The Truth War (31 page)

Proverbs 16:21: “The wise in heart will be called understanding” (NASB).

The path to discernment is the way of spiritual maturity. And the only means to spiritual maturity is mastery of the Word of God.

Most people are discerning about things that are important to them. People who regard a healthy diet as crucial watch carefully what they eat. They read the fine print on the package to see how many grams of fat the food has and what percentage of the daily required nutrients it offers. People who work with pesticides or dangerous chemicals must be very discerning. They study the procedures and the precautions very carefully to avoid any potentially lethal exposure. People who make investments in the stock market usually practice discernment. They study the cryptic listings in the newspaper on the stock market and watch the ticker tape. Lawyers are very discerning with contracts. They have to figure out the legal jargon and make sure they understand what they are signing. People who undergo delicate surgery are usually very discerning. They try to find the doctor with the finest skills—or at least verify that he has plenty of experience in whatever procedure he will be doing. I know a lot of people who are very discerning sports enthusiasts. They watch a football game and can assess any offense, any defense, any play. They often feel they are more discerning than whoever is calling the actual plays. They study statistics and averages and take it all very seriously.

Did you realize those are essentially the same skills that are required in spiritual discernment? Careful thought, keen interest, thorough analysis, close observation—together with alertness, attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and above all, a love of truth. All of us have those skills to some degree, and we use them in whatever field of endeavor is important to us. Yet what could be more important than spiritual discernment?

No valid explanation is readily available for why contemporary Christians are so
un
discerning, but their lack of discernment reveals a spiritual apathy that is deadly evil.

Can we as the church regain our ability to be discerning? Only by growing up spiritually. That means confronting the spirit of a relativistic age and diligently applying ourselves to the unfailing Word of God. We cannot gain discernment overnight or through a mystical experience. Discernment will come only as we train our minds to be understanding in the truth of God's Word and learn to apply that truth skillfully to our lives.

Notes

1
. Spurgeon, Charles, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 5 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1879), 41.

I
NTRODUCTION
: W
HY
T
RUTH
I
S
W
ORTH
F
IGHTING
F
OR

1
. Andy Crouch, “The Emergent Mystique,”
Christianity
Today
, November 2004, 37-38, emphasis added.

2
. Ibid.

3
. Brian McLaren,
A Generous Orthodoxy
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 293.

4
. Ibid., 286.

5
. John Foxe, “The Fourth Persecution, Under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, A.D. 162,”
Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Foxe's famous martyrology is a monumental testimony to the honor and courage of reformers who gave their lives for the truth. The accents are powerful and needed in our comfortable, convictionless day.

6
. See also John MacArthur,
Hard to Believe
(Nashville: Nelson, 2003).

7
. Data from a survey taken after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and released in November 2001 by the Barna Group indicated that two-thirds of adults who attend a conservative, Protestant churches question whether absolute moral truth exists. “How America's Faith Has Change Since 9/11.”http://barna.org/FlexPage.aspx? Page-BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID-102

8
. John MacArthur,
The MacArthur New Testament
Commentary: 2 Peter and Jude
(Chicago: Moody, 2005).

C
HAPTER
1

C
AN
T
RUTH
S
URVIVE IN A
P
OSTMODERN
S
OCIETY
?

1
. Brian McLaren,
A Generous Orthodoxy
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 293.

2
. Ibid., 23.

3
. Cited in Greg Warner, “Brian McLaren: The Story We Find Ourselves In,” a positive review at Rick Warren's pastors.com Website, http://www.pastors.com/article.asp?ArtID=4150.

4
. Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke,
Beyond Foundationalism:
Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 3.

5
. Ibid., 30.

6
. “A hope-filled theology loses its way when it trots after the illusive foundationalist dream, seeking to secure its own certitude by appeal to a supposedly unassailable anthropological foundation” (Ibid., 248).

7
. John Armstrong, “How I Changed My Mind: Theological Method,”
Viewpoint
(September–October 2003), 1.

8
. Ibid.

9
. Ibid., 4.

10
. Ibid.

11
. Ibid.

12
. Ibid., 1.

13
. Ibid. In a follow-up on this subject at his weblog, Armstrong likens Christians who have “a high level of certitude” to dictators and tyrants. That article is titled “Certitude Can Be Idolatrous,” June 30, 2005, http://johnharmstrong.com.

14
. Ibid., 4.

15
. Martin Luther,
D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische
Gesamtausgabe. Briefwechsel,
18 vols. (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1930–85), 3:81.

C
HAPTER
2

S
PIRITUAL
W
ARFARE
: D
UTY
, D
ANGER
,
AND
G
UARANTEED
T
RIUMPH

1
. Sir Basil Liddell Hart,
Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American
(New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1929), 402.

2
. Charles Spurgeon,
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit
, vol. 25 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1879), 265.

3
. Brian McLaren,
A Generous Orthodoxy
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 260.

4
. Ibid., 264.

5
. Ibid., 32.

6
. Ibid., 28.

7
. Ibid., 191.

8
. Ibid., 192.

9
. Ibid., 30.

10
. Ibid.

11
. John MacArthur,
Reckless Faith: When the Church Loses Its
Will to Discern
(Wheaton: Crossway, 1994).

12
. McLaren,
A Generous Orthodoxy
, 32.

C
HAPTER
3

C
ONSTRAINED INTO
C
ONFLICT
:
W
HY
W
E
M
UST
F
IGHT FOR THE
F
AITH

1
. In the King James Version of Acts 1:13 and Luke 6:16, the lesser-known apostle Judas (the one also known as Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus) is called “the brother of James,” but the operative words (“
the brother
”) are in italics in both texts, indicating that they have been added by translators. The original manuscript literally says “Judas of James,” which actually suggests that the apostle's
father
(not his brother) was named James. (That is exactly what most translations of Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13 now say: “Judas the son of James.”)

C
HAPTER
4

C
REEPING
A
POSTASY
: H
OW
F
ALSE
T
EACHERS
S
NEAK
I
N

1
. J. Gresham Machen,
Christianity and Liberalism
(New York: Macmillan), 24.

2
. Ibid.

3
. Ibid.

4
. “Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas” (Irenaeus,
Against Heresies
, 1:31:1).

C
HAPTER
5

H
ERESY
'
S
S
UBTLETY
: W
HY
W
E
M
UST
R
EMAIN
V
IGILANT

1
. Ironically, this title was bestowed on the king by Pope Leo X in 1521 while Henry was still loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. Just five years before, Luther had nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. Henry earned the title by writing a lengthy denunciation of Luther's theses. Henry later broke with Rome over the pope's refusal to annul Henry's marriage to his first wife, Catherine. Far from being a true defender of the faith, Henry was a political opportunist and an ungodly man. Although his break with Rome enabled the Protestant Reformation to sweep over England, Henry himself was no more a friend to Protestantism than he turned out to be to the pope. It would be hard to think of a major figure in church history who was less deserving of such a title than he. Nonetheless, the title has remained with the British throne ever since.

2
. The statement appears on Prince Charles's own Web site, in an article titled “The Prince's Work: Religion” at http://www.prince-ofwales. gov.uk/about/wrk_religion.html.

3
. Sabellianism is also sometimes referred to as
patripassianism
(from the combination of two Latin words meaning “father” and “suffering”) because, if Father and Son are merely distinct modes or manifestations of one divine Person, then the Father suffered on the cross. The same view is sometimes labeled
monarchianism.
Sabellian opinions have faded and revived repeatedly throughout church history. Sabellian modalism is essentially the same view held by “Oneness Pentecostals” today, of whom T. D. Jakes is the dominant media figure.

4
. Philip Schaff,
The Creeds of Christendom
, 3 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1931), 1:29.

5
. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds.
The Principal Works of
St. Jerome
in
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II
(14 vols.) Jerome's
Dialogue Against the Luciferians
, 19 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 6:329.

6
. The excerpts cited here have been slightly adapted from chapter 13: “Extract from the letter of Athanasius on the death of Arius” in Philip Schaff,
Early Church Fathers: Nicene and Post
Nicene Fathers
(ser. 2, vol. 3). The language has been modernized, but these are otherwise exact quotations from Schaff's translation of Athanasius's letter.

7
. Herbert W. Armstrong and the original Worldwide Church of God were likewise Arian in their Christology. Although the main group of Armstrong's followers have abandoned Arianism and formally adopted a more classically Trinitarian view, several offshoots of that group remain fiercely loyal to their founder's Arian opinions.

8
. For more detail on the Arian controversy with particular stress on Athanasius's role as a contender for the true faith, see the excellent account of Athanasius by John Piper,
Contending for
Our All
(Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 40–75.