I am reading the lectionary electronically, and sitting here blogging it. TO do this I’m using the PCUSA lectionary and daily reading resources, and at the same time I have some music playing… fairly softly — it’s morning, it’s dark and I think it may have hit two degrees.
I am not a Luddite. Yet I never watch shine TV. This is because I despise televangelists. and their teaching pf Prosperity Gospel and “naming it” almost as much as I despise those who teach the great therapeutic religion of self-esteem, either in the pulpit or on Chat shows.
There are three modern heresies: the worship of self, called self-esteem, the toleration of witchcraft, which is what anyone who claims that there are laws and if you name it and see it you will have it, and those who subvert the family and preach feminism and the secular project in all it’s rainbow glory.
So today I want to warn everyone to shun these people. The consequences are dire.
20Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
22Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23They will say to you, ‘Look there!’ or ‘Look here!’ Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. 24For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation. 26Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 27They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. 28Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, 29but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them 30 – it will be like that on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. 31On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. 32Remember Lot’s wife. 33Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. 34I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.” 36, 37Then they asked him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
1 If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, 2 and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, “Let us follow other gods” (whom you have not known) “and let us serve them,” 3 you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. 4 The LORD your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. 5 But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against the LORD your God – who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery – to turn you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 If anyone secretly entices you – even if it is your brother, your father’s son or your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend – saying, “Let us go worship other gods,” whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 any of the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, 8 you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. 9 But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10 Stone them to death for trying to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 Then all Israel shall hear and be afraid, and never again do any such wickedness.
2 Make room in your hearts for us; we have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one. 3 I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. 4 I often boast about you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with consolation; I am overjoyed in all our affliction.
5 For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted in every way – disputes without and fears within. 6 But God, who consoles the downcast, consoled us by the arrival of Titus, 7 and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was consoled about you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. 8 For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it (though I did regret it, for I see that I grieved you with that letter, though only briefly). 9 Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. 11 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves guiltless in the matter. 12 So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, nor on account of the one who was wronged, but in order that your zeal for us might be made known to you before God. 13 In this we find comfort.
In addition to our own consolation, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by all of you. 14 For if I have been somewhat boastful about you to him, I was not disgraced; but just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus has proved true as well. 15 And his heart goes out all the more to you, as he remembers the obedience of all of you, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling. 16 I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you.
There is a simple and plain gospel. Stick to that. That Gospel is preached in every denomination and every church. We can argue the fine points of theology from the Saints to how many angels dance on the needle of a pin at another time.
What we cannot do is deviate into believing we have the end times worked out because of something St Malachy said or (worse) what Benny Hinn preached, or believe that if we speak to our wallet it will grow, or remove from the gospel the law, and declare that guilt and shame are obsolete.
Or claim that we know when the Messiah is coming. Or that we have special powers and visions — in that way lies the example of Joseph Smith and the errors called Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and multiple myriad four-square, full gospel churches that uncritically accept whatever the preacher says, even if he is preaching from the bottom of a bong or a bottle of moonshine.
And this the Romans have correct: when heresy is preached they purge it. We should learn from our brethren. For if we get one of these heresiarchs to repent, we will save more than one soul. There is no place in the church to tolerate heresy. There is no place for the human rights commission in the church. Those who do not believe should be placed outside the church: they can return with repentance, and those who try to regulate to church according to the spirit of the age should be not let in, whether syncretists or secularists.
