Satan fears the Word of God. I’ve lived enough to see the power of the Word of God change lives, heal the sick, deliver from demons, mend broken hearts, and set people on fire with purpose and power.
I was recently “set” up in a phone interview I did innocently believing I was going to be asked about my law enforcement work. Instead, I was viciously attacked. At one point, they said, “You’re not law enforcement. You have no formal training. What right do you have to post what you do on the internet?” “Because it’s the truth”, I replied. “That’s YOUR truth!” they replied. I nearly laughed. I’d hit the crux of the matter. “Listen bubba”, I replied, “There’s no `my truth’ and `your truth’. A thing is either true or it’s not.”
If I said I was a poached egg, you would call a therapist. “But that’s MY truth!” No, that’s my DELUSION. Clearly I am not a poached egg (though I sometimes resemble one.)
Somehow, absolute truth has been completely lost in the modern lie of “relativism” – you know – that truth is subject to circumstances, social settings and personal feelings. One professor told a student, “There are no absolutes”, to which the wise student replied, “Are you absolutely sure?”
The degree in which relativism has infested the educational system and filled young minds full of junk is deeply disturbing. I can’t even have a rational conversation with most “educated” people. They get emotional and angry when presented with reason and facts that contradict their oft-repeated and little reasoned ten second sound bite opinions, finally ending the conversation with, “Well, that’s YOUR truth!” Which is the liberal version of “Nanny, nanny boo boo!”
Can you imagine, if, for example, driving laws were based on relativism?
– The lights are red, yellow, and green. If your truth says red means go, then go.
– The speed limit is only a suggested one. If it “feels right” to go 90 MPH in a school zone, follow your heart.
In other words, lawlessness and anarchy would rule the road, and it would be a slaughter, when “your truth” opposed “mine” and we met in a fatal crash of relativistic speed limit interpretations.
Can you imagine if scientists worked by that standard? We’d never have gotten to the moon. “it’s about a million miles…we think…but we only use the rule as a `general guideline’. The moon looks closer by eye, so we trust that more than some `absolute ruler.’”
Obviously we don’t conduct science OR road laws by relativism.
But we ARE told by the world to conduct our lives that way. Paul calls it “the Spirit of lawlessness.” It is the ageless satanic lie that says that you can become your own god.
Now that most of the world is under the influence of this lie, satan has now set his sites on the church. The church has always been most powerful when it has proclaimed the pure Word of God. Satan knows it is his biggest threat.
For hundreds of years, he’s been successful at weakening the church through petty doctrinal differences: methods of baptism, tongues, end-time disputes.
Now, he’s about to go for the jugular. He is seeking to completely destroy the standard of truth – the Word of God – in the house of God.
The Bible is the standard – the linchpin, so to speak – the foundation of truth by which we live. All else – relationships, righteousness, directions and destiny – hinge on it, our ability to stay true to it. God Himself set that linchpin – “Forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven.” (Ps. 119:89) “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.” (Mt.24:35) And woe be to those who tamper with it!
But tampering they are, to their own destruction.
Two young people I love dearly attended the same Christian Bible school, where they were subjected to a book that contained a chapter that convincingly argued that the Bible really did NOT condemn homosexuality. Talk about confusing! You go to a Bible School to learn about the Bible, and they undermine the very thing they claim to stand for!
We used to joke about seminaries, calling them “cemeteries” and now I don’t think we were too far off the mark. I will be accused of being anti-intellectual, which is fine. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve rarely seen someone argued into the Kingdom of God. Even the great CS Lewis came to Jesus by a burst of spontaneous revelation riding his bike, not by argument. People come into the Kingdom, not by good ideas, but because God opens their hearts to truth. And yes, there is a place for reasoned argument, as Paul speaks to persuading people. But it always strikes me that although Festus said, “Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian”, we don’t know that he ever did.
But my concern isn’t just that we’re too intellectual. In fact, there are too many believers that “only believe” but haven’t a CLUE as to why! I always encourage kids to learn all they can, get all the facts and think sharp so they can “be ready to give an answer to every man for the hope that is within you.” (1 Pet. 3:15) Nevertheless, the rise of Christian intellectual elitism that is pervading many seminaries, Christian media and churches is a concern. I realize I am not a scholar. I can’t argue didactic points (or even tell you what didactic means) or give grand outlines. I’m just a truth-teller. And I expect the world to react negatively to what I say and write. But 90% of the assault I get comes from Christians who think I’m too subjective, too “experiential.” Or, too fundamental”. I get it from both ends. I stand in the middle and believe that experiencing God is totally compatible with 100% faith in the Scriptures. In fact it is only when these things become one dynamic that the Kingdom is truly manifest in power.
But given the option of being too “fundamental” or too “experiential,” based on the dangerous place I see a lot of Christians, I’ll take “fundamental.”
For many, that reads as “Pharisee.” But the Pharisee’s problem wasn’t that they believed the Scriptures; it’s that (a) they added a thousand laws and inferences not there, and (b) They did not grasp the TRUTH of the scriptures; “You search the scriptures, thinking you will find eternal life; but these are they that speak of Me.” (John 5:39)
In other words, they took the Word and tried to make it say what they WANTED it to say. You can’t do that.
I recently had a conversation concerning “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” (2 Cor. 6:14) Someone had told a young person I know that it was referring to business deals, not marriage. (The logic of that, of course, is absurd – implying that God cares more about keeping our business dealings separate from unbelievers, but in the most spiritual human relationship of all – marriage – it doesn’t matter!) I sat in shock, as this young person said this man had been living with an unbeliever, and she later got saved. (Maybe she did. I pray so and rejoice if so.) The young man I spoke to asked if this guy was in trouble; after all, he was doing well, and was financially blessed, his wife got saved – didn’t that indicate God’s blessing?
First, I explained, his finances were irrelevant. Second, I said, he’s in more trouble than he knows. HE BELIEVES A LIE. Rather than take God’s Word at face value concerning not being unequally yoked, he said, “It doesn’t fit how I’m living. I’ve got to see it in a way so I can make it fit my lifestyle.” Peter spoke of those who “twist the scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Pet.3:16)
Worse – he was teaching kids the same thing! I would rather be living in abject sinful failure and proclaim, “I may be in sin, but the Word of God is still true”, than to gloss over the scriptures to cover up my violation of it. It’s about integrity to TRUTH.
Anytime we run into scriptures that speak in opposition to cultural sins or our personal ones – we choose to either receive the truth regardless, or we end up twisting what is there to make it support sin.
Never – NEVER – bend the Word of God to fit around your sins or lifestyle. Bend – and break – your own hardened sinful heart and conform to its truth. Fall on the rock and be broken, Jesus said, or it will fall on you and crush you to powder. (Mt. 21:44) “Is not my Word like a rock…like a hammer?” (Jer. 23:29)
If my EXPERIENCE contradicts the scriptures – my experience is wrong. Period. If my way of life contradicts it – my way of life must change. It’s that simple.
I recently read an article by a mother about keeping kids away from the occult. She agreed with all the scriptures against it. Then she explained how they read Harry Potter with their kids, explaining the GOOD, pointing out the bad. (Either make the tree good and its fruit goodf, Jesus said, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad – Matthew 12:33) She did the usual delusional justification of the difference between “real” magic and “fantasy magic.”
Then, in a stunning piece of advice, she tells parents to steer children away from things that were about talking to the dead, divination or spell-casting! She apparently was completely blind to the fact that Potter was FILLED with spell-casting, teachers who were divinators and the DEAD speaking through the living!
This is a perfect example of moving the linchpin even a little. She moved it just a hair – “Well, the scriptures are probably only condemning REAL magic, not fantasy magic…” The next thing you know, she’s so deceived, in one breath she can tell you to avoid occult practices, and in the next, promotes a story FULL of them – without a CLUE to the contradiction! Once you move the linchpin just a little, it’s just the beginning.
Someone told me, “I don’t accept a certain part of the Bible.” I said, “Well, then throw the whole thing in the trash and get it over with. Because if you can’t trust THAT part, why trust ANY of it? How do you know ANY of it is trustworthy if you just throw out what you don’t like?”
NO. Accept it ALL or accept NONE.
That doesn’t mean it’s all easy to understand. Far from it. Many times I feel like I did when I was a child, crying, yelling, staring at math problems and saying, “I DON’T GET IT!!!” How foolish to abandon math, because it does not always make sense to ME, therefore it must not be true. It’s my understanding that is lacking, not the material.
I play a frustrating computer game where you have to combine similar objects to get points. As the clock runs down, I can rarely find the combinations to keep the game running. But it’s THERE. On occasion, I just take a deep breath, relax, and tell myself, “You can find it. It’s right there somewhere.” And there it is. The game didn’t lie; I just couldn’t see what was there.
I’ve always approached the Word of God that way. If I’m confused or don’t get something, I say, “The answer is here. Show me, Father.” And He does. Sometimes the answer was right in front of me, not able to see it without the Holy Spirit’s help.
Math does not lie. It’s fundamental truth. The Word of God does not lie; it is fundamental truth. Change one math fundamental, you produce chaos. Change one little iota of scripture, then spiritual chaos will follow.
In a time when churches and even denominations are trying to remove the linchpin of the Scriptures to justify adultery, homosexuality, occultism, you name it, in a time when “new translations” are hip and seeker-friendly and the “Old” are being buried by them, it is imperative that men and women of God who guard that linchpin nail it in solid, guard it and TEACH it to this generation, who will be the guardians of the Word of God for the generation to come.
As an old preacher once said, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” It’s just like that. Anything less is tampering with the Word of God, to our own destruction.
Gregory Reid
