On doctrines

In every age the church is threatened by heresy,
and heresy is bound up in false doctrine .

It is the desire of all heretics to minimize the importance of doctrine.
When doctrine is minimized, heresy can exercise itself without restraint.

Unfortunately in our culture, with Hollywood images and sounds dominating much of our minds, when we hear words like Heresy, it conjures up flashbacks of movie scenes of people (usually idiots) accusing others of “Heresy”. It has been a word that has been minimalized, making light of the serious nature of the word.

But in regards to how and why it is being used here by Dr. Sproul, is the subject at hand.
At this point I think it is important to point out that most Heresy does not start out as an in-your-face type of an issue.

Take a look at how Jehovah Witness started out.
A kid did did not like what the Bible said about Hell. So he started to re-interpret the Bible to exclude Hell. By the way, this is still the most preferred way of straying off the path of light, trivializing or just plain ignoring Hell and Gods Righteousness.

Why just within these last 24 hours there has been a quote by “America's Pastor” Mr. Rick Warren.
http://watcherslamp.blogspot.com/2010/04/twitter-scripture-twisting-with-rick.html
Above is a link to a BLOG with the “Tweet” screen shot, right from Mr. Warrens Twitter page.
Again misquoting Scripture I a way that intentionally does not show the context of what this Scripture is really saying. In fact, he completely inverts it to make it say the opposite so that it will be more pleasing to the opposite crowd it was meant for.

And many Churches and so-called Pastors are doing this same thing.
Before I continue, let me state here that there are Churches and Pastors that do Preach the Word of God and adhere to sound doctrines.
But this is addressing the Wide American gospel Path that is so prevalent.

I heard a phrase coined about Rick Warren's Theology. It was called “File Cabinet Theology”, that is where one would pull it out of their file cabinet and say... “Yes, I subscribe to that Theology”, then they file it away, and it is never present in the Theology they present... But they claim to be part of it.

Personally I have sen many Church Doctrines, and on the paper that are good Doctrines, but when in this pulpit, they teach a doctrine that is not only different, but is diametrically opposite to what they claim.

Then there is the ever popular, and growing, don't use doctrines they divide, saying!
And it is true, they do divide. When properly applied, they separate the sheep from the goats. And although we are called to preach the Gospel to every one, we are not called to worship with those of a different gospel.

No where in Scripture will you find it said that we should worship in an all inclusive manner with peoples believing different Gospels, in fact we are called and responsible to separate ourselves from them.

Now notice I used the term Gospels, rather than Doctrines. But Doctrines are nothing more than a defining of what the Gospels teach. They are what separates a Mormon from a Christian,or a believing that Gods Grace paid for sin, and that works are useless, as opposed to a works based faith such as Catholicism.

This is the tip of what I believe to be the biggest iceberg in American Christianity from Biblical Christianity.