What Is The Church's Future?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question: Dear Dave and T. A: If the Lord does not return for another generation and in consideration of what’s taking place today, what do you see the church being like for our next generation? I have 3 children who are young believers, and I worry about what they may go through.
Tom:
Dave, I think my biggest concern here is, you know, we’ve seen the church, our children really being weaned off the Word of God. So this is no prophecy here, it’s just a matter of simple math. If they are being weaned off the Word of God they are becoming shallow Christians if they are true believers. And if they are shallow, they have no discernment. So they are up for grabs for any dynamic pastor or whoever, TV evangelist, whoever it might be out there. And my concern is, how are they going to discern down the line, Dave?
Dave:
Well Tom, they are being weaned off the Word of God because of these spurious, so called, translations like The Message, Eugene Peterson, which changes, we talked about it in the past, literally changes and related to what we are talking about, these dolls and these heroes, John:3:31He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all.
See All... says: He (that is, Christ, who is from above, is above all. He is not of this world, He’s above all. The Message says: He’s head and shoulders over other messengers of God. Now, you’ve just dropped Christ down from heaven, He’s infinitely beyond—Oh, well, He’s built stronger, bigger, taller.
Tom:
And this is why we don’t make action figures of Him.
Dave:
Right, right, you couldn’t make an action figure of Jesus, impossible! He that has seen Me has seen the Father, but we’ve got Jesus riding on a—
Tom:
Motorcycle, a skateboard.
Dave:
Yeah, skateboard. But anyway, so we’re dumbing down, we’re raising a generation on spiritual junk food. It’s tragic, and this is what they think is the Bible. What do we have, Tom, you can say it better than I can. We’ve got plenty of Bibles.
Tom:
We’ve got Bibles for boys who are into action figures, all across the board. But Dave, the other concern that I have is that if we have a generation that, as you said, have been dumbed down, what are they being fed? Not just these paraphrases and so called, Bibles that appeal to what they are into, to their culture, but now the Bible is going visual, so called. So now they won’t even read the Bible because, Oh, wait a minute, I can get it on a DVD, let’s look at this project or that project, or whatever. So again, it’s part of the dumbing down process, they are not thinking.
Dave:
Dumbing down, and as you said, taking us away from the truth. Now the Bible is written in words, and we are despising words. We don’t want words anymore, we want something visual to follow.
Tom:
Which is experiential, it’s subjective, it’s not the objective Word of God anymore.
Dave:
Yeah, but Tom, it’s a depiction, supposedly, and you were in the movie business in Hollywood, you know what it is. These are devices of the director or the script writer for arousing emotion.
Tom:
Manipulating.
Dave:
Manipulating, exactly. These are not—look, you’re going to improve on the Word of God by getting some—pardon me—cheap actors and actresses to try to pretend that one of them is Jesus, and one is Peter and Paul, or whatever, Samson or David, and you’ve got this now visually? It’s not the Word of God.
Tom:
Right, even if it’s top acting, top class production and so on, it is a subjective interpretation of the Word of God, now by a film crew or by a director, by an art director, and so on.
Dave:
But they think this is the real thing.
Tom:
Our point here is for this next generation when they have been weaned off the Word, the Word of God, and so called being supplemented by all of this visual imagery, and so on, Dave, that’s what was condemned in the Old Testament, this is visual idolatry.
Dave:
Yeah, let me just give some quick verses here, Tom. Jesus is the Word of God, He’s not the picture of God, He’s the Word of God. 1 Peter:1:23-25 [23] Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. [24] For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: [25] But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
See All..., tells us: “We are born again by the Word of God that liveth and abideth for ever. His Word is like a sword proceeding out of His mouth, the Word of God, living, powerful.” Hebrews chapter 4: “The Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, the joints and marrow, is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” But it’s not quite good enough because it doesn’t really reach this generation today, so we’re going to give them some pictures. You have gone from truth to pictures? You begin with picture books when you are a child.
Tom:
You said flannel board for, you know, kindergarten or something like that, no problem there.
Dave:
But what do we want? You need real meat, you need the truth, this is what the scripture says! You’ve got to get into something that you are going to have to think about it. See, this is amusement, we talked about that—amuse, against muse, against thinking. This will keep you from thinking, you just get excited, you see it. This is not the Bible, Tom, it’s not the Word of God, and I tremble for this generation coming up.
Tom:
Exactly. Dave, we know the scripture says, where sin abounds, grace doth more abound. Well, we know the Lord will have his 7,000 that will not bow the knee, but what they are going to go through if the Lord does tarry will be like nothing we’ve ever experienced.