IF YOU HAVE TEARS, PREPARE TO SHED THEM NOW

Mark Antony is standing before a crowd of stunned Romans. The date is March 15, 44 BC. The reason he's there is because he's about to deliver his oration immediately after the assassination of Julius Caesar. With his words, he'll turn the tables on the conspirators, Brutus and Cassius and the others who did the deed. It is the oration which begins with the famous line, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears."

Shakespeare wrote the words for his play, "Julius Caesar," and this oration is a famous example of emotionally charged rhetoric by which he shows Mark Antony manipulating the large crowd of mourners, changing them into a rampaging mob against Brutus and Cassius.

In his oration in the play, he says the famous line, "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now."

And that's my advice to you. Read on.

Dr. Jack Deere is brilliant with academic credentials impeccable, a beloved professor in Old Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He's an excellent teacher, a great communicator. As said by one and all, "He's got skills."

Prior to earning his Master's Degree and Ph. D. at Dallas Seminary, he graduated from TCU majoring in philosophy. Dr. Deere was not an ivory tower academic. While at TCU, he worked with Young Life, leading many kids to Christ. While teaching at Dallas, he planted two churches and served in the pastoral ministry. Dr. Deere was "in the trenches," as we say.

During his tenure at Dallas Seminary, Dr. Deere came under the influence of several false teachers who were in no way affiliated with the school. Under their influence, Dr. Deere bought into one of the most dangerous of Satan's false doctrines: he came to believe that God is still revealing truth to us, truth equal to the Bible.

Dr. Deere came to believe that all believers should regularly hear God speak outside of Scripture through various means such as an audible voice, impressions, dreams, and/or visions. This outside-the-Bible-revelation-from-God, Dr. Deere came to believe, is just as inspired and carries the same authority as what God revealed to Moses, Paul, John, and Peter in their writings. So, according to this idea, the revelation a person receives today is just as "right on" as Ephesians, Genesis, and Romans. (Any neophyte in the faith should be able to see how dangerous that doctrine is.)

Because he held to such views and staunchly so, Dr. Donald Campbell, the President of Dallas Seminary at the time, dismissed him, much to the credit of the school. His firing made the news in a special section of the "Dallas Morning News," back then in 1987.

That is a strange and dangerous doctrine, but, trust me, things in Dr. Deere's life began to get more bizarre. He came to believe that God's divine revelation to him included the revelation of specific information about other people, as well as information about past and future events. So, according to this false teaching, we have among us today Isaiahs, Ezekiels, and Jeremiahs, foretellers of coming events with 100% accuracy.

As if that's not bizarre enough, read on.

Deere came to the conclusion that God verbally spoke to him while he was exercising and that God spoke to him at that time through a country western love ballad. He also tells the story of how his mentor, Paul Cain, received a revelation from God via a huge TV screen in the sky. Say what?

An important warning: Be careful who you listen to. We have Dr. Deere listening to some fellow named Paul Cain, a famous "prophet" in charismatic circles. Dr. Deere became so enamored with Mr. Cain that he arranged a meeting between him and a nationally known pastor. A man present at the meeting says:

"Jack Deere brought Paul Cain to a meeting with _______ ______ in 1992. It was instantly obvious to us that Paul Cain was not what he claimed. He appeared to be drunk. He was bleary-eyed and nearly incoherent. He pretended to speak a short prophecy, about [the pastor]—but he was wrong in every detail. When he saw he was getting it wrong, he stopped trying to 'prophesy' and lapsed into sullen silence. Dr. Deere later told us Cain’s behavior was because he was under such a heavy anointing."  

Dr. Deere believes that the normal Christian life today should consist of the same miracles we see in the Bible. What Christ and the Apostles did, we can and should be doing. He goes farther and says that what we see of the miraculous in the Bible should be the norm for us today.

Let's think about this for a moment. If this were true, our clothes would never wear out and we'd never have to buy another pair of shoes and we'd never have to go to the grocery store because our food would be supplied like fresh manna. We'd be seeing axe heads float and virgin births would be occurring . (Dr. Deere would probably say, "NO!" to that last one.) We'd be busy raising the dead. walking on water, and hosting angels like Paul, Peter, and Abraham.

Well, so much for bizarro land. As I said earlier, if you have tears prepare to shed them now as you read the transcript of an exchange that took place between Dr. Deere and a questioner in 1990 at a charismatic conference:

Questioner: I wonder if you might tell me why you felt my explanation of the Gospel given yesterday was defective. [I said that Christ died for our sins, was buried, raised on the third day, and that it is this Gospel by which we are saved.]

Dr. Deere: I am not prepared to talk about that.

Questioner: Well, just offhand, what do you think the Gospel is?

Dr. Deere: I am not prepared to make a formal statement about that.

Questioner: Could you tell me informally what the Gospel is?

Dr. Deere: I am not sure.

Questioner: I find that surprising--that you are not sure just what the Gospel is.

Dr. Deere: I used to be just like you--thinking the Gospel was simply justification.

Questioner: Are you saying that the Gospel is more than justification by faith?

Dr. Deere: Yes.

Questioner: What would you add to it?

Dr. Deere: Deliverance.

Questioner: What do you mean by deliverance?

Dr. Deere: Things like demons and healing and....

Questioner: You would add as an essential part of the saving Gospel things like exorcising of demons and healing?

Dr. Deere: Yes.

Questioner: But you are not sure exactly what should be included?

Dr. Deere: No, not yet.

Questioner: Would it be fair to say that you are in a state of flux since joining the Wimber thing?Could you tell me informally what the Gospel is?

Dr. Deere: We are always in a state of flux--you are....

Questioner: But in the Gospel message? Surely that is one thing we should have worked out. Don't you think we can reduce the Gospel to some sort of summary statement like Paul does in say 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, or 15; or 1 Thessalonians 4, or Romans 5?

Dr. Deere: [No response, except a shrug of the shoulders.]

Questioner: Do you think the Apostle Paul had anything particular in mind when he wrote to Timothy and asked him to guard the Gospel that had been entrusted to him? Are you saying that you couldn't go back into that pavilion and tell those people the Gospel?

Dr. Deere: No, not yet.

Questioner: When do you think you could do it?

Dr. Deere: Maybe five years, maybe ten....

 

As of 1990, Dr. Deere, professor, church planter, and pastor, had gotten so far out in left field that he said, "I'm not prepared to talk about the gospel." How much preparation does a professor of the Old Testament need to "talk about the gospel?"

 

What in the world is going on?  (Insert double emphatic question marks here.) After further prodding from the questioner as to the content of the gospel, Dr. Deere answers, "I'm not prepared to make a formal statement about that." (Insert triple question marks here.) Then Dr. Deere says that he couldn't go and give people the gospel? What's going on with that? He adds that maybe, going by the date of transcript, by 1995 or maybe in 2000, he would be able to give the gospel to others. 

 

 Then he says that he would add casting out of demons to the gospel in spite of the fact that in all the New Testament epistles of Paul, Peter, John, James, and Jude there is no command for the believer or anyone to cast out demons. John 3:16 doesn't add, "cast out demons" to "believe in Him," nor does Paul add that casting out demons is part of the gospel in I Cor. 15.

 

So, here's another warning: reject just one basic doctrine [in this case, reject the fact that revelation ceased once John put the period on the last sentence in the book of Revelation, and there's no telling into what strange and dangerous territory you'll go.

 

Well enough of this. But allow me to ask you a question, the same question the polite questioner asked Dr. Deere:

 

"Could you tell me what the Gospel is?"