THE WORD OF GOD - Part 2 [Segment 2]

 

Published on thebereancall.org (https://www.thebereancall.org) The Word of God - Part 2, T. A. McMahon [Segment 2}

Dr. J. Vernon McGee met with Dave Hunt and me a few months before he went home to be with the Lord. He had read The Seduction of Christianity [13] and it confirmed to him what he had personally observed taking place throughout evangelical Christianity. He told us it was symptomatic of the decreasing biblical content and the increasing humanistic content that we are getting from Christian TV, Christian radio, and Christian books and pulpits. He added that if this trend continues, Christian psychology [6] will be the destruction of the evangelical church.

Psychotherapy’s chief teaching, which is central to the more than 500 different psychological therapies, is its view of “self.” Self is said to be the key to resolving all of humanity’s mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. The erroneous teaching about self-love became the chief therapy of Christian psychologists to which they added self-esteem, self-image, self-worth, self-belief, positive self-talk and all the other selfisms. 

The most influential leader among Christian psychologists has been Dr. James Dobson. He declares: “If I could write a prescription for the women of the world, it would provide each one of them with a healthy dose of self-esteem and personal worth (taken three times a day until the symptoms disappear). I have no doubt that this is their greatest need. Whenever the keys to self-esteem are seemingly out of reach for a large percentage of the people, as in twentieth-century America, then widespread ‘mental illness,’ neuroticism, hatred, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, and social disorder will certainly occur...” (Dobson, James, “What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew about Women,” Tyndale House, 1975, 60). Not true. Extensive studies by research psychologists studying their own field has proved the exact opposite. High self-esteem, not low self-esteem, is the problem...just as the Bible teaches.

But don’t miss my point here. Christian psychologists have been the Adversary’s unwitting instrument in undermining the belief in the sufficiency of God’s Word.

What did believers in Christ do for 1900 years or so before the new psychological “clergy,” led by the godless occultists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, came along? Well, according to the Psalmist, God and His Word provided all they needed for life’s troubling issues: “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalm:119:9).

Think of what Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob, went through. He was hated by his brothers who sought to kill him, then sold by them as a slave in Egypt, then falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and sent to prison. Was he “hung out to dry,” i.e., left without God’s support, given all that he had to endure? Read chapters 30 through 50 of Genesis. You won’t find a hint of his seeking out “counselors” for therapy among the Egyptians because of what his brothers did to him. But you will find God cleansing his heart of any bitterness and enabling him to forgive them! He said to his brothers, “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life” (Genesis:45:5
). Isn’t the same grace available for all of us who love Jesus Christ and are born of His Spirit? Is Jesus not the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Hebrews:13:8
)? Or was there a gap of insufficiency until Christian psychology [6] came along?

I’ve been told too many times in my 35 or so years of ministering the Word of God to brothers and couples who professed to know the Lord, “Well, we’ve tried what the Bible says, and it’s never worked out for us.” So, that must mean that the Holy Spirit’s instruction in Psalm 119 doesn’t work for believers today. It isn’t practical. It’s insufficient. Therefore, according to them, 2 Peter:1:3 and 2 Timothy:3:16-17, and especially Hebrews:4:12
, must be mistaken regarding the sufficiency of God’s Word. 

What we are now told to do, as more and more pastoral shepherds are doing with their sheep, is to turn away from God’s Word and look to “professional” help. In other words, we are to turn to those who have been trained in humanist and occult psychological concepts, who the Scriptures tell us “...receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians:2:14).  Pastoral shepherds are turning their sheep away from the One who is called “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God” (Isaiah:9:6), who is the Truth.

The redirecting of believers from God’s Word to godless counselors (whose schooling is antichrist [20]) is unconscionable for those pastors who profess to believe in the sufficiency of God’s Word. 

In giving believers “all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him” (2 Peter:1:3
), the Holy Spirit must have left some of the “all things” out for a later time to be supplied by a field that is atheistic to the core. That would be laughable if not for the fact that evangelical churches that profess to be following God’s Word act as a major referral service for the psychological counseling industry! What does psychological counseling supply? Mostly the lie that self is the solution to all their problems!

There is another development of late that is overwhelming Christendom and denying the authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures. I’m referring to the movie series called The Chosen, which we’ve addressed in part in previous newsletter articles—and its popularity is growing exponentially. You may ask, “How does the film series deny the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word?” 

First of all, it creates scenes featuring Jesus and his disciples conjured up by a screenwriter who provides dialogue for them (words that were never spoken in Scripture). The screenwriter and film director have the actors portraying Jesus and his disciples doing things they never did. The Bible claims to be our authority regarding what Jesus said and did. That which the screenwriter writes, and the director directs, therefore subverts the authority of God’s Word. As viewers fill their minds with the endless unbiblical scenes that The Chosen presents visually, that is what becomes their authority.

What then of the sufficiency of God’s Word, or lack thereof? The intent of The Chosen’s producers was to supply for audiences that which evidently the Holy Spirit was unable to communicate effectively through words actually contained in the Bible. Just as Christianity had to wait nearly 1900 years for the arrival of Christian psychology [6] to meet the psychological needs of Christians, the church had to wait nearly the same amount of time for the invention of motion pictures in order for Christians to relate to the personal character of Jesus. 

The medium of film was also necessary in order to make the Jesus of Scripture more acceptable, more human, and less “stoic,” as The Chosen’s producers claim. Make him “more authentic.” We’re told by The Chosen Mormon [21] producer, Derral Eves, that “The whole purpose of the show is to have people experience an authentic Jesus.” Written words that have to be read were obviously not sufficient for one to get to know the real Jesus. A common response from the millions of viewers (this one from a Mormon [21] student cited in a BYU magazine) was that “she loves the show because it helps viewers see Christ as a real person. It helped me recognize that he was a regular (though perfect) guy who likes to joke with his friends, loves his mom, and has a special connection with the little children.” Those “authentic insights,” however, were supplied not by the Holy Spirit but by the series’ creative production people. Although the writer/director of the series, Dallas Jenkins, claims that God had told him regarding the production of The Chosen that He wouldn’t let him “screw it up.” Jenkins has done that and worse.

Scripture warns us to try the spirits “whether they are of God…” (1 John:4:1
). The Chosen, from beginning to end, is a lie (Proverbs:30:6
), and it adds man’s ideas to God’s Word, especially the Person of Jesus Christ, which is condemned (Deuteronomy:4:2
, 12:32, and Revelation:22:18
). Its content is at odds with and contrary to what the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, has communicated in the Word of God. Furthermore, the Bible makes it absolutely clear that those who add to what is written in God’s Word have not the Spirit of truth, nor can they receive the things of God, neither can they know them, “because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians:2:14
). Those things are clearly contrary to what the true Author of the Scriptures has communicated, the very One whom Dallas Jenkins claims had spoken to him.

This series of articles began as a survey of what we think and where we stand regarding the Word of God. If our thinking about God’s Word misses the mark by any degree, we have to that degree slipped away from God’s truth. We have certified from the Scriptures (which are self-authenticating) that God’s words are just that—the words of God communicated to humanity by the Holy Spirit. They are inerrant, they are our authority, and they are sufficient for every believer’s life in Jesus Christ. Mankind has contributed nothing to God’s Word. Therefore, any attempt to add to the Word of God is resolutely condemned.

When Jesus’s disciples questioned Him about the days prior to His return, He responded by indicating that those days would be a time of great apostasy [26] and deception (Matthew:24:4
; 24:11). Pray for those who have been called to be shepherds of God’s sheep, that they would not lead the people away from the fountain of living waters, which is the Word of God.

TBC