Following Judah's Lion

Once Again
The Gospel Deteriorates

There is nothing that can uncover the hidden hypocrisy of professing believers like the sin of the lost. Let a lost person sin, or advocate sinful behavior, and evangelicals by the millions will act as surprised as a child on Christmas morning. How can these people say such things and behave like this? Don’t they realize they are chipping away at our culture? And of course out comes the moral talisman called the “Judeo-Christian ethic” which is nothing more than a moral gospel. It is a man made concept designed to suggest a melding of the morality of Judaism and Christianity. Fairy tale land.
And this past week we saw the spectacle surrounding Ms. Fluke, a lost young woman who dared to ask for insurance for birth control. Release the hounds! And in a stunning display of spiritual compromise and carnal accommodation, evangelicals by the millions suggested that Rush Limbaugh was correct in calling her a slut and a prostitute. Can there be any deeper gospel departure? The church has long ago relinquished any credibility.
And preachers by the thousands ascend the ecclesiastical rostrum to denounce the woman and denounce the sin of promiscuity. How bold! Talk about shooting fish in a barrel. So you denounce sinful immorality as if you are some martyr? How about denouncing the sin of divorce and remarriage to those who sit in your pews? Are they not chipping away at your cultural climate? You who wish to reign down condemnation instead of redemption, clean out your own house.
How many of your church members had sexual relations before they were married? And how many were professing believers at the time? And those who did not “go all the way”, how many of them committed some level of immoral behavior before they were married? And they knew it was wrong, but but this woman is dead in tresspasses and sins. So go ahead and pontificate about the sins in your own church before you castigate a lost young woman. Judgment must begin in the house of God.
But evangelicals no longer see sinners like this young woman through the eyes of redemption. They no longer believe in the love of God which gave His only begotten Son for such as that. They see people as moral miscreants. Cultural enemies. Liberal malefactors. Sinful lepers. But surely not objects of God’s redemptive love. Sinners now are catalogued into classes, with the most disgusting class being those sinners who commit sins that are easily rejected by believing hypocrites. Sluts and whores and homos and lesbians and perverts of all stripes provide ample ammunition for our self righteous moral outrage.
You want moral outrage? The average evangelical church is filled with the sin called the love of money. Millions upon millions of professing believers are strapped with debt because of their unbalanced lifestyle. And the church itself is in debt to the world. The love of money runs as strong in God’s house as does immoral activity in a gay bath house. Does that not outrage you?
And this just in:
I Cor.5:9-11 - I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
We are called to eat with people like Ms. Flute. We are called to have some level of company with her so as to share the love of Christ with her. We are supposed to be Jesus to sinners like her. But alas, we reject the Scriptures in favor of some moral outrage and a strong desire to return to the good ole days. We are such hypocrites. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but do not fear, we will take care of that for Him. The church has become a moral Jezebel.
But let us get to the heart of the matter. Let us expose the putrid underbelly of the western evangelical church. This woman’s sexual behavior is just a disguise for the real issue. There are men and women all around us who practice an immoral lifestyle, and there are people within the church as well. But the reason this young woman received such moral outrage is because she suggested that her health insurance provide her with birth control. And that might elevate our own premiums.
Oh yes, when it comes to our pocketbooks all bets are off and the gospel deteriorates into a moral argument with dead people. Any incursion into our finances will be met with carnal weaponry disguised as moral outrage and a stand against sin. We are so pompous and self righteous. God forbid anyone suggest praying for this woman without first making sure everyone knows where we stand on immorality. And if someone like Rush Limbaugh, happily married four different times, must be our spokesperson, then so be it.
If the devil himself was for lower taxes and traditional marriage we would support him. Blind guides! You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. You parade your moral outrage while your churches are dark during the week and your televisions are blazing! Your staff salaries are exorbitant but you recoil at any suggestion of higher taxes. Your god is money and your idol is your own best life. You will gladly support almost any war, but you loudly protest this young woman’s suggestion of health insurance coverage. The dead are burying the dead and the church is consumed with covering the event.
And thank God this is an election year since all the moral issues can be front and center without a shred of redemption through Jesus Christ. What if Ms. Fluke was celibate but was a humanist? What if she was a devout Mormon who denied the deity of Jesus Christ? Would she have met with the same vicious verbiage? Jesus died for this young woman and millions just like her.
Mk.2:15-17 - And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
That’s right. Jesus was a friend to sinners. Jesus would be considered a compromiser toady in many circles. Many sinners followed Him. I guess they did not hear His moral outrage. But in truth, the only moral outrage Jesus ever exhibited is to the self righteous leaders in the temple. What would we think if Jesus stepped back into time, and instead of rising to denounce sinners like Ms. Fluke, He denounced His own church? Perhaps like the pig farmers in Matthew chapter eight, we would do this:
“And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.”
Don’t worry, though, Jesus has already left us.