Contend for the Faith

The human search for truth is relentless and happens in every category of life. Our family still chuckles at my mother’s response when someone asked her if she would like an egg. She replied, “I don’t know. Are they in this year?”

This restless search takes place in the spiritual realm too. Pet doctrines come and hopefully go as people want to hear something that fits their personal desires, mainly to allow them to control their own lives.

O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. (1 Timothy 6:20–21)

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3–4)

In the early days of the church, the Apostles continually faced the challenge that salvation required human good works or at least included religious practices and rules long established by those who claimed their authority came from God, the same people who crucified God’s Son. Even though the good news of the Gospel won that battle, the human heart still cries out, “I must do something” regarding earning eternal life.

Jude, the half-brother of the Savior, wrote: “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)

The author of today’s devotional says a sizable number of Christians have drifted from a thoughtful, Biblical, God-centered theology to one that is increasingly mystical, non-Biblical, and man-centered . . . with a proliferation of extra-Biblical revelations that certain people are claiming to receive directly from God.

I share his dismay and his reliance on the Bible as our source of truth. Even though we may not fully understand every verse, it says this:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16–17)

First of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20–21)

It also warns us repeatedly that this truth must be tested and held firmly:

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:20–21)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

God teaches me that If a teaching doesn’t conform to Scripture, it must be rejected. If it does conform, it isn’t a new revelation. That is, additional revelation is unnecessary. It may come in a still, soft voice, or a dream, or through the words of another person, but it will conform to what God has already revealed. Besides, there is danger in adding to it:

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18–19)

This is why those who defend the faith say: “Don’t be swayed by supposed new revelations. Devote yourself to what has already been revealed” and then point to these words:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:1–4)

PRAY: Jesus, as the days become filled with news of wars, increased earthquakes, and crimes against the masses, I’m also tempted to forget what I know about You and panic into teaching that will make me feel more comfortable. Today’s headlines challenge what I believe about Your goodness, but they do not put a ripple in the reality of Your holiness and Your right to deal with the sinfulness in this world. Guard my heart and my faith in You. Don’t let me wander into any teaching that denies what Your Word reveals.

PONDER: Psalm 37 is a good place to start. It reminds me that God is still on His throne and that He is not yet finished with those who continually challenge the truth He has revealed. In the end, Jesus wins.

 

 

 

Post-Christianity is . . .

 

A video banned from social media asks a simple question, “What is a woman?” and the answers so far, particularly from those who are doctors, psychiatrists, university professors and so on, are not answers. Most of them try to explain the current ideas about gender and sexuality but their worldview eliminates this definition because worldviews have radically changed, even since the devotional I am reading was published.

Worldviews affect how Christianity is defined. Currently, people are not using honorable deeds so they look like Christians or to earn their way to heaven. Good is relative and heaven does not exist. Reality is not defined objectively. If a person believes something, then that something is true for them, even if they think they are a turtle or a sheepdog.

My mother often said that nice people must be Christians. Her way of evaluation may have been based on Scripture like this:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

That way of defining Christians needs to include more than being nice. Faith must be in the equation because without it, no one can please God (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is about trusting Him, not our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5ff) and biblical faith is  the source of doing good. This means good works are not initiated by human effort but by the Lord through a changed life, a life that follows God’s leading and obeys Him.

Dead faith is contrary to that. No one can produce the work that God wants because godly goodness depends on Holy Spirit power. Dead faith is self-motivated and for personal gain. In contrast, Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

The Christian way of thinking is limited in today’s world by current philosophies and definitions of reality. Many people think there is no God (atheism) or that God (if there is a God) is not involved in this world. The concern to please God is replaced by whatever pleases self, and faith is replaced by “truth is relative” which negates objectivity and renders the Bible obsolete and passages like this one:

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:6–8)

Christianity is thought to be repressive — and it is — because it considers sin as bondage, and relying on self and doing our own thing is sin. It tells us to put off that kind of life. From a Christian perspective, the current world view is no different than it was when Christ lived, died, and rose again, except for its extent and for the damage that is done by those who decide what is true for themselves. People no longer want to be rid of sin, but to have it declared okay, even good. This thinking was predicted by this warning: “Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Peter 3:3) It began with rules concerning marriage and food . . .

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth . . . . (1 Timothy 4:1–5)

It continues by turning away from biblical teaching:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3–4)

It comes down to what I’m hearing from the so-called wise of this world: “ . . . Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20–21)

PRAY: Lord, only You can open blind eyes and change hearts. Only You can change those “insatiable for sin” into those who are hungry for truth and to know You. You say, “Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart . . .” (1 Corinthians 4:5). In the meantime, people will “suffer wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing” and people will “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime” and continue to “devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” — unless You speak to their hearts. My challenge is to manifest truth with faith that produced a goodness that can be explained by ‘only God.’ Enable me to be totally obedient to You.

PONDER: John 15:1–8. What is my need concerning this slide of many into unbelief? What can I do to make a difference?