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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Today's
Gnosticism If Joel Richardson's
statistics, in his book entitled "The Islamic Anti-Christ",
are accurate, since 911 there has been a move among American youth
towards Islam, the very religion that inspired the 911 attackers.
If More than any other
generation in history, Christians living in the western world today have
the capability of becoming the most Biblically literate generation ever.
My life as a Bible college student in the mid 1970's would have
been dramatically enhanced and made much easier if I would have had
access to a computer and the internet, as I do today.
The sad fact of the matter is that Biblical illiteracy is an
epidemic among western Christians today. We'd
rather surf the net for the latest sensational story than seriously surf
the Bible in pursuit of the knowledge of the God we claim to serve. As Christians, we have
been replacing solid Biblical instruction with flimsy inspirational
sermons that differs little from humanistic motivational messages.
This has produced what I call a generation of the "inspired
ignorant". I'm
constantly amazed how little Christians know, or even care to know,
about the Bible. The loss of
Biblical knowledge and understanding is destroying God's people as the
prophet Hosea said it would. (Hosea 4:6)
There's a natural law at
work in the western Christian community today.
When something is removed from its place, something else fills
the vacuum within the voided space.
When Biblical knowledge is removed from our lives, the resulting
emptiness is filled by deceptive religious, humanistic, and secular
philosophies. This accounts
for the recent move away from Christianity to Islam among American
youth. Something similar
afflicted the predominantly Gentile community of believers in the
apostle Paul's day. Certain
false teachers were mixing a Greek philosophy called Gnosticism with
Christian truth. One thing
Gnostics taught that all things spiritual were holy, while all things
material were unholy. For
example, angels were holy; humans were not holy.
To the Biblically illiterate, this might not be a big deal.
To the Biblically literate, this would be disturbing, as it was
to Paul. If one believes
that the holy cannot unite with the unholy, the basic premise of
Biblical truth is compromised. Gnostics
did not believe Jesus was fully God and fully human as Paul taught in
Colossians 2:9. They
couldn't, because in their thinking a holy God could never unite Himself
with unholy humanity. Gnostics
therefore clearly believed in a different Jesus than the Jesus who Paul
taught, and anyone believing in a different Jesus is eternally condemned
according to Paul in Galatians 1:8.
To the Biblically literate, this is a serious matter.
'If someone comes to you
and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached … you put up
with it easily enough". (2 Corinthians 11:4)
These Corinthians were easily putting up with false teaching that
leads to eternal condemnation. As
these believers were being led astray, so are many in today's Biblically
illiterate world. "I am afraid that
just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may be led
astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ". (2
Corinthians 11:3) Paul says
that Eve was deceived by satan, and the Corinthians were in the process
of being deceived by him as well. Notice
what Paul says here. Satan
attacks our minds. He
attacks the way we think. If
he can take our minds, he'll go for our heart felt devotion to Jesus
next. If satan can drive out
the knowledge of Biblical truth from our minds, he'll soon have our
hearts, and the void that is left by the departure of Biblical truth
will be replaced with deceptive philosophies that lead to eternal
condemnation. Thus the
reason for the present trend towards Islam. The present day satanic
deception that is filling the void left by the removal of Biblical truth
is a mixture of Biblical truth with humanistic philosophy and other
religious thinking. As with
the Corinthian believers, this mixture ultimately leads to the belief in
a different Jesus, a different savior, a savior who can rescue no one
from eternal condemnation. The apostle Paul was
serious when he said, "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
…" (Colossians 3:16) The
pursuit of Biblical knowledge and understanding; the desire for the word
of Christ to live within us in all of its richness, should outweigh
everything else in our lives. If
we are to survive the days ahead, we have no other choice than to give
ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and the pursuit of Biblical truth
that produces a heart felt conviction to live or die for. Why are American youth
leaving Christianity for Islam? Many
of them have never been taught the Biblical truth that would alert them
to the satanic attack they're being struck down by.
When there is no heart felt Biblical conviction, and the
prevailing thinking is unity of religions
at any cost, why not give Islam a try.
For those of us who
desire to have the Word of Christ dwell
in us in all of its richness, you
can be assured, we'll stand out in the crowd.
The light of God's Word in our lives will shine its spotlight on
a dark world, exposing sin and corruption that most don’t want
exposed. John the Baptist
lost his head over this very issue, but like John the Baptist, we won't
dim the light.
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