Willful Ignorance of Immanuel Baptist Church & The Virginia Baptist Mission Board

Willful Ignorance

“Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us;
for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.”
(Job 21:14)

“Man’s apostasy began in an affectation of forbidden knowledge,
but is kept up by an affectation of forbidden ignorance.”
– Matthew Henry

We live in a time of great apostasy when many choose to ignore or disbelieve the simplicity of the Gospel of Salvation, the message of the Cross. Many of the new heresies are intricate, complex, always evolving, and “emerging” with new theologies, philosophies, terminologies, eschatologies, ecclesiologies, etc. These false teachings puff up people with pride in their human knowledge and lead them to “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth”(2 Timothy 3:7).

Error-filled teachings reflect an artificial light that beckons to those wandering in darkness. The neon beacon of heresy is alluring, creating warm feelings, and bestows a temporal vision that seduces the believer off the narrow path. But it does not convict man of sin in his heart.

The Gospel is the Light of Truth. Matthew Henry in his Commentary on John 3:1-21 says it is a “terror to the wicked world” and it makes men’s sins manifest, showing them “the evil of their transgressions…. The Gospel has its convictions, to make way for its consolations.” Just as this Gospel light shining into the darkness of men’s hearts “convinces and terrifies evildoers, so it confirms and comforts those that walk in their integrity.”

Matthew Henry declares that those “who do not come to the light” of the Gospel of Salvation have an “antipathy to saving knowledge” and a “damning ignorance.” Harsh words in our era of touchy-feely assuages to the conscience! But it is a fact of human nature that men choose to willfully disregard the Truth, preferring instead the soft comforts of empty assurances and synthetic lights.

Read the rest of this very timely post at Herescope.

Dedicated to The Virginia Baptist Mission Board, who is bringing Tony Campolo to speak to the 185th BGAV Meeting November 11 & 12, 2008. Also dedicated to the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV) churches like Immanuel Baptist of Colonial Heights, Virginia who are silent on the matter.

If the congregations only knew the stew their pastors are cooking.