GraceTrax

A FORMAL CHARGE of heresy in the early centuries of the church was no laughing matter. The accused was likely to meet an unpleasant fate either through fire, water, the guillotine, or the rack. Heretics were seldom spared, but that didn't stop the movement.

In the early church, heresy arose primarily from misguided attempts to understand and explain the nature of Christ. Most of the major heresies had developed before the fifth century. Some of them you might recognize by name: Gnosticism, Montanism, Arianism, Donatism, Pelagisnism, and several others.

Because heresy is often associated with those ideals, Christians often imagine heresy is a thing of the past, a threat only for primitive Christians who didn't quite understand the basics of theology and had not yet recognized all 66 books in the canon. "Heretics aren't around today," they think. "Or if they are, surely they're easy to spot—a dead giveaway."

Not exactly. Heretics write best sellers. They occupy the scholar's chair on seminary faculties and fill pulpits every Sunday. They're sophisticated, sincere, and satanic.

The apostle Paul used the word heresy (Greek, hairesis) to describe one who follows his own stubborn, self-willed teachings, and he counseled the church to reject such a person (Titus 3:10). So in Paul's teaching, the word came to signify self-chosen doctrines not emanating from God—and thus not from Scripture.¹

The apostle Peter provides the most clear and helpful context to understand the heart of heresy in his second epistle. He writes:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves (2 Pet. 2:1).

Peter points out five sobering realities about heresy and heretics to alert his readers to the danger.

Peter did not intend to frighten his reader with those warnings. He was seeking to help them identify false teachers and beware of their heresies. He intended to sober them. In fact, that's one of Peter's favorite commands—"Be sober" (1:13; 4:7; 5:8). If there's anything in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ needs today—especially in America—it's sober-minded Christians who take seriously the New Testament warnings on false teaching.

So how do you spot a heretic? How can you tell if someone is spewing "destructive heresies" your way? Biblically and historically, heretics have always put three things in their crosshairs: The person of Christ, the message of Christ, and the work of Christ. Those are their targets.

So before walking away from this article, ask yourself these questions about the teaching you find yourself under, whether it's a book, sermon, lecture, or an influential "Christian" friend.

• Does this teaching diminish the nature of Christ?
• Does this teaching distort the truth of the Gospel?
• Does this teaching direct the sinner away from Christ?

Remember, it's all about the person, message, and work of Christ. Take heed!

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¹ M.G. Easton, Easton's Bible Dictionary (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996).

Inundation denotes an overwhelming accumulation, or more simply put, a flood. What seems more like an ever-increasing deluge is the incessant promulgation by secularists, as well as (sadly) evangelical Christians, of the impending doom that awaits us if we don’t buy into the green earth doctrine. 

With the threat of global warming and the ever-increasing religion of tree-hugging, we are being squeezed into submission through the use of shame. Shame on biblicists who buy into the theories of men who fundamentally deny the truthfulness of everything we believe as biblical Christians.  

Remember, many of these promoters of the soon-coming carbon apocalypse are the same people who tell us our ancestral cousins were monkeys. They are also the same group that promoted “global cooling” in the 1970s.

One of the biggest hypocritical progenitors of this foolishness supposedly invented the internet and actually won a Nobel Peace Prize for apparently convincing the western culture of the cataclysmic event that is just around the corner. That’s just grand for someone whose residence emits more carbon than most small rural towns in America. But don’t let the facts get in the way. 

What does the Bible teach us about these people?  It teaches they are false prophets. No surprise, the Word of God has sufficiently warned of the proliferation of such people as we approach the coming of Christ. Jesus warned His disciples that “many false prophets will rise up and deceive many” (Matthew 24:11). That includes preachers also. 

These men who claim to know the Word of God and yet carry the water for the neo-scientific community are, at best, falling for lies. They have failed to read the words of God to Noah after the flood-—words that the promoters of the green earth movement discount. God told Noah: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). Don’t let the words, “while the earth remains,” confuse you. The earth will remain until it ceases. But it will not be man’s carbon emissions that consume it. It will be Christ who does the burning up of the earth.  

Multitudes obviously still believe that the educators, who continue to cram these idols of earth down the throats of our children, must know more than God Himself.  This is not surprising, since our education system is filled with infidels a-plenty—though I must thank God for the few who stand firm in the Truth. What I don’t get is a man who claims to be called of God to preach the Word of God, yet he disseminates this nonsense. 

What say ye of God, dear sir, and what say ye of His promises, and what say ye of God’s proven faithfulness in the past, and what say ye, dear sir, of God’s faithfulness in the future? If a man can’t answer those questions correctly, he would greatly stimulate the progress of the gospel by resigning from the ministry. 

When God said that seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer will not cease while the earth remains, He effectively bludgeoned to death the free-thinking notions of the God-hating professors who partake in such folly. 

Why am I so convinced of this truth? It is simply this: natural religion (as revealed in Romans 1) and the Bible are so clear about it. Not only do we have the explicit promise to Noah, which in itself should be sufficient to convince all the redeemed, but God has given us more, much more. 

Why is it that the earth, in the minds of many, has replaced God as man’s sustainer? Who needs the Rock of Ages when you have Mother Earth to rock you in the cradle? This is not a scientific fact; it is a religion—the religion of the devil. It flows from what the Bible calls an exchange. If you are given a gift and you don’t like it, you can always exchange it for something you do like. 

This is exactly what fallen man has done regarding God. The Apostle Paul stated (Romans 1:24-25), Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 

For what did man exchange the most Glorious Being in the universe? Paul stated succinctly (Romans 1:23): images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. This, incidentally, explains why beating your dog will get you on the evening news while aborting your helpless, unborn child exonerates your love for the earth. 

But don’t these folks know what they’re talking about? After all, they have “Doctor” in front of their names and are highly regarded by those of the intelligentsia. The Bible has something to say about that, too. Paul said (Romans 1:22) that, Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Verse 23 explains that these “wise fools” are the very ones who exchange the True God for their pet cat, Bambi or the Giant Sequoias along the Pacific Coast of North America. Or, to amass their gods into one, the green earth god!

It would be one thing if this foolishness terminated at loving dogs more than people and God, but that is not the case. This religion that is contrived in the heart of human depravity finally engulfs every area of life. For that matter, the congregants of such a religion and their fruits would engulf the whole universe and dismount God from His throne if they could get away with it. 

Of course, they cannot get away with it because God only allows so much credulity. God finally gives them over to it completely so that the very weight of their transgression crashes down upon their own heads. Paul said (Romans 1:26-27): For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 

This tells us, among other things, that when people who claim to be Christians approve of something that God blatantly disapproves of (as stated in Romans 1:26-27), they are calling natural what God has called unnatural. The fruit of this is that what is naturally unnatural, according to God’s own words, becomes natural because we have approved of it. Up is now down, right is now left, and wrong is now right! 

Therefore, we are calling God a liar. God said through Paul (Romans 3:4) that we must, Let God be true but every man a liar. But according to the common religion of the masses, we are to let man be true and God a liar! This explains to some extent why there is a hell. Creatures calling their Creator a liar is one of the greatest absurdities in the universe, and God will address it on the Day of Judgment.

We see not only the worship of earth as our sustainer, but we see the deterioration of the very foundations that have helped hold civilizations intact. From a political perspective (which is not my first priority), it can rightfully be stated that the religion of self-worship leading to earth worship that Paul addresses in Romans 1 is the very thing that has led to the downfall of the Western culture. 

If you do not believe that false worship is the culprit in such a fall, ask the citizens of the Roman Empire when you enter the afterlife. Of course, all cultures will eventually fail because they are temporal in nature, as well as fundamentally flawed due to human depravity. 

Some may conclude from all of this biblical logic, “So what! Who cares? What does all this earth worship have to do with me?” 

It has everything to do with you because if you fall prey to it, and/or your children are entrapped by its enticements, there will be hell to pay, literally. For God has sufficiently revealed Himself through the things that He has made, even His eternal power and divine nature, so that all men are without excuse (Romans 1:20). 

If you do not warn your posterity about the dangers of demonic persuasion and godless professors who market their faulty merchandise, as well as the price that will be paid by those who fall for Satan’s religion, you are an imprudent parent, to say the least. You may have taught them well about sports, books, education and success in this life, but you failed to teach them how to die in such a state as to take them to heaven.

The most certain event in which our children will engage is death. But, of course, it is the least prepared for by unwary parents.

Pity the person who constantly hears the regurgitations of false prophets and falls headlong into their devious designs. But concerning men who claim to be men of God, men of the Word, God-called men who stand up before those that they claim the Lord has given them charge over to lead and care for, and yet they warn not of false religion, I am indignant. These men actually promote the propaganda of pagans who hate the God of the Bible and the people who honor His name; what a travesty. 

To these men, I say: Descend from your pulpits and worship your false gods without infecting those little ones. Wake up! You cannot worship the creation and Creator simultaneously.

Finally, I must reveal my conviction as to the doctrine of a green earth, global warming and their attendants. I have no doubt that the earth is eventually going to succumb to global warming. However, it will not be those ghastly emissions that bring it about. It will most certainly be the coming of the Lord, wherein, the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and works that are in it will be burned up (2 Peter 3:10).

Therefore, seek refuge in the only foundation that will be standing when the fire melts away the transitory. Repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved from God’s wrathful judgment. Seek Him while He may be found. 

The day has almost ended and the night of eternal bliss or misery is rapidly approaching. Place yourself under biblical proclamation and take your family with you. Awaken, oh, sleeper!  Eternity with God is at stake, and the green earth will not suffice to save your soul. ONLY CHRIST!

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Dr. R.A. Hargrave is Senior Pastor at Riverbend Community Church in Ormond Beach, Florida. He is also the Executive Director and Bible-teacher for GraceWorx Ministries.

It seems almost foreign to speak, at length, of the necessity of deliverance these days in the context of religious paradigms. That would imply, among other things, the presence of right and wrong, as well as spiritual life and death. It would also suggest the inevitability of a deliverer outside of one’s self, which diminishes the popular notion of the inerrant self-worth of the individual. 

The disposal of depravity and the ascension of inherent goodness in man have rendered such talk of deliverance as fanatical absurdity. Man’s upward motion is so philosophically inevitable in the minds of men that a call for a radical correction makes no sense. If man is walking on water, who needs to save him from drowning? If there is no damnation to avoid, there is no deliverance necessary. 

This is where darkness comes in. Though it is universally present at any given moment, the knowledge of it is suppressed by man’s enlightened foolishness. The pressure of that so-called enlightenment is so overwhelming that, for preachers, ignoring the reality of darkness is far more convenient. 

The effects of this are clearly seen in the user-friendly church movement, as well as the burgeoning emergent movement. For instance, the preacher, once generally known as a prophetic voice against the onslaughts of Satan’s worldly infestations in the church, has now joined the ranks of the fleshly promoters of human ingenuity and faulty philosophies. 

The clarion call for deliverance from darkness has been replaced by aggressive attempts to win the world through appeasement and capitulation. In this contextual delusion, the preacher may have gained the world, but he has lost his soul and the souls of his hearers. This apparition is not a potential path to destruction; it is destruction incarnate. And if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? 

This is what we can do. We can discern more readily the dangers of novelty in the church today and restore the tried-and-tested boundaries of biblical truth. The starting point is found at the beginning of man’s sojourn in the Garden of Eden. Death, which is the inevitability of darkness, engulfed the first Adam and thrust his posterity into unimaginable chaos. While no hope was assured, hope was most certainly procured through the tender mercies of the Triune God. 

The uncaused love of God made eternal provisions for a people to be delivered from the damnable rebellion against His sovereign majesty.  It also dealt a fatal blow to the great adversary known as spiritual darkness (sin) and its consequential death. 

It is the procurement of this deliverance from darkness that is at the very heart and soul of true Christianity. Furthermore, any hint of a dismissive attitude regarding the point, power and persuasiveness of that darkness is high treason against the truth of light.  Ethically driven homilies that relegate the person, power and work of Christ to the back burner are deadly for their hearers. But Jesus-preaching without Judgment-preaching is likewise damnable. 

Paul once addressed a philosophical crowd with a statement about an “unknown God,” but today we would serve our people well to remind them of an unknown Christ. Christ’s life is filled with judgment. His sermons often broached the subject of judgment and darkness. His death was an inextricable display of judgment upon Himself, brought on by His eternal Father’s wrath. Darkness and death are interwoven into the fabric of biblical revelation—so much so, that the deletion of it renders the rest of the story meaningless. 

It is often stated something like this: “As cold is the absence of heat, sin (spiritual darkness) is the absence of holiness.” I suppose an element of this is true, but it is not the whole truth. Sin is not essentially passive in nature. It is vigorously active in intent to suppress and ultimately supplant the majesty and worth of light (Truth), which is solely rooted in the Triune God Himself. This makes spiritual darkness the greatest of evils and the highest of all treason in the universe. 

Unlike the present pervasive relegation of sin to the level of a mere peccadillo, sin is both the father and king of all evils. It is of such an infinite nature at its root that it demands infinite punishment. The failure to grasp this truth diminishes and ultimately destroys the necessary basic construct for hell itself. The consequent reconstruction of a “hell-less” judgment or a “compassionate annihilationism” robs the gospel of its full meaning and renders the cross as finite instead of infinite in nature.  

In essence, according to this construct, light is attained without the necessity of darkness being dismantled and destroyed. This conclusion thoroughly ignores the biblical revelation of sin’s true nature and love’s great sacrifice.  Therefore, it is heretical at its very core, as well as an abomination to God Himself.  

What, one might ask, are the essential elements of gospel comprehension? First, the holiness of God must be set forth in the mind of the sinner. Without this element, sin, sacrifice and security are moot points. If God is not seen as holy, just and thoroughly righteous in His very nature and in all of His works, then sin is diminished as it pertains to its spiritual impact on the heart of the sinner. 

Essentially, the full impact of this fact is established through the preaching of the perfect law of God, the Ten Commandments. While many have rendered these “Old Testament Concepts” obsolete, the New Testament has further established and fulfilled these commandments. According to the New Testament, the commandments are necessary for many reasons, two of which are most essential. First, they establish the righteous demands of God upon His rational creatures. Sin is, after all, the transgression of His law. Thus, it necessitates our utmost attention to them. 

Secondly, these laws teach us about our moral inability to fulfill God’s perfect requirements (if we’ve broken one part of the law, we’ve broken the whole law). The Schoolmaster (the law) then leads us to a knowledge of our sin, as well as to a despair in our rebellion against God’s law. It also points our way to Christ, who alone fulfilled God’s holy and righteous requirements. Lawless preaching is pointless and powerless, for without the law, no sinner will ever be sufficiently driven to the only Savior.

This brings us to the second essential element of gospel comprehension, which further elaborates on man’s knowledge of sin. Not only is the sinner to see God’s infinite holiness, he must see his own infinite sinfulness. The less holy God is, the more sin becomes less sinful. The more Holy God is seen, the more sinful sin becomes in the conscience. 

Therefore, if God is seen as infinitely holy, just and righteous, sin is seen as infinitely offensive by way of contrast to an infinitely holy God. The failure to see this is fatal to the sinner because of his failure to see the infinite justice of God in his own damnation, which he is not convinced he deserves. God’s way of salvation requires our death—to self and our sin. Many are sick of their sins, but they never die to their sins through the infinite worth of Christ’s sacrifice. 

Now for the third essential element of gospel understanding: the sacrifice of Christ. When one has been taught the truth of God’s infinite holiness, His Holy Law and man’s thorough sinfulness, he or she is brought face-to-face with the necessary deliverance from darkness. Seeing that God is infinitely holy and that man is infinitely sinful creates a dilemma in the conscience. 

How can the great chasm that divides sinful man from an infinitely Holy God be traversed? The answer is profound, yet simple. A Mediator is necessary. Christ has been given an eternal priesthood through which He mediates between the two extremities of God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness. This is foundational in understanding the means of God’s deliverance from the excruciating reality of darkness into the incomprehensible light of Holy Trinity. 

Often this aspect of Christ’s work is partially understood and therefore misunderstood. While love is often the lone object of Christ’s work on the cross, God’s holiness and justice are functionally ignored. This is unfortunate in that both are necessarily and gloriously displayed on the cross of Christ. 

Though the limitations on the length of this article necessitate some brevity in this matter, it must be noted that Christ’s work was both active and passive. First, it was active by way of the life He lived while in the flesh. It was a perfect life, thusly qualifying Him as a Lamb without spot or blemish as typified in the Old Testament sacrificial rituals. Of course, His deity was the first qualification seeing that He was the mediator between God and man. But it was in his manhood that he represented our side of the equation through fulfilling what the first ancestor and federal head, Adam, did not fulfill—namely, perfect obedience to the Creator. 

Secondly, Christ work was passive in that He allowed Himself to be treated cruelly by His malefactors on our behalf. The ultimate manifestation of this was on the cross, where He suffered inexplicable pain and heartache on our behalf. Not only, as some so foolishly believe, did Christ suffer physical anguish, He suffered infinite spiritual agony because He became sin for us and suffered at His Eternal Father’s hand. 

He suffered what we, the sinners, would have suffered for all eternity in the Lake of Fire. He literally took the place of sinners, also known as substitutionary atonement, and died in our stead. Mercy and divine justice kissed on the cross and thus set sinners free from darkness and its impending wrath. What infinite wisdom eternally decreed such deliverance as this?

Now, the fourth and final essential element of gospel comprehension and deliverance from darkness. All of the above explanation of gospel truth is incomprehensible to the mind of man apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. It is stated clearly that the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, is the one who convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment. 

It is the sweet Holy Spirit that quickens the sinner and opens his spiritual eyes to see the Truth as it is revealed in God’s Word. It is the Spirit who woos and draws us tenderly to the Savior’s blood and takes out our stony heart and gives us a heart of flesh so that we may believe and be saved. The believer’s life and witness of truth are essential means of God’s grace, but it is the Spirit alone who brings life to the dead. 

It is clearly set forth in holy texts that we are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light by His work in our hearts. No man or woman has ever been brought to the Light of Truth without first being delivered out of the darkness of sin. 

Don’t buy into wrathless preaching or loveless preaching. Preach the whole council of God that sinners may see their plight and flee from the wrath of God into the arms of the everlasting love and mercy of the Almighty. 

Dear Lord, we beseech you, deliver us from the looming darkness of sin and sorrow!

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Dr. R.A. Hargrave is Senior Pastor at Riverbend Community Church in Ormond Beach, Florida.  He also serves as Executive Director of GraceWorx Ministries.

TO ADDRESS the subject of heresy and those who promote it is, ironically, considered heresy itself.  Heresy is defined as an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma … or dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, or an opinion, doctrine … or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards.(1)

The question is, Whose standards? Whose opinion, dogma or accepted beliefs? It should be understood that the trend of emerging truth in the church today is so fluid that to grasp it is like picking up water with your hands. The vast majority of Christendom considers standards, unchanging truths and dogma obsolete. Therefore, the heretic is now the one who refuses to deviate from the norm of absolute truth and embrace a relativistic “theology” which promotes and protects vacillation. 

Hermeneutics has been replaced with homogenization, and truth has been relegated to triviality. The entire concept of being heretical is redefined as the conviction that heresy is, in fact, a reality, and today’s “new heretic” is the one who adheres to that immutable conviction.

Redefinition is the new standard of the day, and reminders of the old standard are, at the very least, casually ignored. This mistaken position is dangerous in any field of study, but in the theological arena it is damnable. To replace the foundation of unchanging truth for the ever-changing whimsical notions of fallen humanity is an error too awful to fathom. Yet churches by the thousands are swallowing these fables every Sunday morning. Perhaps one of the greatest hindrances in combating such folly is the absence of addressing the reality of heresy. 

A subject that was once widely understood in the church is today tossed out as irrelevant, as well as extremely divisive, to the post-modern mind. It is this context that has created the new heretic. Heresy, therefore, which was once known as a false stand against the truth, has come to be known as an arrogant, narrow-minded stand for the truth. We who believe in the absoluteness of divine truth as revealed in Holy Scripture are the heretics, and those who embrace mutability are the new champions of love and compassion. We have, in fact, deviated from today’s norm and are therefore designated as ignorant, if not cultish, heretics. 

Before we implode at this despicable predicament, let us consider our options. We can join the emergers and the imaginers and enjoy the harvest of temporary fruitfulness and her accolades. Or we can stake our claim on the canon of truth and stand firm. I choose the latter, primarily because I have a difficult time hitting a moving target.  It is a moving target that these disseminators of falsehood are attempting to accomplish. They redefine the terms, reinvent the standards and regurgitate each other’s opinions. This week it’s this, and next week it’s that. 

Perhaps it arouses the curiosity of their followers because every day promises a new vision, a new direction, new priorities and the ability to expel last week’s old theology for this week’s new theology. They even have the luxury of catapulting those truths that weigh heavily on their consciences for newer, gentler truths whenever the next issue immerges from the minds of their inventors. 

How can we stem the tide of this heterodoxical dilemma and re-establish orthodoxy as the norm? First, we must recognize what we cannot do. We cannot open the minds and hearts of people to the truth of God’s Word without the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. What we can do, through a firm confidence concerning the Bible’s infallible veracity, is preach the truth of it. This, of course, requires courage, conviction and consistency in the pulpit, as well as the study. 

The ascendancy of vacillation is due largely to the laziness of orthodox men in the pulpit. While reading our books on the latest fad or the newest church growth phenomenon, we starve the sheep with half-baked sermonizing. You can be sure that a sentimental, self-help homily from a self-proclaimed professor of orthodoxy is not the prescription for turning the tide. Furthermore, the latest conference that promotes preaching by waving the Bible—but not actually preaching it—is not the answer.

We must establish a beachhead against the surge of heresy in our day, for it is a leaven that expands and multiplies exponentially with each passing day. Our retreat, as well as our stagnation, is not acceptable in this battle. For every lazy moment we spend as preachers of the Word of God, there is an advance of the enemy.  Like a cancer that reaches into the vital organs through its invading tentacles, heresy beats its path to the souls of men. 

While we are slumbering in our studies and the sheep are sleeping during our sermons, the heretics are marching onward. They are empowered by our negligence and emboldened by our complacency. All the while, the souls of men under our charge are falling into the pit. 

Stand up, gentlemen, like men of old against the onslaught of these promoters of poppycock. Wield the sword of God’s Holy Word against these purveyors of passing fads. Their end is certain, and the Truth will reign triumphant over them. 

The victory is ours, TAKE IT!

¹ Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/heresy.

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Dr. R.A. Hargrave is the Senior Pastor at Riverbend Community Church in Ormond Beach, Florida. Dr. Hargrave is also the Bible-teacher for GraceWorx Ministries.