Bennett Blog: doctrine

Showing posts with label doctrine. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Gifts of the Spirit and Mark Driscoll

A week ago I had the opportunity to teach some high school boys about the Holy Spirit, who He is, His characteristics, His roles in salvation and the believers life, and briefly touched on the gifts He gives believers. Unfortunately, since I only had thirty minutes with them, I wasn't able to spend any time at all on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but it's a very important subject.

From the very foundation of the church people have wanted to use the Holy Spirit as if He were a source for mystical power. In Acts 8, we see a believer, Simon the magician, actually trying to buy the Holy Spirit and we are told in the verses that follow that he tried to do so because we was jealous and bitter that the Apostles had been given a gift that he had not.

But what Simon and his spiritual descendants fail to grasp is that the gifts of the Holy spirit are not for your own personal edification. We can see this just by looking at the "love chapter" in the Bible. Seriously, turn to 1st Corinthians 13, and then flip forward or back one chapter from where you are and what do you see? God, through the pen of Paul, talking about gifts of the Holy Spirit and how the Corinthians were abusing those gifts for their own personal glory. 1 Corinthians 13 is not a lovey dovey message, it is a strongly worded reprimand against the Christians in Corinth that were living in sin by their flagrant abuse of the Holy Spirit resulting in divisions in the church.

So next time you're sitting there thinking, "Hey, I wasn't paying attention, did I just _______?" and think the Holy Spirit enabled you to do something supernatural, here's a quick sanity check to help you figure it out: Does it minister to the church? If the answer was yes, then the answer is at least "maybe". If the only person who benefits is yourself then the answer is no! The things I hear people try to attribute as a work of the Holy Spirit are mind boggling and resemble the mystical spiritual ki/chi energy or magical potions found in eastern religions than it does anything in the Bible.

A good follow up question would be is it being used in a manner consistent with scriptures? I'm willing to believe God might still allow someone to speak in tongues, but if they do not follow the command to have someone interpret that tongue as commanded 1 Corinthians 14:27-28 then why should I believe they are Christians? After all, Christ Himself said in John 14:15, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." If someone is directly rejecting a commandment of Christ, how can we claim that they love Christ at all?

There is a reason all this has been weighing on my mind, beyond the fact that I just taught a lesson on it. This past week Mark Driscoll chose to resign rather than endure church discipline. In a process that was disturbingly similar to what happened at my own church a decade ago, he had the decks stacked in his favor to be acquitted, though not guilty of moral (read sexual) impropriety (as if that's the only sin worth holding a pastor accountable for), the Board of Elders asked him to submit to, what Driscoll's church called, a "spiritual care plan", and instead of enduring such discipline resigned (and then went to speak at a different venue).

We are told in 1 Corinthians 12:10 that the Holy Spirit has given some people the gift of discernment. When people pop up and start saying, "hey we should really be paying attention to this guy because he's out of line" instead of telling them to sit down and shut up, or saying "well you don't have all the fact so there's no way to no for sure", we should pay attention and check what that guy is saying against the standard of scriptures.

This Driscoll fiasco should have been stopped 7 years ago when he preached a sermon on the Song of Solemn stating that God commanded wives to do specific sexual acts on their husbands regardless of their own comfort with it. Disregarding the complete abuse of the passage to reach such a conclusion, forcing your wife into something she is not sexual comfortable with directly violates Ephesians 5:28 where husbands are told to love for cherish their wives above their own needs (i.e. as Christ loved the church). It probably should have been stopped even sooner than that had only someone prevented a spiritually young in the faith Driscoll assuming an elder/pastoral role when he co-founded Mars Hill.

Rather than letting these things escalate until they're the stuff of national news bringing derision on the name of Christ we need to not suppress the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even the dealing with of sin privately within the church through proper discernment is a gift designed to bring unity and peace to a church. Those who would block such work are hindering Christ and the church and are directly contributing to a process which eventually blows up and brings shame on us all.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A response to "Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle"

I've recently seen a link going around Facebook entitled "Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle" in which the author, whom I choose not to name, confronts the notion that God won't give someone more than they can handle. He starts off well enough, but then he starts to talk about spiritual stuff. He asks God 6 questions:

Why? Why not step in? Why not act? Why wouldn’t you make it right? Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath? Why everything at once? Why? - See more at: http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.ZvrnsSFi.cfpGWPvl.dpuf

Why?
Why not step in?
Why not act?
Why wouldn’t you make it right?
Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath?
Why everything at once?
Why?

And then he swears and uses anecdotal evidence to prove that God does give people more than they can handle. Though in his defense, he does at the end use a scriptural reference. The author claims that it takes "courage" to ask these "holy" and "sacred" questions. It's a bit of stretch to call the questions holy and sacred and it's an equal stretch to say it take courage. But they are important questions because they are questions that all believers must at one point ask on their journey to spiritual maturity. So if I may be so bold, let's just call these questions what they are a sign of:

Spiritual immaturity

If the author ever reads this article I mean no offense by the previous statement. If there is anyone else reading this who feels insulted because I just implied asking these questions was something you did in your spiritual infancy, I hope you also continue reading because this is rather important.

We all start our journey as Christians here:

We all start off as infants in our Christianity as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3. That's nothing to be offended at or bristle over or be ashamed of, nor is it something for spiritually mature individuals to ridicule you for. It is, however, something to graciously accept and be aware of in all humility. It's also important to remember that just because someone has been a Christian for a long time does not mean they are no longer spiritual infants. In 1st Corinthians 3:2 (emphasis added) Paul writes,

"I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,"

Paul is saying, "Hey, by now you've been Christians long enough such that we should be off the milk and at least up to cheerios! Why am I still having to feed you milk?" So simple longevity as a Christian does not make one Spiritually mature, and if you've been a Christian for a long time and have yet to graduate to deeper theological matters, then maybe it's time to change the way you do your Bible study or move to a church that does more than shallow teaching of the scriptures because Paul exhorts those who have been in Christ to transition to solid, spiritual food.

So why am I saying these questions are a sign of Spiritual immaturity on the author's part? Well, two reasons.

First, and of lesser importance, there's the swearing.

I know swearing a strangely trendy thing for "hip" "pastors" to do, but it is also a sure fire sign of spiritual immaturity. Setting Romans 12:2 aside in which we are told "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind" which I believe is too open ended to be used as proof against swearing. We are told in James 3:9-12

"With [our tongues] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water."

We, as Christians, have been called to tame our tongues and refrain from cursing (as well as coarse/vulgar talking in Ephesians 5:4 and the instruction to abstain from even the appearance of evil in 1 Thess. 5:22). That the author, or any Christian for that matter, has yet to grasp this basic truth is a sign that they are still spiritual infants who have not yet begun to glean anything but very surface level applications when they read passages. While it is not okay that they curse, they need to immediately repent and sin no more on that matter, it is okay that they are still young in Christ and growing in maturity. It is my hope and prayer that he learns these things and grows in his spiritual walk.

(This has nothing to do with anything, but this is a fascinating article about how the brain handles swearing, basically it's not processed as language but as emotion, an interesting concept in conjunction with what God says about people ruled by their emotions)

**Important Disclaimer! With what I am about to say, I am by no means trying to trivialize the very real trials the author had gone through! Some people took pot shots at him in the comments section of his post stating that all the hardship he was facing were a result of sin in his life. If God held us accountable for all our sins in such a manner we'd all be leprous corpses! The belief that you are somehow holier than a sick person is a satanic, Pharisaical, blasphemous mindset. We know it as such because of the interaction between Christ and His Disciples in John 9:1-3

"As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him."

Sickness is actually seldom portrayed in the Bible as a direct punishment from God and more often shown as the result as the tremendous weight of sin in the world (Romans 8:18 ff) or as an event to glorify God. So when I point out the implication of each of his questions, I'm not ridiculing or deeming him. I'm pointing out the reality that these are questions we ask in our spiritual infancy and providing the answers that God has given us in the Bible.

**End of disclaimer**

The second reason these questions are a sign of spiritual infancy is because they are all focused on himself.

Think about what each question implies.

Why? (are You (God) letting this happening to me)
Why not step in? (so this wouldn't happen to me)
Why not act? (So it will stop happening to me)
Why wouldn’t you make it right? (Right as defined by *me*, not You, God)
Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath? (This one is already evidently focused on himself)
Why everything at once? (If You're going to do this why can't it be on *my* schedule instead of Yours, God?)
Why? (are You (God) letting this happening to me) (again)

What do all these questions have in common as their focus?

They all about me. I am the focus of each of these questions. In fact several of them are implicitly stating that we are more aware of our needs than God or that God is somehow absent or uncaring or unaware about what is happening in his life. If God was just paying more attention then He wouldn't have allowed things to happen the way they are.

These were also all questions Job found himself asking when God stripped him of his wealth, his family, and his very health. In the end after 37 grueling chapters of man based theology and his friends telling him it was all because of some secret sin of Job's, God Himself enters the scene and says one of my favorite things in the Bible

"'Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
'Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,Who set its measurements? Since you know.'"

We know from the beginning of Job that the actual cause of all the calamity Job faced was so that the name of God would be glorified. It is truly an amazing and powerful book when you realize that at the end of it Job never get's his questions answered.

Just like us Job was never told why God allowed his children to die and his finances to be destroyed and his health to vanish all in the span of a few minutes. And as we grow in our spiritual maturity we come to understand that the things happen to us because God is Sovereign, because God is Righteous, because God is the ultimate Authority, because It's all about God, not me. Very rarely do we get to know the exact reason for hard times in our lives.

Sadly, the author actually ends the article with the following paragraph. (Emphasis added)

Don’t hear me saying I am rejoicing because of the last couple of weeks. I am not. Not once have I danced around our house shouting, “Yeah suffering!” Instead, in the midst of pain and hurt, I am actively expecting God to do something. I don’t know what. I don’t know when. But I am expecting the God of resurrection to heal us. I am expecting God to restore us. I am expecting him to redeem this situation. I am expecting him to do this and so I will be actively looking and waiting for him to do something.

This is heartbreaking because in his spiritual infancy he doesn't realize that God already is doing something! God is not blind or unaware of his distress. Rather than his response of, "Not once have I danced around our house shouting, "Yeah Suffering!" James has a different perspective in Chapter 1 verse 2-3

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

Or in other words, instead of ultimately blaming God for not stepping in on your schedule and doing things the way you think they should be done, you say

While no one expects us to be dancing with joy in the midst of adversity, we are to have an inner peace and joy, comfort if you will, in the knowledge that trials are given to us by God for our benefit.

And that's the thing. The statement "God will not give you more than you can handle" is true, provided you understand it as a spiritually mature Christian. God will give you so much that you will despair and be broken and be brought to lowest you've ever been, but you will be able to handle it because God is the one who has allowed it to happen and it has a purpose as described in 2 Corinthians 2:8-9 (Again, emphasis added)

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

The spiritually mature response to trials is to realize that God will never give me more than I can handle in Him. Everything that He gives me is for my edification, when He takes me to the brink it is so that I will cease attempting to rely on myself in my spiritual immaturity, and instead rely wholly on Him as a mature Christian.

Confronting the lie: God won’t give you more than you can handle - See more at: http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.ZvrnsSFi.cfpGWPvl.dpuf

Monday, November 18, 2013

How Far is Too Far?

There's been a lot of talk as a result of Mark Driscoll crashing the strange fire conference and I'm not going to weigh in those matters at this late point in the game because they're not important to what I want to discuss. What I do want to talk about is a common response I saw in the midst of these discussions. A conversation would be going along about what various people thought about Driscoll's actions and the theological truths of Cessationism versus Continuationism and suddenly someone would chime in with:

"What does it matter?"

I was always taken aback by this response. I know that they weren't trying to be flippant with God's word, and it came from people who I know to be solid mature Christians, but are legitimately asking the question as long as we have the fundamentals down isn't everything else of secondary importance?

So the question that springs to my mind in the midst of all this is at what point have we perverted so much of the rest of the Gospel that we are now teaching a gospel of our own making? At what point do we, like this Justin Bieber fan

go too far? (yikes!)

The short answer is I don't have an answer. I don't think it's possible for anyone but God to weigh the inner most workings of a man's heart and go "This one has truly trusted in Me alone". That said, I think there are three points that are worth considering:

1) Secondary issues are a misnomer
2) We've been given instructions to test the validity of our own faith and the faith of others
3) It shouldn't be about how far we can get on secondary issues (see #1)

(Does this seem too long and you just want to skip to a short summary? Skip to the tl;dr section, and read the rest when you have the time.

1: Secondary issues are a misnomer

2nd Timothy 3:16-17 states that

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

We also know from Deuteronomy 4:23-25 that God jealously guards the sanctity of His divinity and Leviticus 20 verses 22,23 and 26 states

"You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine."

This does not paint the picture of a God who doesn't care about "secondary issues" We have been called to live in perfect accordance with God's commandments. We will fail, constantly and miserably fail, but we are called to strive for that perfection of holiness because everything in the scriptures are of primary importance.

Now yes, I understand that when people say "primary" what they mean is that which results in Salvation namely a proper faith in the Gospel that Christ died for our sins, was raised from the dead on the third day, and it is salvation through faith in His works alone that justifies us, that we're all one body of believers and it doesn't matter at the end of the day if you believe that the miraculous works of the Spirit have ended, or if they continue. Which is a great segue to number 2!

2: We've been given instructions to test the validity of our own faith and the faith of others.

There are two main illustrations we are given to test our own faith and the faith of those around us.

John 13:35 - "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 14:15 - “If you love me, you will keep my commandments"

The first quote by Christ is rather self explanatory someone who has truly placed their faith in Christ will love the body of believers, but it's the second one that relates to the matter at hand. Someone who has genuinely placed their faith in Christ, what people call the "primary" issue will be directly reflected by how they treat so called "secondary" issues!

Which is why it very much matters how people either misinterpret or fragrantly abuse passages to support/undermine a given position. Now I don't want to get into the meat of Cessationism and Continuationism, I think that would be a great post for another day, however it is worth noting that those who teach that the Spirit still works trough miraculous signs and wonders typically teach that one should speak in tongues because "A spirit language is the greatest gift the Holy Spirit can give a believer." (Reason #4 on this page). Now ignoring for a moment that I would say that the Holy Spirit sealing our salvation for all eternity as taught in Ephesians 1 is the greatest gift given by the Holy Spirit and also ignoring that 1 Corinthians 14:5 states that prophecy is a better gift than tongues, the problem is that 1 Corinthians 14 also gives strict guidelines for speaking in tongues such as

²⁷If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. ²⁸If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

This is very clear and direct teachings yet it is completely ignored within the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement.

Now no, I am by no means claiming that as a Christian I keep 100% of the Bible, I am still subject to the flesh and live in a fallen world. However, when confronted with such a clear cut verse that attacks something I enjoy doing, I respond with submission. Oh I will fall, sometimes I will fall so hard I'll find myself living in the old pattern of sin again, but I will strive against the temptation because I love God with all that I am and I desire to do his commandments.

Which brings me to the last thing 3: It shouldn't be about how far we can get on secondary issues (see #1)

My dad used to work in a Nuclear plant when he was in college. He tells a humourous incident in which one of his co-workers was carrying a container marked "Hazardous Waste". As he was transporting it, he accidentally stumbled and dropped the container. Can you imagine this man had just stood there? If he said to himself, "I can safely be exposed for X seconds so there's no rush"? Or if he said, "I need to be 10 feet away to be safe" so he methodically counted out 10 feet then stood there?

From what I'm told, this man, who was rather tall and gangly, resembled something more like this:

As it turned out the container was mislabelled and he was never in any danger at all, but he wasn't going to stick around to find that out!

I posted the question how far is too far? How far can I go down bad theological trails before a denomination ceases to be a part of the church and becomes a cult teaching heretical doctrines? But it shouldn't be about how far someone can go and "still be a Christian" Recognizing that God is a holy God who demands we follow His commandments, when we see a brother or sister following bad doctrine our response should never be, "Oh well, it's a secondary issue so it doesn't matter".

Sadly in modern Christianity, the passage "judge not lest you be judge" has been so badly abused and mistaught that we think you cannot hold anyone accountable for doing something wrong. In 1 Corinthians 5, however, Paul is practically yelling at them "Why are you not judging sin within the church?!"

When we see someone sinning, which includes following false doctrine, we should with all love pull them aside privately and take them to the scriptures so that they can respond to them. Of course we should allow freedom in the Spirit on areas where God has not explicitly stated what we should or should not do, but when the Bible clearly teaches something such as "don't speak in tongues without an interpreter and then limit it to 2 or 3 at a time" and we see whole congregations speaking over one another without any interpretation then we need to call them back to proper worship. If they respond with repentance then we've strengthened their walk in the Lord, if they respond with disdain then using the above passage as a litmus test we can reasonably assume that because they do not delight to keep God's commandments then they are not His followers and we should be bold enough to treat them as such. (i.e. pray for their salvation and witness to them)

tl;dr version/summary:

I don't believe that I or anyone can with all authority say "here is a line in a sand and anyone teaching more than X number of theologically false statements has created a new gospel"

I believe that saying anything in the Bible is a secondary issue is a misnomer and demeans the Holiness of God. While there are grey areas that God has given us freedom to do as the Spirit leads us to do, every theological truth is a primary part of the perfection of God that we have been called to perfectly emulate.

I believe that it is important to test our own faith and the faith of others. We won't agree on everything about the Bible and that's okay, but when we are flagrantly disobey the commands of the Bible then we need to be rebuked. Those who are in Christ will ultimately rejoice at the discipline because they love God and His commandments. Those who continually chafe or lash out against discipline should be regarded as on who is unsaved (as described in Matthew 18 on Church discipline)

I believe that it shouldn't be about how far one can safely go into bad theology before we call them out on it. 1 Corinthains 9:24-27 (emphasis added) says:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified."

We are to be in constant spiritual training constantly strive and checking ourselves and likewise encouraging fellow believers around us so that we can have confidence in our salvation lest we come before the throne of God and find ourselves saying "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name" only to hear

"I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness"

And I suppose that's kind of the thing. At the end of the day I believe that those who are truly in Christ will leave churches who teach an abundance of false theology because those who are truly in Christ don't desire to be far away from Him at all and that those who stay in such church do so because they cannot stand sound doctrine but desire to have their ear tickled pink.

Monday, October 13, 2008

The answer to my little music poll!

The answer, to be concise, is that neither of them are Christian songs. Now, to be fair, both of these songs play on Christian radio stations. The first one (How to save a life) plays on just about every Christian station I've heard. The second one plays on a local Christian Rock station solely. So why aren't the Christian? To be blunt, the first song being played on Christians stations is a mere perversion of the Lyrics. They say that they "pray to God" but it's not an actual acknowledgment of God or of His authority of the hearts of man. When they use that phrase, it has as much to do with actually praying to God as the phrase "Heaven forbid" has to do with heaven. The artist who sings it is unquestionably secular, it's not a Christian song.

The second song is by an indie (Christian) band. After some searching I discovered that the band claims the song is about ending spiritual stagnancy. Wow... just wow, that's some mighty fine between the lines reading. It a purely nonsensical song with a bunch of teens screaming into a microphone. That hardly classifies as Christian.

The reason I posted the little music test is because I've been having some real difficulties with (so-called) Christian music for about... 2 years now (hey that's how long I've been going to DBU... the little coincidences of life). My problem with Christian music has recently resurfaced as the local Christian Rock station, which used to be an amazing station with genuine Christ centered music ranging from Larry Norman's "Why should the devil have all the good music?" (yes, I file that under Christian music) to Nailed Promise's "Stand Tall" (Nailed Promise is a heavy metal band).

If, however, you were to listen to the station today, you would find yourself wondering if you had somehow landed on a really mediocre rock station.

Since I was young, I have contended that it is not the music that makes a song Christian or not. A popular TV show actually pokes fun of this in one of their episodes.

Ned : “Where’s your backing band?”

Girl : “They left the Christian music scene and went mainstream - you just use the word ‘baby’ instead of Jesus”

(yeah, that's a Simpson's quote for you, and that's the sound of my mom dying of shame that I would both know a Simpson's quote and that I would actually use a Simpson's quote). But that's not a problem. The division of secular and Christianity is CHRIST, so of course that will be the difference in who we sing our songs about! After all, the Hymns we sing today were done to the same style as the secular songs of their time period. The problem is with modern Christian bands, the quote becomes

Girl : “They left the Christian music scene and went mainstream - you just imply a girl instead of imply Jesus"

We've done away with actually ascribing anything to God and made simply clip off a wink under our hats in God's direction when no one is looking.

Now just for the record, I have nothing wrong with listen to secular music (provided of course it's not a song that is just slapping the face of Jesus with its every word). Neither do I have a problem with Christian bands singing fun, random, or silly songs. The problem I wish to address is that our "Christian" songs have become dominated with these types of songs and Christ is no longer anywhere to be found (with some small exception).

Sadly, on the other end of the spectrum are the Christian praise and worship songs that the DBU chapel loves so much that is mindless repetition and man centered manipulation.

So, in the next little bit here, I'm gonna take a look at what the Bible has to say about Christian Music and it's place in our lives.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Christian Music Test

Here's a little test that I'd like for y'all to take. Of the two videos below, can anyone tell me which one is the Christian one?

Lyrics:

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

CHORUS:
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life

Lyrics:

Sing, sing
Oh so sucker for the sugar substitute and artificial flavoring
Small wonder I felt so safe inside nothing more than a smoke screen and masquerade
But outside a car bomb's ticking
Inside a car bomb's ticking

The words I wrote are a broken chain
Holding me from the criminally insane
But its gone and there's no stopping
All my balloons are popping

But the tree was not yet down as she lifted the flag from the bloody
ground, whispering:
'Gallons of gas and a makeshift cast and I'm still no further from nowhere
fast'
Listen! Downstairs the doorbell's ringing
We've been waiting
I've been waiting

The words I wrote are a broken chain
Holding me from the criminally insane
But its gone and there's no stopping
All my balloons are popping

The words I wrote are a broken chain
Keeping me from the criminally insane
But it's gone and there's no stopping

The words I wrote and the songs I sang
Kept this ship from sinking to its grave
But it's gone and there's no stopping
All my balloons are popping

leave comments on which one you think is Christian (remember, I'm a sneaky guy, they might both be Christian or they might both be secular)