Following Judah's Lion

Ten Dangerous Deceptions Today

If you are an orthodox Christian believer you will identify with these things:

We need to work on humility, love, grace, witnessing, and a broken and fierce desire to emulate and obey Jesus Christ.

But there are things that are being promoted by a number of liberal and evangelical sources that are slowly but surely being espoused and even championed by the western church. Here are ten issues that are being obviously touted by forces within the western church.

1. A serious reductionism of the Scriptures. Little by little the Scriptures are being reduced to nothing but metaphor and imagery and are open to everyone’s own interpretation.

2. A redefining of Jesus. The incarnation is being diluted in favor of a more human Jesus.

3. A replacing of the gospel by human works. Feeding the poor and social causes have replaced the preaching of the gospel.

4. A serious and drastic moving away from the cross of Jesus. The cross is almost ignored in many evangelical circles and the sufferings of Jesus get hardly a mention.

5. Redemption is losing its eternal essence in favor of elevating people’s earthly standing and condition.

6. The resurrection is now a metaphor for starting over and no longer is preached as the exclamation point over the victory over sin and death.

7. An open door policy to all sorts of heresy without even the slightest rebuke or correction. Even John Shelby Spong has just recently been given a charitable platform by an emergent leader.

8. Sin is almost ignored and is downplayed as it concerns the cross and as it concerns our lives as believers.

9. Intellectualism has fast become an idol as it concerns understanding the Scriptures. Philosophy, higher criticism, and Hebraic prisms are now in vogue in interpreting the Scriptures.

10. Universalism, the teaching that all will one day be saved, is rapidly gaining acceptance within western evangelicalism. Eternal punishment is considered archaic and almost assigned to ignorant snake handlers. This age of enlightenment has moved beyond such distasteful and ignorant doctrines.

Of course there are more issues, but these ten are very prominent. Guard your heart and be a stingy caretaker over your ears and eyes. Deception comes draped in truth and many times is much more appealing than is the truth.