Sermon Tone Analysis

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”

[1]

In his 1934 book, The Kingdom of God in America, H.

Richard Niebuhr depicted the creed of liberal Protestant theology, which was called “modernism” in those days, in these famous words: “A God without wrath brought man without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

Niebuhr was no fundamentalist, but he did know what he was talking about.

Similarly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer realised the transformation that was taking place within the mainline religion he encountered in America in the 1930s; he named that aberration, Protestantismus ohne Reformation, “Protestantism without the Reformation.”

Sin, judgement, the cross and even Christ have all proven to be problematic terms in much of contemporary theology.

However, it seems that nothing so irritates the progressive mindset as the idea of divine wrath.

Perhaps you are aware, if only in a passing manner, of the controversy that flared this past summer over the decision of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song to exclude from its new hymnal the greatly loved song, “In Christ Alone.”

The Committee wanted to include this song because it was being sung in many churches.

However, they could not accept a line from the third stanza of the song:

“Till on that cross as Jesus died/the wrath of God was satisfied.”

The Committee wanted to change the wording to say:

“Till on that cross as Jesus died/the love of God was magnified.”

The authors of the hymn, Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend, were unwilling to agree to the change proposed by the Presbyterian committee; they insisted on the original wording.

Consequently, the Committee voted nine to six that “In Christ Alone” would not be among the eight hundred or so items in their new hymnal.

Perhaps the fact that Stuart Townsend had written a song in 1995 that exalted the Father’s love [2] figured in this decision; but divine love was already addressed in “In Christ Alone.”

“In Christ alone, who took on flesh/fullness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness/scorned by the ones He came to save.”

Obviously, the song writers did clearly state that Christ is God’s gift of love to the world.

However, it was apparent that the Committee’s objection to the hymn grew out of opposition to the biblical doctrine of divine wrath rather than any desire to exalt the love of God.

Theirs was what has become the standard liberal emphasis on the love of God at the expense of wrath.

Nevertheless, without God’s wrath, His love is meaningless!

According to Timothy George, modifying hymns to suit popular taste is nothing new; he provides numerous examples such the following instances of such modification.

[3] Nestorians in the early days of the churches altered their Marian liturgy to suit their own preference.

More recently, the Universalist leader, Kenneth L. Patton, kept the tune of “Ein Feste Burg” by Martin Luther, even though he replaced “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” with “Man is the earth Upright and Proud.”

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings the Reginald Heber hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the tune of “Nicaea,” but rather than singing in the first and last stanza, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity,” they sing “God in thy glory through eternity.”

Those who consign the wrath of God to the realm of the verboten, whether in sermons or hymns, stand in a long lineage extending back to the earliest days of the Faith.

According to Tertullian, an unnamed revisionist in the second century, a follower of the heretic Marcion, wrote, “A better god has been discovered, who never takes offence, is never angry, never inflicts punishment, who has prepared no fire in hell, no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness!

He is purely and simply good.”

[4] The lure of such a gospel is exhilarating, explaining the reason that neo-Marcionism (exalting God’s wrath in the Old Testament and exalting his love in the New) is still flourishing today not only in popular piety but also among many religious scholars.

Doctor George cites R.P.C. Hanson as writing that “many preachers today deal with God's wrath the way the Victorians handled sex, treating it as something a bit shameful, embarrassing and best left in the closet.”

[5] The result of contemporary disdain for teaching the wrath of God is a less than fully biblical construal of who God is and what he has done, especially in the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ.

Clearly the work of Christ on the cross means that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself” [see 2 CORINTHIANS 5:19].

His work reminds us that God “gave Him up for us all” [see ROMANS 8:32]; it means that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” [see ACTS 2:23].

Undoubtedly, on the cross, the Son of God provided both expiation and propitiation, averting divine judgement.

Indeed, the wrath of God was poured out on the Son of God so that we need not stand in fear of that wrath.

This excursus focused on one area of departure from the Faith, howbeit a major area of deviation.

In the text, Paul appears to focus on two issues of turning away that were then beginning to be witnessed among the Faithful.

With the passage of time, deviation from the Faith would become ever more pronounced, until at last professing Christendom will be utterly apostatised.

One must wonder whether we are now approximating that critical state from which there is no return.

The condition becomes at last so pronounced that even the Master would ask, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth” [LUKE 18:8b]?

*ATROPHY OF THE AGE* — “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith.”

In contradistinction to the fanciful imaginations of sinful man, the picture painted by the Apostle is exceptionally dark.

The history of the churches during the past several centuries is a history best described by self-deception and deep disappointment.

There arose at the dawn of the last century an idealised eschatology known as post-millennialism.

Post-millennialism envisioned that the world would be progressively “Christianised” as the Faith spread throughout the earth.

Concomitant with the progressive Christianisation would be the advent of new civility, new decency and universal righteousness as the Faith became omnipresent and increasingly powerful.

Proponents envisioned a time when the world would become so “good” that Christ would return to take what the churches had produced.

In effect, post-millennialism postulated that the churches would bring in the millennial reign of Christ through their efforts.

Essentially, post-millennialism as presented throughout the early decades of the Twentieth Century was jettisoned as a viable eschatological school after the two great world wars that were fought during the first half of that century.

The Second World War, especially, destroyed the idea that the world was getting better.

Think about the disappointment advocates of this eschatology faced in the past century.

In the first half of the Twentieth Century the world was subjected to the First World War, the Russian Civil War, the Finnish Civil War, the Cristero War in Mexico, the Spanish Civil War, the Irish Civil War, World War Two and the Korean War.

The second half of that century of conflict witnessed Vietnam, the invasion of Grenada and Panama, the Falklands conflict and multiple sustained conflicts throughout Asia, Africa and South America.

The idea that the Faith would somehow win the hearts of all mankind was a fantasy unworthy of the Word; the history of the last century was testament to the darkened heart of fallen mankind.

How true are the words of the Master: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” [MATTHEW 10:34-37].

And though the words pointedly address the conditions that will prevail as the end of the age nears, Christians do well to heed the caution of the Master when He said, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” [MATTHEW 24:6-8].

Despite the failure of this aberrant eschatology, post-millennialism enjoys new life in new forms today.

Variously identified today as Dominion Theology, Theonomy or Christian Reconstructionism, the view popularised in some circles envisions a world that is brought under the Law of God through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Great Commission.

The philosophy sees human government throughout the earth conforming to the Law of God.

The movement may be more dangerous than some have imagined, combining as it does elements of Calvinism and Charismatic theology and thus appealing broadly among the Faithful.

I am not a prophet, nor was I a prophet’s son; however, I do believe that we have not witnessed the last of novel theologies arising to draw away believers from pursuing the Lord.

Jesus Himself cautioned, “See that no one leads you astray” [MATTHEW 24:4].

His warning is invalid if there is no danger; but it is precisely because there is danger that He spoke as He did.

Addressing the elders of Ephesus, the Apostle warned, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” [ACTS 20:29, 30].

Of this we may be certain, as has been true throughout this Age of Grace and as shall continue until the Master calls out His people, novel theologies shall appear continually.

Charismatic charlatans shall continually rise up, drawing a bewildering number of professed Christians after themselves.

These new theologies will initially appear attractive until adherents are enmeshed in the deceitful web each produces.

What the child of God must always keep in mind is the source of these novel teachings—they are the teachings of demons, having their genesis in deceitful spirits.

Let the people of God be wary, heeding the apostolic warning.

Whilst the Great Apostasy that will sweep over the churches awaits some future date, there will be a continual atrophy of the Faith throughout the course of this age.

We cannot say at what point the churches will utterly reject the Faith, embracing their own cunning ideals, but we are assured that such a date is coming and it may be very soon.

What we can say with certainty is that churches and denominations will always be tempted to become squishy on doctrine; and the threat that these religious institutions will reject truth in favour of what feels good always hangs like the sword of Damocles over the assemblies of our Lord.

The threat of departure from the Faith—the possibility that professing Christendom will cease standing firm—is a constant theme throughout Paul’s writings.

Ponder a few instances that have been written.

Early in his ministry of writing, Paul warned the saints in Thessalonica, “You yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

For you are all children of light, children of the day.

We are not of the night or of the darkness.

So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” [1 THESSALONIANS 5:2-10].

Paul also warned them, “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

Let no one deceive you in any way.

For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?

And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.