God’s Controversy With America

GOD’S CONTROVERSY WITH AMERICA

For the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. Hosea 4:1

About twenty years ago, my wife and I attended a pastor’s conference at Ben Lippen Camp when it was located in North Carolina. We met up with some friends of ours, Jim and Jane Barnes––also a PCA pastor and his wife. John MacArthur was the preacher for the conference. One evening he spoke from Psalm 19 about the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture. Present at the conference were hundreds of Southern Baptist ministers and wives.

That evening at supper I sat next to a missionary from Thailand. Little did I know that he did not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. In an effort merely to make small talk, I said, “Wasn’t that a great sermon on the Scripture?” To my surprise and dismay a verbal brawl broke out at our table between a pastor who believed in inerrancy and the missionary who did not. Later, Jim Barnes said to me jokingly, “Ross, I can’t take you anywhere that you don’t cause a fight!”

Controversy in Christian service is disconcerting, often unexpected, but always inevitable. The Word of God has that two-edged dividing power that always leads to controversy (Hebrews 4:11; Matthew 10:34-40).

In Hosea 4:1-19 God tells us about the sorrow and suffering that comes about when people resist God’s Word. This sad state of affairs comes in three phases: (1) God’s controversy, (2) the people’s contention, (3) the nation’s confusion.

God’s controversy (4:1-3) comes about when God brings a complaint against His Church and prosecutes a case against them. This is God’s way of provoking people to repentance, faith and obedience. One early preacher in America’s colonial history penned a poem by the title of “God’s Controversy with New England.” Here is what he wrote, in part:

Our healthful days are at an end

And sicknesses come on

From year to year, because our hearts

Away from God are gone.

New England, where for many years

You scarcely heard a cough.

And where physicians had no work,

Now finds them work enough.⁸

The people’s contention arises from their arguments with prophets and priests who bring God’s controversial message (Hosea 4:1-6). Verse 4 of this passage really should read: “yet let no one contend and let no one accuse, for your people are like those who contend with the priest.” It appears that “getting in the pastor’s face” on the part of angry congregants is nothing new. The sad result of this opposition to God’s Word and His preachers is a lack of knowledge about spiritual things. This is deadly. Please read Hosea 4:6-7.

The nation’s confusion is the end result. So ignorant of God, so far from the Gospel are these people that they look to idols for help and a stick of wood for divine guidance (Hosea 4:12). Witness the rise of bizarre and neo-pagan religions in America, like the immensely popular new-age tripe of Eckart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey!

There is only one solution to this sad situation. That is for ministers not to be afraid to enter into God’s controversy with America. It is for the good of the American soul and the salvation of the American people that preachers prosecute God’s case against this nation. We do so out of love, divine love rooted in Christ and His Gospel; a love that will not sit idly by while God’s people perish for lack of knowledge. If you are a preacher and if you love your people, then stand up and speak out for God on behalf of their souls. Sometimes lovers quarrel. And often God’s love leads to God’s controversy. Don’t be afraid, my fellow preachers, to argue with your people. Their soul, the souls of their children and the soul of our nation hang in the balance.

PRAYING FOR THE PCA

AC: Give thanks for this year’s Host Presbytery, Central Florida Presbytery, who have been diligently working for over a year to make arrangements for this Assembly, and pray for the comfort and edification of the Commissioners and their families.

CTS: Pray that God will grant wisdom and strength to Bryan Chapell, president of Covenant Seminary, as he handles the many responsibilities of family, leadership, preaching, teaching, writing, speaking and traveling on behalf of the Seminary. Pray also for his wife, Kathy, and their children.

MTW: Pray for Oscar Aylor, MTW’s new mercy ministry director, that God will grow the ministry and give him wisdom, insight and faithfulness in his new leadership role.

RUM: Please pray for the RUF Campus Ministers and their wives as they seek to minister to the students’ daily needs by opening their homes and lives to them.

RBI: Moral Oversight of RBI is the responsibility of the Committee of Commissioners of the General Assembly. Please pray that the commissioners will continue to have wisdom to direct this vital aspect of our ministry