God has an incredibly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things. I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me. I have been told that I need to have faith in God. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that God has faith in me (Velvet Elvis, 134).

They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them (1 John 4:5).

Divisions In The Church

Here we see a verse that appears pretty straight forward and warns us; “do not believe everyone who claims to speak from God, be wary, and test them out–check out their teachings, because there are many false prophets.” We must face the fact that there are those who will proclaim what God has supposedly said–both past and future–who are actually from the world. First, we have to ask ourselves: “Is this only a historic fact, or could this continue to happen today?” We know from history that the Apostle John was speaking about first century Gnostic teachers, and what is not generally thought about is that these men claimed to be Christians with the “true” interpretation of the teachings of Christ.

I don’t have space to get into specifics here, I just want to bring to the reader’s attention the fact that there were also various “factions” considering themselves Christians even during the time of the early Church. In fact this is a truth often missed by the immature and quite superficial (at best) “ministers” like Rob Bell, who run to tell the world what they want to hear. And the truth is that it was the Lord’s will to have these divisions in His Church. God the Holy Spirit tells us through His vessel Paul:

For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized (1 Corinthians 11:18-19, ESV).

The word division above is the Greek word from which we get “schism,” literally a “split,” a “gap.” And the word translated factions is “heresies” as you will see it rendered in the King James Version of this verse. So God is telling us there must be “heresies” among you – the true Body of Christ–the Church. And look at this from the Apostle Peter – But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1).

Why? The Lord tells us above – in order that those who are genuine among you – again this is the true Body of Christ–the Church – may be recognized; or as the NIV puts – it to show which of you have God’s approval. God is looking for those who will stand for the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ–no matter what; to the end–and for who among “us” will turn and then run to tell the world what it wants to hear. Like a Rob Bell does; like the Emerging Church is doing.

Seeking God’s Approval

If we take our opening text at face value, combining it with the above verses, we can clearly see that the Bible is saying: “Everyone who claims to teach something about Me has not necessarily been sent from Me, ‘many’ of these ‘prophets’ are false.” We notice here that false prophets were loose among the people then. Now let’s think about something John himself would have heard Christ Jesus teach – “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). After all, John walked with the Master for three years, he left everything to follow Him, and it is clear that He was in an “inner circle” that is often highlighted in the Gospels. Notice how many times when some important event was to happen in Christ’s earthly life where our Lord involves “Peter, James and John.”

For instance, the night Jesus was to be arrested we read from the historical account from Matthew 26:37 – He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him. Peter’s assistant Mark, tells us that Peter remembers that when they went to a place called Gethsemane, and that in addition to himself, Jesus also took James and John along with Him. There really is no doubt from the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth that these three men were closer to Him than the others–not loved any more–just closer in relationship. There is another lesson in that, but we explore that another time. The point relevant here to our look at counterfeit Christian teachers like Rob Bell is that these Apostles writing under the direct inspiration of God the Holy Spirit would be in a very good position to recall our Lord talking about those false prophets [who] come to you in sheep’s clothing.

This would seem a good place for me to let you know in no uncertain terms that I personally do not happen to like this idea that God decided to allow many false prophets to go out into the world, and that they would many times come as wolves in sheep’s clothing, because I would rather not have to be trying to alert people as to just who these false prophets claiming to be Christians might be. Believe it or not, I really do not like doing this type of work. Well I don’t. I was quite pleased to be involved in apologetics to people who were professed unbelievers, and with doing counter-cult evangelism in an attempt to free those trapped in Satan’s kingdom of the cults. However, in His infinite wisdom, God did not choose to consult me about whether or not I liked the idea that He decided to allow many spirits to be sent into the world who would claim to be Christian and then try to devour the flock of Christ as wolves actually sent by the Devil.

No Panentheistic Global Family

The hugely mistaken–and eternally damning–idea that is growing in this whimsical generation is: “Everything is going to just work out fine if we’d all just put aside our differences and be willing to learn from each other’s religions.” This is what is behind the idea in the Emergent Church which they refer to as being “missional” and being “followers of Jesus in the kingdom of God.” The right idea, but it is backward in approach. One cannot get into the kingdom of God (synonymous with Kingdom of Heaven) until he is “born again” and regenerated by God the Holy Spirit. Follow my series on The Transformation Of The Emergent Church and you’ll see Brian McLaren is preparing his flock of fools for the doctrine of panentheism–and much worse.

The other blatant falsehood put forth by this extremely schismatic Emerging Church is that orthodox Christianity hasn’t been concerned with the social aspect of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Though these initially Christian schools were killed spiritually by the very liberal theology these parasites of the Emergent Church movement wish to drag back into our Lord’s Church, the incontrovertible fact remains that virtually every Ivy League University that is now dead was established by orthodox “Bible-believing” Christians who held the very same doctrine that I–and many others like me–have been/are teaching. It is so unfortunate, but if these Emergents are only willing to listen, they would see that this whole “pie in the sky” musing that people will all live together in harmony is actually destroyed here in texts such as these.

Think about it a moment, if it had been God’s intention for life here on His earth to be one where all people would come to a complete understanding of Who He is, then why would He have even allowed false teachers who in Christ’s Name – speak from the viewpoint of the world. You see, the Cult of Liberal Theology–so labeled by Dr. Walter Martin–has already tried the foolishness of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; but the only way they could try to make that pabulum fly is to cast doubt on the Scriptures, because the Bible is replete with references such as those in this missive, and the ones I have quoted from an eyewitness who heard this from Christ Himself.

Today I encourage you in Christ’s behalf, turn away from the worldly wisdom of counterfeit teachers like Rob Bell who are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.