Message #44893

[Psalm 51:17]

So these people who want this "New" Christianity nonsense is offended at THIS?

Col 2:11  In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Col 2:12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Col 2:13  And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Col 2:14  Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Col 2:15  And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Rebellion is a natural product of our fallen nature. The Old Man, as it is called in Scripture, which we inherited from Adam's fall, is at enmity against God and His Word. True Christianity requires a new birth. There are no "second generation" Christians in the true biblical sense. Thus each person that grows up in a Christian home and church must come to grips with the gospel for himself and herself, and because the devil and the indwelling fallen nature are real, there is a spiritual battle that must be waged. I faced this battle in my youth. I grew up in a Bible-believing church and went through the motions of receiving Christ and joining the church, but I wanted my own way more than Christ's. I rejected the Bible, left the church, and went very far into the world before being converted at age 23. Emerging church philosophy would doubtless have been appealing to me in my unsaved, rebellious condition.

7 years ago when I THOUGHT I was saved, I was deceived into this works-based nonsense - it was then when I read Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life". Pretty much all I did was read books(and believed a lot of what these "teachers" said) - however, something just did NOT feel right reading through Warren's book. For example, he endorsed some of Carl Jung's psychology teachings that I've read a lot about in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder books(ie-the "don't suppress your thoughts..." nonsense), and he went overboard over "how to be a good person...".

Sometimes I always think about how even during our rebellious and unsaved days, that God shielded us from a lot of these things in his mercy, perhaps(ie-when we chose a "church" after moving to North Texas, it ended up being one where it was mostly old folks - otherwise a big First Baptist one or one with a lot of young folks would be more easier to yoke themselves with this Emergent stuff, which appeals more to young people. No, I'm not endorsing my current error-filled "church" now, but just saying what might have been if we had chosen the big Baptist church across town which had a variety of demographics, and that one was yoked with Bill Hybels).