Pastor, Who Is Leading You Astray?

Pastor, I used to go to your church; or maybe I still attend it. You may remember that I came to you with a concern about some program, resources, invited speaker, teaching that was being brought into our church. I told you it looked like a false teaching. I even gave you some research that was done with scripture to support my concerns.

You listened, but in the end you did not really hear. You told me that we can't put God in a box, that God told you there was nothing wrong, and that you were only interested in bringing more of God's Kingdom in, and was just giving people a way to experience God more. I acknowledged your good intentions, but asked you to consider and look into what I brought you.

I did not hear back from you until the following Sunday. You did not talk direct to me about what I brought to you, but you talked to the entire congregation about it, woven into your sermon. Although you did not say my name, it was obviously a put down of what I showed you. I was warned before going to talk to you that you probably wouldn't be receptive to what I was going to tell you, but this was a response I did not expect.

I was disappointed, hurt, and felt deceived. Your sermon did accomplish something. Now I am avoided and even shunned by others in the church. I guess that was your way of putting a stop to criticism of the things I spoke to you about. But it only confirmed to me that there is a problem with this new thing that has come in.

This new thing has changed you, and even the staff. I always thought, and the Bible says too, that the pastor was the Shepherd of his sheep. What came to mind as I listened to your sermon was Jesus speaking about the true Shepherd.

He said, "How think ye? If a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray." Matt 18:12-13

I know in your thinking I am wrong about what I shared with you. But instead of following the Word and example of Jesus in bringing me back to what you thought was truth, you actually accomplished separating me from the rest of the sheep. By this alone the indication of the deception I tried to share with you can be seen.

There was something else I told you about. And that was where these new things you brought in came from. They can't be found in God's word, but are concepts of the things of the World. This bothered me too because Jesus said,

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepard of the sheep.

To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out.

And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers" John 10:1-5

Jesus said, "I am the door of the sheep" John 10:7.

Pastor, the problem is these things you and the staff have brought in are from some other door, some way other than Christ. That is why when I heard the teachings on these new things it was like the voice of a stranger and not like before when you just taught out of the Word.

So how can people enter into his fold by something that is not of him? Jesus said they can't and those who try are thieves and robbers.

Then why is it that the sociology, marketing, demographics, and the entertainment of Saddle Back and Willow Creek are considered great things? I wondered if you really looked into the things they follow and believe, and the sources of some of the books they wrote. I wondered what made you change from choosing these other doors rather than Christ. It bothered me that you did not see that the deceptive concepts of "Building a 21st century church" and having a "relevant church" came from something other than Christ.

I tried to show you that the books you accumulated and promoted that are written by Steven Covey, M. Scott Peck, Keirsey & Bates, were written by people who are not of the "sheep fold", but had gotten into it through those other "Shepard's" you got these things from. I tried to show you that they were associated with "New Age" thinking and sources of the occult. But your answer was that it was alright; they had a lot of good to things that could be used and that you just through out the bad things and kept the good. You further told me that the staff and the congregation had the discernment to see the difference.

But I really found that this was not the case because none of you did not see anything wrong with going to another voice, using another door. I tried to show you the same thing with the Personality Tests and the Spiritual Gifts Tests too. Now everyone thinks that these writers and their teachings are all right. I noticed you did not tell anyone of their New Age - occult associations. The fact you did not tell people of this bothered me. But your sermon sure made me out to be the problem; and that was confusing.

I ran across a passage in 2 John that cleared this confusion. John said,

"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

If there come unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed: For he that biddeth him Godspeed is a partaker in his evil deeds". 2 John 9-11

There were a couple of thoughts I had after reading this. First, are those writers bringing a doctrine of God? I had to say, "No". Second, are the well known pastors and organizations you got these things from abiding in the doctrine of Christ, or are they receiving these outside "teachers" and "shepherds" ? They receive them.

I was also concerned about you receiving them too. Why? Because they have pulled you away from abiding in the doctrine of Christ and made you a partaker in the deception of what they bring. I think they have blinded you and made you forget what Paul told Timothy and Titus: "Preach the Word" and "sound doctrine".

Many of us come to church to hear the word and sound doctrine. That's why I told you something that you were probably not aware of. It was that you spend about twenty minutes quoting other teachers and writers [some are not even Christians], but only about ten minutes actually teaching from the Bible. I wanted to bring this to your realization. We come to hear your words, not someone else's sermon. I know it offended you when I brought this up; especially when I told you that a few of the people you have been quoting are into teaching unbiblical things themselves or are associated with organizations that have gone outside the teachings of the Bible.

Then I wondered about all these "Revival" prophets and apostles and the guest speakers among them that have come in. I thought if you checked out what they say against the words of Christ you would have seen that they are false. But you just accepted what they said without question. When I talked to you, I hoped that you would have at least researched what I showed you.

And when it came to the gold dust, feathers, and people writhing on the floor, I had to come to you with my concerns. You couldn't even finish a sermon because you curled up and started babbling. Everything was out of control. I saw in the word that the Holy Spirit is not this way. I wondered why would interrupt His own words that you were supposed to be teaching, with chaos and things that came from the outside. I wondered too; how can these things be trusted when the "leaders" of these things, who call themselves prophets and apostles, are wrong in many of their prophecies? Pastor, I wish you would have looked into all this.

Last Sunday you showed that you try to control with fear. When you were talking about me, you told the congregation that this new program - teaching - association - philosophy, was all of God and that saying anything "negative" or critical about it was opposing God. You said that if anyone did not agree with the program or changes, they should leave. You even added to this by saying that anyone who did not agree with these things and left, would be outside of the Kingdom of God. I thought how much this sounded like our church was turning into a cult. This was just another sign that you have been affected by these things.

I thought I remembered something about a certain type of Shepard that scatters the sheep instead of doing what Jesus did. Someone brought it to my attention today. It was in Ezekiel 34. I hope you can take the time to read it.

By the way, I received a letter from the elders / board today telling me that I am no longer welcome to come into the church anymore. If I have been gone for awhile, I wanted to let you know that I am in another church now. There are many in it who have experienced what I have from the churches they went to. What is nice is that this pastor has a heart for those who have been told to leave their churches, or left anyway because of the false teachings that came in and your response to those who brought them to your attention.

I know I have not said a lot of the things that I told you about, such as some of the organizations and associations you have gotten us involved with; but there is just too much to tell you. You know about them though, because I told you about these things and you brought them up last Sunday.

I will continue to pray that somehow you will humbly take a look at what is really going on and come back to being that Shepard you were before getting caught up in the allure of these things. But right now I still have to ask; Pastor, who is leading you astray?

HAT TIP: Watcher's Lamp

Pure vs. Corrupted Religion

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
(James 1:26-27)

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:
(Matthew 7:13)

Man's religion makes man its center. It is constructed so as to revolve around himself. He is its Alpha and Omega - its first and its last. It makes him live for himself, think of himself, magnify himself. It teaches him to lessen the distance between himself and God, for the purpose of enabling him to remove that distance by his own endeavors; so that God is not the infinitely glorious Being, nor man the helpless and unworthy thing which Revelation declares him to be. Man's religion is like the old astronomy, with the vast earth in the center, and the puny sun revolving round it!

Man's religion trifles with sin. Having lessened the greatness of Jehovah's character, and obscured His glory, it is not wonderful that he treats sin lightly. If God be not the infinitely holy and exalted One, then, opposition to Him, and contempt of His law are not very serious evils. They may be acknowledged as not wholly right; but they will not be felt as unutterably wrong. God is not seen to be so deeply, so awfully wronged; nay, it is difficult to make men believe that they can really wrong God at all. The evil of sin, as a wrong done to man's self or to his fellows will be allowed; but its evil, as a wrong done to God, is never thought of. As that which may offend man, or break in upon his rights, sin will be dealt with as a real grievance; but as that which offends God or assails His rights, it is treated as a thing of nought. And as man trifles with sin, so he conceives that God will trifle with it, and overlook it. That which is such a small thing in his own eyes, he reasons, cannot be a great thing in God's. Hence the common idea of Divine mercy is simply that of indifference to sin.

While man's religion trifles with sin, God's religion bases itself on the utterly odious and intolerable nature of sin. THE SOUL THAT SINNETH IT SHALL DIE, lies at the very foundation of God's religion, and of all His dealings with the creature, specially of His transactions with the sinner.

Man's religion has in it no struggles, no dangers, and but few difficulties. The path it prescribes is easy, not hard for flesh and blood. It leaves out the pangs of the new birth - the struggle with unbelief, with the flesh, with Satan. These have no place in it at all. It acknowledges no enemies, no hardships, no conflicts. It broadens the narrow way, smoothing its ruggedness, and plucking up the thorns and briers that beset it. God's religion assumes all these things as not only certain, but necessary.

- Horatius Bonar

HAT TIP: Old Truth

It's the Law

“Lower the Law and you dim the light by which man perceives his guilt; this is a very serious loss to the sinner rather than a gain; for it lessens the likelihood of his conviction and conversion. I say you have deprived the Gospel of its ablest auxiliary [its most powerful weapon] when you have set aside the Law. You have taken away from it the schoolmaster that is to bring men to Christ … They will never accept grace till they tremble before a just and holy Law. Therefore the Law serves a most necessary purpose, and it must not be removed from its place.”

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

No Fear?

(Deuteronomy 4:5-10)
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;
10 Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.

(Job 28:20-28)
20 Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?
21 Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air.
22 Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.
23 God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.
24 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;
25 To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.
26 When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder:
27 Then did he see it, and declare it; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out.
28 And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

(Psalms 111:10)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

(Proverbs 1:7)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

(Proverbs 9:10)
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

(Proverbs 15:33)
The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.

The Unpopular Gospel

- Thomas Vincent, 1674

Q. How is Jesus Christ to be received by faith?
A. Jesus Christ is to be received by faith as he is offered to us in the gospel.

Q. How is Jesus Christ offered to us in the gospel?
A. Jesus Christ is offered to us in the gospel, as a priest, prophet, and king; and so we must receive him, if we would be saved by him.

Q. When doth the soul rest upon him for salvation?
A. The soul doth rest upon Christ for salvation when, being convinced of its lost condition by reason of sin, and its own inability, together with all creatures' insufficiency, to recover it out of this estate, and having a discovery and persuasion of Christ's ability and willingness to save, it doth let go all hold on the creatures, and renounce its own righteousness, and so lay hold on Christ, rely upon him, and put confidence in him, and in him alone for salvation.

Q. What is "repentance unto life"?
A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin, turn away from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.

Q. Wherein doth repentance unto life consist?
A. Repentance unto life doth chiefly consist in two things - 1. In turning from sin , and forsaking it. "Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions: so iniquity shall not be your ruin" - (Ezek. 18:30). "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper,: but whose confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy:. - (Prov. 28:13). 2. In turning to God. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" - (Isa. 55:7).

Q. What is that turning from sin which is a part of true repentance?
A. The turning from sin which is a part of true repentance, doth consist in two things - 1. In a turning from all gross sins, in regard of our course and conversation. 2. In a turning from all other sins, in regard to our hearts and affections.

Q. Do such as truly repent of sin never return again unto the practice of the same sins which they have repented of?
A. 1. Such as have truly repented of sin do never return unto the practice of it, so as to live in a course of sin, as they did before, and where any, after repentance, do return unto a course of sin, it is an evident sign that their repentance was not of the right kind. 2. Some have truly repented of their sins, although they may be overtaken and surprised by temptations, so as to fall into the commission of the same sins which they ave repented of, yet they do not lie in them, but get up again and with bitter grief bewail them and return again unto the Lord.

The Nature of Saving Faith

- William Guthrie, 1658

A godly man may argue thus, Whosoever receive Christ are justly reputed the children of God - "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God" (John 1:12); but I have received Christ in all the ways which the word there can import: for I am pleased with the device of salvation by Christ, I agree to the terms, I welcome the offer of Christ in all His offices, as a King to rule over me, a Priest to offer sacrifice and intercede for me, a Prophet to teach me; I lay out my heart for Him and towards Him, resting on Him as I am able. What else can be meant by the word RECEIVING?

The second great mark of a gracious state, and true saving interest in Jesus Christ, is the new creature - "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." (2 Cor. 5:1)...In all who do warrantably pretend to Christ, this new creature must be... This new creature is called the "new man" (Col. 3:10)), which points out the extent of it. It is not simply a new tongue or new hand, but a new man. There is a principle of new life and motion put in the man, which is the new heart; which new principle of life sendest for the acts of life, or of "conformity to the image" of him who created it, so that party is renewed in some measure of every way (Col. 3:10).

Love's Enduring Promise

Ever since the Fourth Century, when the Church adopted Amillennialism and began to divorce itself from its Jewish heritage, the prevalent Christian view concerning the Jews has been that "God washed His hands of them" in the First Century when He poured out His wrath on Jerusalem and allowed the Jews to be dispersed worldwide. An accompanying doctrine that developed over the years is called "replacement theology." It is the idea that God replaced the Jews with the Church, that the Church has become the "new Israel," and that the Church has inherited all the blessings that were previously promised to the Jews. Needless to say, these ideas have served as a source of much of the anti-Semitism that has characterized the Church for the past 1600 years.

The idea that God has "washed His hands of the Jews" is thoroughly unbiblical. In Jeremiah 31:36 God says the Jewish people will continue to be "a nation before Me forever." He emphasizes the point by saying they will continue as a special nation of people until the fixed order of the universe ceases, or until all the heavens and ocean depths have been measured (Jeremiah 31:36-37). In Isaiah 49:14-16 God uses a different metaphor to emphasize His devotion to Israel. He says that He has the nation inscribed on the palms of His hands!

There are three chapters in the New Testament that strongly emphasize the continuing love of God for the Jews. These three chapters have been despised and ignored (or spiritualized into meaninglessness) throughout much of Christian history. The chapters are Romans 9-11. In Romans 9:4 Paul writes that God still has covenants with the Jews which He promises to fulfill. He then makes it clear that the Jews who will receive the blessings are a great remnant that will be saved in the end times (Romans 9:27).

Paul even specifically addresses the question of whether or not God has rejected the Jewish people. He asks, "God has not rejected His people has He?" (Romans 11:1). For 1600 years the Church has answered this question with an unqualified, "Yes!" But Paul answers it by saying, "May it never be! . . . God has not rejected His people whom he foreknew" (Romans 11:1-2).

But what about their disobedience? What about their rejection of God as king of their nation and Jesus as king of their hearts? Hasn't their disobedience nullified the promises of God? Again, Paul specifically deals with this issue. He asks, "What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?" (Romans 3:3). And again, for centuries the Church as responded, "Yes!" But not Paul. He responds by saying, "May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar" (Romans 3:4).

Paul becomes so overwhelmed by the grace of God in never giving up on the Jews, that he finally goes bursts froth with an ecstatic proclamation: "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!" (Romans 11:33).

HAT TIP: Lamb & Lion Ministries

Jeremiah 31:35-37
35Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:

36If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

37Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.


Isaiah 49:14-16
14But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.

15Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

16Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.