For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus,
whom we have not preached,
or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received,
or another gospel, which ye have not accepted,
ye might well bear with him.
2 Corinthians 11:4 (King James Bible)
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CHRISTIAN ROCK'S FALSE CHRIST
(David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service,
P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061,
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)
I received the following e-mail recently, which is typical of many others I have received through the years:
“You are the blasphemer. The Beatles are not satanic. I know people who are a lot more Christian than you that love the Beatles. Do you think your helping people? I have shown many people Christ through bands like the Beatles. If Jesus were here now, he would most likely be at crack houses and rock concerts, not reading the outdated KJB. You should check out my church. We just got done telling the story of Jesus through tattoos and on Good Friday we are telling the ‘Crucification According to Radiohead.’ Tell me where GOD says to not listen to rock and roll. This is ridiculous, blasphemous, and your beliefs are the exact opposite of what Christians are called to do. I’m gonna go read my NLT Bible and or listen to As I Lay Dying, a pretty brutal metal Christian band that preaches more good in one song than you have your entire life. Thanks for the laughs.”
REPLY FROM DAVID CLOUD
Thanks for taking the time to write. I can see that you don't agree with my preaching, and that is your prerogative. We are not to blindly follow any man. But your position is based on your own thinking and emotions and lusts and on the popular contemporary philosophy rather than the Word of God.
We believe in separation from the evil things of the world, because God commands it. The following Scriptures are not suggestions. These are not some optional part of God’s Word that are for “fundamentalists” only.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17).
To believe in separation from the evil things of the world does not mean that we believe in separation from lost people. That is a strawman that your crowd has created. It is not the reality of our lives. We have had the joy of seeing hundreds of Hindus come to Jesus Christ through our ministry in one of the darkest parts of the world.
The Christian rock party-dude Jesus is a false christ that has been created by those who have created a Jesus after their own image, but it is not the Jesus we see in Scripture.
Jesus is indeed a friend of sinners. He is the very Greatest Friend of sinners! His love for sinners drew Him from the joys unspeakable of Heaven to the wretchedness of this earth, where He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost, but Jesus was not some sort of “party animal.” He wasn’t worldly cool in any sense. In fact, the sinners he “hung with” the most were not party people. They were merely not very high on the societal rung and were outcasts by the religious elite. Jesus disciples were not party dudes. There is no evidence that Jesus’ close friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were party people. When they were with Jesus, it wasn’t party-hardy time; it was time to be discipled.
“And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word” (Luke 10:39).
The Jesus we see in Scripture ate with sinners and spent time with the lowest of society (as well as the highest), but He was not any sort of party dude. He warned all men to repent and “go and sin no more” and spent a lot of time describing the horrors of Hell and warning men in the sharpest language not to go there.
The following type of preaching would put a halt to any party!
“I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5).
“And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:30).
The Lord Jesus didn’t come to earth to play games, and though He might have played games, that is never what we see Him doing in the inspired Scripture, and anything beyond Scripture is mere vain speculation. Jesus came to earth to fulfill a specific, very solemn purpose and He was singleminded in His pursuit of that purpose. The Samaritans were offended because He wouldn’t spend time with them, but it was because He had no time for anything other than accomplishing His task (Luke 9:51-53). When He was with His disciples, He was busy preparing them for His departure (John 16:4).
Jesus was here to defeat the works of Satan. He didn’t sit around and goof off after the fashion of this present entertainment-crazed generation. He had too much to do and too short a time to do it in. He had three short years of public ministry, and it was packed. He came to preach the gospel and to teach about the kingdom of God, and that is how He occupied His time, whether publicly or privately. That is what we see in Scripture.
As for the Beatles, you are blind if you think they are not Satanic. I know what I am talking about. I lived the rock & roll lifestyle to the hilt as a hippie in the 1960s-70s. I hitchhiked across America twice, used and sold drugs, joined a Hindu meditation society (the Self-Realization Fellowship Society), etc., all to my shame. The Beatles are most definitely Satanic. By their own testimony they reject the God of Scripture and the Christ of Scripture. They serve the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). (See “The Beatles and Contemporary Christian Music” at the Way of Life web site -- www.wayoflife.org.)
In the field of rock & roll, nothing of substance has changed since the 1960s, except that the music and the rock crowd have gotten ever more filthy when measured by the Bible.
Whatever “christ” you “show people through bands like the Beatles,” it is not the Christ of the Bible. It is the idolatrous god of The Shack, the chief god of this generation.
In conclusion, I suggest that you learn to discuss biblical things and to disagree in a more gracious, biblically-informed manner.
It is obvious that you have drunk deeply of rock’s haughty spirit and have learned your rock & roll lessons well. Your bitter, mocking attitude is not of God.
“Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3:13-15).
Distributed by Way of Life Literature Inc.’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. We take up offerings to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 29th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/publications/index.html. Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but only from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/makeanoffering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org
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Related post:
Another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4) by Greg Miller of Bible Believers Fellowship
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