"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let hem be under God's curse.
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."
Galations 1: 8-10
Paul Washer in his sermon entitled, 10 Indictments Against the Modern Church, made this statement: "I believe we should be seeker friendly, but we must understand that there is but one seeker and his name is God."
If you look at the modern church today, or what passes for the church, it's a lot like a huge cafeteria where you can pick and choose what you want. But you might have a difficult time finding something that bears even a slight resemblance to the gospel that Jesus and his apostles taught. Add to that the fact that 'doctrine' has become a bad word and it's no wonder that it is increasingly difficult to find a church that truly adheres to solid Biblical doctrine.
Charles H. Spurgeon said, "A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats." When one walks into some churches today and sees what looks more like a playground or an amusement park, it becomes clear that Spurgeon's words were darkly prophetic. They echo what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3-4:
"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
Jesus warned in Matthew 24:11 that there would be MANY false prophets who would deceive MANY. While Jesus doesn't contrast the word 'many' in this case, in most other cases when he uses the word 'many', He contrasts it with the word 'few'. I am stating only my opinion here but is it possible that there would be comparatively few true preachers of the gospel? Either way, there are many warnings from Jesus himself about false teachers. The writers of the New Testament epistles spend a lot of ink and papyrus correcting and denouncing false teaching and Paul uses extremely strong language in our text in Galations calling any teacher who preaches anything other than what he preached, "Cursed".
Today we have the prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen telling us that we can have 'Our Best Life Now'. We have 'Word/faith preachers telling us that we have the power to control our own destinies by 'having enough faith." (Faith healers and prosperity preachers) We have those of the emergent church like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell (Love Wins) telling us that there is no eternal judgment and that the gospel needs to change with the times. Read this quote from an Emergent Church leader:
"We do not think this [Emergent Church Movement] is about changing your worship service. We do not think this is about...how you structure your church staff. This is actually about changing theology. This about our belief that theology changes. The message of the gospel changes. It's not just the method that changes." Tony Jones ("A New Theology For a New World." A workshop for the 2004 Emergent Convention in San Diego)
But the apostle Paul was very clear in the passage in Galations that the ONLY gospel is the one he was preaching. These false preachers are under a curse. They are not servants of Jesus Christ. They are servants of men. They preach what the 'itching ears' of unsaved, carnal people want to hear. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18 that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. The prosperity gospel, the Universalist gospel and word/faith offer things to people that a person who is not being saved will find desirable. Carnal people find wealth appealing. Everyone likes a message that you can control your own destiny. And the idea that nobody goes to eternal judgment sits well with everyone.
Any gospel that appeals to carnal people is a false gospel.
In conclusion I am going to quote The Apostles Creed. It basically summarizes the gospel in a short paragraph. It should be noted that the phrase, "He descended into hell" means the grave, or place of the dead. Also the word 'catholic' does not refer to the Roman church, but rather means universal... the entire body of Christ. Here is the creed:
I believe in God, The Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth,
And in Jesus Christ , His only son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
This creed was put together in order to encapsulate very succinctly and simply what the true doctrine of the church is. And it is useful as a summary. However, it is exrtremely necessary that every believer do as the Bereans did in Acts 17:11:
"Now the Bereans were of more noble charactor than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
Without careful examination of the scripture, it isn't a question of will you be deceived, It's a question of when and to what extent.
DON'T BE DECEIVED
