Series on Genesis At Pyromaniacs

Because it's such an excellent series, I need to link to John MacArthur's & Phil Johnson's stuff at Pyromaniacs. In essense, Genesis One is truth. It shows God's existence, & his Creation of the universe as supernatural acts, and Christians who compromise on the literal meaning of Genesis as a historical narrative are undermining the text as well as Christian orthodoxy on original sin and soteriology.


http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/06/humanistic-religion-and-origin-of-life.html It begins here, with follow ups at Phil's blog. READ IT!

The Power of Reasoning From the Scriptures

I've become more convinced that speaking to people about Christ is a testimony, and not a dissertation on theology. You might know what I mean. Someone begins a conversation about Christ or something related, and before you know it, you're discussing whether the mind exists in reality, or whether science is the ultimate truth, or such other things.

The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe. The Apostles preached this Gospel with power. They weren't philosophers for Christ. They weren't one of the Athenian elites. They just preached a crucified & resurrected Jesus. They were witnesses of the risen Lord Jesus. But it was simple enough....the Scriptures of the Prophets spoke of a suffering Servant who would rise again from death, and they and others saw this. It was really "according to the Scriptures", that Paul and others spoke the Gospel.

So next time some eager soul, wrings his hands, ready to shut you down with a sly argument...cut to the matter and say something like,"Yea, but you're still a sinner, in need of the forgiveness of God, which is in Jesus, because He alone died for sinners, and rose again, with the result that this Jesus is going to judge the whole world...Now it's time to repent & trust in the Name of Jesus for your salvation". And see the power of the Gospel work in confounding the "wisdom" of this world and give life to a dead soul.

Brothers, We Are Sinners

It's no surprise that the philosophies and religions of the world are offended at the notion of calling people "sinners", in the true sense of that word. Man-made traditions have a too high opinion of the human condition. That's why they don't have the solution to our common problem; it's just not found in man-made traditions, it can't be "found" at all, it's a matter of revelation from God, who alone truly knows what is in a man's heart.

Not everybody who professes Christ acts like they understand these things. I've been around believers with whom I've shared a little of my sinful past as part of a testimony. I mean, I am what the Bible says I was..."by nature a child[ren] of wrath", a "sinner", "wicked". I mean, yes, I'm also a "saint", a "son" by God's adoption, because of Christ. I have no merit of my own- only what He did for me. However, when past sins are mentioned, to demonstrate what I once was, what Jesus suffered to save me from, people in the church act like I slurped a tea cup of Darjeeling and wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt. They're offended! I think a lot of these types grew up in and had the benefit of a Christian upbringing-and good for them. Nothing wrong with that. However, not everybody has.

I suppose nobody needs the gory details of the past. There's a "forgetting" of past things, and a "pressing on towards the high calling of God", and thankfully we can do that. Also, some things are too offensive to mention and I never would. Barring that,why do some church people act like there's a leper in the room if I talk about what I was once, before Jesus saved me. It's as if Jesus only came to save the righteous or Church is only for the "ceremonially clean", an elite of moralistic, upright Evangelicals who disdain any talk of what Christ saved us from, i.e. real sins, real wickedness.

Our sanitized testimonies are soulless and unimpressive.We've (some of us) imported the false evaluation of human nature I mentioned in the beginning, into our mentality. I've found that there's an unwritten rule in the churches that you don't say too much about whether you were a fornicator, an adulterer, a murderer, or anything else that God actually justifies us from. See, that would be too shocking to our sensibilities and we're apparently too holy to hear about real sins, real lives, and what the true power of God's forgiveness in Christ. Why the shock? Our most revered biblical heroes were the worst offenders. Noah built an ark by faith. But his story ends in a drunken, incestuous scandal. Yet we remember him as a "preacher of righteousness". David the King...after God's heart, but a conniving murderer and adulterer. Why don't these church regurgitate their Sunday brunch when they hear these stories? Are the sins of saints past any more "acceptable" because they made their way into the biblical cannon? Is Moses' manslaughter or Paul's persecution more elevated since they are mentioned by inspiration of God? No. These people are of the same flesh and blood Adamic line as we are. They sinned and their sins are just as heinous to God.

Brothers, God is going to cast away false, hypocritical, adulterous, lying, murderous, professing Christians. He's got a Lake of Fire reserved for the condemned, for all time. He appointed the death and spilling of rivers of blood of sacrifices for thousands of years until the Messiah, his perfect, sinless, Son, had his body nailed to a crucifix, for our sins. He died for our fornication and lust, and adultery, and murder, and gossip, and a thousand other sins. Real, black, vile, repugnant sins Jesus willing took on Himself, in fact he was made SUCH so that we might be God's righteousness in Him.

Let's not pretend anymore. It insults Jesus who condescended to our level for our sins without sinning himself. We're not righteous people. We're not to think of ourselves as better than anyone else. The message of salvation is joyful, but only because of the wretchedness and vileness of our sins. We need to hear the whole Gospel.

Let's begin here: Nothing good is in us of ourselves. We are sinners vile. Christ died for us while we were vile sinners. And because of that we can talk all we want about His righteousness in us.

Amen

Spurgeon on Street Preaching

In my limited time preaching on the streets, I learned quickly that there are different styles of preaching. The street is not a place of academic debate. It's the place to be heard and to make the Gospel clear. this is definitely the place where the soul who stands and proclaims the message of Christ must hate his own life and lose it for the sake of the Gospel.

Charles Spurgeon had something to say about public proclamation too.

http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/strprch.htm

The Gospel is Essential

I have heard some of the most exquisite theories about what humanity’s problem is, and what the hope for that problem involves. The world is looking for a solution because it’s undeniable that we all live in a state of chaos and trouble. Solutions abound from the divinization of the soul through evolutionary spirituality to the nihilistic termination of the soul, which says “from dust we came, and dust we will always remain”. The latter seems hesitantly committed to the void of transcendent meaning of life. I say hesitantly because it seems against nature to live meaningfully here and now, while pressing on to a state of cold existence, with nothing beyond. In this, it’s clear that people are blind to their own essential problem and the essential answer to that problem. The Word of God pierces the darkness of our mortal ignorance. We are sinners. It is that simple, definite, proposition that is the beginning of the solution to our spiritual death. It’s the only right judgement of our nature, and rightly understood it should bring us to our knees in utter helplessness to change by our own ingenuity. The Gospel is the power of God to save those who believe.

In the Gospel, we have the forgiveness of sins, the power of new life, and a reconciliation to God, where once there was only enmity and condemnation. Christ is our resurrection. Because he overcame the power of death, we can live forever in immortal bodies, that will never get sick or decay. Christ’s victory is the assurance now that the graves and tombs of the earth will eventually be emptied, and never used again. Because Jesus bore our sins, their is a cleansing, a purifying of the conscience of culpable souls, who live with condemnation. Not only is there a taking away of sins from our account against us before the Lord our Judge, but also a gift, an amazing grace of an “alien righteousness”, a perfect righteousness that is given freely to us who believe. We also die to sin. Our relationship to our old nature and old identity is changed in Christ.

Who can accomplish these things? None of us. We have , as it were, tried by every means in our own power to re-enter the original Paradise to “know good and evil” and to be like God. We have tried to achieve this supremacy in our lives, by trying to connect with secrets of the universe through mysticism, or determine our own lives as if we are gods. And these efforts are a total failure. In fact, the very best of human endevour and the very highest of human morality, the most sophisticated of human culture, the wisest of man’s learning, and the hight of human power in this world is absolute foolishness and abomination in the sight of God. What displays the glory and wisdom of God is the accomplishment of redemption from sin and death at the Cross of Jesus. A Messiah whose body was bloody and beaten and nailed to a Roman cross, who became a curse for us is essential, not just optional, if we would find salvation from our sin, and the regeneration of all things in the kingdom to come.

” And now God commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day when he will judge all people by that Man whom He has appointed, even Jesus”