Truth Magazine

By Larry Ray Hafley

Richard Vara, “Houston Chronicle Religion Writer,” wrote a column which detailed the Southern Baptist Convention’s vote “to oppose the legalization of homosexual marriages” (Houston Chronicle, June 14, 1996, 10A). It was a fair and balanced article. However, the headline above the article gave me the chills. It read, “Southern Baptists’ spite aimed at gay marriages.” Think about that headline. What does it say?

Note the possessive case  “South-ern Baptists.” Next, define the word, “spite.” Webster says that spite is “ill will with a wish to annoy, anger, or defeat: petty malice.” Webster gives “malignity, spleen, grudge, (and) malevolence” as synonyms of “spite.” Surely, Southern Baptists wish to “defeat” “the legalization of homosexual marriages.” However, for the paper to say that their efforts are characterized by “ill will” and “petty malice” is unfair, prejudicial, and a violation of journalistic ethics. In effect, the headline says, “Southern Baptists’ ill will, malignity, and malevolence (hatred) aimed at gay marriages.”

I do not know if Mr. Vara is responsible for the headline or not. Someone is. That someone needs to be called into account.

“So, what is the big deal?” you ask. What if the Southern Baptists had voted to oppose pedophiles (those who have sex with children)? Would the headline have said, “Southern Baptists’ ill will, hatred, spite aimed at pedophiles”? If the Southern Baptists had voted to oppose middle eastern terrorists blowing up airplanes, would the headline have said, “Southern Baptists’ ill will, hatred, spite aimed at middle eastern terrorists”? If the Southern Baptists had voted to oppose heroine addicts and their exchange of needles which is a leading cause of the AIDS virus, would the headline have said, “Southern Baptists’ ill will, hatred, spite aimed at heroine addicts?” If the Southern Baptists had voted to oppose houses of prostitution within day-care centers, would the headline have said, “Southern Baptists’ ill will, hatred, spite aimed at day care centers”? Probably!

The majority of the press, the media, favors homosexuality. According to the media, those who oppose immoral behavior are bigots. Those who condemn homosexual behavior are “filled with hatred.” This point is proven and illustrated by the headline cited above. It is typical of the media to represent the morality of the Bible as being an “intolerant,” “hateful,” and “extremist” view that denies one his basic civil and social rights. Again, the headline demonstrates and punctuates this fact. To uphold the purity and virtue of godliness and holiness makes one a social outcast in the eyes of political liberals.

What the newspapers and others have not considered is the fact that some day someone will come after them, too. One day, a free press willbe seen as a thing of “spite” and disdain. The present philosophical and moral stance of the media guarantees the demise of freedom, liberty, and justice.

When and where men are not expected to govern their lusts and live morally pure, first the homes, then the neighborhoods, then the communities, then society, and finally the nation breaks down. Before licentiousness, masquerading as “openness” and “freedom of choice,” is complete, be-fore it has run its ruinous course, the media itself will lose its safeguards, its protections of law. Where there are no moral responsibilities, there will not long be any moral rights.

The press, which is now casting snide aspersions against those who contend for moral principles, will one day see its freedom stripped by the same forces it now endorses. The lawless and disobedient who do not respect God’s laws will not sustain the rights of the press once they obtain their way.

Ironically, newspapers then will “pray” for moral principles of justice to be shown to them in their fight to maintain their independence. However, the spirit that will disdain and destroy them is the one they now support in their fight against goodness. Truly, “righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

Guardian of Truth XL: No. 15, p. 7
August 1, 1996

By Don Alexander

In the early 1980s the congregation where I preached experienced much growth as dozens of individuals obeyed the gospel and converted to Christ. The work was tiring as well as exhilarating; filled with valleys as well as mountain peaks. It was exciting to be a part of such an effort.

I would conduct personal evangelism classes one night and new converts classes almost the next night. Young adults who became Christians would bring their friends to study and we often would baptize them. We were careful to make sure that those taught and baptized were taught to “observe all things I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19).

However, we saw some new converts rise up and grow. They went to other congregations and were faithful. Some of them married each other and continued to grow. Sadly, others grew weary and fell away. After a while the work can take its toll if we are not careful. At times like these, saints need to lift up their eyes and see the Creator of all the Earth. He gives power to the faint-hearted and weary. We can run and not grow weary and soar on wings as eagles.

Two young Christians, each of whom I had the opportunity to teach and baptize, met each other at another congregation, fell in love, and asked me to many them. Before they moved away from Sacramento, they presented me with a large framed print showing an eagle with wings spread, ready to “mount up.” It had this inscription: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:31). It has been my favorite Old Testament passage since and was the inspiration for this familiar hymn that I wrote. At last report, they are still faithful to each other and to the Lord.

 

Guardian of Truth XL: No. 15, p. 11
August 1, 1996

By Jeff S. Smith

Self-help books have become among the most popular titles written and sold today. Authors inscribe what they believe are the cures for everything from addiction to marital strife. The ascendance of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous also shows us that Americans are in the mood to have someone tell them how to solve their problems.

One thing that many of these books and programs have in common is a spiritual element. The author weaves his psychological remedy while reminding the patient to seek meaning from a higher being. That sounds good, but listen to the ecumenical tone of the language that yearns to apply to everyone while offending no one. It makes little difference if the reader is a Muslim, an earth worshiper, an agnostic, a Calvinist, or a New Testament Christian in the world of self-help’s “spiritual mosaic.” The reader imbibes the words and maneuvers his own god upon the author’s psycho-spiritual altar. Even the New Testament Christian can begin to think of God in the way the author portrays him rather than as God reveals himself in the Holy Scriptures.

This is where the line in the sand should be drawn, but more and more often, Christians are stumbling over that line and embracing psychological trends that either replace or abuse the Bible. The first question that should be raised and honestly answered is: Am I truly reading my Bible so much that I have time to seek spiritual growth in the philosophies and works of men (2 Tim. 2:15)? Another question that would require answer is: What do I expect to learn in this self-help book that I cannot learn from God’s own breath (2 Tim. 3:16)?

It is to be expected that a humanistic society should grow so dissatisfied with the Bible, perceived to be of no greater inspiration than War and Peace. Besides, the Bible has been “on the market” for 2000 years and modern man needs some new thing to excite his advanced intellect now (Acts 17:21). It seems as if this attitude originated with our generation, but it is hardly novel. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, who were at least as enamored with their own thoughts and ideas as Americans today: “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified . . . And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:2, 5). Ask again, are we reading our Bibles so much that we have time to pursue spiritual wisdom in the philosophies of men? What do we expect a man to tell us that is better than what Jesus said?

A book I picked up recently taps this desire for the “wisdom of this world” (1 Cor. 1:20-22). Tim LaHaye’s Spirit-Controlled Temperament makes a deliberate approach to supplement the inspired teaching of God’s Holy Spirit contained in the Bible. The temperament doctrine is founded on what LaHaye concedes is a false premise. The great, though perhaps mythical, physician, Hippocrates, lived four hundred years before Christ and left medicine with its erstwhile Hippocratic Oath. He also dallied in psychology, attempting to explain the various personalities of men by tracing their characteristics to corresponding body fluids. He named the four categories Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic to pattern the function of the blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. LaHaye rejects the biology but builds a philosophy around the categorization anyway. Having said all that, he admits that “no person is a single-temperament type” (10). He then describes all men as crossbred in varying unknown temperament percentages. This doctrine strikes an enticing chord of validity (Col. 2:23)  all have distinct personalities and everyone is different, after all. He goes so far as to categorize Bible characters: Peter is a Sanguine, Paul is a Choleric, Moses is a Melancholy, and Abraham is a Phlegmatic (88). The reader is left to wonder where Jesus would fit into this system.

Tim LaHaye is a Baptist preacher and his false and subjective ideas about the Holy Spirit invade every nook and cranny of his temperament control doctrine. He expands Jesus’ promise to the apostles of supernatural ability by the Comforter to personally and miraculously enable all “disciples.” After explaining and recounting the events of Pentecost and the apostles’ immediate abilities to “witness in his power,” LaHaye promises that “we too can expect to have power to witness when filled with the Holy Spirit” (60). Actually, he gives the Holy Spirit a special job, that of curing “Temperament Weaknesses.” LaHaye writes on page 114: “The Holy Spirit does not automatically indwell every human being. On the contrary, He indwells only those who have received Jesus Christ by faith as Savior from sin.” LaHaye’s concept of the Holy Spirit is that of miraculously and personally indwelling every believer. Then the Spirit can begin to direct the believer, with or without the word.

But the word of God says that the Spirit toils today by means of his great spiritual and literary feat, the Bible, that is, his sword (Eph. 6:10-20). He supplies the engrafted word which is able to save the souls of men (James 1:21) and justifies man by faith which comes by hearing the word of God (Rom. 5:1; 10:17). The Spirit dwells in a saint as the other persons of the Godhead do (1 John 4:12; Rom. 8:10; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27)  not personally, but representatively through his word and its effect.

Our Calvinist author never misses a chance to extend the devil’s faith-only invitation, either. “If you are willing to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord of your life, then invite Him in or, as the Bible says, `Call upon the name of the Lord.’ Salvation is not a long and tedious process  it is an instantaneous experience” (114). Now, LaHaye’s temperament doctrine is founded on his own false premise. Salvation in the Bible is termed obedience (Rom. 16:26) and our example of calling on the Lord requires the supplicant to act, not simply experience. Ananias told Saul, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). LaHaye would lead the reader to confess belief and work on his temperament, but never move a muscle toward “tediously” obeying the gospel that Jesus preached (Mark 16:16, 1 Thess. 1:7-8).

Later, he recounts another “experience” in which he instructs a young man to get down on his knees and pray to be saved. “When he finished, he sat down and began to weep . . . Then it was that I saw the evidence of the working of God’s Spirit in his life as a new Christian . . .” (123). But Saul also sorrowed and even prayed, but was not yet saved, nor endowed with any power from the Holy Spirit, when Ananias asked him why he was waiting and told him to “arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16; cf. Acts 9:17-18). Without a single passage of Scripture and without invoking the gospel, “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom.1:16), LaHaye supposedly watches as the Holy Spirit invades this man’s heart and miraculously redirects its desires. Make no mistake, LaHaye teaches the temperament student that Bible study is helpful, but the Holy Spirit will find a way to change a man even without Scripture.

Like an infomercial, LaHaye packs the end of his tome with “before and after” testimonials to the power of his doctrine. He tells of using the temperament control of the Holy Spirit as a “supernatural source to change the angry disposition of man.” Another young man was healed in a single counseling session on marital problems. “As soon as he was seated, he went into an angry, 25-minute description of all the misery his wife had caused him and how psychotic she was. When he had finally unburdened him-self, I began to present to him the gospel of Jesus Christ in the form of the Four Spiritual Laws, which my 16-year-old daughter had introduced to me as the result of her training at a Campus Crusade for Christ conference. Because I had noticed that the Holy Spirit had used this method of presenting Christ in the lives of others, I wanted to try it” (122).

LaHaye accuses the Spirit of God of blending pop psychology with the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul preached “Christ and Him crucified” and excoriated those who “want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal 1:7). LaHaye says the Holy Spirit has adopted the temperaments in a latter day shift of doctrine for a faith that was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

That brings up an interesting point. The father of temperaments, Hippocrates, lived 400 years before Christ, which gave the Holy Spirit plenty of time to study his doctrine and adopt its terminology and potential for God. Those 400 years were a time of silence, so surely he could have been listening and taking notes. The Holy Spirit uses all sorts of common situations as analogies and parables in the New Testament (1 Tim. 5:18). Even some of man’s poems and hymns are apparently introduced to illustrate divine principles (Tit. 1:12). Why then are the pages of the New Testament lacking descriptions like sanguine and choleric?

LaHaye begins to conclude The Spirit-Controlled Temperament by promising that the “Holy Spirit will automatically introduce new traits and characteristics into an individual’s nature” (126). It is not so much that we will grow as disciples of Christ by keeping his commandments (John 14:15) or by becoming good workmen through careful biblical study (2 Tim. 2:15). It is that we can simply let go and let God do the work. LaHaye’s Calvinistic tendencies win out in the end. Salvation, even self-help, is an automatic work of an invasive and hypnotic Holy Spirit.

“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8).

When it comes to books like The Spirit-Controlled Temperament, ask if you are really reading your Bible so much that you have time to seek spiritual growth in the philosophies of men. And what truth do you expect to find there that you cannot find in the Bible?

Guardian of Truth XL: No. 15, p. 14-15
August 1, 1996

By Paul K. Williams

“Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:12, NASB).

Tupos, the Greek word translated “example,” is an interesting word. Liddell & Scott define it: a blow; the mark of a blow, the impress of a seal, the stamp of a coin, a print mark of any kind; tupoistibou the prints or tracks of footsteps.

This pictures an interesting process. An engraver wishes to leave the impression of something, let’s say the outline of a horse, in clay. The artisan fashions the “type” (one meaning of tupos) in metal and fixes it on the end of a piece of wood. He positions the engraving over the unhardened clay and hits the wood a sharp blow. When he takes away the metal, he finds an impression of the horse in the clay. This is an “example.”

If the clay is without flaw and of the right consistency, and if nothing causes the type to slide when it is hit, the outline of the horse will be very good. It will be almost a perfect likeness of the type.

Paul commands Timothy to be the example. Christ is theone who presses down the type, while the word of God is the form which makes the impression on his heart. If he allows his heart to be soft and open to the impression of the word, the result will be an almost perfect replication of what a Christian should be  an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Timothy will be an example of what Christ intends to form in us all.

By being such an example, Timothy will show to others what they also can and should be. They can look at him and see Christ. Paul wrote, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).

Every Christian should be a tupos. But if we harden ourselves, the word of God will not impress itself on us and change us as it should. If we slide around and do not allow the word of God to be applied exactly as it should be, we will not be a good example. It is up to us to be open to what God’s word says and allow it to shape our lives in every respect. Then we will be examples in speech, con-duct, love, faith, and purity to those who believe.

Guardian of Truth XL: No. 15, p. 9
August 1, 1996