Why Aren’t Christian Leaders More Discerning?

I’ve been all over the world, as you know, and have had lots of discussions with lots of Christian leaders and I’ve read lots of things about the church and the history of the church and the theology of the church. I’ve been all over everywhere and I can just tell you this. Right now in this day, and it’s been this way for a long time through this twentieth century, THE biggest problem in the church is its inability and unwillingness to distinguish true Christians from false. It’s…it’s literally killing the church.

You go all over the world, and you see people who claim to be Christians. I’ve been in the eastern Europe and I’ve seen the orthodox church which is by its own definition a Christian church. They believe they’re the only true Christians in eastern Europe. And then you go into western Europe, and earlier this year in France and then in the last couple of weeks in Italy and there is this massive monolithic system called Roman Catholicism which believes itself to be the only true Christian Church on the planet. It’s one thing for them to believe it, it’s something else for Billy Graham to say the Pope is a fine, outstanding Christian. Something else for him to hold an evangelistic meeting and invite all the Catholics to cooperate. It’s something else for Bill Bright to say that the Pope is a fine, outstanding Christian. It’s something else for people in the ECT, the people who are in Christian leadership in America to embrace the Roman Catholics and say we all love the same Christ, we all serve the same God in the same way. And these are all our Christian brothers and sisters. It’s one thing for these institutions to exist, it’s something else for those people who are Christians to embrace them as if they’re all true Christians. This obliterates the line of clarity and invites the enemy into the camp and just devastates the church.

You can turn on your television and watch TBN. Everybody that comes on is embraced as a Christian, even though it’s just…just filled with false teachers and people who obviously haven’t been delivered…It’s the idea that anybody who believes in Jesus is a Christian. And if you want to push the point beyond that, you’re somehow a problem and you’re divisive and schismatic…Liberal Anglicanism in England back in the 60′s was in its heyday and there were some evangelicals in the Anglican church and they thought…Well, we need to move in to the Anglican church and get a hold of this thing and partner up with these brothers, they’re our brothers. We can’t let things divide us, we’re all one church.

And it was David Martyn Lloyd-Jones who stood up and said this is wrong. You’ve got to separate. And he was vilified and he was marginalized and he was pushed out, but he was right as time has proven because whatever evangelicalism was there has succumb to the power of liberalism and the pollution of the church.

You can look at the American denominations…the historic denominations of the Presbyterians, and the Methodists and the Episcopalians and even largely the Lutherans and others and you can see the tremendous slide. And it goes back. They invited people into their schools, in their seminaries to teach. They said they were Christians but they were wrong and they came in and they stole the institutions and sent them right down the drain. This is deadly stuff. And now you even have evangelical churches that are designing their churches to make unbelievers comfortable.

This is frightening stuff. And I guess I feel at this point, I’ve got nothing to lose anyway, I need to…I have to be accountable to the Lord, it’s just time to stand up and say this…this has got to be brought to the test of Scripture. You can have a thing called Amsterdam 2000, you can have 5,000 so-called evangelists and celebrate all this unity, but who’s finding out whether these people are Christians? They come from Catholicism and orthodox groups and fringe groups and all kinds of strange groups and even some cults. I talked to a man even this week who said he thinks there’s going to be many Mormons in heaven. This is continuing to escalate.

And I guess it’s time to just stand up and say there has to be a line drawn. The issue of who is truly a Christian is at the very center of the church’s life and ministry. This has to be protected. There isn’t any fellowship between light and darkness, is there, 2 Corinthians 6? There isn’t any concord between Christ and Satan. Two can’t walk together unless they be…what?…agreed. You have to come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing.

And here is the church absorbing all of this. And now it’s so confusing that the church itself doesn’t even know who’s a Christian and frankly I don’t think they particularly care as long as you say you believe in Jesus. A friend, Iain Murray who is a gifted theologian and a great biographer, [who] wrote the massive two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones has also written on Jonathan Edwards and many others. He is a very esteemed Englishman and has been here many times, we’ve spent many hours together, has written a new book called Evangelicalism Divided in which I read it, just devoured it over the last few weeks while I was in Italy in the plane, in the back of the bus, in the room, everywhere because it just consumed me. Murray is tracking the twentieth century decline of evangelicalism and it’s a book of history that is very, very revealing. And Murray says, and I think he’s absolutely right, he says, the inability of the evangelical church to distinguish between a Christian and a non-Christian is quote: “The greatest failure of professing Christianity in the English-speaking world in the twentieth century,” end quote.

He understands the implications. If you redefine non-Christians as Christians you obliterate the distinctiveness of the church and you therefore create an environment in which you have to tolerate error because these people represent error. He further writes, this is very important and insightful, “The health of the church,” and he’s speaking as a historian here, having tracked it very carefully, “the health of the church has always been in proportion to the extent to which the difference between Christian and non-Christian has been kept sharp and clear.” Absolutely right. The starting point for the church is to be absolutely clear about who is saved and who is not. If we’re not clear about that, then we don’t know who’s on our side and we don’t know who we really need to reach.

From the time that God began to form a people for Himself, Satan endeavored to intrude. From the time that the demons cohabitated with the…with the daughters of men in Genesis 6, Satan has been trying to pollute and mix…all the way down to sowing tares among the wheat. And it’s really true. Murray says, “The most insidious opposition to the gospel has come from within worldly churches.”

I’ll say this as simply as I can. The gospel is more often attacked on TBN than it is on NBC. This has been the legacy of liberalism which has been embraced by quote/unquote “evangelicals.” This has been the legacy of Charismaticism where theology and…I’m not speaking about all the people but for the most part where the Movement tolerates anybody’s view. This has been the legacy of the seeker-friendly pragmatic movement. This has been the legacy of evangelical ecumenism which wants to re-embrace orthodoxy and Catholicism and everybody else. And the confusion goes from the grass roots right on up to the top. I’ve talked to the evangelical brain trust, if you will, and they aren’t even willing to commit to who’s a Christian. Even my conversation with J.I. Packer, so capable and gifted a theologian and writer, when I asked him…what is the line by which you determine a true Christian? All he could say was, “That’s a good question.”

For most of the last part of the twentieth century, the last 50 years, there has been a sustained effort to invent and promote a popular definition of Christianity, which is neither biblical nor legitimate and to fill the church with non-Christians. . .

Satan always wants to get the church confused about who’s saved, then he can infiltrate and take over, as he’s done in so many institutions and denominations.

Iain Murray again writes, “When churches have recovered from apostasy, historically, such as at the time of the Reformation and the eighteenth century evangelical revival…it has always been…by a return to such discriminating preaching and practice.” What he means is when there’s ever a recovery from a time of apostasy, it has come when preaching has become discriminating.

What does it mean to discriminate? If you say you discriminate, what does it mean? If you say…you hear people say, be a discriminating buyer, what does that mean? It means that you can choose the best out of the lot, right? You know how to discriminate. It means to discern. The only hope for the church is discriminating, discerning preaching. I don’t think there’s any organizational answer. I don’t think we need more meetings, more seminars. We need preachers who will stand up and preach discriminating messages.

And Murray says, “Given the great decline in the English-speaking churches of the twentieth century, the chief need again was the reassertion of the meaning of being a Christian.” Wow! The chief hope for the church is discriminating preaching primarily directed at the issue of who is a Christian.

I don’t care how widely known you are as an evangelical leader, to say that Roman Catholics and the Pope are wonderful Christians is not discriminating, he questions somebody’s faculties of discernment. And sometimes I wonder if those who can’t discern the true church can’t discern it because they’re not part of it. I know people who aren’t a part of it can’t discern it because the natural man understands not the things of God. I don’t expect non-Christians to be discerning about the church, but I do expect Christians to be discerning about the church. And yet you have people who have risen to prominence in evangelicalism who have defined evangelicalism on a large scale who lack that discernment. And what we need is exactly what Murray says, we have to have some discriminating preaching. It’s time…it’s time to draw the line again and that means to be unpopular, I hate to say.

And people ask me…why do people do this? Why do they compromise? Why aren’t they discriminating? Why don’t they say what needs to be said? Why don’t they say this is not a Christian institution, these people are not Christians? Why don’t they make a clear-cut line? Why don’t do they do that?

And the only answer I can come up with and I think it’s a general one and Murray in his book agrees with me on this, the fear of being alienated. It’s the fear of man, it’s the desire for popularity. It’s the desire for the widest possible acceptance. It’s the desire for a reputation. It’s the desire not to be marginalized and pushed off into a corner. It’s a desire to be tolerable and tolerant because it affords you some level of popularity. Because it lets you move up the social strata in the world of Christianity. And so they seek the approval of man. And it’s amazing how they can seek the approval of man at the expense of the approval of the Lord of the church.

I think the early Christians would recognize Catholics today, for our Mass is nearly the same as it was in the times of the Early Church fathers.

Really?????? Do you really mean that? Do you mean that everything that is said and done is nearly the same?? Really??

Perhaps the rote rituals. I don't know enough, nor really care to in order to agree with or refute that point. But I do know that Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that now that He has come, we are to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

This did NOT happen at a packed Christmas Eve mass (SRO) in an inner city church that I attended just last month. The priest has been around for many years. He began his homily on where his hope lies. (ok, that is a good start for Christmas Eve).

But he went on to say that it is with the pope and he went on and on, often mentioning some of the most bizarre things this pope has said recently. Next, was his hope in the dioceses and the bishop. But his biggest hope? Ok, I thought - NOW he will speak of our blessed Lord. Oh, no. The biggest hope of this priest was all the people there that night. I quit counting after the guy mentioned the pope and the bishop at least 30 times. He also mentioned how he was glad to embrace homosexuals and they were also his hope. He mentioned the name of Jesus ONE time. Just one. And that was to end his homily "in Jesus's name".

The early Christians "might" have recognized the smells and bells but they would have been appalled at the words as much I was. There was no worshipping the advent of Christ Jesus in Spirit and in Truth. None. The early Christians would have thought they were in a pagan temple. I did.

The saddest thing of all was that the mass of people seemed to just be fine with all of it. :(

“Iain Murray again writes, “When churches have recovered from apostasy, historically, such as at the time of the Reformation and the eighteenth century evangelical revival…it has always been…by a return to such discriminating preaching and practice.” What he means is when there’s ever a recovery from a time of apostasy, it has come when preaching has become discriminating.

Exactly. Today’s “church” is full of undiscernment and indiscriminate thought and belief. That’s why Western culture is in the mess it’s in today.

Many of us know that the book you are referring to condemns your religion in numerous places...So that invalidates any false claim by your religion that it is the author of that book...

The Book does no such thing.

The 15 promises of the Rosary:

1. To all those who shall pray my Rosary devoutly, I promise my special protection and great graces.
2. Those who shall persevere in the recitation of my Rosary will receive some special grace.
3. The Rosary will be a very powerful armor against hell; it will destroy vice, deliver from sin and dispel heresy.
4. The rosary will make virtue and good works flourish, and will obtain for souls the most abundant divine mercies. It will draw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

This is a contradiction of the Bible...The Bible teaches in John 17:17, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." It is the Word of God that sanctifies us (sets us apart from the world and to God). Catholicism elevates the rosary above the Word of God. The rosary cannot sanctify you. How can you be sanctified by repeating a bunch of vain repetitions?

The term "hail Mary" is NOT even mentioned once in the Bible! Not once! Think about it.

5. Those who trust themselves to me through the Rosary will not perish.

This is one of the most blasphemous statements in here. Your Catholic religion teaches that those who trust MARY through the ROSARY will not perish. That's a dirty lie of the devil. The Bible proclaims:

Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

6. Whoever recites my Rosary devoutly reflecting on the mysteries, shall never be overwhelmed by misfortune. He will not experience the anger of God nor will he perish by an unprovided death. The sinner will be converted; the just will persevere in grace and merit eternal life.

A Catholic will never be overwhelmed with misfortune??? Tell my you know this is a lie...

This is extreme Catholic blasphemy against a Holy God. No sinner will ever be converted by reciting the rosary! The ONLY hope of salvation is through Jesus Christ ALONE...

Joh 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

7. Those truly devoted to my Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.
8. Those who are faithful to recite my Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces and will share in the merits of the blessed.
9. I will deliver promptly from purgatory souls devoted to my Rosary.
10. True children of my Rosary will enjoy great glory in heaven.
11. What you shall ask through my Rosary you shall obtain.
12. To those who propagate my Rosary I promise aid in all their necessities.
13. I have obtained from my Son that all the members of the Rosary Confraternity shall have as their intercessors, in life and in death, the entire celestial court.
14. Those who recite my Rosary faithfully are my beloved children, the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
15. Devotion to my Rosary is a special sign of predestination.

I just picked on a couple of the lies in your Rosary...The bible is rife with the condemnation of your religion...

Below is the communion or Lord's Supper in accordance to the Didache (Estimated Range of Dating: 50-120 A.D.) which is the earliest artifact we have of what early early Christians were practicing:

CHAPTER 9 THE THANKSGIVING SACRAMENT 1) Now concerning the Thanksgiving meal, give thanks in this manner. 2) First, concerning the cup: We thank You, our Father, For the Holy Vine of David Your servant, Whom You made known to us through Your Servant; May the glory be Yours forever. 3) Concerning the broken bread: We thank You, our Father, For the life and knowledge Which You made known to us through Your Servant; May the glory be Yours forever. As this broken bread was scattered over the mountains, And was gathered together to become one, So let Your Body of Faithful be gathered together From the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for the glory and power are Yours forever. 5) But let no one eat or drink of your Thanksgiving, unless they have been baptized; for concerning this is taught, "Do not give what is holy to dogs."

CHAPTER 10 PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION 1) After the meal, give thanks in this manner: 2) We offer thanks, Holy Father, For Your Holy Name which fills our hearts, And for the knowledge, faith and eternal life, You made known to us through Your Servant; Yours is the glory forever. 3) Almighty Master, You created all things for Your own purpose; You gave men food and drink to enjoy, That they might give You thanks; But to us You freely give spiritual food and drink, And eternal life through Your Servant. 4) Foremost, we thank You because You are mighty; Yours is the glory forever. 5) Remember Your Body of Servants, To deliver it from everything evil And perfect it according to Your love, And gather it from the four winds, Sanctified for Your kingdom which You have prepared for it; For the power and glory are Yours forever. 6) Let Your grace come, And let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David! May all who are holy, come; Let those who are not, repent. Maranatha. Amen. 7)But permit the prophets to make Thanksgiving as they wish.(http://web.archive.org/web/20101009033540/http://ivanlewis.com/Didache/didache.html)

As the 'old commerical' says "you make the call." I see a simple assembly of God fearing believers who based the document on Scriptures.

We also know during this same timeframe, if the earlier date range the apostles were still around. If the later date range we know someone in Polycarp was still around. In Polycarp's epistle to the Philippians we see a solid use and knowledge of what we call the NT canon today. Polycarp's epistle is in the date range of 110-140 A.D. This is an important period, because we hear a lot about a large time duration happened to figure out the NT canon. However, looking at Polycarp's (served under John the apostle) epistle, we see none of the spurious "gospels" or "books" quoted the later church fathers refuted and dismissed. Which leads to the conclusion, that those who were of the faith knew the true apostolic writings because they heard the Voice of Good Sheperd in the Gospels of John, Luke, Matthew and Mark but not in Thomas and others. Below is a link to a site which lists in detail the NT books Polycarp quotes in his epistle:

Polycarp and the NT

While I agree with most everything MacArthur says, I would ask, what is the solution?

That is a very good question. MacArthur seems to think this can all be figured out. I'm not so sure it can be figured out.

But I would refer back to the very strange case of the lying prophet in 1 Kings 13.

1Ki 13:3 And he gave a sign the same day, saying, "This is the sign that the LORD has spoken: 'Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.'"
1Ki 13:4 And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, "Seize him." And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself.
1Ki 13:5 The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.
1Ki 13:6 And the king said to the man of God, "Entreat now the favor of the LORD your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me." And the man of God entreated the LORD, and the king's hand was restored to him and became as it was before.
1Ki 13:7 And the king said to the man of God, "Come home with me, and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward."
1Ki 13:8 And the man of God said to the king, "If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place,
1Ki 13:9 for so was it commanded me by the word of the LORD, saying, 'You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came.'"
1Ki 13:10 So he went another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.
1Ki 13:11 Now an old prophet lived in Bethel. And his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told to their father the words that he had spoken to the king.
1Ki 13:12 And their father said to them, "Which way did he go?" And his sons showed him the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone.
1Ki 13:13 And he said to his sons, "Saddle the donkey for me." So they saddled the donkey for him and he mounted it.
1Ki 13:14 And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak. And he said to him, "Are you the man of God who came from Judah?" And he said, "I am."
1Ki 13:15 Then he said to him, "Come home with me and eat bread."
1Ki 13:16 And he said, "I may not return with you, or go in with you, neither will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place,
1Ki 13:17 for it was said to me by the word of the LORD, 'You shall neither eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by the way that you came.'"
1Ki 13:18 And he said to him, "I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, 'Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.'" But he lied to him.
1Ki 13:19 So he went back with him and ate bread in his house and drank water.
1Ki 13:20 And as they sat at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back.
1Ki 13:21 And he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, "Thus says the LORD, 'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the command that the LORD your God commanded you,
1Ki 13:22 but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, "Eat no bread and drink no water," your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.'"
1Ki 13:23 And after he had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back.
1Ki 13:24 And as he went away a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body.

If this incident tells us anything, God will hold us accountable for failing to follow His commands. We can't blame someone else. So if we're going to believe something someone is telling us, we better make darn sure it's correct.

Love this passage. Your conclusion is right on, IMHO.

I believe the word of the Lord to his saints today is that found in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation - “Let him who has an ear to hear, hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches...”

Not what man is saying, not what preachers/teachers/authors are saying. What the Spirit is saying.

We know of times in China when the underground churches became infiltrated with gov. spies, they determined the locations of where to meet - by prayer. Ask God - He will show you. Of course, only the saints who knew how to hear from God knew where to gather. The spies never knew. And could do nothing.

The same may come here.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.