I expected that I wouldn’t have time while at the conference to post updates, so now that it is over, I’m going to walk through each day and give a synopsis of some of the most meaningful speeches I heard.
We were a bit late rolling into the convention center on Thursday night. It was after six o’clock and none of us had gotten the opportunity to eat any supper. As we walked through the doors, we were instantly greeted by the calm and comforting sound of Mr. Scott Brown’s voice. Unfortunately, we missed the majority of his key note session that evening, trying to find seats and get something to eat.
Doug Phillips took the podium immediately after Scott Brown and spoke on The Defining Battles in the War against the Sufficiency of Scripture. Mr. Phillips argued that one of the comforting things about fighting on God’s side is that we have the assurance of being on the winning team! In defining this battle, Mr. Philips took care to note how important the father’s role is in the instruction of his children; even down to how he handles the very Word of God (i.e. Does he treat it like any other book?). Some of the battles Mr. Phillips mentioned in his session were: The Battles against Satanic destruction (you can be like God), Against Neo-Evangelical Revivalism (Scripture is sufficient; we don’t need the inventions of men), The Battle Against Greek Rationalism, The Battle Against Evolutionary Hegenomy, The Battle over Ethics, The Battle Over Freedom. Mr. Phillips mentioned all these battles and many more in which we, as Christians, are to be engaged.
Mr. Phillips really encouraged Christians not to have a legalistic mindset when trying to interpret Scripture. In other words, he encouraged Christians not to say, “If Scripture doesn’t speak on it, it’s okay.” The Bible speaks to everything; there is no neutrality when it comes to accepting or rejecting the sufficiency of Scripture. Either we accept that the Bible speaks to everything, or we reject it. “It is a source book” as Mr. Phillips said.
Our final speaker that evening was none other than Ken Ham. Ken Ham was given a stirring and well deserved introduction by Doug Phillips in which Mr. Phillips described Ken Ham as the greatest apologist of our day! Ken Ham’s session was entitled, The Genesis 3 Attack, in which Mr. Ham noted that since Genesis 3, the authority of the Word of God has been under attack. In every era, every age, the Bible has been attacked in some shape or form. However, the unfortunate thing is that in our era, the church, the very institution which is to uphold the truth of God’s Word is attacking the authority and sufficiency of the Word of God by denying its foundation: Genesis.
Ken Ham gave a great deal of insight from his most recent book, Already Gone, which I encourage every Christian to read. He explained that because we have advertently, and for some inadvertently, undermined the authority of the Word of God by choosing to believe the philosophies of man with regard to the nature of God, man, and the cosmos, we are losing the next generation of young men and women while they are still in middle and high school.
According the VERY extensive research conducted by AIG, as many as two thirds of the young people in our churches are disengaged by the time they are in middle school; in other words, they’re already gone. This is simply because mainstream Christian America has come to accept evolution as the only answer to the question of origins. Thus, we have rejected the sufficiency of the Word of God and the message our young people are receiving is this, “You can believe in millions of years, but believe in Jesus!” When they attend church, they can’t get past the unfortunate truth that most leaders in the church are hypocrites.
Check back soon for Day 2!
Sola Scriptura!
Josh
No comments:
Post a Comment