The real problem with Pat Robertson

by Dan Phillips

I'll just admit it up front: from their articles, I have a hard time understanding what the RAANetwork is about. They have a statement of purpose, but, as I say, I'm focusing on the articles. Where are we going, I wonder, when I see pieces like this, and this, and this? Does that all bring us together in an Ephesians 2 and 4 way, lifting up what unites us in Christ through His work on the Cross?

But I follow them in Twitter, in part because I dearly want to see Biblical truths spread all over, including those areas where historically it has not been well-presented and well-known. For that reason, Monday my eye was caught by their tweets about Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson has been making ridiculous statements on global television for decades. http://t.co/wBqyhyiKun
— RAANetwork (@RAANetwork) October 20, 2014

Well, yeah, yes he has. Absolutely. Welcome aboard. And:

Pat Robertson is what happens when we rely on the wisdom of man rather than God. http://t.co/TqsrJWmVMP
— RAANetwork (@RAANetwork) October 20, 2014

Really? Now, that's not what I would have said. I don't think it really gets to the heart of it. But I went to read the article by Cornell Ngare, to see how he developed his thought. The more Christians who put the Bible to Robertson, the better. So I read.

For one thing, I — are you sitting down? — was a bit taken aback at how bare-knuckled it was. Deserved, appropriate... but just a bit surprising to me.

"Pat Robertson has been making ridiculous statements on global television for decades." OK, well yes; again, amen. Ngare points at Robertson's "record and reputation for being flippant, bigoted, and all other words that describe a serious lack of wisdom or discretion," and asks whether we really should "be wasting our breath and time reacting to his latest episode of verbal diarrhea?"

"Latest episode of verbal diarrhea"? Ouch; absolutely true, and needs to be said. You go, bro!

Then Ngare (again truly) observes that one would hope a 84-year old would be mellowing and maturing — more "nuanced"! — and yet Robertson "only seems to be getting worse." Indeed.

Then Ngare goes on about Robertson's regular practice of popping off answers and rants and musings on an array of topics without even an attempt at deriving them from Scripture.

So: true, true, true... but what does Pat Robertson's follies in this regard have to do with Reformed folks, or the RAANetwork's statement of purpose? Robertson isn't Reformed, makes no claim to being Reformed. I'm still puzzling that out.

However, that said, I must quickly add once again that I'm always glad to see a Christian brother warning about Robertson. I myself have a long, long record of doing just that, and far less gently than Cornell Ngare (to his credit, no doubt). Just see this, and this, and this, and this, for starters.

In the first of those, I get at what I am suggesting Ngare is missing, and where I think he's just a bit wide of the mark.

I think Pat Robertson would categorically reject Ngare's accusation. Robertson would say that he seeks God's wisdom constantly—and he gets it, directly, by God's personal revelations to him.

You see, Pat Robertson is a Charismatic. He is a man who has written generously that "Probably 95 per cent of all the guidance we need as Christians is found in the clearly understood principles of the Holy Bible." The other 5 per cent? Well, that's where you need Pat and the other Charismatic leaders who have a hot line to God.

Paul's question in Romans 4:3a seldom seems to be Robertson's first question, 2 Timothy 3:15-17 doesn't inform him much, and Deuteronomy 18:20 doesn't seem to sober him up to any measurable degree. The hard fact of a completed Canon is just a "and-then-that-happened" thing in the landscape of his thinking.

So why is Robertson's ranting reported? Why does he have an audience? Why is he a problem?

It's this progression which is as unpopular as it is irrefutable: without (A) Pentecostalism, (B) Charismaticism (however you shade those two), and most crucially (C) the Open-But-Clueless crowd of Reformed-and-other enablers, Robertson would be without a platform. He'd have no one to listen to him. Once he started popping off and saying things that can't be warranted by Scripture, Christians would turn away en masse, and he'd be talking to the mirror.

This is the consequence of not truly affirming and embracing and heralding a robust doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. This is the consequence of winking at the Charismatic movement. This is the consequence of Reformed folks like Wayne Grudem and Vern Poythress and the others coming up with rationales to save face for Charismaticism's 100 years of straying and of failure-to-deliver.

Just take one example, only one: Robertson's internationally-famous record for false prophecies. Just take this one: here we see Pat Robertson and Michael Brown's BFF Benny Hinn, where Robertson says in so many words that God told him that Mitt Romney would win the Presidency.

Don't rush past that. There's no way to soften this. Sniggering, giggling Pat claims a word from God. Michael Brown's good buddy Hinn says "I trust God's voice." So both equate Pat's private revelation with the august voice of God, that voice which brought the universe into existence out of nothing.

Yet note again, Hinn says "I trust God's voice," and Robertson chuckles "Well, we'll see."

Words fail me. Almost.

Now, this clearly was a false prophecy. Can't we agree on that?  That, or (I speak as a fool) God was wrong. So, remind me: what are the consequences for delivering a false prophecy?

1. In Israel, it would be death (Deuteronomy 18:20).
2. In the church, surely it would be excommunication.
3. In this day of Grudem and Poythress and other enablers of modern pop-offecy... nothing. No consequences.

I totally agree with Cornell Ngare that Robertson's a huge problem. But I don't think his wording of his analysis hits the ten-ring. Robertson's problem is the reason why he even has a platform: failure to give God's Word the place God gives it.

What Christ's church really needs is a revival-level, massive embrace, and living and systematic proclamation of the sufficiency of Scripture.

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Of leprechauns, mermaids, and "loving homosexual couples"

by Dan Phillips

If I were to ask what leprechauns, mermaids, and loving homosexual couples have in common, I'm pretty sure this readership would have the answer. I'd like to help you explain why you answer as you do.

What they have in common with each other is, of course, that they are all mythical creatures, living only in fantasy and imagination and every movie, TV show, and commercial in existence... or at least that's true in the latter case.

Also mythical. Sorry.

This is a truth that has obviously not reached everybody. In fact, apparently it hasn't even reached those who made the decision to become spotlight-Christians, performers whose entire career is predicated on their claim to be Christian — which is to say, lifelong and advancing students of the words of God (John 8:31-32). I have in mind here folks like Dan Haseltine, lead singer for the group Jars of Clay. Note this tweet of his:

So many gay couples display more loving characteristics and healthy relationship practices than most traditional married couples....
— Dan Haseltine (@scribblepotemus) April 24, 2014

This "loving gay couples" meme is heard so much today; it's hard not to think in response:

The whole stands or falls, of course, on the definition of "love." If "love" means sexual arousal, well then, okey doke, sport, I guess if you say so. Or if it means fondness, affection, attraction, or a hundred other emotional and even volitional states... well, how would we even have the discussion? If it's all about emotion, the "discussion" is really beside the point, isn't it? Feelings are thought...well, felt... to be self-validating. After all, you've got to follow your heart, right? And your heart is all about what you feel. Right?

Unless you start with the fear of God (Prov. 1:7) instead of the lordship of Ego and Eros. Then, everything changes.

To begin with the fear of God is to acknowledge, from the outset, the Lordship and ultimacy of God, and the dependence and fallenness of man. It is to acknowledge that our hearts cannot be trusted (Prov. 28:26 {NAS]; Jer. 17:9). It is to acknowledge that real life is only found in knowing God through His word (Prov. 3:18; 4:13; John 6:63, 68). It is to see that rebellion and unbelief are the sure way of death and misery (Gen. 2:17; Pro. 8:36; Rom. 6:23).

As we learn from God how He wants us to treat others, we learn that He wants us to love them, even if they are our enemies (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 5:44). We learn that love is not primarily about feeling. Love is about doing what is for the greatest good of the other, even if that costs us (cf. Exod. 23:4-5; Prov. 25:21). We see the grandest display of love in the Father's gift of His son for our salvation (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9).

So, you see, there never was such a thing as a "loving homosexual couple." Nor was there ever yet a "loving adulterous couple," or a "loving fornicating couple." Accomplices? Yes. Co-conspirators, co-perpetrators? Sure. But loving? Never.

Love is a commitment to the good of the other — and rebellion against God is never for the good of the other. Sin against God is never for the good of the other. Turning away from life and love and forgiveness and reconciliation, and embracing guilt and wrath and doom and despair, wrapped in a straitjacket of rationalizations and distractions — these things are never about the good of the other.

Real love will point someone away from sin and death, and to Christ, the Gospel, life and forgiveness. If that Christward call to repentant faith is absent, so is love.

This is one of those cases where the crystal-clear thinking that the fear of God teaches can stand as a bright beacon of witness to God's wisdom, in our murky, fogbound culture.

That is, if fitting in with the culture isn't our highest ambition. Which it never will be, once our own world has been tilted by the Gospel.

Postscript: this and related matters are opened more fully in "Adultery De-Glamorized," a sermon on Proverbs 6:24-35.

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The Neo-orthodox Bibliolatry Dodge (NEXT! #40)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: You worship a book. I worship the Living Word!

Response: Really? And where, pray, do you learn of this "Living Word"?

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

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Strange Fire Conference #9: concluding thoughts

by Dan Phillips

Since this is an issue that hasn't yet gone away, and since I've been writing on it for decades, these are far from my final thoughts on "continumaticism." But as to the conference, I mean this to be the sum-up.

I gave a verbal sum-up to my church which, to my bafflement, became our most-downloaded recording so far. I would pick other messages I'd much rather see spread all around — like this one, this one, or this one — but what happens, happens, and only God can explain.

It did elicit one comment, and since it's a funny one, I share it:

Well... yeah...

So here we go:

FIRST: the GCC people were amazing. The 700 volunteers, the security — amazing. Very gracious provisions for everybody. They really treated us as guests.

SECOND: the music was amazing.

THIRD: the food was amazing.

What? Too shallow? Oh, sorry. Okay, here goes...

FOURTH: I am more impressed than ever with John MacArthur and the ministry he's headlined there.

That won't strike most of you the way it should, because a startling number of readers still (A) think I work for GCC; well, in fact, actually (B) think I'm Phil Johnson, who does work for GTY; and (C) assume all of us here are lockstep MacArthur fanboys.

Except I'm none of those things. Anyone who's ever heard me on the subject knows that I'm very critical of the whole concept of megachurches. Plus, in my entire 40+ years of Christian life, though I respect him, I probably have only heard a dozen MacArthur sermons all the way through (if that) and read maybe roughly a half-dozen books, give or take. "What would MacArthur do?" is not a question I ask myself, ever.

I say that to say this: I was immensely impressed that MacArthur even did this. At this point in his ministry, the man has ZERO to prove. He could retire today to a desert island, or to Cowlick, South Dakota and end his days in obscurity, and his entry in church history would remain secure and notable. And yet he did this.

Plus, he's not a stupid man. MacArthur knew he'd get grief, lies, slander, culpable misrepresentations, and vile bile — all of which began the moment he announced conference. He was sticking his finger in the fan, and he knew it. Why? What would possibly move MacArthur to put himself, his name, out there for this?

It can only be love for Christ, love for Christ's church, love for Christ's saints. That, and concern born of the abject failure of his younger peers to step up and sound this desperately needed cry, this trumpet-blast, themselves.

So MacArthur  asked the best people he could think of, he corralled his church, he put himself out there, and he gave it all he's got. My respect — and affection — for him has increased exponentially.

Plus talking with some of the folks there made me rethink GCC as a whole. I still have issues with the whole concept of a megachurch, any megachurch. But I am compelled to say this: if you're going to do it, that's the way to do it. GCC invests everything it has, as far as I can tell, into ministry that serves people in Christ's name. They are pedal-to-the-metal for getting the Gospel and the Word out. They've got tremendous resources, and instead of rushing them off to some fancy neighborhood in the hills, they stay right there and give it all they've got.

This conference — which my dear little church in Texas couldn't have pulled off in that way — is an example. GCC hosted the conference and treated all comers as beloved guests. Plus they gave them all a copy of the book. Plus they put the whole conference online, translated it into a bunch of languages, broadcast it all over the world... for free! And now it's all online. Give, give, give. Amazing.

(That's right: so all of the people spouting off "responses" to MacArthur who haven't listened to the conference do so in spite of the fact that it's been provided to everyone gratis.)

A cynical person might say the conference was a book-promotion. Seriously? It isn't as if MacArthur is — oh, I don't know — some obscure writer who did a book on the Gospel and needs all the help he can get just getting the word out so people know it exists. He's John MacArthur. He's a living brand-name. He's the Stephen King of evangelicals. He could publish pictures of his golf clubs, and plenty of people would pre-order copies.

That MacArthur would do this conference said a lot to me about his heart, and what it said was all good.

FIFTH and finally: I'm disappointed, but not surprised, at the aftermath.

All these folks who mouth great swelling words of respect for MacArthur (and Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and Owen and Calvin and the Bible) were explaining why MacArthur was dead-wrong and off-base before he'd even said a word. And they still are, great big surprise.

And what of Joni, Justin Peters, Conrad Mbewe? Ignored or treated ridiculously. That is, even the absolutely indisputable specifics regarding abusive false doctrine are largely brushed aside for the sake of saving Charismaticism's facade of respectability.

And what of MacArthur's dear esteemed colleagues? They launch "responses," in which they confess they haven't even listened to or read the conference or the book. That's what their swelling words of respect for MacArthur actually amount to.

In the process, unintentionally, they bear out every syllable of concern MacArthur and the other speakers voiced. It's almost a template:

1. Profess great love, respect, admiration for MacArthur.
2. Admit to not having listened or read.
3. "Respond."
4. Prove MacArthur right.

So in conclusion: it was a good conference. It was a desperately-needed conference. MacArthur is right about every central concern he sounded. Specifically, he's right to give out this note: with all the conferences and organizations setup to protect the Gospel and Christology, why so little to protect the truth about and dignity of the Holy Spirit?

I think they need to do another conference.

If they don't, I very well might. For whatever it's worth.

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First post
Second post
My overall summary report to CBC
Third post
Fourth post
Fifth post
Sixth post
Seventh post
Eighth post

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Strange Fire Conference #8: John MacArthur, final session

by Dan Phillips

The last session I'll cover is John MacArthur's closing address. He said he was speaking from the heart, and had told an associate that he didn't really know what he was going to say in advance.

MacArthur began by addressing some of the accusations that had been hurled at him from the very moment of the announcement of the then-future conference. The first was that such a conference was unloving. But, MacArthur countered, surely the most loving thing to do is tell a person the truth, and leaving him in error the most unloving. In Acts 20, Paul reminded the elders that he had warned them with tears for years, knowing that wolves would arise from without and within. Titus 1 says it is the God-given duty of elders to warn against errors and errorists. It isn't optional. To refuse is to be faithless.

But wouldn't it be divisive? Indeed it would. Truth divides. Jesus brought a sword, He said. It is more important to be divided by truth than to be united in error.

Is the issue unclear in the Bible? Does difference of opinion demonstrate that Scripture is unclear? If so, Mac responded, it has only become unclear under the influence of false teachers. Was it not clear enough to the apostles, to the church fathers, to the Reformers, to the Puritans, to the creed-writers, to the erudite noble Reformed theologians (Warfield, for instance), to Spurgeon, to Boyce, to Sproul? When did it become "unclear"? Was it made unclear by Swaggart, by Kuhlman, by Benny Hinn, by Todd Bentley, by Paul Cain?

But, it is said, Mac is talking only about the extreme lunatic fringe. Untrue, he replied: Error leavens the whole movement, and they show no great inclination to rid themselves of it decisively. 90% accept prosperity gospel, 24-25 million deny Trinity, 100 million are RCs.

Would the conference be attacking brothers in Christ? MacArthur wishes that were so; but many of these leading figures are not brothers. Then he asked, Who should police evangelicalism? His answer: every faithful pastor, theologian, leader in the movement. If they don’t police the movement, the spiritual terrorists will dominate – as with Islam. Many say that Islamic terrorists are a small minority on the lunatic fringe. If that is the case, then why don’t Muslims en masse rise to reject the terrorists? So with Charismaticism. A heavy burden lies on the back of all who know the Word to rise up and denounce the movement's errors.

Is MacArthur fixated on Charismaticism? Is he a one-trick pony, always harping on Charismatics? He replied that he’s preached the whole NT, and has been at GCC since 1969 — and he’s had one conference on the Charismatic movement.

Is he hurting people’s feelings? MacArthur replied that he does care about offending people. But he doesn't care about that nearly as much as he cares about offending God.

MacArthur then went on to stress: Charismaticism/continuationism is an alien movement. We teach in a stream that goes back through the Reformers to the Fathers. The stream of Charismaticism goes back to the 60s, when hippies entered and dominated the church scene. The distinctive pedigree is as bad as the distinctive fruit.

Then MacArthur pled with his continuationist friends. First, he called them to face the cold hard fact that when they say they’re continuationist, they lend credence to the whole false movement. They give their good name to bad doctrine and practice. They provide theological cover for a movement that’s harmful and deadly.

Second, he observed that Charismaticism degrades supernatural nature of true gifts. Hebrews 2:1-4 is meaningless, if what Apollos the writer speaks of applies to what everyone’s experiencing today. Redefining the gifts necessarily diminishes the glory of the real thing. If those attesting works were like these pale, laughable trivialities and parlor-tricks, they were nothing special. They they were nothing special, the era was nothing special. If the era was nothing special, the message it produced was and is nothing special. Hijacking Biblical terminology degrades the genuinely miraculous.

Third, the continuationist position severely limits its advocates in attempting to confront others who plunge into confusion. The movement should be denounced, wholesale – and we keep waiting for denunciation of the serious errors, and it hasn’t come. Good men who call themselves continuationists have given up the high ground, so that they cannot speak with the needed "punch."

Fourth, by insisting that God’s still giving new revelation to Christians today, the enablers unwittingly open the gates to more and greater confusion and error. Tongues, healing, prophecy are said to occur today – but these phenomena are not at all like what happened in NT times. If that is so, if that radical redefinition is accepted, then anything might be from God – gibberish, nutty notions, feelings, anything can be "prophecy." Open the door to any of it, and you've opened the door to all of it.

Fifth, the position tacitly denies Sola Scriptura. None of MacArthur’s continuationist friends would formally deny closing of Canon and all — yet they default on that claim by teaching believers to expect extra-Biblical revelation. Saying that babble is tongues and fallible hunches are prophecy necessarily opens the door to the mindless ecstasy of unintelligible expression. In reality, these folks are actually closet cessationists when they say the manifestations are not the same. What it means is that they’ve accepted a counterfeit – and that’s hardly a noble posture.

Seventh, say that the gift of healing is still around, though there’s no evidence whatever, and you give credence to the worst of the faith healers.

All of this dishonors the august person of the Holy Spirit by enticing people from His true ministry. “Give me more, give me that other thing” is the cry – what kind of deficiency does that attribute to work of the Spirit?

The broader Charismatic movement has flung open the city gates to more doctrinal error than any other movement, including liberalism, pragmatism, ecumenism, or any other previous enemy-attempt. Charismatic theology is the strange fire of our generation, and should be doused decisively by the Biblically faithful.

MacArthur's closing was very moving. He went to 1 Timothy 6, last two verses:

20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” 21 for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.

Then he want to 2 Timothy 1:6-7 —

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

MacArthur observed that this was a scary time for Paul. The baton was about to be passed to Timothy, and Timothy was looking weak. So Paul calls Timothy not to be ashamed of testimony of our Lord — what a frightening charge to have to put into words at this stage. Timothy must retain the standard of sound words. What God gave him through Paul was a treasure. "Guard the treasure entrusted to you," Paul pleads.

What effect did the words have on Timothy? How did Timothy respond? For the answer, MacArthur took us to Hebrews 13:23.

You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon.

Timothy had hung in there. He'd borne witness, and he'd gone to jail. Paul’s letter gripped his heart and emboldened him.

So it needs to grip ours. The Charismatic movement seeks to distract us from confidence in the sufficiency of God's word. It seeks to loosen our grip on the treasure, and pull us in a dozen different fruitless or positively harmful directions.

We must reject that pull, we must cling to God's Word, we must preach that Word... and so, only, can we avoid stoking (or roasting in) Strange Fire.

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First post
Second post
My overall summary report to CBC
Third post
Fourth post
Fifth post
Sixth post
Seventh post

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The peril of "We've got to do something!"

by Dan Phillips

Many really horrific ideas owe their genesis to really horrific needs.

This is obvious in the realm of politics. It goes like this:

1. Bob says, "Yikes! Has anyone even noticed {crying need}? Isn't anybody doing anything about it?
2. Bill says, "Holy smoke, yes! That's terrible! Quick: let's empower the State to confiscate more liberty and money from the productive, and create vast legislation and huge bureaucracies to solve that problem!"
3. Bob: "Oh, well, gee, I dunno; are you sure that's the best way to...?"
4. Bill: "This is an emergency! There's no time for discussion! We must act now! What — don't you care about The Children? Besides, this is only temporary."
5. Bob: "Oh, yeah, good point. Okay. Go ahead."

And another permanent blight is born. The problem not only is not addressed, but it is compounded and institutionalized.

Perhaps this same phenomenon is less obvious in the realm of theology, doctrine, church polity. The general course, however, is very similar:

1. PelArminKesWesHam says, "Oh dear Lord, the church is {something direly unspiritual}."
2. Simplicius replies, "Ooh, mercy, yes. I see that!"
3. PelArminKesWesHam: "The solution must be to {do some horrifically un-Biblical thing}!"
4. Simplicius: "Oh, gosh, I don't know. Are you sure that's really Scriptural?"
5. PelArminKesWesHam: "There's no time for debate! Doctrine divides! Souls are dying! Christ's name is dishonored! The hour is late! We must act now!"
6. Simplicius: "Oh, gee..."
7. PelArminKesWesHam: "What — don't you love God? Don't you care about people?"
8. Simplicius: "Well, sure."
9. PelArminKesWesHam: "Then we must act now!"
10. Simplicius: "Oh. Okay."

And another bad doctrine / harmful practice takes its permanent place to blight the landscape. The problem not only is not remedied, but it is compounded and institutionalized.

If later generations try to undo this dreadful "solution," it goes like this:

1. Biblicus: "You know, ________ism really isn't Biblical."
2. DriscTickLer: "You're a fear-driven unbelieving libertine Deist hater who drives people away from Jesus. You're ignorant of the book that came out last week proving that we're right. Plus, you're jealous of our superpowers."
3. Biblicus: "Oh. Right. I forgot. My bad. Um... sorry."

What to do?

The wrong way of responding is to ignore or minimize the problem that gave birth to the error.

For instance, how many false teachings have arisen as well-intended attempts to counter the lassitude, the lukewarmness, the worldliness, the timidity, the carnality, the cowardice, the ineffectiveness, the powerlessness, and the general pathetic anemic ill-health of the bulk of professed Christians? I daresay a majority of false teaching and bad philosophy was swaddled in that manger.

So we're told: The problem with these pathetic lumps is that their Calvinism has made them passive slugs, their Biblicism has made them isolated lab-technicians, their cessationism has made them functional materialists.

And we're told: What they really need is to realize that, if they don't work harder, they'll lose their salvation. They need to see that a deeper, more powerful Christian life is only one deeper, climactic work of grace away. They need the baptism with the Spirit. They need God to mutter holy nothings in their ears. They need to babble cathartically. They need their hunches validated and respected and canonized — though not in any accountable way! They need to modify their convictions to be friendlier to the world. Sand off the edges. Fit in.

There y'go. Problem solved.

But of course the problem isn't solved. In fact, it's compounded, and now it's institutionalized. Christians are still carnal, but now they're super-spiritually carnal and proud and immune to Biblical admonition. And so on.

So in responding, here's what we must do:

1. We must grant the seriousness of the problem when applicable — and it usually is applicable.
2. We must perform a rigorously Biblical analysis and diagnosis of the problem, calmly and deliberately.
3. We must execute a rigorously Biblical, clear-eyed, and unsparing examination of the un-Biblical "solutions" that have been proposed, expose them unambiguously, and issue a clarion call for their instant and decisive repudiation and rejection .
4. We must produce a rigorously robustly Biblical prescription to address the problem, showing insistently and repeatedly and in detail and from a dozen angles how it actually does address the causation and remedy the misery.

And there, in truth, you go. So do that. On "three."

I'll wait right here.

One... two...

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How we got into this mess, and how to get out

by Dan Phillips

This is a conceptual followup to Frank's post.

Here is how we got into this mess, simplified:

1. Inventors of Charismaticism/"Continuationism," ca. 1900, made huge promises and claims.
2. They had zero credibility, completely failed to deliver, and were largely dismissed by Biblically-faithful Christians. They gained no traction among them.
3. Commitment to genuine Christian discipleship, with the necessary corollaries of commitment to (and utter confidence in) God's word and truth on both sides of the pulpit, waned over the following decades.
4. Respected Christian leaders worked hard to enshrine a way to exempt Charismatics/"Continuationists" from all necessarily-disastrous objective examination of their distinctive claims.
5. Unshackled from the (Biblical) burden of proof, errorists and their false teaching increasingly found the faux credibility and purchase they'd been denied previously, thanks to the cover provided by big names.

How can we get out of this swamp?

By genuine revival, breathed by the genuine Holy Spirit, of course.

Specifically, it will take the reversal of steps 3 and 4, above. To wit:

1. Christians, on both sides of the pulpit, must be recaptured by genuine Christian discipleship, with all it entails.
2. Christians who are leaders must repent — either of their errant teaching, or of their timid refusal to speak out boldly, plainly, and decisively — and must systematically strip away the false cover they've provided to the Charismatic/"Continuationist" errorists.

There y'go. You're welcome. It's what we do.

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"Did you take him to coffee first?" dodge (NEXT! #32)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: I felt I needed to say publicly that you should have privately taken X out for coffee before publicly taking him/her to issue for his/her public teaching and conduct.

Response A: Yeah... so where's my coffee?

Response B: You're as right publicly to fault my public statement as Paul was publicly to fault Peter's public behavior, and as I was to fault his/hers.

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

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"God Listens." True. But not necessarily good news

by Dan Phillips

Driving home the other day I saw a truck with the bumper sticker "God Listens." It's advertisement for a local Christian radio station about which I know next to nothing, since most of the programming fires well wide of my tastes.

My first thought was, "Isn't that the quintessence of 'getting-it-wrong'?"

Doubtless, it's meant to be a great warm and loving invitation, and maybe it strikes a lot of people-who-aren't-me exactly right. But what does it actually say? Doesn't it tacitly confirm our fundamental Adamic belief, that what really needs to happen is that God needs to listen to us?

Remember the story. Remember the source of absolutely every bit of misery and sadness and brokenness in our universe. What happened? A perfectly adequate summary would be:

God spoke

We didn't listen

And now here is an outreach that says, not "God has spoken, and we'd better listen," but "God listens." God is made passive, we are made the actors. God is a harmless, benevolent Grandpa just waiting for us to climb up in His lap and vent, or a submissive servant waiting for us to work the machinery to extract our Best Life Now©, as The Gospel Coalition's Golden Boy's Golden Boy is fond of saying. It's up to us. We control the relationship.

Of course, you'll search in vain for this note in any of the apostles preaching in the NT. The closest I can think of in the prophets is of a very different spirit. First is Hosea 14:2, which indeed says, "Take with you words and ...to the LORD; say to him..." Okay, that sounds close. Until we quote it in full:

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.  2 Take with you words and return to the LORD; say to him, "Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. 3 Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, 'Our God,' to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy" (14:1-3)

Then there is the more famous word in Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, let us reason together." That sounds like an invitation to a conversation. Until, once again, the context is brought in:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.  18 "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken" (1:16-20)

Once again, it is a call to repent in view of the already-known word of God (vv. 2-4, 10).

In both cases, then, you could apply the prophets' words to the bumper sticker in the sense, "When we respond to God's Word with repentance, God listens."

However, if the thought is meant to be, "Just as you are, unrepentant and unbelieving, all you have to do is pray, and God cares and loves and accepts you and will help you fix what you think needs fixing," then it simply is not true. It may be a "precious promise," but it's a false one.

To take some passages opened and developed at length here, Prov. 28:9 says, "If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination." If "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD" (Prov. 15:8), his prayer won't be more acceptable, because "The LORD is far from the wicked" (Prov. 15:29).

My second thought was that the statement is certainly true, taken all by itself — though I don't think it is true in the sense intended.

Proverbs 15:3 — The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

Ecclesiastes 12:14 — For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Matthew 12:36 — "I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak."

So: those times you lied? Those times you manipulated the truth to get your way, to work your will on someone weaker? Those times you denied or twisted the truth of God? Those times you made excuses which amounted to lies and deceptions, to get out of work or trouble?

God listens. And God will judge.

So really, the bumper sticker is true, as-is.

And, to sinners outside of Christ, and apart from the Good News, absolutely terrifying.

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Gullibility versus Biblical faith: three vignettes

by Dan Phillips

I used to drive a dear lady, an older sister in the Lord, to a chiropractor. It was a long drive, and my opinions about chiropractics were irrelevant and secondary to the opportunity for fellowship.

But she became a bit concerned because she wasn't seeing any progress, after many months of visits. So she went in to the chiropractor to question him. She shared her concerns, he looked at the X-rays.

And this was the upshot: though she felt no difference, and though the X-rays showed no difference, she was making progress.

Because he said so.

Just "progress" that could not be seen, felt, nor detected by instruments.

Fast-forward a couple of decades later, to Just The Other Day.

As I drove my wife to the airport the other day, we passed a Palm Reader, so advertised by signs which blared out many claims of wonderful mysteries awaiting within.

You just have to marvel. I thought (partly aloud, to my family), "How does that person stay in business? Obviously he or she makes enough income to rent a house, have signs, keep a location on a busy street... but how? Do people really think that someone has those kinds of powers, yet all they can do is run a little shop in a little town in a little corner of the world, in total anonymity. That makes sense to people? To a lot of people?"

(I also noted that one of the claims on the advertising was "Returned loved ones." I wondered if that required a receipt. But I digress.)

And then, having delivered Valerie to her point of departure, as we journeyed home, the boys and I spotted another... well, place of business.

This time, the sign said "APOSTOLIC SIGNS AND WONDERS."

And again, I marveled.

I exploded to the boys, "Really? People who own Bibles go to a place like that? 'Signs and wonders' — so that means they're raising the dead, healing the congenitally blind and the congenitally paralyzed, parting water, making the sun stand still, stopping and starting rain at a word... all the time! Because that's the main thing they say on the sign: not that they preach the Gospel, not that they preach the Word, but that they do apostolic — not just garden-variety, mind you, but apostolic — signs and wonders. And with all that going on, they're just a never-heard-of group in a tiny building 'way off the side of the road."

So... what's the difference?

Here's the irony, the truth I keep hacking away at from every angle I can find.

Many so-called "continuationists" (Reformed!) would shake their heads and cluck their tongues right along with every one of us — even while they enable this sort of thing. Because obviously, the only reason such follies can survive is that people have given the charlatans a bye on the whole Biblical issue of falsifiability.

How so?

All the Biblical tests of genuinely revelatory/attesting events are explained away by modern hucksters or their enablers. They either die the death of a thousand qualifications, or are radically Clintoned down. "You see these tongues are... are... they're a different kind of tongues than Pentecost! Yeah, that's the ticket. So you can't test them or identify them. You just have to believe! And the prophecy, it's... it's... it's not like the entire Bible explicitly defines prophecy. No no, it's a special kind of non-inerrant non-binding low-octane objectively unverifiable prophecy for the glorious New Covenant! Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket! And these porn pictures I get in my head, they're actually..."

You see?

And what does all that leave us with?

Pious gullibility masquerading as faith. With the charlatans in charge.

---

"Careful"

by Dan Phillips

"Careful" has become a shudder-inducing word for me. Like "gay." In fact, very like "gay."

That's too bad, because it's a really good word in itself (like "gay"!; I'm going to stop saying that). It's a great word, in fact. Your kids are going on a hike, or to play touch football, or to the shooting range. "Be careful," you say. Right. Or I was chatting with a lady police officer the other day, and parted with "You be careful" and a prayer for her safety.

But lately the word has joined "nuanced" and "helpful" and "thoughtful" to give me the shudders. I don't think any of the words are irredeemable. But what I do fear is that all those words show up frequently in the writing of elites who think God's truth and damning error are nothing really to "get het up about," and certainly not worth passion or bareknuckled, plain-spoken, frontal, clear, and — let's just say it — masculine rhetoric. Not worth risking angering anyone, or being perceived as angry.

Isn't it good to be "careful"? To be sure, "careful" is a necessary and important adjective in many contexts. Don't we want to make careful distinctions between trinitarianism and tritheism,  between the Biblical gospel and libertinism, between inerrancy and bibliolatry, between elder leadership and totalitarian thralldom, and a hundred other things? If we preach on prophecy, don't we want to be careful, sticking to the text and avoiding wild conclusions and leaps or cowardly equivocations?

Of course we do. But as used in those contexts, "careful" means factual, warranted, clear-cut, concise, unambiguous, forceful. It is a servant of truth, an enhancer of truth. It serves to make the truth of (say) the Trinity and the Gospel clearer and more obviously distinct from error and false teaching.

So when is it bad? I think elites are sometimes — and I want to be careful here, haha — using the word as a code-word for "dainty" or "harmless" or "toothless." I think they are using it sometimes to mean "nobody (and no ruinous error) actually got hurt." I think they are using it to mean "false teaching and particularly its purveyors are treated with kid gloves." I think they mean "false teachers are treated with great respect." I think they mean "false teaching is described, but inoffensively." I think they mean "nobody is made to feel too bad about perpetrating or embracing heresy or ruinous idiocy."

Plain enough?

See, that paragraph is an example. It was plain, wasn't it? It also had necessary qualifiers and distinctives, didn't it? It wasn't unnecessarily inflammatory, was it? Isn't that being careful, in the best sense?

But no elite is likely to link to this as a "careful" post — any more than they ever do to any of my posts, whether they're about atonement in Proverbs or repentance in a false teacher or anything else.

Why? Truth is, I don't really fully know. And I am also pretty sure (being honest, not sugar-coating) that my very real shortcomings, which I'm trying to overcome but am still a work-in-progress, haven't helped.

But I've come to think that it's partly because They are deeply, deeply concerned that no one feel too bad or get too worked up about soul-damning or otherwise ruinous false teaching. Perhaps we might reluctantly be forced to conclude that some course or doctrine is unadvisable, but we don't want anyone too upset, and we want to protect the respectability of apostates and false teachers and their enablers. (For instance, we won't apply those labels; that wouldn't be careful.)

These elites seem deeply, deeply concerned that false teachers and incompetent/irresponsible leaders remain dear colleagues and beloved friends whom they wish nothing but well and happiness and bunnies. They seem  deeply, deeply concerned that, at all costs, they themselves be seen and lauded by all as careful, thoughtful, helpful, nuanced, judicious, measured, and all those dainty things. All the blood drains from their faces at the thought of being thought angry. "Oh merciful heavens and frisky penguins, not that!"

You see, now, those paragraphs weren't careful. They make people look bad if they are more concerned about their reputation and collegial relations and Club membership than they are about God's truth and Christ's church. And of course, they would admit none of these things of themselves. That is part of being careful: not describing anyone or anything in terms that person wouldn't apply of himself.

But I ask you who have reached out to cultists and other false teachers: how would that modus operandi work out? I wager that every one of you is shaking his head ruefully. Cultists and false teachers never describe themselves in unflattering terms. Mormons, Roman Catholics, you name it: overhear their conversation, and it's all about various facets of their error. Confront them about those very errors, and they deny it. RC to RC will talk about praying to this or that dead person all day long; but if you say "You worship dead people, and that is idolatry," and they'll say they do no such thing. Disagree, and you're "ignorant." Then, once you've left the room, the conversation resumes exactly as you described it.

These elite will embrace select apostates to Rome as great and esteemed friends. But they will shun more frontal, edged, bareknuckled, passionate-for-truth, doctrinally-sound folks like the plague. They will feign both blindness and deafness, then carry on as if no one had said anything, congratulating themselves and "disappearing" contraries, so that they never happened.

The question I think we are left with is: which best serves Christ and His church? Which more effectively alarms sheep against wolves, encouraging and admonishing and instructing the former while exposing and refuting and repelling the latter?

Our problem of course is that we are ever the pendulum. Dainty brothers will say I've painted a caricature, an extremity, and that's not them. Then they will turn around and depict what I advocate in terms of hateful, (truly) ignorant, screaming, all-caps Courier font discernmentism at its worst and blindest and dumbest, and will say that that is what they reject.

So I'd just come down to specifics: Elephant Room 2. I'll ask the non-careful questions. Questions like:

1. Who was right, who was wrong?
2. Who was proactive, who was reactive?
3. Who warned sheep and opposed wolves openly and proactively, and who made the pasture easier pickings for the predators?
4. Who put himself out on the field during the time of battle and risked criticism and discomfort to guard the truth, and who stayed in the faculty lounge sipping tea and tut-tutting and holding top-secret discussions?
5. Who, now, by his actions, continues to extend legitimacy to the predators or those who failed to warn against them or sufficiently oppose their false teaching?
6. What are the consequences for either, now that the dust is settling?
7. Did we learn anything?
8. Will anything change?
9. When sounds of explosions and gunfire fill the air, who do you want to see at your door: a man in a smoking-jacket with a teacup and a bag of Constant Comment, or a rough fellow in camo, armed and trained and ready to go?

So in sum, trying to bring this bristling double-decker to a close, I offer this dialectic:

We should be careful to be Biblical, to be accurate, factual, on-target, articulate, proportionate, and appropriately concerned for showing that love which has God and His truth first in affection, and man a close second — and which remembers that truth and love are not mutually exclusive.

We should not be careful to sell out God's dignity, honor and truth and the health and wellbeing of His church by avoiding offending anybody, making our false priority to avoid trouble, to avoid disagreement, to blunt the edges of the Gospel or of truth, to protect the credibility of false teachers and enable their continued harming of souls, to avoid being unpopular and ill-thought-of by those among whom the truth is ill-thought-of, to avoid all criticism, to protect our reputation and popularity among the elite.

We should care about doing our best to see God's truth triumph decisively over error — first in our own lives, then in our churches — more than we care about how we ourselves are perceived.

There. Have I said all that should be said? Absolutely not. Have I said all that could be said? In no way.

Have I said something that needs to be said? I think so.

Have I said it carefully?

Probably depends on who you ask.

---

The mugging: a parable

by The Pyromaniacs: Dan, Frank and Phil

A few people noticed that a mugging was about to happen. There was no doubt. It was unmistakable: an act of violence was about to unfold right in front of their eyes, and it was going to be gruesome.

Something had to be done. Those who saw events begin to unfold could not imagine not doing what they could to prevent it. So they let out a shout of warning.

The moment they began to cry out, however, a circle of people formed around both victim and perpetrator. The circle was composed of big, respectable, decent folks. Their backs were turned towards those crying out.

Oh good. The right people were on the scene! Surely they saw what was going to happen. Surely they'd intervene.

And yet... they did nothing.

So the outsiders, really alarmed now, raised their voices. They were pointed, they were specific, they were passionate, they were eloquent to the point of heart-breaking. It was a life or death situation; this was not the moment for collegial tea and crumpets on the deck. But there was enough time, if someone did something in response to all their shouts and cries.

To all this, the inner circle of watchers maintained absolute, lofty silence, as far as could be told. It was as if they couldn't hear.

But how was that possible? The folks who were sounding the alarm were right there, and they were plenty loud. Yet these good, decent folks just stood there. But this one... did he actually have his hands over his eyes so as to "not see" the people waving their arms? And that one... were those his fingers, stuck in his ears so as to "not hear" the cries of warning?

Others formed in the crowd as well, onlookers...

Then, suddenly and inevitably, it happened. It was every bit as brutal and shocking as the outer circle had warned. Worse. Still, they gasped. They gaped. How could this have happened?

And then, at long last, the inner circle finally turned around and faced outward.

As the bodies were being carted off.

They made hushing, calming gestures with their hands. "Now, now," tutted a central figure:

"No doubt what happened was regrettable. It's a sad day, and a sad, sad thing that happened. We are all deeply grieved. All of us love peace. We all detest violence. We cherish exactly what you cherish. We are with you. We are you.

"No doubt many will be upset. No doubt many will wonder why something wasn't done. Well, just be assured, your leaders are in charge. They have the situation well in hand. There is absolutely nothing to be alarmed about, nothing to be upset or energized about, certainly nothing to raise your voices about. If there had been, you know we would have told you.

"Perhaps something good may even come of this! 

"Now, back to your homes and churches with you, go on, that's a good lot.

"We may even write a book about this. If one of us does write a book, we'll be sure to let you know. And if we don't tell you, you don't need to know."

And to the slack-jawed amazement of those who had cried alarm and had been ignored, to their ears came the sound of...

Applause!

Applause, and shouts of praise for the inner circle of silent spectators. Praise for their sagacity, their "nuance," their "judiciousness," their "carefulness," their "graciousness" (towards the muggers), their "thoughtfulness," their "helpfulness"; the hours they'd put into such careful and intelligent watching and spectating, and then for so articulately commenting... after the mugging.

And so, in the end...

...nothing changed for the better.

---

The "pious heretic" dodge (NEXT! #28)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: Anyone who does good works in the name of Jesus must be acceptable to God. Especially if they're really-really good.

Response: ...and the man who rapes your daughter but gives her car an oil change because he "loves" her so much should be acceptable to you?

NEXT!

(Proverbs 21:22)

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Total, wild-eyed randomness: Camping, Driscoll, abortion, atheism

by Dan Phillips

Hi kids.

I don't have one big cohesive post; several are in the works...or, well, close to the works. In the same city as the works. City, continent, whatever, they both start with "C." As does "cosmos."

So in the spirit (but not the letter) of old-school blogspotting...

Say, did I say "C"? (Say that out-loud.) I honestly expected to be just one voice of many on Harold Camping's latest false-teaching FAIL, coupled with Family Radio's reported "So, yeah, then that happened" plea for funds. It may simply be that smarter writing heads see that Camping is all done and, at 90, unlikely to do much more damage.

There'd be some irony, there, though, wouldn't there? Many are (rightly) keeping a sharp eye on younger men who are flying under cover of formal affirmation of the doctrines of grace, yet doing damage.  I'd suggest that here's an older man who entered the Reformed community, complete with a nasty set of unrecognized baggage, and came to do great damage.

So now Camping has pronounced the Church Age over and done with, and falsely set three dates for Christ's return. Yet he continues to have an international platform, and still that platform can plead for prayers and money that they can "continue to minister to you, and to teach God's word daily." Roll that over a bit. What are they saying? Family Radio is saying that they have been ministering, and have been teaching God's Word, while Harold Camping has continued teaching and misleading many (and shaming Christ's name) on that station.

While we are looking for concrete expressions of repentance among younger spokesmen who have erred in significant ways, is it amiss to seek the same from Camping, or the platform which exposed international audiences to his false teaching?

With Camping's false teaching recorded and in print, if it isn't disowned decisively, how can we be sure that this won't be yet another unpaid bill nibbling around the edges at least of reformed teaching, continuing to do damage?

Since writing that, Jeff Jones brought this article to my attention. Now, the writing-style is a bit odd, and it's third-hand, so I'm not sure what to make of it. But (if it's to be believed) there's Camping quietly retiring, privately changing his mind, and so forth. But what of all the damage done? What of the teaching that is still out there, and the people still radiating the message?

This should be the topic of a post, but let me just say: the circle of the offense should equal the circle of repentance. You don't broadcast false teaching, then whisper "I may have been mistaken" to someone. You don't slander a public figure publicly, then drop him a private email saying "Oopsie, sorry, my bad" — and leave up the slander.

So if Camping has repented, if Family Radio has repented of being any part of giving him an international platform, I look for something a whole lot bigger. As big as the circle of deception, to be precise, if not bigger.

Speaking of dubious teaching in reformed-type circles, note the Sola Sisters' expression of concern about Mark Driscoll's little "My Chats With Demons" bit. It's just classic Driscoll though, isn't it? A sprinkle of sex, some really good and solid affirmations about Christ and redemption and the Bible, and then just some whaaaaat? stuff, all wrapped up in a Micky Mouse t-shirt. It can't be new; Driscoll alludes to the then-forthcoming Death by Love, a book with just those same features. Well, not the shirt.

Enough on that. Now turning to the less-alloyed:

Trevin Wax had a pretty terrific post titled How I Wish the Homosexuality Debate Would Go. Wax envisions a very clear-headed brother on a show where a host tries haplessly to land the usual "gotcha" moments, and finds his guest not to be as easy a target as others have been. In the course of landing many golden points, Wax has his preacher say:

...Christians believe people are more than their sexual urges. We believe that human dignity is diminished whenever we define ourselves by sexual urges and behaviors. Consider this: married men are sometimes attracted to multiple women who are not their wives. Does this mean they should self-identify as polygamists? Not at all. And surely you wouldn't consider it hateful for Christians to encourage married men not to act on their desires in an effort to remain faithful to their spouses. It is the Christian way, after all.

So doing, Wax very effectively makes a point I've tried to make in a number of ways, and which Denny Burk recently expressed very effectively.

Now Trevin's envisioned TV interview intersected with another current topic to give me an idea. One of the current presidential candidates who says that he is pro-life found himself in some miry muck under what should have been completely predictable questions about abortion and rape. That led me to develop how I wish the abortion-for-rape debate would go.

Finally, if you don't regularly visit Fred Butler's blog, you really should. Fred doesn't blog every single day, but when he does, it's "cherce." Take this post linking to an almost three-hour discussion/debate between a couple of well-behaved atheists and a couple of presuppositionalist Christians, one of whom is Sye Ten Bruggenvarfman, or some name like that. (I actually love everything that Sye does; he just needs to change the name to Johnson, or Turk, or something like that.)

The brothers completely demolish the atheists' non-position position, and it's instructive.

Just goes to show you: Listen and listen and search and search, and still the atheist position just can't get beyond "Oh yeah? Well our nothing is 'way better than your something! Because! So there!"

So there are some chewables for you on this fine Tuesday morning. Er, afternoon.

---

The dangerous vulnerability of discontentment

by Dan Phillips

Note: this post debuted a bit over five years ago. It seems to fit in quite timely  with recent discussions. (I've edited slightly, as usual.) I daresay that most adultery, theft, and warfare, as well as most heresies and false teachings, grow out of discontentment. Often, a man reaches a certain age, feels dissatisfied with his life and accomplishments and, if he isn't stabilized on Christ's person and God's Word, he is in a dangerous and vulnerable state. He may do crazy and irresponsible things. Nor are women immune; how many cults and false teachings had a woman at their head? For every Charles Taze Russell there may be a Mary Baker Eddy. Worse, the Enemy of our souls perverts good drives into bad directions. He fans the flames of this or that itch to the point where the target casts off from the shoring of God's sufficient, inerrant Word, and becomes open to "solutions" either tangential to or in direct contradiction of that Word. I deal with a few here, especially Chapters Ten and Eleven. Desperate cries for "More power," "More Christ," "More fullness," "More holiness" have led to a 2000-year flow of manmade (or worse) solutions. God's solution? Read on.

Salesmen depend upon discontentment. Contentment = No Sale.

Think about it. Why buy anything, if you're happy with what you have? Why even shop? A salesman either has to find you discontented, or make you that way, if he wants to make a sale.

Now, sometimes the discontentment is legitimate and undeniable. Your washing machine broke, you need a new one. Your roof leaks, your car keeps breaking down, your clothes are becoming too revealing. You're "discontented" with being smelly, wet, stranded, and indecent. Nobody needs to talk you into looking for something new. For that matter, our conversion to Christ springs from a God-given "discontentment" with being lost, under sin, separated from God.

But what if what you have is really okay? What does the salesman do then? He has to convince you, somehow, that it is not okay. He has to persuade you that you'd be a lot more productive with a faster computer, that you'd be a lot more attractive if you bought his line of clothes/cologne/shoes, that you deserve a better car. Then what you thought was pretty decent doesn't look so hot anymore. You're discontented, and now you're vulnerable to a good (i.e. effective) sales pitch.

It's also Satan's favorite tool. Imagine that your challenge is to approach a sinless woman who literally has everything she needs, and convince her that she needs this one thing that will in fact kill her, make her miserable, devastate her world, tear her family apart, introduce a teeming nightmare of horrors, and doom all her children. How do you do it?

But of course this is precisely what Satan did in Genesis 3, and quite effectively so. How did he do it? He presented himself as the woman's best friend. He convinced her he was looking out for her best interests, wanting only her fulfillment, her actualization, her self-realization. She just needed this one more thing.

And she fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

And so has every natural-born child of Eve ever since. Why should Satan even imagine changing his tactics when we, gullible fools that we are, have fallen for it again and again for thousands of years? Discontentment opens a wide door of opportunity, starts a nice pot of coffee, and spreads out a genial "Welcome" mat for the prince of lies.

So how can anyone counter this appeal to discontentment?

When I was preparing, years ago, to preach/teach through Colossians, I was struck with how Paul responded to incipient heresy in that congregation.

The apostle Paul was quite capable of being brutally frontal, as we see in his correspondence with the Galatians and the Corinthians. However, here he takes a somewhat different tactic.

The approach of the false teacher in Colosse (the references to him are all in the singular: 2:4, 8, 16, 18) was the same then as it is today: he was a charismatic individual who came in with special, personal, private revelation, special truths, special methods, all of which were must-haves for the person who really yearns to enjoy a top-grade spiritual experience. The false teacher excluded the "mere Christians" in Colosse, with their humdrum existence, as not having fully arrived.

How does Paul counter this? In Colossians the apostle mostly makes sidelong allusions to the false teaching. Paul does not get into a point-by-point explication and refutation of the "Colossian heresy," as it has been called. Rather, Paul focuses on the Lord Jesus Christ, His person and work, His fullness. In my study, I found that Christ is men­tioned in 53 of the 96 verses in Colossians. In some of these, He is mentioned two and three times. Therefore, some 55% of the verses mention Christ at least once. Or, put another way, every other thing Paul says in this letter is something about Jesus Christ.

Not only does Paul lay down solid teaching about the person and work of Christ, but he dwells on ways to make personal use of the truth. Chief among these is thankfulness. Again and again Paul either expresses gratitude, or says that all believers should be grateful, should give thanks. We see it at least in 1:3, 12; 2:7; 3:15-17; and 4:2.

Thankful people are people conscious of, and glorying in, the riches they possess. Thankful people are contented people. Contented people are immune to salesmen, whether they be peddlers of baubles and trinkets, or of false doctrine.

And so, Paul's centering on, and glorying in, the supremacy and all-sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ would have to flush out the false teacher. If the letter left believers rejoicing in Christ alone, grounded solidly in apostolic teaching, and uninterested in all the false teacher's supplements and additions, he was sunk. He'd have to expose himself more fully, speak more plainly. He'd have to put Christ and His work down, and put up his own additions more. He has to convince folks that what they have is not good enough.

And so it is today. "Merely" false teachings and damnable heresies alike depend on the same method. Regular readers will notice that, whenever one of us exults in the sovereignty of God in salvation, in the monergistic nature of saving grace, in the glories and sufficiency of God's eternal and inerrant word, the "But-but-but" crowd is activated. If God is truly sovereign in salvation, then where is the room for our "contribution"? If Christ's atonement actually atones, and not just theoretically, then where is the place for our "free will" on the throne?

And if God's word is everything the triune God says it is, then where is the rationale for endowing our emotions, our hunches, our intuitions, our peculiarities, with sacred and canonical status? Our feelings become mere feelings, our hunches mere hunches. We are "stuck" with having to study, work, pray, think, analyze, reason, explain, take accountability, shoulder responsibility. We have no more holy trump cards hidden up our sleeves that no one else can see. We can't pull out our cherished "the Lord told me" cards, or our "I just feel led to" cards, and end the debate. All we have is that Bible out there, that everyone else can see, study, learn, and meditate over just as surely as we. We have to agree with the Holy Spirit that it is what He said it was: sufficient (Deuteronomy 29:29; Psalm 119; 2 Timothy 3:15-17, etc. ad inf.), and we study it to know His mind (2 Timothy 2:7). We're on a level playing field; we have no mystical "gotcha" from God.

While the Lord Jesus sees this as a very liberating truth (John 8:31-32), modern false teachers and their acolytes find it threatening and distasteful. It signals a sea-change, a paradigm-shift. It engenders panic, and panicky measures and expostulations and wild stories.

But I'd point out to any and all the common factor in all of these.

Every teaching that denies Christ's divine glory begins by praising Him, and denies that it is a denial.

Every teaching that denies God's grace starts by praising it, and denies that it is a denial.

Every teaching that denies God's word commences by praising it, and denies that it is a denial.

Roman Catholics and Mormons believe in Christ, faith, grace, and the glory of God. It's the "alone" that separates Biblical doctrine from Romish doctrine. With Christian leaky-canon pop-off-ets, Roman Catholics and Mormons believe in the Scripture. It's the "alone" that distinguishes the one from the other.

And it's the "but" and the "and" that are the problem. And only the discontented are vulnerable. Why give up your steak for a plastic banana — unless you really don't fully savor and place a sufficient value on what you already have?

The answer is believingly to relish what God has given us, make much of it, and just say "No thanks; I really, really don't need it" to supplements and substitutes.

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