Category: holiness of God

How Can You Help Your Church?

~ Sherry ~ 18 Comments

Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation. Proverbs 26:26

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Hateful people lie to cover their wickedness (Pr 26:24-26). But God promised to expose them. It is terrible there are such people, but it is worse that they get into churches. The place designed as a refuge of brotherly love can have lurking danger by malicious men.

Wicked men get into most churches. It is a terrible evil, but it happens. Though filled with arrogance, hatred, and selfishness, they creep into churches with false professions of religion. Even the world knows this fact, for many reject Christianity for its hypocrisy. But though such sinners cover their hatred by lies, their evil souls will be fully exposed.

What a great God! What a helpful proverb! God teaches you how to discern liars, and He promises to take care of them for you. Bible wisdom can help you perceive a person with hateful and wicked motives, and faith in God can comfort you that He will fully expose the lying monster. Faith and learning have their rewards. Love such truth and wisdom.

This proverb has a rare context to help its interpretation. Solomon had been describing the dangerous evil of talebearers (Pr 26:20-23). These wicked persons love to spread harmful facts, rumors, tales, and insinuations about others. They hurt others deeply, and they cause contention and strife among the members of any group. They do not know the way of peace themselves, and they also keep others from enjoying peace and security.

They play the hypocrite with their mouths by claiming to be Christians, while their hearts plan games of pretence and revenge (Pr 26:24). Wise men do not believe their fair words, for they know many evil imaginations are in their hearts (Pr 26:25). Wisdom is the power of right judgment, the ability to discern and know things that deceive most other people.

What identifies these wicked imposters? They speak derogatorily about others and spread harmful facts or slanderous innuendos (Pr 26:20-25). Just listen to their speech about others, and you can discover them. They can hardly stop criticizing and sowing discord by negative information. They are backbiters, slanderers, talebearers, and whisperers.

When a person hates others, the Bible says it proves him a child of the devil (Jn 8:44; I Jn 2:9,11; 3:10,15; 4:8,20). When you detect the critical, hateful, and snide spirit of some toward others, you have likely found a child of the devil. Is this judgment too harsh? Remember Jesus and “the apostle of love” provided the cross-references. God is love, and those truly the children of God will show God is in them by their love (I Jn 4:7-16).

Though these haters lie and pretend to be loving Christians, God will expose them to save His true saints. David begged God to save his kingdom from such strange children – hypocrites that use vain speech and false handshakes to pretend love and piety (Ps 144:7-11). There are great benefits for a church to get rid of such false persons (Ps 144:12-15).

Paul told the Corinthian church that God would send heresies into His churches to discover these lying frauds and confirm the identity of His true children (I Cor 11:19). So while heresies are a painful matter to deal with in a church, they are often used to expose the lying hypocrites that cause dissension and strife. The end result is well worth the pain.

God’s distillation process is precious. Distillation is a method used to separate a mixture into its component parts, where the desired component will be at a much higher strength than diluted in the mixture. The God of heaven is constantly at work distilling His faithful churches by removing the impure elements to refine and improve the remainder.

Absalom was Solomon’s brother and David’s son. He lied to Israel about how much he cared for them to steal the throne (II Sa 15:1-6). But God exposed his hatred and left him hanging by his hair in a tree for Joab’s darts (II Sa 18:9-15). Judas conspired in hatred with the Jews against Jesus, and the other apostles had no idea (John 13:21-30). But God exposed his hatred and dashed his bowels over a field (Matt 27:1-10; Acts 1:18-20).

How can you help your church? Never speak negatively about anyone, unless absolutely necessary for those in authority or for scriptural duty. If you cannot say something kind or commending, do not say anything. Make it your goal to promote the reputations of all men, even your personal enemies. This is true Christianity (Matt 5:43-48; Phil 2:1-4).

How can you help your church? If you hear someone criticizing, backbiting, gossiping, or slandering others, stop them by an angry face or warning rebuke (Pr 25:23; Ps 101:5; I Thess 5:14). God hates this sin, and so should you (Pr 6:16-19). A wife may do this even to a foolish husband, if she is discrete and respectful like Abigail (I Sam 25:3,19,36-37).

Jesus Christ is the Head of His churches, and He constantly walks among them, visible to the eye of faith (Rev 3:1). He exposed the lie of Ananias and his wife Sapphira in the church at Jerusalem (Acts 5:1-11). He cut down many selfish and profane souls in the church at Corinth (I Cor 11:30). He promised death to Jezebel and her followers in the church at Thyatira (Rev 2:20-23), and He comforted and exhorted the rest (Rev 2:24-27).

This God you can trust no matter what. Hateful liars claiming to love God and be your friends can be frightening and worrisome. But He has promised to take care of them by exposing them, and He has promised to take care of you by protecting you. He has sent His glorious Son, the King of heaven, to guard and protect you and every true church. Have you committed your life and church entirely to Him? You will never regret it.

Let God be True. com

 

The Blindness of Ministers

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None resist the wisdom of God more than they that should be wisest, and they resist because of their zeal for their own traditions: for men please themselves in superstition more than in any other thing, that is to say, in a worship of God fondly devised by themselves. ~ Geneva Study Bible, commentary on Mark 7:1 concerning the Pharisees (which would be today’s Christo-pagans)

Unredeemable

~ Sherry ~ 2 Comments

Paganism is unredeemable. God required the Israelites to completely annihilate all that belonged to pagan idolatry so that there would be no amount of influence to worship Him in like manner. In Acts 19:19 we see the new converts obeying God in this:

A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.

(if we could incorporate paganism into our worship of God, or, if we could christianize paganism, wouldn’t this be the time to mention it to the new converts?)

There are two types of worship by mankind-to the enemy of our souls, Satan, or to the lover of our souls, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only true God.

As Matthew Henry said, “If Satan gets but half of you, he gets all of you. If God gets but half of you, He will have none of you.” It’s time to destroy all of the pagan/papist traditions and rituals from our worship to God.

The Essence of Faithfulness

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Excerpt from the book, Spirit Life, by Dr. Stuart Briscoe, 1983, pgs 117-119:

Revelation 2:10 NKJV

Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Believers, young and old, were confronted with the choice of denying Christ and living or affirming Christ and dying. To be faithful under those conditions was to die.Sometimes the choice was not as clear-cut: Simply acknowledge Caesar and keep your religion, and we won’t bother you so long as you show your patriotism in your submission to the authorities. To be faithful in those days was to refuse to bow to Caesar as lord, lest it should reflect on the conviction Christ alone is Lord.This was treason in the eyes of the law, and the faithful were faithful unto death.

Those days and issues may appear far removed from our contemporary situations, but the appearance is deceptive. Not many years ago Korean believers laid their commitments on the line and their blood in the sand. Ugandan believers took a stand against anything that might compromise their position. Central American countries in the ferment of revolution have lost many of their sons and daughters out of solid, unflinching commitment, and Ethiopian Christians in great numbers have refused  to bow to Marxist demands that contravene Christian conviction. Their sufferings have shown faithfulness in its most glowing colors. Living, as many of us do, in less hostile and more amenable circumstances, faithfulness unto death may seem an extreme possibility, but faithfulness unto life faces us all in a dozen choices.

Doctrinal purity was another concern of the early believers, and to them faithfulness meant a tenacious treasuring of the truth.

3 John 3-4 NKJV

For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Twenty centuries after Christ we have become accustomed to the broad sweep of Christian theology, modern criticisms, and attempted revisions of it and what we regard as the fundamentals of the faith. But in the formative years of the church, many issues concerning the nature and diety of Christ, the means of grace, and Christian ethics were being fiercely debated. People from a Jewish background clearly struggled with the concept of a suffering Messiah instead of a charismatic, popular hero-deliverer. Others from a Greek background, which stressed the evilness of matter, were appalled at the suggestion that God should assume bodily form. Numerous theological differences arose. Judaism on the one hand was making powerful attacks on the infant church, while Gnosticism attacked on a different, but no less powerful, front. And in the middle stood believers committed to the truth delivered to them through the apostles. These men were not intimidated by their opponents and waged serious war against every threat to their gospel. Paul showed the strength of their feelings when he told the Galatians: “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:9 NIV)

The apostles were playing hardball when it came to their proclamation and defense of the truth, and they expected the believers to be able to recognize truth from error and embrace the one and shun the other. To them this was the essence of faithfulness.

Jude-1-3-Contend-Earnestly-For-The-Faith-beige-copy

 ~just a note: for ease of writing out this excerpt I c&p’d NKJV scriptures but the author used the NIV.

1 John 2:15-17

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GRAVEN IMAGES: FORBIDDEN by GOD

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Why the Church Prospers

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spurgeon

Whenever the Church has been thoroughly distinct from the world, she has always prospered. During the first three centuries the world hated the Church. The prison, the stake, the heels of the wild horse, these were thought too good for the followers of Christ. When a man became a Christian, he gave up father and mother, house and lands, nay, his own life also. When they met together, they must meet in the catacombs, burning candles at high noon, because there was darkness in the depths of the earth. They were despised and rejected of men. “They wandered about in sheep’s’ skins and goats’ skins, destitute, afflicted, tormented.” But then was the age of heroes; that was the time of giants. Never did the Church so much prosper and so truly thrive as when she was baptized in blood. The ship of the Church never sails so gloriously along as when the bloody spray of her martyrs falls upon her deck. We must suffer, and we must die, if we are ever to conquer this world for Christ. Was there ever such a surprising miracle as the spread of the gospel during the first two or three centuries? Within fifty years after Christ had ascended to heaven, the gospel was preached in every known part of the world, and there were converts to Christ in the most inhospitable regions. Further than the ships of Tarshish had the gospel flown; the pillars of Hercules had not bounded the industry of the apostles. To wild and uncivilised tribes, to Picts and Scots, and to fierce Britons, was the gospel proclaimed. Churches were founded, some of which have lasted in their purity to this day. And all this, I believe, was partly the result of that striking, that marked difference between the Church and the world. Certainly, during the period after Constantine professed to be a Christian, changing with the times, because he saw it would strengthen his empire-from the time when the Church began to be linked with the state-the Lord left her, and gave her up to barrenness, and Ichabod was written on her walls. It was a black day for Christendom when Constantine said, “I am a Christian.” “By this sign I conquer,” said he. Yes, it was the true reason of his pretended conversion, if he could conquer by the cross it was well enough; if he could have conquered by Jupiter, he would have I liked it equally as well. From that time the Church began to degenerate. And coming down to the Middle Ages, when you could not tell a Christian from a worldling, were you to find piety at all, or life or grace left in the lands. Then came Luther, and with a rough grasp he rent away the Church from the world-pulled her away at the risk of rending her in pieces. He would not have her linked in affinity with the world, and then “The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers took counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed;” but He that sitteth in the heavens did laugh at them; Jehovah had them in derision. The Church went forth conquering and to conquer, and her main weapon was her non-conformity to the world, her coming out from among men. Put your finger on any prosperous page in the Church’s history, and I will find a little marginal note reading thus: “In this age, men could readily see where the Church began and where the world ended.” Never were there good times when the Church and the world were joined in marriage with one another. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0305.cfm

Three Witches Visit a Charismatic Emergent Church

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From this article, Born-Again Witch: Why I Took Witches to a Pentecostal Church (Part 1)

Autumn: My first impression of the grounds and facility was one of surprise.  Annika had covered in depth some of the things I might see, how people would likely react to me, and so forth, but the grounds of the church as we approached had a vibe I was not expecting.  The architecture and layout was something like the United Nations combined with a modern high school with a sprinkling of the Google campus.  Flagpoles lining the “Avenue of Nations” seemed to shout out the place of the church as a meeting for the entire world, and the landscaping and parking lots were meticulously maintained.  None of this quite prepared me however for walking in the door and seeing what I now refer to as the “Sacred Starbucks” — the Christian themed coffee shop ‘HeBrews’ complete with pastries, snacks, and little tables.   Everything meticulous, corporate, and professionally designed.  This place had money.  And it was not afraid to use it…

For a while I kept thinking that maybe the next song would be different and I could join in, but it never changed. I felt a sadness wash over me, a loss. I wasn’t going to be able to participate in this no matter how much internal translating I would do. This really wasn’t for me anymore. I felt excluded, left out, the sense that I didn’t belong. For me that was unexpected and surprisingly  unpleasant. It was one thing to not join by my own choice, but this expression of worship felt so unwelcoming. I looked over at Autumn and saw that she was observing everything very carefully and was deep in thought. I couldn’t wait to find out what her experience was, if she could see the energy being moved, and what her interpretation would be.

Follow the links to Part Two and Part Three within the article.

Part Three shows the witchcraft used in charismatic churches and also shows that there was no discerning of spirits. Why Christians do not ask the Lord for the discerning of spirits gift is beyond me. Many Wiccans come into a church to bring it down and with much success-and why not? There is paganism and witchcraft going on of which the Lord hates! I call these churches by the name of Ichabod-the glory of the Lord has departed. And they don’t even know it.

In Proverbs we read: “There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Think about this for a moment.  The Bible states “the wages of sin is death.” So what may seem right, can lead to death because the consequence of sin is death. Do you see how deception works?

Sometimes it is beneficial to take time to do a reality check on our lives. For example, a Christian can be confident that he or she is serving the Lord when he is actually deceived. This is because what we do “seems to be right” in our eyes.

We really need to pray and ask our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the only true God, to reveal to us all of the lies we are believing to be the truth! Confess to Him that you are not sure if you have been deceived but that you need Him to show you. And be at the ready to repent-and be ready to accept that some of those lies may not seem to be wrong to you. But do your research before fluffing it off. Search the matter out in all of your practices, especially those of tradition. Pray the Scriptures. Pray for discernment to know truth from error. And, ask the Lord for the gift of discerning of spirits when you sense something may be amiss in the church. Be Spirit-led. Put on your armor and wield that two-edged Sword!

To the angel of the church of Ephesus write,

‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands:  “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”’ ~Revelation 2:1-7 NKJV