Truth
On
Tough
Texts
ISSUE 9–
April/2006
Where Has Our
Discernment Gone?
(2)
Ephesians
4:14
LAST MONTH WE CONSIDERED EPHESIANS 4:14:
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by
the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they
lie in wait to deceive.”
As we submitted,
this verse is not a “Tough Text” because of a grammar
problem, historical uncertainty, controversial issue, or
other such matter, but it’s tough for another
reason—it’s a verse that is hard to face, a verse that
demands that we “grow up” and
make narrow judgments about doctrine and
practice.
Last time
we examined two considerations: Characteristics
of Spiritual Children and Sources of False Doctrine. We
continue this month with a third.
Tests of
Discernment
Let’s practice our
discernment skills for a few moments. One popular
speaker, for example, gives this description of one
whose “felt need” should be
addressed:
You have a guy sitting in
church and he’s figuring out, “Okay, how am I going to
make payroll? How am I going to finance my lifestyle?
I’ve got these two kids that are rebellious; they’re
caught up in this lack of authority thing. My emotional
connection with my wife is really running dry. I’m
sitting with three strangers next to me listening to
this sermon. I need some help for my life right now.” I
believe that’s the way Jesus taught. I mean Jesus
started at the point of the real and felt need that a
person would have.
That certainly
sounds good, noble, and caring, but is it right
according to Scripture? No, it is not. The Lord
Jesus simply did not start with a person’s “felt
need,” which has become a term on which many churches
are built today. In His dealing with the woman at the
well (Jn. 4:1-26), he very specifically confronted her
with her sin and then even taught her some doctrine on
worship. He most certainly did not start with a “felt
need,” rather real
sin.
Another popular
voice boldly says
this:
People are always telling
me that we should go back to the New Testament church
where they were pure. Are you crazy? Where they loved
each other. You’re out of your mind. Where they joined
hands and walked off into the sunset together. That’s
not the way it was. You haven’t taken the time to read
the Bible. They were as bad as we are, and sometimes
they were worse. And I get along better with people at
the seminary than Paul got along with
Barnabus.
That sounds
authoritative coming from the mouth of a well-know Bible
teacher, but is it right? No, it is
not. In fact, it borderlines on blasphemy. It is
that man who has “not read the Bible,” for Luke records
that the early
church
continued
stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,
and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came
upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were
done by the apostles. And all that believed were
together, and had all things common; And sold
their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men,
as every man had need. And they, continuing
daily with one accord in the
temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat
their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And
the Lord added to the church daily such as should be
saved” (Acts 2:42-47).
Were there
controversies and problems as the Church continued? Of
course, there were, as in Acts 6 and 15, as well as
other mentions of doctrinal and practical issues, such
as as in most of I Corinthians. But those were
exceptions to the general rule. This man’s comment
clearly implies that he knows a better way, that we can
actually improve on the Biblical record, and that is
heresy.
Here is another
quote, which is, in fact, one of the most common
teachings of our day:
The unity of the faith is
more important than doctrinal opinion.
Again, that sounds
loving, but is it right? No, it is
not. As Paul
told Titus, a pastor of a local church, the pastor has
been entrusted with God’s word and is, therefore,
required to, “[Hold] fast the faithful word as he
hath been taught, that he may be able by sound
doctrine both to exhort and to
convince the gainsayers
[i.e., refute those who oppose that doctrine]” (Tit.
1:7a, 9; emphasis added). Unity is most certainly not
more important than correct doctrine, no matter who says
anything to the
contrary.
Another speaker, who
was shouting in a hateful tone, said
this:
I
refuse to argue any longer
with any of you out there! Don’t even call me if you
want to argue doctrine, if you want to straighten
somebody out . . . Get out of my life! I don’t want to
even talk to you or even hear you! I don’t want to see
your ugly face! I say get out of God’s way, quit
blocking God’s bridges. Or God’s going to shoot you if I
don’t. Let Him sort out all this doctrinal doodoo. I
don’t care about it!
Even if we ignore
the ranting and raving, is such teaching about doctrine
right? No, it
is not. I Timothy 4:16 could not be clearer: “Take heed
unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them:
for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them
that hear thee.” Neither could Proverbs 30:5-6, “Every
word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put
their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he
reprove thee, and thou be found a
liar.”
Still another
speaker explained “doctrine” this
way:
I want you to know the
word doctrine. Circle it. It happens to be the matter
of, if you’re taking notes, the how you do the what you
do. That’s what it means—doctrine, the way you do the
what you do. Yea, there’s a certain way I get dressed,
there’s a certain way you get dressed. Men, you put your
socks on first and then your pants or you put your pants
on first and then your socks. So, let me tell you
something, depending upon how you dress, that happens to
be your doctrine. The way you brush your teeth—do you
squeeze the tube from the bottom, from the top, do you
roll it? That would happen to be a matter of doctrine.
You see, doctrine is just a word that describes your
daily routine.
We shouldn’t even
have to ask if such a notion is biblical because it is
so foolish, so childish, so contrary to even the
simplest dictionary definition of “doctrine” that it’s
unbelievable that anyone would listen to a man like
that.
Another well-known
speaker counsels Christians with these sage
words:
If you’re sure that you’re
right, for God’s sake don’t correct those who are wrong.
If you’re sure that you’re pure, for God’s sake don’t
correct those who aren’t. If you’re sure that you’ve got
it together, for God’s sake don’t try to fix somebody
who isn’t. From your position of righteousness and
purity and balance, you’ll kill the church.
Yes, this sounds
loving and unifying, but is it true biblically?
No, it is not. As Paul declared to the Corinthians: “Do not ye
judge them that are within [the church]? But them that
are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among
yourselves [i.e., the church] that wicked person” (I
Cor. 5:12-13). And as he likewise commanded Pastor
Timothy, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus,
when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge
some that they teach no other doctrine” (I Tim. 1:3). He
goes on to state in verse 5 that the goal of such action
is true, biblical
love.
To illustrate, if I
knew that a flashflood had washed out a bridge, would it
be loving and compassionate for me to stand by the
railroad tracks smiling and waving at the passengers on
an Amtrak train as it hurtled toward the chasm? Of
course not! True love desires to warn people of coming
doom.
Paul even goes so
far to mention by name those
who were teaching false doctrine in verses 18-20
(“Hymenaeus and Alexander”). Today such an act is
considered unloving and divisive, even if what they are
teaching is hurting people and destroying biblical
Truth. Commenting on Paul’s challenge to Timothy to
“preach the Word” and “reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine” (II Tim. 4:2), theologian
Gordon Clark writes:
Paul denounced heretics
publicly by name. It is not enough to give diplomatic,
spineless, uninformative warnings against unidentified
errors. They must be clearly explained and clearly
refuted. Some in the congregation may think refutation
is useless and tedious. But Paul commands the preachers
to persevere in their instruction with all
patience.[i]
In spite of that
absolutely crystal clear Truth, the Senior Pastor of a
mega-church in California
writes:
How tragic it is when we
become more concerned with being “right” than being
“loving.” I would rather have the wrong facts and a
right attitude, than right facts and a wrong
attitude.
That is not only
childishly foolish, but it blatantly contradicts
Ephesians 4:15, where Paul says we do BOTH: we speak
the truth and we do so in love. One without the other will always bring
heresy.
Still another
teacher authoritatively
declares:
[One] big lie is that God
only wants three things from us; he wants “the three
G’s:” He wants groveling, groaning, and He wants
grieving; He wants us to cry and grieve over our sin.
What a big lie!
While that might
certainly liberate us in our way of living our lives, is
it Biblically true? No, it is
not. As God declares in James 4:9-10, “Be afflicted,
and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to
mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves
in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up,” and
in Isaiah 66:2, “To this man will I look, even to him
that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at
my word.”
Another teacher
characterizes God this
way:
God is a God of grace. You
can curse Him and disobey Him and spit in His face and
reject Him, and you can do it over and over and over
again, and He keeps coming back for more.[ii]
Is such a
characterization of God biblical? No, it
is not. It flies in the face of the Truth that “the
LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man”
(Gen. 3:6) and that “the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18).
But even more profound are God’s words in Hebrews
10:26-31:
For if we sin wilfully
after that we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a
certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery
indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that
despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or
three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose
ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under
foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the
covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we
know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I
will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord
shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.
Another
vivid example of the gullibility and undiscerning nature
of Christianity today is the virtual cult that has
arisen around the hugely popular book The
Prayer of Jabez. One author’s indictment is right on
the mark, calling this book “the most mesmerizing
deception to be launched on American Christianity in the
modern era.”[iii] Why? Because, as another
author puts it, the basic, underlying error of the book
is “that the repetition of a prayer, any prayer, even a
Biblical prayer, unlocks the power of God in our
lives.”[iv] The whole thrust of
the book is that by repeating this obscure Old Testament
prayer (a clear violation of the prohibition of “vain
repletion” in Matt. 6:8), the Christian can unlock
blessing and miracles. All it boils down to be is old
prosperity teaching in a new wrapper, and to be blunt
once more, it’s heresy plain and simple. Over and over
again (ad infinitum, ad nauseam) the author promises prosperity and miracles
with such statements as the following:
q
“God wants [us] to be ‘selfish’ in [our] prayers.
To ask for more—and more again—from our Lord . . . [and
is] exactly the kind of request our Father longs to
hear” (although Scripture nowhere says any of
that).
q
“A guaranteed by-product” of saying the Jabez
prayer will be that “your life will become marked by
miracles” (but again, that’s not promised either in
the so-called “Jabez Prayer” or anywhere else in
Scripture).
q
“Seeking God’s blessing is our ultimate act of
worship” (but not one verse of Scripture says that;
it is totally the author’s conjecture).[v]
And on we could go.
While this book is filled with warm anecdotes, personal
experience, and boundless conjecture, totally absent are
solid theology and hermeneutics, Scripture exposition,
and Divine Truth. When I first read this book, my
immediate reaction was, “Where has our discernment
gone?” Hence the title of these
articles.
I also
never cease to be amazed at how something novel, clever,
pithy, and even shocking is received with glorious
excitement by the Church today. An example of is found
in another popular book, Desiring God, written by
John Piper. While he does say some very good things, his
entire premise is based on his absolutely
ridiculous term “Christian Hedonism.” What he means
by this term is a call to abandon the short-term,
low-yield pleasures of the world for the magnificent
joys of knowing God in whom is fullness of joy, but to
use the term “hedonism” is utterly ludicrous.
In Classical Greek, the
term hedone (from which hedonism is derived)
ultimately came to refer “to the pleasure of the senses,
of sex, and then the unrestricted passions.” This
meaning is clearly carried over into the New Testament,
where the term appears only five times, all in “later
books,” and always with “a bad
connotation.”[vi]
The point here is
why invent a term that you then have to spend
several pages (or even a whole book) defending and
explaining? Why not write a book on a biblical
term, such as the word JOY (Greek chara)? Piper
could have written his entire book based on that
biblical word and done it
much more easily. Why not do so? Why manufacture a
provocative and contradictory term that has nothing
whatsoever to do with real joy? Is the reason simply
cleverness and marketability or is it a misunderstanding
of language? In either case, it misses the Truth.
It is because of
such shallowness and faddishness in the Church today
that I read far more of the older, tried and tested
expositors than I do contemporary writers, though there
are, of course, some good authors today. In the present
case, for example, the reader would be much better off
reading 17th Century Puritan Stephen
Charnock’s classic, The Existence and Attributes of
God, which provides a lifetime
of meditation.
Let me share one more
discernment test. A well-known husband and wife team,
whose desire is to reach millions for Christ, claim that
an angel appeared to the woman and told her how to get
instant decisions for Christ. For example, if you are
talking to a waitress, you should ask her, “Do you know
that there are two kinds of beautiful waitresses?”
“Really?” she would probably respond. “Yes, those who
are saved and those who are about to be. Which one are
you?” If she says anything except, “I am saved,” then
say, “Repeat this after me, ‘Father forgive me of my
sins. Jesus come into my heart. Make me the kind of
person You want me to be. Thank You for saving me’” Now
ask the waitress, “Where is Jesus right now?” If she
answers, “In my heart,” say, “Congratulations on being a
child of God!” If her answer is anything else, have her
repeat the prayer after you again. This couple also
insists, “When you talk to someone, use the same words
the angel said. It works! If you change the words, it
does not work.”[vii]
That approach and ones
similar to it are commonplace. While some teachers would
never say that an angel revealed their new method to
them, they might as well because they think they can
improve on God’s method of confronting the sinner with
His sin, showing him God’s demand for repentance or
eternity in Hell, and then sharing with Him God’s
gracious provision in Christ.
We’ll conclude this
vital subject next month with a final challenge to
discernment.
Dr. J. D.
Watson
Pastor-Teacher
Grace
Bible Church
*
* *
[Truth] is the great treasure, which God delivers
to His saints, with a strict and
solemn charge to keep against all that undermine or
oppose it. Some things we trust God with, some things
God trusts us with. . . . That which God trusts us
chiefly with is His Truth.
William Gurnall – The Christian in Complete
Armour,
Vol.
I, p.
306
Not to desire
[Truth] is to despise it.
William Gurnall – The Christian in
Complete, Vol.
I, p.
294
*
* *
“And the Philistines were afraid,
for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said,
Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing
heretofore.” The Israelites probably made the same
mistake, fixing their hope on this new method of
fighting the Philistines, which they hoped would bring
them victory. We are all so apt to think that the new
plan of going to work will be much more effective than
those that have become familiar; but it is not so. It is
generally a mistake to exchange old lamps for new.
“There hath not been such a thing heretofore.” There is
a glamour about the novelty which misleads us, and we
are liable to think the newer is the truer. If there has
not been such a thing heretofore, some people will take
to it for that very ready. “Oh,” says the man who is
given to change, “that is the thing for me!” But it is
probably not the thing for a true-hearted and
intelligent Christian, for if “there hath not been such
a thing heretofore,” it is difficult to explain, if the
thing be a good one, why the Holy Ghost, who has been
with the people of God since Pentecost, and who came to
lead us into all truth, had not led the Church of God to
this before. If your new discovery is the mind of God,
where has Holy Scripture been all these centuries?
Believing in the infallible Word and the abiding Spirit,
I rather suspect your novelty; at least, I cannot say
that I endorse it until I have tested it by the Word of
God.
Charles
Spurgeon –
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol.
38, pp. 25-36
NOTES
[i]
Gordon Clark, The Pastoral Epistles (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1983),
p. 188.
[ii] The seven preceding
examples taken from actual radio and TV broadcasts of
either interviews, sermons, or other public
presentations by nationally known Bible teachers and
authors.
[iii] Steve Hopkins,
The Cult of Jabez (Bethal
Press, 2002).
[iv] Gary E. Gilley,
“I Just Wanted More Land” —Jabez (Xulon Press, 2001).
[v] Bruce Wilkinson, The Prayer of
Jabez (Sisters, OR: Multnomah
Publishers, 2000), pp. 19, 24-25,
49.
[vi] Colin Brown, The
New International Dictionary of New Testament
Theology, Vol. 1, pp.
458-9.
[vii] Cited in Kirk
Cameron and Ron Comfort, The Way of the
Master (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale
House Publishers, 2002) p.
87.
