“Rudiments of the World” Part 2 By Rayola Kelley

In last month’s, November’s The Bottom Line, I dealt with the subject of liberalism in our faith due to how we handle and approach the Word of God. We may not realize it, but we do take liberty with God’s Word. We choose what we are going to believe, what doctrinal preference we have when interpreting it, and what we end up with as establishing truth may be contrary to the Spirit and truth of God’s full counsel.

We also can easily enough adopt the world’s way of evaluating something such as the titles people are given. It seems as if titles are everything today. They are a point of agreement, authority and identification, while often hiding points of prejudice, control, and evil agendas. We have also attached other subtitles to narrow the categories even more such as “ultra,” “radical,” “progressive,” and so forth. The ultra are those who balance on the edge of such radicalism they are considered insane, while those who are considered “radical” are actually put in the same category as being a terrorist, even though a great majority aren’t, and the “progressive” may sound like man is progressing forward but it is about promoting Socialism and Communism, which is anything but progressive for those who come under its umbrella of lies.

We often attach such titles to political parties. These titles create a picture of one swinging to some extreme side of some line that points to the middle of the road. In fact, I read a couple more titles. When it comes to Republicans, the popular Rino (Republican In Name Only) has either been shoved to the Democrat side of the matter, or it is taking on another pose to appear more conservative. In a recent article another person broke the Republicans down to National Conservatives (NatCons) and Freedom Conservatives (FreeCons). Apparently, these titles are based on the different waves of emphasis based on policies and what was being emphasized at the time. The NatCons hold to what is called the more traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties that have been greatly marginalized by progressive thinking, undermining the virtues that are so needed to keep a society from imploding inward. The FreeCons promote such things as free trade, entitlement, reform, increased immigration and amnesty for illegal immigrants. For the most part they are what we call “globalists” who want to take us back to Babel.

For the liberals, there is classical liberalism which started out to be directed to the working man, but it has graduated to progressive liberalism which embraces Socialist philosophies where man will be taxed into abject poverty while all of his goods are redistributed into the pockets of the elite as he becomes a serf in the world to serve a few. Whether it is a philosophy of Socialism, the pursuit of Globalism or the thought of some utopia where man will be his own god, it is all godless and doomed to fail. It will fail because it is man’s way not God’s way. It is man’s form of tyranny and thievery to carry out the plan of the god of this age to rob, kill, and destroy that which will not surrender the will, independence, and rights of the life given by God (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25; John 10:10).

The question is why must we break down into smaller and smaller categories? It is simple: there are some things I can identify with, and others I can’t and yet I must fit on one side or the other so I can have the backing of some national identity. If I lack such backing, I can’t get ahead in a world that uses such titles to control me. If enough of us who have the same mind can infiltrate, we can undermine the philosophy by changing the emphasis of it. All of these categories are to cause fleshly debates that go nowhere, endless schisms that cause us to take sides, rhetoric that puts us to sleep, and flattery to give us a placebo of false hope that will pacify us until we are in straitjackets and have no real platform on which to stand. Ultimately, it will isolate us to be picked off one by one.

When it comes to the Word of God, the key is not whether we are conservative with how we handle the Word of God or being a bit liberal to show tolerance; rather, it comes back to whether we are handling it in the right spirit which ensures purity, and if our goal is to embrace the truth as being so by faith because if God says it, it is so (Romans 10:17).

A friend’s husband asked how much Bible must we get rid of, or ignore, to hold to our point of view about a scriptural matter. I realize that his question is a good jumping off point as to how people pick and choose what they do believe, proving what many will not admit, THEY DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE THE COMPLETE COUNSEL OF GOD’S WORD. We really do want to pick and choose what we believe based on what is comfortable to our ideas of a matter. I wrote a Facebook post that dealt with this subject to try to warn others of the growing cancer of taking such liberty with God’s Word. I start out each post with Scripture to set the tone.

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). I have been reading a book about liberalism. It is amazing to me how labels are being used to identify everything from politics to religion, often masking what is missing from the equation to hide what is wrong about the presentation, and what is the truth to a matter. I realize the whole goal of any liberalism is to change one’s worldview of God, life, and our purpose for being here.

The whole point of the book is how man has taken liberty with every aspect of Scripture and made cults out of religions, seduced men into mixing the secular with the heavenly, and fudged the lines of truth in order to dull man down to what is truth (1 Timothy 4:1). Although the author himself is not aware that his premise, which is a certain man-inspired theology, has caused him to take liberty with God’s Word by ignoring a large percentage of it in lieu of maintaining what he believes, his example proves that is the subtly of all liberalism. It often gives the appearance of being true to Scriptural integrity, and reasonable in presentation while staying on the narrow way when in reality, the person just has taken a detour from the Way.

So how do you avoid being swept up by the incredible wave of delusion that will catch man up in judgment in the last days? (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). Being saved out of religious delusion has made me very aware of what the Bible tells me I must test. The first test is 1 John 4:1-3. We are to test the spirit behind something. The Spirit of God has no agreement with the spirit of the world, Satan, and will not be found in an unholy mixture. Those who expose themselves to a wrong spirit will be dulled down and rendered ineffective from discerning spirits altogether.

The next test is who do they say Jesus is (Matthew 16:13-19)? That is a question that is foremost in my mind. Are they taking away from Jesus as God in the flesh in any way, undermining His great work of redemption and making it clear that all have sinned and must repent of it, and believe the Gospel in order to flee the wrath of God to come? To be exposed to any other Jesus but the One in the Bible is to come under an anti-Christ spirit which will cause us to take on a casual attitude towards the real Jesus. Keep in mind, if you do not get Jesus right, you are building on a wrong foundation that will be shaken and will collapse in the end (Matthew 7:24-27; 1 Corinthians 3:11).

The next test is based on my commission as a Christian. To call something Christian and maintain the legitimacy of it, it must clearly present the Gospel. Sadly, it seems few preach the true Gospel and yet how can people know what it means to be saved and from what? What is the purpose of any Christian presentation if it is not to see man saved? A watered-down, entertaining, wrong gospel can’t save. The Bible is clear: to present any other Gospel than what has been established in Scripture is to stand accursed before God (Galatians 1:6-9; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Remember, any presentation of God is also influencing and affecting those who are vulnerable or who do not know the truth in how they end up seeing God, and our participation with, or acceptance of it, is our approval of it in their eyes.

The subsequent test is principle. Principle reveals the law we are operating under. There are two laws according to Romans 8:2. There is the law of sin and death which is sown BY the flesh and the Spirit of the life of Christ Jesus in us which is sown IN the Spirit of God. Many of the presentations I see or hear today of Jesus appeals to the flesh and is void of the Spirit of God. Therefore, what principle are we sowing according to and what fruits will it produce in the end when it comes to our attitude towards God?

Finally, how much liberty does one take to fill in the empty spaces left by God in His Word? Even the spaces in God’s economy have a purpose and what will we end up filling them with: His inspired words, or our ideas? Empty spaces are to keep us from going any further because, past what is, there are often idle words that will be judged, ignorance towards righteousness that will not be tolerated, and presentations that could prove to be blasphemous (Matthew 12:25-37). Every time I consider the end results of taking any such liberty, I count the cost and have concluded that such liberty is not worth it.

When we come to the idea of classical, this points to what has been accepted as traditional and acceptable. I love classical music but I also know that it may be beautiful, inspiring, and soothing to the soul, but it is void of lifting my spirit up in praise and adoration because it is secular. This season of celebration points to a time of traditions, but how beneficial is it to us? So many times, we hold onto tradition because it reminds us of a simpler time, allows us to land on something familiar, and gives us a sense of belonging but someone has taken some type of liberty with it to fit it into our culture to make it a tradition. Jesus said of such tradition of man and religion that it nullifies His commandments (Matthew 15:3-9).

When it comes to “progressive” for mankind, it points to escalating the moral downwards spiral he is already in. In God’s economy it is never about progression of man in the scheme of things, but regression in importance that ends in excellent results because God will ultimately be exalted and glorified as man chooses the way of the cross and takes a backseat of humility and service (Luke 9:23-25; John 3:30).

This season touts what is at the heart of most of mankind, “Peace and Good Will.” However, the real equation is missing. Our only hope is Christ. Paradise is with Him and in Him. There is no “utopia” that will be in this world until Christ rules and it will not be utopia as such; rather, it will be a world where there is true peace. Christ, not man, will be the center of it as ultimate Ruler. The government will rest on His shoulder (Isaiah 9:6; John 14:27). As the only true God, He is the One who deserves and will be worshipped. Jesus will be the sole ruler of it as King who will be obeyed or a rod of iron will go forth and consequences will be paid. He is the One who has dominion over it as Lord, establishing Him as the One who will be served, and He will be the One whose knowledge will fill the earth, leaving no debates, silencing all heretical nonsense, and putting down all activities of darkness, as His glory is unveiled in the highest, bringing forth “peace, good will toward men” (Isaiah 11:9; Luke 2:12-14; Revelation 2:27;19:15).