I think of two plagues in the modern church, two massive plagues. The first one would be pragmatism. And when we say the word pragmatism, we just simply mean that we're starting with the wrong starting point. The starting point is what works. What works typically we think to get more people in the building, to get our budgets higher, to get more baptism.

Whatever works to accomplish a fleshly carnal meme, to try to make people feel more enthusiastic or happy, but that's the wrong starting point. Our starting place is what is true. So what is true, how do we know that? We look to the Scriptures. The Scriptures tell us what is true.

And then they also show us how to conduct church life in accordance with what is true. And so we start with the scriptures because they're sufficient. But pragmatism is a major plague. I think another major plague in the modern church is consumerism. Consumerism is just simply the idea that we think of church membership maybe the way that we would think of a membership to the local Costco or whatever that may be, meaning that we would pay our money and then we would get our benefits and we want those benefits.

And so we're consumeristic to the core by nature in our sinful selves. And so we are wanting to consume things that will just indulge the flesh, but that's the opposite of Christianity. We've come to put the flesh to death. We don't even know our needs. Christ has to tell us what our needs are.

So pragmatism, we need to start not with what works, but what is true. Consumerism, we don't start with what man desires. We just start with who God is and what God says that we need.