Grow Up!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while....I was on jury duty....:)

One time a few years ago I was house and pet sitting for a neighbor and decided to watch AMC - the old movie channel. I came in on the middle of a movie that looked as if it was set either during the end of WWII or a year or two afterwards. The scene was in the kitchen; a couple was begging their daughter to not move out and get her own apartment.
I thought, "People, let your daughter get her own place. I mean she sure is old enough...about 30."

Her parents said, "But you're only 18." I was in a state of shock. 18? People sure looked older in those days. But they didn't just LOOK older. They ACTED older - and more mature.

I recall the missionary couple, T.L. and Daisy Osbourne, who married in their late teens and went immediately to the mission field. They had what seemed like a very happy marriage until her death a few years ago. I cannot fathom any Chrisitan geting married at that age today and having the marriage last longer than a max of five years much less going off to the mission field right afterwards.

What has happened to the generations after WWII???

They've been pampered. And excused and enabled. And the result? Rebellion.......and Self-Centeredness.......and Contempt for others outside their circle.

I am soo tired of the worn-out line of how the church of old doesn't relate and we are old fogies and the elderly have really nothing to contribute and "those churches that don't cater to the world" have the religious spirit. You know, I wouldn't mind that so much if I saw something of substance. But when I see the seeker sensitives and emergents basically indulge the flesh and their fleshly minds, I understand what really is going on here.

Rebellion.

You might wonder what sparked this tirade. Mark Driscoll. When I read Tim Challies' description of something in Driscoll's new book, I hit the roof. And this isn't the first time I've hit the roof over Driscoll. It isn't what he preaches as much as his lifestyle. What Challies reported is especially grevious to me if it is true. The word here is provocative. Trying to be provocative. Why do the Baby Boomers and their brothers and sisters, the Baby Busters have to be provocative? Why would a Chrisitan want to be IN YOUR FACE? Is that kind? And why are they OF the world so much instead of merely being IN it?

After examining the Third Wavers, the seeker-sensitives and the emergents for many years now, I cannot believe they ever read the New Testament much. Or much of the Old for that matter. Or perhaps they do what so many of us have done here in America. We tend to play cafeteria with the Bible - taking what we like and leaving behind what we don't like.

I was reading Jacob Prasch (www.moriel.org) the other day and he said it well. If the evangelical church is caving in to so much deception now, what will it do when the really BIG deception (s) hit us?

Kudos to those who are trying to hang in there without compromising, excusing, complaining, whining and rebelling against the Bible; and also to those who are simply trying to live it out.

And my hat is off to those who want to grow up. It isn't popular to do so in our culture today; nor in the church.