You
need to “nip it in the bud”
by
Sandy Simpson, 9/18/15
I am writing this article
to address a subject that I have often observed. It is the fact that if you do not get the
leaven out of your church the leaven will become the leadership.
The Bible teaches quite
clearly that if you let the leaven in you will leaven
the whole lump.
Galatians 5:9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
We see this often in the
case of many “Christian” movements that have allowed a small error to exist in
their churches and have not dealt with those issues. It then ends up metastasizing into worse and
worse problems as time goes by. Some
cases in point:
The Third Wave
In the 1950s and 60s there
was a movement, especially in Germany and in other parts of Europe, more so
than in America, for evangelical biblical Christians to distance themselves
from churches that taught that you have to speak in tongues to prove you have
the Holy Spirit or that the Holy Spirit would cause you to speak in tongues as a
proof of the indwelling Spirit. Many evangelical Biblical churches saw that as
being antithetical to what the Bible says because the Bible is quite clear that
not everyone has the same gifts.
1 Corinthians 12:30 All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they?
All do not interpret, do they?
The proof of the fruit of
the Spirit, the evidence of the Spirit, is more importantly involved with
morality and Christ-like character than it is with signs and wonders. So when you want to test anyone to see if
they are truly Spirit-filled believers then you need to primarily test them for
the fruit of the Spirit first and then, of course, the gifts of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such
things there is no law.
But
the gifts of the Spirit can vary and often certain gifts of the Spirit are
overlooked in favor of others, especially in Pentecostal churches, by those who
want to test to see if a person is Spirit-filled. Many European churches recognized early on
these issues and distanced themselves from them. But also many evangelical
churches backed off and allowed Pentecostals to define pneumatology which turned
out to be a mistake. Biblical Christians
rejected the idea that the initial sign of the Spirit is tongues but they did
not challenge that notion with doctrinal papers on the errors of Pentecostal
pneumatology. Because they only
distanced themselves from these teachings without challenging them from the
Bible they inadvertently allowed error to grow in the Pentecostal and
charismatic movements. Instead of clearly defining the position of the Bible on
the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, they either taught that the Holy Spirit was
the “silent” member of the Trinity or that the gifts of the Spirit no longer
existed past the first century church.
Both of those reactions also had serious side effects.
What
should have been done would have been for Biblical churches to agree to a
position paper on pneumatology just as they had previously agreed to the core
doctrines of the Church as laid out in the book series "The Fundamentals" edited by R.A. Torrey
with contributors such as H.A. Ironside and C.I. Scofield. In 1909, God led two Christian laymen to set
aside a large sum of money for issuing twelve volumes which would set forth the
fundamentals of the Christian faith. These were called The Fundamentals, and
consisted of messages written by well-known defenders of the faith from several
different denominations. These twelve volumes of The Fundamentals were mailed
free to over 300,000 ministers, missionaries and other Christian workers in
different parts of the world. The response was far beyond any expectation. The
Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA) through its publication, The King's
Business, printed additional copies to meet the demand and finally combined the
volumes into a four volume set which was also widely circulated. It was written
as a defense of the Christian faith against liberalism, but holds true today in
serving as a helpful aid in distinguishing heresy from truth.
Many churches agreed that
the core doctrines as laid out in this series of books were doctrines that are
essential to the Christian faith and must not be compromised. Of course pneumatology was not included as a
core doctrine which is correct. It is an
important doctrine but one on which Christians can and do have some
disagreement. But little did they know
that pneumatology would rise up to be a defining issue and well beyond a
debatable issue in the Third Wave. In
fact it has become one of the most divisive issues in the Church today.
So what started out as a
somewhat innocuous error of people in Pentecostal churches feeling like they
had to “speak in tongues” (most of the time not real tongues but babble because
due to peer pressure) in order to fit in became the source of more serious
error. As that practice became
commonplace and, since tongues were not being used scripturally, it naturally
began to be upstaged with more and more exciting “signs and wonders” also used
to allegedly prove a person is Spirit-filled.
As they reached out for more mystical, experiential practices they
discovered more of the Latter Rain which some had already been introduced to
through the Azusa Street “revival” and ministries of people like William
Branham. The teaching then became a
matter of “obtaining” the Holy Spirit as Joyce Meyer recently reiterated, obtaining
tongues, obtaining the “anointing” which translates to getting “it” from
another person or what is called the “transferable impartation”. This is accomplished, according to Latter
Rain proponents, “by” the laying on of hands, “by” the will of man. In other words a person can press the Holy
Spirit into people’s foreheads or throw Him across the room as many have seen
Benny Hinn do.
This was a further departure from the truth of Scripture regarding the
laying on of hands, which Biblically was done in agreement with the will of
God. If a person was filled (not baptized) with the Holy Spirit at the laying
on of hands, the words used in those instances were not “by” but “at” or
“through” indicating that anything that happened from God was from Him
alone. Something to remember is that the
filling of the Holy Spirit is not only accomplished at the laying on of hands
but sovereignly without that act as well as evidenced
in the Bible. As these ideas further
infiltrated the churches those practicing them became even further influenced
by the Latter Rain and began to introduce manifestations which were brought in
from the occult in order to justify their warped ideas of Spirit filling. One of those occult practices was what they
called “slain in the spirit” credited by them as what happened to John when he
saw Jesus in His glorified body and was given the Revelation. But John was not knocked down backwards by
some power fell down as if dead in fear, reverence and awe in the presence of
the glorified Christ. Slain the spirit
is no different than the occult practice in Hinduism of “shaktipat” in which people are
laid hands on and they fall backwards into a trance, speak in tongues, and many
other manifestation that are demonic in nature.
These new practices from
the occult then became part and parcel of Pentecostal churches, so much so that
those involved could no longer distinguish the difference between their old
denominations and the new cults they had become. They joined the Latter Rain churches in the
Third Wave and New Apostolic Reformation.
They began to teach and promote that there is an impartation from God
that you can receive from others and pass along, even though that practice is
prohibited both in the Old Testament (Ex. 30:32) and in the New (Acts
8:9-25). Simon the Sorcerer mistook the
laying on of hands as a magic trick or ability that would be bought and
learned. But the disciples were clear
that it was not something they could teach or was from them.
This is one example of how
a smaller error can become a gigantic one, and basically bring churches into
heresy because it becomes a denial of the character and working of the true
Holy Spirit, as well as adding works required to prove salvation which is
actually by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
I remember
back to the 1950s and 60s that a lot of Christians criticized European churches
and missions for making the mandatory speaking in tongues a divisive issue.
Mission organizations from Europe would not allow people who wanted to become
missionaries to even teach on speaking in tongues or claim that they spoke in
tongues. At that time I also thought
this was rather harsh. But now when I
look back I see the validity of their concerns because that erroneous practice
resulted in the openness of Pentecostals to embrace further forms of
heresy. Demand for Christians to all
speak in tongues was followed by dropping the requirement to have
interpretation, then tongues became a free for all and people began to utter things
that were in no way any language, or perhaps even driven by another
spirit. Once they were opened to
mistaking the false from the true they then became open to further ecstatic
experiences and desired more as they became bored with tongues alone. So, as it turns out, those who opposed the
unbiblical use of “tongues” were correct in making this a defining issue
because error needs to be rooted out of good churches or else it can and will
start to grow into further problems.
Those problems have names today.
They are the Latter Rain, Third Wave, New Apostolic Reformation, Word of
Faith and the Emerging Church. Not only
did these errors open people to the heresies of the Latter Rain and Word of
Faith, they also opened them up to the heresies of Christian liberalism in the
World Council of Churches, United Church of Christ, United Methodists, Friends,
etc.
Snake Handling Cults
There are many
examples in Scripture of when certain verses are taken out of context and
amplified to doctrinal positions; you can end up in utter heresy and
cultism. The book of Acts, for instance,
is an account of when the Gospel was first preached to the Gentiles and the
Holy Spirit was first given to those who are born again. The miraculous things that happened we must
not expect to be normative in the churches, such as going out and handling
snakes or drinking poison on purpose. We
must rely on the Lord to do what He wills, not start snake handling cults.
Snake handling churches use the following verses as their justification:
Mark 16:18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly
poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick
people, and they will get well.”
Acts
28:1-6 Once
safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and
welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as
he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his
hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from
his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he
escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.” But Paul shook the snake off
into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall
dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him,
they changed their minds and said he was a god.
From these
verses groups formed snake handling cults even though the Lord says that he
must not be tested.
Matthew 4:7 Jesus answered him, “It is
also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your
God to the test.’”
They even
forgot to heed the warning to Israel to not test the Lord, or they may be
killed by snakes.
1
Corinthians 10:9 We should not test Christ, as
some of them did—and were killed by snakes.
They even claimed that if you could not do this you were
not filled with the Holy Spirit and not saved. The Lord can save us from poison
or snakes, but He does not do that as a result of a test we are putting on Him
but as a result of us being His children.
This can result in a testimony before an unbelieving world, but God
deserves all the glory. When you put God
to the test by, for instance, handling snakes, you are trying to share the
glory with God and He does not allow that. Sometimes God will put believers to
the test, or allow the enemy to do so in order to strengthen their faith. Sometimes He will heal people in order to
give them a chance to believe in Him, or in casting out of demons.
So we have many examples of people taking one or two little things
out of their Biblical context and making cults out of them. There is the famous example of this practice
if you take two unrelated verses out of context:
Matthew 27:5b … and (Judas) went and hanged himself.
Luke 10:37b … Go, and do
thou likewise.
You can then
make a suicide cult. This is an example
of what some people have actually done. Jim
Jones in effect told his followers they would not die but “step over into
another plane” at the Johnstown Massacre.
Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of
Jonestown, 304 of them children, died of apparent
cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around the settlement's main pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American
civilian life in a deliberate act until the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio
recording of the suicide in progress. On
that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the
Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not take them
after the airstrip murders. The reason given
by Jones to commit suicide was consistent with his previously stated conspiracy
theories of intelligence organizations allegedly conspiring against the Temple,
that men would "parachute in here on us," "shoot some of our
innocent babies" and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture
some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors." Parroting Jones' prior statements that hostile
forces would convert captured children to fascism, one temple member states
"the ones that they take captured, they're gonna
just let them grow up and be dummies." Given
that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit
"revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored
Flavor Aid. Later-released Temple films show Jones opening a storage container
full of Kool-Aid in large quantities. However, empty packets of grape Flavor
Aid found on the scene show that this is what was used to mix the solution
along with a sedative. One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the
beginning of the tape. When members
apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the
way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die.
We must die with some dignity." Jones
can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die," that death is
"just stepping over into another plane" and that it's "a
friend.” At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit
suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions
of an inhumane world.” (Jim Jones,
"Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 42." Alternative Considerations
of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego
State University.)
Since they murdered themselves, and the Bible says that all
unrepentant murderers end up in hell (Rev. 21:8), then they truly did step over
into another plane; that of Hades awaiting judgment.
They were all being unfaithful to the Lord, taking the Word out of
context and testing God.
Now we see
many other denominations falling away, going into apostasy, because they
started with some smaller errors and now because of those errors have left
themselves open to false teaching. One
is the example of Darby who was the father of Pretribulational
Rapture teaching. He ended up being rejected by the Biblical scholars of the
time such as H.A. Ironside and D.L. Moody because he
had started an exclusive cult which became the Closed Brethren, taught infant regenerational water baptism, etc. Now a number of denominations, though largely
unaware of the extent to which Darby’s followers went, have elevated Pretribulational Rapture to the level of a core doctrine by
putting it in their statements of faith, thus dismissing anyone who has a
different view of the Rapture. But the
timing of the Rapture is a legitimately debatable subject amongst Christians
and is not a core doctrine. When you
make that a requirement to be a true believer or part of a church doctrinal
statement then you become cultic yourself.
Back in the early 70s I was helped by some debates I heard between Pretrib and Posttrib
proponents. It helped me to realize that
both sides have legitimate arguments and that we need to be careful not to
disfellowship people for having differing views of Pre-Millennial eschatology.
Both of those views, for instance, have a different way of interpreting the
phrase “keep from” in the Bible … one side saying that they believe is means
God will take people out before the Tribulation and the other meaning God will
keep Christians safe from the wrath of God through the Tribulation.
If an
organization is teaching Preterism, Postmillennialism,
Amillennialism
or Dominionism that would be a legitimate issue to
separate over, but those who are teaching the Truth need not separate over Premillennial views of the time of the Rapture. As long as you teach that Jesus Christ will
return to earth bodily to rule and judge and that He will come for His elect,
whether in a Rapture or in the Second Coming, as PostTribs
combine the event, then you can debate the timing of His taking the church to
Himself. Now I have my own view of the
coming of the Lord Jesus for His Church which is called Intratrib
or Intraseal … that He comes for His Church between
the 6th and 7th seal.
But I will not disfellowship fellow believers if they happen to think
differently on this and can, at least somewhat substantiate their belief. I would advise anyone interested in Intratrib to read Jacob Prasch’s
book “Harpazo”.
But some denominations have made Pretrib such
a big issue that they will not even debate about it and immediately vilify
anyone who disagrees. This became very
apparent when Prasch released his book. He lost a lot of friends over it. That is a cultic practice.
When something
becomes such a part of the fabric of your belief system and is not a core
doctrine, you had better test yourself to see if you are becoming cultic when
you disfellowship over non-core issues.
The problem is that many Christians have no clue what is core and what
is not. There are five core doctrines
that must not be given away as Christians and over which we do disfellowship.
1. The Trinity: God is one "What" and three "Whos" with each "Who" possessing all the
attributes of Deity and personality.
2. The Person of Jesus
Christ: Jesus is 100% God and 100%
man for all eternity.
3. The Second Coming: Jesus Christ is coming bodily to earth to rule and
judge.
4. Salvation: It is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ
alone.
5. The Scripture: It is entirely inerrant and sufficient for all
Christian life.
(http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/5doctrines.html)
Number 3 above
is why Premillennial
believers need to stick together because in Postmillennialism and Amillennialism you don’t have Christ coming back to
RULE on earth, in Preterism He has allegedly already
done so and in Dominionism He rules spiritually
through His Church which is to take over everything on earth before the Second
Coming, sans Rapture. So if you are
going to be out of fellowship with people that should be done on the basis of
the core doctrines, not secondary debatable ones.
Amillennialism
The problem
with Amill in particular is that they come to their
eschatology by allegorizing Scriptures like 2 Peter 3:8 to try to make the
references to 1000 years in Revelation 20:2-4 allegorical or of some nebulous
time period that does not equal a Millennium of time. But that verse in 2 Peter is explaining what
it is like for God who is outside of time and space, not explaining a literal
meaning of 1000 years. As stated before,
when you start with a smaller error you end up in bigger ones. Most Amills I know
often move on to allegorizing Genesis and do not believe in a 24 hour creation
day. They make that well-defined “day”
out to be any amount of time to try to bring it into line with evolutionary
science, this idea being called “Theistic Evolution”. They use the wrong excuse that a “day” can be
anything in Scripture as in “the day of the Lord”. But “the day of the Lord” is talking about a
general time period whereas the “days” of Creation are defined as 24 hour days.
Genesis 1:5 God called the light day, and the darkness He
called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
The next step
which I have seen among Reformed Theology adherents is that you end up with a
low view of Scripture, not really believing in inerrancy. But God said some things about His Word that
ought to give those who have a low view of Scripture pause.
Psalm 119:160 The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances
is everlasting.
Psalm 138:2 I
will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy
name.
Are there
various minor mistranslations in English and other languages in the Bibles
today? Yes. Were there errors in the original manuscripts
which no longer exist? No. Do the less than 1% of errors in Bibles today
compromise core doctrinal issues? No. Can you get the Truth from good English
translations? Absolutely. Translation is not an exact science. It is very difficult to boil down the meaning
of many Hebrew words to one English equivalent.
It is also very hard to translate Greek word for word. But we have many shining examples of great
English translations today such as the NASB, the NKJV, the KJV, the RSV and the
NET. There are also bad translations out
there by cults and even non-translation “commentaries” such as the Message
Bible which should be avoided at all costs.
But we do have God’s Word preserved for us down through the centuries in
many languages around the world.
The last step
for Amills is to finally disregard Scripture as the
Christian’s highest authority in all matters of faith and practice. I have seen this happen although it has not
happened to all Reformed people yet. But
many are well on their way. The
Catholics are already there and certainly the pope. The RCC is a perfect example of leaven
growing into a loaf that is rotten to the core.
You can start
with small errors and it always becomes worse the longer it is allowed to fester. You can even end up in denial of one or more
of the core doctrines of the Faith, which destroys true Faith and without
repentance can cause a person to apostatize. False ideas do not get better with
time but worse. The only cure is a
radical surgery to remove the offending bits so that the body can be
healthy. Things do not get better on
their own when left alone but need to be corrected. The Bible says to get the leaven out (1 Cor.
5:7). It says to disfellowship the
sinful unrepentant man (1 Cor. 5:5). It
says to stay away from false prophets and false teachers (Rom. 16:17). Yet unfortunately it has become politically
incorrect in our modern churches to follow what the Bible says in these
matters. Therefore these errors are compounding on themselves and we’re ending
up with a large segment of Christianity which is into a counterfeit
Christianity of their own making, into a type of cultism because of this lack
of obedience to the Lord. The problem is
that they think they are fine because no one has the fortitude to challenge
them about their lack of action against internal error. Oh, they are quick to point out the error of
cults but they absolutely rebel if you point out error in their little church. They say “Oh, its fine. We’ll be ok.
We’re teaching the Bible”, etc.
But they refuse to acknowledge that they are teaching the Bible is a
wrong way, picking and choosing what they will follow and what they will
ignore.
I have a
problem with the way Pretribulational Rapture is
being taught today. I don’t have a
problem with it being taught, I have a problem with things like “Don’t worry
you won’t see the antichrist” or “you won’t be here for any hard times” being
taught. I believe, no matter where you
place the Rapture in the scope of the end times, that you need to present two
things: (1) People need to be ready for Christ to come back at any time, in
particular on a personal level as God can end your life anytime and (2) be
ready to stand up for the Gospel and the Faith under persecution. Those things are happening now for many
around the world and can happen for any Christian any time. The idea of a Pretrib Rapture is actually a very popular modern
view and fits our American sensibilities very well … that somehow we are a
privileged generation that will always be blessed and never have to go through
hard times. But that has never been the
case in the history of the Church, only the delusion of Laodicea that they (and
we by extension) are rich and have need for nothing, when in fact we are wretched,
pitiful, poor, blind and naked. This is
why Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel teachings are doctrines of demons.
Another pet
peeve of mine is listening to five-point Calvinists say things like “you don’t
have to believe to be saved, God will just cause you to believe” or “if you are
a Christian and you commit suicide you will still go to heaven (this is what
Charles Stanley said on a radio program)” or “you can take the mark of the
Beast and repent at the last moment and still go to heaven (this is what John
MacArthur said in a message)”. These are
ridiculous and foolish ideas. The Bible
is clear that you must believe to be saved (after hearing the Gospel and being
convicted by the Holy Spirit - Acts 16:31).
God is not going to believe for you nor will He go against His Word (2
Pet. 3:9) by sending some to heaven and some to hell based on a choice He made
in eternity. It is rather based on His
foreknowledge (Rom. 8:29) of whether or not a person will believe when they are
convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit. You
cannot murder yourself and expect to be in heaven (Rev. 21:8) and taking the
mark of the Beast will send you to hell along with the Antichrist and False
Prophet (Rev. 14:11). Arminianism, on the other hand, teaches that man is not
completely fallen or sinful, that man does not have a sin nature contrary to
Scripture (Rom. 7:18 & 25). The Bible says we are desperately wicked (Jer.
17:9) and that all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom.
3:23, 5:12). If you subscribe to either
five-point Calvinism or five-point Arminianism you
are going to be in error because there are points in both that are incorrect or
only partly correct. So when you drift
over into the full belief in either system, systems that are of man and do not
entirely follow the Scripture, you are going to begin to have your belief
system corrupted little by little.
Pretty soon you will end up teaching false teaching that is dangerous to
the beliefs of Christians who can end up believing in vain (1 Cor. 15:2).
There are many
errors in Christian churches that were left to grow into major problems. It use
to be a problem mainly for cults which would start following certain Scriptures
taken out of context or some person who brings “new revelation”. But now “new revelation” is happening in what
used to be evangelical Biblical churches, so much so that even the word
“evangelical” has been co-opted by heretics and can no longer be used in
reference to Bible-believing Christ-centered churches. When I look at how many Protestant
denominations are getting together with Roman Catholics and the pope these days
it is a symptom of a long festering problem of interfaithism,
inclusivism, pluralism and ecumenism that have crept
into churches and now, like the proverbial frog in a pot of water brought
slowly to a boil, they don’t even realize they are right in the middle of
apostasy. They used to recognize that
you can’t do ministry, in particular evangelism, with an organization like the
RCC that teaches works salvation and is in denial of the core doctrine of
salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and at least one
other core doctrine in adding tradition on the same level as the written
Word. The RCC has never been able to
accept the definition of salvation in the “solas”
because they cannot say that salvation is by grace alone. So “evangelicals” who don’t know their Bible
have not gotten together with them and signed off on a statement that reads:
“Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ”. So everyone, enamored with people like Joel
Osteen, Rick Warren, Chuck Colson and others, line up like lemmings and head
for the cliff of compromise. Christians
can agree with Catholics on some social issues, but not on ministry and
evangelism. But even on social issues we
do not agree with their policy of priests and nuns not marrying because the
Bible clearly teaches that the overseers of the churches should be married (1
Tim. 3:2). When you start with the error
of pluralism you end up mixing everything together in one big pot and creating
a new one world religion. This is what
is going on today and we are well on our way to what the Bible predicted would
happen in the end times. We are not
going to see a worldwide revival but rather a worldwide apostasy in the
churches. There may be a worldwide
revival, but it is a revival of demonic religions from the past and
occultism. With the “new revelation” of Dominionism, the teaching that the Church must take over
the governments and every aspect of the world in order for Christ to return,
you have the full fledged fulfillment of the passage on the woman who rides the
beast (Rev. 17:3 & 7).
Small errors ALWAYS develop into
larger errors if unchecked. Small errors
don’t go away by themselves. They have
to be dealt with and abandoned. They
have to be repented of. They have to be
extricated, removed by precise surgery, from the Body of Christ, and from the
local church in order that the local church can survive. This was the case with
the man Paul told the Corinthians to excommunicate for committing incest. This was done so that the man might be
brought to his lowest point by Satan and that he might possibly repent and
turn, which he in fact did. But if he
had been left in that church that sin would have become commonplace and all
kinds of sexual sins follow. We see this
happening in a number of churches today.
The leadership gets people all riled up on “slain in the spirit”,
appealing to the flesh, and gets them hooked.
Once they are an addict, if they cannot get another fix, they go
searching for alternatives which almost always involve sex, drugs, alcohol,
perversions, and adultery. I know
someone who works in a garment factory and she could not believe how women, who
were allegedly Christians and choir members, talk about the most base sexual
details of their lives in front of everyone.
They have been misled by the enemy and yet they still think they are
true Christians. They have been fooled
into substituting spiritual things for soulical things.
Conclusion
The problems in Christendom today
are there because discernment has not been taught. People are left with milk only and never move
on to meat. They never have to use their
own brains or discern what is right or wrong.
This is a failure of the leadership.
Any church that teaches verse by verse with correct interpretation will
cover everything a Christian needs for life and practice. But this is not
generally being done. Rebuke is seen as
an evil, ugly thing instead of remaining open to the voice of the Spirit
through the Word. Christians cannot just
“proclaim” and “think positively” out of these problems. They need to study the Word of God and allow
the Holy Spirit to show them their errors.
We are all sinners saved by grace and we all need our Father to teach us
and discipline us when needed. None of
us are perfect, none of us have arrived.
So let’s admit we have some major problems and begin the process of
dealing with them.