By: Thomas F. Booher
This is an extreme simplification, but consider: The Bible speaks of God punishing iniquity of fathers to the 3rd and 4th generation, but showing mercy to thousands of generations to those who love Him and keep His commandments (Ex. 20:5-6).
Let's just take things to the 4th generation.
If Christians are fruitful and faithful (and fruitfulness is faithfulness, not just having many children but raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and trusting that the Lord will fulfill His promises and save our covenant children), then 10 million Christians producing 5 children apiece (multiplying by 5) would bring 50 million Christians in the 2nd generation, and if you repeat that, 250 million in the third generation, and 1.25 BILLION Christians in the 4th generation.
If 10 million pagans double, you'd have 20 million, 40 million, and then 80 million for the 4th generation.
Tally up the scoreboard, and that's a 1.17 BILLION advantage for Christians over pagans. All homegrown.
All those in Christ are the children of Abraham. Abraham was promised to be the Father of a countless multitude comprised of every tribe, tongue, and nation. More than the grains of sand in the seashore, more than the stars in the sky. Do we believe that? Where is our faith, and our faithfulness?
We have an Evangelism problem in our nation. Not that we don't have enough zeal, but usually we have misplaced zeal and don't understand the kingdom of God. We spend loads of money on foreign missions & Evangelistic outreach (usually gimmicks and a shallow "felt needs" Gospel message), and too often like the Pharisees, we deserve Christ's woes found in Mt. 23:15 --
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves."
We've banked on the Billy Graham Crusades for, yep, 4+ generations. Seeker-sensitive Evangelism and "worship" is antithetical to the Gospel, has ruined the church, and has opened the gates of hell. Doing that for 4+ generations has led to Pride parades and drag queen story hours.
When the Church couldn't say "no" to its members for fear of offending them and losing them to the world, they not only lost their members to the world, but also lost their prophetic voice to rebuke the world and wicked rulers, and thus the unbelievers have turned from natural sins to unnatural perversions (Romans 1 style). We are ashamed of the Gospel and afraid to remind sinners (and ourselves) that we must be ashamed of our sin in order to repent of it, and find cleansing and forgiveness in Christ. We must tell ourselves no, we must die to the lusts of the flesh. When the Church has either forgotten or refused to do this, of course the world will have no check on its wickedness either.
Gene Veith's article is helpful here in showing that Evangelical birth rate is hardly any higher than secular birth rate. We are barely above replacement level. https://www.patheos.com/.../evangelicals-birth-rate-is.../
But even Veith points to Evangelism as the answer to this problem. He doesn't even consider that Christians need to repent, the women need to "go home" as John MacArthur so eloquently put it, and we need to have large families and raise them in the nurture of the Lord. The Church is the womb of covenant children. We have tremendous privileges for our offspring. The Spirit is at work among covenant children. Losing them to the world is like pulling salvific defeat out of the jaws (womb) of heaven.
God's promises are plain -- if parents and pastors/churches raise up covenant children faithfully, laboriously, pouring their heart and soul into them -- God will regenerate them and bring them to faith and repentance. You can believe that's a general promise that has to have room for exceptional situations -- the 1% cross providences/Job type situations -- fine. You tell me if we are seeing a 99% conversion rate in Christian homes/families/churches.
Show me a Reformed Presbyterian who even believes God's promises to our covenant children are sure. Lack of faith in God and His promises, and lack of diligent obedience in rearing our children -- in the home and the church -- has lead to apostate churches and an apostate nation. But apparently all we are going to get is "we need to Evangelize harder". We can't even evangelize our own children! If an Elder can't rule his household well, how can he rule the Church of God (1 Tim. 3:4-5; Titus 1:6)?
Even many so-called Evangelical Christians literally abort/murder their children in the mother's womb, but most Evangelicals figuratively abort their children in their spiritual mother's womb, the Church. We don't give them the sign and seal of covenant initiation, baptism. Even when we do, we often fail to raise them in the fear and nurture of the Lord. Parents spiritually starve the Lord's precious covenant children, not doing family worship or catechizing them. Just as bad if not worse, the Church has become a shriveled womb, as pastors and elders refuse to give the pure milk of the Word, let alone meat to make them strong and mature. They don't shepherd the flock that is among them (I Pet. 5:2), instead reducing church members to concubine status at best, so that they can go a-whoring after the "lost" and usually just end up tickling ears and bedding goats.
Pastors care more about being a CEO than caring for souls. The millstone needs to be hung around their own necks for letting the Lord's little ones stumble. A father who loves and invests in other people's children more than his own is a horrible father, and a pastor that loves and invests in the unconverted more than the converted is a horrible pastor.
I have a hard time calling myself an Evangelical. I am Covenantal, and the covenant defines evangelism/outreach, whatever you want to call it. Evangelism has become twisted into a false god, it has obliterated our understanding of the Covenant, and it demands you sacrifice everything else (children of believers, biblical worship for the congregation, the concept of work/vocational calling, etc.) on its profane altar. If you do so, you'll get to count a few noses of folks that really liked your rock concert, thought the pastor's daughter was pretty cute, and really enjoyed the free supreme pizza you gave them, so of course they made some sort of "decision" for Jesus. Sneaking faith in Christ and living for Him sounds swell when it's all about pizza, rock concerts, and meeting all your felt needs. But start preaching things Jesus actually said, like "if you don't take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow Me, you aren't worthy of Me" then they'll deny the faith or find a "church" that preaches the "Jesus" they were initially sold on.
The Great Commission has been twisted into a demolition of the Church, the Home, the State. The Covenant and Kingdom of God is a foreign concept to most Evangelicals. And yet the Gospel itself is the good news of Christ's kingdom coming to Earth (Mt. 24:14), His will being done on earth as it is in heaven, in and through and over all things. The Covenant is now made in Christ's precious, efficacious blood, which all the old covenant administrations foreshadowed and pointed to (Heb. 9:11-15; 12:22-24).
Fruitfulness and faithfulness over 4+ generations can turn this around. But to do that, the Evangelical Church will largely have to die or be reformed from what it has been for the last 100-150 years. Theology of the Covenant and the Kingdom of God, or more simply and bluntly, our understanding of the Church and the Gospel, will have to be recovered. May God bring about such reformation and spiritual resurrection, for thousands of generations. May Christ's kingdom come and will be done on Earth as it is in heaven, may the promises to Abraham's Seed be realized, may death be swallowed up in victory.
Comments
Post a Comment