We are no longer Christians

 We are no longer Christians

Acts 11:26c (KJV)

… And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

 

I didn’t say we are no longer a Christian nation. That places the problem on someone else’s doorstep. I said that we are no longer Christians. We do not have the character of Jesus Christ.

• We are not salt. 
• We have lost our savor. 
• We are not light
• We run from the darkness instead of to it

We are no longer Christians when we behave in a manner that Christ would not.

We may be saved, on our way to heaven, our sins are forgiven, and the Holy Ghost of God lives in us, but we are no longer Christians if “the life that I now live” is not Christ living in me.[1]

 

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

A video copy of this is available at, Rumble. Click here.

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[1] Galatians 2:20 (KJV)

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Independence

Americans love independence.
• Our forefathers paid an awful price for us to have it
• As young people we revel in it
• As we age we look forward to the day when we can retire and rest in it

We struggle with the fact that other do not have it, sometimes concerned for them, but mostly miffed that we can't go to their countries and enjoy our same independence.

And I pastor an Independent Baptist Church.

Truth be told I have yet to meet a Baptist of any sort who would not defend the independence of their church.
• An American Baptist pastor defended his independence to me
• A General Association of Regular Baptists pastor preached it publically
• The Southern Baptist pastors adamantly proclaim the independence of their churches
• Missionary Baptists will fight for their right to be called independent
• Conservative Baptists believe their churches are independent congregations
As I presume the other what, twenty seven or so Baptist denominations do as well.

And of course among those who are independent Baptist churches, there is all sorts of rankling over which are the most independent of the independents.

I would hate to be anything less than independent; free to worship the Lord according to the dictates of conscience and not the whims of men.

But I see a whole lot of problems with being independent.
In many cases we are so independent we have no accountability. We do and say as we please and the only thing there is to stop us is; whether anyone will come to hear us preach and give their tithes and offerings when they do.

And we call them backslidden, rebellious or worse when they do not.

• Because we are independent we cannot be held accountable for our actions
• Because we are independent we often become self serving, do what is best for our own church (lest I say what is best for our own selves) at the expense of what is best for the cause of Christ or even what is best for the people we claim to be ministers to.

Because we are independent, we are completely unethical. Even when we are men of integrity we cannot be men of ethics because there is no one who is allowed to call us into account.

We are independent, but we are not loners. So we assemble together with other independents who appear to be compatible with us. But our union is more like a pack of stray dogs than a heard of the Lord's sheep. We submit to the most alpha among us, believing that he can make us as alpha as he is.

And when he falls:
And he does fall - those alphas are falling like flies. Believing the claims of everyone around them that they are incapable of failing, they fail.

And when he falls; we destroy him, hoping to be the next one to take his place as the leader of the pack, or at least be best friends with the guy who does get to be the leader of the pack.

I am all for independence.
But there is something to be said for organized unity. There is merit for purposeful, genuine concord with the strings to call one into question and bring one into accountability.

To my readers:

I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For more than 3800 Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup.

(photo from pixabay.com)

There Are A Lot To My Left

I just ran across an old blog from John Piper entitled, 20 Reasons I Don't Take Potshots at Fundamentalists. I was, of course, interested to see his perspective on Fundamentalism. I was also interested to read anything that would give Fundamentalism a positive spin especially in light of the negative spin of the recent 20/20 program and especially because I an aware that many of the IFBxers are avid followers of Piper.
The twenty reasons given range from the benign
"19. My dad was one." to the relatively sophisticated
"7. They put obedience to Jesus above the approval of man (even though they fall short, like others)."

But here is the one that struck my attention;
"20. Everybody to my left thinks I am one. And there are a lot of people to my left."

I am pretty sure Piper would consider me to be to his right, but I have felt that same sensation of having men on either side of me. Over the years I have had one or two who have left our services because they did not see us as:
• Separated enough
• Conservative enough or
• Politically right enough

But by far what I have witnessed most is that I am too fundamental for a whole lot of people, even Fundamentalists. There are a whole lot of people to my left.

This is not meant to be an excuse to yolk up with people further left of me just because there are people further left of them. But I do think that the point ought to be made that there are a whole lot of people who are so far left of us that we would be just as well off if we stopped worrying about where we are on that line and just went after (attempting to reach and win) the unconverted.

To my readers:

I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For more than 3800 Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup.

(photo from pixabay.com)

What if There Is No Hell?

So asks the cover of a recent issue of TIME Magazine. Rod Bell's book, Love Wins has really caused the stir these days. Rod Bell, pastors a mega-church and so gets a hearing in the world, whether Christian or not. Bell's book questions the existence of hell, at least in the same sense that Christians have taken it for centuries. And questioning the existence of hell has gotten all sorts of people questioning a lot of things.

(Of course a hearing is not necessarily a following.)

• What does it mean to be a Christian?
• What does it mean to be an Evangelical?
• What part of the Bible ought to be taken literally?

And, as with TIME Magazine, What If There Is No Hell?

The consequences would be dramatic. If hell does not exist then Jesus Christ is at best deceived Himself and therefore no god and if God and knows there is no hell, a liar. If hell does not exist we may as well do as the men and women of Noah's day and eat and drink and be merry. For when we die, we die. If hell does not exist there is no true consequence of immorality and therefore no real morality. If hell does not exist, if, as Bell suggests, all men will make it to God's heaven somehow anyway, then the best a man can do is get the best out of life he possibly may. There is no reason to submit to government, certainly no reason to die for it. No cause worth fighting for except the cause of one's own enrichment.

But I have what I think is a much more important question; What if Hell Does Exist?

• What if what Jesus said is true?
• What if the Bible record is right?
• What if the testimony and preaching of Christians for 2000 years is accurate?

What if Hell does exist and someone ends up going there because some so-called Christian questioned it and some magazine promoted it and some hopeful multitudes believed it?

After all no one knows for sure.

No one has ever gone there and come back to give us a report.

No one except Jesus. 

Marvin McKenzie

In the field

To my readers:

I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For more than 3800 Daily Visits with God visit Pastor Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup.

(photo from pixabay.com)

Less Important Doctrines

In Justin Taylor's blog entitled True Boldness For Christ he uses the term, "less important doctrines."

Honestly, I find this blog good reading. There are some sentiments that ought to be expressed and are helpful. Addressing Edwards warning of the desire to "seek distinction and singularity"is particularly helpful. The power of pride can be so blinding that we may move from the desire to be used of God to the desire to be known among men in a heartbeat, often not recognizing that it has happened and growing defensive when it is pointed out.

But I take exception to the concept that there is such a thing as "less important doctrines." H. Boyce Taylor, in his book, Why Be A Baptist, says, "The doctrines and teachings of the church were given by the Master. They are included in then"all things He commanded." I have no problem claiming that those doctrines that are not in the Bible are lesser doctrines.

• They are the doctrines of men and not of God.
• They then are not merely lesser doctrines but no doctrines at all do far as God's church is concerned.

And here is the gist of the real trouble; Protestants, Reformers, and Catholics compartmentalize doctrine. Some are considered important and cardinal. Some are considered of less importance, allowing for the opinion and doctrine of man to enter in to the church. The Baptist claim is that all things commanded in the Bible are of supreme importance and not one of them is to be set in a lesser position nor should any teaching that is beyond the Bible be viewed as church doctrine.

One could argue that every doctrine than those doctrines concerning our salvation are lesser doctrines." but the argument would be based purely on human reasoning and logic. It makes sense to a man that the most important thing is that a man is saved. But no where does the Word of God give us this leave. Doctrine in the Bible, all doctrine in the Bible, is placed on equal ground. When a man is saved, he is to be baptized, that makes the doctrine of that ordinance vital. After baptism he is to be instructed to observe all things Christ commanded. That makes those all things as important to the work of the church as the message of salvation.

H. Boyce Taylor said, "if you find it in the Bible, it is Baptist doctrine. If you can't find it in the Bible it isn't Baptist doctrine." Perhaps the strongest case in favor of that assertion is that we Baptists don't consider any doctrine of lesser importance.



Marvin McKenzie
In the field

Classical Baptist

I friend of mine recently announced that he would self identify as a Classical Baptist rather than an Independent Fundamental Baptist.

Citing a number of reasons; from the excesses of some of the larger and more "excessive" IFB churches, to the effeminate nature of many of today's more common IFB churches.

He claimed for himself the term Classical Baptist in the likes of Benjamin Keach, Adoniram Judson, William Carey and  Charles Spurgeon whose doctrine and practice could hardly be compared to anything Baptists are doing today.

He claimed Classical Baptist in contrast to Reformed Baptist (for reasons I have not yet discovered).
Whose current trend concerns me first because the term reformed links them to Protestantism, which I do not believe true Baptists were ever a part of and secondly because Baptist Churches need no real reformation. Each church does correct its error or divert to the place it is no longer a biblically Baptist church. But those principles, practices and doctrines that make one Baptist need never, yea must never be reformed.

I have long ago determined I did not fit in the Independent Fundamental Baptist mold, though I am all of the above. 

• I am independent in church polity.
• I am fundamental in basic doctrine.
• I am Baptist in conviction

But I am wary of the movements that are identified with the title

Perhaps I too am a Classical Baptist.

The Extreme Between the Extremes

I suppose it is of man to swing on the pendulum of extreme.
Christianity is not without our own.
There is on one side the extreme of Calvinism and on the other the extreme of Arminianism.
There is the extreme of an election that says only those special chosen go to heaven and everyone else goes to hell on one hand and there is the extreme that says God must be too loving to allow anyone to go to hell.

Mega church pastor Rod Bell has caused quite the stir with his new book that addresses his extreme view that God has means of "saving" even those who don't get saved so that hell is not a reality. People have been writing in favor of his teaching with such sentiments as "this is what I always thought but was to afraid to say out loud."
Of course it is what people have thought. Adam and Eve insured we would think differently than God when they obeyed the serpent in the garden. What we think is dangerous. That is why God gave us His Word. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

And then there is the extreme of the doctrinal conservatives with cultural liberty.
The Mark Driscoll and Perry Noble's may be the most dangerous of the apostates because they fain to know a God who is true and awesome and (in the Biblical sense) terrible. They preach him thus. But then they betray their true heart convictions of a man centered religion with their abandonment of separation from worldliness. They profess to know God but their deeds prove otherwise. Their application if Scripture demonstrates the old Garden problem; we believe we can decide what is good and what is evil. God's ways are also higher than ours.

I propose another kind of extreme. I propose we practice the extreme of good old fashioned obedience to the Word of God. I propose we practice the extreme of not attempting to attract the world with our extremes instead, but extremely obey God as He has revealed himself in the Word of God.

Let Him build His church as we seek its purity, not its popularity in this world.

Now that is extreme.

Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

The Fishing Is Still Fine

At the moment of this writing it is my pleasure to host Evangelist Larry Clayton. This is perhaps the fifth or sixth year we have had he and Lois here and it is always such a pleasure.
This year Brother Clayton recounted the story of leading Jack and his wife to the Lord. Jack was a successful businessman and a recipient of the Korean Medal of Honor. But when Brother Clayton instructed he and his wife to kneel there at their couch and trust the Lord, their lives were forever changed.

Brother Clayton said he explained to Jack that he was not going to be in town much longer so he had to dump the whole load on him right then. Jack told him to go ahead and pile it on. Brother Clayton told him about

• baptism
• church membership
• faithfulness and
• service

He told him about

• prayer and
• Bible study and
• tithing

He gave him a whole discipleship program in one night.

Months later Brother Clayton spoke to Jack who said, "I've been doing just what you told me to do preacher."
A few years later he quit his successful career and went to Bible College. He and his son were students at the same time.
Jack served on Brother Clayton's revival teams for two years and went on to pastor a church on the East Coast until Alzheimer's took his mind. (Jack's wife one time confided to Brother Clayton that she was just about to divorce Jack that day the preacher came and led them to know Christ.)

And then Brother Clayton looked me in the eyes and said, "It doesn't seem like we catch that big of fish much any more."

Times have changed even in the world of fishing. Fishermen just don't catch as big of fish as they once did. In some cases the big fish they once caught no longer exist. A friend who has worked for the fish hatchery service in Oregon once told me that the species of Salmon from the Columbia River that could weigh 100-150 pounds no longer exists. It is not merely that salmon are being caught before they can reach that size but that the species of salmon that grew to such great sizes has been eliminated; fished into extinction. Tales of catching those fish are left to fewer and fewer people who are still alive to tell the stories. Mind you, it is not that there are no fish to catch today. They are just not those fish.

I went out to eat with Brother Clayton and Pastor Benjamin Park, from Korea tonight. Brother Clayton told us stories of preaching in Korea in the 60's and 70's when nine thousand factory workers would come stand in the fields and listen  to him preach. Scores of professions of faith in Christ were made and churches were planted almost daily in those days. Pastor Park mused almost under his breath, "I wish we could see those days again, but I am afraid they are over." To which Brother Clayton replied, "It is a different kind of work now, but no less important."

In other words, the fishing is still fine, even though it is a different sort of fish we catch.

Marvin McKenzie
From the field

To my readers:

I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For more than 3700 Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup.

(photo from pixabay.com)

I am a Fundamentalist

Hello. My name is Marvin. And I am a Fundamentalist.
I became a Christian in 1977. Trusting Christ as my Saviour has been the single most wonderful thing that has happened in my fifty two years of life on planet earth.

It would seem by some of what I have read lately that it is just unfortunate that it was a fundamental conversion that took place in my life. From the "IBFxers" to the Evangelicals, to the newly "Reformed Christian," it seems that the main stream Christian blogger, you know, the one whose stuff gets read by the larger numbers of relevant Christians, have little to nothing kind to say about a Fundamental Baptist. One blogger, does the kind service of finding and posting the horror stories of those who, like me, were unfortunate enough to have become involved in a Fundamental Baptist Church (but unlike me, are now fortunate enough to have escaped this torment).

I have read that we may be "rabid" and that perhaps the best thing to do when encountering a Fundamental Baptist is just run. I am reminded of an article I read many years ago about the forming of a group called Fundamentalists Anonymous. I dismissed it then. But maybe I just could not recognize the seriousness of this illness.

Perhaps I am still in the denial stages of my disease. I just don't get the problem.

Ok. I will admit that there have been some excesses among Fundamental Baptists. We've had our headline cases of top tier preachers caught in the immoral. And even among those who have done nothing criminal there are certainly cases a plenty of abuses of power. But is that really a problem inherent only to Fundamental Baptists? Isn't that more a problem inherent to humanity in general? Are there not cases sufficient to demonstrate that even among the more relevant religious leader models sin still exists? Aren't there at least a few who would disdain the title Fundamental Baptist from whose presence it would be best to flee?

I am still excusing my disease aren't I? I just don't get it.

And what is wrong with Fundamentalism anyway?

• Do we really want to believe a doctrine that is not fundamental?
• If our faith is not fundamental, meaning foundational, is it really worthy of our faith?
• Wasn't Christ's real message to the Pharisees to return to the fundamentals of their walk with God?

So what if the Fundamental Baptists believe the Bible has no error? Would it be better to believe it has error but hypocritically claim to follow it?

Let's see. What damage had been done (besides that same sort of damage that can be attributed to being human in general and not Fundamental Baptist in particular)?

• Fundamental Baptists have supported thousands of missionaries around the world, not only doing evangelistic work and planting new churches, but rendering all sorts of humanitarian assistance in places like Sri Lanka, New Orleans, and Haiti.
• Fundamental Baptists have voted alongside other morally and patriotically minded Americans for laws that encourage Biblical principles be followed in our country.
• Fundamental Baptists have urged husbands and wives to stay faithful to their marriage vows, learning to love one another and to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
• Fundamental Baptists have led programs intended to keep children off of drugs and alcohol and out off the sexual bed until marriage.

I just don't get it. It sure doesn't look like rabies to me.

Just looks like some seriously angry people who have found a popular venue in which to vent.

So I am not an IFBxer. I am more like an IFB+er.

My name is Marvin. And I am...a Fundamental Baptist.

Marvin McKenzie

From the Field

To my readers:

I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For more than 3700 Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

Please consider helping our church’s teen department by signing up for cash back shopping at Bible Baptist Church Fundraiser. This program has three levels of participation, the first being completely free.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup.

(photo from pixabay.com)

The Thick Gray Line

Is there some debate over Fundamentalism?
In my earlier days in the faith I knew there were those who were not Fundamentalists but I could not have imagined that they were remotely more substantial than were those who held to a literal view of the Bible. By the way, that is my working definition of a Fundamentalist, someone who believes what were known as the fundamental doctrines of Christian faith.

What I have come to learn is that they (those who do not claim to be Fundamentalists) not only vastly outnumber the Fundamentalists (at least that is by their own statistics. I do not know how accurate their claims are) but a huge number who still claim to be in the Fundamentalist camp sound much more like evangelicals than Fundamentalists.

What makes the man who follows John Piper a Fundamentalist when John Piper would not claim to be one personally? Could it really be as simple as the Fundamentalist is only one because he still is willing to call himself one? If men like Mohler and Piper and Dever are not fundamentalists even though they claim to be at least theologically conservative, is there something categorical that delineates the difference beside personal preference?

The term Fundamentalism has a history.
It is not a Baptist history necessarily and not one I am all that intrigued with anyway. But it's history ought to say something about who bears the label. The same would be true of evangelical. It appears to me that the lines between the two have, over these years, far from becoming more pronounced, become thicker and more obscure. Oh, not from the evangelical's perspective. He would never have wanted to be included in the ranks of a Fundamentalist.

Not so the Fundamentalist.
The term was used of men who held certain fundamental doctrines regardless of denomination. Being a Fundamentalist was bigger than being a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Presbyterian. Indeed those denominational lines were crossed regularly among Fundamentalists. It seems no wonder then that a so called Fundamentalist would see no challenge in crossing the lines into evangelical circles.

That would not be true of historical Baptists.
They were not party to the revival meetings of Wesley, Whitefield or for the most part even Sunday and Moody. It was later, when Baptists united with Fundamentalists that being a Fundamentalist trumped being a Baptist.

I am then a Fundamentalist not because I belong to a Fundamentalist movement, nor because I have always been a Fundamentalist and I claim a right to the title even if I have abandoned the practices of Fundamentalists of the past. I am a Fundamentalist in this one line alone - and a very strong cord it has upon me. I believe those fundamentals.

Marvin McKenzie
In the field