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Professing Christians are caught between the vice grip of God’s judgment upon the “old time religion” along with compromised, corrupt and so-called “emerging” forms of doing church in His house and the escalating hostility of the world toward Christianity. In order to persevere, those that are faithful will need to walk in the ancient, biblical path marked out for us by the Lord, His apostles and the faithful saints that have gone before. As I witnessed in churches I have been part of over the years though, many stubbornly refuse to hear God’s appeal and warning; preferring instead to continue in their way to their detriment as did ancient Israel (Jeremiah 6:16-21).
Nevertheless, as the Lord leads out of His overflowing goodness, mercy and grace, in this edited 2012 blog repost I stress yet again the need for professing Christians to get properly equipped for the increasingly anti-Christian world we now find ourselves leading to a final nighttime of great tribulation. It will be a night that tests every soul and a last cup of suffering Christians are warned repeatedly by the Lord and His apostles we must drink in following Him (Matthew 10:32-33, 16:21-27, 20:20-23; Philippians 1:27-30).1 This is not now or then a time for belligerence, but sober embrace of the ancient way of Jesus Christ, the Strong Man of God (1 Peter 2:18-25)!
For this reason and without apology, for such a time as this before the fullness of the night should come, the Lord had me to write “The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics” from His Word and embedded in prophetic urgency. It is a book for every professing Christian man and woman not only to be affirmatively instructed in God’s purposes for man that gave rise to the reality of redemption through faith in the Gospel of the Son of Man, but to enable those who cling to Him for salvation to persevere faithfully through all of the troubles prophetically warned about to obtain it! Only God can and did inspire a book with instruction that remains germane through the foretold unfolding future of this present age to its end and into eternity. I stand amazed to be His vessel; to my God be the glory!
Originally Posted July 15, 2012
In light of the predominant decline of churches and given the fact that even many of the Western religious educated elite have labeled the times we are now in as “post-Christian,” it is imperative that individual Christians be more intentional about getting properly equipped spiritually to live in this new reality. This is a reality among Western nations including our own in which Christianity no longer holds a place of favor but increasing disdain and open hostility.
While many professing Christians in blissful disbelief want to remain optimistic that this new reality is only a temporary phenomenon, for many years the Holy Spirit has had me crying out and warning that the days of rebellion against God the Father and His Son as well as expanding hate filled persecution against His disciples are upon us (Psalm 2:1-3; Matthew 10:16-26; 24:9). As our Lord had His “night,” ours also is truly at hand (Luke 22:52-53; John 9:4, 15:18-20).
If the biblically foretold night of global hatred and persecution against followers of Christ were to suddenly fully descend on us in America at this very moment, very few (relatively speaking) would faithfully persevere to the end. Indeed, this is because implicit in the decline of churches is the lack or weakened state of a vibrant practice of biblical Christianity by the professing members.2 There is no Holy Ghost power to live in zeal for the Lord or to share their faith on mission for the Kingdom as a priority in these folk. In the night that by God’s mercy is slowly (yet steadily) descending on us, professing Christians have been given enough time to repent from spiritual apathy and compromise to freshly seek Him for personal renewal. Truly, only the strong in Christ will survive spiritually.
There is a prophetic urgency to my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics along with its sound, biblical instruction because of what I have written in the foregoing. The book does not offer helpful suggestions about how to be a man and is not filled with emotional stories and illustrations to make men think. It soberly presents the divine imperative for Christian men to aspire to become the man God designed us to be in the image of Jesus Christ and the strength He supplies through the Holy Spirit! In doing so in the short-term, we will work restoration in our families, churches and communities; long-term, we will be making the necessary preparation spiritually to faithfully persevere in the night that is falling.
I urge every man reading this--if you have not already, get a copy of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. Pastors, get the book for yourself and then use the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study to equip your men so they might equip their families. These resources are all available on our Web Site in the Strong Man Store. Finally, the so-called “persecuted church” is no longer confined to a few isolated nations. In this month of praying for persecuted believers around the globe, we that are yet able should also do what we can to feed, clothe and shelter our brothers and sisters suffering the most. Support your favorite Christian charity dedicated to this mission.
1 For more information about “the night,” get a thorough word of instruction the Lord gave me in 1987 from a broadcast entitled, The Night Is Almost Here! now available on CD or for download in the Strong Man Store.
2 Excellent statistical data to bear this out can be gleaned from Barna Research Group at www.Barna.org and Pew research at http://www.pewforum.org.
Enlarged in reach by multiple media platforms today, many from the religious educated elite attain even international acclaim and standing. Rather than humility, more careful, diligent attention and fidelity to God’s Word as it is written and the Holy Spirit instructs because of this, a number are caught in Satan’s snare and begin to think more highly of themselves than they ought; teaching what they ought not in compromise, falsehood and hypocrisy (Ezekiel 28:17; Romans 12:3; 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 3:1-7). One such internationally known Bible teacher recently exemplified this reality by declaring on his radio program that in spite of the legalists, he and his elders could defy the clear teaching of 1 Timothy 2:12 after first affirming its continuing authoritative validity.
I write nothing in part two of this re-titled and edited 2013 blog repost God does not already know and as a result, the judgment prepared for members of the religious educated elite who in all haughtiness corrupt God’s Word and deny His power while teaching others to do the same is not at rest. Many that have died without repentance await their final judgment in Hades with all other sinners; those that yet live and refuse to repent will follow in due time after also suffering God’s judgment of His house. Along with churches, this judgment will destroy all of the related institutions of religious education that facilitated the arrogance of the religious educated elite who are guilty.
Originally Posted June 30, 2013
It was not long before scholasticism (the formal study, development, teaching and dissemination of the philosophical and theological thinking of religious educated men) had come to bring confusion into the post-apostolic churches scattered around the Roman Empire and by the Middle Ages, to dominate Catholicism. Overcome by the spiritual deadness and unbiblical religious practices of Catholicism, by the 16th century religious educated priest Martin Luther re-discovered biblical Christianity in of all places, the Bible’s New Testament!
After leading the attempted reform of Catholicism, Martin Luther was in the vanguard of Protestantism’s theologians in which now--five hundred years later, a great deal of their proud scholasticism has managed to do as much if not more damage by way of false, confusing and conflicting doctrines in the churches as that of any previous scholarly teachers in Christian history. From the corrupt justification for enslaving my forefathers to the rejection of the plainly given prophecy of a 1,000 year reign of Christ with His saints on this present earth (Revelation 20:4-6), legion are their “doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1-3, NKJV).
Truly, just like the Sadducees in 1st century Israel, we have arrogant theologians at this hour that refuse to believe the whole Bible or in God’s power to heal through, much less raise His sons to immortal glory due to their private interpretations. Again, such men have their own agenda not Christ’s which begins outside of God’s Word. They belittle the child-like faith our Lord taught us to place in Him as “mysticism” and scoff at the critical role of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers preferring instead to proudly teach assent to doctrines they have constructed in accord with their own philosophical systems of religious thinking as all that is necessary.
Never mind too, many of them are carnal, spiritually weak and immature if truly saved at all because they have no power (1 Corinthians 3:1-4, 4:19-20)! Claiming to be wise because of their credentials from esteemed institutions, they do not realize their true lack of wisdom in having foolishly corrupted or “rejected the word of the Lord” in any part for the cause of their own thinking. And so, God asks, “what wisdom do they have,” (Jeremiah 8:8-9, NKJV)? If God Almighty asks this sobering question, ought not we to do the same especially since these men are standing to speak as spiritual authorities to us?
Part of the problem from ancient times is that the so-called “people of God” permit themselves to be led and deceived by those whose education, credentials and position they proudly admire. This is what the Lord says about it: ‘“An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end,’” (Jeremiah 5:30-31, NKJV)? The apostle Paul chides the Corinthian church in a similar way (2 Corinthians 11:1-4).
Did not our Lord Jesus and His apostles warn us about false prophets and teachers especially in these latter days (Matthew 24:11; 2 Peter 2:1)? What? Is a seminary education and credentials the only things required for a person to escape being identified as a false teacher, esteemed instead as a theologian with license as an expert to deceive in the name of worldly tolerance among the churches? I don’t think so and whoever does ignores the warning of God through His prophets, the Lord and His apostles to their soul’s peril (Jeremiah 17:5-6, 12-13)!
When He had finished with the Sadducees on that day, the people listening in were “astonished at His teaching” and those proud members of Israel’s religious educated elite departed His company speechless because their mistaken doctrine had been shattered to pieces by the Lord (Matthew 22:33; Luke 20:39-40, NKJV). If the Lord got in the faces of Israel’s religious educated elite, where do we get off thinking we can make the same mistakes, have the same attitudes and do the same things He rebuked them for and get away with it? Right doctrine drawn directly out of Scripture as the Holy Spirit teaches is still only honored by Heaven and will be so forever (Matthew 24:35)!
Therefore, in the name of Jesus Christ who rebukes you and for the sake of the one faith once and for all given to the saints for which we are to contend (Jude 3-4), I call to repentance whoever calls himself a Christian teacher and exalts his own sinful thinking and opinions above God’s Word no matter how credentialed (Proverbs 30:5-6)! God has called us to doctrinal unity effected by the Holy Spirit in each man as we come humbly to the Word to be taught not teach as a first priority (John 14:26; 1 Corinthians 1:10, 2:12-16; 1 Peter 3:8). The fact we do not have doctrinal unity in professing Christianity does not mean the concept can be relegated to the “worthy idealistic goal but not realistic” category. It is an indicator of sinful failure and wholly coming up short on our part.
Doctrinal diversity in phony loving, worldly tolerance may be a celebrated academic freedom, but it is condemned by the Lord who calls His followers to share in His singular mind. Unless then, the guilty do repent, the Lord will deal with you as He did the corrupt prophets, priests and teachers of Israel’s religious educated elite and as warned by Peter (Jeremiah 8:10-12; Ezekiel 22:23-31; Matthew 23:1-33; 2 Peter 2:2-3). Also, your religious house with beam and pillar of support is soon to be destroyed by the Lord (1 Peter 4:17; Revelation 18:1-8). Then what will become of all your proud, expertly crafted theologies and you as you with all other professing Christians are forced to stand only on God’s Word as it is written and the power of the Holy Spirit to endure at that time?
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