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Topic: Idolatry in the Christian Church
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helpforhomeschoolers
Advanced Member
Member # 15
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posted
quote:
Seminary can be the ultimate faith destroyer of the young student. We have a subtle enemy who has infiltrated the very halls of higher academia, and leads the unwary astray.
Those grounded in the Word, stablished in the faith will persevere. Those whose faith is less stablished, whose Word more arbitrary are in danger in seminary. A classic example are so many of the pulpits of the UMC and their rampant liberalism.
Drew that is it Faith! Hal an I were just talking about this purported " missing link" that has just been found. He said "what is next, I cant wait... a human fossil with a dorsal fin!" I said "you know honey, I would laugh but I fear that is exactly correct!"
I fully expect that as they day draw nearer those are the kinds of things we are going to see. Things that look so convincing, so real, so amazing and all of them contradicting the scripture. The just must walk by faith! I believe that this generation is going to have to face things that no other generation before us has ever faced. Things that smack in the face of the scripture and where the scripture says thus and such is this way, everything around us says no it is not! Every thing reasonable to mind of man will say " No way!" and we are gonna have to stand or fall on what the scripture says because the just walk by faith and not by sight.
Mark 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
I am reminded of something our brother John was talking about regarding counterfeits and how to recognize them, he said he and his wife had one time been in the banking business I believe and that they trained to spot counterfeits by studying the real thing closely.
Then I was thinking about something I read once that watchman Nee said. He said people study about Jesus, but they dont study JESUS. HE said we need to study Jesus.
Recently I was listening to YP Yohannan, founder of Gospel For Asia preach and he was talking about his fear for the peoples in Asia where the western social and gospels of prosperity, health and wealth are now finding their way into the 10/40 window and he feared for them because he believes that people need to just love Jesus because He is Jesus and not because through him they are promised the desires of their flesh, for the desires of the flesh of those who have so little are very great, but this life is very short and all flesh must come to end. He said they just need Jesus... just pure Jesus.
Today, the world is painting a picture of Jesus. That world has come inside the church and the picture of Jesus that is outside the church is not very different than the picture that is inside the church.
The Bible says there is coming a time when men will make an image... and I wonder if that image is not beginning to be constructed right now, before our eyes....
Revelation 13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
Will we know Jesus? or will we mistake the counterfeit? Will the Son find faith? Will it be faith in GOD? Will it be faith that will stand on the word no matter what is seen in this world to opose the word? Will we have studied Jesus... the Jesus who is the Lamb of God and of whom ALL the scriptures testify or will we have studied about him and painted our own image of HIM?
May God have mercy on our souls.
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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Caretaker
Advanced Member
Member # 36
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posted
God bless you Sis;
A good article. In essence the higher schools of Biblical criticism remove any potential aspects of the supernatural from the natural universe. They elevate science to the position of arbiter of ultimate truth. The Bible is reduced in status from the inspired directly revelated truth of eternal God, to a compilation of man's arising awareness of supernatural diety. For instance the teaching in comparative religion, of the concept of the myths and legends of an early tribal hunter/gatherer society, becoming more sophisticated as their society evolved into a herder/agraian culture.
In creation the infinite specificly interacts with the finite.
In evolutionary theorum human ascendency creates the concept of the supernatural/divinity.
The humanist would potray man as arising from the primordial "soup" and continuing to ascend towards perfection. Man creates "god" as a peripheral element of an ever more complex thought/culture process. A by-product of moral/ethical codes and concepts.
The creationist represents man as descendent fallen perfection, with the supernatural specificly and specially interacting with the natural, the perfecting of the resulting imperfect. God creates man in His image and redeems him for His express purpose.
Seminary can be the ultimate faith destroyer of the young student. We have a subtle enemy who has infiltrated the very halls of higher academia, and leads the unwary astray.
Those grounded in the Word, stablished in the faith will persevere. Those whose faith is less stablished, whose Word more arbitrary are in danger in seminary. A classic example are so many of the pulpits of the UMC and their rampant liberalism.
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A Servant of Christ,
Drew
1 Tim. 3:
16: And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh..
Posts: 3978 | From: Council Grove, KS USA | Registered: Jun 2002
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helpforhomeschoolers
Advanced Member
Member # 15
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posted
Hey Drew, now that Lissa and her book are gone would you mind deleting your post on the book; without her post in between ours it looks like somehow I am talking about the book.
I just would not want someone skimming to think that.
I would love to hear your thoughts or additions to this article however! ![[hug]](graemlins/hug.gif)
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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Caretaker
Advanced Member
Member # 36
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posted
Information to combat Lissa deleted as per Linda's request.
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A Servant of Christ,
Drew
1 Tim. 3:
16: And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh..
Posts: 3978 | From: Council Grove, KS USA | Registered: Jun 2002
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helpforhomeschoolers
Advanced Member
Member # 15
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posted
"In the Beginning”- Idolatry in the Christian Church
By Ron Carlson
A.W. Tozer in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, says that “Idolatry is not simply worshiping a stone image, but idolatry is any concept of God that reduces God to less than who He really is”. Recently I’ve been thinking about that and I wonder if there is not idolatry throughout many of our Christian Colleges, Seminaries, and so called “apologetic” ministries that seek to give reasons to believe.
What is this Idolatry? It is a pervasive idea today, the idea that finite men know more than the infinite Creator in regards to “In the beginning”. I am amazed at some people in the Christian community whose idea of evangelism requires “political correctness” so that we may be accepted as relevant by a society schooled in the philosophy of Darwinian naturalism that rejects the notion of God a priori.
This is reflected in ministries, colleges, and seminaries whose leaders and professors believe that they know more about Creation than does the Creator. This absurdity is reflective of an arrogance that basically says, “I was not there at the beginning, but with my fallen, sinful, finite, three pound brain, I know more than the infinite, eternal, perfect, faithful, Sovereign Creator who was there!” Therefore, they conclude, it is up to them to correct God’s mistakes in Genesis and set the record straight. This, they believe, will make God acceptable to people who believe in the “big bang”, billions of years of macroevolution, and that the global flood at the time of Noah never occurred or was a local affair in Mesopotamia.
So what is the idolatry in this? The idolatry is that in the name of “evangelism” and for the sake of winning the lost, we must offer the “lost” a God who is acceptable to them on their terms! Since they will not accept or put their faith in the God of the Bible, we will now make God “relevant” by reducing Him down to a level than can be more easily accepted by a secular, naturalistic, evolutionary worldview. Then people can believe!
How do they do this? First they say we must correct Genesis One which says that God spoke everything into existence. Instead of this biblical teaching, we must accept the current enlightened thinking of people who were not there and accept the “big bang” hypothesis. Next they say we must correct God’s divinely inspired revelation of six 24-hour days and a Creation that was perfect (Exodus 20:11; Gen. 1:31) and replace it with the popular naturalistic worldview of billions of years of death, destruction, and survival of the fittest.
Thirdly, therefore, we must do away with God’s revelation that death was the result of sin, since man came along billions of year after death was present. Next we must reject the teaching of Genesis 7 and let God know that he really did not mean a global flood, but that He really was talking about a little local flood around Mesopotamia. Now that we have gotten rid of all of God’s mistakes in Genesis, we can now do relevant evangelism and be “seeker sensitive” in presenting a “god” truly worthy and acceptable to the intelligent 21st century mind!
Does this idolatry bother anyone? It doesn’t seem like it. A majority of our Christian colleges and seminaries, as well as many “apologetic” ministries and Christian publishing houses now promote these ideas. Does this arrogance bother anyone? That finite men with three pound brains who were not there, think they know more than the infinite and eternal Creator who was there!
Let me share a few observations in support of God’s revealed biblical truths. First, God did not need six 24-hour days to create the world. If you understand the omnipotence of God, He could have done it in six seconds! People who try to help God out with a process of billions of years for creation have a very small and impotent concept of who God is!
Second, Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 teach that death was a result of sin and sin came through one man Adam. Therefore, the idea that death was around for billions of years prior to Adam is unbiblical. If death was not a result of sin, then there is no need for a Savior. Furthermore, while some Christian evolutionists claim that the death being described in these passages is only spiritual death, it is important to understand that this is biblically impossible; the 1 Corinthians 15 reference to death is clearly talking about physical death, as this whole chapter is an apologetic argument for Christ’s physical resurrection!
Third, an important question to consider in regards to God’s creative work is this, why would a perfect God use an imperfect means (billions of years of evolutionary death and destruction) to create a perfect world? It makes no logical or biblical sense. You have to wonder, what kind of “god” is it that they’re trying to bring people to!
Fourth, the idea that light coming from stars necessitates billions of years is purely a naturalistic worldview. Since God is eternal and omnipresent, God is above “time” and “space”. God is not limited by “time” or confined by “space”. He, in fact, is the Creator of Time and Space! So, the premise that “distance equals time” is totally irrelevant to God and purely a function of a limited, finite, naturalistic worldview (Psalm 19:1; Isaiah 40:26).
Fifth, those Christians who hold to an “old earth” do so because they view the fossil record as one of billions of years of death and destruction. They have accepted fallible human assumptions regarding the ages of rocks and fossils, assumptions which are based purely upon a naturalistic worldview which requires billions of years of evolution. Instead of accepting these naturalistic assumptions, which are not based upon scientific facts, these Christian men and women of science would do better biblically and scientifically to simply accept the truth of the evidence. What we find in the fossil record around the world is testimony of a world-wide global flood, as described in Genesis 7, with everything being buried in its logical ecological niche some five thousand years ago. This is scientifically sound and biblically faithful.
I’m all for evangelism and reaching the lost, but in our desire to reach the lost, let’s not water down the truth of who God is or the authority of his Word for the sake of the predominant human philosophies of our day. Otherwise we are bringing people to another “god” and committing the sin of Idolatry!
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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