Late Sunday Message: What's the point?

I just wandered into the results of a BBC news poll on religion.  Among the findings- most of which really made me scratch my head- a quarter of respondents who name themselves "Christians" do NOT believe in the resurrection of Christ.

Come again?

You do understand that the Resurrection is the FOUNDATIONAL belief of being a Christian?  That without His rising, His death availed nothing?

Therein lies one of the problems with polls like this.  One of the questions they should ask right off the bat is, "Why do you call yourself a Christian?"  Or better yet, "What entails being a Christian?"

Thomas Jefferson tried, I read in a biography, to re-write the Gospels without "the supernatural element."  To use the Life of Christ as just a good moral base.  And it seemed that every time he was about to put his energies to the task, some personal emergency would force him to call on God as God, rather than a philosophical concept.  And it would seem today, a lot of people want their Christianity just that way.  Looking at that report again, we see that while 21% of non-religious people believe in a heaven or hell, 31% of Christians did NOT.  Hello, if you are a Christian, you would know that Jesus shot down the Sadducees- who believed like the 31%.  Again I ask you, why name yourself a Christian if you don't accept the POINT of being a Christian?


The poll went on to list only 17% of the total accepting the Bible word for word.  And explanation for this was given by Reverend Dr Lorraine Cavanagh:


Reverend Dr Lorraine Cavanagh is the acting general secretary for Modern Church, which promotes liberal Christian theology.
She said: "I think [people answering the survey] are being asked to believe in the way they might have been asked to believe when they were at Sunday school.
"You're talking about adults here. And an adult faith requires that it be constantly questioned, constantly re-interpreted, which incidentally is very much what Modern Church is actually about.
"Science, but also intellectual and philosophical thought has progressed. It has a trickle-down effect on just about everybody's lives.
"So to ask an adult to believe in the resurrection the way they did when they were at Sunday school simply won't do and that's true of much of the key elements of the Christian faith."



Dr Cavanagh obviously doesn't get the idea that God is unchanging.  Timeless, He feels no need to conform to human society and human knowledge.  Because if we accept God IS God, than He is necessarily infinitely more intelligent, infinitely more knowledgeable, and KNOWS how HE put everything together.  He doesn't HAVE to adjust to what WE have figured out.


And Jesus put it THIS way:

Matt. 18:2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,

3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.


Did your faith change when you grew up?  Do you see so much of the Bible as a fairy tale, that has no meaning in the modern world?  I know a lot of atheists will go along with this- but a lot of "Christians" do too.  Where do you fit in?  Take the "Chris's salvation test".  Read Matthew 7:21-3:

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’


Does this verse SCARE you?  It used to me- until I was saved.  From that moment, no matter whatever my waverings, I have not again feared or worried over this verse.  How about you?  If you are in the quarter that don't believe in the Resurrection, it should.  Remember...


Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.