Peter Witkowski Apologetics, Discipleship

The Beaten Yet Victorious Church: My Hope!

church-1The churches of the Southern Baptist Convention are in sad shape. SBC pastors and leaders rejoiced last year when Tom Rainer, the President of Lifeway, released new statistics that implied that only 65% of evangelical churches were in decline. Previously, church growth experts had estimated that approximately 80% of churches were either plateaued of declining. The Department of Defense becomes uneasy when 14% of its forces are unfit for battle. The Church rejoices to discover that 45% her units are ready for the kingdom fight.

When we dig into the statics a little more, we discover why churches consider less bad news good news. According to the SBC annual report only 1 out of every 3 Southern Baptists attends church each Sunday. Two-thirds of our church members skip church every Sunday. And only 39% of those who regularly attend church read their Bibles every day. Because of the lack of Church attendance and because of their lack of biblical knowledge, most Christians more closely resemble their culture than the Scriptures. Seventy-six percent of Christians believe that the best way to find yourself is to look within; 72% believe that joy and fulfillment come through pursuing their desires; and, 40% believe that all sexual expression are permitted. Another study revealed that Christians where just as likely as their neighbors to buy lottery tickets, to have affairs, to lie, to seek revenge, and to steal. The main benefit of Christendom consists in the reduction of alcohol and swearing. Though 84% of Americans know someone who claims to be a Christian. Only 15% of Americans know a Christian who has been radically transformed by the gospel. The church is a mess.

But that is not all. The American culture has fixed her sights upon the church and has been firing salvo after salvo at our rickety vessel. The American culture which has embraced the religion of self has little patience for a religion that calls people to die to themselves. Ninety-one percent of Americans belief self-revelation is the key to happiness, and 89% believe that those who criticize the choices of others have gone against the moral code. Consequently, 60% of Americans view evangelism to be as extreme conducting a religious war. Preaching the morality of the Bible is deemed to be as dangerous as attempting to blow up Time Square according to a majority of Americans. They view the Bible as being outdated, irrelevant, and dangerous. Those who affirm the Scriptures, stand on the Word of God, and teach the Bible are said to be on the wrong side of history, standing with the bigoted backwards men and women of yesteryear. The number of Americans who identify with evangelical church continues to decline, and the fastest growing religious group in America continues to be the Nones, those who have no religious affiliation. The cry of Nitcheze is increasingly the cry of America, “God is dead.”

The church is both eroding from within and collapsing from without.

Though the evangelical church in America has been battered and bruised, she possesses great hope! In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says,

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The church has great hope, because Jesus builds the Church.

The Church exists not because of our church growth plans and not because of our welcome packets. Those things aren’t bad, but they do not make the church go. Nor will they save the church. As Lloyd-Jones noted years ago,

The problem confronting us is not a problem of methods, or of organization, or of making a slight adjustment here and there, or improving things a little bit, or keeping them up-to-date, or anything like that.

A recent Lifeway study of church planters revealed that the church does not grow through human means. Three percent or less of the new congregations came to their churches because they Newspaper adds, billboards, or fliers. Another 6% came to church because of the church’s social media presence. The overwhelming majority of people attending the church,  77%, came because they had relationship with someone in the church.

Jesus builds the Church through the proclamation of the Gospel.  As Lloyd-Jones notes,

Men can produce evangelistic campaigns, but they cannot and never produce a revival…A revival by definition, is the mighty act of God and it is a sovereign act of God…Man can do nothing. God, and God alone, does it.

God does it alone and he does it. He works. He builds the church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it!

Nitcheze is dead.  The church is not. God builds the church. God defends the church against the attacks of Satan and the world. From the get go the church has faced daunting odds both from without and from within. Men and women like Simeon the magician join the church and try to buy their way into leadership (Acts 8:9-24). The church at Corinth tolerates a man having an affair with his step mom (1 Cor. 5).  False teachers come in and twist the gospel at Galatia (Gal. 1:6-10). Jude and 3 John demonstratively warn to the church to be on the lookout for wolves in sheep’s clothing. Paul and the Jews imprison and murder Christians (Acts 8:1-3). Nero, Diocletian, Julian and other Roman leaders abused and murder Christians for political gain and for sport. The church has always been under attack.

The reformer, Martin Luther lamented the state of the church which was overrun with sin, sexual immorality and pride because the gospel was seldom preached. J.C. Ryle stood for the gospel in the 1800’s as British society abandoned the gospel viewing it to be old and antiquated. In the 1930’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer lamented that many in the church were preaching salvation without requiring “repentance.” And in the 1980’s D. Martin Lloyd-Jones was already defended the church from modern thinkers who believed humanity had evolved beyond abilities of the Bible. But despite all the corrosion from within and the attacks from without. The church remains. Rome is gone. The political power of the Vatican is at an end. The Holy Roman Empire is gone. But the church remains because she is God’s and God builds his church!

As I prepare to leave First Baptist Church Eastman and begin to serve at Amissville Baptist Church, I find great hope and encouragement from the words of Christ. I leave a church with problems and go to a church with problems. But none of them are too great for God. If we the people of God will stand upon his Word if we will faithfully preach the gospel and regularly repent, we have every reason to be hopeful! God builds his church on Christ through the proclamation of the Scriptures. The success of the Church does not depend on my ingenuity or yours. It depends on God. And the God who created the universe and who redeemed a lost and sinful people is more than up to the task. He has built his church and will continue to build it! I will shortly embark to become the senior pastor of ABC because I know God builds and defends his church! To God be the glory!

Peter Witkowski Apologetics

School Shootings, Tragedy, and The Gospel

school-blog-School shootings are horrific. But they are not beyond the realm of the Gospel. School shootings fit within the Gospel narrative.

When Adam and Eve turned from God and embraced sin, they truly knocked the lid off of Pandora’s Box, welcoming untold evil into the world. Their son Cain committed the first murder. Five generations later, Lamech boasted of senselessly killing those who offended him (Gen. 4:23). Pharaoh tossed new born, baby boys into the Nile. Herod murder thousands of infant whose only crime was living in the wrong city at the wrong time. And, the descendants of Adam and Eve flogged the perfect, loving, and holy Son of God, indented a crown of thrones into his head, and pounded nails into his flesh. The children of Adam and Even have carried out all kinds of unspeakable evil throughout the ages.  God declared that:

The heart is deceitful above all things,
    and desperately sick;
    who can understand it?

Thankful God does. And God knew about this school shooting would come. He knew that his once perfect creation would be overcome by evil. He knew that students would listen to bullets zip by their heads into the head of their beloved classmates. He knew that law enforcement agents would have to lovingly destroy a mother’s last irrational hope, by telling her that her child had died. He knew that the world would look on in despair as the News anchors swarmed the highs school. He knew the depths of human depravity.

And so, he took action because he loves us. He took action before the world began, ordaining his son to die on the cross (Rev. 13:8).  He sent his son to die for sinners. He sent his son to save us because we have all been overcome by evil even if only in the smallest of ways. “As it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. (Rm 10:10-11). By dying on the cross, Jesus paid for all of our evil acts. He took all of our eternal punishments and gave us his righteousness.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed (1 Pt. 2:21).

Because Christ came and died, He can and does address the evil that transpired at Parkland.

He can deeply empathize with the parents who lost their children. He buried His only Son who was ruthlessly tortured to death. He knows the grief that is filling Parkland. And he is the perfect counselor and comforter.  And He teaches his people, the church to care for those who are suffering by mourning with them, praying for them, and serving them.

But God is more than a god of empathy, God is the victor. He has conquered evil. Though men killed Jesus, Jesus came back to life. He rose from the grave revealing that the evil actions of men and women are not the sum total of the story. Cruz does not get the final say. Jesus’s resurrection is the grantee that all will be made right. He will return. He will usher in a world where there is no gun violence, flu epidemics, or seasons of political corruption. Jesus will make all things right. The story does not end today. There will be a divine reckoning when the justice of God turns the world upside right again.God will restore justice and shows all how to implement justice in this world.

Though the events at Parkland stand seemingly outside the realm of human comprehension, they do not stand outside the flow of the Gospel. When we see the depths of depravity as we did today, the glory of the Gospel becomes ever clearer and ever more needed. The Gospel message is for today of all days!

May God bless and have mercy upon all those who have been murdered, hurt, and left behind to grieve.

Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Will Guns Make Church Safe?

pistolAnd that just happened. An 80 year-old man shot himself and his wife while the couple was engaged in a conversation about the recent church shooting in Texas. And the location of the shooting was First United Methodist Church in Tellico Plains, Tennessee. The irony of the story cannot be missed. I suspect USA Today ran the story because the account fits nicely with the mantra that a guns do not prevent gun violence. While I have no wish to discuss the political nature of this news story, I think we should reflect on the story because it reveals a spiritual irony as well.

As the very weapon that signaled safety was accidentally discharge, Christians were reminded of the futility of trusting in weapons for safety. Yes the deaths of the 27 church members in Texas troubles our minds. Christians should recognize that they live in a fallen and broken world filled with broken people who are capable of doing horrific things. Christians who value wisdom and maintaining a good witness to the world should embrace security measures and take steps to keep their church community safe. Churches that allow children to leave their premises without supervision are foolishly opening the church up to crisis that could undermine their ability to preach the gospel.

Though our protocols, security measures, and security personal are needed, these measures cannot be the source of our security and hope. Rules and safety protocols cannot the guarantee that we will never get hurt. We lack the omniscience of God. We cannot prevent all tragedies regardless of how much time, strength, and money we devote to safety. The best systems can be beat. Insurance companies recognize this reality and only demand that churches and similar institutions make a reasonable effort to prevent crimes from occurring. No group of people, systems, or human foresight can protect us perfectly. This is not a problem for the Christian.

In Jeremiah 9:23-24, the prophet warns us saying,

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his strength, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, the he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight.”   

The hope of the Christians is Christ. Our boast is not the gun that can be misused to shoot us and our loved ones. Our boast is in the Lord of heaven and earth. Our surety of peace and joy comes from him. And our boast in not a boast of earthly prominence, wisdom and safety. Rather, we boast in the fact that nothing can separate us from the God we love.

We should not attend church because our church posted a sign declaring that the sanctuary is full of concealed weapons. Guns cannot stop all persecution. In fact Christ promises that his disciples will be persecuted. Rather, we go to church understanding the risk because we know who Jesus is. We go because we have experienced the forgiveness of sins that comes through the blood of Christ. We go because nothing can stop us from worshiping the God we trust with our very lives. In Psalm 20:7, the Psalmist tells us that God saves his anointed. Equipped with this knowledge, we can confidently say, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” We go to church because we trust God.

I encourage you, trust in the Lord who never errs.  Do not place your faith in the gun of your fellow church member who might accidently shoot you.

What do you trust?