Old Cross. Old Power.

I didn’t write this. In fact it was written before I was born. But it feels like remarkably modern message and sums up my ‘problem’ with some of today’s ‘revival’ preaching. Unless the cross is preached, there can be no real power.

The Old Cross and the New

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam’s proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, “Come and assert yourself for Christ.” To the egotist it says, “Come and do your boasting in the Lord.” To the thrill seeker it says, “Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship.” The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-bye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul’s day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God’s approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

A. W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, 1966

Is it because we are too lazy to get off our own butts?

Snappy headline, huh!?

Belfast-born Aussie Andrew Hamilton writes about our supposed ‘craving’ for a revival on his Backyard Missionary Blog...

I began pondering why we crave this revival experience and I wonder if it because we are too lazy to get off our own butts and get involved with the people in the communities we live in and do the hard yards of making connections, knowing that many of them will never lead to a person coming to faith? I wonder if we don’t just want God to do the ‘hard work’ of mission (we will hold prayer meetings – until we get bored because nothing has happened) and then when he has done his thing people will flock to our churches to join us… and become like us… and we won’t have to change one bit… we won’t have to experience any discomfort at all. Of course we only want ‘appropriate’ people to join our churches so it would need to be a selective revival of the middle classes.

Ouch. That hurts.

I am tired of this revival talk and these false prophets, because in the 30 years I have been old enough to understand the concept I have actually observed the church (overall) in decline. And I haven’t seen any of the revivals that have been predicted ever actually happen.

True for Australia, True for Britain. True (despite a lot of shouting and hot air) for the USA.

I have recently been wondering, what if our generation’s contribution will simply be that of ‘holding our ground’?

Now that’s an interesting idea. But would we book a speaker, hand over our cash and help to fund his or her international travels if THAT was the message they were teaching. Probably not. That’s not so much having our ears tickled – more like having our heads patted.

Anyway, you can read the rest of Andrew’s blog post here – don’t miss the excellent discussion amongst the commenters.

Revival Watch

Another of my occasional posts on the revival that was supposed to sweep Wales in May of this year.

Has anyone seen it? Anything? Anything at all?

Remember – Darrel Stott prophecied it. In January he wrote on his website, “Revival will begin in Wales in May 2008″

Interestingly Darrel has now edited his prophecy on the website.

It now says, “I prophecy God will begin offer an outpouring revival in England and Wales in May 2008.  It is up to the pastors and leadership to respond to this opportunity”

That last bit wasn’t there earlier in the year.

Nicely side-stepped Darrel. The revival hasn’t happened and it’s the fault of the Pastors. Of course.

You may be interested to know where Darrel is preaching this month. You may want to go and ask him why his prophecies fail to come true and whether that makes him a ‘false prophet’.

Book your flights. Darrel’s going to be preaching at the Ignited Church, in Lakeland Florida. Presumably filling some of the slots left vacant due to the unavailability of Todd Bentley. You couldn’t make it up.

Got Any Spare Cash?

No? Never mind. GODtv would like your money anyway.

What are they going to do with it? Apparently, they’re going to plant some trees in Israel to prepare for the Lord’s return(!?).

The rest of the money they’re going to keep to prop up their business. You know, the one that used to broadcast Todd Bentley all around the world and still won’t repent of that terrible mistake.

So far GODtv has managed to raise over $7m. Who is giving them money!?

Please stop. Your cash is paying for hugely expensive broadcast equipment and satellite time. And a tree.

Surely you can think of better things to spend your money on?

And if you think GODtv is worth the money, ask yourself this – has a non-Christian ever said to you, “Ooh, I watched GODtv last night. It was really interesting”. Me neither. And yet they call it ‘outreach’.

Burned by the Fire

Forgive me. Three months since my last blog post.

Having spent so much time writing about Todd Bentley, I realised this week that I have said nothing on the events surrounding Todd’s ‘demise’.

In truth, there’s not a huge amount to say. Todd has fallen. As have we all. Fresh Fire Ministries issued a statement on August 14th – read the full statement here.

It’s desparately sad. Here’s a snippet:

On behalf of the Fresh Fire leadership and the Board of Directors we wish to apologize to our friends and partners and to the larger body of Christ and to ask for your forgiveness. We are truly sorry for the pain many of you must feel and so regret that in the midst of great revival, the enemy has found a way into our camp. To those who have stood by us, we wish to thank you for what in many cases has been years of support. Thank you for your financial giving towards the vision of this ministry, and thank you especially for your prayers. For those of our partners, friends and supporters who may be struggling with the recent disclosures and finding continued support of this ministry in conflict with either conscience or conviction, we release and bless you with all our hearts and trust that God will redeem in your hearts the good that He has accomplished in your lives through this ministry. It is our sincerest hope and prayer that the Lord bless you and bring you into your fullest destiny in Him.

The rest of the statement is pure PR…

As a ministry, we can not forsake the vision and heartbeat upon which Todd Bentley founded Fresh Fire Ministries.

Of course they can’t. Thanks to the massive publicity surrounded the ‘Lakeland Revival’ they are probably sitting on a mountain of cash that must be spent doing the Lord’s Work [TM].

Their credibility as discerning believers is shattered. The man they sold to the world as ‘The Answer’ proved to be, well, just a man with feet of clay. But they’re carrying on with their conferences and they can still quote Scripture out of context. They quote Matthew 10:7-8

As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

Conveniently avoiding the rest of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in Matthew 10. Instructions to take no gold or silver, to stay in peoples’ homes. Instructions to individuals.

But Fresh Fire isn’t an individual. It’s yet another massive organisation which has accumulated wealth and possessions. It does the Marketing thing, the carefully chosen words. It takes credit card payments. And every so often it all goes wrong. I’m sure this isn’t what Jesus has in mind when he commands us to go and make disciples.

When I was a teenager the favoured phrase of evangelists was ‘God has no grandchildren’. Perhaps today it should be ‘God has no staff, premises or Visa handling facilities’.

I wish Todd Bentley and his family nothing but love and compassion. Unfortunately, while organisations like Fresh Fire still exist, it’s only a matter of time before another Todd Bentley comes along, is marketed to the sky and then (as well all do) falls spectacularly, bringing dishonour to the Lord’s name.

It is not meant to be like this. It is about us as individuals and our relationship with Father God. Personal. Spin-free. Intimate. No logos, websites, live TV broadcasts, conferences or merchandise.