ROB BELL: DOUBTING GOD’S WORD

But if I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His Name,” His Word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9)

The Rotten Fruit Is Now Emerging

Years ago A.W. Tozer told the absolute truth when he wrote:

Christians habitually weep and pray over beautiful truth, only to draw back from that same truth when it comes to the difficult job of putting it into practice! Actually, the average church simply does not dare to check its practices against biblical precepts. It tolerates things that are diametrically opposed to the will of God, and if the matter is pointed out to its leaders, they will defend its unscriptural practices with a casuistry equal to the verbal dodgings of the Roman moralists…

Since Christ makes His appeal directly to the will, are we justified in wondering whether or not these divided souls have ever made a true commitment to the Lord? Or whether they have been inwardly renewed? It does appear that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right!

Jesus Himself left a warning – I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead [Rev. 3:1b] (Renewed Day by Day, emphasis added).

What is to follow is yet more illustration of the postmodern brainwashing that is going on within this Emergent Church rebellion against the inerrant and infallible Word of the one true and living God, known to those trapped inside as the emerging “conversation.” However, any of you who have tried to actually have a conversation with an Emergent will generally find it goes just fine...until you happen to disagree with them.

Then just you watch how quickly God yanks the covering off of their pseudo Christian love and the rotten fruit of their sarcastic temper tantrum comes emerging as they implode. And I defy any of them to disprove this. For all over the Net there is an undeniable public record which contains the spewing forth of their nasty and unchristian language.

Jesus Himself told you:

“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” (Luke 6:45, NASB)

The Bell Tolls

Now here we will look at some of Rob Bell’s own words from a BeliefNet article when the “anti-establishment” Bell interestingly enough just happened to be on his book tour. O wake up, will you? These kind of people who are always railing against the commercialization of whatever is popular to rant against at a given time, somehow suddenly find it rather convenient to “use” this so-called establishment whenever their books come out. Anyone still remember that the “big bad” Brian Warner aka Marilyn Manson him/herself did the whole talk show circuit when his/her own book came out?

Friend, we have already seen all of this romanticized bohemianism before in the sixties when one right after another anti-establishment big brother hating rock stars sold out when they saw someone show them the money. You need to come to understand that people like this will only end up using you. In the article 'Velvet Elvis' Author Encourages Exploration of Doubts we’re told that this “Megachurch pastor Rob Bell says faith in Jesus must be repainted for each generation if it’s to avoid the fate of Elvis kitsch.” Says who Rob? It certainly isn’t God.

Malachi 3:6 – For I, the LORD, do not change. (NASB) By the way, the rabbis will tell you that in the original Hebrew here, that by using the word shanah (“change”), God the Holy Spirit gives the word picture of not altering what one has said. Now, let’s say for example that we hold a gem stone (man) up to the light (God). We might see that the colors (ideas, perceptions) may change as we rotate it, but the Bible is telling us that while these ideas/perceptions may change, God Himself cannot. And neither does the hopeless plight of fallen man because he is spiritually dead.

O sure, you can have your doubts about that if you wish to, but if your “repainting” of the Christian faith for this generation is to cause others to have doubts, then you most certainly should not call yourself a minster of the Gospel. You can brand me extremist; so what, the Lord is my Defender. You can roll tanks up to my door and I will still have no doubt Who sent me; I have no doubt about the Gospel He told me to preach, and I have no doubt where I’m going. Some say: “You have a spiritual chip on your shoulder.” Then I beseech you on Christ’s behalf; please pick up your Bible to refute me, and then come knock it off.

The World According To Rob

But until then, in contrast here are Bell’s own wishy-washy words:

Faith in Jesus, Bell says, must be repainted for each generation if it is to avoid the fate of his velvet Elvis. “What often happens in religion is people freeze the faith at a certain point,” Bell says. “There’s no more need to paint. We’ve got the ultimate painting.”

Whew; this kind of non-reasoning sure seems to dazzle many today in our pagan culture which is so steeped in relativism. It obviously also impresses those who have been too lazy intellectually to develop their critical reasoning skills. Why are we to believe what Bell just said? Because he and people like Guru Brian McLaren say so, that’s why. But you might want to hold up “the you’re too harsh” wagon, because whoever told you telling the truth wasn’t going to step on some toes, and just think what this pathetic “love shack” of evangelical Christianity would have done to an A.W. Tozer today.

Recently Paul Washer, a real man of God, was on TBN with Kirk Cameron. Try listening to him for a while and then go back and compare it to today’s man-loving spiritual sissies. This is perhaps the first time anyone has ever preached the real Gospel of Jesus Christ on that pathetic excuse for a “Christian” Network. Washer, who even had Cameron squirming a bit, shared some of what he tells his team of missionaries. No man-pleasing message here as Washer essentially said that he would rather send one man with one Bible in his hand to stand in the town square and preach the Gospel until people either get converted or the missionary gets stoned to death.

Our dear brother Washer is absolutely correct when he says, “That’s the only kind of preaching God will honor.” But men and women, what you just read above from Rob Bell is nothing more than the spiritual skubalon of postmodern philosophy, which itself was already condemned in Scripture long before mankind even dreamed it up in order to try and justify his sin:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

Denying God’s Word Is To Play Spiritual Russian Roulette

And yet with the blessing of more and more spiritually obtuse evangelical leaders Rob Bell still continues telling your youth:

On the contrary, he says – religion, like art, must keep exploring and reforming, or “you end up with a velvet Elvis on your hands.”

Again Rob; says who? This is only more circular reasoning which is based on the faulty premise that there is some alleged emerging culture and that this is the message that will reach them. However, in reality this is simply what these Emergent pseudo pastors already wanted to believe. Check out their testimonies for yourself as I have and see if the Lord doesn’t show you the very predictable pattern: Raised around “traditional” [read: New Testament] Christianity, they began to question/doubt these Biblical doctrines and “Prest-o Chang-o,” amazingly enough comes the postmodern epiphany! I say it’s really not too unlike the Mormon concept of the “burning in the bosom.” Same source.

You need to understand that it truly is as pastor teacher Gary Gilley of Southern View Chapel points out in his own review of Rob Bells work:

4) Like McLaren, Bell is a deconstructionist (chapter 2). The meaning of Scripture cannot be found in any objective manner since it must be interpreted by subjective people (pp. 44-46). His solution is interesting. Based on a faulty understanding (by normal hermeneutical methods) of the “binding and loosening” passages of the Gospels, Bell believes the church has the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible (pp. 50, 68). To Bell, since the Bible is alive it is fluid. Its meaning can change with the times and pronouncements of the church or a portion of the church.

5) Like all emergent leaders Bell wants to focus on being right not thinking right (having correct theology) (p. 21). It would even be possible, according to his system, for cardinal doctrines (say the virgin birth and the deity of Christ), to be proven untrue, and for people to still believe the Christian faith (pp. 26-27, 124). The point is not our having the truth but our having joy (p. 35). As a matter of fact, the first time he was in awe of God was when he was attending a U2 concert (p. 72). Theology did not play a role there, I am certain.

Seeker Friendly For The Postmodern Skeptic

O how blind can these Emergent leaders be with their “Christian” agnosticism? They vehemently deny that they are rooted in the phony seeker sensitive business philosophies of the doomed Church Growth Movement, but history shows the emerging church was actually begun through Leadership Network. And the truth is all they have really done is to turn right around and create a seeker friendly mystic spiritual haven for doubters whom they call “spirtual seekers.” Right. Hello! These people aren’t seeking God; what they are looking for a way to have spiritual experiences without any real commitment. Well they tell us, this is after all, “postmodern” America. C’mon now and think with me here; you know the land of “what’s in it for me” and “I want what I want and I want now!”

And I tell you in the Lord you are only fooling yourself, because you most assuredly are not fooling your Creator. But what you will read next is straight out of the tired old existential and feelings over Scripture neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth. In other words Rob, it’s already been tried before. So it’s not really new at all:

He dismisses claims that “Scripture alone” will answer all questions. Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader's bias and current realities, he says. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises. “It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says,” Bell writes. “We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people.” (emphasis mine)

Men and women, this is nothing more than as a child stamping her foot and whining, “But I don’ wannu” when told she has to obey her parent. Today I appeal to you to open up your eyes and see this hellacious harangue to pouty postmoderns for exactly what it actually is: A brazen and blatant attack on the authority of the Word of God, which itself is rooted in Satan asking Eve, “Yea, hath God said?” Yeah, this ultra “hip” line of reasoning’s kind of been around a while.

And finally Bell rings out:

Every generation has to ask difficult questions about what does it mean to follow Jesus. What does the kingdom of God look like as it explodes at this time, in this place?

Permit me to clear away your postmodern fog Rob about what it means to follow Jesus. Hear the Word of the Lord you claim sent you with your messed up message:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:34-38, ESV)

Being Harder Than Jesus Himself

I’ll guarantee you won’t hear that message within any loquacious lyrics written by Billie Joe Armstrong. But Rob, if you really are a pastor sent by Christ then you’d know that we are to help people with doubts. Yes, we who are called as pastor-teachers do need to help them to deal with doubts. The genuine pastor will encourage them in Christ’s Name to trust Him at His Word and to give doubts up. He will not to lead them away from the historic orthodox Christian faith. Rob, I do hapen to know you are quite enamored with women in ministry. And yet we’re to believe you’re not aiming to please your culture. Um, ok.

Well then, I will begin to close with this from Catherine Booth, wife of General William Booth, the man who founded The Salvation Army:

I had been speaking in a town, in the West of England, on the subject of responsibility of Christians for the salvation of souls. The gentlemen with whom I was staying had winced a bit under the truth, and instead of taking it to heart in love, and making it the means of drawing him nearer to God, and enabling him to serve Him better, he said, “I thought you were rather hard on us this morning.” I said, “Did you? I should be very sorry to be harder on anybody than the Lord Jesus Christ would be.”

The Bible says – A wise man attacks the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust. (Proverbs 21:22) Men and women, Rob Bell is fast on his way to becoming the Elvis of Emergent. He is quickly rising to the status of cultural icon within Emergent circles, and Rob Bell is a whole lot closer to affecting your evangelical churches at large than you know. So in obedience to my Master’s Word I am only doing what I can to try and topple this Emergent icon before he grows any larger within our Lord’s Church.

In the end, if you think this is harsh and unloving, well I will turn right around and tell you that it is actually you who are unloving. If you can’t hear the Lord’s Voice within this piece then I would argue that you don’t love God enough to protect the sanctity of His Church, and further that you don’t love our youth enough to present them with the absolute Truth. So your problem isn’t actually with me, it’s that you don’t recognize the time in which you live. And that I personally can do absolutely nothing about.

But I will tell you this, I for one, plan to be found doing what Christ has told me to because His time draws nigh…

“ ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ” (Matthew 22:12-13)

http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/08/rob_bell_doubti.html