Most people who are Christian want to be part of a good local church to grow in their faith and have fellowship with fellow Christians. This is normal and good.
(Hebrews 10: 23-25) Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. However, because there are so many churches in our culture that are not theologically and biblically sound, we need to research and test the churches and make sure we do not align ourselves with a church that promotes non-Biblical teachings and doctrines. You can’t blindly take for granted that their doctrinal statements on their websites are an accurate portrayal of the real church’s teaching and practices. Most of them will include the most basic theological statements that are doctrinally sound, but often in real practices, many of them deviate from those statements in their teaching and ministry.
There are many things to watch out for. To compose and comment on all of them would be an insurmountable task for anyone attempting to accomplish such a feat. Because of this, I want to take a bird’s eye view of some of the more pronounced elements that have crept into the modern church, and their dangers.
The first church error I will address is what is commonly referred to the “Word of Faith” doctrine, or movement. This has been incorporated into many of the mega-churches that have sprung up and grown in astronomical proportions in recent years. One of the contributing factors to this is the “seeker-friendly” ideologies incorporated into the foundation of these churches. “Seeker-Friendly” was popularized by “pastor” Rick Warren of Saddleback Church of California which now has extended campuses all over the globe. Saddleback’s reach is far and wide. Rick Warren’s initial books, “The Purpose Driven Life” and “The Purpose Driven Church” were the springboards for many of these teaching and practices. Let’s look at what it means for a church to be “Seeker Friendly”. Being friendly to those who are searching for truth is certainly a positive attribute for a church to have, but once you reach beyond the initial rhetoric of these churches, disturbing teachings and practices become apparent to those with Biblical discernment. It is not the job of the church to entertain non-believers. The reason people don’t go to church is because they don’t want to, it is not because biblically sound churches are doing something wrong. The idea goes something like this: “If we can just change our tactics a bit, and get them through the doors, then we can expose them to the Gospel and get them saved.” The fallacy of that idea is the fact that, in practice, that is not what most “seeker-friendly” churches wind up doing. Because they feel the need to keep the non-churched crowd engaged, what should be worship winds up being entertainment. Some preachers do ridiculously silly things to try to make the Gospel message “relevant and relatable” to this crowd. I saw a video clip of one pastor with a huge box of Krispy Kreme donuts on the podium. He was eating them, and making the comparison of how, just as Krispy Kreme donuts can be eaten and enjoyed for their sweetness, we can be fed the Gospel message, which we will find sweet to our soul, or some such malarky. Pass out donuts, don’t mention some bloody cross.
The problem with the seeker friendly model is that it is based on pragmaticism, which means, “do whatever works”, whether it is based on Scripture or not. I don’t think those who practice this approach to evangelism have ill intentions. The intention may be legitimate, but the approach is not. People get saved after being exposed to God’s law, which should put them under conviction for their sin, leading them to repentance and turning to God for forgiveness, which can only come through Jesus Christ. It is not the job of the Church to make people feel good and think God is just going to bless them because they are in the right place, with the right people. It is not enough to tell people to “Accept Christ”. What does that mean? Accept Him for what? Saddleback encourages people to “Accept Christ” and His plan for your life. Without conviction over sin, and repentance, this doesn’t mean anything. The message should be, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at Hand”, not “Accept Jesus because He can make your life better.”
In the “About” section of Saddleback’s website we read the following:
“We exist to urgently lead people to say “yes” to Jesus and his purposes for their lives.” (Say “yes” to what exactly?)
This statement, and actually the whole premise of “The Purpose Driven Life” is that the Christian’s main goal in life should be to search out and fulfill some marvelous, individualized plan that God has for all of us. This idea is not taught in Scripture. There are examples in Scripture of God calling individuals to a specific purpose He had for them. For example: Abraham was called to leave his home and go to a land that God would show him. Moses was called to confront Pharoah and lead the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery and go to the land God had designated for them. The real prophets were all called directly by God to deliver some specific message to His people at different times. (On a side note, many of the self-proclaimed prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation movement are constantly saying things like “I feel like God is telling me….”. They also often make statements that are purported to be direct words to them from God for His people, saying “Thus says the Lord” or something like that. Firstly, to say, “I feel like God is saying” means they really aren’t sure. Maybe He is, maybe He isn’t. God NEVER speaks directly to anyone in that manner. And… “feeling something in your heart” is not a valid way to determine whether something that just pops into your mind is from God. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (desperately wicked KJV). Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) There are no instances recorded in the Scripture of a true prophet saying, “I felt like the Lord is saying…”. “Thus saith the Lord…” is straight to the point with no ambiguity. The words thunder with authority. There is no such thing as “feeling” a word from the Lord. Either God said it or He didn’t. But these modern day, so-called prophets are constantly saying “I feel this” or “I feel that”. Poppycock.
The places in Scripture where we read about God calling someone, the prophets, the patriarchs, the apostles, etc. are descriptive texts, meaning they simply explain the history in context. They are not prescriptive texts to be taken out of context to create a prescription or template that everyone is to follow.
Having said all that, it is true that God does have a plan for your life. His plan is that you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, repent of your sin, be baptized (as an open and public declaration of your faith in Jesus Christ) obey His commands and be willing to openly proclaim your faith in Jesus Christ, and through your new relationship with Jesus Christ, grow in holiness and the fruit of the Spirit.
(Galatians 5:22-23)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.)
Through this process, you are remade in the image of Jesus Christ in your inner man. That’s it! It is not burdensome or complicated. That is not to say that it is easy, it certainly is not.
The bottom line is that God is concerned for your character more than the stuff you “do”. If you are not growing in Christlikeness and your life is not producing the fruits of the Spirit, it doesn’t matter if you “feel” like God is calling you to write some specific book about “Five principles of the Spirit”, or whatever the case may be, whether you do it or not (meaning writing the book, or whatever the task is.) Thinking that completing your task is more important than growing in grace is works theology, which is highly condemned in the Apostolic writings.
With that in mind, let’s take a moment to revisit a well knows account in Mark 10:17-22:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. (Notice: Jesus is not saying to the man, “I am not good.” What he is really saying, if you understand it correctly is “I am God.” You acknowledge Me as Good. Only God is good.) You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Notice first the question: “What must I do…?” That is the way we think. The second aspect of the question: “to inherit eternal life”, (the reward for the doing.) In other words, “Here is what I want. What do I need to do to get it?” Notice, as was Jesus’s custom, He did not answer the question, instead He asked questions. First, obey God’s commandments. If you are not at least doing that, you are not even on the right path. Next, “What about your character, which is the most important thing? Are you willing to lay it all down to follow Me to find God?” The young man’s premise was all wrong. “Just give me a list of stuff to do to get what I want for Christmas and I will do it!” That is not how God’s kingdom works. It is ALWAYS about our spiritual character, not what we do. The “doing” can certainly be a side benefit, but it is never the main thing.
The “What must I do…?” question stems from a faulty understanding that people have had about God since the beginning of time. It represents a transactional mentality about God. That is really the driving force behind all the world’s religions, except for Christianity (rightly understood.) We read over and over in the historic books of the Old Testament cycles of good kings and bad kings. Many times, a good king will start out on the right path, “doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord”, But somewhere along the line things go astray. It seems puzzling to the reader. I think it is because the kings had this misguided transactional view of God. They think if they do the right things, God will bless them, and things will go well. To an extent, there is some truth in this. But in this view of God, character change is not the primary emphasis, it is the “doing”, When they did the things they knew of to do to please God, they thought there would be no more challenges or problems. Then when it seemed to them that God was not holding up His end of the bargain, (a bargain they contrived, not God), they would turn back to the pagan gods. That is because this transactional view of God gets it all wrong. God doesn’t owe us anything. He has already provided us with all we need. That’s really the whole point of the Book of Job, in my humble opinion. The question is not, “Why do bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people?” Bad things and good things happen to good people and bad people. It’s a pointless question with no answer. The real point is that our relationship with God should always be based on our love and awe of Him as our Creator/Redeemer, not on what we need to “do” to prove our goodness to Him, or anyone else, and thus falsely think He owes us something good for our righteous works. God never “owes” us anything except judgement for our wickedness, which He refrains from dishing out to us in His grace.
It’s always about our character. Good character produces good actions. God’s judgement is about our character, not whether or not we discover His exact, tailor made plan He has devised for our individual life. As Jesus said, “A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.”
The notion that God has an individualized plan for your life in the sense of your life circumstances, such as who you marry, what your vocation is, where you live, where you go to school, etc. is not taught anywhere in Scripture as a prescription, and to teach people this, is to lay a burden on them that will eventually lead to frustration and discouragement. If you have been taught that it is your responsibility to seek out that individualized plan God has for you, and you do not fulfill it to the tee only leads to frustration and burn out. That is not so say that we shouldn’t be in constant prayer, searching out God’s guidance and wisdom in all areas of our life. But the Gospel is about God’s grace, and grace is freedom from condemnation. Even if God does have a carefully crafted model for your perfect life, (which I don’t believe He does), that you need to fulfill, and you missed it on some points, He is still grace-filled and merciful.
When Saddleback states that “We exist to urgently lead people to say “yes” to Jesus…” one must ask, “Say yes to what?” The message of salvation, or “His purposes for their lives”? Salvation is so much more than simply agreeing with God’s illusive plan, trying to find it, and trying to live it out. It is about a day to day relationship and dependance on God, no matter the situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. For us to think that we are so important that God’s plan will be thwarted if we don’t figure out His exact plan for each individual life and fulfill it is the height of narcissism. It makes the whole Biblical narrative about us, not God. That makes the Biblical narrative the exact opposite of what it really is. The Bible is about God’s overarching plan for humanity. We can’t insert ourselves in every passage and make it about us. I get a little tired of “worship” songs with too many I’s, Me’s and Mine’s. Instead of singing “How great thou art” we have begun to sing “How great you have made me to be!” History is “His-story” not “Our-story”. This leads to the next gross error:
The core of the “word of faith” movement is the idea that our words have the power to create reality. This sounds like occultic magic. It is all a very twisted and convoluted notion that we create reality through our use of words. For example, if we go to a doctor and the doctor tells us that we have some illness that needs to be treated a specific way, we must deny the reality of the illness, and instead “speak healing” into our situations. If the doctor says, “You are sick”, you say, “No, in the name of Jesus I am not sick. I have perfect healing in Jesus’s name” instead of taking the treatment, and through your spoken word, you create the reality of wellness. This is utter nonsense and is nowhere taught in Scripture. This heresy has led many people to death through the refusal of valid medical treatment. Another thing to keep in mind if you have heard this doctrine of God “always willing to heal every infirmity all the time”, is that, in many circumstances, it is not even a reality for the people who proclaim it. They get sick, they have physical handicaps, (eye glasses, hearing aids, pace-makers, Covid 19, etc.) They also die, just like all the people they preach their false, godless doctrine to. There are many of them who also go so far as to say that God is powerless to do anything miraculous in the world unless we cooperate with Him and give Him our permission to act. This is sheer blasphemy. The all mighty, all powerful God who creates everything is not limited in what He can or can’t do based on our cooperation with Him, and our granting Him permission to act on our behalf.
Granted, our words do have a degree of power. If we “speak the truth in love” as Scripture admonishes us, we are more likely to bring about positive (not necessarily easy) results, but this is far from the NAR teaching of “creating reality” via our spoken word, as God spoke reality into existence through His spoken word. (Genises chapter 1.) We are not God. Human beings do not have that power. Again, our words can have a degree of power to proclaim things that can become reality, if we do the work to make it so. For example, if I look out at my back yard, and it is nothing but dirt and weeds, I can proclaim, “At this time next year, my yard will be a perfectly manicured work of art”, at which point I will have to till it, kill the weeds out, fertilize, seed and water it until I see the results I want.” It will require more than me simply saying words. It will require me doing stuff, not just babbling!
The heretical teaching of NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) is that it is always God’s will for those who name the name of Jesus Christ to be healthy and wealthy. They will say things like “Jesus never chose to not physically heal anyone who came to Him for healing.” That is simply not true. It can be easily proven to not be true by simply examining the life of the Apostle Paul. In Chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians, we read of Paul’s thorn in the flesh, some physical ailment that Paul wanted desperately to be rid of. We are not told what this ailment was. Many people have speculated about it, but the Bible simply does not tell us:
“I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (Compare Job) Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:1-10)
Many of these false apostles and false prophets will go into great detail in stories about God taking them to heaven and showing them marvelous things, things of the nature Paul mentions here that he was not permitted to speak about. If Paul was not permitted to speak about the glorious things he saw in visions of paradise, why should we be expected to believe all these grandiose things people claim to have experienced? And Paul was not healed of whatever this “thorn in the flesh” he experienced was. I believe that God can and sometimes does miraculously heal people from various ailments and infirmities, but just because this does sometimes happen, according to God’s will, it is not a prescription we can extract from God’s Word by taking things out of context to prove it is always God’s will to heal. It is not. Jesus Himself addressed this issue:
(Luke 4:27) “And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
These words of Christ infuriated the people in the synagogue so much that they tried to take Jesus to the cliff and throw Him off, but they did not succeed.
God always has reasons for what He does and does not do. But we, in our finite understanding of things, can’t answer the question of why this is so:
(Isaiah 55:8-9)
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We simply can’t answer all the questions.
Considering all this, let’s get back to Rick Warren for a moment. As I previously stated, the idea of God having a specific, tailor-made plan and purpose for each of our lives that we must work hard to find, then accomplish is a burdensome task to lay on people’s shoulders. (I guess that is a cumbersome and overly wordy way of simply saying Rick Warren teaches law, not grace.) In Rick Warren’s teaching about God’s purposes for our lives, (he calls these “Foundations of a life well-lived”), he lays out these principles:
1. Identity. You have to know who God made you to be. You must work hard to find yourself. (Notice he does not say anything about finding out who Christ is, and that being the most important thing, not your self-identity.) If we don’t know Christ, it doesn’t matter if we figure out who we are anyway. It is not going to end well. If you rightly know who Christ is, your self-identity seems much less important. The notion of finding self-identity feeds our already out of control narcissism. If you rightly know who Christ is, your self-identity will fall in line with that. It is not something you need to find. I jokingly tell people when I was younger, I went on a quest to “find myself”. After years of searching, one day I looked at a mirror and I discovered I was right here the whole time. I didn’t have to search the world over! I was already here!
2. Purpose. You have to know what God wants you to do. I discussed this earlier. God’s purpose for everyone is for us to be conformed to the image of Christ. That is what we do. That can work itself out in whatever your circumstances are. The circumstances aren’t what is important. The thing that is important is what you do with those circumstances, whatever they are. Are you being conformed into the image in Christ? Are you becoming more, or less like Christ in everything life throws your way? And these “apostles and prophets” always go on and on about some spectacular, world changing, attention getting thing God has in store for each of us. Maybe you should write a New York Times best-selling book that will be translated into all the world’s languages and miraculously change the lives of millions and millions of people who read it! Maybe you will lead massive revivals where millions of people will get saved! Or… God Forbid! Maybe you aren’t called to do any of those things. Maybe you are called to simply be an ordinary Joe who just goes about with no fanfare or recognition, and just be a stable, loving and faithful husband and father and a faithful brother in Christ to your friends in their time of need.
(Ephesians 2:8-10):
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
The problem with the “doing” mentality of the rich young ruler, and Rick Warren, is that it leads us to think God owes us something. “I did my chores, now give me my allowance!” News flash: God does not owe us anything. He has been far more merciful to us than our wicked hearts deserve by not just instantly judging all of us and setting us on fire!
What did God make me for? What specific role am I supposed to fill? This is utter rubbish and is nowhere found in Scripture in the sense that we all have some special, unique role that we must fulfill in order for God’s ultimate plan to succeed. This is sheer narcissism. Imagine the headlines if I lose my way, “The Almighty Creator God is seeing His ultimate plans for mankind failing because Danny Bryant didn’t choose well, and took a job offer from an IT company in Cary, NC instead of finishing and publishing the book he felt God told him to write years ago! The fate if humanity hangs in the balance!!!”
3. Timing. The next thing Warren zeros in on is TIMING! You’ve got to get your timing right, or it will all fall apart. Since none of us have crystal balls we can use to peer into the future with, I am not sure how that can pan out. Apparently, Rick Warren isn’t either, but he still felt it imperative that he lay that additional layer of guilt on his readers.
According to Rick Warren, when all three of these things line up, you have the ingredients for a successful life. This is pure narcissistic, self-help, humanistic malarky that is based on the wisdom of man, and is not a concept laid out for us in Scripture, unless, like Rick Warren, you have already come to this conclusion, and you are simply cherry picking isolated Scriptural passages, taking them out of context, and stringing them together to form your prescription, which is exactly what Rick Warren has done.
Since when does the Scripture admonish us to “lead a successful life”? What precisely is your definition of success? Did Jesus lead a successful life before He was crucified by evil humanity and thrown into a cave (tomb) to rot? (He didn’t rot, but that was their intention.) The Bibles that I have been reading for 42 years show me that mankind is lost in sin and death and there is NO hope outside of the saving work of Jesus Christ in taking the punishment for our sin upon Himself on the cross of Calvary, and then rising from the dead, teaching His disciples, and ascending back to heaven with the Father until the time of His second coming, when He will come to raise the saints back to life, and set up His judgement seat for all those who do not know Him nor had their sins forgiven by turning to Him when they had the chance. I am yet to read one sentence in my Bibles about solid and secure 401K investments, or the perfect exercise and diet plan to keep my body healthy and strong, or how to write a New York Times Best Seller! What am I missing? Where is the promised Earthly success that Rick Warren harps on about?
The problem with this church model is that it stresses the blessings of God in this life with very little focus on the next. Joel Osteen’s message is basically “How to live your best life now.” Rick Warren’s message is basically “How to live your best, most successful life now.” One thing anyone should realize from reading the Bible, and basically just looking at life in general is that this life is temporary. The death rate for human beings that are born is 100 percent. Death takes all of us. It is just a matter of time. Everything we gain during this short span of time we have on this earth is lost to us in the end. This life is preparation for the next one, which will be eternal, in either Heaven or Hell. There are no other alternatives. We must realize this, or we miss everything.
The idea that God is restoring modern day Apostles and Prophets is another notion that has become prominent in many churches in these days. My take on all this is that the Apostolic Age is over. The Apostles were the men who actually knew and spent time with Christ. They were his inner circle during His time here, all except for the Apostle Paul, who met Christ, miraculously, after His resurrection. There is no mention of the Apostle Paul in the Gospels, so we do not know whether he ever encountered Christ before His resurrection or not. Since we know that Paul, pre-conversion, was a staunch Pharisee who was in strong opposition to the Church, I would assume that he was familiar with the actions and teaching of Christ during Christ’s earthly life, but the Bible simply makes no mention of him until he shows up in the Book of Acts in harsh opposition to the church.
NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) is simply a heresy that promotes the idea that God is raising up a new generation of modern-day apostles and prophets. Most of the people I have ever heard on the internet who self-proclaim to be apostles and/or prophets or are proclaimed to be apostles and/or prophets by other self-proclaimed apostles and/or prophets do not sound at all like the legitimate apostles and prophets in the Bible. (I say “on the internet” because, as far as I know, I have never attended a church where this is practiced.) Strong emphasis is placed on experiences and so called “Signs and Wonders”. As to experience, while it is true that we need to experience the presence of God in our day to day lives, seeking out experiences simply for experiences sake is not productive, helpful or Biblical. It puts people on the path of chasing after the “latest and greatest” thing in charismaticism. One of many of the ring leaders in this movement is Bethel Church in Redding, California, and its other affiliate Bethel churches. They make outlandish claims of “angel” feathers and gold dust falling from heaven on the congregation during worship services. There are many other fanatical practices, for example, people behaving like animals in “revival” meetings, and people falling out, laughing uncontrollably, and “getting drunk in the spirit”. The list can go on and on, but we don’t need to speak too much in detail, because it is all non-Biblical nonsense. “Experience” is not a valid test as to whether this is legitimate and Biblical (which it most certainly is not), any more than proclaiming that just because someone “feels something in their heart, or their spirit’ is a basis for calling this prophesy. The “prophesies” given are mostly proven to be wrong, (false) as time progresses, but according to them, New Testament prophesy is not the same as Old Testament prophesy because, unlike the criteria for Old Testament prophets who were proven to be false prophets when the things they proclaimed were proven to be wrong and did not come to pass, according to them, They claim that New Testament prophets can be wrong, but they are legitimate as long as they were sincere in their false proclamations.
Many of these false apostles/prophets speak as if they have direct one to one conversation with God on a daily basis and God is speaking to them audibly. I do not believe this. I believe that the times, (and there are some recorded in Scripture for sure) that God speaks audibly to humans is rare. He speaks to us primarily by His written word. He speaks to us through His Creation, and He speaks to us through other Christians. God is NEVER going to direct someone to do or say anything that violates or contradicts the written Word. The Bible is our safeguard against falsehood. That is why He oversaw the whole process of the Canon of Scripture coming together. The words we need from Him have already been written down. We read these words straight from the mouth of Jesus: “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.” (John 3:13) And: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.) (John 1:18) Yet many of these false prophets will claim that they regularly go to Heaven and God Himself speaks with them and shows them marvelous things. This is utter blasphemy. Mark and avoid anyone who speaks such things. It is not true.
One of Bethel’s main doctrines is bringing Heaven to Earth. They do not mean this in a spiritual way as has been traditionally understood in orthodox Christianity. They mean this in a very literal sense, through what they refer to as “The Seven Mountains Mandate” meaning all the pillars of human society are to be brought under the control of the Church, not merely influence them. (As Christians, we should always be working to bring the influence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s saving grace, but not in absolute control as is promoted in what is known as Dominionism. The Seven Mountain Mandate can be stated as follows:
It asserts that Christians are called to take control of seven areas of society, referred to as “mountains,” to establish God’s kingdom on earth. These mountains are:
- Family
- Religion
- Education
- Media
- Arts and Entertainment.
- Business:
- Government
It should be noted that God will usher in His own dominion and rule when Jesus Christ returns to the Earth as the King of kings, and the Lord of lords and sets up His millennial reign. We do not, as the Church, grab the reins of power and force this to happen on our terms. The Jews of Jesus’s day tried to take Jesus and make Him the king of Israel by force. He would not have any part of this. He will become King in God’s time, not ours.
The idea of forced religious revival or renewal is proven to be faulty by the historic books of the Old Testament time and time again. First a good king who does what is right in the eyes of the Lord, and then a bad king who abandons the worship of Yahweh and tears down all that the good king had accomplished and returns the nation to idol worship. The cycle just repeats over and over ad nauseam. This is because the real change God brings into the lives of those who are born again through faith and trust in the vicarious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is internal. It is the heart or soul of every person individually. That is why the idea of Christian Nationalism will never work. That is certainly NOT to say that Christians should not bring their influence to bear on all areas of life including social, political, familial, etc., but the church should not try to strong arm these institutions, (forceful take over for the Kingdom of God.) Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world”. The driving ideal behind all the Dominionism approach is that it is our job to change all pillars of this world’s system before Christ can come back and take over. This idea is not based on sound Biblical eschatology. Christ will come back with it is God’s time to come back. The Bible says this will happen when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, not when we get everything ready for Him.
(Romans 11:25): “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” (Meaning, when everyone who is to be saved, is saved. Only God knows who the last person will be, we have no way of knowing that.)
There is a lot here to unpack. I don’t mean for any of this to sound like I am being overly critical of people’s practices and beliefs, but I do believe that it is the responsibility of all who comprise Christ’s true Church to speak the truth in love, and teach sound doctrine. There is ALOT of unsound doctrine being taught in the Church in these days and times. Learn for yourself.
Danny's Stump 