Cry Out America Prayer Rally!

"All Kinds of Strange Teachings" By J.C. Ryle

 "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings! It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them." Hebrews 13:9

      The text which heads this paper is an apostolic caution against false doctrine. It forms part of a warning which Paul addressed to Hebrew Christians. It is a caution just as much needed now--as it was eighteen hundred years ago. Never, I think, was it so important for Christian ministers to cry aloud continually, "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings!"

      That old enemy of mankind, the devil, has no more subtle instrument for ruining souls, than that of spreading false doctrine. "A murderer and a liar from the beginning!" "Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour!"

      Outside the Church, he is ever persuading men to maintain sinful lives, and destructive superstitions. Human sacrifice to idols, gross revolting, cruel, worship of disgusting and abominable false deities, persecution, slavery, cannibalism, child murder, devastating religious wars--all these are a part of Satan's handiwork, and the fruit of his suggestions! Like a pirate, his object is to "sink, burn, and destroy!"

      Inside the Church he is ever laboring to sow heresies, to propagate errors, to foster departures from the faith. If he cannot prevent the waters flowing from the Fountain of Life, he tries hard to poison them. If he cannot destroy the remedy of the Gospel, he strives to adulterate and corrupt it. No wonder that he is called "Apollyon, the destroyer."

"The god of Arminianism" By Augustus Toplady- 1740-1778

I dare say, that, in such an auditory as this, a number of Arminians are present. I fear that all our public assemblies have too many of them. Perhaps, however, even these people, idolaters as they are, may be apt to blame, and, indeed, with justice, the absurdity of those who worship idols of silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. But let me ask: If it be so very absurd, to worship the work of other men’s hands what must it be, to worship the works of our own hands? Perhaps, you may say, "God forbid that I should do so.". Nevertheless, let me tell you, that trust, confidence, reliance, and dependence, for salvation, are all acts and very solemn ones too, of divine worship: and upon whatsoever you depend, whether in whole or in part, for your acceptance with God, and for your justification in his sight, whatsoever, you rely upon, and trust in, for the attainment of grace or glory; if it be any thing short of God in Christ, you are an idolater for all intents and purposes.

Very different is the idea which Scripture gives us, of the ever-blessed God, from that of those false gods worshipped by the heathens; and from that degrading representation of the true God, which Arminianism would palm upon mankind. Our God (says this Psalm, verse the third) is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he pleased. This is not the Arminian idea of God: for our free-willers and our chance-mongers tell us, that God does not do whatsoever he pleases; that there are a great number of things, which God wishes to do, and rags and strives to do, and yet cannot bring to pass . . . Is their god the Bible God? Certainly not. Their god "submits" to difficulties which he "cannot help" himself out of, and endeavors to make himself "easy" under millions and millions of inextricable embarrassments, uncomfortable disappointments, and mortifying defeats. . . .This said scheme ascends, on the ladder of blasphemy, to the mountain top of atheism; and then hurls itself from that precipice, into the gulf of blind, adamantine necessity, in order to prove mankind free agents!

. . .One great contest, between the religion of Arminianism, and the religion of Christ, is, who shall stand entitled to the praise and glory of a sinner’s salvation? Conversion decides this point at once; for I think that, without any imputation of uncharitableness, I may venture to say, that every truly awakened person, at least when he is under the shine of God’s countenance upon his soul, will fall down upon his knees, with this hymn of praise ascending from his heart, ‘Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but to thy name, give the glory’: I am saved not for my righteousness, but for thy mercy and thy truth’s sake.