{"id":19258,"date":"2019-10-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-078\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T10:21:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T15:21:02","slug":"the-coming-kingdom-078","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-078\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming Kingdom 078"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[470],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19258","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-matthew","series_event-the-coming-kingdom","sermon_service_type-wednesday-evenings","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"The Coming Kingdom 078","sermon_date":"20191023","sermon_month":"10","sermon_year":"2019","sermon_notes":7173,"sermon_slides":7174,"sermon_mp3":7175,"sermon_id":"1023192332134041","series_or_event":470,"service_type":[474],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"12:46-50","sermon_transcript":"

The Coming Kingdom #78<\/p>\r\n

Kingdom Now Theology & Ecumenism<\/p>\r\n

Dr. Andy Woods<\/p>\r\n

Sugar Land Bible Church<\/p>\r\nLet\u2019s open our Bibles to Matthew 12:46-50.\u00a0 We are coming towards the end, Lord willing, at the end of this quarter.\u00a0 We are completing our study on the Kingdom, and we are in the last part of the study because we\u2019ve defended biblically the idea of a postponed theocratic Kingdom \u2014 not canceled; not in place now.\u00a0 Postponed.\u00a0 So the question then becomes, \u2018Who cares; why does it matter?\u2019\r\n\r\nWhat we are getting into now in the final section is all of the false teachings that come into the church logically and naturally the moment the church sees itself as the present manifestation of the Kingdom of God. The reason I wanted to teach this is that a lot of Christians really don\u2019t draw the connections between Kingdom Now Theology, and the various false teachings.\u00a0 We are upset at these false teachings, but we don\u2019t really realize the soil from which they all grow up is Kingdom Now Theology.\r\n\r\nYou might have wondered why we\u2019re devoting all this time to this issue of the Kingdom; hopefully at this point we are communicating that it is a very big deal.\u00a0 There are at least nine false doctrines that come into the Church when it sees itself as the Kingdom.\u00a0 The first two false doctrines we have covered:\r\n

    \r\n \t
  1. <\/u>Loss of \u201cpilgrim<\/em>\u201d status.\u00a0 A pilgrim<\/em> is someone passing through to a better world, so why would you think of yourself as pilgrim if you\u2019re bringing in the Kingdom, or we are in the Kingdom now?\u00a0 I have already given you this quote from Lewis Sperry Chafer where he says, \u201cSo the church was fully warned from the beginning [I think he is speaking there of the Upper Room Discourse] about the nature of this age, and taught concerning her pilgrim<\/u><\/em> character<\/u><\/strong> [the Church] while here and her holy calling and separateness from the \u2018evil age.<\/u><\/strong>\u2019\u201d\u00a0 So that is a pilgrim idea that gets lost if this world is our home.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. The second false doctrine that can happen is that the Church moves into social gospel because the Church puts onto her own shoulders bringing to planet earth Kingdom realities. We know that there are certain realities that Jesus will bring to earth when He establishes His Kingdom.\u00a0 Social justice correctly defined prosperity cures for sickness and disease, and if you think that we are the Kingdom, then there is a natural inclination to think not that we can just make progress in these areas, but that we can successfully bring them to the entire earth.\u00a0 The eradication of poverty, etc.\u00a0 So last time we discussed social gospel.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that I had this quote from Tim Keller in my notes.\u00a0 Tim Keller is very much of a social gospel, social justice type of Pastor in New York who is extremely popular.\u00a0 He is the leader of a group called the Gospel Coalition, which is sadly filled with this type of Kingdom Now mentality.\u00a0 In one of his books, he says that the goal of the Church is to re-weave the community.\u00a0 He says this:\u00a0 \u201cIn general, to \u2018do justice\u2019\u201d \u2026<\/u><\/strong> [when he uses the word justice, he is basically talking about a far left wing approach] means to live in a way that generates a strong community [he isn\u2019t talking about the Church; he is talking about New York.\u00a0 If he is bringing the Kingdom to New York, I wish he\u2019d hurry up and get on with it because there is a place that really needs a Kingdom.\u00a0 \u00a0 I visited there, and I won\u2019t go into any further detail; there are some good things there to see, just not everything] \u201c\u2026where human beings can flourish.\u00a0 Specifically, however, to \u2018do justice\u2019<\/u><\/strong> means to go to places where the fabric of shalom [I think I just heard Ron use the word, shalom, meaning peace, earlier] has broken down, where the weaker members of societies [it is all about society; he isn\u2019t speaking of the Church but about society]\u2026 are falling through the fabric, and to repair it.\u00a0 This happens when we concentrate on <\/u><\/strong>[in other words, becomes our priority] and meet the needs of the poor\u2026<\/strong><\/u>The only way to reweave and <\/u><\/strong>strengthen the fabric is by weaving yourself into it\u2026The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority, or the community frays and the fabric breaks.\u201d\u00a0 What he is talking about here is rescuing culture all around us as the priority of the Church. That is basically what you would call social gospel.\u00a0 It is looking at the world and seeing the societal conditions as something that we are obligated to change.\u00a0 All of it sounds good on the surface, who wouldn\u2019t want to live in such a world, but the question as we saw last time is:\u00a0 Is that really the focus of the Church?\u00a0 We try to argue that it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 The focus of the Church is the Great Commission.\u00a0 So you can see in these writings, eg in Tim Keller\u2019s book, how he is subtly changing the focus of the Church to reweaving the community.\u00a0 We went through all of the passages last time on the Great Commission, and there isn\u2019t a single passage where Jesus said to get out there and reweave the community.\u00a0 That is what I mean by social gospel, and let\u2019s pick it up here with\u2026<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. The third false kind of idea that comes into the life of the Church the moment she begins to see herself as the Kingdom of God is that she develops an appetite for ecumenical and interfaith alliances with groups that don\u2019t share our biblical convictions. Ecumenism is the urge to merge, ie, we are going to merge with a spiritual group over here or there for the purpose of fighting some societal cause because we don\u2019t have enough Christians numerically to bring the Christians to the earth; we are hardly a majority anymore, and probably aren\u2019t even a majority anymore in \u2018supposed\u2019 Christian America.\u00a0 We are certainly not a majority around the world so numerically if you want to bring the Kingdom to the earth, we don\u2019t have enough numbers to do that.\u00a0 Thus there is a natural desire on the part of the Church that becomes focused on bringing in the Kingdom to merge with groups who don\u2019t share our convictions, such as Clarence Larkin.\u00a0 In 1920, he predicted this, and he was in the midst of fighting Kingdom Now Theology in what\u2019s called the 1920s.\u00a0\u00a0 We covered it briefly last time \u2014 the fundamentalist modernist controversy.\u00a0 He said in 1920, \u201cThe great mistake the Church has made is in appropriating to herself in this Dispensation [the Church age] the promises of earthly conquest and glory which belong exclusively to Israel in the \u2018Millennial Age.\u2019\u201d\u2026\u00a0 [That is Kingdom Now Theology \u2014you look over at Israel\u2019s promises which we believe will be fulfilled in the thousand-year Kingdom, and through a non-literal method of interpretation, you begin to argue that these are promises that are happening today.\u00a0 So the prophecy of the Dead Sea coming to life in Ezekiel 47; how there\u2019s going to be a river from the temple that will flow into the Dead Sea, and the Dead Sea will teem with life.\u00a0 People sit around and wonder what that means.\u00a0 What it means is that there will be a river from the Temple that is going to flow into the Dead Sea and the Dead Sea will come to life biologically.\u00a0 We believe that this is a Millennial promise.\u00a0 Kingdom Now Theology basically deliteralizes it and says that is the soul coming back to life in the Church age through the new birth.\u00a0 Clarence Larkin says, \u2026 \u201cAs soon as the Church enters into an \u201cAlliance with the World,\u2019 and seeks the help of Parliaments, Congresses, Legislatures, Federations and Reform Societies, largely made up of ungodly men and women [Why would the Church do that?\u00a0 Because she thinks that she is responsible for bringing the Kingdom to the earth, therefore, and you don\u2019t have enough numbers to do it, so you have to merge with other groups who may have some societal goals but who don\u2019t agree with you on the Trinity or the Deity of Christ, or the substitutionary atonement.\u00a0 Those important theological issues are pushed to the side and you become very ecumenical, merging with other groups who don\u2019t share your beliefs theologically but who agree with you on some social cause, eg, the environment, universal health care, racial reconciliation \u2014 whatever issue you\u2019re fighting, and it could be from the right as well, in some places the pro-life issue is the gospel. \u00a0I\u2019m a big pro-lifer, but I don\u2019t really have any interest in marginalizing the Bible to gain some success in the pro-life cause.\u00a0 So people from the left and the right both do this].\u00a0 So Clarence Larkin says, \u00a0\u201cshe [the church] loses her spiritual power and becomes helpless as a redeeming force.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0In other words, the Church stops being the Church because she has merged with some other group, and the Bible says not to be unequally yoked \u2014 that is, they don\u2019t share our core beliefs.\u00a0 In essence, he is arguing that Kingdom Now Theology leads in the direction of ecumenical and interfaith alliances with non-biblical groups.\u00a0 The architect of some of this in modern times, the 1990s, is Charles Colson.\u00a0 I happen to have a fairly high opinion of him, and I appreciate many of the books he wrote, eg, Born\u00a0 Again; The Body<\/u><\/strong>.\u00a0 He started Prison Fellowship, a gospel-oriented ministry to prisoners, but towards the end of his life, Colson started to experiment with ECT, which stands for Evangelicals and Catholics Together.\u00a0 The idea is that secularism, atheism and humanism, communism, abortion and pornography are all so bad in society that as Protestants and Catholics, we need to start cooperating with one another.\u00a0 On the surface, I don\u2019t have much a problem with us showing our support for certain causes, but one of the things that Colson started to argue in his ECT document is \u2018we aren\u2019t going to discuss theology with Catholics anymore.\u2019\u00a0 Whoops, you went too far on that.\u00a0 Part of the document stated that they weren\u2019t going to evangelize one another\u2019s sheep folds.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but that is going too far because Roman Catholic theology is completely and totally different than biblical and Protestant theology:\u00a0 that is what the whole Protestant Reformation was about.\u00a0 Someone out there now aggressively promoting this just when I thought he couldn\u2019t go any lower in terms of false doctrine is Kenneth Copeland.\u00a0 I thought that he had no where else to fall from because for decades he has always been a promoter of the \u2018gods\u2019 doctrine \u2014 meaning that you are a kid of the King so you\u2019re entitled to a life of health and wealth, and you just have to command that into existence.\u00a0 Beginning somewhere around 2015 or earlier, you can see that he is one of the big proponents of this evangelicals and Catholics together mentality, ie, we are all just one big happy family, and if you love Jesus, we are all on the same team.\u00a0 That is what Colson was promoting there towards the end of his life.\u00a0 I thought this whole thing would die when Colson died, but then comes Rick Warren bringing the whole thing to life again in an interview he did in the EWTN, a Roman Catholic Network.\u00a0 Here he was interviewed by Raymond Arroyo, who appears frequently on the Laura Ingraham [a Roman Cathoic] show, The Angle, on Fox News.\u00a0 I watch Laura frequently because I agree with a lot of her political ideology.\u00a0 She will bring on Raymond Arroyo frequently, and here is what Rick Warren said to Arroyo.\u00a0 The reason I keep bringing up Rick Warren is because he is billed today as America\u2019s Pastor.\u00a0 He said this concerning Protestants and Catholics, and remember that Rick Warren is supposed to be a Protestant Pastor.\u00a0 \u201cWe [<\/em>referring to Catholics] have far more in common that what divides us.<\/em>\u00a0 When you talk about Pentecostals, charismatics, evangelicals, fundamentalists, Catholics<\/em>, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, on and on and on and on.\u00a0 Well, they would all say we believe in the trinity; we believe in the Bible; we believe in the resurrection; we believe salvation is through Jesus Christ.\u00a0 These are the big issues.\u00a0 Sometimes Protestants think that Catholics worship Mary like she\u2019s another god.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not exactly catholic doctrine\u2026and people say well what are the saints all about?\u00a0 Why are you praying to the saints?\u00a0 And when you understand what they mean by what they\u2019re saying there\u2019s a whole lot more commonality.\u00a0 <\/em>Now there are still real differences\u2026\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>[What is happening here is that he is marginalizing the differences because he wants us to come together to fight a common cause.\u00a0 Rick Warren, as I have shared with you many of his quotes, believes that he is bringing in the Kingdom, and what I\u2019m trying to demonstrate is that ecumenism is a logical outgrowth of Kingdom Now Theology. \u2026Rick Warren goes on to say, \u201cno doubt about that.\u00a0 But the most important thing is if you love Jesus, we\u2019re on the same team.\u201d \u2026\u00a0 <\/em>[It is an amazing line there that \u2018if you love Jesus, we\u2019re on the same team.\u2019\u00a0 As if there isn\u2019t another Jesus in the world.\u00a0 Does Paul not specifically talk about another Jesus and another gospel?\u00a0 So just because someone uses the \u201cJ\u201d word, I want to know what doctrine they\u2019re using to fill in the meaning of Jesus.\u00a0 The Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses believe in Jesus, too, at least by name, but query them and you\u2019ll see that their Jesus is a created being, not the biblical Jesus]\u2026 \u201cThe unity that I think we would see realistically is not a structural unity but a unity of mission<\/em>.\u201d\u2026 [What mission would that be?\u00a0 Bringing in the Kingdom]\u2026 \u201cAnd so, when it comes to the family, we are co-workers in the field on this for the protection of what we call [here comes the social issues] the sanctity of life, the sanctity of sex, and the sanctity of marriage [all societal issues].\u00a0 So there\u2019s a great commonality and there\u2019s no division<\/em> on any of these three.\u00a0 Many times people have been beaten down for taking a biblical stance.\u00a0 And they start to feel, \u201cWell, maybe I\u2019m out there all by yourself.\u201d\u00a0 No, you\u2019re not, Rick Warren says (Italics added).\u201d\u00a0 So, I want you to see what Rick Warren did \u2014 he just swept under the rug the Protestant Reformation. \u00a0In the 16th<\/sup> century when many of those Protestant Reformers, gave their very lives to see that Reformation get off the ground.\u00a0 Many of them were burned at the stake.\u00a0 From the Protestant Reformation we have the five SOLAS of Protestant Christianity.\u00a0 We have these because we believe that these are literally taught in the Bible.\u00a0 Roman Catholics don\u2019t share our beliefs in any one of these five SOLAS.\u00a0 (See slide at 22:44 on The Five Solas (Alone or By Itself).\u00a0 <\/strong>Sola, is the Latin Word meaning \u2018by itself\u2019 \u2014<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Sola Christus <\/strong>\u2014 Christ Alone. An important doctrine.<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. Sola Fide <\/strong>\u2014 Faith Alone<\/li>\r\n \t
  6. Sola Gratia <\/strong>\u2013 Grace Alone<\/li>\r\n \t
  7. Sola Scriptura <\/strong>\u2014 Scripture Alone [when you talk with your Roman Catholic friends, notice that their Bibles are bigger than ours; they have books in the Bible that we don\u2019t have. Why do they have the Apopcryphal books in their books that we don\u2019t?\u00a0 It is because of this principle of Sola Scriptura<\/strong>.\u00a0 Martin Luther started arguing faith alone based totally on what the Bible alone says, and the Roman Catholics at the Council of Trent in the 16th<\/sup> century 1,500 years after the apostles had died, added a bunch of books.\u00a0 That is the Apocrypha.\u00a0 They did that to counter Luther who was saying faith alone based on Scripture alone.\u00a0 The Roman Catholics were saying, \u2018Well, we have some Scripture, too, that we just added, that teaches salvation by works.\u00a0 Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Bel and the Dragon.\u00a0 The reason you can\u2019t see eye to eye with the Roman Catholic theologically is because they\u2019re operating on a different source of Authority than we as Protestant Christians are.<\/li>\r\n \t
  8. Sola Deo Gloria <\/strong>\u2014 To the glory of God alone \u2014 the last sola.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nWhen Rick Warren says that there are a few differences, but if you love Jesus we are on the same team because we have to fight sanctity of life and pro-marriage, he just took the blood of the martyrs via the Protestant Reformation and swept all of it under the rugs in this interview on EWTN and acted like there is no big difference between us and Roman Catholics.\u00a0 That<\/em><\/strong> is the spirit of ecumenism and interfaith alliances.\r\n\r\nHere is a quote from Jerry Falwell Jr, interviewed on either the TV or radio show of Glenn Beck.\u00a0 I watch him because he is a libertarian, small government, conservative guy, which I enjoy, but Glenn Beck is a Mormon.\u00a0 Mormons believe that Jesus came over to the United States 1500 years or later than when the real Jesus lived.\u00a0 They believe that he came over here and started another movement here in North America.\u00a0 So when the Mormons come to your door, it won\u2019t be just with a bible, but with what is called the pearl of great price and the doctrine of covenants and the Book of Mormon because they believe that we need the completed revelation from Jesus\u2019 guest appearance in North America over a millennia and a half after He walked the face of the earth.\u00a0 This was supposedly given as a special revelation to a Joseph Smith.\u00a0 This is in contradistinction to what the Bible says, in Jude 3, that truth has been once for all given to the saints.\u00a0 So when you\u2019re dealing with a Mormon, even though they look godly and patriotic, and apple pie, they show up on their bicycles dressed nicely, clean cut, and they even vote Republican in every election, and you may agree with them on all kind of social issues, please understand that you have absolutely nothing in common with them theologically.\u00a0 Jerry Falwell Jr of Liberty University, the largest Christian University in the world, if I\u2019m not mistaken, appearing on Glenn Beck\u2019s show, concerning politics, says, \u201cIf we don\u2019t hang together, we\u2019ll hang separately.\u00a0 I mean that\u2019s what my father believed when he formed the Moral Majority, an organization of Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, people of no faith.\u00a0 [So far, so good; I don\u2019t have a problem with voting with people who are like-minded on social issues].\u00a0 But then Jerry Falwell, Jr goes on to say,\u2026 \u201cAnd there are bigger issues now.\u00a0 We can argue about theology later, after we save the country\u2026\u201d \u00a0I guess that means that we\u2019re never going to argue about theology since the country seems to get more and more unsavable so that is the ecumenical mentality where the idea is exactly what Copeland, Rick Warren, Colson are all doing related to Catholics.\u00a0 Now you have Jerry Falwell, Jr doing this related to Mormons and acting like theology is very secondary.\u00a0 Kingdom conditions is really what is important.\r\n\r\nThis is the sort of ecumenical mindset that we now find ourselves in from many of our leaders, and it has to directly do with Kingdom Now Theology.\u00a0 All you have to do is to take his statement here that there are bigger issues for now and that we can argue theology after we save the country.\u00a0 The way all these guys are marginalizing doctrine and compare it to what your Bible says concerning the significance of doctrine, this is what the early church gave themselves to.\u00a0 There is a long laundry list of things that the early church did, and the very first thing they gave themselves to on the list was in Acts 2:42, \u201cThey were continually devoting themselves to the apostles\u2019 teaching<\/u><\/strong> [there was no mentality in the early Church to forget doctrine and save Jerusalem or Rome.\u00a0 Obviously, the priorities of some of these men, although I might agree with them on a point or two, is radically different than the priority of the early Church.\r\n\r\nSo we have talked about potential mergers between Roman Catholics and Protestants, Roman Catholics and Mormons; it couldn\u2019t get any worse, could it?\u00a0 Now we have the same mindset at work in terms of potential mergers with Islam.\u00a0 You\u2019ve heard of Chrislam?\u00a0 Chrislam is the idea that we are going to find some kind of common ground between Christianity and Islam, as if there is anything in common between the two. You may say, \u2018I wish you would talk about something that is more relevant and practical.\u2019\u00a0 How is this for relevant and practical?\u00a0 That sign was over on Highway 90 or Highway 6\u2026I have discovered that these signs are going up all over the country, but this particular one was what would be less than 2-5 miles from our church.\u00a0 We took a photo of the sign, and Anne took a good picture, but then one of our joggers in the church who is kind of short, so she can move in and out of things really fast and go across busy streets, didn\u2019t like that particular picture because she thought it could be clearer, so she took this picture of it.\u00a0 You can see what they\u2019re communicating \u2014 that there is one family, one message; trying to argue that Islam and Christianity are basically common Abrahamic faiths.\u00a0 \u00a0They are not<\/em><\/strong> common Abrahamic faiths.\u00a0 Islam is completely different than Christianity in almost every single respect.\u00a0 I\u2019m currently reading and about half way through Robert Morey\u2019s book, The Coming Islamic Invasion<\/u><\/strong>, that he wrote in the early 1990s, long before 9-11.\u00a0 It is a very interesting read and quite prescient.\u00a0 He has all of the credentials academically that you would want in a comparative religions expert; he is an evangelical Christian, so that is a good place to start if you think Christianity has anything to do with Islam.\u00a0 It is like mixing oil and water.\r\n\r\nWhat is happening now is the mindset is that we will try to find common ground with Muslims because we may agree with them on something.\u00a0 So we will merge to bring in Kingdom conditions, just as they did with the Catholics in the 1990s and later on with Jerry Falwell with the Mormons.\u00a0 Here, Rick Warren is speaking at Tony Blair\u2019s World Economic Forum (WEF), and this can be easily found on YouTube.\u00a0 Rick Warren says this:\u00a0 \u201cTo my Islamic brother <\/u><\/em><\/strong>here from Italy, I would say I\u2019m not really interested in inter-faith dialogue; I\u2019m interested in inter-faith projects.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got enough talk.\u00a0 So\u2026a few weeks ago, at Georgetown University, we brought in three imams, we brought in three Catholic priests, we brought in three evangelical pastors \u2026\u201d [I didn\u2019t get my invitation, and I\u2019m very sad that they would never bring in someone like me because I would be talking like I\u2019m talking to you here, and it would disrupt the coalition they\u2019re trying to build to bring in kingdom conditions]\u2026, \u201cand brought in three Rabbis and we said \u2026[here comes the societal causes], \u2026 \u2018What can we do about AIDS?\u00a0 And we started on some common ground on those issues \u2026 [what is he talking about \u2014 the common social cause related to the Kingdom that we all want to bring in\u2014dealing with this AIDS epidemic]: \u2026\u00a0 what can we do that we all care about?\u201d\u00a0 In the process, Rick Warren is there calling an Imam his brother.\r\n\r\nLook at Matthew 12:46-50 where Jesus defines who your brother spiritually is. \u201cWhile He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.\u00a0 Someone said to Him, \u201cBehold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.\u201d\u00a0 But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, \u201cWho is My mother and who are My brothers?\u201d\u00a0 And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, \u201cBehold My mother and My brothers!\u00a0 For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.\u201d\u00a0 The biblical definition is very clear.\u00a0 You have no business at all calling anybody your spiritual brother who is not a disciple of Jesus Christ like you are.\u00a0 There is no common ground, and so I guess what is disturbing me about all of these quotations is not so much that they\u2019re trying to fight a social cause, but they\u2019re in the process of fighting a social cause, and they\u2019re marginalizing or minimizing the Bible.\u00a0 That is the ecumenical mindset.\r\n\r\nRick Warren prayed at Obama\u2019s inauguration in 2009 when he was being sworn in as our President.\u00a0 Here is the prayer, and these are not secret quotes I\u2019m bringing to your attention; you need only a search engine.\u00a0 Rick Warren\u2019s said :\u00a0 \u201cI humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua [so far so good, the Hebrew name for Jesus], Isa [<\/em>hmmm, interesting, havent heard Jesus referred to that way]<\/em>, Jesus [no problem, the Spanish pronunciation, and then the name we are familiar with], Jesus, who taught us to pray.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo Jesus, Jesus, Yeshua, I know, Isa, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0\u00a0 Who is Isa?\u00a0 Eric Barger jumped right on this in his newsletter and correctly pointed out:\u00a0 \u201c\u2018Isa\u2019 in no way represents the Jesus of the Bible but is instead the false Jesus of the Qur\u2019an (Koran) and the Muslim Hadith.\u00a0 Isa (pronounced \u2018eee-sa\u2019) is the Islamic Jesus who was but a prophet\u201d \u2026 [and by the way, Muslims basically believed Jesus is kind of coming back as Allah\u2019s sidekick.\u00a0 That is not what we studied last Sunday in the book of Revelation. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords; He is not coming back as a sidekick to anybody, but in Islamic thinking, that is who Jesus or \u2018Isa\u2019 actually is.\u00a0 A different Jesus.\u00a0 Rick Warren took Isa, a false Jesus and merged him with the true Jesus.\u00a0 America\u2019s pastor did this]\r\n\r\nEric Barger\u2019s quote continues, and he said of Isa: \u00a0\u201c\u2026 and who certainly did not experience a sacrificial death on a cross [in fact, if I understand Islamic theology correctly, they don\u2019t even believe Jesus died on the Cross.\u00a0 It was a kind of deception where, if I have this right, wasn\u2019t it Judas who secretly got there on the cross thru a deception of Allah?] \u2026 \u201cand who certainly did not experience a sacrificial death on a cross let alone resurrect from the dead.\u00a0 In fact, in Islam the prophet Isa is actually the destroyer of Christianity\u2014not its Savior.\u00a0 Obviously this is NOT the same Jesus as is Yeshua [the Hebrew pronunciation of Jesus].\u201d\r\n\r\nBut this is what is happening with this ecumenical mentality because of the urge to merge to bring in kingdom conditions.\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t know if you followed this, but I followed it very carefully.\u00a0 This took place, I think, a couple of summers ago.\u00a0 This is James White (see slide on BEYOND DEBATE<\/strong>).\u00a0 He is reformed in his theology, but a lot of what he has written over the years has been pretty solid; he wrote a good book, eg, against homosexual marriage from a biblical perspective, etc.\u00a0 He is a very good debater, very intelligent, but suddenly, he got caught up in something called, and notice how this was billed, Beyond Debate<\/strong>.\u00a0 Debate, something that James White is very good at, and here he is saying that we aren\u2019t going to debate.\u00a0 This was with an individual named Yasir Qadhi who not only is a fairly well known Imam in America, but when you look into the roots of Yasir Qadhi, you see that he is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and is a national security risk.\u00a0 What happened is that James White brought Yasir Qadhi, not to Starbucks or to a hotel ballroom, or to some neutral site, but to a church, like we are having here in front of the assembled saints of God.\u00a0 They were trying to find some basically common ground.\u00a0 What can we agree on?\u00a0 In the process, you can watch this whole thing on YouTube, James White just sits there like a potted plant, despite that he is a very capable debater.\u00a0 But notice how this is advertised:\u00a0 Beyond Debate<\/strong>, a friendly dialogue between Christians and Muslims.\u00a0 They allowed him in a church to sit and spew out his anti-biblical, anti-Christian belief system without being challenged.\u00a0 If they had done this at Starbucks or at a hotel ballroom, I wouldn\u2019t have too much of a problem with it.\u00a0 But he is bringing this person into a church before the assembled saints of God and in the process allowing him to teach false doctrine inside the church.\r\n\r\nIn the process, Yasir Qadhi denies the death of Christ.\u00a0 James White calls Yasir Qadhi \u2018my mentor\u2019 over and over again.\r\n\r\nJames white actually says to Yasir Qadhi at one point in this whole exchange, \u2018You know, you Muslims really need to make a movie or video to educate us evangelical Christians on the true nature of Islam, because we obviously don\u2019t us it.\u2019\u00a0 That\u2019s a stunning thing because in Islam, you have something called Takia<\/strong> which gives you the right to lie as long as you\u2019re advancing your cause.\u00a0 We as Christians have as one of the Ten Commandments not to bear false witness, but in Islam, you\u2019re allowed to lie as long as you\u2019re advancing the right cause.\u00a0 So James White turns to this Imam, a natural security threat and tells him to create a movie\u00a0 to educate the rest of us about the true nature of Islam even though the guy has a right to lie to advance his cause.\u00a0 That is the insanity of all this, and at one point he essentially says, \u2018You know we\u2019re going to need each other at the end of the day.\u2019\u00a0 I watched this thing several times, and it was the identical logic that Chuck Colson used relative to Roman Catholicism.\u00a0 The real enemy out there is humanism, atheism, secularism.\u00a0 One of these days these secularists will gang up on us, and we religious people will need each other\u2026we will fight some cause out there, and whatever theological differences we have with each other, sweep them under the rug.\u00a0 That is what is happening today in Christianity, and this is being promoted as evangelism!\r\n\r\nThis is not evangelism!\u00a0 Evangelism is is where you have a conversation with somebody like Jesus did with the woman at the well; like Paul did on Mars Hill in Acts 17, but ultimately, you get to the truth claims of Christ.\u00a0 Paul never went out to find common ground with folks; he used conversation strategically and ultimately to get to the death and resurrection of Christ.\u00a0 That is how the Mars Hill speech ends in Acts 17:30-31; that is what Jesus does with the woman at the well in John 4:22.\u00a0 He finally gets to truth, and says that salvation is of the Jews.\u00a0 In other words, you Samaritans have it wrong.\r\n\r\nSo what is happening is that common ground beyond debate, middle ground mania is being substituted for what we would call biblical evangelism.\u00a0 What I am trying to contend in my book and here with you this evening, is that this is a logical ramification of Kingdom Now Theology.\u00a0 Bringing in societal change is a priority and you end jump merging with everybody who agrees with you on that point and end up marginalizing or minimizing any theological differences with anyone \u2014 Catholics, Mormons, etc.\u00a0 Now it is apparently happening with Muslims.\u00a0 One of the things I want you to see is when James White did that, he went directly against the Word of God.\r\n\r\nNotice 2 John 9:9-11 where John says this:\u00a0 \u201c9<\/sup>Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ<\/u><\/strong>, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.\u00a0 10<\/sup>If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house<\/u><\/strong>, and do not give him a greeting; 11<\/sup>for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.\u201d\u00a0 Let me ask you a basic question:\u00a0 Where did the early church meet?\u00a0 You don\u2019t have chapels and stained glass chapels in the first century, no church mortgages.\u00a0 They only had meeting in each other\u2019s homes.\u00a0 In fact, in Acts 2:46, of the early church it says, \u201cDay by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house.\u201d\u00a0 So when 2 John 9:10 says, \u2018\u2026do not receive someone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ into your house,\u2019 he is saying for you not to give them a place of influence within the church ever!\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say to be rude to them or to never have a one-on-one conversation with them if your goal is to point them to Jesus Christ, but in no way, shape or form, would you ever give them the pulpit or let them teach Sunday School, or let them set up their religious literature on your display table.\u00a0 That is absolutely something not to do, and that is basically what James White, supposedly Christianity\u2019s greatest debater did.\u00a0 He just sat there on the stage and let Yasir Qadhi say whatever he wanted.\u00a0 That goes directly against the Bible.\u00a0 Yet all of these things are being overturned because somehow in the minds of people is this desire to find common ground with everyone.\u00a0 I think that a lot of is this ambition to bring the kingdom to the earth or to fight some kind of societal cause.\r\n\r\nThe big name of the game today is IFD:\u00a0 Interfaith Dialogue\u2014where you do the type of things that James White did:\u00a0 get together with Muslims or whoever and try to work out and minimize your differences by sweeping them under the rug for the purpose of coming together to fight some kind of societal cause.\u00a0 You must understand that IFD, and this is what most evangelical Christians naively do not understand:\u00a0 that the whole game is rigged the moment that you sit down for a conversation or dialogue like this.\u00a0 In other words, the other side has already decided that they will use the conversation to move us in their direction.\u00a0 That is what they\u2019re trying to do.\u00a0 They have no intention of moving in our direction, but because our spiritual leaders aren\u2019t communicating what I\u2019m trying to communicate to you, we think, \u2018It\u2019s great, we will sit down and have common ground; I\u2019m going to have a chance to evangelize.\u00a0 You must understand it is like betting against the house.\u00a0 The house will win because they\u2019ve already decided that they\u2019re going to use interfaith dialogue to move us<\/em> in their<\/em> direction rather than the other way around.\u00a0 This is why I\u2019m very hesitant about this whole dialogue mentality that is so prevalent in the Body of Christ.\u00a0 \u2018Well, how can you be so dogmatic about this?\u2019\u00a0 Because it is in their own writings.\r\n\r\nA quote from The Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s senior theoretician, Seyyid Qutb, was transparent in the true agenda behind Islamic participation in interfaith dialogue, when he wrote, \u201cThe chasm between Islam and the Jahiliyyah<\/em><\/strong> [the society of unbelievers] is great, and a bridge is not to be built across it so that the people on the two sides may mix with each other\u2026\u201d [see, per Takia<\/strong>, you can lie to advance your agenda; interfaith dialogue is basically promoted as \u2018we\u2019re going to find common ground\u2019.\u00a0 In fact, there is a document called Common Word.\u00a0 A common word between us and you.\u00a0 This is one of the reasons we brought Sharam Haiti in here a couple of times, and we will probably do it again in the not too distant future; a former Muslim, to educate us about things like this:\u00a0 that this a part of the strategy.\u00a0 But what you learn is the goal of Common Word has never really defined common word.\u00a0 We will use interfaith dialogue as a tool or vehicle to move Christianity closer to the way we think.\u00a0 \u00a0Now are they going to convert us to being full blown Muslims, probably not, but their goal is to make us less resistant to Islam], \u2026 but only so that the people of the Jahiliyyah<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0[the society of unbelievers] may come over to Islam.\u201d\u00a0 Look at that!\u00a0 He said that in 1966 in the book that I am quoting on that slide on Seyyid Qutb; <\/strong>long before any of this stuff became popular, they told us exactly what they were going to do with this interfaith dialogue agenda.\r\n\r\nThe very first Interfaith dialogue that you can find in Scripture is in Genesis 3:1 (see slide on The First Interfaith Dialogue<\/strong>).\u00a0 \u201cNow the serpent<\/u><\/em><\/strong> was more crafty <\/u><\/em><\/strong>than any of the beast of the field which the Lord God had made.\u00a0 And he said to the woman,<\/u><\/em><\/strong> \u2018Indeed, has God said, \u2018You shall not eat from any tree of the garden\u2019?\u201d\u00a0 This was incorrect, that isn\u2019t what God said.\u00a0 So he started a conversation with her; a discussion.\u00a0 Paul refers to this conversation in 2 Corinthians 11:3 where he says to the Corinthians, \u201cBut I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent<\/u><\/em><\/strong> deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.\u201d\u00a0 (Italics mine). \u00a0In other words, the serpent wants to, with you Corinthians, start another conversation.\u00a0 Think how different how world history would be if Eve had just decided not to talk to the serpent.\u00a0 Problem solved?\u00a0 But she didn\u2019t do that; she sat down to the first interfaith dialogue, and you know the rest of the story.\r\n\r\nLet me ask you a question:\u00a0 when satan started this conversation with Eve, was he trying to move closer to the thinking of Eve, or was he trying to move Eve in his direction.\u00a0 Obviously the latter.\u00a0 That is what Seyyid Qutb<\/strong> is saying concerning the Islamic agenda between interfaith dialogue.\u00a0 If you\u2019re into interfaith dialogue, and I know some people are gifted at it and want to do that, then number 1, understand what is really happening.\u00a0 Number 2, go have it out there somewhere on a neutral site, Starbucks, hotel ballroom, wherever, but not in church, otherwise, you run into afoul with 2 John 9:9-11.\r\n\r\nWhat happens when the church becomes Kingdom Now focused?\u00a0 Basically what happens is the church moves in this direction of ecumenism.\u00a0 I was going to cover numbers 4 and 5 of the 9 ways that Kingdom Now Theology impacts the Church tonight; we will cover number 4 next time, and if we are fortunate, or unfortunate, depending on your point of view, we will do number 5.\r\n\r\n\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n ","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t