False Doctrine
By Liaf
I like to discuss various topics on Christian forums. I am polite and do not attack anybody personally. If I am debating a subject and find myself seething over something that somebody said that I know is bunk, I will find a way to reply in an impersonal "third person" approach. That’s how a narrative story goes. In addition, I may critique similar related ideas. In short, I disconnect myself from the recipient and disconnect the recipient themselves from the subjects in question and speak in indirect terms (third person or persons) so that none can say I directly attacked them. However, people are not stupid. They relate to the subject at hand and any critique of the subject (even indirectly) is an attack on them. So they perceive. To be honest with you, when my debaters use the same approach on me, I really am not as offended as somebody who lost their cool or who was too forward with me. I appreciate their tact. Therefore, If I use tactfulness on them, why are some still offended when I critique something indirectly?
Before I go on, let me state something pointedly. I do not as rule approach forums as harsh-sounding as some of my messages are. When I am here, I am here in our domain. It is bought and paid for. So I can rant and rave all I want. If somebody takes it personally (when I usually use an indirect descriptive such as ‘grave evangelists’), that’s their problem. There must be truth to what I say if they relate to it. In a forum, when I occasionally get strong sounding, I address my recipient from that third person approach I mentioned. As a rule, however, I state things in a matter-of-factly kind of way that I perceive irritates the living heck out of some people. There is nothing like stating spirituality in absolutes like E=MC^2 as if you were Spock from Star Trek. That infuriates some people. (Ever notice how Spock irks some people? Why is that if he is supposedly emotionless and offending somebody is not in his emotional capabilities? Could it be that some people do not like to hear the truth or maybe do not like absolutes?)
Back to the question why some people take offense at whatever one says even if all the tact in the world is used. The reason is simple. If they are wrong, their whole system crumbles. Jesus said, "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." The principle in this verse is that if one loses his or her credibility, others will never trust them again. In defense of a person who resists change from bad doctrine to good doctrine, they know if they change that others will see them as being fickle. It is therefore Scriptural in a sense to resist change. This is a sad but true condition. Each person is given their ministry (or what they believe is their ministry). If they make their whole life teaching error, they are good for nothing even if they change for truth. Their fate is sealed. And that goes for me, too. If everything I teach is erroneous, my head would hang too low to be good for anything else. I might as well jump off a bridge. Even God could not save a person from that. Except---- to go from one locale to the next where you meet new folks. The Apostle Paul was in such a situation. He went from being a practicing Pharisee to Christian Apostle. Note what happened at first. His old crowd knew he deserted them and the new crowd did not trust him. God therefore used Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles where I’m sure he met many new people. The second exception is time. Time heals all so they say. If a person converted from their error now practices their new beliefs with diligence and consistency then trust may be gained over time. That too was Paul’s case where his boldness in preaching the gospel and willingness to stick out his neck gave those who already knew Paul reason to believe he meant business. So there is hope, but it takes time and maybe a change in surroundings--- something that not many of us are willing to do. Therefore, we must understand why people are resistant to change. Jesus also said, "no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles." In other words, somebody set in his or her ways will not change with something new. Somebody without a strict set of beliefs and an open mind accepts new things.
Let’s take our situation. Many Protestant Churches do not accept what we teach here, and certainly the Catholic Church does not. I was like that new bottle. Before I had what I proclaim here, I was not really vociferous. Oh, I was raised Protestant. I taught in Sunday Schools and I taught the same run-of-the-mill things. But I was parroting what others said. It was not the result of my investigation. I did not feel I "possessed" what I taught. It was not part of me. When the Lord saw I was a new bottle, he could fill it with new wine to bring you the truth we state here. Fortunately, I was never at a position of mass communication as we are now when I discovered the errors. So we did not lose our salt. Imagine if famous evangelistic ministries suddenly proclaim "We were wrong. We saw the errors of our ways. What we’ve been teaching was wrong all along." Like the salt that lost its savour, they would be good for nothing (not to mention lawsuits demanding all the offering money back). That would never happen. They are doomed to teach what they teach in order to survive. Likewise, if I were deceived, I would say it was the grandest deception from hell ever to hit a person. Do you know why? Because awhile back I asked God to show me what truth was. If this is how he replied by sending me a lie from hell, then all I must say is that either Satan is stronger or God is underhanded--- not to be trusted at all (which is what Satan tried to prove throughout the ages). Why would he give me a lie? Is God this way? Of course not! Besides, God allowed us to get this far. We’ve been entertaining the idea for an Internet site or ministry of some sort for a long time. But for some reason we kept delaying it. Maybe God was waiting until we were ready. That is why I have this assurance. Otherwise, we would have lost our salt. Many of the things the church teaches is true, but many things are steeped in tradition of men. I sorted out each thing to arrive at the conclusions resulting in what we teach here. Do you want to get my goat? Then just say to me while I am on a forum for example that I am debating the way I am because I am indoctrinated by the church. Such people obviously haven’t a clue where I am coming from and do not realize I spent a great deal of time sorting things out. With people like that it’s best to say, "Nice talking with you. Bye."
Let’s get on with the Protestant churches now. Actually, our basic doctrines required for salvation alone are the same. They are Orthodox as far as I am aware. We deify the believer more than the church cares for. However, we see that reluctance of the church to see the believer’s position as the leftover authoritarian issues when breaking away from the Catholic Church. They are afraid that if we speak of ourselves like God or as gods, that this severely elevates man to God’s level or brings Christ down to ours (as well as undermines authority). They forget. Our OLD MAN ADAM dies. We are born (and raised) again and as the Bible teaches we will be like Christ. We are a NEW CREATION in Christ Jesus. God is begetting us in other words and we are new beings from Him. We are not our old selves any longer. YET… we do retain our individuality and we fit in the body of Christ wherever God wants to place us. We are one yet many. Don’t ask me to explain that. It’s like trying to explain the Father-Son-Holy Spirit or trinity. (Unlike many ‘British-Israelites’ (as some may call us), we do accept the three-fold nature of God. That is because the Bible is replete with the number ‘three’ representing divine manifestation. To deny God’s three-fold nature is to deny much of Scripture dealing with the number three--- as I always say, you cannot argue with mathematics).
So what is different? Actually, not much. We believe what most Protestant Churches believe (minus the traditions of men) plus some additional things. That is to say we believe what you believe, it’s just that you do not believe all that we believe. Therefore, you are not wrong, per se, but you do not teach enough. Hence, we often visit you, but you might be uncomfortable with us. It’s these additional items that are the problem areas. We have more elaborate doctrines about Israel (supported by what we believe is indisputable historical fact that the church rather not deal with for some reason). We also have more elaborate doctrines about end-times coupled with related subjects such as the stars and the pyramid. However, we have our catch. If these "add-ons" are too much for the church to handle, I must respectfully point out the "add-ons" from the tradition of men (such as Christmas or Easter) and certainly the Catholic Church has even more. I’m sorry. I cannot handle viewing skeletal remains or skulls of saints in a shrine somewhere. It all reeks of the sensationalistic totally unsupported by Scripture. On the other hand, if we look at the subject of the stars for example, there are Scriptural references to them several places and the etymology of their names suggests that. Likewise, the famous Isaiah 19:19 –20 passage has both a verbal description of the location of the pyramid and the gematria that works out to be its height. The amazing mathematical and stellar "coincidences" of the pyramid confirm it. I am not saying you must teach any add-ons to be valid Christianity. I am saying that God left a marvelous array of witness and this in turn opens up a broader understanding of God’s plan and purpose for us. Now why should we discard these ‘add-ons’ which have substantiation to them while we have unsubstantiated tradition crammed down our throats as if it were truth? So if what we teach is "fringe" consider how much more so tradition is. Our "vice" for the church’s any day. One other thing. When I rant and rave about false prophets not acknowledging what we teach here, I am taking the position that such a person is opposing us by calling us false prophets. That’s the assumption. An example is the "copyrighted" document that I critiqued awhile back regarding the erroneous teaching about the throne of David. If one looks carefully, there are passages in that doctrine that puts up a guard against our teachings here. The implication is that ours is false doctrine. I am quite certain that if I were to visit them, they’d have a mob of "alter-caller" stewards around me to get me to the altar to repent faster than a swarm of bees would be on me if I disturbed their nest. That was enough evidence for me to declare this as false teaching. We will not rant and rave over anyone just because they do not agree with us. But in this situation, it is best to keep their mouths shut regarding these topics that are not well understood before criticizing the likes of us.
What does this all lead up to? Well, based on the psychological reason why people do not change (as confirmed by Jesus) and why any of us believe what we do, I guess we can debate each other to help us all solidify our position. However, if we want converts, we all must target those (such as I once was when I parroted what others said) who have not solidified anything in their minds yet. In other words, they have no saltiness to lose. We already knew that we could not change anybody’s ingrained position, right? J