The Snare of New Evangelicalism - part 2
Numbers 22-24
The first time the Bible reveals the devil to man is found in Genesis 3. In that chapter we see that the devil is exactly as Jesus said he was in John 8:44. Jesus said the devil is a liar and the father of it. In Genesis 3 we see that Satan changed God’s Word. We need to understand the nature of a lie. Sometimes lies are so blatantly obvious, but many times they are much more subtle. To change God’s Word is to try to turn God into a liar. However, God is not a liar and His truth is absolute and cannot be changed and still have the truth.
Sadly there are many who claim to know the Lord and claim to be following the Lord who think that absolute truth is nowhere to be found and we have to try to seethe the truth out of the broader lie. First of all we are not smart enough to do that. We are born lost sinners and do not have intelligence to be able to pick the truth out of a lie. We tend to leave some of the lie with the truth and thus the whole thing is a lie. This is the snare of New Evangelicalism.
New Evangelicalism (N.E.) is a movement within modern day Christendom that has had a far reaching impact upon many religious organizations. Harold Ockenga is the man who claims to have coined the phrase “New Evangelical” in 1948. He was the cofounder and first president of Fuller Theological Seminary. The philosophy behind New Evangelicalism was to soften the message of the Bible. It was one of many movements that has been influenced and greatly used by the devil to foster confusion in the minds of many people. It suggests that God is not nearly as holy as the Bible says He is and that sin is not nearly as wicked as the Bible says it is. This movement has evolved over the years and has brought many of the churches associated with it to the place where they are simply social clubs today which masquerade as churches.
God is the Creator of heaven and earth. He knows all things and He warns us of many evils in His Word. He is not the author of confusion. He knows the heart of man and warns of the dangers of forsaking Him over and over again in His Word. We have a picture of the philosophy of New Evangelicalism in many places in the Bible. One place that shows it very clearly is found in the account of Baalim. We are first introduced to Baalim in Numbers 22. If that was the only text we had on Baalim, we might conclude that Baalim was a godly man who was simply seeking to do God’s will, although there are things in this account that should raise red flags.