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CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: Dear Dave and T.A., I’ve listened to your many programs on The Emerging Church movement, and I appreciate your making very clear the biblical problems with such a movement. What I find thoroughly surprising, even disheartening, is the number of very bright, articulate young Evangelical Christians that are being seduced by the emergent leaders and writers. Do you have any insight as to why so many are attracted to this movement?
Tom:
Well, Dave, we could go down a list. It begins with: were they really taught the Bible? Do they really have an understanding of God’s Word, because this is so anti-Bible, this movement, that it’s stunning. The other thing, and we talked about in our first segment a little bit, is; our young people, they want to be accepted. This issue of tolerance, it’s got them, its gripped them, they don’t want to be considered to be intolerant. So they’re going to go with the flow of their peers, and whether this happens in college, whether it happens in high school, they just don’t want to be what the Bible calls sanctified, set apart. And, it’s sad, Dave, because they have the truth. And remember Jesus in uh, what is it John 17:17: Pray to the Father, sanctify them by thy truth, thy Word is truth. They have the truth if indeed, they know Christ and have accepted Christ, but they are not willing to be—many, not all, there are some kids I just stand in awe of, but many, I think the majority are drifting away, and they are being led down a primrose path by these pied-pipers of The Emerging Church movement.
Dave:
Yeah, well Tom, again it’s just another variation of what we were just talking about; why does Oprah go from The Secret, and now she is on to this new deal, although it’s very similar. Well, I think these young people would say, and older ones as well, if we say, Why don’t you get back to the Bible? Yeah, we tried that, that doesn’t work. A lot of people say that—Well, I tried surrendering my life to Christ, I tried believing, it doesn’t work. Well then, I guess the Bible isn’t true, we should all throw it out. Because if this doesn’t work, wait a minute! How is it going to work? By faith, I must believe it. And this is what Oprah wants you to do, she wants you to believe this, believe this guru, believe The Secret and so forth. But that’s not the same kind of faith, and we can prove this is true, we just went over that. You cannot prove that Tolle’s book is true, you cannot prove that The Secret is right, and we can certainly—well, it’d be easy to prove it doesn’t work, because none of those people have ever gotten everything they want, can’t be what you want and go where you want, and so forth. I guess that would certainly free a lot of prisoners. You know, like Maharishi was teaching them how to fly. Well, I don’t hear of any followers of Maharishi in prison that went over the prison walls.
Tom:
Yeah, his form of levitation through transcendental meditation—
Dave:
Is a joke.
Tom:
Right. Well Dave, let’s go back to Ophra just for a second. You heard her, the video in which she said, Listen, Christianity is not the only way, there are many ways. So, here you have—and she claims to be a Baptist, I mean, she grew up a Baptist, was turned off by learning that God was a jealous God. She couldn’t reconcile that with her understanding of God, and now she’s opened up to all kinds of other teachings, all kinds of other beliefs, and she’s come up with really, whether you call it New Age or Eastern mystical, or whatever, she has—she’s no longer a Baptist. Not that baptism saves anybody, that is, being a Baptist saves anybody, but she’s jumped from the truth, if she’s ever understood it.
Dave:
I don’t believe she ever understood it. So she never knew the Lord, you don’t lose your salvation. This woman is determined to take her own way. And she knows what’s popular, she runs a talk show. Well you can’t be a talk show host can say, Jesus warned you; I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me. No, it sounds a whole lot more appealing. And Tom, one of your verses that you often quote: There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, the end thereof are the ways of death. Why does it seem unto a man? Not because he’s analyzed it logically, not because he’s checked it out from the Bible, but because, Hey, this sound really nice—I really like this.
Tom:
Well, Dave, along this line of the question that we’ve just received, you know, young people in many cases, and I see it too often, there are some things that they want to do that the Bible says, No.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
And so they are going to jump ship, because their heart, their minds, their flesh says, No, I want this more than I want God’s Word, God’s truth.
Dave:
Yeah Tom, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I often think of these televangelists, I mean, some of them really tell lies, trying to get money, and so forth. They don’t have any fear of God, I don’t think they even believe in God. So we have a lot of people who claim they believe in God. They grew up in a church, believe in God, believe in Jesus Christ, but you don’t study His Word, and you do not follow what the Bible really says. How do you know that what you, your interpretation of this—I mean you’ve trashed the Bible. Tom, in fact, we don’t want to go back to that, but we’ve talked about The Message—it trashes the Bible. You’ve got these DVD’s, and so forth—this is spiritual junk food, this is what these young people are being raised on. How can they find some stability from solid rock under their feet because the Bible, so-called, that they even have and the teaching they are getting from church is not based upon the solid foundation of the Word of God, and of Jesus Christ.
Gary:
If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith, stay with us, we’ll provide our contact information at the end of the program. You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.