Doctrines That Free vs Doctrines That Enslave by Kelly Durant
Galatians 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. 11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man 12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
2. One time there was a man on a farm out west that owned an eagle. He put a ring on his ankle and a stake in the ground with a chain attached so the eagle could not fly away. Over several years the eagle had made a big rut in the ground from walking in circles day after day. The man after several years felt sorry for the eagle and one day he decided to set it free. He took off the ring on his ankle and tossed him up in the air. Did the eagle fly away happy? No! It had forgotten how to fly and it landed back on the ground not to explore new land but to return to walk in the same circle of his rut! How symbolic this is of those who forget what flying and freedom are like! How much freedom can a person lose before they forget what it is?
Today it is imperative to have the fire of Holy Spirit for discernment concerning what is truth! Jesus John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me’. The multitudes of people in the world today who do not have discernment over the stances they are being sold are going nowhere but in circles as this unchained eagle was. Freedom is under attack! Unbeknownst by them, the people of the world have been mentally conditioned by the social political and religious manipulators to defend illogical, hypocritical, and enslaving ideas that rob their freedoms. Ideas are like doctrines.
Apathy towards God and others is eroding our freedoms as erroneous postures fill the voids. This story of the chained eagle is tragic because you and I were created by God to fly wild and free like a healthy eagle, to be at the top of the pyramid of nature, to be the rulers and to roam free! But too many people get stuck in a rut refusing to get out of their comfortable misery due to their limited vision and beliefs so they then condemn their own selves to live out sad and pathetic mundane existence! This is because Jesus’ way, truth, and life was not at the center of their lives!
Here is a sad reality, any one of us, being unprepared to recognize false ideas, might entertain some belief or practice that does not coincide with Jesus teachings! I have seen us lose a few people from this Corps over the years and it saddens and disturbs me that someone persuaded them ‘with another gospel’. They convinced them they had something better to offer them than what we have here. But you and I know very well anything beyond Jesus’ simplicity is condemning. Even a Christian not on guard can be potentially deceived by a false premise, an altered belief, or by a doctrine not in line with the general essentials of Christianity. Often when a person falls away from their freedom in Jesus it stems from being broken in spirit or vulnerable, or from conforming to pressure from the pusher of enticing, enslaving arguments.
3. Have you ever noticed how many thousands of groups, religious and secular, follow and teach erroneous presuppositions as benevolent dogma? We must protect our own and focus in on those seeking supposed greener grass, those with a low self-esteem, or those with almost no information concerning the dangers of the ‘agendas’ of the groups in the world to warn them of the dangers. Too many people become enslaved too easily because it is human nature to want to show off knowledge or spirituality! Too many people conform to peer pressure to tolerate abusive systems, be it in a so called church, or in an organization in the world. People tolerate awkward postures for rewards, such as a false sense of being loved, or for money or position, or some conform out of loneliness and a false sense of at least having a purpose to live for. People as well may get into politics, secret societies, or false religions, out of pride to show off they know more than you and have power than you! The good news is a Christian can escape these traps as Jesus brings to ‘whosoever will’ His freedom! Conforming to man’s systems built upon false teachings, premises, and doctrines will force you into a miserable life of oppression and more and more today we see, feel, and suffer from the oppression.
First let’s start off with the positive; the positions, postures, or doctrines, we adhere to which are Biblical, logical, practical, time proven, and Holy Spirit guided. The principles that you and I adhere to as Christians as in the Salvation Army are postures held by a majority of fellow Christians everywhere as well. Legitimate and enduring churches have doctrines based on God’s truth alone. Doctrines in general usually vary over the sacraments, or other traditions, but most everyone will agree on the basics of salvation. I love it that the Salvation Army articulates a basic 11 point doctrine that any Christian can agree with and understand! You must know what you stand for or you will fall for anything!
The Salvation Army Doctrines contain the basics of what a Christian should believe without obliging one to any dubious sacramental practices, elaborate rituals, concocted traditions, or mandated practices invented by man. In the Salvation Army there is no cult figure, no worship of leadership, no false spirituality by those who put on a show and no possibility of an uncontrolled financial gain because there are internal and external controls. The principle requirement is holiness, to live holy, faithful, serving others being an example of a true Christian! And if the uniform seems like too harsh of a rule, just recall that the uniform is simply a way to show that one is dressed to serve others as winning souls to Jesus is the ultimate agenda and goal.
4. In my 20 years with the Salvation Army I have seen dozens of people come and go from our loving serving community church Corps! It affects me and I have felt very sad and sorry for those who fell victim to some other church’s false doctrines. False doctrines are a curse! In Atlanta I recall one time a half dozen members moved over to a small church where they did prophecies over each person. To answer why they left our church, they answered that they felt (notice the word felt) that they had to go with that church’s way because there they were told what their mission would be by prophesy. And then some of them even accused that we had a false doctrine because we did not prophecy over people! Not every place that claims to be a church has truth guided followers of Jesus! It is not by ‘feelings’ but by faith, and not by strange words, prohibitions, sacrifices, sacraments, or self-proclamation that makes one holy!
1 Timothy 4
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; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 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.
More and more so called churches today fit this bill of being a false church as described in these verses! I have observed that they seem to seduce people with the premise that no matter what church one is a part of, they will always accuse that that church and your beliefs are false! Ones that are false, as in the nature of Satan, always accuse the true ones of being false! The people of false churches are always holier-than-thou attacking your devotion to God as nothing belittling what you believe, criticizing your doctrine, good works, and convictions. If you don’t abstain from the things that they do, or if you don’t do things as they do and study their books only written by men then they claim you are false! False churches always claim that they, and only they, have the true doctrine! To clear up the prophecy part, only Jesus and no one else, has the spirit of prophecy and He spoke concerning the future of the world, not over others like a fortune teller. The only 2 times he spoke prophecy to his disciples was concerning how Judas would betray Him, and how Peter would deny Him 3 times. Not very pleasant prophecies, right? It is sad that people in ignorance follow what they are told without investigating deep in the Bible what Jesus really wants us to follow and obey! As Paul says in Gal 1:10 “for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ”.
5. To know about true and false doctrines, everyone must study Galatians! Since the beginning of Jesus ministry our freedom in Jesus has been attacked by those not “in Jesus” and they have been consciously or unconsciously persecuting everyone freed in Jesus to bring them into some kind of submission which according to them is the only way of ‘truth’. Always the converts of these aberrant groups or religions are submitted to rituals, traditions, observances, and practices while forcing one to submit to their rigid dogma.
In the case of Galatians, the believers in that church accepted and believed what they had first heard about Jesus death and resurrection and how He reconciled all races (not just the Jews) forgiving all sins but then a few Jews there felt uncomfortable with this freedom. It felt strange to them to be free from the law and the traditions, so they like the eagle unchained, returned to their rut to impose their previous beliefs on the new believers. They wanted everyone to get circumcised and observe all details of the old law. In other words Jesus alone was not enough to save a person, the person was also going to need them and their priests and their rules, rituals, practices, and doctrines to be saved! This is slavery and Satanic compared to Jesus’ freedom! Paul was right to rebuke them and point out that they are cursed by nullifying` Jesus salvation!
They were preaching another gospel, not the one Paul had given them ‘by the revelation of Jesus Christ’. This is the same problem today, in many places they are preaching ‘another gospel’ and adding to what Jesus had taught making the gospel a manipulation tool to exploit human capital! Manipulators try to get you to jump through their hoops to qualify you as being authentically spiritual. It is our obligation to expose these errant teachers and tell them they are cursed (as Paul expresses it in vs 9) for being usurpers of Jesus freedom! 2 Peter 2:3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
6. Following the wrong doctrine gives a person the illusion that they are having a real faith. But it is a pseudo faith of ‘doing’ instead of ‘being’, harboring the false hope that one can buy God’s favor by climbing up the ladders of requirements. It is a works vs. grace dichotomy and never, never forget that we are people saved only by the grace of Jesus!
Ephesians 2:8 ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works lest any man should boast.’ It is not by anything you can do! Jesus has freed us from laborious processes to gain God’s appeasement!
Being redeemed by Jesus we are truly free! Tell your neighbor right now, “I am free!” Every non-Christian or pseudo Christian cult religion is one of works; it is a rigid enslaving model of discipline and prohibitions, of climbing the ladder of processes, of do-this –never-do -that- read-only-this or we-cast-you-out-to-hell type of structure. These systems of trying to gain God’s favor by works are manipulatingly designed to control every aspect of one’s life; they guilt-trip you, and put you in fear of hell, and in fear of leadership’s severe punishments for not following to the tee their man-made systems. The Kingdom of God structure frees not enslaves!
7. In the verses of Galatians 1 today Paul is attacking those who are enslaving new Christians to become subject to the laws of Judaism contradicting how Jesus fulfilled the law and freed us from them! It is sever that Paul says that those teaching ‘another gospel’ should be ‘cursed’, but contracting Jesus teachings will by default bring a curse. The law was needed, and still is in society to control man’s sinful criminal acts, but spiritually the Christian stance now is the law (referring to the former one of Moses) is to be taken as our teacher and guide but never as what can justify one before God to please Him. The law enslaves, Christ frees! (read all of Galatians)Only obeying Jesus, loving God and others is what fulfills all the law and the prophets!
We have a problem with man’s laws today as many are unjust and dysfunctional. “Freedom, freedom”, a song at the Woodstock concert in the late 1960s epitomized the desire of dozens of millions of youth to be free from the injustices of an abusive system. After 50 years are we any freer? You have to have lived under oppression to value what freedom is! Today my fears are real that people are being lulled to sleep unaware of how they are losing their freedom being pressured to accept politically correct worldly laws and postures deemed necessary for the equality of all or for your own ‘security’. Most people are unaware of how conditioned they have become to the Satanicly oppressive anti-Christian influences robbing their freedoms in almost every sector of society! In the State and church! Jesus said John 8:32 ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’. Only Jesus has the truth to free us! The more Biblical a society is, the more free and trustworthy it is! The experiment to impose laws to condemn Biblical values out of schools and governments is disastrous and now that the state or cult churches are in charge we are reliving slavery and without the chains!
As Christians we have a duty to speak up against any oppression originating from any source, be it secular or religious! What a person believes influences everything! Choosing to be indifferent to the damage false beliefs cause breeds hypocrisy and insanity! Such is the world today! And if social political oppression is not enough, a persistent plague is the oppression of false religious with doctrines that enslaves minds, bodies, and souls!
8. Does freedom matter to you anyway? Why does Paul get so upset at those taking away our freedom in Jesus? Did not Jesus want every person to be free? This implies you and I should be ‘storming the forts of darkness and bringing them down’ as we sing in the Salvation Army! Did Jesus or Paul praise the Romans, politicians, or religious leaders as liberators because they were so eloquent and effective? No! They exposed their oppression and hypocrisy and how they claimed to offer freedom but instead were enslavers of men!
Jesus knew very well that no one could ever live happy if they had to conform to the rules, doctrines and oppressive systems of man! This is why He gave us John 8:32 ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’.
9. Let’s review the Doctrines we adhere to in the Sal. Army. We believe that…
1. That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God; and that they only constitute the divine rule of Christian faith and practice.
2. That there is only one God who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things and who is the only proper object of religious worship.
3. That there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.
4. That in the person of Jesus Christ the divine and human natures are united so that he is truly and properly God, and truly and properly man.
5. That our first parents were created in a state of innocency but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners totally depraved and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.
6. That the Lord Jesus Christ has by His suffering and death made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may be saved.
7. That repentance toward God faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and regeneration by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation.
8. That we are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and that He that believeth hath the witness in himself.
9. That continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.
10. That it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
11. In the immortality of the soul, in the resurrection of the body, in the general judgment at the end of the world, in the eternal happiness of the righteous, and in the endless punishment of the wicked.
Let’s be thankful that these doctrines for the past 150 years have motivated millions of Soldiers, stirred millions of volunteers, and encouraged tens of thousands of Officers to serve God sacrificially all their lives freeing multimillions from poverty, sheltering millions who were homeless, freeing multitudes from drug and alcohol abuse, relieving spiritual oppression and most importantly confirming their eternal souls in salvation through Jesus Christ! We must spread the word, we have a doctrine that is effective and liberating! Beware of impostors! Live free in Jesus!
