The Bible believers, people like you and I, believe that we are protected just because we have realized that God’s Word is God’s Word. But what the enemy has done and continues to do is to preach from the gospel, but he mixes up the Bible verses, yanks them out of context and thus creates a gospel that is deceivingly similar to the original.
Satan is good at using the Word incorrectly. When he tempted Jesus he quoted from the Scripture, but the code was wrong! He used Bible verses pulled out of context. In our world, there are many sermons and doctrines that are built upon Bible verses, but the code is wrong. The consequence is dire because if the starting numbers are wrong, then the final outcome will also be wrong.
It’s like putting a coin into a Coke machine, only to have a mineral water pop out.
Or working hard to produce a growing church, only to get the opposite: a shrinking church.
When:
- The evangelist is sitting on the sidelines
- The healthy get sick
- The generous get stingy
- The free become tied up
- The happy become depressed
- The believer becomes a doubter
- The condemned become even more condemned
- Sin becomes something natural
- The manifestations of the Holy Spirit are forbidden
- Those who want something disappear and those who don’t remain
This is why we have places where energetic, happy seekers come to meet Jesus, but once they get saved they are remodeled into lukewarm churchgoers stuck in their seats. People come to the church fully healthy and leave it sick! Others come filled with love and hope, but after a few years in church they’ve been transformed into manipulative “besserwissers” who know what everyone else should do but who never accomplish anything themselves. Certain preachers’ holiness sermons are so heavy that if you come in crawling, you’ll be carried out. Or at the other extreme, the message is so thin, pointless and liberal that everyone loses hope. Even though we have a message of hope it is forbidden to laugh.
From the fire of revival to systematic theology
We see this most clearly in our international ministry, in newly-evangelized regions. There is great joy at having found Jesus. Everyone wants to evangelize, give, help out and live for Jesus. They don’t have any Bible schools, no systematic theology, no Bibles, they just have Jesus and the Holy Spirit and they are brimming with life!
Then something happens. We Westerners come to help them out, since “they have to study theology!” We are both well-meaning and arrogant. Arrogant because in many cases we want to teach something we don’t have ourselves: church growth. In too many cases a transformation occurs. Why? Because the code has been changed. Instead of a wild, dynamic revival movement, we get a prim and proper, well-organized and theological church unit. With one big difference: the uncontrolled revival has died out. The code has been changed, the fire has been tamed, and Satan has succeeded again! “But,” someone might protest, “they are teaching from the Bible.” Yes, but what good does that do if the code is wrong?
Can you see the brilliance of Satan’s plan? The more they know about the Bible, the less revival they have. So is it the Bible that is wrong? Absolutely not, the Bible is the Word of God. What’s wrong is the code.
This happened back in Paul’s day among the Galatian churches. Judaizing teachers came and visited the churches, and they believed in Jesus, but…they had the wrong code. They used the teachings of Jesus but added another teaching from the Old Testament. Paul was devastated because even though these “false” Bible teachers only taught from the Bible, it had a dire outcome because “it was not a gospel.” Even though it was the Word of God, the code was wrong. “Who has bewitched you?” Paul asked. “Christ was portrayed as crucified.
So how can you know what is right? The answer is rather long, but very important.
I hope to give it to you by Tuesday!
