THEOLOGICAL CORRECTNESS RUN AMOCK

RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL CORRECTNESS RUN AMUCK

On the comments page of a leading “discernment ministry” there is prominently posted in the COMMENTS section, an appalling display of a disgraceful and prideful tautology being used by the critic who hosts that site against another major mainline Evangelical ministry – one that my wife and I have been involved with and in for several years, and whose pastor – Jonathan Cahn – we have known personally for over ten years.  As I cite the discussion below, take a note how the host to the site uses the banter between this person and himself as a means of self-promotion and superiority over others, a truly Pharisaical example so true to human nature.  The critic continues to stick the proverbial religious knife into Jonathan Cahn’s back as he works to discredit him in the eyes of the Christian public while promoting himself and what he has to say.  Take note, the critic always has something to say, and will not keep quiet until he has spoken his mind.  First the guest.  I quote:

Author: J K Hatfield

Comment:

David,

I am in full agreement with your views and so glad that you are taking the stand that needs to be heard! It is obvious to me that today's doomsday end-time prophets appeal to the non-scholarly church community is at all time (sic) high!  Unfortunately, today's pop-church culture is largely resposible (sic) for allowing such non-biblical bilge to be promoted...even lauded as "gospel" truth!!!  I am a trained conservative Christian scholar in biblical languages (w/specialty in Hebrew and Semitics).  I am constantly made aware even in my home church just how important it is for the church to be fully educated in the truth of God's Word and the standard hermeneutical principles that serve to keep the church on a stable course in the pursuit of truth that sets us free from the confusion and errors of those who interpret God's Word through the lense (sic) of their own pre-determined hermeneutic.

Thanks again for underscoring the truth that not many wish to hear because they love having there "ears scratched"!

J. Hatfield

Then the host critic, who had just had to post this praise to tautology and the pride of man and his intellect, then posted his pretentious reply.  I quote:

Author: David James

Comment:

@J K Hatfield

Thanks so much for the kind and encouraging words (in the midst of the well-taken lament of the state of affairs in the church).

Please be sure to sign up for the ABI updates if you're interested in being notified when additional articles are posted.  By the way, this article is in the process of being readied for publication as a booklet by The Berean Call. We don't think The Mystery of the Shemitah warrants a full book-length response, but it does warrant a significant response, which will be available in e-book format within the next few weeks.

Dave

A common thread about all mockers and revilers of God’s plan throughout human history has been that it has come from the religious quarter, and among those who presume within them to speak for God by mocking His prophets.  These are the ambulance chasing heresy hunters of every age who have openly persecuted the people of God because they have never met their standards of THEOLOGICAL CORRECTNESS.  In times past people were put to death physically for their faith; today they suffer the onslaught of the pen and the Internet, are raked over the religious coals of doctrinal correctness by the self-appointed “discernment” preachers.  One thing these contentious and combative heresy hunters have in common with their progenitors is that they seldom if ever give the other party an opportunity to address their accusations and reproaches before they are publicized.  These people are nothing but religious charlatans.  I don’t care what profession of faith they claim to have, their behavior and continual religious correctness towards other people of faith betrays what is really in their hearts. 

I recall when there arose a division about who Jesus was in a crowd of different groups, each having a different opinion about Him  Jesus had just told the crowd, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.  He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

(John 7:16-18)

Jesus had just told that crowd, probably alluding to Isaiah passage which prophesies specifically what the work of the Messiah would be when He would walk among the children and nation of Israel approximately six hundred years before the events took place.  We know from Isaiah that His death would be redemptive (Isaiah 53), from Daniel, that with the Messiah being “cut off and have nothing” (Daniel 9:27); Jesus with “one sacrifice” (Hebrews 10:12) would in one day – the day of His crucifixion – “finish the transgression, make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity, and would bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.” (Daniel 9:24)  This vision and prophecy has been sealed and kept from the Jewish people for two thousand years, as the Messiah has hidden Himself from His people, and has been cut off from Jewish Community Life and from the Judaism of the Rabbis.  But He sits at the right hand of God (a biblical phrase denoting “ great favor”) on the Mercy Seat of His Father (Revelations 3:21) – a sitting High Priest (Kohen Ha Gadol – Hebrew), because His redemptive work is complete. 

So in light of all of this, Jesus spoke to the crowds as He did, always alluding to the fact that whatever they saw Him do and say in their presence, it was God who was doing it, because His every word, every action, every movement was God walking among His people in human form, just as He promised He would do (Leviticus 26:12).  Indeed, God made this promise clear and it burned in the heart of every Israelite, and to this day, because of the uncertainty Rabbinic Judaism has placed on the Person of the Messiah because of its endless speculation about Him, it is believed among Chassidic and Orthodox Jews that anyone can be the Messiah, and it is the mission of every Jew to discover their “Messianic Calling” in God’s plan.  Yet that is not how it was promised, but the Law promises it in this manner:

“The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well.  I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.  It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.”’

(Deuteronomy 18:17-19)

He would be a Jew like them; God would speak through Him; His words would be truly Ex Cathedra – God’s Word; He would speak all that God gives Him to speak to His people; He would be obedient to everything He is given to say to the people.  And anyone who would not listen to this Great Prophet – Messiah, would be directly accountable to God for it their disobedience, and not to any other.  God Himself would bring them to account for rejecting Him, because He would be His only way of redemption.  This is why the Lord Jesus told those who would listen that it was not He would judge them, but Moses, for their rejection of Him, because He has prophesied of Him this exact prophecy. (John 5:45-47)  This is why Jesus said to everyone, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)  Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.  I can do nothing on My own initiative.  As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

…the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works that I do—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.” (John 5:19, 30, 36, see Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18)

When the Law of Moses makes clear that God Himself would make everyone accountable to the Messiah (Deuteronomy 18:17-19), then one can understand the context of Jesus words which follow:

“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.  For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

(John 5:45-47)

It was clear that because those who claimed to believe in the Scriptures and professed knowledge of the Law, who were the experts in it, and were among the most highly educated of their people neither believed those words or kept the Law, but the traditions of the elders – whose understanding of it was through the oral interpretations that had developed around it in their day; when the Messiah made His appearance to them, they behaved towards Him as religious mockers and revilers have behaved and continue to behave to this age.  They did not believe Jesus’ teachings or His works as coming from God.  This is why concerning all religious mockers and revilers of every age, Christ has this to say on how we should see them.  I quote:

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.  It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master.  If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!”

(Matthew 10:24-25, See John 15:20)

I am reminded of how the Pharisees, who had been following an exchange similar to the one cited above between their own followers within that crowds which followed Jesus, referred to the crowd as a bunch of ignoramouses, while they considered themselves knowledgeable, biblically literate, and the embdiment of spiritual enligtenment.  We read them arguing among themselves and with Nichodemus, who was a prominent member of their Sanhedrin, but who thought for himself and did not fall into the trap of having others think for him.  We follow their discussion, and I quote:

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”  But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.”  Others were saying, “This is the Messiah.”  Still others were saying, “Surely the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee, is He?  Has not the Scripture said that the Messiah comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”  So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him.  Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?”  The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.”  The Pharisees then answered them, “You have not also been led astray, have you?  No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?  But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.”  Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them) *said to them,  “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?”  They answered him, “You are not also from Galilee, are you?  Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.”  Everyone went to his home.

(John 7:37-53)

I am reminded of the Gospel of John, the seventh chapter, particularly that part of the passage above; because there were several groups of people with completely divergent opinions about Jesus and regarding the Messiah, and we that this also translated to the Pharisees, where we witness Nichodemus disagreeing with a group of his fellow co-religionists, who claim that the entire Pharisee order, who “know the Law” and are “enlightened,” have not followed Jesus, but the crowdes “who do not know the Law and are accursed,” (v.49) do.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.

As it was then, so it is today, so it is right now.  Christianity is fragmented and divided.  Christians cannot even agree on the timing of the Messiah’s return – Pre-Trib, Post-Trib, Pre-Millennial, Pre-Wrath, Preterist, A-Millenial, etc…, and they all claim that each one of these views is THE DEFACTO TRUE eschatology that we ought to believe, when the Lord Jesus Himself made it clear that no one knows the exact day or hour, but we can know the signs of the times of His return – BIG DIFFERENCE.

So now we have mockers from within the Church itself – from within Evangelical Christianity – who are now deriding and preaching (as they continually do) against others who are warning people to be aware of the times we live in – not setting dates like the charlatans out there – the false prophets of doom and gloom – but simply obeying Christ’s injunction “when these things begin to take place, for us to straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” (Luke 21:28)  My gosh, what is wrong with that!!!????  Well plenty, according to these people, because to do these things is to be “alarmists shouting fire in a crowded theater.”  Rubbish.  If these people understood the Scriptures and believed them as they claim to, they would not be behaving as they do in these times. 

But of course, these usual ambulance chasing heresy hunters are once again at it, mocking what they do not fully understand, and speaking out against those who do, and who are working to call everyone to prepare to meet their Maker.  There is no fear of God in them, nor is there any semblance of respect and reverence towards their fellow brethren within the body.

These contentious people within the Church spend their days reviling things they do not understand, but believe they do, and hold fellow Christians in contempt, categorizing them along with the heretics as “false prophets” and “false teachers” and because they have a small that support them, they continue doing this daily.  They’ve been doing this for years now. 

They’ve become so accustomed to doing this that when people contact them to correct what they say against others, this small group of critics become indignant and volatile, acting as though their cause is just, and the ones in error are all others who point out to them that their methods of publicizing their personal attacks is not biblical.  Therefore any alleged mistake on their part is excusable as long as they continue to use the bully pulpit against others in the name of “contending for the faith” in the name of “discernment,” a twist on the meaning of both Jude’s Letter and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, the twelfth chapter.  But Jesus has said in regard to us paying close attention and listening to the voice of God:

“The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

(Luke 10:16)

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts

(2Peter 3:3)

“from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

(Acts 20:30)

We’re warned that even within the Church – within the body of Christ itself, there would appear people like these who would presume to speak for God and say perverse things.  Perverse things is when someone takes something and perverts its meaning and replaces it with something else, something that was never said or claimed by its author.  This indicates that contentious people would appear from within the body of Christ, who because what they would say would be to mock and deride other Christians, their reviling and open reproach of their brethren, the way of the truth would be maligned.  When the truth is perverted by false and evil reports, it suffers and the cause of Christ suffers with it.  Think it through, if the world sees Christians malign other Christians, then what credibility can our faith have in the eyes of outsiders?  When people who profess to be born again conservative Evangelical Christians – people in public ministry – spend their days slandering and vilifying in public other Christians over their differences with them on doctrinal issues, and putting almost complete emphasis on doctrine for salvation, then they have severed themselves from Christ and have begun following another – an ideal or a Law, but not Christ.  This is why they lack grace.  There is no grace in them and because they do not possess it, they cannot dispense it, because one can only give what one has.  They do not give grace, because they do not have grace.  They do not know what it is.  They can explain it doctrinally, but they have nothing to show for it in practice.  They’re preachy, but they lack grace and mercy.