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Transcript 383B — Comments on Today's Church Scene
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I have just been listening to you for a few weeks, and I don't know your feelings about this new charismatic movement that's going through the country, but it's somewhat confusing to me sometimes. And I just wonder what you do think about it, and what you feel about the tongues movement. You do believe in people being healed by God, don't you?
HC: Absolutely I do. No one becomes well except God makes them well. God cares for this world. He supports this world by His power. He is watching over this world. But I do not believe that miracles are being done as Jesus did them when He healed the ten lepers, or when He raised Lazarus from the dead. That's a different matter altogether.
CALLER: Well, yes, I know what you mean, although I've had people tell me that they have seen miracles somewhat to that degree. For instance, my sister-in-law, who has osteomyelitis, had some elders pray for her. And her foot was black, and she said it turned to its normal color at the time that they prayed for her.
HC: Well, let me just say this. The place where we find truth is in the Bible. Our minds are very deceptive. We can't trust what our minds tell us, nor can we believe everything that we hear. There is a tendency on our part to sometimes see things more hopeful than they really are. There is a tendency to exaggerate occasionally. I'm not saying that your sister lied to you or anything like that. All I'm saying is that the way we find truth is not by some kind of evidence out there. It's by what the Bible declares. And the Bible declares that Christ did not go to the cross to give us physical healing. The Bible does say that God upholds this world by His power, and therefore He does heal, if it happens to be His will. Lots of times it isn't His will, and people die of disease.
But God cares for unsaved people, and He cares for saved people. He cares for those who have been prayed over, and He cares for those who have not been prayed over. God is concerned about this world, and He does bring healing. But insofar as the miracles that Jesus did, they were very special in nature. They were instantaneous. He set aside the ordinary rules, the ordinary laws that govern the universe, so that instantaneously a man with a withered hand could have a whole hand.
Now that is not happening today. Instantaneously lepers could become well. And that's not happening today. Instantaneously Lazarus could come out of the grave. And that's not happening today.
Secondly, we're living in a day when we're very near the end of time. All of the Biblical information points to this. And Christ warned, when we get near the end of time, that the church would be overrun with those who come with signs and wonders. In Matthew 24:24 Jesus declared, "False prophets and false christs will arise, with signs and wonders, to lead astray if possible even the elect."
The fact is, when we study the Bible we find no reference to signs and wonders near the end of time relating to true Gospel activity. All of the references, and there are a number of them, which relate to signs and wonders taking place near the end of time, are all Satanic in origin. And that's very ominous. That's very traumatic to read about.
If you look at Matthew 24:24, or II Thessalonians 2:8-10, or Revelation 13 or Revelation 16, you'll find in all four of these places references to signs or miracles. And in every case it has nothing to do with the activity of Christ in bringing the Gospel.
CALLER: Well, this is what's so confusing to me. We came from a really fundamental church, and when we moved from Arizona to California we still received the newsletter from our old church. And our pastor, in the last several newsletters that we've gotten, has really denounced, for instance, the new charismatic movement.
HC: Incidentally, on this program I don't like to talk about any congregation or denomination or movement. We'll just talk about what the Bible declares.
CALLER: Oh. Well, it's just confusing to me because of the fact that I know so many wonderful Christian people in this, and if we call these things Satanic, how can these people claim to be Christians? How can we say that it's of Satan? That's what I'm wondering. For instance, healing, or speaking in tongues, or, I don't know all the other things that seem to be associated with this, although if you don't want to go into it it's all right. But it's very confusing to me.
HC: Let me see if I can help you. Remember earlier I said that we do not build doctrine by outside evidence. We build it by the Bible. Now you can look at many gospels and sects and cults, and so on, today. And you can find people who are lovely people, who are decent moral people, who are find citizens and who are very zealous for their cause. And if we would try to make a study of the gospel that they hold or the religion that they hold by their lives, by the good things they do, by their benevolent attitudes, and what have you, and their love for their fellow man, we would have to give their particular gospel or religion the very highest approval.
But you see, the test of the true Gospel is not in the lives of people we look at, because we can't look at a person's heart. Only God can look at a person's heart. The test of the true Gospel is, "What does the Bible say?"
Now the Bible indicates that it alone and in its entirety is the divine Word of God. In Revelation 22:18 & 19 we read, "If anyone adds to the words of this book, I will add to him the plagues written herein. And if anyone takes away from the words of this book, I will take away his share in the book of life," and so on. In other words, God is indicating that we are to look at the whole Bible as the Word of God, and we're not to look at anything else as the Word of God.
That means that any gospel, regardless of how beautiful it may seem, or the people who are involved in it may appear to be, any gospel which believes that the Bible is the divine Word of God, but which also believes that there is another book or another source of divine truth, such as visions or voices or tongues, or whatever, is by definition another gospel rather than the true Gospel, because those who hold to that kind of a gospel are saying that there are at least two sources of divine truth. There is the Bible, and there is this other source over here.
Or any gospel which declares that only part of the Bible is the divine Word, and that there are parts of the Bible that are not to be looked upon as the divine Word, would also by definition be another gospel.
Now this is the way we have to decide what is the true Gospel. Any denomination or gospel or congregation of belief that one holds has to be understood in the light of, "How do they relate to the Bible? Is it alone and in its entirety the divine Word?"
Now we're living in a day right near the end of time, when the church – the churches, the denominations, the groups of believers as they are found throughout the world – is becoming increasingly lax in maintaining the authority of the Bible. The church is not being true to its responsibility to remain faithful. Now it's still the church of Jesus Christ. It still has a mandate to bring the Gospel. It's still represented, to use Biblical language, by a candlestick in Heaven. But it is beginning to rewrite the rules. It's rewriting the rules on divorce and remarriage. It's rewriting the rules on population control, and rewriting the rules on who has authority in the church, who may preach, and so on. And the church is rewriting these rules.
It's rewriting the rules insofar as what the Bible consists of. It's countenancing books that are called paraphrases of the Bible, which are not the Bible at all. It no longer is nearly as interested in a deep and urgent study of the Word of God. The church is increasingly interested in social activity, in music activity. Now music is fine in itself. Social activity is fine in itself. But God says, in Hosea 4:6, "Because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you from being a priest before Me." In other words, we are turning away from the Word of God as being the final authority.
Now as part of the judgment on the church, or as part of God's bringing His wrath upon the church because of its activities, the Bible indicates, and all of this was planned and prophesied in the Bible, there's nothing that's happening that's out of control, or beyond what we could expect, that as we approach the end of time the church will be assaulted by those who come with these other gospels, and particularly those who come with gospels that feature signs and wonders. They'll come with a gospel that looks so much like the true Gospel that even the true believers would be deceived if this was possible. It talks about this in Matthew 24:24: "False prophets and false christs will arise, with signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect."
The elect are the true believers. Even they could be led astray if they were not held by Christ, because these who come as false prophets and false christs, in the Name of Christ, believing they are followers of Christ, come with a gospel that looks so much like the true gospel that even the elect would be deceived if possible.
And this is a judgment on the church, because the church is not remaining faithful. And ultimately this will result in the silencing of the Gospel. The day will come, and it's fast approaching, when God will take away from the churches and congregations and denominations and groups of believers, as we have known them throughout the New Testament period, the credential or the right to be the custodian of the Gospel. The Gospel will be silenced. We're not to that point yet, but that time is coming.
Now because we live in this dynamic and interesting and also traumatic time, we have the experience of seeing the vision in the church. Let me illustrate this. Up until our generation, if we had lived, let's say, fifty years ago or one hundred years ago, or two hundred years ago, and we belonged to a congregation, the church members would have come into the fellowship of believers there, and ordinarily (there would have been a few exceptions, but ordinarily) they would have lived and died in that congregation. We would have believed they were children of God, or born again believers. And finally, when Mrs. Jones or Mr. Smith died, we would all be very happy in our sadness that our dear friend had gone home to be with the Lord, that finally he is rejoicing with Christ in Heaven. And this would have been a normal experience.
We, however, are living in a day when the church is being assaulted by these other gospels (and there are many of them), so that anyone at all in the congregation who is not a born again believer and according to everything we read in the Bible, there is no congregation, there is no denomination, there is no church, no group of believers at any time in history that consisted altogether of born again believers. Even the disciple band did not consist entirely of born again believers. The churches of Asia Minor, in Revelation 2 and 3, did not consist entirely of born again believers. And there is no church that consists entirely of born again believers.
Well, as these other gospels come, and they're very glorious gospels, you know. They appear so dynamic, they appear so significant. And certainly they talk about Christ and the blood of Christ, and all these things. As they come, anyone who is not a born again believer, anyone who has been desperately making like a Christian and as near as we can tell is a Christian, will be snared off into these other gospels.
And so this is where the trauma comes. This is where the division comes. This is where the strife in the congregation comes from. And this is what makes it very difficult to live today. This is a day when you cannot evaluate the gospel by the lives of people. You can only evaluate the gospel by the Bible. And you want to make sure that in your own life you remain true to the Bible, as being alone and in its entirety the divine Word of God.
CALLER: That's what I'm trying to do, but it seems so confusing to read all these things. But can I just ask you this? If this is not of God, why do they seem to be glorifying God in all that they do, and bringing others to Him? How could this be serving Satan, if they are bringing others to Christ and winning souls to Him? How could it be detrimental, or how could it be of Satan if this is the case?
HC: All right. Let's raise this question. And that's a very good question. How is it possible that a gospel, any gospel that is not the true Gospel, could really glorify Christ in a tremendous way, apparently, and really apparently bring many people to Christ? Is this possible? And the Bible says absolutely so.
In Matthew 7, beginning with verse 15, Jesus is talking about false prophets. And He says, "In that day (that is, at Judgment Day)," these false prophets will be so certain that they were followers of Christ that they will argue with God at the judgment throne and say, "Lord, Lord," In other words, they were very familiar with saying, "the Lord Jesus" this and "Praise the Lord" that, and so on. "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name (in the Name of Christ)? Did we not do many mighty works in Your Name? Did we not cast out demons in Your Name?" In other words, 'Weren't we against Satan in Your Name?' And what will the Lord say? "Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity I never knew you."
So don't underestimate Satan. Now we read in II Corinthians 11 that Satan comes as an angel of light. Most people quite frequently fail to realize the magnificent deceiver that Satan is. If someone comes to you and lies to you, and it's a flagrant outright lie, so that you can spot it in a minute, you say, "Oh, you liar." That person was not a very good liar, was he? He was a liar, but he was an amateur at the business.
But when Satan deceives, he is the master deceiver. He is the master con artist. When he deceives somebody, they have no idea that they have been deceived. They have no idea. He's so subtle, he's so clever. He comes as an angel of light, that is, a messenger of God, with the message of salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he just twists it enough, so that it's not the true Gospel. That's why Matthew 24:24 says that even the elect would be deceived, if that were possible. That's how clever Satan is.
And so don't you believe it for a moment that Satan won't glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course he will. He'd be glad to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, if in so doing he can gently lead someone away from the true Gospel.
CALLER: Well, it makes me so sorry for the ones that are being led into all this, but I guess the only solution is to just pray for them, and pray for their true salvation and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
HC: Well, this is a day when we want to be sure that we remain with the true Gospel. On this program I never hold up one congregation or one denomination, or one group of believers above another, because I believe there are true believers in most denominations. But this is the only thing we can hold up. There's only one thing we can hold up, and that is the Bible, the Bible. It alone and in its entirety is the divine Word. And if we'll only take that, and remember that, and keep going to the Bible for our authority. If we're going to decide what doctrine is true, check it out in the Bible. Don't check the evidence on the outside, because our minds are tricky. Our minds deceive us. And we're not sure whether we're being told the whole story. We can't read the heart of men, and so on. But we can read the Bible. And in the Bible God gives us the straight story, absolutely straight story. We can depend on what we read there.
And as long as we're reading the Bible and trusting it as the divine Word, Satan can never come at us with his deception. He doesn't speak in the Bible. God speaks in the Bible. The Bible is the voice of God. Every time we read the Bible we know this is God speaking to us. If I would receive a vision or something else, I would have no idea who was speaking to me, whether it was out of my mind, or whether I was hallucinating, or whether Satan himself was coming at me. I'd have no way of knowing, none whatsoever.
But when I read the Bible, I know that is God speaking to me.
CALLER: I sure appreciate your helping me. Thank you very much.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.