Truth Mixed with Error

Have you heard the Christian radio program called Revive Our Hearts? Nancy Leigh DeMoss is the teacher and today’s program was so good that I would like to encourage you to please take the time to go to http://www.reviveourhearts.com/ and read the transcript or listen to the program. Please do it. But if you are like me, you probably won’t take the time to do it, so let me copy and paste a couple of things she said here. The subject was Deceiving God’s People and it is packed full of things we as Bible-believing Christians need to know about teachings today that have some truth and some error and the deception is much more subtle than say, New Age teachings. Click here for the full text. Below are excerpts from the program:

...Today I want to talk about something that’s a little more subtle, and that is we have many widely-respected, best-selling authors, pastors, and teachers in the Christian world who are deceiving God’s people. Again, I don’t know their hearts so I can’t say whether they have an intent to deceive…..Some of these teachers and teachings are very, very popular today and particularly popular with young people or with new believers. These are teachings and books that are being promoted in church youth groups, in Christian high schools, and in Christian colleges. They are rampant. They are widespread and they are not as completely erroneous as the teachings we talked about in the last session. These are more truth mixed with error. Some truth and some error, which makes it even more subtle……So I’m not picking on particular books or authors. I just want you to get the concept of how error works itself in….
…Then, ultimately, you can’t depend on me or anyone else to tell you what is truth and error, what is right and wrong. You need to develop a spiritual centeredness on the Word of God, a groundedness in God’s Word, and spiritual antennae that go up so that you know what is truth and error. You can discern yourself…
…First of all, there’s this whole area of what I call shallow, feel-good Christianity. A lot of this involves self-help or self-esteem teaching that is packaged in biblical terminology but in many cases it is really devoid of the gospel. This is a psychological message with a thin covering of theology. It starts with ourselves rather than God. God is a positive God. So you have little or no concept of His holiness, His wrath, His justice, and again virtually no mention of the cross, the blood of Christ, atonement for sin, the resurrection of Christ…..
…These don’t just define who we are, they are who we are. You take these out and you have nothing left. You have no substance. You have no life. You have no hope. But in this kind of teaching, none of that is considered really necessary. They miss the gospel entirely….
Now let me give you one more illustration. This is a book that at the time of when we’re recording right now is very, very hot in the Christian world. I walked into my local Christian bookstore the other day. It was front and center. As of today, I think it’s the number eight bestseller on Amazon.com on their ratings, which is huge, huge, huge. This is a Christian book. This is not a New Age book. This is not a book written by some New Age guru. This is a book that purports to be a Christian book….But the problem is that mixed in with a smattering of helpful insights in this book is a perspective on the nature of God, on the trinity, on salvation, and on other core doctrinal issues that is incompatible with Scripture…..The test of validity of a book or a teaching or a radio program is not: Does it work? Does it help somebody? Does it make somebody feel closer to God? The test is: Does it accord with the Scripture? That’s where I go back to the Scripture. by Nancy Leigh DeMoss - Revive Our Hearts