Doctrines of Devils

If you were the Devil, and you wanted to deceive people with doctrines and teachings, how would you do it? Well, it depends on who it is you want to deceive. He roams about as a roaring lion - like a hunter stalking his prey. He accommodates each prey with whatever he needs to in order to bring them into his snare. Some people are easier targets for him than others, so he can use outlandish doctrines on them; doctrines like speaking in tongues, spiritual gifts, prosperity gospel, ecumenical teachings, etc. But Baptists are much too smart to be fooled by such far out teachings, so he has to pull out some more clever tricks for them.

Baptists hold to their doctrines dearly - in fact, so dearly that they interpret everything they read in the Bible by Baptist doctrine first. If they run across something that seems to cause a problem with eternal security or leaves no place for carnal, worldly Christians they "wrest" the Scripture to make it teach something that agrees with their already accepted doctrine. Here is where they open the door to the Devil to slip in his poison, because when we cease to accept the Bible at face value for what it says we are slipping our foot right into his snare. When we have a higher authority than the Word of God, we are not Bible Believers at all, even if that authority is our Baptist doctrine.

Let's look at an example of what we are talking about:

(1 John 1:7-10)

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

In their zeal to confirm that all of us are practicing, habitual sinners, even after salvation, most Baptists use this verse to disarm anyone who preaches against sin or calls others to account for their sins. They use this verse to prove that we shouldn't judge others, because we are all in the same boat. If they were reading the Bible without their preconceived ideas they could see clearly that these verses are referring to justification and not to sanctification. That makes quite a difference in the application of scripture. To accept the commonly taught idea that verse 8 is referring to sanctification, one has to be blind to what the verses preceding and following have to say. It is commonly accepted that "we have no sin" means that we are at no time without sin. We are told plainly in verse 7 that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from "all sin." We are told in verse 9 that He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from "all unrighteousness." Anyone who would do a word study would find that the real meaning here and in verse 10 is "if we say we have never sinned."

These are promises to the un-regenerated, as we are told at the beginning of this thought in verse 5: "This then is the message which we have heard of him. . ." This is the message of the Gospel to the lost; there is forgiveness and hope for them - if they confess their sinfulness to God and turn from it to serve Him. If they refuse to do so; maintaining they are not sinners and not guilty before God, they are deceiving themselves. Verse 6 separates those who live a sinful life while claiming to be saved, and calls them what they are - liars. He makes it plain that those who are saved do not walk in habitual sin, yet our modern theology takes these same verses and teaches just the opposite: that anyone who says he is clean from his sin is deceived and foolish. Therefore, we are all left in a state of hopelessness with no hope of ever being shed of our sin even though the verse is surrounded on both sides by two wonderful promises from God that He WILL CLEANSE us from ALL our sin and unrighteousness. Now either He cleanses us or He doesn't. If verse 8 is to be applied to Christians in sanctification then we have a blatant contradiction in the Word of God. Who's word should we take, God's, or these men's private interpretation?

Now many will preach that we are cleansed of our sins, but only in an imputed, positional way. That is, our sins are forgiven, even though we continue to practice sin in our lives. They reason that men have a sinful nature and it is impossible to ever live without sinning as long as we are in this flesh. But there is no such thing as being in Christ positionally and being sinful in your practice at the same time. That is yoking righteousness with unrighteousness and God says He doesn't yoke up with unrighteousness. Cleansed means cleansed! The sins and the sinful lifestyle are GONE! You are a new creature in Christ! Old things are passed away! All things are become new! You are not left to wallow in your sins, and if we have no better Gospel to preach than that we should shut our mouths and leave people alone!

The Devil has gotten by with a slick one here. There are other Scriptures that are being filtered through modern fundamentalist doctrine, too, but this is just one example. He has accomplished more through this method than he could through the Mormons or the Catholics or anyone else. He has dealt with those who have the real message of salvation and made them completely impotent, which is obvious in the churches today. He has deceived them into preaching a salvation that doesn't deliver men from their sin, or give them any hope at all of having any victory in this life. They are supposed to pray "the sinners prayer" and then believe for the rest of their life that God will take them to heaven no matter what they do. That is not the Gospel message that Jesus taught. That is not the kind of Gospel that turns a harlot, or a drunkard into a saint of God. That is why they are doctrines of devils, just as the Bible warns us will happen in the last days. If we would preach the Gospel message of salvation as the Bible teaches it and stop preaching as the Gospel what we see sitting in the pews and standing behind the pulpits, we might have some hope of seeing God move in this dark, dark hour. But God will not cooperate with us while we teach doctrines of devils.

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