American Churchgoers were once Christian, back when the Gospel was something real and important

To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

(Jude 1:1-4 ESV)

So how do you know the real from the fake?  Easy, the real is, well, simple:

1. You are born in sin and an object of God’s wrath.

2. Jesus came in the flesh and lived a sinless life and atoning death to satisfy God’s wrath.

3. Those who repent of their sin and believe in Christ’s atoning work for the forgiveness of sin will be saved.

4. We are called to receive the sacrements of communion, baptism, and preaching of the word in the same passive manner we were made righteous.

The hammer of the law and the balm of the gospel.  If what you are hearing each Sunday isn’t THAT, then you’ve got an arena, a ball, and a court.. you’ve got a coach and a crowd, but the whistles are blowing “Foul!”.  Call it basketball, call it “church”, but it’s something entirely different. “It is what it is, but church it ain’t.”  Instead, the overwhelming majority of American evangelicalism has created it’s own gospel;

1. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

2. Become a Christ Follower and discover that purpose.

3. God’s plan is bigger than your plan! Dream audaciously!

4. Begin to; Believe, Speak, and Step out in faith to “birth” this dream that God has for your life.

No wrath, no repentance, no atonement. In short, you don’t need a bloody cross for that; that’s nothing more than subjective, pragmatic, narcissism.  And look around, it sells! (which, according to pragmatism, makes it both true and successful, right?)

Keep your eyes, ears, and minds alert. Listen for the subtle perversions.  Listen to your preacher, does he sound like a man proclaiming a historic fact (news anchor) or does he sound like someone trying to sell you his pragmatic vision (sham-wow-guy)?  What would our brothers and sisters in the early church have thought of “God has a wonderful purpose for your life” mantra as they were fed to lions?  Does your “best life now” sound anything like the earthly ministry of Jesus? Or, are they simply using “church language” to sell the American dream?

This is what many "Baptist" think, thanks Marc I've been trying to tell them

How to be Holier than Jesus

This next group of blog articles are likely to generate some heat. My prayer is that they generate much more light than heat. I’ll be working through some “sacred cows” of the faith that are more cultural and traditional than scriptural.

We ALL have traditions, but our default is to see what WE do as “following the bible” and what anyone else is doing as “their tradition.” This is one of the reasons I believe church history is *crucial*! It allows us to see where we are in the body of Christ outside of our own culture. In other words, to see what we have taken from culture and inserted into the context of what it means to be “christian”.
To that end, I’ll start off with the first article.. How to Be Holier than Jesus!
Of course, you can’t. If you’re looking for a “how to” on achieving a holiness which surpasses that of Christ, you must be new to this blog.
This article will be focused on how we often exceed biblical guidance by creating rules (often in light of our current cultural mores.)
This week? The Sacred Cow of…. alcohol.
There is a term which I’d like to introduce you to this week; Adiaphora.

Adiaphora is a greek term meaning “indifferent things”. In church history, this term has been understood as things which scripture neither commands nor forbids.
With that in mind, let’s address alcohol. Is it commanded that we imbibe, or is it commanded that we abstain?
First of all, let’s define “alcohol”. There are some that make the argument that “wine” in scripture is, well, grape juice. This is an untenable position for two primary reasons:

1. The process of creating unfermented “grape juice” as we know it didn’t exist until the 1800′s when invented by Thomas Welch. Why did Welch invent the process? The temperance (anti-alcohol) movement was all the rage in America during his day and he took that cultural view back into the church and created the process to ensure the actual, alcoholic wine (which had been used in the church for some 1,800 years) was replaced with a non-alcoholic alternative.
2. The occurrences of wine in scripture are clearly referring to a fermented, alcoholic wine (as we will discuss in detail below.)
Those two “logic-based” arguments aside, let’s go straight to scripture where Jesus is directly, inarguably, involved:
1. The Wedding at Cana:

Jesus performs His very first public miracle creating…. wine. Yes, there is some absolutely glorious symbolism here of His use of “ritualistic cleansing water” and turning it into the very symbol He would later use for His blood, but there’s no getting around the clear scripture in that this was actual, alcoholic wine:

“6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.[a] 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”

So how, if this were mere grape juice, would you explain the statement about most people bringing out the “good stuff” first, and then the lesser? You bring out the lesser wine “after the people have drunk freely” and their tastebuds are numbed to the difference. Keep in mind that this was at a 3-day feast.
2. Jesus words in Luke 7 and Matthew 11:

“To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,
“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’
For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
(Luke 7:31-34 ESV)

“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates,
“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

(Matthew 11:16-19 ESV)

So Jesus was drinking something that had people accusing Him of being a drunkard. Would you charge your children with being drunkards for having grape juice in their “sippy cups”?

So, we have scripture directly speaking to Christ not only creating and imbibing in wine, we have other scripture which speaks of wine as a good thing:

From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth
and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
(Psalm 104:13-15 ESV)

See it? God sends wine to gladden the heart of man. God sends it as something good!
In all fairness, I do understand that alcohol, like all good gifts from God is misused to our peril. Like wine, and food, sex is good and ordained by God. But,  effects of their abuse is rampant in our culture. (Alcoholism, Heart Disease, Obesity, etc.) However, the problem (and prohibition) are not of the gifts themselves, but on the abuse and inappropriate use of these gifts! What is forbidden? Drunkenness. Fornication. Adultery.
So, while you may choose any number of reasons to abstain; family history and bad experiences with alcoholism, etc. keep in mind that these arguments come from your social more and not from the pages of scripture. The outcomes you may list as reasons you don’t imbibe in wine are the effects of abuse of God’s good gift and not the good gift itself. And it is absolutely your freedom, in Christ, to NOT drink alcohol, or remain abstinent, or be a vegetarian. It is also the the freedom, in Christ, for others to appropriately enjoy the good gifts of wine, food, and sex!
So, in clear conscience, enjoy a glass of wine. Enjoy a beer. Follow scriptural command to do so without drunkenness. Or abstain from alcohol. But to put others under law where God has provided this good gift is to create your own law, and impose it on others, including Christ Himself.  You have, in your own estimation, set  yourself up as “holier” than Jesus.
How do we make ourselves “holier” than Jesus? By taking our cultural preferences and mores and teaching them as law where scripture has not.  Look at the cultural “hot button” issues of the time of the American “second great awakening” out of which most modern American evangelical denominations grew and you’ll find the most prevalent: Drinking, smoking, dancing, etc.  We’ll be looking at several of these over the next few weeks!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you are free to partake of the good gifts given to you by God; Wine in moderation to make the heart glad, and sex as ordained in marriage. You are also free to abstain from both! You are neither commanded to DO these things, nor commanded to ABSTAIN from them.  Adiaphora!
Cheers!

Marc

WOW! Best blog post I've read in a long time!!!

LINK!!! 

Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church

We all know them, the kids who were raised in church. They were stars of the youth group. They maybe even sang in the praise band or led worship. And then… they graduate from High School and they leave church. What happened?

It seems to happen so often that I wanted to do some digging; To talk to these kids and get some honest answers. I work in a major college town with a large number of 20-somethings. Nearly all of them were raised in very typical evangelical churches. Nearly all of them have left the church with no intention of returning. I spend a lot of time with them and it takes very little to get them to vent, and I’m happy to listen. So, after lots of hours spent in coffee shops and after buying a few lunches, here are the most common thoughts taken from dozens of conversations. I hope some of them make you angry. Not at the message, but at the failure of our pragmatic replacement of the gospel of the cross with an Americanized gospel of glory. This isn’t a negative “beat up on the church” post. I love the church, and I want to see American evangelicalism return to the gospel of repentance and faith in christ for the forgiveness of sins; not just as something on our “what we believe” page on our website, but as the core of what we preach from our pulpits to our children, our youth, and our adults.

The facts:
The statistics are jaw-droppingly horrific: 70% of youth stop attending church when they graduate from High School. Nearly a decade later, about half return to church.
Half.
Let that sink in.
There’s no easy way to say this: The American Evangelical church has lost, is losing, and will almost certainly continue to lose OUR YOUTH.
For all the talk of “our greatest resource”, “our treasure”, and the multi-million dollar Dave and Buster’s/Starbucks knockoffs we build and fill with black walls and wailing rock bands… the church has failed them.
Miserably.


The Top 10 Reasons We’re Losing our Youth:

10. The Church is “Relevant”:
You didn’t misread that, I didn’t say irrelevant, I said RELEVANT. We’ve taken a historic, 2,000 year old faith, dressed it in plaid and skinny jeans and tried to sell it as “cool” to our kids. It’s not cool. It’s not modern. What we’re packaging is a cheap knockoff of the world we’re called to evangelize.
As the quote says, “When the ship is in the ocean, everything’s fine. When the ocean gets into the ship, you’re in trouble.”

I’m not ranting about “worldliness” as some pietistic bogeyman, I’m talking about the fact that we yawn at a 5-minute biblical text, but almost trip over ourselves fawning over a minor celebrity or athlete who makes any vague reference to being a Christian.
We’re like a fawning wanna-be just hoping the world will think we’re cool too, you know, just like you guys!

Our kids meet the real world and our “look, we’re cool like you” posing is mocked. In our effort to be “like them” we’ve become less of who we actually are. The middle-aged pastor trying to look like his 20-something audience isn’t relevant. Dress him up in skinny jeans and hand him a latte, it doesn’t matter. It’s not relevant, It’s comically cliché. The minute you aim to be “authentic”, you’re no longer authentic!

9. They never attended church to begin with:

From a Noah’s Ark themed nursery, to jumbotron summer-campish kids church, to pizza parties and rock concerts, many evangelical youth have been coddled in a not-quite-church, but not-quite-world hothouse. They’ve never sat on a pew between a set of new parents with a fussy baby and a senior citizen on an oxygen tank. They don’t see the full timeline of the gospel for every season of life. Instead, we’ve dumbed down the message, pumped up the volume and act surprised when…

8. They get smart:

It’s not that our students “got smarter” when they left home, rather someone actually treated them as intelligent. Rather than dumbing down the message, the agnostics and atheists treat our youth as intelligent and challenge their intellect with “deep thoughts” of question and doubt. Many of these “doubts” have been answered, in great depth, over the centuries of our faith. However….

7. You sent them out unarmed:

Let’s just be honest, most of our churches are sending youth into the world embarrassingly ignorant of our faith. How could we not? We’ve jettisoned catechesis, sold them on “deeds not creeds” and encouraged them to start the quest to find “God’s plan for their life”. Yes, I know your church has a “What we believe” page, but is that actually being taught and reinforced from the pulpit? I’ve met evangelical church leaders (“Pastors”) who didn’t know the difference between justification and sanctification. I’ve met megachurch board members who didn’t understand the atonement. When we chose leaders based upon their ability to draw and lead rather than to accurately teach the faith? Well, we don’t teach the faith. Surprised? And instead of the orthodox, historic faith…..

6. You gave them hand-me-downs

You’ve tried your best to pass along the internal/subjective faith that you “feel”. You really, really, really want them to “feel” it too. But we’ve never been called to evangelize our feelings. You can’t hand down this type of subjective faith. With nothing solid to hang their faith upon, with no historic creed to tie them to centuries of history, without the physical elements of bread, wine, and water, their faith is in their subjective feelings, and when faced with other ways to “feel” uplifted at college, the church loses out to things with much greater appeal to our human nature. And they find it in…

5. Community

Have you noticed this word is *everywhere* in the church since the seeker-sensitive and church growth movements came onto the scene? (There’s a reason and a driving philosophy behind it which is outside of the scope of this blog.) When our kids leave home, they leave the manufactured community they’ve lived in for nearly their entire life. With their faith as something they “do” in community, they soon find that they can experience this “life change” and “life improvement” in “community” in many different contexts. Mix this with a subjective, pragmatic faith and the 100^th pizza party at the local big-box church doesn’t compete against the easier, more naturally appealing choices in other “communities”. So, they left the church and….

4. They found better feelings:

Rather than an external, objective, historical faith, we’ve given our youth an internal, subjective faith. The evangelical church isn’t catechizing or teaching our kids the fundamentals of the faith, we’re simply encouraging them to “be nice” and “love Jesus”. When they leave home, they realize that they can be “spiritually fulfilled” and get the same subjective self-improvement principles (and warm-fuzzies) from the latest life-coach or from spending time with friends or volunteering at a shelter. And they can be truly authentic, and they jump at the chance because…

3. They got tired of pretending:

In the “best life now”, “Every day a Friday” world of evangelicals, there’s little room for depression, or struggle, or doubt. Turn that frown upside down, or move along. Kids who are fed a stead diet of sermons aimed at removing anything (or anyone) who doesn’t pragmatically serve “God’s great plan for your life” has forced them to smile and, as the old song encouraged them be “hap-hap-happy all the time”. Our kids are smart, often much smarter than we give them credit for. So they trumpet the message I hear a lot from these kids. “The church is full of hypocrites”. Why? Even though they have never been given the categories of law and gospel…

2. They know the truth:

They can’t do it. They know it. All that “be nice” moralism they’ve been taught? The bible has a word for it: Law. And that’s what we’ve fed them, undiluted, since we dropped them off at the Noah’s Ark playland: Do/Don’t Do. As they get older it becomes “Good Kids do/don’t” and as adults “Do this for a better life”. The gospel appears briefly as another “do” to “get saved.” But their diet is Law, and scripture tells us that the law condemns us. So that smiling, upbeat “Love God and Love People” vision statement? Yeah, you’ve just condemned the youth with it. Nice, huh? They either think that they’re “good people” since they don’t “do” any of the stuff their denomination teaches against (drink, smoke, dance, watch R rated movies), or they realize that they don’t meet Jesus own words of what is required. There’s no rest in this law, only a treadmill of works they know they aren’t able to meet. So, either way, they walk away from the church because…

1. They don’t need it:

Our kids are smart. They picked up on the message we unwittingly taught. If church is simply a place to learn life-application principals to achieve a better life in community… you don’t need a crucified Jesus for that. Why would they get up early on a Sunday and watch a cheap knockoff of the entertainment venue they went to the night before? The middle-aged pastor trying desperately to be “relevant” to them would be a comical cliché if the effect weren’t so devastating. As we jettisoned the gospel, our students are never hit with the full impact of the law, their sin before God, and their desperate need for the atoning work of Christ. Now THAT is relevant, THAT is authentic, and THAT is something the world cannot offer.

We’ve traded a historic, objective, faithful gospel based on God’s graciousness toward us for a modern, subjective, pragmatic gospel based upon achieving our goal by following life strategies. Rather than being faithful to the foolish simplicity of the gospel of the cross we’ve set our goal on being “successful” in growing crowds with this gospel of glory. This new gospel saves no one. Our kids can check all of these boxes with any manner of self-help, life-coach, or simply self-designed spiritualism… and they can do it more pragmatically successfully, and in more relevant community. They leave because given the choice, with the very message we’ve taught them, it’s the smarter choice.

Our kids leave because we have failed to deliver to them the faith “delivered once for all” to the church. I wish it wasn’t a given, but when I present law and gospel to these kids, the response is the same every time: “I’ve never heard that.” I’m not against entertaining our youth, or even jumbotrons, or pizza parties (though I probably am against middle aged guys trying to wear skinny jeans to be “relevant).. it’s just that the one thing, the MAIN thing we’ve been tasked with? We’re failing. We’ve failed God and we’ve failed our kids. Don’t let another kid walk out the door without being confronted with the full weight of the law, and the full freedom in the gospel.
Marc

False Gospel of the Church Growth Movement (CGM)

THE NEW GOSPEL MAY MAKE SINNERS HAPPY BUT IT DOESN’T SAVE THEM

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Feb 7, 2013  

As an online apologetics and discernment ministry (OADM) Apprising Ministries covers various trends within the professing Christian community; sadly, most of them today are of a negative nature.
One current example is Creational Monotheism, Dr. Gerry Breshears, And Polytheistic Pastor John Mark Comer. Now even the doctrine of monotheism is under attack within the mainstream of the evangelical community.
Another terrible trend is the glut of narcissistic—centered on the self—preaching now happening throughout professing Christendom. All of this is truly an extension of the ill-fated Church Growth Movement (CGM).
In his review of Dr. Gary Gilley’s book This Little Church Went To Market Tim Chaffey, a writer/editor with Answers in Genesis and the author of several books himself, hits the target dead-on as he says of the CGM:

Even though this movement has brought many into the “church” it is debatable whether or not they have brought many to Christ.  This is the crux of the issue and Gilley nails it.  These “new paradigm” churches as he calls them (as opposed to New Testament churches) preach a gospel of need-fulfillment rather than the Biblical gospel of salvation for the sinner.
So-called negative concepts, such as sin, hell, and repentance are seldom or never mentioned because they might turn people away from the doors of the church.  Instead of preaching the offensive message of the cross (1 Corinthians 1: 18) these churches proclaim a new gospel designed to make the sinner feel welcome.
Gilley states:

The new gospel is a liberation from low self-esteem, a freedom from emptiness and loneliness, a means of fulfillment and excitement, a way to receive our heart’s desires, a means of meeting our needs. The old gospel is about God; the new gospel is about us.

The old gospel is about sin; the new gospel is about our needs.  The old gospel is about our need for righteousness; the new gospel is about our need for fulfillment.  The old gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing; the new gospel is attractive.

Many are flocking to the new gospel but it is altogether questionable how many are actually being saved. (source)

Here’s how bad it’s become within the church visible today—even in Reformed sectors. Tim Chaffey mentioned Seeker Driven megachurches who “proclaim a new gospel designed to make the sinner feel welcome.”
Such as these do this instead “of preaching the offensive message of the cross (1 Corinthians 1: 18).” Perhaps the first name that would come to mind in this regard would be Word Faith prosperity preacher Joel Osteen.
Osteen is actually the next layer of the new reformation of self as also typified by General of the Seeker Driven Army Rick Warren. Warren in turn was infected with this CGM virus by Robert Schuller, who said:

Classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be “God-centered,” not “man-centered”…[and teaching about] a holy God who hates sin…we [need to] redefine our doctrine of sin.”
Historical theology has too often failed to interpret repentance as a positive creative force… Essentially, if Christianity is to succeed in the next millennium, it must cease to be a negative religion and must become positive.1

So, if you didn’t know where these man-centered myths passing for Christianity came from, now you do. Schuller begat Warren who begat Osteen. And New Calvinist mentor John Piper thinks Warren’s doctrinal and sound.2
Within two years of Piper opening the door for Rick Warren into the Reformed camp at DG 2010 we saw Mark Driscoll, Acts 29 Network, And Rick Warren where I showed you Warren was to be invited to Resurgence 12.
That’s why it was really no surprise whatsoever that, concerning Piper’s mentee Driscoll, we should see Mark Driscoll Defends His Christian Brother Joel Osteen. Why even Joel Miller can see Osteen guts the Gospel.
Miller is with the apostate Eastern Orthodox Church and is “vice president of editorial and acquisitions for the nonfiction division at Thomas Nelson.” And yet Miller has said about Joel Osteen that he:

was not fit for his current job,… Osteen flunks the test [as a pastor]…
When I hear Joel Osteen, I don’t hear the gospel. I hear American materialism and shallow self-actualization dressed up like the gospel. (source)

He’s right about Osteen; and actually the same can also be said of Rick Warren as well. So, what does this say about Mark Driscoll and John Piper respectively when someone in apostasy sees what they apparently do not?
Such is our time; loving people preaching a false gospel minus repentance is of the utmost importance in the evangelical cult of celebrity. And this is why I’ve been warning you of a New Downgrade No-Controversy.
In closing this, for now, I leave you to consider the following teaching from Charles Spurgeon, who battled the original liberals in the Downgrade Controversy. Spurgeon was dealing with the same kind of foolishness.
However, he fought against false teachers who were watering down the Gospel until there was no gospel; just the same as men like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren are doing now. And Spurgeon would truly pay a terrible price.
Like Charles Spurgeon, may we love our Lord and Master Christ Jesus enough that we’re willing to turn our back on such as these and clearly proclaim the truth to people who don’t know Jesus:

There is self-righteousness up there upon your forehead; it will have to come down. You are covered with the beautiful garments of your own good deeds; take them off, brother.
They are all without merit in the sight of God until you have trusted his Son. All that you’ve done and all that you think you have done are only so many cobwebs that must be swept away.
There stands the gate through which the most fallen may enter, and you must go through the same gate. There is no private path made for a gentleman like you; there is no royal road to heaven, save only that one royal road that is opened for the very chief of sinners.
Down, Mr. Pride! Here is a man who is born of Christian parents, and perhaps he has listened to the lying logic of the present age, which says, “Children born of godly parents do not need conversion; there is something good in them by nature.”
I tell you, sirs, that I began to tremble for the children of pious parents, for I think that they are more likely to be deceived than any others; they often fancy that they are converted when they are not, and they get admitted into churches while they are unconverted.
Instead of boasting of their godly ancestry, high privilege as it is, let them remember that regeneration is not of blood, nor of birth, nor the will of man, but of God, and to them, as to all others, Christ’s words apply: “Ye must be born again.”3

I'm not a Polytheist, I just believe in many, many gods!

JOHN MARK COMER CLARIFIES POLYTHEISM CHARGE

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher

Amid the coverage and criticism of his recent sermon entitled, “Yahweh Elohim,” John Mark Comer, pastor of Solid Rock Church in Portland, Oregon, has offered the following attempted clarification on his Facebook page:

Solid Rock family,

Some of you have been asking some great questions about my recent teaching “Yahweh Elohim” and Solid Rock’s theology. To clarify, we are NOT polytheists. We ARE monotheists. We believe there is ONE real, true Creator God with NO equal or parallel. By using the language of “Creational Monotheism,” we are saying there are real spiritual beings in the universe UNDER the Creator God Yahweh. The demonic powers we read about in the scriptures are not “non-entities,” but are real. The New Testament calls them “demons,” “angels,” “spirits,” “powers,” “princes,” and “principalities,” but the primary Hebrew word used in the Old Testament is elohim or “gods.” These beings are “gods with a lowercase g.” They are not on par with the Creator God Yahweh. They are created, but have rebelled against their Creator to wreak havoc on the earth. This is the worldview of Jesus and of the Scriptures.

By using the language of “Creational Monotheism vs. Modern Monotheism,” we are challenging the post-enlightenment, Western European view of monotheism from the last 300 years that says there are no other spiritual beings in the universe. We don’t buy it, and we don’t think Jesus does either. At Solid Rock it is our deepest conviction to know and pursue the ways of King Jesus, to understand and adopt his way of thinking and his worldview. Stay rooted in the Scriptures, keep asking questions, and above all follow the Creator God in Jesus!

John Mark and the teaching team of Solid Rock

(Source)

Comer’s initiative to respond to the confusion is commendable. Yet there still seems to be a game of words being played here. Above, Comer claims that what he has deemed as “modern monotheism” argues that “there are no other spiritual beings in the universe.” Yet, one would be hard-pressed to find a Christian (a monotheist by necessity) who would argue with such verses as:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. (Eph. 6:10-13)

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor. 11:14-15)

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8)

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (Jas. 2:19)

These are just a few of many verses that affirm the reality of evil spiritual beings, namely Satan and his demons. The traditional understanding of monotheism—that there is one God, that there always has been one God and that there always will be one God (Isa. 43:10–11)—does not deny that other spiritual beings exist. It does deny that these beings exist as “lesser gods” or lesser deities.
Indeed, the pagan cultures of the Old Testament worshiped what they believed to be “gods.” The Bible teaches, however, that they are not actually gods, but idols. Several verses come to mind in regard to this:

Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good. (Jer. 10:5)

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:4–8)

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8:4–6)

In his sermon, Comer appeals often to open theist Greg Boyd and his book, God at War. To better understand the theological background and beliefs of Boyd, here is how Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) explains open theism:

Open Theism, also called openness and the open view, is a theological position dealing with human free will and its relationship to God and the nature of the future. It is the teaching that God has granted to humanity free will and that in order for the free will to be truly free, the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God. (Source)

Theopedia offers a similar definition:

Open theism, also called free will theism and openness theology, is the belief that God does not exercise meticulous control of the universe but leaves it “open” for humans to make significant choices (free will) that impact their relationships with God and others. A corollary of this is that God has not predetermined the future. Open Theists further believe that this would imply that God does not know the future exhaustively. Proponents affirm that God is omniscient, but deny that this means that God knows everything that will happen. (Source)

With that in mind, consider the following teaching about creational monotheism from Boyd’s book, which is referenced by Comer throughout this sermon:

Unlike philosophical monotheism with its speculative conjecture about what “pure” monotheism entails, creational monotheism does not rule out the acknowledgement of the existence of lesser gods…Arising out of the biblical revelation, creational monotheism affirms that there are indeed a multiplicity of gods, but only one is eternal, only one is Creator, only one is Lord, and only one is omnipotent, while all others have their being and their power only by virtue of being given it by their Creator. Hence the Creator is in a class all by himself, and for this reason he and he alone is to be worshiped.

(Gregory Boyd, God at War, [InterVarsity Press: 1997], 120–121.)

To close, it may be helpful to see how it is that John Mark Comer illustrates the difference between what he calls “modern monotheism” and “creational monotheism”:

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One God alone, or one God among many? There’s only one place to go to find the answer, and it is neither to a pastor nor to a blog, but to the Word of God.

“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. (Isa. 43:10–11)

I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. (Isa. 45:5-6)

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