The Great Western Heresy

“The crisis of this moment has several parts, and . . ., they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. “

Sounds like something that would come from a religious group outside of Christianity. For the source of that quote read this article.

Recognizing Counterfeits

“I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.” – Acts 20:29-30

Here we find Paul warning some Ephesian brethren what was going to happen when he left them. False teachers (fierce wolves) would attack from outside the church and false teachers would arise from within. Paul didn’t tell them it “might” happen, he said it “will” happen. Both types of false teachers have the same goal, to draw away disciples after themselves.

Their chief tactic is scripture twisting; “speaking perverse things; concerning God, and Christ, and the Gospel; distorted things, wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction, and that of others; things that are disagreeable to the word of God, and pernicious to the souls of men.” (John Gill 1697-1771)

Countless books have been written about false religions, dangerous cults, and spiritual ’snake-oil’ salesmen, sometimes by the counterfeiters themselves (about other counterfeits and Christs true church).

How do you tell the genuine article from the counterfeit? You can try and read the countless books, but how do you know which ones to read, which author to trust?

I have a suggestion – why not start with the infallible book by the infallible author – the Bible. After all, the chief tactic used by false teachers everywhere is to distort the written word of God. When you know the real deal, and a ‘poser’ enters the room, spiritual ‘flags’ pop up, warning bells sound.

The more scripture you know, the easier it gets to spot ‘em. You listen to what they say (they always have a lot to say) and something doesn’t ring true. Examine their words under the light of scripture and if they’re ‘playing Twister’, you’ll know. The deeper the written word is ‘hidden in your heart’, the sooner you will spot them. The sooner they are spotted and dealt with, the less damage they inflict. The less damage then inflict, the easier it becomes to restore believers who have been deceived.

Knowledge of the written word of God is key to the gift of discernment.

Truth, Lies and Horseback Riding

You are probably thinking that’s a rather silly title for a blog post. Maybe, maybe not. If it stimulated your curiosity to the point you are actually reading this, it accomplished the desired goal of the author. Therefore, it makes at least a little bit of sense. Agreed? No on to the point. . .

Months ago, maybe even years ago in some cases, while studying various aspects of Christianity in light of scripture (a favorite pastime of mine), I began to see beliefs in Christendom that had little or no scriptural support, and that some of those questionable beliefs had achieved the status of ‘doctrine’, and to disagree with them was labeled minimally as growth hindering misunderstanding of scripture, and blasphemy deserving of Hell at the other end of the ‘error spectrum’.  I had then, and then still have now, a soul deep conviction that God wrote the Book and therefore what was taught as truth, but didn’t agree with the context of scripture, was wrong or false in some measure and in some cases, was an outright lie.

The unavoidable question brought to this inquiring mind was, “How did these falsehoods and lies end up so widely believed by professing Christians? The answer arrived at after a considerable amount of studying scripture, researching a range of historical resources, and comparing them both to widely held beliefs of professing believers was. and IS, precisely this:

The ‘accepted’ lie always rides in on the back of truth. Without an element of scriptural truth upon which to hitch a ride, the lie never survives.

A prime example from the early church would be the Pelagian heresy that denied any adverse effect of Adam’s sin on the rest of mankind that was birthed after the Fall. That lie didn’t get very far and was condemned as heresy. the ‘Semi-Pelagianism that followed acknowledged that Adam’s sin affected of us, but man is still able in and of himself to cooperate with God in the salvation of his soul . That was also condemned as heresy (at the Council of Orange), but is in fact alive and well in both major camps of Christianity. No segment of Christianity has ever admitted to being Semi-Pelagian, although a synergistic Gospel is by nature, exactly that.

There you have one man’s explanation of the connection between truth, lies, and horseback riding. The initial lie, without an element of truth, failed. The second lie, while admitting ’some’ truth, made a modified version of the first lie perfectly acceptable, and even pleasing to human sensibilities.

There have been other examples of lies riding in on the back of truth, some with a longer history of ‘acceptance’ than others. The two most damaging to both the cause of Christ and the souls of men are 1) that Christ established a single religious organization as the only true church with an ‘infallible’ human as head of that church and 2) that God ‘accepts’ us unconditionally, WITH our sin.

Both have a segment of truth. Christ did declare he would establish His church on earth. God does LOVE unconditionally – it’s His nature and one of His divine attributes.

The church that Christ established is made up of those persons for whom he died, from every tongue and tribe and nation – those whom He purchased with his own blood. We weren’t put on layaway!

If God could ‘accept’ us into His Kingdom WITH our sin, His Son died in vain. The first point of the Gospel is that Christ DIED for our sin!

Satan’s Gambit

In the world of chess, a gambit is a chess opening in which the first player risks or sacrifices material, usually a pawn, with the hope of achieving a resulting advantageous position. One article I found that contained a list of twenty opening gambits, including one colorfully named the Fried Liver Attack. Not included in the list was Satan’s Gambit.   Perhaps that’s because in the world of chess there isn’t an opening gambit with that name – at least I didn’t find one.

So what do I mean by Satan’s Gambit, and to what game does it apply? I’m glad you asked those questions – we’ll address them in reverse order.

Satan’s Gambit is not about a game, but about our Christian faith, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6;12), and Satan is the enemy’s CINC (Commande in Chief).  In the art of spiritual warfare, Satan’s opening gambit has always been to attack the authority of inspired Scripture, since the days of the New Testament church. The Apostle Paul specifically addressed ‘other gospels’ that had corrupted the pure Gospel of Christ.

The latest form of Satan’s Gambit would probably reside in the philosophy of the Emergent church, and the leaders of the ‘conversation’ whose passion for the uncertainty of scripture has been heard from their own lips and thoroughly documented, as have strong connections to the ‘contemplative prayer movement’ . As novel and appealing as their ideas might be, they lack a truly original thought.  The Emperor of Uncertainty has new clothes but he’s still running around naked.  Dr. John MacArthur had this to say in an insightful interview with Phil Johnson:

The bottom line, I think, in the movement is that it is a denial of the clarity of Scripture. It is a denial that we can know what the Bible really says. And as I said, it’s amorphous because there’s a mish-mash of approaches to this and a mish-mash of styles and things like that. But they have embraced this mystery as if it’s true spirituality. And so, it becomes celebration of mystery, a celebration of ignorance, a celebration that we can’t really know. I think it’s just another form of liberalism. I think it’s just another form of denying the clarity of Scripture. And I think there’s a motive behind it…it’s just another philosophy.

Post-modernism is another bad philosophy. Modernism was a bad philosophy. Post-modernism is another bad philosophy. But in both cases, they assault the Scripture. Modernism made reason, human reason, the king. Reason was supreme in modernism. Thomas Payne, The Age of Reason, The Enlightenment, all of those things, the Renaissance. Out of that came the worship of the human mind and the mind trumps God. Now mystery trumps the Bible. The human mind trumps the Bible in modernism, mystery trumps the Bible in post-modernism. It is at the foundation an unwillingness to accept the clear teaching of Scripture. (Online source) (Emphasis mine.)

However dangerous to the church the Emergent movement might be, there is a deceptive variant of Satan’s Gambit that is far more dangerous to the spiritual growth of the individual believer. Rather than openly doubting the authority of scripture, this version of the gambit is far more subtle. While seeming to allow for adherence to biblical doctrine, the variant assigns more importance to personal insights and feelings about scripture than the clear teaching of scripture itself. There is even an online university that advertises a book ‘Hearing God’s Voice – Guaranteed!’. The book teaches that the best way to hear God’s voice is through our ’spontaneous thoughts, feelings and insights’. To test the validity of these ‘journaled’ spontaneous thoughts, they are given to three others who ‘discern’ whether or not it was God speaking.

I am not saying that God doesn’t ever speak, or isn’t involved in our thoughts and emotions. The test of their validity,however, should be the light of Scripture, not the ‘third party’ discernment described above. What we have here is a form of mysticism that teaches the gullible how to be false prophets to themselves! The authority and light of Scripture is supplanted by subjective internal feelings and experiences. Sound rather ridiculous? It should!

You might be asking “How do sincere believers fall for this kind of false teaching?”  Well, there are probably several ways, but I know of a perfect ‘training ground’ that the enemy uses to slide the gullible (usually believers young in their faith) right into it! I speak from experience because I’ve been there and back. What I am referring to is popular What Does this Verse Mean “to ME”? form of Bible study.

This highly subjective approach to scripture lets the individual interpret the text by what he/she ‘feels’  God is saying. When this is the accepted/preferred form of studying the Bible, all sorts of ‘wonderful insights’ are obtained and self-congratulation abounds, accompanied by considerable fawning over everyone else’s ‘insights’. I remember many such Bible studies in which no one was really growing in grace and discipleship, but we sure felt good about ourselves! Can you see the progression here?

• Reading the Bible but spending more time discussing how one ‘feels’ about the text instead of inductive study to learn what it says in context and applying it.
• Progressing to a deeper level of ‘hearing’ God’s voice and receiving ‘personal words’ of prophesy for one’s self and others, outside of scripture.
• Doubting the very certainty of the truth of scripture and embracing forms of mysticism as the best or only way to really hear God.

While there may be other, smaller steps from innocent appearing Christian fellowship to complete apostasy, these three can almost always be observed in the process and all three attack the certainty and authority of scripture, almost invisibly at first, but sometimes resulting in embracing the heretical.

So there you have what I call Satan’s Gambit. Similar to a well played game of chess, there is an initial move that is not necessarily harmful, but that can escalate and end in disaster. Experienced chess players study various opening gambits and how to counter the advance of the enemy. How much more crucial it is for believers to be able to recognize the enemy of our souls and counter his subtle attacks!