Mat 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. (28) So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Act 19:13-16 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” (14) Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. (15) But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” (16) And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

I just read SBC President JD Greear’s notes for a presentation to all the SBC pastors and seminaries and the whole big crowd. At the end, he spoke about the very recent expose of widespread sexual abuse and predation that has been going on in SBC churches for decades. Decades! After reading his notes I was struck with the fact that his presentation was just like some CEO giving a pep talk to his executives. It was devoid of the Spirit of Christ.

I want to warn everyone not to be duped by all the talk we are going to be hearing from people like Greear who try to con us into believing that real change, genuine change and repentance are happening. I see no signs of it. Why am I so negative? Because the remedies they are proposing and which they are trying to sell to us as real change are absolutely devoid of the Spirit of Christ. They are the inventions and devices of man. Let me explain.

Greear proposes all kinds of changes and programs. One chief one is that he is calling together a group of 10 “experts” on abuse to put together a 12 part training series to educate the churches on abuse. Fine, but these kinds of tools are powerless in themselves. We are not dealing with the weapons of flesh and blood. That is not the nature of this warfare. Our enemy is spiritual and this calls for spiritual weapons – the Word of God which is the sword of the Spirit wielded by people who are indwelt by the Spirit. But Greear’s notes would indicate that he is entirely ignorant of these things. Another indicator of the absence of the Spirit in him is no indication of brokenness and grief over the evils perpetrated and covered up.

All that is going to happen if Greear’s game plan is followed is the same thing that happened to the 7 sons of Sceva at Ephesus. Satan’s response is “who are you?” He laughs at such devices that know nothing of Christ. Furthermore, fleshly corporate world “fixes” are only going to clean the house to make Satan and his minions seven times more comfortable in it than before. That is to say, if this is going to be the SBC’s game plan, then they are going to end up 7-times the son of the devil that they already are. Satan will have a victory and he will be enabled to use the SBC even more effectively for his wicked deeds. Practically, this means that sexual abusers will end up being all that more enabled and at home in those churches because everyone will think that everything has been fixed.

Don’t be duped. Don’t be drawn into the pre-game hype that is going to be coming out of the head offices of these Spiritless places. Don’t let the wicked get away with scamming us with false repentance and false changes that invoke the name of Christ falsely. More coats of whitewash are not going to clean the inside of the tomb.