ASSEMBLY VS. CHURCH

Berean Baptist on January 27, 2020

Of the seven churches in Revelation, the church at Laodicea has become nearly synonymous with Christ-less Christianity. Professor Michael Horton of the Westminster Theological Seminary wrote a book with this title, Christless Christianity. He questions whether America is fast arriving at the point where Christ is left out of the church and out of His own gospel.

            One of the chapters in his book is titled, “How We Turn Good News into Good Advice.” In this chapter, he argues that reducing the good news of Jesus to good advice makes the gospel no better than any other method of life coaching. If all the gospel amounts to is a better way to feel good about ourselves, there are many competing philosophies that will be sworn by as better methods. If this is true, how do Christians rightly argue for the exclusivity of the gospel? The issue with this dilemma is that the modern church has replaced the person of the gospel with a plan of the gospel. Neither Christ nor His church is about a plan. Both are about the person of Jesus Christ. Without Him the plan has no more value than any other plan. Some rightly argue salvation is not a plan although we often term our presentations of it as the plan of salvation. Salvation is to have Christ. If He is not the center and focus, we will never have the salvation offered in Him.

            This is the problem of the Laodicean church. Without Christ, it is a social organization. The word church means assembly. It comes from a common Greek word that means nothing more than people gathered in one place. However, our Bible translations render the word church when the translators are certain the assembly refers to people who are born-again, assembled to work for Christ, to obey His commission, and to glorify Him. In this sense, the Laodicean church is better termed the Laodicean assembly. Christ is not their focus.

            As the time grows nearer to the coming of Christ, the Bible seems to indicate that more and churches will become usurpers of the term. They have been turned into assemblies. Though they carry Christ’s name, Christ can have no part of them because He is no part of them. If He stayed in those assemblies, He would only compete as another life coach with many other coaches and their paths to success. We already know Oprah wins that one hands down.

            There are several indicators that you might be a member of an assembly rather than a church. Among these we might ask, is their gospel about your economic prosperity? It is not a church but an assembly for financial seminars. Is the preaching absent the Bible and people are not encouraged to carry, read, and study the scriptures? It is an assembly of rationalizers weighing the best methods of success.

            Christianity is a person—Jesus Christ. His church is an expression of His redemptive work that only cares how our lives can best glorify Him. Sometimes the way is through sickness and poverty. Plug that into the assembly’s plan and see how much traction it gets. Until you are ready to make Christ central no matter how it affects you physically, financially, or in any other personal way, you must remain a member of the Laodicean assembly. You are not ready for membership in Christ’s church.

                                                                                    Pastor V. Mark Smith

The End Is Near!

Berean Baptist on January 20, 2020

But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. (1 Peter 4:7) 

            I am sure each of you is familiar with the cartoon of a man with long hair and beard standing on a street corner with a sign reading “THE END IS NEAR!” Usually, the sign flanks both the front and rear and some sort of funny caption is placed beneath. The idea is that anyone that thinks the end of the world is approaching is a fool. Every day we wake up to the same sunrise, we head off to work, put in our shift, and then make the drive back home. At night we watch a little TV, crawl into bed and go to sleep. The next morning it starts all over again, and we do this 365 times per year and have done it for every year since we were born. Further, everyone we know has done the same routine with only slight variation and everyone we have ever heard of or read about in the history of the world has done the same. It is no wonder that when someone begins to sound an alarm for the approaching apocalypse, he is considered a fool.

            It has now been 2000 years since Peter wrote “the end of all things is at hand” and no doubt there were many that read his words and said he was a fool. Peter’s reference is to the Second Coming of Christ when God will destroy this universe and all that is contained therein. In his second letter, Peter spoke of scoffers that said “Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). Are we to consider Peter a fool because Christ has yet to return? Is the Bible’s warning nonsense?

            It is helpful to understand that although New Testament Christians believed in the imminent return of Christ, they were not date-setters. Peter did not imply he was certain tomorrow, or next week, or next month, the world would end. He followed the consistent pattern of New Testament teaching, especially that of Jesus, which said the Second Coming would be a sudden event that would occur without warning. The “end” refers to the consummation of the ages. “At hand” means the day is approaching. Every day we live we are one day closer to the time Christ will return. We are encouraged therefore to live in anticipation of the event. This does not mean to stand on street corners with signs, although we should witness of it in a rational manner. It does not mean to neglect our daily routines and stare at the sky. It means to guard our personal lives so that we are a living testimony of faith. The closer we are to the Lord in obeying His commands the more it speaks to the degree of our confidence in the truthfulness of the scriptures.

            The prophet Amos said, “Prepare to meet thy God.” Years ago, I remember seeing signs along the roadway that said the same. The time of our life is uncertain and at every turn in life’s roadway there is a possible hazard that could end our lives. It is not as crazy as we might think to say, “the end is near.” One way or another we will meet God. It could be at the suddenness of the Second Coming or at our failure to breathe the next breath. No one knows the time of either. Are you prepared? In either event, you can be by placing your faith in Jesus Christ.

                                                                                    Pastor V. Mark Smith

Preach Christ!

Berean Baptist on January 13, 2020

We have no purpose as Christians if first and foremost we do not glorify Christ. We regularly state this in our services at Berean. You will not attend any Sunday service without hearing it in a prayer, in a song, in a sermon, or in a class. Our purpose is to glorify Christ.

            This is the theme of our church every Sunday of every year, which doubles my enthusiasm for the subject of the message today. We begin a multiple part sermon on the church at Philadelphia, which of the seven churches in Revelation is the one we most want to use as a role model for ours. The letter to this church begins with Jesus proclaiming His holiness and truth. These two attributes of Christ might well be the overarching definition of Him as God. He must be perfectly holy and absolute truth, or He fails in His work and His self-revelation.

            In today’s message, I have chosen to concentrate on His holiness. Some struggle to define holiness. Many times, the definition includes the word which is not always helpful. The Greek word is hagiosune, which is also translated sanctification.This causes us to dig deeper to discover that holiness means what sanctification means—that is, to be set apart. It is to be distinctly different. In this application, it is to be different in ability, in character, in reverence, in righteousness, and in spirituality. God is distinctly different from us in all these areas.

            God commands us to be holy as He is holy, but we can never reach that perfect ideal of the extent of His different holiness. The Bible describes Him as high and holy. His holiness is above all others; it remains so and is thus unattainable. I mean to say the holiness we achieve as His people is of a different quality. For this reason, when we speak of the righteousness of God imputed to us by faith, it is not God’s inherent righteousness we receive. This righteousness cannot be transferred to us. Instead, we receive righteousness that is earned by Christ keeping God’s law perfectly. We are incapable of doing this ourselves, and yet it is the holiness without which no person will see God (Hebrews 12:14). This holiness is first derived from God, but its connection is to earned righteousness by obedience to the Law. In other words, it is not our intrinsic holiness, but that which comes from outside of us.

            God is distinct because unlike us, His holiness is not derived from any other. It is not earned by keeping laws. It does not come by imputation, or by bestowment of any other. He is holy because His being is holy. As God is self-existent, He is self-holy. In Revelation 3:7, Jesus said He is holy. This holiness is the same as God’s inherent holiness, the being of holiness that only God is. Therefore, Jesus is God.

            Similarly, Jesus said He is truth. In the next message, we will concentrate on truth. Think on this during the week. Jesus did not claim to know truth. He said He is truth. He is the standard of truth, which means how you or I feel about truth is of no consequence. We will not be judged by our opinion of truth. We are judged by the one who is truth.

            This is a fitting beginning to Philadelphia, the model church. They preached Christ, and for this, they were commended. If we preach Christ, so shall we.

                                                                                      Pastor V. Mark Smith

ARE CHRIST AND THE CHURCH SYNONYMOUS?

Berean Baptist on January 6, 2020

The church at Sardis is the fifth of the seven churches of Asia. Christ’s message to this church is a sobering examination of a church that exists, that carries on its work, that meets as usual and appears to be Christian, but is absent of Christ. This is a strange paradox for a Christian church since the church is called the body of Christ.It is possible to have a church without the Christ of the church. This, of course, is according to the common perception of the church.

            Most people only know the church by the building where the people meet. If the sign says “Christian,” they must be. This is not the Bible’s definition of the church. The church is a select assembly of people called by God to be unified and cooperating in the doctrines of the faith and commissioned with the gospel of Christ. The doctrines and the commission are the preaching of Christ Himself. It is therefore impossible to have a church without Christ.

            This definition of church clarifies the warnings given to Sardis. As the presence of Christ in the church diminishes by allowing factions of heresy and outright admission of unbelievers into membership, the church ceases to be Christ’s body. If enough body parts are cut off, eventually the body dies. The light of the gospel goes out, and the assembly of people are no longer the true church of Christ.

            Sardis was a church called to repentance. They were nearing the point of realizing Christ’s threat—I will come on you as thief. In scripture, this expression always equals destruction. As Jesus told the wicked Jews, a thief comes to destroy. In this analogy, Jesus likens His actions to the sudden stealth of a thief. His judgment is leveled at the most unexpected moment.

            Some argue this cannot happen because if so, Christ destroys His own body, thus Himself. We must be careful to understand the metaphors of scripture. The church is the body of Christ, but it is not Christ. As one author wrote, “[The church] is founded by Christ, formed by Christ, commissioned by Christ, and endowed by Christ. But it is not Christ. The church can preach salvation and nurture the saved, but it cannot save. The church can preach, exhort, rebuke, and admonish against sin, it can proclaim the forgiveness of sin, and it can give theological definition to sin, but the church cannot atone for sin.”

            This observation is correct. Great confusion has been fostered on Christianity by those who teach that Christ and the church are essentially synonymous. This leads to the opposite of nearly every statement in the preceding quotation. The church saves, the church sanctifies, the church forgives sin, and the church atones for sin. If the church is Christ, it can do all these things. If this defines the church, it cannot be adequately rebuked, and thus can become utterly corrupt while still claiming it has authority. Christ will not destroy it because it would be to destroy Himself.

            The 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation strongly refute the concept of church/Christ equality. The church stands in judgment of its faithfulness to Christ. We are required to faithfully proclaim the word by holding up the glory of Christ and renouncing all forms of unrighteousness. This is how the light of Christ is kept burning brightly. This is the church that wards off destruction because its judgment has found it to be worthy. It is a church that keeps the name of Christ. To remain His body, we must heed the warnings and hear the Spirit lest we become a church like Sardis.

                                                                        Pastor V. Mark Smith