We have a member of our congregation who has some things he would like for us to think about and we have posted his website and blog below for your reading pleasure. Moshe is a converted Jew who comes to us with a fresh perspective about issues we need to think about or re-think. He is not a Calvinist. However, he believes the Reformers resurrected many crucial doctrines suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church. He believes we must go past Calvin and see what the Scriptures have to say about the doctrines of grace and once we find them to be true we must ask ourselves the question, do we believe them? Please note: The views expressed by Moshe do not necessarily represent Plantation Road Baptist Church and if you have concerns please contact him via email. He is open to criticism in the light of Scripture.
Here is a sample of the things Moshe says and why and he calls this; "Theological Fleas."
As Dr. Robert Morey has said, many of us pick up ideas about God like a dog picks up fleas. If you were to ask the dog; "Scotty, where did you pick up those fleas?" Scotty would say, (if he could talk) "I don't know, I just picked them up in my travels."
We too, as we begin our lives, begin to pick up ideas about God through the TV, the radio, friends, etc. These sources do not have to be "religious" they only have to meet what I would call, a spiritual need(s).
Remember, Romans 1 teaches us that we actively suppress the truth about God and as we suppress or hold down the truth we look for other ideas or sources for knowledge, to replace the truth of God in order to make a god in our image according to our likeness.
If you have not recently read Romans 1, please take a moment to read it and understand it. Note several issues that profile the unregenerate person.
1) in our wickedness we suppress the truth.
2) Instead of turning to God our thoughts turned instead to worthless things.
3) God, therefore, gives us over to the desires of our hearts. He gives us over to our lusts.
4) We exchange the truth of God for a lie.
5) We do not think it worthwhile to retain the full knowledge of God.
Romans 1:18-32; For God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of those who in their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes-his eternal power and divine nature-have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their ignorant hearts were darkened.
Though claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that looked like mortal human beings, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. For this reason, God gave them over to impurity to follow the lusts of their hearts and to dishonor their bodies with one another. They exchanged God's truth for a lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. Even their females exchanged their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural. In the same way, their males also abandoned the natural sexual function of females and burned with lust for one another. Males committed indecent acts with males, and received in themselves the appropriate penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to retain the full knowledge of God, God gave them over to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's just requirement-that those who practice such things deserve to die-they not only do these things but even applaud others who practice them.
This is the reason for God's wrath abiding on all mankind. We treat the God of creation and His teachings sort of like a Chinese buffet. We approach the buffet and take some of this and we take some of that, but when we see something that we don’t like, we pass it by because it may not appeal to our taste buds or it is not pleasing to the eyes.
We do this with the characteristics of God and His word. We read one passage that speaks of God's love and we embrace this because it appeals to us. Not only do we embrace it, we begin to tweak it. It does not offend our already established ideas and definitions of what we want our god to be. We want a god who will save the world and all the animals too. We want a "green" god who will stop pollution by zapping those who litter, who will also fix global warming and a god who is constantly humming "we are the world." We want a god who is a peace activist.
But we want nothing to do with a passage that communicates God's condemnation toward those who have suppressed the truth of God and have made for themselves a god in his or her likeness.
We do not want to retain the full knowledge of God. We want a flexible god. A sort of god who can be like the Mr. Potato head. A god that we can design according to our will. We want a god that will say to His creation, "not my will, but yours (mankinds) be done.
We will take what appeals to us as long as it doesn't disrupt our ideas of the god which we have gained throughout the years. That is to say, we will hold onto what we believe even if the Scriptures contradict our understanding of God. In my future blog, I am going to write on what I refer to as "doctrinal idolatry." This is written for all those claiming to be "Christian" and at the same time, refusing to believe God's attributes as they are taught in the Scriptures.
There are many doctrines we don't personally like. For example, the doctrine of hell scares me to death! I don't want to see myself, family or friends in a place, eternally separated from God. But, denying or dismissing this doctrine doesn't make it null and void. The Lord wants us to know there are only two paths for our eternal future. We must accept this doctrine even if we don't like it. We must accept this doctrine even if a man on TV, from behind a pulpit, says there is no eternal hell. Let God be true and every man a liar!
The same is said concerning His character, or what we call His attributes. What makes God, God. It is not what we or others say or personally believe. It is what He says about Himself that identifies His character. After all, how would you like for someone to go around misrepresenting you?
Suppose you write an honest and verifiable autobiography? Inside the book you speak of your physical strength and the trophies from the events can be seen in pictures. You tell how you were able to benchpress 600 pounds. But, hundreds of years later someone who is in poor shape, who cannot bench even 100 pounds decides since he cannot do this, neither can anyone else! His limitations are placed on the entire human race. So, he undermines your writings and tells others that there is no way you lifted beyond 100 pounds? Wouldn't you be upset? Of course you would! This is what men and women do to the Bible. They come along and undermine the character of God because they themselves do not believe it.
Therefore, this is why we have to use the Scriptures as "flea" killer! We must allow the Scriptures to take away our thoughts, our feelings which create our security blankets.
Let's think this through; these "theological fleas" or ideas about God that were formed throughout the years have formed our theology from the moment we began to read and hear. When we are given the gospel later on in life and come into the church, sadly, we bring these fleas with us into the relationship. And, if these fleas are not dealt with they will jump onto others in the congregation. Many people will unintentionally protect their humanistic fleas. In doing so, any truth that may get through is sucked out by the ungodly fleas. Kind of like the old saying, "this Town isn't big enough for the two of us." When this happens, God is usually tossed before our thoughts on God.
This is why I again want to point out point 5 from above. We do not want to retain the full knowledge of God. We have merged our ideas with God's and created a sort of mish mash theology. Our ideas merged with God's create a partial retention of the knowledge of God. This is not Christianity. We must reverse our thinking. We must ask ourselves when we are apprehensive of a particular doctrine the question why?
Let me get to the point. When you come to God’s buffet do you pass by the doctrine of election because it provokes you or irritates you or gives you gas? You must ask yourselves why? Have you examined God’s plan of salvation from His perspective or are you looking for a god who plans salvation according to the way you would prefer to see it done?
When you think of the term predestination, do you oppose it? Do you look for ways to minimize it? Do you try to fit the term into your theological definition? In contrast, do you understand freewill from a Scriptural position? Can you find the term freewill in the Scriptures? What exactly are you and I free from? Have you followed it through all the way back to its origins? Did you know that freewill is a crucial doctrine and must be maintained in the Roman Catholic Church? The doctrines of Rome should concern us! Do you understand that “I did it my way” is not Biblical? Do you understand that God is glorified in how He has designed the plan of salvation?
I would also ask the question does God have plans? What if His plans are not our plans? Who determines what plan shall take place?
These are questions that you must deal with. If the fleas you have will not permit you to maintain a healthy understanding resulting in a healthy position on the sovereignty of God and you find yourself opposing certain doctrines I must ask you if you are retaining and maintaining a “full knowledge of God?” Do you acknowledge God according to how He has revealed Himself or would you rather put yourself in a position in which God will turn you over to a degraded mind? The Greek word in Romans 1:28 is the word adokimos. It means to fail the test, to be rejected, to be unapproved or be found worthless.
If you profess to be a Christian but will not allow the Scriptures to kill the worldly/humanistic fleas obtained from the world, then maybe you have not been converted and so God has given you over to a depraved mind. If you deny God is in control over the salvation of men by minimizing or redefining the doctrine of predestination (for one example) then you have attacked His character. You have, as a result, attacked His sovereignty! When you follow this through, you have subsequently attacked the doctrine of original sin which is foundational to our understanding of why we are in such a mess. The characteristics that make God, God are intertwined and if you pull one apart you begin to pull others apart.
We come to God to be changed. We do not come to God to change Him. We must come to God with hat in hand. We must come to God with repentant hearts to let Him do what He wants to do in our lives. Our heart is in His hands and we must find, follow and finish the will of the Lord for our lives.
We must come to God with a desire to grow in the grace and knowledge of Him. Not to have Him grow in the grace and knowledge of what we believe.
As I said, you may or not like many doctrines i.e.the doctrine of hell, but it doesn’t change God’s position on the matter. You may or may not like or understand God’s doctrine of predestination, but it does not change His position on the matter. You may not like many doctrines taught in the Scriptures, but do not let your feelings or your humanistic "fleas" be your guide.
Let God be true and every man a liar.
Moshe