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The post in question:
Easily Offended Christians
Written by Peter Youngren on April 8, 2009There are a lot of offended Christians these days. Some of the things which seem to cause outrage and offense are; profanity on television, open display of homosexuality in movies and on television, humor that degrades Christian values. Well, that’s just for starters. When Christians express outrage, shock and offense, it is as if that expression in itself is a badge of spirituality. “Look at me; how shocked I am at the sin and worldliness around me. Shouldn’t you react in a similar way? Aren’t you equally shocked? Well, maybe your spiritual sensitivities aren’t as fine-tuned as mine”.
There is only one problem with all of this. Can you think of a single time in scripture when Jesus was offended by the sins of unbelievers? The only time you could find something akin to offense in Jesus was when he spoke forthrightly to the self-righteous, hypocritical religious leaders. In fact, Jesus forewarned us that if we are persecuted for our beliefs we should not be surprised or offended. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”, (John 16:33).
Here is the catch. If we are easily offended or shocked, we become either isolationists or attackers of the very society, which we are supposed to reach. Isolationists live in a cloistered environment with little or no influence on those on the outside. Attackers are resisted, much like we would react on a lovely summer night when hornets start buzzing around our picnic table. We find no example in scripture that Philip was offended at the witchcraft in Samaria. What about Paul’s reaction in godless, sinful, Corinth or idolatrous Athens? In neither instance do we find offense or rebuke of pagan behavior, but rather a focused pointing towards Jesus Christ as the only hope.
Everyone of the individuals who carry out what you and I may deem as offensive acts, are included in the reconciliation that Jesus provided by His death on the cross. Easter reminds us that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. The message of the Cross is the only power able to transform human behavior. Let’s not be shocked by the world around us, but let’s look for opportunities to get to know people, to share their lives and to tell them what Jesus has done for us. Happy Easter!
Peter
My thoughts after reading the post:
There will always be this dilemma whether we are to work out our faith or not to do anything that, as Pastor Youngren has put it, using our indignation as a badge of righteousness. This is really a fine line to walk on but grace message has saved us all. It is not in our doing for the sake of doing, it is God's love being shown through us that is most important. And the basis of our 'doing' has to be established on the fact of 'done deal' that the blood shed for us on the cross is enough to bring us to heaven.
So about James letter to get us to work out our faith? My view is that once we get the correct perspective on how grace has worked in the Christian life, then anything that we do, we did it based on gratitude that we have for Jesus who died for us. To me, it would be second nature akin to Paul saying how we can be trapped by sin again if we are in a position of righteousness.
'Right believing begets right living'
We just have a very bad episode of secular values versus Christian values in a women's group in Singapore and it really reflect badly the society as a whole and Christianity in particular. I can't fault anyone as everyone has good starting points and good intentions. But intention is not enough in the Court of God, and the Court of God have to rely on some sort of standard and that standard by far the best for the unsaved, is the one handed down by Moses.
If we are more in tuned to God's plan for us to be salt of the world as described in this post, I think we will be in a better position to engage and convinced the unsaved.
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(Seen the following? It is now on the web.)
Famous Rapture Watchers - Addendum
by Dave MacPherson
(The statements in my "Famous Rapture Watchers" web article appeared in my 1983 book "The Great Rapture Hoax" and quoted only past leaders. Here are the other leaders who were quoted in that original printing.)
Oswald J. Smith: "...I am absolutely convinced that there will be no rapture before the Tribulation, but that the Church will undoubtedly be called upon to face the Antichrist..." (Tribulation or Rapture - Which?, p. 2).
Paul B. Smith: "You are perfectly free to quote me as believing rather emphatically in the post-tribulation teaching of the Bible" (letter dated June 9, 1976).
S. I. McMillen: "...Christians will suffer in the Great Tribulation" (Discern These Times, p. 55).
Norman F. Douty: "...all of the evidence of history runs one way - in favor of Post-tribulationism" (Has Christ's Return Two Stages?, p. 113).
Leonard Ravenhill: "There is a cowardly Christianity which...still comforts its fainting heart with the hope that there will be a rapture - perhaps today - to catch us away from coming tribulation" (Sodom Had No Bible, p. 94).
William Hendriksen: "...the one and only second coming of Christ to judgment" (Israel in Prophecy, p. 29).
Loraine Boettner: "Hence we conclude that nowhere in Scripture does it teach a secret or pre-tribulation Rapture" (The Millennium, p. 168).
J. Sidlow Baxter: "...believers of the last days (there is only one small part of the total Church on earth at any given moment) will be on earth during the so-called 'Great Tribulation' " (Explore the Book, Vol. 6, p. 345).
Merrill C. Tenney: "There is no convincing reason why the seer's being 'in the Spirit' and being called into heaven [Revelation 4:1-2] typifies the rapture of the church..." (Interpreting Revelation, p. 141).
James R. Graham: "...there is not a line of the N.T. that declares a pre-tribulation rapture, so its advocates are compelled to read it into certain indeterminate texts..." (Watchman, What of the Night?, p. 79).
Ralph Earle: "The teaching of a pre-tribulation rapture seems first to have been emphasized widely about 100 years ago by John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren" (Behold, I Come, p. 74).
Clarence B. Bass: "...I most strongly believe dispensationalism to be a departure from the historic faith..." (Backgrounds to Dispensationalism, p. 155).
William C. Thomas: "The return of Jesus Christ, described by parousia, revelation, and epiphany, is one single, glorious, triumphant event for which we all wait with great eagerness!" (The Blessed Hope in the Thessalonian Epistles of Paul, p. 42).
Harold J. Ockenga: "No exegetical justification exists for the arbitrary separation of the 'coming of Christ' and the 'day of the Lord.' It is one 'day of the Lord Jesus Christ' " (Christian Life, February, 1955).
Duane Edward Spencer: "Paul makes it very clear that the Church will pass through the Great Tribulation" ("Rapture-Tribulation" cassette).
J. C. Maris: "Nowhere the Bible teaches that the Church of Jesus Christ is heading for world dominion. On the contrary - there will be no place for her, save in 'the wilderness,' where God will take care of her (Rev. 12:13-17)" (I.C.C.C. leaflet "The Danger of the Ecumenical Movement," p. 2).
F. F. Bruce: "To meet the Lord [I Thessalonians 4:17]...on the final stage of...[Christ's] journey...to the earth..." (New Bible Commentary: Revised, p. 1159).
G. Christian Weiss: "Some people say that this ['gospel of the kingdom' in Matthew 24:14] is not the gospel of grace but is a special aspect of the gospel to be preached some time in the future. But there is nothing in the context to indicate this" ("Back to the Bible" broadcast, February 9, 1976).
Pat Brooks: "Soon we, in the Body of Christ, will be confronted by millions of people disillusioned by such false teaching [Pre-Tribism]" (Hear, O Israel, p. 186).
Herman Hoeksema: "...the time of Antichrist, when days so terrible are still to arrive for the church..." (Behold, He Cometh!, p. 131).
Ray Summers: "Because they [Philadelphia] have been faithful, he promises his sustaining grace in the tribulation..." (Worthy Is the Lamb, p. 123).
George E. Ladd: "[Pretribulationism] may be guilty of the positive danger of leaving the Church unprepared for tribulation when Antichrist appears..." (The Blessed Hope, p. 164).
Peter Beyerhaus: "The Christian Church on earth [will face] the final, almost superhuman test of being confronted with the apocalyptical temptation by Antichrist" (Christianity Today, April 13, 1973).
Leon Morris: "The early Christians...looked for the Christ to come as Judge" (Apocalyptic, p. 84).
Dale Moody: "There is not a passage in the New Testament to support Scofield. The call to John to 'come up hither' has reference to mystical ecstasy, not to a pretribulation rapture" (Spirit of the Living God, p. 203).
John R. W. Stott: "He would not spare them from the suffering [Revelation 3:10]; but He would uphold them in it" (What Christ Thinks of the Church, p. 104).
G. R. Beasley-Murray: "...the woman, i.e., the Church...flees for refuge into the wilderness [Revelation 12:14]..." (The New Bible Commentary, p. 1184).
Bernard L. Ramm: "...as the Church moves to meet her Lord at the parousia world history is also moving to meet its Judge at the same parousia" (Leo Eddleman's Last Things, p. 41).
J. Barton Payne: "...the twentieth century has indeed witnessed a progressively rising revolt against pre-tribulationism" (The Imminent Appearing of Christ, p. 38).
Robert H. Gundry: "Divine wrath does not blanket the entire seventieth week...but concentrates at the close" (The Church and the Tribulation, p. 63).
C. S. Lovett: "Frankly I favor a post-trib rapture...I no longer teach Christians that they will NOT have to go through the tribulation" (PC, January, 1974).
Walter R. Martin: "Walter Martin finally said...'Yes, I'm a post-trib' " (Lovett's PC, December, 1976).
Jay Adams: "Today's trend is...from pre- to posttribulationism" (The Time Is at Hand, p. 2).
Jim McKeever: "Nowhere do the Scriptures say that the Rapture will precede the Tribulation" (Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, p. 55).
Arthur Katz: "I think it fair to tell you that I do not subscribe to the happy and convenient theology which says that God's people are going to be raptured and lifted up when a time of tribulation and trial comes" (Reality, p. 8).
Billy Graham: "Perhaps the Holy Spirit is getting His Church ready for a trial and tribulation such as the world has never known" (Sam Shoemaker's Under New Management, p. 72).
W. J. Grier: "The Scofield Bible makes a rather desperate effort...it tries to get in the 'rapture' of the saints before the appearing of Antichrist" (The Momentous Event, p. 58).
Pat Robertson: "Jesus Christ is going to come back to earth again to deliver Israel and at the same time to rapture His Church; it's going to be one moment, but it's going to be a glorious time" ("700 Club" telecast, May 14, 1975).
Ben Kinchlow: "Any wrath [during the Tribulation] that comes upon us - any difficulty - will not be induced by God, but it'll be like the people are saying, 'The cause of our problems are those Christians in our midst; we need to get rid of them' " ("700 Club" telecast, August 28, 1979).
Daniel P. Fuller: "It is thus concluded that Dispensationalism fails to pass the test of an adequate system of Biblical Interpretation" (The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism, p. 369).
Corrie ten Boom: "The Bible prophesies that the time will come when we cannot buy or sell, unless we bear the sign of the Antichrist..." (Tramp for the Lord, p. 187).
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