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January, 2022 (Vol.56-No.1) |
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Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on February 21, 1988 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Galatians 6:1 WHENEVER A SELF-RIGHTEOUS PREACHER gets caught in some kind of sin, the real tragedy is not that he sinned; it is that he had presented himself as someone who never did the very things he was caught doing. The word “hypocrite” comes from a Greek word for a stage actor. In ancient Greek drama, the actors wore masks that concealed their true identity. A hypocrite is someone who hides behind a mask while they put other people down. And once a preacher has been caught, all the other self-righteous preachers say, “Thank God I am not like that man!” They are quick to verbally stone the man to death, all the while hiding their own secret sins and hoping they won’t get caught. Those preachers would have us believe that their right to minister is based upon their never indulging in any fleshly sins. I am aware that this statement might shock some people, but who really gives a damn about what that “sinning” preacher supposedly did? What difference does it make who the preacher sleeps with? What matters is the preaching of the gospel! The heathen doctrine of perfectionism comes to us from ancient Babylon. The Babylonians believed that when people died, they would encounter someone at the entrance to heaven with scales set up, and their deeds would be weighed in the balance. And if their good deeds outweighed their bad deeds, they were allowed to enter in. Although this false doctrine of perfectionism came to fruition in Babylon, it was actually spawned in the Garden of Eden. God had told Adam and Eve that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die. But Satan came along and said, “If you eat the fruit of the tree that God forbade you to eat, you won’t die; you’ll be just like God!” And from that first encounter in the Garden until now, Satan’s message has been substituted for the message of the gospel. Satan told Adam and Eve that the knowledge of good and evil would make them be like God. In other words, once you possess that knowledge, all you have to do is perform what is good and avoid what is evil, as an act of the will. In the book of Colossians, Paul called that “will-worship.” It is the substitution of willpower for God’s grace, which is His unmerited favor. The conflict in the church today is still the same: will-worship versus grace. Satan has always gotten his job done by coming as an angel of light and changing God’s message. Satan said, “God said thus and so, but He didn’t mean it!” Satan has been busy within the ranks of the church trying to undo the Reformation. We owe much to the heritage of the Puritans and their contribution to ethics, but ethics and righteousness are light-years apart. Ethics are man-made and willpower-accomplished, whereas righteousness is an expression of God that is a gift from God to those who are recipients of His unmerited favor. Righteousness cannot be attained by any amount of willpower exercised in human flesh. It is time for the church to wake up to the reality that there is nothing more destructive to the gospel than the damnable, perverse doctrine of perfectionism! It is a heresy that has gripped the church from its early days, starting with the conflict between James and Paul and continuing all the way to the modern era. Perfectionists teach that those who preach the gospel must justify their right to preach by their own perfection; but the preacher’s personal behavior has nothing to do with his righteousness. Righteousness is a gift from God because of our faith. I maintain that a preacher’s personal life is no one’s business. It is a fatal idea, self-destructive to the church and the ministry, that the person who stands in the pulpit and preaches the gospel must “qualify” for that position by living a sinless life. There are plenty of self-righteous preachers who convey the idea that they are somehow “above” the sins that afflict their congregations. They believe that in order for someone to spiritually “arrive” and prove that they deserve God’s grace, they must be above the afflictions of sin. Whether it is said that way or not, they have changed Christianity and the gospel from being the unmerited gift of God to self-righteousness and will-worship, the ability to keep the flesh under control and never succumb to sin. I am well aware that most self-righteous Christians would immediately object to my words and say, “You’re making grace an excuse for sin!” No, I am not. The most profound truths in the Bible are paradoxes. Paradoxes are the hardest truths to explain because they go beyond Aristotelian logic, which dominates our thinking in the Western world. Most Christian preachers do not understand the basic paradox of Christianity. Few Christians believe it and even fewer faithe on it, yet it is at the core of Jesus’ teaching. Do you want to be first? Be last. I know of no fundamentalists who practice that principle. Do you want to live? Die. Do you want to be chief? Be a servant. Do you want to receive? Give. Is that what Jesus taught or not? It does not mean that you should try to be last in order to become first; it means you should be last with the full expectancy of always being last; and paradoxically, you will become first! Die without thinking about living, and you will live forevermore. Be a servant for the sake of being a servant, and you will end up being chief. Give with no expectancy of getting anything in return, and you will receive. That is the paradox. You will never become righteous by trying to be righteous. If you try to be righteous, that is will-worship. Most traditional preachers verbally hammer people into submission and exhort them to live a life of practiced, disciplined, will-worship. Paradoxically, if you practice faith, God’s Spirit will change you. Faith involves the will, but it involves the will in grabbing hold of a promise of God and defying every circumstance that contradicts that promise. The Bible says that Christ is formed in your heart by faith. Christ in you is a real, living power; God’s grace is a power that makes it no longer possible for the desires of the flesh to possess you. But as with any struggle, there are always intermediate phases. Watch a rocket when it lifts off: it moves slowly at first as it struggles to break free from gravity. It has just as much power as it struggles as it does when it gains momentum and ultimately breaks free; but at liftoff, there is a tug-of-war between two strong powers. The thrust of the rocket is predetermined to win if it does not fail and shut off; because when a greater power goes up against a lesser power, the greater power will win. The relative difference between the two powers will change over time, as the stronger power exercises its control for a longer time. In the initial stages of a launch, there is a period of time during which you cannot tell which power will win. But a rocket eventually breaks free from gravity and takes off. That is the principle of God’s power in us: for faith, God gives us His life, the deposit of His Spirit. That life is grace, unmerited favor, which is a power operating in a fleshly body ruled by the desires of the flesh. These two powers are at war with one another. Paul’s language in Galatians describes it as trench warfare, with each combatant dug in for a long fight. The Bible says that we have become the habitation of God’s Spirit. In our analogy, the lusts or desires of the flesh are like gravity, and the indwelling Spirit is like the thrust of the rocket engines. If the power of the indwelling Spirit stays energized within us, it will eventually begin to break our earthly tabernacle free from the desires of the flesh. We need to see time in relationship to eternity. The error of the perfectionists, even if they grasp that righteousness is a work of the Holy Spirit, is that they still want it accomplished instantly, like a television show that solves the problems of the world in thirty minutes. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians says that the God of peace, who has ceased to be against us, will sanctify us wholly in eternity. “Sanctification” mans “separation.” The indwelling Spirit of God latches on to the one who receives the gift of eternal life. This indwelling Spirit is a power within us that will separate the real self, the eternally preserved self. In their limited understanding, people often make foolish attempts to define the structure of man in such a way that they can identify which part is eternal and which is not. Man cannot be defined in this limited way, because man is a complete personality with the capacity to center himself on various parts of his being while looking at the rest of his being. That is why rationalism fails as a means of salvation. The self is so devious that it can use reason to justify its own self-willed desires and deceiving lusts. The Spirit of God is at war with the deceiving lusts of the flesh. If the indwelling Spirit stays in a man long enough, the new man being created in Christ’s image is separated to godliness, while the old man is dying daily. This new creature in Christ Jesus is the true meaning of the born-again experience. The new life is being separated from the drag of the flesh, which I have typified as gravity in my analogy. The Holy Spirit becomes the thrust of the rocket, or indeed the rocket itself, that takes us to our destiny in God. Again, Paul said in 1st Thessalonians that the God of peace shall separate us wholly in eternity, not here in this life. Our lifespan here on earth is not even measurable in comparison to our life in eternity. The process of sanctification begins here on earth and is finished in heaven. Until we are in heaven, every Spirit-filled Christian still has a remnant of deceiving desires in their temple of flesh. These desires will seize any opportunity to reach up and drag down the soaring spirit of man and make it a servant of fleshly lusts. The Spirit of God stays in us the same way that we receive Him: Christ is formed in our hearts by faith. Faith is the tenacious grabbing hold of God’s promise and acting on it. But the moment you take your eyes off of God’s word, the moment you stop acting in faith, the connection is broken, the Spirit is grieved away, and you are left at the mercy of the lusts of the flesh. You can get so busy “working for God” that you lose touch with the Source of life. Faith is ever new in its challenges, and it is ever demanding that we exercise courage in claiming God’s promises. But even the smallest grip on a promise of God keeps the connection of His Sprit in us and our life secure in Him. That is a gift from God and therefore brings us back to the paradox: you do not become “spiritual” by will-worship. Will-worship is merely the act of punishing the lusts of the flesh in an attempt to bring the flesh into submission. To the fundamentalist, only the most stoical are considered spiritual. To use a ludicrous illustration, if you happen to be a fundamentalist, you can thank God if you are poor because it diminishes your options for spending money on evil things. You can also thank God if you are physically unattractive because it diminishes your opportunity to indulge in sensual sins. By this “logic,” the best thing that could happen to you would be to get saved in a monastery, because as you diminish the opportunity for sin, will-worship looks better all the time. That is why so much of modern fundamentalist Christianity is so bland. Fundamentalism requires the elimination of temptation to make the doctrine work. I have dared to build a church that isn’t a fundamentalist monastery. I don’t want to build a ladies’ society or a men’s fellowship. I tell my congregation to go out into the world. God’s Spirit in us has more power than the power of the flesh, and that Spirit is maintained in us through continuing acts of faith. The result is spirituality, which is “the expressions of the Spirit” through us. As we act in faith, spirituality will become more and more the norm of our behavior, and the fruit or outgrowth of fleshly control will be seen less and less. That is the answer to the question, “Is grace an excuse for sin?” It is not, as long as you understand that the gift of God’s grace is a real power and not a mere theory. God’s grace is not just a viewpoint of forgiveness; it is an implant of His life dwelling in us even though we don’t merit His presence. You don’t’ have to clean up the house for the King to move in; simply invite Him in. He has enough power to set you free from the drag of sinning flesh! But there is another force at work in the life of the Christian: the power of the devil. Let’s face it: some people are a target of the devil more than others because of what they can do to shake the devil’s kingdom. So we not only confront the drag of the flesh, we confront the onslaught of the devil who pressures us to indulge the flesh. But God has promised, “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world!” God’s promises are obtained only if His life is in us; otherwise, they are merely clichés. A creed or a theory will not save you. Only God’s life has the power to deliver, and His life in us is maintained by continuing acts of faith. The traditional church has gone off the track with its perfectionist doctrine, condemning us every Sunday with their rules: do this, and don’t do that! It does not matter to me what you do in your personal life. I cannot stop your sinful behavior. If through some kind of perverted teaching of Christianity, I could make you feel guilty enough that you would gain enough willpower to sin less frequently and more secretly, all I would have done is deflect your energy into something that cannot save. Willpower might result in temporary or diminished subjection to the flesh, but it ultimately guarantees the dominance of the flesh. A preacher should teach you about God’s faithfulness instead of condemning you for your sins. Then you would be inspired by hearing the word to reach to faith to one of God’s promises that fits your need, and new life would come into you. You don’t have to feel anything to receive God’s Spirit. But I can guarantee that if you maintain your faith, the new life in you will overpower the drag of the flesh progressively, consistently, and continually. You will therefore be in the process of being sanctified by the sanctifying Spirit. As the New Testament teaches, sanctification is by, in, and through the Holy Spirit. This new life in you will be sanctifying you. Only God’s Spirit has the power to set you free from any besetting sin. The preaching of perfectionism and condemnation only serves to drive sinful behavior underground. It compounds the sin by covering it up. If God could speak to Balaam through an ass, you had better learn to distinguish between the messages and the messenger. I am not the pastor of this church because I am perfect; I am not perfect. Like Paul, I say that I am the chief of sinners. But God doesn’t look at our relative perfection or imperfection; He saves us as an act of grace in response to our faith in His promises! Do you understand what Satan has done to the church? Fundamentalists preach the perverted doctrine of perfectionism while they say of themselves, “I am not a sinner.” There are even self-righteous newsmen who tell preachers that if they are ever caught in a sin, they no longer have the right to preach. Corrupt, deceiving desires dwell in every human being, and therefore dwell in hypocritical preachers. So what? Would you want people to see a video that exposes every minute of every day of your life for the last seven years? There are some days when my faith is strong, and on those days, the old man is losing. There are other days when my faith is not as strong and I am just barely hanging on. The desires of the flesh still drag me down. Those are the times when the old man can take over. Those desires will remain until “the God of peace shall sanctify us wholly” in heaven, separating us from this old body, and we become a new creation with a new body over there. There are times when our faith accomplishes a victory. But when we have no fresh object of faith, there is no strain in our circumstances that drives us to the point where we must grab hold of a promise of God. When we are busy rejoicing in the victory, the occasion for faith has gone, and the old man starts to dominate. That is why times of victory are often a prelude to failure. Faith, paradoxically, connects us with God. He puts His life in us and is in the process of setting us free. But if we relax our grip of faith because of a victory or because of pressure, then the old man will take over. This will be our lot until we complete our journey to glory. The doctrine of perfectionism is impossible to live by. If Satan had his way, no one could ever preach the gospel. No one can complete their journey to glory without momentary lapses of faith, and anyone’s faith can lapse for a variety of reasons. Our faith can lapse as a result of experiencing victory, persecution, or problems; our faith can lapse as a result of a lack of attention to God’s word. We read in the King James Version that Satan withdrew “for a season” after he tempted Jesus. In the original Greek, it says that Satan departed until an opportune time: he backed up like a boxer looking for an opening. Satan never relaxes. One moment we are fighting the fight of faith, but then we drop our guard and our old man takes over. Galatians 6:1 makes it clear: “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” This exhortation is not only for saints, it is also for preachers. What does it mean to be “overtaken in a fault?” Most Christians think it means someone got caught sinning, but that is not what it means. It means someone was overtaken by the force of the old man that dwells in all of us. To use our earlier analogy, the force of the old man overtook the power of the rocket of God’s Spirit. God’s grace as power can lift us free from our nature. There is warfare between the lusts of the flesh and the indwelling Spirit that God placed in us solely in response to our continuing faith. Galatians 6:1 does not describe a man who got caught by someone spying on him. It speaks of anyone whose old nature overtook him in the process of his escape toward glory. God’s word declares that if someone is overtaken in that way, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in the spirit of meekness and consider yourself, lest you also be overtaken. Before you draw back and judge that person with relish, consider yourself. Don’t be so quick to think, “Look at that sinner? Thank God I’m not like him.” He got caught, but what caught him was his own nature. And “ye which are spiritual, restore such an one,” because the same nature of sinning flesh dwells in all of us, and we are only set free by the gift of God’s Spirit placed in because of our faith. Therefore, if a brother be overtaken, you who are spiritual should restore him with meekness and consider yourself, because tomorrow it might be you whom the old nature overtakes. If preached properly, the same gospel affects both the preacher and the hearer. It is axiomatic that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Therefore, the preacher of God’s word will be affected by the same word of God, and faith will come, but by varying degrees because we all start at different points. A measure of faith is given to everyone. Who am I to say to what degree the word of God will affect someone else? But I can assure you that as your faith takes hold of God’s word, God’s freedom-giving Spirit takes hold of you. And as you maintain your grip of faith on God’s word, God’s Spirit maintains His grip on you. Now that grip, by varying degrees, sets us free from the lusts of the flesh that have varying degrees of hold. Again, if you let that connection be broken by success, depression, or a habit formed through the pressure of peers or religion, and if you depart into will-worship, then the power of the flesh and the oppression of Satan will seize their opportunity, and you will be overtaken. You cannot be saved by applied willpower. The church has become dominated by big-mouthed perverters of the gospel, and they have set us up for the sinning world to persecute us every time they find fault with a preacher. If you live by the sword of perfectionism, you will die by that sword. Perfectionism is not the criterion for entrance into God’s kingdom. I have never suggested that I am without sin. A preacher can become exhausted in faith as easily as any member of the congregation can. Most Christians think that their pastors are too strong to fail. That is why when I came to this church, I said, “You will receive the message as distinct from the messenger. And if the message is right, then it is none of your business what I do in my personal life. That’s between me and God. His power is at war with the old man in me.” As more and more preachers are exposed by the fallacy of their perfectionism, there will be fewer preachers left. Maybe the church will then listen to the good news of the gospel that is available to you and to me. That message is just as necessary on the last day of our Christian journey as it was on the first. That is the message of the gospel! The world and the news media always want to “defrock” a preacher who gets caught in a sin, which is rather idiotic and exposes their misguided way of thinking. The Bible says that the calling and election of God are without repentance, and God is the one who sets ministries apart. It shows the ignorance of people in the news media who think that a ministry is valid only if the sinning pastor can be defrocked by a bunch of presbyters who have not been caught yet. I wish those self-righteous, carping preachers would finally stop peddling their stupid message of perfectionism and stand alongside me and declare, “Any one of us could fall, but the Bible says, ‘Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.’” But I don’t expect that to happen, because there is too much peer pressure within the ministry. In their view, the only way for a sinning preacher to be “restored” is by confessing his sins before the congregation and promising to never sin again, and then doing enough penance to frighten all the uncaught elders and presbyters. Then, he might preach a sermon on Psalm 51 and say, “David had an affair with Bathsheba; but he got his heart right with God and prayed, ‘Against thee, O lord, have I sinned,’ and was therefore allowed to continue to be king.” If you keep reading about David, you will find that when he was an old man and his bones were cold, he was given a young lady to keep him warm at night. And he still died a man after God’s own heart! I am not recommending sin. Solomon had more opportunity for sin than anyone, and he ended up saying it was all vanity. The more mature you get, the more you come to hate the long-lasting rewards of catering to the flesh, because the ultimate reward is death. We are all sinners being saved by grace! Let’s keep our eyes focused on God’s word of promise. Let’s keep walking by faith the way we have been doing it: by tackling challenges of faith. The message of perfectionism and condemnation is Satan’s message. It is Satan’s message that makes Christianity into an ethical application of will-worship. The world does not get to define Christianity because they don’t even believe in a supernatural God. They apply their own standard and will only “allow” preachers to minister if we live up to their standard of perfectionism, which they themselves don’t live by. God calls preachers, and for years, He has been calling preachers who are vessels of sinning flesh. The gospel is the good news that Christ died to save sinners, which includes sinning preachers and sinning saints. If a brother be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual should restore him with meekness and watch out for your own nature, because the devil is like a crouching lion, ready to grab you at the first opportunity. The real sin of self-righteous preaches is not what the traditional church or even the world calls sin. Their real sin is that they have been parroting Satan’s doctrine by preaching that we can be perfect and that perfection is the criterion for being a preacher. The first criterion for being a preacher is the call of God, and He has been calling sinners for many years. The second criterion is the message that is preached. You can blow on a trumpet, but if there is no song, no one wants to listen to it. The message of the church is the message of grace! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2022 Wingspread | November, 2022 Wingspread November, 2022 Wingsprea | October, 2022 Wingspread | September, 2022 Wingspread | August, 2022 Wingspread | July, 2022 Wingspread | June, 2022 Wingspread | May, 2022 Wingspead | April, 2022 Wingspread | March, 2022 Wingspread | February, 2022 Wingspread | January, 2022 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
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