On the Watch for Heresy . . .

Thanks to Justin Taylor, I am copying this for my readers as an example of how some popular preachers have gone astray. While more is to come, let us not throw it off as so much unnecessary controversy. Anything that seeks to expose ill doctrine is not unnecessary. Read and see what you think . . .

Rob Bell: Universalist?

Note: I’ve added an update at the end of this post.



John Piper once wisely wrote, “Bad theology dishonors God and hurts people. Churches that sever the root of truth may flourish for a season, but they will wither eventually or turn into something besides a Christian church.”

It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine.

But it is better for those teaching false doctrine to put their cards on the table (a la Brian McLaren) rather than remaining studiously ambiguous in terminology.

So on that level, I’m glad that Rob Bell has the integrity to be lay his cards on the table about  universalism. It seems that this is not  just optimism about the fate of those who haven’t heard the Good News, but (as it seems from below) full-blown hell-is-empty-everyone-gets-saved universalism.

Here is HarperCollins’s description of his next book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

Fans flock to his Facebook page, his NOOMA videos have been viewed by millions, and his Sunday sermons are attended by 10,000 parishioners—with a downloadable podcast reaching 50,000 more. An electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,” Rob Bell is the most vibrant, central religious leader of the millennial generation. Now, in Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

I haven’t read the whole book yet and was hesitant to say something based on the publisher’s description (which usually isn’t written by the author). But this video from Bell himself shows that he is moving farther and farther away from anything resembling biblical Christianity:
Update: Thanks for all of you who have weighed in. I cannot respond to each comment, so I thought this might be the best way to make a few points.

1) One of the things I get criticized for is having comments in the first place, but this is a place where you can tell me if you think I’ve done things wrong or in the wrong way. I want to be open to correction, and this is one forum by which to do it.

2) I updated a couple of things on the original post. First, I deleted “seems to” with regard to Bell’s moving farther away from biblical Christianity. Second, I changed “unambiguous about his universalism” to “lay his cards on the table about universalism.” Third, I deleted the 2 Cor. 11:14-15 reference at the end. I do think it’s important to recognize the biblical theme that false teachers look like cuddly sheep and like angels of light. But let’s wait for the book so we can see all his cards laid out on the table.

3) I have not read all of Bell’s book, though I have read some chapters that were sent to me. When the book is published there were be detailed reviews, and I will link to them. I think that the publisher’s description combined with Bell’s video is sufficient evidence to suggest that he thinks hell is empty and that God’s love (which desires all to be saved) is always successful. I should have been more careful in my original post not to imply that Bell is definitely a universalist. He may believe that some people go out of existence and are not thereby saved. The materials I have seen sound more like universalism though (note it sounds like no one goes to hell, and that the title promises to talk about the fate of everyone who has ever lived, which sure sounds like it’s the same for everyone).

4) I highly doubt that this is a mere marketing stunt or that Bell is merely asking questions or playing Devil’s Advocate. If it turns out that the full book is diametrically opposed to his publisher’s description and to the conclusions he wants you to reach in the video, I will make that clear on this blog.

5) If Bell is teaching that hell is empty and that you can reject Jesus and still be saved, he is opposing the gospel and the biblical teaching of Jesus Christ. You may think that’s judgmental to say that; I think it’s being faithful. I would encourage a careful study of 1 Timothy to see what Paul says about false teaching and teachers.

6) For those who are not regular readers of this blog and think that the perspective advocated here is totally out to lunch, you may want to check out Kevin DeYoung’s post, “To Hell with Hell,” which gives a nice brief summary on the importance of understanding the wrath of God. As H. Richard Niebuhr wrote 75 years ago, too often we want “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross,” Kingdom of God in America (1937), p. 193. Also see Denny Burk’s post where he seeks to answer Bell’s questions from a biblical perspective.

7) Let’s remember to pray. Rob Bell needs to know and teach the liberating gospel of grace—including that Christ absorbed the Father’s wrath on behalf of those who trust in him and repent of their sins. And there are tens of thousands of folks who look to Rob Bell as a biblical teacher and leader. May God give much mercy.

Being "At Home" with Christ

A few more words from Spurgeon's sermon on 1 John 2:28, preached September 22, 1889: 

“Abide in Him” in the sense of being at home in Him. What a world of meaning I intend by those words, “being at home in Christ”! And yet this is the sense of the words, “Abide in Him.” I was speaking yesterday to a friend who had bought a pleasant house, with a large garden. And he said to me, “I now feel as if I have a home. I have lived in London for years and I have changed from one house to another with as little regret as a man feels in changing an omnibus. But I have always longed for the home feeling which hung about my father’s house in the country.

“Why, there we loved the cozy rooms and the look-outs from the little windows and the corner cupboards in the kitchen. As for the garden and the field, they yielded us constant delight, for there was that bush in the garden where the robin had built and the tree with the blackbird’s nest. We knew where the pike lay in the pool and where the tortoise had buried itself for the winter and where the first primroses would be found in the spring. There is a vast difference between a house and a home.” . . .

Lord Jesus, I am at home nowhere but in You. In You I abide. Wherever else I lodge, I have in due time to shift my quarters. Whatever else I have, I lose it, or leave it. But You are the same and You change not. What a comfort to have our Lord Himself to be our chosen dwelling place in time and in eternity!

Spurgeon on "Abide in Him" (1 John 2:28)

You could not have a nobler motive than the constraining love of Christ. To live for Christ is the highest style of living—continue in it more and more. If the Lord changes your circumstances, still live for Christ. If you go up, take Christ up with you—if you go down, Christ will go down with you. If you are in health, live for Christ earnestly. If you are bound to a sick bed, live for Christ patiently. Go about your business and sing for Jesus. Or if He bids you stay at home and cough away your life, then cough for Jesus. But let everything be for Him. For you, “Excelsior” means higher consecration, more heavenly living. . . .

“Abide in Him” as the element of your life. Let Him encompass you as the air surrounds you on all sides. As a fish, whether it is the tiniest sprat or the largest whale, abides in the sea—so do you abide in Christ. The fish does not seek the sky or the shore, it could not live out of the element of water. And even so, I beseech you, do not seek to live in the world and in its sins. As a Christian, you cannot live there—Christ is your life. There is room enough for you in the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is the infinite God. Go not out of Him for anything. Seek not pleasure outside of Christ, nor treasure outside of Christ. For such pleasure or treasure would be ruinous. Have neither want, nor will, nor wish, beyond your Lord. Let Him draw a line around you and abide within that circle.

Brad Pitt: Why Emphasize God's God-Centeredness?

Reposted from Desiring God blog . . . 

Posted: 21 Feb 2011 11:30 PM PST

In a 2007 interview for Parade, actor Brad Pitt describes how he stumbled, as C.S. Lewis and Michael Prowse and Erik Reece before him, over God’s ego.

Pitt was raised a conservative Southern Baptist. For a while, his religion worked. But not for long.

Religion works. I know there's comfort there, a crash pad. It's something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it's comforting. I grew up believing in it, and it worked for me in whatever my little personal high school crisis was, but it didn't last for me.

Why not? He points to the ego of God.

I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, “You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!” It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

So there it is again.

God is infinitely wise, just, holy, strong, and good. But God’s command that we see him for what he is, and be glad about it, is the reason Pitt found God unintelligible. God’s god-ness has always been the main problem.

There is an answer to the seeming egomania of God, and his demand that we embrace him as the supreme—and supremely satisfying—Treasure of the universe:

Reason #1 — He is supremely valuable and supremely satisfying.

Reason #2 — Receiving him as such is the only way we will find full, everlasting joy.

Reason #3 — Therefore, his demand that we do so is love, not egomania.

Pray for the thousands of Brad Pitts to see that God’s demand for worship is a demand that we enjoy what is supremely enjoyable.

Somali Pirates & Earthquakes! Are We Safe?

  Islamic pirates murder 4 Americans
2/22/11 - Four Americans taken hostage by Somali pirates off East Africa were shot and killed by their captors Monday, the U.S. military said, the first time that sea bandits have killed U.S. Hostages. 

  Dozens killed in NZ quake
2/22/11 - A 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Tuesday, causing buildings to collapse, burying vehicles under debris, and sending rescuers scrambling to help trapped people amid reports of many deaths. 

I saw these listed among other news items on OneNewsNow.com. Seems this is standard fare these days. Now, I say this not to dismiss but to emphasize the seriousness of the days in which we live. Granted, if you were to look at many years gone by, you might be able to say those days were just as bad, or close to it. Other days WERE rough, but now we need a strength for our day. Listen to these words of comfort from Edward Payson, one of the greatest men of God in the 18th-19th Centuries:

"Whatever your sorrows or trials may be, [Jesus] knows by experience how to sympathize with you. . . . Has Satan wounded you with his fiery darts? He remembers how sorely his own heart was bruised when he wrestled with principalities and powers, and crushed the head of the prince of darkness. Are you assaulted with various and distressing temptations? Christ was tempted to doubt whether he were the Son of God, to presume upon his Father's love, and to worship the father of lies. . . . Does the world persecute and despise you, or are your enemies those of your own household? Christ was despised and rejected of men, and his own relations stigmatized him as a madman."

Look to Christ. Look to Christ. That is always the best and soundest advice. It is this we will need should great trial come our way as it did the four Bible-delivering Christians killed by the Somali pirates. We awaken one day with plans, good plans in our heart, and our head never hits the pillow that night. None of us knows when that will happen. So, how prepared are we? As Payson urges, "O, then, banish all your fears. Look at your merciful High Priest who is passed into the heavens, and triumphantly exclaim with the apostle, 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?'"

Indeed.

A Dead Pope Answers Prayer!?! Really???

Nun prays to Pope John Paul II and gets answer??!!

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France – A French nun says she felt new inner strength and vitality as her Parkinson's disease suddenly disappeared in 2005 — a recovery the Vatican attributes to the miraculous intercession of Pope John Paul II (1920-2005). Find this article HERE.

Now, whether mainstream Catholics will swallow such things is not the issue here, it's that the Vatican puts their stamp of approval on it. This is yet one more instance of an heretical "church" running completely contrary to the inspired, authoritative Word of God. But this is really to be expected of those who by their own reckoning refuse to accept Scripture as inspired. Read their own definition:

"By pinning private judgment to the Bible the Reformers started a book religion, i.e. a religion of which, theoretically, law of faith and conduct is contained in a written document without method, without authority, without an authorized interpreter. The collection of books called "the Bible" is not a methodical code of faith and morals; if it be separated from the stream of tradition which asserts its Divine inspiration, it has no special authority, and, in the hands of private interpreters, its meaning is easily twisted to suit every private mind. Catholic Encyclopedia 

My Response to Their Heresy

The Reformers didn't "start" anything; but they did recover everything. They recaptured what the Roman "church" had hi-jacked many years before, the authority of the Scriptures as the sole means of determining the true life and Christian practice. And as far as their claim that "in the hands of private interpreters, its meaning is easily twisted to suit every private mind," they are quite right. It certainly CAN be as Peter avers in 2 Peter 3:16. And right now, I am thinking that this applies to the Roman Catholic "church" with unabashed shame. They would have their people praying through Mary (something the Bible does not even hint at). They would further deny out-rightly Scripture's clear declaration, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). This is as clear as it gets! By having people attempt to pray through Mary or in the above case, John Paul II, they out-rightly deny the clear teaching of the Bible, and foist upon the unsuspecting a religion that finds no support but in the vacillating and sin-affected opinions of man. And the worst thing of all is that by so teaching they absolutely trample under foot the supremacy and glory of the perfect Son of God disallowing him his rightful place as the only Savior and mediator of all who wish to come to God! NOTHING COULD BE WORSE THAN THIS. For as Scripture teaches:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9–11, ESV)

So, we must not allow such an awful tragedy to go unanswered. Thankfully, there are those who have and are speaking up. (Please read, for example, The Reformation's Conflict with Rome -- Why it Must Continue, by Robert L. Reymond) Those of us who call ourselves Protestants must not forget WHY we protested in the first place. Evil will not desist, but neither must our proclamation of the truth as it is  in Jesus Christ. All praise and honor goes only to Him and not to ANY so-called "church" whether in Rome or anyone else!

God help us. . . . And He will. Of that you can be sure.

The Good That Comes from Being In Our Right Mind!

The prodigal son after wasting his life and inheritance thought better of it--“When he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!” (Luke 15:17)
 

Likewise, after Peter had been miraculously transported from prison outside the city walls, we read in Acts 12:11, he "came to himself, [and] said, 'Now, I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me . . .'" 

Several hundred years earlier, Nebuchadnezzar declared, "I . . . lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High . . ." (Dan. 4:34). He did more than that if your read on further. But he didn't see anything right until his reason returned to him. 

It's easy to see the commonality between these verses isn't it? In each case, whether the prodigal, Peter, or even Nebuchadnezzar, each one "came to himself" or their reasoning returned. Now, it is true that each arrived at this place from different positions. Nebuchadnezzar recovered from a divinely imposed captivity which reduced him to the level of a beast of the field, and the prodigal returned from a horribly profligate lifestyle. Peter's reasoning was much more civil, and by comparison almost inane, regaining his "mind" from a spiritually groggy condition. 

The Point?
Simply this. Each one's viewpoint of their true condition changed radically only after they'd come into their right mind or after having "come to their senses" we might say. So, can we conclude at least this from these three examples, that when one is in a sinful condition, and certainly when one is under the rebuke of God which lowers him to a beastly condition, and even when one is simply spiritually woozy, or slow that each is NOT in their right mind? Granted, Nebuchadnezzar's conditon is an extreme example which may not find very many parallels in our experience save for the divine consignment of some to reprobation spoken of in Romans chapter one. The prodigal's condition finds a myriad of parallels in society since it might be claimed that no one is ever in their right mind until God reveals himself savingly to them. The last example in Peter is common enough since we may assume every true believer has many occasions when it might easily be said of them, "He's just not seeing it; or she's missing all that God is doing in her life." 

We can be so dull spiritually that when God is busily working all things according to his will, we see only our own interests. That's being close-minded. We need to pray that more believers will come into their right mind. We must remember that the lost cannot see rightly without such a divine release, their minds being as captured as their souls. And every now and then we read the story of one, like Legion in the Mark 5 who after having a multitude of demons cast out of him, sat clothed, calm and "in his right mind." That's salvation. And it seems only those who've received it can claim such clarity for such is part and parcel of their redemption, the cleansing of the mind as well as the soul.