Category: False Teaching

Shallow #7

Monday, October 28, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

The Scriptural record demonstrates that, by the opening years of the first century A.D., the LORD God has dealt with the most wretched, rebellious, unbelieving race of creatures in all of His creation. Some 4,000 years since creation, and God’s will in the earth (His earthly kingdom) is still not accomplished.

When He offers Israel her Messiah-King (Jesus), the Person who alone can redeem her from sin and Satan, and who alone can cleanse her of her sins, Israel demands His crucifixion (John 19:15)! Even into the early Acts period, Israel is still unrepentant. She continues to intentionally reject God’s Word to her, as the Prophet Stephen testified: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). Shortly after Stephen spoke these words, Israel stones and murders him; national Israel has now committed the “unpardonable sin” of Matthew 12:31,32, and thus (temporarily) falls before God.

In Acts chapter 9, God implements a plan that He has kept secret in Himself since the world began (Ephesians 3:1-11). He saves His chief enemy in the earth, Saul of Tarsus, commissions him as Paul the Apostle, and sends salvation to the Gentiles without Israel’s kingdom (Romans 11:11-13), thus beginning a new agency, the Church the Body of Christ, and His purpose and plan for the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:20-23).

And so, we (finally!) reach the context of today’s Scripture. Unfortunately, members of the Body of Christ are just as sinful and ignorant of God’s Word as the billions who lived during the previous 4,000 years (or 6,000 years if we include the present-day). Sin abounds in Corinth, in the lives of these Christians (read 1 Corinthians). Today’s Scripture, sadly, applies to many sincere Christians today. Religious tradition and the world’s “wisdom” have polluted their souls and corrupted their minds. Consequently, they too have rejected God’s Word to them… often, deliberately….

Shallow #6

Sunday, October 27, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

Adam deliberately rejected God’s Word—so did Cain, Noah’s generation, and the post-diluvial (“after the Flood”) human race at Babel. For 2,000 years, God has attempted to use mankind in the earth for His glory, but mankind has audaciously and willfully rejected His Word and will. Dear readers, secular humanism is nothing new!

So, in Genesis chapter 12, God finds Abram, a pagan Syrian, and through this one man—whom He will later rename “Abraham”—He will create a group who will accomplish His will in the earth (which Adam and all of his descendants up to that point had failed to do). According to the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3), God created that nation, Israel, using Abraham’s son Isaac, Isaac’s son Jacob and Jacob’s 12 sons (heads of the 12 tribes of Israel).

About 500 years after the Abrahamic Covenant was instituted, God through Moses leads Israel (now about two million in number) out of Egyptian bondage. In Deuteronomy 4:1-49, Moses cautions Israel not to reject God’s Word to them (the Mosaic Law). They are to obey His every command when they arrive in the Promised Land. “For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?” (verse 7). The wayward nations (Gentiles) were to see the wisdom of the Creator God demonstrated in Israel’s behavior and lifestyle (verse 6).

Alas, as the centuries passed, Israel went deeper and deeper into apostasy. Circa 700 B.C., JEHOVAH chided Israel: “There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). Rather than knowledge of God’s Word in Israel’s land, there is idolatry, lying, murder, stealing, adultery, and violence (verses 2ff.). Like the billions before them, they too have intentionally rejected God’s Word and will for them (verse 6)….

Shallow #5

Saturday, October 26, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

For 120 years, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), built the ark according to God’s instructions, and warned the world of the impending Global Flood. Eight people—Noah, his wife, and their three sons and their wives— boarded the ark just before the Flood (Genesis 7:7). God gave mankind an additional seven days to change their mind, believe His Word as spoken by Noah, and come into the ark of safety (verses 4,10). Of these perhaps four billion people in the world, not a single one came into the ark!

Jesus Christ Himself commented that when the waters of the Great Deluge came from above and from below, humanity was still pursuing carefree, satisfying lifestyles (Matthew 24:37-39). Although God’s Word, the warning of His impending judgment, was the least of their concern, violent waves of water immediately drowned their physical bodies and the flames of hell surrounded their souls. Most of the animal and plant species perished too (their fossilized remains form the geologic rock record that scientists still study today).

Approximately 150 to 200 years after the Great Flood, we come to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). The new human population (Noah’s descendants) rejects the knowledge of God (just as Noah’s antediluvian generation did), defying God’s command to multiply and scatter over the face of the earth (Genesis 1:28; Genesis 9:1). Instead, they collaborate and begin to construct a city and a tower (place of false religious worship), Babel (just south of present-day Baghdad, Iraq). That false religious system is the “mother” of most present-day world religions. In order to slow down man’s rebellion against Him, God confounded their languages and scattered mankind across the globe (the origination of Gentile nations).

After God gave the Gentiles over to Satan, He selected one man, Abram, through whom He would create a nation of people, Israel. Now, let us see if Israel will be any different from the previous Bible-rejecters….

Shallow #1

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

Society, even here in our beloved “Christian” America, is becoming increasingly secular humanistic. Secular humanism is an outlook/worldview that boasts, “We humans are good enough to solve our problems, without God and His Word.” Secular humanists emphasize man and ignore God. There is no regard whatsoever for the Creator’s will: the only issue is what does mankind think is right, acceptable, and good. How did mankind ever get to such a pitiful condition? What would ever cause such a frail, short-lived creature—made of mere dirt!—to exalt himself to such a deified position?

Let us be clear about three points:

  1. CREATION: Man’s original spiritual and moral decay could have been avoided had he not willfully rejected his knowledge of God (just like the Christians referenced in today’s Scripture). We can, and later will, appeal to the Scriptures to see man’s spiritual and moral decline… less than a week after his creation!
  2. CIVILIZATION: The significant cultural transformation—the willful rejection of the knowledge of God—that we are witnessing today is nothing new (recall the Christians referenced in today’s Scripture). What is happening today in the United States and all nations is something that God has seen many times over. He is not surprised, and neither should the Bible student. We can, and later will, appeal to the Scriptures to see Israel’s spiritual and moral decline.
  3. CHURCH: The professing “Church” has repeatedly—and in many cases, deliberately—rejected their knowledge of God (just like the Christians referenced in today’s Scripture). This is nothing new, either, as God has seen it many times over. He is not surprised, and neither should the Bible student. We can, and later will, appeal to the Scriptures to see the professing “Church’s” spiritual and moral decline.

The serious Bible student can recognize a pattern in the three above points, which we will now carefully dissect….

Saved, If Ye Keep in Memory? #4

Saturday, October 19, 2013

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1,2 KJV).

Although a stumbling block to many, today’s Scripture is not difficult to understand when we consider the context….

Verses 12, 14, and 17 explain that to “believe in vain” (today’s Scripture) is to believe to no purpose, to believe a gospel that is not true. It has nothing to do with not having “enough faith,” not having the “right kind of faith,” et cetera. These are theological gimmicks invented because people do not understand how to handle the passage. All the nonsense aside, Paul is saying in today’s Scripture that if Jesus Christ never resurrected, then it is pointless to believe that Gospel of the Grace of God that teaches that He did resurrect bodily.

Now, notice the “by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you” portion of today’s Scripture. The word “saved” is to be defined according to the context. Verse 19 is very clear: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” The salvation of today’s Scripture is salvation from misery and hopelessness! Today’s Scripture has nothing to do with salvation from sin, hell, et cetera.

Some of the Corinthians failed to remember what the Apostle Paul had preached to them regarding Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection (verse 12). They erred in this regard, probably influenced by the pagan mythology (the culture of Corinth) that denied bodily resurrection. These Corinthians had not “kept in memory what [Paul] preached unto [them],” so they “believed in vain.” By abandoning the doctrine of bodily resurrection, the Corinthians were setting themselves up for disappointment. As we will see, if we fail to keep foremost in our minds Jesus Christ’s literal, physical, visible resurrection, then we will not be saved from despair and misery on a daily basis.

Let us now summarize and conclude this devotionals arc….

Saved, If Ye Keep in Memory? #3

Friday, October 18, 2013

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1,2 KJV).

Although a stumbling block to many, today’s Scripture is not difficult to understand when we consider the context….

One of Christendom’s costliest mistakes is its assumption that there is only one type of salvation taught in the Scriptures. Whenever the Bible uses the terms “saved” or “salvation,” it is imperative to read the context to see what type of salvation it is. The Bible does not only speak of salvation from hell and sins, unto eternal life. This false assumption of only one type of salvation in Scripture, coupled with the conditional statement in today’s Scripture (“ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you”), only confuses the average Bible reader… and translator!

Forget idle speculation—the context of today’s Scripture interprets today’s Scripture for us! Consider verses 12,14,17: “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” One of the 10 major problems in Corinth was a denial of Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection (hence, Paul devoted all of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to the doctrine of physical resurrection).

According to the above verses, to “believe in vain” (today’s Scripture) is to believe to no purpose. Stated another way, it is to believe a gospel that is not true. Paul is saying that if Jesus Christ did not resurrect, then it is pointless to believe the Gospel of the Grace of God that teaches that He was in fact raised again the third day (verse 4). By clarifying the matter of “believing in vain” of today’s Scripture, the issue of “saved, if ye keep in memory” becomes astoundingly clearer, too….

Saved, If Ye Keep in Memory? #2

Thursday, October 17, 2013

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1,2 KJV).

Although a stumbling block to many, today’s Scripture is not difficult to understand when we consider the context….

If not approached properly, today’s Scripture can be very confusing and troubling. In fact, some modern Bible translators, misled by denominational thinking, end up distorting the wording of today’s Scripture, thereby giving credence to the Calvinistic doctrine of “the perseverance of the saints,” the idea that we Christians must do our best to hold firm to Christian morality and behavior so we can be saved from hellfire and go to heaven.

In other words, Calvinists deny the Christian’s eternal security, and thus greatly emphasize our performance, which frustrates the grace of God (Galatians 2:21). Matthew 24:13, Hebrews 6:4-6, Hebrews 12:13-17, and 2 Peter 2:20-22 are some of “proof texts” of the Calvinist’s “perseverance of the saints.” Today’s Scripture is another misused verse in that regard, so it behooves us to settle the matter concerning today’s Scripture.

Let us begin by commenting that, over the last 2,000 years, Christendom has made countless false assumptions that have caused literally billions of people to completely miss profound teachings of the Scriptures. For example, the aforementioned Matthew 24:13—“He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved”—is explained in verse 22 as physical salvation (“except those days be shortened, there should no flesh be saved”). This “salvation” is people physically surviving the horrors of the entire seven-year Tribulation period, and has nothing to do with us Christians in the Dispensation of Grace—Matthew 24:13 is not even discussing anyone’s soul salvation from hell anyway!

With that in mind, we now proceed to examining today’s Scripture within its context. The common assumption is that the “salvation” referenced in today’s Scripture is salvation from hellfire and salvation unto eternal life. Is this assumption valid? As we will see, nay, it is not a valid assumption….

Saved, If Ye Keep in Memory? #1

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1,2 KJV).

Although a stumbling block to many, today’s Scripture is not difficult to understand when we consider the context….

Can our soul salvation unto eternal life be lost? Today’s Scripture is often used to deny the “once saved, always saved” position because it reads: “[we] are saved, if [we] keep in memory what [Paul] preached unto [us], unless [we] have believed in vain.” Does that mean we will go to hell if we forget Paul’s Gospel? What does it mean to “believe in vain?”

Interestingly, the (Roman Catholic) New American Bible reads in 1 Corinthians 15:2: “Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain.” The NIV agrees: “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” These perversions do not make the Bible easier to understand; contrariwise, they intensify the confusion surrounding today’s Scripture. Must we “hold firmly/fast,” lest we lose our salvation, as these modern translations suggest?

Verses 12-17 provide some insight into the meaning of today’s Scripture: “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”

Let us continue scrutinizing the context to understand today’s Scripture….

Of the Light, Not of the Night

Monday, October 14, 2013

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:1,2 KJV).

Why do you suppose Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night?

Today’s Scripture, excerpted from the Bible’s most recognized passage, involves a Pharisee asking Jesus questions to which he should already know the answers. Nicodemus is a religious leader who studied the Old Testament Scriptures, and yet he is totally ignorant of the spiritual rebirth that Israel needs because of her biological link to Adam (the Old Testament prophets discussed this “heart circumcision” in Deuteronomy 10:16, Deuteronomy 30:6, Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah 31:33, et cetera).

Space prevents an in-depth discussion of John chapter 3, but here, we want to briefly discuss why Nicodemus has come to Jesus “by night” (today’s Scripture). John 7:50 confirms, “he that came to Jesus by night.” Nicodemus is sneaking about at nighttime, lest his colleagues see him talking with Jesus. He knows that if he is seen in public in broad daylight speaking with Jesus Christ, he will lose his reputation, livelihood, income, everything.

John 12:42,43 are an excellent commentary as to how the Pharisees treated those who confessed Jesus as Messiah: “Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

Sadly, like Nicodemus, many church leaders today “creep about in shadows,” too fearful to publicly stand up for God’s truth. They avoid embracing a “King James only” position, lest they be considered “unscholarly.” They withhold the fact that Paul’s epistles are written to and about us, lest they be called “unorthodox.” They dare not speak about the sins of the world, lest they be deemed “unloving.”

Saints, may we boldly stand in God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ, unapologetically preaching Him from God’s Word, the King James Bible, rightly divided! 🙂

The Great Things The Lord Jesus Hath Done #5

Thursday, October 10, 2013

“And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (Mark 5:20 KJV).

Who is this man, and what “great things” hath the Lord Jesus done for him?

The devil-possessed Gadarene of today’s Scripture is a perfect picture of the nation Israel when her Messiah, Jesus, came to her, saying, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24; cf. Matthew 10:6).

This Gadarene has been possessed of devils for a long time, just as Israel has been in satanic captivity for centuries. The Gadarene lives out in the mountains and wilderness, just as Israel is “in the wilderness,” spiritually speaking—she has wandered far from JEHOVAH’S ways. Just as the devils have corrupted the Gadarene’s mind so he cannot think properly, so Satan has used apostate religious tradition to prevent Israel from having the mindset God had given to her through the Old Testament Scriptures.

As the Gadarene is physically naked, so Israel is destitute of God’s righteousness (spiritual clothing). One can neither tame the Gadarene nor “stiffnecked” Israel. The Gadarene prefers to live in and among tombs; Israel is content to physically live while remaining spiritually dead in her trespasses and sins.

The Gadarene screams, drawing attention to his devil-inspired lifestyle that led to ridicule, just as Israel’s sinful behavior grabbed the attention and generated mocking from the Gentiles. Neither the Gadarene nor the nation Israel can free themselves from Satan’s power. It is this very nation Israel for which Jesus Christ has come to die, so that He may give them a new life when He resurrects!

For a long time, the Gadarenes have heard of the wild man living nearby. No one can help him—humanly speaking, he literally is hopeless and helpless. The only Person who can deliver him from such a miserable existence is the one and the same Person who alone can save his nation… and this former miracle He will perform to demonstrate He can also accomplish the latter….