Strong Man Of God Blog

            Truly, in full character with those of history, Christian religionists today would have you bend to their corruptions rather than repent at the presentation of God’s Word!  I have long endured the treachery of such persons among the churches in common with all of the prophets of the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus, His apostles and prophets after them.  Indeed, mostly gone are the days the Lord’s New Testament prophets were welcome in the churches to bring a word of revelation, prophecy, exhortation, reproof or instruction (Acts 11:19-30, 13:1-2).  Threatened religionists and their pastors want nothing to do with hearing, being taught or brought back to His Word as it is written!

            The Lord had made good on His word to the 1^st century Jewish religious establishment when in the gifting mix of His apostles and servants were “prophets, wise men, and scribes“ He sent to them to prove their unregenerate hearts by the murderous treatment they gave the men and God’s just judgment (Matthew 23:34-36; Acts 5:27-41, 7:51-8:3, 12:1-3, 14:19-22, NKJV).  How can men that profess to know God lift a finger to harm anyone?  Again, the father of religious men is not God, but Satan who Jesus declares is the original murderer (John 8:44).  The satanically deceived heart of the religionist causes him to believe he does God a favor to murder opposition (John 16:1-4).

            So, it has been the case down through the centuries since that Christianity the religion of men has used every possible means including murder to silence real or perceived opposition.  Only in recent years have Catholics and Protestants in Ireland called a truce to bloody open warfare.  And while warfare has been less violent in other Western nations including our own, nevertheless, denominational and church legal battles are legion; those labeled divisive in legitimate disagreement with a pastor or elders because of the Word, at their whim are cast out of churches as easily as the Pharisees excommunicated the man born blind that Jesus healed (John 9:26-34).

            Amazingly and at Satan’s delight, the Word of God is nearly always at the center of religious contentions.  Having deceived religionists to depart from faithful obedience to God’s Word in spirit and fullest implication as it is written (John 6:63), Satan instead inspires endless covenants, creeds and activities in accommodation to the sinful flesh that in form appear God approved, but are far from it (Matthew 15:1-20).  In fact, because God is not really in what the religionists in carnality do no matter how outwardly splendid, pious, emotionally charged or pleasing to them, there is no spiritual power from the Holy Spirit just as the apostle Paul warns about these last days (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

            Please note that he also warns to “turn away” from such people (2 Timothy 3:5, NKJV); people that read and instruct from, but do not obey the Bible; that practice Christianity as a religion majoring on self-effort, sentimental, human love and the externals of manmade rules, rituals and traditions in all spiritual deadness pleasing not God, but Satan (Colossians 2:20-23; 1 Timothy 4:1-5).  This is why I do not preach or teach religion to men, but Jesus Christ in the Gospel, His Word and the Spirit in all power to do God’s will in pleasing Him!  Gifted and called one of the Lord’s prophets to the churches, I also call religionists to repentance and revival (Ezekiel 33:1-9; Ephesians 4:7-16; Revelation 3:1-6).

            I call religionists in the churches to repentance because they need it to escape captivity to Satan (2 Timothy 2:24-26).  Revival is necessary because the “new wine” of authentic, biblical Christianity must be poured into hearts made “new wine skins,” (Luke 5:33-39, NKJV).  I also call religionists in the churches to repentance and revival for the sake of those seeking and won by hard labor to Christ as babes who need the spiritual nurture of His Body in Word with the Spirit’s life and power, but cannot get it from them!  I am deeply grieved and burdened with the heart of Christ about this since religionist churches are pervasive in our nation.  They stifle the spiritual growth of initially sincere men eventually ruining many that adopt their ways (Matthew 23:13-28). 

            Such religionist run churches in America spawned those that have now fully turned their backs on biblical family order and morality.  They boldly re-define God and sin.  Their equally satanically deceived politically correct and tolerant offspring will shortly in great intolerance join with atheists and all others hatefully embittered against God and His Christ, to unjustly and violently silence the voices of His faithful (Mark 13:11-13; John 15:18-25).  Throughout history God has made a distinction between those that are His and those that are not.  Unrepentant religionists never make His cut (Malachi 3:13-4:3; Matthew 7:21-23, 23:29-33).  The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"

            How grateful I am to the God of the Bible who patiently pursued, drew and convinced me as a sinner of my need for what He had to offer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  Though I had been introduced to the biblically based language and culture of Christianity as a religion in childhood and was baptized, I did not really know Christ until in my messed up life at 20 years old, He brought me into relationship with Himself through repentance, faith and spiritual new birth (John 3:1-8).  Aside from momma Lee leading me in the prayer to receive Christ and my grandmother, Eunice Campbell’s counsel, the work to mentor me as a new believer my first three years was done directly by Him using His Word.

            Thank God, thank God, He allowed no sinful human agent of Christianity the religion of men to interfere with His work of teaching me as a son, training me as a disciple and preparing me as a servant.  And when I did have association with churches, I was so fully inoculated by the Holy Spirit, I was not, nor to this day have I been ruined spiritually by folks practicing Christianity as a religion.  Religion is so seductively appealing and no wonder; it is expertly drawn out of susceptible fallen men by demons that specialize in it as a deceitful means to destroy them.  The demonic origin of manmade and practiced religion was disclosed by Jesus Christ to 1^st century Jews (John 8:37-47).

            The spirit of religion down through the millennia has captured the hearts of and destroyed many souls.  From Eve’s pursuit of forbidden knowledge to make herself wise like God (Genesis 3:1-6) to the final effort at self-deification by the Antichrist through forced worship of him and Satan’s power (Daniel 11:37-39; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, 9-12; Revelation 13), religion is among the most deadly and effective devices in the arsenal of evil for the diabolical cause of destroying mankind (Revelation 14:9-11).  Satan succeeds because religion plays to mankind’s pride (Ezekiel 28:17; 1 Timothy 3:6), fears and ignorant attempts to satisfy the God planted yearning for Him in sin.

            Inspired of demons, men in pride either invent things spiritual, moral and ethical or corrupt what God has already decreed through their attempt to be religious.  The apostle Paul well exposes the futility of and rebukes both respective approaches to practicing religion in his proclamation to those at Athens and his so not coincidental letter to the church at Rome (Acts 17:16-34; Romans 7:14-8:4).  With fears stirred up by demons, fallen men create gods out of any number of inanimate and animate sources for protection among other fear arresting reasons which the only true and living God rebukes (Psalm 115:1-8; Isaiah 44:6-8; Romans 1:18-25).

            It is of God that men would seek Him since it is written, “He has put eternity in their hearts,” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NKJV).  Of all the things this statement may mean, it certainly indicates God has built into men awareness that there is something more to this life beyond what meets the senses.  God is eternal Spirit (John 4:24)!  Made in God’s image and likeness now marred and separated from Him by sin, men in spirit still yearn to reconnect to their Maker (Zechariah 12:1; Hebrews 12:9) despite not quite understanding it is Him they seek.  God bids all to seek Him in the way He has prescribed and He will be found (Isaiah 55:1-7; Luke 11:9-13; John 7:37-39, 14:6; Acts 13:26-41).

            Deceived by the spirit of religion, however, fallen men corrupt even the noble desire to reconnect with God by the invention of their own methods, doctrines and actions to please Him.  All of the New Testament Gospels record how the 1^st century Jewish religious establishment dogged, persecuted and eventually instigated Christ’s death on the cross deceived by Satan in practicing religion (see for example, John 8:48-12:19).  The spread of Christianity from Christ’s resurrection by His apostles met with equal resistance from Jewish and pagan religionists.  After the apostles, the foretold multifaceted form of Christianity as a corrupt invention of professed Christian men emerged and was ultimately headquartered by the 5^th century at Rome (Revelation 17:1-9).

            Exactly like the spiritually blind, carnal, proud, stubborn and hypocritical 1^st century Jewish religious establishment as I have written over many years, demonically inspired Christianity the religion of men down through the centuries to this hour has been very wicked.¹  From endless heresies and all manner of immorality, to the persecution, casting out and murder of internal foes along with sanctioned wars against other religions and secular enemies, Christianity the religion of men in all of its manifestations is among the most dangerous threats to genuine seekers of God, biblical Christianity and faithful Christians now and going forward.  The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"

1 A partial listing of related blogs dealing with Christianity the religion of men to be found by dates include The Falling Away, February 2, 2014, Re-defining Sin, November 9,

   2014,  Worshipping  God  Without  God,  Parts 1-3,  January  2015,  Strong  Through God Not Religion, Parts 1-2, February 8, 15, 2015, and Babylon Is Fallen, August 23,

   2015.