Monday, September 24, 2007

A Few Grains Of Error

I woke up this morning, and started leafing through one of my old notebooks, reading a few excerpts here and there and meditating on the Word. Since early childhood I've been in the habit of writing down interesting ideas, snippets from books, short sentences, and other bits and pieces in notebooks, and I have amassed quite a collection of what I considered to be moving and introspective wisdom.
As I was leafing through one of the notebooks this morning, I happened upon a passage written by a man by the name of Joseph Charles Philpot, who died in 1869. As with most words of wisdom his words as pertaining to the following paragraphs are timeless, and since I could not have worded it better myself, I will quote the man outright.

"No one can take even a few grains of error with impunity - it will stupefy - if it does not kill; it will weaken the soul - if it does not at once destroy life. It will and must affect his head or his heart - his hands or his feet - his faith or his walk. No man can drink down error and the spirit of error without being injured - his spiritual strength weakened - and his spiritual limbs paralyzed.
We are to beware of error as we would of poison! There is something in error alluring, as well as sweet to the carnal mind. Many a child has been allured by poisonous berries - first to taste, and when tasted, their sweetness has drawn it on largely to eat. Let error once hang down its alluring berries from the pulpit - there are plenty in the congregation to pluck and eat. Therefore beware of error - and of erroneous men! I am jealous of error in proportion as I love and value the truth." Joseph Charles Philpot (1802-1868)

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen! Thank you for this word! There is no such thing as "eat the meat and spit out the bones". Jesus and Paul said error is like leaven - it works through the entire lump of dough - there is no separating it out. You cannot say, "well, so much of what he says is true and good, and I can discern the parts that are wrong, so it won't hurt me to listen..." No! You are ingesting poison! Knowing about the poison doesn't make it any less lethal! This is why the Lord commanded the children of Israel, when they left Egypt, to eat only unleavened bread for a week, to purge themselves of the leaven of Egypt - a type of the world. And to do this every single year, forever, as a reminder - get rid of all leaven you may have with you and feed only on the pure Word of God, on Jesus Himself - plus nothing.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Michael. I needed that.

Anonymous said...

OH HOW I NEEDED THAT, YOU'LL NEVER KNOW..GOD LOVE YOU YOUNG BROTHER MICHAEL

Anonymous said...

I have often been told by people 'just hang onto the good and throw out the bad'. David Wilkerson once said, a preacher's message may be 95% 'truth', but it is the 5% which will take you to hell.'