Easy-believe-ism, part 1 – Apathy

2 Peter 2:20-22
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. 22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

If you were a Christian, you’d act better, but you don’t, and so probably you’re not one because you seek the easy way. The sinful human heart is an expert at finding the easy way because of what controls it. A depraved soul loves self above all – and seeks the easy way. Steve Brown says, “You are, at this moment, what you have decided to be.” Regenerate people, even though they are given the ability by God’s Holy Spirit to live differently from the world, against their flesh and counter to Satan, hang on to old habits and wrong ways of thinking they practiced in their old lives before salvation. Jay Adams observes that these habits appear as substitutes or shortcuts by which we replace God’s precepts and commands of Scripture. Apologizing (i.e. explaining and making excuses) for sin as substitute for seeking forgiveness is one of these, and its acceptance among even long-time believers is epidemic and toxic. This is just one form of easy-believism, which is nothing more than a worldly substitute, a counterfeit faith because it follows human devised ways of circumventing God’s commandments, and as such, never achieve what God wants. In fact, such ways usually make things worse, serving only to call up new sins.

The flip side of apologizing is the apathy displayed when folks, especially pastors and elders, fail to shepherd those in their care to ask for forgiveness when they have sinned. As an injured party, it is unseemly to demand the offender be pilloried, and only the most proud and self-righteous do it. However, leaders who have the role of spiritual oversight who fail in this are substituting apathy for love, they mistake niceness for kindness. In shepherding their focus has shifted from honoring God to the idolatry of honoring the feelings of men. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…”

A wise woman (the one I live with) recently pointed out to me that there is a difference between “nice” and “kind.” Nice is the absence of care, nice is easy, nice is inaction, nice is laziness, nice is sociopathy. In a word, nice is spiritual cowardice and counterfeit unity. Nice could care less about the soul of another; nice is live and let live – I’m ok, you’re ok. Nice is evil.

Kind, on the other hand, is hard and takes work and gives a care for the other. Kind is the truth applied, kind is standing with the sinner as another sinner and walking them through their seeking of forgiveness, kind seeks God’s honor, glory and will. Kind accepts no easy way or excuses. Kind is resolution, reconciliation and friendship. Kind is love, and kind is good.