A
Look at Ecumenicalism
By Susan Mutch
“…Eliashib the priest, having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our
God, was allied unto Tobiah:
And I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for
Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. And it
grieved me sore: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out
of the chamber.” Neh. 13:4, 7-8.
Today’s religious generation is like Eliashib. They open the door for God’s
enemies to dwell among them. It seems that very few share Nehemiah’s discerning
vision and zeal for the purity of the house of God. The scriptures call Eliashib’s
deed “evil.” He likely thought it was benevolent; big-hearted, as would the
ecumenical-minded of today.
Is this “Let’s get together and forget about our differences” and “all paths
lead to heaven” mentality inspired by pure, divine love or is it the slick
subtlety of Satan, perfecting his craft of deception? Indeed, the devil loves
mixture–darkness with light, truth with error. And mixture he has.
We live in the time of the generic “church.” No name brand denominations. “The
Community Church.” “The Bible Fellowship.” Just “believe in Jesus” or pray to
Mary, even sincerely believe in your heart that Buddha or Mohammed is the right
path and we will all end up in heaven. People have been deceived into believing
that it would be rude and narrow-minded not to tolerate, yea, even respect, all
religious notions. But does not the Bible teach us that Jesus is the Way? He is
not one of many ways. One would have to deny this absolute Bible truth to
accept any other way, any other spirit. “Buy the truth and sell it not.” Sell
this truth and you have no gospel.
Truth is absolute, not relative. Truth calls everything outside of it a lie.
This ecumenical spirit would have us respect lies. Not only will Truth not
tolerate error, it reproves it, glad to rescue souls from its path of death
(Prov. 14:12).
The apostle Paul was anti-ecumenical. He feared that the congregation at
Corinth would “bear with” something other than the pure gospel–another Jesus,
another spirit, another gospel. He knew it was a corruption of the true (2 Cor.
11:3-4). Nor did Paul respect as “another way to God” the pagan beliefs of his
day. He called people to forsake them through the preaching of the one and only
gospel of Jesus Christ. He joined no council of religious leaders, other than
in the exclusive church of God, wherein they had one mind and one doctrine. He
held no joint “unity” meetings with pagans or the Judaising factions. The
gospel that Jesus died to bring us is diametrically opposed to any such
confederation. This exclusiveness the devil hates. And this exclusiveness the
ecumenical minded just cannot understand.
This ecumenical move is in direct fulfillment to Bible prophecy. It is another
sign that we are very near the end of time. Rev. 20:7-9 shows this gathering of
the false ways Satan has used through the history of the church to deceive
souls–paganism (newly revived in this last century or so with the New Age
Movement, occultism, witchcraft, humanism and a revival of eastern religions),
Catholicism and Protestantism. Satan has wrath, knowing that his time is short
(Rev. 12:12) and is doing all he can to deceive the multitudes before the final
return of Jesus Christ. This triad of error is gone out “to deceive the
nations” worldwide. It is actually sent by Satan to battle against the truth
and is depicted as surrounding the camp of the saints about, the beloved city,
the church of God.
Many shall be deceived by this pernicious movement, and through its blinding,
deceiving influence “the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (2 Pet. 2:2).
The children of God, who can discern the enemy’s workings, as did Nehemiah, and
refuse to accept or fellowship any false way will be called intolerant,
narrow-minded, unloving, bigoted, divisional, cultish, etc.
While we sincerely love the souls who are ensnared in religious error, we do
hate every false way that binds them (Psa. 119:104, 148). The Bible declares
that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life. Woe unto us if we say there is any
other way; any other truth.
Filed in: Articles • Monday, September 28th, 2009
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