Where is all of this leading to ?

William Branham and off shoots Four Current Movements in the church.William M. Branham http://www.discernment.org/precedin.htm by Rev. Robert S. Liichow, 1997 "Apart from the fact that almost everything he said or taught publicly is available in one form of another there is a more lasting and damaging legacy left behind. Branham was responsible in a great part for the formation of what came to be known as the New Order of the Latter Rain. Branham believed in the distributing of spiritual gifts by the laying on of hands, he believed in restored prophets and apostles. He was the vanguard of many more to come who will operate in this end-time glory and power." (2) Branhamism/William Branham http://www.watchman.org/profile/branpro.htmFalse teachings of William Branham. Also, check this article by Watchman Fellowship on Branham. (3) Apostate Occult Oneness Prophets: The Evil Of William Branham & The Manifest Sons Of God http://www.bloomington.in.us/~lgthscac/apostateoccultprophets.htm Copyright © 1997 Zenith Harris Merrill "William Branham, the "father" of the Manifest Sons of God" theology, and much of the Charismatic movement, which has inspired the Citi-Church, Universal DAWN movement and C. Peter Wagner's Spiritual Mapping of today, was empowered by Satan. C. Peter Wagner, in his book, Engaging the Enemy, attributes much of his information on "Territorial Spirits" to practising Witchdoctors and former Satanists, rather than God's Word. William Branham was Baptist, until his wife died in childbirth, and he had "angelic" visitors who told him it was because he needed to be teaching and preaching "Oneness," instead of the Trinity. He then joined a Oneness Pentecostal church and taught nothing else for the rest of his life. He believed in what the early Church Fathers called the error of Modalism, also known as Monarchianism and Sabellianism: that Jesus is all there ever was of God - He says that God "always had skin on him," but that Jesus sometimes functioned either as the Father or as the Holy Spirit, instead of Himself. Branham taught that God could only function as one at a time, much like an actor playing one role and then another. Where did he ever get such an idea? Everything he believed was from "his" angel of light." (4) William Branham's Beliefs http://www.letusreason.org/Latrain4.htm by Mike Oppenheimer, Let Us Reason Ministries, 12/10/01 Updated! What he said and taught. (5) Was Branham Elijah? http://letusreason.org/Latrain26.htm by Mike Oppenheimer, Let Us Reason Ministries, 4/04 ...and the 7th angel in revelation and the angel to the Church of Laodicea? http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/fprophets.html#wbranhamBranhamism/William Branham http://www.watchman.org/profile/index.htmThe next Sunday Branham's first challenge, a woman dying with cancer, was brought before him. Just as the angel had said, he had a vision and prayed for the woman. She was healed. His fame spread far and wide (Ibid., p. 80). From that time forward, Branham claimed the angel was with him night and day. He stated that he was unable to minister unless the angel was at his side (Occult Bondage and Deliverance, pp. 49, 50).Branham was a poorly educated man and had no formal Bible education. His ministry was proclaimed with alleged supernatural manifestations and empowered by a spirit being. DOCTRINE --- TRINITY: Like the "Jesus-Only" Pentecostals Branham denied the Trinity doctrine teaching a form of Modalism. Instead of three Persons in the Godhead, Branham taught that there was only one Person (Jesus) going under different titles or modes at various times in history. Branham's teaching is a variation of a second century heresy taught by Sabellius know as Modalistic Monarchianism or Patripassianism (see Monarchianism, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, pp. 727-28). Branham explained, "...not one place in the Bible is trinity ever mentioned...It's Catholic error and you Protestants bow to it" (Conduct, Order, Doctrine Q and A, p. 182). "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is offices of one God. He was the Father; He was the Son; He is the Holy Ghost. It's three offices or three dispensations,..." (Ibid., p. 392). This view of the Godhead is called Modalism and has been held to be heretical by both Catholic and Protestant churches.BAPTISM: Branham claimed that proper baptism was needed to avoid the "Mark of the Beast" of denominational churches and escape the danger of missing the rapture and entering the Tribulation. Proper baptism must be in the name of Jesus only. Baptism with the Trinitarian formula of Matthew 28:18 ("in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost") is unacceptable to God.Branham explained, "There never was a person baptized in the name of `Father, Son, Holy Ghost' until early Catholic church" (Ibid., p. 178). "Look down on your Bible and see if that says `in the names of...' Does it? No, sir... It said, `in the NAME...'" Branham attempted to explain the distinction, "You see, you misunderstand it then. It's one God in three dispensations.... And when He said, `Go baptize them in the Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit,' it was Jesus Christ. And that's why we baptize in Jesus' Name" (Ibid., pp. 181, 184).If an incorrect formula was spoken during baptism, Branham felt the convert would go into darkness. "But a tritheist, triune baptism was never recognized in the Church, the New Testament... Now you know what to do, that's right; and if you refuse to walk in Light when Light's brought forth, you turn to darkness. Right! Amen!" (Ibid., p. 190).Other Doctrines1) Serpent's Seed: Branham taught that Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) was sexual in nature. According to Branham, Eve was seduced into a sexual relationship with the serpent and became pregnant with Cain. He explained, "Here is what actually happened in the Garden of Eden. The Word says that Eve was beguiled by the serpent. She was actually seduced by the serpent. He was as close to being a human that his seed could, and did mingle with that of the woman and cause her to conceive" (The Original Sin, pp. 2, 3). The serpent's seed was Cain and all his descendants. They are predestined for Hell. The Godly seed is Seth and his descendants who have been revealed by their call to Branham's ministry. A third group, represented by those still in denominational churches have free will to choose Heaven or Hell. The Godly seed are the Bride of Christ and will be raptured before Tribulation. Denominations are or eventually will be the Mark of the Beast and those who remain therein will go through the Tribulation. (Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, p. 96).2) Last Days Prophet: Branham's followers claim that he held a special role as God's uniquely empowered end-time prophet. "Now, I'm just your brother, by the grace of God. But when the Angel of the Lord moves down, it becomes then a Voice of God to you...But I am God's Voice to you... Now, see, I can say nothing in myself. But what He shows me" (Footprints On The Sands Of Time, p. 214). The angelic visitor told Branham that he would be given two gifts and that he would restore Bible truth.Branham's followers identified him as the prophetic Elijah of Malachi 4 and the seventh angel of Revelation 10. Speaking of himself, Branham said, "...we are promised a return of that Spirit [Elijah] just before the end-time. He won't start another church, because there is no more church ages to come... because the Laodicea Church Age is the last age, and the messenger of the Seventh Angel,... is the fellow that is going to reveal, by the Holy Spirit, all of these mysterious things.... Notice. This last message of the last church age is not a reformer, he is a PROPHET!" (The Seven Seals, pp. 144, 45).According to his disciples, Branham is not just a prophet but a major prophet. "A MAN SENT FROM GOD. That the ministry of William Branham qualifies to be that of a major prophet and thus fulfill Malachi 4, 5 and 6 and Revelation 10:7 should become abundantly clear to any who take time to conduct even a brief investigation..." (The Message, Bible Believers, Inc., p. 7).

. "He that is not zealous against error, is not likely to be zealous for Truth." J.C. Ryle The Emerging Church."The point we need to focus on right now is this: Do we not see the Lord prompting men like Dr. John MacArthur to correctly point out that Evangelical Christianity is fighting for its very life. But for now I wonder, can we afford to almost rule out the spiritual side of our faith while we waste our time arguing about some nebulous concept of essential doctrines as opposed to non-essential ones ? Could it be that while we're caught up in discussions about whether cessationism is true or not true, perhaps we are in danger of forgetting that at least this much is true: Christianity is a supernatural faith and whether or not God is using certain gifts or not is really not the main point at this critical time. Could it actually be possible God the Holy Spirit may be trying to alert our Lord's Church to a pagan cult which has been growing right under our very noses where even their own pastors aren't being told the whole truth by these Emergent leaders they trust? Man can become God; I know I've heard that somewhere before. Ah yes, here it is: Genesis 3:5 - Ye shall be as gods. Where are the voices being raised against this oldest lie in the Book? And why are these men being allowed to teach as Evangelicals at the Zondervan" The Emerging Church and Contemplative Spirituality - More Connected Than You May Think !"'Emergent' folks are Christians who are impatient with rigid megachurch formulas and noisy doctrinal in-fighting.... They're hammering out a theology that's friendly to ancient faith practices (contemplative prayer, labyrinths, hospitality) in a postmodern world of quantum physics, 24/7 media and coffee-house culture."On the Emerging Church:"In the young people that I have spoken with from various backgrounds and various fellowships, there is a keen lack of discernment for the dangers that we all face as believers,"by Steve MuseEastern Regional Watch Revival or Return to Darkness ? by Roger OaklandUnderstand The TimesInternationalP.O. Box 27239Santa Ana, CA 92799 USA(800) 689-1888 The Emeging Church Markets Catholicism, by former Priest.The Lamb is rarely seen there in the emerging church.There is no sense of gospel wonder.-Geoff Thomas

The Responsibilities Of A Good Shepherd by Sandy Simpson, 5/20/05 There was a good reason why the illustration of a shepherd with his sheep was used so often in biblical times ... because it was an illustration people could easily identify with in their cultural context. The illustrations we use are most effective when they are understood easily by the culture to which God has sent us to minister. Middle eastern cultures understood what shepherding was all about. It was about feeding the lambs and the sheep, bringing them to good pasture lands and water, grooming and clipping them, delivering new lambs, leading them and teaching them to stay together, going off after the wandering lost ones, and protecting the sheep in the field and in the fold. We are all under shepherds and Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. We need to emulate what the Good Shepherd does for the sheep. John 21:15-17 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my sheep".There are many other aspects of this deep passage I could dwell on such as the Lord's use of the word "agape" and Peter's use of the word "phileo", or the paralleling of the three denials with Peter with the three commands of Jesus ... but I want to look at the three statements of Christ and think about the excellent illustration of shepherding by the Shepherd Who is showing us how to be good under shepherds. Feeding First Jesus says "feed my lambs." Emulating the foundational apostles such as Peter, we are told to feed the lambs. Lambs need milk. They need the basics of the Gospel and simple biblical precepts to grow. We are then to "take care of the sheep". That means we are to do everything I will get into in a moment. Finally we are to "feed my sheep". Remember, these are the sheep of the Lord, not our sheep. We are caretakers of sheep that belong to the Master. The point is we are to move beyond feeding the lambs milk to feeding the sheep solid food. Heb. 5:12-14 & 6:1-3 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.What then is solid food? It is training in righteousness so that the sheep can be fully equipped, able to stand in the day of testing. 2 Tim. 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.Stories, pop psychology and worldly methodology do not feed sheep. They must be fed on the written Word of God as it is exegeted properly and applied by the Holy Spirit. Watering Genesis 29:3 When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well’s mouth and water the sheep. Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well.Water, in the Bible, is often used as an allusion to the Holy Spirit. It certainly is in the case of water baptism. An under shepherd will lead his flock to water regularly. He will roll away the stone of hard hearts and prepare those hearts to be receptive to the nourishment of the Holy Spirit. This can only be accomplished by rolling away the stone of the "self" culture so the light of God's written Word can shine through teaching and proper exegesis, through prayer, and living in obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ. Grooming A shepherd grooms his sheep, keeps them clean and free of contamination from the world, the flesh and the devil. He then prepares them to be disciples, followers of the Good Shepherd, so they will, in turn, go out and minister to others. Matt. 28:19-20 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."Shearing Duet. 18:4-5 You are to give them the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep, for the LORD your God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the LORD’s name always.At times sheep must be sheared. This is a useful and profitable process for both the sheep and the shepherd. This is an offering to the Good Shepherd. For the benefit of all, the sheep must be sheared ... disciplined, encouraged and rebuked ... to keep them fit for service to the Lord. 2 Tim.4:2-5 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage— with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. Heb. 12:7-11 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Titus 2:15 These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.Delivering Lambs Isaiah 40:11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.We are to deliver the lambs. We preach the Gospel, the Holy Spirit then convicts the sinner, and if some repent and believe they can be born again. John 3:3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."Only the Lord Jesus Christ can save and cause a person to be born again. But when a lamb is newly born, the under shepherd still has responsibilities. John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; John 11:39-44 "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."We roll the stone away by preaching the Gospel to let the light of the Son shine in the darkness. When a lamb is born, they come out wrapped in placenta. They still have the vestiges of of the old man wrapped around them. They need to be helped to put off the old man and put on the new lamb! This is called discipleship. Then when the lamb is relatively free, we let them go to grow on to maturity and live their faith out in action. Leading The under shepherd leads the flock in the world, while helping them not to be "of the world". Ps. 23:1-6 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.Following the lead of the Good Shepherd as under shepherds we are to lead the sheep to pasture and water. We teach them and restore them. We guide them in paths of righteousness. We protect them from wolves and beasts in the world with the rod and staff. The rod and staff are for discipline of the flock and protection for the flock. Proverbs 23:14 Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death. 1 Samuel 17:40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.We are to discipline the sheep to be aware of the pitfalls of the world. We are to lead the flock out and teach them to stay together in unity. Sheep automatically have one type of unity, which they are to "keep". Ephesians 4:3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.The only way to be a sheep is to be born again. Otherwise you are a goat or a wolf. Those who are born again have a bond of peace, a unity of the Spirit. But there is another unity that we must build the sheep up into ... the unity of the Faith. Eph. 4:12-14 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.This unity is unity of belief, unity of doctrine. There is no way for sheep to by unified with wolves in sheep's clothing because there is no unity of the Faith. Matthew 10:16 I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.Wolves are those who pretend to be in unity with the sheep just long enough to come in and drag sheep away into sin. They look and talk like sheep, but they expose who they are by their fruits, false teaching and false prophecies. We need to teach the sheep to be shrewd and be on the watch for the pitfalls of the world, the flesh, the devil and of false religion. Wandering Sheep True under shepherds will make an effort to look for wandering sheep. Luke 15:4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.The Bible is clear that many people have and will continue to wander from the Faith. 1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:20-21 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you. James 5:19-20 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.We need to help people who have wandered, fallen into the fire, while being careful not to get burned ourselves or soil our own clean clothes. This means we need to be careful about hanging out with false teachers and those who are deceived because we are also in danger of being deceived. Jude 1:22-23 Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear— hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.We need to be mindful that we have all wandered at times, we have gone astray, but the point is to return to the Shepherd. 1 Peter 2:25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.Protection The shepherd would bring the flock home to the fold at night. He would then lay down in the gate physically to protect the sheep from wolves coming into the sheepfold. He literally put his life on the line for the sheep. John 10:1-13 "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice." Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.We learn some important things about being a good under shepherd in this passage. First of all we are to be watchmen. There are not only savage wolves out in the world, there are savage wolves who are entering the fold at an alarming rate. Acts 20:29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Matthew 7:15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.The wolves who try to enter the fold make themselves look like sheep. They talk like sheep, they pray like sheep, they make themselves look ultra-holy, they say "Lord, Lord", they claim to be doing miracles, casting out demons, making prophecies in the name of the Lord ... but by their fruit you will know them ... the fruit of lying, of false works, false prophecy, false teaching, false anointings, following false apostles, and trying to be justified by their works. The Shepherd sees through their ruse and calls them what they are ... evildoers. Matt. 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’If we as under shepherds do not protect the flock against these wolves, we are just as liable for the destruction they cause under our watch as they are. Ezekiel 33:6-7 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’ "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.God has made every under shepherd a watchman. There are many gates into any church. The gate of the bookstore, the gate of the music ministry, the gate of the pulpit, the gate of the bulletin board advertising upcoming so-called "Christian" events, the gate of the women's ministry, and the gate of people who come into the body but have an agenda to take people away from unity in the Faith. We need to lay our bodies down in the gate to protect the flock at the risk of our reputations, friendships, our livelihood, and perhaps even our lives. There are too many "hired hands" in the churches today who are not doing their job because they do not want to take a stand against anyone or anything. By their inability to make the hard stands they make themselves useless to the Good Shepherd, and allow great evil a foothold under their watch. Conclusion Those who are called to be servant under shepherds in the body of Christ must take that responsibility seriously. There are far too many who claim to be called to servant leadership, but demonstrate clearly that they are not qualified to be shepherds according to God's criteria. We need to be feeding the lambs and the sheep, bringing them to good pasture lands and water, grooming and clipping them, delivering new lambs, leading them and teaching them to stay together, going off after the wandering lost ones, and protecting the sheep in the field and in the fold.

Why God Holds Pastors ResponsibleBy Pastor Bill Randles “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” — Jeremiah 5:30-31 (KJV) “I think you’ll find that the prophets are pretty nice people, by and large. I’ve come to know them and love them. We’ve invited several of them here, I think maybe five or six, that are from the Kansas City Fellowship. And then we have Paul Cain ...” (John Wimber, “Unpacking Your Bags,” audio tape)eremiah 23 is a polemic against false prophets, which starts out by putting the blame where it really belongs. Who does the Lord make responsible for the explosion of false prophets, initially? Not the false prophets, nor the congregations, but the Pastors! God knows that the ministries of these false prophets would be all but impossible without pastors opening up their platforms and pulpits to them. “Woe be unto the Pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:1-2) How would these false prophets even exist without the shepherds opening up their pulpits to give them meetings? Therefore, it is the shepherds God addresses when He opens up this passage about false prophets. Pastors are supposed to feed their sheep the Word of God and protect them from wolves. The flourishing of false prophets is an indictment against us for failing to faithfully do this! The Word of God, like manna, has failed to satisfy the lust too many have for the novel and exciting! A good number of us shepherds are going to have to answer to charges that for gain, and out of greed, or fear of being left out, we have opened our flocks to the teachings and prophecies of these men who speak such great swelling words of great vanity. The current false movements have succeeded in creating an incredible peer pressure in the ministry. The pressure is on to distinguish yours as a church which is “cutting edge,” in pace with the latest of the current religious fads. The last thing anyone would want to be accused of is being “dead” or “religious.” Thus, a good many pastors are “desperate,” but it is not the type of desperation that pushes an individual to seek God. The kind of desperation many pastors are experiencing these days is the desperation to keep up with the fast-moving trends in the religious world of today. “If we don’t open up to the Pensacola revival, the church down the road just may; and I’ll lose half of my people.” This desperation never leads one to fasting and prayer but rather to conferences and church-growth seminars. When asked about why he plunged his church into Toronto, in spite of his admitted reservations, one pastor candidly replied, “I wasn’t sure if it was of God or not, but we were so dry, and so desperate, we couldn’t afford not to take the chance ...” Results. Truth is secondary these days, just give us some results, generate some excitement, or we will scatter in this wilderness. Hirelings are defined as those who run when the wolf comes rather than lay down their lives to protect God’s sheep. Who are the modern hirelings? The ones who know these new religious fads are unscriptural but are afraid of standing up to them, lest they lose their numbers, prestige, “anointed” reputation, and so forth. Like Aaron in the “Golden Calf” incident, they know this is wrong; but in order not to scatter the people, they are willing to offer them something to see, feel, and experience. They don’t advocate a new God, but they inaugurate ways — of worshiping Him and “points of contact” to Him — that He, Himself, never instituted. This is called “Will Worship” in the Scriptures, the worship of God on our own terms. As in the “Golden Calf” incident, they have proclaimed a “feast unto Yahweh” where there is no feast (Exodus 32:5)! There are a lot of Aarons these days in Pentecostal and Charismatic leadership who know these movements — Toronto Blessing, Pensacola, Promise Keepers, drunkenness in the Spirit, ecumenism — are wrong, but they are afraid of losing their lives and ministries for truth; so they compromise. Besides that, it is profitable to cater to recent religious fads. When Aaron took an offering for the golden calf, it was one of the most willing offerings ever taken, for people will gladly pay for their idols. “And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me, and all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron.” (Exodus 32:2-3) The Assemblies of God are an example of this, for they condemned Toronto and the laughing revival, until they had their own version of it. What is the difference between Toronto and Pensacola? One gave birth to the other. Pensacola sprang from the Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, England — the church which virtually blanketed England with the Toronto Blessing and literally coined the phrase “Toronto Blessing.” Can both good and bad water come from the same source? ... How the Assemblies of God could have shone brightly these days by holding up the truth of the Gospel! There are many independent Pentecostals who have looked up to the Assemblies because of their previous strength, experience, and holiness. I have no doubt, there are still many within the denomination who are grieved over the apostasy, but the leadership seems to have taken the “ends justify the means” approach. These new revivals are appealing because they do generate excitement! Going back to Jeremiah 23. It is because of the hireling mentality of the shepherds, the pastors, that the people of God were affected by the prophets. And what are those effects?Folly and Error “And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; They ... caused my people Israel to err.”(Jeremiah 23:13) There are numerous examples of the folly and error that false prophets have brought upon God’s people. Jacob Prasch tells of the British Prophet Gerald Coates ... who foretold of an earthquake in New Zealand which persuaded the leaders of a Pentecostal denomination to appear on national television to warn the nation. The national news coverage leading up to it featured churches taking survival courses on the basis of that “prophetic” word. When the predicted date came and went, the Christian church was made into a national laughing-stock. A sincere, but naive Christian leader was made a fool of in his own nation, all because he allowed himself and many others to listen to a false prophet’s predictions.Profaneness “... for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.”(Jeremiah 23:15) Do you know what the word “profaneness” means? To profane something means to make it into something common, nothing special at all. It is the opposite of the words “holy” or “sacred” which mean “special, set apart.” God’s Word is Holy — special and set apart. It is to be regarded as Holy by His people. When Christians — who have been bought with the blood of the Lamb, have received the Holy Spirit, and have been exposed to the Bible — then feel they need to go out crossing land and sea to get a “word from the Lord” (through people like the Kansas City prophets), they are profaning the Holy Word of God. The Word of God is being profaned by those who are constantly saying things like: “God is a lot more than God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Book,” or “God is a lot bigger than a doctrine,” or even, “The church is so hung up on ‘Bible study’ they don’t really know Jesus.” These are the same people who produce reams and reams of prophecies, expecting you to take those seriously! This profanity will spill out into other areas for it cannot long be contained. I believe the prophecy movement is partly responsible for a kind of “been‑ there-done-that” attitude to the teaching and preaching of the Word of God.They Make You Vain! “Thus saith the LORD of Hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you; they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.”(Jeremiah 23:16) The false prophets will make you vain! This is the warning of Jeremiah to those who would be enamored of these new “seers.” In biblical thought, vanity is a blight to be avoided for it means “lightness, irrelevancy, to be futile and of no consequence.” Think about it; we live in a world that is in spiritual and moral confusion, and a good many thinking people — both saved and unsaved — are aware of this. At a time when the Christian church could be holding forth substantial answers that actually speak to the current dilemma of man, answers that are a part of our inheritance from Christ, we are, instead, being seduced into abandonment of our thinking faculties by the Rodney Howard-Browne’s of this world; who beckon us to “turn off your mind and go with the flow.” This false prophetic movement has made us vain! It has promised renewal to countless thousands of pastors and churches, but it has, instead, tended to self-absorption. That shouldn’t surprise us when you consider the content of the bulk of these prophecies. They fall into the categories of either the “You-are-the-greatest-generation-of-the-church-ever” variety or more along the lines of an “Annanias-and-Sapphira-are-the-fate-of-those-who-dare-question-this-movement” type of utterance. After 20 years or more of this, anyone would be vain. Pastors, we are responsible for this. Why have we opened the flocks up to this? What were we looking for when we sought these ministries? We have succeeded in making our people vain, when they could be sharp, sober, and ready — able to give an answer for the hope we have in Christ — instead of being self-absorbed, drunk in the Spirit, living for the next “outpouring.” I warned in my earlier book, Weighed and Found Wanting: Putting the Toronto Blessing in Context, that spiritual drunkenness is real, but it is not a blessing from God but rather a judgement on an unfaithful and unbelieving church! Isaiah proclaims, “His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, everyone for his gain, from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.”(Isaiah 56:10-12)They Encourage Them That Despise The LORD “They say unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh in the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.”(Jeremiah 23:17) There is a tremendous judgement coming upon our nation for her many sins and, of course, judgement must begin in the house of God; for as Peter has rightly said, “If the righteous scarcely be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinners?” (1 Peter 4:18). Peter and the Apostles called the church to soberness, vigilance, good works, and so forth in view of the coming day of God’s judgement. “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God ...”(2 Peter 3:11-12) Those who “despise” the Lord are not necessarily those who “hate” the Lord for, in biblical usage, to despise is “to esteem lightly, to fail to take a person seriously.” The new prophets are dangerous, because they make the church the issue and not the Lord. Their prophecies, as I have already demonstrated, are about the coming greatness of the church — what we will do, how we will reign, our exploits (of course, “in the power of God”). The actual bodily return of Jesus is not the true goal of the new prophets in many cases; rather it is the coming glory — the “presence of God” — that has been prophesied by these in order to envelope the church in the days immediately preceding the bodily return of Jesus. Instead of calling men to “... Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgement has come ...” (Revelation 14:7). An indulgent church is being urged to “soak up” as much of the “anointing” as possible, to get drunk on the new wine, and to enlist themselves into Joel’s army — an army that, itself, is doomed to be judged by God (Joel 2:20)! They encourage them who despise the Lord to carry on in a thousand-and-one ways! For example, if a man really fears the Lord, he will want to exercise discernment, to think critically, and not to just throw open his spirit to every passing religious fad. These new prophets strongly discourage this — to the point of mockery and threatenings! They have helped to foster an antagonism in the church between the ones they have seduced and those who are more cautious. The “Civil War” prophecy of Joyner, Campbell, Bob Jones, and James Ryle, the sarcasm of Rodney Howard-Browne (rarely missing an opportunity to mock and castigate his detractors), the whole “us vs. them” mentality has given much encouragement to those who despise the Lord enough to relish this division. “But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.”(Jeremiah 23:22)In Conclusion ... The pastors have been given the charge to feed and protect the flock of God which He purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28). Therefore, the responsibility for the false prophets, in part, is laid to rest at their feet. These false prophets would not be able to operate if the people of God had been fed sound doctrine and the shepherds were willing to bark! Therefore, the chapter in Jeremiah that explicitly discusses false prophets, begins with “Woe to the pastors ...” (Jeremiah 23:1). In the very face of false predictions, outrageous teachings, and glaring misuse of spiritual gifts, too many pastors insist all of that can be overlooked for the potential benefits that these false prophets offer. The staff would like to thank Pastor Bill Randles for his contribution to this issue of the Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc. Journal. This article is actually a chapter out of one of Pastor Randle’s books, “Beware the New Prophets” A Caution Concerning the Modern Prophetic Movement.

"The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is BIBLICAL DOCTRINE, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire." --CH SpurgeonThe Need For Sound Biblical Doctrine"2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:2-4 NASB) Sound Biblical doctrine is desperately needed today in the body of Christ. Christianity is in crisis and has been for many years. Can you identify false doctrine? Do you know what non-Christian Cults believe? All non-Christian Cults reject essential Christian doctrines that reflect the nature of God and the Gospel that saves. All of the leaders of the various non-Christian Cults have come from a Christian background or affiliation. Christianity is in crisis and that reflects the whole body of Christ, not any particular Christian denomination. The purpose of this information is to sharpen the body of Christ and to give encouragement to grow in sound Biblical doctrine according to the word of God. This Epistle was written to Timothy who was an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5). However, I believe that each Christian is to be a witness for Jesus Christ, but most are not prepared to share their faith. Many Christians are not confident with witnessing because they have not had discipleship or training in this area. We need sound Bible teaching from the pulpits for equipping Christians to grow in their faith. Sound Bible teaching is going through the Bible, teaching the Scriptures in context, and seeing how they apply to us. Also, having Bible studies on certain topics helps Christians to be able to better understand what the Word of God teaches in those areas. May those in leadership today reach out to the body of Christ and equip them to be effective witnesses for Jesus Christ.Reading carefully 2 Timothy 4:2-4 we see the following:We are to preach the word in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2) The word preach is the Greek word "kerusso" (Strong's #2784) which means: "to herald, to publish, to proclaim openly, to preach, public proclamation." This instruction was in reference to sharing the faith with those who are without Christ. Some people think evangelism or sharing Jesus with people is only for the Pastor, but that is a misunderstanding. The Bible teaches that those who follow Jesus are: "To be lights in a dark world (Matthew 5:13-16), to be His witnesses anywhere (Acts 1:8), to have an answer for the faith (1 Peter 3:15), contend for the faith (Jude 3)." Preaching can be done in various ways.1- Sharing your testimony of accepting Jesus 2- Being a living example and letting people see Jesus in you 3- Through sermons by Pastors, teachers, etc 4- Purposely seeking people to share with 5- Through casual conversations with people Paul instructed Timothy to be careful of those who were teaching false doctrines, which applies to us today. Christians have a testimony and a voice for the Lord, therefore, be noticed through your words and actions.We are to reprove with great patience and instruction (2 Timothy 4:2) The word reprove is the Greek word "elegcho" (Strong's #1651) which means: "to correct, to admonish, to expose, to show ones fault, to call to account, to bring to light." Paul was a studier of God's Word and learned how to share with people of various beliefs. In order for Christians to be able to reprove those who are not of the faith they must learn what the Word of God says. They also must take time to study various beliefs. Paul says we are to reprove "with great patience and instruction." In order to be effective in sharing the faith with people it takes patience and instruction. It is important to have patience when you are sharing the faith someone because you want them to be able to understand what you are saying. Giving Biblical instruction means being able to show someone what the Word of God says and how it applies to them.We are to rebuke with great patience and instruction (2 Timothy 4:2) The word rebuke is very similar to "reprove", but it has a stronger application. Rebuke is the Greek word "epitimao" (Strong's #2008) which means: "to reprove, to admonish severely, to censure sharply, to charge sharply." Rebuking is not something fun to do, but it is needed within the Christian Church today to expose false doctrines and beliefs. There were many false teachers during the times of the Apostles and there are many today. "How do we rebuke someone?" Consider the following: Make sure you know what you are talking about Make sure you know exactly what they believe Make sure you have a cause to rebuke someone A rebuke comes in response to someone who is purposely misleading people with false information A rebuke comes in response to someone who has been warned repeatedly with accurate Biblical instruction. Rebuking is to be done with patience (time) and instruction (sharing accurate information from the Bible). We are to exhort with great patience and instruction (2 Timothy 4:2) The word exhort is the Greek word "parakaleo" (Strong's #3870) which means: "to admonish, to beseech, to comfort, to give encouragement, to entreat." Encouragement is needed badly in the Christian Church. Many Christians and non-Christians need encouragement because life is rough and we cannot do it on our own. True Christianity is to be demonstrated in a way which glorifies God, and gives people hope, strength, and guidance. We are to be patient with people, bearing with them in their pains, and sharing the Word of God which will give them true spiritual food for strength and direction.A time would come that people would not endure sound doctrine (2 Timothy 4:3) During the time of the Apostles there were many false doctrines concerning the identity of Jesus and the Gospel. Paul's Epistles had warnings about false doctrines, and those same warnings have application today for the Christian Church. The following Scriptures are some of Paul's warnings:"8. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form." (Colossians 2:8-9 NASB)"18..."You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21 solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 22 "And now, behold, bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, 23 except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. 24 "But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God. 25 "And now, behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will no longer see my face. 26 "Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27 "For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. 28 "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 "Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears." (Acts 20:18-31 NASB)The other half can be found here ... http://www.mts.net/~acts1711/The_Need_for_Sound_Biblical_Doctrine.htmWhy We Need Doctrine Richard L. Mayhue ..... The student's confusion reflects a prevailing mind-set among American evangelicals today. But Christian ministry cannot be isolated from Christian theology. Every aspect of the Christian life is founded on the biblical message. That's why the apostle Paul instructed Timothy, "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Tim. 4:16)Detouring the FaithThe 20th century distaste for sound doctrine is not entirely new. Christ lamented in His day, as did the prophet Isaiah, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men” (Matt. 15:8,9; Isa. 29:13). All sorts of strange teachings troubled the first-century church (Eph. 4:14; 2 Tim. 4:3,4; Heb. 13:9; etc.).The neglect of biblical doctrine poses one of the greatest threats to American Christianity today. Without a clear understanding of truth, we are easily sidetracked or detoured. Take the “Toronto Experience.” How do we know whether the convulsive laughter, hysterics, and other bizarre behavior are actually of God? How can we distinguish this from similar experiences outside of Christianity?Many Christian leaders, even those sympathetic to “charismatic renewal,” have hesitated to endorse these experiences because they have no biblical basis. Without a standard of truth to help us discern the real from the counterfeit, we are like sheep, easily led astray.Another example is “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” an unofficial document signed by prominent evangelicals and Roman Catholics in 1994. The accord sought to encourage broader cooperation against social problems such as abortion, homosexuality, and pornography. Unfortunately, while seeking to establish common ground, it also minimized the essential doctrine of justification by faith alone.The words of Paul remind us that we must careful never to compromise the gospel message: “But even if we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” (Gal. 1:8,9). For the rest ..... http://pastors.crossmap.com/article/why-we-need-doctrine/item321.htmA Departure from SOUND DOCTRINE What is new from the pulpit has become more important than expositional teaching on what God has written. Because of this emphasis, many do not know how to identify error, nor have a clue on what to do about it. Because of this lack of conveying doctrine to the assembly, we also find people that believe they can be Christian without the confines of doctrine. They like the moral teaching and higher ethics Jesus offers, they will emulate Jesus but they do not find it necessary to do it by the book. Jesus becomes their mentor and helps reinforce their views of what they think is right in life.Paul wrote to young Timothy who was trained in the Jewish Scriptures since his youth. 2 Timothy 4:3-5: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”Paul spoke prophetically bout that that “time” which should be apparent to all has come. They “will not endure sound doctrine.” They will NOT put up with those who teach correctly. Why? Because they have a need to scratch their ears with something new (like the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill). They intentionally turn from hearing the truth and appoint teachers that will speak (scratch) to what their itch (desire) dictates.Some in the Church that have been persuaded not to sit under sound Bible teaching that will awaken them. More pulpit time is devoted to storytelling, jokes and illustrations (stories- fables and myths) than the exposition of the word. The sheep’s diet consists more of entertainment, with music, skits and dances with sermons that are like drinking warm milk that will only help them go to sleep.This was a small segment from .... http://www.letusreason.org/Doct56.htmThe Need, The Nature, and the Neglect of DoctrineBy Rev. Bill Prater "Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to knowunderstanding. For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law." Proverbs 4:1-2We have come to the place today where, among many followers of Christ,doctrine is no longer an issue. There was a time when hard and fast lines were drawn between people on the basis of their particular brandof doctrine and those lines were not crossed. The popular thing todayhas been to replace concern for sound doctrine with concern forexperience. It doesn't matter what you believe in many circles, as longas you have "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." While Icertainly would not challenge the need to have a personal relationshipwith Jesus Christ, to do so at the expense of correct doctrine makesfor a meaningless relationship. A true relationship with Jesus Christmust be based upon the truth.We are living in an age when those in the religious spotlight aretelling us that doctrine is not important and that it doesn't make anydifference what you believe as long as you are sincere. However,doctrine IS important to God and it DOES make a difference what youbelieve. Consider 2 John 9, "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth notin the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in thedoctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son". John's wordsdo not sound like he is advocating a "doctrine-less" Christianity. The rest of the story at .... http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/needdoct.htm"The Bible: Sound Doctrine""Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared, having a form of godliness, denying its power." (~1Tim 4:1-2, 2Tim 3:5) For many years people have jumped on the band wagons of "new ideas" as they follow various pied pipers. "For the time will come [is NOW HERE, ed.] when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers and turn their ears away from the truth."(2Tim4:3-4) We live in a generation of "acceptance, positiveness, non-judg- mentalism, self-esteem;" that requests "Do not prophesy to us right things; Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits." (Is 30:10) And furthermore, the "positive theology" has turned into overt rejection of God and His Word as "They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. They do not speak aright, no man repented of his wick- edness...a horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so" (~Jer 8:5-6,5:30-31) "Professing to be wise, they became fools." (Rom1:22) "How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us?' Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood. Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD; So what wisdom do they have?" (Jer 8:8-9) Last month we observed how Bible translations were developed to accommodate man's rebellion. HOWEVER Titus is instructed, "Speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine...holding fast the faithful word...by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict." (~Tit2:1,1:9) Timothy is encouraged "Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus...give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you." (~2Tim 1:13,1Tim 4:13-16) Timothy is further warned against relying on worldly wisdom. "Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and vain babbling and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge-by pro- fessing it, some have strayed concerning the faith." (1Tim 6:20) WHAT exactly IS "DOCTRINE?" Is it some metaphysically difficult thing that only a seminary graduate can understand? Simply stated "Doc- trine" means "That which is taught, teaching, precepts." Expanded slightly, it also incorporates the concept of a "body of understanding which forms a belief system." WHERE DOES THE CHRISTIAN's DOCTRINE COME FROM? "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You." (Ps 119:105,9,11) Continued here .... http://www.a-voice.org/main/voice009.htmDiscerning Error Within 'Mostly-True' BeliefsWhat does rat poison have to do with apologetics and discernment? A lot, actually! That's because almost every cult and erroneous Christian fad involves some amount of truth. And like Christians who lack discernment, the 4 legged victims of the rat trap are drawn in by the good ingredients contained in the box, being totally unaware of the very small but dangerous quantities of poison that are mixed-in with it. It's interesting to note that the ingredients in most rat poison brands are actually far less than 1% poison; the rest of the product is well over 99% "good food". The key is, if there's too much poison, the rodent simply sniffs the bait, and then moves on his merry way without ever consuming any of it. And so it is with groups that promote erroneous doctrine or preach a distorted gospel message. In order for someone to accept the group's teaching, the error must be subtle, and packaged-in with other beliefs and practices that are "mostly true".One of the challenges in communicating with groups (even Christian groups) that hold to false doctrine and methods, is getting past the conversational hurdle of their "99% good food", in order to discuss the 1% dangerous doctrinal ingredients. I've been seeing this a lot lately; someone brings up an issue that clearly violates a biblical principle, and the other side responds by pointing in the direction of all that's good and right about their beliefs and practices (that's the other 99%). This can make communication with these groups nearly impossible, and forces them into an isolated world that's cut off from other Christians. Here are three examples of this "rat poison phenomenon": .......... http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.133 "I cannot agree with those who say that they have 'new truth' to teach. The two words seem to me to contradict each other; that which is new is not true. It is the old that is true,for truth is as old as God himself" -- Charles Spurgeon "Contending" for the Truth.

Robert, you are right on. First the "hardness" ... we don't even care about disabled people, hungry people, the homeless, and so on and so on.Charlotte just for one, has what seems like a thousand churches (KJ could probably give a more accurate count), yet you would think that City wouldn't have "homeless" etc. But the Homeless Ministry has had to cut down some services to them because they can't get the funds.That's just ONE situation there.Yes, we're headed for the Mother of Deceptions and that is in our Bibles. Not your guessing or my guessing, we're on the very heels of it.I wanted to start this thread for that very reason ... to track it.And I do much appreciate your words and Dohzmans.The thing that is being pushed quietly and for some time now is a "female deity type or counterpart to God".Mary to some and the other religions and cults have their own female.The reason Islam, Christianity and Judaism is standing out the most and will until they are all but annihilated, is because they are Mono-theistic.The other religions, the world could care less about.The coming deception will MERGE mostly "Christians" and "Messianics" .... but the tension between those and Jews with Islamics will never die down until antichrist makes temporary peace and then these "Christian/Messianic" types will be the target of his fury next ... if they don't take the mark, etc..But false "Christianity" IS the conduit for the Strong Delusion on earth and where it all will come from.Jesus said they will take you into their Churches-{G4864} and persecute you and put to death. Mark 13:9-13Ho-hum-huh ?Thanks you guys. I appreciated all your thoughts. And we'll just watch as the American Heretics pull this Mother Load in.God Bless.

I think the post on page 1 on "Sound Doctrine" being our only Shield combined with Total Dependency on The Holy Spirit of Truth, will get us through the New Deceptions hitting the "church" and those that Robert mentioned will come with all the more force and fury.On a side note (sort of), I got to thinking of the Old Paths and then these "New Itching Ear" things. And that those who mix the two will come under stronger condemnation, for to whom much is given - much is required. Reading Volume 2 again of the below now and even though the pages aren't white anymore (they're old :) ... I thought I'd look for them on the web and the only place I've found them is below ........Refiner's Fire (Vol. 1) - Leonard Ravenhill $9.99 or Set $19.00"A Journal for Those Who Seek a Fuller Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ." This journal was born in the heart of Brother Ravenhill. It is STRONG MEAT for "hungry" preachers and Christian workers. The writers may be unknown to some but not to God.Refiner's Fire (Vol. 2) - Leonard Ravenhill $9.99 or Set $19.00"Our prayer is that we may through this journal bring to you spiritual giants who have passed on, but who have left a vision of the fullness of Christ." - Leonard Ravenhill "You've got to be really hungry for God, to read and reread this journal. But what a feast for those who long for truth and an open heaven." - David Wilkerson You won't find a "Publisher's Name" on them, because they were compiled and printed by Wilkerson and Ravenhill together. :-)David Wilkerson has written the Introduction AND in the back of the book, a book David Wilkerson distributed (don't know if they still do) from Lindale, TX (way back when - before TSC) was "The School of Christ" by T. Austin-Sparks :-D . These books on top, are a compilation of authors, such as --- C.H. Mackintosh - H. Foster - J.B. Stoney - L. Ravenhill - T Austin-Sparks - Lilias Trotter - William Law by Andrew Murray and Arthur Wallis.Just one quote from H. Foster - "Legalists are always occupied with "exernalities". They attach the greatest importance to the niceties of orthodox practice and language as things in themselves. By them the simple practices of the New Testament are made into a "ritual". The spirit of a thing is lost sight of in and exaggerated devotion to the thing, whereas to God nothing has value apart from the spiritual truth it is meant to express."These two volumes are a rare find and well worth the money to possess books that were a joint effort on the part of Ravenhill and Wilkerson, while they worked together way back when.Enjoy !http://www.rarechristianbooks.com/bookstores.htm

Edit: I ain't depressed no mo. :-D "The Comforter" has come ~ and Jesus is the ONE to be GLORIFIED.For HIS GLORY, TRUTH and FAITHFULNESS.AMEN.

For those who lack or ask for understanding.http://www.biblestudy.org/beginner/studyrules.htmlhttp://www.wcg.org/lit/disc/27devoted.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~What's Here and What's Coming ~Matthew 7:15Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. .Matthew 7: 21-23 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.Matthew 24: v 4-5And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.Mark 13: v 21-23 And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.Acts 20:28-31 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.Romans 16: v 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.II Corinthians 11:13-15 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.Galations 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.1 John 4:1Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.2 Peter 2:1-3But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.2 Peter 2:18For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.2 Timothy 3:1-7This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.2 Timothy 4:2-5"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. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry."Ezekiel 33:6But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. The Importance of Sound Doctrine by A.W. Tozer, The Best Of A.W. Tozer, pg. 174-176, taken from Man, The Dwelling Place Of God It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of sound doctrine in the life of a Christian. Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we would have right living. As men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles, so sound character does not grow out of unsound teaching. The word doctrine means simply religious beliefs held and taught. It is the sacred task of all Christians, first as believers and then as teachers of religious beliefs, to be certain that these beliefs correspond exactly to truth. A precise agreement between belief and fact constitutes soundness in doctrine. We cannot afford to have less. The apostles not only taught truth but contended for its purity against any who would corrupt it. The Pauline epistles resist every effort of false teachers to introduce doctrinal vagaries. john's epistles are sharp with condemnation of those teachers who harassed the young church by denying the incarnation and throwing doubts upon the doctrine of the Trinity; and Jude in his brief but powerful epistle rises to heights of burning eloquence as he pours scorn upon evil teachers who would mislead the saints. Each generation of Christians must look to its beliefs. While truth itself is unchanging, the minds of men are porous vessels out of which truth can leak and into which error may seep to dilute the truth they contain. The human heart is heretical by nature and runs to error as naturally as a garden to weeds. All a man, a church or a denomination needs to guarantee deterioration of doctrine is to take everything for granted and do nothing. The unattended garden will soon be overrun with weeds; the heart that fails to cultivate truth and root out error will shortly be a theological wilderness; the church or denomination that grows careless on the highway of truth will before long find itself astray, bogged down in some mud flat from which there is no escape. In every field of human thought and activity accuracy is considered a virtue. To err ever so slightly is to invite serious loss, if not death itself. Only in religious thought is faithfulness to truth looked upon as a fault. When men deal with things earthly and temporal they demand truth; when they come to the consideration of things heavenly and eternal they hedge and hesitate as if truth either could not be discovered or didn't matter anyway. Montaigne said that a liar is one who is brave toward God and a coward toward men; for a liar faces God and shrinks from men. Is this not simply a proof of unbelief? Is it not to say that the liar believes in men but is not convinced of the existence of God, and is willing to risk the displeasure of a God who may not exist rather than that of man who obviously does? I think also that deep, basic unbelief is back of human carelessness in religion. The scientist, the physician, the navigator deals with matters he knows are real; and because these things are real the world demands that both teacher and practitioner be skilled in the knowledge of them. The teacher of spiritual things only is required to be unsure in his beliefs, ambiguous in his remarks and tolerant of every religious opinion expressed by anyone, even by the man least qualified to hold an opinion. Haziness of doctrine has always been the mark of the liberal. When the Holy Scriptures are rejected as the final authority on religious belief something must be found to take their place. Historically that something has been either reason or sentiment: if sentiment, it has been humanism. Sometimes there has been an admixture of the two, as may be seen in liberal churches today. These will not quite give up the Bible, neither will they quite believe it; the result is an unclear body of beliefs more like a fog than a mountain, where anything may be true but nothing may be trusted as being certainly true. We have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in modernistic churches and expect nothing better, but it is a cause for real alarm that the fog has begun of late to creep into many evangelical churches. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out. Certain of our evangelical brethren appear to be laboring under the impression that they are advanced thinkers because they are rethinking evolution and re-evaluating various Bible doctrines or even divine inspiration itself; but so far are they from being advanced thinkers that they are merely timid followers of modemism-fifty years behind the parade. Little by little evangelical Christians these days are being brainwashed. One evidence is that increasing numbers of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition. Moral power has always accompanied definitive beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need right now a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2 Timothy 3:1-7This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.["take some time off away from the site for awhile"] I did ~ 24 1/2 hours :-?

WHAT IS TRUTH? (John 18:38) Truth is bound up with God. We find it in the meaning and interpretation which God gives to everything He has created. Apart from God and His revelation, truth does not exist. Where God is, there truth is. Since the whole creation bears witness to God, His truth extends throughout all creation. Nothing can deny what God has revealed or declared. It was the false witness of rebellious Satan that led to the fall of man.In Genesis 11?6 we read: Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.Jesus Christ - the TruthThe false witness of Satan led to the fall. But the true witness of our Lord Jesus Christ leads to our redemption. All life apart from Christ is based on falsehood which has no lasting foundation. For only He is "the way, the truth, and the life". (John 14:6) "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). The Kingdom of God, is based on Truth, and "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1: 17) Therefore, the advance of God's Kingdom demands that falsehood be eradicated. Hence the commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." (Exodus 20:16)Jesus declared that His purpose in coming into the world was to "bear witness unto the truth." He said: "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John 18:37). That Jesus Christ is the Truth, is affirmed also in the book of Revelation. He is described as "the faithful witness" (L5) and "the Amen, the faithful and true witness" Q14). As "the Amen" He is the One in whom all the promises and the purposes of God are fulfilled. "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God ... 11 (2 Corinthians 1:20) Jesus Christ, the truth, the true and faithful witness, the Amen of God, is the Lord of history. He stands opposed to every false witness. Every individual or group that does not build its life on the foundation of the sovereign, triune God and His written Law? Word is a false witness. The cross to which He was driven by false witnesses stands as a witness to the truth that man is a sinner, that man has violated God's Law and that, without repentance, fid& and obedience, he deserves to die. The cross witnesses to the truth that there is only one way of salvation apart from which there is only judgment and eternal damnation.The Truth in every area of life The truth must be upheld and preserved in every sphere of life. In the family the Bible must have a proper place. Parents and children must be governed according to its teaching. In the church the ministry must deal faithfully with the Scriptures. The principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture must apply in all its preaching, teaching, administering of the sacraments and in exercising discipline. The church must speak as the true witness to the requirements of God's Law in society. In the state, too, which is God's minister of justice for the execution of His Law, those in authority must preserve the truth of God by commending the doer of good and punishing the doer of evil? "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, he afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." (Romans 133?4)Judges Although a judge must be blind to the persons before him, to ensure that all are equal before the law, he cannot be impartial when considering the issues. He must favour the Law of God and apply its judgment on the matter in hand. He must do as God would do, "requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head; and ... justifying the righteous, by giving him according to his righteousness." (2 Chronicles 6:23) In Psalm 82, we learn that judges are called gods, not in respect of their persons, but because they function as those to whom "the word of God came" (John 10:35) In other words, judges and courts of law are basic to the operation and advancement of the Kingdom of God on earth. If their judgment is corrupted, as is described in Psalm 82:2 where it says: "How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked?" then "all the foundations of the earth are out of course." (v 5) Society is shaken and disturbed where judgment is perverted. When Jesus stated that the Word of God came to judges, He also said: "The Scripture cannot be broken." It cannot be made null and void, 7he Bible is a book for judges for the ordering of society according to the truth. Where the Word of God is set aside, we are ruled by false witnesses, and society is then under the curse of God and under His direct judgment. To deny the civil application of God's Word and to confine it to matters concerning the church and the personal lives of Christians, as many do, is another form of false witness.Witnesses Turning briefly to the witness M a court of law, the testimony of a witness must be honest and faithful. He must testify under an oath taken in the name of the triune God. His testimony must be subject to cross?examination and to corroboration. Scripture also requires no less than two witnesses. "One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15) To witness falsely is a criminal offence against God and against man. The punishment of the false witness is prescribed in Deut. 19:19: "Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you."The ninth commandment requires us to bear true witness concerning God and man and even our enemies and Satan. To ascribe to Satan the power that belongs only to God is to witness falsely. To witness truly is to promote the well-being of our society and a godly law?order in which nothing, neither good nor evil, will be exaggerated or concealed. Unless truth as defined by the Bible is upheld and preserved, our society will perish in a revolution of falsehood which promises a utopia beyond good and evil.Withholding TruthWe are under an obligation to tell the truth in all normal circumstances. But we also learn from Scripture that there are situations when truth?telling can bring injury or death to the people of God. To give the truth to an enemy bent on the destruction of the truth is to be a party to that evil action. So we see that neither the lies of Rahab with which she protected the Israelite spies (Joshua 2) nor the lies of the Hebrew midwives with which they saved the baby boys _(Exodus 1) were condemned. On the contrary, "Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive," and "God dealt well with the midwives." Clearly, an enemy of God is not entitled to the truth. Furthermore, our obligation to tell the truth in normal circumstances does not mean that private matters, which are of no concern to others, must be divulged.Falsehood and "Freedom"We are all witnesses of a universe of God?created and God ordered facts. In God's creation everything speaks of Him. A true witness acknowledges this, but a false witness rebelliously suppresses it. Instead of submitting to the interpretation which God gives to everything, he exalts his mind above God's Word to a position of false independence. He "changes the truth of God into a lie" (Romans 1:25). If his interpretation, at any point, is M harmony with the truth, he does not acknowledge God. If his interpretation is in conflict with God's revelation of truth in creation and in Scripture, he maintains that his word alone is true. What follows is a denial of God. But it is absurd to assume that a creature can so much as think independently of God and arrive at the truth without God. It is a claim to be God and a denial of the Almighty, Clearly the creature lives, moves and has his being in the context of God and His truth, as the Scripture says: In Him "we live, and move, and have our being." (Acts 17:28) If we try to exalt ourselves above the Creator, substituting our truth for His, then life becomes meaningless, full of wrong thinking, lies, slander, false witness, false prophecy, false media and false freedom. Man who is enmeshed in falsehood cannot be free, for the testimony of the Faithful and True Witness is: "If ye continue in my word... ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) He sent us the "Spirit of truth" to guide us "into all truth." (John 16:13) And if we pray in faith our "heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." (Luke 11: 13)So God expects us to worship Him "in spirit and in truth," (John 4:23) "to testify of the truth" and to walk in it. (3 John 3). He expects that we speak the truth, and says to us.? "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matthew 12:36?37)GOD OUR SAVIOUR WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED,AND TO COME UNTO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH. (1 Timothy 2:4)http://www.christianaction.org.za/GDL/articles/truth.htm

Psa 11:2 For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. Psa 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psa 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. Psa 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Psa 11:6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. Psa 11:7 For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright. Adam Clarke Psa 11:3 - "If the foundations be destroyed - If 'Saul', who is the vicegerent of God, has cast aside his fear, and now regards neither truth nor justice, a righteous man has no security for his life. This is at present thy case; therefore flee! They have utterly destroyed the foundations; (of truth and equity); what can righteousness now effect? Kimchi supposes this refers to the priests who were murdered by Doeg, at the command of Saul. The priests are destroyed, the preservers of knowledge and truth; the Divine worship is overthrown; and what can the righteous man work?"The next "move of God" will not be what is being DEMANDED of HIM, but the Strong 'Delusion' and the church of Babylon.He "moved" 2000 years ago .... how dare we demand more !He's waited for us to move toward that which is Right and True and in His Spirit and Truth for a Very Long Time. And those Authors who stand in HIS Presence now in Heaven, wail at what we've done with what He gave them to write - that we hide behind.Ichabod and Enough.

Because you posted .... because you have a shepherd's heart only.I will only leave one more Site for TRUTH and pray for the Elect and for more true shepherds who understand and care to inspect the pastures they send their sheep into or feed them, because they Love Him and them. JOHN 14:6http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/ Definitely a shepherd's desktop shortcut for regular examination for sheep protecting.Only the hireling doesn't protect the sheep because HE DOESN'T LOVE THEM !!!Every article on this site is good, but for now ... when you have time .... REALLY look closely and follow the links in the one titled "Living Spiritual Teachers".This is the 'next' stage that we are in, as far as "where is all of this leading to ?"We know where it's all leading, but the Word says, the "MOST" don't get it or WANT it.As I posted on Appolos's thead about "The Battle", the "BATTLE OF THE LAST DAYS IS OVER TRUTH AND TRUTH ALONE".Before I was saved, at a certain time in the early morning, we'd here "LAST CALL !"Now that I've been with the Lord and in the Classics these 30 years .... I hear it again .... but not from the "bouncer" .... but from HEAVEN Itself.So be it.

Annie, Thank you so much for putting together these post's. They really have spoken to me.Only the hireling doesn't protect the sheep because HE DOESN'T LOVE THEM !!!I have found articles in this following link very helpfull though it is sad that we even need a site like this:Battered SheepPastorFin wrote:John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.John 15:10 If you keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I keep my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.Revival will not come by listening to great preachers and wonderful sermons. It will come because we Love Him with ALL our being, nothing short of that will suffice.In my daily reading: Blest be Thy love, dear Lord, That taught us this sweet way, Only to love Thee for thyself, And for that love obey. J.AustinTo love God is to love His Character. For instance, God is purity. And to be pure in thought and look, to turn away from unhallowed books and conversation, to abhor the moments in which we have not been pure, is to love God. God is love; and to love men till private attachments have expanded into a philanthropy which embraces all, that is to love God. God is truth. To be true, to hate every form of falsehood, to live a brave, true, real life,- that is to love God. God is infinate; and to love the boundless, reaching on from grace to grace, adding charity to faith, and rising upwards ever to see the ideal still above us, and to die with it unattained, aiming insatiably to be perfect as the Father is perfect,- that is to love God. F.W.Robertson

Someone posted on the poem thread which inspired me to get the two i was led to write out. I thought the following would be appropriate here?A Pastors HeartThe pastor, The shepherdThey care for the sheepNurture, protectIn loving arms they holdRisking it allFor the sake of their foldIn the meadowAcross the streamThrough the valleyParched desert tooThe pastor, The shepherdGuiding them throughOn a journey togetherForwards they must goDown the narrow pathPastor, Shepherd leading the wayAwaiting the saviourOh happy day!The lost, gone astrayThe shepherd must goTo bring back to the foldEach one he must findLooking and searchingLeaving the rest behindA wolf in sheep’s clothingWorks into the foldSly and deceptiveHe takes his prayFooling them with false loveLeading them astrayThe shepherd returnsFor His beloved sheepThe wolf sees him comingAnd cowardly runs awayBut the shepherd with his rod and staffRounds up those gone astrayThe shepherds loveA pastors heartImparted from our LordTo make strong the weakIn their gifting’s they growBeautifully meekThe pastor, The bodyHe in them and they in himAll are onePerfect unityAwaiting their belovedVictory!Jhn 10:11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Geraldine, thank you for making sense out of the two diametrically opposed messages going on 'today'.Your poem should be broadcasted through-out the world. Never have I read one that has touched my heart so deeply. And that is truth.The wounded/battered sheep site about broke me. God chose to call us sheep because of how defenseless and foolish they are. (I used to tend the wooly ones.) Just the pictures on top of that site spoke volumes.And when I saw "legalism" as the top topic .... YES - Legalism is man's cheap way out of dying to self-righteousness and walking in total dependence on His Spirit ... so you betcha that will be a chief sheep killer.Pastorfrin brought up LOVE. You did also.I'm about to say something I've never said on here.For 30 years I read every book ever written on how to find the "Crucified Life" - "How to Die to Self" - "That He may Increase and I Decrease" .... it was my obsession and my driving passion.I never watched TV or went out anywhere's, except for fellowship and visits to family.I wanted to spend every minute of my waking hours for all of these years trying to find HIM.Or better stated to KNOW HIM as in Phil. 3.I'd read up to five Classics a week. I'd cry and pray and cry and pray until I think even Heaven was sick of it after a while - ha.But finally, more like, FINALLY - it came. I had been asking God for almost 30 years to show me, "But HOW do I die to self, etc. etc. ?"Then he sent a very wise old man into my life who only taught that GOD IS AGAPE/DIVINE/LOVE.That every single thing HE has done has been because HE IS LOVE.That the ONLY way we can die to self is to seek, find, and allow HIS LOVE to fully have it's way .... no matter the consequences.When LOVE INCARNATE came to earth .... THEY KILLED HIM.WE cannot muster up or "try to" love as HIS LOVE.Only HE can do that in us, if we're willing to die to reputation, etc..How will we know HE is instilling HIS love into us ?First (the way) will be our desire for HIM will increase as no desire we've ever felt on earth. For HIM and HIM ALONE.Not ever feeling lonely or bored again, even if in one room for years. Consumed with HIM.Secondly (the truth) is our desire for TRUTH, because HE IS THE TRUTH. Not even a speck of non-truth will we settle for any longer, because WE WANT HIM --- ALL OF HIM.Thirdly (the life) is our walk from then on.Not one step is for us, because our desires have become HIS desires and we don't know any other way anymore. We're consumed with THAT that is ETERNAL. We are seated in Heavenly places finally makes sense or becomes reality to us.THIS JESUS IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.That is why "Love" has come out three times on this thread today. His ONLY Two Commandments. Thank you both !!

Absolute Necessity of Sound DoctrineBy R. K. McGregor Wright, Th.M., Ph.D.The Task Before Us[excerpts]The purpose of this paper is to establish clearly whether the Bible makes correct teaching, sound doctrine, or (to use the historic term) orthodoxy, necessary for the progress of the Christian life. The case will be argued here on the grounds of the teaching of the New Testament alone, only because the vast mass of supporting data in the Old Testament only strengthens the argument and must await another paper.The case requires both definition and reasoned argument leading to the conclusion, and will be dealt with in two stages. We will ask: (1) how does the New Testament present the doctrine of doctrine?; and (2) what is the relation between doctrine and life? The ProblemIt seems to be more and more assumed that correct practice is so easy to come by that it need not depend on correct doctrine at all, that doctrinal orthodoxy is really just "a head trip." Most of the people attending our churches seem to function as if somehow sincerity will do instead of truth. This leads us to:The Head vs. Heart HeresyIt is very common in these days of so great an embarrassment of riches in the matter of books and religious freedom, to hear mention of the mysterious gap supposed to exist between the "head" and the "heart." It is assumed, of course, that the mind, the intellect, is the head, while our faith resides in something called the heart. It is therefore possible to have head knowledge without heart knowledge, and so miss out on the reality of faith. Likewise, a mysterious gap is thought to exist between theory and practice which we are somehow unable to bridge. People who ask too many questions are accused of being on a "head trip" and admonished to "be practical." Their problems are said to be solvable somehow by having the right kind of experience rather than by getting their questions answered from the Bible in the form of doctrine. Their problems are to be solved through understanding their emotions, by improving relationships, through serendipity, through counseling, through a new commitment, or perhaps even by "getting to know God better." But never can personal problems be solved through doctrine, since mere theory is not thought of as being "practical."It is even suggested or implied that "there are really no answers" in the final analysis, since the ultimate questions dissolve at last into mysteries. We do not need answers; we need to grow up and learn to accept the paradoxes of life! True Christian maturity is said to be measured by our commitment in the face of final paradox rather than by any kind of knowledge. People who want answers are just immature, that’s all.It is not the purpose of this exercise to refute these absurdities as completely as they deserve. We shall have to be satisfied just now with the response that against all forms of modern irrationalism, the Christian religion is recognized by specialists in comparative religion as being by far the most intellectual religion of all; that the New Testament puts a heavy priority on the regeneration of the intellect (witness the Pauline emphasis on the intellect in the prayers for the Ephesian and Colossian churches in the first chapters of their respective epistles); that the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New makes it perfectly plain that the term heart means the seat of the intellect, or the mind as our capacity to reason; therefore all the problems we face are to be solved first by allowing the Bible to change our minds about the truth, and then by learning what God’s answer is to our problem, as God defines and explains both problem and answer.The spiritual breakthrough comes when, in humble dependence on God’s mercy, we accept His account of the matter and obey what He says to do about it. The results are predestined to be successful and to infallibly meet the needs of the believer sooner or later. The Bible itself calls this process "making disciples," and the primary method is said to be by something called teaching. This program was set forth in the last words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, in the Great Commission.The word teach appearing there, occurs twenty times in the Gospel of Matthew alone, and Jesus is called Teacher there about ten times. If we look at the whole NT, the two nouns for teaching or doctrine occur over fifty times, while the verb to teach occurs over ninety times. The word teacher appears at least fifty-eight times. Half a dozen other related words appear on another twenty occasions.This makes a total of over 240 references in the NT alone to teachers teaching doctrines. When we recall that the well-known references to born again and regeneration occur in less than twenty verses we can only conclude that there is an extremely important subject being set forth in Scripture, which we may call the Bible’s doctrine about doctrine. Surely a subject which demands far over two hundred references in Scripture must be one of the most important things in the Bible.The Doctrine of Doctrine in the New TestamentFor convenience, we will concentrate on the Pastoral epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. The two NT words for doctrine may be considered synonymous for our purposes, and occur in these three epistles seventeen times. The verb appears another six times. A term meaning able to teach appears twice, and teacher three times.There are therefore at least twenty-eight passages in these letters alone which will show us how important Paul thought doctrine to be. They may be classified as those passages (a) commanding or exhorting us to teach and be taught, and we shall refer to these as positive passages; and (b) those verses which warn against false teaching and teachers, which we shall call the negative verses. We shall consider the negative verses first.(a) Negative:To begin with, certain verses contain repeated warnings of the damage done by false doctrine. The very first occurrence of the word doctrine in these epistles warns Timothy to resist false doctrine by proper instruction of those involved in teaching it (1 Tim. 1:3).Anything incompatible with the apostolic deposit was to be actively resisted. According to 1:10-11, this deposit covers moral matters in essential harmony with the ethical content of the OT Law. Everything else is "contrary to sound doctrine." In 4:1, specific teachings are described as "doctrines of demons," including forbidding Christians to get married, and spiritual vegetarianism. Paul traces much false doctrine to demonic influence in other epistles also (See Gen. 3; Eph. 6; 2Cor. 4:4; 1Cor. 10:20; Rom. 1:21-32; Rev. 9:20-21).In 2 Tim. 4:3, the final apostasy is introduced as being the result of a turning away from sound doctrine to a multiplicity of popular teachers who tell the people what they want to hear and substitute mythology for divine revelation. Myths are exactly what the Bible does not contain, according to Peter (2 Peter 1:16).Titus likewise warns of those who wreck whole house-churches with false doctrine which generates revenue for them and damnation for their hearers (1:11). Paul says (1:9) that a key responsibility of a Christian leader is to challenge and refute false doctrine from anyone who presents it.Elders are to be active in opposition to these things and ever vigilant against them. There is no mistaking Paul’s attitude here: by exhortation (by actively challenging error when presenting the biblical alternative) and by reasoned argument (intended to convince opponents) sound doctrine is to prevail. The dreadful alternative is suggested in verses 10-16, that those deceived will be rendered useless for good works.At this point in the study something needs to be said about the relationship of reasoned argument to evangelism. Unfortunately today, we blithely accept the common but artificial distinction made between preaching the gospel and Apologetics. Evangelism and Apologetics are treated as separate subjects in the Bible College or Seminary curriculum and the division has determined our modern practice.One would think that because God has given the Church such specialists as Josh McDowell, Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til, therefore we do not have to give any attention to apologetics personally; besides, isn’t it really for intellectuals only? Isn’t it a subject for seminarians? Besides, everyone knows you can’t argue someone into the kingdom…Over against this dead weight of evasion, we should place the NT attitude to the defense of the faith, somewhat as follows:First, we should note that Apologetics is an essential part of the Gospel; all the speeches in the book of Acts contain apologetic arguments based either on the OT prophecies or Jewish history, or recent events such as the coming of Christ. Read Peter’s speech in 2: 14-40 or 3: 12-26 or 4: 8-12 or Stephen’s in 7:2-53 or Paul’s in 17:22-31, to mention only some of the examples of apologetic material in NT preaching.Second, the task of defending the faith is commanded in 1 Peter 3:15 and Jude 3, and illustrated by almost every NT document; most of Paul’s epistles contain arguments against various errors of his own day. Apologetics is therefore not an optional extra, but an integral part of the apostolic mandate.Third, we have the methods of the Apostles throughout Acts. Consider the verbs used in 17:2 (reasoned with them), 17:17 (disputed…daily), 18:4 (reasoned and persuaded), 18:11 (teaching), 18:13 (persuaded), 18:19 (reasoned), 18:28 (convincing), 19:9 (disputing daily), 19:26 (persuaded), and 19:33 (defended himself), from a mere three chapters.Paul links Apologetics consistently with Evangelism in both his writings and his practice. In Phil. 1:7, he describes his own work as being "the defense and confirmation" of the gospel. Clearly, Apologetics is for unbelievers a defense of the truth, and for believers a confirming of the apostolic message.We must conclude from even so brief a survey, that the apostles argued with unbelief as well as preached to it, that they expected their arguments to convince at least some hearers, and that they saw both proclaiming and defending the gospel as two sides of the one coin of evangelism. No disjunction exists here between head and heart, for gospel truth is to be addressed to the mind!(b) Positive:The Apostle Paul identifies himself as "a teacher of the gentiles in faith and truth" (1 Tim. 2:7) and indicates that at that time he was not allowing women to teach or to arrogate teaching positions to themselves over the existing (male) leaders. Apparently in such a male-dominated society as we know the ancient world to have been, Christian women were bypassing the orderly procedures of church administration by rejecting the then all-but-universal male leadership which had probably been too slow in making practical Paul’s injunction about "neither male nor female in Christ" (Gal. 3:28). He warns that these women must learn the same way the men did, "in quietness and submission" and not "usurp authority over the men" in teaching positions.The warning example of Eve transgressing because of false doctrine deceiving her is to be noted. A woman cannot teach anyone unless she is "capable of teaching" (3:2), and she cannot teach without first learning. Therefore, "let the woman learn" is a mandate roughly equivalent to "educate your women too," and is in harmony with Jesus’ radical answer to the Jewish refusal to teach their women the Law, when he accepted Mary as a student disciple "at his feet" and warned Martha that her sister had chosen "the better part" which would never be taken away from her (Luke 10:38-42). Paul agreed with Jesus’ attitude, apparently.In chapter 4, verses 6, 11, 13, and 16 are an interesting group of verses. In order to be a good minister, Timothy is to be "nourished up" on good doctrine in harmony with the apostolic deposit. The alternative again is "fables" or myths. Verse 10 rebukes idolatry, since we serve the "living God," the final preserver of all people, and especially the Savior of believers. This he says, we must teach. In verse 13, the (public) reading of the Scriptures aloud was vital for the life of churches in which so many were illiterate. Exhortation then, involves presenting the challenge of the truth and "the doctrine." Only by taking heed to the doctrine (v. 16) can both the teacher and the learners (i.e. disciples) be kept safe.Elders may spend most of their time "teaching the word" (5:17) and are therefore to be paid "double honor." The epistle closes with three verses (6:1, 2 and 3) in which it seems that "the doctrine" can be blasphemed as well as "the name of God," as a result of unworthy lives. These things, he says, we must "teach and exhort." Paul sees teaching and challenging the faithful as two sides of the one coin of properly communicated truth.In verse 3, Paul equates his own teaching with "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ" as "the doctrine according with godliness." Those who "teach otherwise" are motivated by pride and other sins which, he warned, will eventually "drown them in destruction and ruin" (vs. 4-9).Second Timothy is, if anything, even stronger. Again, he opens the subject (1:11) by identifying himself as an apostle sent to announce the gospel as a teacher of the nations. In 2:2 the word anthropois means people, human beings in general, and cannot be restricted to males. It links up with the mandate to educate women in 1 Tim. 2:11 and is a collective mandate to educate both male and female Christian leadership in doctrine, thus preparing them to teach.There is more of this kind of thing in 2 Timothy. In 2:24 God’s servants are warned not to be "macho" (yes, that’s the Greek word! Cf. Titus 3:2 also) but to be gentle, patient, "apt to teach." The word for this is didaktikos and means having a didactic or doctrinal emphasis.In verse 3:10, Paul notes that the consistency of his doctrine and his life is part of his exemplary Christian leadership. This is what it means to "live godly in Christ Jesus" and he adds that we can expect it to bring persecution. The inconsistent and hypocritical believer is no challenge to heathenism! A godly consistency in which life is controlled by truth is a terrible affront to the false autonomism of the unbeliever and he cannot leave it alone. A "form of godliness" is fine, but "the power thereof" is an irritant to unbelief (3:3-7).The classical spot for the doctrine of doctrine is 2 Tim. 3:16. "All Scripture is God-breathed" says Paul, and as a result is profitable for doctrine. This term is then expanded by the rest of the verse into reproof (telling us when we are wrong), correction (telling us the right alternative), instruction in righteousness (or ongoing discipleship training, paideia or education). The purpose is then described as being "in order that the anthropos of God may be properly equipped, totally and completely equipped or furnished with a view to every good work."No more comprehensive statement could be made of the perfect sufficiency of Scripture. When it comes to the place of doctrine in the life of the believer, it’s sola scriptura all the way. The alternative is the disaster outlined in 4:3-4, in which sound doctrine is replaced by a relativistic mythology, as in modern liberal theology, and the popular recent New Age mysticism.Paul sums up Timothy’s task in 4:2, as "Proclaim the Word, be on the spot every chance you get, since all seasons are in season. Reprove sin, admonish the sinner, challenge to godliness. The method is by patient and persistent doctrinal teaching; and nothing less will do" (my paraphrase).In the letter to Titus, Paul expands on the need for doctrinal leaders. In 1:5-7, he notes that he ordained elders in every city to be overseers (episkopoi). They are to hold fast to the faithful word of doctrine (v. 9) in order to challenge and convince contradictors through sound doctrine. In 2:1 "sound doctrine" is the foundation of life for elders. The principle subject of this letter is the responsibility of Christian leadership. The chapter break at 2:1 gives the false impression that the subject has been changed from leaders to those being led. There seems to be no adequate ground for assuming this.Paul began in 1:5-7 to explain the basic qualifications for generic leadership. The leaders are then related by their overseer status to the younger women and younger men to whom they minister. It is particularly mentioned that teaching is part of an older woman’s ministry (2:3-4). In 2:6-7, the younger men are warned to be uncorrupt in their doctrine. In 2:9, slaves are to decorate the Christian doctrine by their godly lives, in view of the blessed hope of Christ’s coming, towards which we are all moving (12-13). In verse 13, God is said to be the ultimate teacher of his children, educating them (paideuo) toward consistent holiness.And all this is in the pastoral epistles alone!Necessity of Sound DoctrineThe Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is the agent of God’s regenerating of the human soul, effecting the change by the instrumentality of the Word of God (John 1:12-13, 3:5-8, Titus 3:5, James 1:17-18, 1 Pet. 1:21-25, etc.). This process of renewing the soul into the image of Christ continues all through the believer’s life until its consummation in the very presence of Jesus himself (John 15:3, 17:17, Rom. 12:1-2, 1Cor. 2:9-16, 2Cor. 3:17-18, 4:4, etc. concluding with 1 John 3:2).The Bible uniformly presents itself as an instrument by which the eternal God reaches down into time by His sovereignty to effect those results which are to manifest His eternal plan or word. His Law-word for creation (Gen. 1) and His Law-word for redemption (James 1:18) work the same way: God speaks and the desired result is effected (Isa. 55:8-11). Sometimes the effect is by a direct action, and sometimes it is accomplished by a long chain of causal law-structures. In either case, the result is sure and manifests the divine will with irresistible certainty.It follows, also irresistibly, that one of the links in that chain is such a human activity as preaching the word and teaching. Holiness being conformity to God’s word, sound doctrine is a necessary and indispensable step in the process, and false doctrine has a similar power and effect in the other direction.The human mind is a flexible, dynamic function of our created humanness which at any instant is either reacting to true or false elements of doctrine. At every point where our consciousness touches and interprets the outside world, it does so in terms of presuppositions, axioms, or assumptions. Only then does it proceed by those necessary and unavoidable thought processes which unify and interpret our ongoing experience.This process of intellectual interaction with the creation is the interpretive function which is our exercise of human prophethood under God as the original interpreter of His own Creation. It even continues while we sleep, in the subconscious realm, from which dreams sometimes rise to consciousness. We never stop interpreting reality.When Adam and Eve fell, they lost the ability (but not the responsibility!) to act as God’s vice-regents over Creation. God created them in His image to function as prophets, priests and kings.As prophet, Adam was to hear God’s word of interpretation and, assuming it to be true, extend that interpretation to all of creation as he encountered it. He was to reinterpret reality in terms of God’s prior exhaustive interpretation, part of which was revealed in the direct words of special revelation. This task of reinterpretation in terms of God’s revealed interpretation is called the task of the prophet. The realm of the prophet is truth, knowledge, exhortation and proclamation.In other words, a truly creational Epistemology presupposes God’s exhaustive knowledge, and in faith responds accordingly. When Adam and Eve made themselves their ultimate reference-point and began with their own autonomist presuppositions, they had thereby automatically failed as God’s viceregents in the realm of interpretation; they had failed as prophets.Likewise, our first parents failed as priests. They should have represented God to each other and each other to God as pre-redemptive mediators in the realm of Ethics. When Adam saw that his wife was encountering false doctrine he should have acted as her prophet and challenged the heresy Satan was offering.So should Eve have prophetically challenged Satan’s word as being inconsistent with God’s prior interpretation. Neither of them did this. Nor did Adam go to God to intercede for Eve, as priest in the realm of ethics, thereby obediently responding to God in righteousness. They both rejected responsibility for each other. We might note incidentally here, that the presupposition of autonomy or freewill did not lead to a sense of responsibility, but rather undermined it.Likewise, they fell in the realm of Ontology, or Being, not presupposing the Creator-Creature distinction that underlies holiness of one’s being. In making themselves—rather than their Creator—the reference point for meaning, they lost both the ability and the authority to act rightly as vice-regents or kings under God over the Creation, for they were now servants of another (Rom. 1:25 and 6:16). As in a game of chess, the rules control what is possible in the game. In the process of thinking, the rules are the axioms or presuppositions we start with. And nobody escapes presuppositions. Presuppositions determine everything.The offices of prophet, priest, and king were recovered for the believer in the person of Christ, just as they were lost in the person of Adam. The functional elements of the image of God lost in Adam are available to us in Christ, Himself the Image of God (2Cor. 4:4, Col. 1:15, Heb. 1:3), as we are being renewed by the process of redemptive regeneration (Eph. 4:24 and Col. 3:10, 2Cor. 3:8 and 4:4, and Rom. 8:29 with 12:1-2).These verses show how the qualities of holiness (of our being, or ontology,) righteousness (of our action, or ethics), and truth (of our interpretation, or epistemology) are being daily renewed in the believer through the redemptive activity of the Word, thus restoring us as kings, priests, and prophets in these three realms, respectively. Holiness, righteousness, and truth are thus the attributes of God’s image which we lost in the Fall and recover through regeneration.How vital, then, that our conscious mind be filled with God’s redemptive interpretation of reality! We must deliberately seek to know and accept what God says about everything in order to understand reality aright, in order to interact with His Creation correctly. Only on the basis of God’s revealed presuppositions, and of God’s ultimate rationality, of God’s revealed interpretations of reality in Scripture, can we know truth at all, since we are supported ultimately by God’s exhaustive consciousness of Himself and of His creation, and of us in particular as His beloved children.It is this view of reality which Scripture variously calls the truth, or sound doctrine, and even "the faith of God’s elect" (Tit. 1:1). Because God cannot lie (Heb. 6:18), He cannot contradict Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). It follows that sound doctrine has the necessary attribute of being wholly consistent with itself, granting, of course, its base in revelation as the starting-point and God as its ever-present integration-point. This does not mean, of course, that all the results of the human task of theology will be always perfectly consistent, but it does mean that the believer has the hope of consistency always before him, and God’s promise of sanctification supports our growth in this as in other areas.Theory and Practice, Doctrine and LifeWe said at the outset that attention would be given to the relation between doctrine and life. Something has already been said about how doctrine fits us for the tasks of prophethood, priesthood, and kingship. These offices are the formal structures or models for our obedience towards God by which we create and influence culture, i.e., contribute to the Kingdom of God as we pray for it in the Lord’s Prayer that "Thy will be done, thy kingdom come," etc.We have noted already (first two paragraphs of section V, above) that God’s Law-word for Redemption is as sovereignly efficacious as it was for Creation. The Word of God comes to us in special revelation as a direct, inscripturated, propositional communication, providentially preserved in history as the Canon of Scripture. It is this word that Paul exhorts Timothy to "preach" (2 Tim. 4:2).Its collective content is "the doctrine" (2 Tim. 3:16), and by giving constant attention to it, Timothy was told that he would save both himself and his hearers (1 Tim. 4:15-16). For the Apostle Paul, the question was not whether one would communicate doctrine or not, for it was impossible to function without doing so; the question was whether it would be sound doctrine or not.ConclusionIt seems then, that in the Christian vision of reality, theory and practice form an indissoluble unity; all theory has an effect in practice and all practice, whether true or false, is the practice of true or false theory. It follows of necessity then, that it is impossible to function as a believer at all without sound doctrine. At least in the Pastoral Epistles, as we have seen, sound doctrine is an essential part of the apostolic mandate and is the principle pastoral tool.

"He that is not zealous against error, is not likely to be zealous for Truth." J.C. Ryle What if, for these last 2000 years, there were no one who stood in defense of complete and sound doctrine ? Or stood against heresies ? Or stood against cults and the occult that constantly tries to enter the Church ?What if ?Many gave their very lives for this cause, yet some even here would say -- NO NEED - DON'T GO THERE - DON'T BRING UP DOCTRINE - LET'S JUST 'LOVE' - DON'T BRING UP THE ABOMINABLE THINGS TRYING TO ENTER THE CHURCH - "WE'RE NOT TO LOOK INTO WHAT THE PAGANS ARE DOING" - BUT WHAT IF THE PAGANS HAVE ALREADY ENTERED THE CHURCH AND BLINDING SHEEP BECAUSE OF PEOPLE TOO COWARD OR COMPROMISING TO "WATCH" OVER THE FLOCK."When "Christians" SNARL, when they hear the Term Doctrine - then you know we've got problems. Huge problems.Well, enough from me right now .... here's Spurgeon and Ryle instead. Charles Spurgeon on Doctrine.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you say that any one part of the truth is unimportant, you do as good as say - to that extent the Holy Spirit has come upon an unimportant or valueless mission. You perceive it is declared that he is to teach us "all things"; but if some of these "all things" are really of such minor importance, and so quite non-essential, then surely it is not worth while disturbing our minds with them. And so to that degree, at any rate, we accuse the Holy Spirit of having come to do what is not necessary to be done; and I trust that our minds recoil with holy repulsion from such a half-blasphemy as that..[If more understood this] they would surely study a great many things that they overlook now, and I think they would not be so apt to excuse their own need of diligence in the school of Christ, by saying:"Well, there are some all-important doctrines; we have studied them, and that is enough." Thou will not say this if thou art an obedient disciple, for do you not know that the ministers of Christ have received a commission to teach all things that Christ has taught them, and do you think that our commission is frivolous and [annoying]? Do you think that Christ would bid us teach thee what it is no need of thee to learn, or, especially, that the Holy Ghost would himself come to dwell in the midst of his church and to teach them all things, when out of those "all things" there are, according to thy vain supposition, some things that were quite as well, if not better, left alone? . . .There is a tendency, among us all, I suppose, to choose some part of the truth, and attach undue importance to that, to the neglect of other truths. It is a grave question if this is not the origin of various divisions which are to be found in the Church of Christ - not so much heresy, as the attaching of disproportionate importance to some truth, to the disparaging or neglecting of others equally necessary. Some brother speaking to me the other day, declared of a certain truth, "You cannot have too much of a good thing." Whereupon I remarked, that a nose was a good thing, but it might be possible so to exaggerate it that you would spoil the beauty of the face; a mouth is a good thing, and yet it may be very possible to have such a mouth that there would be no particular beauty about the visage, for the beauty of the man consists in proportion, and the beauty of divine truth consists in the proportion in which every part of it is brought into view. Now, there be some who exaggerate one feature, and some another. There are some brethren who are fond of what is called "the high side" of doctrine. I am fond of it, too, very fond of it, but there is a temptation to bring that out, and to neglect, perhaps, the practical part of the gospel, and to ease into the background, possibly, the invitations of the gospel, and those truths which concern our usefulness in the world. Then, on the other hand, there are some who are so enamored by "experience" that nothing but experiential truth will suit them; they must be always harping upon that one string, and they look down with contempt upon those who hold fast doctrinal truth, which is very wrong, and shows that they have not yet been led into all truth. ...It is all truth, and not some truth, that the Holy Spirit comes to teach. To teach his children truth in all its harmony, truth in all its parts, truth indeed, as a whole. But it may be said, "There must be some truths which are not so essential as others!" That is granted. There are some truths that are so vital to salvation and peace with God, and there are some others that do not vitally concern the regeneration and conversion of the soul, and upon these men may be in error, and yet not risk their souls for all eternity. But still, even these [less vital] truths are part of the whole body of truth, and the body cannot do without its head, its heart, though it might lose a limb. Yet is that a reason why I should chop off a limb, or consent to have it maimed, because I could still exist without it? I could exist without an eye; shall I not, therefore, mind being blinded? . . .All truth must be necessary for you and for me, or else the Spirit of God would not have come to teach it to us, and that while we may give more prominent importance to the greater and more vital truths, yet there is not one truth in Scripture to which we are allowed to say, "Be still, be quiet, we do not want you." Brethren, how many of you would be happy if you did but study doctrinal truth! You go lean and starved through the world, because your minister does not preach the doctrines of grace, and does not give you the full weight of the truths of the sovereign grace of God. Still, if you but studied them for yourselves, you might yet have a bright eye, and an elastic, bounding footstep, and rejoice in the everlasting love of God, which never leaves his people, but preserves and glorifies them in the end. --Charles Spurgeon, The Great Teacher and Rememberancer--------------------------------------------------------------------------------That idea about "non-essentials" is wicked and rebellious. Cast it from you; go without the camp. Be particular in every point. To the tiniest jot and tittle seek to obey your Master's will, and seek his grace that you may walk in the way of his commandments with a perfect heart. But then, if you do walk according to this rule, others will say, "You are so bigoted". Thus reply to them: "I am very bigoted over myself, but I never claim any authority over you. To your own Master you stand or fall, and I do the same". If it be bigotry to hold decisive views about God's truth, and to be obedient in every particular, as far as God the Spirit has taught me, if that be bigotry - all hail bigotry! - a most hallowed thing. --Charles Spurgeon, The Tabernacle - Without The Camp --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Anything that is in the Word of God and has the stamp of His approval, I tremble at. Someone once said to an old Puritan, "Some have made such [allowances] in their conscience, can't you make a little [exception] in yours? There is no reason why you should be so precise"; but the other replied - "I serve a precise God." --Charles Spurgeon, Living Temples For The Living God --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Do not follow a part of his orders, and neglect the rest. The Lord Jesus must be received as a whole, or not at all. Do not say "This is non-essential", for such a speech is flat rebellion. I do not believe in any words of our Lord being non-essential. They may not be essential to our salvation, but every word of Christ is essential to our spiritual health; neither can we disregard the least of his precepts without suffering loss through our disobedience. Be very careful that you follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; no other kind of walking is safe in such a world as this. Do what he bids you, as he bids you, and it shall he well with you. --Charles Spurgeon, Blessed Promises For Dying Outcasts --------------------------------------------------------------------------------There is a man in the world, whose views are not quite in consistency with Scripture. He says, "Well, it does not matter it is a little thing, a very little thing." Yes but that little wrong thing leads to a great wrong thing. The sinner's path is down hill, and when you take one step in violation of Scripture precept, your next step is not only easy, but seems even to be forced upon you. Doubt election, you will soon doubt perseverance, and you may soon come to deny redemption. Where did the errors of the church of Rome come from? Were they all born in a day? No, they came by slow degrees. ... If you tamper with one truth of Scripture, he that tempts you to meddle with one, will tempt you to tamper with another, and there will be no end to it, till, at last, you will want a new Bible, a new Testament, and a new God. There is no telling where you will end when you have begun. --Charles Spurgeon, Importance of Small Things In Religion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Let us hold God's truth, but not with a slippery hand. If a doctrine be true, let us grip it [tightly], though the earth shake or the heavens fall. Christian men, where there is a love for God's truth, God will bless his Church; but because this is a time-serving age, because we have not come out plainly with those things which distinguish us from each other, because we have paid too much deference to each other's views, and have not boldly declared the great truths of his Word. - these are the reasons why God has to some extent deserted us. You say, "I do not see so much [value] in doctrines, after all." Then you will not see much blessing. I love so much what I believe to be true, that I would fight for every grain of it; not for the "stones" only, but for the very "dust thereof." I believe that we ought not to say that any truth is non-essential; it may be non-essential to salvation, but it is essential for something else. Why! you might as well take one of the jewels out of the Queen's crown, and say it is non-essential, but she will be Queen all the same! Will anyone dare to tell God that any doctrine is non-essential? Oh gracious Spirit, hast thou written what is non-essential? Hast thou given me a Book respecting which I say, "My father and mother believed it all, but it is not necessary for me to believe it"? God has given me a judgment; am I to follow in the wake of other people, thinking I shall be sure to be right and that God will never ask me what I was? An easy kind of religion is this! It was not so in the days of good old John Bunyan and Berridge; they sang a far different song. But now people are saying, "I can listen to So-and-so and So and-so" - men who contradict one another. We cannot think [highly] of people, who can hear opposite opinions, and yet believe both to be correct. We cannot expect much growth unless you hold the truth, and take pleasure in the stones of Zion, and, "favor the dust thereof," - every atom of [the truth]. --Charles Spurgeon, Zion's Prosperity --------------------------------------------------------------------------------A Time for Truth, Courage, Humility and Contrition...admire the bear - by Charles SpurgeonWe must defend the faith. For what would have become of us if our fathers had not maintained it? If confessors, Reformers, martyrs and Covenanters had been indifferent to the name and faith of Jesus, where would have been the Churches of today? Must we not play the man as they did? If we do not, are we not censuring our fathers? It is very pretty, is it not, to read of Luther and his brave deeds? Of course, everybody admires Luther! Yes, yes. But you do not want anyone else to do the same today. When you go to the Zoological Gardens you all admire the bear. But how would you like a bear at home, or a bear wandering loose about the street? You tell me that it would be unbearable and no doubt you are right. So, we admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago. The past ages are a sort of bear-pit or iron cage for him. But such a man today is a nuisance and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if you can think of one. Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and their compeers had said, “The world is out of order. But if we try to set it right we shall only make a great row and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night-caps and sleep over the bad times and perhaps when we wake up things will have grown better.” Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps and the infectious bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on. Note what we owe them and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our fathers. It is today as it was in the Reformers’ days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man—where is the man for the day? We who have had the Gospel passed to us by martyr’s hands dare not trifle with it—nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors who pretend to love it but inwardly abhor every line of it.The faith I hold bears upon it marks of the blood of my ancestors. Shall I deny their faith, for which they left their native land to sojourn here? Shall we cast away the treasure which was handed to us through the bars of prisons, or came to us charred with the flames of Smithfield? Personally, when my bones have been tortured with rheumatism, I have remembered Job Spurgeon, doubtless of my own stock, who in Chelmsford Jail was allowed a chair because he could not lie down by reason of rheumatic pain. That Quaker’s broad-brim overshadows my brow. Perhaps I inherited his rheumatism. But that I do not regret if I have his stubborn faith which will not let me yield a syllable of the Truth of God. When I think of how others have suffered for the faith, a little scorn or unkindness seems a mere trifle, not worthy of mention. An ancestry of lovers of the faith ought to be a great plea with us to abide by the Lord God of our fathers and the faith in which they lived. As for me, I must hold the old Gospel—I can do no other. God helping me, I will endure the consequences of what men think my obstinacy. Look you, Sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation and another and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His Truth today. We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right, maybe our children and our children’s children will go that way. But if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word. I charge you, not only by your ancestry but by your posterity, that you seek to win the commendation of your Master—that though you dwell where Satan’s seat is—you hold fast His name and do not deny His faith. God grant us faithfulness for the sake of the souls around us! How is the world to be saved if the Church is false to her Lord? How are we to lift the masses if our fulcrum is removed? If our Gospel is uncertain, what remains but increasing misery and despair? Stand fast, my Beloved, in the name of God! I, your Brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the Truth of God. Conduct yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.The quote is from the sermon, "Holding Fast The Faith" [The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol 34, preached on Feb 5, 1888--at the nadir of the "down-grade"].

"He that is not zealous against error, is not likely to be zealous for Truth." J.C. Ryle --------------------------------------------------------------------------------J.C. Ryle said it well, over a 150 years ago, when he remarked:"We live in an age when men profess to dislike dogmas and creeds, and are filled with a morbid dislike to controversial theology. He who dares to say of one doctrine that 'it is true,' and of another that 'it is false,' must expect to be called narrow-minded and uncharitable, and to lose the praise of men ... The danger is real, great, and unmistakable. Never was it so needful to say, Be not carried about (with divers and strange doctrines)"Warning #5 to the ChurchAll Kinds of Strange Teachings by J. C. Ryle(1816-1900)"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them" (Hebrews 13:9)The text which heads this paper is an apostolic caution against false doctrine. It forms part of a warning which Paul addressed to Hebrew Christians. It is a caution just as much needed now as it was eighteen hundred years ago. Never, I think, was it so important for Christian ministers to cry aloud continually, "Do not be carried away."That old enemy of mankind, the devil, has no more subtle instrument for ruining souls than that of spreading false doctrine. "A murderer and a liar from the beginning. . . .your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Outside the Church he is ever persuading men to maintain outrageous customs and destructive superstitions. Human sacrifice to idols, gross revolting, cruel, disgusting worship of abominable false deities, persecution, slavery, cannibalism, child murder, devastating religious wars--all these are a part of Satan's handiwork, and the fruit of his suggestions. Like a pirate, his object is to "sink, burn, and destroy." Inside the Church he is ever laboring to sow heresies, to propagate errors, to foster departures from the faith. If he cannot prevent the waters flowing from the Fountain of Life, he tries hard to poison them. If he cannot destroy the remedy of the Gospel, he strives to adulterate and corrupt it. No wonder that he is called "Apollyon, the destroyer."The Divine Comforter of the Church, the Holy Spirit, has always employed one great agent to oppose Satan's plans. That agent is the Word of God. The Word expounded and unfolded, the Word explained and opened up, the Word made clear to the head and applied to the heart. The Word is the chosen weapon by which the devil must be confronted and confounded. The Word was the sword which the Lord Jesus wielded in the temptation. To every assault of the Tempter, He replied, "It is written." The Word is the sword which His ministers must use in the present day, if they would successfully resist the devil. The Bible, faithfully and freely expounded, is the safeguard of Christ's Church.I desire to remember this lesson, and to invite attention to the text which stands at the head of this paper. We live in an age when men profess to dislike dogmas and creeds, and are filled with a morbid dislike to controversial theology. He who dares to say of one doctrine that "it is true," and of another that "it is false," must expect to be called narrow-minded and uncharitable, and to lose the praise of men. Nevertheless, the Scripture was not written in vain. Let us examine the mighty lessons contained in Paul's words to the Hebrews. They are lessons for us as well as for them.1. First comes the broad warning. "Do not be not carried away by all kinds of strange teachings."The meaning of these words is not a hard thing to understand. "Be not tossed back and forth," the Apostle seems to say, "by every blast of false teaching, like ships without compass or rudder. False doctrines will arise as long as the world lasts, in many numbers, with varying minor details, in one point alone always the same--strange, new, foreign, and departing from the Gospel of Christ. They do exist now. They will always be found within the visible Church. Remember this, and do not be carried away." Such is Paul's warning.The Apostle's warning does not stand alone. Even in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount there fell from the loving lips of our Savior a solemn caution: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves" (Matthew 7:15). Even in Paul's last address to the Ephesian elders, he finds time to warn his friends against false doctrine: "Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). Note what the Second Epistle to the Corinthians says: "I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3). Note what the Epistle to the Galatians says: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel." "Who has bewitched you?" "After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" "How is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?" "You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!" "I fear for you." "Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 1:6; 3:1, 3; 4:9, 10, 11; 5:1). Note what the Epistle to the Ephesians says: "No longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching" (Ephesians 4:14). Note what the Epistle to the Colossians says: "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8). Note what the First Epistle to Timothy says: "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith" (1 Timothy 4:1). Note what the Second Epistle of Peter says: "There will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies" (2 Peter 2:1). Note what the First Epistle of John says: "Do not believe every spirit. Many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). Note what the Epistle of Jude says: "Contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men have secretly slipped in among you" (Jude 1:3, 4). These things were written for our learning.What shall we say about these texts? How they may strike others I cannot say. I only know how they strike me. To tell us, as some do, in the face of these texts, that the early Churches were a model of perfection and purity, is absurd even in Apostolic days, its appears, there were abundant errors both in doctrine and practice. To tell us, as others do, that pastors ought never to handle controversial subjects, and never to warn their people against erroneous views, is senseless and unreasonable. If we did this then we would have to ignore most of the New Testament. Surely the dumb dog and the sleeping shepherd are the best allies of the wolf, the thief, and the robber. It is not for nothing that Paul says, "If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 4:6).A plain warning against false doctrine is especially needed in the present day. The school of the Pharisees, and the school of the Sadducees, those ancient mothers of all mischief, were never more active than they are now. --Between men adding to the truth on one side, and men taking away from it on the other. --Between those who bury truth under additions, and those who mutilate it by subtractions. --Between superstition and infidelity. --Between Roman Catholicism and neology [New Theology].--Between Ritualism and Rationalism.Between these upper and lower millstones the Gospel is near being crushed to death! Strange views are continually propounded by pastors about subjects of the deepest importance. About the atonement, the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of the Bible, the reality of miracles, the eternity of future punishment, about the Church, the ministerial office, the Lord's Supper, Baptism, the confessional, the honor due to the Virgin, prayers for the dead. About all these things there is nothing too outrageous to be taught by some ministers in these latter days. By the pen and by the tongue, by the press and by the pulpit, the country is incessantly deluged with a flood of erroneous opinions. To ignore the fact is mere blindness. Others see it, even if we pretend to be ignorant of it. The danger is real, great, and unmistakable. Never was it so needful to say, "Do not be carried away."Many things combine to make the present inroad of false doctrine peculiarly dangerous. There is an undeniable zeal in some of the teachers of error: their "earnestness" makes many think they must be right. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge: many fancy that such clever and intellectual men must surely be safe guides. There is a general tendency to free thought and free inquiry in these latter days: many like to prove their independence of judgment, by believing novelties. There is a wide-spread desire to appear charitable and liberal-minded: many seem half ashamed of saying that anybody can be in the wrong. There is a quantity of half-truth taught by the modern false teachers: they are incessantly using Scriptural terms and phrases in an unscriptural sense. There is a morbid craving in the public mind for a more sensuous, ceremonial, sensational, showy worship: men are impatient of inward, invisible heart-work. There is a silly readiness in every direction to believe everybody who talks cleverly, lovingly, and earnestly, and a determination to forget that Satan often masquerades himself "as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). There is a wide-spread "gullibility" among professing Christians: every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be believed, and everybody who doubts him is called a persecutor and a narrow-minded man. All these things are peculiar symptoms of our times. I defy any observing person to deny them. They tend to make the assaults of false doctrine in our day peculiarly dangerous. They make it more than ever needful to cry aloud, "Do not be carried away!"If any one should ask me, What is the best safeguard against false doctrine?--I answer in one word, "The Bible: the Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied." We must go back to the old prescription of our Master: "Diligently study the Scriptures" (John 5:39). If we want a weapon to wield against the plans of Satan, there is nothing like "the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God." But to wield it successfully, we must read it habitually, diligently, intelligently, and prayerfully. This is a point on which, I fear, many fail. In an age of hurry and activity, few read their Bibles as much as they should. More books perhaps are read than ever, but less of the one Book which makes man wise to salvation. The Roman Catholic Church and new theology could never have made such havoc in the Church in the last fifty years, if there had not been a most superficial knowledge of the Scriptures throughout the land. A Bible-reading congregation is the strength of a Church."Diligently study the Scriptures." Mark how the Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles continually refer to the Old Testament, as a document just as authoritative as the New. Mark how they quote texts from the Old Testament, as the voice of God, as if every word was given by inspiration. Mark how the greatest miracles in the Old Testament are all referred to in the New, as unquestioned and unquestionable facts. Mark how all the leading events in the Pentateuch are incessantly named as historical events, whose reality admits of no dispute. Mark how the atonement, and substitution, and sacrifice, run through the whole Bible from first to last, as essential doctrines of revelation. Mark how the resurrection of Christ, the greatest of all miracles, is proved by such an overwhelming mass of evidence, that he who disbelieves it may as well say he will believe no evidence at all. Mark all these things, and you will find it very hard to be a Rationalist! Great are the difficulties of unbelief: it requires more faith to be an unbeliever than a Christian. But greater still are the difficulties of Rationalism. Free handling of Scripture--results of modern criticism--broad and liberal theology--all these are fine, swelling, high-sounding phrases, which please some minds, and look very grand at a distance. But the man who looks below the surface of things will soon find that there is no sure standing-ground between ultra-Rationalism and Atheism."Diligently study the Scriptures." Mark what a conspicuous absence there is in the New Testament of what may be called the Sacramental system, and the whole circle of Ritualistic theology. Mark how extremely little there is said about the effects of Baptism. Mark how very seldom the Lord's Supper is mentioned in the Epistles. Find, if you can, a single text in which New Testament ministers are called sacrificing priests, or the Lord's Supper is called a sacrifice, or private confession to ministers is recommended and practiced. Turn, if you can, to one single verse in which sacrificial vestments are named as desirable, or in which lighted candles, and pots of flowers on the Lord's Table, or processions, and incense, and flags, and banners, and turning to the east, and bowing down to the bread and wine, or prayer to the Virgin Mary and the angels, are sanctioned. Mark these things well, and you will find it very hard to be a Ritualist! You may find your authority for Ritualism in garbled quotations from the Fathers, in long extracts from monkish, mystical, or from Popes; but you certainly will not find it in the Bible. Between the plain Bible, honestly and fairly interpreted, and extreme Ritualism there is gulf which cannot be passed."If we would not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings," we must remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Diligently study the Scriptures." Ignorance of the Bible is the root of all error. Knowledge of the Bible is the best antidote against modern heresies.Now "strengthening of the heart" is one of the great wants of many professing Christians. Especially is it longed after by those whose knowledge is imperfect, and whose conscience is half enlightened. Such persons often feel in themselves much indwelling sin, and at the same time see very indistinctly God's remedy and Christ's fullness. Their faith is feeble, their hope dim, and their consolations small. They want to realize more tangible comfort. They fancy they ought to feel more and see more. They are not at ease. They cannot attain to joy and peace in believing. Where shall they turn? What shall set their consciences at rest? Then comes the enemy of souls, and suggests some shortcut road to establishment. He hints at the value of some addition to the simple plan of the Gospel, some man-made gimmick, some exaggeration of a truth, some flesh-satisfying invention, some improvement on the old path, and whispers, "Only use this, and you shall be strengthened." Plausible offers flow in at the same time from every quarter, like quack medicines. Each has its own patrons and advocates. On every side the poor unstable soul hears invitations to move in some particular direction, and then shall come perfect strength."Come to us," says the Roman Catholic. "Join the Catholic Church, the Church on the Rock, the one, true, holy Church; the Church that cannot err. Come to her bosom, and rest your soul in her protection. Come to us, and you will find strength.""Come to us," says the extreme Ritualist. "You need higher and fuller views of the priesthood and the Sacraments, of the Real Presence in the Lord's Supper, of the soothing influence of daily service, daily masses, confession to priests, and priestly absolution. Come and take up sound Church views, and you will find strength.""Come to us," says the violent Liberationist. "Cast off the traditions and rules of established Churches. Enjoy religious liberty. Throw away forms and Prayer-books. Join our party. Cast in your lot with us, and you will soon be strengthened.""Come to us," say the Plymouth Brethren. "Shake off all the bondage of creeds and Churches and systems. We will soon show you higher, deeper, more exalting, more enlightened views of truth. Join the brethren, and you will soon be strengthened.""Come to us," says the Rationalist. "Lay aside the old worn-out clothes of unfruitful schemes of Christianity. Give your reason free scope and play. Begin a freer mode of handling Scripture. Be no more a slave to an ancient old world book. Break your chains and you shall be strengthened."Every experienced Christian knows well that such appeals are constantly made to unsettled minds in the present day? Who has not seen that, when boldly and confidently made, they produce a painful effect on some people? Who has not observed that they often beguile unstable souls, and lead them into misery for years?"What does the Scripture say?" This is the only sure guide. Hear what Paul says. Heart strength is not to be obtained by joining this party or that. It comes "by grace, and not by foods." Other things have a "show of wisdom" perhaps, and give a temporary satisfaction "to the flesh." (Colossians 2:23). But they have no healing power about them in reality, and leave the unhappy man who trusts them nothing bettered, but rather worse.A clearer knowledge of the Divine scheme of grace, its eternal purposes, its application to man by Christ's redeeming work, a firmer grasp of the doctrine of grace, of God's free love in Christ, of Christ's full and complete satisfaction for sin, of justification by simple faith, a more intimate acquaintance with Christ the Giver and Fountain of grace, His offices, His sympathy, His power, a more thorough experience of the inward work of grace in the heart, this, this, this is the grand secret of heart strength. This is the old path of peace. This is the true panacea for restless consciences. It may seem at first too simple, too easy, too cheap, too commonplace, too plain. But all the wisdom of man will never show the heavy-laden a better road to heart-rest. Secret pride and self-righteousness, I fear, are too often the reason why this good old road is not used.I believe there never was a time when it was more needful to uphold the old Apostolic prescription than it is in the present day. Never were there so many weak and worried Christians wandering about, and tossed to and fro, from want of knowledge. Never was it so important for faithful ministers to set the trumpet to their mouths and proclaim everywhere, "Grace, grace, grace, not foods, establishes the heart."From the days of the Apostles there have never been a lack of quack spiritual doctors, who have professed to heal the wounds of conscience with man-made remedies. In our own beloved Church there have always been some who have in heart turned back to Egypt, and, not content with the simplicity of our worship, have hankered after the ceremonial fleshpots of the Catholic Church of Rome. To hear the Sacraments incessantly exalted, and preaching played down, to see the Lord's Supper turned into an idol under the pretext of making it more honorable, to find plain worship overlaid with so many newfangled ornaments and ceremonies that its essentials are quite buried, how common is all this! These things were once a pestilence that walked in darkness. They are now a destruction that wastes in noonday. They are the joy of our enemies, the sorrow of the Church's best children, the damage of English Christianity, the plague of our times. And to what may they all be traced? The neglect and the forgetfulness of Paul's simple prescription: "Grace, and not foods, strengthens the heart."Let us take heed that in our own personal religion, grace is all. Let us have clear systematic views of the Gospel of the grace of God. Nothing else will do good in the hour of sickness, in the day of trial, on the bed of death, and in the swellings of Jordan. Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, Christ's free grace the only foundation under the soles of our feet--this alone will give peace. Once let in self, and forms, and man's inventions, as a necessary part of our religion, and we are on a quicksand. We may be amused, excited, or kept quiet for a time, like children with toys, by a religion of "foods." Such a religion has "a show of wisdom." But unless our religion be one in which "grace" is all, we shall never feel strengthened. In the last place, I proceed to examine the instructive fact which Paul records. He says, "Ceremonial foods are of no value to those who eat them."We have no means of knowing whether the Apostle, in using this language, referred to any particular Churches or individuals. Of course it is possible that he had in view the Judaizing Christians of Antioch and Galatia, or the Ephesians of whom he speaks to Timothy in his pastoral Epistle, or the Colossians who caused him so much inward conflict, or the Hebrew believers in every Church, without exception. It seems to me far more probable, however, that he had no particular Church or Churches in view. I rather think that he makes a broad, general, sweeping statement about all who in any place had exalted ceremonial at the expense of the doctrines of "grace." And he makes a wide declaration about them all. They have got no good from their favorite notions. They have not been more inwardly happy, more outwardly holy, or more generally useful. Their religion has been most unprofitable to them. Man-made alterations of God's precious medicine for sinners, man-made additions to Christ's glorious Gospel, however superficially defended and plausibly supported, do no real good to those that adopt them. They confer no increased inward comfort; they bring no growth of real holiness: they give no enlarged usefulness to the Church and the world. Calmly, quietly, and mildly, but firmly, decidedly, and unflinchingly, the assertion is made, "Ceremonial foods are of no value to those who eat them."The very history of our own times bears a striking testimony to the truth of Paul's assertion. In the last twenty-five years some scores of clergymen have seceded from the Church of England, and joined the Church of Rome. They wanted more of what they called Catholic doctrine and Catholic ceremonial. They honestly acted up to their principles, and went over to Rome. They were not all weak, and illiterate, and second- rate, and inferior men; several of them were men of commanding talents, whose gifts would have won for them a high position in any profession. Yet what have they gained by the step they have taken? What profit have they found in leaving "grace" for "ceremonies," in exchanging Protestantism for Catholicism? Have they attained a higher standard of holiness? Have they procured for themselves a greater degree of usefulness? Let one of themselves supply an answer. Mr. Ffoulkes, a leading man in the party, within the last few years has openly declared that the preaching of some of his fellow "Perverts" is not so powerful as it was when they were English Churchmen, and that the highest degree of holy living he has ever seen is not within the pale of Rome, but in the quiet parsonages and unpretending family-life of godly English clergymen! Intentionally or not intentionally, wittingly or unwittingly, meaning it or not meaning it, nothing can be more striking than the testimony Mr. Ffoulkes bears to the truth of the Apostle's assertion: "Ceremonial foods do not profit" even those who make much ado about them. The religious system which exalts ceremonial and man-made ritual does no real good to its adherents, compared to the simple old Gospel of the grace of God.Let us turn now, for a few moments, to the other side of the picture, and see what "grace" has done. Let us hear how profitable the doctrines of the Gospel have proved to those who have clung firmly to them, and have not tried to mend and improve and patch them up by adding, as essentials, the "foods" of man-made ceremonies.It was "grace, and not foods," that made Martin Luther do the work that he did in the world. The key to all his success was his constant declaration of justification by faith, without the deeds of the law. This was the truth which enabled him to break the chains of Rome, and let light into Europe.It was "grace, and not ceremonial foods," that made our English martyrs, Latimer and Hooper, exercise so mighty an influence in life, and shine so brightly in death. They saw clearly, and taught plainly, the true priesthood of Christ, and salvation only by grace. They honored God's grace, and God put honor on them.It was "grace, and not ceremonial foods," that made Romaine and Venn, and their companions, turn the world upside down in England, one hundred years ago. In themselves they were not men of extraordinary learning or intellectual power. But they revived and brought out again the real pure doctrines of grace.It was "grace, and not ceremonial foods," that made Simeon and Daniel Wilson and Bickersteth such striking instruments of usefulness in the first half of the present century. God's free grace was the great truth on which they relied, and continually brought forward. For so doing God put honor on them. They made much of God's grace, and the God of grace made much of them.The list of ministerial biographies tells a striking tale. Who are those who have shaken the world, and left their mark on their generation, and aroused consciences, and converted sinners, and edified saints? Not those who have made asceticism, and ceremonials, and sacraments, and services, and ordinances the main thing; but those who have made most of God's free grace! In a day of strife, and controversy, and doubt, and perplexity, men forget this. Facts are stubborn things. Let us look calmly at them, and be not moved by those who tell us that daily services, processions, incense, bowings, crossings, confessions, absolutions, and the like, are the secret of a prosperous Christianity. Let us look at plain facts. Facts in old history, and facts in modern days, facts in every part of England, support the assertion of Paul. The religion of "ceremonial foods" does "not profit those that are occupied therein." It is the religion of grace that brings inward peace, outward holiness, and general usefulness.Let me wind up this paper with a few words of practical application. We are living in an age of peculiar religious danger. I am quite sure that the advice I am going to offer deserves serious attention.(1) In the first place, let us not be surprised at the rise and progress of false doctrine. It is a thing as old as the old Apostles. It began before they died. They predicted that there would be plenty of it before the end of the world. It is wisely ordered of God for the testing of our grace, and to prove who has real faith. If there were no such thing as false doctrine or heresy upon earth, I should begin to think the Bible was not true.(2) In the next place, let us make up our minds to resist false doctrine, and not to be carried away by fashion and bad example. Let us not flinch, because all around us, high and low, rich and poor, are swept away, like geese in a flood, before a torrent of Catholicism. Let us be firm and stand our ground.Let us resist false doctrine, and contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Let us not be ashamed of showing our colors and standing out for New Testament truth. Let us not be stopped by the cuckoo cry of "controversy." The thief likes dogs that do not bark, and watchmen that give no alarm. The devil is a thief and a robber. If we hold our peace, and do not resist false doctrine, we please him and displease God.(3) In the next place, let us try to preserve the old Protestant principles of the Church, and to hand them down uninjured to our children's children. Let us not listen to those faint-hearted Churchmen who would have us forsake the ship, and desert the Church in her time of need.(4) In the last place, let us make sure work of our own personal salvation. Let us seek to know and feel that we ourselves are "saved." The day of controversy is always a day of spiritual peril. Men are apt to confound orthodoxy with conversion, and to fancy that they must go to heaven if they know how to answer Catholic Priests. Yet mere earnestness without knowledge, and mere head-knowledge of Protestantism, alike save none. Let us never forget this.THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE.

If we are looking for correct Doctrine, we need go no farther than the Old King James Bible. If we are looking for false Doctrine, The Cathoic Bible, as well as all of the newer versions of the Christian Bible will suffice, even the "New King James" qualifies as false doctrine as well!"The Protestant denominations are built upon that manuscript of the GREEK NEW TESTAMENT sometimes called TEXTUS RECEPTUS, or the RECEIVED TEXT. It is that Greek New Testament from which the writings of the apostles in Greek have been translated into English, German, Dutch and other languages. During the dark ages the Received Text was practically unknown outside the Greek Church. It was RESTORED TO CHRISTENDOM BY THE LABORS OF THAT GREAT SCHOLAR ERASMUS. It is altogether too little known that the real editor of the Received Text was Lucian. None of LUCIAN'S enemies fails to credit him with this work. Neither Lucian nor Erasmus, but rather the apostles, wrote the Greek New Testament. However, LUCIAN'S DAY WAS AN AGE OF APOSTASY WHEN A FLOOD OD DEPRAVATIONS WAS SYSTEMATICALLY ATTEMPTING TO DEVASTATE BOTH THE BIBLE MANUSCRIPTS AND BIBLE THEOLOGY. ORIGEN, of the ALEXANDRIAN COLLEGE (whatever good has come out of Egypt?), made his editions and commentaries of the Bible a secure retreat for all errors, and deformed them with philosophical speculations introducing casuistry and lying. LUCIAN'S UNRIVALED SUCCESS in verifying, safeguarding, and transmitting those divine writings left a heritage for which all generations should be thankful." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThe Bible that you pick up to read and study is of the utmost importance in regards to your Christian walk and proper understanding of doctrine. Like 2nd Timothy tells us "15. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; 18. Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some."If we pick up the Catholic Bible, or the newer versions (NIV, NASB, New King James, etc.) we will find doctrine that has been provided by the Minority Text (Also called the Alexandrian text)that is watered down, doctrine created by Origen. 'Minority Texts' are also known as the Alexandrian Texts because they were produced in Alexandria in Egypt. The Minority Texts were rejected by the early Christians and also by all the Protestant Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Reformers, who were well aware of the existence of the Minority Texts, considered them unfit for translation purposes. These are very important points to bear in mind. Why did the early Christians and the Protestant Reformers reject the Minority Texts? The answer is: •\tThe Minority Texts were the work of unbelieving Egyptian scribes who did not accept the Bible as the Word of God or JESUS as the SON of GOD! •\tThe Minority Texts abound with alterations, often a single manuscript being amended by several different scribes over a period of many years; something the Aaronic priests and Masorites would never have tolerated when making copies of the Scriptures. •\tThe Minority Texts omit approximately 200 verses from the Scriptures. This is equivalent to 1st and 2nd Peter. Pause and consider that stunning fact! •\tThe Minority Texts contradict themselves in hundreds of places. •\tThe Minority Texts are doctrinally weak and often dangerously incorrect. Yet, startling as it may sound, virtually every modern English Bible relies on the Minority Text as its underlying New Testament text in preference to Textus Receptus! Isn't that an amazing revelation? What brought about this almost incredible switch from the reliable Textus Receptus, beloved by the early Christian church and the Protestant Reformers, to the corrupt minority text favoured by the Roman Catholic Church? It is important that you find out soon: because the modern "Bible" you may be faithfully studying every day is really nothing more than a counterfeit posing as the Word of God! If it is any consolation to you, do remember that I was equally in the dark and totally devastated by my findings. Misleading FootnotesModern translations abound with misleading footnotes, which do little else but cast doubt on the King James Version. Examples are: •\tThe Hebrew of this line is obscure. •\tThe meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain - or unknown. •\tOther ancient mss add … •\tOther ancient mss omit… •\tOther ancient mss read … •\tOther ancient mss insert … •\tSome early mss read… •\tThe most ancient authorities omit John 7:53 - 8:11 •\tThe best manuscripts omit this verse. (e.g. Matt.17:21, 18:11, 23:14, Mark 7:16, John 5:4) •\tSome of the most ancient authorities bring the book (Mark) to a close at the end of Mark 16:8 •\tMany mss do not contain the remainder of this verse. (e.g. Acts 8:37) •\tMany ancient authorities read… •\tNot found in most of the old mss.(e.g. John 7:53-8:11) I will not analyse these footnotes, simply because there are scores of them scattered throughout the modern translations and each has a slightly different slant. However, one thing they all have in common: and that is, they ALL cast doubt on the accuracy of the Authorised King James Bible! By implication they all claim to be more accurate and reliable than the King James Version. In the preface of the Revised Standard Version (RSV) we read this misleading statement. "Yet the King James Version has grave defects." Oh how subtle is Satan, how evil and how sinister! The stunning fact is: the very opposite is true. The King James Version is infinitely more accurate and reliable than ANY modern English translation on the market today. And that is why for nearly 400 years it has had - and continues to have - the blessing of the Almighty God upon it: something no modern version or translation can come anywhere near. Most, after a decade or two, disappear from the book shops, only to re-appear some years later with a few alterations under a new name. How did it happen that the Minority Text supplanted the trustworthy and respected Textus Receptus which triggered the great Protestant Reformation during which tens of thousands of true believers perished by flame, famine and torture? Who is behind this dangerous deception that has engulfed the Christian Church? Do you know? Do you care? Is it important? Does it really matter? I most certainly didn't know. But I do believe that it is vitally important that every believer know that Satan is behind it: not any particular Church, its leaders or its members - but the great enemy of souls! He is behind every deception ever aimed at the human race and millions, in and out of the church, believe his lies. xxxxxxxxxxxxxDear Brother and Sister in the Lord--this is of the utmost importance. Time is short, and the days are becoming darker and darker. The False Church-Rome and Catholicism are awaiting the false profit. The problem is, that the Christian Church is asleep, and is reading & studying the equal to the Catholic bible, and is not aware that Christ is coming again, at the rapture, to get His Bride, the Church very soon. many in the Christian body will enter the Tribulation with the false Church, headed by the False Prophet. At the very best they will be Tribulation saints, and at the very worst will take the mark of the beast!Determine this day who you will serve!God bless,Stever

First man chosen by D.L. Moody to teach at Moody's Institute and later take over Moody's Evangelism Crusades when Moody suddenly died. Ten Reasons Why I Believe the Bible is the Word of God.andProfitable Bible StudybyR. A. Torrey(1856-1928) There are many profitable methods of Bible Study. There is something, however, in Bible study more important than the best methods, that is, the fundamental conditions of profitable study. He who meets these conditions will get more out of the Bible, while pursuing the poorest method, than will he who does not meet them, while pursuing the best method. Many a one who is eagerly asking, "What method shall I pursue in my Bible study?" needs something that goes far deeper than a new and better method. 1. The first of the fundamental conditions of the most profitable Bible study is that the student must be born again. The Bible is a spiritual book, it "expresses spiritual truths in spiritual words" (1 Corinthians 2:13), and only a spiritual man can understand its deepest and most characteristic and most precious teachings. "The man without the 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). Spiritual discernment can be obtained in but one way, by being born again. "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). No mere knowledge of the human languages in which the Bible was written, however extensive and accurate it may be, will qualify one to understand and appreciate it. One must understand the divine language in which it was written as well, the language of the Holy Spirit. A person who understands the language of the Holy Spirit, but who does not understand a word of Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic, will get more out of the Bible than one who knows all about Greek and Hebrew and cognate languages, but is not born again, and, consequently, does not understand the language of the Holy Spirit. It is a well-demonstrated fact that many common men and women who are entirely ignorant of any knowledge of the original tongues in which the Bible was written have a knowledge of the real contents of the Bible, its actual teaching, in its depth and fullness and beauty, that surpasses that of many learned professors in theological faculties. One of the greatest follies of the day, is to get unregenerate men to teach the Bible because of their rare knowledge of the human forms of speech in which the book was written. It would be as reasonable to set a man to teach art because he had an accurate technical knowledge of paints. It requires esthetic sense to make a man a competent teacher of art. It requires spiritual sense to make a man a competent teacher of the Bible. The man who has esthetic discernment but little or no technical knowledge of paint would be a far more competent critic of works of art than a man who has a great technical knowledge of paint but no esthetic discernment; and so the man who has no technical knowledge of Greek and Hebrew but has spiritual discernment is a far more competent critic of the Bible than he who has a rare technical knowledge of Greek and Hebrew but no spiritual discernment. It is exceedingly unfortunate that, in some quarters, more emphasis is laid on a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew in training for the ministry than is laid on spiritual life and its consequent spiritual discernment. Unregenerate men should not be forbidden to study the Bible, for the Word of God is the instrument the Holy Spirit uses in the New Birth (1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18); but it should be distinctly understood that, while there are teachings in the Bible that the natural man can understand, and beauties which he can see, its most distinctive and characteristic teachings are beyond his grasp, and its highest beauties belong to a world in which he has no vision. The first fundamental condition of the most profitable Bible study is, then, "You must be born again." You cannot study the Bible to the greatest profit if you have not been born again. Its best treasures are sealed to you. 2. The second condition of the most profitable study is a love for the Bible. A man who eats with an appetite will get far more good out of his meal than one who eats from a sense of duty. It is good when a student of the Bible can say with Job, "I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread" (Job 23:12), or with Jeremiah, "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty" (Jeremiah 15:16). Many come to the table God has spread in His Word with no appetite for spiritual food, and go mincing here and there and grumbling about everything. Spiritual indigestion lies at the bottom of much modern criticism of the Bible. But how can one get a love for the Bible? First of all, by being born again. Where there is life there is likely to be appetite. A dead man never hungers. This brings us back to the first condition. But going beyond this, the more there is of vitality, the more there is of hunger. Abounding life means abounding hunger for the Word. Study of the Word stimulates love for the Word. The author can well remember the time when he had more appetite for books about the Bible than he had for the Bible itself, but with increasing study there has come increasing love for the Book. Bearing in mind who the author of the Book is, what its purpose is, what its power is, what the riches of its contents are, will go far toward stimulating love and appetite for the Book. 3. The third condition is willingness to do hard work. Solomon has given a graphic picture of the Bible student who gets the most profit out of his study, "My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:1-5). Now, seeking for silver and searching for hidden treasure means hard work, and he who wishes to get not only the silver but the gold as well out of the Bible, and find its "hidden treasure," must make up his mind to dig. It is not glancing at the Word, or reading the Word, but studying the Word, meditating on the Word, pondering the Word, that brings the richest yields. The reason why many get so little out of their Bible reading is simply because they are not willing to think. Intellectual laziness lies at the bottom of a large percent of fruitless Bible reading. People are constantly crying for new methods of Bible study, but what many of them wish is simply some method of Bible study by which they can get all the good out of the Bible without work. If someone could tell lazy Christians some method of Bible study whereby they could put the sleepiest ten minutes of the day, just before they go to bed, into Bible study, and get the profit out of it that God intends His children shall get out of the study of His Word, that would be just what they desire. But it can't be done. Men must be willing to work, and work hard, if they wish to dig out the treasures of infinite wisdom and knowledge and blessing which God has stored up in His Word. A business friend once asked me in a hurried call to tell him "in a word" how to study his Bible. I replied, "Think." The Psalmist pronounces that man "blessed" whose "delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2). The Lord commanded Joshua to meditate on it day and night, and assured him that as a result of this meditation, "you will be prosperous and successful" (Joshua 1:8). Of Mary, the mother of Jesus, we read, "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). In this way alone can one study the Bible to the greatest profit. One pound of beef well chewed and digested and assimilated will give more strength than tons of beef merely glanced at; and one verse of Scripture chewed and digested and assimilated will give more strength than whole chapters simply skimmed. Weigh every word you read in the Bible. Look at it. Turn it over and over. The most familiar passages get a new meaning in this way. Spend fifteen minutes on each word in Psalm 23:1 ("The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want."), or Philippians 4:19 ("My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."), and see if it is not so. 4. The fourth condition is a will wholly surrendered to God. Jesus said, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:17). A surrendered will gives that clearness of spiritual vision which is necessary to understand God's Book. Many of the difficulties and obscurities of the Bible rise wholly from the fact that the will of the student is not surrendered to the will of the author of the Book. It is remarkable how clear and simple and beautiful passages that once puzzled us become when we are brought to that place where we say to God, "I surrender my will unconditionally to You. I have no will but Yours. Teach me Your will." A surrendered will will do more to make the Bible an open book than a university education. It is simply impossible to get the largest profit out of your Bible study until you do surrender your will to God. You must be very definite about this. There are many who say, "Oh, yes, my will, I think, is surrendered to God," and yet it is not. They have never gotten alone with God and said intelligently and definitely to him, "O God, I here and now give myself up to You, for You to command me, and lead me, and shape me, and send me, and do with me, absolutely as You will." Such an act is a wonderful key to unlock the treasure house of God's Word. The Bible becomes a new book when a man does that. Doing that brought a complete transformation in the author's theology and life and ministry. 5. The fifth condition is very closely related to the fourth. The student of the Bible who would get the greatest profit out of his studies must be obedient to its teachings as soon as he sees them. It was good advice James gave to early Christians, and to us, "Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (James 1:22). There are a good many who consider themselves Bible students who are deceiving themselves in this way today. They see what the Bible teaches, but they do not follow it, and they soon lose their power to see it. Truth obeyed leads to more truth. Truth disobeyed destroys the capacity for discovering truth. There must be not only a general surrender of the will, but specific, practical obedience to each new Word of God discovered. There is no place where the law, "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him," is more gloriously certain on the one hand and more sternly unavoidable on the other than in the matter of using or refusing the truth revealed in the Bible. Use, and you get more; refuse, and you lose all. Do not study the Bible for the mere gratification of intellectual curiosity, but to find out how to live and please God. Whatever duty you find commanded in the Bible, do it at once. Whatever good you see in any Bible character, imitate it immediately. Whatever mistake you note in the actions of Bible men and women, scrutinize your own life to see if you are making the same mistake, and if you find you are, correct it immediately. James compares the Bible to a mirror (James 1:23, 24). The chief good of a mirror is to show you if there is anything out of order about you; if you find there is, you can set it right. Use the Bible in that way. Obeying the truth you already see will solve the mysteries in the verses you do not yet understand. Disobeying the truth you see darkens the whole world of truth. This is the secret of much of the skepticism and error of the day. Men see the truth, but do not follow it--then it is gone. I knew a bright and promising young minister. He made rapid advancement in the truth. He took very advanced ground on one point especially, and the storm came. One day he said to his wife, "It is very nice to believe this, but we need not speak too much about it." They began, or he, at least, to hide their testimony. The wife died and he drifted. The Bible became to him a sealed book. Faith reeled. He publicly renounced his faith in some of the fundamental truths of the Bible. He seemed to lose his grip even on the doctrine of immortality. What was the cause of it all? Truth not lived and stood for flees. Today that man is much admired and applauded by some, but daylight has given place to darkness in his soul. 6. The sixth condition is a childlike mind. God reveals His deepest truths to babes. No age needs more than our own to lay to heart the words of Jesus, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children" (Matthew 11:25). We must be babes if God is to reveal His truth to us, and we are to understand His Word. A child is not full of its own wisdom. It recognizes its ignorance and is ready to be taught. It does not oppose the ideas of its teachers to those of its own. It is in that spirit we should come to the Bible if we are to get the most profit out of our study. Do not come to the Bible full of your own ideas, and seeking from it a confirmation of them. Come rather to find out what are God's ideas as He has revealed them there. Come not to find a confirmation of your own opinion, but to be taught what God may be pleased to teach. If a man comes to the Bible just to find his ideas taught there, he will find them; but if he comes recognizing his own ignorance, just as a little child to be taught, he will find something infinitely better than his own ideas, even the mind of God. We see why it is that many persons cannot see things which are plainly taught in the Bible. The doctrine taught is not their idea, of which they are so full that there is no room left for that which the Bible actually teaches. We have an illustration of this in the apostles themselves at one stage in their training. In Mark 9:31, we read, "He was teaching his disciples. He said to them, 'The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.'" Now, that is as plain and definite as language can make it, but it was utterly contrary to the ideas of the apostles as to what was to happen to the Christ. So we read in the next verse, "But they did not understand what he meant." Isn't that amazing? But is it any more amazing than our own inability to comprehend plain statements in the Bible when they run counter to our preconceived ideas? Problems many Christians find with portions of the Sermon on the Mount would be plain enough if we just came to Christ like a child to be taught what to believe and do, rather than coming as full-grown men who already know it all, and who must find some interpretations of Christ's words that will fit into our mature and infallible philosophy. Many a man is so full of an unbiblical theology he has been taught that it takes him a lifetime to get rid of it and understand the clear teaching of the Bible. "Oh, what can this verse mean?" many a bewildered man cries. Why, it means what it plainly says; but what you are after is not the meaning God has manifestly put into it, but the meaning you can by some ingenious trick of exegesis twist out of it and make it fit into your scheme. Don't come to the Bible to find out what you can make it mean, but to find out what God intended it to mean. Men often miss the real truth of a verse by saying, "But that can be interpreted this way." Oh, yes, so it can, but is that the way God intended it to be interpreted? We all need to pray often if we would get the most profit out of our Bible study, "Oh, God, make me a little child. Empty me of my own ideas. Teach me Your own mind. Make me ready like a little child to receive all that You have to say, no matter how contrary it is to what I have thought before." How the Bible opens up to one who approaches it in that way! How it closes up to the wise fool, who thinks he knows everything, and imagines he can give points to Peter and Paul, and even to Jesus Christ and to God Himself! Someone has well said the best method of Bible study is "the baby method." I was once talking with a minister friend about what seemed to be the clear teaching of a certain passage. "Yes," he replied, "but that doesn't agree with my philosophy." This man was sincere, yet he did not have the childlike spirit, which is an essential condition of the most profitable Bible study. But there are many who approach the Bible in the same way. It is a great point gained in Bible study when we are brought to realize that an infinite God knows more than we, that, indeed, our highest wisdom is less than the knowledge of the most ignorant babe compared with His. But we so easily and so constantly forget this that every time we open our Bibles we would do well to get down humbly before God and say, "Father, I am but a child, teach me." 7. The seventh condition of studying the Bible to the greatest profit is that we study it as the Word of God. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Church of the Thessalonians, thanked God without ceasing that when they received the Word of God they "accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the Word of God" (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Well might he thank God for that, and well may we thank God when we get to the place where we receive the Word of God as the Word of God. Not that one who does not believe the Bible is the Word of God should be discouraged from studying it. Indeed, one of the best things that one who does not believe that the Bible is the Word of God can do, if he is honest, is to study it. The author of this book once doubted utterly that the Bible was the Word of God, and the firm confidence that he has today that the Bible is the Word of God has come more from the study of the Book itself than from anything else. Those who doubt it are more usually those who study about the Book, than those who dig into the actual teachings of the Book itself. But while the best book of Christian evidences is the Bible, and while the most utter skeptic should be encouraged to study it, we will not get the largest measure of profit out of that study until we reach the point where we become convinced that the Bible is God's Word, and when we study it as such. There is a great difference between believing theoretically that the Bible is God's Word and studying it as God's Word. Thousands would tell you that they believe the Bible is God's Word who do not study it as God's Word. Studying the Bible as the Word of God involves four things. (1) First, it involves the unquestioning acceptance of its teachings when definitely ascertained, even when they may appear unreasonable or impossible. Reason demands that we submit our judgment and reasonings to the statements of infinite wisdom. There is nothing more irrational than rationalism, which makes the finite wisdom the test of infinite wisdom, and submits the teachings of God's omniscience to the approval of man's judgment. It is the sublimest and absurdest conceit that says, "This cannot be true, though God says it, for it does not agree with my reason." "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" (Romans 9:20). Real human wisdom, when it finds infinite wisdom, bows before it and says, "Speak what You will and I will believe." When we have once become convinced that the Bible is God's Word its teachings must be the end of all controversy and discussion. A "thus says the Lord" will settle every question. Yet there are many who profess to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and if you show them what the Bible clearly teaches on some disputed point, they will shake their heads and say, "Yes, but I think so and so," or "Doctor -----, or Professor this, our church doesn't teach that way." There is little profit in that sort of Bible study. (2) Studying the Bible as the Word of God involves, in the second place, absolute reliance on all its promises in all their length and breadth. He who studies the Bible as the Word of God will not discount any one of its promises one iota. He who studies the Bible as the Word of God will say, "God, who cannot lie, has promised," and will not attempt to make God a liar by trying to make one of His promises mean less than it says. He who studies the Bible as the Word of God will be on the lookout for promises, and as soon as he finds one he will seek to ascertain just what it means, and as soon as he discovers what it means, he will step right out on that promise and risk everything on its full meaning. That is one of the secrets of profitable Bible study. Search for promises and appropriate them as fast as you find them, which is done by meeting the conditions and risking all on them. That is the way to make your own all the fullness of blessing God has for you. This is the key to all the treasures of God's grace. Happy is the man who has so learned to study the Bible as God's Word that he is ready to claim for himself every new promise as it appears, and to risk everything on it. (3) Studying the Bible as the Word of God involves, in the third place, obedience--prompt, exact obedience, without asking any questions to its every precept. Obedience may seem hard, it may seem impossible, but God has commanded it and I have nothing to do but to obey and leave the results with God. If you would get the very most profit out of your Bible study resolve that from this time you will claim every clear promise and obey every plain command, and that as to the promises and commands whose intent is not yet clear you will try to get their meaning made clear. (4) Studying the Bible as the Word of God involves, in the fourth place, studying it in God's presence. When you read a verse of Scripture hear the voice of the living God speaking directly to you in these written words. There is new power and attractiveness in the Bible when you have learned to hear a living, present Person, God our Father, Himself talking directly to you in these words. One of the most fascinating and inspiring statements in the Bible is, "Enoch walked with God" (Genesis 5:24). We can have God's glorious companionship any moment we please by simply opening His Word and letting the living and ever-present God speak to us through it. With what holy awe and strange and unutterable joy one studies the Bible if he studies it in this way! It is heaven come down to earth. 8. The eighth and last condition of the most profitable Bible study is prayerfulness. The Psalmist prayed, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law" (Psalm 119:18). Every one who desires to get the greatest profit out of his Bible study needs to offer that or a similar prayer every time he undertakes the study of the Word. Few keys open so many strong boxes that contain hidden treasure as prayer. Few clues unravel so many difficulties. Few microscopes will disclose so many beauties hidden from the eye of the ordinary observer. What new light often shines from an old familiar text as you bend over it in prayer! I believe in studying the Bible a good deal on your knees. When one reads an entire book through on his knees--and this is easily done--that book has a new meaning and becomes a new book. One ought never to open the Bible to read it without at least lifting the heart to God in silent prayer that He will interpret it, illumine its pages by the light of His Spirit. It is a rare privilege to study any book under the immediate guidance and instruction of its author, and this is the privilege of us all in studying the Bible. When one comes to a passage that is difficult to understand or difficult to interpret, instead of giving it up, or rushing to some learned friend, or to some commentary, he should lay that passage before God, and ask Him to explain it to him, pleading God's promise, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt" (James 1:5-6). It is simply wonderful how the seemingly most difficult passages become plain by this treatment. Harry Morehouse, one of the most remarkable Bible scholars among unlearned men, used to say that whenever he came to a passage in the Bible which he could not understand, he would search through the Bible for some other passage that threw light on it, and lay it before God in prayer, and that he had never found a passage that did not yield to this treatment. The author of this book has had a quite similar experience. Some years ago, accompanied by a friend, I was making a tour of Franconian Switzerland, and visiting some of the more famous zoolithic caves. One day a rural letter carrier stopped us and asked if we would like to see a cave of rare beauty and interest, away from the beaten tracks of travel. Of course, we said, yes. He led us through the woods and underbrush to the mouth of the cave, and we entered. All was dark and uncanny. He discussed greatly on the beauty of the cave, telling us of altars and fantastic formations, but we could see absolutely nothing. Now and then lie uttered a note to warn us to have a care, as near our feet lay a gulf the bottom of which had never been discovered. We began to fear that we might be the first discoverers of the bottom. There was nothing pleasant about the whole affair. But as soon as a magnesium taper was lighted, all became different. There were the stalagmites rising from the floor to meet the stalactites as they came down from the ceiling. There were the beautiful and fantastic formations on every hand, and all glistening in fairy like beauty in the brilliant light. So I have often thought it was with many a passage of Scripture. Others tell you of its beauty, but you cannot see it. It looks dark and intricate and forbidding and dangerous, but when God's own light is kindled there by prayer how different all becomes in an instant. You see a beauty that language cannot express, and that only those can appreciate who have stood there in the same light. He who would understand and love his Bible must be much in prayer. Prayer will do more than a college education to make the Bible an open and a glorious book. Perhaps the best lesson I learned in a German university, where I had the privilege of receiving the instruction of one of the most noted and most gifted Bible teachers of any age, was that which came through the statement of one who knew him that Professor Dehtzsch worked out much of his teaching on his knees. http://www.freewebs.com/ratorrey/ or Go to the Bible. comEdit: Thank you Chris. There are enough version threads. I read all of those threads also. Thanks Stever !

ccchhhrrriiisss wrote:Hi Stever...I think that MeAgain meant to use this thread as a means of reprinting sections of relevant articles as she feels led.

If we are looking for correct Doctrine, we need go no farther than the Old King James Bible. If we are looking for false Doctrine, The Cathoic Bible, as well as all of the newer versions of the Christian Bible will suffice, even the "New King James" qualifies as false doctrine as well!Again, I have trouble with such comments being printed as fact -- when they are simply slanderous assumptions and opinions. But for the sake of the purpose of this particular thread, please try to keep all of your KJV-only rhetoric to one of the many, many threads about the KJV. ................... :-)

Warren to speak at Azusa Street Extravaganza in L A It is amazing that Rick Warren has been invited to speak at the big Azusa celebration. This celebration is about what happened at Azusa Street which was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. Acts 2:4. As a Baptist preacher, Rick Warren does not believe in this experience and is against it. In his Purpose Driven Life book on pg. 250 he openly says, "There are NO DEFINITIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS in the Bible, so any definitions are arbitrary and usually represent a denominational bias." How can someone have a Doctorate in Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary, or even anyone who has ever read the Bible say such an outrageous thing contradicting scriptures. Does he think that know one reads the Bible? The Bible DEFINES THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS in 1 Cor. 12:1-11. "Now CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Now there are DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS, but the same Spirit." "For to one is given by the Spirit THE WORD OF WISDOM; to another THE WORD OF KNOWLEDGE by the same Spirit. To another FAITH by the same Spirit; to another THE GIFTS OF HEALING by the same Spirit; To another THE WORKING OF MIRACLES; to another PROPHECY; to another DISCERNING OF SPIRITS; to another PROPHECY; to another DISCERNING OF SPIRITS; to another DIVERS KINDS OF TONGUES; to another THE INTERPRETATION OF TONGUES: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will." Why would Pentecostals invite a man with such contrary beliefs to be a keynote speaker at such a meeting? It is apparent that both sides are using each other. It appears that what happened at Azusa Street is not really the main purpose of this large gathering; otherwise, why would they invite Rick Warren who does not even believe in speaking in other tongues and does not believe that the Bible defines as the Gifts of the Spirit be a speaker there? It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is going on here. This is an unholy political coalition between the Pentecostals and non-pentecostals in attempt at uniting Christianity in their unholy, unscriptural coalition. Both sides are using each other to gain influence and power over Christians. They are using Azusa Street to achieve their political agenda. This whole meeting is a pretense and is spiritual harlotry. Loren Davis www.lorendavis.comQuote Rick Warren: "The P.E.A.C.E. Plan will be a "revolution" for global Christianity, Warren told the congregation.I stand before you confidently right now and say to you that God is going to use you to change the world," Warren said. "Some will say, 'That's impossible,' but I heard that line 25 years ago, and God took seven people and started Saddleback Church. Now we have a new vision and a whole lot more people to start with."See: http://www.peace.ca/vowunesco.htm "Warren... unveiled the church’s commitment to a new reformation in Christianity and vision for a worldwide spiritual awakening in the 21st Century through the PEACE Plan that he believes will mobilize one billion foot soldiers ... by the year 2020."[1] "The last thing many believers need today is to go to another Bible study. They already know far more than they are putting into practice. What they need are serving experiences...."[2] Rick Warren, Purpose Driven Life "'The P.E.A.C.E. plan will be a ‘revolution’ for global Christianity.... I’m looking at a stadium full of people who are telling God they will do whatever it takes to establish God’s Kingdom ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’"[3] Rick Warren As you saw in Part 2 of this series, Rick Warren's PEACE Plan fits right into the global march toward social solidarity. The widening web of communitarian systems envisioned by Peter Drucker (Warren's mentor) is now embraced by pastors, politicians, rulers, and community leaders around the world. Like Pastor Warren, they all seem to agree that the rising global welfare system requires a worldwide army of "volunteer" servers."[4] It makes sense! In September 2005, Pastor Warren was invited to speak at the United Nations and at the Council of Foreign Relations -- two powerful organizations determined to unify the world under a new set of social rules and systemic controls.[5] Both pursue a peaceful transformation that would stifle the "divisive" truths of the gospel and conform Christian beliefs to UNESCO's Declaration on the Role of Religion. Both recognize the need to draw churches into their worldwide network of partners and servers.[6] Both realize that Rick Warren -- a most magnetic Pied Piper for their transformational agenda -- can serve their grandiose purposes well. http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/peace-un-3.htm

What To Do About The False Teacher, Prophet or Anti-Christ Next Door:The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue [is] but for a moment. – Proverbs 12:19by Cassandrah Batya, April 15, 2006Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.- Matthew 7:13 – 23The most disheartening aspect of what is happening to The Christian Church is the celebration of those within who are really enemies of The Cross or The Gospel of Christ. Many of these false teachers, prophets and anti-christs never reach celebrity status. The enemy, Satan, is contented to have them do his destructive bidding on a smaller and more personal spiritual scale. Our weaker, less biblically discerned Christian brothers and sisters are often left confused about what to do with “acquaintances” who are false teachers, prophets or anti-christs.What I say when fellow Christians seek my advice is this:“Ask the person to support what he or she is saying with specific biblical verses. You should always speak biblical truth and be prepared to give out specific Bible verses to support what you are saying. If the person rejects the truth of the Bible, walk away, pray for that person and leave him or her in The Hands of God. The Bible instructs us to identify false teachers, prophets and anti-christs and then avoid them.”Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.- Romans 16:17Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.- 2 Timothy 3:5Whosoever 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 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 deeds.- 2 John 1:9-11If 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.- 1 Timothy 6:3 - 5A Christian, who is young or weak in spirit, makes the mistake of arguing his or her point with the dream that the other person will eventually say, “You won.” The enemy loves this, the more chaos, the better. Arguments not only leave the believer upset and bewildered, but those who witness such events are left confused with doubts regarding what is true Christianity. The enemy’s goal is to discredit The Word of God by any [and all] means necessary. But our God is not a God of confusion.For God is not [the author] of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.- I Corinthians 14:33But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.- Titus 3:9-11He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked [man getteth] himself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.- Proverbs 9:7 - 8When Our Lord Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan, He did not argue with him. Jesus quoted Scripture. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in [their] hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.- Matthew 4:1 - 11When Michael the archangel contended with the enemy over the body of Moses, he said, “The Lord rebukes thee.” He did not argue with him.Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.- Jude 1:9A Christian shouldn’t look for common religious ground with an enemy of Christ with the hopes that a friendship will lead the person to Christ. Compromise is not an option. Christians should not agree to any activity which is not founded on sound biblical doctrine, even if the goal is to get the other person to participate in a Christian activity. A Christian should not maintain, nor pursue a friendship or relationship with a heretic. A heretic is anyone one who supports doctrine that contradicts The Word of God, The Holy Bible.All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:2 Timothy 3:16Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.- Proverbs 17:12Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in [them]; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.- 2 Corinthians 6: 14 – 18Our mission as Christians is to present and spread The Gospel of Christ in words and deeds. The Bible never instructs Christians to argue over biblical doctrine or compromise the Christian faith. The Bible itself does not even argue the point that God is The Creator, it simply states, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1You cannot argue someone into accepting Christ. God gives each of us free will. If anyone rejects any portion of the Bible, he or she is rejecting The Word of God, therefore Christ. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has not only forewarned of the consequence for those who reject His Gospel, but how we as Christians are to respond to them:And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.- Luke 9:5And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.- Matthew 10:14And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.- Mark 6:11God has equipped every Christian with everything he or she needs to combat the fiery darts of the enemy. Everything a Christian needs to know is in the Bible. But each of us must study it and grow strong in The Word of God. An in-depth knowledge of the Bible, including memorized verses, is invaluable in the battle against false teachers, prophets or anti-christs.For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.- Hebrew 4:12http://achristianjourney.blogs.com/achristianjourney/

These are excerpts from just two of the many books offered on the site below.I pray you can glean strength for the battle in these and in further searches on the writings of this man. The Battle For Lifeby T. Austin-Sparks We are seeking to take a further step in the apprehension of what is related to this great and pressing matter, and are going to deal with the continuation of the conflict, with reference to its nature and its sphere.We speak in the first place about the individual believer. We must remember that this life of the risen Lord, as linked with the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of life, resides in the very deepest part of our being, in our spirit, or in what the New Testament calls "the inner man". Therefore the most spiritual people will find that the conflict of life rages around and upon their spirit. There is a direct assault upon their spirit in order to get their spirit weakened, shut in and pressed down, so that somewhere in the depths of their being they feel that they are unable to breathe, so to speak. They cannot actually locate it, but they are conscious that right within there is a locking up, a pressing, a hemming in, a suffocating of spirit. One of two things will result. Either their spirit will be pressed out under this weight of spiritual death, and they will go under; or else they will have to call earnestly upon the Lord that they may be strengthened with might by His Spirit into the inward man, and then exercise faith on the ground of their prayer and seek to assert their spirit against this thing.I am going to say something which may, to some, sound very terrible. It may perplex some, but it may help others. It is this: it is possible for a true child or servant of God, living in true fellowship with Him and walking in the light as far as they have it, to pass through a time of deep and terrible darkness. At such a time it may seem as though the Lord has left them and that Satan has taken His place of government. Prayer seems impossible or useless, and the Bible closed. Evil seems triumphant. The promises of God never to leave nor in anywise to forsake seem to have failed. Things may seem to be even worse than that, and one's salvation may be brought into question. Such has been the experience of some of the most saintly, devoted, and God-used servants of the Lord. Abraham had it (Genesis 15:12). Jeremiah knew it (Jeremiah 20:7). David knew it (Psalm 22). Job knew it. Our Lord Jesus knew it (Matthew 27:46). Dr. A. B. Simpson had this experience near the end of his wonderful life for God. And so it has been with others.What is the explanation? With all my heart I do not believe that this seeming forsakenness is true, however real it may seem. In many cases it is because those concerned have done so much damage to the kingdom of Satan that he has rallied all his forces to quench their life and testimony. Or it may be that the enemy has discerned the potential value of a life which will be a menace to his interests. But, whether either of these explanations be true or not so, the fact remains that, where the Lord Jesus truly is, the battle for life often assumes most serious forms. Sometimes it is a devastating and desolating experience.We need to remember that these are spiritual forces, and spiritual forces stand at no physical barriers. We have a soul, a great nervous system. Children of God for many reasons, and very often after a time of pouring out spiritually, will find their nerves are all a jangle, and they feel anything but good and holy. But are you going to say that that means that after all they are not children of God, and that it is all a myth? Do you mean to say that Elijah was no longer the prophet of the Most High when he cast himself under the juniper tree and asked the Lord to take away his life? He was still the servant of God, still as true to God as ever. We are not trying to excuse our weaknesses, but trying to get to the heart of a situation. That does not argue that the Lord has forsaken, that the Lord is not there, and that such are not the Lord's children or His servants. It indicates that the enemy has made them marked men or women because of something he is trying to destroy in the life. If you get into that realm, do not accept the suggestions of the enemy or seek to interpret things in the light of circumstances.If you do not understand this that we are saying, do not strive after an explanation, and please do not put your own construction upon it. There are some who know what it is to have such an assault upon their being, their physical and nervous life as to make them feel that they are lost. I do not believe that it means that they are lost, and it is because some people accept that suggestion from the tempter that they sink into darkness. Oh, that many of these people who feel this thing upon them could know what we are trying to say, that it is for the spirit to rise up in faith and refuse the argument of the seeming! The seeming is sometimes so terribly real. People who have not suffered sometimes say to us: 'It only seems to be so; it is not really so!' And we reply: 'You do not know what you are talking about! It is more real than anything else to those concerned.' But the Lord will teach us as we go on not to accept that as the final thing. There is something deeper than that. The Lord is deeper than our physical feelings. The Lord is deeper than our soul.Let me say here what I have said elsewhere. There are times and situations when ordinary lines of communication with a child of God are suspended. They are in a state of unconsciousness. It is useless to speak to them, for they can make no response. But if you pray, so often there is a response, not in words, but deeper than natural consciousness. You touch something deeper; it is the spirit, and spirit responds to spirit. We have known this to happen, even to the point of a hand-squeeze, or a facial glow. It is the mystery of Divine life.Called Unto the Fellowship of His Sonby T. Austin-Sparks I want to bring just three fragments of Scripture together as basic or background to what I feel the Lord wants to say to us this morning. In the prophecies of Isaiah, turn to chapter 6, verse 1: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord." I want to take that last fragment, "I saw the Lord." Then, in the Letter of Paul to the Galatians, let us turn to chapter 1 in verses 15 and 16 and see this clause: "it pleased God, to reveal His Son in me." And then in the Book of the Acts, chapter 26, verse 19, Paul says: "Wherefore, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." I saw the Lord, it pleased God, to reveal His Son in me, and I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. We are getting very near to the end of this time together, and those of us who have had responsibility in ministry are asking the question, "I wonder what the people have seen this week?" What have they really seen, and what are they taking away in them? What have they seen with "the seeing" about which the Bible, and especially the New Testament, has so much to say. I am not so much concerned, dear friends, with addressing you. You know the difference between being addressed and being talked to. I want to talk to you, and I want to talk to you about this matter of spiritual seeing. I am quite sure that even a small gathering like this one represents different degrees of spiritual seeing. Whether it be the early beginning of seeing, or whether it be the most advanced that a company like this may represent, this matter of spiritual seeing is the most governing thing in all life. I think you will agree with me that although we think of our time as being perhaps more important than any other time, that is, we think that things have advanced in our time to such a degree as they never were like this before, there have always been times (if this is a time when things have become more developed and advanced), there have always been times when this matter of spiritual seeing was the only hope of the situation. We are in a time of unspeakable confusion in Christianity. It is in the world, of course, but we are not at the moment concerned with the confusion in the world. We know about that, but in Christendom I think that there never was such a degree of confusion as there is today. There is such bewilderment and almost countless, strange, perplexing developments in Christianity. There is a defeating and defying of every attempt to either explain or cope with them - to understand what they mean. We have found it here this week - a tremendous amount of confusion. You would not believe what comes from personal conversation. There are questions, endless questions. From the moment you begin to speak and finish your first word, people are asking questions. There are questions about this and that and another thing and all the things that are going on; and even if you have not had their questions, you know quite well that the atmosphere is full of this intrameeting, intrahearing of, intraseeing. There are these questions concerning the things that are going on amongst Christians. This is true, is it not? And the one great paramount necessity is spiritual sight. Shall I use another word, a New Testament word, spiritual discernment. This was so at the end of the apostolic age. The Letters of John are written because of this confusion and the defeat of the Christian mind to be able to comprehend, understand, define, or explain what was going on. John is saying that there are many antichrists - many antichrists - many false spirits, and many false prophets gone into the earth. The situation was developing then as it has developed so much more in our time. John made it his business in writing his letters to try and indicate to these Christians in their perplexity, the way (the only way) in which they were going to be able to get through all this perplexity without becoming involved, defeated, and led away, led astray. You know, multitudes of dear Christian people today are just being led away, and I think led astray, by the things that are happening, strange things. It is as in the days of David when his treacherous son, Absalom, rose up to capture the throne and the kingdom. He sat in the gate, and he resorted to all the make-up, polled his wonderful hair and I do not know what else he did to attract attention to himself; and then he put on artificial smiles and words and language, and it says that he captured, led away, the simple people - the simple, the poor simpletons of that day - with disastrous consequences. That was the method, and even Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Very often, unless you have discernment, you cannot tell the difference between various things. Surely, in these days, the great need of the Lord's people is spiritual discernment, spiritual perception, or what I am speaking of as spiritual sight. Now, you come to this Apostle Paul, and, as we have said, you explain and account for everything in that man as God's servant, as the greatest of His apostles, you account for everything on this one thing as he did, "It pleased God, to reveal His Son in me." He could say, "I saw the Lord." Everything stems from that kind of seeing, an inward revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul had the revelation of Jesus Christ in his heart, and that was his support, his confidence, his strength. That carried him on and carried him through and carried him on to us. No, dear friends, it is not the doctrine of the Person of Christ: it is the revelation of Jesus Christ inside, inside! Now let us come back to two of the passages which we have quoted. In Acts 26, the Apostle Paul is reviewing the whole of his Christian life and ministry. It only lasted thirty years - thirty years of Christian life, experience and ministry - but what a thirty years. Thirty years not exhausted in two thousand, and we have not got to the bottom of him yet. We have not exhausted him yet. But here, he is reviewing those thirty years since the Lord apprehended him unto the day that he was standing in the presence of the Roman governors. He is reviewing the thirty years and all that he had learned, all that he had been shown and taught, all that he had come into since he came into Christ, all that the Lord had given him to give unto others. How great! How full it all was in a span of thirty years. Why, some of us have been Christians a good bit more than that, and we have not got a fragment of what he had. But here, he is reviewing it all, and he is attributing the whole thing to one thing. What happened to him? There was a tremendous revolution that took place right there on the Damascus road, with all that opened up to him at that time, all that began to break upon him and has been breaking on him ever since, the ever growing expansion of Divine revelation. All the traveling and ministry that has been done, he is attributing it all to one thing - to one thing - "It pleased God, to reveal His Son in me." It does not say just to me: it was not just the objective thing on the road to Damascus. You think about that! "I saw a light from Heaven, above the brightness of the sun." That is the objective. But when he is speaking about it in the light of what issued from it, what began then and has continued and grown and grown, he does not say it was that "God revealed His Son to me." In essence he says, "Something was done in me. On that day, He started something which has resulted in all this" - "It pleased God, to reveal His Son in me." - When you think of what you have in the Bible throughout, you see it is the result of the same kind of thing. What do we have from Abraham? "The God of Glory appeared unto our father Abraham." Abraham could say at the beginning of his career, his course, his history, at the beginning and with his going on and growing until his seed was as the sand of the seashore and the stars of the heavens, he could say that at the beginning of this immense thing, "I SAW THE LORD. You ask me how I came into this. You ask me for the explanation of my life, my history, my knowledge at the beginning, I SAW THE LORD." So did Moses. It says that Moses went up into the mount and "saw the God of Israel" and the Glory; and under his feet it was as "a sapphire stone." "I saw the Lord": that accounted for Moses. "...he endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible." A tremendous life, that of Moses. The principle beneath and behind and over it all was that he "saw the Lord."Thus, we can go on through the Old Testament and come to the Prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel begins with, "I saw visions of God." I SAW, and so everything in Ezekiel as a representative prophet is "I saw the Lord." Isaiah, you have read it: "I saw the Lord." And so you can go on because the very name " "prophets" was "seers." Seers were men who saw, the seers of Israel, the men who were the eyes of Israel. They were the SEEING for Israel, and that explains all the prophets. Now we come over into the New Testament. For some time, the greater part of three years and perhaps a little more, there were men in company with Jesus of Nazareth, physically in company with Him. They were at His side, hearing Him, seeing Him walk, and feeling His influence, that magnetic influence of His; and yet, they were not seeing Him. See how near you can get, how much there can be; and yet, there not be a seeing of Him?! You can go to Palestine today, if you like, you can go to Israel and see it all and not see Him (I do not mean physically). But the disciples were with Him, and they did not see Him until after His resurrection. Then there is a new note, a new excitant note, when you hear them after His resurrection meeting others of their company. "We have seen the Lord. We have seen the Lord." There is something here that was not there all that time before, and that accounted for everything afterward. Now, you come to this Apostle Paul, and, as we have said, you explain and account for everything in that man as God's servant, as the greatest of His apostles, you account for everything on this one thing as he did, "It pleased God, to reveal His Son in me." He could say, "I saw the Lord." Everything stems from that kind of seeing, an inward revelation of Jesus Christ. When the apostle said this, that it pleased God, to reveal His Son in him, he was implying that up to that time he was blind. Oh, yes, he had inherited what? He inherited not only nature's blindness, for by nature all men are blind in this sense that they do not have spiritual sight, but he had inherited the curse which Isaiah was commanded to pronounce upon his race. "Go to this people and say to them, seeing you shall not see, hearing you shall not understand: make this people's eyes closed, ears stopped," and Saul of Tarsus had inherited that. "Blindness," he later said, "has happened to Israel." He was a great Israelite - so blind. He was content with his blindness as was Nicodemus; and then the Lord said, "except, except, except something happen to you which gives you an entirely new constitution, with a new faculty of seeing, you shall not see - you shall not see - and you cannot see the kingdom."That is where Saul of Tarsus was. Let the force of that come to us because we are in a conference, dear friends, where we have had a lot of Bible teaching. From day to day a lot from the Bible has been presented. A lot of doctrine - I do not know how much theology, but I suppose it may be that some of you are going away with your hands fuller of Bible knowledge than when you came. Well, you will never, never beat Saul of Tarsus on that line. You can never catch up with him on that line, and you will never, never measure up to Nicodemus on that ground. "Art thou a teacher in Israel." A TEACHER IN ISRAEL - if you knew what it required to produce a teacher in Israel - a rabbi was in training from infancy, and how thorough-going that training was in the Old Testament. Well, you say, one had to go a long way in the religious education and a long way in the knowledge of the Bible, the Scriptures; but when you have got there with Nicodemus, Saul of Tarsus, who was a rabbi, and many others of the same class and category, when you have got there, you are still blind - blind, as we say, as bats. What I am saying is that we must get to this business of spiritual faculty before we finish this conference. We really must face the issue that we have had a lot of Bible teaching. We have had a lot here, and perhaps you have had a lot of it for years. How much of this teaching is in the line of "God has revealed His Son in me?!" Not, "I have got Bible knowledge from the Bible or from the schools or in any way that I have read or heard", but in isolating myself from all that and from all others we should be able to say, 'I am a man, I am a woman, in whom God has revealed by Divine Act, a supernatural act, has revealed His Son in me.' So the day came - yes, The Day came and I have to say that He revealed that in me. What happened? What happened? I shut myself in my room, and I said, "I am finished with the ministry, finished with preaching, finished with teaching. I am finished." I told the Lord that, and I said, "Lord, unless you do something in me that you have never done before, I am not going on." Something happened to bring me there. There was something in the pulpit, in the Bible class, and in the Bible school. You can guess that something terrific must have happened. What did it result in? Well, you see, I was the minister of a church, and I was paid a salary to preach and to teach; and whether I had a message from God or not, I had to get one and get one up, and make it up every so often, week by week in order to draw my salary. The crisis came: "I will never preach again. No one will ever get me to preach again, for money or anything else unless I have got a Word from God. I resign this professional business all together and will never appear on a platform or in a pulpit unless there has come a Word from heaven into my heart." I meant it, and I took action on that ground. God also took action on that ground - from that day on, over forty-five years ago, I have never had to find the straw for the bricks, I have had what I call my "open heaven." http://www.austin-sparks.net/enter.html

Pastorfrin, I had been praying that day, and this was so strange how it happened.I had saw that someone thought that we don't have highs and lows once we "get the victory" and I mean emotional or those type - you know.Anyhow, I just prayed the Lord would give me the words, and in walks my husband with that Volume two of the books I mentioned some pages back, done up by Ravenhill and Wilkerson, quoting other Authors books.Well, my husband walks in with the first book I mentioned in this last post on this previous page and shows me directly what T. Austin Sparks said about men who go "deeper" with the Lord and what can happen to them, because they ARE doing right.I only quoted a small portion on this previous page for you and others, but if you go to that site .... If you have time .... I think that was out of one of the latter chapters of that book about the Battle and that is the book by TAS that Ravenhill and Wilkerson added to their Book.Wasn't that neat. I needed to hear it too.Now, I definitely will be praying for you and your family all the more and that HIS Spirit will give you the words to express this. Amen.Give me a heads up when it is posted, in case my brain is out to lunch O.K. ? Thanks ! :-D The Lord God Bless you and touch your entire Family and Church, in JESUS' MIGHTY MIGHTY NAME.Amen !us

The Manifest Sons of God teachingThe Latter Rain movement of the late 40's had given birth to numerous other sub-teachings. The Manifest Sons of God was divided into two major sects. The Walk, and the Body of Christ. The Walk came out of the Latter Rain Movement under the “apostleship” of John Robert Stevens, who like Paul Cain and others was a William Branham disciple. His was the Church of the Living Word in Redondo Beach, California. The Charismatic Dominionism expressed in spiritual warfare and the current signs and wonders movement is largely an extension of the Manifest Sons of God doctrine. Manifest Sons teachings are Kingdom Dominionist: they believe in restoration of the Church, restoration of the 5 fold ministry with the offices of apostles and prophets, having authority through its leaders by strong shepherding and discipleship. A perfection of the saints, immortalization, and the attainment of being Christ as we become just like Christ in nature and ability. The Manifest Sons of God doctrine has an eschatology of Dominionism through the perfecting of the saints under the leadership guidance of the latter-day prophets and apostles. They mostly deny a rapture in the classic sense. Some replace it with individual raptures, a collective transformation to immortality on earth, or none at all. This quote is representative of the teaching “the doctrine of the Rapture was a great and effective ruse of the enemy to implant in the Church a retreat mentality ... already this yoke has been cast off by the majority in the advancing church, and it will soon be cast off by all.” (Rick Joyner, THE HARVEST 1989 /1990 revised booklet on pg.121) We are talking about the great and blessed hope of his return. In its place is triumphalism by installing a new leadership for the Church. If there is no rapture than there is no resurrection, they are simultaneous events! Considering what Joyner first said he later changed it in his 1993 printing of the Harvest as it became the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture (p.201) In this he fares no better as he takes the position that the Church will endure through the tribulation. despite the Scriptures teaching that the saints will be overcome in the tribulation, and few will survive. Hardly a scenario that manifest sons of God can agree with. this becomes even more problematic when brought to its conclusion of the Church found ruling when Christ comes back. Certainly to look forward to the Lords coming as any time is not retreating but hopeful. One does not need to abandon everything to do this and wait on the top of a hill in white robes as some did over century ago. The modern Spiritual warfare practice that is an attachment to the signs and wonders movement finds its roots in the Latter Rain as well. The revival will come by the Church being led by these leaders in defeating demonic spirits through spiritual warfare prayer, fasting. The spiritual warfare conducted through intense worship and praise, and by spiritual mapping, identifying strongholds, rebuking demonic powers and binding territorial spirits. “God's people are going to start to exercise rule, and they're going to take dominion over the Power of Satan. They're going to bring diabolical princes down. The dark powers that hover over the Parliament buildings of the nations are going to be paralyzed by the corporate prayer of an authoritative community. As the rod of His strength goes out of Zion, He'll change legislation. He'll chase the devil off the face of God's earth, and God's people together, doing the will of God, will bring about God's purposes and Gods reign. “ (Ern Baxter, National Men's Shepherds Conference, Kansas City, Missouri, 1975) The apostles will rule the Church through establishing independent churches, unaffiliated with the corrupt denominations (Branham's teaching). The exception which is currently underway, is that denominational churches would abandon being separate, join the movement coming under their leadership. It is essential to the Latter Rain movement for the church to be unified as one, under a central leadership. Otherwise Christ cannot be incarnated (manifested) in the Church and give his power to conquer the world for Christ. That the world will be conquered through an elite group of overcomers who produce signs and wonders unlike anything ever seen, even in the early church by the apostles. This they believe will lead us to the greatest revival of history. An endtime harvest of billions of souls, where the majority of the world will be won to Christ and the kingdom would be established or ready to be received by Christ. “This harvest will be so great that no one will look back at the early church as a standard; all will be saying that the Lord has certainly saved His best wine for last. The early church was a firstfruits offering, truly this will be a harvest! It was said of the Apostle Paul that he was turning the world upside down; it will be said of the apostles soon to be anointed that they have turned an upside down world right side up. Nations will tremble at the mention of their name.” (Rick Joyner, Restoration, may/June 1988, the Harvest) What does Joyner mean they will turn the world rightside up?Are they going to undo the work of the Apostle Paul, or maybe he means a new thing altogether. “Angelic appearances will be common to the saints and a visible glory of the Lord will appear upon some for extended periods of time as power flows through them. There will be no plague, disease, or physical condition, including lost limbs, AIDS, poison gas, or radiation, which will resist the healing and miracle gifts working in the saints during this time. “ (Rick Joyner, The Harvest, 128-129) The apostles and prophets would give blessings upon those whom bless, and curses upon those whom they curse. The power of their words would bring results. They will complete the conquest of the nations before Christ returns. The conquering will be done as “Joel's army “ a group of immortal beings that will bring judgment upon the ungodly and all who do not accept the authority of the NEW Apostles and prophets. The tribulation is replaced with manifestations of power executing Gods judgment through Joels army to cleanse the earth of the evil and bring order to establish his kingdom. Those who go further into the different levels will achieve a certain degree of holiness under the direction of the apostles and prophets. They will overcome death, and will become immortal. The manifestation of the Sons of God Rom.8:19 “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope 21because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” “The Earth and all of creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, the time when they will come into their maturity and immortalization... When the Church receives its full inheritance and redemption then creation will be redeemed from its cursed condition of decay, change and death... the Church has a responsibility and ministry to the rest of creation. Earth and Its natural creation Is anxiously waiting for the Church to reach full maturity and come to full sonship. When the Church realizes its full sonship, its bodily redemption will cause a redemptive chain reaction throughout all of creation.” ( Bill Hamon p. 385 THE ETERNAL CHURCH) This is what is called in the new age the paradigm shift, while biblical terms are used it is identical in its process and affect . “I see the great year of Jubilee, when we shall pass through the veil into the very Presence of the fullness of God, to be filled with this fullness and go forth proclaiming liberty to all of creation. Romans 8 calls this the “Manifestation of the Sons of God”, and Says the whole creation is groaning and crying for this day. ...This is the ultimate anointing! This is the fullness of the Spirit! This is the Spirit without measure that Jesus had, spoken of in John 3:34, reserved until the end time for His Brethren!”' (EAGLE SAINTS ARISE, Bill Britton) This whole teaching is based on a distortion of Romans 8:19 which speaks of the “Manifestation of the Sons of God.” The belief is that some will obtain immortality by incarnating Christ before he returns. What is it that all creation is waiting for? According to orthodox Christianity, all creation awaits the removal of the “Curse of Futility”, sin placed upon it by God from the Fall of Adam. What they neglect is the context and the other passages that explain this event vs.22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” The adoption the redeeming of our body, when, how? Phil. 3:20-21: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” 1Thess. 4:16-17: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” 1 Cor.15:51-54: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” After the Ascension, the angels told the Apostles who watched, Acts 1:11 “ This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” The Holy Spirit was sent soon after he ascended nearly 2,000 years age, there is no new sending of the spirit for the Church, nor any other way for Christ to come back but the Scriptural way. He comes back in the same body he left in, not in the church as the body. Anyone who says differently is denying what the revelation of the Scriptures say. Heb.9:28: “so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” It is Christ who appears and changes us, not some event separate from this. We wait for him, we cannot accomplish this on our own. It his coming that is connected to this even, and whether one believes in a pre, mid, or post rapture does not change the connection of his coming for this to occur. It has always been understood that Jesus Himself is the One Who would do the restoring of the kingdom. When he comes again at the second coming the curse on the earth will be lifted we would be changed and he would reverse the affects of the curse on the earth. But biblically it is not until after the millennium that the new heavens and earth replace the former and death will be no more(Rev.21:4). But, those who espouse the Manifested Sons of God doctrine have a different take on this. To them, all creation eagerly awaits the time when the “true sons” of God will finally realize “who they are in Christ,” conquerors and overcomers, and will come into their true Glory and Power as the Sons of God. It is they who will be the ones who will remove the curse, overcome all of God's enemies, even death! The historic church has been waiting for God the son in the 2nd coming. They teach that God is waiting for you and I. In Jewel Van der Merwe's book, Joel's Army, she quotes Earl Paulk a influential “Kingdom Now” pastor, he explains his application of Romans 8:19 “The last enemy to be conquered is death. Who will conquer it? A mature Church will come forth with the kind of authority and power that will be able to stand in the very face of Satan. When the Church reaches that level of maturity, God will be able to say, 'This generation of the Church does not need to die. She has reached a place of maturity. I will translate her because her maturity pleases Me.'“ “Not only will they not have diseases, they will also not die. They will have the kind of imperishable bodies that are talked about in the 15th chapter of Corinthians ... this army is invincible. If you have intimacy with God, they can't kill you.” ( Paul Cain, “Joel's Army,” 1990 p. 218) [For more on Paul Cain's revelation of Joels army> go here] Jack Deere says, “ they won't be able to kill this army.” John Wimber as well said, “those in this army will have the 'kind of anointing ...his kind of power ... anyone who wants to harm them must die.” This is Joel's Army. Bill Hamon writes, “The Church will gain victory over the last enemy, death. Victory speaks of a battle being fought. The last day saints will wage and win a warfare against death. The last generation saints will come to translating faith in preparation for participation in the translation.” (The Eternal Church, P.349) “Yes, sin, sickness and disease, spiritual death, poverty, and everything else that's of the devil once ruled us. But now, bless God, we rule them -- for this is the Day of Dominion!” (Kenneth Hagin, “Rejoice! This Is the Day Which the Lord Hath Made!” The Word of Faith, Sept. 1996 ) “When the Sons of God are manifested. “The saints will take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever... the Sons of Yahweh, one like the Son of man - not the lonely and blessed Yahshua of Nazareth alone, but the complete body of sons - Yahweh's masterpiece of the ages, the body of Yahshua, the house not made with hands - My Father's house of many mansions, each one whether individually or collectively 'An habitation of Yahweh through the Spirit”...these sons of Yahweh are indeed the 'One like the Son of man.”'(NEW BEGINNINGS, George Hawtin ) Speaking on the feasts (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles)”.... typify the whole Church Age, beginning with the death of Jesus on the cross, and consummating in “the manifestation of the Sons of God”-the “overcomers” who will become perfected and step into immortality in order to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.” (George Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, 1951, pp. 14-20) Quite a difference from the saints inheriting the kingdom when Christ comes and being servants (co-heirs) in it, adopted as sons (Rev.20:6). This is not a kingdom operated by humility but of power and force. This is why the take it by force teaching , and the pulling down of strongholds. Never mind that neither Jesus or an apostle never taught this to others, because this is what God is doing now. Its new, its fresh! The Central theme to Manifest Sons of God doctrine is the belief that sonship to God comes through higher revelation via apostles and prophets. The Christian life, has levels to go through, to reach maturity. The first level is that of servant of God, the next is that of friend of God, following this is to become a son of God and the realization of gods ourselves. much like the new age potential in man) The Scriptures teach that we are servants (Galatians 3:10), friends (John 15:14-15), and sons (I John 3:1). There is no Scriptural support that Paul who was the least of the apostles, or any other apostle ever went beyond servanthood attaining sonship. Many epistles begin with the salutation by an apostle as a servant of God. There is no teaching from Paul or any of the other apostles believed they would go beyond these “levels” to become gods themselves. This teaching today comes disguised in the word faith sector of the church where they teach we can speak things into existence just as God did ( Rom. 4:17) Christ comes into the Church before he comes for the Church Some believe that the second coming of Jesus is to be “in the Church,” before he comes for the Church. That the Church, his body will actually become Christ on earth, glorious and triumphant. They will go Conquer the land and then rule the nations with a rod of iron. Some believe that after the Church has taken dominion over the nations, she will hasten the day that will call Jesus back to earth and hand the nations over to Him. This is nothing new and Charles Taze Russell actually taught this over 100 years ago. If you don't recognize his name he founded the Jehovah's Witnesses cult. “Our high calling is so great, so much above the comprehension of men, that they feel that we are guilty of blasphemy when we speak of being 'new creatures'- not any longer human, but 'partakers of the divine nature.”“ .it is claiming that we are divine beings- hence all such are Gods,. Thus we have a family of God .... Now we appear like men, and all die naturally like men, but in the resurrection we will rise in our true character as Gods ... Then the whole family- head and body are addressed as one, as they will be under Christ, their head, saying: Arise 0 God, judge (rule, bless) the earth: for thou shaft inherit all nations. The Mighty God, and Everlasting Father of the nations is Christ whose members in particular we are.” (Watchtower, 10 & 11/1881, p. 10, Reprints, p. 301) “ under him as our head constitute the whole body of Christ, the 'Mighty God' (El-powerful one) to rule and bless the nations- ... and therefore be members of that company which as a whole will be the Everlasting Father to the restored race.” (Watchtower, 10 & 11 / 1881, p. 10, Reprints P. 298) As we can see this is well over 100 years old from a group that is a cult now, just as they were then. While this teaching may have changed in terms it has remained consistent. The JW's believe in an anointed 144,000 that the earthly class must relate to for receiving the benefits of the new covenant. Sound familiar? It should since this is exactly what is being taught by the apostle prophet movement. that we must come under their leadership and become an army to be victorious in the last days. This is just as cultic as the JW's view. There are no Apostles today as there were when the Lord hand picked the 12 and others who were apostolic legates under them. The simple reason is that no one has seen the risen Lord to qualify. All the visions and dreams do not to qualify someone for apostleship (see Acts 1) But inside the Christian Church they taught no different. From Warnock's manifesto “Christ should visit the saints in the last great Feast, and minister His life 'In secret 'before He is openly manifested! Christians think it is a horrible thing that Christ's second Coming should be spoken of in this manner. When a Christian comes to that place where he really appreciates and understands and enjoys Spiritual things, then he can truly rejoice in the fact that Christ is coming back again to be manifested within. (THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, George Warnock, Bill Britton 1951, p. 108). When he speaks of Christ he is meaning Christ being the anointing, not the person of Jesus. William Branham “In them days it was God in a man, His Son, Jesus Christ. ...It was God In Christ, God, in a man, the fullness of the Godhead bodily In a man. God, in a man; now, it's God in men. See? The fullness of God in the Godhead bodily in His entire Church, manifesting Himself, fulfilling His Word. (THE MIGHTY GOD UNVEILED BEFORE US p.20) Here we have a the Manifest Sons of God teaching in embryo. Branham's misunderstanding of how God was in Christ and he paralleled this to God in the Church. The reason for this is, “ that God has always had skin on Him.” (ibid.21) Earl Paul has been saying for years “We are on earth as extensions of God to finish the work He began. We are the essence of God, His on-going incarnation in the world.” (Earl Paulk, Held In The Heavens, 1985, p. 125). The Church is not God nor the fullness of God, this denies the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son because it makes the Church on equality with him as many sons with the same nature. “The completion of the incarnation of God in the world must be in His church...Jesus Christ is the firstfruit, but without the ongoing harvest, the incarnation will never be complete.” (Earl Paulk, The Wounded Body of Christ, p. 43).“The living Word of God, Jesus Christ, was conceived in the womb of a virgin. The Word became flesh in the God-Man Jesus Christ (John 1:1). Likewise, the Word of God must be made flesh in the Church in order for us to bear witness to the Kingdom which God has called us to demonstrate.” (Earl Paulk, Held In The Heavens, 1985, p.60) I would think it is apparent that there is a vast difference between the word made flesh by God incarnating in Jesus and becoming man and his residing in his people, the Church. “The living Word of God, Jesus Christ, was conceived in the womb of a virgin. The Word became flesh in the God-Man Jesus Christ (John 1:1). Likewise, the Word of God must be made flesh in the Church in order for us to bear witness to the Kingdom which God has called us to demonstrate.” (Earl Paulk, Held In The Heavens , 1985, p.60) Frangipane agrees with Paulk as he says “When the Spirit of Christ comes into the physical world, He must enter through a physical body... When Christ first entered our world as a child, it was Mary whom God chose to give Christ birth. Mary's life symbolized the qualities the Church must possess to walk in the fullness of Christ ... [God is preparing us as He did Mary to give birth to the ministry of His Son. Even now, in the spiritual womb of the virgin church, the holy purpose of Christ is growing, awaiting maturity; ready to be born in power in the timing of God ... the virgin Church is “in labour and in pain to give birth” (Rev 12:1-2) ... even now, he trembles and the heavens watch in awe, for I say to you, once again, the virgin is with child. Before Jesus Himself returns, the last virgin Church shall become pregnant with the promise of God. Out of her travail, the Body of Christ shall come forth, raised to the full statute of its Head, the Lord Jesus. Corporately manifested in holiness, power and love, the Bride of Christ shall arise.” (Francis Frangipane, 'In the Presence of God” Now Wine Press, 1994.Chapter: “The Virgin Shall Be With Child) This is manifest Sons of God doctrine, it may not be called this by the speakers some may not even know of its roots but most to believe are well aware of its implications. Kenneth Hagin believes the same thing with only a slightly different angle “We [the church] are Christ.” (As Christ is -- So are we, (Tape #44H06) “Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth.” (Kenneth Hagin, “The Incarnation,” The Word of Faith, p.13, Dec. 1980). Kenneth Copeland agrees with his mentor, “[Man] was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority...God made us as much like Himself as possible...He made us the same class of being that He is Himself...Man lived in the realm of God. He lived on terms equal with God...[The] believer is called Christ...That's who we are; we're Christ” (Zoe: The God-Kind of Life, . pgs. 35-36, 41, 1989) Copeland states “Jesus is no longer the only begotten Son of God.” (Now We Are In Christ Jesus, p.24,1980) This means Christ was the pattern son, not unique, but only the first of a kind of many, many more. Rod Parsley states, “In the old covenant we did not have Jesus in the flesh. In the next covenant we had Jesus manifest in the flesh. In the next covenant we had Jesus manifest in the flesh in a person but of many in a different form.” (Breakthrough 9/19/2000) Parsleys three covenants has the Church becoming what Jesus was exclusively. Yet he teaches now “For in him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily that’s what it said the fullness of the Godhead bodily. .. Now it didn’t say anywhere that you wouldn’t have the same thing. Didn’t say anywhere that you couldn’t obtain unto the same thing.” “In Acts the matter is you’re an heir a joint heir with Jesus Christ. Jesus said don’t look at what I’m doin, brother what your gonna do is greater than what I’m gonna do. ” (Ibid.) Morris Currello leading the unaware in a chant “Who are you? Come on, who are you? Come on, say it: ‘Sons of God!’ Come on, say it! And what does work inside us, brother, is that manifestation of the expression of all that God is and all that God has. And when we stand up here, brother, you’re not looking at Morris Cerullo; you’re looking at God. You’re looking at Jesus.” (Morris Cerullo, The Endtime Manifestation of the Sons of God World Evangelism tape 1) Benny Hinn, When you say, 'I am a Christian,' you are saying, 'I am mashiach,' in the Hebrew. I am a little messiah walking on earth, in other words. That is a shocking revelation. ...May I say it like this? You are a little god on earth running around” (Praise-a-Thon, TBN, November 6,1990) “Are you ready for some real revelation knowledge....you are god” (Benny Hinn, “Our Position In Christ”, tape AO31190-1) This certainly is a revelation, to God. Hagin, Copeland, Hinn and the much of the Word/Faith Movement all are saying basically the same thing. Why? Because they are coming from the same source, the Latter Rain teachings which are enjoying new growth unlike it ever did before. The new anointing that is being dispersed brings their followers to a “new knowledge” of the Scriptures. D.R. McConnell writes about the new revelation knowledge “When these truths really gain the ascendancy in us, they will make us spiritual supermen, masters of demons and disease. It will be the end of weakness and failure. In the presence of these tremendous realities, we arise and take our place. We go out and live as supermen indwelt by God.” (A Different Gospel, P. 21, D.R. McConnell, 1988.) Much of this has been birthed through the Vineyard Church via the signs and wonders movement, Bob Jones, “the Church is in no condition for the Lord to come today ... He's going to come for a church that is mature in righteousness... progressively going in this righteousness until you take on THE VERY DIVINE NATURE OF CHRIST HIMSELF and you begin to see Christ in the Church. Christ won't come for the church until you see Christ in the Church until the Church looks like Jesus. PAPA (God) planted Jesus, He sowed Him down here in this earth to have a whole nation of brothers and sisters that looked just like Jesus ... His Son was a ALPHA SON, your children are the OMEGA sons and daughters.” [Mike Bickle interjects here, “Jesus was the beginning, but our children and us, we're included in this ... we're the end of this thing.” (quoted in Discernment newsletter) To put sinners saved by grace on an equality with Christ shows how deficient these so called “anointed ones” are in biblical understanding. Today this movement comes in many names, the current and most popular cliché' is “the anointed,” Christ, they say they are “anointed” Christ, exactly what Jesus warned about in Mt.24. That they can do exactly what he did, dispense the anointing and do miracles. Welcome to the Church of the 21st century. sources used: · Discernment Newsletter Jewel Van der Merwe · Vengeance is ours, by Al Dager · Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements http://www.letusreason.org/Pent48.htm

where u gone annie? ur be missed Sister!! hope its not to do with the rabbid post by some on the power thread.. GB sis