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How Even Apparently Conservative Evangelicals Justify Disobedience to Scripture as a Deconstruction
Today churches have gone “woke.” Many accept critical race theory and same sex relations. Before contemplating those extremes, we might consider something short of that and what leads to it.
A man I know well pastors in the same city as a conservative evangelical does, and the two discussed separation. The conservative evangelical church accepts membership of many and widely varied doctrinal and practical positions. Everyone is worldly also to sundry degrees, many very much so.
The conservative evangelical graduated from Masters Seminary and in general follows its way of thinking and operation. In a conversation, the man who I know well mentioned to the conservative evangelical 1 Timothy 1:3:
As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.
Paul besought Timothy to charge the pastors at Ephesus that they “teach no other doctrine.” That’s very clear. “Teach no other doctrine” is one Greek word, heterodidaskaleo. This matches up with what Paul also said in 1 Timothy 6:3-5:
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness . . . . from such withdraw thyself.
Here’s what the conservative evangelical, who went to Masters Seminary, said: “We teach that “doctrine” there [in 1 Timothy 1:3] is [or means] ‘the gospel.'”
This is the kind of dealing with scripture or teaching that justifies disobedience to scripture. Is “doctrine” “the gospel” in 1 Timothy 1:3 and in 1 Timothy 6:3-5 among other verses of scripture? Of course not. Still, that’s how conservative evangelicals will go ahead and understand “doctrine.” “Doctrine” refers only to “the gospel” in that passage.
Calling “doctrine” “the gospel” is a type of deconstruction. Rather than a verse asserting absolute truth, a person assigns a meaning that he conceives at that moment in time. In Is There Meaning in this Text? Kevin J. Vanhoozer writes (pp. 21-22) about the deconstruction of the postmodernist Derrida, the one most associated with it:
The belief that one has reached the single correct Meaning (or God, or “Truth”) provides a wonderful excuse for damning those with whom one disagrees as either “fools” or “heretics.” . . . Neither Priests, who supposedly speak for God, nor Philosophers, who supposedly speak for Reason, should be trusted; this “logocentric” claim to speak from a privileged perspective (e.g., Reason, the Word of God) is a bluff that must be called, or better, “deconstructed.”
A teacher or preacher may dismantle Christianity by deconstructing the language. Christianity is based upon language, the language of the Bible. Rather than say you don’t believe the Bible, you can just deny a “single correct meaning.”
Deconstructing the biblical text allows and even instructs men not to believe and obey the Bible. They not only disobey, but they disobey while thinking they’re obeying, because of the deconstruction of the language of scripture. A church can grow in numbers from the welcome of plenteous and diverse disobedience, while still labeling it obedience. It doesn’t fool God now or ever.
How Does a Culture, Including a Christian Culture, Survive Without a Cancel Culture?
Previous Articles (One, Two, Three)
“Cancel culture” has a nice ring to it, a kind of poetic rhythm when one says the two words together. Go ahead, say them, “cancel culture.” It does now have a Wikipedia article. When I googled books with the terminology “cancel culture,” a glut of books appeared written in 2020-2021 with “Cancel Culture” in the title. I’ve not read one of them. I wanted to know how early the term appeared, because it’s been on my radar for at the most two years.
A book, Environmental Impact Assessment, written in 1979, reads:
We have come to the realization—yet again—that knowledge is power, that we need to keep building on our science and be ever mindful that a democratic society is based on genuine public engagement, not the so-called cancel culture that is denying genuine dialogue (author’s italics).
Before I graduated from high school, the quote appeared. Surprising. That’s the first and only usage I found in the twentieth century. I don’t know who popularized it. I went about trying to trace it, but I don’t know who originated the terminology. Originally, it seems, it was “call-out culture,” the idea here being that described by Adrienne Matei on November 1, 2019 in The Guardian:
The contemporary idea of a “call-out”, however, generally refers to interpersonal confrontations occurring between individuals on social media. In theory, call-outs should be very simple – someone does something wrong, people tell them, and they avoid doing it again in the future. Yet you only need to spend a short amount of time on the internet to know that call-out culture is in fact extremely divisive.
She pointed to a statement by former President Obama in an Obama Foundation Summit, which was on October 30, 2019, in which he said:
If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right, or used the wrong word or verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, because, ‘Man, you see how woke I was. I called you out.’ That’s not activism.
The rise of the term “cancel culture” seems to occur in the middle of 2020, which also happened to be right at the beginning of the Covid-19 ‘pandemic.’ Now it is well entrenched, and the earliest popular book seems to be Primal Screams, which said:
Consider an example that materialized in March 2019, captured in a New York Times piece called “Teen Fiction and the Perils of Cancel Culture.” It reported the case a (sic) young black man who identified as gay and was employed as a “sensitivity reader” by various publishing houses. In that capacity, he enforced “cancel culture” (i.e., the flagging that progressive groupthink would deem unacceptable).
Wouldn’t it be an interesting job to be a “sensitivity reader”? I had never heard of it until this quote. I googled that too, and it appears a lot, 40,000 times. As a pastor, a chunk of your congregation could take that job while listening to your sermons. The New York Times article was written on March 8, 2019.
Cancel culture emerged as perhaps one of the top issues for the 2022 mid-term elections. The cancel culture tried to cancel Joe Rogan on Spotify and failed. On the other hand, Whoopi Goldberg said something offensive about the Holocaust on her show, The View, and they cancelled her for a few weeks, so she could take time to reflect on her ignorance, stupidity, or callousness. Another aspect, it seems, of cancel culture is a reaction to the unvaccinated, losing one’s job even if he has natural immunity. This relates to the trucker protest on the U.S. Canadian border, which is bigger than a vaccination issue.
During this last six months I’ve worked on a lot of writing projects and wrote almost two chapters on sanctification for our book, The Salvation That Keeps On Saving. The two chapters are “Dedication and Sanctification” and then “The Biblical Theology of Sanctification,” the latter of which I’m halfway done, the former I’ve completed. For the latter, I am looking at every use of the related Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament words for sanctification, which is almost 1,000.
You reader know that God canceled in the most severe way everyone on earth except for eight people in Genesis 6-9. He ordered the cancellation of all the Canaanites. When Israel didn’t, Israel suffered greatly for that. The Assyrians and Babylonians tried to and succeeded greatly at cancelling Israel. The Bible requires churches to cancel someone’s church membership, called by us, “church discipline.” Jesus taught that in Matthew 18:15-17 (See our book, A Pure Church).
God says in Leviticus 20:24, “But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.” Two verses later, He continues: “And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.” It’s not just Old Testament. Jesus said in Matthew 13:49, “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.” Many more examples occur.
They Did Not Drive Out the Inhabitants of and from the Land
The idea of driving out anybody from almost anywhere is not acceptable in a woke world or does not work according to political correctness, the latter a softer, earlier iteration of wokeness. The act of driving out inhabitants from the land is a major theme, however, of the Old Testament. Israel is in bad shape at the beginning of Judges and a major, if not the major, reason is that the various tribes of Israel did not drive out the inhabitants of the land from the land. You could add, “and keep them out.”
A prerequisite for Israel from God was to drive out the inhabitants of the land God would give them. In fact, God would drive the inhabitants and He would use Israel to do it. It wasn’t really even their driving out the inhabitants, but God using them to do it.
It was God’s will to drive out the various Canaanities.
Exodus 23:28, And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
Exodus 33:2, And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
Exodus 34:11, Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Numbers 32:21, And will go all of you armed over Jordan before the LORD, until he hath driven out his enemies from before him,
Numbers 33:52, Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
Deuteronomy 4:38, To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
Deuteronomy 11:23, Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.
Joshua 3:10, And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.
Joshua 13:6, All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel: only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee.
Joshua 17:12, Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land.
Joshua 17:18, But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine:: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.
1 Chronicles 17:21, And what one nation in the earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his own people, to make thee a name of greatness and terribleness, by driving out nations from before thy people, whom thou hast redeemed out of Egypt?
If they did not drive them out, this was not good — very bad.
Numbers 33:55, But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.
Joshua 23:13, Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you.
This is still a general principle for the success of any people. The general principle is separate from people, their culture, or their way of life. Try to reach them and if they do not listen or won’t follow the scriptural way, separate from them. They won’t like this, but this is the only way to preserve a godly people and culture in order to please God. It is holiness, which is primary to the nature of God.
In the early history of Israel, one of Abraham’s family settled in Sodom and Gomorrah, and that ruined his family. God of course destroyed those cities with fire and brimstone. Just the opposite of driving out people is to join with them. Psalm 1:1, obviously the first verse of the entire Psalter, says,
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
Israel failed when they did not drive out the people from the land. They disobeyed God in not doing this.
Judges 1:19, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 19 And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. 21 And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day. 27 Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns:: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. 28 And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out. 29 Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them. 30 Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became tributaries. 31 Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob: 32 But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: for they did not drive them out. 33 Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh, nor the inhabitants of Bethanath; but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: nevertheless the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and of Bethanath became tributaries unto them.
This whole first chapter is about either destroying these inhabitants or not driving them out. The first good and the latter bad. Mixing with people, intermingling with them, or coexisting with them is not the will of God. The rest of Judges testifies to the failure of not driving out or not separating. They effect the people until they become more and more like the inhabitants.
The New Testament is the same. You evangelize the lost. If they won’t listen, you separate from them, especially those who call themselves brothers (1 Cor 5:11).
This principle of driving out inhabitants or separation is crucial to the preservation and practice of truth. It’s in every New Testament book. It is a principle that not only protects an individual, family, and church, but it also is crucial for a nation, like Israel.
This above principle applies to the United States, which relates to borders and immigration. If there is an American way, it won’t be preserved without some form of separation to keep out those who won’t think the same way. I’m afraid that ship has sailed or that practice won’t be able to be put back into the bottle.
Other nations might need to think about separating from the United States. Even though the Taliban is godless and pagan, they have a way of life they are protecting by ejecting the United States. They don’t want American culture to infiltrate their very specific view of the world. They know that can’t happen without separation.
As an example of what God said and the implementation of this principle, I noticed today that European nations were considering a policy for Americans visiting there to stop the spread of Covid. Quarantine is an extreme form of separation to stop disease from spreading. It is the same principle. People judge Covid to be dangerous. They don’t want it. A bubble, like the NBA bubble in 2020, was deemed necessary to continue the season.
The continuation of true doctrine and practice necessitates some kind of bubble. Young people or a youth culture in general don’t want a bubble. They want outside of it. They want amalgamation, integration, and association. They very often want to be like everyone else and be accepted by them. It is a fools errand on their part, because it won’t end in acceptance. It doesn’t work that way. The cancel culture shows this. However, it will result in their not being right with God, the most important consideration any of them should ever have.
No Divorce–Just Legal Separation!
Scripture plainly teaches that God hates divorce, e. g. Mark 10:11-12:
And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
But what about “legal separation”? Can a believer justify separating himself or herself from his or her spouse, going to law in custody battles, and in other ways remaining unreconciled, as long as “legal separation” and not “divorce” is what this is called? Consider the following passages.
1.) 1Cor. 7:10 And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband:
1Cor. 7:11 But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
1Cor. 7:12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
1Cor. 7:13 And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
1Cor. 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
1Cor. 7:16 For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
2.) Mal. 2:13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.
Mal. 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
Mal. 2:15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
Mal. 2:16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
Gen. 12:20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.Ex. 10:7 And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?Josh. 24:28 So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.
Mal. 2:2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.
Mal. 2:3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.
3.) Psa. 15:1-4 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
Psa. 15:2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
Psa. 15:3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
Psa. 15:4 In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
“I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith.”
Is. 66:2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.
A False Kind of “Unity” Sought by a Typical Evangelical
In the area in which I am evangelizing and starting a church, there are several congregations from the Calvary Chapel movement, which started around here in 1977 in the Rogue Valley. The first and biggest of these has its own radio station, which I listen to very often when I get in the car to go somewhere or do something. Listening the past few weeks, based on what I’m hearing, there’s at least a concern for unity in the church, because it is a constant theme from the two main teachers, a father and his son.
The son was talking about unity in the church and the trouble seemed to focus on a political divide in the church between Democrats and Republicans. I imagine it. There are two factions in the church, the young and Woke and then the older and conservative, which right now would be clashing more than ever. There is a wide chasm between these two and probably some anger. This ravine is so wide that the two can’t come together. A question should arise: how are they in the same church in the first place with such diversity of belief and practice? But they are. Now there’s the attempt to procure this unity with teaching. What would that teaching be?
Unity in scripture is the same belief and practice. Unity isn’t putting up with differences in doctrine. Some evangelical churches today have redefined biblical diversity. Diversity is when you have different genders, ethnicities, gifts, abilities, and socio-economic levels. They work together, but the togetherness is the doctrine and practice based on the truth of scripture. The new and counterfeit diversity is a diversity in doctrine and practice, so the unity is something also different. Evangelicals often celebrate the diversity of doctrine in a church and conflate it to a welcome diversity taught in scripture. In fact it’s just disunity being tolerated.
The unity of the Bible is what Jesus prayed for in John 17, which is the same unity as Jesus had with God the Father. This is perfect unity based on the truth. They don’t agree to disagree. That’s also reflected in every single passage on unity in the Bible, which are many. None of those passages differ and none of them teach what evangelicals say unity is. They are disunified with the unity passages.
If I were to offer one verse that provides the biblical teaching, I would provide 1 Corinthians 1:10:
Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.
I’m not going to break it down. It’s self-explanatory. It’s almost redundant in its emphasis on what unity really is and in contradiction to how it is being perverted.
Why is unity defined so much in scripture? One, God wants it. Two, it’s going to be attacked and perverted. And it is.
So what is the perverted view that I heard on the radio, an attempt to conform two such divergent groups into one? He said that the one faction needed to see the other faction as its enemy. The Bible commands, love thy enemies. He said that when you treat an enemy with love, then the next thing you know, he won’t be an enemy any more. Then that person will be your neighbor. Then you just love your neighbor. He didn’t prove any of this assertion, but is it right? Or what’s wrong with it?
How does someone love his enemy? He doesn’t murder him, steal from him, and bear false witness against him. As much as possible he lives peaceably with him. He preaches the gospel to him.
Loving your enemies is not overlooking their false beliefs and practices. It is confronting them and rebuking them and finally separating from them. You can’t fellowship with false beliefs and practices. You can only reprove them (Ephesians 5:11). You don’t become friends or neighbors of an enemy by accepting his false belief and practice. You can’t keep enemies in a church. They have to become friends and that comes by alignment with the truth. If they are enemies because of doctrine and practice, which is what this evangelical leader is talking about, the false doctrine and belief must change.
What is being taught is that the false doctrine and practice must be tolerated. This is loving the enemy. “It’s okay fellow church member that you hold to false doctrine and practice.” This is disobedience to scripture, it isn’t unity, and it isn’t love. Toleration of sin isn’t unity. For much of evangelicalism, keeping together a coalition is more important than pleasing God.
Reason for So-Called “Genocide,” God’s Commanding Israel to Utterly Destroy Canaanites: Separation unto Godliness
In a short debate I posted a few days ago, the late Christopher Hitchens attacks God, the Old Testament, and Christianity by saying, “There is no commandment saying that parents are to be nice to their children. Why is this? Because in the next chapter, the so-called children of this terrifying God, who exacts compulsory love, are going to be ordered to commit genocide against the Amalekites and the Midianites and the Moabites.”
A few errors stuck out in Hitchens’s statement. I’m going to skip his part about being nice to children, because that’s not the point of my post, so, one, God did not order this judgment in the very next chapter after the ten commandments, either Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. Two, He didn’t order the annihilation of any of those three groups in either Exodus or Deuteronomy, where He gives the ten commandments. God ordered the protection of the Moabites, who were not in the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 2:9, God said, “Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle.” Hitchens was doing what might be called, blowing smoke. That can be seen in a lot of what he says that doesn’t correspond to the Bible. He’s making it up and then counting on people not knowing what scripture says.
Genocide is a loaded word. Men came along to originate the word and the concept. There is an ethnic or racial component in the invention of the word. The idea is that a particular race deserved annihilation, complete eradication, as when the Nazis committed genocide against the Jews, just because they were Jews. Genocide necessitates a racial or ethnic component. Hitchens applies this man-made word to God to position God under the judgment of man, as if God is a criminal under the trial of utterly sinful men such as Hitchens. While Hitchens breathes God’s air and eats His food and exists only by God’s power, He uses those gifts to insult and blaspheme God. He’s not the only one. Billions do the same every day.
If you read the Old Testament, the reasoning behind the destruction of the Canaanites was not because of their race. God doesn’t have a problem with any race. Race isn’t even a thing in scripture. God saved and blessed Rahab. He saved and blessed Ruth. He exalted the Queen of Sheba. God ordered Jonah to Nineveh to preach repentance to the Assyrians, because He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11).
God’s destruction was because of unrepentant behavior. God also has unique knowledge. He knows whether a particular people are even redeemable, even as seen in His own destruction of everyone on earth between Genesis 6 and 9 with a worldwide flood.
Everyone is going to die, based upon the righteous judgment of God. When people die can relate to what they believe and practice. They may die earlier. If they are not going to stop believing and practicing a certain way, based on God’s purpose, He will penalize them with the death earlier than what they could have died. This all relates to the purpose of God’s creation. He is God. God didn’t have to create men in the first place. He gives men an opportunity for eternal life and blessing, despite man’s rebellion against God. Hitchens wouldn’t do the same, if he were God.
The purpose of the eradication of certain groups by God, different than their punishment, according to God is because of their influence on His people. He wants His people committed to the same belief and practice He is committed to, and this is seen in Israel’s participation in the destruction of those people. God’s people should associate with Him in judgment.
God will destroy people to fulfill His purpose. We live in a society today that tolerates what God is against, and what’s worse to almost all of them, especially the young people, is when someone is rejected or punished for believing and doing something different than what God says. It’s the worst sort of self-righteousness, exalting itself above God. It’s what Paul says in Romans 10:1-3, when he says they establish their own righteousness and do not submit themselves to the righteousness of God.
Consider God’s reasoning in Deuteronomy 7:2-4:
2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
Then read how God puts it later in Deuteronomy 20:16-18:
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: 17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: 18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.
It’s worth it for God to have these people killed so that they will not be a bad influence on His people. It is the ultimate in separation. That is how serious God is about His people doing what He has taught them to do.
God is so serious about separation, that we know that one reason He killed everyone on earth with a flood was to separate them from Noah and his family. That was what Peter meant by “saved by water” (1 Peter 3:20). Noah and his family were saved from the world. Eternal life itself is being saved from this present world, a world of sin. Jesus expressed the same in His upper room discourse in John 14-16 and then in His high priestly prayer to His Father in John 17. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15-17).
People are not as serious at staying away from the influences of this world as God is. People are more serious about adding 30-50 years to this earthly life, years spent walking after lust and serving themselves. They think God should be fine with that, because everything is poured into their little lives, their little kingdoms. They think they’re so important. They can’t leave their lives of lust early, so God would be wrong to cut them short. They judge God to be wrong in this. He must let them live. So.
Let’s say that God allows people to live out their lives in a seemingly ordinary way. People die at various ages of different maladies or crimes or diseases. They reach an average age of 70 to 80. They worship idols. They take on devout atheism. Some give themselves to a religion of their choice, not the truth. Now they die when they would have died of mostly natural causes. Would this satisfy Christopher Hitchens and those who agree with him? Their god would still need to knuckle under their demands from them under their judgment. It wouldn’t change anything, because actual God won’t. He shouldn’t. He is one hundred percent just.
God sees a separating death from a different perspective. His desire is holiness. He created man in His image. His purpose was a life characterized according to Him, which is a better life and the life God intends for man.
Still today, it doesn’t surprise me that an entire nation or group of people could have alienated themselves from God without exception. Their coexistence with the offspring of the righteous does and will ruin many, and after several generations turn them into the unrighteous. Scripture and history evinces this. God’s Word warns about it. It is so sure that it is axiomatic. It is of the quality of a natural law, it is so self-evident.
Separation is required to keep a people holy and in the will of God. Everyone should assume that without the intervention of God’s grace, the human race would eliminate itself. Only God’s grace keeps men from such evil that they would kill themselves off without the aid of God’s commandment of His people to cooperate with Him in doing it.
My wife and I visited historic Williamsburg, the capital of colonial Virginia. Next to the jail was a hill with a gallows for execution of thieves, adulterers, and murderers. The point of such a public showing was to deter these practices. More people overall would live and with a better life for all if such activities were threatened. It also eliminated bad influences. Criminals produce more criminals. Toleration of ungodly behavior will result in more of it. Toleration supports the bad behavior.
In the age in which we live, God still requires separation. Every New Testament book teaches it. To preserve a godly group or culture, it must separate from the ungodly.
Sanctification Summary: Christian Holiness or Sanctification—A Summary from Eternity Past to the Eternal State
During the recent Word of Truth Conference at Bethel Baptist Church, I had the privilege of preaching a summary of what Scripture teaches on sanctification. It was suggested that this summary be made into a pamphlet. You can now download the pamphlet on the FaithSaves website by clicking here; it is entitled “Christian Sanctification: A Summary from Eternity Past to the Eternal State.” The video is also live at FaithSaves; it can also be watched on YouTube by clicking here; if it is a blessing, I would encourage you to “like” it on YouTube and leave a comment. I have also embedded the video below for your viewing edification.
May it be a blessing to you, and with those with whom you can share it who want to understand what Scripture teaches about sanctification.
–TDR
“Holy” Is Not Related to “Wholly”
Calvary Chapels multiplied here in the Rogue River Watershed beginning in the late 1970s, especially beginning with Applegate Christian Fellowship and Jon Courson, which is the largest congregation in all of Southern Oregon. This was an outgrowth of the first Calvary Chapel started in Southern California in 1965 with Chuck Smith, proceeding from the Jesus Movement. Very large other Calvary Chapels have divided off of Applegate here, one called Mountain Church in Medford. They all have the “Jesus Movement” quality, which was an outlier in the history of Christianity, producing something syncretistic with the culture of the world at a much higher degree than had ever been seen.
The Myth of the Recovering Fundamentalist
I’ve been a fundamentalist. I’m not one. Do I consider myself to have “recovered”? I left fundamentalism. I separated from it. I didn’t escape it. I didn’t recover from it. I stopped being a fundamentalist. I didn’t go through a process of recovery. I saw it was wrong to be one, so I stopped being one. I did some separation from fundamentalist organizations and institutions, but that’s not all that I’ve separated from in my life. Sanctification itself is a process of separation. Be ye holy means be ye separate.
For those who didn’t grow up in it, the world of fundamentalism is beyond weird; it’s utterly foreign. How do you make sense of rules that often include things like prohibitions on women wearing pants and the condemnation of music with syncopation and watching movies in the movie theater? For those of us who grew up in fundamentalism, those rules, and their many, many companion rules, are well-known. However, most people lack a touch point for our fundyland experiences. This has resulted in ex-fundies using the internet, specifically social media, to connect and share our mutual experiences. These online relationships take many forms, from the nostalgic all the way to embittered wholesale denunciations. For many ex-fundies, though, our reminiscences take the form of an honest appraisal of the good and bad found within fundamentalism. Count me among that latter group.
Attacking the “Fundamentalists”: Bravo to John MacArthur and David Cloud, Bombarded by C. J. Mahaney and Fred Butler
When an evangelical wants to take a shot at someone, he will call him a “fundamentalist.” That’s supposed to be an ultimate insult. I read it coming from two men aimed at two preachers in the last three or four days for the same reason. In one, I read C. J. Mahaney affronting John MacArthur in a post by Brent Detwiler, and in the other Fred Butler assaulting David Cloud. These two are very, very similar, and they both illustrate how “fundamentalist” is used as an invective by evangelicals, to discourage men from standing against certain corruption. I read what Mahaney and Butler did, to be identical to each other. They are dealing with similar situations and using “fundamentalist” as a means to discourage it.
Fundamentalist tendencies cannot ultimately be restrained [This was a slander. Mahaney was saying MacArthur would not back off or change his view of Driscoll because of “fundamentalist tendencies.”]
Driscoll has a large movement – trying to protect from Driscoll’s worldliness [MacArthur is trying to protect those following Driscoll from his “worldliness” which Mahaney discounts as a fundamentalist concern focused on externals.]
Stumbles over shirt he is wearing [MacArthur stumbles over the shirts Driscoll wears.]
There is finally a small chance Mark Driscoll will be held accountable for his reign of terror. He should have been disciplined and removed from ministry years ago for multiple traits and actions that violated the clear qualifications of Scripture in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Instead he was held up as an example by “all the high-profile Calvinist leaders involved with The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel” except for John MacArthur who was dismissed by Mahaney as a fundamentalist.
Bro. Cloud is one of those screeching fundamentalists who likes to pound his pulpit against the encroachment of modernity in churches. Such modern things like contemporary music in worship or the use of the ESV by parishioners. So, if he is not railing against the worldliness of CCM artists from 25 years ago, he’s blasting away at modern Bible versions.
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