Topic: Guarding Sound Faith Against Ancient Heresies – Discover the Book by Dr John Barnett 16 November 2021
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Guarding Sound Faith Against Ancient Heresies
Before the celestial “shock and awe” judgments of the Tribulation are unleashed, God’s Word describes a time characterized by false teaching and teachers SO strong, that it would even sweep away even true believers (Mark 13:22) if they were not sealed by the Spirit of God.
In Matthew 24 Jesus describes the world before He returns in His Second Coming, as a world where the love of most has grown cold because of false teachers (Matthew 24:11-12); and where “the Faith” will be nearly extinct (Luke 18:8).
The end of the church age is shown in Revelation 3 to be like the church at Laodicea where truth is light, self-centeredness is heavy; materialism and personal agendas run deep, and true Biblical spirituality is shallow.
As we have already seen, Paul foretold that the days would be a time of great “falling away”; and Peter, Jude and John all described this final time pervasive false doctrine across the world. As we open to the tiny letter of Christ’s other earthly brother named Jude look at verse 3.
Today we see such a sweeping array of deceptive false teachers as just the foretaste of this birth pang, which Jesus warned about and described–forming before our very eyes.
Also Read: Open Heaven 16 November 2021 –Topic: EQUIPPED TO SERVE
Never before has wrong teaching and beliefs about God been more widely proclaimed than in our day. A continuous, 24/7 river erroneous teaching about God flows around the world: on radio, TV, cable, web casts, pod casts, simulcasts, books, magazines, and everywhere in between-our world is increasingly filled with lies about God. And to this growing cauldron of darkness and lies comes the triumphant truth that-
Jesus Christ is The Key
The storm of lies raining down upon us today is a constant reminder why Christ’s Church is to be filled with well grounded, grace-energized men and women who guard the truth that Jesus Christ gave us. We should be constantly declaring the truths we hold from John 14:6, to the confused world around us that:
Jesus Christ is the Way– there is NO other road to God than the Lord Jesus Christ. Any belief system that is hostile to Him, denying of His deity, or claiming His insufficiency is FALSE.
Jesus Christ is the Truth– at the center of all truth that leads to God is the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says that general revelation has two means: conscience and creation. Jesus Christ is right in the middle of the human conscience as the Creator who breathed life into the dirt that was used to form Adam; and He is squarely in the center of the created Universe as He is also the Creator of everything in the heavens and on the Earth. Any philosophy, religion, or science that is hostile to Him, denying of His deity, or claiming His insufficiency is FALSE.
Also Read: Open Heaven 16 November 2021 –Topic: EQUIPPED TO SERVE
Jesus Christ is the Life– the only way to live a life that is guilt-free, fear-free, full and overflowing, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who come to Him find His complete forgiveness of every sin, and His complete transformation of their lives. Any religion, church, denomination, or Bible teacher that is hostile to Jesus Christ as God in human flesh who died a substitutionary death for sin, or that denies His deity in any other way, or claims His insufficiency is FALSE.
But that absolute assertion of Christ in John 14:6 is not widely held by modern Christians. George Barna recently reported that in America,
“Christians have increasingly been adopting spiritual views that come from Islam, Wicca, secular humanism, the eastern religions and other sources. Because we remain a largely Bible-illiterate society, few are alarmed or even aware of the slide toward syncretism – a belief system that blindly combines beliefs from many different faith perspectives with God’s Word.”