Standing Against False Teachers but Not Naming Every False Doctrine

Numerous times over the years I have been asked about the stance I have taken over other ministries, including ministers, which may be doctrinally or philosophically against where I stand.   To explain this the following truths must be understood:

1. Not everything a “false” preacher teaches is automatically wrong just because they are wrong in certain areas.  The truth is not about the preacher but about the Word of God. This means you must be cautious about every preacher and filter them and their teaching through the truth of God’s Word every time.  But if a teacher/preacher is clearly teaching false doctrine, then everything they say should be brought under closer examination. (Acts 17:11)
2. Not everything a sound preacher says is going to be philosophically unchanging.  Even a sound preacher is human and can make mistakes in certain messages and he can even take a stand and then grow and learn he was wrong philosophically.  Don’t follow the preacher’s words above following God’s Word taught by the sound preacher. I am a different preacher today than when I came to NY 12 years ago and now emphasize things I didn’t use to emphasize.  A preacher’s major doctrines should never change but his philosophy or emphasis might, and, that doesn’t mean he is a false teacher. (1 John 4:1)
3. If a preacher (such as myself) doesn’t take a stance against a fallible teacher, this does not mean defense of that teacher or his false teachings.  A biblical stance is “realm of influence and realm of knowledge.”  This means that if the false teacher doesn’t directly influence our church, the fallacy may not be mentioned often or at all.  Why would a preacher emphasize certain false teachings unless needed?  As an example, why preach in New York against Sati (the practice of burning a wife at husband’s funeral) when that is not an issue?  A sound preacher may take a stance publicly against the “prosperity gospel” being taught by Osteen but not the easy believe-ism seemingly taught several years ago by Hyles, because the one if still active and dangerous here and the other is not in a church’s “realm of knowledge or influence.”  Is Osteen wrong? Yes! Was easy believe-ism wrong? Yes!  (1 Corinthians 5)
4. Each church should be independent of all others and thus the issues of a local church are not the duty of another church to fix.  As an example, there are many churches, including IFB, which have seemingly ignored the immoral behavior of their leadership.  The immorality is wrong, the indifference is wrong, but the issue must be dealt with in that church unless it influences “my” church.  This is not acceptance of that church’s behavior, but it is the acknowledgment of local church autonomy.  Should a preacher who ignores sexual sins, such as child abuse or adultery be dealt with?  Absolutely yes!  But its his church that must remove him and if he influences my church I must publicly take a stance. (Galatians 2:11)

If a preacher listed every false teaching and false teacher, he would get nothing else done as the world is full of them.  Sound doctrine must come from a sound biblical position and even sound preachers are human..so remember that when you are tempted to judge a pastor/teacher/preacher.

Sound Doctrine Lesson 02 Names of Jesus Part 2

Handout for Names of Christ Part 2.

Sound Doctrine Video Series Lesson 01 Names of Jesus Part 01

This is the first in a series of videos that will come with a worksheet in pdf format.  They are for personal use and duplication of the handouts is for that purpose only.  Handout for Lesson 1 - Names of JesusLesson 1 Handout (Right click and save to print)

Don't Judge God's Love by Man's Love

God’s love is too often judged by the love of man.  Our love, though real, is usually very shallow and thus if it we use our love to try to understand God’s love for us, our comparison is skewed to say the least.

To understand more fully God’s love is to look at it in biblical types of God’s love:

1. God the Father loved His Son and the Son loves the Father.  Remember that we are speaking of a Trinity and the love of each person within the Trinity for the for other persons of God.  You cannot understand this kind of love if you only see love in terms as man sees i, because this would be like a person saying, “I know how to love you because I Iove myself.”   In John we are told that the Father loves the Son both with (agape) John 3:35 and (phileo) John 5:20.  John also tells us that Jesus loved the Father in John 14:31.  Remember that Jesus’ actions were based solely upon His Father’s will and the love for the Father as well.
2. God also loves His Creation.  He lovingly made and keeps His Creation according to Genesis 1 and Matthew 6.  
3. The Bible also clearly tells us that God loves the world, even though they are sinners.  In John 3:16 does not tells us that God loves some elect hand full people, but the kurios (entire world).  God clearly has a love for those who have no love for Him as He sent His Son to die for the world before the world was even capable of loving Him. (1 John 2:2 & John 15:19)  We must also accept that because of this love for the world, He takes no pleasure in the death of sinners. (Ezekiel 33:11)
4. God clearly has a special place in His heart for His children, both the Jewish people and the born again.  When God chose Israel, He made it clear that His love was not because of their greatness, because they had no greatness (Deuteronomy 7:7).  He chose to love them even during the times they rejected His leading (1 Kings 10:9).  Now He has chosen to love the saved, not because of their actions, but because they are His children (2 Thessalonians 2:16).  Jesus loved the church enough to die for it too (Ephesians 5:25).  This is the love of unconditional terms.  God chose to love us even when we are doing anything worth loving us for.
5. Lastly, there is a place of God’s love for us based upon our obedience.  This doesn’t mean we must do things to be loved by God, but there is a specialness within the love of God for those that love Him (Jude 21 & John 15:9, 10)

The reasons that the love of God is a difficult doctrine is once again because we must  not see the love of God based upon our understanding of man’s concept love for his own kind.  Realize that God doesn’t love, but God IS love (1 John 4:8 & 16).  This means love is His character not just His actions or emotions.  Love comes from God because that is Who He is, instead of man’s concept of love which is based upon how we feel.  This will be the next section of our study here.

The Love of God - The Most Difficult Doctrine!

Over the next few posts I will be discussing the Doctrine of God’s Love.  This is based upon a series of sermons preached at VBBC from December 2015 to January 2016 in our Wednesday evening prayer/Bible study services.

Why is the God’s love the hardest part of doctrine?  It is not because God has made it difficult but because humanity has moved so far away from the biblical definition of God’s love that truly understanding this subject requires a complete rethinking of it.

This discussion must begin with the fact that basically all that call themselves Christian believe that God is love, but we too often define love by our culture and not the Bible’s definition.  Here are some examples:

1. Some say God’s love is totally unconditional and requires God to lay aside holiness as a requirement for daily living.
2. Others would say that God is so holy that His love is simply the motivation for living holy.
3. Still others would say that all forms of love are from God and there is no limitation on it.  t is the ultimate command and thus saying anything is wrong when love is the basis is doctrinal heresy, IE saying same sex marriage is wrong when two people “love each other.” 

These groups often use verses such as (John 3:16) to show love yet fail to remember that God will judge it (Acts 10:42).  Their the emphasis is seldom on the judgment of God or His holiness just the love. Why?  Because we want a God that loves us and want to downplay the judgment or holiness of God which caused the judgment to be necessary. 

Sometimes doctrinal heresy is not even discussed in some churches.  To be honest, some might even go as far as to say that to preach against heresy IS the heresy.  As an example, I hold that that King James Version is the preserved Word of God in the English language and all other english “versions” are simply commentaries of what men think God meant.  But when I say this, I am judged as legalistic and borderline heretic by some.  Why?  Because I have called someone else’s “doctrine” wrong and that is un-Christian in some minds.  They might even say I am “unloving” and “critical.”  They would admonish me to ignore the differences and love my fellow Christians because ALL English translations are okay, its just simple language differences, and to say otherwise is “unloving.”

How different this is from Paul and even Christ Himself.  Jesus said that the scribes and Pharisees were teaching commandments of men and calling it doctrine (Matthew 15:9).  Paul stop against Peter for teaching that Gentiles couldn’t really be saved (Galatians 2:11).  Yet, I would be wrong to say that these men didn’t love people!

To say it simply, God’s love is too often romanticized and emotionalized based upon our emotions and not God’s definition.  This is clearly seen when we try to defend God’s judgment in the Old Testament or trying to explain how God “allows” bad things to happen today.  We are defending and explaining based upon human emotions not the truth that God has every right to judge as He sees fit because He is both loving and just!

How the Bible Uses the Phrase "Sound Doctrine."

There are four times in the New Testament that the phrase “sound doctrine” is used.  Let’s quickly look at them:

1. 1 Timothy 1:10 - Paul is writing to the young (1 Timothy 4:12) whom he placed in Ephesus to serve most likely as their pastor/minister (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:6) even though never expected Timothy to necessarily stay there permanently (2 Timothy 4:9,13, 21).  Timothy was clearly a young man with great passion (2 Timothy 1:4) and yet a tremendous responsibility (1 Timothy 6:20) to watch for the truth being taught.  So here in 1 Timothy 1:10 Paul shows the great contrast between what sound doctrine is and what it is not.  It is interesting that Paul does not define what IS sound doctrine but what happens in the lives of people when sound doctrine is being rejected.  So sound doctrine is clearly a safeguard against sin.
2. 2 Timothy 4:3 - Here Paul explains that there will be a time when men will desire to have teachers sharing what they want to hear because they will bear with sound doctrine.  Now, it is true, that these verses are speaking of last days, as Paul wrote in verse 1 “in the latter days” and in verse 3 “For the time will come.” But is is also true that falling away from sound doctrine has been going on ever since sound doctrine was given!  Remember the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day rejected His sound doctrine (Matthew 26:65) as did the pagans (Acts 16:19-24) of Paul’s time as well.  Sound doctrine has always been rejected by those who desire to live their own lives in their own way (Mark 8:31; Luke 17:25; Romans 8).  Sound doctrine WILL be rejected by those who desire their own doctrine.
3. Titus 1:9 & 2:1 - Titus was a Gentile believer (Galatians 2:3) that was a precious companion to Paul (2 Corinthians 2:13) who appears to be the pastor of the church on the island of Crete (Titus 1:5).  In the book written to Titus, Paul gives two distinct commands about sound doctrine.  First in 1:9, Paul tells Titus to hold fast sound doctrine as a pastor (elder) must do.  It is clear that the first person that sound know and hold strongly to sound doctrine is the man whom God has given pastoral duty to!  This does not mean a pastor is infallible, but that he should clearly know and hold to sound doctrine.  Second in 2:1, Paul tells Titus to speak sound citrine so that those in the church can do their duty within the church body.  Obviously God has given to each person a duty to serve the Lord and sound doctrine MUST be the foundation of that duty.

Over the next several posts we will begin to share this sound doctrine.  In time, it will come in the form of a series of short videos with worksheets so that you can have both a visual and paper method of studying sound doctrine.  I pray that it will be a blessing as you seek to find your place of service within your local church.

What is the Source of Sound Doctrine? (What God Considers Sound Doctrine Part 3)

God’s desire is for His children to know sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). He does not want us to be confused because He is the author of truth (Romans 3:4) and He does not cause doctrinal confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).  Sound doctrine comes to us with what I am going to call “ingredients.”  

The first ingredient to sound doctrine is access to the truth.  You cannot know sound doctrine if nothing contained it and so God has given us His Word with the all that we need and all that He desires for us to have (Revelation 22:18-19).  This is what we are going to discuss in this study, but let give you the second ingredient which will be covered fully in later posts.  This second ingredient is the Spirit of God’s direction (John 16:13; Matthew 16:17).

Doctrine originated with God the Father and was given to Jesus to share with us (John 7:16-18).    So if we are going to study doctrine we must begin with the words of Christ (1 Timothy 6:3).  You will find that every doctrinal teaching was taught by Jesus Christ and then repeated by the disciples.  The disciples did not teach any doctrine that was unique to them as they simply repeated the doctrine they had been given by Jesus, Who had received it from the Father (2 John 1:9).  Here is a small list of examples of doctrine taught by Christ to the disciples which were later shared with the churches:

1. Church - Matthew 16:18; 18:17
2. Salvation by grace through faith - Mark 2:5-9
3. Heaven - John 14:1-3
4. Angels - John 1:51
5. Trinity - Mark 1:10-11
6. Hell - Luke 16:23
7. Future Events - Matthew 24-25
8. Word of God - Matthew 4:4; Luke 8
9. Deity of Christ - John 1:18; 6:46; 14:7-9

This is, of course, just a quick list and with further clarification, we can find EVERY doctrine within the word of Christ.  It also must be noted that each doctrine is then supported with many other scriptures both Old and New Testament, though some teachings are unique to the New Testament only (IE the church).  But clearly Jesus taught EVERY doctrine we need to know.  So when it comes to the source of sound doctrine it is imperative that we begin this search in the words of the Savior.  Spend time in His words and then expand your study from there.

1 Timothy 6:3 shows that even the Apostles knew that their doctrine was from the direct teachings of the Lord Himself, “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness.”

How much credibility do you give to the words of Jesus?  How much time do you spend in gleaning truth from the parables?  Might I suggest that if you want sound doctrine that your begin in the Gospels and in the sermons and teaching sessions of the Lord Jesus Christ…the source of sound doctrine?