Religion in our time has been reduced in most instances to what makes you feel good. Today’s religious scene is filled with invitations to achieve an emotional “high” by coming to Christ. “God loves you” today means that He wants you to be happy and healthy, as well as financially sound. Much of the preaching on television is little more than a health and wealth gospel, one where you just “sow a seed,” and God will make a bumper crop for you, one where you will not only be wealthy, but conspicuously happy. The “ministry” may be different on different TV channels, the evangelist dressed in varying degrees of formality, ranging from fancy suits to open-necked sports shirts and blue jeans, but the message is basically the same. Just send in a “seed” and the multiplication of that seed will net you a “bountiful harvest.” No word is given as to how God will do it, just that He will.

Furthermore, if you have something that ails you, some nagging physical malady, all you need do is call the prayer line, or mail in a prayer request, or invest a little money for a prayer cloth, or some Jerusalem healing oil, and you can be immediately and completely healed of your sickness or disease. Many TV programs join– in progress–a “healing service” where the laying on of hands is being administered so as to achieve the promised deliverance from pain and hurt. Some are falling backward, some fainting, some are overwhelmed “at the power of the Spirit.” Sometimes there will be “testimonies” about how someone has been “healed” from some malady. It helps, too, if you make a donation to the “ministry” in order that the healing services may be continued without interruption.

Definitive, distinctive Bible preaching is apparently out of vogue and is not even contemplated as being necessary these days. When the Scriptures are used, there is little or no regard for context or proper exegesis. If the passage has the word in it which fits the preacher’s need, he builds a sermon on it without any consideration of the context or accompanying language of the passage.

Even among the so-called “mainline churches,” the preaching is no longer Bible-based. Rather, it is based on what the people want to hear. For one thing, the preaching being done today has little in the way of requirements attached to it. Mostly, it merely copies some popular televangelist’s motif, and guarantees the hearers freedom from negative feelings, feelings of doubt and insecurity, and a means of feeling good about who and what they are. Very seldom is sin even mentioned. Sin is inherently negative, and as a result tends to get in the way of the purely positive preaching presently being propagated. After all, you can’t feel good when you’re laboring under the consideration of your own transgressions.

It has been deduced, by whom nobody seems to know, that any sort of negative feelings are the work of the devil, any feelings of insecurity are inherently evil.

Perhaps the most dangerous preaching, and the most cleverly disguised, is the kind that says “it doesn’t make any difference what you believe, just as long as you’re honest and sincere–just come with us, you will be accepted no matter what you believe.” Now that’s dangerous! And it’s rampant in the Community Church Movement. It says that truth is not definitive. Truth in today’s churches marks off no boundaries, sets few limits, and has few prohibitions. It says that a person just does what he “sees as right in his own heart.” After all,“nobody has the right to tell me what to do.”

The Bible nowhere promises a man that he will be financially blessed for his faith. In fact, it teaches that a person may have to give up his riches to follow the Lord (Luke 18:25). Luke 12:15 tells us that “...a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” And didn’t Jesus warn about “laying up treasures on earth”? “Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?” (James 2:5). None of these passages suggests that it is sinful and wrong to have this world’s goods, but each of them suggests the danger of trying to “serve God and mammon.”

Furthermore, the Bible never suggests that because of your faith in Christ you will feel good all the time. In fact, it suggests that if you follow the Lord as you ought, you will surely bring upon yourself ill will–often even ill treatment. “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers trials, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1:2-3). Does that sound like the “feel good” religion being produced on television screens today? “All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (II Timothy 3:12). Does that sound like what you’re hearing on the mega-church broadcasts today? “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you...” and “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye...” “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name” (II Peter 4: 12, 14, 16). These passages assume difficulties, not a “feel good” religion.

The truth of God is outside of man. Imperial or initial truth resides only in God, not some religious group or some gifted speaker. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” is not saying that you will be able to subjectively perceive what is right, but that you must have a truth that is outside yourself, that is objective, definitive, and applicable in nature for the freedom you need from sin. God has revealed His will to us, not the fact that we each can win with our own will. “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God” (I Peter 4:11) leaves little doubt as to where the truth is. It’s not in man’s heart, no matter how sincere he may be; it is in God’s book. In fact, Paul affirms that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him.” Man, no matter his ingenuity, no matter his sincerity, could never have conceived the means for his own salvation. “But,” says Paul, “God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit...so that we may know the things freely given unto us by God (I Corinthians 2:10, 12). It is His truth, His revealed word. It is but ours to believe and obey.

Let us speak with our friends and neighbors about the glaring errors being fomented on an uninformed and unsuspecting public today. Let us get out our Bibles and show people God’s way. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps.” Let us follow God, not men.

–Dee Bowman