To me I guess the saddest thing about the whole Ted Haggard scandal is that no one is surprised or shocked by the behavior of so-called Evangelicals anymore! It seems that no one was really caught off guard by the inappropriate behavior by another crazy christian, it's nothing new, we have seen it too many times before, and the shock factor just seems to bring pity, judgement and I knew it remarks to the transgressor by the rest of Christendom and the world. Why is this? Have we just become so desensitised to sin that we just don't care anymore? Have we become so holy that we no longer need to confess our sins to one another? Do we truly trust our fellow christian to open up our self and tell them which sin it is that we struggle with and need help in overcoming? Or is it possible that the church today as a whole is just playing some kind of game on the outside and faking the faith? I believe it's the later more than the former and if so isn't this kind of attitude really no different than that of the Pharisees that "clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence."? Clean the inside of the cup first, but that requires obedience, selflessness, repentance and death daily! Jesus said the gate is narrow, but the church stops there they forget that the WAY is also just as narrow. The church in America has failed to uphold the credibility of it's self because it no longer is able to distinguish the wheat from the tares, the sinner from the convert, the true believers from the false, and now the church looks just like the world because we have failed to call sin what it is, we have failed to demand repentance, we have failed to teach the whole counsel of God. How did this happen? Because the church has been so busy at meeting our felt needs and pandering to the purpose of our flesh with self centered programs and experiential worship services that it has forgotten to preach about the holiness, sovereignty, judgement and fear of God to the point that the world is able to sit under a preacher without conviction and be labled a Christian and behave like they want and the end result is that no one is shocked by such behavior coming out of the church anymore, and the church is confused because they can't tell who is a real christian, and the world doesn't want any part of it and immature christians aren't sure they want to stay in it. Oh what a terrible reproach to the name of Christ such behavior brings, and this kind of thing goes on everyday in the malls, theaters, factories, and offices across this country as so-called Christians play the game on the outside, they live like hell six days a week and just because they had an emotional experience at church on Sunday they think they are OK with God. Wake up my dear brethren because these are the last days and this scandal is just more proof of the times in which we live in. Repent before it's to late.
2 Timothy 3:1-9
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
In Michael Miller's article for the Journal Star titled "A return to the basics with an emphasis on cross" says movements like the emergent/emerging church, church-growth/seeker-sensitive, contemplative prayer, the Purpose-Driven Church, and psychology have distracted Christians from the basics of their faith and are even leading, in some cases, to apostasy. It's nice to see this stuff called what it truly is, and even nicer to see a return back to the basic Christian doctrine of Christ and Christ crucified. Keep praying for God's Church to come out of this spiritual fog that has clouded the True Gospel.
Oh! it is this that breaks a man's heart--to think that Christ should have been loving me, with the whole force of his soul, while I was despising him, and would have nothing to do with him.By: Charles Hadden Spurgeon 1834-1892