The Internet Front of the Truth War is an Ugly Place

by Mike Ratliff

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. (John 8:44-45 ESV)

deceive: to be false; implies imposing a false idea or belief that causes ignorance, bewilderment, or helplessness

mislead: implies a leading astray that may or may not be intentional

delude: implies deceiving so thoroughly as to obscure the truth

No one but God is perfect. We all make mistakes. We all sin. Likewise, none of us, of ourselves, can stand the full judging light into our thoughts, actions, and motives. However, God is none of these things. His Word is perfect. Those in Christ are regenerate and have the Holy Spirit. Even with this, they are not perfect and still sin and make mistakes. However, it is vital for us understand this, God has given His truth to man and He has raised up some to stand in the gap before what is false.

On March 3, 2009 Chris Lyons posted an article on the CRN.info based on Christ’s letter to the church in Philadelphia from Revelation 3:7-13. The part of the article dealing with a statement by our Lord in which He mentioned the “Synagogue of Satan” was used by Chris to accuse those who are associated with CRN as being the 21^st Century embodiment of it. That began several rebuttles by many of us. I responded with A Letter to the Church in Philadelphia on March 4^th and What is the Synagogue of Satan on March 5^th. The emails and comments were a bit heated pertaining to the second post. After that I thought things were calming down again so over the weekend I posted a couple of articles on Biblical Authority: The Divine Foundation of Authority and Unquestionable Authority both based on articles from the March issue of Tabletalk magazine. 

On Sunday afternoon, I was asked to partake of a discussion on another forum in which Richard Abanes was “discussing” things with its members. I asked a few questions of Mr. Abanes and received a few responses and that was about it. I had several email exchanges with a friend at that site, and still do. These email conversations deal a great deal with how ugly things are getting on the truth front everywhere and especially on the Internet. On Monday, another friend and I were talking about Richard Abanes post on his site in which he accused most of us at CRN of all sorts of things. Ken Silva also mentioned that I needed to go look at it. In this post Mr. Abanes basically accused all of us being unregenerate. My friend and I were discussing this later and I was still a bit angry, which is not a good thing when discussing these things. I told her in a rash of verbiage what I thought of him, and then forgot about it. In that rash statement I repeated to her things I thought of Mr. Abanes that were the very things he had stated about us in that article. While my flesh can justify such a thing, my conscience cannot.

Some accused me today of being liar and hypocrite because of that statement. I had to go back to that post where the comment was to find it. I decided to edit it out, but later I decided that that was dishonest so I put the statement back the way it was. No excuses. That was a mistake and a sin and I ask all involved to forgive me for doing that.

Now, back to what this whole discussion is about. Ken Silva told me today that some former friends had turned on him and were now accusing him of hypocrisy, et cetera. I looked at the posts and comments in question and then realized, as Ken did, that our enemy, Satan, is working very hard in all of this to divide those who stand for the truth. I could not believe how petty these conflicts are becoming. Ad Hominem attacks is now the order of the day. These are personal attacks and are not proper as a form of debate. In fact, I have a rule on my blog against such a thing. I will delete any comment that uses them as a form of argument against the “truths” being discussed.

As far as continuing to stand for God’s truth in this war, I will continue. I will not employ these personal attacks and I ask all reading this to commit to the same. We must reason from God’s Word alone. Any who attempt to take over the discussion forum on my blog by using these attacks will find their comments deleted. At the same time, I commit to being a great deal more careful about what I say during those times when dealing those who are bound and determined to derail our stand in this truth war. Things are getting very ugly, but we do not have to contribute to that. Yes, by God’s grace we will prayerfully continue to stand against false prophets and their teachings using God’s Word as our source of His truth. We will continue to teach what is true to God’s People while resisting that which is false.

Soli Deo Gloria!