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Except Ye Repent
By Dr. Harry Ironside
Chapter 10 – THEY REPENTED NOT
More than once in the Holy Scriptures we are distinctly told that God speaks to men in the wonders of creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1-3). Yet nature in itself, beautiful as it is in some things and unspeakably terrible in others, is not sufficient to bring guilty man to repentance. The marvels of the universe ought to convince any thoughtful mind that back of all this amazing machinery is a Creator and a controlling Master Hand to whom every intelligent being owes allegiance. But something more is needed to subdue the sinner’s proud spirit and bend his haughty will to submission, and it is here that the work of the Holy Spirit comes in, acting in power upon the conscience of the godless soul.
We have seen that, while the goodness of God was designed to lead man to repentance, yet, experiencing all the benefits of that goodness, men drifted farther and farther along the downward way that leads eventually to everlasting ruin. It is one of the facts hardest to explain that people who are grateful to their fellows for the smallest favors can yet be recipients of God’s goodness daily, and that in ten thousand different ways, and still ignore completely the Giver of all good forgetting that “Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
We need not therefore be surprised that, on the other hand, the judgments of God expressed through what many regard simply as natural calamities also fail, in themselves, to produce repentance, even though they may fill men with fear, horror, and anxiety. Our Lord when predicting conditions that will prevail immediately before His return describes a world in chaotic upheaval, nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, earthquakes in many places, the sea and the waves roaring, men’s hearts failing them for fear for looking after those things which are coming on the earth — yet no intimation of repentance because of sin and a turning to God for deliverance.
It was so in olden days. The prophet Amos furnishes us with a striking picture of the dire circumstances that Israel passed through in the days of her apostasy; but the horrors of famine, the loathsomeness of the plague, and the destruction wrought by fire, storm, and earthquakes, all alike failed to produce repentance. In this connection we cannot do better than read carefully a part of his fourth chapter, verses 6-12:
“And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.”
These sore judgments are similar in character, though not nearly so severe, as those predicted to fall upon Christendom in the last days, when transgressions have come to the full. And in that day, just as when in God’s long-suffering toward Thyatira, He “gave her space to repent” and she repented not, so, three times over, we find the same thing declared concerning those who shall experience the sorrows of the tribulation era. In Revelation, after we pass the third chapter, we have a series of visions in which is set forth most graphically the climax of the age-long struggle between the forces of evil and those of righteousness. Often has it seemed to the doubting and half-hearted that the victory over sin was never to be won, but that the powers of darkness grew even stronger at times than they had been before. But faith could ever look forward to the triumph of the Lamb and His hosts over the dragon and his deluded followers. In these great visions the final outcome is clear — “A king shall reign in righteousness”; yea, righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the great deep.
But ere that time there will come the last terrific struggle, when the wrath of God and of the Lamb shall be revealed from heaven, and the wrath of the devil will be manifested on the earth as never before. Ungodly men caught in the vortex of this dynamic crash of opposing forces will have to suffer indescribable anguish, if they persist in high-handed opposition to the Kingdom of God. But all that they shall be called upon to endure will fail to work repentance in their hearts.
However one may interpret the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse, there can be no question that it is a portent of a condition unspeakably evil which will prevail upon earth for a time, inflicting terrible physical and mental suffering upon men, and destroying millions of the race. Then note the solemn words of verses 20 and 21: “And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” It is evident that suffering does not necessarily produce repentance. Twice it is so stated in these two verses.
Advocates of the larger hope and universalists generally insist that all punishment is remedial and that eventually God will perfect through suffering all who now reject His grace. This passage lends itself to no such delusive dream. Those who are to endure the horrors of the judgments here depicted are not thereby brought to confess their sins and seek divine forgiveness. Instead, they harden themselves against God and persist in their immoral and ungodly behavior.
Yet it cannot be denied that suffering has had a very salutary effect on many people; but this does not refute the position taken above. When the grace of God co-operates with the trying circumstances to bring one to a sense of his personal need, his unworthiness of the divine favor, and his dependence on God for that which alone can enable him to rise above the adverse conditions in which he finds himself, suffering will be used to produce repentance. But where this is not the case it results in greater hardness of heart just as the same sun that softens the wax hardens the clay.
A kindred passage to that we have already been considering is Revelation 16:10-11: “And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.”
Here we see that the most intense anguish, instead of producing repentance, only hardens men in their sins and in fact leads them to add to the enormity of their guilt by blasphemously blaming God Himself for the distress which their own unholy ways have involved them in.
Again and again we have seen this principle exemplified in actual life. The student of history will recall how in past centuries, when wars, famines, and pestilences have decimated whole nations, the survivors in most cases have become worse rather than better. One thinks of the days of the plague in Paris in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when terror seized the populace, yet there was a turning from, instead of to, God, and the frenzied citizens plunged into all kinds of vile excesses and orgies of infamy in order to help them to forget the ever present danger.
If a small minority sought after God and recognized that the plague was His voice calling them to repentance, it was only because of His grace working in their hearts. And now that science has demonstrated the possibility of conquering such dire visitations as yellow fever, cholera, and bubonic plague by proper sanitation and extermination of vermin, the majority in place of gratefully owning the Creator’s goodness in making known such things to His creatures, that they may protect themselves against disease and physical suffering, actually deride religion and scorn the Word of the Lord, supposing that increased scientific knowledge has made the concept of an intelligent Creator and an overruling Deity unnecessary, if not altogether absurd.
In view of the well attested saying, that “character tends to permanence,” we may readily see what place these considerations should have as we contemplate what the Holy Scriptures reveal concerning the eternal destiny of those who leave this world impenitent and unreconciled to God. We would all like to believe that there is something cleansing in the great change called death, so that eventually all men will attain the beatific vision and become pure and holy, purged from all earth stains and fitted for fellowship with the infinitely righteous One. But the Scriptures positively declare the very opposite. There we learn of two ways to die and two destinies afterwards, according to the state of those who pass from time into eternity. The Lord Jesus Himself has said, “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). And in verse 21 He declares, “Whither I go, ye cannot come.” In Revelation 14:13 we read: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.”
Observe the vivid contrasts here. Some die in their sins; others die in the Lord. Those who die in their sins never go where Christ is; those who die in the Lord enter into rest and are rewarded for their devotion to their Redeemer. There is no hint that some post-mortem method of purification will be found whereby the first class will be brought to repentance and so to turn to Christ for the salvation they spurned on earth. And those who are in the Lord will never be in danger of apostatizing from the faith and losing at last the knowledge of the divine approval.
The solemn words of the Revelation 22:11, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still,” make this position doubly sure. Instead of death leading to a continued probation, we find that it rather settles forever the state of the saved and also of the lost. Character remains unchanged thereafter. The righteous continue righteous. The unrighteous continue in their unrighteousness. The holy remain holy for eternity. The unclean are defiled forever. And the reason is that the saved will then be fully conformed to the image of God’s Son, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, while the unsaved will, by their own refusal to heed the message of grace, have become hardened in their sin so that they will be beyond all possibility of repenting.
“Sow an act, you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, you reap a character;
Sow a character, you reap a destiny.”
Our Lord’s story of the rich man and Lazarus has been treated by some as a parable solely, and by others as all intensely literal; while many see in it a true story in which figurative language is employed in part when describing the unseen world. But however one may take it, the solemn figure of “a great gulf fixed” and forever impassible either by those who would go from hell to paradise, or from paradise to hell, remains suggestive. It was surely intended to teach the impossibility that anything the wicked might suffer in another world would lead them to repent of their sins and seek to get right with God. The great lesson the Lord meant to impress upon every listener was the importance of repenting here and now, and not indulging the vain hope of some after-death purgatorial cleansing that would accomplish for the one who died impenitent what the believer may know on earth when he takes God at His word. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” And if men now spurn the grace of God, trample on the blood of Christ, and do despite to the Holy Spirit, God Himself apparently has no other resources upon which to draw, no other means of bringing hardened sinners to repentance than are now in operation.
This accounts for the few among aged Christ-rejecters who repent ere called to give account to God. No one who has worked much in government hospitals, prisons, and other public institutions, where he has had to contact large numbers of hoary-headed sinners, can fail to realize how exceedingly difficult it is to deal with them about eternal things. Often has my very blood seemed to freeze in my veins as some aged blasphemer has cursed me for my temerity in seeking to tell him of Christ. Never have I heard such torrents of vile words poured forth from human lips as when such a one has openly expressed his hatred for God and his contempt for all things holy. One could not but realize that years of persistency in sin had hardened the heart and seared the conscience as with a hot iron, so that all desire for anything better had seemingly passed away, reminding one of the awful description of lost souls given in Revelation 18:14, where a literal translation would read, “the fruit season of thy soul’s desire has gone from thee.”
In the light of these considerations, how earnestly ought we who know Christ ourselves to seek after the lost and endeavor now, while the day of grace lingers, to bring men to repentance that they might come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and in turn be His messengers to others. But if we would do this we must be wise evangelists, not soothing unrepentant sinners to sleep with a “simple gospel” that has no place in it for showing them their great need, ere attempting to present the Remedy.
To Jeremiah God said, as we noticed in an earlier chapter, “Break up your fallow ground, sow not among thorns.” The ploughshare of God’s truth must needs break up hard hearts if we would hear men crying in anxiety, “What must I do to be saved?” When they see their lost condition they will be ready to appreciate the salvation provided in grace.
This is what our forefathers in the Gospel ministry called “law-preaching.” It was the application of the righteous commands of God to the souls of their hearers, in order that “sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” We may possibly have a better understanding of “the dispensation of the grace of God” than some of them, but do we get as good results from our so-called “clear Gospel sermons” as they did from their sterner preaching? We are apt to be so occupied with the doctrinal presentation of the Biblical truth of justification by faith alone that we forget the indifference of the masses to this or any other supernatural message, and so we really fail where we hoped to help. Never be afraid to insist on man’s responsibility to glorify God, and to drive home to his conscience the fact of his stupendous failure. Where there is no sense of sin, there will be no appreciation of grace. Do not daub with untempered mortar. Do not be in such a hurry to get to Romans 3:21 that you pass lightly and hastily over the great indictment of the entire human race in the preceding chapters. There is a world of meaning in Mary’s words: “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.” It is the “poor in spirit” who appreciate the “riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.”
Our Lord Himself has told us, “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” And we may be certain that only a sense of their sinfulness will lead any to avail themselves of the skill of the Great Physician. I have already said that this does not mean that men must pass through a certain amount of soul trouble or feel just so much compunction for sin ere they can be saved. But it does mean that men who have sinned with impunity, who have forgotten God, who have scoffed at His grace, or have trusted in a fancied righteousness of their own, should be brought through the Word and Spirit of God to a changed attitude that will make them eager for the salvation so freely offered.
An evangelist had noticed a careless young woman who throughout his preaching had giggled and chattered to an equally thoughtless youth. At the close an overzealous and most unwise “personal worker” stopped the girl at the door and asked, “Won’t you trust in Jesus tonight?” Startled, she replied, “Yes I will.” He directed her to the well known verse, John 3:16, and read it to her: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Do you believe that?” he inquired. “Sure, I believe it all,” was the ready reply. “Then, don’t you see, God says you have eternal life?” “O sure, I guess I must have,” she answered with nonchalance and passed out the door. Elated the young worker hurried to the evangelist with the information that “Miss — found peace tonight.” “Peace!” exclaimed the preacher. “Did she ever find trouble?” It was a good question. Far too many are talked into a false peace by ill-instructed persons who would not know what David meant when he exclaimed, “The pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow” (Psalm 116:3). It is the troubled soul who comes to Christ for rest.
How important that such should be urged to immediate decision lest, resisting the Spirit of God as He strives with them, they at last reach the place where they are given up to hardness of heart and “find no place of repentance,” though seeking it with tears. It is not that God will refuse to give repentance, but that there comes a time when it is too late to seek to change conditions that have become settled.
[Dr. Harry Ironside (1876-1951), a godly Fundamentalist author and teacher for many years, served as pastor of Chicago’s Moody Memorial Church from 1930-1948]
There is an alarming promotion of the mystic contemplatives from Christian ministries lately. One would be wise to avoid Henry Blackaby, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Thomas Keating, Brennan Manning, Thomas Merton, etc. I would recommend reading “A Time of Departing” by Ray Yungen to protect your spiritual life from deception. On the surface these teachings from these men may sound lovely but they are misleading you.
Source for “A Time of Departing” HERE
50 Questionable Teachings From Experiencing God
By Reese Currie, Compass Distributors
Courses are admitted into evangelical churches, oftentimes without any sort of objective theological review. For Experiencing God, I have reviewed the materials from a Biblical viewpoint and noted any teachings that conflict with Scripture, as well as any teaching techniques that are questionable. I found 50 such teachings or techniques in Experiencing God that fall into one of the following categories:
- Debatable: There are subtle Biblical arguments against a point, but I am not adamant that Blackaby’s point is incorrect; I am simply saying the point is debatable.
- Fallacious: Using an argumentative logical fallacy to support a view.
- Inaccurate: The usage of Scripture is not completely accurate.
- Inarticulate: A carelessly applied word that can be interpreted very badly.
- Inconsistent: A teachers’s life choices are inconsistent with what he teaches.
- Misapplication: A misapplication of Scripture to a situation.
- Misinterpretation: A false impression of the Scripture is given due to poor exegesis.
- Self-contradictory: One teaching conflicts with another.
- Unbiblical: Directly contradicts Bible teaching.
These teachings have to be addressed in the order they appear in the book because Blackaby builds upon false premises throughout Experiencing God. You will find that some of the early teachings that I document seem quite minor, but they build into major doctrinal faults as they grow on the potter’s wheel of Henry Blackaby.
- Class: Unbiblical. Introduction to Unit 1, page 7. Henry Blackaby teaches that we should “operate our budgets on prayer,” budget for more than we have and hope the money will come in. This is counter to Luke 14:28, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” The question is not whether he can get the money. The question is whether he has it now. Jesus’ words apply to counting the cost of discipleship, not church funding; however, it is plain that Jesus thought that the logic of having the resources at hand before building a tower was a given.
- Class: Misapplication. Unit 1, page 11. Jesus’ statement, “I am the Way” from John 14:6 is applied to ministry decisions. A quotation is given in the margin that only refers to the statement, ” I am the way, the truth, and the life:”, and the inaccurate translation quoted substitutes an unwarranted period instead of the colon from this KJV quotation. No indication is given that this is a partial quotation or a sentence fragment. John 14:6 actually reads, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The text has nothing to do with “daily guidance” or ministry decisions, but Blackaby uproots the words from their context to make an application never intended by Christ or the Bible writers.
- Class: Unbiblical/inarticulate. Unit 1, page 17. “With God working through that servant, he or she can do anything God can do. Wow! Unlimited potential!” This is the first dangerous false teaching in Experiencing God. It is not true; for instance, I know of no Christian who can create a baby in the womb. Psalm 139:13 says, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.” This is also the first teaching of Satan to Eve, that she could be just like God.
- Class: Fallacious. Unit 1, page 18. King (the man who writes the exercises in Experiencing God) poses the question, “When we finish a task and feel frustrated that lasting spiritual fruit is not visible, could the reason be that we are attempting very little that only God can do?” This is what is called a complex question. To answer the question, we have to first agree that Blackaby’s principle that “we can do anything God can do” (from point #3) is correct. The question is worded so that you have to accept Blackaby’s principle in order to answer either positive or negative. This is a cultic teaching technique used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 1, page 18. Blackaby’s statement “you come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you” is inarticulate in the extreme and suggests a works salvation. At the most, the text should say, “You come to know God better by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.” The initial coming to know God is only by repentance and faith. This teaching itself is the first sign of mysticism in Experiencing God.
- Class: Self-contradictory. Unit 1, page 24. “Whenever God gets ready to do something, He always reveals to a person or His people what He is going to do” is self-contradictory with “Many times, as with Abram, God called people just to follow Him… He is more likely to call you to follow one day at a time than He is to spell out all the details before you begin to obey Him.” (Unit 1, page 11.) The teaching also implies that God is not in something if what is happening has not been previously revealed to anyone, which is patently ridiculous.
- Class: Debatable. Unit 2, page 28. “You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him.” This point is debatable Scripturally. For example, Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Surely, thinking about what service you could offer God would be included in that definition.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 2, page 31. “Suppose He wants to do it through you. He comes to you and talks to you. But you are so self-centered, and you respond, ‘I don’t think I am trained. I don’t think I am able to do it. And I …’ Do you see what happens? The focus is on self.”I disagree with Blackaby’s point. Jesus’ teaching on discipleship requires self-evaluation. Quoting again from Luke 14:26-30, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”In Isaiah 6:5-7 we read, “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” Isaiah’s concern was not invalid. In His case one of the seraphims dealt with Isaiah’s problem. In our modern times, it could be a person who feels they aren’t trained should go get some training.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 2, page 37. “They may ask, ‘Can’t I get a word from God from the Bible?’ Yes you can! But only the Holy Spirit of God can reveal to you which truth of Scripture is a word from God in a particular circumstance.” This view of Scripture conflicts with 2Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” All Scripture is always profitable. There is no point at time at which any word of Scripture becomes untrue or unprofitable.
- Class: Inconsistent. Unit 2, page 37. “You also need to be very careful about claiming you have a word from God. Claiming to have a word from God is serious business.” I agree with Blackaby here, yet Blackaby is a member of Promise Keepers which is inconsistent with his stated position. Promise Keepers’ leader, Bill McCartney, constantly claims he has a word from God in his speeches, such as his statement that “God told him” that every church should send Promise Keepers $1000, reported by the Denver Post.
- Class: Unbiblical/self-contradictory. Unit 2, page 38. “He speaks to His servant when He is ready to move. Otherwise He wouldn’t speak to you.” Blackaby makes it sound as if God only speaks to give high-pressure assignments and never speaks to simply address the concern of one of His children. Blackaby elsewhere claims that God speaks to us through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church. Answered prayer, therefore, is God speaking to us. John 14:14 says, “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” Therefore God does speak to us for things that are our concerns, not necessarily His work.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 3, page 48. “You, too, can so order your life under God’s direction that you come to know Him, love Him only, and become like Christ.” It is not at all God’s desire that we love Him only. “For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11). “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
- Class: Self-contradictory. Unit 3, page 53. “They seem to think that God is far off and unconcerned about their day to day living. That is not the God we see in the Scriptures.” This is a true statement. It contradicts his statement “He speaks to His servant when He is ready to move. Otherwise He wouldn’t speak to you.” On the one hand, he says God wouldn’t even speak to us if He didn’t want us to do something, and on the other hand, he says God is concerned about our day to day living.
- Class: Inarticulate. Unit 3, page 55. “He invites you to relate to Him, so He can accomplish His work through you.” Is this really God’s motive? That would be like getting married so that the wife could do the housework or so that the husband could be the breadwinner. God’s reason for relating to us is simply that we personally will not perish; working with Him is a gift He gives some people. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (1Peter 3:9).
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 3, page 55. “His whole plan for the advance of the Kingdom depends His working in real and practical ways through His relationship to His people.” No, it doesn’t. God is pretty powerless if He needs people to accomplish His tasks. For instance, in Revelation we read, “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Revelation 14:6). God is in no way dependent upon man.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 4, page 57. “You will find that the call to relationship is also a call to be on mission with Him.” False. A good example is the woman caught in adultery. In parting, Jesus says to her, “When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:10-11). There are people that were in relationship to Jesus but were called to no kind of ministry at all. Jesus asked nothing of them but simply to keep holy lives themselves. In John 5:14, the man that Jesus cured at the well was simply told, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” There is more than one example of this being the case, where Jesus made no call to mission of certain people for reasons known only to Him.
- Class: Misinterpretation. Unit 4, page 65. Blackaby insists, “Jesus watched to see where the Father was at work.” The verses that Blackaby derives this teaching from have absolutely nothing to say about “watching” and had nothing whatsoever to do with “where.” John 5:19 says, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” Not a word about “watching.” “Seeing,” yes. But “watching” makes Jesus someone less than God and smacks of Arian heresy. “Where” has nothing whatsoever to do with what Jesus said and is simply an unbiblical addition to what was actually said. I will not make additional examples everywhere that Blackaby applies this particular misinterpretation of the Bible (there are a great number), but only say that while it may be true of us, it is blasphemous to say of Jesus. In reality, though, Blackaby’s interpretation is not even true of us. I may see God working anywhere in the world, but that does not make it necessarily God’s will that I go there and “join Him.”
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 5, page 73. “Could Moses logically prove to someone else that he had heard from God? No, all Moses could do was testify to his encounter with God.” This is utterly unbiblical, and it is designed to give Blackaby authority for claiming that God “speaks to him” all the time without any evidence.In Exodus 4:1-8, God gives Moses a few means to prove that God had spoken to him. It says, “And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee. And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the LORD said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee. And the LORD said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow. And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.”
- Class: Debatable. Unit 5, page 75. “If you start ‘doing’ before you have a direction from God, more than likely you will be wrong.” The apostles operated full-time on only one direction: “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46b-47). We already have that direction from God. What Blackaby is talking about here is an old Pietist teaching that John Wesley called “quietism.” John Wesley did not live by that principle, taking the divine commission at face value, and won a lot more converts than the Pietists ever did. There is a “general” thing to be doing all the time, in addition to the specific things that God gives more leading on.
- Class: Self-contradictory. Unit 5, page 75. “God is more interested in a love relationship with you than He is in what you can do for Him.” I agree with this point. It contradicts Blackaby’s other point, “You will find that the call to relationship is also a call to be on mission with Him.”
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 6, page 96. “Jesus always was looking for where the Father was at work, and joined Him.” We have already demonstrated that the concepts of “looking” and “where” are not part of the Scripture passage that Blackaby bases this teaching on; the Scriptures simply say that what Jesus does what He sees God doing, in other words, He does the same things God is doing. Doing the same things God is doing have nothing to do with watching to see where God is working and joining Him; it is simply a way of life wherever you are. The trouble is, sometimes an erroneous principle is established in Blackaby’s courses and then accepted as a given forever after.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 6, page 100. “You never know the truth of a situation until you have heard from Jesus.” This would seem to contradict Paul’s teaching from 1Corinthians 5:12-13, “For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” That means that, based on the knowledge we have already received from Christ through the Bible, we are already qualified to judge matters within the church; and it is those who are outside the church that God judges. This is another example of Blackaby trying to twist Jesus’ statement “I am the Way”, meaning, the way to God and salvation, to specific situations within a church.
- Class: Inconsistent. Unit 6, page 104. “Way back in my teen years I began to sense a deep burden for communities all across Canada that did not have an evangelical church.” I agree with Blackaby here that it the witness of non-evangelical churches is terrible, they don’t even preach the gospel. But Blackaby in real life is an ecumenist (see points #45 and #46), which is to view all types of churches as being equal; so it should not matter to him whether they were evangelical, liberal or Catholic. If it does matter, he certainly should not be an ecumenist.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 7, page 108. In the introduction, Blackaby reiterates his teaching that budgets should be set far higher than you can manage and God will pull through. He gives his example, that the church budget was normally $74,000, they budgeted for $164,000, and they actually received $172,000. Blackaby closes by saying, “God taught our church a lesson in faith that radically changed us all.” But my question is, does God teach a lesson about faith that causes one to disregard the principle underlying the plainly stated word of Jesus in Luke 14:27-33? That sounds more like a departure from the faith to me.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 7, page 109. “When God invites you to join Him in His work, He has a God-sized assignment for you. You will realize that you cannot do it on your own. If God doesn’t help you, you will fail.” Wasn’t one of Jesus’ teachings, “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not” (Matthew 25:42-43). These are all things we can easily do for people, they are God’s work, and He has commanded us to be involved with Him in these things. There are certainly things that cannot be achieved without God’s help, but to claim that everything that can be done without God’s help are not ministries is wrong to the point of being heretical.
- Class: Inconsistent. Unit 7, page 110. “If we looked at all of the circumstances, would we have proceeded? No. But, what you believe about God will determine what you do. When God tells you what He wants to do through you, you will face a crisis of belief. What you do shows what you believe.” This goes directly against Blackaby’s other statement, from Unit 2, page 37, “God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.” This statement from Unit 2, page 37 is the entire tenor of the course.
- Class: Inconsistent. Unit 7, page 111. The statement “Encounters with God are God-sized” is directly contradictory with this true statement from Unit 5, page 78, “You cannot understand the Word of God unless the Spirit of God teaches you. When you come to the word of God, the Author Himself is present to instruct you. You never discover truth; truth is revealed. When the Holy Spirit reveals truth to you, He is not leading you to an encounter with God. That is an encounter with God.” God encounters us in some small things like understanding small spiritual truths. It does not always have to be a huge production to be an encounter with God.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 7, page 113. “When God lets you know what He wants to do through you, it will be something only God can do.” To reiterate my earlier point on this, from Matthew 25:42-43 and many other places in Scripture, we learn of things we can easily do for people that God commands us to do. I am sure that getting money together to bail out the church in Jerusalem was not presented by Paul as being something only God could do, for instance. This teaching of Blackaby’s denigrates any good work that God has called us to that isn’t impossible for man.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 7, page 116. “I have come to the point in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God.” It makes me wonder if we’re reading the same Bible. When God told Joseph to move his family to Egypt to escape Herod, was God giving Joseph a task that Joseph could not do? It is fortunate that Joseph did not have the same theology as Henry Blackaby or Christ would have died as an infant!
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 7, page 116. “When God’s people and the world see something happen that only God can do, they come to know God.” This is signs and wonders theology straight out of the charismatic movement. Paul wrote in 1Corinthians 1:21, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Not by signs and wonders, but by preaching, the world comes to know God. And no one at all comes to know God unless they repent. The question is given on page 118, “How will the world come to know God?” and the required answer is, “By seeing God work.” False. Everyone who comes to know God comes by repentance and faith. This false teaching of Blackaby’s is reiterated dozens of times throughout Unit 7.
- Class: Fallacious. Unit 7, page 119. Henry Blackaby openly proclaims his belief that God manipulated the national economy of Canada on behalf of his single church by forcing the Canadian dollar to hit rock bottom for a time so that funding coming from Texas would yield more Canadian dollars than it would have. This fallacy is called causal reductionism. It seems quite unlikely to me that God Himself manipulated the economy, putting who knows how many families in jeopardy as the parents lost their jobs.
- Class: Misapplication. Unit 9, page 146. Blackaby takes a Scripture, 1John 2:3-6, “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” Then, Blackaby writes, “Each ‘new’ command of Jesus will require a new knowledge and understanding of Him.”But the Scripture cannot possibly be interpreted as discussing “new commands.” We are to walk even as He “walked”, past tense. And as for commandments of Jesus, I know of only two, “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:35-40).John speaks of keeping commandments from the Bible as a sign of obedience and love for God. Blackaby extends this out to some “new” commandments he thinks Jesus is giving, which is indicative of a belief in “progressive revelation.” Not much wonder Blackaby so heartily supports Roman Catholicism.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 9, page 153. “When God purposes to do something through you, the assignment will have God-sized dimensions. This is because God wants to reveal Himself to you and those around you. If you can do the work in your own strength, people will not come to know God. However, if God works through you to do what only He can do, you and those around you will come to know Him.” This is utterly unbiblical. According to the Bible, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1Corinthians 1:21b). This notion that people will not be saved unless God moves mountains for them comes from Blackaby’s charismatic influence through Promise Keepers.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 9, page 160. “Some people go to much trouble studying Satan’s ways so they can identify when something appears to be a deception of Satan. I don’t do that. I have determined not to focus on Satan. He is defeated … The only way Satan can affect God’s work through me is when I believe Satan and disbelieve God.” This is the most unbiblical possible counsel from Blackaby, and it demonstrates why he is so easily deceived by Promise Keepers and the ecumenical movement. He refuses to be on guard against the devil’s work.1Peter 5:8 warns, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”Ephesians 6:11 warns, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”1Timothy 4:1 says, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
Blackaby refuses to consider the possibility of being deceived by the devil in any of his teachings, which is nothing more than spiritual pride.
(By the way, the simple way of knowing the devil’s work is it is based on perversion, which is the denial of important differences. For instance, sexual perverts deny the differences between genders and generations. The devil used this strategy in the garden of Eden, telling Eve she could be like God, denying the essential difference between God and mankind. Wherever there is a denial of differences, such as in the ecumenical movement, one may be positive that the devil is at work.)
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 9, page 160. The question is asked, rhetorically, “Does God plan your life for eternity and then turn you loose to work out His plan?” Blackaby’s answer is no, but let’s be careful about that, Henry! Paul writes, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 10, page 162. In the introduction, Blackaby writes of a salvation experience involving a number of different members of his local church. Unfortunately, the story is spoiled by the last line, “Who won Doug to the Lord? The body did!” Far from it, Henry. John 6:44 says, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” Who really won Doug to the Lord? God did. He may have used people, but let’s remember to give God the glory.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 10, page 1. “Church members need to be taught how to walk with God. They need to know how to hear Him speaking. They need to be able to identify things only God can do.” The problem is, nothing in the New Testament supports Blackaby’s assumptions. The human part of the divine commission was not to do something only God could do. It was to preach the message of repentance and remission of sins to all nations (Luke 24:47), to baptize and make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). These are things that man can do. God needs to help for the effort to be successful, but man can do everything Christ commanded. (Note that Christ didn’t command anyone to “save people”; that’s God’s part of the work.) What people need is to obey the command already given, not “watch and wait” for new commands that come out of the heads of dreamers.
- Class: Inconsistent. Unit 10, page 164. “Individuals often think that a work for God can be done with whatever means are necessary. They don’t hesitate to violate God’s written will in order to accomplish something they think is His will.” I agree with Blackaby’s statement here, but if he were to apply it in his own life, would he be an ecumenist, while many verses forbid even giving a greeting to a person who preaches a different doctrine? Such verses include Galatians 1:8-10; Romans 16:17-18; 1Timothy 1:3; 4:16; 6:3-5; 2Timothy 4:1-4; Titus 1:9; Hebrews 13:9; and 2John 8-11.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 10, page 168. Blackaby is speaking about “corporately” knowing the will of God when he writes, “When God speaks to a person about the church, the person should share with the body what he or she senses God is saying. As each member shares what he senses God is saying, the whole body goes to God in prayer to discern His will for the body. In His timing God confirms to the body what He is saying. Individual opinions are not that important. The will of God is very important. No single method can be given for discerning God’s will as a body.”This is not the truth. If it were actually practiced in the first church, the Corinthian church would never have expelled the man who was sleeping with his father’s wife. Paul was the one who disagreed; his “one opinion” was quite important because it was based on Scriptural teaching. Paul wrote in 1Corinthians 5:1-2, “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.” The sad fact is, most people in churches reject much of what Scripture teaches. One opinion is much more important than that of the majority, if Scripture backs up that one opinion.
- Class: Fallacious/Unbiblical. Unit 10, page 169. Blackaby is discussing how he would not proceed with plans without a major consensus from the church body. Then he writes, “People often ask, ‘Did you always wait until you got a 100 percent vote?’ No, I knew that we might have one or more that were so out of fellowship with the Lord that they could not hear his voice. Another might be purposefully disobedient…. I did not get angry or disappointed with those who did not agree with the rest of the body. Their disagreement indicated that they might have a fellowship problem with the Lord.”This is utter cultism. The argument is first based on an argumentative fallacy called ad hominem. Rather than consider the validity of a minority view, Blackaby prefers to question their fellowship with God. His approach becomes unbiblical in light of 1Corinthians 5 (see point #39). In that situation, Blackaby would have to label Paul either “out of fellowship with the Lord” or “purposefully disobedient” because he disagreed with the majority opinion to have a fornicator in the church. This one paragraph from Experiencing God should put any cult researcher into a state of alert.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 10, page 170. “If the people walk with God, then I can trust God to guide them… If the people do not walk in right fellowship with God, then I depend on God to guide me in helping them become what He wants them to be.” Both of these statements are false teachings and I will deal with them one at a time. In Galatians 2:11 Paul writes, “But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Did Peter not walk with God? Of course Peter did. That does not prevent someone from making mistakes. When Blackaby’s entire phrasing is taken into account, however, it reveals his view that when people agree with Blackaby, they are walking with God, and when they do not agree with Blackaby, they are not walking with God. This is an incredible degree of arrogance, and it strongly suggests that Blackaby desires a “personality cult” to spring up around him.
- Class: Misapplication. Unit 11, page 184. “You cannot be in relationship with Jesus and not be on mission. Jesus said, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (John 20:21).” In actual fact, there were many people in Scripture who were saved but were not “on mission.” God does not necessarily call a person into mission. Everyone supports mission, but not everyone is on mission. In Matthew’s account of the deliverance of the Divine Commission, we read in Matthew 28:16, “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.” Jesus took His eleven disciples to a mountain away from everyone else to give them the commission to reach the world. Not everyone is called to be a missionary, and it does not mean that Jesus doesn’t love them. People who have bought in to Blackaby’s teachings become very judgmental of what they call “pew-sitters,” people without whose heartfelt financial support, ministry would be utterly impossible.
- Class: Misinterpretation/inaccurate/misapplication. Unit 11, page 188. On the parable of the wheat and the tares, Blackaby writes, “Using this parable, Jesus teaches that some lost and evil people are mixed with true believers in churches.” Blackaby is blatantly contradicting one key part of Jesus’ own explanation of the parable. Jesus does not say that field is the church. Jesus says, “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one” (Matthew 13:38). The “true church” is not populated with any unbelievers. Acts 2:47 says, “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” Man’s “churches” contain all kinds of unbelievers, but the true assembly of God contains absolutely none.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 11, page 198. “Can God-like Koinonia [fellowship] exist between churches of different denominations as they co-operate to achieve greater Kingdom purposes? Yes! However, humans left to their own ways cannot achieve those kinds of relationships. Only God through His Holy Spirit can create and sustain Koinonia between His people. He wants to be King, Ruler, and Sovereign over all His kingdom. When He is allowed to rule, man-made barriers will fall.”If God is to be allowed to rule, wouldn’t everyone have to be in agreement with the things He teaches? Blackaby co-operates with many different doctrines and versions of the gospel, including the works-salvation of Roman Catholicism, and the baptismal regeneration of the Anglican communion and the Church of Christ, in addition to those churches that preach justification by faith. From a moral standpoint, Blackaby co-operates with denominations that reject the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality and fornication. How can one co-operate with such things if God is ruling over him? If God’s rule is accepted, then those who oppose His teaching must be rejected.I have a lot of verses to support this.Galatians 1:8-10, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”;
Romans 16:17-18, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple”;
1Timothy 1:3, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine”;
1Timothy 4:16, “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee”;
1Timothy 6:3-5, “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself”;
2Timothy 4:1-4, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables”;
Titus 1:9, “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers”;
Hebrews 13:9, “Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein”;
2John 8-11, “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”
Many denominations allow their traditions to outweigh Scripture. If Jesus really rules our lives, we will avoid working with such denominations.
Jesus spoke these things about the Pharisees, whose tradition outweighed Scripture:
Matthew 16:6, 11-12, “Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees… How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees”;
Matthew 23:2-3, “Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not”;
Matthew 23:13-15, “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”
I will dispense with quoting parallel accounts from the other gospels. Quite a bit of Scripture that Henry Blackaby teaches you to ignore, isn’t it?
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 11, page 198. “I am not suggesting that doctrinal differences ought to be compromised, but we can act like brothers and sisters who love each other.” This is a direct refusal to obey God on Henry Blackaby’s part. 2John 8-11, Romans 16:17-18 and 1Timothy 6:3-5 absolutely forbid any kind of fellowship with purveyors of false doctrine. People are not your “brothers and sisters” if they believe in salvation by anything other than faith in Christ or oppose God’s teachings in the Bible.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 12, page 203. “You sin against God when you: 1) Miss the mark of His purposes for you, 2) Rebel against Him, refuse to follow Him, 3) Commit acts of evil, wickedness, or immorality.” Point 1) is not Biblical doctrine. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Sin causes the coming short; but coming short is not in itself a sin. Sin defined Biblically is this: “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law” (1John 3:4). Without transgression of the Law, there is no sin.
- Class: Debatable. Unit 12, page 210. “Agencies of a denomination, for instance, have a place in doing God’s will that indvidual churches cannot accomplish alone.” Blackaby is speaking of agencies such as the SBC’s “North American Mission Board.” The problem with this teaching is that there were no such agencies in the Bible, and yet individual churches accomplished the work. With this teaching, Blackaby denigrates the work of independent churches and nondenominational churches. Were Jesus and the apostles negligent in setting up a first century church that had no denominational agencies? I think not.
- Class: Misapplication. Unit 12, page 213. “In Jesus’ commission to His church He said, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’ (Matt. 28:19-20).” This is a relatively minor fault, but it is a common evangelical teaching that is false. This command was definitely not given to the church but exclusively to the eleven remaining apostles, who were even sent to a mountain away from everyone else to receive this command. Matthew 28:16 records, “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.” Not everyone is gifted or called to be an evangelist, and it is unbiblical (see 1Corinthians 12) to suggest that they are.
- Class: Unbiblical. Unit 12, page 213. “Learning to follow Christ is a life-long process. You do not learn to follow Him all by yourself.” Blackaby here is recommending fellowship with a local church, but he goes overboard on the necessity of a church. He writes, “No one can become the kind of complete believer he ought to be outside the functioning body of a New Testament church.” But what Scripture actually says is, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2Timothy 3:15). I know a person who was too sick to attend a church, ministering through a web site from his home for years. He recently made a new translation of the New Testament from Greek at home. A church is very helpful, and if at all possible we should be “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). But the sort of claims Blackaby is making are unwarranted. A person can be fully functional as a Christian outside of any local assembly, if such a situation presents itself.
- Class: Debatable. Unit 12, page 214. “Apart from the body, a gift or ministry is out of context.” Well, the Great Awakening in England was an example of an “out of context” ministry, then. John Wesley was not permitted to speak in his Anglican church so he simply proceeded to minister on his own and through his Methodist societies, which he did not view as a church. Since it was the greatest revival England ever saw, I guess we needn’t worry too greatly about “out-of-context” ministry.
There you have 50 false teachings from Experiencing God. I eliminated six more points that I thought were too minor to bring up in addition to these. Even at 50 points, though, it constitutes one false teaching in every four pages of Experiencing God.
If there is a lesson to be learned or a recommendation to be made, it is this. Do not trust the Southern Baptist Convention’s materials to be doctrinally pure, even if you are a Southern Baptist. Instead, follow the Scriptural advice given in Hebrews 5:14, “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” We are to be discerning both of things we think are good and those things we think are evil.
Courses with this sort of content should not be given to people who do not have a great deal of Scripture knowledge with which to discern what teachings are true and which are false. Other LifeWay courses, like T.W. Hunt’s Mind of Christ for instance, contain solid Bible teaching without all the charismatic psychobabble of Blackabyism. I reviewed T.W. Hunt’s Mind of Christ again, to verify what I have said about him here. The teachings are virtually flawless in his excellent course. (Interestingly, Claude V. King wrote the exercises for Mind of Christ, the same man who did Blackaby’s exercises. Yet the course is devoid of mysticism.) The difference between the two courses is night and day, and I can recommend Mind of Christ without any reservations.
But the best and safest antidote for ignorance about God is to simply read the Bible itself without having to be concerned about any of man’s errors. I would recommend keeping away even from study Bibles, as they tend to have false teachings in the notes, and from dynamic equivalency versions that contain man’s interpretations instead of the literal Word of God. Allow God to teach you His Word Himself. God’s Holy Spirit is more than patient enough to be your teacher if you will turn to Him.
50 Questionable Teachings from Experiencing God is Copyright © 2000 by Compass Distributors. Copyright is to protect content only. Permission is granted to freely distribute
Except Ye Repent
By Dr. Harry Ironside
Chapter 3 – JOHN’S BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE
The New Testament opens with a call to repentance. The ministry of John the Baptist was pre-eminently devoted to emphasizing its importance. Sent of God in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord, he found a self-satisfied, self-righteous nation prating of being the chosen people professedly waiting for the promised Messiah, and yet utterly unready to welcome Him because of their low moral condition.
Like the Tishbite, he appeared suddenly and unannounced, a wilderness preacher, declaring to the abjects of Israel first, and then as others sought him out, to the self-righteous scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees the need of heart preparation for the reception of the Kingdom. His message was summed up in the pregnant words: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It was a challenge to face their sins and the true state of their hearts in the light of the holiness and righteousness of God. And we are glad to learn that the publicans and sinners hearing him justified God and were baptized in recognition of the judgment of self and the need of remission of sins.
For with the preaching was linked the rite of baptism. It was definitely declared to be a baptism of repentance for (or unto) the remission of sins. That is, those who submitted to his baptism were practically saying: ‘In this act I declare my change of mind, my new attitude toward myself, my sins, and my God. I own my unworthiness, and I cast myself upon the infinite mercy of God, looking to Him for deliverance, counting on Him to forgive my sins and graciously fit me for the reception of the King and a place in the Kingdom of the heavens.’
I do not say that all who were baptized entered into its full meaning, but I do insist that this was its true import. Baptism, of course, did not procure remission of sins. It was simply the acknowledgment of the need of such forgiveness. Those so baptized might be likened to debtors giving their notes in recognition of their indebtedness. When our Lord condescended to be identified with this remnant by Himself undergoing baptism He was, as it were, endorsing their notes, declaring that He was ready to meet all their responsibilities by fulfilling every righteous demand of the throne of God on their behalf. It was more than three years later that He said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened [or pained] till it be accomplished.” Ah, the notes were fast falling due, and on the cross He must settle in bloody agony for them all.
How much of this John, the forerunner, saw it is not easy to say. But that he did have some insight into the great truth, that Jesus was not only Messiah but Saviour, was evidenced by his words, “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” His baptism of repentance was with a view to the remission of sins through the offering up of the foreordained Lamb as a propitiatory sacrifice.
To the haughty, self-righteous leaders John said: “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” And then he warned them that natural relationship to Abraham would not save anybody, but spiritual kinship only; for faith alone makes one a child of the faithful patriarch. “Fruits meet for repentance.” That is, the changed life must evidence the changed attitude; otherwise there is no true repentance at all.
And then he declared: “Now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” How different this to the ameliorative measures advocated by many who should know better! Some modern preaching might be summed up in ‘the axe is laid to the fruit of the tree.’ Cut off the bad fruit. Prune the tree. Spray it with a religio-philosophical mixture. Change its environment if possible. Attempt by ethical culture, by religious education, to make the tree produce good fruit — then all will be well. No need of repentance. No place for a second birth. But in spite of human reasoning, the divine principle remains unchanged. The tree is bad; that is why its fruit is corrupt. No use experimenting and trying to produce good fruit from so unwholesome a plant. Lay the axe to the root. Hew down the bad tree to make way for a new one of the heavenly Father’s planting.
Repentance is the recognition, the avowed recognition, of God’s estimate of the hopeless character of our hearts till renewed by the Word and Spirit of God. Grapes cannot be gathered from a thorn bush, nor figs from thistles. It is not the fruit that must be dealt with. The tree must be removed. To attempt to improve it is useless. God Himself has given it up. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately [literally, incurably] wicked.” Therefore the need of a new heart and a new spirit.
It was thus that John prepared the way of the Lord. No matter with whom he dealt, he sought to expose the hidden evil of the heart and the need of self-judgment, which is just the recognition that, “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” In order to make this manifest, covetous soldiers were commanded to be content with their wages, tax-gatherers to exact no more than their due. Herod, the King himself — who sought to patronize John, while living in vilest incest and licentiousness — writhed as he heard the stern preacher declare, while he pointed to Herodias, “It is not lawful for thee to have her.” A prison cell and later the executioner’s sword might silence the tongue of the preacher of repentance, but his words live on forever, rebuking still the self-indulgent, the self-righteous, the covetous, the lustful, to the end of time, who fancy they can in some way bribe an offended God to overlook and condone their iniquity.
John the Baptist has been described as “the last of the prophets,” and his ministry was certainly most intimately linked with that of the great prophetic brotherhood of the Old Testament. We have already seen how our Lord identifies him in spirit with Elijah; and to His questioning disciples, who were perplexed regarding the prediction in Malachi of Elijah’s return prior to the ushering in of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the Saviour replies, referring to John, “If ye will receive it, this is Elijah which was for to come.” He came to break up the fallow ground that the word of the Kingdom might not be sown among thorns. Thus he was chosen of God as a voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight in the desert a highway for our God. His was a leveling message. There were hills of pride to come down and valleys of degradation to be filled in by grace in order that the divine program might be expeditiously carried out.
In one sense his was a unique ministry which can never again be repeated, inasmuch as the same circumstances will never be duplicated. But there is a wider sense in which a similar message is always in order, for man’s heart remains unchanged and the King is still seeking those who will acknowledge and bow to His authority. Hence the importance of ever insisting upon the need of repentance, a state of soul which must always precede blessing.
The words of the holy Virgin, in the Magnificat, have an ever present application: “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:52-53). This is the same leveling doctrine as that proclaimed by John. It is the “no difference” doctrine of the Apostle Paul. Yet how the human heart rebels against it. How men pride themselves on fancied distinctions which God’s eye does not discern.
“Must I be saved in the same way as my coachman?” indignantly asked a distinguished lady.
“Madam,” was the faithful reply, “you do not need to be saved at all. But if you ever are saved it will be on exactly the same ground as any other poor sinner.”
Years ago I was amazed to hear an eloquent French evangelist, Paul J. Loizeaux, exclaim, “Oh, how hard it is to find sinners! If only I could find one, I have a marvelous message for him.” A moment’s thought made his meaning clear. To be a sinner is one thing; to know it is another.
Faithful preaching of man’s responsibility will drive this truth home to the conscience. Repentance is the recognition of my sinnership — the owning before God that I am as vile as He has declared me to be in His holy Word. Until one comes to this place there is no further word from heaven for any man, except the sentence of doom. This truth does not in the least degree compromise the Gospel of grace. It rather prepares the sinner to know “the grace of God in truth” and to rejoice in it, reveling in the marvellous provision God has made to “satisfy the longing soul.”
Just as one may be hungry and not realize it because of a cloyed taste, and so fail to heed the dinner call, so one may be dying for lack of God’s gracious provision and have no sense of his lost estate, and therefore no appreciation of the message of grace. The call to repentance is designed of God to produce that soul hunger that will make the distressed one come with full appetite to the Gospel feast. Until one is thus aroused and made conscious of his need he will turn from the Gospel story with indifference and contempt. “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”
Too often the earnest Gospel preacher dwells on the hopelessness of obtaining salvation by good works, when addressing men whose works are altogether evil and who have no thought of meriting life eternal but care only for the things of this godless world. We are warned against casting pearls before swine. Is it not possible even in Gospel preaching to do this very thing? We may make it all too simple, so easy that we quite misrepresent the God of all grace, who has in all ages first sought to show men their sinfulness and guilt, and then has offered the remedy to those who confessed to their dread disease.
I am persuaded revival would come to believers and awakening to the lost if there were more faithful preachers of the John the Baptist type, who would cry aloud and spare not, but would solemnly show the people their sins and call upon them in the Name of the Lord to repent, remembering that he who justifies himself must be condemned by God, but he who condemns himself will find complete justification in Christ, who died for his sins and who now is exalted to God’s right hand as a Prince and a Saviour, granting repentance and remission of sins to all who receive His testimony.
“I am not told to labor
To put away my sin,
So foolish, weak and helpless,
I never could begin.
But, blessed truth, I know it,
Though ruined by the fall,
Christ for my sin has suffered,
Yes, Christ has done it all.”
It will be seen that repentance is the very opposite of meritorious experience. It is the confession that one is utterly without merit, and if he is ever saved at all it can only be through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, “who gave himself a ransom for all.” Here is firm footing for the soul who realizes that all self-effort is but sinking sand. Christ alone is the Rock of our salvation.
[Dr. Harry Ironside (1876-1951), a godly Fundamentalist author and teacher for many years, served as pastor of Chicago’s Moody Memorial Church from 1930-1948]
From The Berean Call
7/10/2013
HEBREW ROOTS, THE NEPHILIM, AND THE SHROUD OF TURIN COME TOGETHER
TBC: The 2013 Pikes Peak Prophecy Conference at the end of July will feature speakers including Gary Stearman, Tom Horn, Chuck Missler, Jonathan Cahn, L.A. Marzulli, Mark Biltz, Lennart Moller, Joseph Farah, and others. The conference is sold out, and we probably shouldn’t be surprised. The featured topics, while hardly biblical, are exciting and seem to capture the attention of those who seek to be ever learning (2 Timothy 3:7).
In his 2/14/13 blog, L.A. Marzulli posted an article entitled, “Evolution or Hybrid? As in the Days of Noah…” in which he speculates about the meaning of a Chinese boy born with blue eyes. Marzulli issues a token warning that “We shouldn’t, however, jump on the Nephilim hybrid band wagon just yet, not until further tests are done on the boy,” before jumping on that same band wagon himself. “We are told that it will be like the days of Noah when the son of man returns. This begs the question, what differentiates the days of Noah from any other? In my opinion it is the presence of the fallen angels openly manifesting on the earth and engaging in sex with human females, that resulted in hybrids. The question I would ask the mother of the child is this, does she recall being taken? Did she see lights in the sky and then have a period of missing time? I realize that the main street churches won’t touch this with a 100-foot pole, but that doesn’t mean in any way that the phenomena isn’t real, burgeoning, and not going away, does it?”
Commentator Gaylene Goodroad notes, “If the foundation laid by God in Genesis 6 is shifted from personal sin to supposed invading gods and demonic DNA, then Christ’s prophecy concerning ‘the days of Noah’ will also be altered to fit the Nephilim scenario. Note the Lord’s actual teaching: ‘And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26-27).
“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:37-39).
“The Scripture mentions four things that will be taking place on the earth prior to His return: mankind will be ‘eating,’ ‘drinking,’ ‘marrying,’ and ‘being given in marriage.’ There is NO mention of an outside demonic horde planning to corrupt the human gene pool by sexual and reproductive means! The clear implication of these sobering passages is that people–sinners–will be doing normal things up until the time judgment comes. They won’t be prepared for what happens very quickly–like the flood waters that overtook the men and women of Noah’s day. The details for this judgment are found in the Book of Revelation–and the Nephilim are conspicuously absent from all twenty-two chapters.”
(http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/07/nephilim-eschatology.html)
Marzulli has laid down rules at his blog, saying “There are a few topics [Marzulli is not to] be challenged here [on the blog] since he’s a proponent or has colleagues who are strong proponents. Some of these are: The authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, the UFO phenomena, the Book of Enoch,” etc.
Whatever happened to “prove all things, hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)?
Consequently, it is not surprising to see that the conference will “be arranging special two-hour tours of the Shroud of Turin Museum” along with “archaeological updates on the Shroud of Turin; the Lost Shipwreck of Paul; the Mystery of Masada and the Egyptian chariot wheels discovered in the Red Sea!”
(http://www.prophecyinthenews.com/the-pikes-peak-prophecy-summit/)
In addition to Nephilim promoters L.A. Marzulli, Tom Horn, Chuck Missler, and Gary Stearman, the prophecy conference also features Hebrew Roots teacher Mark Blitz, who has stated quite bluntly on his website: “”My goal is not to convert Jews to Christianity but to bring non-Jews to a better understanding of YHVH through a better understanding of Torah. I think most Christians do not know YHVH as He really is but know Him as they have tried to create Him in their image rather than understanding they were created in His image. Many Christians believe they have a relationship with YHVH but they don’t.”
(http://www.elshaddaiministries.us/audio/more/goal_of_hr.html)
He says further, “I believe Christianity has hijacked Yeshua and has been presenting an Egyptian, which is why Yeshua is not recognized….The time is coming when the Jewish people will recognize the role Yeshua played and they will then fulfill their mission in taking Torah to the nations. They will straighten out the Christians theology in what Yeshua was really saying” (Ibid.).
The fantastical mix of mythology, science fiction, and biblical wresting shows no sign of abating, and we hope to address other aspects of these unscriptural teachings.
The Gospel, Missions, and Evangelism |
“Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
I have observed and been involved with many churches – some grew; most did not. I noticed that very few churches experienced growth. Most came to the place where they plataued, both spiritually and numerically, and then they would gradually decline. The more I saw this the greater my discontentment became with the status quo of plataued and declining churches.
It has often been said that the church is but one generation away from extinction – the point being that personal evangelism is God’s appointed remedy. Indeed, the church is in trouble. There is little urgency anymore to win the lost to Christ. There is no panic to redeem the souls of lost people. What happened to all the stories of people’s lives being changed, as they were in the book of Acts, where people joined the church every day (Acts 2:41-47)? What happened to the church? Few people are changing anymore. They’re certainly not being saved every day. They are still just as disconnected, lost, and confused as they ever were. What happened to the church?
There has never been a more important time in history than now to help people understand the great things God is doing. He is gathering a people to Himself for His glory and honor, and He wants us to declare that message to the world. There are many churches that are content to sit in their holy huddle every week and get fed in the Word, but the reason we get fed is not only for our benefit, but so we can go out and minister to the world, so we can be salt and light.
A good definition of missions is taking Christ’s message outside of the church. Anytime we take the gospel outside the four walls of the church, we are engaged in missions. We want the church to be a desirable destination for people to come. The best way to reach them is to mobilize the church to go out and bring them in. We need to see the church as a mission to lost people.
Lots of things never get done, but the Great Commission cannot be one of them! It’s no secret that making disciples is the mission of the church. When we fail to make disciples, the church fails to grow. Jesus began with a handful of disciples and turned the world upside down! He wants us to follow His example.
Jesus told the disciples to make more disciples as they preach, teach, and baptize. Today, Jesus is still commanding the church to make disciples for His Kingdom. His commission is worldwide and we are to go – whether it is next door or to another country – and make disciples. This is not an option, but a command to all who call Jesus “Lord.” The question is: are we going to be obedient to the Lord’s command and if so, what does that look like?
There is a story about a man who prayed every morning: “Lord, if you want me to witness to someone today, please give me a sign to show me who it is.” One day he found himself on a bus when a big, burly man sat next to him. The timid Christian anxiously waited for his stop, so he could exit the bus. But then the big guy burst into tears and began to weep. He cried out with a loud voice, “I need to be saved. I’m a lost sinner. I need the Lord. Won’t somebody tell me how to be saved?” He turned to the Christian man and pleaded, “Can you show me how to be saved?” But the man immediately bowed his head and prayed, “Lord, is this the sign I’ve been asking for?”
What about you? Are you looking for a “sign” to start witnessing? The Lord has already commanded the church to go and make disciples. Perhaps the reason we’re seeing a decline in the church is because we’re not making disciples.
If I’ve seen any success in ministry, it was times when God used me to make a difference in another’s life. Those results are not easy to quantify. They don’t happen every day, but if a year goes by without it happening, something’s wrong. There needs to be tremendous urgency when it comes to making disciples and sharing the gospel with lost people.
One of the purposes of the church is to minister to the world. It is the duty and privilege of every child of God to win the lost to Christ and make disciples. The effectiveness of churches and individual believers is judged by whether or not we are reaching others with the gospel. Going and making disciples is central to what Christ has called us to do. There are seven truths with respect to the gospel, each of which has a bearing on our responsibility to share it with others:
First, the gospel is Elementary. It is the simple story of God’s love for humanity and His offer to save all who place their trust in Him: “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Luke 18:17).
Somewhere along the way, however, we have complicated the gospel to the degree that it has become convoluted and difficult to understand. People don’t need to have a thorough understanding of systematic theology in order to place their trust in Jesus. All they need is simple childlike faith. Look at the early disciples. None of the Twelve had a theological education. Peter was a fisherman, anything but educated. Matthew was a tax collector. He was not a biblical scholar.
One of the most common excuses I hear from those who are not actively involved in evangelism is that they simply don’t feel qualified. They say, “I just don’t know enough about the faith,” or, “I’d rather leave that to someone who knows more about the Bible than I do.” But the gospel is so simple that even a little child can understand it.
One of the reasons why children and youth are so vital to the life of the church is because they are ripe for the harvest. They have not become “set in their ways”. We need to focus on the story of the gospel, especially with young people. Statistics show that 19 out of every 20 people who come to Christ do so before they reach the age of 24. Young people are especially receptive to the gospel.
The renowned evangelist D.L. Moody once spoke with a woman who didn’t like his method of evangelism. “I don’t really like mine either,” he said. “What’s yours?” She replied that she didn’t have one. Moody said, “Then I like mine better than yours.” The point being that we are responsible to share the gospel with lost people. Some evangelism is better than none at all.
Not all of us may be able to discuss the finer points of theology, but like the blind man, we can say, “I once was blind, but now I see.” Those who know Jesus find it very simple to introduce Him to others. The gospel is elementary.
Second, the gospel is Exclusive. There is no other way to gain access to God and eternal life except through Jesus Christ. Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Peter said, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The exclusivity of the gospel goes against the grain of our postmodern culture and many take offense to the truth that Jesus is the only way to be saved. Postmodernists are appalled by the audacity of any one truth being the only truth, or any one way being the only way. The exclusivity of the gospel may not be popular, but Jesus tells us that He is the “only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life.” Any message which claims there is salvation in anyone or anything other than Jesus is heresy.
One of the most difficult questions many Christians fear being asked by a lost person is this: “What about all those people who never heard about Jesus? What about those people who have never had a chance? How can God send them to hell?” But these questions arise from a faulty understanding of why people go to hell. People don’t go to hell because God wants them to, they go to hell because they deserve to. All of us are sinners and the wages of sin is death (Romans 3:23, 6:23). But the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins! He acted as our Substitute. He paid the penalty for our sins, so we could be forgiven. The gospel is exclusive.
Third, the gospel is Eternal. It is timeless, changeless, and applicable to all people, in all places (Matthew 24:14). Many things have changed in the two thousand years since Jesus ascended into heaven, but don’t be fooled by all the changes in our world; the most prominent things have stayed the same: people are still born with a sinful nature, they still rebel against God, and they are still helpless to save themselves. The message that God loves us and sent His Son, Jesus, to save us has not changed. It is timeless and applies to everyone. The methods we employ to share it may have changed, the language we use to communicate it may have changed, the customs surrounding our worship and singing may have changed, but the message is still the same.
The fact Jesus went to the cross in order to pay for our sins is good news. The fact Jesus was buried in a grave, but rose 3 days later is good news. Because of what Jesus has done, all people, from all nations, of every race, every color, and every social level have the opportunity to be forgiven, saved, and brought into a right relationship with God with the hope of eternal life in heaven. That’s good news. The gospel of Jesus Christ is eternal.
Fourth, the gospel is Exacting. It is a message which demands everything from those who accept it. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it. What good will it be for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26).
I often wonder how many people who claim to follow Jesus really understand what it is He wants of those who follow Him. Do they really understand that believing on Jesus means that they abandon everything to Him? Do they really preach a message in conformity with the one He preached? Or have they come up with their own version of the gospel?
When we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, we must be careful not to preach an incomplete version; one which calls for nothing, but promises everything. Sadly, this is what many people see and hear when they go to many churches today. They simply hear a part of the gospel: the part which speaks to what we get out of it and not the part which demands everything from us.
If it were that easy to follow Jesus, if all it entailed was believing that He is God and that He wants good things for us, then there is no reason why anyone would reject it. But the gospel, as Jesus taught it and Scripture explains it, means that we surrender ourselves, totally and completely, by faith, to Him. The gospel demands that we take up our cross, the instrument of death, and follow Jesus. It calls us to surrender our wills to the will of the Father, even as Jesus did. It assaults our pride and self-sufficiency, calling on us to renounce our own abilities and to see ourselves for the sinners we are. It demands we abandon our love for this world, and instead place our treasure in heaven and our hope in the world to come. A faith which demands nothing from us is neither a biblical nor a saving faith. The gospel is exacting.
Fifth, the gospel is Enlightening. It teaches us to obey all that Christ has commanded (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus does not call us to simply make converts, but to make disciples. The Great Commission includes the careful discipling of new believers. Jesus is not satisfied with any hasty profession of faith. We are not called to evoke decisions, but to make disciples. And that is an altogether different assignment.
Making disciples involves Christian training. That is why I believe many activities at church need to be geared towards Bible study, at every level. There is to be basic Bible study, designed to help people understand the basic claims of Christ and to help them come to faith in Jesus. And there is to be more intense Bible study as well, which is designed to help Christians grow, mature, and develop deeper in the faith. All of this is part of what it means to make disciples. The gospel is enlightening.
Sixth, the gospel is Effective. It thoroughly transforms those who believe: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The person who truly accepts Christ is a brand new person, old things have passed away and all things have become new. If a person is really saved, there will be a metamorphosis in their life, a transformation whereby they will be changed.
If there is no change, there is no salvation. Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them” (Mt. 7:20). That’s not only the fruit of new converts, but the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23). Do we possess those qualities in increasing measure?
If the fruit of the Spirit is not evidenced in our life, how can we say Jesus has changed us? How can we claim transformation if there is little to no difference between us and the lost guy next door? The gospel will change us from the inside out. It is not merely a moral code we try and obey; it is not merely a set of nice things we strive towards. The gospel is revolutionary, it is transformational, it changes all who truly accept it to be like Jesus. The question the world is constantly asking as they look at your life and mine is, “Did it work for them? Were they changed? Do I see any transformation in their life?” The authentic gospel of Jesus Christ is effective.
Seventh, the gospel is Extended. Those who truly accept Christ will be busy about the business of sharing Him with others: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). If we are believers in Jesus Christ, we have a stewardship of the gospel, something for which we will be held accountable. It is something God has entrusted to us. But more than that, it is something He has commanded us to do. Sharing the gospel should never be seen as a burden, like paying taxes, but rather as a privilege, like being an ambassador. In fact, that’s what the Scripture says we are: we are ambassadors, sent from Heaven’s throne to the world around us to be messengers of peace and reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20). We are to go to others on behalf of God Himself and to offer them the opportunity to know Him through Jesus Christ. We are to tell them of His love, and invite them to accept His offer of forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
While speaking in London, evangelist D. L. Moody was approached by a British companion who wanted to know the secret of Moody’s success in leading people to Christ. Moody directed the man to his hotel window and asked, “What do you see?” The man looked down on the square and reported a view of crowded streets. Moody suggested he look again. This time the man mentioned seeing people – men, women, and children. Moody then directed him to look a third time. The man became frustrated that he was not seeing what Moody wanted him to see. Finally, the great evangelist came to the window with watery eyes and said, “I see people going to hell without Jesus. Until you see people like that, you will not lead them to Christ.”
What kind of witness are you? When God calls you into account someday, for the stewardship of the gospel, when He asks you to tell Him how you handled the most precious and powerful gift He ever placed in the hands of humanity, what will you say? Now that you know and understand what the Good News is, what are you going to do with it? What difference are you going to make in the life of God’s church?
by Rick Frueh
MAJESTIC SIMPLICITY
II Cor.11: 2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
This new, intellectual, materialistic and esoteric Christianity is not Christianity at all. It is a modern revelation of the Tower of Babel built with the bricks of human logic, human desires, and human interests that are all held together by the mortar of demonic influences.
We live in perilous times in the natural and in the supernatural. And much of what is happening in the unseen world has been making itself known in the seen world. And these manifestations are not just occurring in the secular world or even in the religious world which does not consider itself “Christian”. There are many serious demonic incursions within the visible church that does call itself Christian. In these days of accelerated wealth and power and hedonistic lifestyles the true church has now been overrun by the tide of the profound confusion of an ever expanding litany of messages. It would take no more research than sitting in front of the television and watching “Christian” television for one day to discover all the different and insane messages.
Finish Article HERE
Transcript: From The Berean Call
Gary: Welcome to Search the Scriptures 24/7, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with T.A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael. Thanks for tuning in. In today’s program, Tom addresses the question: “Is the History Channel’s Mini-series, The Bible, Biblical? Joining Tom is TBC staff member, Edwin Newby. Now, along with his guest, here’s TBC Executive Director, Tom McMahon.
Tom: Thanks, Gary. Today, as Gary mentioned, we’re going to address the Bible as interpreted by Hollywood, in particular the History Channel’s five-week mini-series titled The Bible. And it started off, in terms of interest in it-well, it broke records for the History Channel.
But here in the studios is my associate, Ed Newby. He’s a staff member, and Ed is our resident Q&A correspondent, producer of our online updates, and a contributor to TBC’s newsletter.
Ed, thanks for joining me today on Search the Scriptures 24/7.
Ed: Thank you, Tom, for the invite.
Tom: I want to start with some background on the production of The Bible. For example…well, let’s start with the producers. What can you tell me about them?
Ed: Well, this is produced by Roma Downey and her husband, Mark Burnett. Mark Burnett, of course, he’s a very successful Hollywood director, primarily television, directing such high-rated programs as Survivor, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?, and other reality shows of that nature.
Roma Downey’s background is far more easy to determine. She is clearly identified with Mind Science teaching. She was with the successful program, Touched by an Angel.
Her costar, of course, was Della Reese, who pastors her own religious science church that she founded. And everything we’ve seen about her indicates that she’s fully lodged in the New Age, Mind Science-however you want to categorize her. As a matter of fact, I read one of the Hollywood blogs talking about her, and she talks about “as someone who’s been on a spiritual journey for many years.”
Roma Downey attends the University of Santa Monica private graduate school founded by New Age spiritual and self-help guru, John Roger, and will graduate with a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology.
Tom: Wow. Well, the production–again, it’s a 10-hour series, so as I understand it, they’ve been working on this for three years. It was shot in Morocco. What can you tell me about the lead character who plays Jesus?
Ed: Well, he’s a Portuguese actor. He was specifically chosen by Roma Downey. By the way, everything that they have done, they have attributed to being directly guided by the Lord in all of these things. They’re very open with saying that, and they specifically say the actor who portrays Jesus–and, also, he’s not identified earlier in the series, but he plays the role of the Lord as one of the three men that appears to Abraham in the plains of Mamre.
So, this man was seen by Downey in a production. She felt a “spiritual rapport” with him, and of course, all the way through this production, they talk about all of these spiritual things that they attribute to the Lord-guiding and directing and ultimately producing this program.
Tom: Yeah. Ed, going back to Downey and Burnett, I remember you earlier in the week telling me about an interview they had with Bill Reilly?
Ed: Bill O’Reilly, yes.
Tom: Bill O’Reilly. Tell me about that.
Ed: Well, O’Reilly, of course, came off as the worse–you know, he’s a Catholic, he says…or, no, he was raised a Catholic, but he was asking them questions, specific, like “You actually believe these things?” And they said, “Yes, we believe the Bible.”
“Do you believe these things, particularly the account of creation? Are these accurate?”
And they sort of dodged that question and fell back on “We believe the Bible.” That was the line that they gave.
Tom: Mm-hmm. But I also remember you telling me that in the conversation, as they were sort of backpedaling about the issue, didn’t he challenge them about whether this was accurate in every case? What was the response to that?
Ed: They didn’t really answer that, other than “We believe the Bible to be true. It’s truth.”
Tom: So they just hung out there.
Ed: Basically.
Tom: Well, you know, that would be an attitude that we would take, so we would applaud them on that. But again, you can believe the Bible to be true–but tell me your impression of Part 1 of the program.
Ed: The program, of course, is probably one of the most lavishly produced Bible-themed movies or productions ever made. Top-flight production, video, visuals, they have a huge number of British actors that are very good in their craft. So if you look at it strictly as a production, it’s very good. However, that’s not the job that the Lord has called us to. They’re going to go through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and they’re going to accomplish that in ten hours. As a consequence, they have cut out much of the Bible, and much that they have retained is very hurriedly paced through. They have dropped a number of very important points that the Scriptures raise, particularly concerning the faith of Abraham.
And it’s interesting that in an interview with Focus on the Family, Mark Burnett specifically said that his goal was to “hit the emotional highs.” He wanted to be able to stir the emotions of the viewers. And I have to admit, watching it–it’s very well acted. They’re dealing with a lot of very traumatic situations in the lives of these biblical characters, and it’s emotionally stirring. And there are things that they get right.
Tom: Ed, I’m looking at an article in Charisma magazine on “The Bible Made for TV”-that’s the title of it–and there are actually some comments in here that are kind of stunning. In one sense, he says that because…”Look, you can’t do the Bible in ten hours.”
Ed: Absolutely, yeah.
Tom: Well, first of all, I would say you can’t do the Bible–you can’t bring it to the screen, but that’s…we’ll save that for part 2 of our series here. Nevertheless, I’m looking again at an article in
Charisma magazine, and this is March 2013, obviously, and here’s what they say: Well, first of all, they admit that the Bible is not very descriptive–doesn’t give you details.
Ed: No…
Tom: Mel Gibson had the same problem with The Passion of the Christ, which we’ll talk about in the second part. But this is what they say: “So when Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, producers of the forthcoming History Channel mini-series The Bible, worked with directors and set designers to create a dramatic retelling of the story, they had a measure of creative license available to them.”
Now, is that a problem or not?
Ed: Granted by whom? (laughing)
Tom: Exactly. So, give us some examples of the creative license that you saw, at least in the first part.
Ed: Well, as I said earlier, Burnett wanted to hit the emotional highs. He wanted to draw people in through touching their emotions.
So they added things: Noah and the ark-children on board. The Bible very distinctly says, “Whereas eight souls were saved”: Noah, his wife, three sons, and their wives. No children on the ark.
Secondly, Noah is walking around on the deck of the ark after the Lord specifically shuts the door to keep them inside. How did he get up there?
Tom: Somebody’s not paying attention to even the detail that’s in the Scriptures. But this is creative license, remember. Keep going.
Ed: Creative license–there’s one thing I want to touch on later that’s really critical, that they removed a very specific Messianic marker from the text, but in the occasion when the Lord asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, that is totally whacko. Mainly because the Bible specifically says it was three-days journey to Mount Moriah; he took some servants with him and pack animals. In Downey and Burnett’s version, the mount they’re going to is just a hop, skip, and a jump–you can see it from their tent–and so, Abraham takes his son, Isaac, and they go climbing up the hill. The dramatic license they use there is to stir your emotions, because Sarah looks up, sees them silhouetted against the top of the ridge of this hill, realizes they don’t have an animal to sacrifice, so she literally freaks out and runs and begins frantically clawing her way up the mountainside in the utmost anguish. There’s that.
The angels that went into Sodom. License? Now an angel–other commentators have referred to this as the “Ninja scene” in Sodom. So these two angels–one is an individual of African descent, the other one is an Asian fellow–and they’re going into Sodom. Talk about license…
Tom: Now, wouldn’t that be license right there? Do you know of any angels that are ever described as being…
Ed: Particular racial types?
Tom: Exactly. Okay, well, let’s keep going.
Ed: And in the biblical account, Lot–he’s apparently a prominent citizen in Sodom because he’s sitting in the gate, where all the business, the judicial things, are transacted, and when he sees these two men coming, he recognizes who they are. He’s at least that spiritual, he can pick up who they are, and he immediately invites them to his house “that you don’t spend your night in the streets.”
In the production, they come into this town, and…oh, by the way, while this is happening, you’re thinking, Well, what about the sin of Sodom? What about the homosexuality?
So, the narrator is saying, “Sodom had corrupted itself greatly and was deeply in sin.” And so they’re showing all these heterosexual couples that are caressing each other, kissing each other, in the streets, and the only reference they make to the other thing is one very effeminate-looking guy standing there all by himself, smiling. That’s it.
And so, when the…
Tom: Well, it did have one sodomite in Sodom.
Ed: Yeah.
Tom: Wow.
Ed: The token sodomite. So as these angels are going into the town, these men start following them, obviously with intent to do them harm or something. And they end up running to Lot’s house, banging on the door frantically. Lot opens the door, and they say, “Please! Please! Help us! Hide us from these…” These are the angels!
And so, Lot is reluctant at first. His wife doesn’t want them in there at all, but eventually they go in. Then Lot goes out to calm down the crowd, which somewhat follows the plot in the Bible. Well, the angels, you know, the crowd starts to go wild, and then the angels reach out, pull Lot in, and then they strike these people with blindness, as the scriptural account goes, which apparently lasts only a few seconds, because pretty soon these guys are drawing their swords. So one of the angels takes charge, getting Lot and his family ready to flee. The other one goes out and…I forgot to mention, their attire-they look like Jedi knights straight out of a George Lucas production. They’re wearing the cowls, the cassocks, or whatever you want to call them…
Tom: From the first Star Wars…
Ed: Yes. You know how the Jedi knights dressed. And so, he walks–this one angel walks out of Lot’s house, throws off his robe, and he’s wearing this shiny Roman-style armor, then he reaches over his shoulders and pulls out two swords, just like a Ninja, and then he starts hacking these people. The other angel gets Lot and his family out of the house, takes them out and tells them to run for the gate, they’ll be with them in a minute. He draws his sword and they spend the next few minutes hacking all these Sodomites to death.
Tom: What does the Bible tell us took place at that point?
Ed: The Bible says that they struck them with blindness so that these individuals, it said, “wearied themselves to find the door.” They were blinded but they were still following their lust to do something. And then the angels tool Lot and his family out of the city.
Tom: Now, for our listeners that say, “Oh, well, come on. You guys, you’re nitpicking.” Folks, no. We’re not nitpicking. This is a representation of the Bible. That’s the name of the series: The Bible. The title of this program is Search the Scriptures 24/7. So, what we’re doing is we’re comparing what is being presented, again, out of Hollywood, what is presented as being biblically accurate–true to the Bible.
You know, as I said, earlier–well, I referred to earlier–Mel Gibson tried to do the same thing in
The Passion of the Christ. And the problem here is–yes, the Bible is a huge book, and you can only select certain things to present or a program like that would be on 24/7-it would be on all the time.
But they did select parts of the Bible to present. Question is, is this accurate with regard to what the Bible says very clearly?
So, Ed, I mean, this is…you probably already answered this question, but on a scale of 1-10, what number would you give the production in terms of being true to the Bible?
Ed: Well, Tom, you know, I…I try to be a fair person, and…
Tom: Well, it’s just going to be your opinion, but, you know, with what you articulated-give us your opinion.
Ed: I’m going to say no higher than 2. I would really tend to say, “Can we give it a zero?”
Tom: Yeah, well, you’ve got all the numbers before you. And, again, here is our problem. For some people who’ve never read the Bible, even those who profess to be Christians, and they’ve never really taken the time to read through the Scriptures, this is all they know.
And for others who are not Christians but are viewing this, whatever religious background they come out of, or they’re in right now, this is what they think the Bible is about.
Ed: Yeah.
Tom: I spent a number of years as a screenwriter in Hollywood. You know that, Ed, just for our audience’s sake. So when I see a presentation–you know, I’ve been a believer for about 35 years, and I’ve studied the Word of God every year of that. I’m more excited about it today than at the beginning because I know it better and better. But this is an abuse. This is a distortion. This is a corruption.
Now, I know a lot of people are excited about it because, well, you mentioned Focus on the Family–I’ve got Charisma, this is a magazine right in front of me. They’re giving it not just two thumbs up but they’re tremendously enthusiastic about this. But it’s the Bible. It’s the Word of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Now, as I mentioned, you know, in our next session, we’re going to talk about can the Bible–should it be–is it legitimate to translate it visually? But we’ll hold onto that for a second.
I want to go back to Downey and Burnett, the producers. In what you have researched here, what was their goal, their objective, in presenting the Bible visually, whether it’s a valid thing to do or not–we’ll talk about that later–but where was their head, their heart in this? What did they have in mind?
Ed: Well, Mark Burnett stated very specifically, “By telling these emotionally connected big stories, hopefully millions of people will reopen their Bibles.”
Tom: Yeah.
Ed: And they repeated that several times.
Tom: And how could you argue with that? That’s something that we all want. Especially in this day, as we move more into apostasy, more into deception, delusion, not just in the world, but certainly in the church. That’s what you want, you know, the solution: “The B-I-B-L-E, that’s the book for me.” That’s where we want people to be. But now the problem is how do you go about that? Do you present the Bible as man sees it? With drama, with creative license, all of these things? Do you create something–I mean, this is marketing more than it is the heart to present the Bible and to encourage people to get into the Bible.
I mean, what are they going to do? Let’s say young people. They see these two angels, so-called…
Ed: Right.
Tom: …coming off like–somebody said, “Well, they’re like gladiators.” I don’t care if you call them gladiators or Ninjas or whatever, you get somebody excited about this highly dramatic thing, and then all of a sudden they go and read the text, and they say, “Wait a minute! I don’t find any of that there.” In other words, they’re being misled by creating a distortion–a representation of the Bible that is just not there.
So, my point here is it’s counterproductive to what he said. Yeah! You’ve love The Bible to motivate people to get into the Bible, but when mankind is creating artificial things, or dramatic issues that are not there, it’s just not going to work, even if it was the right thing to do, which it’s not. It’s not the right thing to do from the scriptural standpoint.
Ed: Absolutely. And, as I mentioned earlier, one of the things that I specifically thought were–well, let’s be frank–it was terrible. The omissions! They missed Abraham–when the Lord appeared to him and took him outside the tent at night and said, “Look up at the sky. Count the stars if you’re able to do that. So shall thy seed be.” Don’t have that at all. They have, afterwards, he’s sitting outside the tent, he’s kind of rocking back and forth a little bit, and he’s repeating, “The stars, all the stars! Our seed! Our children!”
And Sarah comes out and says, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
And he says, “Our children! The Lord showed me our children will be as the stars of heaven-our descendants.”
And Sarah goes, “It’s too late for me.”
Well, what they omitted was Abraham’s belief–Genesis 15:6: The Lord told him, “Count the stars. Your seed’s going to be just as numerous as that.” And it says in verse 6: “…and Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” That’s all left out. They leave out several of those, we call them Messianic markers, or whatever you want to call them.
Tom: Well, again, what we find in the Tenakh, the Old Testament, is these are types of Christ. All of these things pointed to Christ and what He would…how He would be born of a virgin, and how He would–God would become a man, and go to the cross and pay the full penalty for our sins, and we have, throughout the Old Testament, types of this that point to it. We know this early on in our walk with the Lord, Ed, that those in the Old Testament–how were they saved? Well, you just mentioned it. Abraham was saved by faith, the same way every believer is saved–by faith, and faith alone. How did this happen by faith? Because, as you said, quoted the scriptures, “he believed God and it was appointed to him as righteousness.”
But what was he doing? He was looking ahead to the cross.
Ed: Amen.
Tom: We, today, as believers–we look back to the cross as what Christ accomplished for us, and we put our faith in that. That’s what being born again is all about. That’s…you, we’re, born again of the Spirit of God, and because we believe that He, Jesus, God became a man, went to the cross, paid the full penalty for our sins–that’s the only way anyone can be saved, according to the Scriptures.
Now, we’re still dealing with the first part of the series, okay. They’re not there yet, but the point is that these things that took place and were presented is a distortion of what the Bible says. So, consequently, what value is it?
Now, Ed, 15 million viewers, according to the results of this presentation.
Ed: And the demographic: age 20-39.
Tom: Unbelievable in terms of, hey, that’s what we want. We want people to respond to the Bible, to the Word of God. It’s not that the Lord won’t prick a heart or use this. But this is not God’s way. You don’t encourage people, you don’t try to bring them to Christ, you don’t try to bring them to the Word of God by distorting it, by abusing it, by corrupting it. And all of that, nevertheless, I’m looking at this Charisma article–They believed “it was clear that something supernatural” (I’m quoting) “and wonderful had just arrived and shown up,” and they believed that “there was an encounter with the Holy Spirit.” That this thing-all the terms that are used in this Charisma
article, which you’d expect, all the terms have to do with God being behind this, and people praying for it, and so on.
But let’s have a little–folks, let’s have a little discernment here if you’re enamored with this production. This is not the Bible. This is the creation of men to the distortion of the Word of God.
Ed: Along with your comment about “by faith alone,” the narrator says, and it has to do with the time that he’s asked…Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son: “To Abraham being chosen by God is both a blessing and a test. He must prove his faith again and again.” That’s works.
Tom: Yes, absolutely. Works-salvation. It boils down to this: There is either putting your faith in Christ and what He’s accomplished or there’s works-salvation. There’s working it out on your own, which is an impossibility.
Ed, the Lord willing, next week we’re going to cover, really the bottom line in all of this. Should, could, is it valid? Is it legitimate? Is it true that the Bible can be translated, interpreted visually? And that’s an important issue in here, because it really applies not just to the Bible, this History series, but to all the other productions, whether out of Hollywood or not, whether or not it is a legitimate application of presenting the Bible.
Well, next week we’ll talk about it.
Ed: Very good.
Gary: You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures 24/7 with T.A. McMahon. We offer a wide variety of materials to help you in your study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials and a free subscription to our monthly newsletter, contact us at PO Box 7019 Bend, Oregon 97708. Call us at 800.937.6638; or visit our website at the bereancall.org. I’m Gary Carmichael, join us again next time as Tom continues his discussion with Edwin Newby about the TV mini-series The Bible. Thanks for tuning in and we encourage you to search the Scriptures 24/7.
Last year our church participated for the first time in Operation Christmas Child. This is the shoebox gift giving that happens every year.
We have been asked to spread the word early so that by the holidays we will be all geared and ready to pack more boxes than ever.
Our Sunday School class enjoyed packing two boxes, one for a girl and one for a boy. It was the perfect time to give a lesson on giving and how such a simple gift can express love. Not only are the children blessed but the entire family gets a booklet about Jesus and the Gospel message. The testimonies of those coming to Christ because of this ministry is a joy to listen to and read.
Last week the children found Peru on the map because this is where we were told our boxes went.
Find out more here and mark your calendar so you will be ready to turn your boxes in about November 2013.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
The Four Groups Of Cessationists.
Source HERE
In Christian theology, cessationism is the view that the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as tongues, prophecy and healing, ceased being practiced early on in Church history. Cessationists usually believe the miraculous gifts were given only for the foundation of the Church, during the time between the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, c. AD 33 (see Acts 2) and the fulfillment of God’s purposes in history, usually identified as either the completion of the last book of the New Testament or the death of the last Apostle.
Cessationists are divided into four main groups:
•Concentric Cessationists believe that the miraculous gifts have indeed ceased in the mainstream church and evangelized areas, but appear in unreached areas as an aid to spreading the Gospel (Luther and Calvin, though they were somewhat inconsistent in this position).
•Classical cessationists assert that the “sign gifts” such as prophecy, healing and speaking in tongues ceased with the apostles and the finishing of the canon of Scripture. They only served as launching pads for the spreading of the Gospel; as affirmations of God’s revelation. However, these cessationists do believe that God still occasionally does miracles today, such as healings or divine guidance, so long as these “miracles” do not accredit new doctrine or add to the New Testament canon. Richard Gaffin, John F. MacArthur and Daniel B. Wallace are perhaps the best-known classical cessationists.
•Full Cessationists argue that along with no miraculous gifts, there are also no miracles performed by God today. This argument, of course, turns on one’s understanding of the term, “miracle.” B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, F.N. Lee.
•Consistent Cessationists believe that not only were the miraculous gifts only for the establishment of the first-century church, but the so-called fivefold ministry found in Eph. 4 was also a transitional institution (i.e., There are no more apostles or prophets, but also no more pastors, teachers, or evangelists).
DiscernIt 
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