“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (II Ti. 4:3f.).
The time Paul refers to in the above passage is upon your land today. Though some continue to hunger for sound doctrine, their numbers are lessening in proportion to the population’s migrating toward less doctrinal teaching. Scores of those within the church have hardened their hearts toward the grace of God’s simple gospel.
God says many churchmen are transferring to less biblical churches because they want their ears tickled. They seek what agrees with their own lusts and have come to hate the only medicine that will cure their true disabilities. The church is populated with fickle hearers whose selfish blindness itches their perverted tastes. God said through the prophet Jeremiah, “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so!” (Jer. 5:31).
God’s warning to His bride is that they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires rather than His desires. The hearer makes himself the measure of who should teach and what teaching is acceptable rather than looking to God’s word. Perhaps Christendom is in need of an angel from heaven to come down and trouble the pool of Christendom so people will want to be plunged afresh into the waters of the true church. Many preachers and teachers motor through the Lord’s parish clothed in the wool of the lamb, but they do not feed the flock. These preachers and teachers may be well-intending, but they are actually turning aside the ears of those lambs under their care from the word of truth.
God’s biblical truth requires the proclamation of sin, judgment, damnation and hell as well as the hopeful rainbows of heaven. Many teachers are sincere in wanting to bring others into God’s kingdom, but it appears the church is becoming more impoverished rather than graced by the approach of its ministers. The moral demise within the culture flows from the sewers of the church and the accompanying intellectual decay in the society is a natural complement to failing to present the whole counsel of God.
Robert Bruce’s 16th Century preaching in Scotland allowed the people to note a contrast between one who preaches with authority and the others who preach for the smiles of the congregation. Robert Murray McCheyne cautioned people to follow the word of God rather than those professing to be God’s ministers: “A minister will make a poor saviour in the day of wrath…. You need to have your hand on the head of the Lamb for yourselves. You need to have your eye on the brazen serpent for yourselves.”
Numerous preachers and teachers have been deceived into believing they can accommodate the church and the word of God to the world. Those so attempting this vice have unchurched and unholied many because they attempt to nullify the distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous – they expand the heirs of grace beyond God’s doctrinal defining.
Both the beauty and success of a church is measured in the depth of transformed lives, the holiness of its members, the nearness of her doctrine to Scripture and the glory she offers to the Trinity. The true church is being strengthened by the present storms, fires and floods of mal-teaching because God the Spirit shall bring His bride nearer to godliness and the accompanying worldly criticism in order to purge out of her the profaneness of her membership. Difficulties within Christ’s church remove earthly dust from her pulpits, teaching stations and offices so that her loveliness is made evident. When she is sifted by others claiming Christianity, the barnacles of this perishing ocean of sin are scrapped away.
Many saints are discouraged by what they witness in God’s church and among those professing loyalty to Him. You should be concerned and you should be battling the malpractice of Christianity you witness in the church as well as your church. Nonetheless, remember Jesus’ promise: “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it” (Mt. 16:18). The bride, the wife of the Lamb, shall be presented to the Holy One most perfect in the heavens, and all of the powers and thrones and dominions of this world shall discover themselves without any value for their purpose in the building of Christ’s kingdom shall have been served.
