Compromised Christianity Part 2
Scriptures: John 17:17; Matthew 24:3-14; 1Timothy 4:1-3; 5:19-20
Last week in Part One of this series I shared with you that when Jesus prayed for His disciples (and subsequently also for us) in John 17:17 He asked His Father to “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” I told you that in this reference the word “sanctify” means to separate from a profane to a sacred use; to consecrate wholly to God and His service. Jesus asked God to sanctify His disciples through His truth which was His word. It’s the truth of God’s word once we have it internally that will give us the strength to be separated from the world in which we live in. This is part two of this series titled “Compromised Christianity.”
As a reminder, the word compromise is defined as (1) to undermine or devalue somebody or something by making concessions; (2) to settle a dispute by agreeing to accept less than what was originally wanted; (3) to expose somebody or something to danger or disgrace.” I told you last week that in our compromising of Christianity we are seeing all three of these in the Church today. Many are undermining and devaluing the Bible when they make decisions that goes against its teaching and teaching others to do the same. Many Christians are acting as Adam did in the Garden (Genesis 3:6) and are standing by and watching as their brothers and sisters get led away by wrong doctrine. Let me give you an example of how far Christianity has been compromised.
In 1973 abortion became legal in the United States. Since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe vs. Wade approximately 54 million abortions have taken place in the United States. 54 million beating hearts terminated for various reasons. Now I want you to listen closely to me. In the 46 years since abortions became legal, we have witnessed a shift in the laws pertaining to “when” an abortion could be done. I want to share a few key rulings before I share with you what is happening today.
• In 1973 the ruling stated that states could no longer prohibit abortions except late in pregnancy after the fetus reaches viability (24-28 weeks) and can live outside the womb unless the mother’s health was at risk.
• In 1992 the Supreme Court reverses its previous ruling preventing any state involvement in abortions before the end of the first trimester. The ruling allows states to enact laws such as requirements for pre-abortion counseling and waiting periods affecting any stage of a pregnancy as long as the laws does not create an undue burden for a woman.
• In 2000 the Supreme Court strikes down a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion. Laws in 30 other states are invalidated. How many of you know what a partial birth abortion is? In a partial birth abortion, the baby’s body is breached and then removed from the mother legs first leaving only the head of the bay within the womb. A hole is made at the base of the baby’s skull killing the baby. The brain is then vacuumed from the baby’s head deflating the baby’s head to allow it to be removed from the womb.
• In 2003 President Bush signs the Partial-Birth Abortion Act prohibiting certain abortion procedures.
• In 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the law which was a departure from past high court decisions.
• Nine states, with Kansas being one of them, have enacted laws that prohibit abortions at 20 weeks or even earlier. These laws are based in part on a theory that a fetus, from 20 weeks onward, can experience pain from an abortion procedure.
That’s a quick summary of some of the key abortion laws pertaining to when abortions can be done. Now let me tell you why I shared this history with you and where we might continue to progress if we continue to compromise the Word of God. In January of this year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the “Reproductive Health Act” which authorizes the murder of unborn babies up to the point of birth for any “health” reason and revokes medical care for babies who are born alive after a failed abortion. This new law which also applies to nonresidents coming to New York for an abortion denies any legal protection or rights for an unborn child. This new law seeks to deny any recognition or protection for human beings before birth under any circumstances. Until now, New York had been one of 38 states whose homicide statutes could apply before birth. The law defined homicide as including “conduct which causes the death of..…an unborn child” after 24 weeks “under circumstances constituting” existing categories of homicides. This is no longer the law as proven in the case of Anthony Hobson.
He allegedly killed his former girlfriend and her unborn child (she was in her second trimester.) The Queens, New York District Attorney initially announced that Hobson would be charged with second-degree murder as well as second degree abortion. Shortly after, the DA’s office dropped the abortion charge in light of the state’s radical new pro-abortion law – since abortion are legal under the new law he could not be charged with killing the unborn baby. This law and others like it were voted for and approved of by Christians and non-Christians alike. Since before 1962, nearly all states had laws on their books banning abortion. Since 1962 when 17 states amended their laws to allow abortions in cases such as rape, health risk and fetal damage we have arrived at a point where a baby can be killed up to the point of delivery. How did we arrive here in less than sixty years? We are here because Christianity is compromised. I say this with all sincerity and pain. If Christians were not voting to approve these laws many of them would never pass. If we remain on this same course, imagine where we will be in the next sixty years.
When I closed the message last week, I asked you a question. I asked you, “Why is it that other religions know what they believe and are not swayed by the teachings of Christianity but Christians can be swayed by other religions because we do not want to be offensive or judgmental?” Did you think about the answer to that question? Many Christians believe that we should love as Christ loved and to do so we must be accepting of people who are different from us. Is this completely true? When we read the New Testament, we see clearly that Jesus loved those He created, but He also displayed His anger when He was dealing with people who were supposed to know better (especially the teachers of others who were distorting the truth of His Word.) Remember, Jesus prayed to the Father that God would sanctify His disciples through the truth, which was His Word. I can tell you that if we do not understand the truth from God’s Word there will be no chance of our being able to separate ourselves from the world. If the doctrine being taught in the Church today is a watered down version of the truth of God’s Word then it will produce watered down Christians.
Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. I am a coffee drinker and I know my coffee maker is going bad because the coffee it is making is no longer satisfying because it’s very weak. (You know your coffee is weak when light shines through it.) When it was operating correctly, the coffee was strong and bold and you could smell it when you walked into the kitchen. Then, when I add my sweetener and cream, I could sit down, sip it, and just relish the moment. There is nothing like a robust cup of coffee to start your morning. Well several days this week I did not have my coffee relishing moments. The coffee coming out of our maker was weak and watered down. There is obviously a problem with how the water is interacting with the coffee grounds so instead of making strong robust coffee, it is producing very weak coffee and let me tell you, weak coffee is not good! Now the same can be said of weak Christians. The writer of the book of Hebrews wrote, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) Now if the Word of God is living, power and capable of piercing the soul and the spirit and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, how can we Christians who live by this Word be in the state that we are currently in? Because there is a disconnect between the Truth and the interpretation; something is broken. And, just like my coffee maker there is a disconnect between the power of God’s Word and how it’s taught to and received by His people. We are creating weak Christians because we are not teaching the strong, robust truth found in God’s Word.
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” (Matthew 5:13) I want you to see this because what He said here ties back in with His prayer for His disciples that God would sanctify (separate) them through the truth of His Word. While salt is a seasoning and preserving chemical if it is exposed to the sun, rain and air, it loses its flavor and is worthless. Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth – meaning that we should be providing the seasoning and preservation for it. Now don’t miss this, just as salt loses it flavor when exposed to the elements of the world, so will we. When Christians are compromised by the world we lose our ability to impact it and this is what we are seeing today. Jesus loved the world and gave His life for it but not once did He ever compromise. He loved the person but hated the sin. When it came to those who were supposed to know better because they were the teachers of others, He was even more critical of them especially if they were not living according to the Word. We should not get confused about Jesus’ agape love, He loved but He never accepted sin. Let me say that again. Jesus loved but He never accepted sin. Let me give you some examples because I fear that some of us are equating love, compassion and respect with acceptance.
John 2:15-17 records the following; “And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a place of business.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house will consume Me.’’ Jesus’ anger was pure and completely justified. He did not compromise! Think about the situation He walked into. The Passover was drawing near so Jesus went to the temple as did many travelers. Because people traveled from afar, many travelers chose to purchase the required sacrifice once they arrived in Jerusalem versus traveling the distance with it. If they had taken the chance of traveling with the animal it could have become unclean or been damaged in some way by the time they arrived. Since they could purchase what they needed on sight and could exchange their foreign coins for what was used in the temple, it made their travel much more convenient – that is until Jesus walked into the temple. Jesus’ anger was kindled immediately and He acted decisively. Jesus’ concern was for God’s holiness and worship. Do you think He would be supportive of what is happening in our Churches today? Jesus could have compromised and made exceptions for the weary travelers, but there was no compromise when it came to His Father’s house or the teaching of the Word.
Remember what was recorded in the Twenty-third chapter of the book of Matthew? That’s the “Woe” chapter where Jesus let it be known exactly how He felt about what the Jewish leaders were teaching and doing. Jesus pronounced woes upon the teachers of the law for not practicing what they taught (preached) and, pay close attention to this, not leading those under their care in the truth of God’s Word. He called them hypocrites, blind guides and a brood of vipers. And…to cap it all off, in verse thirty-three He asks them, “How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33b) NEWFLASH!!!! Jesus said there is a hell and those men who were doing those things would end up in it! Again it is worth noting that many people believe that no one will end up in hell except the worse of human beings (murderers, rapists, child abusers, politicians etc.) These same people believe that Jesus loves and accepts everyone and yet we see here that He had no patience for those who lived a lie and taught His people anything that was not the truth contained in God’s Word. I am not trying to blemish anyone’s image of Jesus, but it’s a verifiable truth that Jesus did not mince words nor was He weak, timid, and afraid of addressing what was happening. He had patience with those who sought the truth but became impatient and frustrated with those who claimed to know the truth but did not live by it.
Before I close this morning I want to leave you with some truth about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I do not want us to accept the lie that we must compromise with the world in order to show the love of Jesus so I want you to remember a few things that Jesus did as God.
John 1:1-3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made.” If we accept that Jesus is God and that He existed in the beginning and that nothing was made without His input, then we must accept the fact that He is the God who does not change. (Hebrews 13:8) If we accept the fact that He is the God that does not change, then we need to remember that…..
• He is the very same God of the Old Testament who, on the day of giving His laws to Moses, wanted to strike down all the Israelites in His anger because they crafted a golden calf and worshiped it. Instead, only 3,000 are listed as dying by the hand of the Levites that day (Exodus 32).
• He is the God who sent a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites for sexual immorality and bowing down before the false God of the Moabites before a priest named Phineas killed two people caught in the act and subsided the Lord’s anger (Numbers 25).
• If those two are not enough for us to understand the wrath of our Lord, then let me share just one more example with you of the most extravagant display of His anger ever experienced by mankind. Please recall the story of Noah in the seventh chapter of Genesis where our Lord killed every living creature on the earth because of their violence and corruption, saving only eight humans, one pair of every unclean animal, and seven pairs of every clean animal. Yes He did this through a massive flood because of the sins of the people. The Bible says that the Lord “saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
In two of these examples Jesus (God) punished those who were His chosen people. It was not His enemies per se, but those whose hearts were no longer aligned to Him after they refused to separate themselves from the world. In the third example He decided to start over with Noah and his family. These examples do not necessarily mesh with the image of Jesus that people are attempting to portray as all loving and no accountability on our parts for our sin. Today there seems to be a constant sway within the Church as to what type of person we believe Jesus to be on an emotional level. Some Christians remove all forms of physical and vocal aggression displayed in the Biblical text and preach a “forgive and forget” type of Jesus that was always ready to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-40). Other Christians overlook His passion and love by focusing on Him as merely a prominent “repent or burn” preacher concerning eternal punishment for sinners (Matthew 23:33). These two popular opinions fluctuate as the years come and go, and those willing to proclaim the full spectrum of God’s love and anger find themselves surrounded by either a liberal mindset that needs to be balanced with the law, or a legalistic mindset that needs to be balanced with love. Where we are headed right now is more of the latter. Yes we must be balanced, but that balance only comes through the teaching of the Truth within God’s Word – all of the Truth and not just those portions that align with how the world wants to view us and how we wish to be accepted by the world.
As I close this morning I want to leave you with something to think about and I will continue on next week. I read an article this week that used a term that I was unfamiliar with but one that made me think of compromised Christianity. Let me give you my disclaimer up front, I am in no wise making light of or disparaging anyone with a mental illness. In fact, this term really enlightened me and made me think of where we are spiritually as a Nation. Our psychology majors might recognize this term: “folie à plusiers” which means “the madness of many.” In the singular it is called “shared psychosis” or “shared psychotic disorder.” A shared psychotic disorder is a rare type of mental illness in which a healthy person starts to take on the delusions of someone who has a psychotic disorder. For example let’s say your spouse has a psychotic disorder and, as part of that illness, believes aliens are spying on him or her. If you have a shared psychotic disorder, you’ll start to believe in the spying aliens. But apart from that, your thoughts and behavior are normal. People with psychotic disorders have trouble staying in touch with reality and often can’t handle daily life. The most obvious symptoms are hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t real) and delusions (believing things that aren’t true, even when they get the facts). Shared psychotic disorders usually happen only in long- term relationships in which the person who has the psychotic disorder is dominant and the other person is passive. These pairs tend to have a close emotional connection to each other, but apart from that, they usually don’t have strong social ties. Shared psychotic disorders can also happen in groups of people who are closely involved with a person who has a psychotic disorder. For instance, this could happen in a cult if the leader is psychotic and his or her followers take on their delusions (consider the examples from last week’s message.) Experts don’t know why it happens but they believe that stress and social isolation play a role in its development.
As you leave here today I want you to think about the possibility that we are entering a phase of Christianity where it could be said that Christians are sharing a psychotic disorder. Again, I am extremely serious, especially when you consider some of the teachings going on in the Church today. When you compare the traditional teachings of the Bible with current interpretations and watering down of its importance, are we not becoming delusional as it relates to the consequences? Being delusional is defined medically as “maintaining a fixed false belief even when confronted with facts, usually as a result of mental illness.” Spiritually speaking, if we believe there will be no consequence to our sitting back and allowing Christianity to continue down the road its going then we are delusional individually and we are truly sharing a psychotic break in our spiritual reality. I apologize to anyone that I may have offended with this analogy but when I read this word it was the only word that made sense to me as to where we are headed if we do not change course. I will continue this series next week.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. Also, for use of our social media, you can find us at newlightchristianfellowship on FB. To get our live stream services, please make sure you “like” and turn on notifications for our page so you can be notified when we are live streaming. We also have a church website and New Light Christian Fellowship YouTube channel for more of our content. We are developing more social media streams so please stand by and we will notify you once those channels are up and running. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
