We've Been Warned

Scripture is filled with warnings about liars. God hates liars. God hates those who tell lies. God cannot lie, the Bible says. He always speaks the truth. He is truth. Satan is a liar. He is the father of lies. They all sort of generate out of his spiritual mind set. We then have to be able to discern between the truth and the lie with regard to everything that God has revealed to us. 

We are warned in Scripture about ear-tickling teachers who just want to give the feel-good message to us no matter whether it's truth or not. We're warned about doctrines of demons, demonic lies, destructive heresies, myths, perverse teachings, commandments of men rather than God. We're warned about speculations that lofty ideas raised up against the knowledge of God. We're warned about deceitful spirits. We're warned about worldly fables. We're warned about false knowledge, empty philosophy, science falsely so-called, traditions of men, worldly wisdom, corrupters and adulterers of the Word of God. 

We're warned about all of that. We're warned about the wolves in sheep's clothing who come along to devour us. They come as if they are prophets, they turn out to be destructive agents of Satan. I mean, we have these warnings all over the place in the New Testament. They're also everywhere in the Old Testament.

And to put it simply, there is a world of chaos and confusion out there and Satan is very adept and very clever and very powerful and very systematic in the structure of evil that is wrapped up in the system in which we live. Against that is pitted the truth of God. We have to be able to discern the difference.

If you understand the warnings of the Bible and you understand how critical it is that you know the truth, that you have discernment. You cannot be gullible. You cannot be sucked off into error without dishonoring God. God is truth. He is revealed truth. He loves truth. He has given you the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth. He's given you His Word which is truth. How terrible it is to think you might drift into lies. But people do it all the time, even people who sit in churches under very often weak teaching.

- John MacArthur

Principles for Discernment Pt. 1

Spurgeon Thursday - Discernment and The Shack

Those who know anything of Charles Spurgeon know one of his. That quote is beautiful in it's simplicity and its accuracy. Here it is in its Victorian beauty:

Discernment is not a matter of simply telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right. ~ C. H. Spurgeon

The reason why I bring this up can be summed up in two words:

The Shack

During a discussion at my Tuesday night bible study (Tuesdays we're studying John) the subject of false gospels came up and I mentioned two very popular false gospels "Love Wins" by Rob Bell, and "The Shack" by Paul Young. One member of the discussion disagreed with me and called the book a good novel. He said it was sweet and kind but "nothing anyone could take seriously." I was incredibly shocked because here was a man, raised on the bible and student of God's words for over 6 decades, leader of many bible study groups, and a Godly Christian calling this heap of distortions "a nice novel". I pray he was looking at it through a filter of over half a century of discernment and was now immune to the fact that people other than himself can fall prey to the lies of The Shack.

It has been well remarked by a great writer, that he never knew a man who held any great theological error, who did not also hold a doctrine which diminished the depravity of man. ~ C. H. Spurgeon

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 
pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

I try to remove myself from the silliness of politics. Did I say silliness? Of course - just note the hypeventilating headlines that gasp with oh so righteous shock that Jeff Sessions actually spoke with the Russian ambassador. Well, duh, he was a sitting US Senator on the Armed Services committee - should he instead have played golf for eight years? So I retreat (or should I say advance) to better things, Jesus is my #1 love and railroads (model and real) is my favorite past time. Can you imagine how great that would be to combine these loves?

Don't laugh, men of God are doing it. Like here at the BM&NCMRF (Blue Mountains & Nepean Christian Model Railway Fellowship)  Here's a list of how Mike uses his model railroad to teach important bible truths to children. Then there's the The Railroad Evangelistic Association which exists to proclaim the  Good News of Jesus Christ to the entire railroad community worldwide and to promote mutual Christian fellowship among the railroad industry, the model railroad hobbyists and the rail fan enthusiasts. No, I'm not going to turn this into a Model Railroad blog, a true Christian model railroader knows that Jesus is the most important thing, and the only way to God. Then again a true Christian model railroader also knows exactly what this is

What must we do with false teachers and those that prey on 'baby' Christians? Hold their feet to the fire of Scripture

The magical attack on you. Elisabeth calls this "practical magic" I personally think there's nothing "practical" about Satan.

Only YOU and (your $$$) can save the entire world!!!! See "Christians" become a Mighty Spirit! Hear inspiring words like EMPOWERMENT and REVIVAL! Learn the Seven Game Changing Ministry Lessons for enhancing YOUR God Given Potential Only 800 are allowed to save the world so act now. Not valid in ministries that actually follow the word of God. Biblical references are taken out of context. Side effects may include being slain in the spirit, holy ghost laughter, inhalation of angel feathers, choking on holy ghost fumes, and eternal damnation

Spurgeon Thursday - The Burden Of The Word Of The Lord

I found this as I was reading one of Spurgeon's later sermons, #2114 to be exact. It reminded me of the importance we bloggers must put on the words we use when we write our blogs. We can tell ourselves "I'm just reporting what I see" until we're blue in the face, but in the end we're ministers preaching the Word Of The Lord.

The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi (KJV) (Malachi 1:1)

Do not make me a messenger of death to you. I implore you, receive the message of mercy, and be saved.

And, then, it becomes a great burden to me to preach the gospel when I think of what those lose who will not have it. That heaven above-what tongue can describe it? What painter can ever picture it-the heaven above, where all is love, and joy, and peace, and everlasting blessedness? What if you should be shut out? What if against you the door should be closed! 

There is no opening that door again, remember. Even though you stand and cry, “Lord, Lord!” yet will he not open it to you. May no one of us miss eternal felicity! May no one among us fall into eternal misery! But here lies the burden of the Lord-in the consequences of our ministry. 

I recollect walking out to preach nigh unto forty years ago, just when I began my witnessing for the Lord Jesus. As I trudged along with a somewhat older brother, who was going to preach at another village station, our talk was about our work, and he said to me, “Does it not strike you as a very solemn thing that we two local preachers are going to do the Lord’s work, and much may depend even upon the very hymns we give out, and the way in which we read them?” 

I thought of that, and I prayed-and often do pray-that I may have the right hymn, and the right chapter, as well as the right sermon. Well do I remember a great sinner coming into Exeter Hall, and I read the hymn beginning, “Jesu, lover of my soul,” and that first line pierced him in the heart. 

He said to himself, “Does Jesus love my soul?” He wept because he had not loved the Savior in return; and he was brought to the Savior’s feet just by that one line of a hymn. 

It does make it the burden of the Lord when you see life, death, and hell, and worlds to come, hanging, as it were, upon the breath of a mortal man, by whom God speaks to the souls of his fellows. This is serious burden-bearing. At least, I find it more and more so the longer I am engaged in it.

(Source)

WWUTT Wednesday - I Do Not Worship a Sissy God

My God is the God of love, but he's not a lovesick god of valentines hearts and silk flower bouquets that is hiding in the corner until drawn out with a trail of Reese's Pieces and promises of sweet guitar sonatas. My God is the God of true love. How much love? My God is so much in love with my brothers and sisters and I that he is burning with love,

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:24)

and He is jealous of anything that endangers that love, anything that would come between my brothers and sisters in Christ and Him

4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

Saying that "God is love" does not mean He is incapable of other feelings as some false teachers would have you believe (Cough * Rob Bell * Cough). Why do you think that God hates haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, hearts that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, false witnesses that utters lies, and those who spreads strife among brothers?(Proverbs 6:16-19) Because He loves us. He loves us so much He sent His only son to be humiliated, tortured, and murdered in order to save us. That's no sissy god, that's an All Powerful, All Loving God.

He loves us, even though we're evil.