Sproul: Well, when you talk about Acts 17 and Paul at the Areopagus, and he talks about
quoting some of the pagan poets and everything, and talks about people groping after God.
They have the statute to the unknown god, and in one sense they’re seeking Him.
On the other sense, when you’re talking didactically when the apostle spells it out
specifically, what the natural human condition is, quoting the psalm, and adding to with
the fullness of it, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear that no one — that’s a universal
negative — no one in their natural state seeks after God.
Now, Thomas Aquinas had to answer this question centuries ago.
“Why is it that it seems to us that people all around us who are not believers in Christ
or not Christians, seem to be seeking after God, when the Apostle says so clearly that
no man seeks after God?”
And Aquinas answered the question this way, which I think was a correct answer, he said,
“What we observe is people seeking things that only God can give them.”
From our perspective we know that the only way they’re ever going to feel relief from
their guilt, is if they come to Christ.
We know that if they’re ever going to find peace ultimately, it’s going to be in Christ.
We know that if they’re ever going to find meaning and significance for their existence,
it’s only going to be in Christ.
Without Christ they’re without hope.
But they are looking all over the place for the things that only God can give them.
That is, the benefits that God gives, while at the very same time are fleeing with all
of their strength and might from Him.
From the being of God.
So, if you want to have a seeker-sensitive church, that what that means, biblically,
is that you organize and structure your worship and your church and your program for Christians,
because the reason why churches exist in the first place are not for evangelism.
They’re for worship and for the gathering together of the saints, to apply themselves
to the study of the Word of God, to prayer, and to fellowship, and the Lord’s Supper,
and that sort of thing.
Now, the whole church is responsible to do evangelism, but the purpose of the church
itself, in terms of worship, and the gathering together on the Lord’s Day is not to do
evangelism.
Now, I use evangelism all the time in the congregation, because I’m very much well
aware that there are people who are there that aren’t believers, and so I preach the
gospel to them, but if I tailor the program for the unbeliever, that’s totally antithetical
to what the New Testament teaches, and what the Word of God teaches.
So, this whole movement of seeker sensitivity is a pernicious distortion of what God commands
and expects.
And what it is, is Jim Boice used to say where the church is trying to be the church — do
the Lord’s work in the world’s way.
And it works.
It works, I mean, as far as people will come in droves if you entertain them, and if you
make them feel comfortable and all of that.
So, when you talk about seeker sensitivity — and what that means historically is that
you design consciously, worship for the unbeliever; that’s crazy.
MacArthur: Just a footnote.
Probably the most dramatic illustration of this is in the book of Acts.
The church was born on the day of Pentecost.
3,000 believers are added to the 120 in the upper room, and they gave themselves to the
apostles’ doctrine, the breaking of bread, prayers and fellowship — that’s the church,
and the Lord added daily to the church those that were being saved.
They were doing miracles.
They were doing miracles, rapid-fire miracles.
The healing of the lame man, and other miracles, and that attracted the people.
That was attracting the people to the church.
You might say that’s a good thing.
No, the Lord had to halt to that.
The Lord Himself had to stop unbelievers from rushing into the miracle-producing church,
so what He did was kill two people at the offering.
He literally killed publicly Ananias and Sapphira.
Ananias there were — that morning he dropped dead because he lied to the Holy Spirit about
how much money he actually gave off the sale of a piece of land.
Three hours later when his wife showed up — I have ambivalence about that.
I like a three-hour church service, but I don’t know what she was doing for those
three hours.
Anyway, when she shows up, the people come — the young boys coming in from burying
the husband pick her up and bury her.
And it says in Acts 5, “None dared join himself to them.”
The Lord shut the door in the book of Acts on unbelievers rushing into the church for
the signs and wonders by frightening them about the holiness of that place.
When the church recovers its transcendent understanding of worship, and when the church
becomes devoted to the glory and honor of God and pursues holiness, it makes the statement
that our Lord wants it to make to the world, and the Lord then will add to the church those
that His sovereign will calls.