False teachers - Part 2

Last week in part 1 we established that it is acceptable and even commanded to judge in certain circumstances. We also dealt with both Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer and showed they are not of God but of the devil.If you have not read it or need a refresher please take a look.

Rick Warren

The devil, of course, has more than one poison. He is the deceiver and father of all lies, having told the first one in the Garden of Eden. This poison attacks the church, stripping it of virtually everything that makes it a church and watering down the gospel to virtually nothing. What is this poison? The Purpose Driven Church and it’s proponent Rick Warren.

What purpose is he driving the churches who advocate this system to? Purpose Driven churches will typically reclassify  the saved and lost to the "churched" and the "unchurched, replace the organ and piano with heavy metal instruments and sing repetitive praise lyrics. Sometimes even the word church may be removed and called a ‘campus’. How is this change made? By force. There are 6 steps to this.

1.  Identify those who are resisting the changes;

2.  Assess the effectiveness of their opposition;

3.  Befriend those who are undecided about the changes;

4.  Marginalize more persistent resisters;

5.  Vilify those who stay and fight; and

6.  Establish new rules that will silence all resistance.

In short, the church is stolen as the church isn't told until it’s too late and the members either accept the changes, or leave the church. Clearly, any Bible-believing Christian should leave such a place. Warren opposes those who hold to sound Bible doctrine saying of fundamentalists on an interview on Larry King Live in 2006,  “There are all kinds of fundamentalists, Larry, and they’re all based on fear. There are Christian fundamentalists. There are Muslim fundamentalists. I’ve met some Jewish fundamentalists. You know that there are secular fundamentalists. They’re all based on fear.”

This is very similar to the ideology of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who was quoted as saying “We have to be prepared to take the security measures necessary for our immediate protection. . . .The answer is to promote views that are open-minded and tolerant towards those who are different, and to fight the formal, informal, and internet propagation of closed-minded intolerance.”

Take this with a 2005 quote by Rick Warren who says, “Who’s the man of peace in any village – or it might be a woman of peace – who has the most respect, they’re open and they’re influential? They don’t have to be a Christian. In fact, they could be a Muslim, but they’re open and they’re influential and you work with them to attack the five giants. And that’s going to bring the second Reformation.”

If you have read this far you will know such statements are utterly false. While Warren abuses Matthew 7:1 and says ‘Judge not’ one moment he makes a foolish judgement a moment later on national TV. Yes, fundamentalists have rules, but they can and should be backed up with the Word of God. Furthermore, a Christian cannot be an ambassador of Christ by tolerating. He must fight using the Sword of the Spirit, speaking the truth and whole counsel of God out of love and concern for millions of lost souls. Let’s take a look at what Warren means when he speaks of a second Reformation.

Here he is again, “You know, 500 years ago, the first Reformation with Luther and then Calvin, was about beliefs. I think a new reformation is going to be about behavior. The first Reformation was about creeds; I think this one will be about deeds. I think the first one was about what the church believes; I think this one will be about what the church does. The first Reformation actually split Christianity into dozens and then hundreds of different segments. I think this one is actually going to bring them together."

This is precisely the world’s philosophy that will usher in the Anti-Christ and the one world government, uniting world religions, regardless of belief. It’s no wonder because all religions have a single source. Satan. He said thousands of years ago, “I will ascend like the Most High” and for a time he will be allowed to pretend he has, ruling the world during the Great Tribulation. To help usher this one world government in, he has his pawns, like Warren, to preach a false gospel of tolerance. In Warren’s video going along with his 40 Days of Purpose book has people praying the infamous ‘sinners prayer’. Not only that, the prayer he has people praying does not mention sin, repentance, the cross, or the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now we see Warren’s true purpose. Sending people to hell by winning people to a false gospel.

Rick Warren is a Satanic missionary, leading his followers on a reformation that will bring in the anti-christ, the one world government ruled by his father the devil, but has chocolate covered this with the Bible, God’s perfect and Holy Word.

Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll. Though many believe him to be very well known, just how well do they know him? Some are at least partially aware of certain aspects of his error but do we know the full story? Founding pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle Washington on America’s Northwest coast, Driscoll states his methods as  ‘theologically conservative and culturally liberal’. This is the first sign of anything untoward and the first sign of compromise we see. God’s Word states plainly ‘ye shall know them by their fruit’, so what fruit does Driscoll manifest?

Firstly, he is an admirer of the aforementioned missionary of Satan, Rick Warren saying, “God has used Warren’s insights to bring untold numbers of people to Jesus…….Sadly, there was a time when, as an arrogant young punk, I was critical of his work.” He is now fully supportive of this apostate saying, “Rick Warren is a brother in Christ. Having spoken with him on the phone, spent time at his church, and shared dinner with him, I can assure you that he loves the Bible, loves Jesus, loves pastors, loves the church, and has a heart for the world.”

Far from being theologically conservative, he violates a principle tenet of conservatism by affirming his support for a false teacher, rejecting in action the command to come out and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:17). In doing this he also violates 1 Timothy 1:6 which says “[These elders should be] men who are of unquestionable integrity and are irreproachable.”

The integrity of Driscoll is certainly far from blameless. He is known as ‘the cussing preacher’ and indeed he does indeed use crude, profane language to the degree the texts of his sermons would not pass an internet filter and most, if not all, true conservatives would cringe at such language.

Boyce College professor Heath Lambert reviewed his book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together and said “Make no mistake: men and women will be introduced to pornography because of this book…The Driscolls introduce their readers to the titles of pornographic books, magazines, and videos; they provide technical names for specific kinds of pornographic films; they list the names of celebrities who have starred in pornography; they even provide web addresses….”  

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not for one moment saying I support this Southern Baptist college but in this Professor Lambert makes a very valid point. Where in the name of foolishness did Driscoll think this was in any way, shape, or form edifying or useful for anything other than poisoning young minds and quite potentially opening them up to months if not years of struggling with a very real and dangerous sin? Driscoll is even too much for the notoriously liberal and compromised Christianity Today who said “...Driscoll's history of using risqué language, and the fact that he drinks alcohol and talks about sex, angers those who say his approach undermines his message.”

Driscoll is also quite upfront about his love of secular rock and punk music, voicing his support for a popular rapper who has an album called American Gangster. In support of his love of this worldly form of so-called music, he is quoted as saying, “I envisioned a large church that hosted concerts for non-Christian bands and fans on a phat [sic] sound system, embraced the arts, trained young men to be godly husbands and fathers, planted other churches, and led people to work with Jesus Christ as missionaries to our city.” (Confessions, p40)

This is clearly a total mess of theology, again showing he is not in fact conservative or he would know very well that you cannot win the world to God with the world’s music as by now you will have read the chapter on what Godly Christian music is. And yet Driscoll goes even further, ”Our church services started to stink a whole lot less. We scraped together enough money to buy some big honking speakers, and I stole an unused sound console from my old church along with a projection screen, which were sins that Jesus thankfully died to forgive.” So we have him here saying before he brought in this music his services used to stink? As if the plain, simple, unadulterated Word of God was insufficient. In a way he is right. The Word of God is insufficient for his purpose so we know his purpose is not to glorify God. We then have him admitting he is a thief and sacrilegiously claiming God forgave that. Of course, Jesus died so that our sins may be forgiven but He certainly does not just grant that forgiveness without genuine repentance, which Driscoll shows no sign whatsoever of exhibiting.

On the contrary we see a pattern of behavior. Two years earlier, in 2006, he writes in his book Radical Reformation,  “I was torn between buying the ‘secular’ music that I enjoyed and the Christian music that I did not. After much prayer, I decided that God loved me and allowed my music to be stolen so that I could buy back the old albums that I enjoyed. And so I did, and as pastor of a church filled with ‘secular’ bands that hosts ‘secular’ concerts, I have not had a regret since.”

Let’s pick through this. We’ve seen the Word of God isn’t enough for him, we’ve seen his  crude sexual language, and now we see he believes he can do anything he likes because God forgives him anyway. Clearly he does not believe the Word of God or he would know that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 KJV).

He says that because God loves him, God will allow Driscoll to do what he wants. We are asked to believe, in direct opposition to the Word of God that God actually approves of Driscoll’s taste in secular rock bands, one of whom decided to remove their clothing during a church concert. Such behavior quite simply defecates on the house of God, turning it into a secular nightclub. I have only one thing to say to this: Get thee behind me, Satan!

While this article was originally written earlier this year I do recognise the recent events, which have seen him first resign and then even more recently the fact that the church network is breaking up and becoming independent. While I would like to think he is repenting it is too early to tell for sure as there have been many public apologies in the past