Are You Asleep Or Awake?

An excellent article suggested by commenter Mark:

Are You Sleeping Or Awake?

Excerpts quote:


I actually heard an extended sermon based on this parable [ (Matthew 13:24-30)] which managed to omit this key fact by skipping past the opening verses and jumping right to Jesus’ words, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest”. Extracting and lifting this line out of the parable so he could twist the context, the speaker asserted that this meant it was by God’s design that good and evil are allowed to grow, side-by-side, co-equal to each other until His appointed time of judgment. Therefore, he further asserted, the application in his opinion was that no matter how bad things are, no matter how bad a ministry or person might be, there is always something “good” to be extracted or learned. His repeated admonishment was that we were not to be distracted by the presence of evil, but to instead look for the good that was in the vicinity of evil. (In seminary terms whereas the proper way to handle Scripture is through “exegesis” which seeks to bring out the intended meaning from the text, this is an example of “eisegesis” where someone introduces their own ideas and transposes them onto the text.)

Having provided this “platform”, he then proceeded to list a host of “good” things he had extracted from a myriad of sources. This exhaustive list of religious organizations included many which I would agree are impeccable in their quality and pedigree, but it also included a great many which were either dubious or outright cults or false religions. The amazing thing was how this speaker knew which ones would be controversial to the audience and often paused on them to reassure us, “Now I know these folks have some problems, and they wouldn’t be my number one recommendation, but if you can look past it, here’s some good that’s come from them.”

At the very least, this man was an example of the sleeping servants in the parable to whom it can be directly attributed that Satan is allowed to enter the church and plant false teaching. Even more so however, he might be an example of a false shepherd who actually allows God’s flock to be spiritually attacked and harmed. What we have to take seriously are the many warnings from Christ and the Apostles that we are supposed to remain vigilant against these false teachers/believers so that neither we nor the church at large will be deceived or go astray because of them.

For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit;
but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we
speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

So how are we to deal with false teachers and their false teachings? Pick out the “good” from the “bad”? Throughout Scripture we have repeated and plentiful examples of how to deal with such people. They are to be plainly, directly, and even publicly confronted so that there is no doubt as to their true nature. We see this in David’s calling out of Saul, Jeremiah’s dealings with Hananiah, Christ’s interaction with the corrupt religious leaders of the day, and throughout the New Testament epistles wherein the writers actually name the names of false teachers and publicly warn against associating with them.

There is a word in this politically correct world which has made inroads into our thinking which actually has no biblical standing according to the world’s definition: “tolerate”. Paul uses it in 2 Corinthians 11:19-20 to chastise Christians for tolerating false teachers and their teaching, and Jesus uses it in Revelation 2:20 to admonish Thyatira for tolerating the false teacher Jezebel. Its only “positive” use, if you will, is by Christ to the church in Ephesus:

‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate
evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they
are not, and you found them to be false; (Revelation 2:2)

What the world would have us implement is a definition of tolerance that is completely opposite that propounded by God’s Word. In each instance it refers directly to false teachers and the need to be resolutely INtolerant.

I suppose it really does come down to our faith in God’s Word. The only explanation for this repeated behavior to supplement God’s Word and ways with information, approaches, and philosophies poisoned by the influences of the world is a lack of faith in God’s Word to provide the whole answer. This is probably why the charlatans like Warren, Osteen, and McLaren ignore the Word or use the worst imitations of it in order to camouflage their “destructive heresies”. It is a palpable lack of faith in God’s Word which leads to thinking that marketing principles can provide additional insight into how to build a church. It is a lack of faith in God’s Word which leads to thinking that secular music models can become the basis for worship. It is a lack of faith in God’s Word which leads to thinking that we can “borrow” things from cults and false religions with no perceived ill effect.

End quote.

The article is very good and echoes what I've been saying.

Its getting harder to find biblical churches, but that doesn't negate our duty to be in one. At any rate, we need to keep sounding the alarm, for the enemy IS in the camp, shrill as it might sound. May we see the urgency God sees in dealing with false teachers and obey HIM by rejecting entire men and their books/ministries/churches when they are proven biblically to be false teachers.

The circle of biblical Christianity is smaller than we can imagine. And its shrinking daily as God is sifting out those who are not of HIM.