Albert N. Martin

Error is a dangerous and deadly thing.

The Scripture teaches
that what you receive in your mind as true,
if it is not true, may damn you.

Luther stood and said,

Here I stand; I can do no other; so help me God.

He did so because he believed
that the lies of Rome were damning the souls of multitudes;
and that only truth could loose them from the grasp of the Prince of Darkness.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
we read these sobering words concerning the influence of Antichrist.

With all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish,
because they received not the love of the truth,
that they might be saved.

For this cause God sends them a working of error,
that they should believe a lie,
that they may all be judged who believed not the truth.

Unless you are immunized against error by a solid infusion of truth,
you may be given up to believe a lie
—a lie that will damn and destroy, with everlasting destruction.

Not only is error deadly for unconverted people,
believers can be wrenched from a course of steadfastness because of error.

Peter warns of this (2 Peter 3:17-18).

Ye, therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand,
beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked,
ye fall from your own steadfastness.

How are we to be kept from that?

Grow in the grace and knowledge.

In other words,

Be immunized against error
by constant and deep exposure to, and absorption of, the truth.

When the Apostle Paul gathered the Ephesian elders together
to give his final charge to them, he said (Acts 20:28-31),

Take heed unto yourselves
and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers,
to feed the church of the Lord, which He purchased with His own blood.

I know that, after my departing,
grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock;
and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,
to draw away the disciples after them.

Wherefore, watch ye.

As Paul contemplated that assembly as a flock of sheep, he said,

I’ll not be long gone, when wolves will begin to seek to come
and take that sheep that’s broken just a little bit away
from the safety of the pack of the whole flock of sheep.

Wolves will come from without.

Then, thinking of them no longer as sheep, but as a congregation of people,
he said,

Perverse men shall begin to rise up from your own ranks,
to draw away disciples after them.

May God use this series of studies,
not only as a compulsion to praise and worship,
but as a powerful immunization against error.

Error cannot exist in the presence of a definitive understanding of the truth
that has become a matter of religious and spiritual conviction.

Error can stand—or error can intrude,
where men may have have burning hearts and fuzzy heads.

Error can stand, where men have clear heads, but cold hearts.

Error cannot stand, when there is a clear head and a burning heart.

The truth should not only lead us to praise and worship (the burning heart);
it should give us a clear head, immunized against error.

Then, for example, when someone says,

Well, I believe in the authority and the inspiration of the Scriptures;
I simply do not hold to inerrancy,

the humblest saint among us, if he is clear-headed,
will be able to spot, and see through, the double-talk
(going on in some of the best of evangelical circles)
that pays lip-service to the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures
but balks at its inerrancy.

You see, you need to be immunized, not just with a burning love for the Book,
but with a clear head concerning what the Book is.

Similarly, with reference to salvation,
it is one thing to have a heart that loves the Savior and runs out in praise to Him;
but we want to understand the nature of that salvation.

Why did it come to me, and not to others?

Is the ultimate difference what I did, or what God did?

If it is what God did, did He do it by accident, or did He do it on purpose?

If He did it on purpose, was the purpose an afterthought,
or was it rooted in His own eternal counsels?

What are we talking about?

We are talking about election;
we are talking about the sovereignty of God in grace.

These are not obtuse themes, essential only for theologians to grasp,
who write their books and stroke their beards.

No, no, my friends.

The flock of God needs to be immunized against error.

Adapted from the series of sermons Here We Stand by Albert N. Martin.
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