Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Southern Baptist.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Southern Baptist.
By Jonathan Edwards
The text we will be reading out of today will be from Colossians 3:20-23
20If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world's crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules and regulations?--such as] 21Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them], 22Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to human precepts and doctrines.23Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]
Legalism is a big deal in the church. Between ministry bashing and Hating on each other we have sunk into a state of depression and aggression That the world outside immedialty picks up on. We have turned the grace of God into a joke by imposing all sorts of restrictions on ourselves and Others deciding that it is our duty to rewrite the rules of the new Testament in order to make ourselves look and feel more spiritual. One of the first things we decided to do when we were here on earth Is make up our own version of what God has told us to do.
“2And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden, 3Except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”-Gen 3:2.
God never said don‘t touch it, He didn’t even get close to implying it. It’s funny Though that I happen to know many people who would actually defend Eve In misquoting the Bible and go further by stating that she probably Shouldn’t have even looked at the fruit. They would write sermons based on Her looking on the fruit and decide and teach that she immediately Disobeyed God when she looked at the fruit!
The simple fact of the matter is Though that thing she did that was wrong was eat the fruit. She disobeyed By doing something God had told her not to do. As far as we know God had Never told her not to do anything else… period. As far as we know from text Adam and eve could have played hacky sack with the fruits and God would not have cared. The only clearly stated requirements for her were to not eat the fruit and to multiply.
But it is easy for us to make things up. It makes us look good. Take Something that annoys you or makes you feel uncomfortable and call it a sin Using vague explanations that sound uber-spiritual. Not only does it make Us feel good about ourselves because we don’t do these things but we get the Chance to impose our will on others! A double bonus!
We have a bigger problem today than Adam and Eve ever had. We have perverted the Gospel to mean whatever we want it to mean. We have taken it out of context, distorted its true intent and tried to make God out to be this impossibly harsh God who wants us all to follow insane amounts of rules based simply on the whims of those to whom this may apply.
In no way am I protesting the establishment of Godly authority over the church.It is a much needed as a tool to keep us all in check obviously. I am saying though to watch out for personal bias toward restricting personal freedom for the sake of “holiness”. We tend to be hard on ourselves somehow making us feel much better about serving God. A weird kind of self mutilation of the mind and the spirit that is very similar to what the prophets of Baal did when they were calling on their God to ignite the alter. They cut and tortured themselves physically in much the same way that we as Christians find ourselves doing spiritually and emotionally. Striving for that closer connection to God through the sacrifice of our own happiness!
We cannot allow ourselves to forget that God is our Father. No father wants his children to be miserable! We all know that. Yet we fall into the trap over and over again of allowing God to be so small in our lives that we have to work insanely had to even catch his attention.I know people who have left the church and fallen away because those who were supposed to be encouraging them were bashing them over the head with obscene rules and regulation that one had to follow in order to be “right with God”. The taste left in the mouth of so many people is that of bitterness. First is anger, and then comes mockery simply because we as Christians have failed to trust in Christ.
And that is what it all boils down to. Do we trust Christ enough to accept his promises of a joyful life, or do we still need to do it all ourselves, spitting in the face of a God who cries for us to accept his grace? All the while making ourselves and those around us miserable.
By Jonathan Edwards
The text we will be reading out of today will be from Colossians 3:20-23
20If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world's crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules and regulations?--such as] 21Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them], 22Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to human precepts and doctrines.23Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]
Legalism is a big deal in the church. Between ministry bashing and Hating on each other we have sunk into a state of depression and aggression That the world outside immedialty picks up on. We have turned the grace of God into a joke by imposing all sorts of restrictions on ourselves and Others deciding that it is our duty to rewrite the rules of the new Testament in order to make ourselves look and feel more spiritual. One of the first things we decided to do when we were here on earth Is make up our own version of what God has told us to do.
“2And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden, 3Except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”-Gen 3:2.
God never said don‘t touch it, He didn’t even get close to implying it. It’s funny Though that I happen to know many people who would actually defend Eve In misquoting the Bible and go further by stating that she probably Shouldn’t have even looked at the fruit. They would write sermons based on Her looking on the fruit and decide and teach that she immediately Disobeyed God when she looked at the fruit!
The simple fact of the matter is Though that thing she did that was wrong was eat the fruit. She disobeyed By doing something God had told her not to do. As far as we know God had Never told her not to do anything else… period. As far as we know from text Adam and eve could have played hacky sack with the fruits and God would not have cared. The only clearly stated requirements for her were to not eat the fruit and to multiply.
But it is easy for us to make things up. It makes us look good. Take Something that annoys you or makes you feel uncomfortable and call it a sin Using vague explanations that sound uber-spiritual. Not only does it make Us feel good about ourselves because we don’t do these things but we get the Chance to impose our will on others! A double bonus!
We have a bigger problem today than Adam and Eve ever had. We have perverted the Gospel to mean whatever we want it to mean. We have taken it out of context, distorted its true intent and tried to make God out to be this impossibly harsh God who wants us all to follow insane amounts of rules based simply on the whims of those to whom this may apply.
In no way am I protesting the establishment of Godly authority over the church.It is a much needed as a tool to keep us all in check obviously. I am saying though to watch out for personal bias toward restricting personal freedom for the sake of “holiness”. We tend to be hard on ourselves somehow making us feel much better about serving God. A weird kind of self mutilation of the mind and the spirit that is very similar to what the prophets of Baal did when they were calling on their God to ignite the alter. They cut and tortured themselves physically in much the same way that we as Christians find ourselves doing spiritually and emotionally. Striving for that closer connection to God through the sacrifice of our own happiness!
We cannot allow ourselves to forget that God is our Father. No father wants his children to be miserable! We all know that. Yet we fall into the trap over and over again of allowing God to be so small in our lives that we have to work insanely had to even catch his attention.I know people who have left the church and fallen away because those who were supposed to be encouraging them were bashing them over the head with obscene rules and regulation that one had to follow in order to be “right with God”. The taste left in the mouth of so many people is that of bitterness. First is anger, and then comes mockery simply because we as Christians have failed to trust in Christ.
And that is what it all boils down to. Do we trust Christ enough to accept his promises of a joyful life, or do we still need to do it all ourselves, spitting in the face of a God who cries for us to accept his grace? All the while making ourselves and those around us miserable.