A Season of Transition

A season of transition has come. I can't say that it is thoroughly comfortable, neither can I say that it is thoroughly uncomfortable. What has made this season unlike other seasons of transition in my life has been the awesome and wondrous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as an abiding reality.

I left the church I had been with - and not just the local congregation - for about 27 years. Jessie and I got married here, and our children, Carissa and Rachel, were born in this church. In fact, our girls made the decision not to leave this church. Why did I leave? And it is a question which I should answer. Jessie left out of sheer loyalty and commitment for her marriage vows to me. She would have preferred to remain. It's been tough for her, and maybe more so for her than me.

So why did I leave? I left on April 28th 2013, a Sunday which I did not think would have been my last worship service and my last sermon preached in that church. After that service, I was asked (I was prepared for this meeting a day before) by the pastor to meet with the local leadership. They had some issues which they required some clarification from me.

I was thankful that Jessie insisted that she join me for that meeting. Just to encapsulate the entire meeting, the leadership communicated to me their discomfort that I appeared or as alleged by them, to be preaching only 'justification by grace through faith in Christ alone'. At this point, I would urge you to search the Scriptures for yourself to learn about this theme, and how the apostle Paul used this phrase and exegeted the teaching of the Lord as the Lord exegeted the entire Old Testament scriptures as finding their fulfilment in His Person, Identity and Mission.

In the final analysis, the pastor added that he found that I was not teaching or proclaiming messages which ought to have included his viewpoint and his perspective of Scripture (however reductionist or inaccurate he may have been), and that I was 'unsubmissive' and 'argumentative'.

After recognizing the position of the church and of myself, I made the decision (with all clear conscience), at that meeting to step down as bible teacher, and in a very simple and logical procession, to step down from preaching, step down from being a life cell leader, and finally, arrived at the conclusion, that I may as well retreat and leave that church. It would have been untenable for me to remain.

How could I continue there? The pastor's wife, with the full agreement of the entire leadership team, clearly communicated that this local church, and the mother church believed in 'Arminian' beliefs and practices.

Anyone who has studied heresies and errors in the church will immediately see the pernicious error of Arminianism, as not being a 'position' in the church, but a 'leaven', which has negative correlations with the quality of a believer's walk of faith in Christ. It is especially damning when this Arminian belief and practice takes place at the beginning of salvation. At this point, you would want to do your own research on 'ordu salutis', or the order of salvation. A very good place to do so is www.monergism.org

The long and short of it all is that here I am, waiting upon the Lord during this time of transition, and continuing to look into the perfect law of liberty, and wondering why the big fuss in the church about 'grace' teaching. There is no smoke without fire. And a controlled fire has its benefits. Especially under the control of the Holy Spirit who separates the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately, the frightened sheep have incompetent shepherds who like how Paul said, don't know what they preach and teach, and therefore bring condemnation upon themselves and those who hear them. Instead, they should have been preaching 'sound doctrine', which from the corpus of Paul's work, clearly focusses on Christ and His gospel, the Anchor, Core and Essence being 'justification by grace through faith in Christ alone'! By continuously preaching this 'sound doctrine', Paul said that they would be able to 'save themselves and those who hear them'.

Luther and Calvin and the host of Reformed pastors and theologians (Ulrich Zwingli, Beza, Flavel and Knox), together with the Puritan pastors and theologians (John Owen, Thomas Chalmers, Hooker, Bunyan and Jonathan Edwards) of the 17th and 18th centuries, were so right when they insisted that the heart of the gospel is the doctrine of the justification by grace through faith in Christ alone, and this doctrine, when left alone, or corrupted, would be the downfall of the church.

We see this downfall all around us in the evangelical church landscape. Jesus clearly said that the last days would see false prophets calling people to go here and there to listen to Christ proclaimed with all sorts of doctrines. He said, don't believe that! If as believers we think we need more than Christ, His Person, His Identity, and His work on the cross and His resurrection, we are of all people, the most wicked and stupid. Reminiscent of the rebuke of Paul to the Galatian church in chapter 3 of his letter to them.

Very sadly, this admonition and solemn warning of Christ is not heeded by His church today. Have you heard sermons these days? Have you realized how almost every sermon preached today eventually ends with things to do, or how we should be, and not connected to the Anchor, Core and Essence of the Gospel of Christ? And so we have emphasis on prayer, worship, missions, evangelism, children's ministry, youth ministry, family, counseling, grief, apologetics, healing and deliverance and social activism, and all very sadly divorced (or, at the very best, loosely hanging) from Christ and His gospel, who ironically, is the ONLY way by which we derive the grace of the Spirit to enable and empower us to do these very works!

So I wait in this season of transition. How do I occupy myself? By feasting on Christ as He is portrayed in and through Scriptures. The Scriptures only give light and life as it reveals Christ through the work of His Spirit. Otherwise it is dead letters. The 'letter kills, the Spirit gives life'.

In this season of transition, I will yield, I will surrender, I will give up even my desire to begin a new work, even my desire to serve the Lord, even my ideas and beliefs of how I should share the Gospel. Perhaps it is death of all that is of my flesh, my human nature and the adamic nature in me that the Lord seeks for. And in that death, He by His Spirit will bring His life, His will for His purposes unto His glory. And by His grace, may I be content with this.

Soli deo Gloria, Solus et Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura!