Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. – Proverbs 26:11
Apostasy is a word that is becoming increasingly popular among discernment-minded Christians. It seems like every time you turn around we hear of another departure from the faith. Solid biblical doctrine just doesn’t hold the weight it once did in the Evangelical Church. Just two weeks ago, Hank Hanegraaff, known around the world as “The Bible Answer Man,” departed Christianity to join the harlot.
Of course, we have many within the Evangelical Church who are already compromised in their doctrine. The vast majority of compromised doctrine and theological error these days enters through the “charismatic window.” But no other religious system has ever been as anti-Christian as the Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church doesn’t just deny the only way to salvation but is designed in such a manner to strictly forbid its followers from believing the true gospel. In other words, it’s impossible to believe the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and be saved.
But this doesn’t stop the Pentecostal megachurch, Hillsong, from partnering with them. Dr. Terry Crist, the lead pastor of Hillsong Phoenix, put out a video congratulating several faith leaders including Roman Catholic bishops for bringing Roman Catholics and evangelicals together in ecumenical unity. Implicitly denying the need for faith alone Christ’s finished work on the cross and His imputed righteousness, he claims that charismatics, evangelicals, and Roman Catholics can rally around Jesus and worship together thanks to Hillsong’s work over the last few years.
“Something powerful happens when we rally around the person of Jesus,” Crist says, ignoring the minor detail that the Roman Catholic church doesn’t have the correct Jesus, “it’s been beautiful to see over the last few years how the Catholics around the world have lifted the songs of our church and have begun singing them universally.” He goes on to explain how the demand for their music has become so popular in charismatic Catholic churches that they now offer a track at their conferences for charismatics, Catholics, and Evangelicals to worship.
He continues, “so many times we tend to focus on what divides us instead of the man who unites us.” Of course, the man who unites us can only unite us if we believe that His shed blood is sufficient to save us–something the Roman Catholic Church has always denied and is accursed for (Galatians 1:8-9), and apparently so does Terry Crist.
This ecumenical movement that is sweeping across the churches of America and around the world is one of Satan’s most nefarious attempts to draw people away from Christ and to himself. Satan desires worship (Matthew 4:9) and disguises his very schemes as movements of God in order to draw it (2 Corinthians 11:14). Hillsong is part of this demonic scheme and it should be avoided at all costs by bible-believing Christians. If these churches want to unite, they must unite around the truth–truth that doesn’t deny the essential doctrines of Christianity. The whore can come to church, but the church isn’t going to the whore.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. — Galatians 1:6-7
[Contributed by Pulpit & Pen]
