North Athens Baptist Church

The prevailing theological model of our day is pragmatism.  Simply put, theological pragmatism means “if it works it must be right.”  Or even more dangerous “if it works it must be of God.”  More than thirty years ago, as a young man in Bible College, I remember how scandalized I and some of my friends were by things that happened at a church in Nashville, where some of them interned for the summer in the bus ministry.  They came back and told everyone they had witnessed a bus captain who promised “to eat a live goldfish” if he got nine decisions off the bus that morning!  That kind of behavior is justified by the decisions that are produced.  Some years ago a prominent Baptist pastor had one of the first “Super Bowl” parties at his mega church.  He preached a sermon during half time and his deacons acted as ushers passing out popcorn and peanuts to the crowd.   When some were critical of his actions his reply was simply, “I had 15 decisions that night; how many did you have?  In other words, the end justifies the means and these examples pale in comparison to what is being done in many churches today.  In my opinion the driving force behind these kinds of methods is weak theology.  If you believe that it is up to you to convince people to come to Christ then by all means you must do whatever you can to manipulate them into “making a decision.”  It should be noted however, that over the course of time it has been clearly demonstrated in the Southern Baptist Convention that the overwhelming majority of these “decisions” are totally worthless at best and exceedingly dangerous at worst.  We have 16 million members on our church rolls and less than 25% of that number that could be found by the FBI, much less the pastor!  If on the other hand, you believe that “…salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9); and that the words of Jesus in John 6:37and 44 are true then you can trust in the power of the gospel to convert sinners without resorting to questionable methods.  Please don’t misunderstand me I believe with all my heart that we have a part in God’s plan of bringing sinners to Himself.  Our part is to proclaim the gospel and pray for sinners.  But God’s part is to “…convince them of sin and righteousness and judgment to come.”  In Numbers 20 there is an interesting story that illustrates my point.  Moses is told by God to speak to a rock at a place called Meribah and God promises to bring water from the rock.  Instead, Moses struck the rock in anger.  The Bible records that “…water came out abundantly…” and so to everyone watching God honored this method.  It worked therefore it must be right and it must be of God.  But we read in verse 12 that this incident cost Moses and Aaron entrance into the Promised Land.  They had failed to obey the word of God and forfeited the blessing.  God not only ordains the end He also ordains the means.  Let us strive to honor our sovereign God in all that we do, so that all the glory may go to Him.