In Jeremiah 23, I'm going to look at two different sets of verses here, verses 16 and 17, then verses 21 and 22. This message will not be an exposition of this text. This text is read as a summary of warning concerning the subject we're going to consider today, which is the emergent church. Jeremiah 23. 16 and 17. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you. They make you vain. They speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace. And they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, no evil shall come upon you. Verse 21, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doing. The emergent church is difficult to define. It is basically a rapidly growing movement within non-Catholic churches that appeals especially to the generation now in their 30s. This movement focuses on the contemporary culture. They say that the world has never experienced such cultural change as it is now going through. This change is massive. It is like a tsunami. And the churches, they say, have failed to keep up with it. Therefore, the churches need to start over again. Revival is not enough. Only a radical reorientation will save the churches. Only this can make Christianity relevant to this generation. But churches need to rethink and reexamine everything they teach and do. This can only be done by getting with the modern culture, by adapting to it. And this means adjusting not only our methods, but our message itself. We need to adapt to the culture rather than confronting the culture. We need to become like the culture rather than calling the culture to repentance, they said. These people want a whole new approach to worship, or to use the words of one of their leaders, a new way of doing church. One of their leaders, Ron Bell, said, quote, This is not just the same old message with new methods. We are rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion." The leaders of this movement include men like Brian McLaren, former pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church of Spencerville, Maryland, and now retired so that he can lecture and write for the movement. In 2005, Time Magazine called McLaren one of the top 25 evangelicals influencing the world today. And that's a frightful thing if it's true. Other prominent leaders of the emergent church movement include Leonard Sweet, Dan Kendall, Jonathan Campbell, and Doug Padgett. Brian McLaren has written the first book that I know of that he wrote is A New Kind of Christian. Now, you can kind of get the drift of where we're going with the titles of these books. This book became the groundwork for the emergent church movement. Many pastors and teachers in most denominations have been influenced by this book. Another of McLaren's books is this, Everything Must Change. More recently, he has written a book called A Generous Orthodoxy. And I'll refer to that book several times in the message. In the message today, I want to focus on some of the things in this emergent church movement that they believe and teach. Perhaps their main doctrine is that the scriptures are not clear in their meaning. That's probably their number one doctrine. The scriptures are not clear in their meaning. The truth is vague. and difficult to ascertain. They like vagueness and fuzziness. As a matter of fact, they actually use the word fuzzy to describe their view of reality and of the Scriptures. In their book, Adventures in Missing the Point, Brian McLaren and Tole Campolo have stated on page 84, quote, Reality is seldom clear, but usually fuzzy. and mysterious." They say that we can't really know the truth. We cannot be sure what the Bible really means. These people promote fuzziness. They aim to be fuzzy, vague, and imprecise. Because of this, it is very difficult to tie down what they really believe. You try to pin them down they've always want to go into a discussion or into a conversation. It's really difficult to say they believe A, B, and C. Their fuzziness in regard to the Scriptures is seen in the subtitle to McLaren's latest book, A Generous Orthodoxy. Now, I'm going to try to read this with a straight face, but this is the printed subtitle. You know, every book has a title and then it has a subtitle in smaller print. This is the sub-title of McLaren's book, A Generous Orthodoxy. Why I am a missional, evangelical, post-Protestant, liberal-slash-conservative, mystical-slash-poetic, biblical-charismatic-slash-contemplative, fundamentalist-slash-Calvinist, Anabaptist-slash-Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, green, incarnational, depressed, yet hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian, unclothed. These people think the truth is much more difficult to find than fundamental Christians think. For example, they really cannot be sure what the Bible says about homosexuals. McLaren has said that, quote, homosexuals, people who love chocolate, and people who are overweight are in our churches, unquote. That indicates they accept homosexuals just like people who love chocolate and people that are overweight without demanding repentance. Emergent church people like to describe their movement, and this is their key buzzword, as a conversation, an ongoing conversation. Scott McKnight in his book, Five Streams of the Emergent Church, has said that Their attitude toward all issues is this, quote, this is what I believe, but I could be wrong. What do you think? Let's talk, unquote. That's their attitude about everything. To these people, dogmatism is arrogant. And maybe dogmatism is too strong of a word. Believing that something is true, the truth, uncontestable truth is arrogant. But fuzziness is humble, and they call this fuzziness hermeneutical humility. The emergent church teaches that there are no absolutes. They're not the first people to teach that either, are they? There are no absolutes. Therefore, the Bible is not inerrant. The Bible is not infallible. The Bible is not authoritative for lies. No systematic theology can be final. The only conversation that these, you know, they make a lot about conversation. The only conversation they don't like is when we say, that's wrong. They don't want to hear that conversation. Some commentator has said that the only absolute of the emergent church is that there are no absolutes. They have a dangerous approach to the Word of God. They teach that there are hidden meanings in that Word. And these hidden meanings are essential to the meaning. I always wince whenever I hear these people saying, you know, there's, I've forgotten what that book was, The Da Vinci Code, you know, there's secret messages, there's hidden messages in the Word of God. And some of them talk about if you could play it backward on a a record, you could get a message out of some of these songs that's not there. They say the Bible is like that. Well, you know, when Orthodox Christians look at the scriptures, we look for the natural sense that the author intended. Emergents love to say that the truth is not easy to comprehend. They say the truth is mysterious. It is deep and We must not look for one clear and true interpretation. Orthodox Christians look for the writer's intention in writing. But emergence asks, did the writer have a subconscious meaning that even he was not aware of? That's their question. The important question here is, if these people are right, can the truth be known at all? Another important question here, why do these people want fuzziness instead of clarity when interpreting the Word of God? I don't believe this is an unfair judgment here. Why do they want that? Why would anybody want that? They just don't want the clear teachings of God's Word. Ambiguity is wonderful if you want to sin without guilt. This view, of course, is an attack on the Word of God. God's Word is always under attack. This is just another attack on that Word. Such uncertainty as the emergents promote removes the authority of God's Word. The view of the emergent church concerning God's Word is obviously a not so subtle attack on what we call the perspicuity of God's Word, and that word perspicuity means clarity. It's an attack on the clarity, the perspicuity of God's Word. Listen, God's Word can be understood. God's Word is not fuzzy. One preacher has said that in his Word, God has spoken and he has not mumbled. God's book is not difficult to understand. Now, there are some difficult parts in that book. But everything we need to know for our salvation and eternal well-being can be understood. The Scriptures are clear. Let me give you some reasons why the Scriptures are clear. Because God is the Father of lights, as James 1.17 calls Him. And as such, everything that comes from Him is light. Thus it is clear. I went to a motel in San Antonio one time and in the middle of the night, for some reason, I turned the lights on and cockroaches ran everywhere. When you turn the lights on, you can see things. It clarifies things, doesn't it? In Proverbs 6.23, Solomon says that the commandment is a lamp and the law is light. And a light shows the way. It makes clear the way that a person is to walk. Turn to Psalm 119, verse 105. Psalm 119, verse 105. A light shows the way. It makes clear the way a person is to walk. Psalm 119, 105 is speaking of God's Word. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Now look at verse 130 of that same psalm. Psalm 119, verse 130. It says that the scriptures are clear enough to give understanding to the simple. The entrance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding unto Thus simple. Let's look at another one. 2 Peter 1.19. 2 Peter 1.19 says that in God's Word we have a sure word of prophecy to which we do well to take heed as to a light in a dark place. 2 Peter 1.19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. God's word is clear and simple enough that anyone who really wants to know God can find out about him in that word. The teachings of God's Word about salvation through Jesus Christ are clear and plain. The way of salvation is plainly written so that a wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein, to paraphrase Isaiah 35a. Turn with me to 1 John 5.13. It also tells us that the way of salvation is plainly written and made clear in the Word of God. 1 John 5, verse 13. The Apostle John is speaking here. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. The major teachings of the Word of God are stated clearly and plainly and enough different times that their meanings can be found by those who want to find them. Everything that we are to believe and practice is made plain in the Word of God. Everything. When we say that the Scripture is clear, we mean that it should be understood literally in the same way that any book should be understood. You know, we sit down and we read a book. We take it at face value. We know what the writer is saying to us. We ought to read the Bible like that. God's ten laws are clear. Let me put this in the vernacular here. God's ten commandments are clear. What part of thou shalt not commit adultery do you not understand? What part of thou shalt not steal do you not understand? God's Word could not be clearer that no homosexual will go to heaven. Now that's clearly stated. I want you to look with me at 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. God's Word clearly states no homosexual is going to go to heaven. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? That's a key phrase, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind." That's homosexuals. "...nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God." That's pretty clear. That's clear. Why all the fuzziness about that? God did not give us His Word as some mysterious volume whose message cannot be deciphered. Our Baptist forefathers understood this fact when they wrote the Philadelphia Baptist Confession of Faith in 1742. And I want to read to you these words from chapter 1, paragraph 7 of the Philadelphia Confession of Faith. those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them." In other words, the Scriptures are perspicuous. They're clear. A second thing the emergent church believes and teaches has to do with doctrine. Now, again, they're so fuzzy in what they believe that I had a hard time stating it like that, but we have to say it some way that we can understand. Emergents say that no one has a right to impose on others what he believes, especially since we cannot be sure what the Scriptures mean. have a diverse range of ideas about the atonement, for example. What chaos they must have. They have views of the atonement that range all the way from Calvinists to Arminians, and yet there's no division among them whatever about this matter. They say that diversity is good. They do, however, And I've noticed that all these God-minded groups, they only have one group they're not God-minded about. They often attack the orthodox biblical view of the atonement, saying for one thing, well, that's an overly simplistic view. Steve Chalk, who's one of their leaders, said when discussing the meaning of the cross of Christ, and it's frightful to even repeat this, And he says that in discussing the meaning of the cross, that the penal view of the atonement, that is the death of Christ as the punishment for our sins, the penal view of atonement would be nothing short of cosmic child abuse. He said that the cross did not involve a vengeful father punishing his son for something he didn't even do. And if it did, then the cross contradicts the love of God. You know what? This actually sounds like an atheist mocking Christ. This is not even Christian thinking. This is attacking the heart and soul of the gospel. Brian McLaren teaches universal salvation or universalism, the fact that everybody will be saved at last. Emergent church writer Samir Salmanovic said on page 195 of his book, The Emergent Manifesto of Hope, quote, that everyone, Christian and non-Christian, is going to be saved by the grace of inclusiveness, unquote. That's universalism. Emergents are not really interested in doctrine. They want things they can feel, touch, and smell. Social action is more important to them than eternal issues. Now, a third thing the emergents emphasize in their teachings is what they call deconstruction. And I guess that wasn't really a word until they coined it. Deconstruction, that's one of their buzzwords. Anytime you hear that word, you know you're around some emergent person. This means, briefly, that They seek to dismantle what everyone has always believed, and then they reinvent Christianity. They deconstruct Bible interpretation. They deconstruct Bible doctrine. They deconstruct Bible worship. They deconstruct the doctrine of the church, everything. Next, the emergent church has a lot to say about worship. This is how I believe it first gets in to the churches. They claim to deconstruct worship and to refashion it into a more meaningful thing. They adapt, they change, they are flexible in relation to worship in order, they say, to better relate to the culture. Experience is central in their worship. Their worship moves away from the Word of God toward experiences. That's what really counts. They emphasize experience at the expense of doctrine. They take their eyes off the cross and focus instead on experience. Experience is more important than truth. And if you experience God, you will have the right teaching, they say. And to illustrate this, they sometimes say that the experiences of the Exodus preceded the recording of those experiences in the Bible. They don't like, and I was surprised to find this, but it makes sense, they don't like Rick Warren's seeker-sensitive worship. They see that seeker-sensitive business, and you know, that's what most of the churches have fallen into already, that seeker-sensitive stuff, Rick Warren. They see that movement as consumerism. You know, it's based on marketing research, marketing the gospel. They see it as big business and they see it as entertainment. And, you know, I hate to admit, I hate to agree with them on anything, but they're right on that. To them, worship is sensory. It is based on sound, sight, touch, taste, and smell, creating an experience for the people. Sometimes they describe worship as multi-sensory worship, their worship, multi-sensory worship. And they use religious symbols and icons and statues and crosses to make worship more meaningful, they say. They use a lot of overhead projectors and PowerPoint programs because worship, they say, must be, quote, image-driven, unquote. In their worship, images have supplanted words because they say the church is too word-based. Now, I never thought I'd hear professing Christians say something like that. The church is too word-based. I've never known a church that was too word-based. I'm reminded of the Scripture in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel where the Lord, in thinking about this multi-sensory worship, appealing to the senses, the words of the Lord Jesus, who said, God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Not with the senses, but in spirit and in truth. Placing images over the written Word of God, lines up more with Catholicism than with biblical Christianity. They use contemporary Christian music and rock and pop and they use electronic keyboards for instruments. Using contemporary music makes it easier for young people to go to these churches and swallow their fuzzy doctrines. They use candles and incense and liturgy to try to create a sense of mystery and awe in their worship. They also use chanting. All of this is just Catholic mysticism right out of the Middle Ages. And they say that they do these things. Now, you know, that's a step backward, and they're talking about following the culture. They say they defend this. They say they do these things in order to keep themselves connected with the past. And based on this, they call themselves the ancient slash future church. They have a lot of those descriptive terms with slashes in them. The ancient slash future church. Their services are not actually held in church buildings. They're held in shopping centers and industrial buildings. Last summer, and I read this and I think many of you did, somebody shared it with me, but I read about a Southern Baptist group that meets in a warehouse in St. Louis. They meet on some weeknight, not on Sunday morning, and they serve beer to the worshippers. That's the emergent church. They're relating to the culture. In their services, people are milling around, sitting in little groups, drinking coffee, and having conversation. John MacArthur, I laughed when I saw this, he has described such scenes as religious Starbucks. Now this, you know, all of this in worship is very similar to the Eastern Orthodox Church that I once attended in Nazareth, Israel. There were no seats in the building, a huge cathedral, no seats in the building. Everybody was standing. The priests were walking around swinging those incense burners and boy, that stuff stunk. They swung those incense burners and they were chanting. And all the while, the people were just going in and out, doing whatever. Emergent services often include a table for journaling. I guess that's a term a generation after mine uses. I'm not really familiar with that, but they have a table for journaling and a table for quiet meditation, and they provide headphones so that a person can listen to soothing music. Another thing emergents have a lot to say about is preaching. In their deconstruction of worship, the emergents downplay and do away with preaching. You know, I've noticed that every false religion and even among so-called evangelical churches, there's always a battle to keep preaching central. The devil's always trying to get rid of preaching, tone it down. They have a real disdain for the preaching of the Word. In his book, Preaching Reimagined, Doug Padgett makes an attack on the role of preaching in the church. He says that preaching is totally inappropriate and harmful. I hope you don't feel that I'm harming you today by standing here and preaching God's Word to you. But he says it's totally inappropriate and harmful. He says that churches need to be protected from preachers. What is needed, he says, is not preaching but conversation, discussion groups. And all contributions to the discussion are valid. He says that we need to do away with preaching and bring in what he calls progressional dialogue. They almost hate the very word sermon. They say that we need storytelling rather than preaching because the audience has changed. That's an insult to the audience, by the way. God's Word, however, makes preaching central to the work of Christ's Church. The word preach means to proclaim as a herald and to proclaim the authoritative message of God. God's Word says in 1 Corinthians 121, that it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." According to Acts 20, 27, Paul preached the whole counsel of God to the church at Ephesus. Let's turn to that, Acts 20, 27. Rather, Paul wasn't doing much progressive dialoguing. Acts 20.27, Paul says to the elders of the church at Ephesus, For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God, not stories, not narratives, but all the counsel of God. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 1.23. 1 Corinthians 1.23, and according to this passage, the apostles preached Christ crucified, 1 Corinthians 1.23. But we, the apostles, preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. Unregenerate men do not like preaching. Preaching is foolishness to them. 1 Corinthians 1.18 says, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Sixth, emergents have a lot to say about inclusiveness. We've already touched on this a little bit, but they do not talk about the exclusiveness of the gospel. They try to include everybody in salvation. To be missionary, they say, One has to be culturally aware and thus he must be inclusivist. In his book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren says, a Christian in the emergent church may keep much of what is in the Bible, but he wants to include things from Eastern religions as well. These people are very ecumenical. One of their goals, is to bring Protestants and Catholics together. They do everything they can to downplay any doctrinal differences that people may have. The central focus of the emergent church movement is not on the Christ of the Bible, but on an all-inclusive assembly of people from all sorts of faith traditions. They obviously do not believe or practice what Christ Jesus says in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. They obviously do not believe or practice what Acts 4, 12 says. Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. In conclusion, the influence of the emergent church is far-reaching indeed in today's religious world. You may be surprised how far this has reached already. Some of the leading religious publishers have now embraced the emergent church. As a matter of fact, these first two that I'll mention publish more on the emergent church than they do on any other religious subject. People like Zondervan. In the past, that's been a great Christian publishing house. People like Baker Bookhouse. Christian bookstores are loaded with books on the emergent church. According to Paul M. Eliot on page 14 of the Trinity Review for 2010, Reputedly conservative schools that have fallen into the orbit of the emergent church include the following. Biola University, and sometimes that's called Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Dallas Theological Seminary. I was surprised by that. Reformed Theological Seminary. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. and most Southern Baptist schools. This movement is now devouring entire denominations. Rick Warren, you know, those guys are all chameleons and he seems to be moving toward this thinking because he sees which way is the wind blowing. And I say that he seems to be moving toward it because he now endorses their books. These people, my friends, are in the churches. They have crept in unawares, just like Jude 4 says they will. How shall we sum up this emergent church movement? First of all, I think it can only be described as theological madness. It's madness. What can you believe if nothing is certain? It is sheer confusion and muddled thinking. Someone else has said it is a confused and confusing movement. It is actually a reemergence of many heresies that have already occurred in history, and you probably picked up on some of that as we went through this. John MacArthur has described it as old heresies dressed up in trendy clothing. Listen, Christian, do not be deceived. Christ's true churches have no place for the emergent church's generous orthodoxy. We must stand up and fight for the truth of God's Word. And if we don't battle for the truth, we will lose the truth. We must, as Jude 3 commands, earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. Let us pray. Our Father, we're thankful for Your Holy Word and its clarity, its perspicuity as regards salvation and as regards Yourself and all the doctrines we need to know to believe and practice. We pray today that thanking You for the warnings of Your Word about false prophets as in the text that we read today. We pray that we would not be misled, we would not be deceived by these and others who are worming their ways into the churches today with their false doctrine. We pray that we would stay true and earnestly contend for the faith as it is once delivered to the saints. Father, we pray for the salvation of lost sinners even here today. We pray that your will would be done in applying this message to our hearts and lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amy.