"The world……hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil" (John 7:7 NKJV)

In our last article we examined why the message of the cross arouses the hostility of sinners when it is faithfully declared in their ears. In this article we will delve into the attempts by the proponents of the "seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven" church model to minimize, if not outright eliminate this inbred resistance by the world to the gospel of Christ.

The word translated stumbling block in this passage, also translated "offense", is the Greek word, "skandalon", from which we derive our English word "scandal". Simply put, Paul is saying that the cross is a scandal, a stumbling block, to the natural man. The preaching of it offended men then and it will offend them now. This is one thing about it that will never change nor can it ever be changed. This is the reason that those who declare the gospel, the word of the cross, to unregenerate sinners, can expect to meet with nothing but the jeers and scoffing of a hostile world.

There is however one way to completely avoid this persecution from an unbelieving world: remove the cross from the message and you remove the offense. Omit the great truths that explain the reason for it and you eliminate the opposition that it will induce and thus remove its "foolishness". This is precisely what the "seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven" church model has done. It has completely ‘gutted’ the "word of the cross" in a deliberate attempt to remove its "offense" to the natural man. It has attempted to take a "foolish" message and make it seem "reasonable and useful". In so doing, those who employ it have stripped their message of any life-giving power and rendered it completely inoperative as far as making any true saints of God. The very power to raise men from their death in "sins and transgressions" has been literally discarded in an attempt to make the message palatable to those who have no relish for truth in the first place.

The harsh reality of this entire matter is that the proponents of this philosophy, whether they realize it or not, are ashamed of the gospel. Oh, they are not ashamed to promise their hearers life and peace. What they are ashamed of is declaring to sinners the reasons why this need this life and peace in the first place. Look at what the apostle Paul declares:

No doubt many of these employing this methodology would say, "Amen! Neither are we!" But a closer look at the rest of the passage from which we quoted reveals something that these men seriously overlook at their own peril and the peril of their listeners:

Notice very carefully these two verses and what they are contrasting. On the one hand there is the righteousness of God. On the other hand there is the unrighteousness of men. From heaven comes the revelation of the wrath of God against all the unrighteous deeds of sinful men. It is witnessed in the declarative judgments that Paul goes on to enumerate in the remainder of the first chapter. God, in Paul’s day, and is presently still so doing in our day, making it clear to a sinful world that He will most certainly punish sinners for their unrighteousness and trampling of His laws. From the gospel comes the revelation of the righteousness that He Himself brings in. Only this righteousness will shield men from His judgments which go forth against all of man’s unrighteousness. That Paul witnessed to this and plainly declared it in the ears of guilty sinners is clear from this next quote:

It is impossible to miss the force of what Paul is saying in this passage. He is unequivocally stating that the gospel message he preached to the world included the message of a day of reckoning. Not only was he stating that he was not ashamed to tell men the way to life and immortality, he was also not ashamed to tell men the consequences of their rejection of that way. Anyone therefore who would deliberately and calculatingly refrain from declaring this entire truth to men forfeits his right or any serious claim to be called a true messenger of "the gospel". He is declaring to men only half of the message of the cross because he is refusing to tell them what will happen to them should they reject it.

In essence, what the devotees of this "user-friendly" system have done is to so neuter their message that there no longer remains any source of shame in its presentation to the world. Where is the element of shame in telling men and women better ways to handle their finances? Is there any cause for embarrassment in telling people how to find and maintain happiness? How about better ways of handling stress? Of course not! But teach and preach the same gospel that Paul the apostle set forth and you will be ridiculed by a scoffing world and face humiliation by the inhabitants of "Vanity Fair" as portrayed in Bunyan’s classic work, Pilgrim’s Progress.

The fact of the matter is that this model is indeed calculated to appeal to the masses. And it is a fact that in order to appeal to the masses, one is certainly not going to employ any procedure or proclaim any message that would cause them to react in such a fashion as to bring shame upon the messenger. In other words, if my product is one which by its very nature causes people to reject not only it but myself as well, then I must do something to alter that product so that it will no longer produce this undesirable effect. Those adherents to the "user-friendly" model would do well to give earnest heed to the words of our Lord Jesus:

In failing to preach "the word of the cross" and thereby avoiding the shame that attends its proclamation, they give clear proof of their complicity in this matter.

Is it any wonder then that the masses are streaming to churches proclaiming this "so-called" gospel and its proponents report exponential growth in their congregations. It contains nothing in it to offend them in the least. Neither does it disturb the lost sinner’s peace nor does it alarm in the slightest his slumbering conscience. He can sit there in perfect tranquility never once being confronted with the reality of his own perilous condition nor with the character of the great God of heaven and earth with Whom he must deal. Conviction of his own "lostness" therefore, is completely and conspicuously absent as the doctrinal truth of man’s alienation from God is passed over in silence. Since the evil in his nature is left unexposed, and the light of truth does not shine too deeply into his heart, he is quite content to sit there and receive all kinds of these "practical, relevant" sermons. He therefore goes out the same way he went in, a captive slave of the devil (2Tim 2:26). Only this time he is a bit more "moral" slave than he was previously.

This is exactly the condition of every man born of Adam. The strong man, i.e., the devil, keeps his slaves in perfect peace by blinding them to the extreme peril they are in. They possess a peace all right. But it is a false peace, the sleep of death, from which they must be awakened or they perish eternally. The gospel is the only God-ordained remedy to disturb or unsettle this deceitful peace and expose their false sense of security for the sham that it is. In a true sense, it rings the alarm bell in the sinner’s ear and rouses him, startling him by breaking in upon his slumbering conscience and stirring him to activity.

Those who would adopt this "seeker-sensitive" methodology, by failing to give the alarm, merely repeat what has already happened so long ago. It is with them as it was with Jeremiah the prophet who spoke during a period of horrible defection from the truth in the land:

The people of his day had absolutely no idea of the danger that they were in. The Babylonian juggernaut was poised to descend upon their land in savage fury and instead of the alarm being sounded throughout the land, these "prophets" spoke only of continued ease and plenty. They failed to confront their listeners with their egregious ways and warn them of the consequences of their continued rebellion against the Lord. As a result, the people were totally unprepared for what they were about to encounter.

The end result of all this upon the people was easily predictable. Listen to their attitude:

Ignorant of their peril and rashly assuming that all would continue in their lives as it had always been, they were suddenly (Jer 15: 8) destroyed and left without any remedy.

If only they had hearkened to the voice of Jeremiah. Instead they chose to lend their ears to those who would tickle them instead of faithfully reproving them.

Dear reader, the Scriptures speak very clearly when they state:

In the same fashion in which the ‘prophets’ of Jeremiah’s day failed to warn their hearers of the danger they were in, so too do those who employ this "seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven" church model fail to warn those who sit before them as well. While promising them "peace and safety" by failing to sound the alarm in their ears, they are merely following in the footsteps of the contemporaries of Jeremiah. But as he so eloquently put it, "What will you do at the end of it?"

In our next article we will look at a specific example of one of these churches employing this model and will attempt to point out the glaring deficiencies that are inherent in its philosophy.

Yours in Christ Jesus,

Pastor Dan Norcini

Copyright © 1999 Sovereign Grace Bible Church

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