Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Letter to NUS CCC

This is a letter I have posted to the Campus Crusade community in NUS (National University of Singapore) Science region. I am sharing this openly in the hope of encouraging the brethren.


Dear beloved brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:7b)

I am sharing this with you as an expression of my gratitude to all of you and as a service rendered unto our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is my hope that God will use this to encourage you and minister unto you.

I am graduating from NUS CCC this semester, and definitely I have mixed feelings. I joined Campus Crusade when I was in year one four years ago, and definitely I was much different then than I am now. Four years have come and gone, and many things I have endured, seen and experienced.

I would like to first of all thank the ministry and all of you for the love and kindness shown to me over these 4 years, and not to me only, but to many others. This was so especially during the purpose-driven crisis in my life (year 2-3), when I was shattered and hurt deeply emotionally by those whom I have placed my trust in, causing me to sink into systemic depression. I would like to thank all of you, especially those whom I have confided to in some extent or another, for the counsel and support you have given. Though I do know that some may not agree with me and even may think evil of me, and none could sympathize with me, yet you do not brush me aside as many others do, or just sprout forth useless, cheap platitudes which show the insincerity of the ‘counselor’. (Believe me when I say that I can discern whether you are sincere or not!)

During these four years, amidst much trials and testing, God has molded me and use various situations like the purpose driven crisis to break and purify me that I may grow in Him. I am forever grateful to NUS CCC for the love and support you have given me during this period of my life, and I would exhort all of you to continue to do the same to each other, and to the new freshmen who will join us, especially to the household of faith (Gal. 6:10).

Even as I graduate also, I would like to exhort each of you to godly living in Christ Jesus. In a world growing increasingly more and more wicked with each passing movement, with a widespread apostasy in the making, let us continue to shine forth for Christ and strive to win others for our Lord. As someone who has been called by the Lord as a watchman, I would like to warn all of you of the incoming tide of heresy encroaching into the churches under the guise of ‘tolerance’. I am sure many of you know that our culture is becoming enamored of the anti-Christian philosophy known as postmodernism, where absolute truth is denied. However, there is another postmodern ‘Christianity’ that Satan has synthesized for consumption in the churches, and of this I fear for all of you. It is so much easier to oppose postmodernism when its proponents are outside of the church blaspheming Christ with every breath they take, but what would you do with one who smiles and claims to belong to Christ, yet denying Him by constantly casting doubt on the Word of God? When such ‘angels of light’ appear (2 Cor. 11:14), will you give them an audience? The American churches are starting to self-destruct already due to the injection of this toxin into it as their shepherds sleep, and Singapore would follow them if we are not careful. Do we care enough about God and His truth to fight these heretics; and their new spirituality, which is just as much Christianity as salt is cheese? Take note of these ‘teachers’ and avoid them like the plague. The new movement is calling itself the ‘Emerging Church movement’ and is marked by logically nonsensical statements like “We can never know for sure whether what we think concerning the Scriptures is absolutely true”, yet they are dogmatically certain that this statement of theirs is absolutely true. Consider the implications of such theological postmodernism on steroids; you can never be sure that Christ died for you; maybe that’s not what the Bible verse was meant to mean. In fact, it is a well-documented fact that the most prominent ‘pastor’ in this movement thinks that people can go to heaven even if they do not believe in Jesus Christ (Why do evangelism, may I ask?), as written in his books A Generous Orthodoxy and The Secret Message of Jesus. (And we should demand to know from our Christian bookstores why do they sell such trash!). For more information about this movement, do check out Pastor John F. MacArthur’s new book The Truth Wars.

I hope that I have not lost any of you so far, but the fact of the matters is that we ARE fighting a spiritual war; and that on all fronts. While we are out trying to evangelize others, to share with them the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ, we better make sure that we still have a Good News to proclaim! While we want to disciple others, we better make sure that we still have a Christianity to disciple them to! Going against the tide may not be pleasant, but I would like to ask of you how much do we actually love our Lord? Do we love Him enough to be persecuted for His sake? Or do we just pay lip service and only love Him in our songs but not our actions? The culling process has already begun in the Western churches; to separate the wheat and the chaff. Will we prove ourselves faithful, even when the world and nominal ‘Christianity’ turns against us? Are we willing to pay the price where it hurts the most? Remember that Jesus Himself warns us that nobody who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God (Lk. 9:62), and that if your love for Christ does not make your love for your own parents seem like hate (Lk. 14:26), you CANNOT be Christ’s disciple.

And this brings us to the last point: the Christian life is impossible to live! It was never meant to be lived … on your own strength alone. Even as you continue serving our Lord, it is imperative that you continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit, as apart from Christ, no one can do anything (Jn. 15:5)! I sincerely pray to our Lord for all of you that you will always remain surrendered to Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, knowing that apart from Him, you can do no good work! In fact, your attitude should be of one who knows that you cannot live without the Holy Spirit for even one second, and despair should that ever occur.

So therefore, my brethren dearly beloved in the Lord, continue to love and care for each other, of which I am indebted to all of you for your kind and loving support. Do take note of and avoid the postmodern ‘christianity’ coming towards us, as an expression of your love for Christ our Lord. Last of all, continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and earnestly desire Him to the extant that you cannot live without Him in your life. It is my sincere hope that NUS Campus Crusade may continue to shine forth for Him who has called us out of darkness into His glorious light, and do the work our Lord has given to her in reaching out to the lost who do not know Christ and building believers up in the Truth. I implore you on Christ’s behalf: Do not let your light go out by succumbing to the world, or to heretics. Stand firm and contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3), saving others by snatching them from the fire; to others showing mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh (Jude 1:23)

Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling, to the only wise God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Him be all glory now and forevermore, worlds without end. Amen!

Pro Rege, Soli Deo Gloria (For the King; For the glory of God alone),
Daniel Chew.

2 comments:

Andrew Jones said...

daniel, i am certain christ died for my sins and i am part of the emerging church movement.

are you sure what you are saying is true?

does truth matter

Daniel C said...

Hello Andrew,

Yes, I am sure that what I saying is true.

Being part of the Emerging Church movement does not mean that you cannot be saved and a Christian. However, it does creates various problems for you, the most prominent being marring your witness for Christ.

At present, I do not have the time at the immediate moment to find out where you are coming from, but judging from your involvement as a contributor to the [Emergent Evolution] blog, I was wondering whether you are not only in the Emerging Church movement but also sympathetic to Emergent views like those expressed by Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt etc. Anyway, back to your question.

For your question, it would be good if you have elaborated a bit more on the question. However, the short answer is Yes, truth does matter. If you are talking within the context of salvation, then if truth doesn't matter, then your belief that Christ died for your sins similarly doesn't matter at all. If you are talking in the context of Christian doctrine, then if truth doesn't matter, then there is nothing distinctive about Christianity. And obviously, if truth doesn't matter, both of us are just wasting our time interacting on this post.

It would be good if you would elaborate on your question a bit more, especially if I did not answer your question satisfactorily, or if you want, you can always send me an email where we can continue our conversation.

God bless,
Daniel Chew.