A CALL TO CHURCHES IN AMERICA TODAY
ARTICLE
1. To Present the True Person of God
There is a dire need in churches today to properly understand and represent the Person of God. If we don’t properly understand God’s Person, His twenty-three (some say more or less) divine attributes, and understand them as they work together in biblical balance, we will skew God’s character. If we skew His character, how will we then correctly understand Who God is? If we don’t correctly understand Who He is, how will we correctly understand how He works or what He expects of us?
It does us well to always remember two things: 1) Everything a man believes can be traced back to his doctrine of God and 2) Truth out of balance is error.
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2. To Address Perversions
There is a dire need to present the true gospel and address perversions and omissions from much of today's preaching and teaching. The true gospel needs to be coming from church pulpits, Christian radio, TV and books. This would be that gospel that was once prevalently preached and taught in America, as recently as 50 years ago. It has all but vanished today. God's true Word today has, for the most part, become spiritually content-less “fluff” parading in drama. There is a famine for the real Gospel. Instead what is heard is a vain and empty substitute garbed with “God words”. The church has seen enough supernatural manifestations performed by exuberant flesh displaying its pride or foreign spirits masquerading as the Holy Spirit. The church has seen enough counterfeit power with counterfeit results and it has seen enough cardboard manikins sadly deficient in the true fruit of the Spirit, yet persuasive to vast multitudes.
3. To Emphasize Essential Tenets of the Faith
There is a dire need to emphasize the vital elements so essential to genuine regeneration, something so lacking today. There is such a need to cut through the peripheral rhetoric of “God words” and masquerading manifestations that the devil likes to hide behind and go directly to the heart and core of true salvation and sanctification.
We are saved by grace through faith alone. This is accomplished by true repentance and absolute surrender; these are crucial ingredients. Once justified and positionally sanctified, we must then experientially walk
this out daily in our Christian lives. The
scriptural principles for doing this God’s way, by His Spirit, are necessary if we are to live out God’s Word and will. This is the only way a born again believer can experience the Spirit-filled, victorious Christian life.
4. To Present Scripturally Sound Teaching on the Holy Spirit
There is dire need to teach with sound scriptural balance those things God has given us in his Word regarding the work of the Holy Spirit in our Christian life.
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5. To Present Biblical Balance
There is a dire need for biblical balance in interpreting Scripture and forming doctrinal beliefs. We must, by correct, scripturally balanced understanding, adopt doctrinal conclusions regarding the Person of God, the person of man and how someone gets saved and should personally walk with God. If we misunderstand the Person of God, we misunderstand man, and we misunderstand God’s Gospel of Salvation. If we misunderstand God’s Gospel of Salvation, we will surely misunderstand Who God is, how God works, who we are as Christians and what God expects of us. In other words, we need to properly understand Who God is and who we are, if we are to understand what we are to be and how we are to be it, to live in Him and Him in us.
Biblical balance means having sound balanced doctrine in every area of our Christian life. One example would be that, in both salvation and sanctification, we need to properly understand God’s intended balance regarding the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.
6. To Present a Sound and Scriptural Understanding of Sin and Holiness
Sin and holiness need to be emphasized in churches in America today. The sinfulness of man and the holiness of God need to be preached and taught from church pulpits, as well as on Christian (so called) radio and television.
Someone argues, “Aren’t there many other areas of the Christian life that need to be taught?” Certainly. Every aspect of salvation, God’s love, grace, mercy, justice, faith, spiritual warfare, the victorious Spirit-filled life and an unending list of topics to be studied and applied to our Christian walk. However, if all of these could speak, would they not testify that if sin and holiness are avoided, perverted or ignored, how could anything possibly be rightly understood or applied?