‘n Kritiese gees teen “oorkritiese mense”

In sy ywer om mense wat oorkrities of hiperkrities is ‘n regte pyn in die nek en ‘n groot irritasie te noem, maak Hennie Stander maar eintlik die blaps om homself skuldig te maak aan oordrewe kritiek. Hy skryf:

Ons almal ken mos sulke mense. Hulle wil oor elke ding ’n eiertjie lê. “Elke preek is sleg. Almal is skelm. Alle dominees en alle onderwysers is agterbaks.” Kyk, mense wat so krities is oor alles, jaag my ook teen die mure uit. Ken Hennie werklikwaar sulke mense wat voortdurend sê “elke preek is sleg, almal is skelm, alle dominees en alle onderwysers is agterbaks?”

Kom ons veronderstel hy verwys net na ‘n enkele oorkritiese persoon. Al sou dit net een persoon wees na wie Hennie verwys, moes hy tot nou toe elke woord wat daardie persoon nog ooit geuiter het, gehoor het om met oortuiging te kan sê “hy sê elke preek is sleg, almal is skelm, [en] alle dominees en alle onderwysers is agterbaks.”

Kom ons veronderstel ook dat daardie persoon wel tog net een keer in sy lewe gesê het “dit was darem vir jou ‘n allemintige goeie preek” maar Hennie het hom dit nie hoor sê nie. Kan hy dan nog steeds sê daardie persoon is net altyd oorkrities? Miskien is die persoon nie oorkrities, soos Hennie  dit wil hê nie, maar iemand wat alles wat hy van die preekstoel af hoor aan die hand van die Skrif evalueer. So ‘n persoon kan dan beslis nie as ‘n oorkritiese persoon, ‘n pyn en ‘n groot irritasie beskrywe word nie omdat die Here self so ‘n persoon as ‘n geestelik volwasse mens aanprys. Ek haal vir Hennie die Engels uit 2 Korinthiërs 2: 15 aan.

But the spiritual man tries all things [he examines, investigates, inquires into, questions, and discerns all things], yet is himself to be put on trial and judged by no one [he can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him]. (Klem bygevoeg).

Die teenoorgestelde hiervan is ‘n kinderagtige gees wat alles as goed en mooi en heilsaam beskou en aanvaar.

Efesiërs 4:14 . . . sodat ons nie meer kinders sou wees nie wat soos golwe geslinger en heen en weer gedryf word deur elke wind van lering, deur die bedrieëry van die mense, deur sluheid om listiglik tot dwaling te bring; (Klem bygevoeg).

Om dinge nog meer problematies te maak, verklaar Hennie dat hy sulke mense (meervoud) ken wat sou beteken dat hy hulle almal intensief ken omdat hy elke woord gehoor het wat nog ooit uit hulle monde gekom het. Dis dus nie net ‘n uiters subjektiewe opmerking wat hy met waagmoed maak nie, maar ook ‘n oorkritiese benadering tot die persone wat hy van ‘n oorkritiese gees beskuldig. Hennie sluit sy kommentaar op sy blog af met die volgende woorde.

1 Kor 13:7 sê: “Die liefde bedek alles, glo alles, hoop alles, verdra alles.” Wat beteken die frase “liefde hoop alles?” Waarvoor hoop een wat liefde het? Hoop jy om die lotto te wen? Nee, “hoop alles” beteken dat jy vertrou dat mense altyd net die goeie sal doen. Ek het hierdie frase in die Bybel@kinders vertaal as “Mense wat liefhet, vertrou dat ander mense altyd net mooi dinge sal doen.” Ek weet dit is seker dom en ek weet dit kan gevaarlik wees om so ’n uitgangspunt te handhaaf. Maar iemand wie se lewe regtig deur liefde gekenmerk word, kan nie anders nie as om regtig in die eerste plek mooi dinge van ander mense te verwag, selfs al word jy soms teleurgesteld. Die liefde dwing jou mos om as “default” ’n geneigdheid te hê om eerder die mooie te glo, as om die slegte te verwag.

Natuurlik hoop die liefde dat mense altyd net die goeie sal doen; dit kan nie anders as om in die eerste plek mooi dinge van ander mense te verwag nie; om eerder die mooi dinge oor hulle te glo as die slegte. Maar, ongelukkig werk dit nie altyd so mooi uit nie. Hennie erken self dat dit ‘n dom en selfs ‘n gevaarlike ding is om so ‘n uitgangspunt te handhaaf. Trouens, dit kan so gevaarlik wees dat predikante wat kindertjies en jong mense wat in Jesus glo laat struikel skielik ‘n swaar meulsteen om hulle nek mag voel en ervaar dat hulle in die diepte van die see gewerp word om ‘n blyplekke te vind waar God al die sondes van sy kinders gewerp het (Matteus 18:6; Miga 7:19). Natuurlik hoop die liefde dat sulke predikers hulle van hulle verkeerde weë dal bekeer en weer sal terugkeer na God en sy waarheid, maar as dit nie gebeur nie is dit ons plig, en ook joune Hennie, om die kindertjies (op Bybel@kinders) en jongmense te waarsku teen sulke ooms en tannies wat lyk soos ons prentjie hierbo. Ons kan nie vir ons kinders en ander jongmense sê nie: “Ag hulle is tog sulke goeie mense en ons verwag altyd net die beste van hulle omdat hulle so hard werk om die Woord van God te verdraai. Kyk net hoe mooi lyk hulle in hulle oulike ou skaapskleertjies” Selfs Paulus wat sulke mooi dinge in 1 Korinthiërs 13 oor die liefde geskryf het, moes op ‘n kol waarsku:

Galasiërs 1: 8 “Maar al sou ons of ‘n engel uit die hemel julle ‘n evangelie verkondig in stryd met die wat ons julle verkondig het, laat hom ‘n vervloeking wees! (vir ewig weg van die aanngesig van God, m.a.w. in die hel).”

Miskien moet Hennie weer ‘n slag begin onderskei tussen kritiek en onderskeiding. Maak 100% seker dat die pyn in jou nek  nie miskien veroorsaak word deur ‘n kritiese houding jeens mense wat in opdrag van die Here alles volgens sy Woord wil onderskei nie. Pyne in die nek word heel dikwels veroorsaak deur ‘n meulsteen om die nek. Kom ons maak dus almal eers seker of ons nie self meulstene om die nek het nie deur in die spieël van God se Woord te kyk.

Wat is waarheid?

Pilatus het hierdie vraag aan die Here Jesus op die vooraand van sy kruisiging gestel nadat die gesprek soos volg tussen hulle verloop het:

Johannes 18:33-38 Pilatus gaan toe weer in die goewerneur se paleis en roep Jesus en sê vir Hom: Is U die Koning van die Jode? Jesus antwoord hom: Sê u dit uit uself, of het ander u dit van My gesê? Pilatus antwoord: Is ek dan ‘n Jood? U volk en die owerpriesters het U aan my oorgelewer. Wat het U gedoen? Jesus antwoord: My koninkryk is nie van hierdie wêreld nie; as my koninkryk van hierdie wêreld was, sou my dienaars geveg het, dat Ek nie aan die Jode oorgelewer word nie. Maar nou is my koninkryk nie van hier nie. Pilatus sê toe vir Hom: Is U dan tog ‘n koning? Jesus antwoord: U sê dat Ek ‘n koning is. Hiervoor is Ek gebore en hiervoor het Ek in die wêreld gekom, om vir die waarheid te getuig. Elkeen wat uit die waarheid is, luister na my stem. Pilatus sê vir Hom: Wat is waarheid? En toe hy dit gesê het, gaan hy weer uit na die Jode en sê vir hulle: Ek vind geen skuld in Hom nie. (Klem bygevoeg)

Kom ons wees sommer wansuit eerlik met mekaar en verklaar onomwonde dat enigeen wat daarop aanspraak maak dat hy die Here Jesus liefhet en hom volg maar versuim om netsoos HY vir SY waarheid (leerstellings, dogmas, doktrines) te getuig. is besig om homself te bedrieg. So’n persoon kan ‘n duisend keer op ‘n dag sê “Ek is ‘n volgeling van Jesus” maar as hy of sy, SY waarheid nie liefhet nie en nie vir SY waarheid getuig soos Hy dit self gedoen het nie, is besig om ‘n ander Jesus te volg. Ons leef in tye waar daar geweldig baie klem gelê word op liefde, verhoudings, onderlinge gesprek, verdraagsaamheid, barmhartigheid en respek (veral t.o.v. die onderskeie godsdienste in die wêreld), maar hierdie dinge word nagejaag ten koste van die waarheid soos ons in in God se Woord vind. Gevolglik word die waarheid waarvoor Jesus Chirstus as ‘n getuie mens geword en aarde toe gekom het in repies geskeur en in die snippermandjie gegooi. Enigeen wat in gehoorsaamheid vir Jesus Christus se waarheid wil getuig word sonder seremonie as liefdelose, arrogante fundamentaliste bestempel omdat hulle kwansuis veroordelend pleks van liefdevol optree.

Dis opmerklik dat Pilatus nie gewag het op ‘n antwoord van die Here Jesus nie, maar hom onmiddellik tot die Joodse gespuis gewend het om SY onskuld te verklaar maar ook om Hom in deselfde asem te verdoem deur Hom gerieflikheidshalwe in hulle hande oor te lewer. Ek verstout my deur te sê dat Stephan Joubert waarskynlik ‘n baie beter joppie sou doen om aan Pilatus te verduidelik wat waarheid is. Ek sê dit op grond van sy onlangse relaas oor wat hy as waarheid definieer op e-kerk se webblad. Kom ons wees gehoorsaam aan die Here Jesus, van wie Stpehan getuig dat Hy die essensie van warheid is, en stel alles wat hy op die webblad kwytgeraak het aan die hand van die Skrif op die proef om vas te stel of sy woorde uit God is, al dan nie.

Stephan begin deur te sê:

Die waarheid is nie proposisies, leerstukke, belydenisse of teologiese geskrifte nie. (Klem bygevoeg)

Stephan, soos die meeste ander ontluikende Kerk leiers, is ‘n baie goeie naprater. Trouens, hy gebruik  soms presies dieselfde woorde om sy idees oor te dra.

The truth of the Bible, like any truth, is not best seen ‘objectively’ . . . Where, then can I find authority that I can be sure of? Since God is (by and large) invisible, we are left with ordinary people holding a book. As we had said before, we cannot simply ‘go to the book.’ Truth cannot properly reside as a mere proposition on a paper. Truth lives in persons and relationships.” (Klem bygevoeg). Neil Livingstone

Indien dit nie nodig was om die waarheid in leerstukke (leerstellings, dogmas of dokrines) neer te skryf en in geskriffte saam te vat nie, sou die Here waarskynlik nooit sy eie gekose profete en apostels geïnspireer het om SY waarheid in 66 boeke op te skryf nie. Ons sou dus vandag geen geskrewe bewyse gehad het oor die kernleerstellings rondom Christus se maagdelike geboorte, sy fisieke kruisging, sy fisieke opstanding uit die dood en sy hemelvaart nie. Wat sê die Woord van God — die WAARHEID waarvoor die Here Jesus aarde toe gekom het om ‘n getuienis te wees.

1 Johannes 5: 13 Dit het ek geskrywe aan julle wat glo in die Naam van die Seun van God, sodat julle kan weet dat julle die ewige lewe het en kan glo in die Naam van die Seun van God.

2 Timotheus 3:16 en 17 Die hele Skrif is deur God ingegee en is nuttig tot lering, tot weerlegging, tot teregwysing, tot onderwysing in die geregtigheid, sodat die mens van God volkome kan wees, vir elke goeie werk volkome toegerus.

Dit is die geskrewe Woord, ‘n samevatting van God se leerstellings, wat God se kinders die sekerheid gee dat hulle nou reeds die ewige lewe as ‘n onontneembare werklikheid besit. Dis vir my tog te ironies dat almal, sekerlik ook Stephan Joubert, aanvaar dat ons land se wetgewing en konstitusie as geskrewe dokument bindend en geldend is vir alle burgers, maar sodra diie Woord van God se wetgewing en leerstellings ter sprake kom, kan ons maar daarmee maak wat ons wil. Dit sou voorwaar dom wees om van die land se burgers te verwag om binne die land se konstitusionele ordeningstukture te lewe as dit nie in ‘n algemeen geldende dokument saamgevat was nie. Objektiewe “kopgimnastiek” is miskien nie die uiteindelike doelwit nie maar dit is beslis die beginpunt vir ‘n lewe van gehoorsaamheid aan God en sy leerstellings. Jesus het dan self gesê: “En dit is die ewige lewe, dat hulle U ken, die enige waaragtige God, en Jesus Christus wat U gestuur het”  (Johannes 17: 3). Hoe sou ons ooit vir God en sy Seun leer ken as ons nie hulle leerstellings in ‘n leerstuk (die Bybel) beskikbaar gehad het nie. Maar nouja, wanneer Stephan later sê “Sy Waarheid word geleef, gedoen, gesien, gevoel. Hierdie Waarheid gaan veel meer oor die lewe as oor leerstukke” bedoel hy maar eintlik dat die Bybel nie ‘n geslote kanon is nie, maar dat elkeen se persoonlike spirituele reis, gesprekke (“converstations”) en mistieke ervaringe ‘n bydrae maak tot die voorgesette en voortdurende beskrywing, herskrywing en by-skrywing van die Bybel. Dit is dus ‘n “lewende boek” (“open-ended book”) wat nog nie klaar geskrywe is nie.

The Bible is not considered an accurate, absolute, authoritative, or authoritarian source but a book to be experienced and one experience can be as valid as any other can. Experience, dialogue, feelings, and conversations are equated with Scripture while certitude, authority, and doctrine are to be eschewed! No doctrines are to be absolute and truth or doctrine must be considered only with personal experiences, traditions, historical perspectives, etc. The Bible is not an answer book. (Brian, McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, p. 52.)

EC leader Tony Jones, youth speaker and National Coordinator of Emergent Village, declared, “I am quite convinced that the Bible is a subversive text, that it constantly undermines our assumptions, transgresses our boundaries, and subverts our comforts. This may sound like academic mumbo-jumbo, but I really mean it. I think the Bible is a f***ing scary book (pardon my French, but that’s the only way I know how to convey how strongly I feel about this.)”(Tony Jones, “Why is the Emerging Church drawn to deconstructive theology?, The church and postmodern culture: Conversation website, 3-26-2007.) Lees hier. (Klem bygevoeg)

Tony Jones se uit die hel aangesteekte uitspraak dat die Bybel hulle grense oorskry en hulle gemaksug ondermyn, laat my dink aan Psalm 2

Laat ons hulle bande stukkend ruk en hulle toue van ons afwerp! Hy wat in die hemel woon, lag; die Here spot met hulle. Dan sal Hy hulle aanspreek in sy toorn, en in sy grimmigheid sal Hy hulle verskrik. (Klem bygevoeg)

Het dit nie tyd geword dat Stephan Joubert en sy e-kerk boeties ronduit vir ons sê waar hulle staan t.o.v. sulke sataniese uitlatings nie? Het dit nie tyd geword vir julle om die Ontluikende Kerk leierfigure soos Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, en Leonard Sweet soos manlike mans in die openbaar te repudieer nie  . . . of moet ons aanvaar dat hierdie klomp God-haters se integriteit en aansien vir julle belangriker is as die allerheiligste Naam van Jesus Christus? Beteken julle vriendskap en broederskap met hierdie valse apostels en profete vir julle meer as julle volgeling-verhouding met Jesus Christus? Hoe kan ons aanvaar dat julle waarlik gered is as julle onbeskaamd voortploeter om hulle lof te besing terwyl hulle God die Vader, God die Seun en God die Heilige Gees se ewige en onveranderlike leerstellings in die Bybel bespot? Die Here sê tog uitdruklik in 2 Johannes 9 dat enigiemand wat nie bly in die leer van Christus nie, nie gered is nie, en tog hou jy, Stephan Joubert, en jou boeties nog steeds vol dat hulle ware en tere kinders van die Here is.

Ons sou vandag die ellendigste van mense wees indien God sou versuim om sy leerstellings m.b.t. die wedergeboorte, heiligmaking en die ewige lewe in sy Woord laat opteken het nie. Selfs ook die feit dat die Here Jesus die essensie van waarheid is, sou vir ons onbekend wees indien dit nie as ‘n leerstelling in ‘n teologiese boek soos die Bybel vir ons opgeteken was nie. Waar anders sou Stephan Joubert leer dat die waarheid ‘n persoon is en dat sy Naam Christus is? Jy kan nie ‘n enkele leerstelling soos dat Jesus die eesensie van waarheid is uit ‘n leerstellige boek soos die Bybel aanvaar nie sonder om ook ander leersstellige waarhede, ook uit ‘n teologiese geskrif soos die Bybel, te aanvaar nie. Dis egter tragies dat Stephan nie die rede waarom Christus die waarheid is volledig aanhaal nie. Hy is nie net die essensie van Waarheid nie, maar ook die enigste Weg en die Lewe na God die Vader. Hy is dus die enigste Waarheid omdat Hy terselfdetyd ook die enigste Weg en Lewe na die Vader is. Waarom versnipper Stephan Joubert Johannes 14:6 op so ‘n onvanpaste wyse? Is dit nie miskien omdat hy al in die verlede verklaar het dat daar ook waarhede in ander godsdienste soos die Boeddhisme en selfs in die ateïsme is nie? Wil hy daarmee te kenne gee dat jy Jesus, die essensie van waarheid, ook in ander godsdienste kan vind op voorwaarde dat jy sy essensiële eienskappe soos dat Hy ook die enigste Weg en Lewe is, weglaat?

Die Ontluikende Kerk plaas geweldig baie klem op barmhartigheidswerk, veral onder die armes en die vertotelinge, maar in 2 Timotheus 3: 16 en 17 sien ons baie duidelik dat as jy nie die hele Skrif as ‘n nuttige leerstuk beskou om leuens te weerlê, die afvalliges tereg te wys en hulle in die geregtigheid te onderlê nie, beteken jou goeie werke net mooi niks nie. Dis dan ook om hierdie rede dat die Here Jesus gebid het; “Heilig hulle in U waarheid; U Woord (leerstellige geskrifte) is die waarheid” (Johannes 17: 17). Heiligmaking word dus pertinent deur God se leerstukke in sy Woord bewerkstellig en nie deur goeie werke nie.

Stephan Joubert sê voorts:

Waarheid is nie objektiewe kennis wat in kerklike dokumente of teologiese laaie weggepak is wat mens na willekeur daar kan uithaal en objektief bespreek nie. Waarheid is nie blote kop-gimnastiek nie. Sulke soort waarheid kos jou nie veel nie.

Toegegee, waarheid wat stof in laaie of op rakke versamel beteken ook niks nie. Leerstellige waarhede wat jy alleen in God se Woord kan opdiep, moet in jou daaglikse lewenswandel ‘n werklikheid wees; dit moet jou hele uitkyk op God, jouself, die wêreld en veral ook die onglowiges in ander godsdienste sodanig moduleer dat jy daarna kyk volgens God se perspektiewe en nie jou eie vooropgestelde idees nie. Stephan het nog altyd die noodsaaklikheid en die belang van kosteberekning in die beoefening van die waarheid beklemtoon. Kosteberekning kom daarop neer dat elke Christen stil moet gaan sit om te besluit of hy werklik bereid is om “na Hom te gaan buite die laer om sy smaad te dra.” (Hebreërs 13:13). Wat is hierdie smaad? Christene wat dit hulle erns maak om die Here Jesus te volg al sou dit ook hulle lewens kos, moet verwag om die smaad en die hoon van hulle eie familielede, vriende, kollegas, mede-Christene, en kerkgenote te verduur. Hierdie smaad en hoon word hulle deel, veral wanneer hulle hard stry vir die leerstellings wat eenmaal deur die apostels aan ons oorgelewer is (Judas 1:3). U kan maar verseker weet dat as Jesus Christus wat aarde toe gekom het om vir die waarheid te getuig ter wille van hierdie waarheid gekruisiig is, gaan elkeen wat ook bereid is om vir dieselfde waarheid te getuig ook verguis, vervolg, verneder en selfs doodgemaak word (soos diit tans in baie lande die geval is). Dis die prys wat elke ware volgeling van Jesus besreid moet wees om te betaal.

Ek het eintlik nog nooit hierdie tipe kosteberekening om Jesus se smaad buitekant die laer te verra by Stephan Joubert of enige van sy mede-ontuikende broers gewaar nie. Trouens, van die toonaangewendste leierfigure wat nog steeds in Stephan Joubert se goeie boekies is, sê soms skreiend godddelose dinge sonder dat hy hulle in die openbaar repudieer, teregwys of ten minste so ‘n bietjie reghelp na aanleiding van 2 Timotheus 4: 1-3.

2 Timotheus 4:1-3 Ek besweer jou dan voor God en die Here Jesus Christus, wat die lewende en die dode sal oordeel by sy verskyning en sy koninkryk: ver-kondig die woord; hou aan tydig en ontydig; weerlê, bestraf, vermaan in alle lankmoedigheid en lering; want daar sal ‘n tyd wees wanneer hulle die gesonde leer nie sal verdra nie, maar, omdat hulle in hul gehoor gestreel wil wees, vir hulle ‘n menigte leraars sal versamel volgens hulle eie begeerlikhede, en die oor sal afkeer van die waarheid en hulle sal wend tot fabels. Maar wees jy in alles nugter; ly verdrukking; doen die werk van ‘n evangelis; vervul jou bediening. (Klem bygevoeg).

Indien die Evangelie van Jesus Christus die waarheid is, en ‘n mens sou nogal dink dat dit wel die waarheid is omdat Christus self verklaar het dat die waarheid die mens vrymaak, dan moet Stephan Joubert se ontluikende boeties besig wees om die waarheid te verkondig omdat hulle, volgens Stephan, die Evangelie in die wereld uitdra. Is dit die waarheid? Verkondig hulle werklikwaar die waarheid van die Evangelie. Stephan Joubert dink so.

Rob Bell — ek het hom al sien optree — baie keer. Hy stap op daai verhoog, met sy swart bril en sy weird klere en sy kitaar, maar as hy sy mond oopmaak dan is dit die Evangelie. Dieselfde met Dan Kimball. Ons sit en luister in Amerika, in Los Angeles, laasjaar en soos ek sê hierdie ou het nie een plek, het hy die Skrif oortree nie.  Hy sê “ek glo in die hel, letterlik.” “Ek glo in die opstanding, letterlik.” “Ek glo in die maagdelike geboorte.” “Ek dink homoseksualiteit is verkeerd.” Maar hy word beskou as die leier van die emerging church. Hy lyk net weird . . . . sulke mowhawk hare wat so staan. Dit lyk of daar een of ander, of iets in sy kop ontplof het. Maar dit is mense wat die vraag vra hoe gaan ek die wêreld in 2008, 2009, 2010 vir Jesus bereik? Maar moet ek die kerk transformeer op ’n nuwe manier?

Vir die waarheid om werklik waarheid te kan wees, moet dit onveranderlik, absoluut en onfeilbaar wees. Indien waarheid vandag so en more anders is, d.w.s. as waarheid sommer so goedmoeds aangepas of verander word om nuwe generasies en hulle behoeftes te akkomodeer, kan gister se waarheid hoegenaamd nie meer as die waarheid beskou word nie. Gister se waarheid sou dan nie meer betroubaar wees nie en indien gister se waarheid onbetroubaar is, sal vandag se waarheid oor ‘n klompie jare self ook onbetroubaar wees. Dis die einste rede waarom die ontluikende boeties en sussies voortdurend praat van hulle spirituele reis (“spiritual journey”), ‘n reis waarop hulle voortdurend soek na die waarheid. Brian McLaren sê “We need a new quest” bedoelende dat die ou waarhede uitgedien is.

Hoe dit ookal sy, Stephan Joubert stem blykbaar saam dat die waarheid onveranderlik moet wees want hy sê met oortuiging die volgende:

Maar is die waarheid net proposies, leerstukke en preke? Nee, die waarheid is ‘n persoon. Sy naam is Christus. Sy Waarheid is relasioneel, verhoudings-gedrewe. Sy Waarheid word geleef, gedoen, gesien, gevoel. Hierdie Waarheid gaan veel meer oor die lewe as oor leerstukke. Geen wonder nie dat die eerste volgelinge van Jesus “mense van die Weg” genoem is. Hulle het Waarheid geleef, Jesus se soort. (Klem bygevoeg)

Dit klink baie mooi en suiwer evangelies, maar dis beslis nie die waarheid nie. Christus Jesus het baie meer waarde geheg aan die waarheid van sy Evangelie as aan verhoudingsgedrewe relasies. Trouens Hyself het op ‘n kol baie duidelik gesê:

Moenie dink dat Ek gekom het om vrede op die aarde te bring nie. Ek het nie gekom om vrede te bring nie, maar die swaard. Want Ek het gekom om tweedrag te verwek tussen ‘n man en sy vader, en tussen ‘n dogter en haar moeder, en ‘n skoondogter en haar skoonmoeder. En ‘n mens se huisgenote sal sy vyande wees. Wie vader of moeder bo My liefhet, is My nie waardig nie; en wie seun of dogter bo My liefhet, is My nie waardig nie. (Klem bygevoeg).

Hoor u dit? Om enigiemand wat die Evangelie van Jesus Christus wil her-bedink of –oordink, wil herverwoord en “repaint,” as ware en suiwere evangelieverkondigers te loof en te prys, is nie besig om hulle verhouding met Jesus Christus te bou of te verstewig nie maar is juis besig om hulle verhouding met Hom te vernietig deur hulleself onwaardig te maak. Hulle heg meer waarde aan hulle verhouding met valse sg. evangelieverkondigers as aan Jesus Christus en sy waarheid. Hoe durf hulle dit doen as Jesus Christus self sy waarheid bokant sy eie Naam verhewe het?

Ps 138: 2 I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name!

Indien Jesus Christus die waarheid is, en Hy IS inderdaad die waarheid, dan moet die waarheid ook ewigdurend onveranderlik, onbuigsaam, onfeilbaar en onaantasbaar wees omdat Jesus Christus gister en vandag en tot in alle ewigheid dieselfde is. En tog is Stephan Joubert en sy ontluikende boeties voortdurend besig om die Evangelie (die waarheid van God) te her-oordink (“re-think”), te herverwoord, en te “repaint” (soos Rob Bell dit in sy boek “Velvet Elvis” stel). Die spirituele reis waarop hulle hul begeef maak dat hulle voortdurend dinge verkondig wat hoegenaamd nie met die Woord van God ooreenkom nie. Hoe op deeske aarde kan Stephan Joubert in die openbaar in een van sy preke verklaar dat wanneer Rob Bell sy mond oopmaak dan is dit die Evangelie, as die man God se Woord (dié Woord wat die Evangelie van Jesus Christus bevat) verkleineer? Rob Bell het ‘n besondere lae dunk van die Woord van God. Syns insiens kan niemand met sekerheid sê “Ek ken die Here en sy waarheid” nie. Die beste wat ons kan doen is om inwaarts te keer en te luister na ons innerlike stem. Vir hom is die Bybel te misterieus om volledig verstaan te kan word.

“One of the great ‘theologians’ of our time, Sean Penn, put it this way: ‘When everything gets answered, it’s fake. The mystery is the truth. ”The mystery is the truth” (Velvet Elvis, p. 33).

“Jesus wants to heal our souls, wants to give us the shalom of God. And so we have to stop. We have to slow down. We have to sit still and stare out the window and let the engine come to an idle. We have to listen to what our inner voice is saying.” (Rob Bell: Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith p. 118). (Emphasis added)

Een van die groot teoloë van ons tyd, Sean Penn, het dit so gestel: “Wanneer alles ‘n antwoord het, is dit ‘n namaaksel. Die misterie is die waarheid. “Die misterie is die waarheid.”

Jesus wil ons siele heelmaak, wil ons die shalom van God gee. En daarom moet ons stop. Ons moet ons pas verminder. Ons moet stilsit en by die venster uitstaar en die enjin laat luier. Ons moet luister na wat ons innerlike stem sê.” (Klem bygevoeg)

God sê tog baie duidelik dat “sy goddelike krag ons alles geskenk [het] wat tot die lewe en godsvrug dien, deur die kennis van Hom wat ons geroep het deur sy heerlikheid en deug” (2 Petrus 1:3). Let asseblief daarop dat dit “deur die kennis van Hom” is dat sy kinders in staat gestel word om sy  godsvrug te belewe en uit te lewe. Dis nie iets hier binne-in onsself (die innerlike stem) waarna ons moet luister om die vrede van God en sy siels-helende werking te ervaar nie. Jou innerlike stem of intuitiewe waarneming is met een woord gesê onbetroubaar omdat jou hart bo alles bedrieglik en uiters verdorwe is m.d.g. dat jyself dit nie kan ken nie (Jeremia 17: 9). In weerwil hiervan, suggereer Rob Bell dat jou innerlike stem die medium is waardeur God ons siele wil heelmaak en ons die shalom (vrede) van God wil gee. Dit is niks anders as ‘n ander heils-evangelie nie (wat natuurlik nie, soos Paulus gesê het, bestaan nie – Galasiërs 1:6 en 7). Dit kom daarop neer dat jy jou heil in jouself moet soek deur die enjin so ‘n beitjie te laat “idle” sodat jy na jou innerlike stem kan luister. Is dit nie ironies nie? Rob Bell verruil God se Woord wat absoluut betroubaar is en ten volle aangeneem moet word (2 Timotheus 2:11) vir die “innerlike stem” wat geheel en al onbetroubaar is. Moet ons verbaas wees oor Rob Bell se onbybelse uitlatings? Hoegenaamd nie, veral nie wanneer ons in ag neem wat sy siening rondom die verkondiging en uitdra van die Evangelie van Jesus Christus is nie. Luister ‘n bietjie hierna:

“Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn’t really love, is it? It’s something else. We have to discover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agendas” (Velvet Elvis, p. 167).

Die Christen gemeesnkap het dikwels die boodskap uitgedra dat ons mense liefhet en verhoudings bou met die doel om hulle tot die Christelike geloof te bekeer. Daar is dus ‘n agenda. En wanneer daar ‘n agenda is is dit nie ware liefde nie, is dit? Dis iets anders. Ons moet liefde ontdek, punt. Liefde wat liefhet want dit is wat Jesus ons leer om te doen. Ons moet ons agendas prysgee.

Rob Bell het ‘n volkome skewe siening van wat ware liefde is. Maar, voordat ons sy baanbrekerswaarhede onder die loep neem wat, soos Stephan ons probeer oortuig, die suiwere Evanglie is sodra die man sy mond oopmaak, moet ons eers gaan kyk wat God sê:

2 Korinthiërs 5:11-14 Omdat ons dan die vrees van die Here ken, probeer ons om die mense te oortuig; maar voor God is ons openbaar, en ek hoop om ook in julle gewetens openbaar te wees. Want ons beveel ons nie weer by julle aan nie, maar ons gee julle aanleiding tot roem oor ons, sodat julle iets kan hê teenoor die wat hulle op die uiterlike beroem en nie op die hart nie. Want as ons uitsinnig is, is dit tot eer van God; en as ons by ons verstand is, is dit om julle ontwil. Want die liefde van Christus dring ons. (Klem bygevoeg)

Uit die bg. gedeelte is dit baie duidelik dat Paulus ‘n besondere agenda gehad het en daardie agenda was om mense te probeer oortuig om hulle tot die Here Jesus te bekeer omdat die liefde van Christus hom daartoe gedring het. Dit is uiters belangrik om te weet dat alleenlik diegene wat die vrees van die Here ken se kop reg opgeskroef sal wees om God se agenda van bekering, wederbaring en verlossing aan mense te verkondig. Hulle wat die vrees van die Here nie ken nie sal agendas, insluitende Paulus s’n, prysgee — en dit nogal ter wille van ‘n sg. liefde. Hoedat intelligente en hoogaangeskrewe mense soos Stephan Joubert sulke uitlatings as suiwer envangelie kan beskou, gaan ‘n mens se verstand te bowe. Dink ‘n bietjie daaraan, Rob Bell sê “Ons moet liefde ontdek – liefde wat liefhet want dit is wat Jesus ons leer om te doen.” Van watter Jesus praat hy? Dit kan beslis nie die Jesus van die Bybel wees nie. Paulus sê dat dit nie sy eie liefde is wat hom gedring het om mens met die Evangelie te bereik nie, maar die liefde van Christus (in Hom) wat hom daartoe gedring het. Dis dus ‘n liefde wat jy nie nodig het om nog te ontdek nie of waarvoor jy op ‘n eindelose spirituele reis moet gaan om dit te soek nie. Dis ‘n liefde wat nog altyd daar was omdat Jesus Christus gister en vandag en tot in alle ewigheid onveranderlik dieselfde is. Hy is die essensie van liefde en sy liefde kan jou alleenlik dring wanneer sy liefde in jou hart uitgestort is en dit geskied alleenlik by jou bekering. As jy nog nie tot bekering gekom het nie, sal jy beslis nog nie sy liefde in jou binneste ervaar nie en sal jy noodwendig op ‘n nimmereindigende reis moet gaan om ‘n ander soort “liefde” te ontdek, ‘n liefde wat God se agenda om mense te oortuig om hulle tot Hom te bekeer, eenkant skuiwe. En Stephan Joubert het die vermetelheid om in die openbaar te verklaar dat wanneer Rob Bell sy mond oopmaak, is dit die Evangelie en dat hy ‘n persoon is wat die vraag vra “hoe gaan ek die wêreld in 2008, 2009, 2010 vir Jesus bereik.” Vergeet dit! Hy sal nooit in der ewigheid ‘n enkele persoon vir Christus wen as hy Jesus, Paulus en die ander apostels se agenda om verlore sondaars tot bekering te lei, prysgee nie.

‘n Verkeerde sotereologie lei onomwonde tot ‘n verkeerde siening m.b.t. die ewigheidebestemming van gelowiges en ongelowiges asook ‘n onbybelse benadering tot die regverdige oordele van God. Die liefde wat Rob Bell sê ons moet ontdek, hou verband met sy siening oor die hemel en die hel. Die algemeen aanvaarde vooropstelling wat in baie geestelike kringe geld, is dat ‘n God van liefde nooit enige van sy skepsels ‘n ‘n verskriklike plek soos die hel, sal werp nie. Daarom probeer hulle voortdurend om die hel eerder op ‘n ander plek, soos hier op aarde, te lokaliseer. Rob Bell sê:

“Now if there is a life in heaven, and we can choose it, then there’s also another way. A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live. The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be. We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth.

For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one because he understood that the life beyond this one is a continuation of the kinds of choices we make here and now.

For Jesus, the question wasn’t, how do I get into heaven? But how do I bring heaven here? The question wasn’t, how do I get in there? But how do I get there, here?” (Velvet Elvis, p. 147).

Nou, as daar ‘n lewe in die hemel is, en ons kan dit kies, dan is daar ook ‘n ander weg, ‘n lewensweg wat nie in harmonie is met hoe God ons geskape het om te lewe nie. Die woord hiervoor is hel: a weg, ‘n plek, ‘n gebied waar God se begeertes vir dinge om te wees, afwesig is. Ons kan hemel op aarde bring; ons kan hel op aarde bring.

Vir Jesus was hemel en hel teenswoordige realiteite. Weë wat ons kan betree hier en nou. Hy het baie min oor die lewe anderkant hierdie een gepraat omdat Hy verstaan het dat die lewe anderkant hierdie een ‘n voortsetting is van die soort keuses wat ons hier en nou maak.

Vir Jesus as die vraag nie, hoe kom ek in die hemel? Maar hoe ek hemel hierheen bring? Die vraag was nie, hoe kom ek daar in nie? Maar hoedat ek hier daar uitkom?

Die Here Jesus het op ‘n dag gesê: “Dan sal Hy ook vir dié aan sy linkerhand sê: Gaan weg van My, julle vervloektes, in die ewige vuur wat berei is vir die duiwel en sy engele” (Matteus 25: 41). As ons, soos Stephan Joubert, ons sou oorgee aan die Rob-Bell-hemel-en-hel-evangelie, dan moet ons glo dat die Here Jesus, deur wie alles ontstaan het (Johannes 1:3), so wrintie waar die aarde vir die duiwel en sy engele gemaak het. U sien, sodra ‘n mens sulke Bybel-vreemde opmerkings maak dan val ander gedeeltes in die Woord so gevaarlik uit plek dat dit in ‘n sirkus ontaard. Ja, ek word kwaad en ek het die reg om kwaad te word wanneer ek sien hoedat ons jongmense deur sulke snert mislei en verlei word. Hulle vergeet gerieflikheidshalwe Jesus se woorde in Matteus 18: “ . . . maar elkeen wat een van hierdie kleintjies wat in My glo, laat struikel, dit is vir hom beter dat ‘n meulsteen aan sy nek gehang word en hy wegsink in die diepte van die see.” Rob Bell se heils-evangelie — dié een wat Stephan Joubert die ware Evangelie noem — berus op die soort keuses wat ons hierdie kant van die graf maak. As jy ‘n bietjie dieper delf, sal jy agterkom dat Rob Bell maar eintlik verwys na die Oosterse begrip van goeie en slegte karma.

Weer eens, enigiemand wat elke woord uit Rob Bell se mond as suiwer evangelie beskou, moet óf ‘n klap van die windmeul weghê óf moes reeds so ver van die Here af weggedryf het dat hy nie meer die ware evangelie van ‘n valse een kan onderskei nie. Trouens, die Woord van God waarsku baie ernstig teen die gevaar om al hoe verder en verder van die Here af weg te dryf.

Hebreërs 2:1-4 Daarom moet ons des te meer ag gee op wat ons gehoor het, dat ons nie miskien wegdrywe nie. Want as die woord deur engele gespreek, onwankelbaar was, en elke oortreding en ongehoorsaamheid regverdige vergelding ontvang het, hoe sal ons ontvlug as ons so ‘n groot saligheid veronagsaam wat, nadat dit eers deur die Here verkondig is, aan ons bevestig is deur die wat dit gehoor het, terwyl God ook nog saam getuig het deur tekens en wonders en allerhande kragtige dade en bedélinge van die Heilige Gees volgens sy wil?

Rob Bell dryf soms openlik die spot met die Evangelie van Jesus Christus. Hy skryf onder andere:

“The presentation often begins with sin and the condition of human beings, separated from God and without hope in the world. God then came up with a way to fix the problem by sending Jesus, who came to the world to give us a way out of the mess we find ourselves in. So if we were to draw a continuum of the story of the Bible, Jesus essentially shows up late in the game” (Velvet Elvis, p. 82).

Die aanbieding begin dikwels met sonde en die toestand van mense, geskei van God sonder hoop in die wêreld. God het toe met ‘n manier vorendag gekom deur Jesus te stuur wat na die wêreld gekom het om vir ons ‘n manier uit die gemors waarin ons ons bevind, te gee. As ons dus ‘n konrtinuüm van die verhaal van die Bybel moet deurtrek, dan het Jesus essensiëel laat in die spel opgedaag.

Volgens Rob Bell is God so ‘n bietjie onkant betrap deur die sondeval van die mens en het eers heelwat later in die konrtinuüm van die verhaal van die Bybel besluit om sy Seun te stuur, in die eerste plek nie om vir ons sondes aan die kruis te betaal nie maar om vir ons ‘n nuwe visie te gee omtrent die lewe wat ons met mekaar moet deel en om ons ‘n beter weg aan te dui vir die wêreld waarin ons lewe.

I’m part of this global, historic stream of people who believe that God has not left us alone but has been involved in human history from the beginning. People who believe that in Jesus, God came among us in a unique and powerful way, showing us a new kind of life. Giving each of us a new vision for our life together, for the world we live in” (Velvet Elvis, p. 12).

Ek is deel van hierdie globale, historiese stroom van mense wat glo dat God ons nie alleen gelaat het nie maar van die begin af betrokke was in die mens se geskiedenis. Mense wat glo dat God in Jesus op ‘n unieke en kragtige wyse onder ons kom woon het om ‘n nuwe soort lewe vir ons aan te dui, wat elkeen van ons ‘n nuwe visie vir ons lewens saam en vir die wêreld waarin ons lewe, te gee.

Die sg. herbeskildering van die Evangelie is nie om dowe neute nie. Die hele doel daaragter is om die mensdom en veral die vervalle Christendom voor te berei vir ‘n “Christus” wat ons ‘n nuwe visie sal gee om te leer hoe om met mekaar in vrede en harmonie saam te lewe en om die pad vorentoe vir ons aan te dui.

WHO IS THE CHRIST?

Throughout history, humanity’s evolution has been guided by a group of enlightened men, the Masters of Wisdom. They have remained largely in the remote desert and mountain places of earth, working mainly through their disciples who live openly in the world. This message of the Christ’s reappearance has been given primarily by such a disciple trained for his task for over 20 years.

At the centre of this Spiritual Hierrarchy stands the World Teacher, Lord Maitreya, known by Christians as the Christ. And as Christians await the Second Coming, so the Jews await the Messiah, the Bhuddists the fifth Buddha, the Moslims the Imam Mahdi, and the Hindus await Krishna. These are all names for one individual.

His presence in the world guarantees there will be no Third World War.

WHAT IS HE SAYING?

My task will be to show you how to live together peacefully as brothers. This is simpler than you imagine, My friends, for it requires only the acceptance of sharing.

How can you be content with the modes within which you now live: when millions starve and die in squalor; when the rich parade their wealth before the poor; when each man is his neighbor’s enemy; when no man trusts his brother?

Allow me to show you the way forward into a simpler life where no man lacks; where no two are alike; where the Joy of Brotherhood manifests through all men.

Take your brother’s needs as the measure of your action and solve the problems of the world.

WIE IS DIE CHIRSTUS?

Die mens se evolusie is dwardeur die geskiedenis deur ‘n groep verligte mans, die Meesters van Wysheid, gebaan. Hulle het hoofsaaklik in die verafgeleë woestyn en bergstreke van die aarde gebly en werk grotendeels deur hulle dissipels wat openlik in die wêreld woon. Hierdie boodskap van die Christus se herverskyning word hoofsaaklik deur so ‘n dissipel wat vir meer as 20 jaar opgelei is vir sy taak, uitgedra.

In die senter van hierdie Spiriutele Hiërargie staan die Wêreldleermeester, Heer Maitreya, wat vir die Christene bekend staan as die Christus. En soos die Christene wat wag vir sy Tweede Koms, so wag die Jode vir die Messias, die Boeddhiste vir die vyfde Boeddha, die Moslems vir die Imam Mahdi, en die Hindoes vir die Krishna. Dit is almal name van een persoon.

Sy teenwoordigheid in die wêreld waarborg dat daar nie ‘n Derde Wêreldoorlog sal wees nie.

WAT Sê HY?

My taak sal wees om julle te wys hoe om as broers saam in vrede te lewe. Dit is eenvoudiger as wat julle dink, My vriende, want dit verg maar net ‘n bereidwilligheid om mededeelsaam te wees.

Hoe kan julle tevrede wees met die maniere waarop julle nou lewe: wanneer miljoene honger lei en in ellende sterwe; wanneer die rykes hulle rykdom voor die armes paradeer; wanneer elke persoon sy naaste se vyand is; wanneer niemand sy broer vertrou nie?

Laat my toe om vir julle die weg vorentoe aan te dui na ‘n eenvoudiger lewe waar niemand gebrek lei nie; waar niemand dieselfde sal wees nie; waar die Vreugde van Broederskap deur alle mense gemanifesteer sal word.

Neem jou broer se behoeftes as die maat vir jou aksie en los so die probleme van die wêreld op.

Die bg. volblad advertensie het op Saterdag, 24 April 1982 in die Rand Daily Mail en in koerante dwarsoor die wêreld verskyn. Sedertdien is die Maitreya se dissipels verwoed besig om sy boodskap in die hele wêreld uit te dra. Die naam Christus (Gesalfde Een) moet noodwendig van al sy unieke karaktereinskappe gestroop word om aan te pas by die valse Christus (anti-Chris) wat sal kom om die wêreld onder Satan se heerskappy te bring. Om dit te kan doen moet die Evangelie van Christus natuurlik ook herbedink en herverwoord word om in te pas by die Antichris se doelwitte. Hierdie valse Christus kan hoegenaamd nie sondes vergewe nie en ook nie die ewige lewe in die hemel aan jou voorsien nie; al wat hy vir jou kan doen is om ‘n visie vir ‘n nuwe lewe hier en nou op aarde te verskaf, waarin die ganse mensdom saam onder een spirituele sambreel as broers en susters in vrede en liefde saam verkeer — en om dan te sê “DIE KONINKRYK VAN GOD HET UITEINDELIK HIER EN NOU OP AARDE GEKOM.”

Dit is dan ook een van die hoofredes waarom kennis en insig as sodanig uitgefaseer moet word want die Satan weet baie goed dat ‘n gebrek daaraan die Here se volk ten gronde rig (Hosea 4: 6), en daarom word daar voortdrend vir hulle gesê: “Julle kan die waarheid nie ken nie en daarom moet ons saam daarna soek op ons gesamentlike spirituele reis.” Daar is hoofsaaklik twee duidelike raakpunte in die doelstellings van die Ontluikende Kerk en dié van die sg. Maitreya – hulle wil die armes, die onderdruktes en die vertraptes se lewenspeil ophef en verbeter (wat natuurlik ‘n baie mooi en deugsame ding is) en hulle wil die Koninkryk van God hier en nou op aarde vestig (wat natuurlik ook ‘n baie mooi en deurgsame ding  blyk te wees).  Daar is egter een probleem hiermee: hulle wil dit doen deur die waarheid soos ons dit in die Woord van God opgeteken vind (sy leerstellings, doktrines of dogmas) “repaint,” en “rethink,” sodat dit nie meer langer ‘n beskrywing moet wees van Jesus Christus, die essensie van Waarheid, die Weg en die Lewe, nie maar van ‘n ander Christus wie se taak dit is om vir ons te wys watter pad ons moet loop op ons nimmereindigende spirituele reis sodat absolute waarheid geneutraliseer kan word en ons as broers en susters kan saamlewe (wat natuurlik ook ‘n baie mooi en deugsame ding blyk te wees).

2 Johannes 9-11 Elkeen wat ‘n oortreder is en nie bly in die leer van Christus nie, hy het God nie. Wie in die leer van Christus bly, hy het die Vader sowel as die Seun. As iemand na julle kom en hierdie leer nie bring nie, ontvang hom nie in die huis nie en groet hom nie.  Want die een wat hom groet, het gemeenskap aan sy bose werke.

Let Us Reason Ministries skryf as volg:

The attitude of liberalism is strong in the Emergent church as they try to reshape Christianity into something different. Experience is held above doctrine which is straight out of the New Age movement’s handbook. New age promoter the late Marilyn Ferguson wrote The Aquarian Conspiracy stating, “The radical Center of spiritual experience seems to be knowing without doctrine … the teacher does not impart knowledge but technique. This is the ‘transmission of knowledge by direct experience.’ Doctrine on the other hand, is second-hand knowledge, a danger” (Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy pp. 371, 377.)

(E)merging into a plural spirituality

Since it’s inception in 1893 the Parliament of the World’s Religions has been involved in creating a global dialogue between all faiths. Its overriding purpose is to quell every conceivable kind of fanaticism, bigotry, Sectarianism and fundamentalism in order to foster harmony, peace and compassion between all the religions of the world. Their point of departure in achieving their goal is their assumption that religion is generally considered to be the main culprit in starting wars, inculcating violence and causing the despair most individuals and even whole nations experience in their everyday lives. They truly believe that in their efforts to neutralize fundamentalist doctrines for the sake of better relationships and to subdue enmity between religious groups, they can bring peace on earth.

The first Parliament of the World’s Religions was held in Chicago in 1893. On that occasion it was not an isolated event but formed part of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The world-wide interest in this event was so huge that the organisers decided to schedule smaller conferences, called Congresses and Parliaments. The Parliament of the World’s Religions which ran from September 11 to September 27 turned out to be the biggest success, not only in its attendance but because it hosted representatives from both the Western and Eastern spiritual traditions for the very first time. Rudyard Kipling’s well-known lament “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” would be cast to the wind for evermore. One of the speakers was Anagarika Dharmapala who represented Southern Buddhism, the term which was then applied to Theravada Buddhism. Please make a mental note of the word Theravada as it shows to what degree the Parliament of the World’s Religions has influenced many well-known ecclesiastical leaders’ thinking and re-thinking processes in our post-modern society.

While reading one my sisters in the Lord’s e-mails I became aware that Christians need to become more aware of the terms and vocabulary the leaders within the ranks of the Emergent Church use when they communicate with one another on their websites and blogs. You’d be surprised to find how many words they’ve borrowed from Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism and the New Age. The most astounding thing, however, is to see how skilfully they intertwine these terms with biblical words in an attempt to bridge the gap as it were between Christianity and various other religions, particularly Buddhism. On his website “Velocityculture Learnings” Ron Martoia seems to be doing just that.

To get a clear picture of the “engine,” if you will, that propels the Emergent Church’s ideals to foster love, compassion, selfless servitude, charity amongst the poor and the destitute and a tireless effort to usher in the “Kingdom of God” here and now, we first need to stimulate our awareness in regard to the meaning of “SELF,” a concept that pops up in all the religions, and especially the Christian faith and Buddhism. Incidentally, it is very interesting to note that the prayer of “Thanksgiving for the World’s Religions” [1] offers “Thanks and praise for our Buddhist sisters and brothers for their peace and relinquishing of self.” This alone emphatically underscores the reasons why many “Christians”  endeavour to find tangent points and “similarities” between the Christian faith and Buddhism. It is on record that Stephan Joubert, in good faith with Rob Bell, has publically declared in one of his sermons that the Christian faith does not have a monopoly on the truth but that other religions such as Buddhism also faithfully cradle the truth.

It is widely accepted that the teaching on the nature of ‘SELF” is central to the religion of Buddhism and although it is one of the most difficult to understand the doctrine of “fully perceiving the nature of the self” cannot be separated from the achievement of “enlightenment.” It is not my intention to wander off into an in depth dissertation or critique on the Buddha’ teachings with regard the Five Skandhas [2] and its bearing on his belief concerning “No-Self” or “Non-self.” A google search on the internet will guide you into the highly esoteric world of Buddhism. Suffice is to say that the Buddha taught that the “self” or in layman’s terms “the essence of you” are not an integral, autonomous entity. The individual “self,” commonly known as the “ego,” is more correctly thought of as a by-product of the skandhas. The doctrine of “No-Self” may be seen by some as a nihilistic teaching. However, the “No-Self” in Buddhism, amounts more to an overcoming of the delusion of the individual “self” so that we may experience that which is not subject to birth and death.

My main concern in this comment is with Theravada Buddhism, or Southern Buddhism as it is sometimes called, which seems to have inspired Ron Martoia to blend together“insight meditation” and Saint Paul’s teachings on the carnal nature (“ego”) of man. “Insight meditation” or Vispassana as it is known in Buddhism means to gain insight into the nature of reality. In the Theravada Buddhist tradition three dhamma seals are identiified: Annica or imparmanence which states that everything is in a constant state of flux and also that nothing that exists ever ceases to exist; Dukkha or “unsatifactoriness” (dis-ease) which means that nothing in the physical or psychological realm can give man satisfaction or peace; Anatta or “Non-Self” (“No-Self”) This, as I said said earlier, is one of the core teachings of Buddhism. In contrast to the biblical view that man is a living soul (each individual having his/her own unique ego, self-will or free-will, personality, emotions), Buddhism asserts that there is no “self” as something permanent in the individual. According to the Theravada what we term as the “self,” personality or “ego” is nothing but the illusionary or delusionary outcome or product of the five skandhas and the way to overcome this delusion of “self” which in reality is “non-self” or no-self is through “insight meditation” or Vispassana. The ultimate goal thereof is to attain Nirvana, which is often added as a fourth dhamma. It is believed that the three dammas, together with the fourth dhamma, can be brought to a moment-by-moment experience through concentrated awareness which in turn leads to the achievement of wisdom (Gnosticism) and ultimately enlightenment. In short, enlightenment is an escape from samsara into a state of unspeakable bliss. The Theravada tradition in Buddhism believes that every individual can reach Nirvana (enlightenment) and become an arhat (sometimes called an arahant), which means a worthy one, through his/her own efforts without the external help of a god or gods or any outside forces. The primary means to attain Nirvana or enlightenment (the escape from the cycle of birth and death, i.e. incarnation) is through Vispassana meditation or “insight meditation”’ which simply means to change your world-view.

I must once again emphasize that this is in direct opposition to the biblical view of the “self” that needs to be denied and crucified daily in order to enjoy the abundant life Jesus Christ promised every newly-born child of God. Those of you who have been confronted with New Age teachings in your church and especially in the Emergent Church will have realized by now that the new emerging spirituality must at all cost rethink, re-invent, revamp, and re-interpret the core doctrines of Christianity or at least bring them on par with other religions that supposedly also cradle the truth. With this in mind, I would now like to invite you to evaluate with me Ron Martoia’s so-called ATTENTION/AWARENESS, which is also called insight meditation or witness awareness as he terms is. He begins his comment “Insight Mediation….Witness Awareness” with the following remark.

One of the great tools in ATTENTION/AWARENESS development (and this is very vertical) is what is called insight meditation or witness awareness.  This is essentially being able to watch yourself and your thoughts arising with nonjudgmental viewing.  Non-judgmental because judgment causes us to push stuff we need to be aware of into our shadow egoic selves.  We hide this from our view because we don’t like what we see and when that happens our ability to attend to it ceases. We have not done much in the Christian world to address this issue of shadow. (Emphasis added)

Please pay close ATTENTION to his use of the term “shadow egoic selves” and his suggestion that Christians should be doing much more in the Christian world to address the issue of shadow. The “shadow egoic self” is just another way of describing the Buddhist concept of “No-self” or “Non-self,” the delusionary or illusionary product of the so-called five skandhas. The “shadow egoic self” says Martoia, is the spot where we put the stuff we don’t like, causing us to lose our ability to attend to those things. By pushing those things of which we are being judgmental into the shadow egoic self (No-self” or “Non-self) we are actually feeding and boosting the “ego” which is but a delusion in the Buddhist world. The ultimate goal or purpose is to achieve like-mindedness without the distractions of a judgmental mindset which in turn can only be achieved by means of the setting aside of sound doctrine. This is how Ron Martoia articulated Paul’s ruling on how to overcome the “ego” or the patterns of the flesh, as he refers to it:

To use more Pauline biblical language, we have to learn to observe the patterns of the flesh, to step outside of ourselves with enough consistency we can observe the ways we are responding to the world around us. Formation of this sort starts in our heads…to be transformed by our minds being renewed (Romans 12.1-2). This IS NOT an injunction by Paul to go read a bunch of bible verses contrary to how this is often preached. This could not be what Paul had in mind.

The individual believers in Rome didn’t have a pocket or nightstand copy of the bible for individual usage. He had to mean something more like becoming aware of what is going on inside your head space.

The Christians in Rome had no need of a pocket or nightstand copy of the Bible to understand Paul’s earnest plea to present their bodies as a living sacrifice to God. I would have thought that someone as intelligent as Ron Martoia would at least have known that Paul was referring to the Old Testament sacrifices with which, of course, they were well acquainted. However, in stead of a dead sacrifice, like those in the Old Testament that could only be offered once and no more, he urged them to present themselves as perpetual living sacrifices in the service of God; the kind  of sacrifice Paul beseeched them to offer was to devote their entire lives to God as if they no longer had any claim on themselves and to accept everything God may have appointed or allowed to happen in their lives — sufferings, hardships, tribulations — with fortitude. In order to do this their minds needed to be transformed, not necessarily through a pocket or nightstand copy of the Bible, but by a steadfast will so as not to become conformed to the world, i.e. by not acting, talking, waking and thinking as the unbelieving worldlings were doing. The biblical adage “As a man thinks, so is he” applies here and by having your mind changed by the inner work of the Holy Spirit you will be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ. Paul is simply saying that they should not only present their bodies but also their intellect (sound and fully alert minds) to the service of God. This is a far cry from any form of meditation, including “insight meditation” that requires the mind to reach a “no-mind” or completely passive state so that you may attain a non-judgemental euphoria of like-mindedness with everyone you may want to enter into a conversation with — even those who adhere to other religions. This is exactly why someone like Stephan Joubert, who is an avid admirer of Ron Martoia, can say something so absolutely unbiblical as the following:

It [the Emergent Church] involves people who have a passion to say [that] the world and its culture in our generation need to be won back to Christ. And therefore I am not going to criticise their culture but I’m going to engage it. Therefore, I’m not going to take on their spirituality and postulate my truths. I’m going to listen to what they have to say because I can prove [to them] the truth ad infinitum as I did in the 1960’s, and I can debate with a Buddhist or a Hindu and sit there with them and say ‘here is my truth, here are my stuff.’ But now as an Emerging Church guy I will say [to them], let us listen . . . I’m not going to try and change you but you also have the right to hear how I feel and I’m not going to make any excuses for who I am. I’m not going to force my religion down your throat.

Stephan Joubert may just as well have said to Jesus Christ.

I refuse to obey your command to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations and to teach them to observe everything you commanded me. Nevertheless, I will sit down with them in an interfaith environment and cheerfully listen to what their religions teach, not for the purpose of becoming one of them but to prove to them that I respect the truths their faiths uphold. I’m not going to force my truths down their throat.

I can agree that Stephan should not postulate or force his truths down other peoples’ throats but I sincerely disagree that he should withhold God’s truths from people of other faiths. God is going to say to him.

Ezekiel 3:18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. (Emphasis added)

Christians may probably think that the term “witness awareness” is something unique to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that it encourages the disciples of Jesus to be continually aware of their divinely ordained duty to be effective witnesses for Him. Not so! . . . It pops up ever so frequently in New Age jargon as well. The following explanation of what meditation is, appears on Chris Sadhuta Liaguno’s website.

Meditation is the art of being in the present moment, commonly related as a ‘no-mind’ state – where your thoughts and feelings cease to be the primary focus and your soul consciousness takes it’s righful place as the foremost awareness. This is also known by mystics as being the ‘witness’ of the world, or ‘being in the world and not of the world’, where curiosity and acceptance reign instead of judgement and interpretation.

In our ‘normal’ waking consciousness, typically our thoughts, feelings and body cravings take precedence over our soul’s awareness. There are specific techniques from various spiritual disciplines throughout the world which will enable the seeker to achieve a meditative state of awareness, however, when we take the time to allow ourselves to become fully engaged, fully present in any undertaking, the conscious, peaceful state associated with meditation becomes our every waking moment.

(The following excerpt is taken from “Your Book of Life: Accessing the Akashic Records” by Gary Bonnell, page 19. Full bibliography information is given in the Booklist/Resources section of this website.) The more an individual is capable of releasing his or her investment in the world of form, the more able they will be to enter the non-distracting state of Witness awareness. As Consciousness plays in the physical body it produces waves of rhythmic electrical impulses within the nerve centers of the brain and spinal cord. The frequency of these brain waves have been correlated with certain states of Consciousness. (Emphasis added)

“Witness awareness” may be summed up as a state of mind (the so-called “no-mind”) you attain through amongst others insight meditation (Buddhist Vispassana) in order to free your critical cognitive senses (which enables you to discern between right and wrong) from judgement and interpretation so that curiosity (the art of stimulating“conversational dialogue” and to listen to others without judging them) and acceptance may govern your “witness.”  Ron Martoia, as we’ve seen from the quote above, says that “This is essentially being able to watch yourself and your thoughts arising with non-judgemental viewing. This is in direct conflict with the teaching of the Bible:

1 Corinthians 2:15 But the spiritual man tries all things [he examines, investigates, inquires into, questions, and discerns all things], yet is himself to be put on trial and judged by no one [he can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him].

I have often wondered how some of our most revered South African clergy can speak so highly of Emergent Church leaders like Leonard Sweet, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Ron Martoia  and many others who openly and unashamedly say things on public platforms and the internet that contradict the Word of God. I marvel even more when they defend their heresies by claiming that they are truly blood-washed followers of Jesus Christ. Serious condemnations such as the following in the Word of God don’t seem to bother them at all.

Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

They all have apparently been so deeply enthralled by “witness awareness” meditation, contemplative and centering prayer as well as the so-called “silence” and other meditation techniques, (which allegedly endow them with a humble and non-judgmental “no-mind” attitude), that they have willingly abdicated any vestiges of discernment they may have had in the past in favour of a mindless and euphoric acceptance of everything that is anti-God, anti-Christ and anti-Bible. In fact, they seem to be happy people who love one another very dearly despite all the things they may say and think (re-think) about God and his Word. Whenever you confront them with God’s Word they do not see it as a necessary exhortation but as an outright judgment and retaliate by “non-judgmentally” accusing you of fundamentalism, condescendence, spiritual bigotry, sectarianism and exclusivism. Some of them even go so far by labeling you an agent of the devil (Now that’s what I call a “non-egoic-shadow-self-non-judgmental-attitude” because in stead of pushing the person whom he does not like into his egoic shadow self, he has dealt with him severely by calling him an agent of the devil). Indeed, they have developed and fine-tuned “non-judgmental judgment” into an art that transcends all other judgmental attitudes and wreaks of fundamentalism. In fact, they have merely replaced their judgemental fundamentalism with their own non-judgmental fundamentalism. Stephan Joubert’s comments on their e-church site is replete with non-judgemental remarks  about the institutionalized churches.

In taking a closer look at all the meditation techniques the Emergent leaders pursue and practice, it becomes evident that they have bought into nothing else but a cultic form of mind control. Any technique or method (including hypnotism, slain-in-the-spirit, and all forms of meditation) utilized to eliminate your god-given free-will that enables you to critically appraise things in order to either accept or reject them, amounts to mind control. I recently read a very  moving testimony of Jennifer Porter, an ex fashion model who joined the ICC (International Church of Christ) after she had had a genuine and biblically grounded born-again experience. She was a fashion-model in Europe when the Lord convinced her that she desperately needed Him to be her Saviour. Like so many young converts whose lack of discernment in their spiritual toddler years make them easy prey for cultic movements and churches, she got caught up in the ICC (International Church of God). Her parents became very concerned about her involvement with the church who abused their members psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. They thoroughly researched the ICC before they made any attempt to intervene and try to win back their daughter out of an environment that consumed her time and energy. During her vacation in January 1999 her parents invited a few ex members of the ICC and a minister to speak to her over a weekend. At first she was disappointed with her parents and very angry because they had invited them but consented to listen to hem. Gradually she realized that what they related to her proved beyond any doubt that the church was cultic in nature. She was above all unhappy with the way they mishandled the doctrine of salvation and she couldn’t get to grips with their belief that they were “the one true church” which incidentally is one of the main traits of a cult.  It was very painful for her when she decided to leave the church because she had made many good friends over the years. Nonetheless, she wanted to obey God regardless of the consequences. She eventually wrote a letter to her friends in the church.

Being the writer that I am, I spent late nights at Wellspring writing down everything I learned. I started writing a short letter to my friends in the ICC, with the intention of helping them see the Biblical issues that were being violated in the church. I learned so much and had such a fever to express it that the letter grew and grew.

I wanted to talk to the other women I had converted but they were staying at the leaders’ houses, and the leaders had told them that I was deceived, not a true disciple, and not to talk to me. I copied my letter and passed it out to the people I loved, delivering it to the leaders’ houses last. It felt like I was being chopped in two. I loved the people so dearly that it killed me to leave the church, but my hands were tied; the Word was being manipulated and I loved God and the integrity of His Word more than I loved them.

The reason why I included Jennifer Porter’s testimony in my comment is to show you how easy it is to be deceived. Had she not honoured God’s Word and his doctrines above her friends and fellow church members she would probably have fallen deeper into deception. We are living in exceedingly difficult times and in some cases choices have to be made which most Christians would probably prefer to ignore if it were possible. However, a Christian’s allegiance to Jesus Christ and his Word must inevitably lead to enmity in his or her own family circle and sometimes even their churches. Jesus said:

Matthew 10:34-39 Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

The Emergents hardly ever fight the good fight for the faith that was once delivered to us by the apostles. They seem to be more concerned about the status and integrity of their fellow-emergents than the Word of God, despite the many weird things they often say in public about Jesus Christ and his Gospel, redemption and the Kingdom of God. For them the integrity of the Gospel and the unadulterated preaching thereof is less important because the quoting thereof fosters a judgemental attitude.

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[1] From the book “All in Good Faith: A Resource Book for Multi-Faith prayer” by Jean Potter and Marcus Braybrooke, that was used during the 1999 “Parliament of the World’s Religions” in Cape Town.

[2] Skandha is the Sanskrit word for “heap” of “aggregate.” The Buddha taught that every individual is a combination of five aggregates, viz. form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness.

Seeking and finding new havens of error and deceit

We all know the idiom: “Out of the frying pan into the fire” which simply means, If you get out of one problem, but find yourself in a worse situation, you are out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Since the release of the Sarel van der Merwe’s DVD “Nuwe Strominge in die Teologie” in which he revealed the heresies and false doctrines taught at the DRC’s Theological Faculty in Pretoria (PU), many Christians have become disillusioned with the Dutch Reformed Church. Many have abandoned their “mother church” and are seeking new havens in other churches. Unfortunately they have become so captivated by the friendliness, warmth and congeniality of the members of other churches that they  are inadvertently caught up in other and sometimes worse heresies and false doctrines without realizing it. No wonder the Bible warns:

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

A Church that is heartily enthused by the confusion in the DRC and other non-Adventist churches, and who is passionately and actively involved in making proselytes, is the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Their leaders are avidly and vigorously pointing out the errors and deception in all the mainline Christian churches because they believe that people ought to leave non-Adventist churches and join the SDA Church in order to be saved and also because Jesus Christ does not intercede for non-Adventists. In May 2002 SDA General Conference President Jan Paulsen delivered a speech to gathered SDA Church leaders in which he made the following remarks:

“ . . . we believe that being Seventh-day Adventists has direct bearing on our salvation; . . . I would risk my whole spiritual life and salvation were I to leave what I am now and join any other community.”

Their revered prophetess Ellen Gould White (November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) wrote as follows:

“I saw that God has honest children among the nominal Adventists and the fallen churches, and before the plagues shall be poured out, ministers and people will be called out from these churches and will gladly receive the truth….But the light will shine, and all who are honest will leave the fallen churches, and take their stand with the remnant”. Early Writings, p 261.  (The remnant being in the SDA Church of course).

“I saw that as the Jews crucified Jesus, so the nominal churches had crucified these messages [of the Investigative Judgment], and therefore they have no knowledge of the way into the most holy, and they cannot be benefited [sic] by the intercession of Jesus there. Like the Jews who offered their useless sacrifices, they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus has left; and Satan, pleased with the deception, assumes a religious character, and leads the minds of these professed Christians to himself…” Early Writings. p. 261

The doctrine of The Investigative Judgment espouses the belief that Christians’ sins are not yet fully forgiven and that they are still counted as guilty before God until proven worthy of complete forgiveness by their good works. Indeed, Mrs. White taught that a believer’s sins are not yet blotted out or forgiven: they are merely pardoned. She taught that one’s eternal destiny will be ultimately determined by a weighing of a believer’s good works and bad works when their name comes up in the Investigative Judgment.

“Sins that have not been repented of and forsaken will not be pardoned and blotted out of the books of record, but will stand to witness against the sinner in the day of God”. The Great Controversy, p. 486.

“The work of the investigative judgment and the blotting out of sin is to be accomplished before the second advent of our Lord” The Great Controversy, p. 485

Paul wrote with great conviction and certainty:

Col 2:13-14 And you who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (your sensuality, your sinful carnal nature), [God] brought to life together with [Christ], having [freely] forgiven us all our transgressions, Having cancelled and blotted out and wiped away the handwriting of the note (bond) with its legal decrees and demands which was in force and stood against us (hostile to us). This [note with its regulations, decrees, and demands] He set aside and cleared completely out of our way by nailing it to [His] cross.

Even those sins you and I have not as yet committed are all atoned for completely. Does that mean that we have a lease on sin and that we should keep on sinning? No! absolutely not, but if we audaciously believe that we can no longer sin we do not have the truth as an abiding reality in us (1 John 1:8). And yet, strange as it may seem, the Seventh Day Adventists believe that you can be sinless.

“Those only who through faith in Christ obey all of God’s commandments will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam Iived before his transgression”. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1118

“In order to let Jesus into our hearts, we must stop sinning.” Signs of the Times, March 3. 1898

“To be redeemed means to cease from sin.” Review & Herald, September 25, 1900

Who is the liar? — Jesus Christ who inspired Paul of Tarsus to write “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:33-39) or the false prophetess, Ellen G. White? If Christians were to be convicted, judged and sentenced for every unrepentant sin, who is going to stand guiltless before God? David cried out:

Psalm 130: 3 If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat [us according to our] sins, O Lord, who could stand?

How could Ellen G. White and all the subsequent leadership members of the SDA Church ever have known that they had confessed and repented of every sin in thought, word and action? How can today’s leaders and members of the SDA Church ever know that they have confessed and repented of every single sin in thought, word and action? Yes! of course it is possible to repent of your sins in bulk such as the publican who merely cried out: “Oh God be merciful to me a sinner” and was declared righteous by God, but it is quite impossible to remember every single sin you had done in thought, word and action in the past. A belief such as this can only lead to a doctrine of uncertainty with regard to one’s salvation and indeed, it is exactly what the SDA Church teaches.

In Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 155, (1900 edition), Mrs. White states,

“Those who accept Christ, and in their first confidence say, I am saved, are in danger of trusting to themselves . . . Those who accept the Savior, however sincere their conversion; should never be taught to say or feel that they are saved. This is misleading“.

“No sanctified tongue will be found uttering these words ['I am saved'] till Christ shall come, and we enter in through the gates into the city of God…As long as man is full of weakness; for of himself he cannot save his soul; he should never dare to say, ‘I am saved”. Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 314.

What does God’s Word say?

1 John 5:9-13 If we accept [as we do] the testimony of men [if we are willing to take human authority], the testimony of God is greater (of stronger authority), for this is the testimony of God, even the witness which He has borne regarding His Son. He who believes in the Son of God [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Him] has the testimony possesses this divine attestation] within himself. He who does not believe God [in this way] has made Him out to be and represented Him as a liar, because he has not believed (put his faith in, adhered to, and relied on) the evidence (the testimony) that God has borne regarding His Son. And this is that testimony (that evidence): God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who possesses the Son has that life; he who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life. I write this to you who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) the name of the Son of God [in the peculiar services and blessings conferred by Him on men], so that you may know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that you [already] have life, yes, eternal life.

Once again, who is the liar here? — Almighty God who cannot lie or the greatly revered prophetess of the SDA Church, Ellen G. White?

Perhaps you’ve noticed how utterly confusing the SDA Church doctrines are. They assert that no one can know of a certainty that they are saved until Christ returns and yet they confirm that you can be sinless. In the same breath they also say that the sins of a Christian are not yet forgiven and that they are still on record before God. Does being allegedly sinless make you a perfect candidate for heaven? How on earth can you trust a church that changes faith into a kind of ping-pong game in which the rules are changed without any ado? The confusion does not end here. There are more and even worse heresies in the SDA Church. Perhaps you would care to ponder the following grossly unbiblical doctrines of the SDA Church.

The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross was not the final atonement

“Now while our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become perfect in Christ.” The Great Controversy, p 623.

“. . . Instead of coming to the earth at the termination of the 2300 days in 1844, Christ then entered the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary to perform the closing work of atonement preparatory to His coming”. The Great Controversy, p. 422

“Instead of the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 referring to the purifying of the earth, it was now plain that it pointed to the closing work of our High Priest in heaven, the finishing of the atonement . . . Testimonies for the Church. vol. 1. p. 58

As you can see this particular doctrine is linked to the year 1844. It concerns a false prophecy by the Millerite Adventist, William Miller, who predicted that Jesus Christ’s Second Coming would occur on October 22, 1844. When that never happened, Hiram Edison amongst others, deftly changed the prophecy by claiming that Daniel 8:14 did not refer to Christ’s Second Coming but His entry into the Holy of Holies of the heavenly sanctuary. This convenient new interpretation was adopted by Ellen G. White who later said:

“The scripture which above all others had been both the foundation and the central pillar of the advent faith, was the declaration, ‘Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.’” (quoting Daniel 8:14) (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p409, 1888. See also her later statement, “The correct understanding of the ministration in the heavenly sanctuary is the foundation of our faith.” White, Evangelism, p. 221. As cited by Cottrell)

One of the core doctrines of the SDA Church, known as the central pillar of the Advent faith, is therefore based on a false prophecy that was cleverly changed to cover up the so-called Great Disappointment. This was not the only false prophecy made in the ranks of the SDA Church. Ellen G. White made several more false prophecies among others that many Adventists living in 1856 would see the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.

Over 135 years ago, Mrs. White made another fascinating prophecy during a meeting in Battle Creek, Michigan in May of 1856. She declared that some of those who were in that meeting would die, and become “food for worms,” and that some of them would live on and become “subjects of the seven last plagues,” while still others would “remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus”. Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 131-132.

What does the Bible say about false prophets?

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your [minds and] hearts, How shall we know which words the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or prove true, that is a word which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

When God inspires a prophet to foretell the future it will come to pass one hundred percent. If it does not come to pass it proves without a shadow of a doubt that the so-called prophet speaks presumptuously and is therefore a false prophet. God has NOT spoken through that prophet and you are not supposed to listen to him or her. However, if you prefer to follow lies, God is not going to prevent you from doing so. In fact, He allows false prophets in our midst to test us whether we truly love Him.

Deuteronomy 13:1-3 IF A prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder he foretells to you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods–gods you have not known–and let us serve them, You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being.

Satan is our sin bearer

“It was seen, also, that while the sin offering pointed to Christ as a sacrifice, and the high priest represented Christ as a mediator, the scapegoat typified Satan, the author of sin, upon whom the sins of the truly penitent will finally be placed”. The Great Controversy, p. 422

“As the priest, in removing the sins from the sanctuary, confessed them upon the head of the scapegoat, so Christ will place all these sins upon Satan, the originator and instigator of sin”. The Great Controversy, p. 485

“Their sins are transferred to the originator of sin”. Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 475

What does the Bible say?

1 Peter 2:24 He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.

John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming to him and said, Look! There is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!

This SDA Church doctrine demotes Christ Jesus and exalts Satan.

The sins of a repentant sinner are not forgiven. God still holds them on record against him/her

“All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal Iife”. The Great Controversy, p. 483

Mrs. White states that no sin was ever blotted out before October 22, 1844. “At the time appointed for the judgment – the close of the 2300 days in 1844 – began the work of investigation and blotting out of sins”. Christ In His Sanctuary, p. 122

“The work of the investigative judgment and the blotting out of sins is to be accomplished before the second advent of the Lord….it is impossible that the sins of men should be blotted out until after the judgment at which their cases are to be investigated… When the investigative judgment closes, Christ will come…” The Great Controversy, p. 485

“When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, then the sins of the repentant soul who has received the grace of Christ and has overcome through the blood of the Lamb, will be removed from the records of heaven, and will be placed upon Satan, the scapegoat, the originator of sin, and be remembered no more against him forever”. Selected Messages, bk. 3, pp. 355-356

The SDA Church is doing the very same thing the Roman Catholic Church, whom they so vociferously criticise, is guilty of and that is to deny the complete efficaciousness of Jesus Christ death on the cross.

What does the Bible teach?

John 19:30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

1 John 1:9 If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just (true to His own nature and promises) and will forgive our sins [dismiss our lawlessness] and [continuously] cleanse us from all unrighteousness [everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action]

1 John 2:12 I am writing to you, little children, because for His name’s sake your sins are forgiven [pardoned through His name and on account of confessing His name].

Hebrews 1:3 He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power. When He had by offering Himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt, He sat down at the right hand of the divine Majesty on high,

Hebrews 9:26 For then would He often have had to suffer [over and over again] since the foundation of the world. But as it now is, He has once for all at the consummation and close of the ages appeared to put away and abolish sin by His sacrifice [of Himself].

Isaiah 44:22 I have blotted out like a thick cloud your transgressions, and like a cloud your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

Some Christians will have to stand before God without Christ’s mediation

”Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator.”The Great Controversy, p. 425).

“When Jesus ceases to plead for man, the cases of all are forever decided. This is the time of reckoning with His servants.” Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2, p. 191

If Jesus has accomplished an everlasting redemption for whomsoever believes in His vicarious death on the cross, which of course He has, then every single repentant sinner will stand before God “IN Christ,” washed in His precious blood, holy and blameless. They can and will never stand before God outside of Jesus Christ.

God offered Satan his pardon in heaven

“God in His great mercy bore long with Lucifer. He was not immediately degraded from his exalted station when he first indulged the spirit of discontent, nor even when he began to present his false claims before the loyal angels. Long was he retained in heaven. Again and again he was offered pardon on condition of repentance and submission.” The Great Controversy, p. 495-496.

Angels would have died for man

An angel told Mrs. White that “Angels were so interested for man’s salvation that there could be found among them those who would yield their glory and give their Iife for perishing man”. Early Writings, p. 127.

This doctrine demotes Jesus Christ  to the level of just another created being, apart from some of the angels, who was willing to offer up his life as a ransom for many. In fact the SDA Church actually believes that Jesus Christ is just another angel—Michael the Archangel. Adventists are very firm in their belief that Jesus is Michael the Archangel.  They must take this position because this is what their prophetess, Ellen G. White taught. They also believe that Jesus is God.  There is a glaring contradiction here.  Hebrews 1:13-14 says that Jesus is not an angel.

The Holy Spirit can abandon/leave a Christian

“O my brethren, will you grieve the Holy Spirit, and cause it to depart?” Selected Messages, bk. 1, p. 126.

If it were true that the Holy Spirit leaves a Christian when he/she grieves Him, it would mean that a saint can lose his/her salvation.

What does the Word of God say?

John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever—The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you.

There is no hell

Seventh-day Adventists, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, teach that when a believer dies his soul “sleeps”. Some believe that you entirely cease to exist.

A general statement of the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of death is as follows:

“So when a man dies he does not live somewhere else. He is not in heaven, not in hell, not in purgatory. He is not alive at all, anywhere, in any condition whatsoever. He is dead. And to be dead does not mean to be alive. To be dead does not mean to go to heaven; it does not mean to go to hell; it does not mean to go to purgatory. Indeed, it does not mean to go anywhere at all. It means simply an end of life . . . Death is cessation of life, an absence of life, the exact opposite of life. So in death there is no life. The man does not live; the body does not live; the soul does not live; the spirit does not live; the mind does not live. Intelligence ends, consciousness ends, memory ends, knowledge ends, thought ends. All that has comprised the man ends” (C.B. Haynes When A Man Dies, p. 20).

Is this man still alive? If not, then his eyes have been opened to see what lies he believed.

Ellen G. White, the alleged prophetess who founded the SDA denomination, stated her revulsion of the doctrine of Hell:

“How repugnant to every emotion of love and mercy, and even to our sense of justice, is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented with fire and brimstone in an eternally burning hell. . . . And how utterly revolting is the belief that as soon as the breath leaves the body the soul of the impenitent is consigned to the flames of hell! … the doctrine of natural immortality first borrowed from pagan philosophy, and in the darkness of the great apostasy incorporated into the Christian faith, has supplanted the truth. . . . The theory of eternal torment is one of the false doctrines that constitute the wine of the abomination of Babylon. . . . But those who have not, through repentance and faith, secured pardon, must receive the penalty of transgression … covered with infamy, they sink into hopeless, eternal oblivion. . . . There will then be no lost souls to blaspheme God as they writhe in never-ending torment; no wretched beings in hell will mingle their shrieks with the songs of the saved” (The Great Controversy,” pp. 469,470,477,478,483)

Only those who keep the Sabbath (Seventh Day, Saturday) will be saved

“The change of the Sabbath is the sign or mark of the authority of the Romish church.” … “The keeping of the counterfeit Sabbath is the reception of the mark.” (Ellen G. White, Great Controversy, Vol. 4, page 281.)

“Here we find the mark of the beast. The very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, on the part of the Catholic church, without any authority from the Bible.” (Ellen G. White, The Mark of the Beast, page 23)

Why don’t Adventists clearly identify themselves when they have “Prophecy Seminars” or health classes?

Jesus once said: “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue and in the temple [area], where the Jews [habitually] congregate (assemble); and I have spoken nothing secretly.” Individuals or organizations that operate in secrecy cannot be trusted. When Adventists hold their meetings, aimed primarily at taking members from other churches, they generally do not identify who they are and deftly operate in secrecy. The following is a list of a few Adventist organizations or organizations with very similar beliefs:

• “It Is Written” television programs and seminars
• “The Voice of Prophecy” radio programs and seminars
• “The 5-day Plan to Stop Smoking”
• “Revelation Seminars”
• 3ABN TV Network
• Many “Health Seminars” or “Vegetarian Cooking” classes held at Adventist schools or local churches
• Adventist hospitals, health centers, clinics, and nursing homes
• SDA parochial day schools, boarding schools, high schools- also called “Academies” and colleges and universities
• Loma Linda University is their flagship medical center and world-class medical school
• Andrew’s University is their seminary in North America
• “Amazing Facts” radio broadcasts and literature
• “Amazing Facts” crusades
• “Light Bearers”

Adventist Publishers:

• Review & Herald Publishing
• Pacific Press Publishing
• Southern Publishing

Seventh-day Adventist magazines often used as Adventist proselytizing tools:

• Adventist Review
• Listen
• Liberty
• The Signs of the Times

The SDA “Ministry Magazine, is sent out regularly to thousands of Christian pastors and church leaders of other churches despite the fact that they are called “Sunday worshipers” and bearers of the mark of the beast. Don’t be misled by its is slick and evangelical looks, because it contains many useful articles. What your pastor probably doesn’t know is that between every issue he receives is an issue intended only for Adventist pastors. There they debate issues such as how to interpret Ellen G. White, her role and function in the church, the Sabbath, the Investigative Judgment and other Adventist “distinctives” or fundamental Seventh-day Adventist doctrines.

It’s safe to say that the goal of everything the Seventh-day Adventist church does is to advance Adventism around the world and to attempt to make you or your family Seventh-day Adventists. As I’ve already pointed out in the beginning of this comment, there are many disillusioned former DRC members who have abandoned their church and are deceptively and cunningly being recruited to join the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Decide for yourself whether you have jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

(Emphasis added throughout)

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A “man of peace” versus a man of war

To what extent do you have to stretch your imagination to compare a so-called man of peace with a man of war? Prof. Hennie Stander seems to have mastered the art of morphing his imagination from one extreme bit of nonsense to a next extreme bit of nonsense, even to the degree that he’s able to compare the criticism levelled at  the President of America, Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award, with King Saul’s contempt of David, one of the most brilliant war strategists who ever lived. Hennie seems to have been so keen to tongue lash Obama’s critics that he forgot to recap history before making an attempt to compare a “peace-loving” man with a man of war.

Hennie Stander is surprised and also finds it rather interesting to see who it was who congratulated Obama on his winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Even Fidel Castro was overjoyed by his great achievement. Really! Should we be surprised? I don’t think so, especially when we take into account how easy it is these days to be hailed a peace-maker. It’s as easy as as eating pie — including American Pie. All you need to do is to foster a peace-loving hatred of Israel (who are still God’s chosen people) and do everything in your power to divide God’s land. God’s land? Yes! God’s land. Don’t you ever read your Bible?

Joel 3:2 I will gather all nations and will bring them down into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and there will I deal with and execute judgment upon them for [their treatment of] My people and of My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and [because] they have divided My land.

Dave Hunt commented on Joel 3:2 as follows in The Berean Call of May 28, 2009.

This is remarkable! Throughout its entire 3,000-plus-year history, the land of Israel had never been divided. It had been conquered by various nations, but even when the Turks held it as part of their Ottoman Empire for 400 years, they did not divide the land. A conqueror keeps the land he has conquered intact for himself. Why divide it?

This division of Israel has occurred only in our day. Britain, which had been placed in charge of “Palestine” by the allied forces who had conquered it in World War I, had been given the mandate by the League of Nations to see that this land should remain as a refuge for the Jews, who had been scattered everywhere.

Instead of fulfilling this mandate, Britain gave about 75 percent of the land to the Arab Muslims in exchange for oil. In 1947, the United Nations, through Resolution 181 and in fulfilment of Joel 3:2, formalized this breach of trust. Israel finally received a mere 13 percent of what they had been promised. This is now history. Britain and the UN infamously fulfilled Joel 3:2 and parted God’s land.

Many have since tried to divide God’s land. Some of the most recent greatly honoured and distinguished men like Carter, Clinton and Bush have endeavoured to bring peace in the Middle East, even if it meant that Israel should pay the costly price of losing her freedom or of being exterminated from the face of the earth. And now Barack Obama is continuing this abominable relay race which is leading him headlong into a battle with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Himself. I’m no prophet but I can tell you with unflinching certainty who is going to win this battle.

By an ingenious stretch of the imagination Hennie then calls upon the prophet Samuel to explain to his readers how he managed to reconcile the criticism of one of our modern-day peace-making heroes with King Saul’s utter contempt of one of the most successful war strategists who ever lived – Obama and David. Hennnie continues to say:

There is a similar typically human narrative in the Bible. It is in 1 Samuel 18:6-9 and goes as follows: When David returned from the slaughter of the Philistines and Saul and his entourage were on their way home, the women of all the cities of Israel met him with tambourines and three-stringed instruments and with jubilation. The women danced and sang “Saul has slain his thousands but David his ten thousands.” Saul was very wroth and displeased and said: “They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?” And Saul distrusted David from that day and forward.

Isn’t that interesting? The women celebrate in song David’s victory but Saul was enraged. This is the sort of thing that happens around us everyday: Someone excels and is venerated and in stead of rejoicing and being thankful with the person a piece of resentment rises up in you.

If you really have the love of the Lord in your heart you will not begrudge others their success. You do not need to pull down achievers to your level. Be glad when things are going well with other people and when they are successful.

Success in the eyes of today’s highly educated academics is to oppose the will of God and then call it “love?” Really? The Bible is fraught with exhortations warning all the would-be peacemakers who are trying to thwart God’s divine plans for Israel. There are many people who claim to be Christians pretending to know the Bible so well while they remain in such complete ignorance of God’s plans for Israel as a people and HIS LAND that they blunderingly fall over their own tongues again and again. Their Christian piety enmeshed in love and even more love is doing more harm to the cause of peace in the world than they can imagine. Thinking they are doing God a favour they are actually going against Him.

Robert Fisk of The Independent wrote in his article “Obama, man of peace? No, just a Nobel prize of a mistake”

Isn’t there anyone in the White House to remind Mr Obama that the Israelis have never obliged a US president who asked for an end to the building of colonies for Jews – and Jews only – on Arab land? Bill Clinton demanded this – it was written into the Oslo accords – and the Israelis ignored him. George W Bush demanded an end to the fighting in Jenin nine years ago. The Israelis ignored him. Mr Obama demands a total end to all settlement construction. “They just don’t get it, do they?” an Israeli minister – apparently Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – was reported to have said when the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reiterated her president’s words. That’s what Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s crackpot foreign minister – he’s not as much a crackpot as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but he’s getting close – said again on Thursday. “Whoever says it’s possible to reach in the coming years a comprehensive agreement,” he announced before meeting Mr Obama’s benighted and elderly envoy George Mitchell, “… simply doesn’t understand the reality.”

David was a man of war and because of that God forbad him to build the temple in Jerusalem. His son Solomon would be given that awesome job. Nonetheless, David was a man after God’s own heart. I doubt whether Barack Obama is a man after God’s own heart when considering the fact that he, like his predecessors, want to divide God’s land.

I doubt whether King David would have won the Nobel Peace Prize if he’d been alive today. Let’s assume such a possibility: Would Hennie Stander have sung his praises like the women in the book of Samuel? I sincerely doubt it.

Is love without correction real love?

The following comment is in response to Rev. Guillaume Smit’s blog entry here and the progamme broadcast on Sunday 4 October on “Kruis en Dwars” (Radio Sonder Grense).

Proverbs 15:10

There is severe discipline for him who forsakes God’s way; and he who hates reproof will die [physically, morally, and spiritually].

2 Timothy 3:16 – 4:4

Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action), So that the man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work. I CHARGE [you] in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, Who is to judge the living and the dead, and by (in the light of) His coming and His kingdom: Herald and preach the Word! Keep your sense of urgency [stand by, be at hand and ready], whether the opportunity seems to be favorable or unfavorable. [Whether it is convenient or inconvenient, whether it is welcome or unwelcome, you as preacher of the Word are to show people in what way their lives are wrong.] And convince them, rebuking and correcting, warning and urging and encouraging them, being unflagging and inexhaustible in patience and teaching. For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, And will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions. (Emphasis added)

One of the most infamous clarions of our post-modern pastors and shepherds is “Love one another regardless . . .” — regardless of how God’s Word is manhandled; regardless of how Jesus Christ is maligned; regardless of how the Christian faith is infiltrated by false apostles and teachers who mislead and lead the unsuspecting to the slaughterhouses; regardless of the proliferation of false doctrine in the church  . . . regardless. . . . regardless . . . regardless, ad infinitum. What kind of love is this? What should Christians do when they see their brothers and sisters heading for disaster when they are deliberately led astray by a bunch of wolves in sheep’s clothing? Should they lovingly and tenderly put their arms around them and say . . . ?: “My dear brother or sister, I love you dearly and would never hurt you in anyway. I respect your views and therefore am quite prepared to assist, encourage and even accompany you on your chosen spiritual journey.”

The unholy and unhealthy emphasis on this kind of love stems from an unholy and unhealthy aversion to biblical correction, reproof and exhortation. In fact, whosoever dares to correct, reprove and exhort the wayward Christian is immediately singled out as an unloving, uncompassionate and patronizing fundamentalist. I have often pointed out that true brotherly love cannot be separated from a love for and obedience to God’s Truth. John, the apostle of love, had no greater joy to see his spiritual children walk in truth (3 John 1:4). Shouldn’t he rather have been overjoyed to see them walk in love? No! there was no need for him to exhort them to walk in love because their walking in the truth was proof enough that they were already walking in love. When Jesus prayed His High Priestly prayer for his immediate disciples and all His disciples throughout the ages, He did not ask His Father to sanctify them in His love, but in His Truth (John 17:17), simply because sanctification in His Truth equals sanctification in His love —  and this is exactly why Jesus once said:

John 14:15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments..
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s.

Obedience to God’s Truth proves that you really love Him as well as His children. Despite these very serious warnings the enlightened emerging fraternity spurn absolute truth. Feigning humility they claim that no-one can know the truth and are inviting Christians to question their own belief. This is how Brian McLaren interprets love.

I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts . . . . rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on . . . To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them whoever they are, to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord. (Emphasis added)

Once again we should ask ourselves the question: What kind of love is this, a “love” that disobeys Christ and his command to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, and to teach them to obey everything He commanded? It not only amounts to a false love but also a false humility. Jesus Christ did not become one of us to embrace other religions (Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or whatever) or to show His solidarity with them by joining them and enter into their world without judgement. Indeed, the fact of the matter is that everyone (of whatever religious persuasion) who rejects His cross (the power and wisdom of God) as the only way unto salvation, is continually living under the wrath of God.

John 3:36 And he who believes in (has faith in, clings to, relies on) the Son has (now possesses) eternal life. But whoever disobeys (is unbelieving toward, refuses to trust in, disregards, is not subject to) the Son will never see (experience) life, but [instead] the wrath of God abides on him. [God's displeasure remains on him; His indignation hangs over him continually.]

Jesus also said: “If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples (John 8:31). Those, like Brian McLaren and many other Emergent Church leaders, who assert that you can be a follower of Jesus without having to abandon your particular religion that denies Jesus’ deity, his virgin birth, his resurrection and ascension are flagrantly disobeying the One they claim to follow. What kind of love is this?

The most common reaction amongst post-modern preachers to Christians who believe that the Bible is the infallible, eternal and absolute truth of God and that anyone can know the truth, is usually ridiculed and derogatively branded as fundamentalists who think they are the keepers and defenders of the faith — and of God. Dr. James Kirkpatrick, residential pastor of the South East Pretoria DRC and Chairman of the “Komitee vir Leer en Aktuele Sake” has probably appointed himself to the elevated position of defender of the post-modern belief that no one can claim to know  the truth of God absolutely. He had the following to say on the programme “Kruis en Dwars” (Radio Sonder Grense, 04/10/2009).

Questionnaire: James, do you think the church is sufficiently guiding believers to be emotional and intelligent when their faith is involved?

James Kirkpatrick: You know, I rather think, to answer the question, it will depend on what the church teaches the people about God, what it teaches people about the relation between the church and . . . the world at large, because if you convey the message that we are called to sort of defend God; we must intervene when God is sort of  attacked, then people are going to have that kind of reaction to think that they are advocates; they must intervene in behalf of God. If you present people with another image of God who does not need it and who is bigger and does not need to be defended by people, then that kind of conduct will be unnecessary. When you also consider again how people look at the truth as an absolute thing . . . that they alone have [the right to it], then they are going to react with that kind of emotion, because they are right and must tell the world what the truth is. But if you make them understand that each one of us see in part [only], that we have our perspective and that one must communicate with others with a a cautious and honest attitude so that the Gospel should not be discredited, [their attitude would change].

The most disturbing and baffling thing about James Kirkpatrick’s lecture on his own absolute truth that no one can claim to know absolute truth, is that he claims to be a guardian of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is duty bound not to bring it into discredit. Perhaps he might not know it, but the “best” way to discredit the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to suggest to the world that He was a liar when He said: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Worse still is his suggestion that He lied when He said: “But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth). For He will not speak His own message [on His own authority]; but He will tell whatever He hears [from the Father; He will give the message that has been given to Him], and He will announce and declare to you the things that are to come [that will happen in the future]” (John 16:13). Who is the liar? — Jesus Christ who conquered death on the cross, was buried but never experienced decay in the grave, rose again from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father or a man who is going to die and whose body is going to see decay while it is ransacked and eaten up by maggots? Shocking . . .? Perhaps . . .! but I sincerely hope this gives you an idea of what the difference is between God and man who audaciously demands that no one can know absolute truth. No wonder Psalm 2 says: “He Who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision [and in supreme contempt He mocks them]”

Those of you who may still have some vinyl records will know what I’m talking about. The slightest scratch in its grooves causes the record to get stuck in a monotonous repetition of some words in a song. The post-modern song of 1 Corinthians 13: 9 sounds like this — “For we know in part” – “For we know in part” — “For we know in part.” They are so heavily stuck in this groove that they conveniently forget the above passages I quoted from Scripture to prove that anyone can know the truth and nothing but the truth.

In order to say that no-one can know absolute truth with conviction, James  Kirkpatrick must of necessity regard his own opinion that no one can know God’s truth absolutely as an unquestionably absolute truth. Should he however, out of sheer post-modern humility, not regard his own opinion as an absolute truth, he must of necessity admit there is a possibility that mankind can indeed know and understand God’s absolute truth because his own belief cannot absolutely disprove that one can know God’s truth absolutely. Should he however regard his own opinion as an absolute truth then he has merely replaced God’s absolute truth with his own absolute truth and that, to say the least, is arrogance and conceitedness at its very best.

What did Paul mean when he said: “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-10). He could not possibly have meant that mankind can only partly know God’s truth and therefore no-one can claim to have a monopoly on His truth and neither can anyone correct others whose opinions, perspectives, beliefs and interpretations are equally valid and truthful. Had Paul meant to say that we can only partly know God’s truth, especially in regard to salvation and sanctification, he would have contradicted Jesus Christ who said; “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” and ““But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth). For He will not speak His own message [on His own authority]; but He will tell whatever He hears [from the Father; He will give the message that has been given to Him], and He will announce and declare to you the things that are to come [that will happen in the future]” Paul simply compared the temporal means of conveying God’s truth, i.e. prophecy (preaching of the Gospel), tongues, and knowledge with the ultimate goal which is godly or divine love (agapao). Prophecy (the preaching of the Gospel), tongues and knowledge are merely temporal means to convey God’s truth, especially with regard to His salvation and sanctification of repentant sinners. These are all necessary parts of our temporal and broken world. Obviously these temporal means of conveying God’s truth will no longer be necessary in God’s eternal heavenly home. There only one thing will remain — God’s magnanimous divine love.

Another often repeated cliché used against fundamentalists is “There’s no need to defend God. He can defend Himself.” Apart from the fact that it is a silly and naive statement, it demonstrates an ignorance of biblical truth with regard to the command that Christians should earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). How are Christians supposed to contend for their faith? Well, read again the passage from 2 Timothy 3:16 – 4:4 I quoted to you in the beginning of my comment.

Metanoia – Part 2

Considering the fact that Jesus used the word “metanoia” in his very first public sermon, it is arguably one of the most important and potent words in the Bible. Having said that, we should be very careful how we interpret it and how we use it in our own evangelizing outreaches. Unfortunately the Emerging Church has very stealthily changed its intended meaning, not by changing its meaning per se but by changing its application, and a person who has contributed to this subtle change in meaning is Eugene Peterson, the author of the paraphrased version of the Bible, The Message. Like most Emergent Church devotees Dries Cronjé of e-church fame, regards The Message to be his favourite Bible paraphrase because it supposedly “uses language that’s compatible with the language we speak today to communicate the timeless truths of the Bible” . . . but does it faithfully portray the eternal and infallible truths in the Bible? I really don’t think so. To substantiate my confident affirmation that it is not a trustworthy paraphrase of God’s Word, I would like to quote the same verse Dries Cronjé used on his blog and compare it with some other translations of Mark 1:14 and 15.

After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.” (The Message)

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (New International Version)

Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (New American Standard Bible)

Now after John was arrested and put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom of God, And saying, The appointed period of] time is fulfilled (completed), and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent (have a change of mind which issues in regret for past sins and in change of conduct for the better) and believe (trust in, rely on, and adhere to) the good news (the Gospel). (Amplified Bible) (Emphasis added throughout)

It is obvious that Eugene Peterson, in keeping with the Emergent Church’s doctrine of Kingdom Now Theology, deliberately changed the entire last sentence in this verse to convey their idea that God’s Kingdom is already here in our midst. The words “Times up” is a far cry from “the kingdom of God is near,” and “the kingdom of God is at hand.” If the Kingdom is already here, then we should stop praying the prayer Jesus taught us: Let thy Kingdom come, let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  As we shall see, this infamous alteration of the meaning of Jesus original words inevitably leads to a change of meaning of the word “metanoia.” Listen carefully to what Dries Cronjé says in the following few paragraphs and you will immediately see what I mean. Read the entire article here.

The Greek word for “change your lives” in the verse above (which is also translated in other bible translations as ‘repent’) is metanoia.

It comes from two significant words. Meta means ‘after’ or ‘beyond’, and noia means ‘mind’. In it’s regular usage meta was also often used for the word ‘change’ (Thomas Moore explained this to me in his latest book, Writing in the Sand).

Therefore, true repentance or metanoia is to change your mind or to shift your vision. Jesus says we must metanoia and believe his message — a message of the kingdom of God being here, now. This kingdom is a new reality we can enter if we live according to the new kingdom instructions (or commands). What we need as a start is metanoia, something Thomas Moore calls a radical shift in vision.

Although Cronje acknowledges that “metanoia” is rendered as “repent” in other Bible translations, he emphasizes that the act of repentance actually means to radically change your vision which translates into a firm belief in — not the Gospel — but in the message of the Kingdom of God as being here now. This opens a whole new can of worms, simply because it facilitates their intention to steer away from the real meaning of “metanoia” as a radical change of mind and heart in order to enter into the Kingdom of God (2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 1:13). “Metanoia” as a change of mind always goes hand in hand with a regret for one’s past sins and a change in conduct for the better. In contrast to this, a change of vision suggests that everyone (of all religious persuasions) are already in the Kingdom of God that is already here and that they only need to change their vision (mindset; to go beyond your present state of mind) in order to benefit from the blessings of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom is already a new reality anyone can enter by living according to the new kingdom instructions (or commands). “What we need as a start,” according to Dries Cronje,“is metanoia, something Thomas Moore calls a radical shift in vision.” Of course, another way of describing this shift, is to say that we need a paradigm shift, which involves, according to Rob Bell’s and Brian McLaren’s Universal/Interfaith belief, merely that Jesus be added to all the other religions. Rob Bell says:

A lot of people see Jesus as just for Christians but I keep discovering that his teachings are really about what it means to be human. – Rob Bell, Manchester Evening News (June 15, 2007)

In a book by Oppenheimer and Sandy Simpson titled Idolatry in Their Hearts, they show how widespread this new missiology has become. Listen to some of the comments made by a few new missiology evangelists: Read here.

New Light embodiment means to be “in connection” and “information” with other faiths…. One can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna.”-Leonard Sweet

I happen to know people who are followers of Christ in other religions.-Rick Warren

I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. . . . I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.-Thomas Merton

Allah is not another God…we worship the same God. The same God! The very same God we worship in Christ is the God the Jews—and the Muslims—worship.-Peter Kreeft

In the emergent vocabulary the word metanoia no longer means a change of mind in order to be saved from your past sins and lost status so that you may be granted entrance into the Kingdom of God, but a radical shift in vision (paradigm shift) with the purpose of including all religions in the already present Kingdom of God. This is apparently what it means to be truly human —a hotchpotch of religions serving and worshiping a god that is not the God of the Bible.

The principle of following Jesus Christ has also undergone a very serious paradigm shift or radical visionary shift within the ranks of the Emergent Church. This is how Dries Cronje articulated it:

So, as we start our journey here with Jesus’ very first command in Mark, realize that to be a serious follower of Jesus you have to first undergo a radical shift in vision. How we go about that practically is part of the mystery that’s the whole reason behind this category of echurch. I hope that the teaching offered here will help you with this shift in vision. We’ll be looking into some practical details as we progress, but keep in mind that the spiritual journey is a mystery with only the very next step being revealed most of the time.

The radical shift in vision involves a shift away from the doctrine of self-mortification, (the only prerequisite to follow Jesus – Matthew 16:24); from what you are to what you do. The what you are followers realize there is nothing good in their old Adam nature and therefore take Christ’s command to deny yourself and take up your cross (die to yourself) very seriously. Paul’s entire discourse in Romans 7 explains in great detail the futility of trying to do good without having the cross of Jesus Christ doing its mortifying work to the flesh. The what you do followers of Jesus Christ have transformed the doctrine of mortification through the cross into a social Gospel. For them it does not matter to what religion you belong for, as we’ve noticed in many of the emergent leaders’ bold statements, you can become a follower of Jesus without having to relinquish your own religion. Mysticism plays a major part because it is the unifying catalyst between all the religions in the emergent movement. The spiritual journey on which they have embarked is a mystery which in essence means that every traveller on this journey is given the opportunity to include their own spiritual experiences in this growing hotchpotch of spiritualities without having to be examined or evaluated by clear-cut doctrines. In short it means: Your spiritual experience is as valid and true as mine because we are both on a spiritual journey shrouded in mystery. Indeed, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH is emerging before our eyes.

Metanoia – Part 1

I have often pointed out in some of my previous comments that the most dangerous deception by far is not an outright lie but a lie garbed in the truth. I have also reiterated again and again that the emergent fraternity have truly mastered the ability to pin new meanings on well-known biblical words and thereby twisting or completely changing the Gospel message. One such word is “Metanoia”  (repent). Ron Martoia who recently visited South Africa defines the word “repent” (“metanoia”) in Mark 1:14-15 as follows here:

Think about Jesus’ opening sermon picked up from John the Baptist…

Reorient your lives (repent, some have suggested “move beyond your mind”) the Kingdom of God is the framework you need to see right now!

(Metanoia in the context of theological discussion, where it is often used, is usually interpreted to mean repentance. However, some people argue that the word should be interpreted more literally to denote changing one’s mind, in the sense of embracing thoughts beyond its present limitations or thought patterns (an interpretation which is compatible with the denotative meaning of repentance but replaces its negative connotation with a positive one, focusing on the superior state being approached rather than the inferior prior state being departed from).

The word “metanoia” does indeed mean “to change your mind for the better” but Martoia, like so many other emergent scholars and preachers, deliberately dissect it from the biblical reasoning that man needs to escape his lost and sinful status (and the righteous judgements of God) by a voluntary and intentional adjustment of his mind with regard to his understanding of who God is and who he (mankind) is in the light of God’s Word. A biblical knowledge of God (i.e. God’s own revelation of his character, i.e. his holiness, divine love, goodness, mercy, and his righteous judgments) form the basis for true repentance and salvation. Hence Jesus’ words in John 17:10:

John 17:3 And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent. (Emphasis added)

To know or understand Him, in biblical terms, is not just a “know of Him” or to have a “superficial knowledge” of Him. The Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well was well acquainted with the Messiah who is the Christ (the anointed of God) and who was to come and tell them all things (teach them the Way of God) (John 4). And yet she was like a parched desert who desperately needed the Living Water He alone was capable of giving her. The Living Water is there for the asking but most people never learn to know Him because they never ask Him to give them the Living Water. Listen again what Jesus said to the woman:

John 4:10 Jesus answered her, If you had only known and had recognized God’s gift and Who this is that is saying to you, Give Me a drink, you would have asked Him [instead] and He would have given you living water.

Who would you ask to represent you in a court of law when you’d been apprehended for breaking the law? A mechanic? . . .  A medical doctor? . . .  A politician? Of course you wouldn’t ask any of the latter to plead your case in court because they would all make a wonderful mess of everything, especially the politician. It is glaringly obvious that you would ask a lawyer or an advocate to present you because you know that they alone are equal to such a daunting task. Evidently knowledge, and particularly the “metanoia” knowledge, translates into an “asking, for it is in the “asking” that one expresses his/her desperate need of something they do not have. The Samaritan woman was desperately in need of the Living Water but sadly she did not know it; she haughtily and self-righteously argued that the Samaritans were just as religious and pious as the Jews who worshipped in Jerusalem, until Jesus gently and courteously showed her that “religiosity” was not her problem. Her problem was that she was living in sin. She already had five husbands and the one with whom she was living then was not her husband. “Wow!, this man is a real prophet because He knows my deepest secrets and has told me everything that I had ever done. He must be the Christ,” she excitedly told her fellow Samaritans. Jesus Christ, the Anointed of God, knows your deepest secrets (every single one of them) but have you ever asked Him to give you the Living Water? If you hadn’t, please do not procrastinate; procrastination is the best way to pave your way all the way to hell.

Many Calvinists have taken me to task for my unreserved critique of their unbiblical doctrine of predestination. Nonetheless, Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman clearly shows that sinful man needs to ask Him for the Living Water. He will never monergistically pour it down your throat.

The “metanoia” (changing of one’s mind) is never a superficial, self-induced exercise, transforming your reality from negative thought patterns to positive thought patterns. That’s pure New Age teaching. True repentance (“metanoia”) is a deeply heartfelt acknowledgment that you are guilty of breaking every single one of God’s laws and that you deserve to be judged and found guilty by the two-edged Sword of the Spirit (Hebrews 12:2), so much so that  the convicted sinner cries out: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” A true “metanoia” casts itself wholeheartedly and willingly on the unmerited mercies of God. King David knew this and therefore cried out in complete abandonment: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51).

Contrary to the biblical meaning of “metanoia” Ron Martoia and his fellow-emergents in South Africa deliberately steer way from terms like “sin,” “being lost,” and “righteous judgements.” In their view they are all but negative connotations you can overcome by replacing them with positive thought patterns . . . by “embracing thoughts beyond your present limitations or thought patterns.” As I’ve already pointed out, this is pure New Age teaching, asserting  that you can change your reality by changing your negative thought patterns to positive ones, and guess how this is accomplished? Well, of course through meditation, contemplative prayer and silence. The following excerpt comes from a site that promotes meditation as a means to change your negative thought patterns to positive ones.

The chanting of repetitious words, songs and mantras of any culture, as well as focusing the attention on an outer or inner image, mandala or candle flame, are most often used as a means to assist the practitioner with their desire to transcend the general field or train of thought-forms, and to interrupt its perpetual presence in the conscious thinking mind. Yet these activities and practices which developed from and are more suited to past generations, only penetrate to the surface levels of spiritual experience and transformation of act and attitude, leaving the deepest of today’s needs undiscovered, non-confronted and unresolved. . . .

Thoughts, in order to lose their hold on us, must be understood for what they really are; the result of emotional needs and desires on the many levels of our being. There exists a constructive healthy mode of thinking and an unhealthy destructive mode of thinking, and it is meditation’s true purpose and responsibility to bring an individual to a clear understanding and definition of that difference of mind and thought patterns.

The function of a healthy mind is to entertain thought as the vehicle for inspired inner direction and motivation. Thus the meditation process encourages the capacity of the discriminating mind to develop a continuous discerning perspective; the purpose of which is to clarify which thought patterns are worthy of support from those that are not desirable.

Willem Nicol, one of South Africa’s leading gurus in “Christian meditation” and contemplative prayer is one of the foremost promoters of “silent” worship in our country who uses a candle in his church on which his congregants focus when they meditate. The practice of silence is as old as antiquity itself. Rev. Hislop, the author of “The Two Babylons” says the following in Chapter 2, Section 2 under the heading “The Mother and Child, and the Original of the Child”

. . . according to the genius of the mystic system of Chaldea, which was to a large extent founded on double meanings, that which, to the eyes of men in general, was only zero, “a circle,” was understood by the initiated to signify zero, “the seed.” Now, viewed in this light, the triune emblem of the supreme Assyrian divinity shows clearly what had been the original patriarchal faith. First, there is the head of the old man; next, there is the zero, or circle, for “the seed”; and lastly, the wings and tail of the bird or dove;[1] showing, though blasphemously, the unity of Father, Seed, or Son, and Holy Ghost.

While this had been the original way in which Pagan idolatry had represented the Triune God, and though this kind of representation had survived to Sennacherib’s time, yet there is evidence that, at a very early period, an important change had taken place in the Babylonian notions in regard to the divinity; and that the three persons had come to be, the Eternal Father, the Spirit of God incarnate in a human mother [Semiramis. wife of Nimrod], and a Divine Son [Tammuz], the fruit of that incarnation.

While this was the theory, the first person in the Godhead was practically overlooked. As the Great Invisible, taking no immediate concern in human affairs, he was “to be worshipped through silence alone,” that is, in point of fact, he was not worshipped by the multitude at all. The same thing is strikingly illustrated in India at this day.

The present-day mysticism in the Emergent Church can therefore be traced back much further than the popular notion that it had its origin in the Roman Catholic Church and in particular the Desert Fathers; they all have their origin in Babylon. In fact, the Book of Revelation repeatedly affirms that a Babylonian system of worship, not unlike the one that introduced the idolatrous worship of Mother and Child in the Babylon of antiquity, will once again be the religious system of the entire world and it will be known as MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH (Revelation 17:5). Her fall, however, will be great according to Revelation 18

Revelation 18: 2, 10, 21 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. . . . Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.  . . .  And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

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[1] From the statement in Genesis 1:2, that “the Spirit of God fluttered on the face of the deep” (for that is the expression in the original), it is evident that the dove had very early been a Divine emblem for the Holy Spirit.

My favourite, highly dangerous quotes

The deadly downward spiral into apostasy is escalating at a furious pace and the Emergent Church via the e-church in South Africa is making a grand contribution to the end-time falling away.

My favourite and highly dangerous quotes come from the lips of a man who is known to be one of the greatest missionaries of all time, Paul of Tarsus. He said:

Galatians 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to and different from that which we preached to you, let him be accursed (anathema, devoted to destruction, doomed to eternal punishment)!

2 Thessalonians 2:9-11 The coming [of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels – [all of them] lying wonders – And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (going to perdition) because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false,

So what’s the point? . . . you may ask. We’ve heard you quote these passage from Scripture on several occasions in the past. The point is that Stephan Joubert of e-church fame has begun to write a series of commentaries on 17 September which he entitles “My favourite, highly dangerous quotes. The theologians he quotes indicate that he is not too concerned about Paul’s severe warning. In part 1 of this series he quotes the German biblical scholar of the pervious century, Ernst Käsemann, who was a student of the liberal theologian, Rudolph Bultmann. Stephan quotes Käsemann’s famous words:

People and institutions do not like to be kept continually on the alert, and they have constantly devised screens to protect themselves from too much heat­. In fact, they have even managed to reduce Jesus’ red-hot message, which promised to kindle a fire throughout the world, to room temperature.”

I can understand why Stephan Joubert singles this out as one of his favourite quotes, especially when you take into account that he is forever comparing himself and his emergent buddies with the so-called institutionalized church. It is also no strange thing that he and his contemplative buddies always end up with the certificates, diplomas and rewards of excellence while the others resemble gloomy and cold thermostats whose mediocrity follows them wherever they go. This is what he had to say about them.

From the time of the early church we are stuck with living thermostats in churches. These spiritual thermostats, including sleepy church leaders and agnostic theologians, want a safe, convenient Jesus. Therefore, they constantly regulate the Jesus story’s temperature to make him predicable. In this process they’ve “domesticated” the real Jesus and his teaching on the kingdom of God.

Frankly, the dangers facing the Bride Of Christ are not present in agnosticism, atheism, the institutionalized church, other religions or even in Satanism. The most sordid dangers are in the ranks of the Emergent Church, the reason being that they are not spreading the “red-hot” message of the Jesus Christ of the Bible (as we’ve seen expounded in Paul’s quotes above) but another Jesus who is imitating the real Jesus. Be my guest and read their articles and commentaries on their blogs and websites. They hardly or ever mention the necessity to receive forgiveness for your sins (through repentance and faith in the Gospel) in order to be saved but are ceaselessly trying to usher in the Kingdom of God here an now. And how do they propose to do that? – not by the preaching of the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ but by teaching their congregants, with the help of the much esteemed gurus of contemplative disciplines such as Willem Nicol, Johan Geyser, Carel Anthonissen and others, how to enter into the very presence of God through the practice of silence. By the by, the only kingdom they are ushering in is the kingdom of Antichrist whose main aim it will be to unite all religions and to sit as their god in their newly erected temple of global unity.

In one of my very first comments since I started my blog I stated that association to a very large degree mirrors your faith or belief system, especially when you get into the habit of quoting the people with whom you don’t mind to be associated with. Stephan’s liberal use of a quote by Ernst Käsemann proves just that. As Stephan mentioned, he was a student of the liberal New Testament theologian, Rudolph Bultmann, in the previous century but what he failed to mention is that Bultmann did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a literal, historical event but merely as a culturally and spiritually conceived event in the minds of his disciples. He admitted that:-

“An historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly inconceivable,” (1)

Although Ernst Käsemann rejected his mentor’s belief in a non-literal, spiritual resurrection of Jesus, he did as an adherent to the second quest for the historical Jesus together with Philipp Vielhauer and Hans Conzelmann reconstruct a non-eschatological and non-apocalyptic historical Jesus which equally violates the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In stead he emphasized the present “here and now” nature of the reign (Kingdom) of God. The “here and now” theory of the Kingdom of God must of necessity deny the literal futuristic contents of the Book of Revelation.

Stephan happily quotes Ernst Käsemann who said that people and institutions have managed to reduce Jesus’ red-hot message to room temperature. Now, that’s a very broad statement, especially when Stephan fails to define Jesus’ red-hot message. Could he perhaps have informally referred to Jesus following words?

John 8:21 & 24 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. . . . That is why I told you that you will die in (under the curse of) your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He [Whom I claim to be--if you do not adhere to, trust in, and rely on Me], you will die in your sins.

Matthew 8:11-12 I tell you, many will come from east and west, and will sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, While the sons and heirs of the kingdom will be driven out into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth

Stephan Joubert and his emergent cohorts are so busy trying to usher in the Kingdom of God here and now that they have forgotten what the main prerequisite is for entering into God’s Kingdom. The red-hot message of Jesus boils down to one thing: If you do not repent and believe the Gospel as we find it expounded in Scripture you will never see the Kingdom of God. Even those who call themselves children of God and His Kingdom but refuse to accept Jesus’ red-hot message of repentance will be driven out into the darkness of hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for all eternity.

Stephan, I would like to urge you to start preaching the unadulterated and red-hot message of Jesus Christ.

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(1) R. Bultmann:Kerygma and Myth, 1:8, 39.