The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his059/bbb0590r.lzh/BBB0590R.TXT

Text File | 1991-06-30 | 9KB | 175 lines

BBB:The Roots and Growth of Apostasy

   No one ever has to guess about how a nation, man, church, or school
goes "modernistic" theologically. History has a way of repeating, and
repeating, and repeating a thing until no one can possibly
misunderstand what is going to take place. Self deception is the great
hobbyhorse in these matters. Christians don't want to believe it will
turn out the same way it turned uut the thirty-five times before that.
For example, in the realm of Biblical Fundamentalism hisory never
deviates from a fixed pattern one time from Exodus 1 to 1991. A MAN
shows up (Moses, David, John the Baptist, Christ Himself, Paul, et
al.). He is followed by a MOVEMENT (The founding of the nation of
Israel, the succession of kings, etc.). The movement is always followed
by a MACHINE (Elders and princes, nobles and priest for Moses,
Christianity following Paul, etc.) which is followed by a MONUMENT
(Jerusalem abandoned by God, churches named after "St. John,"
cathedrals, etc.).

   1.Martin Luther, the Man. 2. Protestantism, the Movement. 3. Synods
and Episcopates, the Machine. 4. Cathedrals and rectories, the
Monuments.

   1.John Bunyon, the Man. 2. English Baptists, the Movement. 3. The
Baptist Union, the Machine. 4. Statue of Spurgeon for a deserted
tabernacle, the Monument.

   1.John Wesley, the Man. 2. The Methodists, the Movement. 3. The
National Council of Churches, the Machine. 4. United Methodist church
buildings, the Monuments.

   One may also call this Evangelism, Education, Culture, and Apostasy.
Or one may call it Exploration, Civilization, Culture, and Paganism.
There aren't any exceptions anywhere. Once you go beyond step number
two, you have "had it." The first two steps are Biblical; you
EVANGELIZE and TEACH (education) the converts the Book (Matt. 28).

   More than that is found nowhere in any New Testament.

   Going back to 90 A.D. (or even earlier) we see how apostasy begins
and how it progresses in the Body of Christ until it produces the
modern, powerless, Laodicean humanists of the twentieth century who can
do nothing but brag about their "secondary separation" or their ability
to correct the Scriptures, while "taking stands."

   (A) Apostasy always is personal and practical before it is dogmatic
or theological. Our pattern for this in the Bible is SATAN (note 1 Tim.
3:7). We don't have to guess how apostasy begins because on Satan's
part it began with JEALOUSY. Someone was jealous of ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY.
That is the origin of Sin in the universe (Isa. 14). No knowledge of
Greek or Hebrew is necessary to know this, nor even a knowledge of
eighth grade English.

   (B) This was going on in Paul's day before the New Testament was
completed (2 Cor. 2:17). He warned about the "unruly" in 1
Thessalonians 5 and 2 Thessalonians 3, and so did Peter (2 Pet. 2:10)
and Jude (v. 16). Someone was jealous of the power and authority of the
scriptures and had raised up tradition to equal them (Mark 7:8,13).
Someone was jealous of evangelistic Bible believing street preachers
(Acts 13:45) and wanted them in jail.

   (C) The appeals to PRIDE and JEALOUSY (Eve and Satan) are warned
about in the New Testament. Not ONE warning was "believing that any
Book was inerrant, or infallible" and not one of them was someone
worrying about a "cult." The three enemies of the Body of Christ were
signaled out by the apostle to the gentiles as being: "SCIENCE" (1 Tim.
6:20), "PHILOSOPHY" (Col. 2:8), and "TRADITION" (Col. 2:8). These are
the things that show up in a COLLEGE educational system; none of them
are Biblical.

   (D) These three deadly enemies are ready-made "allies" for any
Christian who wants to justify his sins (PRIDE), or promote himself or
his work (JEALOUSY). They are the handmaidens of all apostates,
including Evangelicals, Conservatives, and Fundamentalists. "ALL FLESH
IS GRASS."

   (E) Apostasy then, within the Body of Christ, always begins with
Christians who are jealous of the authority of the scriptures and wish
to usurp this authority to GAIN CONTROL OVER THOSE WHO HONOR ITS
AUTHORITY. John calls this "NICOLAITANISM" (Rev. 2, 3). Christian
LEADERS have always been the "point men" in apostasy in every
denomination on earth.

   (F) At the completion of the canon (90 A.D.) there were apostates
trying to add and take from the scriptures after the warnings placed in
Revelation 22. Heretics had been at work on the Old Testament long
before Paul was even born. They wanted books added to the Old Testament
(Alexandria).

   (G) By 200 A.D. the Christian LEADERS are immersed in the Science
and Philosophy of Alexandria, Egypt, where the Apocryphal books had
been inserted into the canon of the Old Testament. So strong was the
TRADITION regarding this Alexandrian scholarship that even the AV
translators thought that there was a B.C. Old Testament in Greek (the
LXX). No such animal ever existed except in the TRADITIONS of those who
wanted to make the word of God "of none effect" (Mark 7:13).

   (H) By 325 A.D., the Body of Christ is in such rotten shape that
when they have their "World Congress of Fundamentalism" they are afraid
to state their absolute authority and, as a consequence, do not give
out one statement about the MAIN THEME of that authority: The Second
Coming of Jesus Christ, which is mentioned more than ten times as often
as the crucifixion, water baptism, the Lord's Supper, or "the two
natures of Christ," combined.

   (I) By 600 A.D. the Body of Christ had assimilated baptismal
regeneration, a Baalite, cannibal sacrifice, baby-sprinkling, and
prayers for the dead as "Christian" teaching.

   (J) Neither Luther nor Calvin were able to bring the Body completely
out of this deadly Alexandrian culture which elevated TRADITION to an
equal place of authority with the Bible. They did inspire people to get
hold of the Bible and READ IT.

   (K) From 1611 to 1901 the church experiences a series of genuine
revivals which come from a MAN (Wesley, Whitefield, Moody, Spurgeon,
Talmage, Knox, Edwards, Freylinghausen, Tennant, Cartwright, Finney, et
al.). The one characteristic that is true of every man involved is that
he takes what the KING JAMES BIBLE says about science, tradition, and
philosophy to be true, as a witness against them. Occasionally, the
Adamic nature seizes even the best of these men (Spurgeon, Torrey,
Broadus, et al.), so, in a fit of JEALOUSY over the AV, and PRIDE in
their own ability, they follow SATAN (see "A").

   (L) In 1884 the English Christians, following German leadership,
recover the apostate Jesuit Rheims Greek text of the Dark Ages from
Alexandria, and usher in the second Dark Age, called by military
historians "THE VIOLENT CENTURY." There are more people murdered or
killed in this century than in any three centuries before it, and that
number was reached before the century was HALF over.

   (M) The Christian leaders (Fundamentalists and Conservatives
foremost) were the first to joyfully accept this Dark Age text in the
form of the RV and the ASV. Every time they overthrew the authority of
the AV in their classrooms (apostasy always begins in a Christian
school, because EVE was tempted to have "knowledge") they appealed to
SCIENCE or TRADITION.

   (N) All major fundamental colleges, seminaries, and universities
adopted the "logic" of Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Westcott and Hort,
Nestle, Augustine, and Schaff in 1920 and led the Body of Christ right
back to Rome via the ASV, NIV, and NASV.

   (O) The Body of Christ between 1950-1970, in America, settles down
into the world system as part of it. Worldly methods of promotion and
advertising, displays of Hollywood theatricals, effeminate student
bodies, gimmicks for raising funds, and eventually, fornication
(Swaggart), perversion (Bakker), fraud (Oral Roberts), and OUT RIGHT
LYING (Bob Jones University). It was "put up with" not only by
Catholics and Charismatics but by Fundamentalists and Evangelicals.
Last month BJU advertised a Congress dedicated to the exaltation of an
INFALLIBLE BIBLE.

   Oral Roberts never told a bigger LIE in his life, for the "Bible"
referred to is the one that appears in small print (smaller each year)
in all SJU ads, that say "Standing for the absolute authority of THE
BIBLE."

   No teacher at BJU has ever seen THE BIBLE, let alone read it.

   And so today, PCS, BBC, and BJU pass from the MACHINE stage into the
MONUMENT stage. Soon one will be a monument to Beauchamp Vick and John
Rawlings and the other will be a monument to Bob Jones Sr., as
"Arlington" today is a MONUMENT to J. Frank Norris. PCS will be a
monument to the day school Christian Education movement started by a
man.

   A MAN, a MOVEMENT, a MACHINE, a MONUMENT.

   They are erecting Lee Roberson's sepulchre right now. They already
have Moody's up (Moody Bible Institute) and they will go to work on
John R. Rice this next year.

   "Garnish the sepulchres of the rlghteous."