At the Door Knocking: When Jesus Stands Outside the Church

By William Berning

Which of these is more loving? To tell someone what they want to know so they feel better or to tell them what they need to know so they get better? How you answer that question will determine your interest in this highly readable and very insightful examination of basic church sayings that have misled Christians for years. William Berning brings these basic teachings to the light of Scripture, rightly divided and rightly applied, and reveals their darkness. For the spiritually young or the spiritually mature; this book goes straight to the deepest questions of what makes a Christian a Christian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 14, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462824168

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Copyright © 2008 by William Berning.

Cover photograph © 2007 by William Berning, photographer/digital editor.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Author photograph © 2007 by Peggy Berning, photographer.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Unless indicated otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984. Used by permission.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Afterword

Endnotes

To the Elect Lady, for her tarnished reputation.

We are only willing to suffer for the ones we love.

You know I love you, and I know you love me;

in God’s love; for all time.

Foreword

One of the deepest challenges of a book like this is to convey the love we have for God and His people while at the same time standing up for His truth and His righteousness, even when it hurts. We are counting on the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds and in the hearts and minds of the readers to confirm that what we are saying and doing is in the best interests of His Church, and those who are being called to His Church. And if the things discussed within are found to be relevant for readers outside our American borders, our prayers are with them and for them as well.

At the Door Knocking is not a cry of revenge, however, but a call for repentance, a loving call for repentance, starting first with the author, and then with the reader. And which of these is more loving? To tell someone what they want to know so they feel better or to tell them what they need to know so they get better? Many pray for revival in the Church, but that is only the third ‘R’ in the three ‘R’s of Christian evangelism: Repentance, Reform, and Revival. We cannot get to the third ‘R’ before we go through the first and the second. When we repent of our wrongdoing and are obedient to reform, then we will see revival. And that is what this is all about: Repentance and Reformation making way for Revival.

Understand also, that for every point we make in this book, we are pointing three fingers back at ourselves. Many of the things discussed here were first painfully revealed, by a loving God, to be in us, to our shame. It has been difficult in the extreme to realize that what we thought was God using us because of our Christian walks was really God using us in spite of our Christian walks. But God is a God of love, grace, and mercy for us all, first to the messenger who messes up the message, then to the hearers who find Him despite the messed up message.

What we have in this book, then, is an examination of a number of common beliefs that are leading people astray from the simplicity, power, love, and truth of the gospel. We are not claiming that each and every one of them is present in each and every church. But we expect that at least some of them have been heard by at least one person in every church, based on our own experiences and training. And what is the gospel? The great news that God sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, and then raised Him from the dead, so that we may have right relationship with Him through belief in His Son.

These simple truths have been obscured in so many cases because of the busyness of traditions. We are not against all traditions, by any means, because traditions have a useful place in any group, culture or society. But we are adamantly opposed to any traditions observed in the church that over-complicate the gospel of Jesus Christ and hinder people from coming to Him. In short, we are for any traditions that work for the gospel and against any traditions that work against it. We will be taking some of these traditional beliefs one by one, and weighing them against God’s Word, rightly divided and rightly applied, to see where they stand with regard to His Truth.

This book is our humble effort to give the Lord an opportunity to redress our own wrongs, and to give hope and encouragement to the whole world that there is a better way to live than can be found by just sitting in a pew somewhere on a Sunday morning. There is a God, He loves us, and He has made a way for us to be in right relationship with Him. There is a powerful amount of good news to be found right there. Let us be sure that we can find it! With At the Door Knocking, we hope and pray that the Way has been made clearer for us all.

Chapter 1

Introduction

We here in America can be busy, busy people. We are almost always in a hurry to go somewhere, and when we finally do get to where we are going, we are then in a hurry to get it done in order to be able to leave for the next place we have to go, where we are also in a hurry to get it done in order to be able to leave for the next place we have to go, and so on and so on. While on the way, we either listen to the radio, or listen to stereos or talk on cell phones or dictate into recorders, in order to, as we think of it, make the most of our time and get the most out of our day. We are bombarded from wake-up to sleep time with messages, instructions, new routines, and constantly shifting schedules that can change hourly. But, because we spend so much of our day thinking for a few moments about everything that crosses our paths, we seldom spend any real time thinking about a few things, or even just one thing, out of all that we actually encounter. We have stepped away from thoughtfulness and peace and embraced busyness and distraction.

As a result, we are vaguely familiar with many things, but poorly informed about most things, and can easily become dizzy with information overload, or even worse, numb to the value of truth. Consequently, even matters of great importance to us tend to be carried away by the whirlwinds of distraction, and we lose our focus on those things which give us the greatest comfort while at the same time affording us the greatest blessings and challenges. We are speaking, of course, of spiritual things here, of our deepest needs being acknowledged by us and being provided by our Lord and our God.

Here is a good example of what we mean. Let us look at the idea that we can get so busy that we no longer notice the good things in spiritual life anymore. We would guess that if the reader took a moment to think about it, he or she would most likely agree with this idea. If we took another moment to think about it, the reader would most likely find that he or she not only agrees with it, but that it accurately describes our lives today. In thinking about it some more, the reader may even find that it applies specifically to his or her life, not just to our culture in general. The reader may even take it a step further and form the question, What can I do to change, to make this better? Each of these thoughts is good and sound and important in and of itself. But if we really take the time to digest the idea that we can get so busy that we no longer notice the good things in spiritual life anymore, we will find that it follows quite naturally that we can also get so busy that we do not notice the bad things in spiritual life anymore, either. More specifically, we can get so busy that we no longer notice such spiritually bad things as deceit or error or false teaching or hypocrisy or prejudice. Even more thinking on this reveals that the answer to the excellent question; What can I do to change, to make this better? lies not only in accurately remembering the truth, but in correctly identifying the falsehood.

Thus, a brief encounter with an observation may give us limited relief with regard to the problem, but an in-depth encounter with an observation may give us the actual cause of the problem. With a cause in hand, an actual solution can be sought. A brief examination may result in band-aids on symptoms; a measured examination may result in a genuine cure.

But is it really true that we have reached the point where we are so busy that we no longer notice the bad things in spiritual life anymore? Let us take a look at some cases in point that demonstrate that this is indeed the case with Christians today, for we maintain that we have gotten so distracted by living our busy lives that we no longer stop to think about many of the really important things that come across our paths daily. Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture verses are from the NIV. Except as described, it doesn’t matter which of the major translations we use, because they are all saying basically the same thing.

For example, we have often heard it said that money is the root of all evil. If one were to say this to most church-goers, most church-goers would agree with it, and some might even be able to give the citation upon which it is based (1 Timothy 6:10). As nice and biblical as it sounds, however, it is actually grossly false, and it is grossly false for multiple reasons. First of all, the correct citation, from the Old King James version, is the love of money is the root of all evil, which is a vastly different statement. It is simply wrong to say that money is the root when Scripture says that the love of money is the root. The difference cannot be overstated, for the blame for evil in the one case is put on an inanimate object with no moral accountability (money), and in the other case is placed on a living being with moral accountability before God (a person loves money).

How great is this difference? According to money is the root of all evil, Jesus Christ came to earth to die for the evil of money, and to redeem money from its evil state. All of His life, from birth to death to resurrection, was to save money from its evil state of existence. On the other hand, according to the love of money is the root of all evil, Jesus Christ came to earth to die for the evil of humanity, and to redeem humanity from its evil state. All of His life, from birth to death to resurrection, was to save people from their evil state of existence. We presume that every reader of this page can see the vast differences between these two purposes for Jesus Christ coming to earth.

But that is not the only problem with this saying. Even given the proper quotation of the love of money is the root of all evil, from the Old King James version, it is still false and erroneous to believe that the love of money is the root of all evil. This is because nowhere in the Bible does it report that Satan rebelled against God because of his love of money. Indeed, what use would money be to an angel, fallen or otherwise? We also know that Satan fell before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, for Satan was already fallen when he, as the Serpent, tempted Adam and Eve. And we know that money is a human invention. So while we don’t know the exact circumstances of Satan’s fall, we do know that it was not motivated by a love of money. Let us look at several relevant Scriptures to see what we mean.

The following is from Isaiah 14:

¹² How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! ¹³ You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on