Last year, around the height of the winter season, I was greeting people as I usually do in the foyer when they come in for worship. Janet, our treasurer, was standing at the picture area ready for the next person to put up on the wall. As I was greeting, I noticed she was talking with a well kept man with long hair. She directed the man to me, by way of, “this is our Pastor.”
I said hello and the man asked me a question that took me aback for a second. The man asked, “Is this a progressive church?” It took me back because I had never been asked that. But I knew what the question meant. The man meant, do you teach progressive Christianity? Do you affirm homosexuality? Do you leave open other ways to God other than Jesus? Do you teach a naturalist science over the miracles in the Bible?
I responded with, well we teach what the Bible says. I then asked him to come in and listen and he can decide for himself. I half expected him to turn around right then and leave, but he did enter into the sanctuary and sat down about midway on the right hand side, if you were looking from the platform to the front of the building. I went about my greeting and when I got up to welcome everyone, he had gone.
I have had encounters with people that believe in a progressive Christianity, but never have I been asked if I taught it. Most people listen and hear what I say, and I hope they come away with the understand that I do not teach it. Progressive Christianity teaches that there is progress in understanding God beyond the rigid teachings of the Bible. And so I do not teach progressive Christianity, because it’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught the unchanging Word of God from the first utterance of Genesis, to the prophet Malachi. And so, what can I teach, but what Jesus taught?
In fact it was Jesus who spoke these words in Matthew 5:17-19, “17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
So if I am going to be a true disciple of Jesus, I must not set aside the teachings of God. But over the last few months I have listened to pastors do just that. As an example from one experience recently in our nation, is the aftermath of George Floyds death. This was a terrible thing, though there might have been some illegal things going on, his death was not only tragic for himself, but also for his community, and our nation. But from this, I have listened to pastors embrace snippets of Progressive Christianity.
One pastor called for Christians to look at the outward skin of a man over their heart. In one case it was in our Alliance denomination, where one pastor said that the current president, who I believe is a godly placed man, should step down and should be replaced by a black man. Not anyone specific, like Derwin Grey, who is a well-known and godly pastor in our denomination, but just a general black man. I called him out, telling him that when it came time to elect a new president, I want the next one to be a godly man, and if he happens to be black then so be it, but godliness is what we should desire from those that lead our denomination, not skin color. Because it was God who told Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).”
In the last few months I have heard the calls from pastors to bring about reparations for the sins of people that were once paid with blood. This is a foreign idea to Scripture, because it is God that says to his prophet Ezekiel, “Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. 20 The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them (Ezekiel 18:19-20).”
It has always been the struggle of every Christian to follow closely to the Word of God, and yet not allow our sinful inclinations, desires, or cultural mentality, to sway us to reinterpret it for our own causes. For there is only one cause that matters, God’s redemption work. Only when the Holy Spirit changes the heart of a person can justice happen. Only when the heart of stone that rejects God, is replaced with the heart of flesh can mercy happen. Only when the heart that is corrupted by sin, is replaced with a born again heart, can love truly change the communities around us.
But justice for one but not others is not justice, but rather a just-us for a different group. Mercy for one, while the plight of others is rejected, isn’t mercy it’s simply more for me and none for thee. And preaching love that rejects what God says is true isn’t love, but deeper bondage for those that need to be set free.
When we replace the straightforward teachings of God, we begin to separate ourselves from God himself. And this isn’t something knew, in fact God’s Word is sprinkled with caution and warning of false teachings and teachers.
In Matthew 7:15-20 Jesus warns, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
In Matthew 24:4-5 Jesus says, “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.”
And in 1st John 2, the Apostle John writes, “18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us (v.18-19).”
And this is the situation we find ourselves in today. There are many teachers and teachings that surround us in our cultural, that desire to reinterpret God’s Word to match a cause. And there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing, and people who are anti-christs who are calling not only the world, but God’s people away from God’s teachings.
And so, for the next two months we are going to be unpacking the counterfeit teachings of progressive Christianity or what is becoming know as the Woke Church. But we are going to unpack these counterfeit teachings through knowing the true teachings of Scripture. Walter Martin in his book the Kingdom of the Cults wrote this in 1965, “The American Banking Association has a training program which exemplifies this aim of the author. Each year it sends hundreds of bank tellers to Washington in order to teach them to detect counterfeit money, which is a great source of a loss of revenue to the Treasury Department. It is most interesting that during the entire two-week training program, no teller touches counterfeit money. Only the original passes through his hands. The reason for this is that the American Banking Association is convinced that if a man is throughly familiar with the original, he will not be deceived by the counterfeit bill, no matter how much like the original it appears. It is the contention of this writer that if the average Christian would become familiar once again with the great foundations of his faith, he would be able to detect those counterfeit elements so apparent in the cult systems, which set them apart from Biblical Christianity (pg.16).”
So in our series on counterfeit teachings, we will be not only showing how the counterfeit is wrong false, but more importantly, what the true teaching of Scripture is, so that when we see the counterfeit we will know it quickly.
And as we do this, my intent is not to slander, or demean or denigrate anyone, but rather as Paul instructs Timothy in his second pastoral letter, “Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth… (2 Timothy 2:25)”
And so to the best of my ability, I will try to be as gentle in correction as I can.
But how do we, right now, see if we ourselves are being deceived by false teachings that have crept their way into our lives? Because if we’re honest, there are things that we hold to that are in opposition to God, even in minor ways.
Simple sayings like, “God won't give you more than you can handle.” Well, someone should have told Paul, because he wrote this in 2 Corinthians 1, “8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead (v.8-9).”
Or the saying, “We’re all God’s children.” And even though God did create us all, John reminds us in the first chapter of his Gospel that, “12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (1:12-13).”
Or what about the saying that every kid likes to say, “The devil made me do it.” Except though he is a tempter, James tells us that, “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed (1:14).”
We must be willing to have our beliefs and our motives run-through the filter of God’s Word, so that it can be changed. Instead of reinterpreting the Bible for our own cause, we must seek the Shepherd and his voice, as Jesus said in John 10:27-30, “27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
So as we walk this path of revealing and correcting counterfeit teachings that pull us away from God, we must understand, that we must start with ourselves. We each need to be seeking God as the Psalmist did in Psalm 139, where they wrote, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (v.23-24).”
My challenge for you this week is simply to come before God and pray every day Psalm 139:23-24. Take this week to prepare for the rest of the sermon series, but seeking God to correct any misconception or teaching that has crept into your life, so that we can change according to God’s word and not anyone else’s.
We cannot be people correcting anything, unless we are willing to be corrected ourselves. It’s hard, I know, but we must allow God to correct, because it’s in his correction that we are led on the everlasting way. Amen.
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