1Jn 4:1 Beloved, 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.
John MacArthur rightly used a lot of biblical tests in the Strange Fire conference in determining if the Charismatic Movement is a work of the Holy Spirit as 1 John 4 commands us to do. Clearly it fails the tests.
Well here's one of the tests of a believer which
we should use on his friend Piper to see if Piper is as faithful of a teacher as he says.
"And
in his message The Theology of Creation, concerning the origin of our
universe, Dr. John MacArthur correctly points out:
"Now, because the Bible is so
clear about this in Genesis 1, and then giving us an even further and more
detailed look at this creation, rehearsing its elements in a broader way in
chapter 2, you face a test at the very outset of the Bible. You’re not going to
get past the first verses of the Bible, you’re not going to get past the first
verse in the Bible, the first chapter in the Bible, the first two chapters in
the Bible without facing a test. And the test is this, do you believe the
Scripture? Do you believe the Scripture? That is the test. No one gets past the
opening verses of the Bible without having to face the test of whether or not
that person believes the Bible to be the authoritative Word of God. Do you
submit to Scripture? Genesis 1 is your first test…" "
~Apprising Ministries (emphasis, mine)So here is what John Piper has said:
Now, when it comes to the more controversial issues of how to construe Genesis 1-2 about how God did it and how long it took him to do it, there I'm totally sympathetic with a pastor who is going to lay his view down, having studied it, and is going to say to his people, "Here is my understanding of those chapters. These six days can't be anything other than six literal days, and so that's how long God took to do it. And this universe is about 10 or 15,000 years old. Though it looks old, that's the way God made it. He made it to look old," or something like that.
Or he might take another view that these days are ages.
Or he might take Sailhamer's view, which is where I feel at home. His view is that what's going on here is that all of creation happened to prepare the land for man.
In verse 1, "In the beginning he made the heavens and the earth," he makes everything. And then you go day by day and he's preparing the land. He's not bringing new things into existence; he's preparing the land and causing things to grow and separating out water and earth. And then, when it's all set and prepared, he creates and puts man there.
So that has the advantage of saying that the earth is billions of years old if it wants to be—whatever science says it is, it is—but man is young, and he was good and he sinned. He was a real historical person, because Romans 5 says so, and so does the rest of the Bible.
That's where I am, and I think every pastor should go ahead and say what he believes. But how do you define who gets on your eldership, for example? Who gets a teaching office in your church? I'm inclined to not draw that too narrowly.
But I could be wrong about that, you know. I'm 63 years old, and I've never preached through Genesis yet. And I'd like to! I'm going to finish John, and then maybe the next thing I'll turn to, if the elders let me stay around that long, would be Genesis.
We need to give our people help in this.
End quote.
As More Books And Things reports, Sailhamer’s book, which Piper refers to, is about selling an old idea as “new” and “provocative”, when its neither new nor provocative. Its damnable doctrine, sitting in the seat of scoffers and especially that of the Serpent, proclaiming, “Hath God Said?” According to Answers in Genesis, this Hebrew "scholar" “has ‘unbound’ are the rules of grammar, the semantic fields of words and the laws of logic.” ~Source
Piper does not believe what God said, and instead says if the earth "wants to be" billions of years old, or if science says it is, then it is. In other words, Piper's authority about creation is not the Creator, but the creation!
So Piper denies the Genesis account, and instead holds to an evolutionary view of Creation except for Adam and Eve. He is unfaithful to God in the very first two chapters of Genesis, the very test of Scripture that MacArthur proclaimed as such: do you believe Scripture or not?
For Piper, on creation, his authority is the earth and science, NOT THE WORD OF GOD.
Is THIS "faithful" teaching? Can this to benefit anyone who "needs help"?
Hardly. Rather it is a DIRECT attack on God's Word.
Piper fails the very first test of all of Scripture.
Piper has also failed the most important test of a pastor:
Christians are clearly commanded....demanded by God...to test all teachers and teachings against the plumb line of Scripture:
Isa 8:20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
Act 17:11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Rev 2:2 "'I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
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