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Pastors Comments

Playing God
May 8, 2006

Pastor Ralph Green

The title brings to mind many scenarios. We perhaps have accused others of performing this act. Conservative Christians would immediately point to abortion and declare that to participate in this act would be "Playing God."

With this background we can look a little more closely at the issue. Some great hurdles must be accomplished to enter into "playing God" that may not be immediately apparent:

Conditions

  1. God must be set aside.
  2. Self must claim this position.
  3. Grace, that declares the character of God, must be ignored.
  4. The mind of Christ has to be denied.
  5. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is dismissed.

Results

  1. No revival that touches society,
  2. False revival based upon intense feeling, mass participation promoted as the real thing,
  3. Preachers who will not preach against sin having left this for the positive message with which no one can disagree,
  4. A churched people who lean to what we can do and what we have done,
  5. A walking away from constant attention for the conviction of sin,
  6. Worldly standards brought into the church.

Causes

  1. Self-centered man is not saved,
  2. Self-centered man is saved but immature:
    1. Because he has no commitment to the Truth, but to himself,
    2. Because he has pursued the "everything for me" church culture of today,
    3. Because liberal churches insert the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God,
    4. Because we have abandoned a Christian mindset of separation from the world,
    5. Because we are soliciting by eliminating any culture shock from the rock music, drug euphoric, free love society so that comparables can be found in the new congregations which enjoy explosive growth.
  3. An example of all of this is the declaration that divorce now permeates the Christian church to a degree not seen in the world at large.

Reaction

  1. Restore the self sacrificial life as the standard for Christ-likeness,
  2. Rebuke the teaching that supposedly shows you how to manipulate God for blessing,
  3. Correct the instruction that worldly gain equates to godliness,
  4. Return to salvation by faith thru grace,
  5. Invite men and women to come to Jesus because they are separated from Him by sin and can only be saved by faith that produces repentance,
  6. Understand that we are to live for Him and that He is not to be understood as a servant, delivering to us our every wish.

We play God when every man does that which is right in his own eyes. Judges 21:25. Proverbs 3:1-14 should be studied and compared to the life we live. Submission, in every way to God’s will, is where success is discovered.

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