Urban Reformation

I have seen this video surfacing all over the place, and different youth groups have redone this skit. I can appreciate what I think the sentiments are to some degree, the point I believe is supposed to be that God created man, but in the skit, it seems as if God hands Eve the fruit causing her to sin. Sin thus breaks the bond between God and man. Sin now has a hold and it goes through various sins such as the love of money, the love of the flesh, and then God after much struggling from the sinner and struggling from God to get to one another, they finally break through and sin is conquered by Jesus, the person is born again and God knocks all the sin to death. Take a look see for yourself.

Now after having watch such a skit the one thing that sticks out in my mind, is that it depicts God as being very weak. He’s tugging on the rope to get you from your sin, as if God is even on the same level as Satan or sin itself, as if he’s not in control. I mourn to some degree because this depicts God, although he wins in the end it seems to point to man’s always continual striving toward God until finally they reach salvation. I suppose in some sense there’s truth in this, that we are always in a struggle against indwelling sin until we meet Christ again but the soteriology of the message is that Man chooses to come to God, at the same time God is tugging on the rope and defeats sin.

The doctrine of regeneration from the old testament is Ezek. 36:26-27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

We are simply out of order in our understanding. THe only reason we do anything other than sin is this;

1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

The bible tell us that unregenerate man is born spiritually stillborn or dead. If salvation were dependent upon him to have a godly repentance and/or a “saving” faith he would be entirely without hope. The unregenerate sinner is not just weak, or sick, or injured, he is totally DEAD! There is no hope for him apart from unconditional divine intervention of the Holy Spirit regenerating His soul.

But see this is God’s Choice, God is sovereign not man as much as we like to believe that it’s our choice and our striving toward Him we must get to the place where we repent not from the sin but from disgracing our Heavenly father. We are not simply escaping hell but we are loving God.

John 5:21
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

But the ultimately this is God’s choice, he is not a weak Jesus tugging a rope trying to get you away from your sin, HE IS GOD and in absolute control. Our God should not be this small or this weak in His will, it wouldn’t be a six minute ordeal as depicted in the video, if God wanted to blast your sin it would be in His will and in His time.

May it never be that we show God’s ability as weak in salvation, although God did come as a man and lowered Himself to be a man among us yes, does that make His sovereignty, in His ability to save us as depicted partially unable? “God struggling to get to us?”

Sin understood is a means by which God uses to point us to the cross, this was not the picture I got of repentance, of Faith….

I do not think so, may God grant us a true revelation of His sovereignty and His power and His ways, may he help us see Him for who He is despite ourselves and our poor understandings of what Grace is in how the God of the universe saves men.

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