Proph.Ev. J. Schmidt

The don'ts of Christianity

A look at the cutting edge of wrong doctrine

Introduction

Since Jesus has died on the cross and he has risen again,his disciples has fought against ideas that have not been authorized by their master Jesus Christ. Paul warns his disciple Timothy,in 2.Timothy 4,3 against forthcoming doctrines that have the intention to dilute the truth and to seduce the disciples of Jesus while looking like a sound part of christian doctrine.The intention of this book is to enlist such wrong doctrines thus carefully heeding the warnings of Paul.

Humanism

One of the most dangerous look-alikes the area of wrong doctrine is Humanism,which spreads the sweet odour of christian charity. Humanism can clearly be defined as the postulation that humans always know what is best for other humans.This postulation ignores the existance of God and the assurance that, because God is omiscient,it is for him to decide what is best for humans and that this decision must be obeyed. A common and well-known example of humanism is the decision of politicians from 2017 to allow the mass immigration of muslim people from Syria and Irak into Europe and US that stems from the arising civil war in Syria that, especially through the wiles of ISIS,caused the loss of a lot of human lifes. While it looks like a good idea to give muslim people shelter from the civil war in Europe and US,it was not the will of God to do that and I explained in my article about holyness that a careful listening to the Holy Spirit is enough to detect an act of Humanism behind this decision. Even if the Holy Spirit can be regarded as the last instance of revelation,a look in the bible is enough to detect acts of Humanism by their obvious contradiction to the Word of God. Let us practice this in the case of this immigration mistake. God has announced his intent to let his Holy Spirit rest in the north clearly in Zecheriah 6,8. Moreover the evangelist John explains clearly,even before Islam came to existance,in 1.John 4,2-3 that every spirit that does not confess that,with Jesus,the Son of God has come in the shape of a human,is a spirit that is not from God,that is,an evil spirit that is contrary to the Holy Spirit.Because Islam does not confess Jesus as the Son of God,every Muslim is endowed with an evil spirit.Allowing these people to immigrate in a large number into Europe and US will make the evil spirit inside these people to attack the Holy Spirit resting in the Christians there,thus driving the Holy Spirit from his resting place as state in Zecheriah and,even worse,will make Christians convert to Islam thus loosing their eternal life.Therefore,this immigration is surely not from God and an act of Humanism.

Feminism

Feminism can briefly be described as an over-emphasis of the right of women that usually results in reduction of the rights of men. The bible has rather the tendency to over-emphasize the rights of men than to vote for equality of rights of men and women.Some remarks of Paul as the christian family order mentioned in Ephesians 5,21-29 show this.In this remark Paul emphasizes the role of the husband as a representative of Christ in the family. There are, however,some remarks in the bible that favour the equal treatment of men and women.One of it is the remark in Genesis 1,27 that God has created both men and women in the image of God and the verse obviously implies that they have been created equally by God in the image of God.The american constition,the Bill Of Rights,also states that all men has been created equally in the image of God. Therefore,we can conclude by the Bible that is not allowed to reduce the right of one sex to strengthen the right of the other sex. Feminism,however,is worse than this.It generally means also that non-christian women are trying to rule Christian men causing them to act against the will of God. The Bible has a good example of this feministic behaviour by mentioning Jezebel in the books of Kings According to the bible Jezebel was a non-christian woman who caused her husband,Ahab,who was a king of Israel,to sin.An example of this is the story of Naboth's vineyard in 1.Kings 21.When a non-christian woman gains power over a christian man,and Ahab,being the king of Israel, supposed to be a man of God,and she succeeds in making her husband to sin,it always leads to destruction of both sinners as we see in both 2.King 9,30-37 and 1.Kings 22 where both Jezebel and her husband die because of their sins.The dangerous influence of heathen women upon men of God can also be seen in Judges 16,in the story of Samson and Delilah. Therefore,feminism is not an option for anybody calling himself a christian or a godly person.

Denying the origin of human life

All human life is originated by God.This is clearly stated in the Bible when God talks to his prophet Jeremia in Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1,5. The claim that all creation is from God is repeated in Job 40-41,which clearly means that all human life is from God also. The fact that all human life is created by God has an important consequence.And this is that,for every human,the life of this human is worthy to be lived and protected. This, in turn, has the consequence that human life is not for disposal by man. There are usually two attempts from humans to tamper with human life. Firstly,we can mention abortion. When we read in the Bible that human life is from God,it means,at the very point of time where a human is conceived by his/her mother,a decision has been made by God that this very should live.It is therefore a sin to terminate the life of human by abortion,straight after his/her conception. Secondly,some humans commit suicide.When God decides to create a human,he knows that it makes sense that this human will live and why.Suicide is usually committed,because people think that there is no use of living for them.But as God knows why a human should live,and he wants it,suicide is sin. Terminating human life by crime,killing,is of course,sin.We see this is in the ten commandments. A special role is played by death sentence.Today,in most countries,death sentence is not executed again because of reasons of mercy and pity and because of the fact that there may be a mistake during the judicial process. However, it is basically allowed by the Bible by Genesis 9,6.Therefore it is not a sin,if a human court executes a death sentence.Alas,God knows, whether the heart of a human is clean when such a sentence is manufactured,so it may be a sin.

Mixture of cultures

God does not like mixture of cultures.The very reason is that there are only 2 authentic religions mentioned in the Bible,that is the Jewish and the Christian religion. When you mix these two religions with other religions,the Jewish and christian people will loose their faith and change their religion and this is not what God want.

Worshipping the creation

When we discussed the worth and dignity of human life in one of the previous chapters,we explained that God has created every human and therefore,he must be worshipped. On the other hand,when we worship the things created by God,we commit idolatry,because these things have not godly nature and if we worship them,we make God angry with this idolatry.We have a thorough warning against this type of idolatry in Psalm 115,4-8. Now,together with the rise of humanistic ideology a rise of ecology has started. While it is not bad to respect and preserve the creation of God,we must not give it so much importance that we neglect other important things,making nature our idol. A good example of this are the economic interests of people. I pointed out that EVERY living human is wanted by God.But,if you put ecologic considerations higher than the economic needs of humans,and remember there is 7 billion of them now,how do you want to feed them ? And their basic needs must be covered.These basic needs are mentioned in 1.Timothy 6,8. How terrible the results of putting ecology over economy can be,shows the decease of the ecologic government in Sri Lanka. The second argument against the overrating of ecology is that we do not know what for.Jesus points out,in Matthew 25,13,that nobody knows the time of his return.Peter points out,in 2. Peter 3,10 that the earth will be destroyed when Jesus returns. So,obviously it is not useful to keep the earth for our children when Jesus is coming and everything is destroyed. Moreover,serious member of the Pentecostal movement,filled with the Holy Spirit, say that the generation of our children will be the last generation. Therefore we are keeping the earth for at most one generation of humans more.Does it make sense to suffer poor people with ecologic fuzz,when it is like this ? Obviously no.

Not Eating animals

Along with the ideology of humanism and ecology,people start believing that eating animals is bad.But this is unbiblical. But God says,in Genesis 1,28-29 that God has made men to control all the earth and that he is allowed to eat the fruits. In Genesis 9,3 God extends this permission to the animals and all plants.Therefore man can eat everything and not eating animals is a wrong doctrine.Especially,strange eating rules as not eating pork are not from God,as Paul points out in 1.Corinthians 10,25.

Wizardry

God says that Wizardry is forbidden and must be punished by death in Exodus 22,18.This sharpens the problems of the mixture of religions and the immigration of non-christians to our country that we have discussed already because of such practices,people comitting wizardry can enter our country.These considerations also imply the stop of immigration from witchcraft prone countries like the Federal Republic of Nigeria into western countries.

Conclusion

We have examined different doctrines that look like good ideas of men,but have proven to be awkward ideologies that are contrary to the Word of God in the Bible.We have done this to heed the warning of Paul that strange,fake doctrines will arise shortly before the return of Jesus.Doing so,we are prepared to avoid the trap that is formed by these wrong doctrines.