Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

Christ loves His bride. He loves her and gave Himself for her. He chose her, redeemed her, atoned for her, effectually draws her, sanctifies her, has prepared a place for her, and will return for her.

Christ loves His bride. That truth is comfort to her and ought to strike terror in the hearts of those who claim to speak for Him, yet use her for their own sinful and wicked purposes.

Many have entered among her who seek to turn her heart away, to corrupt her beauty, to conform her into an image of their own making. They claim to hear from God and to know what He wants for her. They lead her by a different way, a different word, a different message. They take what is holy and desecrate it. They distort what is beautiful, for unregenerate men cannot stand in the midst of such beauty that reveals the glory of God. She exposes them for what they are.

So they take up the language of her Lord. They ascend to the pulpit, Bible in hand, claiming to hear from God, speaking words that exploit her love and aim to lead as many as will follow away from Him. They work from within with feigned humility, sometimes even sincere, because they are deceived themselves. That does not make them victims. Wolves are not victims. They destroy, devour, divide, and corrupt the church from within. They set hearts against those who warn that he is a wolf, that his teaching is false, that he is leading people away from Christ and after a different Christ, a different spirit, another gospel.

Christ loves His bride.

The wolf has no fear of God. He may have moments of fear when his conscience accuses him, but he silences it. He goes from bad to worse. He gains the loyalty of the gullible, and from the inside he reshapes the church.

Those who truly belong to Christ, having their minds opened to the truth and informed by the truth, begin to see him for what he is. Though they may not yet name him a wolf or false teacher, they recognize that he is in serious error and seek to turn his heart by way of the truth. They meet with him. By the time they leave, he has made them feel divisive and in need of repentance. Ashamed, they try to set their concerns aside, convincing themselves those thoughts are sinful or unloving. But they cannot.

For the Lord loves His bride.

The more they read Scripture and pray, the more clearly they see the contrast between the Word and what is preached from the pulpit. This time, they do not revisit the matter. They begin to see that among those called the church, the ekklesia, the called out ones, there are few who truly belong to Christ and many who are deceived. Not all are among the true ekklesia. The wolf has invited the goats, and now false converts and unregenerate men lead that local gathering astray by a way falsely called straight.

Christ loves His bride.

With grief and sorrow, many of Christ’s own are pushed out and labeled troublemakers. They must go and seek another local body. But now their eyes are open. No longer gullible, no longer ignorant of the reality that wolves, false teachers, and false prophets are not merely historical or distant, but present, just as Christ said they would be.

Perhaps the reason so many cannot rightly mark a wolf is that their own hearts are troubled to do so. They do not understand and have never been taught the truth of man’s sinful condition. They think man needs mere help or improvement, and so they sacrifice Christ’s bride rather than protect her from wolves. They seek to restore the wolf rather than mark and avoid him. They cannot bear to confront firm conviction under the weight of Scripture, for it feels unloving.

Many of them have never truly heard or understood the reality of human depravity, or the depth of God’s grace. They lack conviction because it feels harsh. Many are working in opposition to Christ yet are most deceived, thinking themselves to be doing great and mighty things for God, imagining that He needs them, that He cannot act unless they partner with Him. They do not know Him. They cannot warn of wolves because they do not recognize them as wolves. They think highly of them, rely on them to tell them what God is saying, and believe they themselves are special, unlike others who do not hear from God. They are deceived. They are helping the wolf devour, deceive, divide, and destroy.

And yet, perhaps in God’s grace, they may see the truth. When they see themselves rightly before Him, it will be terrifying and painful. But His grace will meet them in a way they never knew before. They will understand what it truly means to be washed, to be cleansed by another, to know grace so undeserving. They will see how He loves His bride and that He will bring His own out.

She knows she does not deserve it. The things she said and did in His name, which she thought honored Him, made mockery of His grace as she defended wolves and spoke against those who warned of them. She walked not as one worthy of the effectual calling. She has been undone. She has lost much. But it was all worth it. He has saved her, and she is amazed by His grace.

Now she is more careful with her loyalty, her trust, and her faithfulness. She will not give them to those who lead her away from her Lord. She will be faithful, but not to men who exploit faithfulness. She will be loyal, but to her Lord alone. Her devotion belongs to Him alone, and that devotion will bring division.

And not all division is that which God hates. Some division is good. The true from the false.

And when she is set among His people, His bride, the difference is so overwhelming that she wonders how she could not see it for so long, knowing that for a time she too was deceived.

But Christ loves His bride, and He is faithful.

Written by: April J. Buchanan

He came into the world to save sinners.

We hardly grasp the thought. We can imagine someone entering our lives, seeing our brokenness, rescuing us from ourselves and from the wounds inflicted by others. But we have not beheld such glory, such holiness, as arrests the heart and shatters every lofty thought, even those clothed in self-pity. We have not been struck with that terrifying fear whereby holiness breaks forth and exposes the wretched man we are.

Oh, what terrifying holiness.

The attributes of God have been romanticized and stripped of their divine glory. Men now ascribe to themselves the worth deserving of such love, such grace, such mercy. It is folly even to speak this way. These words become bankrupt of divine meaning when God Himself is not rightly known.

They love faith, faith emptied of biblical meaning and filled instead with man’s imagined revelations. Faith becomes a tool for selfish gain. Faith becomes a power man possesses to accomplish great things for God and to extract from God what he desires.

Man is far more wicked than he gives himself credit for. He does not know how evil he truly is, nor does he recognize the grace that restrains him from becoming as evil as he is fully capable of being.

Wicked is the man who lies, cheats, steals, and lives according to his fallen nature. But far more wicked is the man who takes upon himself the name child of God and teaches falsehood in God’s name, who uses the holy Word of God to proclaim his own imaginations, who encourages egregious practices falsely attributed to the Holy Spirit.

No, he does not fear God.

How can one who claims the indwelling Spirit continue to prophesy lies, pervert the Word of grace, attribute to the Holy Spirit what is not of Him, restore heretics to churches, and still claim regeneration?

Such men are exposed and rejected by those who obey God and love truth. They are embraced by those who love falsehood and have no fear of God. For if they did, such blasphemies would strike holy terror in their hearts, and they would fall on their faces in repentance, not on their backs in false manifestations.

God is holy. He will not be mocked. Every man will stand before Him.

There are those who boast in all they have done in His name, blind to the reality that what they have done in His name is blasphemous. They are the very ones He warned His bride about. They do not fear now. They boast.

In their folly they speak, act, participate, and encourage some of the most blood-curdling blasphemies, teaching heresies while convincing themselves they will hear, “Well done.” Instead they will hear, “Get away from Me; I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness.”

They do not fear now, nor do those who love the lies spoken in God’s name. These words are horrifying even to write. For unless they truly repent and their faith proves genuine, they are not storing up treasures in heaven. They will not hear “well done.” They will face the holy, righteous, terrifying judgment of God for every word spoken, every deed done in His name, and every wicked work they called good.

What they believed was good is evil, for they do not know God. Worse still, He does not know them savingly, relationally.

Some know exactly what they are doing and have no fear of God. Others are deceived, yet the judgment they imagine reserved for others awaits them as well. They will stand before the God in whose name they prophesied lies, to whom they attributed false manifestations, whose Word they perverted, and with whom they led many to hell.

Repent.

Written by: April J. Buchanan

You sit with your Bible and you are incredibly faithful to this daily discipline. You are faithful to pray every day. You sing “worship” songs. You think on the Lord throughout the day. You look for Him in everything and in everyone. You maintain a positive mindset as your doctrine demands you must. You only see “the gold in people.” You seek peace at all costs. You long for His voice to whisper to you.

You are open and ready to hear. You are all in! You press in, seeking His presence, a touch, a feeling, an impression. You want Him to know you are committed, and you believe He will meet you there in a whisper, a touch, a sign. Perhaps through a gum wrapper, a road sign, a sticker on the back of a car, an owl in a tree. You don’t care what people think. This is the cost to get what you desire and if it means you must look a little crazy then so be it because soon they will be the ones that miss out because they weren’t willing to do what it takes to get what they wanted from God. You long so deeply for an experience of Him that you open yourself to all manner of possibilities, failing to understand that He has warned you not to seek Him in these ways.

This is not the faith that brings peace, assurance, joy, hope, and confidence. Confidence rooted in who He is, what He has said in His Word, and what He is accomplishing through His providence. No whisper in the heart and no sign in creation can compare to the certainty of what God has already spoken.

Dear one, you are seeking Him where He has warned you not to and failing to know Him where He has promised to be found. He is not known through subjective impressions, emotional highs, omens, or mystical practices, but through the more sure word of God.

We do not worship to create an atmosphere that invites His presence, as though He were distant and waiting for us to summon Him. God is not stirred by lighting, music, or emotional fervor. He is ever present, sovereign, and actively sustaining all things by the word of His power.

Nor do we fill our prayers with music shaped by dangerous movements with aberrant and heretical teachings. Language designed to move the emotions while quietly reshaping our theology. These influences create very real experiences, and because they feel powerful, many equate them with God. Yet they often lead the heart away from Him, cultivating expectations He has never promised and desires He has explicitly forbidden.

You seek, yet remain dissatisfied unless you receive what He has not promised. You ask and seek amiss. And when you do have these experiences, you attach God’s name to them and begin to expect that He must give you that feeling again. Your expectations do not honor God or reveal a faith to be admired or mimicked but one that dishonors God and ought to be warned against. Your heart grows dependent upon the experience rather than anchored to the truth.

But the experience was never from Him.

You are deceived, and your expectations, though spiritualized, are entirely unbiblical.

Dear one, He may be found. He may be known. And who He is, what He has said, what He has promised, and what He is doing are far better than the fleeting highs you chase and wrongly attribute to Him.

Truth is beautiful.

When dissatisfied hearts, wandering thoughts, and misplaced expectations rise against it, His Word still stands, immovable, sufficient, and sure. And when we repent and return to that sure Word, we discover a joy, comfort, peace, and assurance that cannot be taken away.

Truth is better. He is better.

Even when we feel nothing, the truth produces a settled peace and a steady joy beyond comprehension, because He is enough, and faith rests not in sensations, but in Him.

Yet you rob yourself when you seek what He has forbidden while neglecting what He has freely given. You show yourself dissatisfied with His Word and uneasy with the kind of faith that trusts Him in His sovereignty, that believes He is providentially working all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. You want a faith that you can control the outcome. You want a god that is impotent and in need of you. You want a god that is working all things together for good as you desire good and according to what you seek him to speak to your heart in agreement with your will.

The God of scripture, faith according to scripture, His sovereign work, His Word, is not enough for you.

You demand more.

You baptize your expectations and sanctify your desires, calling them faith that pleases God, yet such “faith” stands in opposition to Him. It does not trust Him. It is not satisfied with Him, with His Word, or with the work of His Spirit. It demands more than God has chosen to give.

Those last three words are entirely offensive to you. “Chosen to give.” In your theology nothing is settled. It is negotiable. God can be manipulated. He is not truly sovereign.

That is not faith that pleases God.

The teaching you willingly sit under reveals the expectations of your heart. For if you were truly submitted to the authority of Scripture, you would be forced to admit that what you believe about God, along with your desires and expectations, does not reflect who He is, but who you want Him to be.

Your prayers, your worship, and even your expressions of faithfulness are not governed by Scripture, but by your desires, and by teachers eager to satisfy them. In this way, faith, worship, prayer, and obedience are subtly transformed into instruments for obtaining what your heart already craves.

You do not see that you are among those who cannot endure sound doctrine, but according to your own desires have accumulated teachers for yourselves who tell you what you want to hear. You have faith, you worship, you pray, yet all of it is being shaped by doctrine that satisfies the itch rather than humbles the heart beneath the authority of truth.

And what does this produce?

Not repentance.
Not humility.
Not reverence before God.

It produces a deeper hunger for what is contrary to sound doctrine. A growing appetite for experiences, for affirmations, for words God has not spoken.

But the longer the appetite is fed, the duller the ear becomes to truth. Until eventually, it is no longer false teaching that troubles you.

It is sound doctrine.

Return, then, to the Word that stands forever. Submit your desires to it rather than bending it to your desires. For faith that pleases God is not the faith that demands more, but the faith that is satisfied with what He has spoken, trusts His sovereign will and asks accordingly.

Grace and peace, y’all.
Soli Deo Gloria

Written by: April J. Buchanan

Have you ever heard a pastor say something that caught you off guard and left you quietly wrestling with what he said because it sounded wrong? Many have, and many will. While some speak with sinful motives, others are faithfully introducing doctrines unfamiliar to the hearer, not because they are new doctrines, but because they are new to those hearing them.

Some pastors use language intentionally to shock and disarm. The aim is not clarity but control, to say something deliberately offensive or unbiblical and see how far they can push before a listener’s conscience is silenced, the mind disengaged, and discernment surrendered. The test is not truth, but loyalty. How much can I get away with before you stop thinking and simply submit?

Yet there are other pastors who say things that initially sound unbiblical and immediately arrest our attention, not because they are careless, but because they are faithful. They do not minimize concerns or shame the hearer for having them. Instead, they acknowledge the tension and patiently teach from Scripture how they arrived at their conclusions, often drawing out a depth and beauty in the text the hearer had never seen before.

Language matters.

Some pastors deliberately test loyalty by mocking conviction, minimizing concern, and ridiculing those who find their statements troubling. These men often cultivate fiercely loyal and deeply deceived followers. Others, however, speak faithfully from Scripture, knowing that certain doctrines, especially those unfamiliar to the hearer, may sound offensive at first, not because they are unbiblical, but because the listener is encountering them for the first time.

Faithful pastors anticipate those concerns. They care for souls. They take great care never to belittle sincere questions, but instead encourage them. They open the text, exegete it plainly, and allow Scripture to speak for itself. They do not demand allegiance to themselves, nor do they test loyalty. They rejoice when their hearers examine what is taught, because love for truth is evidence of spiritual life.

At the same time, they do not shrink back from teaching doctrines that may initially unsettle or offend the ignorant believer. Truth is not withheld simply because it is unfamiliar. Yet it is taught with wisdom, clarity, and love, always mindful of the weakest among the flock and aware that careless speech can cause unnecessary stumbling.

A faithful pastor will not use shocking language merely to disarm his hearers, normalize irreverence, or mishandle Scripture. He will never mock concern or exploit offense. He shepherds with care, knowing that God has entrusted real souls to him.

A faithful pastor does not fear hard truths, and he does not wound those still learning. He teaches with conviction and with care.

Nor can a pastor be intimidated by those he shepherds. He must not dilute theology or discourage growth by keeping his people perpetually immature. He introduces doctrines that may be new to the hearer, but never new revelation. These doctrines can be tested, must be tested, and when shown to be true in Scripture, they must be believed and loved.

Thank God for pastors who truly care for the flock.

Grace and peace, y’all.
Soli Deo Gloria

Written by: April J. Buchanan

“…those works of the Holy Spirit which are at this time vouchsafed to the Church of God are, in every way, as valuable as those earlier miraculous gifts which have departed from us. The work of the Holy Spirit, by which men are quickened from their death in sin, is not inferior to the power which made men speak with tongues.”

— C. H. Spurgeon, “Receiving the Holy Spirit” 

Even in Scripture—despite what many insist—the miraculous has never been normative. And the miraculous work of the Spirit in the life of men dead in sin is in no way inferior to the work of the Spirit in that which existed in the early church.

Miracles have always had a purpose. Yet today, many are taught to believe that miracles should be constant, expected, and ordinary in the Christian life. That belief is inconsistent not only with our lived reality but with the testimony of Scripture itself, from the first miracle of creation onward.

When we read Scripture from beginning to end, we do not find miracles presented as the normal state of God’s dealings with His people. What we find instead are distinct periods of heightened miraculous activity, each tied to specific moments of redemptive revelation. If we truly care about the truth and the glory of God, we must ask why miracles increased at those particular times.

Those who desire to operate in the miraculous often seek texts to validate that desire. In doing so, they write themselves into the text, lifting passages out of their redemptive-historical context and pressing them into service as proof texts—supporting beliefs that do not arise from Scripture but must be read into it.

Those who teach that miracles ought to be normative frequently accuse those who disagree with them of “not believing in miracles at all.” That accusation is dishonest at best. At worst, it reveals either an unwillingness to deal honestly with Scripture or a refusal to represent others’ beliefs accurately. Some go further still—silencing disagreement through slander and misrepresentation rather than careful biblical engagement.

Anyone unwilling to handle Scripture honestly and let the text say what it says cannot be expected to represent opposing views faithfully. If they misuse Scripture to support what it does not teach, why would we expect them to speak truthfully about those who challenge them?

When Scripture Speaks of the Miraculous

When we examine Scripture carefully, we find that miracles cluster around key epochs of divine revelation, not as the norm of everyday life, but as God’s confirmation of His Word and His appointed messengers.

1. Moses and the Exodus

Miracles accompanied the giving of the Law and the formation of Israel as a nation (Exodus 3–14). These signs authenticated Moses as God’s spokesman (Exod. 4:1–9; Deut. 34:10–12).

2. Elijah and Elisha

During a time of extreme apostasy in Israel, miracles confirmed God’s word through His prophets (1 Kings 17–19; 2 Kings 2–6), calling the nation back to covenant faithfulness.

3. Christ and the Apostles

Jesus’ miracles testified to His identity as the Son of God and the promised Messiah (John 20:30–31). The apostles performed signs to confirm the once-for-all revelation of the Gospel (Acts 2:22; Hebrews 2:3–4; 2 Corinthians 12:12).

Outside these periods, miracles are rare, not constant. Long stretches of biblical history—including centuries—contain little or no recorded miraculous activity. Scripture itself testifies that such signs were extraordinary, not ordinary.

If you, dear saint, believe your convictions rest on mishandled texts, subjective experiences, and a false dichotomy—one that insists your beliefs must be true because others’ beliefs do not match your experiences—I take no pleasure in saying how greatly deceived you are.

Many today claim that miracles are normative, yet their experiences often prove to be counterfeit. When tested against the miracles recorded in Scripture, what is claimed today bears little to no resemblance to the true, redemptive miracles of God throughout history.

Many believe the lie because the one teaching it sells you an experience. He offers promises about what you ought to expect God to do, then irreverently handles Scripture to support his aberrant teaching. He presents a false divide: we have faith; they do not. We have the Spirit; they do not. And you believe him.

You are not taught to test what you hear. It sounds good. It feels good. It makes you feel special.

I know—because I sat among you.

I believed it. I bought it. I was all in. I plunged deeply into it. I taught it. I pitied those who “didn’t have the Spirit like we did.” I believed that if they just had faith like ours, they would have the same experiences.

But it wasn’t real.

It was euphoric experience.

It was false words spoken in God’s name.

It was manifestations falsely attributed to the Holy Spirit.

It was psychosomatic healings.

And real people were hurt by our lies and deception.

Worse—we did it in God’s name.

In our pride, we set ourselves against the true and miraculous work of God: regeneration and sanctification by the ordinary means of grace. We despised the word ordinary. That might have been sufficient for other Christians—but we believed we were special. We were going to usher in the extraordinary.

Looking back, it is profoundly disheartening.

It is with a love that those immersed in such beliefs cannot yet perceive that I write against these aberrant—and at times heretical—teachings. My words do not sound loving to deceived ears or prideful hearts. But to some, God begins to destroy the delusion, and that is painful.

Many fear that if what they believed was false, then perhaps they were never saved at all. Why? Because faith has been turned into a work. They were told that healing, blessing, and breakthrough depended on their faith, their words, their worship. When those things did not come, the logic turned inward: If my faith failed here, can it save me at all?

This is why I hate these lies.

They wound souls.

They distort faith.

They bring reproach on the name of God.

Many in churches today do not know the beautiful work of the Spirit because they are chasing counterfeits—lies of men presented as the Spirit’s true work that distract from His true work.

They know not true peace, which is a fruit of the Spirit, but a manufactured peace—one they must maintain to keep their “faith” working. They fear honest words. They avoid truth they label “negative.” This is not peace from God but peace that serves self.

They do not draw by truth, by Christ, or by the Gospel. They draw by promises of secondary things—things that appeal to the flesh and tempt nearly every man. Often even those dead in sin can see that what is being sold bears no resemblance to God. This is to their shame.

Dear saint, God does still work miracles according to His will. But they are not normative. And there are no men today endowed with apostolic sign gifts.

We have the prophetic word more sure.

Every truly regenerate believer is indwelt, filled, baptized, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the outward evidence of the Spirit’s inward work. We grow in grace and peace through the knowledge of the truth.

Let no man rob you of God’s ordinary means of grace—by which your heart is satisfied in God and you come to know Him as He truly is.

Grace and peace, y’all

Soli Deo Gloria