Unbelief, unrighteousness and God’s wrath

by Mike Ratliff

5 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, Romans 2:5 (NASB)

In my research on the Hegelian Dialectic over the years it was amazing how many and how often some very well known “Christian” leaders kept coming up. I watched part of an interview done with Billy Graham several years ago in which he gave the reasons for his moving from “evangelism” as the primary focus of his ministry to that of Social Justice, world hunger, et cetera. He called it “his fourth conversion.” The result of that “conversion” was the creation of the Lausanne Movement. This is not an isolated incident. Rick Warren, one of the leaders in the seeker sensitive movement, held a tour several years ago called 12 Cities / 12 Conversations tour, which was held at Saddleback Valley Baptist Church in California. The focus of these “conversations” was not reaching the world with the Gospel. No, instead of that, it was about what had to happen in order to “contextualize” the gospel to better meet changing demographics and do a better job to bring about social justice across the world. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. is quoted as saying, “truth is not found in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the synthesis of the two.” What does that mean? The thesis is what one knows or believes to be true. The antithesis is what is opposed to that. If we have a church full of believers worshipping God and evangelizing the community what is their thesis? It is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is that the truth is what God says it is and they are obeying it. What is the antithesis of this? It is the position of the unbelievers all around them who do not believe the gospel, et cetera. To achieve synthesis of the two you have to bring the two sides together into a relationship to create a new position based upon many cycles of compromise. This is the process called the Diaprax. This is what the Seeker Sensitive Church model does by creating church for the unchurched. It brings in unbelievers and mixes them with believers. It forces them into small groups together to force them to change together. This creates the new synthesis, which is now no longer Christian. The Didactic adherence to the Gospel and God’s truth as the truth is dropped and compromised away in order to achieve synthesis. The new entity is no longer a “biblical church,” and continues to undergo this synthesis process in order to reach the final evolutionary stage of “perfection.”

I have experienced this in small groups and it is troubling. Why? Here is an example. We are discussing the Gospel or some other Biblical truth and seem to be in agreement. Most of those contributing to the discussion are in various levels of Christian maturity. However, as the discussion gets serious then one of those who has kept silent through most of it raises his hand and gives a complete secular interpretation that in no way lines up with scripture. Things get quiet. No one wants to offend this fellow and his spouse so a compromise of his position is attempted. It gets ugly. Things end up with those who know better just keeping quiet and those in unbelief control the conversation. I have left churches over this sort of thing.

This is what has happened to the visible church across the world in our time. It has not taken very long. What the proponents of this evil system fail to understand, because they are not of God, what they have synthesized is not the real church, but the visible church made up of professing Christians in name only. There is still the invisible or genuine Church, which God is still growing, maintaining, and protecting. These are the ones who are truly righteous and live by faith.

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “ But the righteous man shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17 (NASB) 

The genuine Christian does not dump the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for any reason including relational issues. The genuine Christian, the righteous, live in such a way that their lives are marked by this trust, this faith. They are faithful because they are new creations in Christ. They abide in Christ and He in them (John 15). These are the ones who leave the churches that are taken over by the Seeker Sensitive Paradigm, refusing to be synthesized or processed.

On the other hand, there are two groups of people for whom the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against. These two groups are obvious non-Christians and professing Christians such as those I described above who are the product of some synthesis process that has made them believe they are Christians when all they are is religious.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Romans 1:18-25 (NASB) 

As I have said many times before, unbelief is an amazing thing to witness. It does not matter how deep you go in God’s Word to show these people the truth nor how illogical their beliefs are when compared with God’s truth, it does not matter, they will not believe. Why? God has given them up or given them over to what they desired more than His truth or than in knowing Him. We witness this in theologians from seminaries with untold numbers of letters after their names showing how many degrees in theology they have, talk about how important it is to restructure churches in the United States because there are fewer Caucasians than non-Caucasians who are professing Christians now. What? What ever happened to preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and making disciples from all nations? That is what we are supposed to be doing isn’t it?

I hear from someone nearly every day now. It used to be every week or so. Before that, it was every few months or so, but now it is nearly every day that I hear from some dear Christian brother or sister who has lost their church because it has been consumed in apostasy and so have all the other churches in their area. What do they do? I had one friend rhetorically ask today if the next step is house churches. I think that may be where we end up. God’s Will be done.

Soli Deo Gloria!