DECLINE OF NORTH ATLANTIC CHRISTIANS (Part 2)
The paucity of Western Bible believing assemblies is their ignorance of the needed spirit of prayer.
1. Lost in the 19th C to automatic easy religionists of New England Theology.
2. Lost to American automatic easy conversion: i.e. come and get it, it’s free, and one does not need to seek it before hand with all the heart.
a. Its costless, cross-less and unconditional eternal life.
b. All you have to do is believe the printed verses shown and salvation can be had without any awareness of it.
3. WHY LOST? Commonly believed by clergy: freewill religion of the mind ideology is all that matters. Affirmation, lip profession, and some blessed water: presto! Acknowledgement is enough.
a. If men have the ability to access eternal life by their own will and mental knowledge of the printed ink there is no need for awakening grace. So why renew the abandoned church prayer meetings of the brethren to pray for same.
b. If repentance is merely a change of mind men do not need to be granted the gift of repentance, so why pray for awakening through grace.
c. If universal measure of grace and faith enables anyone, anywhere, anyhow to access God through his own faith then preaching is alone the need. Just print and speak the KNOWLEDGE of the printed ink it is enough.
d. If the preacher’s assurance through counsel is all that is required then mass conversions can happen without the awakening grace.
The weekly intercessory input of the brethren lost.
Without the free opportunity to publicly assemble and intercede for the lost the spirit of prayer is both quenched and resisted. No amount of preaching and/or evangelism can compensate. While it is unchallengeable that (1 Cor.1:21) God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe,” that truth cannot stand alone without its nexus, the spirit of prayer described by Paul.
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
1 Corinthians.1.24-25
Preaching without the Spirit of Prayer is mere ideology.
1. It can inspire the orator and the admiring loyalists but it cannot inspire hope that saves and regenerates the hearer.
2. Preaching without its nexus is like a cloud without water; a smoking flax smoke, but no fire;
Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
(Romans 8:26-27)
INDOCTRINATION IS PROXY REGENERATION
1. With all bibliolatry of the 19th C, one or two verses are pragmatically selected to use them as an arbiter to interpret the rest of the Bible. For example Romans 10:9 has become a magical fetish for quick, easy, unconditional salvation. It is twisted away from context and the overall total teachings of Paul in the rest of his epistle.
2. The method of bibliolatry is excessive reverence for a select phrase, verse, or passage to interpret all other related Scripture and pragmatically dispose of any counter balance. This rationale created over 2,000 new Christian denominations in the 19th C. Literalist and fundamental bibliolatry gave unprecedented rise to divisions within Christendom. Those divisions were based upon purist separatism and the worst form of sectarianism that continues to polarize and fracture the community of the saints.
3. The tragic irony was the further splits from the newly formed denomination leading in the end to many saints opting out of church attendance altogether as the disease of judgmental censoriousness consumed them.
4. Modern evangelists are wrongly compared to Finney, Edwards, Wesley and Whitefield, and there is no similarity whatsoever between them and their counterparts the American evangelists of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st Century. The striking differences are:-
a. They do not have the spirit of prayer,
b. They instead manufacture a spirit of excitement
c. Excitement relies on certain musical tempo and lilt to stir the feelings;
d. Excitement grows on musical instruments for atmosphere
e. Excitement is dependent on vocal entertainment (called spiritual?);
f. Excitement relies on tension reducing humour to release emotions
g. Excitement thrives with a stage produced persuasive psychology
h. Excitement comes from skilfully manipulating mood and emotion
i. Excitement is to titillate expectancy with a note of urgency
j. The tools of excitement vary according to the needs of a congregation,
i. Traditional, contemporary, or modern audience
ii. Minors, teens, youth, adulthood, elderly;
k. All psychological methods to excite are poor substitutes for the spirit of prayer, which alone brings genuine awakening of the soul when the Gospel is preached; which alone is conducive to Holy Ghost illumination and regeneration of disciples. I.e. those who have not the indwelling Spirit, but only God’s presence temporarily with them while the Father patiently draws them to the Saviour; to conviction; and to repentance. Only then will they receive the gift of faith (not to be confused with their own fickle freewill faith).
