Flee From the Wrath to Come!
By Rev. Ellsworth E. McIntyre
We Americans are accustomed to multiple choice questions. Below is a question that will help to understand the weakness of the Christian right. Unfortunately, life doesn't come in multiple choice format so our education frequently lets us down. For example, problems outside the classroom do not have attached to them several possible solutions. As a matter of fact, the questions or the problems hide themselves so well from our darken understanding that few of us know the problem or the right question. If we don't know enough to ask the right questions, needless to say, the possible solutions can never be found. Don't be embarrassed by the question. No one will know how wrong you were.
Question: An American education tends to produce a student who:
a. believes that genetics determine our success.
b. believes that environment (i.e. family & community experience) determines our success.
c. believes the love of God determines our success.
d. believes the fear of transgressing the Ten Commandments determines our success.
First, choose the answer that is most often produced by a public education. Next, choose the answer that is most often produced by a Christian education. Time's up! The correct answers are "b" for public education and "c" for an ordinary Christian education. Now, choose the answer for an education that has the best opportunity to produce a virgin bride? Or which education do you want for the pimple faced, sullen teenager dating your daughter? Ah, yes, that would be "d," wouldn't it? There's nothing like reality clashing with sentimental dreams to brighten the eye of faith.
Now, go back to the question. Which answer is supported by Scripture? Please open your Bible and read Prov. 16:6, "...by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil." As a matter of record, the Bible never defines love as emotion. The Lord warns, "If you love me, keep my commandments'' (John 14:15).The apostle of love, John, defines love in I John 5:3, "For this is the love ofGod, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." TheScripture never reads anywhere by the .l.Qye_ of God men depart from evil. Not that love is not a great motivator, but fear is much better for us, because we are born evil sinners. Evil sinners do not respond to love as well as fear.Unregenerate sinners do not have a better nature to touch with acts of love.Even after our regeneration, the old nature endures and must be put to death daily (I Cor. 15:31). If we believe we are born sinners, then of course, only afool would design a Christian school to bring out the child's better nature. Inthe face of all this, many teachers and preachers persist in substituting romantic, permissive love for Biblical fear.
In Bed With Hillary Clinton
Over my long career in the ministry, I have noted teachers and preachers, who taught love as emotion instead of obedience. These gushing lovebugs produce children who disgust the faithful. Pastors' children too often have no fear ofGod before their eyes (Rom. 3:18). Students from many Christian schools are experts on humanism, communism, socialism, abortion rights, etc. Such Christian school graduates see all the problems of our culture caused by those liberals who don't love God. As a result, one pastor of a church confessed to me that fifty of his teenagers either had abortions or were married while pregnant. I have three other associates who were very active picketing abortion clinics only to discover their children were fornicating with fellow Christian pickets--most embarrassing!
The problem with the Christian right is Christians who see politics as the solution to our problems. Such an idea is not Christian. It is the same error embraced by Hillary Clinton except in different clothes. Both see family and community life as determinative of the child. That is why Hillary sees a village necessary to rear a child. Many on the Christian right are environmentalists in Christian clothing.
Methods Are Primary
The method employed by Christian teachers reveals their true theology. Their profession of faith does not. They fail to back up their reformed theology by enforcing Biblical discipline. Often they claim to have greater compassion than humble Bible believers. Their methods reveal liberals pretending to be sheep. If, on the other hand, the teacher is firm and consistent in enforcing discipline, he reveals the heart of a saint guided by Scripture instead of human emotion. The methods are primary in determining the education of your child, not the great empty swelling words claiming superior love. "By their fruit (read methods) ye shall know them (read philosophy) (Matt. 7:16).Incidentally, by this Biblical yardstick, many fundamentalist schools are more orthodox than many so-called Reformed schools. Bob Jones University, for example, is more orthodox in its methods than any Presbyterian or Reformed school of my knowledge. For example, is it true that the Bible teaches that good things follow good (Biblical) behavior and bad things follow bad (sin) behavior? The answer is yes, of course. Then if the school is permissive or careless in allowing immature men and women too much freedom, is that school teaching the covenant? Doesn't theLord promise to bless and curse according to His covenant? (See Exodus 20:5,6)No school that permits chapel and Bible study as optional and access to dorms by both male and female is serious about the covenant. Pompous academic talk about the "tulip" doesn't prevent fornication.
The Roots of Bigotry
I am sure that many church schools are more interested in "trusting" their students to be adults than trusting in the covenant. I think some Christians fear being called "petty or judgmental" more than they fear God. If such schools really had a fear of the God who punishes sin until the third and fourth generation (Ex. 20:5), wouldn't they regard a curfew, dorms closed to the opposite sex and a stern enforcement of the school rules as basic? Otherwise, the profession of faith by the school is empty, signifying nothing, but a lust for academic respectability at the expense of the moral failure of their students. Graduates from such schools come to credit their ancestors with such little success that they may enjoy. Isn't that racism? Or their graduates will credit the "loving" freedom of their home and school and call all covenantal Christians "bigots." The fear of man brings a trap (Prov. 29:25); the fear ofGod brings freedom from sin. Obedience determines or indicates the presence of the Holy Spirit and our actions, deeds, or methods reveal whether Christ lives within us or not.
The Solution
The weakness of the Christian right and all of American Christianity is that we have substituted a watered down gospel for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, preached from the text, "Flee from the wrath to come!" (Luke 3:7). This is a much more effective text than John 3:16.
