False Religion Q&A #1

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Pulpit. I'm very glad to see you this evening, and tonight we are going to finish a series we've done over the past few weeks on false religion, and we've seen a number of different factors. We've made the point that we're not talking about individual false religions, but rather talking about what false religions share together in common.

We've seen a number of different things. False religions differ superficially, but they share certain defining qualities in common. They are all satanic. They are sinful, and they are sentenced to judgment. They take away scripture from us.

They take away our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, from us, and they take away biblical salvation from us. So these are not matters of mere philosophic differences of opinion or questions of a different opinion from one religious person to another. These are matters of great and high consequence, and that's why we are considering it all. Last week we saw that the battle is not new.

Even in the Old Testament, God was commanding his people to stay away from idolatry, to stay away from the gods and the religions of the nations that they went in to dispossess, not even to take their names on their lips. And so we saw that it is critical for us to turn away from it. And I could have finished with that message last night, but I had some things that I wanted to say this evening. Tonight's message is titled, False Religion Q&A. False Religion Q&A. And these are not questions that I solicited, but rather things that have arisen in my own mind that I wanted to address.

Kind of matters of practical application to help you see how, as I understand it, these things should work out. And tonight's message is a different kind of message altogether. This is not an expositional verse-by-verse message.

It's not even a thematic message, really. It's just a matter of addressing some loose ends that I think are important to address. And it's possible that some self-appointed guardian of pulpit protocol will complain about this message, and if that happens, it's not going to go well for them, because I'm going to sic Nathaniel on them and let Nathaniel deal with it.

So you can kind of sit back, relax. I think this will be an enjoyable message, and also one that is instructive and edifying. What I want to do, first of all, is just to read to you from Romans 16, verses 17 and 18, and to kind of set the stage with some other texts as well, to help you understand that false religion is not something that a born-again Christian is supposed to go out and investigate and become familiar with. The ordinary Christian is not equipped to do that and should not do that. Keeping in mind, and we established all of this in the earlier messages, so I'm not going to reestablish it here, when you keep in mind that false religion is a mouthpiece for Satan, and that's clear in your mind, then you realize that this is something to be approached with, with fear and trembling even, you might say. Because Satan comes subtly, he comes and makes plausible things seem interesting and things that should be investigated, which is exactly the strategy that he followed with Eve in the garden.

And we've been living with the catastrophic consequences of that ever since. And so Christians need to be on guard and not be naive. And I'm already going to take a tangent here. In my pastoral experience over many years, inevitably what happens is, is that a young Christian, a young professing Christian who thinks he's born again, decides that he's going to investigate other religions, other truth claims and things of that nature. You know, maybe they've been a professing Christian for a year or two years, a very short period of time, and they read a book and all of a sudden they're swept away by the things that have been introduced to them by that book.

And without having any kind of maturity or depth of spiritual understanding, depth of doctrinal understanding, to be able to connect the dots that need to be connected that are left unstated by that book, without any idea that these are things that have been promulgated in the past and refuted. And so in their innocence and then their naivete, which quickly turns into arrogance and an unteachable spirit, they turn against the gospel that they profess to believe. It is a great, great danger. It's precisely because of that danger that I've preached this entire series to strengthen people and help them to understand that you're playing with fire.

You're literally playing with the fire of hell in these things. And I want to vindicate that concern with what I have here to say tonight. But even in Scripture, even in the New Testament, there are multiple warnings about avoiding false doctrine, about warning us against getting carried away with other doctrines.

And Paul texts, in my mind, in Romans 16 verse 17 is kind of a classic text on that regard. He says, I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles. Contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them.

It's not a question of, oh, you should go out and win them. You should go out and engage them, learn from them and see what the differences are and see if you can synthesize something in your own mind. He says, no, stop it. Avoid that. Turn away from it. When you hear things that are contrary to the doctrine that you have been received, you turn away from it.

You don't stop and investigate it. Verse 18, for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. There's deception that's at work. The naive and the untaught are vulnerable. Paul says to avoid them.

We don't give them equal time. We don't take their books and let those books become our instructors, because we realize that there is a satanic, sinful element that is at play here. And God's call is not to enter into friendly conversations with the devil, but to resist the devil so that he would flee from us. In the book of Ephesians, chapter 4, you can feel free to turn there.

I'm not going to try to control you to that degree. Ephesians, chapter 4, in verse 12. We'll start in verse 11. The entire reason that God gave spiritual leaders, gave those who revealed his truth, that he establishes teachers in the church today is for a very specific purpose. Verse 11. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that with this purpose we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. You see, your goal is to grow up and to mature in Christ, to become a, think about it as a young tree being planted.

I love trees and love planting trees. And it starts and it's kind of vulnerable to the winds and all of that. But as it takes root, it grows out and it becomes strong, it becomes stable.

It's not moved. That's the goal of being a Christian. That's the doctrinal effect. That's how we should grow in doctrine is to a strength that is firm rather than something that is easily tossed about by the wind, by the latest book that you've read. Don't chase after every doctrine, new doctrine that comes to you. Why would you if you profess it as a Christian that you have the truth, that the Bible is true and that you've come to understand doctrine, why would you chase after things that contradict what you know to be true? It's irrational.

It makes no sense whatsoever. But even more than that, it is contrary to what the Bible teaches us to do. Now in 1 Timothy 4, verse 1, we read, Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, and here's part of the problem, here's the effect of not following what Scripture teaches us to do with this, in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons.

Now let that sink in. Paul, and this is one of the latter letters that Paul wrote, he says, Understand that what's going to happen in times to come is that there are people who will depart from the truth, that will depart from gospel sovereignty of God doctrine in order to devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons. They'll leave it behind.

They'll abandon it. Verse 7, he says, Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness.

Have nothing to do with it. We're not to be someone that's like at one of those Golden Corral restaurants where you go and you sample everything there. You eat a little bit here. You eat from the fish platter. You eat from the beef platter, from the pork and the vegetables and the salad and all of that. I'm getting sick thinking about all of that stuff.

I'm bloating before your eyes just by talking about it. You're not supposed to do that. That's not what we are to do. God has given us a good, healthy diet of doctrine in the Scripture, and that's what we devote ourselves to.

We let the junk food pass by. We don't poison our minds and our spirits with these other things. One other text from 1 Timothy, the last two verses, 1 Timothy 6, verses 20 and 21, Paul pleads with him, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid, avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you. Now see, there's this wrong view of being a Christian, that you're just supposed to be kind and receptive to everybody in an undiscriminating way and just receive everybody and take interest in what they believe. But as we've seen here just from these texts this evening and from what we saw last week, Scripture warns us against that cavalier, careless attitude and tells us not to do that, not to expose ourselves to the teaching of demons, not to come under the influence of Satan.

And beloved, I could spend the whole evening here taking you to several other texts that I have here in my notes. Time forbids it. But in 2 Timothy 2, 3 and 4, you can find echoes of what I'm saying. In Titus 1, Titus 3, 2 Peter 2, over and over again you find these warnings against false teachers, calling for discernment and to separate yourself out from it.

Think about it this way. God saved you. I'm talking to Christians now, and gladly so.

God saved you. And understand that what God did, Scripture talks about the fact that God sanctified you. It's not talking about that progressive growth in holiness. Sanctification is used in two different ways in Scripture. There is that growth in holiness that occurs over time. But when God saved you, there was a decisive setting you apart for his purposes, setting you apart from the truth.

He saved you in order to set you apart that you would be a devoted follower of Christ and of the truth of Scripture, of true doctrine. And so to expose yourself and to open yourself up to influences from falsehood is to violate the very purpose of your salvation. This is unthinkable. This is wrong. This is a spiritual betrayal to your Savior.

And I made the comparison last week that to someone getting married, putting aside the way that people sin in their marriages, putting that aside, the goal of marriage, God's plan for marriage is that you're set apart for your spouse in an exclusive way that forecloses any future options. You have closed the back door. You have locked it. You have bolted it shut. You have bricked it over. You are not going anywhere else.

You are not going to open yourself up to even an emotional relationship with another person, let alone a physical one. That's the nature of marriage. Well, the church is called the bride of Christ, and Christ saves us, and we are to be exclusively his, devoted to his truth. And as a result of that, we close the door to considering false religion because God has set us apart for Christ, has given us as a bride to his Son, and we are to honor that. And that's kind of a summary of where we've been. Now what I want to do tonight is take time to, in the time that we have left, is to take time to answer five practical questions. I'll ask a question, and then I will answer the question. And my hope is that this will provide additional support to you as you think through these things. It will drive the nail deeper, as it were, to secure you even more to the things that we have said, and give you a sense of clarity so that you're not tempted to run after every new wave of doctrine that comes along. Every question, all of these five questions are addressed to that end. I mentioned the pulpit gatekeepers who would not approve necessarily of a message like this.

I don't care about any of that stuff. I'm here today as a pastor with a responsibility to protect the flock of Christ. And so I want to protect the flock of Christ, and I think that this is an appropriate way to do it.

So let's look at the first question here. If you want to take notes, question number one is, well, what about evangelism? What about evangelism? How are people in false religions ever going to hear the truth if we just completely, you know, avoid exposing ourselves to false religion?

And in my opinion, there's a pretty clear answer to that. Our caution against false religion does not eliminate evangelism from our Christian experience, our Christian responsibility, but it does cause us to be discerning about who it is that we're talking to and what the context of the conversation might be. What I'm doing here, what we've done in this series, is I have warned you against receiving instruction from false religion through their books, through their teachers, through their door-to-door evangelists, through their apologists.

That's what you are to guard against. That does not mean that we refuse to interact with somebody that's in a false religion, but we do so with care, and stay with me as I'll illustrate this in a moment. But in the book of Jude, which is the last letter of the Old Testament before Revelation, Jude speaks to how we reach out to people that are enslaved and in darkness, and he says in verse 20, he said, You, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

He says there is danger all around here. You act with care. You show mercy to them, yes, but you understand that you are on treacherous terrain here, and you guard yourself. You build yourself up. You pray in the Holy Spirit, and as you're pursuing this, you be careful, not entering this into the way that so many people do, not entering into this because you enjoy a good debate. You want a good spiritual argument with somebody and see how many punches you can land on it.

That kind of proud, cocky attitude is precisely the person that gets carried away. And so we need wisdom in these things so that we avoid the traps of Satan. Let me just give you a couple of really simple examples, principles may be better to help you understand where turning away is appropriate and where engaging a conversation might be appropriate. And so first of all, ask yourself, ask yourself, do I have a preexisting relationship with this person?

Do I know them in a context from my family or from work or from school where there is a preexisting relationship that gives a context to this, or has a stranger brought false teaching to me? It's one thing to talk to, and I'll illustrate this, it's one thing to have a conversation with a Jehovah's Witness that you meet on the job. It's another thing to bring in one of their so-called missionaries into the house and say tell me what you have to say.

Those are two completely different things. Doing this series reminded me of a series of correspondence I had with a young man probably about my age who was trying to leave the Jehovah's Witness religion, whatever you want to call it, the trap of Jehovah's Witness. And we carried on a correspondence for a number of months, and he was explaining to me the consequences of what happens when somebody leaves.

They are immediately shunned, their family shuns them, their spouse shuns them, all of their friends shun them, and they are immediately alone. And we kind of walked through that, talked through some of those things. The cost was really high for him just to leave Jehovah's Witness, let alone to come to a true saving knowledge of Christ, but see the difference here in engaging a correspondence like that, he's coming with questions, wanting to learn, wanting to understand, needing help. He's not coming trying to persuade me of his position.

He's coming for help, and sadly that correspondence kind of petered out, and I don't know what happened to him. God does. The Lord knows where he's at, and perhaps the Lord saved him and all of that, but you minister to people like that. You want to help people like that when you see that their questions are sincere and legitimate. Here's another alternative way to think about it in terms of who you would speak to, who you would evangelize, and who you would turn away from. And so you can ask yourself a question like this, is this person receptive to what I say, or do they just want to argue against me? Are they looking for understanding, or are they trying to persuade me against my own faith? And understand, understand that Jesus warned us against these things.

Is this person hostile or not? You know, Jesus said, don't throw your pearls before swine. Don't toss what is holy before pigs. If people are hostile and resistant and argumentative and blasphemous, then you just zip your lips and trust the Lord to work it out. It is not your responsibility to continue to engage someone like that. Indeed, it is your positive duty to turn away from it and leave them to the consequences of their own rebellion against God.

We could multiply contrasts like that, but you kind of get the idea. This requires wisdom. And the best thing that I could say in addition to what I've already said on this point about evangelism is to just encourage you not to try to go it alone, not to try to figure all of these weighty issues out on your own. Lean on your elders. Come and talk to one of your elders and say, this is the situation.

What do you think? How should I respond? And let your elders, that's what elders are given to a church for, is to help us navigate important spiritual issues like this. And so the more that you stay, when something like this comes up, the more you stay in touch with your own spiritual leadership, the less vulnerable you're going to be to being enticed away from the flock by a wolf and then be attacked and find yourself, you know, find yourself mortally wounded and alone, because that's what happens. And so of course we want to evangelize where we can, but we have to realize that there are competing factors that we must weigh before we just give ourselves over to that.

And so that's question number one. What about evangelism? Now secondly, this one has come up in some conversations that I've been around. What about the formal study of false religion, like at a university setting or something like that? What about the formal study of false religion?

And I want to address that a bit. It would be easy to misunderstand my intentions in this series, probably not a whole lot of room for misunderstanding based on what I'm going to say, but as I said, I'm speaking in this series as a pastor to a flock of believers who are at various different levels of their spiritual experience, and I'm mindful of that, and I have a specific responsibility of care and protection to the flock. I'm not a seminary dean. I'm not an academic department head setting a course of instruction that way.

And so I allow for the fact that there may be, and I'm speaking very precisely here, there may be possibly a place to study false religions at a Christian college, for example. There may be a place to do that, but before we just write a blank check to these people for their courses, I want to say a couple of important qualifying things. Maybe talking as though to a prospective student of these things and what kinds of things should you be thinking about. Well, let me just say, you examine in advance how the textbook or the instructor approaches the topic. Is the instructor approaching this as a matter of giving equal time, of giving a platform so that you understand false religions in an uncritical sense and you're taught to receive it from the perspective of the false religion, from the perspective of the false prophet?

That's a real problem. And look, I've been around Christian institutions long enough, and I've probably mentioned this in the past in other contexts. Even at Christian colleges, not every professor is devoted to training and protecting the students that are in front of him. I've heard horror stories of professors who just squandered the time with jokes and not teaching the material and communicating through their actions and their disposition in the class that all of this really isn't very important. And so even in a setting of a Christian college, you cannot turn off your discernment.

You have to be thinking about these things. And if there is a course on comparative religion or something, you should be asking, what's the perspective? How is the book presenting it? Are we talking about this in the context of how other people find God? That's not legitimate. That is a violation of truth. Or on positive sense, is this a class that's designed to say, here's what these religions teach, and now I want you to see why it is satanic, why it is sinful, and why it is sentenced to judgment?

Something like that. So you're acquainted with it and simultaneously side by side taught to understand that this is not something to dabble in, this is something to be on guard against. And it was very encouraging to me late in my preparation of this. I picked up a book by the title, and I haven't read the whole book, so I can't recommend it to you explicitly, but it's kind of a standard text. The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin is a book that was written back in the 80s, I think. But it was a great blessing to my heart to see in his introductory chapter him making the very kind of point that I was describing, and saying the reason that these false religions seem to have power, the reason that they advance, is because there is a sinister, dark force behind them that is supernatural in nature.

I'm summarizing, paraphrasing what he says. And so right up front, he says, understand that as you look at these cults and look at their advance and their numbers and all of that, understand that you're looking at something that has a satanic origin to it. That's the way to look at these things, so that you are on guard and you are learning to detect the falsehoods that they teach through the truth that you know in advance and you approach the study with that, and you do not set aside the true doctrine, the system of doctrine and theology that you know in order to study something with a blank slate of mind. Now listen, and I don't have any college instructors, seminary instructors in mind by name with what I'm about to say, but this does need to be said. A true teacher, a God-sent, God-gifted teacher on these matters will want to warn you about what you're studying. They will warn you about falsehood and not lead you into it, not put you in a vulnerable decision to say, well, here it is, you make your own decision.

You know, you come to your own conclusions about it. No, no, no, no, I can't do that. I can't give you the option to choose to believe something which is satanic, sinful, and sentenced to judgment. I have to warn you against that. Not everybody will follow the warning, but I've got to warn you about it. Just before we close, my friends, I just want to let you know that this podcast is made possible for you by the generous support of many friends of our ministry. We're grateful for that, and if you have supported us, I want to say a special word of thanks to you for all that you've done to make this possible. And if you would like to join in the support of our ministry, you can do that so easily by going to thetruthpulpit.com.

That's thetruthpulpit.com. You'll see the link to give, and you can add your support to the others who make this possible for us. Thank you for whatever you do and whether you give or you don't give.

Know that our love and prayers are with you. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time as we continue to study God's Word together here on The Truth Pulpit. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.