God sued again?

People have such a great misunderstanding of who God really is! While God nowhere promises us in the Scriptures that He will keep us from sinning, there are still people in the world who shifts blame away from themselves as the rightful heirs of their own responsibilities, to making God responsible for their own actions.

A man in Romania is effectively suing God for breach of contract. Apparently, God broke His agreement with, Pavel Mircea, 40, which was made at Mircea's baptism. It seems that Mircea believes that God promised him at his baptism to protect him from all evil, but instead gave him over to Satan, who then made Mircea commit murder.

This is so clearly a case of implicit faith! James Montgomery Boice preached a sermon several years ago in which he gave this illustration on implicit faith. I can't remember all the details, but it goes something like this (or perhaps not at all!).

A man wanted to become a member of the church, and while he sat before the church board, he was asked what he believed. The man responded: "I believe what the church believes!" The board then asked: "What does the church believe?" The man then answered: "The church believes what I believe!" Finally the board asked him: "So, what do you and the church believe?" To which the man responded: "Oh, we believe the same thing!"

This is a very widespread norm amongst those who attend. Most people, like Mircea from Romania, simply implicitly believe what the church teaches on any subject, whether the church teaches the truth or not! For this man, and many in the church, there is just no idea that they need to study the Bible for themselves, to see if the church is indeed teaching faithfully from the word of God. This will lead to explicit faith.

Explicit faith is not based on the faith and teachings of another, but on a faith that was personally discovered through the study of the Bible. I am NOT saying that we should not listen to what the church has to say. What I am saying is that we need to take what the church says and study the relevant passages to confirm whether the church teaches faithfully on a given subject or not!

It would really be interesting to know how many people in the church believe what they believe because they have actually sat down and thought about their belief, and how many simply believe what they believe because it was uttered from the pulpit.