God Has A Wonderful Plan For Your Life

God has a wonderful plan for your life. Contents, Chapter 1, Phenomenal Growth. Chapter 2, The Way Out of Problems. Chapter 3, The Happiness Dilemma. Chapter 4, The Lost Key. Chapter 5, Making Grace Amazing. Chapter 6, The Motive and the Result. Chapter 7, What Did Jesus Do? And Chapter 8, Raiders of the Contents of the Lost Ark. Chapter 1, Phenomenal Growth. We live in exciting times. All around us we're seeing signs of the end of the age. The Jews are back in Jerusalem, and the city has become a burdensome stone to the nations. At the same time, we have seen the phenomenal rise of megachurches, with congregations in the tens of thousands. Pockets of revival have sprung up in the United States and other parts of the world. We've heard of millions of people in Russia, China and Africa coming to the Saviour. For example, one evangelist claims that his worldwide tour has led nearly one million people to make decisions for Christ since 2007. The denomination reported nearly 2.5 million decisions for Christ in 2008. One international organization reported over 10 million decisions for Christ in 2009. And another states that over 20 million people have made decisions for Christ as a result of the ministry over the years. These are indeed exciting times. Yet with all the excitement about the growth of the contemporary church, it seems that many have overlooked a few statistical inconsistencies. An October 2003 survey conducted by the Barna Group found that 45% of those who professed to be born-again Christians believed that gambling was morally acceptable. According to the survey, 49% believed that living with someone of the opposite sex without being married was morally okay. Just under half of those questioned, 49%, were comfortable with enjoying sexual thoughts or fantasies about someone, while one third, 33%, thought it was okay to kill a baby while it's still in the womb. In 2001, a survey conducted by the Alan Guttemacher Institute in New York found that 13% of abortion patients described themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. That is, of all those who actually murdered their own unborn children, nearly one in eight professed faith in Jesus Christ. It's difficult to reconcile with the fact that Christians are supposed to love God and love others as much as they love themselves. Additionally, according to an article titled Porn Nation in World Magazine, of the men belonging to the Christian organization Promise Keepers, who make a promise to be, quote, committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity, 53% visit porn sites every week. This alarming finding is not confined to the pews. An internet survey of 6,000 pastors conducted in 2002 found that 30% of pastors had viewed internet porn in the last 30 days. This is despite the fact that these men are to be the spiritual leaders of their flocks and their families. In 2009, the Barna Group found further evidence that all is not well in contemporary church. Quote, among individuals who describe themselves as Christian, for instance, close to half believe that Satan does not exist. One third contend that Jesus sinned while he's on the earth. Two fifths say they do not have responsibility to share the Christian faith with others. And one quarter dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches, end of quote. Think for a moment. Think of the implications of such theology. Here we have millions of believers who supposedly confess that Jesus is Lord, yet they think he sinned. They either don't know what the Bible teaches about the Son of God, or they believe it's inaccurate when it says that Jesus knew no sin, that he was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin, and that he committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth. Furthermore, if Jesus sinned, it would mean that he wasn't the spotless Lamb of God the scriptures say he was, that a sacrifice wasn't perfect, and that when God accepted Jesus' death as atonement for our sins, he sanctioned a contaminated payment and is therefore corrupt by nature. Sadly, the multitudes who profess faith in Jesus yet deny his sinless perfection appear to be strangers to true regeneration. The Jesus they believe in isn't capable of saving anyone. In addition, 41% of self-proclaimed Christians believe that, quote, the Bible, the Quran, and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths, end of quote. This is despite the book's vastly contradictory teachings on truth, salvation, and the nature of God. And only 46% of born-again adults believe in the existence of absolute moral truth. So the other 54% don't think that God is moral absolutes, which explains why so many live their lives as though there was no moral accountability at all. Pulser George Barna, in observing these troubled trends, noted, quote, although most Americans consider themselves to be Christian and say they know the content of the Bible, less than one out of ten Americans demonstrate such knowledge through their actions, end of quote. With over 173 million Christians in the US, there are tens of millions who say that they love God and yet they're liars, thieves, fornicators, adulterers, and child murderers. Paul's warning to Titus seems to be true of much of the modern church. Quote, they profess to know God, but in works they deny him. Neither their belief nor their behavior aligns with biblical Christianity. Leaving in droves. Sadly, young people today are exhibiting the same theological confusion as the preceding generation. Despite eight out of ten teens describing themselves as Christian, 61% believe a place in heaven can be earned through good works, 63% believe Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and all other people pray to the same God, and 58% believe all religious faiths teach equally valid truths. As with adults, the behavior of youth who describe themselves as Christians is virtually indistinguishable from that of non-Christians. An Ethics of America youth survey found that in the prior 12 months, 74% of Christian teens cheated on a test, 93% lied to a parent, and 63% physically hurt someone when angered. The Barner group also found that teens who profess to be born again and attend church regularly were just as likely as secular teens to engage in internet theft of music and to illegally copy CDs. In a joint statement, youth specialists Josh McDowell and Ron Luce made a sobering announcement. They said, While this is a shocking omission, McDowell and Luce are not alone in their conclusion. 98% of youth ministers and pastors McDowell surveyed agree to that assessment. If that isn't alarming enough, another trend is helping to further paint a bleak picture of the state of the American church. In researching families in the US, the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life discovered a gut-wrenching statistic. Quote, 88% of children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return. This mass exodus is seen not just among Southern Baptist churches, but across denominational lines. Youth Transition Network reports when kids go to university, 70% walk away from the faith. An interview in a popular national radio program, a Christian youth leader, spoke with great concern about how many people were, leaving the church in droves. He had taken a survey to find out why these teenagers were turning their backs on God, and he cited the number one reason as, quote, a lack of opportunity in the church, end of quote, implying that the church should get its act together and give young people more opportunities. Ask any pastor if there are opportunities to serve within his church, and he'll no doubt tell you there is a lack of people willing to teach Sunday school, visit the sick and the elderly, go out with the evangelism team, clean the church building, etc. Perhaps there's another reason why young people are leaving the church in droves. As these statistics show, there are many today who name the name of Christ, but who have failed to depart from iniquity. They are false converts who have, asked Jesus into their hearts, but are actually unconverted because they have never truly repented. I can't put into words the heartbreak of seeing so many spurious converts who have left the church, and multitudes of false converts who stay within the church. Prolific author and pastor A.W. Tozer writes, It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some sort of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they have not been saved. Tozer is not alone in his conclusion. The late pastor D. James Kennedy of Coleridge Ministries had a similar observation. He said, The vast majority of people who are members of churches in America today are not Christians. I say that without the slightest fear of contradiction. I base it on empirical evidence of 24 years of examining thousands of people. How could this tragic situation have happened? How could vast numbers of people have been led to believe they're Christians when they're not? If you have struggled to understand why a loved one who has made a decision for Christ has no desire for the things of God, or why so many church members show little or no evidence for their faith, there is an explanation. And there is something you can do to change the situation. The parabolic key. Though the idea of false conversions may be new to us, the problem of false converts has existed since the beginning of the church, and is actually a topic Jesus spoke often about. For example, in Mark 4, 3-8, Jesus taught the crowd the well-known parable of the sower. This is what he said, Listen, behold, a sower went out to sow, and it happened as he sowed that some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it. Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth, and immediately sprang up, because there was no depth of earth. But when the sun came up, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. And some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. But other seed fell on good ground, and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased, and produced some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred. When Jesus told his disciples the parable of the sower, they did not understand what it meant. When they asked him about it later, he said, Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all parables? In other words, if they could comprehend the parable of the sower, they would hold the key to unlock the mystery of all the other parables. If there is one message that comes from the parable about the stony ground, the thorny ground, and the good ground, it is this. When the gospel is preached, there will be true and false conversions. Judas Iscariot, for example, was a false convert. He was a hypocrite, a pretender, whose desire, it seems, for riches and power choked out his affection for Christ. In terms of the parable, we would say that he was a thorny ground hearer, in whom the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Judas had no idea who Jesus really was. When a woman anointed Jesus with an expensive ointment in an act of sacrificial worship, Judas complained that the ointment should have been sold in the money given to the poor. In his estimation, Jesus of Nazareth wasn't worth such extravagance. He was worth only about 30 pieces of silver. Moreover, the Bible tells us that Judas was lying when he said that he cared for the poor. He was actually a thief, who so lacked a healthy fear of God that he was stealing money from the collection bag. Nevertheless, to all outward appearances, Judas was a follower and a disciple of Christ. If one grasps the principle that true and false converts will be alongside each other in the church, then all the other parables about the kingdom of God also make sense. The wheat and the tears, the good fish and the bad fish, the wise virgins and the foolish virgins, the sheep and the goats. Take, for example, the parable of the dragnet. This is from Matthew 13. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to the shore, and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels and threw the bad away. Saul will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. They'll be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Notice that the good fish and the bad fish were in the net together. Notice also that unbelievers are not caught in the dragnet of the kingdom of God. They remain in the world. The fish that are caught are those who hear and respond to the gospel, the evangelistic catch. They remain together, the true and the false, until the day of judgment. In Matthew 7.21, possibly the most frightening passage in scripture, Jesus spoke of many who would consider themselves Christians and yet not be saved. Jesus warned, quote, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Cast out demons in your name and done many wonderful works in your name. Then will I profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. End of quote. Look at how seemingly spiritual people can be and still not make it to heaven. They called Jesus Lord. They prophesied in his name. They cast out demons. They did many wonders in his name. These people are more spiritual than most of us and yet they'll be rejected by the one they call Lord. False converts do have a measure of spirituality. Judas certainly did. He had apparently convinced the other disciples that he truly cared for the poor and he seemed so trustworthy that he was the one who looked after the finances. And when Jesus said, one of you will betray me, the disciples didn't point the finger at Judas. Instead, they suspected themselves saying, Lord, is it I? That's why it's not surprising that so few within the body of Christ today would suspect that we're surrounded by those who fall into the Judas category. However, alarm should go off when we look at statistics such as those we cited in this chapter. Something is radically wrong. However, before we look at the remedy, we must consider the cause.