Christian or a great pretender?

Weird, strange teachings are bombing away at our belief systems.  I do not struggle with the obvious non-christian religions who have idols for gods and strange religious beliefs that domninate so much of our world, but my very disturbing struggle is with the growing number of religious groups who claim to be Christian and whose teachings are not Biblical and not Christian at all.

I should not be so surprised because I have been an avid study of last day events as revealed to us in the Bible.  Such scripture passages as Matthew 24 repeatedly warns of an abundance of false teachers, prophets and false christs (1 Timothy 4:1).  But I am.  I am surprised.  I am disturbed.  I am ashamed  because I feel a sense of guilt by association at times with some of these so called Christian organizations that are not Christian at all and yet included in Christian Conferences for unity sake.  They are pretenders.  The truth is there is a very thin line that can exist between true Christianity and the pretenders.  The line is thin but it is there.  The thinness of the line is what gets so many of us in trouble.  Many simply do not know the Bible well enough to see the line and know when someone has crossed to the wrong side in the teachings.

There are many different tests that we can apply to a religious group that can help us.  In so many various ways they give themselves away.  But let me give you a test that can be one of the many you can use.  I have found that most false teachings will fail when this test is applied.  In applying the test you will need to listen carefully to their answers because they are very subtle and will twist and distort their answers.  And they can sound very Christian.

The test?  It centers around just what they believe and teach about Jesus Christ.  Here we go:

     1.  Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?  Yes or no.  No explanation needed.  Yes or no. (Matthew 3:17; Luke 1:35; John 1:14)

     2.  Do you believe that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary?  Yes or no!  (Matthew 1:23)

     3.  Do you believe that the conception was a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit?  (Matthew 1:18, 20 Luke 1:35)

    4.  Do you believe Jesus was born sinless?  (Matthew 1:23)

    5.  Did He live a sinless life?  (1 Peter 2:22)

     6.  Did He die on the cross for the sins of all mankind?  (1 Peter 2:24; Hebrews 2:14)

     7.  Do you believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus?  (John 20:19-29;  Acts 3:15)

      8.  Do you believe He is right now at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us? (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 1:3)

      9.  Do you believe that salvation can be found only in Him?  (Acts 4:12)

      10.  Do you believe He is coming again?  (Acts 1:11)

These are the things you must believe to be called a Christian.  If your answer to any of these questions is no, then you can not call yourself Christian.  This is the ultimate test.

False religions and cults will always fail this test.  Ask a Mormon.  They can not say yes to these questions.  Ask a Jehovah Witness.  They can not.  The INC church fails.  Unitarians?  Fail!  Whatever the name be that a religion may call itself, if they can not say yes to the above ten questions they fall into the category of pretenders to the truth.  They are false teachers, proclaiming a false religion and in the end they have NO SAVIOR.   A Savior is needed.  The Father accepts no one without a Savior and the only one who qualifies to be our Savior is Jesus.   The Father will accept no one else because they can not meet His requirements.

A fourteen member rat church.

I needed to return to Nepal to visit an on going construction of a small orphanage we were building in West Nepal.  As my big Thai plane's wheels touched the tarmac my heart jumped.  It always does when I land one more time in a country I have learned to love.

I spent the night in Katmandu and was picked up early the next morning by my Overseer Ram Paudel.  We caught an early morning flight for a trip to the west where I would visit some churches and look over the small orphanage.  We flew on Air Buddha, a small domestic line I had flown many times. A curious name for an airline.  As you fly west the Himalayans are on the right for about half of the trip.  They then slowly give way to the low lands of the west.  During our flight, Brother Ram and I chatted.  I asked him how many people were required by him to declare a group of people a church.  He said about 30 with 15 baptized members.  Nothing else was said about it.

We landed safely just 10 kilometers from the Indian border and began our day trip in an old four wheel jeep.  This part of the country is extremely hot and dusty.  It is farm land with small very interesting villages.  Buildings are crude and basic.  Life is hard here.  Farming is done mostly by hand.  Harvesting done by ladies bent over the heavy laden heads of rice the entire day.

We stopped by to visit Brother Ram's dad and mom.  Pleasant people living a very hard life.  He farmed a small piece of land he owned.  Before he came to the Lord he was a Hindu priest.  Now a servant of the Lord. The visit was not long, but the memories are good.

Our first visit was to one of our churches of about 300.  The pastor was full of life and very enjoyable to be around.  He laughed a lot.  He showed us various lively hood programs he is helping develop.  From there we went a short distance to the orphanage.  It is still under construction.  We have one more building to build.  Since my visit we have received our first children.  Eight girls from the nearby villages who had lost their parents to war and disease.  Death never seems to be far from these hard places where people fight the hard earth and sometimes fight one another.

From there we visited four other churches.  All were made of clay and stick walls with thatch roofs.  The clay is baked by the hot sun and becomes hard like bricks.  Inside there are mats on the earth floor.  There are no chairs.  Women sit on one side and the men the other.  It is their way.  The ladies always cover their head during prayer time.

There was no worship service in the middle of the day when we stopped at one of the churches.  We met with the pastor and three of his men.  We sat in the church drinking tea and talking about future plans.  While talking we were joined by another young man.  He is in training to pastor a church one day.  I was told he had just come from rat hunting.  I wanted to know a little more about this hunt.  There are 6 to 8 people who hunt together in the fields of the farm land.  Three or four will go to one end of the field and three or four to the other.  They walk toward each other driving the rats as they go.  They find it very easy then to catch the rats.  The rats are not caught for the same reason we might catch them.  They eat them.  He had caught 14.  That was a good harvest.

I pondered this for a moment and then I turned to my overseer and said, "If he had caught one more you could have a rat church since 15 is what you require for a church."  He looked at me for a moment and then began to laugh uncontrollably  He then explained to the others our conversation on the plane and they began to laugh.  We laughed and added to the story for some time enjoying wonderful fellowship in a very poor setting.  The tea was good.

It is not often that cross cultural jokes or humorous story are understood but when it happens it is wonderful.  I still get a reference to the "rat church" ever so often.  We went on to enjoy a great afternoon before flying back to Katmandu.  Wonderful.  Wonderful.  I will return.