"BORDERLAND"

10: Preaching vs. "Let’s Discuss it"

"My message to you is: No longer consent to listen without protest to the perversion of truth." Selected Messages Book 1, Pg. 196

If you take a careful look through the Bible—and I strongly suggest that you do this—you will see that there is a clear pattern of authoritative utterances from God to His people. Sure, He encourages them, He comforts them, He assures of His love, but nowhere—NOWHERE—do we ever find Him saying, ‘Let’s talk it over and see if we can work out a compromise that would please us both." Never! Why? Because it is impossible for fallen human nature to agree with God’s standards and it is impossible for God to compromise with evil.

In Isaiah 1:18 we see an interesting verse: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:" Now this sounds like He is going to sit down to a bargaining table, doesn’t it? Well think again; continue reading—"though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."

There it is again, the only ‘reasoning’ that God does consists of His asking, ‘When are you going to quit this nonsense and obey Me? I am willing to take you back. I’ll heal you and re-create you. There’s still hope for you.’

Now let us have a look again at spiritualism and the ways the frog-demons operate in their efforts to deceive and ensnare people to their ruin. If you haven’t already read BORDERLAND #3, I urge you to do so as there we see the basic pattern for spiritualistic deceptions. Notice that if there is one thing that spiritualists and humanists hate more than any other—it is the concept that there IS ultimate authority; there ARE definite rules of right and wrong; and there IS a God that stands behind these rules and DOES NOT change them.

Spiritualism says, ‘Let’s discuss it’; ‘Let’s get a committee to study it out’; ‘Let’s get another opinion’; Let’s do a survey and get public opinion’; ‘Let’s hold a debate’; ‘Let’s take a vote on it’; well I could go on and on, couldn’t I? Remember in Jesus’ day how the rabbis loved to debate?

But what was it that especially caught the attention of the people as Jesus taught them? "And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes." Mark 1:22. You see the priests and scribes had taken post-graduate training in Alexandria, where the theologians had been busy for years mixing the straight Hebrew truths with Greek philosophy and pagan spiritualism, until they didn’t know a straight ‘Thus saith the Lord’, if they tripped over it. What was Jesus using? Many spiritualists today try and tell you that Jesus was teaching completely new and different concepts that he had learned in Tibet—that’s a good one, Satan, nice try. Jesus was preaching and teaching straight out of the Old Testament scriptures, nothing new at all!

Why does the devil want to parley? Because he knows that there is only one way to resist sin, and that is to respond to a straight thus saith the Lord and quickly take a stand, choosing to obey; then the POWER is given to you and you have the victory. BUT if he can get you to tarry, to ponder, to think it over with your human reasoning; he has you and you will quickly fall. Remember Eve in the garden? Satan didn’t say, ‘Come on Eve, Eat the fruit and disobey God.’ No, he said ‘Let’s discuss this’.

Temptation needs to be quickly and decidedly resisted, with a positive choice made by your will to obey God, then the devil can’t get anywhere with you. How many times the Spirit of Prophecy writings warn us not to linger on enchanted ground, to parley with the enemy of souls is deadly. And yet, sad to say in this modern, bold, prideful generation, so many think they are smarter than God. Friends, even Jesus refused to discuss anything with the enemy!

How does inspired counsel tell us the Word is to be given to the people?

"For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." 1 Corinthians 1:21

Preaching—friends, what is preaching? It is when a person stands up and gives it to you straight from the sacred desk; there is no discussion or opinions, just the straight message from the Inspired Word of God. By the way, is telling jokes or silly anecdotes to make people laugh, preaching? No way! Did you know, that if the devil can once get you to laugh at a concept, you will NEVER thereafter take that concept as seriously again. The devil knows what he is doing when he has all these religious jokes and things on sit-coms and so on. If he can get you to laugh at religious concerns in any way, he has you my friend!

Preaching is God’s choice of a way to present the gospel. And yet we often hear, ‘All he does is preach, preach, preach!’ Well AMEN to that! I have heard it said, "Well I don’t need anybody to preach to me", or "I’m sick of the way my parents preach to me all the time". Well keep in mind, God knows you DO need somebody to preach to you and if you don’t think so, you need it desperately!

God also uses teaching; what is teaching? I mean anything can pass as ‘teaching’ these days, even training a class to cast witchcraft spells and design flying brooms; but, traditionally, what is teaching? Is it a debate with the teacher? Is it discussing with the teacher what your ideas are? Is it a majority opinion poll? No, it is when a knowledgeable person is there in front of you and they are telling you the facts and you are learning them. In olden days it was said that you ‘sat at a teacher’s feet’ and learned of them.

If you look into SDA history, you will see there was a time when our ministers thought they had discovered a very good way to present the truth in a new area. They would challenge the ministers from other churches to a debate and they would advertise it and huge crowds would often come out to listen to this debate. They were even foolish enough to hold debates with spiritualists.

But the Spirit of Prophecy warned that they were not to do this, because the interest that seemed to be aroused was not the right kind for lasting results to the honour of the Lord. Several reasons were given, and I will present a couple as they fit in with what we are studying here.

One was that the kind of spirit that was aroused by these public debates was a harsh, proud, and angry spirit and not at all the kind of atmosphere where the Holy Spirit could work to touch the hearts of men with the sweet message of the gospel.

Another one that was even more dangerous if possible, was that by presenting both sides to an argument, often the listeners or participants were introduced to doubts and objections to the truth that they had never thought of, and never would have thought of, if they hadn’t heard them in the debate. Many are the casualties that fell because of hearing such things and then dwelling on them in their minds until they took root there.

There was one of our preachers, Moses Hull, who took it upon himself to debate with leading spiritualists. He had good success at this for a while, but warning after warning came to him from the Spirit of Prophecy and the brethren, that it was dangerous. He would not heed and the more he did it, the more cock-sure he was of himself.

Finally he fell a prey and Satan almost dragged him away; but the Lord in mercy rescued him and the brethren and Ellen White were helping him back to safety by their wise counsel. Sad to say though, the proud and arrogant spirit, which had been developed in him from these debating practices, caused his downfall. He told his concerned brethren that he didn’t need them to tell him what to do; he went back to debating and soon joined up with a spiritualist organization, never to walk with the Lord again.

One of the most terrible things that a school can impose on a student is to give them an assignment to take the wrong position side in a debate on spiritual matters. Many there have been that as they were forced to research into infidel writings and claims, to present their side in a debate, have fallen snare to the devilish reasoning and lost their faith forever.

Among us these days it is so popular in schools and on radio and TV, to have groups of people sit around and discuss spiritual religious concepts. These group or round-table discussion would be fine, if the participants were sharing their personal testimonies as to how the Lord has blessed them and their joy in serving Him; Or if they were sharing clear, solid truth from inspired counsel that they have learned. However, if they are discussing some aspect of the Truth of God and giving their own human opinions of what they think about it; or discussing if they think God should have done things like that or whether or not a concept of the inspired Word is valid for us today, then they are treading where angels fear to go and are just asking for Satan to overpower their souls.

It is very sad that now the church SS Lesson quarterlies are rank with these questions such as, ‘How do you FEEL about this?’ or ‘Do you think God was right in that?’ Friends, please face up to the fact that how we FEEL and what we THINK when it comes to a ‘Thus saith the Lord’, does not matter and to discuss such things is to lay groundwork for doubts that could destroy your souls.

In the last half century there has come more and more a serious and dangerous practice into our ranks. Many times a concerned person will go to the Pastor, or the Conference or even contact the General Conference and the person will present a obvious, straightforward statement of a happening going on in the church’s practice that is clearly condemned by the Inspired Word of God, and they will be told, ‘Well, we are discussing this’, or ‘Well, we are going to set up a committee to look into this’, or, ’Well, we have asked several theologians to submit suggestions and then we are going to vote on it.’

Brothers and sisters, there is NO aspect of our lives or the management of our churches or any other part of God’s work here on earth that we do not have CLEAR guidance and solid ‘Thus saith the Lord’ to know which way is right and which is wrong. Yes, I use those terrible, politically incorrect words—RIGHT and WRONG! There should be no discussion on a straight ‘Thus saith the Lord’, unless it is only to plan how to obey it STAT!

This is the same in our families; we should not allow negotiation and discussion on anything that involves a plain statement of Inspired Counsel except to plan to obey it. I felt a great sorrow recently when a friend told me that many people in the church did not like a certain preacher, because ‘he is too strict’. Friends, on the Great Day of the Lord, when multitudes perish because they chose to listen to ministers and teachers who soothed them to sleep in beds of carnal security; who tickled their ears with the latest invention of ‘new theology’ heresy; who assured them that they were ‘alright when they were all wrong’; oh how those perishing ones will wish that they could just once more hear from the voice of that straight, too strict preacher, the TRUTH that would have saved them!

This is serious, friends, it is a matter of life and death—eternal life and death. GOD DOESN’T CHANGE! And He does not negotiate with us about how we are going to be saved. Do you want the facts of what God expects from you? Do you want the REAL Seventh-day Adventist truth for the end time? You will find it in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy and if you are listening to any one and they tell you to ignore or sidestep even one jot or tittle of that Inspired Counsel; then get away fast—run, don’t walk, and grab your inspired books and drop to your knees and cry to God saying, "I will obey, Father, I accept your covenant, give me POWER to live for Thee!"