| Subject: Warning to the Church |
Author:
Pastor Dave
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Date Posted: 19:11:15 03/06/02 Wed
Author Host/IP: dial-122.r99.scptvl.infoave.net/204.116.25.122
Warning to the Church
All Kinds of Strange Teachings
by
J. C. Ryle
(1816-1900)
"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.
It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace,
not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those
who eat them" (Hebrews 13:9)
The text which heads this paper is an apostolic caution against false
doctrine. It forms part of a warning which Paul addressed to Hebrew
Christians. It is a caution just as much needed now as it was eighteen
hundred years ago. Never, I think, was it so important for Christian
ministers to cry aloud continually, "Do not be carried away."
That old enemy of mankind, the devil, has no more subtle instrument for
ruining souls than that of spreading false doctrine. "A murderer and a
liar from the beginning. . . .your enemy the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Outside the Church he is
ever persuading men to maintain outrageous customs and destructive
superstitions. Human sacrifice to idols, gross revolting, cruel,
disgusting worship of abominable false deities, persecution, slavery,
cannibalism, child murder, devastating religious wars--all these are a
part of Satan's handiwork, and the fruit of his suggestions. Like a
pirate, his object is to "sink, burn, and destroy." Inside the Church he
is ever laboring to sow heresies, to propagate errors, to foster
departures from the faith. If he cannot prevent the waters flowing from
the Fountain of Life, he tries hard to poison them. If he cannot destroy
the remedy of the Gospel, he strives to adulterate and corrupt it. No
wonder that he is called "Apollyon, the destroyer."
The Divine Comforter of the Church, the Holy Spirit, has always employed
one great agent to oppose Satan's plans. That agent is the Word of God.
The Word expounded and unfolded, the Word explained and opened up, the
Word made clear to the head and applied to the heart. The Word is the
chosen weapon by which the devil must be confronted and confounded. The
Word was the sword which the Lord Jesus wielded in the temptation. To
every assault of the Tempter, He replied, "It is written." The Word is
the sword which His ministers must use in the present day, if they would
successfully resist the devil. The Bible, faithfully and freely
expounded, is the safeguard of Christ's Church.
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