Asleep in the Light

Way back in the seventies (which it would appear are ‘cool’ again) I had a cassette of an album called ‘No Compromise’ by Christian hippy Keith Green. The album was full of brilliant, forthright and challenging songs, but one stood out from all the rest.

Fast forward 30 years and I have all of Keith Green’s back-catalogue on my iPod. On my way to work this morning, the random play function threw up that same song that challenged me so much when I were a lad. And it seems even more relevant today. If you can get hold of a copy of the song – or anything by Keith Green – give it a listen. In the meantime here are the lyrics of the song in question…

ASLEEP IN THE LIGHT
K Green

Do you see, do you see
All the people sinking down?
Don’t you care, don’t you care?
Are you gonna let them drown?
How can you be do numb
Not to care if they come?
You close your eyes
And pretend the job’s done

‘Oh bless me Lord’, ‘bless me Lord’
You know it’s all I ever hear
No one aches, no one hurts
No one even sheds one tear
But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds
And He cares for you needs
And you just lay back
And keep soaking it in

Oh can’t you see it’s such sin
’cause He brings people to your door
And you turn them away
As you smile and say
‘God bless you, be at peace’
And all heaven just weeps
’cause Jesus came to you door
You’ve left Him out on the streets

‘Open up open up
And give yourself away’
You see the need, you hear the cries
So how can you delay?
God’s calling and you’re the one
But like Jonah, you run
He’s told you to speak
But you keep holding it in

Oh can’t you see it’s such sin
The world is sleeping in the dark
That the church just can’t fight
’cause it’s asleep in the light
How can you be so dead
When you’ve been so well fed?
Jesus rose from the grave
And you?
You can’t even get out of bed

Oh, Jesus rose from the dead
Come on get out of your bed

How can you be so numb
Not to care if they come?
You close your eyes
And pretend the job’s done
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t pretend the job’s done

openheaven.com

I’ve moved this comment to the top of a new post because I think it deserves wider consideration…

On a totally different subject (didn’t know where else to plonk it), related to your underlying pursuit of church, there is an interesting looking article (havn’t read it all yet) on www.openheaven.com ‘Kingdom Revival Articles’ link and under ‘Viewing the Shift’ heading. The article talks of how the role of church is changing and what it’s becoming. Other articles on the website look interesting too, I spotted one headed something like ‘I’ve come out of the church – now what?’ Like I say, I’ve only just come across it and so am recommending you look at something I havn’t sussed myself yet. I do look forward to knowing if any of it resonates with you though.

God bless you.
Posted by Anonymous

Thank you to the anonymous poster.

I’ve read this particular article, and a few others on the website. It’s run by Ron and Barbara McGatlin. According to the site itself, “Ron & Barbara McGatlin are part of an army of men and women sent to fan the flames of revival/renewal and spread the gospel of the kingdom.”

They are part of an organisation (IRN) that traces its roots back to John Arnott/Toronto.

Much of what Ron says on his site makes sense and – most importantly – checks out in Scripture. But lots doesn’t. You can probably guess what I’m going to say so it won’t spoil the end if I tell you what a wonderful brother taught me just a few weeks ago – ‘rat poison is 95% nutritional’.

Like many of his ilk, Ron doesn’t seem to able to separate what IS happening in/to the church with what SHOULD happen in/to the church and frequently uses a kind of circular logic -’it’s happening, so that must mean it’s supposed to be happening so let’s try and do more of it’.

It’s a bit like me saying ‘my freezer is rapidly getting clogged up with ice. That must mean freezers should be clogged up with ice, so I’ll get more ice and stuff it in there’. Meanwhile the manual says, ‘don’t let your freezer get clogged up with ice’.

I might not have read the right articles, but there does seem to be a big gap in these people’s perception of Christian history. There was the ‘early church’, then not much good happened for 2000 years, then all this wonderful stuff started happening. This approach has the double advantage of allowing them to dismiss a large chunk of history as a ‘phase’, writing-off those who refuse to accept their view as ‘religious’ and ‘out of time’, whilst tickling the ears of their followers that what is happening now is special, unique, new and amazing. As Ron says “If you are reading this, you are privileged to live in one of the most dynamic times of change upon this planet.” tell that to the Victorians.

In truth of course, God has been at work by His Holy Spirit throughout history. There have been powerful Christians and weak ones, good churches and bad ones, events that glorified His name and events that brought shame on those who claimed to be acting in His name. There have also been major developments in the shape, size, name and doctrine of the various branches of the church that were God-honouring and far too many that were man-exalting.

According to Ron…
People walking in the flesh who are by nature carnal minded cannot possibly relate in heavenly family gatherings … Religious institutions that are focused on the natural … can never solve the deep problems generated by a lack of intimate relationship with God through Jesus by the Holy Spirit. It is only by the Holy Spirit that the word can become alive and powerful in changing lives and eventually the world.

This pattern is very different from most of our past experiences. This indeed is one of the major changes and paradigm shifts that we have heard was coming and didn’t know what it was. Now it is coming clearly into view. It is one major step in regaining our destiny as a people of God and as a nation.

Of course this is true, absolutely true, and church leaders who have failed to teach people and help them into a proper relationship with God have a great deal to answer for. But are these people really suggesting that the Holy Spirit hasn’t been at work in the church up until now – until this ‘paradigm shift’ occurred? If so, it’s a thoroughly barking suggestion!!

Yes, the past few decades have seen the church turn away from Scripture, water-down the gospel, waste time and money on self-entertainment etc., etc., but to dismiss the whole of church history on the basis of what we have experienced in our short lives is at best ‘missing the bigger picture’. In fact, this sort of teaching frequently misses the big picture because it’s about now , now, now. ‘I want to prophecy, but make it something quick Lord’, ‘We need it now Lord’.

I want to live within God’s bigger picture. I once thoroughly confused a church leader by saying that if God wanted to use my entire life just to teach one tiny thing to someone I’ve never met, even if I never knew what it was or understood why, I would count it an undeserved honour. He just didn’t get it. And yet that’s how God used people time and time again in Scripture. Dare I mention Job? Maybe not!

Meanwhile, back at openheaven, basically Ron’s sold on the ‘Kingdom Now’ – we’re building up to a time when the church will rule the world, then Christ will come for his beautiful bride.

As I’ve said before, the New Testament speaks to me of the ‘narrow way’, ‘taking up my cross’ etc. I don’t see ‘you’ll get more and more powerful, take control of the world and then I’ll come back for you’. And equating the ‘beauty’ of the bride with power and wealth seems a bit shallow to me. When I saw my soon-to-be wife on our wedding day she was – and is – utterly beautiful. She scrubbed up well for the event but I would have seen the beauty if she’d been dressed in a sack!! Anyway, I digress.

Where is /what is the Gospel Ron teaches? It’s not clearly stated on the website, although the ‘gospel of the kingdom’ gets a few mentions. But it’s as if this is a second gospel, mysteriously given to today’s believers though not mentioned in Scripture.

Forgive me, but I’ll stick (cling!) to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, whose death at Calvary paid the price for my sins. A price I could never pay. Because of that sacrifice, I can call God my Father, I can live by the power of the Holy Spirit and I will live beyond the grave in the presence of my wonderful, loving Father and my beautiful Saviour who knows how tough life on earth can be because He lived it and He has promised to never leave me or abandon me.

THAT is the message that changes the world. But it’s old-fashioned, requires sacrificial thinking and real, painful repentance. It has no ’secret’ stuff you can use to control people and there’s no magic ‘hang on for a while and we’ll be running the world soon’ promise either. It doesn’t need that stuff because it is the very essence of love.

And to make one other obvious but provocative point. This sort of kingdom now, unique and special time, mega-revival stuff has been preached for a good few years now. So where’s the revival? Where’s the effect that this massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit is having on the world?

As far as I can see, this false teaching simply causes Christians to move around from church to church seeking the ‘good stuff’, while the world continues to slide towards Hell. Winning souls for the Lord is so ‘yesterday’.

Are we in danger of neglecting the great commission while we have a great knees-up? And if so who stands to gain by this behaviour? Step forward the one who can appear as an ‘angel of light’.
Read 2 Corinthians 11:1-15 and see what Paul said about those who preach a ‘different gospel’. he didn’t pull his punches.

The Things They Say

Another in an occasional series!

I’ve been building up a further little collection of some statements made by Christian teachers that I believe warrant further examination. Mostly stuff I’ve seen on the web or on bookshop shelves. Some of these have even been repeated in published and unpublished comments to this blog.

As I always say, these are just my thoughts based on my understanding of Scripture and after prayerful consideration. I believe Christians have a duty to question what we are taught. Indeed, it’s part of our responsibility to the ‘teachers’. They have a frankly scary responsibility given what Scripture says and we owe it to them to keep them accountable as much as to encourage them.

I’ll keep the thoughts brief. Which means they may appear abrupt. That’s not my intention, but we’re all busy people so I’ll cut straight to the point!

They Say…
“You have to experience it yourself before you judge it.”
Are they suggesting I should try cocaine? Or suicide? Christians are never told to authenticate a spiritual experience by ‘giving it a go’.

They Say…
“call those things which be not as though they are”
This is one of those ‘name it and claim it’ things. Positive confession. Except that this quote (from Romans 4:17) is about something else. The actual passage says, “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”

This passage is about Abraham’s faith in GOD who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were [NIV]. I don’t believe the Bible says that we have this specific power or authority. If you can show me different, please do. By the same token Genesis 1 says that God himself spoke creation into existence. I don’t think he’s given that power to us either.

They Say…
“You need to be / are / are not / in the River”
I’ve struggled with this one, because I genuinely don’t know which river they’re talking about. Throughout the Bible there are real and ‘figurative’ rivers. Rivers that irrigate, divide, drown, sustain, cut off, dry up, turn to blood etc., but it’s not immediately obvious which one is being referred to in these statements.
Mind you, it doesn’t seem to stop people using the term. Here’s a particularly fascinating bit of ‘river-speak’. Unfortunately it’s high on opinion and low on Scripture references so I’m still a bit stumped.

They Say…
“Our words have the ability to change the world”

Or in the words of Kenneth Copeland in ‘The Laws of Prosperity‘:
“You can have what you say! In fact, what you are saying is exactly what you are getting now. If you are living in poverty and lack and want, change what you are saying. It will change what you have. Discipline your vocabulary. God will be obligated to meet your needs because of His word. If you stand firmly on this, your needs will be met”

Or in the words of Charles Capps in ‘Releasing the Ability of God‘:
“You can have what you say! … the powerful force of the spiritual world that creates the circumstances around us is controlled by the words of the mouth. This force comes from inside us; the confession of our mouth will cause you to possess it”

I don’t know whether I know where to begin with this stuff! I just can’t help thinking that if this is really ‘how it works’, if it was really such an easy ‘trick’, surely after 2000+ years of Christianity we’d all be doing it and we’d all be very rich? Or maybe it’s like a child saying, ‘I want more sweets! More! More!’ when the parent knows it’ll just make the kid sick.

And I just shudder at the thought of a human being believing that God is obliged to do what we tell Him. We are talking about the omnipotent, omnipresent Creator of the universe here aren’t we? All the alarm bells in my head start ringing at once. Which brings me back to that old chestnut…

They Say…
“God offends the mind to reveal the heart.”
I’ve done this one before, but for the record – it ain’t in the Bible. Of course, it is true that God’s ways may – no will - be offensive to human wisdom. The very message of the Gospel is offensive – literally a ’scandal’. But the real issue is surely whether what is going on is unscriptural. As I’ve said before, I have no right to be offended anyway, but I have a commanded duty to test.