WHERE ARE CHRIST’S SOLDIERS?

By on Dec 21, 2012 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Features

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
(2 Timothy 3:12-13)

Christian Soldiers Standing Up For Jesus?

In many of our local fellowships on a given Sunday we could hear a congregation singing songs like Stand Up Stand Up For Jesus and/or Onward Christian Soldiers. But let’s stop and think for a moment; isn’t part of the job of a soldier defending against attack?

Doesn’t this bring them into conflict; and wouldn’t it mean that they’d have no choice but to fight? So ask yourself: Have I seen much of that going on for the cause of Christ in my lifetime? Which is why I find myself wondering: “Where are the Elijahs of God?” Lord, about now I’d say Your church would be willing to settle for just one.

You know I can’t help but wonder, among our professing Christian brothers and sisters today, just where are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6)? And among our so-called Christian “leaders,” with their compromised Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, which always leads to a false and phony unity, just where are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matthew 5:10)?

Do they seriously not know that Christ Jesus said of those who do hunger, and of those that are persecuted, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven? Let’s take a moment to go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 4. At this point in this Age of Grace it’ll be a good idea to remind ourselves of something the Bible tells us about false teaching. And this is becoming especially evident in these times of growing apostasy and the so-called “Christian” mysticism that’s now infesting our Lord’s visible church through men like Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster.

Truly this is really but a form of gnostic mysticism all over again, which originally resurfaced in the antibiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism; and which, has already been condemned within the pages of Scripture itself! However, secular humanism and the theory of evolution—left virtually undefended by the church visible—gave birth to the relativism now so deeply imbedded in very definitely pagan America.

And so we currently find ourselves having to witness in a most difficult mission field here in the postmodern pudding of the United States. This becomes especially problematic as the Christian agnosticism of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church continues to be spread now by evangelicals themselves. We also have the resurgence of Rick Warren, General of the Seeker Driven Army, into the camp of the New Calvinism a la Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller.

Men who should have seen right through skeptical approaches to the Bible itself and bankrupt Church Growth Movement methodologies. It’s not like we weren’t warned:

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:4)

Only the Lord knows for sure how true these words are for this gelatinous generation of (un?)believers scurrying around Christendom—some of whom are pastors. As much as I don’t like to say so, I really can’t help but wonder if there has ever been a more gullible group of professing Christians upon the face of the earth as we see today.

Sadly, so many really couldn’t see through people-pleasers like former Emerging Church rock star pastor Rob Bell. His “Christian” message remains essentially a repainted version of the old social gospel of the original liberalism mixed together with the pomo equivalent of Becoming A Better You by jolly ol’ Joel Osteen.

And as long as dwindling funding allows, a large part of my job here at this online apologetics and discernment work Apprising Ministries is to continue doing what I can to help you come to see that it’s most certainly quite possible for counterfeit teachers to appear very spiritual, and very Christian (cf. Matthew 7:15).

But such as these are not preaching the Gospel, and are instead actually teaching you things that originate with the enemy of men’s souls, Satan himself. And if you truly can’t see this, then I must be frank and say as gently as I can, you really do need to ask God to open your eyes (cf. Matthew 16:1-4).

Further reading