Jeremiah 23:1-2 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of
My pasture!” says the Lord. Therefore thus
says the Lord God of Israel
With
some comments, both online & off, about the last post’s email about what
was being said at her women’s Bible Study, I thought that this “live” issue
should continue to be addressed and discussed. When the Truth is distorted,
devastation and destruction is reaped in the lives of the people. When the
sound Doctrine grounded in the Word of God goes, the church goes with it. We
have seen, and continue to see, departure from biblical moral & ethical
standards, to liberal secular principles based upon false ideas and teachings,
which are heresies that destroy the Word of God. Theologian
J.
Gresham Machen (1881 – 1937) wrote: “False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel.
We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning
a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of a
nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force
of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a
harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to
destroy the obstacle at its root.”
When the man dying from cancer said: “he
had always heard one had to be saved to go to heaven. And she said, “I
don’t think so”. Then the teacher said no.” (meaning that you do not have
to be saved to go to heaven), they
exposed themselves as heretics that call themselves “Christians”, but deny the
atonement of Christ, denying the redemption of the Savior himself - 2 Timothy 3:5 “Having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have
nothing to do with them.” I’m sure that there is 2 Timothy 4:3 type words like “God is love” & “God is peace”
(which is true), but where is the Word of God being taught and are they
instructing in the wholesome Ways of God in sound Doctrine? Luke 6:46 “ Why do you call Me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
I’ve heard it’s not that they were
Christians and lost their salvation. 1 John 2:19 tells us, “They went out from us, but they were not of
us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be
made manifest, that none of them were of us.” Apostasy (the falling away from the faith) is something a
pagan can never do because there is no affirmation of faith in the first place,
and you cannot lose what you never really had. True Believers will never commit
apostasy. Theologian R.C. Sproul explains that apostasy happens in the church
by those who claim and profess to have faith, who then repudiate that faith.
False doctrine produces “ungodly” life. Like a cavity or cancer, it must be
removed. If we are false in our understanding of the Truth, how could we
possibly be “righteous”? If you are going to live by the principles of the Word
of God, you have to know what they are. But knowledge is only part of the
battle. The hardest part is having the moral strength to live by those
principles. Live by Truth, be a light to
the world to expose both darkness & beauty.
1 Peter 2:1-6 “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and
all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of
the Word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but
chosen by God and precious, you also, as living
stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the
Scripture, “Behold,
I lay in Zion
In Christ,
Brian
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