BILL CLINTON’S TEACHERS False Doctrines That Produced the Man
BY DAVID W CLOUD, Editor ‘O Timothy’ (USA)
FROM SWORD & TROWEL 2001
No 3
The deceptive notion of repentance exposed in this article is the view of
most of the authors of popular church growth books today.
Former President Bill Clinton is a serial adulterer, an habitual liar, a
supporter of abominations such as homosexuality and the murder of unborn children, and
a man who has used the highest office of the land to obstruct justice. Yet he also claims to
be a born again Christian. He is a member in good standing of a Southern Baptist church,
a frequent church attender, a man who carries and quotes the Bible, and who loves the
company of at least some ministers.
What is wrong in all this? Why are today’s ‘evangelical’ churches so
commonly producing converts who are not holy, but who live and behave exactly as this
vile, unregenerate society?
For an answer we have but to examine the preachers who have most
influenced Bill Clinton. To a man, they are preaching false doctrines that are destroying
the souls of their hearers; yes, the soul of an entire nation. Consider some of the ideas that
various preachers have taught Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton’s pastor in Little Rock, Arkansas, before he went to
Washington, DC, was W O Vaught of Immanuel Baptist Church. Vaught, who died in
1989, was a very influential leader in the Southern Baptist Convention. In his 1983
book Believe Plus Nothing, Vaught argued that repentance for salvation has
nothing to do with turning from sin. Here are his words:-
‘When we go out to win men to Christ, we should never mention
sins. We should only mention Christ. For the unsaved man, sins are not the issue;
Christ is the issue . . . Therefore, repentance for the unsaved man is beamed toward
Christ, not toward sins . . . The issue of salvation concerns one sin and one sin only,
and that is the sin of unbelief. Therefore, sins are not the issue in salvation. Sin, the
sin of unbelief, is the issue’ (Believe Plus Nothing, p 18).
This is the same false doctrine of repentance that is being taught in many
independent Baptist churches today. It is based on human logic (ie: ‘to preach that
repentance means to turn from sin would be a works salvation’) and ignores the plain
teaching of the Bible.
The apostle Paul preached ‘repentance toward God, and faith toward our
Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 20.21). This means that repentance and faith are not
the same thing.
The New Testament gives no example of someone being saved who did
not turn to God from sinful ways. The Thessalonians are typical. They
‘turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God’ (1
Thessalonians 1.9). The unrepentant men who refuse God’s offer of mercy, refuse
to repent ‘of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their
thefts’ (Revelation 9.21). Words could not be plainer that biblical repentance
has to do with specific sins that men commit.
Biblical repentance is a divinely wrought change of mind that results
in a change of life, and any repentance that does not deal with sin and idolatry is
no repentance at all. It is sad that there are so many preachers in America, and the number
seems to be growing exponentially, who have the same false doctrine of repentance as
Clinton’s late pastor, W O Vaught. It has filled the land with unrepentant professors.
Another false doctrine that compromising preachers have taught Bill
Clinton is an incomplete view of eternal security. While the Bible clearly promises that
those who are born again into God’s family through saving faith in Jesus Christ have
eternal life, there are many important aspects of this doctrine that are commonly ignored.
This is a serious matter, because a half-truth is more dangerous, in some cases, than a
complete lie.
Preachers have told Clinton that he has no worries about his eternal
relationship with God, regardless of his continual immoralities, because he has made a
profession of faith. He ‘believes’, therefore all is well with his soul even if there is no
evidence of faith in his daily life.
This faulty doctrine of eternal security ignores at least four things that are
intimately associated with eternal salvation in the Bible.
First, the biblical doctrine of eternal security is interconnected with
the doctrine of a changed life. The same Bible that promises eternal life to those
who are born again also promises that those who are in Christ will not continue in sin in
the manner of a Bill Clinton. ‘And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his
commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar,
and the truth is not in him’ (1 John 2.3-4).
In John 10, the Lord Jesus affirmed that He knows His own
sheep and gives them eternal life. But in the same passage He stated that these
sheep hear His voice and follow Him. This is the evidence that they are
really His sheep.
In 1 John 3, the apostle tells us that those who are saved are
the sons of God right now (verse 2), and they give evidence of this by purifying
themselves even as Christ is pure (1 John 3.1-3).
Secondly, the biblical doctrine of eternal security is intimately
connected with the doctrine that those who truly belong to Christ are chastened by God,
and if they are not chastened, they are bastards.
In Hebrews 12.8 we are told - ‘If ye be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.’ A born again
Christian can sin, but God will discipline him and will bring him to repentance in that
matter. Those who proceed in a life of licentiousness demonstrate that they are spiritually
illegitimate.
Thirdly, the biblical doctrine of eternal security is intimately
connected with the doctrine that there is a sin unto death. If a man is apparently
saved, yet persists in gross sin after the fashion of a Bill Clinton, the Bible says he will
die. ‘If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall
give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that
he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death’
(1 John 5.16-17).
‘For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live’ (Romans 8.13). ‘To deliver such
an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus’ (1 Corinthians 5.5).
Fourthly, the biblical doctrine of eternal security is intimately
connected with the Bible’s warning that there is a false faith which does not save.
James warns that a dead faith does not save; that even the devils believe in God and
tremble, but they are not saved (James 2.19-20). John tells us that the Lord
Jesus Christ did not commit Himself to all who believed in His name, because many
believed in a wrong way, thinking He was merely a worldly redeemer from oppression
(John 2.23-25; 6.14-15, 26, 66).
In the Book of Acts we learn of Simon who, though he
believed, was not converted, and was in danger of perishing because his heart was not
right (Acts 8.13-21). He believed on Christ as a magician, not as a Saviour.
The Lord Jesus warned that there will be many who do wonderful works in His name, but
they are not saved (Matthew 7.21-23).
Eternal security in Christ is a blessed doctrine of the holy
Scriptures, but this doctrine is accompanied by the aforementioned truths; and when
preachers divorce eternal security from these associated biblical truths, they preach a false
doctrine of eternal security and give unrepentant, unregenerate people a false hope of
Heaven.
Another false doctrine that helped produce Bill Clinton pertains to an
erroneous view of God’s forgiveness. When the former president sinned so grievously
against his wife, against a young intern, against his staff, and against the entire nation,
through his immorality, deception, and obstruction of justice, we were told by many false
prophets that the matter should be forgiven and therefore forgotten.
This view of forgiveness ignores justice and the consequence of one’s
sinful actions. King David was forgiven for his great sin, but the same God Who forgave
him also judged him (2 Samuel 12.7-14). In the New Testament, we find that
there are still consequences and temporal judgements for sins committed by saved people.
If a pastor, for example, commits a grievous sin and thereby ruins his marriage and
family, he can be forgiven, but that sin will keep him out of the ministry, because he can
no longer meet God’s standards for that position (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1).
It is not a matter of forgiveness; it is a matter of consequences and the
maintaining of standards. Those who teach that people can commit sin and escape all
consequences through God’s forgiveness are false teachers.
Another false doctrine that helped produce and defend Bill Clinton is the
false doctrine that it is always wrong to judge. When many people raised an outcry
against the president’s great sins and called for his impeachment, his defenders said it was
wrong and unchristian to judge. They characterised such judgement as persecution.
This is typical of false teachers. They confuse discernment and discretion
with lack of love, and they confuse correction with persecution. While the Bible forbids
hypocritical judgement (Matthew 7.1-5), and judgement based
on human tradition (Romans 14.1-5), the same Bible plainly commands
God’s people to exercise judgement in many matters.
Jesus commanded us to ‘judge righteous judgment’ (John 7.24).
The Corinthian church was commanded to judge sin in the assembly (1
Corinthians 5), to judge matters between the brethren (1 Corinthians 6.1-
5), and to judge the preaching (1 Corinthians 14.29). According to
1 Corinthians 2.15 and 1 Thessalonians 5.21, we are to prove or
test or judge all things.
The root problem in America is the apostasy of the preachers who stand in
the pulpits, and who fill up radio and television airwaves and the shelves of the
bookstores with their sugar-coated heresies.
‘I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to
them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my
people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their doings’ (Jeremiah 23.21-22).
‘Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke,
exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves
teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth,
and shall be turned unto fables’ (2 Timothy 4.2-4).
From the author’s magazine, O Timothy , Issue 9, 2001.
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