FALSE TEACHINGS IN OUR CHURCHES

FALSE TEACHINGS IN OUR CHURCHES,

LEADS TO FALSE TEACHINGS IN OUR

CHRISTIAN ADDICTION RECOVERY PROGRAMS!

ARE YOU LISTENING TO GOD, OR ONE OF

MANY OF THE DEVILS FALSE TEACHERS?

 John 8:47

He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Matthew 11:29,

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

The only way to understand God’s Word and His will for YOUR life, is to read it for YOURSelf! Pray and meditate over it daily and ask God for discernment until YOU understand it. Do NOT ask your neighbor, friend, relative, brother or sister in the pew next to you, not even your pastor or counselor who usually get paid the big bucks to confuse you all the way to hell! “IF” YOU’RE concerned about YOUR salvation, YOU need to make sure that it’s GOD that you’re listening to, and is teaching you, and not someone else who’s been the victim of false teaching, and living a lie of false doctrine! That’s why we read in Acts 17:11, “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Just one of the many things He wants to teach you is patience, and you can rest assured that no matter how long you live, or how much you read and study His Word, when He calls you Home, you will not yet have learned it all. But if WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED, you’ve listened to, and learned it from GOD, not man, while you resided here, you can also rest assured that Home will be Heaven and you’ll have ETERNITY with Him to sort out the unknown. We are not OF God, or IN God, or Saved, if we’re not following and obeying God through His Word! The Word IS God! John 1:1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

If you’re a relatively new Christian and have recently started attending a church, it is absolutely detrimental that you follow the instructions in Acts 17:11! The odds of finding false teachers in today’s Churches are greater than any time in history and the consequences of putting your trust in the words of any mere man can be deadly! We all want to trust our friends, family, neighbors, and yes, even our pastors, and while it’s fine to trust others with a weather forecast, you better think twice about it with your Salvation! We only get one chance. While that one chance may be spread out over our lifetime, no one knows how long our lifetime will be.  

I think the biggest failure of mankind and Christianity began centuries ago when man began following other men instead of God! Even today in our country which was founded on the precept of “In God we Trust,” we’ve completely abandoned God beginning with the requests of a handful of the devils personal warriors, the atheists. And our Churches have let it happen, rather than defend the principal of “One nation under God,” and “tip over the tables of the atheists,” they chose to turn our country over to the devil by “love thy neighbor,” or “judge not,” rather than fight, 2 Corinthians 10:4, The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. Consequently, both our country and our church is now in the hands and control of Satan!   

Today, with modern media now at our fingertips 24 hours a day, we have become far more vulnerable to the deception of the devil through the false teachings of thousands of false teachers! Many are in brick and mortar buildings that they call churches, and many more on the internet. As long as man insists on listening to, believing, and following the physco-babble of some false teacher’s rantings spiced with a few mis-quoted scriptures, used out of context, to clarify or defend his or her false doctrine with words like, “this is what “I” think Jesus or Paul or Peter meant in verse such and such,” we will never find the Truth! We don’t need to know what someone else thinks about God’s Word, we need to KNOW exactly what GOD wants us to KNOW! And the only way to do that is to LISTEN to GOD by READING His WORD and PRAYING for discernment. NOT watching TV, listening to a radio program, following someone on the internet, or spending one hour a week in a mega-church building made out of glass and gold, where the only message is give, give, give, work, work, work, me, me, me. Or many other false doctrines linked with a verse or two of Truth out of context to make it pleasing to tickle the ear.   

The biggest danger in listening to, and following a man, in our endeavor to understand God’s Truth, rather than relying on, and listening to God Himself, is the probability of hearing and believing lies and false doctrines. Most of these mega-church leaders become false-idols to the church members. There are so many false teachers teaching false doctrines that have overtaken the Church today, affecting millions of followers, that the chance of hearing the Truth is slim. Hence these important words of Jesus in,… Matthew 7:13-14, Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Which in plain and simple English vernacular, means that only a few “Christians” are on the right path to Eternal life in Heaven, and most are on the wide road to hell! There is a need for more of this “BAD NEWS,” which in this case is The Truth, to be shared around the world! Millions have had the “GOOD NEWS” so distorted by false teachers and doctrines that we live on a planet where our consciences are seared beyond recognition of good and evil!

As Christians with addictions, recovery can be next to impossible unless they’re being taught God’s Truth. False teachings and doctrines will not only keep them struggling with their addictions, but may very well keep them from Salvation. While there are many false doctrines throughout the Church, one that does the most harm to Christians in addiction recovery is the false grace doctrine or movement.

The false grace movement or doctrine would have us believe we can be Saved without changing our ways or lifestyles! A.W. Tozer quoted years ago, “A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to “accept” Christ, without forsaking the world!” The new age false grace teaching church has the entire homosexual community convinced that repentance is a thing of the past! And the millions of “Drunkards” and drug addicts in the church have no reason to believe any different. Churches using AA type 12-step addiction recovery programs teach that their sin is an incurable disease and that they are powerless to do anything about it! Pure heresy in a Church, and when mixed with the false grace heresy, an alcoholic or addict is very unlikely to find recovery, or Salvation! They believe they’re Saved but don’t need to repent or obey God’s Word.  James 1:21,Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you 1 John 2:15-16, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

We’re no longer getting solid Biblical Truth in Sunday’s message. Instead, we’re besieged with “new age, pop culture, feel good” messages that take precedence over the Truth. “Sin is being tolerated, when repentance is not being preached.” “Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” (Isaiah 60:2) “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Prov. 29:18) There can be no vision in the dark! (Ps. 119:105) In “The Need of the Hour”, by Oswald J. Smith, he says “This is true today…people on every side are in almost total darkness, so far as Gods Salvation is concerned. Only here and there do we find a pulpit where the Gospel is preached, the new birth emphasized, Salvation made plain, and an invitation given.” I would add also, that the message of Repentance has been forgotten as well.

Many churches today teaching the false grace doctrine, suggest that since grace replaced the law and set us free, we no longer need to be burdened with repentance and the fear of condemnation. They seem to dismiss the fact that no matter how “born again” we are, we still reside here on earth with a sinful nature (Romans 7:18), engaged in spiritual warfare with the devil! (Ephesians 6:12,For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.) The false grace movement teaches that we no longer are responsible for “cleaning up our act,” and that “God demands nothing from us,” as someone recently told me. We can live our lives as we always have, and our “old” ways are perfectly acceptable, is what I was told! “If Christ lives IN us, we can sit back and wait for HIM to change our behavior.”

The lack of focus on the word “IF,” is a big problem in our Churches today. False teachers, pastors who lead many of our “new age mega-churches,” whose sole focus is filling seats and coffers, refuse to disclose the Truth that there are a number of “conditions” to our Salvation! The false grace doctrine was birthed on the lie that there are no conditions, that because of God’s Grace, one can accept Christ without forsaking their worldly behavior. They will use scripture like, Ephesians 2:8-10,  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.  They will avoid verse 10,  “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,”   knowing no one wants to “work” for their Salvation. False teachers will use John 8:31-32 to tell you that you can be “set free,” without ever mentioning or pointing out the significance of the “IF” in that scripture, where Jesus says,  31,"IF” ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  “continue in my word,” meaning to be obedient, which false teachers know will interfere with their plans to fill seats. There is almost zero mention of the importance of “repentance” in the new age mega-church! The new false-grace movement will have nothing to do with Acts 26:20, “First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.”  Which in 4 simple words dispel the entire false grace doctrine, “repent and show it”! 

       

Over the past dozen years, teaching in various addiction recovery programs, I’ve witnessed hundreds of professing Christians suggesting that their sinful behavior was excusable because of two different scriptural contexts. One being Romans 7, leading to comments like; “If Paul struggled with sin, why shouldn’t I”? The other being, 1 John 1:8-10, leading to this much used excuse, “we’re all sinners, aren’t we”? I’ve had a number of professing Christian homosexuals defend their behavior using this scripture as an excuse, and linked to the false grace doctrine will ad, “God will forgive me.” Yes He will! When you repent and turn to Him! (Acts 26:20) Then you can be a born again, saved, and “set free” Christian, saved by Grace and not by works! Romans 11:6, And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.,  Ephesians 2:8, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—    

The false grace movement was started in the 60’s and 70’s by pastors who grew up on surfboards, and came out of the 60’s hippie culture. “Love, peace, freedom”! Add a little scripture, some pot and LSD and you have an instant “new age” church! False teachers are lead by satan the master deceiver. As they built their mega churches they realized that their messages and worship music needed to tickle their members ears if they were to fill their bank accounts! Hence, the birth of the new age false grace doctrine designed to convince people that they could “accept Christ” without forsaking the World! Jude1:3-4 Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. 4 I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Today, as a result, we have millions of mislead, professing Christians who see no reason to turn from their sin. Millions of mislead, professing Christians struggling with addictions to drugs and alcohol who can’t find a Church or a pastor or counselor who can lead them to the Truth, and then on to recovery, because the only recovery program that they’re familiar with is a secular 12-step program that teaches pure heresy!

Most of the brokenness we see in the world today, the millions of broken homes and families, the moral decline of our entire culture, the drug and alcohol epidemic, and the overall open sinfulness and evil darkness that’s over taken our society today, can all be attributed to the devils success in overtaking our Churches through the teachings of false doctrines! And just like in the addiction recovery programs around the world, the first obstacle to overcome is denial. For alcoholics and addicts, recovery can’t begin until denial is accepted and the truth of their condition is acknowledged. Christians who have been mislead by false teaching face the same dilemma, no one wants to admit that they've been duped by a pastor that they've come to adore, maybe even turned into a false idol, which happens all too often. Many will follow the lies all the way to hell! And no one will ever be able to convince them that they’re on the wrong road, and all they have to do to see for themselves is pick up their Bible and read it!

I’m not sure which is worse, addictions to drugs and alcohol, or to a church that teaches false doctrine! They will both lead to death without The Saving Grace and intervention of Jesus Christ to free those in bondage to either one or both. There can be nothing more devastating than alcoholics and addicts who have broken free from the bondage of denial, and are seeking recovery in a Church that’s teaching the false grace doctrine, and at the same time counseling its wounded members with a secular non-Biblical 12-step program that can only lead one further from The Truth! James 1:21-22, 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 5:19-20, 19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

   As hopeless as this scenario appears to be, there is always Hope. Anyone who reads this and agrees that it indeed describes the condition of the Church today, and is, or has been affected by it, Jesus is always waiting with arms wide open to accept any lost child who will repent and turn back to Him, confess their sins and ask for forgiveness, promise to be obedient, and have the Faith of a mustard seed, and confess that Jesus is Lord and Savior! If you do this in sincerity and good faith, welcome back! Or if this is the first time you’ve surrendered your life to Christ, welcome aboard. Be prepared for change, because being born again is all about change and becoming a brand new creature! 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  

 No matter what your addiction might be, God’s Word, The Truth, is the only place to find the answers to resolving and overcoming it. It is your responsibility, if you’ve finally overcome denial and are ready for recovery, to make sure that you’re on the right road to recovery. There are many in recovery who are on the wrong road, a road that just keeps people going in circles of relapse. Christ’s return is near and it is up to us to be ready. Should He return later today or tomorrow are you ready?