The Goal of Christian Deconstructionists - Unhitching the Bible from Christianity

Hello, and thank you for listening to the

Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode I'm going to deal with the growing attitude that people have where they want

Christianity, but they don't want the Bible. They want to disconnect the Scripture from the

Christian faith, or they say something like, I believe in Jesus, I love God, but when it comes to certain teachings of Scripture, they want nothing to do with it.

So let me approach it this way, because there are these people out there that are always talking about love and acceptance, and how

Jesus is just so loving, but conservative Bible -believing Christians, they're just mean and un -Christ -like.

Well let me just ask you, how do you know that God is a God of love? You say He's a

God of love, you say that God cares, how do you know that? I think if you ask the average person who says they believe in God, 9 times out of 10, 99 out of 100 maybe, will say, yes, of course,

God loves us, He's a God of love, but how do you really know? Let me ask this, what would the world look like if God didn't care?

If God didn't love mankind, would He send natural disasters? Would kids get cancer?

Would the world be full of pain and suffering if God didn't care? Because that's the world we live in, and yet you say that God is loving and He cares about us, well how do you know?

Well the simple answer is, Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so.

You learned that in Sunday school. And it's true, if not for the Son of God, and if not for the

Word of God, you couldn't possibly know. Matter of fact, the only thing you know about the Son of God, Jesus Christ, comes from the

Bible. Other than that, all you could do is kind of hope for the best.

You could presume the love of God, and that's about it. There is one view out there that's very, bear with me for a moment, there's one view out there that's very popular, was very popular among the founding fathers of this country, it's a view called deism, a lot of Freemasons are deists.

They believe that there is a God out there, but He's distant, He's not directly involved in the world.

This is the God of deism, who has been compared to a clockmaker, who created the world,

He created the clock, He wound it up, and just kind of let it go. And it's operating by itself, and one day, the clock, the world, the universe, will eventually wind down and stop.

So the deist believes that God is the Creator, He does exist, but He doesn't really care,

He's not involved, and mankind is on His own. One article on the subject of deism says this,

It's easy to understand how deism could be considered a logical position. There are some things in the world that seem to point to God being inactive in the affairs of the world.

For example, the question, why does God allow bad things to happen? Why does

God allow the innocent to suffer? Why does God allow evil men to rise to power?

An inactive God, a deist God, would seem to answer these dilemmas.

And I think, since we're asking questions here, I think the most common question of all concerning God is this, if He is a

God of love, if God exists, and you say He's good, then why do bad things happen to good people?

Why does God allow so much suffering? Now, my standard answer would be, well,

God doesn't allow bad things to happen to good people. It's only occurred once in the history of the world to Jesus, and He willingly took that on.

But this question, why is there so much evil in the world, I'll try to answer that in a moment.

But since we all recognize that yes, the world is full of evil, suffering, and death, again the question, these people who want

Christianity without the Bible, what would even cause you to think that God cares at all?

Again, there's only two answers, the Son of God and the Word of God. And again, you only know about the

Son of God because of the Word. Tell me something about Jesus that didn't come from the Bible. You can't.

So how can you disconnect Christianity from Scripture? Here is how we know that God cares.

1 John 3 .16, by this we know what love is because Christ laid down his life for us.

John 3 .16, God so loved the world. How do we know that? Because he sent his only begotten

Son. How do we know he sent his only begotten Son? Because the Bible tells us, Romans 5 .8

says that God demonstrates his own love toward us in this, that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. That's how we know. And that's why it's called good news.

The bad news is that yes, we do live in a world that is under the curse. People suffer because of sin and because of sin and the curse, everyone dies and there is a day of reckoning coming.

That's the bad news. The good news is Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and he rose again the third day, according to what?

The Scriptures. You remove the Bible, what do you have? In the world, there is hatred, there is suffering, there is death.

You don't need me to convince you of this. You know that. In the world, there is hatred, suffering, and death.

In Christ, we have been offered love, joy, and peace. Peace with God and the peace of God.

How do you know that? The Bible. If you start denying the Bible is the

Word of God, what do you have? You just have to, you're left to make it up as you go along. So when the

Scripture says that 1 John chapter 4, it says God is love, that verse that everyone loves to quote,

God is love, how do you know? The Word of God. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's so obvious.

So how are there these Christians out there, and it even goes to, it rises to the levels of people like Andy Stanley who are constantly criticizing the

Scripture. They didn't even have a Bible in the early church. They didn't have the

Bible, you know, the Catholic church, some counsel formulated. They didn't even have the

Word of God back then. Of course, that's not true. But you have these attacks against the

Scripture coming not just from the atheists and the agnostics, which we expect. These attacks are coming from people who call themselves

Christians. So we live in a very unique time. God is a God of love, and His love truly is amazing.

It's like the hymn says, that great hymn of the faith, and can it be right?

Amazing love. How can it be that thou, my God, just die for me?

It goes on. He left His Father's throne above so free, so infinite His grace.

He emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race.

Tis mercy all immense and free for, oh my God, it found out me. Amazing love.

How can it be that thou, my God, just die for me?

So this is the message of Scripture. This is the Christian gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the

Word of God, Romans chapter 10. But if you remove the Bible, what do you have?

Now, to this question, why does God allow suffering? Well, God gave mankind a choice, and by giving man this choice,

God knew sin and suffering would be the result. And not only that, God had a plan.

He also knew how He would respond, that He would make Christ the Savior of the world.

So this plan of redemption involved the exaltation and glorification of God's Son.

It's been argued that by giving man a choice, when man chooses to respond to God's grace by loving

Him in return, that is what makes our love real. Also, it's been argued that for God to display

His attributes, in order to show grace, there must be a need for grace. So long story short, man's fall into sin not only brings

God glory, it makes us more thankful and appreciative for all that He has done.

First Corinthians 13 verse 13 says, And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three.

But the greatest of these is love. How do we know love is the greatest?

You guessed it, because the Bible tells us so. But unfortunately today, what

I'm seeing is that the love of God is taken for granted, the love of God is just assumed, and worst of all, the love of God is now being disconnected from its scriptural definition.

Jude verse 4, you say, who's doing this? Jude verse 4 says, For certain men, and women, by the way, have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of God into lewdness.

What do they do? They turn the grace of our God into licentiousness. So basically, because God is love, you have a license to do whatever you want.

And because God is loving, this is what they're saying, that really, love to them has become synonymous with affirmation, affirmation of sin.

For example, hashtag love wins, what does that mean? Or the people that put the sign in their yard that says love is love, and of course we know that love there is a euphemism for a lifestyle that the

Bible calls sin. And the majority of evangelical pastors today won't even preach on that subject, so it's just getting worse and worse and worse.

So that's the problem, and the solution is stick to the

Bible. Preach the gospel, that's the solution, but these people, they want to throw out the

Word of God today. They want Christianity, but they don't want the Bible. Christianity without the scripture.

And in their mind, oh, this just makes perfect sense because the scripture, Jesus, and they didn't even have a

Bible, and of course it's filled with half -truths and just arguments that they're false, basically.

It's the author of sin, Satan, the father of lies, he is having his way among many within the evangelical church.

The mainline denominations are already gone, but Satan has a foothold now in the evangelical church.

So the people who say that they're Christians, they love Christ, they follow Christ, but they don't want the

Bible, well, again, tell me something about Jesus that didn't come from the

Bible. You can't. You're just making things up at this point. People who think that since God is a

God of love, that means that he is for you no matter what. He will affirm you in whatever you want to do.

That's not what the Bible says. You're making that up. The best example I've seen of this recently is when it was reported how

Amy Grant, a pop singer and Christian contemporary artist, announced that she was hosting a lesbian wedding at her ranch.

She obviously received some criticism for this since it so clearly goes against the teachings of not just the apostle

Paul or Moses, but Jesus himself in Matthew 19, where he said marriage is between one man and one woman.

But Amy Grant, you know, rejects that and her defense. You guessed it.

Well, God is a God of love. She said in the new covenant, Jesus made it so simple.

Jesus only gave us one rule and that's the rule of love. Therefore, lesbian weddings are to be celebrated.

Now, is that true? Of course not. But that's the narrative, right? So if people repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth.

Of course, it doesn't really become truth. But to the people who reject

God, reject the Bible, and they just repeat it, it becomes truth in their subset of heretical apostate

Christianity. And a lot of people, more people, are starting to buy into this. So in the eyes of the world, that situation with Amy Grant, in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of worldly Christians, Amy Grant is a hero, and Christians who disagree because they believe the word of God, well, they're just a bunch of legalistic

Pharisees. And of course, that makes no sense because it's not like the Pharisees, you know.

Was that the issue with the Pharisees? They're arguing over gay marriage, but you know, it doesn't matter. It's just a way to insult someone.

It's not really meant to win an argument. It's meant to shut down conversation. Calling someone a legalist or a

Pharisee is sort of the Christian equivalent to calling someone a racist in society right now.

It's just meant to shut down conversation. So what's the solution to this growing trend of Christians who want to disconnect the faith?

They want Christianity without the Bible, point out the fact they know nothing about Jesus outside of what is written in Scripture.

Try to reason with them, share this video with them, preach the gospel to them. And if there are church members in your assembly who are saying this, and it turns out they're spreading this false doctrine to others, or God forbid you start hearing this from the pulpit, that person needs to be put under church discipline so that they will wake up and repent.

And if your church sweeps this kind of thing under the rug, and you talk to the leadership and they refuse to do anything about it, you need to leave that church and find a good church that believes, preaches, and applies the

Bible. This is becoming more and more common. So let's finish.

Does God love us? Yes. How do we know that? Because of the Son of God and because of the

Word of God. And if you get rid of the Word, my friends, you just don't have anything left.