Original: July 21, 2007
One show I enjoy watching is a Discovery Channel’s, Future Weapons where a retired military expert showcases various military weapons. I am blown away by some of the bombs, explosives, and guns he tests. As a hunter I was the most intrigued by the Barret .50 caliber that can hit a man-sized target at 2000 meters and turn cinder block into powder at the same distance!
Sisters, Or
12 "To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. Revelation 2:12
16 Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Revelation 2: 16
Thus far, we have spent several weeks looking up the appropriate times that the New International Version of the Bible mentions the word “fight”. I find it fitting that we end here in the book of Revelation chapter 2 verses 12 and 16 where the Lord is coming to straighten the erroneous teachings of those in Pergamum with “the double edged sword” and the “sword of my mouth” (Revelation 1:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:8, Hebrews 4:12). In other words, the Lord Jesus will slay erroneous teachings among His people and through his teachers who bring the bold message if it does not fall in line with the truths found in the word of God.
In very recent days I have dealt with similar erroneous teachings, most recently speaking out against a popular Bible teacher who preaches that the local church is not a single congregation but a community of believers in a local town. This man’s teaching led people to leave local churches, stop attending worship services, and look at the local pastor with a critic’s eye. This man also teaches that the paid or professional pastor is an “erroneous” or non-biblical in its model (1 Corinthians 9:9-14, 1 Timothy 5:18).
Of course this bias has lead to extreme pride and the lack of respect shown towards pastors. The problem with this man, and other erroneous teachers such as the “Nicolatians” is that they use the Bible as their foundation selecting out key verses that fit their doctrine without taking scripture in its hermeneutical (contextual) meanings or the plenary (entirety of the Bible’s writings) inspiration of the Scripture. Most of these teachers, like the men I am thinking about, are uneducated laymen receiving their teachings from another source or teacher who at some point was wounded and left “organized religion” in order to speak out against it.
Ephesians 6:17 calls the word of God our main weapon of warfare in the “sword of the Spirit”. Men must keep it sharp, wield it accurately and be prepared to fight at all times (1 Peter 3:15-16). A man’s greatest battle is correctly handling the word of God so that those we lead might be able to see through erroneous teachings in or around the Church. Teachings that claim to have some kind of apocalyptic revelation, salvation through anything other than Jesus Christ, Christian autonomy, mass exodus from the local churches, or wrong interpretation of Christology must be revealed as erroneous, called out, and responded against.
A man must learn to handle the Word of truth so he can recognize the counterfeit when he sees it, and teach those he leads to do the same.
