Monday, June 26, 2006

The Power and Danger of Deception

In order to understand the full force of this message, a brief introduction is necessary:

This sermon was preached at a church that had been falling into a deceptive doctrine called the "Third Day". The problem with the Third Day doctrine was detected when I attended several classes on the subject, learning that the direction of this particular teaching stressed the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ not in bodily form, but rather in the Church, the body of Christ. The teaching further stated that the beginning of the Third Day, or the third millenium, had begun some time in the late 20th century, ushering in the thousand year reign of Christ here on the earth, where the saints of God (those who believe in the Third Day and rise up in their new resurrected bodies) will rule and reign in the world, as if God is ruling through them. This teaching blatantly overlooks all Scriptures pertaining to the great and terrible Day of the Lord, the coming anti-Christ and the great tribulation, the covenant God has with His people Israel, the resurrection of those who are dead and the physical coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of these, they say, have symbolically already happened, except for the coming of the Lord, which they say will happen once the Kingdom is established upon the earth by the Church. However, the teaching uses up all Scriptures referring to Christ's coming and places them upon the Church, and therefore has no grounds to support this claim. It is rather a way to appease observant critics in this early stage of the doctrine.

The worst thing about this teaching is that those who teach it admit they do not even know how to defend such allegations. This doctrine takes a strictly postmillenial view toward Scripture, which is an unusual and modernistic idea that arose in the later part of the 20th century; yet teachers of the Third Day have confessed they do not know anything about postmillenialism, showing that they themselves do not know what they are getting into. It is a doctrine in it's infancy stages, making it sound quite safe and innocent right now, but if you follow it's pattern of thinking you will find the teaching of the Third Day leads to severe consequences.

I love dearly all those who have so far been teaching this mistaken doctrine. I love dearly the pastor of the church in which this sermon was preached and only pray that by way of this humble and inadequate admonition, men and women within the body of Christ would stir themselves to watching and prayer, becoming vigorous students of the Word of God, quick to discern truth from error, and that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and His eternal gospel would advance throughout our lifetime. Download "The Power and Danger of Deception" below:

Eli Brayley - The Power and Danger of Deception

5 comments:

SermonIndex.net said...

tremendous message brother Eli, spoke much encouragement and edification into my life. And the doctrinal teaching on the end times was very good. Praise God.

Luke Coughey said...

Okay Eli, Portugal is done now. You can start blogging again.

Eli said...

Haha.

I've been much wanting to post but there are two reasons for the slow updates:

1. Computer access limited to short breaks at work

2. Computers at the university do not work well with blogger.com

Nevertheless, I will endeavor to increase the posts on the site.

God bless!
-Eli

Cyrr said...

Germany - Portugal in Stuttgart (where I live, by the way). Come over. 100.000+ fans will be on the street and cheering for the teams.

Cyrr said...

The game starts in 30 minutes...may the best team win...greatings to your father Eli. I'm sure he is watching :)