TAKING ERROR WITH APOSTOLIC SERIOUSNESS

Martin Downes emphasizes a perennial need in the Church, but perhaps never more important than now simply because the lack of discernment among pastors and laymen alike is pronounced.

Every generation of the church needs to cultivate doctrinal discernment with regard to truth and error. Every generation of church leaders need to practice pastoral vigilance in the nurture and protection of the flock. God’s Word on these matters must be understood and applied.

In this regard there are unchanging positive calls to preach the Word (2 Tim. 4:1-2), to teach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), to hold fast to the gospel (1 Cor. 15:1-2), to follow the pattern of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13; 1 Tim. 4:6), to guard the good deposit (2 Tim. 1:14; 1 Tim. 6:20), to appoint faithful men able to teach others also (2 Tim. 2:2), and to teach disciples all that Jesus has commanded them to obey (Matt. 28:19-20).

These imperatives set the tone and direction of Christian ministry. They call for a wholehearted commitment to love the Lord our God, to be faithful stewards of the gospel, and to feed his sheep (Jer. 3:15; 1 Cor. 4:1-2; Titus 1:9; 1 Peter 5:2).

Alongside these positive calls are the unrelenting warnings about the presence of false teachers, and clear instructions about how to deal with them (Rom. 16:17-18; Eph. 4:14; 1 Tim. 1:3-4; 2 Tim. 2:16, 22-26; Titus 1:11; 3:9-11; 2 Peter 2:1-3). These warnings are clothed in powerful images. False teachers are wolves, dogs, waterless clouds, fruitless trees, wild waves, wandering stars, and their teaching will eat up like gangrene (Matt. 7:15-20; Acts 20:29; Phil. 3:2; 2 Tim. 2:17; Jude 12-13) .

It is required of church leaders that they keep a watch on themselves, their teaching, and the flock entrusted to their care (Acts 20:28, 31; 1 Tim. 4:16). They must have a solid grasp of sound doctrine, held with a clear conscience, and an ability to mix it with false teachers (1 Tim. 1:5, 19; Titus 1:9). Truth must be taught and those in error must be rebuked and their teaching refuted.

Scripture never soft pedals the true nature and effects of heresy. It regards the most virulent forms of error as soul destroying and insidiously evil (Gal. 1:6-9; 2 Cor. 11:1-4, 12-15; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 2:25-26; 1 John 2:22; 4:3; 2 John 7). Harold O. J. Brown underlined the seriousness of rejecting the true gospel and embracing a different one:

 

…just as there are doctrines that are true, and that can bring salvation, there are those that are false, so false that they can spell eternal damnation for those who have the misfortune to be entrapped by them.

 

 

Nevertheless, in God’s providence, these errors have been the occasion of producing greater clarity in the articulation of the essential articles of the Christian faith. They have also provoked some of the most substantial responses to be found in the theological literature of the Church. Alfred North Whitehead, of all people, rightly remarked that “wherever there is a creed, there is a heretic round the corner or in his grave.”

Rather more positively, Martin Luther was right to say that “If heresies and offenses come, Christendom will only profit thereby, for they make Christians to read diligently the Holy Writ and ponder the same with industry…Thus through heretics and offenses we are kept alert and stouthearted and amid wrangles and battles understand God’s word better than before

THE NEED FOR PROPHETIC VISION

 ”We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist–Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy.” – A.W. Tozer

HT: 1517

FEEDING SHEEP OR AMUSING GOATS

The mission of amusement fails to effect the end desired.

An evil resides in the professed camp of the Lord so gross in its impudence that the most shortsighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate evil for evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses.

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” That is clear enough. So it would have been if He has added, “and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.” No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him. Then again, “He gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers, for the work of the ministry.” Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no martyr roll.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the Church to the world? “Ye are the salt,” not sugar candy-something the world will spite out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance, “Let the dead bury their dead.” He was in awful earnestness!

Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear Him say, “Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow!” Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of the gospel amusement. Their message is, “Come out, keep out, keep clean out!” Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon. After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, “Lord grant Thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.” If they ceased not for preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They “turned the world upside down.” That is the difference! Lord, clear the Church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the Church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy-laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

A Conversation with Paul Washer

Outstanding video in which Paul Washer discusses the true Gospel, the needs in the Church today, the function of pastors, and other things particularly relevant to today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRQdn5c8tQ0

The Desperate Need of the Hour

from ReformedVoices

“Never has the need been greater for the truths of sovereign grace to be firmly established in the church. Her thinking about God desperately needs to be flowing in the right direction. As the church thinks, so she worships; and, as the church worships, so she lives, serves, and evangelizes. The church’s right view of God and the outworking of His grace gives shape to everything that is vital and important. The church must recapture her lofty vision of God and, thereby, be anchored to the solid rock of His absolute supremacy in all things. Only then will the church have a God-centered orientation in all matters of ministry. This, I believe, is the desperate need of the hour.” -Steven J. Lawson, Foundations of Grace (Click book cover for more info)

The Idolatry of “Decisional” Evangelism – Paul Washer

A Testimony

By David at The Thirsty Theologian

Yesterday my wife and I joined the church we’ve been attending. This is the testimony I presented to the congregation. A previously-written, and quite different version, can be found here. I haven’t shared my testimony publicly in this way very many times. Of the times I have, when I look back and remember what I have said, it occurs to me that most of what I have said has been about me. That ought not be the case, and I am going to try to avoid that this time; because my testimony is not primarily about me. It is primarily about God. God is the main character in my story, and the mover behind the various minor players. God has been gracious to send people into my life and use them to bring me the gospel. In my earliest years, I was given wise and godly Sunday school teachers. I thank God for the example of my mother, whom I frequently saw — and who still can be seen — sitting with her Bible, always with a notebook at hand, writing copious notes. He sent me friends whose lives made me want to know God, even while I resisted him. I don’t know when God saved me. I know the general time frame in which I began to receive assurance of salvation, which is now more than twenty years ago. Because of some rather confused theology in the churches I grew up in, I had a difficult time gaining that assurance. That’s not particularly important. What is important, and what I do know, is how God saved me. Ephesians 2 says, 1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.  4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. I have done nothing; God has done it all. It was God who chose me before the foundation of the world according to his good pleasure (Ephesians 1). It was God who sent the gospel to me, who convicted me of my sin, called me to faith in Christ, gave me the gift of faith (Ephesians 2), granted me repentance (2 Timothy 2), and gave me the understanding to discern the things of God (1 Corinthians 2). It was God who adopted me as his son (Romans 8, Galatians 4, Ephesians 5), and made me a joint-heir (Romans with his only natural son, Jesus Christ. It was God who gave me a new nature (2 Corinthians 5), so that I would hate my sin, and love him and his Word. And it is God who continues to work in me, “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2). Finally, it is God who has promised to perfect the good work he has begun in me (Philippians 1) and to glorify me with him (Romans . I was conceived and born in sin. I had no ability or inclination to choose Christ, accept Christ, make a decision for Christ, or any other phrase you may have heard or used to describe conversion. I was an enemy of God, a rebel, concerned only with my own pleasure and well-being. As much as I would like to diminish my role in this story, there is one way in which I was very actively involved. I actively hated God and loved myself. But God loved me, and saved me. Just as he called Lazarus out of the grave, he called me from mine; and just as Lazarus could not raise himself from the dead, neither could I raise myself. I am not saved because I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I am saved because God, in Christ, by his perfect righteousness and his death for my unrighteousness, has made me acceptable to him. He has not accepted me because I have accepted him. My acceptance of him is a consequence, not a cause, of his acceptance of me. I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior because God has accepted me in Christ. Because of Christ, God doesn’t see me as the sinner I am. He sees me covered with Christ’s righteousness. And in that same way, I hope when you hear [or read] this testimony, it causes you to see not me, but the glory of God in Christ.

Refined Idolatry

“Into the Word” for October 13 (Tabletalk Magazine) defines two kinds of idolatry:

“1. Crass Idolatry is that kind of idolatry wherein someone carves a figure of a deity out of a block of wood, piece of stone, or other type of physical material. One of the hardest things to do is to trust the God who is invisible to our five senses; thus, fallen men often create such statues and figures in order to have something they can touch and see. The problem with this, we have noted, is that visual depictions of the divine nature are absolutely prohibited. [Exodus 20:4-6]  By and large, Westerners today would probably not be guilty of this kind of idolatry.

2. Refined Idolatry, on the other hand, is rampant in even the most technologically advanced nations on the planet. Idolatry of the refined sort includes the pursuit of anything other than the glory of God as one’s central purpose for being. But refined idolatry also occurs in a more subtle manner. Anytimes we deny an attribute of the Lord revealed in Scripture or allow our own preferences to determine His character, we are guilty of refined idolatry.

Their denial of biblical authority makes it easy to accuse liberals of committing refined idolatry. The evangelical church in our day, however, can also build refined idols. Those who believe in a ‘God of love” without acknowledging His just wrath are guilty of refined idolatry. Any attempt to make God less sovereign than He really is makes us refined idolaters. Where is your belief about the Lord not in line with what He has revealed about Himself in Scripture?”

Believing in a ‘God of love’ to the exclusion of His other attributes is only one example of refined idolatry that involves emphasis on one of God’s attributes more than another. We might, for instance, choose to believe in a ‘God of mercy’ and ignore that He is also a God of justice.

Our minds are a virtual factory of refined idols. We constantly fashion a god to our liking that does not conform to the God revealed in the Bible, that contradicts the very nature of God. An example is the ‘god’ portrayed in The Shack that bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible, and in fact distorts the God revealed in the Bible.

The tendency to refined idolatry is something every Christian must guard against. One of the best safeguards against it is to thoroughly know God as He has revealed Himself in His Word. ~JB

You Are Living God’s Plan “A” For Your Life

Justin Buzzard calls attention to a book I just may buy. It appears to clarify the subject of God’s plans for us, something that needs clarification. ~JB 

…we tend to think that while God has a “best” plan for our life, he also has some other, “cheaper” plans for people who miss the best. We remember certain foolish or sinful decisions we’ve made and, because of the consequences, see ourselves on a permanent “Plan B” regarding God’s will for our lives. Each time we make another bad decision, we drop down a notch to Plan C, Plan D, and–being the sinners that we are–we soon run out of letters in the alphabet. We think of “what could have been” if we hadn’t married so-and-so, had not gotten pregnant before marriage, had not taken this horrible job and turned down the one that would have made our career, or had not blown up at our teenage son. In this chapter we will see that for those who are in Christ, there is only one plan, Plan A. This plan holds despite all our stupid mistakes and sins. We shall see the wonder of God’s shepherding care, the detail of his love through his decreed plan for our lives. It is at once a truth that is awe-inspiring, deeply comforting, and yet sometimes intimidating for us, God’s proud creatures. -From chapter 4 of James C. Petty, Step By Step: Divine Guidance For Ordinary Christians

The Vital Importance of Discernment

In an age which finds the realm of Christendom increasingly littered with the debris scattered by the “winds of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14), the need to develop discernment is critical for believers. The prerequisite is the crying need among believers for thorough knowledge of the Bible. -JB

 

This article is by John MacArthur:

In its simplest definition, discernment is nothing more than the ability to decide between truth and error, right and wrong. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. In other words, the ability to think with discernment is synonymous with an ability to think biblically.

First Thessalonians 5:21-22 teaches that it is the responsibility of every Christian to be discerning: “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.” The apostle John issues a similar warning when he says, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). According to the New Testament, discernment is not optional for the believer-it is required.

The key to living an uncompromising life lies in one’s ability to exercise discernment in every area of his or her life. For example, failure to distinguish between truth and error leaves the Christian subject to all manner of false teaching. False teaching then leads to an unbiblical mindset, which results in unfruitful and disobedient living-a certain recipe for compromise.

Unfortunately, discernment is an area where most Christians stumble. They exhibit little ability to measure the things they are taught against the infallible standard of God’s Word, and they unwittingly engage in all kinds of unbiblical decision-making and behavior. In short, they are not armed to take a decidedly biblical stand against the onslaught of unbiblical thinking and attitudes that face them throughout their day.

Discernment intersects the Christian life at every point. And God’s Word provides us with the needed discernment about every issue of life. According to Peter, God “has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3). You see, it is through the “true knowledge of Him,” that we have been given everything we need to live a Christian life in this fallen world. And how else do we have true knowledge of God but through the pages of His Word, the Bible? In fact, Peter goes on to say that such knowledge comes through God’s granting “to us His precious and magnificent promises” (2 Peter 1:4).

Discernment ? the ability to think biblically about all areas of life ? is indispensable to an uncompromising life. It is incumbent upon the Christian to seize upon the discernment that God has provided for in His precious truth! Without it, Christians are at risk of being “tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14).

By John MacArthur © 2007. Used by permission. This article originally appeared here at Grace to You.

---