about jesus
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-01-31-televangelist_N.htm
Robert
Schuller, pastor of the mega-church Crystal Cathedral, criticized his own
daughter, Pastor Sheila Schuller-Coleman, as being intolerant because she tried
to protect the sanctity of God-sanctioned marriage between a man and a woman by
asking members of the choir to agree to a covenant declaring as much. Her
father’s reply to this attempt to protect traditional marriage was: “I have a
reputation worldwide of being tolerant of all people and their views. I’m too
well-educated to criticize a certain religion or group of people for what they
believe in. It’s called freedom.”
When
Jesus had harsh words of admonition for Peter he wasn’t too concerned about his
self-esteem. He was concerned about the destination of his eternal soul. The
account is found in the book of Matthew chapter 16. Jesus had been explaining
to the disciples how he must suffer persecution and finally die. Verse 22
records that “Peter took him aside.” Can you imagine, “taking aside” the very
Son of God. “Jesus, would you please step in my office. I need to have a few
words with you.” Peter had the gall to begin rebuking the Son of God. No wonder
Jesus’ words were harsh, “Get behind me Fake
Oakley Sonnenbrillen Günstige, Satan Fake
Oakley!”
It’s
easier to go the way of the flesh. It’s a lot easier to build a big mega-church
and ride the prosperity gospel into a mega-mansion and drive a mega-car and go
on mega-vacations and give jobs to your mega-families than it is to build the
church on the solid rock foundation of Jesus Christ. The easy way doesn’t
include hours on your knees praying and interceding for the lost. The easy way
doesn’t include going out into the streets and among the hedges attempting to
minister to the lost and dying. It’s much easier to put on your silk robe and
climb into your pulpit and spout forth a humanistic gospel that offends no one
and promises everyone who is present a place in the kingdom if they will only
write a check to the church.
The
answer is that with extended wear, eyeglasses tend to slip down our noses and
the result is that many of us spend a large proportion of our day pushing up
our falling eyeglasses. So much so that it isn’t uncommon to be pushing up
one’s glasses at least once every two or three minutes, which easily works out
to several hundred times per day if we subtract the sleeping hours.Now before
we proceed, let us allow, that pertaining to falling eyeglasses, we use the
term eyeglass to refer to not only prescription lenses with frames, but to mean
all such frames and lenses whether common wear or sunglasses Fake
Oakley Sonnenbrillen Günstige, prescription or otherwise.So
pertaining to our first of three discussions: eyeglass retainers are devices
which prevent eyeglasses from slipping down your nose.
Men
are always drawn to the easy way. We sometimes make the gospel so easy it
becomes no gospel at all. Conversion is so easy it is no conversion at all.
John MacArthur tells of a mega-church that had 28,000 conversions in the last
year, they baptized 9,600 people and they only added 123 to the church! There
is something wrong with this picture. A man on the staff of that church looked
at that and said, “There is something very wrong with this.” He left and
learned how to do it right.
Schuller’s
new age Christianity is a shallow substitute for the real, genuine message of
God’s Word. Jesus isn’t just a psychotherapist or a life coach who has come to
make people feel good. He isn’t in the business of building a shallow
self-esteem in weak-minded, wimpy people looking for a crutch to lean on only
when they go through hard times. Christ came to die on a cross so that we might
be genuinely saved and he will come again, not as a sacrificial lamb, but as a
warrior to drive his sword into the heart of Satan.
It
is not uncommon for ministries built on the names of men to falter and die.
When the frailties of these men are discovered or when they die their
ministries generally crack and crumble. Jim Baker, Oral Roberts and Ted Haggard
come to mind. The church must be built on the Rock, Jesus Christ. He must
increase and we must decrease. A ministry built on Christ is eternal, a
ministry built on the name of a single man is sure to die.
We
are told that dental retainers are devices made of wires or plastic which are
worn to realign the teeth. While there are no official statistics regarding the
actual percentage of orthodontic retainer wearers globally, experientially, most
of us at one time or another know of someone who has worn them.And so we take a
step back and consult the dictionary in search of a contextual meaning for
“retainer” and Merriam-Webster obliges us with the following definition: a
device or structure that holds something in place. And naturally, as an example
it references dental retainers to illustrate its meaning.Thus we (referring to
those of us who actually wear glasses) slowly start to see how retainers come
into play in regards to eyeglasses. Eyeglass retainers hold the glasses in
place. Which begs the question: in what way do eyeglasses have to be held in
place?
Schuller’s
Crystal Cathedral filed for bankruptcy in the fall of 2010 claiming to be
drowning in $46 million of debt. The 84 year old leader had planned for ten
years to pass the baton on to his son. But in 2008 the mega-pastor fired his
son. The ministry now lay in ashes as creditors demand they be compensated for
their lost investments.
I
am aware that one statement taken out of context may be a misrepresentation of
what a man actually believes. I would like to give Schuller the benefit of the
doubt. He is also known for believing that “sin is a condition before sin is an
action.” This statement seems to indicate his belief in original sin but it
doesn’t eliminate the impression that Schuller lacks backbone when addressing
sin, the greatest enemy of the God he claims to love.
The
rock upon which Christ will build a new kingdom will not be those who have
lived some superficial, shallow life based on principles that run a mile wide
and an inch deep. He will build his kingdom on those who have invested the time
and energy to achieve a deep and lasting relationship with him.
It
was Jesus next sentence that seems to address the striking truth of what is
happening to many of our mega-popular pastors as they build shallow churches.
“You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God,
but the things of men.” Many of our Christian leaders are so frightened they
might offend the frail minds of men but they don’t hesitate to dress down the
very God of the universe as if they are his equal.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/crystal-cathedral-sells-property-for-46m-in-bankruptcy-exit-plan-50609/
Though
Schuller seems to have a conscience about criticizing some sin, he certainly
has no conscience about criticizing the major doctrine of sin embraced by
traditional Christians: “I don’t think anything has been done in the name of
Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to
human personality and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise
than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make
people aware of their lost and sinful condition.” This statement is just
stunning in its blatant misdirection. Can you imagine the Savior coming to
earth and declaring, “I don’t want to offend anyone by pointing out they might
actually be sinning”?
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