Just Another Day In The Apostasy: When Perps Blame Victims ..

There are like 640 posts here in the system I need to finish and actually post. Ay, chihuahua.

Alright, not quite that many. But life has truly been coming at me fast and I've ridden the crest of just now. So I'm going to attempt to start catching up on these long delayed works. I know, I know, I've been saying that off and on for the past few years but when reality in the present tense works on you, you have to go with it.

So in the next few days, we'll see how often I can get back into a daily discipline of blogging about the apostasy at hand which this blog is devoted to. But for now, let's reflect briefly on the recent loathesome chutzpah of convicted felon, sexual deviant and of course ex-pastor Jack Schaap shall we?

Schaap would be the former pastor of Hammond's First Baptist Church (FBHC), who was the heir to the Jack Hyles megachurch fundamentalist empire and who played his hand very badly. You see, when you become leader of one of the flagship churches of fundamentalism, a culture that makes branding itself more Christian than Christianity itself its obsessive self-focus, you simply shouldn't get caught doing what you castigate the world outside your immediate circle for doing. And that's to exploit and use young girls like play things while clutching the Superman cape about you .. certainly a "discipline"  learned at the knee of his mentor.

Hyles, while erecting a personal facade of ultraorthodox purity and fidelity to true Christianity, encouraged an idolatry around his fundamentalist vision and authoritarian control that turned the church into an abusive organization filled with secrecy, legalism and manipulation. His long-standing affair with a woman who attended FBCH has long been completely denied by Hyles to the day of his death in 2001. The sheer hypocrisy of Hyles was completely lost on his well-indoctrinated flock who were taught to look the other way and to continue to uphold "the man of God" as the center of their universe, never questioning his manufactured holiness and excoriating all who might question it as puppets of Satan.

But Schaap, found that he couldn't snap the whip to drive his followers as well as Hyles did, although his legendary demonstration of how to polish a shaft before his entire church as an object lesson of faith building certainly was an attempt to do so. When incriminating evidence came out that he was having decidedly unclerical relations with a teenage girl, it was discovered it had been an ongoing perpetration with her, and within a couple of years, he was defrocked, indicted and convicted for his crime and is now serving some hard time.

But, and we come to the really icky part, not if Reverend Jack Schaap's assertion is believed. That is to say, not unless we all learn that his victim was actually responsible for seducing him and this none of this was really his fault due to mitigating circumstances. That's if his recent filing is believed by the judge who put him away.

Incredible, but true. Following the modern evolution of scandal as played out by the deviants of our day, as we see it in this apostate age, the perpetrators brazenly and unashamedly will accuse their powerless victims of being responsible for their perversion.

You can't, as they say, make this stuff up. Here's the grotesque details.

I hope Judge Lozano gives him another 10 or 20 just to think about how pathetic his complaint is. He can polish his shaft all he wants to in the darkness of isolation there. Hopefully, he'll repent and not find outer darkness closing in on him. That kind separation is eternal, fiery and unending. Jack Schaap's disgusting defiance of the judgment on earth he's incurred will be rudely interrupted by an eternal one far more literally damning than any "hell" he's face in prison might be if he doesn't repent.

Why False Teaching Is To Be Called Out In The Church

Exclusion of false teaching from among the Christian congregation is a Biblical command when it comes to truth. You cannot get around it. We call it out because we are called to do so by Scripture.


Ephesians 5:11

11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

There are indeed false teachings delivered by false teachers that the Church is to discern and reject for the sake of the spiritual health of the congregation and the preservation of Biblical truth. It's done through the tough, unglamorous but vital discernment of unbiblical falsehood and a publicly revealing and refutation of it. Too many churches turn into authoritarian cults or havens of dead, frozen irrelevant orthdoxy when the errors of false teachers are not challenged and corrected by Scripture by the power of the Spirit of God.

The dialogue that should occur during discernment is actually an act of faith, not intolerance, hate or any of the foolish deprecation that those who are so questioned like to sling right back. Those laboring under error are to be admonished and if they choose to remain in their error, they are to be shown as such. The Bible makes clear that correction of error is to be done with longsuffering and doctrine, as well as reproval and rebuke (2 Timothy 4:2). It is meant to be redemptive and restorative and engaged in civil dialogue (2 Timothy 2:22-26) but when the admonitions are ignored, these who Scripture calls "HERETICAL" are to be put away from among the church (Titus 3:10)

My rocky relationships to those in the church I've called out over the years weren't made rocky overnight. I've contended with many professing Christian teachers for several years over their falsehood. They got ugly because they cannot handle being called out. This was not the case with them when I first met them in a variety of venues and tried to dialogue with them after coming to observe their unscriptural teaching. The heat expressed in their rancor increases with the additional light of Scriptural truth I've had to display. 

I don't hate any of them and in other instances we might be civil face to face, but I won't back down from what Scripture says about being exclusive with those who make truth a chess piece on their boards.

The New Testament's record on how this is done is plain, direct and unambiguous apostolic mandate. The language is indeed exclusionary. It may offend our inclusive Western mindset, and it doesn't seem to keep the heat level down, but that comes with the Biblical territory.

Read Jude 3-4. The verses described defending the faith as a full contact contention with the sneaky wiles stealthy men who slip into the church to distort and warp the Faith. An apostle commanded through an Epistle for the church to have that kind of passion. The sleeping church of today doesn't begin to come to grips with that kind of command. We don't do personal evangelism, tithe properly, pray and study as we should either, keep ourselves holy, so that's not surprising.

But boy do we want to be NICE and unoffensive. That's the new holiness of the age.

Acts 20:28-31

28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Here is the great apostle Paul who, with tears, constantly warned the entire Ephesian church to "take heed" of those he called wolves who would enter in to divide them with speech of perversity and polarization around their own lust for leadership and authority. That Pharisee of the Pharisees wept "day and night" for 3 years over this. Don't tell me you aren't supposed to be passionate about truth and protecting the church! He used the very same expression Jesus used in Matthew 24:4 when he said to "take heed lest no man deceive you."

Years later, the apostle's admonition to watch out for these characters took a decidedly exclusive explication:

Romans 16:17-18

17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

Spiritual deception, division and offence coming by false doctrine spewed by false teachers is a spiritually destructive influence. The apostle begs the church to "mark" (or identify) those who labor under this malign spirit and to completely avoid them. In this Laodicean era of vast compromise, where backslidden churches, dangerous cults and deceptive claims are able to be media-magnified and replicated a thousand fold instantaneously, the need to address this is just as critical, crucial and necessary.

Don't look at me narrowly. It's what the Word says.

1 Timothy 4:1-7

1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. 4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5 for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. 7 But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

The work of a minister is not just to preach the Gospel but to defend it against backslidden and errant men and women who, upon departing from the Faith, will preach doctrines of devils in hypocrisy that are to be refused (there's that exclusion again. How intolerant those apostles get). Putting the Church in remembrance of this end times peril is a testimony to the worthiness and integrity of a minister. Those who would rather just play this down are tools of the very devils they think they have underfoot. I could go on to cite other verses from the Bible about this, but we'll leave it at that.

Now, just why "others" choose to include among the flock of the Lord these wolves in sheep's clothing boils down to one of several reasons, which I list off the top of my head in no particular order.
 
They want to be 
1) Nice 
2) Open Minded 
3) Dont Want To Seem Intolerant 
4) Are Biblically illiterate or 
5) Delusional About Deception..

I don't think I need to unpack that any further other than to say one can be so open minded to the point of ventilation when their brains fall out, along with any semblance of discernment. You'll have to ask those who want to violate Scriptural precept on this why they choose to do it.

They will answer to God for their folly .. and I will answer to God for my attempt to keep the flocks of God warned. I think I'll sleep better at night for what I do. I may not please men, but that's not what I'm here for. I may not do it perfectly, but I do what I know the Spirit empowers me to do.

1 Timothy 4:16

16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.