I am more convinced of this with each passing month.

"Why Most Independent Baptist Churches Will Be Emerging within 20 Years" is a free eBook available at the Way of Life web site.

In this book I list the following eight reasons for my prediction:
  • Rejection of warning and reproof in regard to certain heroes
  • Unquestioning loyalty to man
  • Following the crowd
  • Ignorance about important Issues
  • Soft separatism
  • Lack of serious discipleship
  • Carelessness about music
  • Quick Prayerism

More recently I have realized that a church doesn’t have to be guilty of all of these things to be a candidate for becoming emerging. All it has to do is be guilty of two of these: SOFT SEPARATISM, because soft separatism builds bridges to the wrong churches and the wrong preachers that act as conduits for other areas of compromise to enter the congregation, and the REJECTION OF WARNING AND REPROOF in regard to certain IFB heroes, which makes it impossible to fully and properly educate the church about and separate the church from the compromise that spreading so quickly among IFBaptists. (A pastor that is unwilling to listen to warnings and reproof about certain heroes and unwilling to let his congregation entertain such warnings is guilty of giving unquestioning loyalty to man, so these things are intimately associated.)

I can think of several pretty strong churches pastored by men who are not guilty of most of the previous eight things. They are not careless about music, at least for the moment. (Though because of the influence of weaker IFB preachers with whom they are associated, contemporary worship and contemporary Southern Gospel music is spreading rapidly through their congregations.) They don’t promote quick prayerism; they believe in the necessity of repentance for salvation and aren’t hasty to proclaim people saved when there is no evidence thereof. Their goal is conversions rather than mere numbers of professions. (Though, again, because of their non-critical association with men who are guilty of these things, some of their church members are Quick Prayerists.) They are trying to disciple the people and educate them biblically. The pulpit ministry is not shallow. These pastors aren’t proud men and they urge the people to prove their teaching by God’s Word. There are many solid, biblical things in place in these churches. They have a vision of world evangelism. They have high moral standards and the preaching gets down to where the people live.

For the moment, these churches are capable of building healthy Christian individuals and families and discipling young people.

But my warning is about the future. My warning is not about big errors but about a “little leaven.” It is about how that certain “little leavens” that IFB churches are commonly guilty of, that we have learned by popular tradition from our forefathers, will eventually leaven the whole lump.

That is what the apostle Paul would have done. It was what he always did in every forum, whether in the market place at Corinth or on Mars Hill in Athens, because Paul was convinced that the gospel alone is the power of God (Romans 1:16). Thus he testified, “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). He knew that Christ had commanded that the gospel be preached to every soul (Mark 16:15).

But Rick Warren does not walk in the steps of the apostle Paul. He has a different gospel and a different objective in ministry, his gospel being a human-centered gospel of doing good, and his objective being to change the world through his PEACE program.

As for Paul, he summarized his gospel as follows:

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4).

Paul said elsewhere that this gospel was delivered to him by divine revelation and that if anyone preaches another gospel, he is under God’s curse (Galatians 1:6-12).

Paul’s gospel is clear. It says that all men are fallen sinners who are under God’s holy wrath for their rebellion, that without salvation they will perish forever, and that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world to suffer in the sinner’s place by dying on the cross, that He actually died, and that He rose from the dead the third day. All of this was done in accordance with the prophecies that were recorded in Old Testament Scripture before Jesus’ birth.

Rick Warren didn’t preach anything like this in his Ted Talk. In fact, he didn’t talk about Christ at all. He said nothing about man’s sin or God’s holiness or the Cross or the atonement or Jesus’ death or the resurrection. He didn’t mention the Holy Scripture or Bible prophecy.

Lancaster Baptist Church in Lancaster, California, home of West Coast Baptist College, is leading in this direction, and we have warned about this because of their wide influence. In a September blog, Ed Stetzer said, “Pastor Chappell is arguably the most influential IFB pastor in America.” (See “Analyzing Adapted CCM Songs” for an extensive list of contemporary worship songs used by Lancaster over the last few years through late 2012 -- www.wayoflife.org/database/analyzing_adapted.html.)

Bob Jones University (BJU) is also promoting this position. The compiler and copyright holder of Hymns Modern and Ancient, Fred Coleman, heads up Bob Jones University’s Department of Church Music. It is published by Heart Publications, a ministry of Steve Pettit Evangelistic Association.

The hymnal contains 38 songs by Getty/Townend -- 16 songs by Keith Getty, nine by Stuart Townend, and 13 co-written by both men.

Soundforth’s 2013 Spring Selections preview CD contains four Getty/Townend numbers out of 19 songs.

Majesty Music’s Rejoice Hymns features about 10 songs by Getty/Townend, as well as ones by David Clydesdale, Scott Wesley Brown, Steve Amerson, Bob Kilpatrick, and Chris Christensen, all of whom are out-and-out Christian rockers and radical ecumenists who are using music to build the end-time, one-world church.

Getty/Townend are unapologetic one-world church builders. Townend enthusiastically supports the Alpha program which bridges charismatic, Protestant, and Roman Catholic churches. Townend is holding hands with the “broader church” in all of its facets and heresies and end-time apostasies, and his objective in writing the “hymn-like” contemporary songs is ecumenism.

What is far more important and valuable is a good spiritual guard dog. In Isaiah’s day, the watchmen were described by God as “dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.”

This reminds me of a whole bunch of independent Baptist preachers today who used to be in the battle and who used to be zealous to protect their people from spiritual danger and error, but who are getting old and soft and are in a semi-retirement mode and are letting the young people, often including their own kids, provide leadership that they are not ready to provide and to set the tone for the church’s programs that they are not yet equipped to set.

This is one major way that CCM is slipping into churches that are pastored by men who just five years ago would not have allowed this to happen. Oftentimes, there are people in these churches who are deeply concerned. There are members who are standing in spiritual conviction exactly where their pastor was five years ago and are holding to the convictions that their own pastor taught them, but the discouraging thing is that the pastor has changed.

Oh, he won’t admit it. NO!!!!! But he has changed. He is becoming a dumb dog about music, a dumb dog about other things. He isn’t alert and sharp any more. He isn’t on top of what is happening. He has allowed himself to be ignorant about contemporary worship music and its dangers and about other spiritual dangers his people are facing. He isn’t educated out these things, but he also doesn’t want to be educated.

Recently I received the following example of this from a church member who is trying to wake up his sleeping pastor. The church member wrote this to his own pastor. This is happening everywhere. It is a part of the independent Baptist church wars that are raging right now.

“Pastor, our church is moving from the path we have held for the past many years I have known it. I believe it is the harvest of years of not warning and teaching our people about CCM. You have said many times when we have talked on this subject that ‘we are not moving,’ but we are! Can you not tell the difference between the ensemble and the choir numbers on Sunday morning and the young people’s new style of music? It is not the difference between the old and the new but the wrong and the right. The wrong is on the slippery slope that is quickly moving down the proverbial road to apostasy.

As we witness such things as the spread of globalism, the building of a one-world church, the increase of wickedness, the breakdown of the traditional family, the destruction of that priceless bastion of liberty called America, the normalization of homosexuality, the callous murder of babies, the filthy pop culture, the breathtaking increase in governmental surveillance, we become fearful, uncertain, frustrated, angry, and discouraged, but this is because our minds and hearts are too focused on things of this world rather than things above. Too often we have the same short view that “conservative” unbelievers have rather than the long view that comes from the light of Bible prophecy.

Doubtless there will be frustration and discouragement, because we aren’t spiritual robots who are unaffected by our environment, but our response should be tempered by the truths of God’s Word. We should respond to the times in a dramatically different way than our unsaved friends and neighbors.

When we consider what is happening in the world, we should respond in at least the following ways:

First, we should rejoice greatly in our salvation.

“But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Pet. 4:13).

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17-18).

No matter what we suffer in this present world, it is but for a moment in light of eternity with Christ. Every day we should walk in the joy of the gift of blinded eyes opened and salvation bestowed through Christ’s great Sacrifice.

Second, we should be comforted that Christ’s return is drawing near.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Lk. 21:28).

“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words:” (1 Th. 4:15-18).

Each day brings us closer to the Rapture of the New Testament saints, and in this light, the signs of the times, though they are grievous for this present life, should be a cause of rejoicing for the believer.