EMBARRASSED BY THE GOSPEL

The Western church is embarrassed by the Gospel. How do we know this? Just look at what’s left out of our preaching:

·       CREATIONISM: It is not politically correct to teach creationism as opposed to evolution. This might make us look narrow and anti-science.

·       SEXUAL SIN: The pastor doesn’t want to be accused of “hate speech” and drive potential members and supporters away from the church.

·       THE WORLD’S LOVE OF THE DARKNESS: Instead, the church seems to be preaching friendship with the world.

·       HELL: The church knows that this doctrine is held in contempt.

·       THE EXCLUSIVITY OF CHRIST: It is regarded as judgmental to claim that salvation is only available through Christ.

·       LOVING THE BRETHREN

There are also other doctrines that are an embarrassment. However, I just want to focus on “loving the brethren” even before we love others:

·       So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and ESPECIALLY to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:10; ESV)

I have found that this doctrine of preferring-the-brethren is even offensive to the church. I was banned from one conservative church website because I argued that the church should prefer Christian refugees over Muslims.

Why the disdain? Because it has become politically incorrect to favor brethren, our neighbors, or our nation over others! However, favoritism is essential to love. If I am going to optimally love my neighbor, I must start by loving my own wife and children over his. To not do so is to cause conflict. To do so is to mobilize my entire family for the cause of love.

The same principle applies to the church. To optimally love the world is to first love our own brethren. Likewise, Jesus emphasized loving one another:

·       A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

When the world sees our love for one another, they will know that we serve the truth. This is why Jesus prayed:

·       “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

The best way to love the world is to show them the reality of Jesus. How do we do this? By showing them our love for one another – our unity, our oneness! However, we fail to do this when we are silent about our persecuted brethren. For the most part, the churches remain silent regarding the fact that we are not extending ourselves out for our vulnerable brethren, those who have experienced genocide, kidnappings, and sex slavery.

About this travesty, Robert Spencer has written:

·       Obama admits 12,587 Syrian refugees: 12,486 Muslims, 68 Christians, 24 Yazidis. This is social engineering, not a genuine response to a refugee crisis. Ten percent of Syria was Christian before the war, and the Christians have been particularly brutalized, often by Obama-backed jihad groups. The refugee population should thus be at least 10% Christian. Instead, Christians accounted for less than one percent of the refugees admitted into the U.S. 

Meanwhile, our churches argue that they do not want to take stands that will jeopardize what is most central to our calling – evangelism. However, the church was largely silent as Hitler rose to power. Did this silence advance evangelism? Hardly! Instead, it caused seekers to reject the church, as one publication had written:

·       “European Christianity failed to prevent the mass slaughter between the faithful in the Great War and actually contributed to World War II, insofar as conservative churches supported fascism. The failure of the churches to provide sound moral guidance may help to explain the [European] Continent’s postwar lack of enthusiasm of religion.” (“The Big Religion Questions Finally Solved,” Free Inquiry, Jan. 2009, 29)

The church proved to be irrelevant. Perhaps even worse than proving itself irrelevant to the secularists, it also seems to have proven itself irrelevant to our youth, as Barna.org suggests:

·       Nearly six in ten (59%) of these young people who grow up in Christian churches end up walking away from either their faith or from the institutional church at some point in their first decade of adult life. Second, the unchurched segment among Millennials has increased in the last decade, from 44% to 52%, mirroring a larger cultural trend away from churchgoing among the nation’s population. Third, when asked what has helped their faith grow, “church” does not make even the top 10 factors. Instead, the most common drivers of spiritual growth, as identified by Millennials themselves, are prayer, family and friends, the Bible, having children, and their relationship with Jesus.

Our youth need to be shown that Christ matters, and we must take them by the hand and show them how.

Meanwhile, some have argued that the persecution of our brethren is not central to the Gospel. According to Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” this was how the southern white churches justified their absence from the Civil Rights movement”:

·       “In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, ‘Those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.’”

Were civil rights and the equality of Blacks, especially our Black brethren, not a matter of the Gospel? In contrast to these churches, Jesus had a broader understanding of the Gospel:

·       “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these [“My brothers”; verse 40] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)

Perhaps Jesus will also hold us to account for our silence in regards to the oppression of our brethren. How then can we not cry out for our degraded and persecuted brothers? We must! To not do so is to discredit the Gospel and to ammunition to those who claim that the Gospel is irrelevant.

We must not take refuge in ignorance nor close our ears to the cries of our brethren:

·       If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work? (Proverbs 24:12)

DEALING WITH PERSECUTION BY LOOKING BEYOND IT

We Christians are heading into hard times. Persecution has become a tsunami. Some of us are already struggling for our lives. How do we endure?

How did Jesus endure His ordeal?

·       Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

We too must, therefore, look towards the joy set before us. Of what does this joy consist? It consists of our eternal heavenly inheritance:

• But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:20-21; Jude 24)

This signifies that we will be (and are) co-heirs with Him:

·       So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (ESV)

We will be reigning with Him forever:

·       No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-5)

The Lord will honor us by blessing us in the presence of our enemies:

·       You prepare a table before me in the presence of my [former] enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalm 23:5-6)

I added the word “former,” because many prophecies demonstrate that those who are left at the end will come to the Lord in great shame and humility, and we will reign over them:

·       Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” (Isaiah 49:23)

·       The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 60:14)

Who are these nations? Evidently, there will be a great salvation at the end among the survivors of the nations who battle against Israel. They will mourn over their sins:

·       Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. (Rev. 1:7)

·       "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30)

·       For if their [Israel’s] rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)

They will worship God, and God will receive them:

·       "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28)

·       The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the LORD our God, and they shall be in fear of you. (Micah 7:16-17)

·       "From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD. (Isaiah 66:23)

·       Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. (Zech. 14:16-18; 8:20-23; Isaiah 66:18-21; Joel 2:32; Amos 9:12; Acts 15:17)

·       "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, 'In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength.' All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.” (Isaiah 45:22-25)

And the nations that remain after the final war will be providing for us:

• "Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations -- their kings led in triumphal procession.” (Isaiah 60:10-11)

• The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. (Revelation 21:24-26)

We will be reigning over them (Rev. 22:5), rendering judgments:

·       Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? (1 Corinthians 6:2)

We will also minister the things of God as priests to the nations (1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:5; 5:10; 20:6). Perhaps more importantly, we will be enjoying an unimaginable love with our God:

·       And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. (Hosea 2:19-20; Eph. 3:17-19)

If people endure college by looking towards the final goal, how much more must we look towards the accomplishment of all things to endure our trials!

THE WORLD’S INSANITY CONFIRMS THE GOSPEL

The West continues to privilege Islam despite its cries “Death to the infidel,” its intention to subjugate the world, and its horrific crimes and human rights abuses. Here is just one small and recent example:

·       A man from Manchester in the United Kingdom has been sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work and a 12-month community order after posting comments that were said to be "grossly offensive" towards Muslims.

What did this man say that was so offensive?

·       "Don't come over to this country and treat it like your own. Britain first," according to the Manchester Evening News.

In contrast, the West treats its founding faith with utter contempt, closing Christian businesses and intimidating Christians.

In view of this galloping insanity, we might do well to read the words of the former atheist turned Christian, C.S. Lewis. He asks us to imagine what a visitor, who knew nothing about Christianity, would think when observing the Christian West for the first time:

·       He would find that this same religion has always been healing the sick and caring for the poor; that it has, more than any other, blessed marriage; that the arts and philosophy tend to flourish in its neighborhood. In a word, it is always either doing, or at least repenting with shame for not having done, all the things which secular humanitarianism enjoins. (God in the Dock, 147)

Why then the hatred towards such a religion? Why the attempts to drive it into the back alleys of existence? Jesus explained the world’s antipathy towards Him this way:

·       “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” (John 7:7)

And we are still doing the same thing. That is why the world also hates us:

·       “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” (John 15:18-20)

As such, this insane persecution confirms the truth of the Gospel.

LOVING THE BRETHREN BEFORE ALL ELSE

I find it appalling that the church in the USA is not strenuously crying out for the protection of the Christian refugees. They are suffering worse treatment than anyone - slaughtered, forcibly converted, or sold as sex slaves. Yet many Christians will defend their silence claiming, "We mustn't choose favorites among the refugees."

However, God has done a lot of choosing Himself. He chose Israel, but this didn't mean that Him didn't also love the Gentiles and command Israel to do the same:

• “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

Although God had chosen Israel to be His favored people, He had also required more from Israel. To whom much is give, much is expected:

• “Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: 'You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.'” (Amos 3:1-2)

Nevertheless, Israel remained in the center of God's concerns:

• “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.” (Isaiah 41:8-11) 

Today, this message of God's favoring Israel is highly distasteful to younger Christians. For them, this represents exclusion, an unacceptable "us vs. them" mentality. However, the reality of this distinction is inseparable from Scripture, even within the entirety of the NT.

While, the Christian is to love all, he is instructed to show preference for the brethren:

• “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:9-10)

This priority would apply even to slave-masters:

• “Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers; rather they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.” (1 Timothy 6:2)

Jesus preferred His brethren:

• “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

According to Jesus, love had to begin with the brethren:

• “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

It would be through this love that the saving message of the Gospel would go forth. Jesus therefore prayed:

• “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

The greatest way that we can love the world is through the demonstration of Christ in our midst through our love and unity. We therefore shouldn't be embarrassed to show a greater concern for those in the "household of faith." We mustn't turn our backs upon the plight of Christian refugees.

However, as God had been sterner with His chosen people Israel, we must also be sterner with those calling themselves "Christian." Church discipline was therefore reserved for those within the household:

• “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” (1 Corinthians 5:9-12)

Jesus also reserved excommunication for the "brother" who sinned and refused to repent (Mat. 18:15-19). We therefore give more to the brethren but also expect more from them.

This is also true for our own families. We are to love our own wives and not our neighbor's wife. We are also to place our own children above our neighbor's children. To prefer our neighbor's children above our own can only provoke bitterness, jealousy, and charges of hypocrisy. But we also discipline our children, not our neighbor's.

This is also perhaps the best way to love our neighbors, by providing a loving home for our family. This is also a love that will reach out to others.

Christian love also reaches out to the surrounding world if it starts with the household of faith. The evidence for this is ubiquitous. We can start by comparing the Christian West with the worlds of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Communism. The contributions of Christ are unmistakable. Writer Paul Copan relates the experience of Canadian Broadcasting Corp journalist, Brian Stewart and his “slow, reluctant conversion”:

• “I’ve never reached a war zone, or famine group or crisis anywhere where some church organization was not there long before me… I’m often asked if I lost belief in God covering events like Ethiopia, then called ‘the worst hell on earth.’ Actually, like others before me, it was precisely in such hells that I rediscovered religion.” (Christian Research Journal, Vol 37/Number 04, 46-47)

Historian Ruth Tucker reports that:

• Missionaries in Africa were opposed to slavery from an early period, and they used a variety of means to oppose it, including buying slaves and establishing plantations for them to work on. (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya,102)

• The missionaries insisted on treating native people as human beings who are entitled to the protection of the law, and this rubbed salt into the wound. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that colonists and traders often opposed missions.” (103)

• Traders and colonists resisted the evangelism of native people, seeing conversion as the first step to indigenous people gaining access to the resources of Western culture and hence to the power that colonists wished to keep for themselves…Native people who wished to break free of the settler’s stranglehold and worship God were immediately persecuted by the white traders. (103-104)

Many other historians credit the missionaries with opposition to the abuses of colonialism:

• The missionaries [to New Guinea] from the start found themselves in bitter opposition to the white traders and exploiters… [who] placed men sick of the measles on various islands in order to destroy the population through disease. (Stephen Neill, History of Christian Missions, 355

Our new brand of militant atheists competes among themselves to indict Christianity’s impact on society, even to the point of charging “child abuse.” However, there have been many non-Christians who also have noted the contributions of the much-maligned Christianity. Copan cites the example of the late postmodern atheist Jacques Derrida:

• “Today the cornerstone of international law is the sacred… the concept of crime against humanity is a Christian concept and I think there would be no such thing in the law today without the Christian heritage.” (46)

Copan also cites “one Chinese scholar representing one of China’s premier academic research organizations:

• “In the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. This is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible… the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.” (46)

Copan calls atheist Jurgen Habermas “perhaps Europe’s most prominent philosopher.” However, even he admits:

• “Christianity and nothing else is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source.”

Robert Woodberry, professor of sociology, University of Texas, has devoted the last 14 years to investigate why certain countries develop thriving democracies, while neighboring countries are failed states. Andrea Palpant Dilley writes that:

• Woodberry already had historical proof that missionaries had educated women and the poor, promoted widespread printing, let nationalistic movements that empowered ordinary citizens, and fueled other key elements of democracy. Now the statistics were backing it up: Missionaries weren’t just part of the picture. They were central to it. (Christianity Today, Jan/Feb 2014, 38)

To his amazement, Woodberry was discovering that a long denigrated ingredient was actually central to the creation of successful states – the missionary. He writes:

• “Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in non-governmental associations.” (39)

• Pull out a map, says Woodberry, point to any place where “conversionary Protestants” were active in the past, and you’ll typically find more printed books and more schools per capita. You’ll find too, that in Africa, the Middle East, and in parts of Asia, most of the early nationalists who led their countries to independence graduated from Protestant mission schools. (41)

These few quotations do not do justice to the impact of Christian love growing out of a Christian community which has nurtured it. In America's Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists (2012), Sociologist of Religion, Rodney Stark, provides further evidence that Christian love has profoundly impacted those among whom it had been planted. Jerry Newcombe, whose notes I am drawing from, writes:

• He notes that religion benefits everyone, even the non-religious, who feel the residual effect.

• Those who attend church more often tend to donate much more often. For example, he writes, "…religious people dominate the ranks of blood donors, to whom even some angry humanists owe their lives."

• “Religious Americans are far more likely to contribute even to secular charities, to volunteer their times to socially beneficial programs, and to be active in civic affairs.

• “Religious Americans enjoy superior mental health---they are happier, less neurotic, and far less likely to commit suicide.

• “Religious Americans also enjoy superior physical health, having an average life expectancy more than seven years longer than that of the irreligious. A very substantial difference remains even after the effects of ‘clean living’ are removed.

• “Religious people are more apt to marry and less likely to divorce, and they express higher degrees of satisfaction with their spouses. They also are more likely to have children.

• “Religious husbands are substantially less likely to abuse their wives or children.

• “Although often portrayed as ignorant philistines, religious Americans are more likely to consume and sustain ‘high culture.’”

Having such neighbors will inevitably exert a positive impact on their community. In contrast, the Communist ideal has been to treat everyone in the same manner. However, each of their failed states suggests that brotherhood cannot be imposed from above but must radiate out from concentric circles of intimacy. Love must begin at home if it is to benefit anyone.

Progressive thought must reevaluate itself, and Christians must take a second look at our overriding responsibility for Christian refugees.