Case #1: I have a friend. Let’s call him TC. I have known TC for twenty years and can say that he and I lived in the same area and saw each other on a consistent basis for around six years. TC has always been like a brother to me. And when I say brother I mean I have often times just wanted to clobber the guy.
First of all let me explain that TC is saved. He is a Christian but TC doesn’t read. His Bible is nice and clean and unopened. What TC knows about doctrine and solid Biblical teaching couldn’t fill a thimble. What TC does know he has gleaned from conversations with knowledgeable people and from sermons he has heard in church. Herein lies a huge problem with the guy. If a preacher, standing at a pulpit, in a suit and tie, with a choir behind him and a large group in front of him were to pound on the podium and say, “Jesus Christ and Satan were brothers and only 144,000 people will get saved in the Millennium which we’ve already been in since Jesus came back in 70 A.D. at the close of the great tribulation which ended when the Jews were expelled by the Romans and the Church replaced Israel as Gods nation.”
TC would have zero problem saying “amen” to any of that. The guy just believed anything anybody said. Anybody, that is, except me. We would see some guy on TV or in a church say something and I’d go, “Uh... No. Romans says different.” But TC would just roll his eyes and argue with me about it and argue and argue. I’d point to where the Bible said it and he would just not accept it. “Dude. How come you’re so right? Satan and Jesus could be brothers. You don’t know.”
Where do you begin with that? “Let’s start with John 3:16. It says God’s, ‘...only begotten Son’.”
And he’d go, “I don’t see where it says they couldn’t be brothers.”
“ONLY begotten Son...? Hello?”
Arguments with TC were always like that. Round and round it would go. Me, alone with a Bible, wasn’t good enough for him.
After years of knowing the guy I finally figured out that what made something true to TC was the status of the guy saying it. If he had a podium, a building, a diploma, a suit and tie, and a microphone or a camera aimed at him, well, then, he must be right.
Case #2: Years ago, in my young Air Force career, I used to frequent a Christian Servicemen’s Center. It was like a “Christian USO”. They offered home cooked meals on weekends, lot’s of coffee to drink and Bible studies. Many of us came from different church backgrounds. We had a brother there named Ken. Ken came from a Pentecostal background and felt very deeply that he was always supposed to be “up” and “happy” all the time. To Ken, Christianity was supposed to always be “happy” and “positive” and “up”.
Anyway... We were all about to have a Bible study one day and during prayer requests Ken mentioned a lady in his church that had a problem with a demon possessing her. He asked us to pray for her. He said the church was regularly laying hands on her at services and casting out this demon but, by next Sunday, this demon was back again and she’d have to come back down to the front of the church to have everybody lay hands and take authority over this demon and bind him and kick him out again.
Well, I couldn’t stand it. I said, “She doesn’t need us to pray for that. She needs to get saved. That’s what she needs.”
Ken begged to differ, “Oh, she’s saved. She’s one of the godliest women I know.”
Which brought a great big, “Huh?” from me.
“You just don’t know her problems.” Ken said.
To which I replied, “Oh I think I know her problem all right. She gets a church full of attention every Sunday by making everybody think a demon is ridin’ her like a pony down the aisle once again.”
And the conversation went down hill from there. What I meant to say was that you cannot have the Holy Spirit in you and have a demon. It is Biblically not possible, (2 Cor 6:14-15).
I pointed that out from the Bible to which Ken replied, “Well, the Bible is just a book. And God is bigger than a book.”
Which brought again a great big, “Huh?” from me.
Here is the next issue. I have been over this argument again with Ken for 24 years. In emails mostly. Ken has a very low opinion of the scripture. Which he routinely marginalizes by simply calling it “God’s love letter.” (He’s fond of the term for the Bible.)
If you asked Ken what opinion he holds for scripture he would fight tooth and nail that it’s the standard by which he lives by. But he doesn’t know much about it. He’s never read it. I challenged him about that once. “Don’t you have a craving for the milk of the Word?”
He shrugged and laughed, “Well, some of us just aren’t readers.” And so Ken continues to believe that a godly woman with the Holy Spirit inside her can also have a demon possessing her four times a month. Also, if you are not peppy and upbeat and giddy 24/7 you’re outside the will of God.
What Ken and TC have in common was how they judged truth by the source it came from. TC judged something as “truth” when it came from someone with the appearance of credibility. Ken judged something as “truth” if it came from someone babbling in an ecstasy.
Both would quickly say the Bible is the word of God but if you pointed to chapter and verse neither one of them would give it much thought. They didn’t know the Bible.
They knew what they just saw or heard or felt and if what they just saw or heard or felt was a lie... They wouldn’t know it.
1 Kings 13:1-32
1 NOW behold, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the LORD, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense.
2 He cried against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the LORD, "Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.'“
This is the story of a prophet in Judah who was called up to cry out against the evil king of Israel, Jeroboam, and against his pagan alter.
1 Kings 13:3-6 contains the dialog between them.
Jeroboam gets mad and points his finger, "Seize him!" And the king's arm immediately freezes up on the spot! The altar he was praying at also cracks in half and all the ashes fall out. The king gets the message and apologizes and his arm goes back to normal....
1 Kings 13:7-10
7 Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward.
8 But the man of God said to the king, “If you were to give me half your house I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water in this place.
9 “For so it was commanded me by the word of the LORD, saying, "You shall eat no bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way which you came.'“
10 So he went another way and did not return by the way which he came to Bethel.
This prophet was told in no uncertain terms what he was to do. He said this to Jeroboam and then he left for home. There was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons came to him and told him all about what had happened. The old prophet got his sons to saddle up his donkey and he rode off to find this prophet from Judah...
1 Kings 13:14-24
14 So he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak; and he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, “I am.”
15 Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.
16 He said, “I cannot return with you, nor go with you, nor will I eat bread or drink water with you in this place.
17 “For a command came to me by the word of the LORD, "You shall eat no bread, nor drink water there; do not return by going the way which you came.'“
18 He said to him, “I also am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, "Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.'“ But he lied to him.
19 So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house and drank water.
20 Now it came about, as they were sitting down at the table, that the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back;
21 and he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, "Because you have disobeyed the command of the LORD, and have not observed the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you,
22 but have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which He said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water your body shall not come to the grave of your fathers.'“
23 It came about after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, for the prophet whom he had brought back.
24 Now when he had gone, a lion met him on the way and killed him, and his body was thrown on the road, with the donkey standing beside it; the lion also was standing beside the body.
So this poor prophet died for disobeying the command that he was told.
And immediately you think, "Wow. That's hard core! Well, how was this guy supposed to know the difference? Another guy comes up and tells him he's a prophet too..."
(And the Bible even says the old guy was a prophet too.)
"How was he supposed to be able to tell that this was a lie?"
That's my point. God will not give another word that contradicts His first word. (No matter how miraculous the new word comes to us.)
This prophet of Judah knew what he was told and if God had new marching orders for Him He would have told him Himself.
He should've been highly skeptical of a new command regardless of where it came from. And we should be too.
Have we been told what the Lord wants us to do? Have we been told the ways to obey?
Yes. In the Bible.
And the morale to this story is that God does not allow us to be innocent for being ignorant. We should’ve known. If we were to be pulled over for speeding, it is no excuse to say, “I didn’t know the speed limit.” Ignorance is no excuse.
Ignorance in God’s word is also not an excuse. Especially not when we so profoundly blessed with so much of it.
Acts 17:10-11
10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
1 John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
We will be held accountable for our knowledge of God’s word.
And it’s no excuse to say we cannot understand it…
Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.
If you have the Holy Spirit in you as all saved people do, (Romans 8:9), He teaches you, (John 16:13), and you will understand (Colossians 1:9).
So, look, you can be deceived with false information from a source wrapped in the guise of “Christianity”. Do not be fooled. There are thousands of roads to hell and the very vast majority never say, “Road To Hell”. (Some do on album covers I’ll grant you.)
But most say, “Road To Heaven”. And most ever look better than the actual true road to Heaven, (Matthew 7:13-14).
The way to know the difference is to know God’s Word.
Psalm 119:9
How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.
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