“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (II Timothy 4:1-4)
One of the things in the Bible that puzzles me the most is when one of God’s people in the Old Testament went and cut down a tree and with half of it he made a fire to keep warm and to bake bread and cook a roast and with the other half he made a graven image and worshipped it by falling down before it and prayed to it saying, “Deliver me, for thou art my God” (Isaiah 44:12-17). The fact of the matter is that this block of wood couldn’t deliver him and never would and just because he said that it was his god didn’t mean that his block of fashioned wood was a god, right? Too many people today claim to be Christians but are they? Just because they say they are doesn’t make it so either.
In the New Testament there is another thing that puzzles me and it is what Paul refers to in II Timothy 4:3. Here he mentions that some Christians would replace God’s teachings for another kind of teaching. They would accumulate teachers who would teach them only what they wanted to hear and then they would follow that person saying, “Guide me, for thou art my teacher.”
There’s not a whole lot of difference between the attitude found in the Old Testament and that of those mentioned in the New Testament – is there? It’s all about them getting tired of the same “old god” and the same “old teaching”. In both cases they reasoned to themselves, saying, “I will make a new god and a new teaching and I will follow that instead.” Both Malachi 1:13 and Isaiah 43:22-24 have something to say about God’s people becoming tired and weary of doing things God’s way. What they failed to consider is that while they were becoming tired of God and His ways, that He too, in time, would become weary of them and their iniquities. Just a word of advice – don’t continually weary God or grieve Him. Just check with Noah on what happened to the people in his day who continually wearied and grieved God (Genesis 6:5-8).
I think we’ll all agree that it is absolutely stupid to think that I could actually create my own god. But do we feel the same way when it comes to creating our own teachings and then claim that they are God’s teachings? The reality is that in either case God is replaced and rejected and these replacements or substitutions are given the honor and praise that God rightly deserves.
So how long do you think God will put up with being replaced, with being ignored? He is the Creator, we are the created. Since when does the created have the right to say to the Creator that their ways are better than His and their wisdom superior? Yet church members do exactly that whenever they replace Him for what they want in their Christian belief.
In II Timothy 2:15-18 Paul warns Timothy of the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus who had gone astray from the truth when they taught Christians that the resurrection had already taken place. What? Think about this for a minute. If the resurrection had taken place then that would mean they would be in heaven, right? But in fact, they were still on the earth. Perhaps their “resurrection” teaching involved heaven being on earth. Who knows? What we do know is that some members in the church were led astray by their teaching and came to believe something that was not true. This new teaching also cast doubt on what God had specifically said. Who would ever have thought that members in the church could believe such a teaching… but they did. And so, today, we shouldn’t be surprised when members are easily convinced by similar teachings, no matter how false or ridiculous.
Jesus tells us to seek first His kingdom (things that pertain to His will as King) and He will take care of us, for He knows what’s best (Matthew 6:33). In this life instead of living for ourselves we should be striving to live for God. That means that we take Him at his word and obey. We must do this regardless of whether anyone else is.
Right now in our fellowship there are various teachings and practices that contradict those found in the Scriptures. These ‘put God to the test’ in a way that should never be done. By contrast, God has a divine right to put us to the test…to discover if we love him enough to obey him.
So the question remains, Can God depend on you to always keep and defend His truth?
Owen Sound, ON