War Against False Doctrine If a country has the highest number of churches and mosques, pastors and imams ,yet she experiences vast social ills, such as ritual killings, corruption, poverty and unemployment . One can deduce two things, either the religious institutions are telling lies or the society is imbibing fundamentally wrong values. Either way, join me and read a brilliant message written by an old secondary school friend,now pastor whom I respect because " HE SAYS AS IT IS ". WAFD- War Against False Doctrine (4) by Femi Bakare 1 Kings 3: 5-13 As much as it is right to honour those who lead us or pastor us, it is wrong to take what they say hook line and sinker without checking. If a man preaches the truth today it does not mean he will always teach what is right. We have a responsibility to check everything any man says regardless of his rank or position in the congregation. No man should remove from you the power to cross check what he is teaching. You don’t believe what someone is saying because of the position or level of relationship, you must prove it before believing it. We are commanded to test all spirits (1 John 4:1). That was the spirit of the Bereans (Acts 17:11). If this people could go home and check what Paul the apostle taught them, then we cannot do less. The old Prophet deceived the young prophet and that led to his death (1 King 13). The young prophet was able to overcome the persuasion of the king but because of respect for the senior prophet he did not bother to cross check what the prophet told him. He acted on his word whereas he lied. This shows us the error that we can find ourselves in if we don’t prove what we hear regardless of who is teaching or preaching. That is why Jesus Christ said we should take heed so that we will not be deceived. He warned us because there is likelihood of being deceived Recently, I watched a servant of God that I once respected and loved for his understanding of God’s word say masturbation is not a sin; what made the matter worse was that some people were trying to defend what he said. Christians are now debating whether it is a sin or not. This is blind loyalty; you must not follow a man to the point that when he deviates you excuse it away. Let’s separate issues from persons. Jude urged us to contend for the faith, not to defend a man. Don’t let us be sentimental, look beyond who is making any statement and lets us endeavour to address the issue. To make the matter worse, people try to remove the power from us to test what they are teaching by saying ‘don’t judge them they are anointed of God’ or the Bible says we should not judge any man. When Paul says any man that preaches another gospel should be accursed (Galatians 1:6-10), what was he doing? When Jesus was speaking against the practices of the Pharisees, what was he doing? Though we don’t become rude to these men, we must as well be able to judge what they do and preach, whether it lines up with God’s word of not. That is why Jude said we must contend, because certain men have infiltrated our ranks. The word infiltrated was use by the Message Bible, which means to secretly become part of a group in order to get information or to influence the way that group thinks or behaves (Advance Learner Dictionary). That is what false doctrine will do eventually. In the end it changes the way we think. Once our doctrine is false our practices will be false as well. That is why it is so important that we are accurate in our interpretation of God’s word because if our interpretation is false, our application will be false as well. When people have wrong practices, it is because somewhere along the line, their understanding of God’s word has been affected. Let’s us take heed to what we hear and how we hear.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 19:00:08 +0000
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