Inheritance: The State of the Church

God's Warth is Coming... Are You Ready?

You had better listen to the words of Jesus, “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter, but he that does the will of my father in heaven.” If ye by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live. If you live after the flesh, you’ll die! The cross does not give us a minor shift or two with regard to a few of our ethical and religious values. The cross radically disrupts the very center and citadel of your life from self to Christ. And if the cross has not done that, YOU’RE NOT A CHRISTIAN! My Friend face it, young rogue, you’re not a Christian until the cross has radically disrupted the very center and citadel of your life! And brought you from a life of commitment to serve self…What are the focal points of the reign of your self? If you’ve gone to the cross in union with Christ, it’s been shattered!"
- Al Martin

Monday, September 27, 2010

The State of the Church

"Of the Father's Love Begotten" is certainly a great hymn by objective measurement. It has stood the test of time, ascribed to Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-413) and translated into English by John Mason Naele in the nineteenth century. The first stanza reads,

Of the Father's love begotten
ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending he,
Of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see.

...This verse speaks of Jesus' Trinitarian generation and pre-existence, and of his being both origin and goal of all existence through time. These are wonderful biblical truths, but certainly not easily accessible to theologically unsophisticated worshipers...One who knows about Jesus' eternal generation and who has sung the hymn before will appreciate this text as a means of summing up the doctrine with poetic conciseness. But for the majority of worshipers who have not reached this point of maturity, the hymn states too many deep doctrines to fast to be truly edifying.

- John M. Frame, Contemporary Worship Music: A Biblical Defense, p. 116

The shallow state of the American church has thus become the justification for contemporary praise songs and music (the above was said in defense of singing "Shine, Jesus, Shine" in church) when it should be the cause of repentance. If the people in our churches do not know the "deep doctrine" of Christ's eternality, what are these "worshipers" truly worshiping? If they do not know the true God, how can they even be called Christians? How can one believe on Him of whom they have not heard?

Now is not the time for shallowness, but for opening the lost book of the law and preaching Christ once more. The solution to the appalling state of the church is not contemporary Christian music, but an outpouring of the Spirit of God through genuine preaching of the Word of God. Let our voices then raise with praise for the one true and living God Who is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, Creator of heaven and earth. To the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of glory, be all glory, honor and power for ever and ever.