Nonessential Truth?

Nonessential Truth?

The more it costs to stand for truth the fewer people there are who are willing to pay it. Some professing Christians have now determined that there are certain truths not worth fighting for. They claim that we ought to agree on core doctrine and just love one another when non-core doctrine is attacked. Thus, denominational leaders break out their statement of fundamental truths and declare they are unbendable when it comes to that list. But if heretics creep into Christianity to disseminate what they term as small heresies, they charge people who resist as causing strife and disunity over nothing. Therefore, as long as they are not required to deny Jesus Christ as Lord, they will roll with the flow of New Age heresies into Christianity.

Here is where the line of reasoning runs off into a ditch of flawed logic. George Wood, Assemblies of God General Superintendent, has declared that the controversy over contemplative prayer as an uproar over non-essential doctrine. He then characterizes the opposition as divisionary individuals obsessed with causing contention. Is this the truth? No. It is a huge mistake to come to that conclusion. I can easily prove that contemplative prayer is an attack on one of the most essential components of Christianity. As such, it ought to be opposed by every true Christian.

First, I have discovered over 35 years of Christian experience that there is one factor that I cannot do without. I cannot do without prayer. Prayer is the one thing that has helped me through the many storms, battles, and other very difficult trials I have encountered. I cannot tell you exactly why and how it works, but I can tell you from years of experience that it works. In fact, I can recognize professing Christians that do not pray as easily as I would recognize someone who is not saved. All of the great Christians have testified in one way or another that there is no substitute for prayer. True prayer involves cognition with words spoken or unspoken. It is the means by which one communicates between the temporal and eternal realm. Mighty miracles and works have been manifested because of believing prayer. If contemplative prayer is the means to draw nearer to God and know Him better, why is it that the major promoters of this practice are the main perpetrators of heresy in Christianity?

Contemplative prayer is a substitute for true prayer. In effect, the practice requires a person not to pray, or to even think about prayer or God. Instead, one uses self hypnosis to fall into a trace where the mind is emptied of all thoughts and no words are spoken. Subsequently, the term contemplative prayer is a misnomer. It is in fact vacuous silence. It cannot correctly be called keeping still or quiet before the Lord since one does not know during contemplative prayer if one is before the Lord or in the presence of demons. In fact, the definition of contemplative is “thoughtful” or “meditative.” The term prayer means communicating with God. Thus, contemplative prayer should mean thoughtful communication with God. Every “spiritual director” would deny that such is the definition of contemplative prayer. They would condemn every great praying Christian in the past and present.

Christians will be rendered prayerless by the means of contemplative prayer. Thus, one of the greatest gifts that God has given His people to protect, provide, to instruct, guide, and bring them into intimacy with Him, will be eradicated by contemplative prayer. Praying will be replaced by silence, and Christian leaders believe that is a good thing. Into the vacuum of silence will come great deception. The great deception will lead to a great apostasy. Although many professing Christians who support this decadence will not at the present deny that Jesus Christ is Lord, eventually they will deny Him. When they allow Satan to attack essential components of Christianity by reasoning that the cost is just too great to defend “non-essential truth”, they will one day deny Christ as Lord and Savior.

I’ve said it often but it bears repeating, error begets error and truth is all one stream. Asking me to keep quiet when “nonessential” truth is being attacked is like asking me to be passive while a part of my body is being removed. Are you going to complain if a stranger cuts of the tip of your little finger, or snips off one of your ear lobes? After all, they are nonessential parts of your body. I’m not going to remain passive while true prayer is torn from the Body of Christ and supplanted by a diabolical falsehood.