People Not Taught to Fear God in Contempoary Worship
By Rev. Jack Cascione

 

Contemporary worship's focus on entertainment, popular music, and a relaxed, formless environment is teaching people not to fear God.

The so-called "positive message" promoted by practitioners of the Church Growth Movement and contemporary worship is as old as the 16th Century.

Not preaching the law, but promoting "up-beat," "up-lifting", and "relevant" sermons, is not preaching. It is designed to skin the suckers and send them merrily on their way to eternal damnation.

The Church Growth Movement is making the adulterers, revelers, homosexuals, and the unrepentant feel good about themselves in the church.

The preachers who say that accusing Law should not be preached in the church, do not know Jesus Christ, says Luther as follows:

"Hence to declare that the Law should not be taught in the church is characteristic of men who do not know Christ and are blinded by their pride and wickedness." (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 225)

Fear is part of true worship. Before people can love God, they must be taught to fear God, and repentant, or else there is no reason for the Gospel.

"In Ps. 51:19 Scripture calls fear a sacrifice to God and worship. But since these accounts were written through the Holy Spirit for the purpose of impelling hearts to fear God, to shun sins, and to do justice and righteousness, it is proper to present them in the church, which, just as it has two kinds of people, also presents a twofold Word: the accounts of wrath and the threats against the obdurate, the smug, and the impenitent; and the promises for the benefit of the contrite and the humbled. But it is the highest wisdom to dispense these rightly." (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 242)

In Luther's day, those who practice "Church Growth" were called "Antinomians" or those who didn't believe the church should preach the Law, just the Gospel. Of course just preaching the Gospel turns the Gospel into Law.

Luther writes as if we were talking about the contemporary community church just down the street today, as follows:

"Today you may encounter many who are offended by the necessary preaching of the Law and shun it, for they maintain that their consciences are burdened when they hear that sort of thing. But are they not fine Christians? They do not give up sinning; they are addicted to greed, to wrath, to lust, to reveling, etc. When they hear these sins censured, they are offended and do not want their consciences burdened. Shall we for this reason let everyone do what he pleases and declare him blessed? Not at all; for you hear that the destruction of Sodom by fire is to be set before all succeeding generations and indeed before the very church of God, in order that men may learn to fear God."

"In the doctrine of the antinomians there was this statement: 'If somebody were an adulterer, provided only that he believed, he would have a gracious God.' But what kind of church will it be, I ask, in which so awful a statement is heard?" (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 223)

Church Growth preachers aren't warning people about God's wrath. God told Abraham that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah so that Abraham would warn his descendants. So also, pastors should be warning their members of God impending wrath if they disobey and do not repent.

". . . in this passage [Gen. 18:19 about Sodom] there is added the command to preach: 'He will relate them,' says God, 'to his children'; that is: 'I want the destruction of Sodom by fire preached in the church.' What is the reason for this? Because the church is never altogether pure; the greater part is always wicked, as the parable of the seed teaches (Matt. 13:3 ff). In fact, the true saints themselves, who are righteous through faith in the Son of God, have the sinful flesh, which must be mortified by constant chastening, as Paul says (1 Cor. 11:31): 'If we would judge ourselves, we would not be chastened by the Lord.' Therefore keep this passage in mind. It is adequate by itself to refute the antinomians. (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 225)

In Luther's day the Catholic Church inundated the people with the Law. The antinomians made the mistake of getting rid of the Law out of their hatred for the pope.

"The pope has preached nothing but terrors. Our false prophets today, on the contrary, want nothing taught except the Gospel and the promises; and this error is almost more harmful. Grace and the remission of sins should be preached, but among those who have sins, that is, who acknowledge that they have sins and sincerely desire to be freed from them. But those who smugly continue in sins are as though they were without sins-to these the Law should be presented. They should be frightened by the destruction of Sodom and in this manner be brought to the fear of God." (Luther's' Works Vol. 3, page 237)

God wants all Christians to hear the Law. All too often preachers may explain their passing over the Law because God says we should love the people. In this way they make the people an idol. We also hear that people are overburdened in their lives, hurting, and don't need to hear any more Law when they come to church. What these preachers are really saying is, that they need to protect their paychecks or else they will be the ones who are hurting.

"No matter how righteous we may be, it [the Law] should be proclaimed in the church frequently, lest we fall into the madness of the antinomians, who remove the Law from the church, as if everybody in the church were actually a saint and there were no need for such examples of God's wrath. The world, of course, is fond of such teachers, as in the Book of Jeremiah the people say: 'Speak the things that please us.' But St. Paul (Rom. 16:18) does not want the church to be led astray by pleasing speeches; for sins should be denounced, and God's wrath should be exhibited for the sake of the unbelievers who are in the church, yes, also for the sake of the believers, lest they yield to sin, which still adheres to them, and to their natural weakness. Thus even though Christ Himself most pleasantly invites sinners to come to Him, He nevertheless repeatedly cries out the awful 'Woe!' over the impenitent Pharisees." (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page. 269)

"Therefore let us utterly reject the antinomians, who cast the Law out of the church and want to teach repentance by means of the Gospel. It is correct, of course, to say that people should be buoyed up and comforted; but a definition should be added - a definition stating who such people are, namely, that they are those who are wasting away from hunger and thirst in the desert after they have been cast out of their home and country, who sigh and cry to the Lord and are now at the point of despair. People of this kind are fit hearers of the Gospel." (Luther's Works Vol. 4. page 49)

"The antinomians want the doctrine of repentance to begin directly from grace." (Luther's Works Vol. 4. page 51)

"Thus the antinomians enjoy the advantages of the world in order to be happy in this life. They say that they want to be converted in good time. They despise their blessing, the church, Baptism, the Keys, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. They receive the grace of God in vain and disregard 'the acceptable time' and 'the day of salvation' (2Cor. 6:2). But at some future time they will seek the neglected opportunity in vain and too late, as the bride in the Song of Solomon (5:6) laments: 'I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone.'" (Luther's Works Vol. 4. page 405)


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January 10, 2002