November 2011
This is the third
sermon by Mr. Fox to review, and the eighth from Balmoral Bible Chapel. We
listened by podcast.
Mr. Fox, Balmoral
Bible Chapel, May 22nd, 2011, Saving
Faith Versus False Faith.
Summary: (Mr. Fox begins with some
announcements, then prays.) Turn with me to John 8.31-36. (He reads from
there.) How many of you enjoy political debates? More and more, they are
becoming nothing but sound-bites. The essence of true debate is for it to yield
great benefit to those who listen. I have to thank the Lord for false teachers
who try to air condition hell or tell us when the day of judgment is. They set
such a dark curtain in order for the true light to shine. Last week we found
ourselves hearing the debate that Jesus had with his adversaries. And we read
that many believed in him as he said certain things. What things? He has been
teaching about being living water and true light. In light of that, many
believed in him. There’s truth in this word concerning unity. The word is not
just the Old and New Testaments. Jesus is the Word. Jesus placed a stamp of
certification on the Old Testament. The whole word is profitable. Three things
from our passage: (A) the importance to continue in the word of Jesus Christ;
(B) you will know the truth; (C) it is the truth that will set you free. This
order cannot be changed around. We find Jesus making a distinction between true
and false disciples. The fruit of discipleship is a manifestation of obedience.
It’s not a condition. Both true and false disciples will profess belief in
Christ. It’s not how people begin that counts, but how they continue that will
distinguish them between having a possession of faith and a profession of
faith. When trials come, those in Christ, through faith, will not be shaken.
They will persevere. Those who hold fast, in time, bear fruit. Jesus tells his
disciples that the one who endures to the end will be saved. We forget to tell
people who come to Christ that you have a real enemy in yourself, in the world,
and in the heavens. We will not be found amongst those who deny his word. We
see that some believed Jesus to a certain point. Their discipleship was not
genuine. It’s important to know the difference between saving faith and false
faith. I don’t have the time to unpack this for you. True saving faith will
have a profession and possession of faith. We want to find ourselves wrestling
with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Remaining is the fruit of the disciple.
Nothing else will set you free. Now to John 6.37-40. (He reads from there.)
Continue in the word, know the truth, and you will be set free from yourself,
sin, and the power of the enemy who comes in those who are enslaved in
darkness. Christianity is not a game, but a life and death issue. I think we’ll
leave the matter there. Let’s pray.
Remarks: In this sermon many verses
are quoted (not all mentioned in the summary) that support the gist of the
passage chosen by Mr. Fox to preach on. This is done, however, at the expense
of explaining the passage particularly. The doctrine of perseverance is in both
the passage and the sermon. But something more must exist in the passage than
the general idea that it is necessary to be found at last among the saved! One
can make a verbal profession while having no faith in one’s possession. A
sinner’s prayer, a raised hand, and a signed card are no proof of a sinner
getting saved. This is what Mr. Fox is anxious to warn about. And this warning
is very necessary in our Billy Graham ‘decision’-making milieu. So this is no
‘feel-good’ sermon. We are thankful for that. The jokes that Mr. Fox had
prepared to let fly in his preliminary remarks are jettisoned (for the wrong
reason, but we are thankful just the same.)
This sermon, like the two others we have listened to
from this pastor, is a blunted arrow poorly aimed. The title promises that
saving faith and false faith will be contrasted. But there is no hint of
contrast in any of the three points introduced. Can anyone find a contrast
there? First point: the importance of continuing in the word: no contrast
found. Second point: you will know the truth: no contrast there. Third point:
the truth will set you free: nothing again. Or can any of these points be
legitimately contrasted with each other? No, continuing in the word does not
contrast with knowing the truth or being set free. Try any other configuration
that you want, using these three points, and you will find no contrast. Not
only is there no contrast shown in these points, whether considered singly or
together, but then after the points are introduced, they are abandoned to make
way for the general idea that one must persevere! There seems to be no reason
for anything that is done in this sermon. The title is ignored. The points are
there we not why. And the pastor goes all over the Bible in search of
perseverance, and then teaches nothing about it!
Here is a suggestion of what might be done, with
little effort, if any respect for the title were retained and exercised. We
suggest one point. Saving faith sets us free to serve God; false faith keeps us
in bondage to serve sin. There is a contrast that serves the title. Saving
faith and false faith are at odds. That is what the title tells us; therefore
why not tell us how and why this is so? For example, in what ways may the freed
spirit serve his Maker? In what ways must the captive spirit serve his lusts?
In what ways do these two spirits butt heads in the world? Address questions
like these, and the sermon opens up to show the characteristics of both kinds
of faith, not to mention the characteristics of each people on either side. By
this kind of faithful treatment of our title, the saints can be blessed and
warned to persevere, and the unconverted can get convicted for their lack of
proof that their faith is of the persevering sort. These thoughts were prompted
from just a few minutes of consideration for what the passage actually
contains, and the reading of just half of what Matthew Henry offers up in
commenting upon it. Yet this pastor has virtually nothing to say in this sermon
except statements like these: the whole word is profitable; some believed in
Jesus to a point; and Christianity is not a game. Can things get more uselessly
elementary than this? And when he tries to say something more profound, he
comes up with terms like ‘manifestation of continuance’ and ‘condition of
continuance.’ He can’t explain these odd terms because he can’t understand them
himself. Like Mr. Doeksen who departed from Deer Park Alliance, he seems to be
imitating this overrated wannabe-scholar by the name of John Piper, which is a
sure way to become obscure and irrelevant! If you can’t do the job in your own
skin, it is certain that you will fail in the skin of another! If Mr. Fox had
chosen a straight and simple route like the one we so painlessly gleaned and
intimated above, he would not so heedlessly fall into the sin of preaching
false security to his hearers (which is the very opposite of his intention: to
preach a doctrine of perseverance.) “We will not be found amongst those who
deny his word,” he says. What he should say is, “How many amongst us will be
found to deny the word we profess to be saved by?!” And then, “How many of us
deny God’s word every day and in how many ways? Here, let me show you what
these ways are…now what does this say about us? about you?” That is the sort of
content and tone that should naturally emerge if the doctrine of perseverance
were applied. Mr. Fox does not persevere in this sermon. He does not persevere
to make his points handmaidens of his title. He does not persevere to preach
his points. He does not persevere to preach what he finally decides to preach
on: the doctrine of perseverance. He does not persevere in the principal work
that he thinks God has called him to execute.
Conclusion: “I don’t have time to unpack
this for you,” says Mr. Fox about the difference between saving faith and false
faith. Isn’t that your job, Mr. Fox? Isn’t that what the title of your sermon
promised us you would do? Shouldn’t we expect you to unpack something from your chosen theme? “We
forget to remind those who come to Christ that you have a real enemy in
yourself, in the world, and in the heavens,” he says. Did you tell us anything
about these enemies in this sermon? No, you said nothing about them; so the sin
of forgetting is mostly yours because you, as the pastor, should lead by
example. “We want to find ourselves wrestling with the teachings of Jesus
Christ,” he says with seriousness. Does he not tell us something like this in
every sermon? But have you wrestled with anything at all, Mr. Fox? If
Christianity is not a game, then surely the pulpit must be something more than
a mascot! We must be found wrestling, we must be found wrestling, he says, but
in three sermons in a row the man who needs to wrestle most has done nothing to
honor his title, his text, his points, or the theme he ends up talking about!
The reason for this dishonor must be that he did not wrestle in his study and
closet: not with his books and not in his prayers. But the more fundamental
reason for his botched work may be the fact that his vocation has no call from
God to back it up.
Once again, we have to ask, in wonder and with a wry
face on, how those persons in this congregation who know better can be
satisfied with a pastor who can teach nothing more than the most dreamy,
apathetic souls in church already know! Mr. Fox is earnest; but zeal without
aptitude for teaching is just one proof (and the only one we need) of a
professed calling that has no divine backing. Not all that profess to be called
are in possession of a calling. Not all that profess to be called are called to
prophesy. There is this idea pervading churches of all kinds at this time, and
which has pervaded the Brethren assemblies from their inception, probably, that
he who desires to teach the Bible is ‘apt to teach.’ Desire to teach does not
fulfill the qualification of aptitude that the Bible says an elder must have.
Aptitude to teach means more than a desire to teach; it means that you have ability. This man has not the aptitude;
he is not able. Therefore he is doing a thing for which he is not called, even
the greatest thing for which a calling is most necessary. “I’ve been discipling
for a long time,” this pastor assures us. With material like this?
Successfully? We should wonder about that. We are very eager by this time to
move on to examine the next church. But we have said something; we have more warrant at the close of this analysis than
Mr. Fox has at the close of his sermon, to say, that ‘we’ll leave the matter
there.’
But just one defense of our criticism before we
store this analysis. Mr. Fox says that he’s thankful to live in a country where
the worst that can happen to a Christian, in regards to persecution, is
criticism. Since this analysis is nothing but criticism, and since it comes
from a Christian quarter and therefore cannot be classified as persecution but
only reproof and correction, he should be extremely
thankful to receive our criticism and to take all that we have said to
heart. Now we can move on. And we insist that we have nothing against this man
except that his pulpit duties cannot be shown to be the outworking of that
characteristic of aptitude the apostle Paul reveals the called man must be in possession of. “A bishop [an
elder] then must be…apt to teach” (1 Timothy 3.2.)
1 comment:
iam in total agreement with the views posted by this blog on Mr. Foxs surmon.
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