"So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O [thou] man of God, [there is] death in the pot. And they could not eat [thereof].” ( 2 Kings 4:40) 

At Genesis 1:1, we read that, “In the beginning,...God created the heaven and the earth”. Thus, everything outside of God came (via creation) from God (cf. Rom. 11:33-36), including the situation, the people, the food, and the poison referred to above, at 2 Kings 4:40. God’s sovereignty also extends to, and includes, the current state of His Church, including the publishers and publications currently poisoning the Church.

Beyond our (admittedly) metaphorical application of 2 Kings 4:40to the “printed apostasy” of today, a clear example of the sovereign hand of God in these matters is found at Deuteronomy 13, which deals exclusively with God’s commands to Israel, regarding false teachers within her borders. Speaking of these, God reveals one purpose for their existence and activities at verse 3, declaring, “...for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” The ramifications of this scriptural truth will be explored in greater detail later; suffice it to say that even evil acts and situations come ultimately from The LORD for His sovereign purposes, (cf. 1 Sam. 16:14-23; 1 Kings. 22:19-23; Job 42:11; Isa. 45:7; Lam. 3:38; Amos 3:6, Acts 2:22-24), though He never commits evil ( Jas. 1:13-16), and is in no way evil Himself (Ps. 107:1).

Regarding the human cause of the current decline in Christian publishing, this reflects the overall decline in the Church itself, traceable (in part) to some definite events and paradigm shifts which occurred over the last couple of centuries. One such “shift” involved the moving away of most Evangelical Protestant churches from the Reformed (i.e. Calvinistic) doctrines of their forefathers and predecessors. As the Reformed/Calvinist emphasis upon the a) authority and b) sound interpretation of Scripture was abandoned, it could only cause a weakening of the Church, via a drift towards Romanism on the one hand, and Liberalism on the other.

Born of this first shift away from “sound doctrine” ( 2 Tim. 4:3, 4), came a later movement called ‘Neo-evangelicalism’ (coined by H. Ockenga in 1948), which, abandoning the scriptural command to separation (cf. Amos 3:3; Rom. 16:17; 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1), attempted to “mainstream” fundamental Christianity and to integrate it within Liberalism via a more relaxed attitude towards biblical inerrancy, ecumenism, “modern science”, etc. Men involved with this movement included Ockenga, Donald G. Barnhouse, Vernon C. Grounds, Bernard Ramm, Carl F. Henry, and others. Ockenga (along with Charles Fuller, C. F. Henry and H. Lindsell) founded Fuller Seminary in 1947, with the express purpose of promoting the compromised modus operandi of the Neo-evangelicals. Fuller Seminary continues to promote ecumenical poison (including Mormonism) in the Church of God in our day. Other toxic Neo-Evangelical institutions/ organizations include ‘Christianity Today’ magazine, the ‘National Association of Evangelicals’ (‘N.A.E.’), and the ‘B.G.E.A’. (‘Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’). Perhaps more than any other individual, Billy Graham has done more to bring together, showcase, and promote the apostate purveyors of poison in our day, via his “ecumenical evangelism” which features full participation of Christ-denying Romanist and Liberal churches at his “Crusades”.

Shortly after these things came another event, this time coming from outside the Church. That event was the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church (1962-65). Other religious groups (including Protestant churches) were invited to attend the Council as “observers”. Of significance to the topic at hand, was the shameless wooing of Protestants by the Council, by referring to them no longer as “cursed heretics”, but as “separated brethren” by the Council. As many Protestant Churches were already weakened by the previous shifts, the false overtures of the Roman Church proved too hard to resist for many Evangelicals. To this day, the “separated brethren” argument is falsely utilized by deluded “evangelicals” to prove that the Roman Church has changed. In fact, Vatican II did not remove or replace any of Catholicism's false doctrines, but only added to them.

This “human dimension” of decline and apostasy has two elements: On the one hand are the denominational institutions such as seminaries, mission boards, etc. On the other hand is the individual Christian, who actually holds (in the human sense) the power over these institutions, via his various forms of support. Ignorance, however, breeds not only further ignorance, but an actual disdain for truth, which can be spiritually fatal (Hos. 4:6; cf. Rom. 11:22). This is the state of Christ’s Church in our day. Unlike the men of 2 Kings 4:40, however, many “Christians” of today, having become increasingly immune to truth, having put “...light for darkness...” and “...bitter for sweet...” ( Isa. 5:20), are prepared to actually dine on the poison put forth via the perverted publishers in the Church of our day!

At 2 Kings 4:39we read of a poisonous “wild vine” which was “shred” into the “pot”, thus spreading the poison throughout (vs. 40). This word picture illustrates the “printed pestilence” of our day, which threatens the very foundations of Christ’s Church. Yet, at vs. 41-44 a “prophetic remedy” is provided to counteract the “poison in the pot”; in like fashion, we believe that God is, and has always been willing, to provide a remedy in our day, a sure “antidote” to the poisons currently being spewed forth by these “Christian Publishers” so-called.