Believers Armed and Dangerous

The word “angel” simply means “messenger “ in both the Old and New Testaments.  The Hebrew word for “angel” is Malakh, and the Greek word is Anggelos.  

We usually think of angels as these super beings who can conquer evil, overthrow armies, and serve at the pleasure of God.  That’s accurate most of the time, but when the word “angel” appears in Scripture it doesn’t necessarily mean a super being like Gabriel or Michael.  Sometimes, the word just means a messenger, even a human messenger.  We see this in Luke 17:24a:

²⁴ When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John

The word “messengers” here is aggelos, angels.  So, we shouldn’t be surprised when we see even Jesus called an angel.  In John 8:58, Jesus identifies Himself as the Person in the burning bush of Ex. 3.

 John 8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Exodus 3:14  (ESV)  God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

So, “I Am” is the divine name given to Moses and the name Jesus took when speaking to the Jews in John 8.  The reaction of the Jews in John 8:59 helps us understand what was being said by Jesus. They wanted to stone Him:

⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

The Jews saw what Jesus had claimed and believed it as blasphemy. Now look at Acts 7:30:

 “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

So, we know the person in the burning bush in Exodus 3 was Jesus.  Exodus tells us He is God.  Acts 7:30 tells us He was an angel.  How do we answer this?

Jesus is submissive to the Father and probably has been at least since creation (Phil. 2:8).  As such, God the Father sent God the Son as a messenger (angel) to speak to Moses.

Many believe the term “Angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament is really Jesus.  No confirmation on that, though.

So, if angels are messengers, what are archangels?  Archangels are chief angels.  They’re the commanders of a body of angels.  We see this in Revelation:

Rev 12:7 (ESV) Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back.

When Jesus returns, He’ll be accompanied by at least one archangel.

1 Thess. 4:16 (ESV) For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

So, how many archangels are there?  We don’t know for sure.  We know Michael is an archangel (Jude 1:9).  We aren’t told of any other.  In fact, only two other angels are actually mentioned by name: Gabriel (Luke 1:19) and Lucifer (Isa. 14:12).  Lucifer’s name comes from the Latin translation of “Day Star” in Isa. 14:12.  Lucifer, of course, had his name changed to Satan upon his fall from heaven.  We believe Satan was an archangel  because he is in charge of a host of fallen angels. He is the dragon Michael will fight in Rev. 12:7. Satan’s “angels” are fallen as is he.

So, how many archangels?  We know Michael is an archangel according to Jude 9.  Daniel calls both angels and demons “princes.”  So when we look at Daniel, we see Michael fighting against another fallen angel called “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.”  An angel comes to answer Daniel’s prayer and explain why it has taken him so long to arrive.  In this verse we find Michael is just “one of the chief princes.”  So, there are more than one archangel.  We’re just not sure of their names other than Michael’s or how many:

Daniel 10:13 (ESV)   The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia

Why is this important?

Sometimes we are confused when comparing Scriptures.  When we see Jesus called God then called an angel, we might think there is a problem there.  It’s a simple issue of language, not a problem.

I’ve always wondered if we have guardian angels, personal bodyguards keeping an eye on us.  I haven’t seen any evidence of that, but angels are in our midst:

Heb. 13:2  (ESV) Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

A cult is basically a group which aligns itself with a world religion but distorts or denies some basic tenants of that world religion. 

Cults are not exclusive to Christianity .  Some friends joined my wife and I to a debate at a mosque in California.  The subject was, “Who is our Messiah: Jesus or Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.”  Mr. Ahmad died in 1908, and you can visit his home in Pakistan which is preserved for pilgrims.

This denied the basic belief of Islam that the Messiah is yet to come. It is a cult.

So, not all cults are calling themselves Christians.  We’ll call ours “non-Christian cults.”  Non-Christian cults would be groups which claim the title of Christian but do not adhere to one or more of the basic beliefs of Christianity: the Trinity, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the deity of Christ, and salvation by grace alone.  All major cults have writings besides the Bible which either interpret the Bible to their way of thinking.

The larger non-Christian cults today are Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Science.

Mormonism:  Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s and 1830s.  It denies the classic doctrine of the trinity.  They teach that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate gods.  The Father and Son are physical beings, but the Holy Spirit is a Person of spirit.

Unlike other non-Christian cults, Mormons believe Jesus was raised bodily.  They believe Jesus is divine but was the result of sexual relations of God the Father with the virgin Mary.  Of course, that is not the biblical Jesus, and so they deny the person and deity of Christ.

For Mormons, salvation is not by grace but through baptism and works.  Here is a quote from Mormon.com:

Within Jesus Christ’s teachings we find the plan for our happiness, our redemption, and our salvation—a divine blueprint that includes faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, keeping God’s commandments, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. These are the saving principles taught by Jesus Christ, the bedrock on which His Gospel is built.

The Mormons, of course, have the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrines and Covenants to interpret for the follower what they say the Bible says, and they have a living prophet who heads the organization.

Jehovah’s Witnesses:  The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ organization, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, was incorporated in 1884 by Charles Taze Russell.   Jehovah’s Witnesses deny all four major doctrines of the Christian church.  They believe only the Father is God.  The Son was the archangel Michel, became the man Jesus until His death, then was recreated as the archangel Michael and ascended to heaven.  That denies both the trinity and the deity of Christ. They also believe the Holy Spirit is just a force.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Jesus was raised as a spirit creature and that His body probably evaporated into gasses.  This of course, denies the bodily resurrection of Christ.

Jehovah’s Witnesses publish a plethora of magazines and books dating from the founding of their organization.  Their major publication is the Watchtower Magazine.   Jehovah’s Witnesses have changed their doctrines a number of times over the years along with making prophecies which did not come to pass.  This results in the need to publish corrections and denials of their doctrinal and prophetic stances.  The updates are called “New Light.”

Christian Science:  The First Church of Christ Science was founded in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy who claimed to have discovered the “Science of Metaphysical Healing.”  Christian Science is like Grape Nuts.  It isn’t Christian, and it isn’t science.  Christian Science is a Gnostic faith.  

For the members, God is an impersonal but omnipotent Being.  Jesus is separate from Christ.  Jesus is the human being Who holds the Christ ideal.  They believe matter is an illusion, it isn’t real, so when you see a Christian Science funeral, they are all wearing white rather than black to demonstrate this.  Sickness is not real nor is evil.  So, the Christian Science beliefs are in no way aligned with historic conservative Christian views.

The main text for Christian Science is Mrs. Eddy’s Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures.

Why is this important?

Understanding a bit about the beliefs of others helps us to better understand the differences and know the terms they use when discussing our faith with them.  Our job is to inform people who do not know Jesus.  In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, they come right to our door ready to discuss religion.  What could be better?  Sadly many Christians feel too inadequate to face them, and the cultists leave more sure of their faith.

Since they all deny at lest three of the major doctrines of the Church, we can learn one of those doctrines well enough to discuss it with them.

Next time you run into one of these folks, ask them about what they believe and share what you do and why.

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ² And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. (Matt. 28:1-2)

^vWhen the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ² And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³ And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” ⁴ And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. ⁵ And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. (Mark 16:1-5)

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. ² And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.  (Luke 24:1-4)

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. (John 20:1)

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. ¹² And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. (John 20:11-12)

The Bible gives four accounts of the resurrection of Christ, more precisely, the visit of the women to the tomb and the angels who greeted them.  If you’ll notice, the accounts are different.  I’d like to address this issue since it is a favorite of critics of the biblical record to say the Bible contradicts itself.

Matthew records the two Marys as going to the tomb.  Mark mentions a third, Salome.  Luke doesn’t tell us how many women came to the tomb, and John mentions only Mary.  There are two quotes of John given because the passage concerning Mary is divided.  After seeing the stone had been rolled away, she ran to tell the others.

So, the question is, “Why are the accounts different?  Aren’t they contradictory?  Actually, no.  They are contrary but not contradictory.  “Contrary” means they seem to be contradictory but really aren’t.  Suppose someone said “I saw Bob at church this morning” but told a friend of yours “I saw Bob and Sue at church this morning.”  You wouldn’t think that was contradictory because Bob was the main character in the first statement and both Bob and Sue were important in the second.  No contradiction here.

It’s the same with the four accounts above.  John thought it was only important to say Mary had gone to the tomb.  She was the central character other than Jesus especially in John 20:11,12.  The prior verses tell us John and Peter had run to the tomb and inspected it.  Verse 10 says the disciples then went home, but not Mary.  She stayed weeping and met Jesus in the garden.  She was very important in the story, so John focused on her.

Matthew mentions one angel sitting inside the tomb in the appearance of a man and one sitting on the stone which had been rolled away.  Luke records two angels appearing as men inside the tomb, yet John mentions none.  So, were there two angles, one, or none?

There appears to have been at least two angels.  One was simply more prominent as the spokesman, so Matthew only mentioned him.  It’s the same story as with the women.  There is no contradiction here.

Why is this important?

Many skeptics have caused some Christians to doubt their faith by bringing up seemingly contradictory passages such as these.  They catch the Christian unaware and make them doubt the reliability of the Bible.  Be careful.  The Bible is God’s Word, but it is also God’s Work.  If there are errors found, it is in the process of copying not in the originals.  Unfortunately, we have only the copies, so we cannot show the originals as the accurate sources they were. 

What we do have is more than 5,000 copies of the New Testament in Greek and more than 24,000 manuscripts overall.  Some are very early manuscripts.  We can compare all these manuscripts to try and come to a consensus of what the original looked like.  Scholars are 99+% certain of the accuracy of modern peer reviewed translations of the Bible.  The passages in question are not doctrinal.  Most mistakes are made from poor copying, misspelled words, etc.

So, stand by the biblical account of the empty tomb.  We have the accounts of eyewitnesses telling us what happened.  Happy Easter to you all.

¹⁰ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:10).

Before I dedicated my life to Christ, I attended a home Bible study where this verse from Jonah was used to show God changes His mind.  Even before I knew God, I had problems with this interpretation of the passage. I found several others bothered me too.  Eventually I came across Jeremiah 18:7,8:

⁷ If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸ and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.  (Jer. 18:7,8)

So, one of God’s principles is “If you repent, you will be forgiven.”  God always stands by His principles.  He is the same today, yesterday, and always.  His nature is to forgive those who will repent, no matter what command or promise they have broken.  Noah said “40 days and Nineveh would be overthrown,” but the Ninevites repented.  They were, therefore, forgiven.

Then there’s this problematic passage:

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.”  (Isa 38:1)

“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. (Isa. 38:5)

This isn’t a nation repenting, it’s a king begging God for a longer life so Jeremiah 18 doesn’t apply.   I’ve really had a problem with this passage over the years.  All I can see here is God showing us what happens if He were to grant our prayer, a prayer which is against His will.

There are some minor arguments for God’s actions in this passage: God didn’t say when Hezekiah would die is the best I’ve found. Therefore there is no contradiction. 2 Kings 5,6 would disagree. It records the same story but adds just enough to demolish that argument:

5 “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, 6 and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.”

Hezekiah had a son, Manasseh, during the additional 15 years God had granted him.  Manasseh took the throne at age 12 upon Hezekiah’s death and ruled for 59 years. He was the longest ruling king in Judah.  Manasseh was a horrible king. He turned Judah back to idolatry even sacrificing his own son to these gods (2 Kings 21:2-16) causing God to curse both Manasseh and Judah.

So, if Hezekiah had simply died, Manasseh would not have been born, and perhaps Judah would have continued with the example of Hezekiah, a pretty righteous king.  What I get from the story of Hezekiah is not so much that God seemed to change His mind but that our prayers should always end with “Your will be done, Lord.”

Who are we to ask God to change His mind/will.  When you think about it, it’s actually a pretty arrogant and stupid thing to do.  If He did change His mind, would His new view be better or worse than the last?  If God is all powerful and all knowing, He would know what is best and that would be His plan.  If we were to ask for something different, we would be asking for something worse than what God has planned for us.

So, what I get from the story of Hezekiah is a lesson in prayer not a lesson about whether God can change His mind. 

Why is this important?

Some Christians read passages like the two above, and want to change God’s mind for what they perceive is their benefit.  How can anything other than God’s benevolent plan for us be better?

God doesn’t change His mind.  His will is the standard for what is best for us.  Let us never pray against God’s will thinking we have a better idea. Thinking He does change His mind would call His promises into question. God keeps His promises!

There is a rule in Bible study: “When a passage seems to contradict the common message of the Bible, go with the preponderance of passages.  Chances are you’re misunderstanding the passage in question.  The preponderance of passages say God doesn’t change His mind; He is unchanging (Mal. 3:6; Num. 23:19; James 1:17; 1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 33:11; Heb. 6:18; Isa. 40:8; John 17:17; Ps. 119:89; Heb. 7:21; Titus 1:2; and so on), so I’m going with the preponderance.

God is consistent.  We need not ever fear.  He does not change His mind and will forever keep His promises.  He is our God whom we serve and the only God with Whom we have to do.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.  Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow. (James 1:16-17)

³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  ³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”  ³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”  (Rom. 11:33-35)

I’ve been trying off and on to memorize Rom. 11:33-35 for what seems like forever, but have just gotten verse 33.  As I look at the next two verses, I’m just astounded.  “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”  Well, I certainly don’t know God’s mind, and there’s a good chance you don’t either.  We get glimpses of His will being accomplished in our lives, but to understand God is impossible for us finite creatures.  Now look at this:

¹⁶ “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.  (1 Cor. 2:16)

How can we have the mind of Christ but not understand God’s mind?  Jesus is God, isn’t He? 

We don’t share a divine nature with the Father but we do share a human nature with the Son.  Philippians 2:5 tells us to share Christ’s mind in His humility.  We can’t share fully the humility of Christ.  After all, He stepped down from His throne ruling over all of creation and became a man who washed the feet of other men and suffered a terrible death for us. 

That’s humility  above our understanding or capability.  We have the mind of Christ now since we have His Holy Spirit within us to direct us and help us understand God’s will in our lives.  We cannot fathom God’s mind in totality, however, no matter how close we are to God.  His ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:9).  God is omniscient, He infinitely knows all things past, present, and future.  To understand this a little better, we need to understand God’s knowledge is such He can never learn anything.  He already knows. We are incapable of mapping out God’s ways.  They are so far above us.

Our communion with Christ will help us understand His will in our lives, though.  That’s something!

Now on to verse 35.  We as Christians want so much to repay God for all He is done for us, but what can we give Him?

My wife is used to tell me it’s hard to think of a gift for me.  I have everything I need.  If there is something else I need or want, I’ll go out and buy it if we can afford it.   I suffer the same problem with her.  Because of this, we stopped giving each other gifts several years ago. 

The difficulty in finding a gift for my wife, though, gives me a slight taste of what verse 35 means..  There is nothing special enough to represent what she means to me.  The universe doesn’t contain it.

What would you give God if you could give Him a gift?  The universe is already His.  Interestingly, Paul faces the same dilemma in verse 36:

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

He sees there is no thing we can give God.  Paul answers the question, though, at the start of the next chapter:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:1,2)

Why is this important?

Seeking to understand the omniscient mind of God leads us to frustration.  We need to simply trust Him and obey.  God will reveal His will through His Spirit. He is the omniscient One, not us.  He’s thought it all through and knows whatever happens His plan will be accomplished.  We may not be happy about how He goes about it, but after 46+ years of intimately knowing Christ and seeing all the hardships and trials we have faced together and how He has resolved them, I have only gratitude for His mind, His will being done.

The gift we can give to God is our lives, our wills, our bodies.  God commands us to love Him and love our neighbors.  Those are good places to start if you want to give a gift to God to show your appreciation.

As of 2020, the Bible has been translated into 704 languages.  The New Testament alone has been translated into 1551 languages.  Bible stories and portions add another 1100 languages.  Translations are extremely important.  Most of us can’t read Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, so we need to rely on accurate translations.

Accurate translations are more difficult than you might think.  We have language problems.  Maybe the word we need to translate from the Greek manuscript only appears once in the Bible.  How do we know what it means?  Well, the context helps, and other Greek documents of the time which contain that word also help as we look there for context.  Sometimes it’s just a guess. 

The word “unicorn” appears nine times in the KJV because the translators didn’t understand the Hebrew word rem.  Today, we know the word means wild ox.  The limited number of manuscripts of the time of the translation of the KJV and limited number of other Hebrew works made it difficult for the translators to come up with the correct translation of the word.

A major issue in the New Testament manuscripts was the fact early Koine Greek was written in all capital letters with no spaces between words and no hyphens.  So, if a line of text ended in the middle of a word, the second half would appear on the next line.  All caps with no spaces would look like this:  “HAVEYOUEVERSEENABUNDANCEONTHETABLE.”  Now is this asking of you’ve seen a bun dancing on a table or abundance on the table?  Translators had their issues for sure.

In English, we have words that can mean different things, sometimes opposite things.  For instance, imagine a scene where a ship is sinking in the harbor and lives are at stake.  A bystander asks the owner of a boat if he can help them.  The boat owner says “My boat is fast.”  Does that mean the boat is quick and can help, or does it mean  his boat is tied fast to the dock and he can do nothing?  Translators have difficulties here too.

Then there are the copyist errors.  Early copies of the New Testament documents were personal.  One person would lend their copy to another.  The second person might write notes in the margins or add something they wanted to remember into their copy.  It was theirs, after all.  They can do as they like.  A problem arose once the copy was offered to a third party.  That person might copy the notes into the text.  As a result, words or full passages might be added into a manuscript.

Some scriptoriums popped up later on. Here a single man would read a Greek manuscript aloud as others copied down the words. This led to more manuscripts produced over a short period of time but also to misspellings, missing words, words misunderstood: “red” instead of “read,” for instance. Because of these issues, there are a number of verses not included in some modern translations. They are not found in our earliest manuscripts.  The ESV, for instance, has 19 ½ verses not included that do appear in some other translations.

Translations come with different philosophies.  For instance the NASB, KJV, NKJV, and ESV are “Formal Equivalence” translations.  That means they are as close as possible to the wording of the original text.  We sometimes call these word-for-word translations.

There are also the “Dynamic Equivalence” translations.  These are more a thought-for-thought philosophy.  The NLT is one of these.  The benefit here is to make the text much easier to read by adding some minor interpretation into the final text.

Lastly are paraphrases.  These are not actual translations but a presentation of what the writer thinks the text says without actually translating from the Greek or Hebrew.  Two of these I’d like to mention are the Living Bible which was written by Kenneth N. Taylor to make the Bible easier to understand for his children.  This became a very popular book as it made the Bible somewhat easier to understand.

The other paraphrase I’d like to mention is The New Testament in Modern English by J. B. Philips.  Philips was a genuine Greek scholar and wrote this to make the Bible more accessible to the typical reader.  It is as close to a translation as I’ve seen without actually being one.

Why is this important?

We need to know as much about the Bible we hold in our hands as we can to appreciate its accuracy.  There are 900 translations just in English.  Most of these are frauds like the New World Translations, or unscholarly “translations” like the Twentieth Century Bible that was written by homemakers, businessmen, and local pastors.

We need to study using the finest translation we can find.  The KJV, NKJV, NASB, and ESV are excellent translations.  If you’re reading the Bible just for the story but not for deep study, the New Living Translation is good or the Phillips’ paraphrase.

Stay away from translations that are not highly rated by scholars.  If you’re going to choose a Bible other than those I’ve listed, do your research.  The ones I’ve mentioned have been peer reviewed and rated highly for their accuracy and presentation.

God’s Word is a treasure, the greatest written treasure we as Christians can hold in our hands.  Only Christ stands above it.

¹⁰ For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.  (2 Tim. 4:10a)

I like working with wood and have a small shop in my garage.  A few days ago I was milling a piece of trim.  I looked at the finished portion, admiring how it looked while at the other end, the router bit took a bite out of my little finger – maybe that’s why they call them “bits.”  Not a serious injury, but it will remind me to keep my eye on what I’m doing and not be distracted.

We Christians allow so many things to distract us from the “narrow path.”  We are so easily turned away.  Demas was a guy who hung out with Paul in prison.  He’s mentioned in both Colossians and Philemon as one of Paul’s inner circle in his first incarceration in Rome’s Mamertine Prison.  But Demas chose the world over the gospel.

Imagine what it would be like to be discipled by the Apostle Paul.  How could anyone be led astray, but Demas was. Don’t think you can’t.  We think we’ve overcome so much temptation in our lives, and that’s the problem.  The only thing guiding us through temptation is God’s Spirit within us.  When we start believing it’s us who can resist alone, we fall.  Satan knows that and watches us to see when we might get smug about having conquered a certain area of sin, and that’s when he strikes.

Distractions can be tricky.  I love magic.  The magician’s job is to get us to look at the right hand while he’s doing something tricky with his left, to look at the shiny ting over here while he’s doing something he doesn’t want us to see what’s happening over there.  It’s a trick, the magician is fooling us, but we have an understanding with him that we know it’s all an illusion.  The thrill is in the wonder of not knowing how he fooled us.

But, away from the theater, we stop looking for tricks.  Humans, especially Christians, are typically trusting even though Jesus Himself told us to be as wise as serpents.  All sorts of things can distract us from the gospel or from the work God has for us.  Maybe the music in church is too loud, or too soft, or you prefer hymns, or the carpet is the wrong color.  You were on the committee that picked the carpet, but your choice was voted down.  Every time you enter that sanctuary now all you see is the carpet.  You don’t listen to the message because that carpet just isn’t right, and you’re distracted. we don’t understand these are tricks too.

Maybe it’s doubt.  Doubt can distract us from His work.  Maybe they’re looking for volunteers for Children’s Ministry, teachers in the adult Bible classes, cooks for the Senior Dinner, and you just can’t do it because you’re just too unworthy. So we make up excuses:  “ I don’t know enough, kids scare me, I can’t boil water without burning it,” and so on.  We think we’re unworthy, but we’re called to be set out, to be holy, to be the saints:

⁷ To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  (Rom. 1:7)

Don’t let doubt distract you.  An old saying goes, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.”  Don’t hesitate. Step out and see what God can do.

Another and more serious distraction is the one Demas yielded to.  We want to fit in, to be one of the gang, to be friends with the “cool kids.”  But, in doing so, we desert God’s people and His plan for our lives.  Demas ended up walking away from Christ to love the world. He got distracted.

Lastly, we can be distracted by something that sounds true but will slowly draw you into anti-Christian beliefs.  Facilitation with the occult, with a cult or cults, with mediums, psychics, and the like is to be distracted by the enemy’s shiny thing over there while you ignore the Truth the Holy Spirit is presenting over here. Some Christians are called to share with cultists, occultists, mediums, etc. But unless you’re one of those, stay away.

Why is this important”

It may not be that God is silent in our lives at times; it may be that our distractions are too loud.

When we spend so much time in doubt, worry, petty differences, small irritations, we’re spending much less time on the major things: the gospel and our relationship with Christ.

Four years ago, I wrote a blog entitled “TIAM.”  The letters stand for “This Isn’t About Me.”  When we start to believe our Christian walk is about satisfying us rather than satisfying Jesus, we have started down the wrong road letting distractions draw us away from the Truth or from the tasks God has for us to do.

Let’s keep our eye on the work being done, on Christ, and not on that shiny thing or the pretty piece of trim.  There will be fewer painful experiences that way.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! ² For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. ³ But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. ⁴ For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.  (2 Cor. 11:1-4)

Another Jesus?  A different spirit, and a different gospel?  What can Paul mean.  Isn’t there just one Jesus?

When  I speak with cultists, I often use the example of a native in the jungle who worships a tree.  Is he a pagan?  Of course he is.  If he cuts it down and brings it into his home and worships it, is he still a pagan?  Of course he is.  If he carves it into an idol and worships it, is he still a pagan?  They will agree again.  Then I ask, “If he names it Jesus, is he still a pagan.”  Most will agree.  Others will see my point and get angry.  I tell them their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible and, therefore, is as much the true Jesus as that pagan’s idol.

It’s true.  There are other Jesuses that are not the biblical Jesus.  There is the Jesus of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Jesus of the Mormons, there are even other Jesuses believed by people in the church.  There’s the Jesus who would save everyone.  After all He loves us all, doesn’t he?  There’s the Jesus who is expected to wait on us for our every request, the “Name it and Claim it” folks.  There’s the Jesus that that was just a good teacher or He didn’t really exist and is only a legend. 

There is only one Jesus, as I’m sure you know.  He is God the Son, second Person of the Trinity.   He came to earth as a man but still God.  He lived here for at least 33 years as a perfect sinless man.  He died to pay the price for our sins and rose bodily on the third day for our justification (Rom. 4:25).  The biblical Jesus will be coming back with ten thousands of His saint to execute judgment on all (Jude 14,15).

As Christians, our faith is founded on that Jesus and the miracle He performed by raising Himself from the dead (John 2:18-22).

It’s not that we can lose our salvation if we begin to believe in another Jesus.  I would argue the Holy Spirit within us will keep us from that although I’ve seen Bible-believing Christians do some pretty strange things.  Our salvation, if it is according to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3), is secure.  It is the effectiveness and possibility of leading someone else into error that should concern the believer.

I had a father who never came to a single ball game or band concert I was playing in.  He seemed always to be looking for me to step out of line so he could punish me.  My life back then was characterized by fear. 

Because of that, my view of God was much the same.  I thought He was just waiting for me to make a mistake and wasn’t really interested in me.  I had this view of Jesus for years after I met Him and lived in fear of displeasing Him.  Today, I have a much better idea of just Who He is, and my life is now characterized by trust.

The true Jesus was cheering at my ball games and applauding loudest at my concerts.  Even though I hadn’t met Him yet, He was there.

Why is this important?

Having the wrong Jesus stumbles us.  We can get stuck in a rut thinking He’s just waiting for us to step out of line, or we think He’s going to save everyone anyway, why tell people about Him.  We become sterile Christians, and a sterile Christian is just what the enemy wants.  We must know Him intimately and as brothers do His will gladly.

¹⁰ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, (Phil. 3:10)

When we know the true Christ well, counterfeits become obvious.

Since two weeks ago we talked about teachers, and last week we talked about false teachers, I thought maybe this week it would be a natural progression to talk about false prophets.

False prophets are usually much more obvious to the Christian than the false teachers we spoke of last week, but even Christians can be drawn into their deception. 

One of my favorite false prophets is Jean Dixon who rose to prominence in 1963 when it was shown that seven years earlier she had apparently predicted the assassination of President Kennedy.  She had publicly said the 1960 election would be “dominated by labor and won by a Democrat” who would go on to “be assassinated or die in office though not necessarily in his first term.”  Of course, on November 22, 1963, John Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas.  The psychic world went nuts.  Jean Dixon had “The Gift of Prophecy,” they cried. A biography by that title was released in 1965 and sold more than three million copies.

Ms. Dixon was a devout Catholic and claimed her “gift of prophecy” was given by God.  This is important that she claimed to be God’s prophet as we will see.

Of course, most of Ms Dixon’s followers ignore the vast majority of her predictions which did not come to pass.  After her 1956 prediction of a Democrat president being elected in 1960, for instance, she changed to predicting Nixon would win.  She was correct in her final prediction, though.  On her death bed, she said “I knew this would happen.”

The Bible tells us how to identify a false prophet.  They need to claim to be God’s prophet and predict something which does not come to pass:

²⁰ But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— ²² when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (Deut. 18:20-22)

That’s pretty harsh stuff, but God is serious about protecting His people from those who falsely claim to speak for Him.

A more recent example appeared in the April 1, 1972 edition of the Watchtower Magazine of Jehovah’s Witnesses, an article claimed Jehovah’s Witnesses were God’s prophet and had been since its inception.  Looking at the history of the Watchtower, we see they have falsely predicted dates for the end of the world including 1914, 1925, and 1975 among others.  By the Bible’s definition, these predictions make the Watchtower a false prophet.

To a Christian who knows his faith, these people and organizations should be easily identified, but sadly they aren’t.  The largest sector of converts to Jehovah’s Witnesses is Catholics, but the second is Baptists.  How can this be?  False prophets are not just deceived people but people who are prompted by another power.  They have help.

Ed Decker, a Christian evangelist and ex-Jehovah’s Witness, was once asked if he really thought such a vast and intricate organization as the Watchtower could have been simply man made.  He said no, that it was founded by the devil himself.

Why is this important?

Christians often ignore the realm Jesus said was so real.  He cast out demons, spoke of the devil as powerful and as a person to be reckoned with, yet many of us seem to think all spiritual power comes from God.  It doesn’t.  Satan has a third of the angels of heaven at his command to draw us away, and he is very clever – more clever than we.

A medium tells a Christian the name of his neighbor’s dog, and the Christian is amazed.  “This medium must have something,” they think.  “Maybe I should listen to them.”  God takes a dim view of mediums and those who would listen:

²⁷ “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.” (Lev. 20:27)

Satan doesn’t show himself as the guy in the red long johns holding a pitchfork.  He appears as an angel of light:

¹⁴ And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  (2 Cor 11:14)

Dr. Walter Martin once said of Satan’s plan, “The next best thing to a lost soul is a sterile Christian.”  Playing with fire distracts us and can even draw us away from the Truth.  Either way, we are not in God’s will dabbling in places we shouldn’t go.  God does say we are to test all things (1 Thess. 5:19-20), but He does not tell us to allow ourselves to be deceived by them. 

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. ² And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. ³ And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.  (2 Peter 2:1-3)

This is an interesting passage which mentions both false prophets and false teachers.  The chapter itself as well as the book of Jude speaks mostly about false teachers, but it separates them as different entities.

False prophets have been a problem for the church throughout its history.  The description of a false prophet can be found in Deut 18:22:

when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

False teachers, though, are a different breed.  While the false prophets usually operate from outside the church, false teachers exist within the church or at least cloak themselves with the mantle of “Christian.”  Paul warned the elders of Ephesus against these guys:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. ²⁹ I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; ³⁰ and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:28-30)

False teachers are a little difficult to discover.  Their tactics are to teach mostly truth but slip in something unbiblical to draw people away from the truth.  They pose as teachers of the Word but are emissaries of the enemy.

They might start simply like asking you to doubt God as the serpent did in the Garden to Eve.  Maybe it would start with something like “You know the New Testament wasn’t really written until years after the apostles died.”  That is simply not true, but if someone were to believe it, it might be enough to lead them to  doubting God’s Word.  Usually, it starts as simply as that or suggesting everyone is saved.  “After all,” they might say, “doesn’t God love everyone?  Then how could He condemn people to hell?”  Of course, if this were true, then there was no reason for Christ to die on the cross.

I’m not saying everyone who believes this is a false teacher.  This is just the initial steps some false teachers use to draw people in.  After all, the draw is emotional, not scriptural.  “If everyone is saved, then I don’t have to worry about my loved one who died without Christ.”  That’s the sort of draw we might expect.

Some teachers are innocently teaching doctrinal error.  They will be held responsible for that by God Himself. As we saw last week, it is the teacher’s responsibility to check and recheck what he is teaching to make sure it aligns with Scripture.  God looks poorly upon lazy teachers.

Why is this important?

This is just as important to us as it was to the elders of Ephesus 2,000 years ago.  We need to test all things we hear (1 Thess. 5:21) and even examine ourselves to make sure we haven’t been deceived into believing a lie (2 Cor. 13:5)

False teachers usually tell us salvation comes from Jesus plus something else.  This is a lie.  The Bible says we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Trust in the Bible as your standard.  Test even your pastor against what you find in Scripture, and if you find something you think contradicts his teaching, take it to him.  Any pastor worth his salt wants to make sure he is in line with God’s Word.  You may also be wrong, and he can help you as well.

False teachers need to be confronted either by one of us or by church leadership.  Don’t hold back if you suspect someone of being a false teacher.  Go to them and lovingly ask about the point where you disagree.  It is our job to protect the body but also to correct those in error and be corrected if necessary.

for there must be factions [heresies] among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.  (1 Cor. 11:19)

Danger

The danger here is when we start to think anyone who disagrees with us is a false teacher.  We should speak with others with whom we disagree.  We could be wrong and need correction.  That’s part of the purpose of the church, to keep our faith pure.