Well, it was good last week to resume blogging again. I promised myself I was going to keep it short and aim for consistency, rather than length, but I quickly got carried away and wrote two pages just on how to better manage my time. I guess I started out defeating my own purpose. However, it’s all good, because the Lord recently showed me that all my writing experience is leading up to writing a book of my experiences as a small town pastor in rural America. The vision of it becomes more and more real as I see my 60th birthday creeping towards me.
This April I’ll be 57. Susan and I are doing a lot to insure we remain healthy well into our 60’s. You know, all the usual stuff — exercise, lose weight, change diet, relieve stress. It is working and for the first time in a long time I am thinking I could weigh less than 200 pounds and that amazes me. I also find adopting the “food as fuel” concept has helped me to move away from the “food as entertainment” way of life I have lived for so many years. The result is that I can think clearer and last longer through the day. I have become convinced that the usual lifestyle of a pastor can be hazardous to your health if you don’t make yourself get up and move. Investing four to six hours a week in exercise is a price you just have to pay to make the other hours more meaningful and useful.
However, that is not what is on my mind this morning. Sunday night I was sharing the first four doctrines of the Assemblies of God with the people of Calvary. I do a four-part series every January, where we review the 16 doctrines of the Assemblies of God. This year I was particularly interested in doing this series because the AG has produced a shiny new pamphlet outlining these doctrines. They have revised the wording to reach a new generation and I wanted to update how I teach them to be in line with this update.
As I began to share about them I kept falling into talking about all the errors and heresies floating around today. Some are reoccurring ones the church has battled since the first century. Some are new ones that are just stupid, like Jesus was married and John was the actual Messiah. Those arise because people love to promote disinformation just to see who’ll believe it.
While I was sharing (I was tired last night, so my mind kept drifting) I began to think back to when I was a child and I didn’t know about opposing points of view. Everything I was told I thought was the way it was and I accepted it as so. I didn’t know there were other people who believed differently. This one fact will probably be an entire chapter in the book I write, but let me share with you today, in brief, what this means to me.
It means we have to make some decisions in life as to what we are going to believe. Also it means we have to have an ongoing process by which we filter new views into our existing ones, all the while maintaining a consistency to our lives through faith.
Here’s an example: When I was a child, my parents taught me there was a Santa Claus, and like some children, I was naive enough to truly believe it. No, I didn’t think about it much, because I thought everyone believed there was a Santa Claus. I had not experienced the fact of opposing views yet. I was taught to accept things which were told to me and, for all I knew, everyone else accepted those same views too.
The same was true for my early Christian experience. Everyone I knew went to the Baptist church in Henryville, Indiana. So, of course, I did too. I actually walked by the Methodist church on my way to church and returned home past the Catholic church, but somehow they didn’t register in my mind. I could not conceive that those churches might have differing points of view about God than what I was being taught in the Baptist church. To me everyone in the world believed the same and joyously taught others the same wonderful truths I was hearing at my church.
There is something to say for a small town like Henryville, Indiana back in the 50’s and 60’s. You didn’t hear much of anything about the world, except than what your parents or teachers at school told you. Everyday it was more of the same. The natural assumption was that everyone in the world knew what you knew and believed what you believed.
Well, how the world has changed! Now almost everyday you have all sorts of opposing views, even down to the individual level. Everyone seems to be an authority on something they saw on the internet. Everyone seems to rush to the latest fad or opposing point of view. Everyone is involved in endless debate and idle curiosity over some new discovery or some new teaching. Even the stability of the Bible, which has endured for centuries, has been put on the chopping block of discussion. Believers of every strip are coming up with the oddest notions about what to believe and seem so willing to cast off the traditions and doctrines the church has held since the days of the Apostles.
Of course where do I derive this point of view from? From the internet. In an effort to find consistency, I find more and more viewpoints being introduced. Everyone wants to have a say. Finding people who value the Word of God over modern opinions is a rare jewel on the internet. My heart is deeply grieved for two things. One, I see a plethora of opposing ideas touted as a new more advanced understanding of God over the Bible’s view. Two, and worse yet, I see a great desire to deceive and lead others astray for the shear fun of it. It seems some people delight in seeing how many gullible people they can sway to their point of view. It used to be interesting, but now it is just tiring trying to wade through all the deceptions to just get actual, factual information. It is also amazing how quickly the saints of God want to believe some new thing and depart from ageless sound doctrine.
Now when a new person comes to church, they no longer have this heart of acceptance of the things we teach. They have been filled with a host of opposing views and sometimes they hold to some that just don’t make any good sense. Others have developed cynical, critical attitudes towards those who teach with authority, because of the abuse they have suffered at the hands (or mouths) of deceivers.They are so messed up I have to ask not only what they believe, but why in the world do they even believe it in the first place? What ever happened to discernment and common sense? These opposing views are making the church powerless to operate and therein lies the work of the enemy. James 3:16 (KJV) says “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” What all these opposing views are doing is throwing the church into confusion. Many believers literally cannot decide what they believe anymore. Even within our own denomination there are those who would oppose what we stand for. They are not bringing clarity, they are bringing confusion.
This begs the question, “What should we believe and how should we view the opposition?” If you take the Apostle Paul’s stance, we are locked in a battle for the truth. Isaiah 59:14 (KJV) says, “…truth is fallen in the street,…” The “what-about-this-and-what-about-that” attitude sweeping the church wants to bury the truth so deep no one has the energy to dig for it anymore. Those who still desire the truth are going to have to make a decision as to what point of view they are going to hold to or they won’t be able to hold onto anything any longer.
I made my decision years ago. I will STAND for the TRUTH!” As Jesus was praying to the Father in John 17:17 he said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” Most churches have this belief written as number one in their statement of doctrine, and rightly so. Because if this foundational truth, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, is displaced then all other views will gain credence. However, if you can only decide, once for all, that the Bible is the Word of God, then everything makes sense and you don’t have far to look to find the truth about anything you need to know.
The Apostle Paul spent his life fighting against opposing views in the church. He prayed for unity, he taught unity, and even stood in the face of disunity and was accused of causing it. Nevertheless, he tirelessly strove to perfect the saints around the truth of God’s Word. He fearlessly confronted error, myths, and legalism. He courageously opposed those who tried to lead others astray. In short, he spent more time trying to put down the opposing views in the church than he did teaching the truth to the church. What a shame.
Well, we now live in those same times. Everyone has a truth, a teaching, and a tale to tell. Everyone wants their views heard, honored, and adhered to. Everyone has become an authority on their own opinions. Sadly, the church is trying to accommodate all these things and is losing (or forsaking) the real truth in the process. At Calvary we must decide what we believe and take a stand for the truth. It grieves my heart when I hear in our halls these subtle voices touting this new idea or that new view. It pains me deeply when pastors of our own denomination subvert our core doctrines on which our fellowship was founded.
Why does this happen? How can this be? For one simple reason. We spend far too much time listening to all these opposing views and too little time in the Word of God itself. As a result, new believers are being filled with conflict and confusion over just what to believe. They are being raised on a vast array of opposing views. No wonder they oppose those who are over them in the Lord and no wonder they even oppose themselves.
Well, again I have overstepped my goal of short and sweet in this blog. I want to keep it short, but why say nothing? We are living in times where those who take the biblical stance will be considered narrow-minded and bigoted. We must look past all the accusations to the greater goal of promoting truth in the midst of lies. The thing we are defending is the truth of God’s Word. It is only truth that can change our hearts and fashion us into the image of Jesus.
“6 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—
7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing
you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other
than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!
9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel
other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
Galatians 1:6-9, NIV.
Until next week, pray for me and the people of Calvary. May the Lord use us greatly this year to advance his kingdom and “STAND for the TRUTH!”