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by George Davis and Michael Clark
Part II: How is this deceptive order promoted? What is the mechanism for its advancement?
[Continued from Part I ]
 Error organizes and it does so by teaching. It is "according to the precepts and doctrines of men."
As with the Galatians, the errors taught among the Colossians did not promote loose living. On the contrary, it called for greater holiness of life, abstinence, separation from the unclean thing, "Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch." On the surface, this certainly looks like wisdom, but the wise recognize that it is antagonistic to God's growth. God's growth is of an entirely different order. Though these legalistic teachings attempt to restrain the body and its carnal cravings, this self-imposed order strengthens the flesh.
In the nineteenth century, Andrew Murray understood this, unlike thousands of Bible teachers since him. He wrote in his Book, "The Two Covenants":
The two great lessons God would teach us by it [the Old and New Covenants] are very simple. The one is the lesson of SIN, the other the lesson of HOLINESS. The Old Covenant attains its object only as it brings men to a sense of their utter sinfulness and their hopeless impotence to deliver themselves. As long as they have not learnt this, no offer of the New Covenant life can lay hold of them. As long as an intense longing for deliverance from sinning has not been wrought, they will naturally fall back into the power of the law and the flesh. The holiness which the New Covenant offers will rather terrify than attract them; the life in the spirit of bondage appears to make more allowance for sin, because obedience is declared to be impossible.
The other is the lesson of Holiness. In the New Covenant the Triune God engages to do all. He undertakes to give and keep the new heart, to give His own Spirit in it, to give the will and the power to obey and do His will. As the one demand of the first Covenant was the sense of sin, the one great demand of the New is faith that that need, created by the discipline of God's law, will be met in a Divine and supernatural way. The law cannot work out its purpose, except as it brings a man to lie guilty and helpless before the holiness of God. There the New finds him, and reveals that same God, in His grace accepting him and making him partaker of His holiness.
It is winds of doctrine and adherence to the Old Covenant that keep Abba's Children from growing up into Him. It is teaching that tosses them to and fro. It is teaching that carries them about here and there, prohibiting them from taking root and maturing. It is teaching-this one saying this and another saying that-that keeps believers confused, uncertain and dependent upon teachers-"ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth." Though the teachings may contain some objective truths, they yet leave the hearer dependent on teaching and the teacher rather than the Wind of God's Spirit.
Often believers are not pointed to reality but to theory, ideas, principles, and techniques that strangely never leave the realm of supposition. Being dependent on teachers, believers never get enough teaching. Beware when teaching becomes an end unto itself. Then what is incorrectly taught is no longer the problem. The real problem is that believers are subdued by the process of endless teachings that replace the voice of the Spirit in their lives. At such time, teaching itself becomes the wind that blows against the mast. Remember, apostate people "heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears" (2 Timothy 4:3 KJV).
On the other hand, truth is ordered by an entirely different principle-life and growth. Growing up into Him is not helped along by winds of doctrine. How many contradictory sermons must we sit through before we get this point? Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, who now leads all who will follow Him into all truth-spiritual reality. Anything less than this is simply organization begging for life. Remember, according to Paul, another indicator of apostasy is powerless form (morpho¯sis - outward semblance, as distinguished from the essential reality - Vincent). ".having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!" (2 Timothy 3:5 NKJV)
So what is our safeguard against such a well-ordered and seemingly legitimate deception? We must learn to distinguish the outward semblance from the essential reality.
"You cannot make something to carry the testimony of the Lord. You cannot make people carry the testimony of the Lord. You cannot gather them into Bible institutions and make them vessels of testimony. Only God can make spiritual men and women, living men and women, men wrought for this purpose. We must take our hands off one another, and leave them to the Lord. If it were something else we could get together and take counsel together, and we could arrange a scheme, an enterprise, and get beautifully organized, and launch it, and carry it on; but that is like a Philistine cart, and in the testimony of Jesus that cannot be done with the guarantee that God will sponsor it and take responsibility for it. God must constitute us a vessel on the basis of life and knowledge of Himself, and no man can do that, no man can make that sort of thing, only God.
So we stand back from one another and let the Lord do it. Much as we would like to help we can do very little; we have to let the Lord do it, and make men and make women, and when the Lord has made them there is the power of the Name. You cannot fit men to bear the Name, only God can fit men for that. It is a matter of the testimony of the Name in mighty energy and power being borne by men and women who are alive unto the Lord, and in intelligent fellowship with Him. Anything other is bound to break down, to go wrong, and what is more to come under the judgment of God sooner or later."
Addressing the Default Argument
Some might ask, "Didn't Paul write, 'Let all things be done decently and in order' (1 Corinthians 14:40)? Doesn't this mean that we should order our gathering? And that if there's going to be order there must be a director?"
Yes, Paul did write that, and yes, there is a Director. Paul wrote this qualifying statement right after he informed the Corinthian believers who that Director is. Divine order comes directly from God by His Spirit. Divine order is in the Spirit. Therefore Paul references, "speaking by the Spirit of God.diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.there are diversities of workings, but it is the same God who works all in all.the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man.given by the Spirit.by the same Spirit.by the same Spirit.in all these works that one and same Spirit, dividing to every man individually as he will.by one Spirit.drink into one Spirit.God set the members every one of them in the body.God has arranged the body." We could site many more such references. There's the order! Without this order any attempt to organize in the name of Christ is error and because it is thought to be right and true, it is deception. This is an either/or situation. There is no solution in compromise. To compromise is to settle for lukewarm mediocrity. Or to borrow the words of Michael McDonald in his hit song, No More Prayin':
"We are lost between faith and hope
Between heart and mind, between love and pride."
So which will it be, truth or outward semblance, as distinguished from the essential reality? Growing into the fullness of the stature of Christ, or being tossed to and fro by the teachings of men? Following the Wind of God's Spirit or being blown about by every wind of doctrine? Will we return to the order that flows from divine life or continue to scheme, enterprise and get beautifully organized? Will we be taught of God as was prophesied by the prophets of old or will we continue to deceive ourselves and heap up teachers?
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34 KJ2000)
Let no one rob you of your prize!
This article is part of a larger work called "The Kingdom or the Kosmos" It is available in book form.
http://www.awildernessvoice.com/SystematizedDeception
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Session 2 Seven Signs in John.mp3
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