No one ever has to guess about how a nation, man, church, or school goes "modernistic" theologically. History has a way of repeating, and repeating, and repeating a thing until no one can possibly misunderstand what is going to take place. Self deception is the great hobbyhorse in these matters. Christians don't want to believe it will turn out the same way it turned out the thirty-five times before that.
For example, in the realm of Biblical Fundamentalism, hisory never deviates from a fixed pattern one time from Exodus 1 to 2000. A MAN shows up (Moses, David, John the Baptist, Christ Himself, Paul, et al.). He is followed by a MOVEMENT (The founding of the nation of Israel, the succession of kings, etc.). The movement is always followed by a MACHINE (Elders and princes, nobles and priest for Moses, Christianity following Paul, etc.) which is followed by a MONUMENT (Jerusalem abandoned by God, churches named after "St. John," cathedrals, etc.).
1. Martin Luther, the Man.
2. Protestantism, the Movement.
3. Synods and Episcopates, the Machine.
4. Cathedrals and rectories, the Monuments.
1. John Bunyon, the Man.
2. English Baptists, the Movement.
3. The Baptist Union, the Machine.
4. Statue of Spurgeon for a deserted tabernacle,
the Monument.
1. John Wesley, the Man.
2. The Methodists, the Movement.
3. The National Council of Churches, the Machine.
4. United Methodist church buildings, the Monuments.
More than that is found nowhere in any New Testament.
(A) Apostasy always is personal and practical before it is dogmatic or theological. Our pattern for this in the Bible is SATAN (note 1 Tim. 3:7). We don't have to guess how apostasy begins because on Satan's part it began with JEALOUSY. Someone was jealous of ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY. That is the origin of Sin in the universe (Isa. 14). No knowledge of Greek or Hebrew is necessary to know this, nor even a knowledge of eighth grade English.
(B) This was going on in Paul's day before the New Testament was completed (2 Cor. 2:17). He warned about the "unruly" in 1 Thessalonians 5 and 2 Thessalonians 3, and so did Peter (2 Pet. 2:10) and Jude 16. Someone was jealous of the power and authority of the scriptures and had raised up tradition to equal them (Mark 7:8,13). Someone was jealous of evangelistic Bible believing street preachers (Acts 13:45) and wanted them in jail.
(C) The appeals to PRIDE and JEALOUSY (Eve and Satan) are warned about in the New Testament. Not ONE warning was "believing that any Book was inerrant, or infallible" and not one of them was someone worrying about a "cult." The three enemies of the Body of Christ were signaled out by the apostle to the gentiles as being: "SCIENCE" (1 Tim. 6:20), "PHILOSOPHY" (Col. 2:8), and "TRADITION" (Col. 2:8). These are the things that show up in a COLLEGE educational system; none of them are Biblical.
(D) These three deadly enemies are ready-made "allies" for any Christian who wants to justify his sins (PRIDE), or promote himself or his work (JEALOUSY). They are the handmaidens of all apostates, including Evangelicals, Conservatives, and Fundamentalists. "ALL FLESH IS GRASS."
(E) Apostasy then, within the Body of Christ, always begins with Christians who are jealous of the authority of the scriptures and wish to usurp this authority to GAIN CONTROL OVER THOSE WHO HONOR ITS AUTHORITY. John calls this "NICOLAITANISM" (Rev. 2, 3). Christian LEADERS have always been the "point men" in apostasy in every denomination on earth.
(F) At the completion of the canon (90 A.D.) there were apostates trying to add and take from the scriptures after the warnings placed in Revelation 22. Heretics had been at work on the Old Testament long before Paul was even born. They wanted books added to the Old Testament (Alexandria).
(G) By 200 A.D. the Christian LEADERS are immersed in the Science and Philosophy of Alexandria, Egypt, where the Apocryphal books had been inserted into the canon of the Old Testament. So strong was the TRADITION regarding this Alexandrian scholarship that even the AV translators thought that there was a B.C. Old Testament in Greek (the LXX). No such animal ever existed except in the TRADITIONS of those who wanted to make the word of God "of none effect" (Mark 7:13).
(H) By 325 A.D., the Body of Christ is in such rotten shape that when they have their "World Congress of Fundamentalism" they are afraid to state their absolute authority and, as a consequence, do not give out one statement about the MAIN THEME of that authority: The Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which is mentioned more than ten times as often as the crucifixion, water baptism, the Lord's Supper, or "the two natures of Christ," combined.
(I) By 600 A.D. the Body of Christ had assimilated baptismal regeneration, a Baalite, cannibal sacrifice, baby-sprinkling, and prayers for the dead as "Christian" teaching.
(J) Neither Luther nor Calvin were able to bring the Body completely out of this deadly Alexandrian culture which elevated TRADITION to an equal place of authority with the Bible. They did inspire people to get hold of the Bible and READ IT.
(K) From 1611 to 1901 the church experiences a series of genuine revivals which come from a MAN (Wesley, Whitefield, Moody, Spurgeon, Talmage, Knox, Edwards, Freylinghausen, Tennant, Cartwright, Finney, et al.). The one characteristic that is true of every man involved is that he takes what the KING JAMES BIBLE says about science, tradition, and philosophy to be true, as a witness against them. Occasionally, the Adamic nature seizes even the best of these men (Spurgeon, Torrey, Broadus, et al.), so, in a fit of JEALOUSY over the AV, and PRIDE in their own ability, they follow SATAN (see "A").
(L) In 1884 the English Christians, following German leadership, recover the apostate Jesuit Rheims Greek text of the Dark Ages from Alexandria, and usher in the second Dark Age, called by military historians "THE VIOLENT CENTURY." There are more people murdered or killed in this century than in any three centuries before it, and that number was reached before the century was HALF over.
(M) The Christian leaders (Fundamentalists and Conservatives foremost) were the first to joyfully accept this Dark Age text in the form of the RV and the ASV. Every time they overthrew the authority of the AV in their classrooms (apostasy always begins in a Christian school, because EVE was tempted to have "knowledge") they appealed to SCIENCE or TRADITION.
(N) All major fundamental colleges, seminaries, and universities adopted the "logic" of Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Westcott and Hort, Nestle, Augustine, and Schaff in 1920 and led the Body of Christ right back to Rome via the ASV, NIV, and NASV.
(O) The Body of Christ between 1950-1970, in America, settles down into the world system as part of it. Worldly methods of promotion and advertising, displays of Hollywood theatricals, effeminate student bodies, gimmicks for raising funds, and eventually, fornication (Swaggart), perversion (Bakker), fraud (Oral Roberts), and OUT RIGHT LYING (Bob Jones University). It was "put up with" not only by Catholics and Charismatics but by Fundamentalists and Evangelicals. Last month BJU advertised a Congress dedicated to the exaltation of an INFALLIBLE BIBLE.
Oral Roberts never told a bigger LIE in his life, for the "Bible" referred to is the one that appears in small print (smaller each year) in all SJU ads, that say "Standing for the absolute authority of THE BIBLE."
And so today, PCS, BBC, and BJU pass from the MACHINE stage into the MONUMENT stage. Soon one will be a monument to Beauchamp Vick and John Rawlings and the other will be a monument to Bob Jones Sr., as "Arlington" today is a MONUMENT to J. Frank Norris. PCS will be a monument to the day school Christian Education movement started by a man.
A MAN, a MOVEMENT, a MACHINE, a MONUMENT.
They are erecting Lee Roberson's sepulchre right now. They already have Moody's up (Moody Bible Institute) and they will go to work on John R. Rice this next year.
"Garnish the sepulchres of
the righteous."