We’re living in an hour where the church doesn’t even blush over sin anymore; things that used to horrify Christians we bring into our house every day, from the internet and television, and yet boast ourselves the greatest Christians possibly that ever lived, because knowledge puffs up.  Men of scholarship, the most learned among the professed church, “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).

I think we should be as noble as the Bereans; amen?  Who, when Paul himself came and preached, went to the Scriptures and looked and said, “Is this what the Scripture really says?  Can this be the fulfillment of the prophets?”  We need to be that wise in our generation.

Many of these people, with the weight that they’ve put on study and scholarship, have fallen into an idolatry called bibliolatry, a worship of the Bible, but we’re supposed to worship God.  God and His Word are one; amen?  Let God be true and every man a liar.  This Bible is truth, and you add to it and diminish from it at the risk of your own damnation.  If another gospel is presented, let those teachers be anathema (meaning cursed, damned to hell).  Some will say, “these false teachers and some of this false doctrine—it’s not good, but they’re still brothers and sisters.  They’re mostly correct.  Who are we to think somehow we’re the ones that are right and they can be wrong with all of this scholarship?”  Because the standard is the Word of God.  You say, “Well, they’re quoting the Word.”  No.  In the case of who can be saved, the Bible says, “Whosoever will, may come” (Revelation 22:17).  Amen?  And they say, “Whosoever of the elect may come.”  That’s not what the Bible says.  Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.  They say, “Jesus only died for the elect, chosen from before the foundations of the world.  And though the blood of Jesus could’ve been sufficient to save all mankind, God—because He’s sovereign of His own free will and nature—chose to damn people who had never sinned in their lives, never drew breath, yet before they were born, damned them to an eternal hell.”  Calvinist doctrine makes God a monster if you sit down and study it and compare it with the Scriptures.

And in this last day, you and I are going to be called to have such a love for God, and a jealousy for sound doctrine, that we’re willing to stand up and contend for the faith, oppose these lies, oppose these people and, when necessary, respond to them scripturally, that has to do with separating ourselves from them, marking them.  And we can become uncomfortable in that, but a little leaven will leaven the whole lump.  If you leave that stuff in your midst, either corporately, individually, at home or in your minds—when you sit off in the corner by yourself and because you have an affinity toward one of these teachers, want to continue to glean and sit at their feet, leaven will leaven the whole lump.  These things are not an accident—these are not unlearned people who made a mistake doctrinally and stated something that might be amiss.  These are the most learned people and this is the most purposeful doctrine taught by this segment of professed Christianity, and we need to be careful in this hour that we’re living to protect our own hearts, our children and to make sure that we are doers of the Word and not just hearers.