Contemporary worship's focus on entertainment, popular music, and a
relaxed, formless environment is teaching people not to fear God.
The so-called "positive message" promoted by practitioners of the
Church Growth Movement and contemporary worship is as old as the 16th Century.
Not preaching the law, but promoting "up-beat,"
"up-lifting", and "relevant" sermons, is not preaching. It
is designed to skin the suckers and send them merrily on their way to eternal
damnation.
The Church Growth Movement is making the adulterers, revelers, homosexuals,
and the unrepentant feel good about themselves in the church.
The preachers who say that accusing Law should not be preached in the
church, do not know Jesus Christ, says Luther as follows:
"Hence to declare that the Law should not be taught in the church is
characteristic of men who do not know Christ and are blinded by their pride
and wickedness." (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 225)
Fear is part of true worship. Before people can love God, they must be
taught to fear God, and repentant, or else there is no reason for the Gospel.
"In Ps. 51:19 Scripture calls fear a sacrifice to God and worship. But
since these accounts were written through the Holy Spirit for the purpose of
impelling hearts to fear God, to shun sins, and to do justice and
righteousness, it is proper to present them in the church, which, just as it
has two kinds of people, also presents a twofold Word: the accounts of wrath
and the threats against the obdurate, the smug, and the impenitent; and the
promises for the benefit of the contrite and the humbled. But it is the
highest wisdom to dispense these rightly." (Luther's Works Vol. 3,
page 242)
In Luther's day, those who practice "Church Growth" were called
"Antinomians" or those who didn't believe the church should preach
the Law, just the Gospel. Of course just preaching the Gospel turns the Gospel
into Law.
Luther writes as if we were talking about the contemporary community church
just down the street today, as follows:
"Today you may encounter many who are offended by the necessary
preaching of the Law and shun it, for they maintain that their consciences are
burdened when they hear that sort of thing. But are they not fine Christians?
They do not give up sinning; they are addicted to greed, to wrath, to lust, to
reveling, etc. When they hear these sins censured, they are offended and do
not want their consciences burdened. Shall we for this reason let everyone do
what he pleases and declare him blessed? Not at all; for you hear that the
destruction of Sodom by fire is to be set before all succeeding generations
and indeed before the very church of God, in order that men may learn to fear
God."
"In the doctrine of the antinomians there was this statement: 'If
somebody were an adulterer, provided only that he believed, he would have a
gracious God.' But what kind of church will it be, I ask, in which so awful a
statement is heard?" (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 223)
Church Growth preachers aren't warning people about God's wrath. God told
Abraham that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah so that Abraham would
warn his descendants. So also, pastors should be warning their members of God
impending wrath if they disobey and do not repent.
". . . in this passage [Gen. 18:19 about Sodom] there is added the
command to preach: 'He will relate them,' says God, 'to his children'; that
is: 'I want the destruction of Sodom by fire preached in the church.' What is
the reason for this? Because the church is never altogether pure; the greater
part is always wicked, as the parable of the seed teaches (Matt. 13:3 ff). In
fact, the true saints themselves, who are righteous through faith in the Son
of God, have the sinful flesh, which must be mortified by constant chastening,
as Paul says (1 Cor. 11:31): 'If we would judge ourselves, we would not be
chastened by the Lord.' Therefore keep this passage in mind. It is adequate by
itself to refute the antinomians. (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page 225)
In Luther's day the Catholic Church inundated the people with the Law. The
antinomians made the mistake of getting rid of the Law out of their hatred for
the pope.
"The pope has preached nothing but terrors. Our false prophets today,
on the contrary, want nothing taught except the Gospel and the promises; and
this error is almost more harmful. Grace and the remission of sins should be
preached, but among those who have sins, that is, who acknowledge that they
have sins and sincerely desire to be freed from them. But those who smugly
continue in sins are as though they were without sins-to these the Law should
be presented. They should be frightened by the destruction of Sodom and in
this manner be brought to the fear of God." (Luther's' Works Vol.
3, page 237)
God wants all Christians to hear the Law. All too often preachers may
explain their passing over the Law because God says we should love the people.
In this way they make the people an idol. We also hear that people are
overburdened in their lives, hurting, and don't need to hear any more Law when
they come to church. What these preachers are really saying is, that they need
to protect their paychecks or else they will be the ones who are hurting.
"No matter how righteous we may be, it [the Law] should be proclaimed
in the church frequently, lest we fall into the madness of the antinomians,
who remove the Law from the church, as if everybody in the church were
actually a saint and there were no need for such examples of God's wrath. The
world, of course, is fond of such teachers, as in the Book of Jeremiah the
people say: 'Speak the things that please us.' But St. Paul (Rom. 16:18) does
not want the church to be led astray by pleasing speeches; for sins should be
denounced, and God's wrath should be exhibited for the sake of the unbelievers
who are in the church, yes, also for the sake of the believers, lest they
yield to sin, which still adheres to them, and to their natural weakness. Thus
even though Christ Himself most pleasantly invites sinners to come to Him, He
nevertheless repeatedly cries out the awful 'Woe!' over the impenitent
Pharisees." (Luther's Works Vol. 3, page. 269)
"Therefore let us utterly reject the antinomians, who cast the Law out
of the church and want to teach repentance by means of the Gospel. It is
correct, of course, to say that people should be buoyed up and comforted; but
a definition should be added - a definition stating who such people are,
namely, that they are those who are wasting away from hunger and thirst in the
desert after they have been cast out of their home and country, who sigh and
cry to the Lord and are now at the point of despair. People of this kind are
fit hearers of the Gospel." (Luther's Works Vol. 4. page 49)
"The antinomians want the doctrine of repentance to begin directly
from grace." (Luther's Works Vol. 4. page 51)
"Thus the antinomians enjoy the advantages of the world in order to be
happy in this life. They say that they want to be converted in good time. They
despise their blessing, the church, Baptism, the Keys, forgiveness of sins,
and eternal life. They receive the grace of God in vain and disregard 'the
acceptable time' and 'the day of salvation' (2Cor. 6:2). But at some future
time they will seek the neglected opportunity in vain and too late, as the
bride in the Song of Solomon (5:6) laments: 'I opened to my beloved, but my
beloved had turned and gone.'" (Luther's Works Vol. 4. page 405)