This is a featured article used with permission of Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries, the original article found here: http://apprising.org/2013/01/15/the-oldest-lie-pride/ THE OLDEST LIE–PRIDEBy Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jan 15, 2013 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Devotions, Features Apprising Ministries has often told you about “contexualization,” i.e. attempting to make “the Gospel relevant” to a postmodern culture and a postChristian nation. But, 1) the original liberals already tried that with their “modern theology” attempting to cobble together a form of Christianity for their modern culture. And, 2) the United States was never a Christian nation to begin with; it’s always featured a plurality of religions in order to be accommodating to its melting pot of different races and nationalities. So, rather than Christian, it’s more accurate to say that America, by and large, has always been a religious culture. Now let me zero in on the heart of Satan’s scheme, which is: The Church must change for today’s version of capricious culture; and to accept contradicting views of truth from people’s personalized spiritual experiences, because God understands that they have many different ways to come to Him in relationship. In other words, man decides how he will experience God because postmodern culture finds the concept of absolute truth too narrow for their way broad way of thinking. They’ve now become enlightened to their belief that good ol’ God is just happy that people today wish to worship Him in whatever way they want to. What’s being missed here is, the Gospel is never relevant to people dead in sin. In addition, in order to know how God truly wishes His creatures to relate to Him, mankind would have to be God. Unless that is, the infinite Creator had chosen to reveal to His finite creation what His desires were along that line. You see, when we choose to look at this issue with spiritual eyes, given us by God the Holy Spirit, then something else entirely emerges; doesn’t it? Look at Genesis, chapter 3 and verse 1 — “Did God actually say? The KJV reads, Yea, hath God said? This is simply an extension of the oldest lie there is. It’s actually the very corrupt heart of Satan’s same old double-barreled attack, which he’s been using since the Garden of Eden. In fact, he’s still using it today; only now, he’s even infiltrated the mainstream of evangelicalism through the neoliberal cult operating within the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church. Here’s his strategy number 1) Knock out communications—blowup the Word of God—the Bible; put it out of commission. Satan wants man to begin to rely on himself—his “flesh,” his own pride-filled self-centered sinful nature, his own depraved reasoning; get him to trust what he believes in his corrupt heart. Oftentimes preachers here will rightly quote Jeremiah 17:9 — The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? However, “Christian” agnostics within the Emerging Church will tend to slough that off as merely some primitive and horribly outdated Old Testament concept. Since we are supposedly more enlightened now we can understand that this antediluvian people just didn’t comprehend the unconditional love and acceptance of God that Jesus of Nazareth later taught. Then for some, they actually teach that was the way God used to be; but now, He’s changed how He deals with us. But as will happen with every single malicious man-centered theology that Satan will ever perpetrate, the light of Scripture will reveal it to be a lie. The fact is, Christ Jesus our Lord—Whom these people profess to know—actually teaches exactly what the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament themselves have said all along. Concerning human nature the Master points out: And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy,
