“It does not matter what a person preaches as long as they talk about God.”
The above quote was actually said to me years ago by a church member. Take a moment and think that through.
So a person can preach the prosperity gospel and be okay?
You can preach the universal gospel and be okay?
You can preach the works gospel and be okay?
All three false gospels talk about God.
I just wrote a two part “So What Do You Think?” series on do you believe The Word of God or not. Discernment and believing Scripture go hand in hand. If you don’t believe it then how will you discern it? Do you actually care if the person who gets up to preach actually preaches The Word or did you come to church for another reason?
We will let anything go in the church today because people do not use discernment. We will let heresy spew from our pulpits because we do not know the Word and the few of us that do are regarded as trouble makers for taking a stand. We get accused of “breaking the unity”. Read that again. The local church would rather be unified in heresy than to rebuke it. Paul prophesied this moment in human history in 2nd Timothy 4:2-5. Guess what, that time is now. I know preachers who will not even touch this chapter of Scripture because it will discredit their theology. I believe that is where “discernment” disappeared to. It disappeared into the depths of fear of someone leaving the church because their feelings got hurt. Again, we would rather be unified in heresy and massage egos than use discernment and stand for God’s Word.
Are we really that afraid of people leaving that we will sacrifice truth on the altar of peace? We will abandon discernment to be unified in heresy? What kind of church is that? Apparently the kind that dominates the American landscape.
“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11 —— This is how we are supposed to be, like Bereans. We are to examine the Scriptures when someone preaches or teaches to see if what they are saying matches up with Scripture. Do you do that? Do you even bring your Bible to church? Would your pastor be okay if you acted like a Berean?
It is time for some self examination, self reflection in your own spiritual life. Do you care about discernment, do you care about your spiritual health? Do you sit under a false teacher every Sunday because it is “your church”? Only you can answer these questions.
Discernment, it does matter.