Recovered In Christ

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of the Ten Commandments. My favorites is the one that says “Thou shalt not judge.”

Oh, that one isn’t in there, you say?

Sorry, it’s easy to forget nowadays, especially in this country where many Christians carry on as though the entire Bible could be summed up by the phrase, “it’s all good, bro.”

In actual fact, there are a lot of urgent truths and important moral lessons in the Bible. Interestingly, almost all of them have fallen out of favor in modern American society. Here are just a few verses that aren’t particularly trendy or popular nowadays:

(WARNING: Politically incorrect truths ahead)

“Whoever harms one of these little ones that believes in me, it would be better for him if a millstone where tied around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the ocean.”

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

“But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, unless the marriage is unlawful, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.”

Strange as it may seem, enlightened, progressive Christians rarely attempt to wrestle Ephesians 5 or 2 Thessalonians 3 into a conversation. Yet, while the bulk of the Bible has ended up on our civilization’s cutting room floor, the warnings about “judging” are quoted and repeated incessantly, by Christians and non-Christians alike.

Apparently, the rest of the Book is outdated, outmoded, antiquated and fabricated, but the verses about judging — that stuff is gold, man.

Here’s a fun experiment: post something on your Facebook condemning any sin — not sinner, but sin. Maybe write a few paragraphs about why we shouldn’t kill babies, or why marriage is sacred. Write something defending truth. Write something combating popular cultural lies about morality. Write something where you call out an act — not a person — an act, and then sit back and wait for the responses. Statistically speaking, it will take only 4.7 seconds before a self identified Christian rushes in to insist that you must never speak out against any evil, ever, for any reason, lest you be guilty of “judging.”

And then the “no judging” chorus will begin:

“We’re not allowed to judge.”

“Christians shouldn’t judge.”

“Jesus said to never judge.”

“You’re not a real Christian because you are judging.”

“You’re judging so I’m going to judge you and tell you that you’re a piece of garbage because you judge so much!”

“Judger! You’re a big fat judge-face, all you do is judge all day like a judging judge McJudgePants!”

And so on.

Now, here’s the thing: they’re right — well, almost. Unfortunately, they left out an important word. It’s not that we shouldn’t judge at all — it’s that we shouldn’t judge WRONGLY. The idea that we shouldn’t judge at all is 1) absurd, 2) impossible, 3) very much at odds with every moral edict in all of Scripture. It’s also hypocritical, because telling someone not to judge is, in and of itself, a judgement. Any time you start a sentence with “you shouldn’t,” whatever comes next will constitute a judgement of some kind. Saying, “you shouldn’t judge,” is like saying, “there are no absolutes.”

Translation: you shouldn’t judge… except when judging people for judging. There are no absolutes… except the absolute that there aren’t any absolutes.

Yet, have you ever noticed that these “Don’t Judge” folks are nowhere to be found when the conversation turns to the Westboro Baptists, or domestic abusers, or the Nazis, or Republicans? I guarantee I could write a post condemning gay marriage opponents as bigots and homophobes and not a one of these pragmatists would swoop in to tell me not to “judge.”

Behind the Bible, my second favorite book is the dictionary. Let’s consult it, shall we?

Judge: To form an opinion of; decide upon; settle; to infer, think, hold as an opinion.

When you tell someone not to judge, you’re telling them to stop deciding things, to stop forming opinions, to stop thinking, and to stop inferring. Brilliant bit of philosophy, Plato. “Stop thinking and deciding!” Do you really think Jesus meant THAT when he told us not to judge? Well, I guess you can’t think about it one way or another if you’re adhering to this whole “never judge” schtick.

I know we live in a sound bite culture. Everything has to be condensed down to 14 syllables or less, and every concept must be communicated in under 12 seconds. Entire elections are decided this way. And while this strategy doesn’t work well in the democratic system, it’s an absolute catastrophic heretical disaster if you try to utilize it in the realm of theology. Yes, Jesus said “Judge not,” but you have to read the rest of that passage, and then the rest of the Book to put those two words into context. Once you’ve done that, you’ll understand that what He meant is precisely the opposite of how it is translated by modern cowards who are looking for any excuse to shrink away from the task of standing up against our culture and its many lies.

We must judge. We must exercise judgement. We must be discerning and decisive. We must expose evil and identify sin. Only we must do it righteously and truly. Judge, but judge rightly. That’s the point. We are to judge the sin, not the sinner. People seem to love the latter part of that phrase, and then selectively forget the first portion.

We can not condemn a man to hell. We can not see inside his soul. This is an important point, but it doesn’t mean we can’t speak harshly about the atrocities of a particular individual. If a guy commits adultery, I’ll call him an adulterer. That’s not an insult or an evaluation of his soul; it’s a true and accurate judgement based on the fruits he has produced. If a guy steals, he is a thief. If he murders, he is a murderer. If he commits tyrannies, he is a tyrant.

Jesus stopped a bloodthirsty mob from stoning a woman to death for adultery. Famously, he said “let he without sin cast the first stone.” This profound Biblical event has since been contorted to mean that nobody can condemn any (popular) sin, or speak out against any (popular) evil, because nobody is perfect.

Nonsense.

Jesus wasn’t telling the crowd to chill out and be cool with infidelity; he was telling them that they don’t have the authority to pass final judgement on another human being for their moral shortcomings. In the immediate sense, he was also stopping them from brutally killing a woman. This can not be construed into him strolling in with a shrug and saying, “Hey, live and let live, dudes.” In fact, after he forgave the woman’s sin, he commanded her to “sin no more.”

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. That doesn’t mean that we must be without sin before we can call a sin a sin. Just because we make a judgment does not mean we are throwing rocks at a helpless woman. Sometimes, it means we are shedding light into a terrifying darkness.

Remember, this is the same Jesus who told us to separate the wheat from the chaff and the sheep from the wolves; the Jesus who called his opponents “snakes” and “vipers”; the Jesus who made a whip and violently drove the money changers out of the temple; the Jesus who said he came to bring a sword and drive a wedge between families.

He was loving and peaceful, but He was also manly, strong, courageous, outspoken, decisive, and commanding. He wasn’t a hippy. He was, and is, a King and a Warrior. Our culture has an agenda, and the agenda has nothing to do with following Christ or His precepts. Flimsy modern weaklings have taken the “don’t judge” concept out of context — twisted it, perverted it, and used it as an excuse to sit silently while all manner of unspeakable evils happen in their midst.

They’ve tried to turn Christianity into a religion of apathy and permissiveness. I certainly make judgments about their slander of my faith. I judge it to be sacrilegious, evil, and despicable.

And I judge it rightly.

So, don’t judge? Wrong. Judge. We must judge. The Bible exists, in large part, to shape our judgement and to tell us how to judge. We must teach our kids to have good and moral judgement. We must equip them with the spiritual tools to exercise it publicly, without fear. We must show them how to be discerning, critical thinkers.

You can not raise your children without judgement; you can’t function as a civilized human being without judgement; and you certainly can’t be an obedient Christian without judgment.

I am a sinful person. If you would ever consider accepting and celebrating my sins for the sake of being “non-judgmental,” please do me a favor and stop doing me that favor. I don’t want to be made comfortable and confident in my wrongdoing.

I’d rather have you hurt my feelings as you help me get to Heaven, than protect my feelings as you usher me right along to Hell.

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/12/12/jesus-wants-you-to-judge/

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There is some evidence that the founders of AA did have opportunity to hear the Gospel, but instead of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior and experiencing freedom in Christ and victory over sin through faith in Christ alone, Wilson and Smith took only what they wanted from the Oxford Group.

Occult Guidance

Members of the Oxford Group practiced what they called guidance by praying and then quieting their minds in order to hear from God. Then they would write down whatever came to them. Examples of such “guidance” are in the book God Calling, edited by A. J. Russell of the Oxford Group. The book was written anonymously by two women who thought they were hearing from God, but who passively received messages in the same way spiritists obtain guidance from demons. This book is credited for inspiring many “channeling Jesus” type books such as ‘Jesus Calling’ by Sarah Young.

Members of the Oxford Group primarily found their guidance from within rather than from a creed or the Bible. Buchman, for instance, was known to spend “an hour or more in complete silence of soul and body while he gets guidance for that day.”

J. C. Brown in his book The Oxford Group Movement says of Buchman:

He teaches his votaries to wait upon God with paper and pencil in hand each morning in this relaxed and inert condition, and to write down whatever guidance they get. This, however, is just the very condition required by Spiritist mediums to enable them to receive impressions from evil spirits. . . and it is a path which, by abandoning the Scripture-instructed judgment (which God always demands) for the purely occult and the psychic, has again and again led over the precipice. The soul that reduces itself to an automaton may at any moment be set spinning by a Demon. (Emphasis his.)

Dr. Rowland V. Bingham, Editor of The Evangelical Christian says:

We do not object to their taking a pad and pencil to write down any thoughts of guidance which come to them. But to take the thoughts especially generated in a mental vacuum as Divine guidance would throw open to all the suggestions of another who knows how to come as an angel of light and whose illumination would lead to disaster. (Emphasis his.)

In a very real sense their personal journals became their personal scriptures. Wilson practiced this passive form of guidance, which he originally learned through the Oxford Group. He and Smith were also heavily involved in contacting and conversing with so-called departed spirits from 1935 on. This is necromancy, which the Bible forbids. During the same period of time, Wilson was practicing spiritism in a manner similar to channeling. Thus, Wilson combined the Oxford Group practice of guidance with spiritism or channeling, and this appears to be the process he used when writing the Twelve Steps:

“As he started to write, he asked for guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with astonishing speed.”

Wilson was accustomed to asking for guidance and then stilling his mind to be open to the spiritual world, which for him involved various so-called departed spirits. Wilson does not identify any specific entity related to the original writing of the Twelve Steps, but he does give credit to the spirit of a departed bishop when he was writing the manuscript for Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, which constitutes Wilson’s commentary on how all of the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions are to be understood, interpreted, and practiced.

When he wrote the essays on each of the twelve steps, he sent some to Ed Dowling, a Roman Catholic priest, to evaluate. In his accompanying letter of July 17, 1952, Wilson says, “But I have good help — of that I am certain. Both over here and over there.” Then he explains that one spirit from “over there” that helped him called himself Boniface. Wilson says:

One turned up the other day calling himself Boniface. Said he was a Benedictine missionary and English. Had been a man of learning, knew missionary work and a lot about structures. I think he said this all the more modestly but that was the gist of it. I’d never heard of this gentleman but he checked out pretty well in the Encyclopedia. If this one is who he says he is—and of course there is no certain way of knowing—would this be licit contact in your book?

Dowling responds in his letter of July 24, 1952:

Boniface sounds like the Apostle of Germany. I still feel, like Macbeth, that these folks tell us truth in small matters in order to fool us in larger. I suppose that is my lazy orthodoxy.

One can see the stretch of years during which Wilson received messages from disembodied spirits. The official biography of Bill Wilson says, “One of Bill’s persistent fascinations and involvements was with psychic phenomena.” It speaks of his “belief in clairvoyance and other extrasensory manifestations” and in his own psychic ability. This was not a mere past-time. It was a passion directly related to AA. The manner in which Wilson would receive messages not of his own making was definitely channeling. The records of these sessions, referred to as “Spook Files,” have been closed to public inspection.

Satan can appear as an angel of light and give guidance that may sound right because it may be close to the truth or contain elements of truth. A discerning Christian would avoid any guidance that comes through occult methods. AA, as the Oxford Group’s revival quickly became contaminated by spiritism, It did not become religiously neutral and did not remain “Christian based”, losing its way and only hope for true revival when it let go of the cross and the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Rather than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, it is a religion of self-improvement and subjective mysticism, working as a cover for demonic oppression and possession, these demons masquerading as “spirit guides” live only for the intent to deceive, mislead and keep men and women from the only gospel that would save their souls.

Edited and Sourced from: Martin and Deidre Bobgan. Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries.

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Excellent Mission Statement:

“As Christians, we are called, commissioned, and commanded to lay down our lives so that the Gospel might be preached to every creature under heaven. Second only to loving God, this is to be our magnificent obsession. There is no nobler task for which we may give our lives than promoting the glory of God in the redemption of men through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If the Christian is truly obedient to the Great Commission, he will give his life either to go down into the well or to hold the rope for those who go down. Either way, the same radical commitment is required.

The Christian who is truly passionate about the glory of God and confident in His sovereignty will not be unmoved by the billions of people in the world who have yet to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are truly Christlike, the lost multitude of humanity will move us to compassion (Matthew 9:36), even to great sorrow and unceasing grief (Romans 9:2). The sincerity of our Christian confession should be questioned if we are not willing to do all within our means to make Christ known among the nations and to endure all things for the sake of God’s elect (II Timothy 2:10).

While we recognize that the needs of mankind are many and his sufferings are diverse, we believe that they all spring from a common origin—the radical depravity of his heart, his enmity toward God, and his rejection of truth. Therefore, we believe that the greatest benefit to mankind can be accomplished through the preaching of the Gospel and the establishment of local churches that proclaim the full counsel of God’s Word and minister according to its commands, precepts, and wisdom. Such a work cannot be accomplished through the arm of the flesh, but only through the supernatural providence of God and the means which He has ordained: biblical preaching, intercessory prayer, sacrificial service, unconditional love, and true Christlikeness.

The chief end of all mission work is the Glory of God. Our greatest concern is that His Name be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun (Malachi 1:11), and that the Lamb who was slain might receive the full reward for His sufferings (Revelation 7:9-10). We find our great purpose and motivation not in man or his needs, but in God, His commitment to His own glory, and our God-given desire to see Him worshipped in every nation, tribe, people, and language. We find our great confidence not in the Church’s ability to fulfill the Great Commission, but in God’s unlimited and unhindered power to accomplish all. – The Truth about Man

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