Emergent Monday - Spurgeon is Broccoli, Osteen is Cheetos.

It's Too Easy Bein' Cheesey 

1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)

Paul could not have said "...I gave you Cheetos to munch on, not broccoli..." even thought he's talking kid food vs real food, Paul was talking to people that could handle the basic elements of the Gospel, but they weren't strong enough to take the deeper mysteries of the Gospel of Jesus Christ such as those spelled out in Ephesians 3. The followers of the prosperity gospel don't even measure up to this category. If solid food is the deeper mysteries of the gospel and milk is the basic elements of sin and salvation, then anything less is empty calories.

Sadly the largest "church" in America can't even handle milk, they get snack food. They're fed morsels of crunchy goodness that feel filling but are made of empty calories and have almost no nutritional value at all. They're getting fed Cheetos and being told it's steak. They're most definitely not alone, but in this example I'm talking about the 43,500 starving souls of Lakewood Church and their goatherd Joel Osteen plus the millions that follow on TV, radio, and internet. Joel likes God a lot, as well he should, because mentioning God on occasion insures Joel a steady influx of cash. But Jesus? Not so much. 

Here's what I mean by Cheetos. Look for quotes on sin by Joel Osteen, the vast majority of what you'll find go along the lines of "There's worse sins than homosexuality, like pride." but beyond that all you get is Cheetos:

"You may make some mistakes - but that doesn't make you a sinner. You've got the very nature of God on the inside of you."

and

 We were old sinners - but when we came to Christ we are not sinners anymore.

See what I mean? 100% cheese that goes crunch.  What would Charles Haddon Spurgeon say about sin? It would go like this:

“A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. These little sins burrow in the soul, and make it so full of that which is hateful to Christ, that he will hold no comfortable fellowship and communion with us. A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable….

“Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost thee enough already? Burnt child, wilt thou play with the fire? What! when thou hast already been between the jaws of the lion, wilt thou step a second time into his den? Hast thou not had enough of the old serpent?” – from Morning and Evening

If Spurgeon's quote was a vegetable it would be very high in vitamin C, fiber, 3,3′-Diindolylmethane (a potent modulator of the innate immune response system with anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer properties), glucoraphanin (which can be processed into an anti-cancer compound sulforaphane) and indole-3-carbinol (a chemical which boosts DNA repair in cells and appears to block the growth of cancer cells) This is good stuff, this is broccoli. 

While Spurgeon tells us the dangers of sin and to avoid it because temptation is always there, Osteen tells us "don't worry about it, you're not a sinner anymore, you've got the nature of God in you". These Cheetos were quick-fried to a crackly crunch - by the fires of Hell.

Yet every day millions of people turn their nose up to the broccoli of teachers like Spurgeon and MacArthur and swallow the empty crunchy Cheetos of false teachers like Osteen, Campolo, and Hinn snagging up the tasty meaningless morsels while ignoring the fact that they're starving themselves to death. 

If you were to regularly air-drop Cheetos over the entire territory of a game preserve, you would probably find that all the herbivores preferred them right away to whatever pathetic grubs and roots they had been eating before. A few years later, the lions would have decided that hunting is not only barbaric, but worse, inconvenient. The cheetahs would come around eventually – all that running! – and the savannah would be ruled by three-toed sloths. With orange fur.  (The World Beyond Your Head  p. 18)

Is abandoning the gospel for the cheesy feelgood empty calories of a false gospel part of the great falling away? Personally I think it is, While many people are turning their backs on God for the lures of the worldly realm, many other people are turning their back on God for something that sounds like Christianity, as long as you don't scratch the surface and view the rot that lies beneath the vernier of bible flavored nonsense.

Satan knows how much we like to hear nice meaningless things that don't take much faith and require even less brainpower to swallow, and at the same time we don't like to hear the teachings that shine a glaring light on our sins and leaves a bad taste in our mouths. Somehow discernment has become a rarity and true bible believing Christians are becoming a small, highly persecuted, minority.

6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge said; 7 now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? 8 "I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:6-8)

Not if we keep eating Cheetos.

Inspired by Todd Pruitt