to evangelism in other parts of the world. We are forty years on and the church in Western Society is in declension. I suggest Walter Chantry was on the money in the following extract from his book:

"Evangelists today are making the dreadful miscalculation that sinners know who God is. The sad truth is that our age knows less than the Jews of our Lord's day. Nevertheless, evangelicals plunge right in with 'five things God wants you to know.' They all centre upon the man's eternal fortunes and utterly ignore the question, 'Who is God?'. The sinners thus treated never realize the gravity of their plight. They don't know whom they have offended. This is tragic.

Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler of God's holiness because it showed him what great trouble had come upon him. It is the invariably pure God who is your Judge. The note of holiness was particularly pertinent to bringing a proper fear of God into this fellow's soul. He realized before that God was a Judge. Now Jesus impressed him with the holiness of that Judge, a holiness that 'will by no means clear the guilty' [Ex 34.7].

Today, we are told that witnessing is to begin with, 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.' Love is set before sinners as the foremost characteristic of God. But Jesus didn't begin that way. And the Bible as a whole speaks more often of God's holiness than of His love. This is probably because men readily remember all attributes that might favour themselves and totally forget those which threaten or alarm them.

Thousands of sinners think of God as having only one attribute - 'love'. Though that is part of the truth, when it is taken for the whole truth it becomes a lie. When you tell a stranger, 'God loves you,' his mind registers something like this: 'Yes, He loves me and would never harm me. He loves me with forgiving and merciful kindness; so, all is well with my soul.' In the concept of the average American, there is no idea that God is holy; only a perverted concept that He has a gushy, all-embracing kindness. Modern evangelism is helping to foster this misconception of God by its silence and vagueness.

To say to a rebel, 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,' is terribly misinforming. The truth is that God is holy. Thus, He is angry with the sinner at this moment. His sword of wrath already hangs over the head of the guilty and will forever torment him unless he repents and trusts Christ. This plan is not so wonderful. God's redeeming love for sinners is found only in Christ, and the sinner is out of Christ. The modern approach is diametrically opposed to Jesus' method with the young ruler. He did not soothe him in his ignorance, but stirred up fear by preaching that God is essentially good.

Men today will readily use the name of God as would the rich man. But it is disastrous to assume that men are speaking of the same person as we are. When we say 'God' we mean 'Creator'. When our contemporaries say 'God' they are often speaking of one who has little to do with the world we see. When we say 'God' we mean 'One who is sovereign in creation, providence, and in the redemption of His creature, man.' When sinners say 'God' they usually refer to one who has committed himself to honouring the sovereign will of man at any cost to himself. Above all when we say 'God' we speak of One who has unflinching holiness, 'Who will by no means clear the guilty.' Sinners frequently think of 'God' as flexible so that He will by no means punish wonderful men.

Do you declare in your witnessing that God is holy? Every part of your message rests upon the character of God. If you rush into four easy steps to heaven with a man who has a defective view of God, you will deceive him and yourself. You may lead him to pray after you, and you will be praying to the God of glorious holiness. But when he repeats 'God' in his prayer, he will be praying to another god, or at best to his 'unknown god'.

'How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard ?' [Rom 10.14] is a pertinent question for today's evangelist. Sinners must know Him upon whom they must call to be saved. 'Salvation is of the Lord' [Jonah 2.9]. His power and His grace alone can deliver from destruction and lead to eternal life. Eliminating the doctrine of God from evangelism is no innocent shift in emphasis, but is cutting the heart out of our message.

'What must I do to inherit eternal life?' asked the religious youth. You must apply to Jehovah for it. But before you rush into His courts, let me tell you that He is so holy that if one ray of His glory were to meet your eye, you would be cast at His feet with a dreadful sense of uncleanness. He is a consuming fire, and you must cry out to Him for mercy. Do not think that you do Him a favour by 'accepting Jesus'. The Holy One has done you a great favour in commanding you to trust his Son.

Preaching several easy steps to heaven is not evangelism. Preaching the whole counsel of God is. Preaching the radiant truth of the unique goodness of God especially is. Telling men that God is their Creator may embarrass you with intellectual evolutionists, but it is essential to the Gospel. Telling men that God is holy, wise and sovereign is also vital.

These are not unnecessary trappings.

Someone no doubt objects: 'My mission board calls such doctrines 'unessential' because they are divisive. Serious conflict would arise if I suggested that dwelling only on the love of God misleads sinners. And the pressure to get results doesn't allow time for such preaching.'

Where did any group of theologians or administrators get the audacity to relegate the character of God to the category of the unessential? When liberals said that the virgin birth was an unnecessary truth, men left their churches and schools in droves. If 'evangelicals' say that the holiness and sovereignty of God are subjects too sensitive to preach, perhaps it is time to instruct others boldly at all costs, even though it involves conflict and exclusion from their fellowship.

Paul was a missionary evangelist, not a settled pastor. He could say to the Ephesian elders 'I am pure from the blood of all men' [Acts 20.26]. How could Paul make such a claim? Not because he had given each person four spiritual laws. That was not the New Testament method of evangelism. The next verse substantiates his claim. 'For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.' In his itinerant ministry Paul preached a thorough-going theology, not a denuded four steps to eternal life.

Today mission boards are asking their missionaries to keep the blood of men on their hands: 'Don't rock the boat by clearly teaching anything that another evangelical will object to, even if it is in the Bible. Don't cause trouble by demanding the clear notes of the Gospel from those who labour by your side as fellow-missionaries. Stick to the main issues.'

If someone cheapens the Gospel by boiling it down to a five-minute sales pitch, that is fine. If another insists upon preaching the attributes of God, that is doctrinaire. Surely something is gravely amiss in the church.

It is time to break with the neo-traditionalism of the evangelical world. The mass of poor dying sinners need preaching like Christ's. The world perishes for lack of a God-exalting declaration of His nature. Let us follow Jesus' example with the rich young ruler."

I do not apologize for continually reciting people and statements from the past because they serve to highlight error when the mist of present surroundings blur the distinction.

Sam Drucker