EXCURSUS: HOW THE HATRED OF HOLINESS PERVERTS WORSHIP

There's a subject that fits equally well in Part VII and Part VIII of the series THE LOST DOCTRINE, a series on the doctrine of holiness and its purposeful exclusion by MEism (Modern Evangelism). It's the cheap worship forms that crop up when a people don't know God. These forms are shared by almost all religions. As "Christian" circles become far from God and unregenerate, the worship is no longer holy worship for the Holy God. In fact, the worship is no longer for any god at all. Instead, it's for the worshipers and their desire for religious feelings. Individuals aren't holy (Part VII) and the group isn't holy (Part VIII, coming next).

If you're a regular reader, you know I don't believe the god of MEism is actually the biblical God. All created gods have two characteristics. First, they're unhinged from reality/truth. They're imaginary. Second, since everyone, including their worshipers, know it they need a physical representation to help the imaginary god feel real to its adherents. There's a cognitive reason for this and I'll take that up later. These two characteristics have two corresponding sins in their worship. Here they are:


THE NO-THOUGHT ZONE
MEer (singing):
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Were you there when they crucified my lord?
Oh-oh-oh-ooooooh.
Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble...
Were you there when they crucified my lord?

Christian: Well, I don't think so. When did your lord die?

MEer: My Lord is Jesus Christ.

Christian: No way. Jesus died 2000 years ago. Nobody here was there.

MEer: What? Of course you weren't there.

Christian: So why ask if you already know the answer?

MEer: It's a great song.

Christian: What's so great about it? It's nonsense.

MEer: It's not nonsense. It's a great song. I thought you said you were a Christian. You should love that song.

Christian: I hate that song. It's nonsense.

MEer: What are you talking about? It's all about how Jesus died for us because He loved everyone so much! How can you make fun of Jesus?

Christian: I'm not making fun of Jesus. It's just a stupid song. Unless you think I'm 2000 years old, you know I wasn't there.

MEer: Yeah, I get it. You weren't there. It's not about that. It's about the love of God.

Christian: Now, wait a minute. That's exactly what it's about. It says it. "Were you there...?" Why did you ask if I was there when you know I wasn't? And how can you say it's not about that when it asks it four times? Words mean things in my world.

MEer: Because it's about the love of God.

Christian: Okay, God loves me. What does this song say about God's love or about Jesus' death?

MEer: It says God loves you.

Christian: Why not just say that?

MEer: You're being stupid.

Christian: I'm just asking what this song means. It's a nonsense question.

MEer: Well, I know it's a great song. You can just feel the spirit. You obviously don't have the spirit. If you had the spirit, you'd know how real this makes Jesus.

That's a fictitious conversation, but not much different from many I've had with church goers. What's the problem these two are having? They have two very different worldviews. The MEer doesn't believe truth is objective. Jesus, God, and salvation need to be "MADE" "real". As a natural result MEism enshrines any worship practice that "makes" religion "real". The definition of "real" is different for one than for the other.

I'm sure, if asked, many MEers would say they believe that Jesus really lived, really died, and was really raised from the dead. (But some will have that other definition of "really".) However, that's not how they live. They evaluate spiritual things mostly on emotional impact, not reason and history. The photo I chose to illustrate this section isn't isolated. That motto is being promulgated and is popular on church signs. It's the natural outworking of wanting religion without having to deal with the objective truth of the written Text.

While Jesus intro-ed His retorts with "Have you not read..." or "Is it not written...", the ME response is usually rooted in experience. And why not? That's all they have. Studying the Divine Textbook is hard work. Going to religious entertainment is much easier. We actually now have MEers "gifted" to play in a "praise band" and instead of believers coming together to hear the Word explained and applied, we have "Christian concerts"! Emotive affect trumps truth.

As a result, holy worship is gone. One of the holiest aspects of biblical worship is its unique rootedness in reality, in real historical facts and a worldview that corresponds with science and history. But since thought is second to affect, ME worship has become pagan in that the job of the pastor is to use trinkets, incantations, special words and rituals, dance, song, and movement to bring to emotive recall and enhance religious feelings. The centrality of the Word is gone and the centrality of truth in general is gone. ME worship is just like any other, just change the name of the god and insert the correct words and rituals.

The pastor now functions like a shaman.

Do you think I've gone too far with the paganism analogy? Well, let me take you to another song and this is an old one, so this trend away from truth isn't new. Have you ever falsely claimed to be a prophet? "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..."

REALLY? Have you ever sung that? If you did, you lied. You have claimed a vision you never had. I did when I was young. You may not have intended to do so, but you did. And if you say, you're just singing that which the lyricist attested, did you check out Julia Ward Howe? She wrote that. Did she really see Jesus at His return? Or did she construct it to whip up war pathos for an army? Research it. Think it through. If she took liberties, that doesn't excuse you.

And beyond the specifics, look at the fact and fiction in both songs I brought up. In the first song there is some factuality, but it's so minuscule that it only serves the affect. In The Battle Hymn of the Republic, I'm not sure any facts are present. It seems to be an entire set of fantasies designed to imbue Union soldiers with a sense they were fighting God's war. Only in the latter verses, not often sung, is there any biblical material and that is no excuse or moral cover for the heresy of the first two verses.

Think about this: The Civil War ended nearly 150 years ago, so even if that song contained facts pertaining to the situation at the time, it's irrelevant today...but it doesn't seem to be. It's still used today. Why?

The affect. Just the affect. That's all that matters.

Fantasy and affect aren't Christianity.


THE EASTER BUNNY VS. REALITY
Imaginary things are for children and crazy people. And children need visuals. Visuals to help us imagine God are expressly forbidden in Scripture. Here's why: God is holy.

Well, now that the ME god isn't holy, but primarily loving, we could use a visual or two to help us get all that holy, fiery, righteous God stuff and all those passages with Jesus saying things about eternal fire, gnashing teeth, weeping in torment, and dumping religious folk like us in hell out of our minds.

And we like pichurz cuz we don't hafta readum.

Why do we get Easter Bunny candies? Why do we put up pictures of the Easter Bunny? Simple. It isn't real and we want to humor the kids. The easiest way to humor the kids is to help them picture what we want them to believe. Why do we take the kids to the mall santa?

To quote a Catholic priest I heard on the news this morning, the reason for the pictures is to help us "imagine" what Christ was like. He was jacked because some (evidently unemployed) scientists were working on the Shroud of Turin, using some special method to create a three-dimensional image. Interestingly, the priest admitted the whole project may be irrelevant because we have no direct evidence the Shroud was Jesus' shroud. It's all a guess.

Play John Lennon for a moment and imagine the work on the Shroud is fruitful and we get an accurate portrayal of the man to whom the Shroud belonged. You know for a fact it will be venerated and worshiped. And we don't even know for sure who it is. If it isn't Jesus and folks worship the man of the Shroud, they aren't worshiping God. They're idolaters.

Here's a NEWS FLASH: You don't get to imagine God.

So, just why do you think some folks insist on all these lying, false, and just plain stupid pictures that are supposed to be pictures of Jesus? Are we children? I'm not and I don't want to be treated like one. I refuse to be treated like one.

TOP FOUR REASONS GEEZUZPICHURZ ARE BAD:
4. They try to make us God. They do that two ways. First, they always reflect the culture of the folks painting the trinkets and the folks buying the trinkets. I have found a couple geezuspichurz that portray their geezus as a homosexual. You'll say that's blasphemous. It is. It portrays Jesus as a dirty, sinful, filthy person deserving hell. You're right. But if you paint your geezus to look like you, who do you think you are? The Scripture (Remember the Scripture?...all words..no pictures...) says you're a filthy sinner, too, just like the homosexual--just change the details. You're not God and painting Jesus to look like you doesn't change that. It's blasphemy. And by the way, have you ever noticed how mad white "Christians" get when a black geezus is painted? Are whites God or is God white? Add racism to blasphemy. That should make a tasty pudding.

Second, when we think we can imagine God, we arrogantly imagine we are in His place. HE, AND ONLY HE, thinks things into existence. Remember Genesis? (An interesting insight here, I think, into the basic sin of postmodernism and the so-called Emergent.)

3. Which geezus are you going to pick? Remember the first law of logic you learned? The law of non-contradiction tells us the whole geezuspichur thing is stupid. Why be stupid? And when did stupid become an acceptable form of worshiping God? You can get skinny geezi, fat geezi, black geezi, white geezi raised in Kokomo, Idaho, sad geezi, laughing geezi, plate-head geezi, flashlight-behind-the-head geezi, flat-hair geezi, breezy-hair-like-a-girly-model-photo-shoot geezi...

GEEZZZ...I...get to pick...I guess...

AND, yes, there's even a Dan Haggerty geezus for all you Grizzly Adams fans. BEEElieve it or not. Google it.

Look. If one geezus is actually Jesus, all the others are imposters. No way around that. There's a whole lot of lying going on. Only one can be right. I think it's the one in the Bible.

2. God is holy. This is the reason most prominent in Scripture. The uniqueness of God is the reason for the prohibition. Conversely, I believe, the rejection of holiness naturally makes the embrace of images natural--sinful, but natural. In Deuteronomy 4, starting in verse 14, we see an exhortation to keep the commandments, starting with the second and it's based on God's uniqueness and the unique relationship between Him and the assembly. Specifically, we're told images are forbidden because no image was revealed to man. No image was available because God is outside space/time, unlike anything seen. A physical image of Him is nonsense. Interestingly, we have no idea what Jesus looked like, other than the fact that He wasn't much to look at, according to the prophets. Deuteronomy 4 is presented at the end of this post to read. Please do. God pounded the second commandment over and over in that passage and it was based on the fact that depicting God is really impossible. He is like no other.

Why do we think, then, it's okay to find some guy, put him in a sheet, pose him, take a picture, and lie to our kids? Or why is it okay to just make it up? Making things up is called lying, isn't it? "...lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female..."

When you paint or buy or hang a geezuspichur, you're not being spiritual. You're acting "corruptly". That word is from the root "shachat", meaning corrupt, blemishing, destructive. And look at the backend of the second commandment. If you raise your children on images, instead of the scriptural God, you will destroy them to the "third and fourth generations". And doesn't that make sense? What do you expect to happen when the kids get a load of the femmy guy outside the door with no knob and very little of the manly carpenter who warned folks of hell and refused to back down for the preachers of His day pictured only in Scripture? Remember the Easter Bunny?

Well, your kids do.

1. It violates black letter Scripture. Isn't that enough? Can't we just obey the second commandment?

IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH?
Let's play John Lennon again. Imagine teaching a math class. Imagine you're teaching the kids the Pythagorean Theorem. You tell them to sing a song about the theorem. The song is fun and the kids love it, but it doesn't delineate the theorem. Then you tell them all to imagine Pythagoras and draw a picture of Pythagoras. Then tell them the theorem has to do with triangles. Tell them to imagine and draw a triangle.

Now, have you taught the kids anything?

Why do we do that in church?

Is that coherent with worship of the God of Truth?

Come let us emote together?

I'll end here. God is the God Who decides truth by His smallest thought. He cannot lie because whatever He says is truth. We have no right to imagine anything in our worship. We are called disciples, not dreamers. A disciple is a student, not an aspiring artist. And that's appropriate because God is the truth, not a dream.

Be holy,
Phil Perkins. PS--Read this:

Deuteronomy 4:15-40 15 ¶ "So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. 19 "And beware, lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 "But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as today. 21 "Now the LORD was angry with me on your account, and swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. 22 "For I shall die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this good land. 23 "So watch yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the LORD your God has commanded you. 24 "For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25 ¶ "When you become the father of children and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so as to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you shall surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but shall be utterly destroyed. 27 "And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where the LORD shall drive you. 28 "And there you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. 30 "When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. 31 "For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. 32 ¶ "Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? 33 "Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? 34 "Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 "To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him. 36 "Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. 37 "Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, 38 driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. 39 "Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. 40 "So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time."--NAS

UNTYING A VERY PRODIGAL KNOT

Dear Prodigal Knot, I've enjoyed communicating with you over the last couple years alot on these blogs. However, I really think you need to be straightened out and I think I know just the fellow to do it. His name is Dr. Darrell Cox.

As it happens, he is speaking at a Baptist church here in Billings and I know he's qualified because of the poster I found in our laundromat made on a home computer with a cheap printer and pinned over some other guy's poster advertising his little home based business, because Dr. Cox is much more important than the little people. The poster listed Dr. Cox's accomplishments. Here are a few to help you understand just how big a wig he is in the religious boobeousie :

1. Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church for over 20 years.

2.Membership of his church is approximately 900 members.

3. Averages over 885 per Sunday in Sunday School.

4.In the year 2004, there were 9,370 souls saved & 1,347 people were baptized.

5. Runs 19 bus routes with an average of 600 people or more per Sunday.

6.Church supports 120 missionaries.

7. Trinity Baptist Academy (Christian School) was started in 1995.

Now, pay attention, PK, because any man who saved over 9,000 folks in one year all on his own ought to be heeded. I mean, Paul didn't even do that. He had to depend on the power of the gospel. Kinda a crutch, I'd say. After all, who needs God's Spirit. We got Darrell, bib overalls-n-all! Hummmm, wonder if he has one of those Southern Baptist puffy hairdoes, where great amounts of effort, hairspray, and prayer are used in a sincere attempt to make an old preacher look like he has the same hair he did in 1963.....? Perhaps, you could come to Billings, where Dr. Cox will be inflicted upon us here and mean preach the gospel of gaaaawwww-duh......at the Gospel Baptist Church at 1246 Cook Street at 7pm March 29 and 30.

You could see his hair!

You know how to get hold of me. You can stay at my house. Come and let Dr. Cox bless the devil (and the doctrines of grace) outta ya.

Tongue in Cheek,
Phil Perkins. PS--For those of you who haven't met PK, he's a great guy, a solid and serious student of Scripture and Christian. His website is here.

THE LOST DOCTRINE--Part VII The Lost Practice of Separation (continued again)

This the seventh in a series on the doctrine of holiness. Parts V, VI, VII, and VIII are about the lost practice of holiness, often called separation. This Part VII is the third installment concerning separation. Here is how it fits with the other three:

1. WE HAVE NO ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. (The Lost Doctrine of the Ownership of God) Covered in Part V.

2. WE DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SINFULNESS OF OUR SIN. (The Lost Doctrine of Our Moral Filth and Our Spiritual Hopelessness) Covered in Part VI.

3. WE ARE NOT HOLY. (The Lost Doctrine of Personal Holiness)


LET'S CLEAR THIS UP RIGHT NOW.
I'll define three terms I'm going to start using to make this discussion readable. These are my words and my definitions that I use to keep my thinking straight:

abiblical--Not found in the Bible. Cars are abiblical, but not anti-biblical. That is to say they're neither forbidden nor required in Scripture.

antibiblical--A violation of clear Scripture. Theft is antibiblical. I am anticommunist. That is, I violate communist principles. Theft is antibiblical because it is opposed to biblical teachings. Antibiblical things may be things forbidden or the omission of things required, sins of commission and sins of omission.

unbiblical--Either antibiblical or abiblical. It's a catchall word that is used either of things not mentioned in Scripture or of things forbidden in Scripture.

If that seemed a bit obscure and off-subject, just be patient. You'll see.

WHAT PERSONAL HOLINESS AINT--SLIPPERY SLOPES OR JAGGED CLIFFS?
This weekend I went to the website of a Christian college/seminary and read their take on proper Christian living and just what is required of the students. There was a list intended as an answer to what "Christian separation" is. The list contained some biblical things and some unbiblical things. For instance, one of the somewhat biblical things was a dress code for the ladies. The Bible does command us to be modest. Just how one would apply that takes some thought and hard and fast rules will be hard to set. The list mentioned "excessive use of makeup" and a number of other things that could definitely be seen as reflective of biblical commands.

The slippery slope comes in when we make these unbiblical lists. If the list doesn't exist in Scripture, we ought to ignore it or oppose it. Why? Because the abiblical is often the segue to the antibiblical. What starts as a concern for righteousness and holiness becomes prideful.

Another definition: Personal holiness is the restoration of the image of God in each of us and the process starts with regeneration and continues through sanctification. Wow! That's different from our definition of holiness up to this point, huh? No, actually, it isn't. It's just saying the same thing a different way.

Going back to the beginning, what is the first verse in Scripture that speaks of the holiness of God? Genesis 1:1 divides all things into two categories, the created and the Creator. The dependent and the Independent. The caused and the Uncaused Cause. The needful and He to Whom "need" is a meaningless word. The profane and the Holy. The ordinary and the fabulously Different. The dependent and the Sustainer.

And why are we to be holy? Because God is. "Be holy for I am holy." And the first passage of Scripture that demonstrates the holiness of God's people is also in Genesis. All other life was simply spoken into being. Not so man. He was personally formed of the dirt by God. ("Adam" is the masculine form of "adamah" meaning dirt.) And then God breathed into him the breath of life. In 1:26 we read a very strange thing. After all else is created, God creates man, male and female. BUT, just like God's first appearance, man's introduction is a stark contrast to all else on earth. He is made in God's image and in verse 28 we read that not only does he have a unique personal essence, he is made to be sovereign over the earth. And why not? God is sovereign, too.

Finally, in 2:4 we read the recap of creation and this time it's more to the point of the order of creation, not the detail of creation. In just three verses, 4 through 6, all creation was recounted. Then in verse 7 God puts a special kind of life into only one creature. He breathed life into man. He did this for no other creature.

So what's the point of this revisit of the old Sunday School story of creation? We were created holy, set apart, different, unique, one-off. The point of the atonement is to wipe away sin and its affects. As regenerate people we have a reason--no--an impulsion to be holy. Those who don't aren't his people.

There are two ways to be wrong on holiness. The one common in churches today is the systematic replacement of holiness with something softer. A god who is love, not holiness, fits well. The preaching of right living is missing, unless you mean by "right living" living without offending anyone. (And that offends God, but oh well...) The gospel is offensive. It's offensive for the same reason showing someone at your work how to do something is offensive. The one receiving the corrective is aware that the message carries the implication of his own short-coming however large or small, his wrongness. The offense derives not from the correction, but from the black character of he who wishes not to learn, too proud to change.

Here's the harm in the soft approach: No one gets saved. Not even the ones in church. We don't hear repentance, so we don't think we need to repent. (Well...except that we need to repent of not loving ourselves enough.) In fact, we don't think we're wrong. Like the stubborn worker who can't correct his mistake, the sinner wants to ignore his sin. Unlike the stubborn worker who may use the wrong bolt, have a hard time with a word processor, or spill the paint, the sinner goes to hell forever. You can't replace hell with the right bolt. You can't wipe up hell before it dries. And once a man is in hell the delete button won't work.

NICE THEORY. SO WHAT'S YOUR EVIDENCE? Church.

And the people who go there.

Like me.

I'll give my own example. When I turned thirty-eight, I got more than a little introspective. At thirty-eight, a fellow is about half done. If the average American male lives to seventy-six, perhaps it's time to take stock. I had gone to seminary because I was sure I was just about the most profound guy I knew. I was raised in a Christian home, went to church every Sunday, married a Christian lady, and went off into the Christian sunset, complete with several of those sinner's prayers at different times in my youth under my belt to make sure the end of my ride was going to be heaven.

Trouble was it wasn't going to be and that was obvious when I looked at me. I won't bore you with the list of sins, but put the Bible on your wall and throw a dart. You won't miss. And they weren't occassional. They were a pattern of life. I knew I wasn't a Christian.

Now, I've said several times holiness isn't righteousness, but holiness includes righteousness. At the fall, we became unlike God in a particular way. Of all creatures we were the ones who were to be like Him. He was apart and separate from all creation. We were to be, too. Being created, we could never be as uniques as He, but we weren't like any other creature, either. We were to be God's face in creation. Not literally, of course. That can't happen when you're filthy.

Here is the crux: You are not in God's image the way you ought to be if you're not reborn into a new creature.

WHAT HOLINESS IS
Praying the prayer isn't it. It's a heart thing.

Want to do an experiment? Do what I did. I was hit up by some Mormon missionaries. So I did just what I shouldn't do. I went to their little indoctrination meetings. If they ever come to your door, they will ask you to meet with them for a few times, seven or so, I'm no longer sure. They will ask you to read the Book of Mormon, too. Well, I did that. It was really revealing.

THE MORMONS HAVE THE SINNER'S PRAYER, TOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Yep. Just like Modern Evangelicals, they want you to pray to Jesus and "accept" Him into your heart. They even put up a little picture of their jesus on the coffee table and boy is that fellow blonde! I think he's from Indiana or some such.

THE 99 DOLLAR QUESTION: Just what kind of saved do you get when you pray the seppgeezuz prayer anyway? Mormon saved or Baptist saved or Assembly of God saved....? Perhaps Russian Orthodox. I don't know who all has the magic seppgeezus incantation, but maybe it hits them all. Maybe that prayer is especially magical. Maybe it knows just exactly what kind of church you're in when you pray it, so that it can route you to just the right kind of salvation, Mormon, ME, JW (if the JW's have the sepgeezus prayer), Wesleyan, Lutheran...

My wife and I were doing our family Bible reading when I came across this passage from Deuteronomy: "Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live." Chapter 30, verse 6. That's the Old Covenant, yet it sounds a lot like the New Covenant, huh? There is a whole lot of Bible study that has gone into this and I can't take the space here to list it all, but look up the New Covenant in Joel and Jeremiah. VERY interesting! No mention of the seppgeezus prayer Old Covenant or New. NONE!

The point is no matter what time in history, what culture or nation, God's people are God's people by a miraculous re-creation that restores His image in us. You will love God and His ways. You won't be able to help it. And He will complete that work in the day of Christ Jesus!

The second way to get holiness wrong is the list way. Remember the Bible college with the list? I mentioned slippery slopes and jagged cliffs. The makeup and dress thing is based on biblical principles. The problem is it isn't biblical and extrapolates from the Bible. It's abiblical, not antibiblical, but it's a first step to a slope that may lead to death. If a student follows the rules, but isn't changed in heart he may go to hell a very good guy. Over time, too, the list gets canonized.

In my neck of the woods, we have a group that have a history from as far back as Zwingli. They had a list. Now, to be part of that group, you must live communally, wear certain clothes only they make, groom yourself a certain way, etc. None of it is biblical. This is no longer a slope going from good intentions to hell. They have jumped right off the cliff by making up rules out of whole cloth.

Getting back to the Bible school, another item on their list isn't just abiblical. It's antibiblical. They forbid the consumption of things the bible expressly allows. The strict prohibition of certain foods and drink is a mark of evil in Scripture and expressly forbidden in Romans 14. Specifically, the issue is alcohol. Now, I know that some are convinced that alcohol is forbidden in Scripture. If you believe that, then you're obligated to obstain. Sin happens when one's opinion is that the Bible doesn't disallow it, but one disallows it regardless. That is sin. That's a jagged cliff.

Here are some reasons why this is so sinful: 1. First, it assumes that God hasn't told us all we need to know. The Scripture isn't sufficient. No matter what one's doctrinal statement says, if Scripture is sufficient, then additional revelation that is unbiblical is also antibiblical. If the Scripture is sufficient, why the extra rules? Did He forget? 2. Prohibiting things Jesus partook calls Jesus sinful. They would never say that, but it does. 3. It violates the principle of Romans 14. That which isn't stated clearly in Scripture is a matter of opinion. The only commandment on such things is that we are commanded not to command! "One man regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind."--Romans 14:5.

Finally, the list makers mistake the list for righteousness and righteousness for holiness. The Pharisees had quite a long list, much of which was unbiblical. And some was antibiblical. They thought they were holy by having list righteousness. And holiness is exactly what they were after. Their name "Pharisee" is from a root meaning to divide or break from. They tried for holiness, but just got a list. And their list made them separate from all their fellow men alright. The problem was they were still separate from God. And so they weren't all that different from other unregenerate men, just so religious that they disdained others. Their bodies were circumcised, but the hearts weren't.

God's holiness isn't a list He keeps. Remember what we learned about God's righteousness? It isn't God doing the right thing. God IS the right thing. His righteousness isn't list keeping. It's His heart--the way He is. Righteousness can be defined as like God in character. That's another way to be holy, by the way. Nearly all men try to be good. They just have different lists. Christians are different. They derive their legal righteousness in God's court from having Christ's righteousness, and their actual righteousness by being reborn as God's children with new hearts. Lists are just check lists to see. Lists don't make anyone righteous even if you have the right list.

Thus we see that outward righteousness isn't holiness at all and it doesn't save. It is only a sign of inward change and without the inward change the outward righteousness is sterile, dead, dry, and distasteful. It feels fake. Jesus didn't keep all the rules, but He is holy. Don't measure your holiness by what you do or don't do. If you have it, it won't even occur to you to measure it. You'll be too busy being in awe of and in love with God to think so self-centeredly. Scripture warns us to check and see that we are truly in Him, but it isn't a measure to see if we are okay. We know God and so we know we aren't.

As with God, so with us. If we aren't righteous from the inside out, we aren't righteous at all.

Which brings me to two conclusions. The first is the conclusion that leads to the next installment. It has baffled me how some churchies can hear of very sinful things in the assembly and not get upset. They don't seem sad and they don't seem mad. My conclusion? They might have the list, but they're not madly in love with God and His ways. Their hearts aren't reborn or they'd be grieved as God is.

The second conclusion this brings me to is that of this installment of The Lost Doctrine of Holiness.

NEXT INSTALLMENT:
4. WE FAIL TO SEPARATE FROM FALSE TEACHERS. (The Lost Doctrine of Corporate Holiness)This is the raging hypocrisy that is the lie that defined MEism from the beginning in the middle of last century. And, God willing, I'll deal with it in Part VIII.

Be holy because He is and pray that I am.
In the Holy One of Israel,
Phil Perkins.

REGISTRATION FOR CLASSES STARTING IN MARCH, 2010

Class Registration.

As you may know we want to start classes on the weekend of March 20. Before that, I want to have a face-to-face on oovoo with each student. At this time we will choose a class time that’s at the student’s convenience and exchange emails, phone numbers, and oovoo user names. Also, at that time, we can spend time getting to know each other a bit. I’d like to know your goals for learning.

Saturday, March 13, is the day I’m going to make myself available for an oovoo face-to-face. From 11 AM to 1 PM Mountain Standard (That’s 1-3 Easter, 12-2, Central, and 10-12 Pacific.) Time, I’ll be on line with oovoo. My user name is philperkins. Add me as one of your oovoo contacts. Then, call me at 406-672-7450 to set up a specific time. If the two hour window listed here isn’t convenient for you, simply call me and set up another time and we can do it any time that weekend. If that weekend isn’t good for you, then we can set up on another day. I want to do this so that we don’t have glitches during the first class times.

Here are the steps to do before you call and set up the face-to-face:

1. Go to the Catalog of Courses and choose your class(es) here.

2. After choosing your class(es), go to the Course Descriptions here and find your course.

3. Evaluate whether or not you can afford the costs of the books, computer and internet, and the time commitment.

4. Decide on a time or two you can do a face-to-face to register over oovoo.

5. Call me.

Thanks, Phil.