“It’s just a movie.”
“Take off your ‘religious glasses’ and just enjoy the spiritual experience.”
These are several comments I’ve read from those who defend The Shack.
If I wore religious glasses I’d have to take them off so I could weep.
Have you ever reached the place where you know that nothing you say matters anymore? To realize that there’s no way to open the eyes of those who refuse to see? When you hit that low spot you suffer a sense of helplessness that transcends hopelessness.
That’s where I am.
Those, (and that means both of you) who have read this blog for the past five years know that I have spoken out in as many ways I know how to pull words together against the slow poison of New Age and how so close to the real deal it is those without discernment cannot see just how counterfeit it truly is. Since I have run out of words and, for that matter, tears, I am going to share a link to a 40 minute sermon from someone who says it all in the clearest of language.
I share this in this quiet place to all but in this era of attraction to the siren call of good for goodness sake, my heart is hurting knowing that it’s really just for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
If you have even a grain of doubt, a tiny catch in your gut, watch this. What’s 40 minutes? If you are satisfied that God doesn’t care what we fill ourselves up with, then ignore this warning. But know this - the five foolish virgins were not pagans but believers who were too busy with distractions to keep their lamps filled. They were told, “I never knew you.”
I'll say this one more time - get it or don't.
For Him,
Meema
A friend gave me this book when it came out. I started reading it but it didn’t grab me so I never finished it or even thought about it again. Then I read a few comments in a Christian forum discussing the movie and I was curious so I did a search for more perspective. I was actually shocked by what I found. I have to agree, based on what others smarter than me have said that it is a gentle pull to universalism - all roads lead to God.
ReplyDeleteAs a Christian, even if the world wants to label me arrogant, as you said, I believe the only way to God is by Jesus. I know we live in a world that wants to shame us into silence because the new view says we have to embrace everything, including all religions or be labeled unloving, but I see this as very dangerous.
One quote I found in my search (I don’t remember where I found it) summed it up for me. “There’s no doubt that THE SHACK is a calculated attempt to be all things to all people, which inadvertently offers nothing substantive. Regardless, many Christians who might embrace the movie or the book don’t necessarily embrace (or even know about) the heresies in THE SHACK.”
BTW, I have been reading your blog for several years I just don’t comment much.
VL
I think that quote does sum it up with one thing I could add - that many Christians ‘will not recognize the heresies’ is the real danger. Of late I have been concerned that how much evil in the world is not the threat - there has always been evil. The turning point, historically, that place where God says, NO MORE, has always been when His people begin to fall away or be seduced away by what I’ve referred to as ‘Parallel Truth’. It looks good, it shines like gold, but it’s fake and deadly.
DeleteI don’t have a ministry but still I can’t stop from preaching to the choir when I see that the choir is taking the sweet bait. I equate satan’s call to being like cocaine - feels so good but then there’s hell to pay.
Thanks for reading. I throw seeds to the wind and let God determine where they land. :-)
As VL stated, I also was given the book to read years ago and just put it aside. I wasn't certain what I thought of it. Recently, after a forty-day fast, the Lord asked me to pray prostrate on my face before Him. Honestly it was difficult to do, so I set a timer then kept increasing the time until now I no longer need that. God has been showing me Who He is (of course in a measure I can handle). Pure Love. Pure Truth. Pure Justice. Pure Mercy. To say it is overwhelming is an understatement. I have a new appreciation of what the Word means when it says in Proverbs: I love them that love Me; and those that seek Me early shall find me. And again in Jeremiah: You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.
ReplyDeleteMichael Boldea's teaching of climbing the mountain - some are content at the bottom, some half way up and others press on to the top - has a new significance for me.
Scripture is clear on this point. When we stand before Jesus, claiming wonderful things in His Name, the deciding question is: Does He know me? "Depart from Me I never knew you" should burn in every true believer's heart.
If it is not God's Word that "moves" a person or makes them "feel" something, what good is it? Knowing that Jesus knows me by name is all the "moving" and "feeling" I desire.
"If it is not God's Word that "moves" a person or makes them "feel" something, what good is it? Knowing that Jesus knows me by name is all the "moving" and "feeling" I desire."
DeleteThere it is - in a nutshell. I don’t know how it could be said more clearly.
The struggle in this age is ‘hyper-feeling-ism’. Everything has to be over the top now to stimulate emotions because we’ve been conditioned to that level. This generation is so easily bored and accustomed to being roused to a form of heightened consciousness that they are easily swayed by flash, dash and boom or enticed by tugs on that place in the human spirit that desires to be praised for being good. Good for goodness sake is not God’s good though. It falls way short.
I, too, just want to know He knows me by name. :-)
Thank you for sharing this here. I haven't read the book nor watched the movie, but I did go to the website of the author to see what he had to say, it left me feeling uneasy. Like you, my heart is broken that many are believing this is good and pure, when it is candy coated poison, New Age. satan reveals himself as an angel of light.
ReplyDelete