ISSUE #12 // FEBRUARY 2025
MOMENT OF TRUTH
What if the greatest harm to the Body of Christ is being inflicted from within?
A Policy of Apostasy
The greatest threat to the Body of Christ is almost certainly from within right now. Paul warned ‘false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following.’ (Acts 20:29-30).
A malignant outgrowth of Marxist thinking has invaded the church. Its adherents claim to be about love and ‘bridging gaps’. But examine their beliefs or taste their bitter fruit and you’ll find the opposite is true. Not recognising the pattern of Satan – who’s seduction of mankind began with ‘did God really say?’ – its leaders seek to redefine the core tenets of the faith through a process of intense skepticism and deference to the changeable culture around them. The result is confusion, a weakening of the church and a great falling away from the faith.
Yes, I speak of ‘Progressive Christianity’, which I briefly touched on in the last Newsletter. It emerged about 20 years ago, although its roots go back further. Claiming to be a branch of Christianity, its teachers reinterpret traditional Christian beliefs in light of contemporary cultural, social, and political trends.
Progressives generally emphasise social justice, inclusivity, and a flexible, evolving understanding of Christian doctrine. And this already brings up several major problems. To begin with, its theology is formulated around politics, whereas the biblical pattern (1 Samuel 15:23; 2 Samuel 7:3-5; 2 Kings 20:4-6; 2 Kings 22:10-13; 2 Chronicles 26:17-18) is the opposite.
If you want to hold to the beliefs of Progressive Christianity, go ahead and grab your bible and start blotting out the phrases that Progressives deem unspeakable. In fact, even that won’t do. You’re going to have to tear out whole pages and chapters, from the beginning, the middle and the end of the book, for they have given up trying to defend from scripture their many indefensible positions. They’ve given up because no matter how much they twist and distort the scriptures, they can’t make them fit their beliefs. Some phrases are just too plainly stated. Therefore Progressives have resorted to watering them down. The ten commandments are not really commandments for us, they say, more a list of guidelines and suggestions that are contextual and open to interpretation. (More hogwash you will not find in… well… a hog wash.)
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
‘The Bible is not up for debate. It is the living Word of God, and any attempt to dilute or change it only leads to the destruction of souls.’
BILLY GRAHAM
The scriptures say that God is ‘the same, yesterday, today and forever’ (Hebrews 13:8). That means he is unchanging. However, Progressives would have you believe that God has shifted his beliefs significantly over the years, and now accepts the things he used to detest (Leviticus 18:22), as though swayed by popular opinion.
These people are like Aaron, the brother of Moses. Whilst Moses was on the mountaintop receiving the ten commandments, the people – getting impatient due to his prolonged absence – said to Aaron “make us gods who will go before us!” Because he feared the people more than he respected the Lord, Aaron took their gold and “made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.”
So too the progressives have carved out an image of a god with their own futile words. And they lead others to worship this image that they call ‘Christ’, but which bears no resemblance to Him. These are those to whom Jesus will say at the judgement ‘I never knew you. Depart from me you evildoers’
When Moses returned to confront his brother, Aaron lied to him, saying: “they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” So too, Progressives, when you confront them over their apostasy, will lie to your face without shame.
Moses saw ‘that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock’. So too, Progressives encourage unrestraint, contrary to God’s Word, and they have lost the respect of all but the foolish.
2 Timothy 3:16 states that ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.’ I looked it up and that word ‘all’ is translated from the Greek word ‘pas’ which means… surprise, all. ‘Every jot and tittle’, as Jesus once said in relation to not even the tiniest detail of God’s word passing away (Matthew 5:18). In fact Jesus went on to say ‘whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.’
Here is the greatest danger: anyone blotting out those commandments, as some are doing, can expect their name to be blotted out of the Book of Life (Revelation 3:5).
If I’m scaring you by being so plain, then good, for ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ Dig and delve into His Word for the treasures of wisdom and understanding, and most of all, to know Him personally. Seek Him earnestly. All who do this will find His perfect love casting out all fear (1 John 4:18).
‘For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.’
2 TIMOTHY 4:3-4 (NIV)
FACT OF THE WEEK
Preacher of the true gospel Billy Graham’s evangelistic crusades in Eastern Europe during the Cold War helped spark a spiritual awakening that fueled resistance against communist regimes. His message of hope and freedom inspired millions, strengthening underground churches and contributing to the eventual collapse of communism in the region by the late 1980s.
