2. Contend for the faith once delivered
Secondly, we're mandated to contend for the true faith as entrusted to the Early Church and which can be discovered from the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is vital because from the birth of the Church until now, there have been those who, whilst professing to be part of the body, have sought to pervert the Gospel and bring in false teachings (Jude 3-4). We also know from the Bible that this will increase as we draw ever closer to the return of Jesus:
In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit (Jude 18-20)
This aspect of our calling therefore primarily addresses those in the Church, irrespective of denomination or stream, clergy or laity, who are bringing in false teaching. We undertake this task prayerfully and with the help of the Holy Spirit as we seek to expose false teaching and heretical practices for the sake of the Body as a whole.
We know the Lord takes no pleasure in seeing his Body become deceived or apostate and neither must we. Whilst exposing darkness in the Church can, at times, be a sad and painful experience, and attracts opposition from the liberal wing of the Church, we resolve not to shrink back from this responsibility. As the saying goes: 'It only takes one rotten apple to poison the whole barrel.'
We seek God's help to do this task with a spirit of humility, since we know only too well that no one person or group can claim to have the whole truth. We must guard our own hearts lest we too become proud and deceived.
This task has never been more needed than it is today. The shameful activity of the extreme edge of the movement known as the Emerging Church leaves one in no doubt of this. In rejecting reason, objectivity and transcendent truth in favour of experience, emotions, image, narrative and subjective feelings, the liberal wing of the Emerging Church has compromised the objective and exclusive claims of biblical Christianity.
It embraces ancient pagan mysticism and spirituality, whilst jettisoning many fundamentals of the Christian faith. It waters down the moral teachings of the Gospel and denies the exclusivity and uniqueness of Christ. In rejecting biblical authority, revelation and inerrancy, it has become theologically heretical. In rejecting God’s self-revelation in the Bible it has created a God that is a figment of their own imagination – a counterfeit and distortion.
Never before in our lifetime have we witnessed such a powerful delusion within the evangelical wing of the Church, so much so that we believe its members are no longer worthy of the name Christian. For more on this deception click here.
And so we will fight with every means at our disposal, despite the ferocity of the opposition we receive, and continue to contend for the faith that brings truth, healing and life to all who embrace it.
Whilst exposing darkness in the Church can, at times, be a sad and painful experience, and attracts opposition from the liberal wing of the Church, we resolve not to shrink back from this responsibility. As the saying goes: 'It only takes one rotten apple to poison the whole barrel' . . .