One of the realities of the situation we currently find ourselves in is that we are not allowed to gather together as we usually do every Sunday morning. Among the many consequences of this reality are these:
- Almost all churches around the world are moving their services and sermons online
- You are going online to fellowship, worship, and receive teaching in the word.
This past Sunday a friend of ours shared the link to their church service. So after listening to Dean’s sermon on Sunday morning, we decided to tune in and listen to the message from our friend’s church. The Pastor introduced the passage he was going to preach on. He then singled out a key verse from this text. He then proceeded to deliver a message loosely based on the key text he had singled out. The trouble was he never once considered the context of the passage, the book, or the verse he had singled out. He never considered who had written the letter or who it was written to. He never considered what the overall message of the original author was. As a result, he delivered a message that had absolutely nothing to do with the passage he had selected to preach from. He took an amazing passage of scripture that talks about the supremacy of Christ and delivered a form of message that was all about us. What a tragedy! What an awful misuse of God’s Word. Essentially an entire church, as well as anyone else who listened to the message, was subject to false teaching.
“Well that’s a bit harsh.” you may say. But consider this – a definition of false teaching taken from gotquestions.org: Biblical doctrine refers to teachings that align with the revealed Word of God, the Bible. False doctrine is any idea that adds to, takes away from, contradicts, or nullifies the doctrine given in God’s Word. Any sermon that takes a passage of scripture and gives it a different meaning than it originally had is false teaching. The New Testament is full of warnings telling us to guard against such teaching. Whether it be a blatant error regarding the deity of Christ or a more subtle error like the one described above, we are told that we must be able to identify such errors and dismiss them as heresy. How extensively does the New Testament deal with the issue of false teaching? Consider this: Every New Testament book, with the exception of Philemon, gives a warning against false teaching. An article on the Desiring God website dealing with false teaching starts with this: The question is not whether you ever hear the voice of false teachers. You do — probably every day. The question is whether you can discern which messages are false.
The reality is that the teachings we receive and study we conduct on each individual passage or verse informs and builds our overall study of God and who He is. The great danger being that an incorrect understanding of God leads to incorrect worship. In Romans 10:2&3 Paul speaking of his fellow Jews says this:
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Back to my two points in the beginning. We live in an age where we have almost unlimited access to a range of teaching from wonderfully faithful to fearfully erroneous. However, now with the reality of COVID-19 forcing ALL churches to move to online messages, the internet is flooded with teaching on a level we have not yet experienced in church history. The reality of this is that we are more susceptible than ever before to be misled by false teaching. You may even, like us, be invited by friends to view the teaching from pastors in their respective churches. We find ourselves standing before a buffet of Biblical teaching. And, certainly over the next few weeks, we will be grazing the spiritual food available. It is my great encouragement to you to use the additional time on your hands and with your families to engage in a more fervent pursuit of our God. It is also my strong caution to you to do so selectively.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:21&22 Paul gives the following instructions to the believers in Thessalonica with regards to the manifestations of the spirit in the words and deeds of the members of the Church. These instructions are equally applicable to the words of preachers we come across online today:
“… test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.”
Test EVERYTHING you hear and read against the truth of God’s Word. Don’t accept it simply because it is said from a pulpit, by a pastor, or even by a friend or family member. None of these are qualifications for truth. The only litmus test for truth is scripture itself.
This applies equally to the worship music we listen to. The additional time at home also presents a wonderful opportunity for us to spend time in worship through song. There are many songs sung in the name of Christ that are doctrinally incorrect, or simply very weak. The words of songs teach us as much, and sometimes more than preaching. Think about how many sermons you remember word for word, and compare that to how many songs you remember word for word. God has given us a far greater ability to remember words through song. This highlights the importance of ensuring that the worship songs we listen to are Biblically sound too. Here are some worship resources I highly recommend: Sovereign Grace Music, CityAlight, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Rend Collective, Shane & Shane, I AM THEY, Bob Kauflin, Maranatha Music. Obviously there are many others, but this is a good starting point.
In order to ensure that you are being fed a healthy spiritual diet during this lockdown, I will be posting regular devotions to our website. I strongly encourage you to purposefully set aside time every day to read these devotions, test them against God’s Word, meditate on the truth contained, pray that God would use His Word to transform our minds, teach them to your families, and finally thank Him for this time He has given us to draw near to Him and devote ourselves to our families and to His Word.
With much love and prayers,
Andrew.
