Promoting Revival/Preparing for the Judgment

[Jenn]

This is from The Last Call: A Revival Handbook, by Jack T. Chick

   

I purchased this book along with a large collection of Chick tracts in my high school teen years. I was psyched about the whole concept of "revival." This same concept of cleaning all the unconfessed sin out of your life reemerged my last year at BJU when I was studying Biblical Counseling. I was in a panic because I had no clear leading from God about what to do with my life. And all my study of counseling had me convinced that some unconfessed sin could be preventing God from answering my prayers. I started apologizing to people for all sorts of long forgotten offenses from years gone by. And also confronting people that annoyed me, because if a brother offends you, you have to confront him. And then wait for his apology, so you can forgive him. I can see now that this theology has to be absolutely riddled with error. For one, it is impossible to live by! (Without going insane!) I am too burned out to really want to search for the chapter and verse errors in this thinking. But maybe some of you theologians would like to take a shot.

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**This Chick book is full of lectures by Charles Finney. I don't know if this page was written by Chick or Finney.

[Don]

(01-10-2011 01:02 AM)Jenn Wrote:  This is from The Last Call: A Revival Handbook, by Jack T. Chick

I purchased this book along with a large collection of Chick tracts in my high school teen years. I was psyched about the whole concept of "revival." This same concept of cleaning all the unconfessed sin out of your life reemerged my last year at BJU when I was studying Biblical Counseling. I was in a panic because I had no clear leading from God about what to do with my life. And all my study of counseling had me convinced that some unconfessed sin could be preventing God from answering my prayers. I started apologizing to people for all sorts of long forgotten offenses from years gone by. And also confronting people that annoyed me, because if a brother offends you, you have to confront him. And then wait for his apology, so you can forgive him. I can see now that this theology has to be absolutely riddled with error. For one, it is impossible to live by! (Without going insane!) I am too burned out to really want to search for the chapter and verse errors in this thinking. But maybe some of you theologians would like to take a shot.

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**This Chick book is full of lectures by Charles Finney. I don't know if this page was written by Chick or Finney.

This type of thinking is in direct conflict with Romans 8:1,

Quote:There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

and Galatians 3:1-3,

Quote:You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

[Darren]

Here's what Paul had to say about dredging up the past:

Paul Wrote:Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Philippians 3:12-16.

All of chapter 3 is about how Paul had to lay aside his past in order to move forward for Christ.

All of this twisted theology of Finney, Chick and a whole lot of Fundys is based on an egregious misreading of I John 1:9. If you actually read all of I John 1 as a unit it is clear that verse 9 is merely saying that we need to acknowledge our sinfulness for God to accept us, and not be like those in verse 8 who say they are without sin. The fact that God cannot use a Christian living in open, habitual sin is obvious and is stated in a multitude of references, including I John 1. But to dredge up stuff we may not even remember from our past in order to make our present better is straight out of Freud, not the Bible.

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Jenn,
Thanks for your post. This was a struggle for me as well, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share some of what the Lord taught me.

God bless you!

[mounty]

That's awful. And dangerous. Awfully dangerous. That page sums up perfectly the fundy mindset that God is waiting with a big stick, hands twitchy, muscles tensed, ready to thwack you the instant you screw up. That is, basically, another gospel, one that says that Christ's atonement wasn't enough to cover your future sins and demanding you get re-saved every time you sin. Because, if you think about it, the fundy salvation pattern is to ask forgiveness for all your sins collectively, then as you sin in the future, ask forgiveness (again) for each one (or all at once at night works too). They don't go so far as to say that you lose your salvation when you sin, but the implication is there. If you have to go through the same motions as salvation every time you sin...well, you connect the dots.

BTW, I still struggle with the remnants of fundy definitions of forgiveness as it relates to my sins and my standing with God. Thanks to all you guys who have posted Scripture...keep it coming!

[Jenn]

What has been the worst for me is the requirement to confess to people. The idea of humiliating myself in front of people, confronting people for their offenses, and possibly facing public consequences from "authority" for personal problems makes me want to barf.

Some verses that come to mind off the top of my head...

If a brother sins against you rebuke him, if he repents forgive him.

do not even eat with someone who calls themself a Christian who is a fornicator, etc. (I confronted two friends, but would never separate from one nearest and dearest to me)

do not bring your gift to the altar until you are right with your brother

"If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me." (literally used in a sermon at BJU to coerce students into confessing their transgressions against the institution to Mr. Berg.)

My solution finally became just giving up. And there was a long time in my life where I thought God would surely strike me dead because I am so useless to Him. Or even worse, cripple me in some way to bring me back to Him.

All the feedback here is awesome. I am so happy to be in the company of friends.

[Darren]

(01-10-2011 02:21 PM)Jenn Wrote:  What has been the worst for me is the requirement to confess to people. The idea of humiliating myself in front of people, confronting people for their offenses, and possibly facing public consequences from "authority" for personal problems makes me want to barf.

Some verses that come to mind off the top of my head...

If a brother sins against you rebuke him, if he repents forgive him.

do not even eat with someone who calls themself a Christian who is a fornicator, etc. (I confronted two friends, but would never separate from one nearest and dearest to me)

do not bring your gift to the altar until you are right with your brother

"If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me." (literally used in a sermon at BJU to coerce students into confessing their transgressions against the institution to Mr. Berg.)

My solution finally became just giving up. And there was a long time in my life where I thought God would surely strike me dead because I am so useless to Him. Or even worse, cripple me in some way to bring me back to Him.

First of all, Scripture never requires you to confess to someone who is not directly involved. Anyone not involved who would try to manipulate you into confessing something to them is doing violence to you and Scripture.

Regarding your last point, a little context will help:

Psalm 66:18-19 Wrote:If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

There is a huge difference between being unwilling to admit sin (which is a real problem) and having some deep "secret" sin that God is somehow holding against you (a problem that does not exist in Scripture). I am not saying that- for example, you stole something from someone years ago and God gives you an opportunity to pay it back and be a positive witness- God would never want you to deal with past sin with someone else. But even in that case He Himself would not hold it against you. He's already forgiven you of all your sin.

The other situations you describe, I Corinthians 5 (and similarly, Matthew 18) deals with church discipline issues. Look at those chapters in their context.

Any other suggestions?

[Jenn]

What if you lied to someone? What if the dean of women said, "did you do this?" And rather than face public humiliation and expulsion, you denied denied denied. What if what you did was really nobody's business?

[LMcC]

(01-10-2011 05:31 PM)Jenn Wrote:  What if you lied to someone? What if the dean of women said, "did you do this?" And rather than face public humiliation and expulsion, you denied denied denied. What if what you did was really nobody's business?

Jenn, under the circumstances described, it's called "saving your butt", and I don't really have a problem with that under most BJU circumstances. There's a lot of non-sin "sin" in Fundyland, and there's a lot of overreaction to a few real sins that is wholly undeserved. I got chewed out, griped at, and in trouble for faux "sins", and I learned to keep my big mouth shut over the real ones no matter how dinky. I look back at it now and can only wonder what on Earth anyone was thinking to make non-sins into sin and/or trying to make a monster deal out of a sin that did not affect them in any way.

[exIFB]

Don't worry about your past sins. If you had to confess them all or "make them right" in order to be forgiven, noone would ever be saved. Think about how many sins you have probably forgotten. But don't think too long, because remember this - God remembered them, and He remembered to put them away in the body of Jesus Christ. So don't worry, be happy.

[Jenn]

I had an older and wiser roommate who saved my butt. She was Ukrainian, and kept comparing the BJU system to communism. I was on the brink of spilling my guts to the authorities, when she told me that once she had a fundie pastor who she confessed something to, and she did not feel any better, just worse and embarrassed. I'm glad I did not go there. Very glad. But the intimidation I received from one dorm supervisor upon my change of mind, is something that brought on such a major depression, a darkness that was a living hell. Thank God, I really am talking about this from the outside right now. There has to be a reason I went through all this.