Christianity is under an unprecedented attack in this final period before the Coming of the Lord Jesus.\u00a0 The enemy that opposed righteousness from the outside has now entered Christianity and is entrenched in positions of leadership.\u00a0 It appears that each week brings news of further decadence and degradation in once doctrinally sound denominations.\u00a0 Popular and influential Christian leaders are compromising and apostatizing.\u00a0 What would have once been considered rank heresy is being accepted while biblical doctrine is being altered or rejected.\u00a0 Pagans, witches, eastern gurus, and the like are being honored and given unprecedented access to pulpits and podiums at conferences.<\/p>\n
To combat this great invasion of wickedness, a number of Christian organizations have focused their efforts on exposing the evil and warning the masses.\u00a0 In that endeavor, they are united.\u00a0 They share each others articles and news.\u00a0 All though they were once at odds over doctrine, there appears to be very little contention between them.\u00a0 However, that unity is fragile and most certainly is not organized into any true cohesiveness.\u00a0 Visit any Christian forum, blog, or Facebook page where open discussion about doctrine is allowed and it\u2019s a different story.\u00a0 One will find much conflict.\u00a0 It has been that way since the advent of internet chat.<\/p>\n
The fact is that as long as they all perceive the greater danger to Christianity and are focused on opposing it, they will not attack each other.\u00a0 Therefore, it is a tenuous peace at best.\u00a0 One hint of difference in doctrine, and the attack mode will kick in.\u00a0 The outflow will be the result of decades of finely honed skills at goading the opponent and making him or her appear wrong or foolish.<\/p>\n
An example is a recent experience of trying to have an honest and cordial dialogue with an individual about his doctrine.\u00a0 I was dismayed that he immediately chose ad hominem over a cordial and honest discourse.\u00a0 He cleverly steered the conversation into an argument over semantics, and arrogantly concluded that I was somehow a deceived, mean-spirited, and unintelligent lesser saint.\u00a0 As I prayed and reflected on the caustic and condescending nature of his responses, I realized that he was writing material for his website.\u00a0 He had no intention of committing to honest dialogue.\u00a0 I walked into his snare and he probably thanked God for the gift.\u00a0 I could have answered his last email point by point, but it would not have accomplished anything good.\u00a0 Everyone who read the exchange with an open mind would clearly recognize his motive. \u00a0However, the ones that follow his leadership would just become angry.\u00a0 At some point, especially when it becomes obvious that contention lies ahead in the road, one must walk away to preserve peace.<\/p>\n
Further, I have been observing John MacArthur\u2019s \u201cStrange Fire Conference\u201d and the responses to it.\u00a0 Although I might agree with MacArthur on some points, I have to disagree with the spirit of his presentation and broad-brush condemnation of a vast number of Christians.\u00a0 I firmly disagree with his timing in launching an attack against the Charismatic\/Pentecostal Movements.\u00a0\u00a0 From reading his responses, he believes that \u201cshooting into the crowd\u201d is a good approach to get the bad guys.\u00a0 The consequence of collateral damage to innocent people appears to be okay with MacArthur, \u00e0 la \u201cQue Sera, Sera\u201d.\u00a0 He probably believes he was in God\u2019s will, but the fruit indicates that he was probably in the flesh.<\/p>\n
I came to the realization that Christianity is held together by a very thin and elastic bond.\u00a0 Although at the present a number of professing Christians are united in defeating the enemy, they will not pass up the opportunity to again war with each other.\u00a0 They pull away over a single point of doctrine and then snap back in unity to fight gay marriage.\u00a0 Often they break the bond completely with bridge-burning rancor and contempt. Consequently, they only fight the darkness with people who completely agree with them.<\/p>\n
I firmly believe that if somehow we were able to eject Contemplative Spirituality, the Emergent Church, the neo-paganism, New Age Movement, and all the other heresy and heretics thus involved, we would simply go back to arguing over what divides us.\u00a0 After 35 years of ministry, pastoring and pioneering over a half dozen churches, and 20 years on the Internet, I have concluded that many Christians love conflict.\u00a0 The adrenalin rush, with the sensation of being in a \u201ccrusade\u201d from God, is most intoxicating.\u00a0 The most amazing fact is that each person involved in conflict with another Christian believes that he or she can wash off the insidious nature of their actions by quoting a few verses to cover their behavior, and of course stating the tired old adage, \u201cJust speaking the truth in love.\u201d\u00a0 Some of the most hateful emails I have received were signed, \u201cwith much love\u201d.<\/p>\n
Of course true Christians are going to disagree.\u00a0 However, when our disagreement turns to cheap debate tricks, cheap shots, and disintegrates into a childish \u201ctit-for-tat\u201d, there is absolutely no chance of any fruitful and blessed conclusion.\u00a0 One of the most insidious tricks is to parse the words of an opponent, take them out of context, and form straw man arguments around them.\u00a0 Another trick is to presume a person\u2019s intent when it is not clearly stated.\u00a0 However, the most disgusting trick is that before one commits an offense, he or she accuses the opponent of the same offense.\u00a0 A variation is the charlatan commits the offense, and their opponent complains and delineates what they did, and the charlatan accuses them of the same offense.\u00a0 They may go a step further and accuse their opponent of pretending to be a victim.\u00a0 This is the way trolls operate.\u00a0 Many of us have experienced Internet trolls that visit our blogs and Facebook pages for the express purpose of creating conflict.\u00a0 Trolls are very skilled at avoiding valid points and goading people into angry responses.\u00a0 When those tactics occur in a discussion between two professing Christians, strife and division are the inevitable result.<\/p>\n
The fact is that no matter what degree of truth that one may possess, he or she is not allowed to declare it without immediate attacks from other Christians who do not hold the same belief.\u00a0 We cannot swallow our pride, deflate our large egos, and simply walk away from obvious hopelessly irresolvable conflicts.\u00a0 We cannot approach with true agape love our fellow believers that hold opposite nonessential doctrinal views.\u00a0 Instead of love, we approach them with ulterior motives or malice thinly disguised as \u201clove\u201d and verbal goads disguised as \u201ccorrection sent from heaven\u201d.\u00a0 I\u2019m not referring to discourse with diabolical and dangerous heretics, but Christians with whom we will unite to defeat heresy dangerous to the Body as a whole.\u00a0 We simply cannot accept those heretics (Emergent, pagan, New Age, etc.) after they declare their belief systems because their heresy will condemn souls to eternal darkness.<\/p>\n
Therefore, Christians are never going to become united in grace and love.\u00a0 Instead, a multitude of satanically anointed deceivers will unite a huge section of professing Christians and merge them with pagans and the adherents of false religions into a global religion.\u00a0 The rest of Christianity will languish in division and weakness as Satan roams about \u00a0unhindered to molest the weak and unlearned.<\/p>\n
Presently, we are not united to defeat the satanic enemy because we cannot tolerate the \u201cstench\u201d of what divides us.\u00a0 Perhaps, just perhaps, if we are imprisoned, or are facing a trip to the gallows together, maybe then we will chose another topic except if speaking in tongues is of the devil, or if disbelieving the pretribulation rapture qualifies one as a heretic unworthy to be caught up when Christ appears. If it takes the unity of a foxhole to make us fight like we are in the same army, then maybe we need persecution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christianity is under an unprecedented attack in this final period before the Coming of the Lord Jesus.\u00a0 The enemy that opposed righteousness from the outside has now entered Christianity and is entrenched in positions of leadership.\u00a0 It appears that each week brings news of further decadence and degradation in once doctrinally sound denominations.\u00a0 Popular and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-4q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1613,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}