Mysticism Run Amuck

All right, well, tonight I'd like to talk about mysticism, and I've entitled the message tonight,

Mysticism Run Amok. Amok just basically means frenzied. It's aggressively taking over, basically, the world, including

Christianity. And when it comes to mysticism, it's easy to spot when it comes in Hindu forms.

You'll know these forms when Obi -Wan said, the force is an energy field created by all living things.

It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together. It is all powerful and control everything.

And it would be easy for us to say, that kind of mysticism, Hinduism, New Age stuff is bad.

We'd all acknowledge that. We'd also know it would be bad in the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, when

Yoda said to Luke, for my ally is the force and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow.

Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

You must feel the force around you, here between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere.

Yes, even between the land and the ship. And we would all say, that's just, it's just dumb. It's stupid, we don't go for that.

But it is harder to see mysticism when it's cloaked in Christian verbiage, when it puts on the clothes on the livery of Christianity.

For instance, Bernard of Clairvaux. It's a little harder when you critique him, because he's talking about the

Song of Solomon and how God loves man and how God kisses

God, as it were. And God kisses man with the kisses of his mouth.

And you go into St. Francis of Assisi, it's a little bit harder. But it is the most difficult to try to find mysticism when it's in evangelical circles.

Gary Gilley has done a great study. And he's basically said that mysticism,

Christian mysticism, was injected into Christianity in about 1978, modern day times.

Christianity was injected into Christianity, mysticism was injected into Christianity by Richard Foster, who wrote a book called

Celebration of Discipline, The Path to Spiritual Growth. Anybody know the book? It's very, very popular.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline. Christianity Today said it was one of the top 10 books, you'll like this,

Steve, of the 20th century. And those who read

Christianity Today were polled and they said it was the third most influential book after the

Bible. And so here it comes mainstream. Mysticism comes mainstream.

And you have Richard Foster doing all kinds of crazy things. One, quoting this guy named

Thomas Merton, and saying, you know, Thomas Merton, when it comes to prayer, he had it right.

Thomas Merton, I don't know if you know him, is the one who said, Buddhism and Christianity are exactly the same, whichever one you like is fine by him.

And so Foster said Merton's book on prayer was a must book. And he said, perhaps, quote, he has done more than any other 20th century figure to make the life of prayer widely known and understood.

And so now you've got Christianity Today and these other well -known authors starting to inject some of this mysticism into the mainstream of Christianity.

So much so, Wheaton College. Who knows Wheaton College? Many know Wheaton College. Professor Robert Weber at Wheaton College said about Richard Foster, over the past two decades, my own personal spiritual pilgrimage has taken me away from the propositional and rationalistic mindset that proclaims an intellectualized, proof -oriented faith towards a

Christianity of practice and experience. I can't understand

Christianity with propositional truth statements. I have to kind of understand

Christianity in this contemplative prayer, is what they'll call it. What is contemplative prayer?

Do you contemplatively pray? Well, if that's to use your mind, that's one thing, but here's how you contemplatively pray, according to Richard Foster, the third most influential book of the readers of Christianity Astray.

Excuse me, Today. Always gets a laugh. It is

Christianity Today, though. You wanna know what Christians are thinking today? Read Christianity Today. Here's contemplative prayer.

I find it best to sit in a straight chair with my back correctly positioned in the chair and both feet flat on the floor.

Place the hands on the knees, palms up in a gesture of receptivity. Sometimes it's good to close the eyes to remove distractions and center the attention on Christ.

At other times, it is helpful to ponder a picture of the Lord or to look out at some lovely trees and plants for the same purpose.

And what you do is you say, well, so far I kind of get that. See, that's the trick of this mysticism, but when I tell you this next statement, you're gonna go,

I can't believe it. Foster loves Brennan Manning, and in the signature of Jesus book by Brennan Manning, Roman Catholic mystic, here's what he says when it comes to contemplative prayer.

This is the first thing you need to do. So if you really, you're tired of the old book and black and white propositional truth, antithetical statements, right and wrong, black and white, all this doctrine, and you just wanna know

Jesus better, here's the first step. Quote, the first step in faith is to stop thinking about God in prayer.

Robert said, that's deep. Oh, that's deep. Contemplative prayer, he said, tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness.

I don't even know what he means by this. We must come to see a reality differently. Choose a single sacred word, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly and often and enter into the silence of God.

And people like the ex -professor at Bethel Seminary, Greg Boyd has bought into all this as well.

Sometimes he says, I rest with the Lord and he might say something to me unexpected like, are you ready for more of my freedom?

Friends, when you abandon this objective black and white word, you are in big trouble.

When you say our mind can't get our thoughts around God to any degree, you have sunk the ship.

You may say like with Francis Schaeffer, I can't know God exhaustively, but I can know him certainly.

I can know him truly. You don't want to do this Christian meditation.

And so tonight what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about Christian mysticism. I don't want you to buy the trap that Malcolm McLaren, pardon me?

Brian McLaren, Malcolm McLaren was a rockstar manager. How is he in my brain?

He is, he was. Brian McLaren, we said, we must therefore never underestimate our power to be wrong about God.

When thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry, I don't want you to do that.

I think as Francis Schaeffer said, it is a fool's errand, a fool's mission to escape from reason.

So tonight I'd like to warn you about some of the dangers found in mysticism. One of the things that will happen to you if you're into mysticism, you will move away from the scripture and you will move away from sanctification.

Let's turn to John 17 just for a moment. Why as a pastor would I want you to be in the word and not in some kind of contemplative prayer thing?

If you want to think when you pray, fine, but that's not what I mean by contemplative prayer, emptying your mind, that's mysticism.

That's new age mysticism. I want you to not reject the truth, but to embrace it because I don't want you to be a spiritual dwarf.

I don't want you to be a Christian midget theologically. When God sanctifies us,

He sanctifies us through the word. What does John 17, 17 say? Sanctify them in truth, what?

Thy word is truth. If you'd like to grow, your growth is directly, let me state that again, directly proportionate to the intake of the word as the spirit of God applies it to you.

Secondly, I don't want you to have a lack of discernment. Discernment is something that's good.

David Wells said, quote, the heretics of old one suspects would be sick with envy if they knew of the easy pickings that can now be had in the church.

If you don't know the word and you're just off, you know, contemplating your navel, you're in big trouble. You say, well, you know, you talk about mysticism, you talk about all these words,

I don't even know what mysticism is. Can you please give me a definition of mysticism? Here it goes, Lewis Brown, this is for you.

Mysticism, it begins with a mist and ends with a schism. So, okay.

What is mysticism? John MacArthur said, the mystic disdains rational understanding, and here's the definition right here, and seeks truth instead through the feelings, the imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination, and other purely subjective means.

Mystics say, I don't know truth because it is revealed and given from God, a source outside of me.

Mysticism says, truth is on the inside of me. I can know truth from the inside out.

It is human religion from the inside, not a response to divine revelation.

And I think the Bible is sufficient. I think the Bible is everything we need. I think it is certain. I think it is sure.

I think we have everything we need, so why do we go elsewhere? Why do we want something more?

And when you give up this book, you give up everything. One man said, once a congregation or a person sees scripture as less than the final, complete, infallible authority for life and faith, it has thrown open the door to absolute chaos.

And when we go inside, there's a lot of problems. One being we're fallen. Two being we shouldn't trust ourselves.

So we need to make sure that Christianity has always, I'll say it again, has always rested its foundation on external truth, external authority, never internal.

It has never said I've had an experience and therefore it's true. It has said this is the truth and I evaluate everything through that paradigm of truth.

Turn to Mark chapter 12 for a moment and I want to show you a very powerful passage and I say the word powerful on purpose.

As the pastor, I want to just force you to stick to the word and stick close to it. And as a congregation, you do. I'm very pleased for that.

Listen to what Jesus said in Mark chapter 12 verse 24 and how Jesus is affirming and confirming something very important to us.

And as MacArthur says, he almost affirms it in a backhanded way. Jesus said to them, is this not the reason you are mistaken that you do not understand the scriptures or the power of what?

God. As you understand the scriptures and the truth of God, you experience his power.

And here's where everything comes together for me. Those who say I want something new because the

Bible isn't enough, can I just throw it out there in hyperbolic pastoral terms that are kind of maybe sound a little mean.

Here's the reason why people do it. If it's not out of ignorance, it's out of laziness.

When you don't want to dig in the word, when you don't want to be a workman who's not ashamed and you want to know about God and experience

God, and you don't want to put in the work, you'll go inward because it's easy. You don't have to study and mine and dig and look up and try to figure out, well, it was in a different historical context, different geographic context, different language context, different everything context.

I just want to sit here and just kind of, and think about something. It is pure laziness.

And now you take someone's laziness and then you add on top of it demonic deception.

This is a recipe for trouble, for trouble when people are so lazy, they don't want to study.

And you know, Satan's prodding them on. You're in big trouble. And here's what I also think as I'm just thinking out loud.

When you take Christianity in general now, the fluff, Christianity fluff, it's all full of sugar.

It's really not good for you. And you put in whatever fluff book you want, wild at heart, purpose -driven, prayer of Jabez.

And you read these things and they're not full of the word at all. You eat them and it's like Chinese food.

Soon you want more food, right? At least that's what happens with me. I eat Chinese and I'm hungry again. You can't eat fluff morning, noon and night without saying eventually

I'm kind of hungry, right? And so you think these books kind of have the Bible. Christianity eat, it gobbles them down left and right.

And then they realize I'm still hungry. So where do I go? These books say they have the Bible. It must not be enough so I'll go within myself.

These books have every chapter of purpose -driven life. Starts with a verse of the Bible and then you dig into it and you realize, you know what, this is empty, it's a fad, it didn't help me, it doesn't help me with anything in my life.

And so I need to go someplace else. And so instead of turning to the real word, which causes a lot of work to be done, they turn to themselves in mysticism and then try to say it's holy.

Paul knew all about this in 2 Timothy 4, for the time will come when they will what? Not endure sound doctrine.

So you've got our own craving, our own laziness and then demons coming to help.

Let's turn there for a second. 2 Timothy chapter four, please. 2

Timothy chapter four, verse three. I read a book by J. Adams recently and he said, some people in the congregation say, pastor, you know what, you don't feed me with your sermons.

You don't feed me with your sermons. And J. Adams said, well, you know, I preach the Bible, maybe not as well as other people do, but I try to be faithful to the

Bible. And he said, here's what you want. You don't want me to feed you, you want me to spoon feed you.

These people here want to be spoon fed things that they love. You know, it's the preach the word passage.

And then in verse three, for the time will come when they will not endure hygienic sound doctrine. Who wants doctrine?

Doctrine schmachten, we don't want that. We want to have our ears tickled, say smooth things, nice things.

You're wonderful, you're the best life now, all these things. So what do you do? If you've got a guy that keeps giving you the

Bible all the time, and you want to have your consciences smoothed over in a swage, you've got to get rid of Bible preacher and you've got to hire what?

Man after your own choosing. And they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.

They can't endure sound doctrine. They don't want to hold on to it.

It gets tiring to grab with your hands and squeeze really tight. And you show your white knuckles and you think, you know,

I don't want to grab hold of that anymore. It's too hard. I want something else. I don't want something sound, it's diseased.

And I want to be tickled and smooth and soothed. Something new.

It's like in Jeremiah five in appalling, a horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule on their own authority.

And my people love it so. And as snow accumulates in a big storm, so too does the snow of bad doctrine come flying down in the form of teachers.

They accumulate teachers. They're in piles, they're in hordes. You know, I don't get cable

TV. Sometimes I wish I would, but it's just more accumulation for bad teachers, bad channels.

So many false teachers. Misery loves company.

So does the sin of heaping up teachers. Heaping, piling on.

I like what Vincent said, teachers of all kinds swarm like the flies in Egypt. The demand creates a supply.

The hearers invite the shape and shape their own preachers. If the people desire a calf to worship, a ministerial calf maker is readily bound.

Like ants to the sugar are drone bees to the queen. Verse four says, and they'll turn their ears away from the truth, the truth, propositional, rational truth from the outside revealed by God.

And they'll turn aside to myths, whether they made them up in their own hearts or somebody else made them up. They want something new.

They want something packaged better. They've got to have better truth. These days, people don't even say there is truth.

I'll give you a few quotes that just should rock your world. Shirley MacLaine. Truth as an objective reality simply doesn't exist.

How about LSD guru, Timothy Leary? Reality is whatever you make it. Crosby, Stills, Nash.

Love the one you're with. Does that fit in here? I don't know. President Clinton to Georgetown University.

Nobody's got the truth. You're at a university which basically believes that no one ever has the whole truth ever.

We are incapable of ever having the entire truth. You believe this,

I believe that. We all get along and everybody has their own validation. We all feel comfortable now.

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. What's the age of Aquarius, by the way?

There's no evil, no good, liberation from all ethics, from all mores, from God. And Nietzsche was right when he said, what we've got to do since we're immoral, we've got to get rid of God so we can sin with pleasure.

That's why Voltaire said, not until the last priest is hanged with the entrails of the last king will mankind finally be free.

Get rid of all the kings, get rid of all the religious leaders and we can finally be free. Jeremiah 23, for you will no longer remember the oracle of the

Lord because every man's own word will become the oracle. And you have perverted the words of the living

God, the Lord of hosts, our God. That's exactly what mysticism does. This is what

God says in the scripture. I don't like it. This is what I feel like I want. And therefore

I'll put God and I'll put the word God in front of that. And then now I'll do what I want, call it

God. Wouldn't be so stupid to say it's not God, but I'm God. Well, what do we do?

These Hindus, they're obvious. Shirley MacLaine's obvious. Richard Foster, to me, it's obvious.

But what do we do when mysticism sneaks in to ministries that for the most part are evangelical and conservative?

I just think you should beware. And so I wanna give you a few examples of why

I think someone who for the most part comes across as fine, upstanding

Christian, thinks she's dynamic. I watched some of her YouTube tapes this week.

I think many things she says is true. I don't think she's a word faith, a heretic.

But I think there's some things that if you look at her, you'll be able to say, wow, that is mysticism. And I should run from mysticism if I want to learn and grow.

So let me give you several examples of why I think Beth Moore is a modern mystic. And if it was up to me,

I don't have some kind of theological police running around here. But if it was up to me, I wouldn't see you read a

Beth Moore book unless you're critiquing it. You may ask yourself the question, why are there no

Beth Moore books on the front table? Answer, because the elders don't want you to get spiritual cavities, that's why.

Example number one, why I think Beth Moore is mystical. Again, you might say to yourself, I can't believe you're using her by name and all these other things.

It's very often that people are called out by name and my charge is to pastor you.

So if you're all into something that's not good for you and I say something, I'm gonna say who they are by name.

And by the way, I think it's fine to critique somebody's theology. Critique mine anytime you want. I'm gonna refrain from saying, her mother wears army boots and all these other kind of things.

That's not how you do it. That would be sin. But you can say, what does that person believe?

I hope you maybe even did that today. Here's what Pastor Ebendroff said Sunday morning and here's how it matches up to the word.

What should we do about it? It's fine to critique. You ought to. Bereans were commended for critique, yes.

We are to examine everything carefully. There's a brand new person at the church and they said, I don't know anything.

I came to the church thinking I know something. I don't even know what prayer is. I don't know how to think about God, who Jesus is.

I need to start from ground zero. And I said, well, you need to just study your Bible and make sure you test what I say because I don't wanna be the latest person in a long line of, well, you know,

I believed you because you're my latest pastor. Don't trust me as far as you can throw me.

You need to check. I think that's fine. This is not a character assassination. This is a pastor warning his flock, be careful of these things.

Example number one. As you know or don't know,

Beth Moore teaches men and women. Her study started off as an aerobic

Bible study. Anybody could come. I don't know why that's funny.

Houston First Baptist Church, 1984, Southern Baptist Church, no comments about that.

People didn't like it. Some didn't like it. Many did like it. Here's what she said on why she teaches men.

You tell me if you think it's mystical or not. Thank you for your inquiry about my stand on women teaching men.

As you may know, the ministry to which God has called me is geared to women. My conference and weekly

Bible studies are entirely focused upon women. The only exception to an entirely female audience is my

Sunday school class. I don't know if this is when she was preaching on Sunday night or not, but we'll just take it as face value.

Quote, men continue to come and sit in the back. We never sought them, but did not know how to deal with them.

Would Christ have thrown them out? I just didn't know. I handed the problem over to my pastor and under his authority, he said to allow anyone to come who chooses.

I have wrestled with this and the Lord finally said to me, I'll tell you what Beth, you worry about what

I tell you to say and I'll worry about who listens. My ministry is to women.

That's where my heart is. I make no bones about it. But what if men come and sit down? Do we stop and throw them out?

I really don't know. I just placed myself under the authority of my husband, my pastor and my God, your servant,

Beth Moore. How am I to argue with that when God himself told her, if the pastor says it's okay for me to sin by teaching men, then

I guess it's okay for me to sin. Not just her problem, but the pastor's problem. One man said, here's the only thing that Beth Moore would have to say is this, my dear brothers,

I ask that you not come to my class for that would dishonor my God. If you will not leave, then I cannot teach.

Biblically solved problem. She basically gets around first Timothy and let's turn there to see if it's true.

Is it actually true? First Timothy chapter two, it's very clear.

Nobody argues about it. You might not like the verse, but we can't argue because it is clear. It is authoritative.

We are not supposed to have women teach men. If you wanna have women evangelize men, that's fine.

It's a different context, but here in the local church context, according to first Timothy chapter three, verse 14, 15 and 16,

Paul says, don't teach men. Women, chapter two says it. Verse 11, a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

Two reasons, number one, creation order. It was Adam who first created and then Eve. That was before any sin came into the world.

And it was not Adam who was deceived. Adam was just stupid. Adam was just following his wife, but he was not deceived.

He knew darn well what he was gonna do, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.

So when you believe in your heart, when you say God is going to tell me something outside scripture, you can now take,

I do not allow a woman to teach and turn it into, I do allow a woman to teach. When you make your authority outside the

Bible, you are a mystic. I prayed about it and God told me and he contradicted his word.

Example two, turn your Bibles to Exodus chapter 33, please. And we wanna look at the tent of meeting,

Exodus chapter 33. Beth is on a video called Be Still, it's a

DVD. And she basically says, Moses had a tent of meeting where he talked with God. And guess what?

You can have a tent of meeting and you can talk with God. And by the way, one of the first things

I can't stomach for the most part is people who don't know anything about Bible interpretation, they start teaching the

Old Testament. You need to run from those kind of teachers. And they go to the Old Testament, they can make anything, say anything.

And leadership lessons from Nehemiah and other things, I'm just thinking, what is going on? Show me a false teach and I'll show you them flying out with Old Testament verses.

I don't think Beth Moore is a false teacher, but she teaches this falsely. Every believer can have their own tent of meeting with God and a two -way conversation with God sounds kind of cool, but it can't be done.

Let's take a look at Exodus chapter 33, verses seven through 11 we'll look at.

But here, let me say what Beth Moore says first. It says, all of them could have approached, but as Moses approached, they would stand back and watch.

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend. That is part of contemplative prayer.

When we sit back and realize it is not just that we have something to say to God, it's that God has something he has to say to us.

I want to be in that tent of meeting. She doesn't understand that prayer is talking to God.

The Bible is God talking to you. God does not talk to you in prayer. He does his verses.

And so look at what happens to this verse here. It's just upside down. Exodus 33, seven.

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp. And he called it the tent of meeting.

You could probably be reading along and you think, oh, that's cool for Moses. I want what Moses has.

And you know, God doesn't change. And he called it the tent of meeting. And it came about that everyone who sought the

Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Don't have the tabernacle yet.

Moses pitches the camp, the tent. And there's no sacrifices here.

This is kind of a prophetic thing that's gonna go on. And it came about, verse eight, whenever Moses went out to the tent that all the people would arise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent and gaze after Moses until he entered the tent.

And it came about whenever Moses entered the tent, verse nine, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent and the

Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship each at the entrance of his tent.

Why do you think they'd do that at the entrance of their own tent? So God didn't strike him down dead.

That's why, verse 11, with us the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face just as a man speaks to his friend.

When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, would not depart from the tent. If you don't understand that something described in the

Bible is not necessarily for you, you're going to be in a heap of trouble. That is to say, just because something is in the

Bible, it doesn't mean it's written to you. It's for you and for your own good that you might know about God and how

He deals with people, but it's not necessarily to you. And Beth, sadly, doesn't even understand that. She doesn't understand there's a difference between description and prescription.

Every believer, according to Beth Moore, can have a private discussion with God in the tent of meeting where God will come and speak and it'll be back and forth.

Now, you say that's no big deal. I don't understand why you're getting so fussy about it.

Did the people of Israel ever go to Moses and say, hey, hey, hey, wait a second. God only speaks to you?

We want our own private tent of meeting with God. We want that. We demand that.

Who do you think you are that God only speaks to you? Did that ever come up in the Old Testament? Turn to Numbers chapter 12 because the answer is yes.

This is something unique. This is something Moses did. This is Moses the prophet of whom there would be a second prophet coming,

Deuteronomy 18, that would be Christ. And Numbers chapter 12 needs to be taught if Beth is going to teach

Exodus chapter 33. I don't think you want to go up to God and say because Moses had it,

I do too. New King James chapter 12 of Numbers. Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the

Ethiopian woman he had married. Verse two, so they said, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses?

Has he not spoken through us also? Somebody was listening because he's always listening.

And who was that somebody listening? And the Lord heard it. Now the man

Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth. Suddenly the

Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, come out you three to the tabernacle of meeting. You want a tent meeting to talk?

Here's the tent meeting to talk. Then the Lord came down on the pillar of cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called

Aaron and Miriam and they both went forward. You think they were afraid or you think they were high fiving?

Little baby fingers, baby dollars, kind of like ooh, right on. They're scared.

I would be. Ooh, tent of meeting. I don't know what that sound is.

Then the Lord came down on the pillar of cloud. They both went forward, verse six. Then he said, hear now my words.

If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision.

I speak to him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.

I speak to him face to face, not you, even plainly and not in dark sayings.

And he sees the form of the Lord, not you. Why then were you not afraid to speak to my servant

Moses? You shouldn't even talk about this, let alone thinking you can saunter on in and have a little audience with God.

God chooses who will approach him and it's not you. You say, well, was God really that man?

Verse nine. So the anger of the Lord was aroused against them and he departed.

And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly those desiring their own tent of meeting,

Miriam became leprous as white as snow. Then Aaron toward turned Miriam and there she was a leper.

Hey God, we wanna have some personal revelations. It shouldn't just be Moses. How about Numbers chapter 16?

Turn to Numbers chapter 16. I'm not so sure you want a personal tent meeting with God.

I don't think you really wanna claim that. I don't think you really wanna name that. I think you wanna just stick far away from saying whatever happens to Moses doesn't necessarily happen to me.

And if I'm supposed to pray to God and I don't get some kind of warm fuzzies when I pray, I don't see any kind of visions when

I pray and everybody else is running around saying, I get more of God than you do. We have the inside dope.

We've got the extra stuff. You don't have any of that. Well, then we just have to stay with what the word says.

What about these people that all think they should have these revelations from God? Kind of protesting

Moses' involvement. Moses, you can't be this kind of unique man.

You know the story of Numbers 16? I'll just read you some of it. Now Korah, the son of Eshar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan, and Ibrahim, Abraham, wait a sec, how do

I pronounce that? Abriram, the son of Eli, are on the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.

They rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, 250 leaders, men of renown, the text says.

Verse three, they gathered together against Moses and Aaron and said to them, you take too much upon yourself for the whole congregation is holy, every one of them, and the

Lord is among them. And when then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the

Lord? Why then do you do that? Hey, we're all the same. God's all among us. You make yourself a big shot and God only speaks through you.

We don't go for that. Moses knew exactly how dangerous this was because verse four says, when he heard it, he did what?

Fell on his face. He was afraid of them, right? He was slain in the spirit, right? No, he's praying.

He spoke to Korah and all his company saying, tomorrow morning, the Lord will show you who is his and who is holy.

You say all the people are holy? We'll find out and we'll cause him to come near to him. You wanna know who it is who gets to come near to God?

I think God's gonna tell you real soon. The one to whom he chooses, he will cause to come near to him.

Jump down to verse 28. Moses said, by this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works for I have not done them of my own will.

If these men die naturally like all men or if they are visited by the common fate of all men, then the

Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates a new thing and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up and all that belongs to them and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the

Lord. And they've rejected the word of the Lord that says I speak through Moses and you're on the sidelines.

Now, it came to pass after speaking all these words, it's almost like with understatement in verse 31.

Moses finishes speaking and then what happens? That the ground split apart under them and the earth opened up its mouth, swallowed them up with their households and all the men with Korah with their goods, men, women and children falling down into the pit.

So they and all those with them went alive down to the pit, the earth closed over them and they perished from among the assembly.

And the only meeting they got with God was standing before him in judgment. The Christians do have a tent of meeting and that tent of meeting is a man who's cloaked himself with humanity.

And when God says, this is my beloved son, listen to him, that's who we're to listen to.

That's our private tent of meeting is what Jesus says. Example three,

I don't wanna give you too many more. You just go on and on. Example three, Beth wrote a book called

When Godly People Do Ungodly Things in 2002, section on unceasing prayer.

She said, quote, I have picked up the terminology of Brother Lawrence, Roman Catholic mystic, who have called praying unceasingly, practicing

God's presence. In fact, practicing God's presence has been my number one goal for the last year.

Now, if I tell you to go practice God's presence right now, what are you gonna do? Everybody, when you get home, put your kids to bed and then immediately practice

God's presence. It's mystical, it's inward.

It's not having anything to do with the scriptures. When you do contemplative prayer,

Beth Moore talked about Brennan Manning in her book. And here's what she said about him with this prayer and practicing

God's presence, that Brennan Manning's contribution to our generation of believers, quote, may be a gift without parallel, page 72.

So this man is gonna help us with prayer. His gift to the church may be without parallel. So here's what

Brennan Manning said. This is the man who's without parallel that will help you to practice the presence of God and pray without ceasing.

Brennan Manning, choose a single sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God.

A word such as Jesus, Abba, peace, God, or a phrase like Abba, I belong to you.

Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.

When distractions come, simply return to listening to your sacred word. Gently return to your sacred word, end quote,

Brennan Manning. If that's not mysticism, I don't know what is. I don't know what is.

Think about decision -making this way. If you have good, better, and best, wouldn't you want the best?

How many books do you read in a year? Anybody here read one book a week? Not a Bible book.

One book a week? There's one. Okay, there's another over there. You have 50 books to read in a year.

Why are you going to try to read books by people who don't even know Bible interpretation?

Would that be a fair thing to say? Well, I listen to the pastor because I think he knows how to interpret the Bible pretty well.

Okay, he's fairly biblical. I don't like the stories about what he steals in the local retail store.

It starts with a W and ends with a T. I don't like that. Don't read books when people don't know how to even interpret the

Old Testament. And if you've got good, better, and best, then don't buy something, and many of the things she said are true.

But I'm not gonna go in the mystic route and think somehow, you know what? The most influential people in my life are unbelieving

Roman Catholic medieval mystics. Friends, that's a problem with that. You say, well,

God's really blessing it. Is that your justification for reading it, God's blessing it? Well, he blesses his words, friends.

Bible study takes work. And A .W. Tozer knew that.

He said, you know what? Here, generation, you wanna learn, you wanna be godly, you wanna be holy.

He said, then there's a law that cannot be escaped.

Here's the law from his book on Christian leadership. If we would be holy, we know the way.

The law of holy living is before us. The prophets of the

Old Testament, the apostles of the new, and more than all, the sublime teaching of Christ are there to tell us how to succeed.

And then he just blasts. He probably said it with a smile on his face.

The amount of loafing practiced by the average Christian in spiritual things would ruin a concert pianist if he allowed himself to do the same thing in the field of music.

The idol puttering around we see in church circles would end a career of the big league pitcher in one week.

No scientist could solve his exacting problem if he took as little interest in it as the rank and file of Christians taking the art of being holy.

For you people in the military, Tozer said, the nation whose soldiers were as soft and undisciplined as the soldiers of the churches would be conquered by the first enemy that attacked.

Triumphs are not won by men in easy chairs. Success is costly.

And it will cost us to go outside to look for the scriptures and to dig. My final verse that I wanna talk about because our time is gone is 2

Timothy 2, verse 15. Let me encourage you to be a hard worker and student of the

Bible. I am privileged that I get to pastor such a group as this who want to learn and to study.

That's what we wanna study. We don't wanna go inside to study. We wanna go outside and find the scripture. There is a source of truth from outside of us.

We are fallen. Our heart is desperately wicked to seep above all else. We will create idols in our hearts and worship them.

And so we need to go to the objective word that never changes, that's authoritative, sufficient. And here Paul tells the pastor, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Lay people need to know this as well. He said in 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, be diligent to present yourselves approved to God as a what?

Couch potato who does not need to be ashamed. Accurately handling the word of truth.

When I look at that verse, I see sweat. I see toil. Paul wants

Timothy and every pastor and every person that the pastor teaches and every elder to properly interpret the

Bible. He says, Timothy, you're my apprentice. And with an imperative, I want you to not spare one iota of work in the

Herculean effort of translating the Bible with good hermeneutics. That word there means to do one's best, spare no effort to work hard, to be zealous.

One lexicon says to take pains, to make every effort to be conscientious. If that's not enough, he says it in a way in Greek that just gives extra emphasis and extra intensity.

Paul says, this is the loftiest endeavor you could ever be involved in. And it's the teaching the

Bible to other people. Work hard at it. And present yourself approved to the congregation, other people, no, approved to God himself.

Personally give an account to God. We will as leaders, you will as well. And then do you notice this right here?

Approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. The word doesn't just mean ashamed.

The word means, it's a passive in the Greek and it means to be forced to be ashamed.

It means someone from the outside is taking you and shaming you. Who might that be?

If there's somebody who plays fast and loose with Scripture, who comes along to shame that pastor, to bring force of shame on that person?

And we know the answer. It's God who does it. That's why pastors should never preach for human approval or gain or popularity or money.

But they should preach because they better study hard because God will be the one who judges them.

Look what God does. God says you're to not be ashamed. And how are you not ashamed?

By what? Accurately handling the word of truth. You cut it straight.

Remember these words? And you've heard it taught by me before that if you cut a bunch of skins of an animal up and you're trying to make a tent,

Paul was a tent maker, you've got to cut them straight. You've got to cut them just right so they go together. And so Paul says,

I want you to cut a path in a straight direction through the Scriptures so other people can come behind you and follow you.

So much different than Elymas the magician was opposing them, seeking to turn the pro -council away from faith.

But Paul, who is known as Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him and said, you are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness.

Will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? You're taking the word of God and you're making it crooked.

Paul says to Timothy, take the word of God and make it straight for the people. Straightforward exegesis, good hermeneutics for the message of truth.

Why don't we have any Beth Moore books here at the bookstore? Because I'd fire Nate if he put them up there.

Because they're not good for you. They're not the best. You have a short amount of time, pick the good books, pick the best books.

Pick books that say, you know what? Without the word of God as your anchor, you're done. Books that say like Psalm 119, the sum of thy word is truth.

Because I'll tell you what, when it comes to this church, we didn't follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. We weren't eyewitnesses, but Peter was. And Peter says,

I've seen Jesus, but I have the prophetic word made more sure. And then what does he say?

You've got the word, what do you do with it? To which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart.

You've got the word, so pay attention to it. Don't go inside. I'd get depressed, frankly, if I had to go inside.

It'd be horrible, sepulcher. Well, you may ask, you know, pastor, what do you really think about this topic?

I just know that the Bible's not a source, it's the source. I just know that personal experiences, no basis for reality of any way, shape or kind.

As Dr. Scott would say, don't sleep for three days and you'll have all kinds of experiences. I know that a good pastor will exegete the text, he won't exegete his experiences.

I know that if you take your autobiography, you can't make that doctrine. The plumb line is the word,

God's revealed word. Riches untold in this book. Thy word is truth.

And if you begin to take the experiences of anybody, you don't have any reason to say no to any other experience, do you?

How can you reject any truth claim in any other religious doctrine when people said, I've had that experience?

So be good students of the word, you are a congregation. Be careful for those that drive you in.

John Flavel said, by entertaining strange persons, men sometimes entertain angels unawares.

But by entertaining strange doctrines, many have entertained devils.

The truth is outside of us. Don't look in, you'll be disappointed and you'll be deceived. Let's pray.

Father, I'd be the first to admit that I'm in no way, shape or form any better than anyone else.

And I believe that these things are true and the only reason I believe them is because you have shown me in your word and you have graced me to know.

Lord, there are many things that people teach that are good and right, but Lord, I just pray that you protect our congregation from mysticism.

It is everywhere, Lord, and we just need to have people, men and women, who'll stand up and say, the answers are not within us, they're outside of us.

Lord, that's what separates every cult from Christianity. You alone have given us the word and we're to accept that.

And Father, I pray that you'd keep us to be a contented congregation, contented with the scriptures. I pray,

Lord, that you'd help us to be satisfied by your spirit's word and only his word. I pray that you would decrease in our heart the desire for new and novel and something beyond what we've experienced before.

And Lord, help us to just be faithful. Thank you for Dr. Scott, who was here last week and just encouraged faithfulness over and over and over.

We wanna be faithful. And Lord, we don't wanna be acting prideful, but we wanna make sure we don't act with unaware doctrine, letting this stuff seep in.

So Lord, keep us pure, keep us unified, and keep us focused on your son, who has given us his word and his apostolic messengers so that we might have a lamp to guide our feet and help us to hide your word in our hearts that we might not sin against you.

And Lord, I pray for some of these people who are unaware. Maybe Beth Moore has all the good intentions of the world.

I pray, Lord, you'd grant her someone who would teach her and come alongside of her, her pastor. Lord, what kind of pastor would let a lady minister continue to teach those things?

Lord, I pray that you'd convict him and help him do that very thing. And Lord, we'll be the first to rejoice when these things are abandoned and the truth is proclaimed fully and clearly with gospel fidelity, in Jesus' name, amen.