While
the reasons behind the apostasy of Joshua Harris remains a mystery, Shannon Harris, presently
addressing herself as Shannon Bonne, her maiden name, made known her reasons for
leaving the Christian faith, or at least biblical Christianity. In an
Instagram video, she revealed that being taught that her heart was deceitful
was "damaging" to her [1, 4] and on that same post, she had learned to
"distrust" and "override" herself out of what she described
as being out of fear "in an environment where those in authority held
tremendous control over leaders and members." [1]
Her
statements do not make sense in light of the fact that leaders are authority
figures. So who else, besides the senior Pastor, held power of the other
authority figures? She also admitted that she was not sure why the
authority figures in her church were able to wield the control that they did,
whether it was because they "just had power", [2] meaning they
thought themselves above being challenged or questioned, or because they just
knew the Bible better than anyone else.
By
her own statements, she either did not actively engage with these authority
figures to determine the reasoning behind the control they wielded and what
their motives were, or she never engaged them at all. Her other
objections also reveal that her reasoning for abandoning biblical Christianity
was more than just fear of authority figures in her church, but because she
loves the darkness of sin more than she does the light of Christ.
What
other conclusion can we draw from someone who claims damage from being told
that their heart is deceitful, when it is written so? (Jer. 17:9) What
other judgment can be made concerning someone who resents being told to ignore
their "inner voice" and that they cannot trust themselves in
agreement with the scriptures? (Prov. 3:5, Is. 22:11, Jer. 17:5-6)
As
to the authenticity of Bonne's faith, one can only guess. Judging by the
ending statements of her video, she still professes belief in a triune God
meaning also retaining a profession of faith in Christ, but, judging by her
resentment to scriptural teachings concerning the nature of man, it seems that
she would rather have her own personal Jesus who affirms sinful pleasures
rather than the one who demands repentance in order to be forgiven of sins.
She
would rather listen to and follow the "inner voice" of sin rather
than the voice of the Holy Spirit. And
not only has she appeared to have abandoned the true faith as presented to us
by the scriptures, she is now on a crusade against those churches [3] who stand upon
the authority of scripture.
She,
like most, may find herself agreeable with a God of love, mercy, peace,
comfort, and who is an ever present help in times of trouble, but because she
enjoys sin that she has been harboring, she has exposed herself as being
resentful of a God who demands repentance in order to receive the forgiveness
that is offered through Christ and who demands obedience from all who seek to
serve and follow Him.
It
is one thing to object to how a church is run and the actions of its leadership
but when one objects to the clear and plain teachings of scripture as Bonne has
done, it is not just a church with whom we are at odds, we then set ourselves
at odds with God Himself.
There
is an inner voice that does exist in all of us, but that does not mean we
should follow it because not every inner voice is an instrument of our
Maker. Before we decide to heed that inner voice, we must determine what
the source of that inner voice is because there is more than one unseen
inaudible voice that speaks to us. There is a voice that speaks truth to
our souls and then there is another voice that leads astray with lies.
There is a voice that speaks to our spirit. And there is a voice that
speaks to our carnal and sensual nature. There is a voice that tries to
appeal to reason and logic. And there is a voice that plays and
manipulates our emotions. There is a voice that tries to tell us when we
are doing something wrong; it is called a conscience. And then there is a
voice that tells us to ignore that conscience.
There
are two inner voices that are at war with one another within us; one an
instrument of darkness used to lure into eternal damnation. The other, an
instrument of the voice of light to make us aware of the danger that we are in
of being forever separated from our Maker and actively persuades us to seek out
the means of redemption made for us so that we might be forever reconciled with
our Maker and receive the forgiveness that delivers from the everlasting
condemnation that we would otherwise be under.
There
is an inner voice that is carnal which darkens and perverts our thoughts,
clouds our judgment and understanding, silences our conscience by causing us to
ignore it and which is done easily, lulls us into a false sense of security,
appeals to selfish desires, and caters to diverse lusts. It is that inner
voice with which we have all inherited from the first man and woman God
created. We inherited that inner voice when they gave heed to an external
voice which took on the form a serpent and appealed to the three basic things
that caused them both to eat the fruit of a certain tree called the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil from which they were forbidden. (Gen. 3)
Lust
of the eyes: That fruit was alluring.
Lust
of the flesh: The fruit was good to eat.
Pride
of life: A promised benefit and enhancement which never came.
And
because of their disobedience, we have living inside of us an inherited inner
voice that serves as an instrument of death and that instrument of death is
called sin (Rom. 6:23) and because all have sinned (Rom. 3:23) all die, (Rom.
5:12) just as the first man and woman, Adam and Eve eventually died.
Sin
has corrupted and twisted our very inward nature and has left us alienated from
our Maker in whom there is no sin and corruption and because we have succumbed
to this inner voice in one way or another, we have all failed to meet the
standard of moral perfection required of us by a morally perfect God and
therefore are sentenced to a spiritual and physical death and no matter how
hard we try to keep His laws and live in as upright of fashion as we can, sin,
even in ways of which we are not aware, prevents us from being able to keep
every good and perfect law well enough to keep us from the sentence of eternal
damnation into which we are born because of that inner voice of sin.
It
is this inner voice of sin that makes the heart deceitful. (Jer. 17:9 ) It
is the reason why we cannot trust ourselves (Is. 22:11, Jer. 17:5-6) or our own
understanding (Prov. 3:5) but must place our faith in something that will not
deceive us or lead us to destruction.
The
world system and the forces of darkness in all their elaborate, clever,
ingenious, and crafty subtleties join together in blinding us to the glory of
God and all those things that point to him, withholding and even destroying
evidences that testify to His truth, and which make good use of the inner voice
sin to silence that other inner voice of the conscience by causing us to
rationalize, justify, and make excuses for our sin and unbelief and all three
together seem to make themselves louder than the voice of the Holy Spirit who
is ever at work speaking to our hearts, spirits, and our conscience, trying to
make known to us that there is a Creator to whom all life owes its existence
and who has defined right and wrong, good and evil and what truth is, warning
us of the dangers and consequences we face if we remain in our sinful state
while that inner voice of sin and its dark master through the uses of all that
is at his disposal attempt to lull us into this false sense of security that
makes us blind and unaware of our fallen state, leading us away into an eternity
of torment because of that inner voice of sin which separates us from the God
who is perfect and holy and because of His purity, He cannot allow that which
is impure, corrupt, imperfect, and which falls short of moral perfection into
His presence and because He is good and Holy, a time comes when He must punish
all that is evil and sinful and destroy all that which is corrupt, impure, and
unholy, and do away with all that is imperfect meaning they who are under sin
must also face that punishment which lasts for an eternity.
But
in His love, He is at work awakening and appealing to the inner voice of our
conscience, attempting to reason with us, making Himself known to us and
opening our eyes to how short we have fallen of His glory (Rom. 3:23) offering
us redemption by a means in which both the need for justice and mercy our made
satisfied through Christ Jesus who died on the cross for our sins and rose from
the dead in order that our sins would be washed away and so that in Him we
would be forgiven and receive salvation so that we are no longer separated from
our Maker but will be forever reconciled to Him, and for they who place their
trust in Christ, we not only receive the forgiveness of sins, but are made anew
with another inner voice which is that voice of His Spirit who comes to dwell
in us and by this Spirit we receive in us a new nature that wants to be the
best servant for our Lord that we can be and give Him honor and glory in all
that we say and do.
It
is this new inner voice that, if we will listen to Him, will conform our minds
to that of Christ, reshape our priorities from being self and earthly centered
to heavenly centered, and instill in us a sense of meaning and purpose that we
never once had before. But that inner voice of sin which is the sinful
nature will war and relentlessly war with the inner voice of the Spirit, being
the new nature of the Spirit that we receive when we are sealed with the Holy
Spirit upon receiving Christ into our hearts and lives to be our Lord and
Savior.
Which
inner voice will we listen to? Which inner voice should we listen
to? The inner voice that sows to the flesh from which corruption all
things that are a grief to the Spirit and dishonoring to our Lord is reaped or
the inner voice of the Spirit by to which if we sow, we will reap holiness and
all things pleasing to our Lord and which will give Him glory?
Do
we wish to stand before our Lord in shame? Or do we want to stand before
Him and receive His honor and praise for faithful service and obedience?
While
there may be hope for those professors of the faith whose faith in Christ may
be challenged or even overthrown by what appeared to them to be insurmountable
intellectual and philosophical arguments against the faith, I personally fear
for those like Shannon Bonne whose reasoning for turning against the true
Gospel first delivered by the Apostles under the authority of Christ, and then
compiled and written down in the scriptures under the inspiration and direction
of the Holy Spirit does not appear to have anything to do with any unanswerable
questions and challenging arguments, but with the attitude of her heart.
A
Jesus in her own image, which she appears to be idolatrously seeking, is not
the Jesus by whose blood we are redeemed. It is a false Jesus with a
false doctrine and a false gospel that lures away from God instead of to God
and which eternally damns instead of eternally saving.
It
is the Gospel about which we read in the Bible that saves and it is the
doctrine that we receive from the scripture that rings true and has withstood
every test, and which serves as the instructions in which we are to abide.
And
it is the Jesus who was born of a virgin, who healed various infirmities,
performed a variety of miracles, whose rage shook the Temple, who condemned the
corruption and hypocrisy of the religious authorities, who withstood every
temptation without sin, overcame every attempt to discredit Him, and who, out
of His love for us, endured immense suffering and finally, death on the cross
for our sins, who proved His power over death by His resurrection, and who
applied His blood to the heavenly mercy seat, and who is coming again upon whom
the Church is founded and in whom we place our faith and hope for all things
and the God who will never fail us but who has proven and will continue to
prove Himself faithful in fulfilling all things promised, foretold, and
declared. (Heb. 10:23)
But
that same Jesus will not affirm our sin, but calls upon us to repent of our
sins in order for forgiveness to be given because He does not want us to
continue walking in that which He freed us from. (Rom. 6:2) He detests a
heart of indifference or lukewarmness. (Rev. 3:14-20) We are either for
Him or against Him. He demands that we choose what side we will be
on. Will we be on the side of God? Or will we be on the side of
Satan? There is no middle ground. But if we choose to side with
Christ, then He commands us to live our lives in such a way so as to reflect
that allegiance saying to us that if we will honor Him before men, He will
honor us before the Father, but if we show ourselves ashamed of Him and His
words, then He will shame us before the Father. (Mk. 8:38, Lk. 9:26)
If
we are to be all that we can be for Him, He expects us to sacrifice as much as
is required of us on account of His name. He calls on us to seek His
praise above the praise of man. He commands us to be faithful in the
calling that He has given each and everyone of us and to use the gifts and the
talents that He has given to us to His glory. (Mt. 25:14-30)
He
does not want us to grow fond of or attached to this present world or the
things of the world (1 Jn. 2:15) but to set our sights on the world to
come. And He expects us to be about the Father's business until He returns.
(Lk. 19:13) And the day is coming when all the world will stand before
Him and be judged everyone according to all that they have done in this life;
some to everlasting life and others to everlasting damnation.
That
is the Jesus who made Heaven and earth and all that is in them, ( John chapter
1) the Jesus who became God in the flesh and died for our sins so that any
believing in Him would have everlasting salvation and restored fellowship with
their Maker. And also the Jesus who rose from the dead and conquered
death so that we also may have the hope of one day being made free from the
power of death as well. (1 Cor. 15:52, 1 Thess. 4:15-16) He is also the
Jesus who ascended into Heaven and is returning again to establish His reign
upon the earth, and the Jesus with whom we will be forevermore.
End Notes:
1. Shannon Bonne (Ex-wife of apostate Joshua Harris), "Shannon
Bonne Instagram Post; Candid Chat: Inner Wisdom," Instagram, July 5, 2019
https://www.instagram.com/p/BzjiPWdnJsN/
2. Ibid
3. Shannon Bonne, "Shannon Bone Instagram Post," Instagram, July 16, 2019
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz9kfD7Htaw/
4. Heather Clark, "Joshua Harris, Who Recanted 'Kissed Dating Goodbye' Book Announces Separation From Wife,"
Christian News Network, July 23, 2019
https://christiannews.net/2019/07/23/joshua-harris-who-recanted-kissed-dating-goodbye-book-announces-separation-from-wife/
Scripture references:
1. Jeremiah 17:9
2. Proverbs 3:5
3. Jeremiah 17:5-6
4. Genesis chapter 3
5. Romans 6:23
6. Romans 3:23
7. Romans 5:12
8. Hebrews 10:23
9. Romans 6:2
10. Revelation 3:14-20
11. Mark 8:38
12. Luke 9:26
13. Matthew 25:14-30
14. 1 John 2:15
15. Luke 19:13
16. John chapter 1
17. 1 Corinthians 15:52
18. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
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