There are many churches today that keep a strict accounting of how many people they drew to Christ, whether through street witnessing, evangelistic crusades, or other means of outreach. This is all well and good, but too few keep an accounting of how many people they turned off to the gospel of Christ, by not living what they preach, by focusing more on the things of this earth than the kingdom of God, and by not being a living testimony of the grace and work of Jesus.

One of the most subtle and destructive works of the enemy, is that of taking sincere souls and convincing them to practice a false Christianity, a hyper spirituality that has nothing to do with the work of God in their lives, but that is simultaneously close enough to doctrinal truth that they feel justified in their practice.

Before going any further, I need to make two points that I realize will not sit well with some.

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THE WORD FEAR DEFINED

Fear is either expressive of reverence or terror.

Fear as terror is generally expressed by the Hebrew words magor, and pacadh, and by the Greek word phobos.

Fear as being reverence is denominated in Hebrew as yirah, and in Greek as eulabeia. However, these words are occasionally also used without this distinction.

Fear issues forth from love—either for ourselves or for God. Self-love engenders fear when something occurs which could deprive us of something good or whereby some evil could befall us. We fear deprivation, or the evil itself, and whatever or whoever would deprive us of that which is good, or whereby evil could be inflicted upon us.

God has created self-love in man and wills that we make use of it. The law requires that we love our neighbor as ourselves (Mat 22:39). It is therefore not sinful to fear deprivation and evil. This fear was inherent in Adam’s nature prior to the fall, even though there was no occasion for this fear to arise in him. The Lord Jesus also had such fear (cf. Mat 26:37; Heb 5:7). One may indeed be fearful of death and other discomforts, and thus also of wild animals and evil men.

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This is the vision/revelation.

I was in the midst of a great meeting hall (a church), and the walls and ceilings were covered with jewels and ornaments, and the windows were made of colored glass (a typical cathedral or church).  The hall was full of people, some rich, some poor, some sick and crippled, mute and blind; but all had chains on and were hand-cuffed, and no one was free, (a picture of today’s church – they’re in church but they’re not free).  In front of the meeting hall was a large platform, with a pulpit on one side and a large cage on the other, with a huge green serpent in it; and hanging over where the speaker would stand, was a great sword suspended by two strings horizontally; and on the platform were several ministers, 8 or 10, clothed in clerical robes, sitting one behind the other, one seated just a little above the other.

The assembly looked upon these men and they looked upon the church. There was silence for a while, until a thundering voice sounded from the pulpit, as if it came directly from God, saying,

Who will declare the whole counsel of God?

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I will be the first one to challenge what our modern churches have defined as the “love walk”. It seems to be nothing more than simple tolerance, weak and unbalanced, at best. However, we can never by any means cast off love or ignore its command to believers.

I have been deeply burdened, as of late, at the constant bickering and viciousness of fellow believers. Never before have I witnessed such a willingness to tear people apart if one does not believe exactly like the other.

My friends, these things ought not be. Read the rest of this entry »

“Take heed what ye hear” (Mark 4:24)

The word “hear” obviously includes what is read, for that which is written or printed is addressed to the ears of our intellect. Few people today realize the urgent need for “taking heed” unto what they read. Just as the natural food, which is eaten, either helps or hinders the body, so the mental food we receive either benefits or injures the mind, and that, in turn, affects the heart. Now just as it is harmful to listen to the rubbish and poison which is being served from the great majority of present-day pulpits, so it is exceedingly injurious to the soul to read most of what is now being published. “Take heed what ye hear” and read. But let us seek to be more specific.

The only thing which is really worth calling “religion” is the life of God in the soul-commenced, carried on, and consummated solely by the Holy Spirit. Hence, whatever does not bear the impress of the Spirit’s unction should be rejected by the saint: for not only can unctionless messages do us no good, but what proceeds not from the Spirit is of the flesh. Here, then, is the test which God’s children ought to apply unto all they hear, and here is the balance in which they should weigh all that they read. True, there are varying degrees of the Spirit’s unction: as it is in the natural so it is in the spiritual—there will be a varying amount of depositation from the faintest moisture of dew to the copious shower. As there had to be “salt” in every sacrifice (Lev. 2:13), so every discourse or article proceeding from the Spirit’s aid is “seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6). But O how very much today is devoid of spiritual savor and flavor!

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The apostle John closes his first epistle with the following tender and solemn admonition:

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols!”

Those to whom he thus addressed himself had been converted from Paganism, and needed to be cautioned against relapsing into their former idolatry, and against every practice, which would in the smallest degree seem to countenance it. There is no need that I should warn you against this sin in its literal import. You have never bowed the knee to a graven or molten image, and never will—but is there no such thing as SPIRITUAL idolatry? The first commandment of the Decalogue says:

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

The meaning of this precept, which is the foundation of all religion, is not merely that we shall not acknowledge any other God besides Jehovah—but also that we shall treat him as God! That is, we must love him with all our hearts, serve him with all our lives, and depend upon him for our supreme felicity. It is obvious that all this, as well as prayer and praise, is the worship which God requires.

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