What is Love?

By Dr. Ken Matto

(1 Cor 13:1 KJV) Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

This verse starts off the so-called “love chapter.” When we speak of love, what type of love comes to mind? Is it the Hollywood type love? Is it the type of love that tolerates everything and stands for nothing? What type of love does the Bible have in view when it speaks of the Christian having love? This article is borne out of several e-mails that I have received which have accused me of being full of hate. When someone comes to my site and reads the articles which decry the false movements of today and if they are a spiritual vacuum, then of course, it seems like I am full of hate. Is God glorified in the fact that many of His children have taken the wide road of accepting false gospels for the sake of some type of love? The answer is no! Someone even e-mailed me and told me that they respect those in false religions and they have chosen to love them.

What this biblically is saying about this individual is that it is more important that they see these people go to hell than to show them the true way of salvation. (John 14:6 KJV) Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. When people tell me that they choose to love them instead of trying to correct them, it tells me they may be ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom 1:16 KJV) For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. The reality is that if a Christian decides to accept the fact that others are going to hell, and they endorse it, then they are guilty of the blood of these people who are being led astray. They are not loving these people, they are hating them. I am not saying that we are to throw rocks at every unbeliever, I am saying plainly that Christians must stop tolerating false religions and holding hands with Satan. This idyllic attitude that many Christians hold is right from the pit of hell. God tells us to warn the unbeliever but Satan tells us to accept the unbeliever and their false religions.

I want to look at some consequences that are attached to holding the phony love doctrine. The Apostle Paul was very evangelistic and had a heart for bringing the true Gospel. To detach Paul’s other attributes from 1 Corinthians 13 is to completely deny and isolate biblical truth. If we take 1 Corinthians 13 and isolate it, we can make it say anything we want about any type of love and this includes phony love that leaves people in false gospels and the bondage that comes with them. To accuse Christians who bring the truth as being full of hate is the height of ignorance. Let us look at some dangers of holding to phony love.

 

HOLDING TO PHONY LOVE:

Relieves me of witnessing
One of the hardest things in the world for the Christian is to be a true witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who adopt phony love actually think they are being a witness to others when in fact all they are doing is bringing relief to the unbeliever, knowing they will never hear the truth from their Christian friend. This is quite a contrast from the following verse:

(Acts 17:6 KJV) And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also;

Christian tolerance couldn’t turn a glass upside down. God speaks of the body of believers as an army and what is the primary function of the army? It is designed to defend and to conquer in battle. (2 Tim 2:3 KJV) Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Many Christians kowtow to every false gospel thinking they are showing love, but all they are showing is cowardice in the face of the enemy. They may think their phony love is a witness but it is only aiding and abetting the enemy. God gave us a command to go into the whole world and be a witness, those who don’t are just lazy cowards leaving it to everybody else. (Mark 16:15 KJV) And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. They may come to church and act like they are a great witness but they cannot fool God with their façade.

 

Denies the Cross of Christ
The phony love and tolerance testimony of many is a blatant denial of the cross of Christ. When any Christian accepts or respects a false religion which is hostile to the Lord Jesus or rejects Him as the only Savior, then they have become an enemy of Christ. The majority of religions in the world have their own salvation program which is far from the Lord Jesus Christ being the only way. (Mat 7:14 KJV) Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Whenever a Christian sinks into the mire of tolerance at any cost, they have become absolutely useless for the Kingdom of God. (Phil 3:18 KJV) (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Tolerance is the enemy of the cross of Christ. Tolerance raises up an army of traitors to the cause of Christ.

 

Causes me to Partner with Sin
Whenever we accept or even respect any system that will cause people to go to hell, it means we have partnered with sin by the acceptance of it. All religious systems are sins against the Cross of Christ because they all seek to circumvent the cross for salvation. To tolerate a false gospel is to accept the many sinful aspects that are associated with it. Many will say that the Mormons are wonderful people but how many tolerance based Christians know that their system has equated Satan with Christ? Many say that they respect or tolerate Islam but how many know that the red Fez they wear commemorates the 50,000 Christians that were slain in Fez, Morocco in the 7th century by the armies of Islam. To hold hands with false systems is to say that the murder of Christians is okay in your book, after all, you are showing love. On Judgment day, will these same people whom you tolerated look to you and say that you showed them love? They will look at you and ask, “why you didn’t tell us the truth?”

 

Neutralizes the Christian
By holding on to phony love and tolerating everything, Satan has neutralized you and you no longer are a witness for the Kingdom of God. By the way, saving whales or feeding the poor is not evidence of being a true witness for Christ. Unbelievers do the same thing every day. The only thing unbelievers do not do is bring the true Gospel to a dying world. Since you have been neutralized, you will not bring the true Gospel either. Instead, you try to replace being a witness for Christ by being a luminary in front of the unbelievers. A neutralized Christian is as about as effective as filling your gas tank with water and planning a trip the next day. Becoming neutralized makes you feel guilty for witnessing as if you are the one bringing the false gospel.

 

Makes You Innocuous
The unbelievers in this world will be able to count on you as one who will never witness to them, which would interfere with their life or make them angry. There is nothing so invisible as an innocuous Christian. Without being a witness to this world, what is the reason of the existence of the Christian? Innocuous Christians will have many worldly friends who will respect their religion because it is kept in the proper place, hidden and out of sight. I remember some years ago I was warned by a boss of mine that I should not talk about the Bible in the work place, while his personal harem was always speaking about saving the whales or the worship of their dogs. He told me that “religion is a personal and private thing.” If it is so private, then why did his church murder millions of true Christians in the crusades and Inquisition?

 

Deceives You
One of the major problems with holding on to phony love is that it deceives you into thinking that you are acting in accord with the Scriptures. Phony love can trigger a life time of good works which amount to nothing. (Rev 14:13 KJV) And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. What works are going to follow you? Is it going to be a clean playground? Is it going to be a protest at a political rally? Worldly works when brought into judgment will yield only the fire of judgment. (1 Cor 3:13 KJV) Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. Works that brought no one into the kingdom of Christ, are works that are of no value and will be burned up. (1 Cor 3:15 KJV) If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

 

Summary
We looked at six present dangers which await any Christian who chooses tolerance over truth. Phony love is the destruction of anyone it comes in contact with. A person who is steeped in phony love will send out false signals. Those signals may be interpreted by the one receiving the phony love that maybe God is accepting them since God’s child, the Christian, is accepting them, and Christians are supposed to know the Bible. We are going to come into contact with unbelievers every day and we cannot win every one to Christ since God knows who He has elected. The essence of this article is to help Christians distinguish between the true and phony love. Christians may come in contact with all kinds of belief systems, but that does not mean we accept them or even respect them. As Christians, it is our responsibility to speak with those in false gospels whom the Lord may send across our path. With the massive amount of witnessing materials available today, there is no reason why any Christian should not be able to witness. Even the most shy Christian can carry an arsenal of truth. If the unbeliever rejects it, then you are free and that is a far cry from respecting them right into hell.

All religions are intolerant of Christianity, we must be the same way concerning false religions. Keep in mind that it was a false religion that crucified Christ! It was a false religion that killed the 50,000 Christians at Fez, Morocco! It was a false religion that murdered millions of Christians during the Inquisition! How dare any Christian take a stand with any false religion and cry tolerance or love in defense of these satanic systems. Any Christian who does, needs to really examine themselves to see if they are truly saved. No true child of God will ever make a stand for a false religion! Herein lies the great deception of Phony Love!

Back