IS YOUR LAMP FULL OF LIGHT?

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Sep 19, 2011 in Current Issues, Features

 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)

The New Traditions Of Men

First of all, we must ask ourselves: Why do you suppose our Master said that? Was He ever known to say something just to say it? Did Christ Jesus ever teach as suppositions things that, like some self help guru, might possibly be a good idea for us to try out and see if we like them? I think not.

This is a vital truth taught by Jesus Christ of Nazareth—our very Creator Himself in human form—that is so greatly ignored in all these Seeker Driven and emerging spurious spiritual beliefs, which have slithered their way into the mainstream evangelical community today.

And this touches on what is being obscured by these SD and Emergent leaders who are turning Christian teachings backward in order to make them accessible to the unregenerate—the absolute authority and holiness of the LORD God Almighty. The visible church of Jesus Christ has made a horrible mistake.

Ignoring the warnings of previous watchmen the Lord has sent, and instead, choosing to continue to preach a man-centered self-esteem message in the useless power of the flesh. Are we really so obtuse spiritually that we just cannot see? Obviously a worldly message will be accepted by the world! Flesh will always please flesh.

They have forgotten that our Lord said to God the Father — “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world,  just as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). Where in these words from Jesus Christ could one ever possibly see a sinner-sensitive message; unless they were man-centered?

Sure, there are a number of evangelical “celebrities” today who are even accepted as such within secular social circles; but where in these words do we see anything that tells us the true messenger of God will be popular? The answer is: We can’t; and, we don’t. That’s the major problem with all this psycho-philosophical preaching in evangelicalism today.

This proliferation of hirelings we have on our hands roaming the evangelical landscape right now  pretending to be pastors has literally reversed that which we are sent by Jesus to proclaim. The Lord be praised though that those who are listening to the true Voice of the Great Shepherd within these words will still hear the truth.

Here I tell you that the evangelical camp has drunk deeply of the poison philosophy of postmodernism and spends the majority of its time preaching about man, and what God supposedly wants to do to make his life better here on earth. Take a moment to think about it; simply consider the worship songs written in the past few years. 

Instead of preaching for the glory and honor of the Creator, we cower before His creation and attempt to appease man’s already inflated self-esteem. It’s called pride; even though the Seeker Driven prophet-pastor today may try to tell himself that he is only making the Christian message more “accessible.”

You see, the Lord knows that the truth is he is actually preaching this doctrine because of fear he himself won’t be accepted. Be that as it may, it happens to be my view that those like Steven Furtick, fearful of personal rejection, have convinced themselves that their “gospel” is consistent with what Christ taught.

However, all one needs to do is to actually open that Bible we profess to believe, and then read it for a change, to clearly see this anthropocentric quasi-Word faith self-esteem gospel clearly is not. In actual fact, the spiritually spineless evangelical community long ago stopped preaching what the Bible actually says.

Instead, it’s church growth gurus taught them to substitute a message that does have an appeal to our capricious culture, which is already centered on the self. It really should come as no surprise that a worldly message will always be accepted by the world; after-all, the world is in love with it-self.

Actually, in John’s Gospel our Lord says the same thing — If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own (John 15:19). And the tragic result of the Christian church consistently ignoring the watchman Christ has sent her is that she continues on trying to accomplish a supernatural task naturally.

However, an easy road of telling people what they wanted to hear didn’t seem to be of much interest to these real servants of the Lord, who:

all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland…

they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one… Some were tortured,… Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment… They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy… (Hebrews 11: 13-14; 16; 35-38)

Doesn’t look too much like the ol’ seeker sensitive message preached incessantly today does it? Those who are regenerated will understand why… God had provided something better for us (verse 40). It’s about time for the true child of God to remember who you really are in Christ:

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” (Matthew 7:6)

He who has an ear, let him hear.