Has The Word "Evangelical" Lost Its Meaning?

Hello, and thank you for listening to the

Testing the Spirits podcast. Today I'd like to talk about how the word evangelical has basically lost its meaning.

And also, it appears there is a false gospel that has crept into evangelical circles.

So the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5 .21 that we need to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

So that's what I try to do on this podcast. Take what people are saying in the name of God and compare it to the

Word of God. Test all things. And what's the name of the podcast? Testing the Spirits.

That's based on 1 John 4 .1. We'll talk about that more in a moment. But let's start out with this word evangelical.

The word or term evangel simply means gospel. So if evangel means gospel, an evangelical is someone who believes the gospel.

It's that simple. True evangelicals believe that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

So Jesus is the only way to God. Also, historically evangelicals have believed that the

Bible is not only inspired by God, it is the final authority for faith and practice.

But today, as I said, evangelical, all that stuff sometimes is out the window. Evangelical is just a kind of a squishy word that seems to be losing its meaning.

Let me illustrate it this way. I was talking to another pastor friend recently, and there was some evidence that yet another local church has ties to this heretical group in our area that is denying

Scripture, denying hell, supporting gay marriage, etc. etc. Saying Jesus' death was unnecessary, and I've talked about this before.

So there was some evidence that yet another local church had some connections to this group. So there was this talk, and some of the people in this local church may have shared some of these beliefs.

That's what people were saying. So my friend, make a long story short, he said, you know, we have to tell this pastor.

This stuff might be going on right under his nose, and if he doesn't know about it, this is a threat to his church.

We have to tell him. Now I was under the impression that this local church was liberal. So if that were true, they wouldn't care either way.

But this other pastor friend of mine, he said, no, no, no, the pastor up there is evangelical.

We have to let him know. So I'll just tell my side of the story because this other pastor reached out as well.

But I reached out to this guy, and I was polite, and I tried to be respectful.

All I did basically was ask him, is your church evangelical?

I noticed that you dropped evangelical from your name.

It's not on the website, and there's no doctoral statement. So just wondering, you know, what do you guys believe?

Are you evangelical? I should have known better than to ask that, I guess. But he really responded with hostility, which is an obvious red flag.

But he seemed to say that, yes, he's evangelical, and his defense of that was, well, we hold to the

Apostles' Creed. And I thought, the Apostles' Creed? My friends, the

Pope says he holds to the Apostles' Creed. That doesn't really mean much of anything.

The liberal churches with the rainbow out front, even some of them will say they hold to the Apostles' Creed.

Now, I don't want to get sidetracked since, you know, the Apostles' Creed, some of you probably think that that's important to hold to it.

Others don't. A Baptist typically wouldn't be all that much into creeds.

But I don't want to debate that subject. But the point is, holding to the

Apostles' Creed does not make you evangelical. Okay, bottom line. But then I looked at his response again, and basically what he was saying was, he believes in the creed, and the creed includes a statement about hell.

So basically, I'm good. Well, this heretical group, again, they deny hell.

But this pastor says, well, we hold to the creed which mentions hell, so basically leave me alone.

Well, this appears to be a subtle way of dodging the question since the word hell mentioned in the

Apostles' Creed does not mean hell as people commonly think of hell. Another way the creed is written, because it says

Jesus Christ descended into hell, and more commonly you will find that the creed is written another way, saying

Christ descended to the dead. So that's what hell means in the Apostles' Creed.

It doesn't mean that Jesus died and went to hell, it means that he went to the place of the dead.

Okay, so this is not the same thing. So hell as in eternal conscious torment and death, hell and the grave can be associated, but they are not the same thing.

So this appears to be a dodge, dodging the question, not addressing the real issue.

And people can play this game and deny hell by simply redefining it. And then to others, they can say, oh no,

I believe that, but they don't mean what you mean. So this is a common tactic. And then it came out that the number two guy at this pastor's church, he just recently posed for a picture with this heretical group as if he were part of it.

So it's just not looking good, but they're supposedly all evangelicals. And these guys are being welcomed into evangelical churches all over the area.

But if you say anything, literally by simply asking a question, you become the bad guy. So that's how this works.

But this attitude, all of this is starting to become very common.

As an evangelical, you can pretty much affirm or deny whatever you want.

Let me give an example. Joel Osteen is considered evangelical, even though Joel Osteen says that Mormons are true

Christians and he says that the Pope is terrific. Joel Osteen told

Oprah that of course LGBT people are going to heaven. Of course they are. Joel Osteen says

Hindus love the true God. This is not an evangelical viewpoint. That's a liberal viewpoint.

Sinners do not go to heaven unless they repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness and thereby they think differently about their sin.

I mean, I needed to get saved. I needed to change. But the common attitude is that, hey,

God is all ready for you. You're fine. We're fine. It's all fine, so don't worry about it.

This is not historical, it's not biblical Christianity. It's not evangelical

Christianity. But evangelical, again, what does that even mean anymore? Another example, J .D.

Greer, who led the largest so -called evangelical denomination in the

United States, the Southern Baptist Convention, J .D. Greer said that Romans 1, in a sermon from Romans 1, he said that it teaches that Christians should be the fiercest supporters of LGBT rights.

That's not an evangelical position, certainly not a biblical position, but maybe it is an evangelical position.

If modern evangelicals believe that and say that and are okay with that, then that would be true.

Evangelical has lost its meaning. It doesn't mean what it used to mean, redefining terms, again. So we have to watch out for this.

So all of that to say, I prefer to not, you know,

I'm not going to call myself an evangelical. I now prefer the term

Bible believer. It's going to be hard because I'm so used to doing it, but I'm going to make a conscious effort to not refer to myself as an evangelical.

Rather, I am a Bible -believing Christian. Unfortunately, if someone tells me, oh, hey, that guy, it's okay, he's evangelical,

I mean, that just doesn't mean anything anymore. It's sad, but it's true. It basically means he's not

Catholic. But then I have people, I've met people who tell me, oh, I'm an evangelical Catholic, and I'm like, how does that work?

But again, this is starting to become common. I was going to title this video, based on a previous podcast,

I was going to title it Why I'm Not an Evangelical, Part Two. But again, like I said before, in that other podcast, my beliefs haven't changed.

My beliefs are still in line with historical evangelical Christianity, but theirs are not.

These modern evangelicals, their views are not in line. So in other words,

I am not leaving evangelicalism. I feel like evangelicalism has left me.

Now, as far as this false gospel goes, that I believe is now entrenched within some evangelical circles, it's all positive, never polemical.

It's universalistic. It tolerates both sin and heresy. In other words, it's not biblical.

When I hear some of these preachers talking, and some of the contemporary music artists,

Christian music artists, and what they say, it seems pretty clear to me, they think everyone is a child of God.

Therefore, God already accepts everyone as is. You just need to realize that.

After all, they say God's love is unconditional. Yeah, says no Bible verse ever.

There is a condition, and that condition is repentance and faith in Christ. So the

Bible says the opposite. In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 12, it's very clear.

Only those who receive Christ are called children of God. Jesus, in John chapter 8, said to those who were teaching false doctrine, those who were opposing the gospel ministry,

Jesus called them children of the devil. Can you imagine a preacher saying that today? He would be accused of being unchristlike, even though Christ is the one who said it.

Paul did the same thing to the false teacher in Acts 13. He said to the guy, you son of the devil, go read it for yourself if you don't believe me.

And then the apostle John, in his second epistle, said, if you welcome such people into your home, if you welcome heretics and false teachers into your house, which would include your church house, you have now become a partaker of their evil deeds.

So this is very serious, and yet it's happening everywhere. The scripture is very clear on this, but your average evangelical today will hear all this, react against it, and now, you know, those of us who want to be biblical, we're the bad guys.

For what? Doing what the Bible says? That's the way it's working. Here's a verse, and this is what the podcast is named after, 1

John 4, verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God.

Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Who is the apostle

John writing to? He's writing to Christians. This is our duty. It's especially a pastor's duty, and the fact is, so -called evangelicals, not only are they not doing this, they are against this idea of testing the spirits.

Anything with a Christian label, hey, good enough. This one pastor who responded so negatively to me, his church dropped the word evangelical from their name, which, you know, if it was for this reason,

I guess I wouldn't blame him, but he dropped the name, or the church dropped the name evangelical, but they retain the name.

So one last point on this, they retain the name union. So not evangelical, but they are called a union church.

Well, who are you uniting with? That's what I want to know. People say, well, that's what the Holy Spirit does.

He just unites everyone who claims the name of Jesus. The Spirit just unites us all.

Well, if you read the Bible, you know that's not true. Not everyone who says Lord, Lord is really of the

Lord. Jesus said that in Matthew 7. So we have to exercise discernment.

The Judaizers claim the name of Christ. Paul wasn't going to unite with them. The Holy Spirit doesn't unite everybody who claims the name of Christ.

We need to see, do you actually follow the doctrine of Christ? But evangelicals today, they don't care about doctrine.

The term has lost its meaning. And the Holy Spirit, if you look at it, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle

Paul and the other apostles to actually speak against these false teachers who did claim the name of Christ, but they were not of Christ.

But to the average evangelical today, you know, they don't care and you get the point. So I'll end it here.

If you want some, I'll stop and give you this encouragement. You've got enough of the polemic.

I'll give you this encouragement. If you want some uplifting content, I think this is, you know, iron sharpening iron.

But if you want some uplifting content, consider checking out our series on the subject of heaven.

This podcast admittedly is more geared towards discernment, which is one of the spiritual gifts, but it should be balanced with the other gifts of the spirit.

So while some of these videos and podcasts, again, are more polemical in nature because that is biblical and it's necessary.

We also want to feed our soul with a healthy, balanced diet. So we need to all fight the good fight of faith.

Amen. But we also need some encouragement. So I think that's one of the issues with the folks

I've been talking about. They are out of balance. They only want sweetness and light all the time. And I fear some are wanting to focus on the milk of the word, refusing to get into the meat of the word, because the meat of the word, sometimes people choke on the meat.