Sanctify them through Thy Truth: Thy Word is Truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the Truth. (John 17:17-19, KJV)

Have You Checked The Writings Today?

As you’ll be able to see in the Apprising Ministries articles Georgia Baptist Convention (SBC) Now Promoting the Cult of Richard Foster and Christianity Today Promoting the Roman Catholic Mystic Catherine of Siena the Emerging rebellion against Sola Scriptura has fired up evangelicalism’s lust for corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), which has right now immersed the visible church in an epidemic of what I am calling “me-no-wanna-see-i-tis.”

But in his book Reckless Faith Dr. John MacArthur hits the target dead on as he shows you why a highly subjective and feelings-oriented neo-orthodox view of Scripture is a perfect fit for the spread of this spurious CSM as well as why it’s a necessity for it to flourish:

Neo-orthodoxy is the term used to identify an existentialist variety of Christianity. Because it denies the essential objective basis of truth—the absolute truth and authority of Scripture—neo-orthodoxy must be understood as pseudo-Christianity… Neo-orthodoxy’s attitude toward Scripture is a microcosm of the entire existentialist philosophy: the Bible itself is not objectively the Word of God, but it becomes the Word of God when it speaks to me individually…

Thus while neo-orthodox theologians often sound as if they affirming traditonal beliefs,…they relegate all theology to the realm of subjective relativism… [Contemplative] Mysticism is perfectly suited for religious existentialism; indeed, it is the inevitable consequence. The mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead through the feelings, the imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination, of other purely subjective means. (26,27)

The subject of this work is a collection of writings, and it appears they are indeed very special writings at that. In fact millions of copies of them are sold every year! These are writings that even today determine the way many people will live their lives each day; all-important writings that millions of people quite literally plan their lives around. I’m referring, of course, to the…TV Guide. Aw, it’s just a joke…I mean c’mon, people don’t really plan their lives around TV Guide…do they? How much better we read the Bible today?

Dr. Simon Greenleaf the brilliant 19th century Professor of Law at the prestigious School of Law at Harvard University who wrote a classic textbook on legal evidence was confronted by the powerful living Word of God. In his classes Dr. Greenleaf would consistently attack the Bible until some of his students knowledgeable about their beliefs challenged him to take his textbook and apply it to the Bible and to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dr. Greenleaf accepted the challenge and when faced with the impressive evidence supporting the claims of the Bible he accepted Jesus as his Lord and went on to write another classic book–this one in defense of the Christian faith!

Space doesn’t allow for me to tell you of the thousands upon thousands of similar accounts where people were driven to their knees at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ when taking an honest unbiased look at the Biblical record. And we keep in mind that when all is said and done the Word of God doesn’t need the opinions of men to validate it but it can serve as an encouragement to know the Bible has defeated all who have challenged it. If you have never tested the Bible for yourself then I challenge you to try taking an honest prayerful look at the truth of these Holy Scriptures uniquely inspired by the one true and living LORD God Almighty.

The Christian Is Not Using Circular Reasoning

It is important at this point to keep in mind what eminent Christian scholar Dr. Walter Martin—who once taught Comparative Religions and Christian Apologetics at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law—wrote in his book Essential Christianity, which I highly recommend:

The Bible is actually a collection of 66 books, written by 40 different authors over a period of more than 5,000 years about a Spiritual Being Who lives outside time and space. So the Bible is not one book but many and written by people of different time periods. An error arises when people don’t think of the Bible this way. The testimony of the authors must be accepted as independent evidence unless it can be proved there was collusion or deception on their part, or that the manuscripts we have today are not what the authors wrote. It needs to be strongly emphasized that none of these things has ever been proved.

With this point made, let me state categorically what the historic orthodox Christian Church means when we say that only the Bible is the Word of God. In theological circles this is known as the plenary and verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture. It can be summed up as follows: The Bible was produced by men whose recording of events was supernaturally supervised by God the Holy Spirit and thus preserved from all the frailties of human error and judgment which are so common in all other religious literature, so that even though God allowed men to use their own thoughts, the Lord was guiding those thoughts so that their words in literal fact actually became His.

Orthodox Christianity holds that the Bible, comprised of the Old and New Testaments, is the sole written Word of God, further it is infallible and inerrant—without error of any kind. And as The Baptist Faith And Message correctly states:

[The Bible is] the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

This is the only view of the Bible that is acceptable to God, and fewer and fewer hold this belief, but His Church that He purchased with His own blood must never compromise this position in the very least! Now it’s true that when you preach like this many people don’t like it but someone has to come out and tell the truth whether it is popular or not. “Is not My Word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:29). It has been my experience that relatively few people who are lit on fire and hit with a hammer will find it a pleasurable experience.

There Is Such A Thing As Absolute Truth

This is the most serious absolute truth that there is: All who die apart from a saving relationship to God by His grace through faith alone in Jesus of Nazareth—our resurrected Redeemer—are doomed to the eternal, conscious torment of a literal place the Master Himself called Hell. And all who claim Christ as Savior but refuse to take up their cross and in the power of His Spirit strive to deny themselves and to be obedient to Him in all matters are no more a Christian than living in a garage would make you a car. How you live defines who you are.

Here’s how we know this is the absolute truth. In John 14:23-24 as Jesus is talking to His disciples—Christians—and He says:

“If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching. These Words are not My own; they belong to the Father Who sent Me.”

Do you truly believe this? To do so requires faith and we are going to appear “narrow” and close-minded to those who think as men think. Remember — The man without the [Holy] Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). And many people aren’t going to like you to be living with the convictions of the Christian faith. O but don’t let that stop you; give yourselves completely to Jesus and let Him love them through you. Beloved trust me they won’t like Hell even more!

Be Prepared For Satan’s Attacks

Today the Church is under increasing pressure from without to compromise; from the fast growing world religion of Islam, which has begun mounting a furious attack on Christianity and is currently winning more and more converts on our college campuses. The Church is also facing further attacks from secular humanism, by the Kingdom of the Cults, from the very powerful homosexual lobby, and from the women’s rights movement. All of the our dead mainline denominations caved in long ago and have obliterated clear Biblical truth. In all honesty, what is there to debate on these matters — if you really believe what the Bible says?

The Church is also under attack from within as well, through the seeker sensitive centered on self teachings of Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven Church, the cancerous “Christian” mysticism of Emerging Church spokesmen like Rob Bell, and the greed is good of smilin’ Joel Osteen of the Word Faith Church—all major pillars holding up up Satan’s Ecumenical Church of Deceit. There is increasing pressure to “put away our differences,” at the expense of proper doctrine and to be more “tolerant”. We’re told not to “judge,” just focus on love and God will take care of everything else. But listen to what Jesus has to say concerning this critical subject in Matthew 7:15-16 — “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing.” The reference to sheep’s clothing means that they will look like Christians, appearing to be just like the Great Shepherd’s own sheep.

Then the Master continues — “but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will know them.” So clearly we are to judge this and in Jude 3 God the Holy Spirit exhorts us to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. Then our Lord tells us that it is a minister’s job to hold firmly to the trustworthy message — the historic, orthodox Christian faith — as it has been taught, so he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it (Titus 1:9).

Church we must never abandon proper doctrine and fall victim to the Devil’s schemes. If we lose faith in the Bible—as more and more evangelical scholars and leaders are doing right now—then our churches become nothing more than lame social clubs filling with people seeking some sort of a spiritual buzz. Now more than ever is the time to study to show thyself approved unto God. It is imperative that we who are Christians make up our minds once and for all: Either we believe in absolute truth–or we don’t. Either we believe the Bible is trustworthy—or we don’t.

Because the time has now come where we need to know for certain just what the trustworthy message should be and just what the faith that was once delivered unto the saints really is. Men and women, not only do we need to know the absolute truth of what we are to believe, we also need to know why we are to believe it! And just a word to the wise, for those of you who have decided to “sit on the fence” the hand of Almighty God is about to knock down your fence and you’d best decide now which side of the playing field you wish to land on. As Jesus says — “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matthew 12:30). The truth happens to be that there is no middle ground and this may indeed be your only wake-up call.

You see our love for the Lord will show in our devotion to His Word and in our willingness to let God love those of His who are lost through us—our actions really do speak louder than our words. It is our mission, each one of us, as the Body of Christ to help the people in this world to understand their true position before our holy God. You need to tell them: If I really love Jesus, and if I really love you, then I’m going to tell you the absolute truth. I’m going to tell it to you as lovingly, patiently, gently, and as often as you would be willing to listen, but tell you I must.

Love Someone Enough To Tell Them The Truth

Let me close with this illustration: Suppose you were along a roadside and you saw someone you love just standing in the street as a bus roared straight toward them from the opposite direction. You call out for them to move but they don’t seem to hear you. Now you yell louder, and then louder still, as that bus draws closer—speeding straight at them—but there’s still no response. I ask you; would you just stand there and “love” them? Would you just tell yourself: Well after all it’s their problem, and then just watch them be struck down? Or would you run out into that street and push them out of the way of certain death—even if you risked “offending” them or even injuring them—all the while knowing that you might even be hurt yourself.

Christ Jesus our Lord says — Thy Word is truth. And that’s why it is so very important that we return right now to what God’s Word—the Bible—–actually says. Today we face a crisis of faith; with all the conflicting voices of tolerance and compromise shouting in our ears, how do we decide who or what to believe? The Holy Bible, God’s written revelation of Himself to man, is this world’s only reliable source of absolute truth. The time has come to hear the Voice of the Lord — flee from the coming wrath, produce fruit in keeping with repentance…and now also the ax is laid unto the root (Luke 3:7-9).

And it is also in the Bible that God warns us that people without Christ face a fate far worse than the mere illustration I used above. O how the Church of our Lord in this vapid Laodicean age needs to come to a true understanding of the fear of the Lord. For Jesus says — “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One Who can destroy both soul and body in Hell”…it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Matthew 10:28; Hebrews 10:31).

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says…(Revelation 2:7). And then obey Him – to obey is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22).

See also:

NEO-ORTHODOXY: AN EMERGENT OVERVIEW

THE EMERGING CHURCH SOWING ITS NEO-ORTHODOX CONFUSION ON SCRIPTURE

SOLA SCRIPTURA: OUR ONLY FOUNDATION

Why Evangelicals are Returning to Rome: The Abandonment of Sola Scriptura as a Formal Principle by Bob DeWaay