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In the Lord’s Revelation to the churches written down by His apostle John, reference is made to a curious feminine character, “The Mother Of Harlots,” (Revelation 17:5, NKJV). While the Lord has already had me specifically disclose and discuss what is also called “Mystery: Babylon The Great,”1 in this post He leads me to explain the reason this prophetic enigma is not only described as a harlot, but the mother of them. Plainly, this harlot and her daughters have such significance to Christianity as a future development that warning was merited among and beyond the original seven churches of Asia the Lord’s Revelation is first sent to I wrote about earlier this month.2
What is a harlot? Encarta Dictionary and most other dictionaries will say a harlot is the same as a prostitute which is typically a woman (but historically has also included men) paid to provide sex or related acts. Interestingly, Encarta further defines a prostitute in noun form as one “who degrades talent for money;” using “a skill or ability in a way that is considered unworthy, usually for financial gain.” As a transitive verb, to prostitute is to “misuse something for gain” or offer somebody or oneself for sexual or others favors “in exchange for money.” The Bible uses harlot in these ancient, commonly defined ways (Genesis 38:11-18; 1 Corinthians 6:16), but also applies the term spiritually.
Spiritually, God warns Israel in the aftermath of His first two of Ten Commandments and the gold calf affair not to act toward the heathen nations and their gods as one to be serviced by or be to them a harlot (Exodus 20:1-6, 32:1-6, 34:10-17). Israel was also never to incorporate the use of ritual harlots in their worship practices (Deuteronomy 23:17-18). For Israel to invent and/or bow down to worship any so-called god, was not only considered disobedience by God, but also unfaithfulness in spiritual adultery. Israel, however, did not listen and repeatedly played the spiritual harlot as God charged through her prophets (Isaiah 1:21-23; Jeremiah 3:1-10; Ezekiel 16:1-34; Hosea 6:4-11).
In the same way it would be adultery if a married man’s wife prostituted herself, so, Israel married to God spiritually committed adultery against Him--a reality God had Hosea the prophet live out as a true to life demonstration (Jeremiah 3:14; Hosea 1:1-3, 3:1-3). God confronted Israel with her sin and labeled her persistent spiritual adultery “harlotry;” pronouncing her captive to “the spirit of harlotry” (Hosea 2:2-5, 4:11-19). The Lord’s use of “the spirit of harlotry” is not just a descriptive figure for Israel’s continual spiritual adultery, but identifies the very real demon behind it as well since the first unfaithful creature to God was Satan (Ezekiel 28:14-18; John 8:44; Ephesians 2:1-3, 6:12)!
Obviously, to become unfaithful to God, one has to first be close to Him in some way. Satan was once close to God as a trusted chief cherub who rebelled. Israel spiritually was chosen by Him to be His “special treasure above all people” (Exodus 19:5-6). As already stated, their intimacy of relationship in human terms is spoken of as marriage with God as Israel’s Husband; family with God as Father and Israel as sons. And so it remains as Christ returns to fulfill God’s announcement through the prophets to restore the remnant of Israel and relationship with Him after judging them for their unfaithfulness and apostasy (Ezekiel 16:35-43; Hosea 1:4-2:1, 2:6-23, 3:4-5, 4:1-10, 5-6:3).
No other people ever enjoyed the status of the Jews with God until individual Gentiles were saved by grace through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and like them, brought into His New Covenant; giving rise to the Church He builds (Romans 1:16-17, 9:1-5, 11:1-36; Ephesians 2:11-22). But as the spirit of religion has always deceitfully done cooperating with the spirit of harlotry, corruptions of and departures from God’s Word with ties to pagan practices (such as mother-son cult worship) were introduced to and took hold among many churches.3 By the end of the second century A.D., a great act of harlotry also occurred when priests and a related liturgy of Communion were formalized.4
By the fifth century, this new form of Christianity foreign to the New Testament had become entrenched among the churches of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire, the Middle East and North Africa. The church at Rome soon after exalted herself above all others and became dominant as a mother to them and certainly all that would later come into being as rebel offshoots during the Protestant Reformation. She was Christ’s self-appointed bride and queen on earth. When Rome fell, she took up its place in the world; elevating her head priest to represent her in ruling over kings and engaging in all manner of political intrigue, social engineering and wars of conquest that gained much property and wealth for her as a global empire; murdering saints and prophets along the way.5
As with the mother harlot, so, her daughters; the Lord calls all in the grip of spiritual harlotry to repent! Without repentance, spiritual harlotry leads only to apostasy and judgment as with Israel (Hosea 6:4-7:4a, 8:1-14).6 While in her own eyes “The Mother Of Harlots” sits an untouchable queen favored by her ostensible Husband, He has already exposed her harlotry in His Revelation and announced her end before she came to be (Revelation 14:8, 16:19, 17:1-19:4). Time is nearly up. Therefore, let every guilty professed Christian take heed to the Lord’s warning among “the churches” and repent for He is soon to appear for His faithful and true Bride (Ephesians 5:25-32; Revelation 22:12-17, NKJV). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read the August 23, 2015 post, Babylon Is Falling, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
2 See the two-part post, Revelation’s Seven Churches In Time, beginning January 5, 2020 under the category, Bible Prophecy.
3 Read the January 18, 2015 post, Worshipping God Without God, Pt. 3, under the category, Call To Repent and the two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Chris-
tianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction.
4 Read the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the origin of priests in Christianity. It does not matter what form or act of disobedience used in Satan’s scheme to se-
duce God’s people into harlotry, the end is the same: destruction by God! Indeed, take for example, the Nicolaitans Christ spoke of in His Revelation. While it
may be that the Lord was expressing hatred for “the deeds of the Nicolaitans” in Revelation 2:6 as the sins listed in vs.14, these sins were not actually “the doctrine
of Balaam” as the influencing source of the Nicolaitan’s “doctrine,” (vs.15, NKJV). The doctrine Balaam taught Balak was “to put a stumbling block” (vs.14, NKJV)
before Israel through seducing them to commit those sins against God who would be forced to destroy His people in judgment (Numbers 25, 31:14-16). This is a
strategy Satan has repeatedly employed from Eden (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-6). Compelling is the translation of Nicolaitans from the Greek by scholars as “people
conquerors.” Men as a formal, ruling class of priests with a supporting hierarchy in the churches is nowhere taught in the New Testament and is a corrupt, hereti-
cal mimicking of Judaism’s priesthood from the law Paul, the apostle to us Gentiles, would have surely condemned (Galatians 2:1-5, 3:1-14)! An eternal spiritual
priesthood of all believers serving God and each other is taught in the New Testament (Mark 10:35-45; 1 Peter 2:4-10; Revelation 1:4-6). With historic idolatry and
rampant sexual immorality mixed in, the manmade Christian priesthood as with all other religious inventions of men has proven to be disastrous to professing
Christianity and conquered many.
5 Saints and prophets were persecuted and murdered at the hands of those professing to represent Jesus Christ as His church after not being willing to back down
from standing up to and crying out against the corruptions they saw and endured. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs tells many of their stories.
6 Read the June 10, 2018 post, God’s Judgment Upon His House, under the category, Bible Prophecy and God’s Creatures.
Of the Persons that are the triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), none perhaps, has been more widely misconstrued and corruptly misused by sinful mortal flesh since the first century A.D. than the Holy Spirit. His promised arrival for His special mission among believers in Jesus Christ came exactly fifty days after the Lord’s death, burial, resurrection and ascension on the Jewish “Day of Pentecost” in 33 A.D. (Luke 24:46-49; John 20:19-23; Acts 1:4-11, 2:1-4, NKJV). In spite of ample biblical instruction about who He is and what He does, many professed Christians down through the centuries have created countless made to order falsehoods about the Holy Spirit’s Person and work.1
One of the major falsehoods is the erroneous teaching that the Holy Spirit is only a New Testament phenomenon; on earth since the first century exclusively for the indwelling and benefit of Christians. This falsehood has led directly to another which asserts that the Holy Spirit removed from the earth, also necessitates the removal of Christians He indwells. Others well intended and correctly over the centuries have written in detail on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit drawing as we all should, straight from the Scriptures. I write the following brief introduction of the Holy Spirit who like the Father and Son cannot be made to order, to expose the falsehoods I address in this post.
The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the three Persons that are the “one,” “true God,” (Deuteronomy 6:4; John 17:3, NKJV)! He is first identified in the Bible as “the Spirit of God” at work in the creation of the physical universe, the earth and all its creatures as well as the plurality of “Us” at the creation of man (Genesis 1:1-26, NKJV). As marvelously seen first at creation, the Spirit of God waited on the Word of God to speak what were their purposed unified plans with the Father to bring it into existence through the exertion of divine power! He is therefore, the actualizing Agent of the will of the triune God who always moves in harmony. He is holy because God in nature is (Daniel 4:1-9)!2
For this reason He is identified as the “Holy” Spirit to also distinguish His divine, eternal Person from the spirits of men and angels He has created (Genesis 2:7; Numbers 16:20-22; Psalm 104:4). Beyond creation, the Holy Spirit is the source of every mighty miracle not performed by angels at His direction including for example, the judgment of the flood, confusion of human languages, plagues on Egypt and Red Sea parting in the Old Testament (Genesis 7:11-24, 11:1-9; Exodus 8:16-19, 14:10-31). He was also the source of wisdom and abilities among those used in and inspiration of the men who wrote it (Genesis 41:1-16, 37-40; Exodus 31:1-11, 35:30-35; Daniel 2:1-23; 2 Peter 1:16-21).
The same Holy Spirit was in the earth overseeing God’s activity leading up to and enabling the foretold miraculous incarnation of the eternal “Son” and “Word” of God in the womb of a Jewish virgin (Isaiah 7:10-14; Matthew 1:18-25; John 1:1-5, 14-18, NKJV); initiating the New Testament of the Bible again, written by men carried along by Him (Luke 1:1-4; 2 Peter 1:12-15, 3:1-2, 14-16; 1 John 1:1-4)! He came from Heaven on Pentecost not as if for the first time, but in a special, dramatic way to fulfill the words of the prophets and Christ who taught new birth by the Holy Spirit was required to “see” and “enter the Kingdom of God,” (Joel 2:28-32; Matthew 3; John 3:1-8; Acts 2:5-39, NKJV).3
While the eternal life of believers and His manifold ministry in and through us hangs on Him, the Holy Spirit is also busy in the world with other divine assignments (John 7:37-39, 14:15-26, 15:26-16:15; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 12:1-13; 2 Corinthians 1:20-22). His work includes restraining lawlessness until God’s perfect time to allow the rise of the Antichrist, greater evil and deception before the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12).4 He does not leave the planet. He simply steps out of the way of restraining.5 This work of the Spirit is independent of Christians though, He certainly uses us in the war with Satan to be salt and light as well as preach the Gospel, make, baptize and teach disciples in all the earth as Christ has commanded (Matthew 5:13-16, 28:19-20; Jude 20-23).
Given the level of sophistication attending to much of the false teaching going on within professing Christianity in these latter days coming from what are supposed to be trusted “Christian” sources in the media and many church pulpits, it is imperative that you and I know God’s Word for ourselves. This is accomplished through purposely studying the Bible which every Christian ought to be doing as a matter of daily spiritual discipline. The Lord by the Holy Spirit leads me to challenge men that would be strong men of God in Christ’s image to do this very thing in my book, The Strong Man Of God Back To Basics.6 I now, challenge all Christians to adopt this discipline and teach how to make Bible study more profitable in our new Strong Man Virtual Institute video course.7
1 The greatest of all falsehoods (and insult) is to describe the Holy Spirit as an “it” which this first paragraph plainly counters by speaking properly from the Bible of His “Person and work.”
2 Hence, it is also accurate to say “Holy Son” and ‘“Holy Father’” to the glory of God (Luke 1:35; John 17:11, NKJV)! Too, in eternal nature and character as God the Holy Spirit is “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, righteousness, and truth” among other divine attributes (Gala- tians 5:22; Ephesians 5:9, NKJV).
3 That the Holy Spirit had filled and come upon mortal flesh among those used in the Old Testament for God’s causes has already been established in this post (see also Numbers 24:2 and 1 Samuel 10:9-13). A few men were even indwelt by Him lifelong (Numbers 27:15-18; Deuteronomy 34:5-12; Joshua 1:5, 24:14-31; 1 Samuel 16: 11-13; Psalm 51:11). However, the new birth the Lord Jesus speaks of and requires is for all the redeemed beginning among the Jews as took place in the first century with a still later fulfillment to come and is what the prophet Ezekiel also spoke of as “a new heart” in connection with God’s New Covenant; the indwelling presence and working of the Holy Spirit intended to be with His beneficiaries forever (Jeremiah 31:31-34, 32:36-41; Ezekiel 11:16-21, 36:24-28; John 14:16, NKJV)!
4 While some would like to believe the mortal Church on earth is powerful enough to restrain lawlessness in the world originating from Satan (1 John 2:18), the lawless- ness that has been displayed among our guilty, unrepentant members and local assemblies throughout history to this very hour fully discloses this haughty belief as false (1 John 3:4-24). As such, we just like ancient Israel have brought grief to the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:7-10; Acts 7:51-53; Ephesians 4:25-32; 2 Timothy 3:1-9). No, only the Holy Spirit eternally greater and mightier than Satan can and has restrained his lawless plans and works until now!
5 The mistaken teaching the Holy Spirit leaves the earth moving out of the way of lawlessness arises from among those who also teach His departure is tied to the rap- ture of Christians before any have to suffer tribulation resulting from the increase in evil. This being so, how does anybody get saved (which those who teach this doc- trine assert people will while previously unprepared, backslidden Christians also return to Christ) since the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and brings to new birth or after, get the help Jesus promises from Him if He is gone from the world with the Church? As I write this, lawlessness continues its uptick as the Holy Spirit gradually relaxes His restraint and we are still here on earth with Him. How glad I am about that since without His companionship, comforting, helping and strengthening presence in me, I would not be faring very well as I am sure our persecuted brethren suffering all over the world concur (Romans 8:26-28)!
6 The book is available with the companion Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study and Great Woman Of God Women’s Group Study in the Strong Man Store, at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
7 View the first session of the Fruitful Bible Study Self-Paced Video Course to get an overview on the Virtual Institute’s YouTube Channel. The video course replaces and expands on the one sheet free download, Seven Principles Of Bible Interpretation, the Ministry previously offered. An optional Study Guide for the video course is now, available for free download in the Strong Man Store.
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea,” (Matthew 18:6, NKJV, emphasis mine). In the event some arrogant person thought I was only giving an opinion in the warning of my last blog that God will hold “whoever” accountable for hurting any soul that has believed on Christ with a heretical doctrine, Matthew 18:6 (with 7) is among many in Scripture to give similar warning. Do you not fear God? The churches are not commanded to destroy heretics, but God surely will! Therefore, no so-called “theologian,” pastor or teacher has any authorization from Christ to invent and disseminate any other doctrines but His!
Originally Posted August 12, 2012
Of the greatest sins manifested among many church leaders today is the arrogance to believe that they can somehow improve upon and expedite God’s program for making and teaching disciples of Jesus Christ! Though ancient now, the methods Christ and His apostles empowered by the Holy Spirit used to make disciples (preaching the Gospel) and teach them to obey God’s whole Word were effective (Mark 1:9-20, 3:13-19, 4:10-12, 33-34, 8:27-38; John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-16, 36-47). Even so, 100% of the people who heard their preaching and teaching did not accept it (John 6:60-71; Acts 4:1-4). Our problem is we want that 100% even if it means doing stuff in the flesh to get them!
The Lord’s approach and example to teaching men as disciples was Self-denying, labor intensive and time consuming. But these are the inescapable realities of spiritual fathering our Lord embraced as well as called, equipped and charged His disciples turned apostles to also do. Church pastors are imperative in the work (John 21:15-17)! Having been a pastor and mentor of boys and men I fully understand the demands especially of time spiritual fathering make on one’s life. However, this is why a pastor equips those he spiritually fathers to do as he does. If he is too busy to do what the Lord has commanded as his priority, then he is too busy! As the Lord leads me to point out in this edited 2013 Commentary, men are being hurt because of disobedience to His commands.
Originally Published September 2013
While our Ministry celebrates every brave incarcerated man that steps out before our Strong Man Of God Rally assemblies to publically pray to receive Christ or rededicate to Him, it saddens me personally to see the great numbers that rededicate. Most of these rededications are men that were Christians before their incarceration for a second or third time. It is certainly true Christians that commit crimes must take personal responsibility for their actions. However, after talking to many of these men it becomes clear that they are not getting the one on one mentoring of a “spiritual father” needed to deepen their walk with Christ in the churches they are members of as I did not early on.1
To be sure, the failure to make committed followers of Christ is a wide spread problem in the churches. Spiritual infancy dominates today in a Western church culture that is more concerned with the numbers than whether members are maturing in Christ. This lack of emphasis on the slow process of making disciples as our Lord commanded is hurting men the most since they are God’s chosen leaders in the home and churches. Many sit and the relative few that serve largely do so as babes in Christ with no intentional plan to disciple them. Once a month meetings and the annual golf tournament are not enough to turn baby Christian men into fiery, maturing disciples of Christ!
As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, teaching his family is a responsibility God assigns every man.2 As the head of the house, a man teaches his wife and children. As a father, he teaches all of the children, but with a special duty to mentor and guide his sons into manhood; his wife, their daughters into womanhood. Beyond their families, aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ imitate Him in taking newborn Christian men under their wing to spiritually father them into maturity. We know this process is slow because our Lord spent more than three years of intensive time with His twelve disciples, then the rest of the lives of those who became faithful apostles (Matthew 4:18-22; John 14:18, 16:12-15).
In the Lord’s “Great Commission,” He commands His disciples to make, baptize and teach new disciples from all of the nations (Matthew 28:19-20). As it concerns teaching, veteran disciples are to teach the new “to observe all things that” Christ had commanded them (vs. 20, NKJV). Teaching what Christ “the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV) commanded entails more than just important doctrines, but also all of the thinking, attitudes and behaviors of Christ-likeness we are also to possess in pleasing God the Father as He did (Philippians 2:5). To this end, the apostle Paul also instructed his spiritual sons to teach and pass on what they had learned to men who would do the same with other men also (2 Timothy 2:1-2; Titus 1:1-9, 2:1-5).
To their shame, not only do many pastors and churches not encourage spiritual fathering or mothering in their ranks today, but too many have no formal discipleship instruction at all much less for newborn Christians in the pews who need the “pure milk of the Word” not the philosophical musings of men (1 Peter 2:1-3, NKJV).3 And for the churches that pride themselves on offering lofty sectarian seminary level courses such as Systematic Theology as sufficient to fulfill Christ’s command to teach especially babes, repent! You are causing them to gag and choke in confusion on what is not even biblically organic, but sinful humanly processed and genetically altered meat (1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:14-16, 3:14-17).
Shame too on you guilty pastors that look down on my work in the prisons as though it were inconsequential when Christ your Judge is recording for Judgment Day how many of the Christians I find there that are members of your churches (Romans 14:10-13; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11)! We salute all of our fellow workers in the prisons filling in what lacks in the churches. To the pastors that need help setting up a discipleship plan for new believers or want to know more about teaching biblical manhood to and spiritually fathering men contact this Ministry.4 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read Part 1 of the August 21, 2016 post, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, instruction. I lament the early lack of spiritual fathering that potentially
could have saved me from many painful failures and shortened the inordinate length of my infancy in Christ in the opening of this post and also that of the October 2,
2016 post, Gifted With A Prophet’s Heart, under the category, Call To Repent.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 See the September 25, 2016 post, A Leadership Caused Failure and Pastors As Developing Christian Men posted on December 17, 2017 both under the category,
Call To Repent.
4 Get contact information for Strong Man Ministries and learn about for example, the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study as an important help in making disciples of
men and teaching them biblical manhood on our Web Site.
Though it is repeatedly taught in the New Testament that what is called “Christianity” cannot be lived out through the natural will and strength of human effort as a religion, from the first century until now sinful human beings have kept trying in futility and shame.1 Of course, Satan delights in this reality since it helps sell his lie that what God has gloriously accomplished in Christ to save mankind from our sins is really just another of the many equally valid religious inventions of men. Those of us that know and love the truth grieve with the heart of God that a counterfeit form of Christianity exists competing with the real thing either ruining or turning away earnest seekers (2 Timothy 3:1-9).
The Person and work of Jesus Christ crucified, buried, risen, ascended, glorified and coming again to rule this earth forms the biblical core of “the faith” (Jude 3-4, NKJV). He and the Father have sent the Holy Spirit into the earth to actualize the divine will to save souls through the preaching of the Gospel about and witnessing of Christ (Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:8). Still concerned about how Satan has confused things, I wrote this edited 2012 repost as the Spirit led to stress again how He in life changing residence and power is the central and essential superior factor that distinguishes an authentic Christian from one that is a mere professor (John 3:1-8,14:15-18; Acts 19:1-10).2
Originally Posted March 11, 2012
One of the major reasons the history of the churches on earth is filled with confusion, stained with human blood and pot-marked with evil corruptions of all kinds is the deadly, formal appearance of Christianity as a flesh driven religion not long after the first century eyewitness apostles passed from the scene. In fact, the Lord Jesus apparently deals with a church in the onset of religion first in messages He gives to seven churches of Asia through John, most likely the last living eyewitness apostle (Revelation 2:1-7). The reality that Christ not only has first-hand knowledge of what is going on within, but judges every local church in all generations accordingly should be totally sobering to us.
The once spiritually vibrant church at Ephesus had been nurtured by the apostle Paul who also foretold the devastation that would come by corrupt shepherds (Acts 20:17-31). Still, by the time of John’s recording of His Revelation later in the century, the Lord Jesus commends the church’s resistance of false apostles and teachers along with their persevering labor for His name sake. But He then calls for the individuals making up this church to repent from the one thing He had against them: they had left their “first love”--Him (Revelation 2:4, NKJV)! This matter is so serious to the Lord, He promises to remove the church from among His churches unless they repented! Why?
Is it not because our individual relationship with and corporate devotion to the risen Lord in Holy Ghost fired love is His highest priority for us (Luke 14:25-26; John 21:15-17; Romans 5:5; 1 John 4:19)? And had it not been the loveless, flesh driven works of Jewish religion that put the Lord on the cross (Acts 2:22-24, 3:11-17)? Besides all of that, the Christian life is a supernatural life that cannot be lived in the flesh nor can flesh works please God (Romans 8:6-9). All throughout the biblical record whenever men turn their hearts from God, sin and the rigor mortis of outward religion soon set in to His great displeasure (Isaiah 1:10-15; Matthew 23:1-33).
In my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics,3 Jesus Christ is shown from the Bible as a Man full of the Holy Spirit and power for His service from the time of John’s baptism (Matthew 3:13-17). Having the preeminence in all things and blazing a trail of example for us who would believe in Him thereafter, aspiring strong men of God and the churches they assemble in are all likewise baptized in and live full of the Holy Spirit. This means the Spirit initiates then leads, controls and empowers the aspiring strong man of God’s life moment by moment. It also means God’s power through the Holy Spirit not human effort characterizes his life in all things.
There is no substitute for the Holy Spirit. Not even studying and knowing the entire written Word of God can replace the Spirit’s priority and manifold work in the life of a believer. Indeed, it is of the highest form of futility to know the Word, but have no power to do it (Romans 7:14-24). But now, fully related to Christ Jesus in faith, the aspiring strong man of God is able to love, obey and serve Him in power through the agency of the Holy Spirit (Romans 7:25-8:5)! This is the Christianity of the apostles and New Testament of the Bible. Anything else is an empty knock off of manmade religion destined to destroy its practitioners and be destroyed (Revelation 17:15-19:4)!
1 See the August-September 2016 posts on Christianity as a powerless religion of human invention beginning with the two-part, Christianity The Religion Of Men on August 21st under the category, Instruction.
2 Read my March 1, 2015 post, The Mark Of A Genuine Christian and those that follow through March 22nd under the category, Instruction.
3 The book is available at all major internet book sellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
A Christian without the indwelling Holy Spirit is an absurd impossibility as Scripture affirms (John 3:3-5, 14:15-18, 15:5; Acts 1:4-5, 8; Romans 8:8-9). Yet, in the ignorance but mostly arrogant pride of sinful men since the first century, many have tried to do Christianity without the Holy Spirit. Christianity the religion of men in all of its many forms to this hour and doomed to destruction is the wicked and tragic result. In this edited 2013 blog repost, the Spirit of the Lord leads me to examine the sobering encounter of the apostle Paul with would be Christians devoid of Him, His life, fruit or empowering gifts as instruction, rebuke and a call to repentance in the churches that need it.
Originally Posted January 27, 2013
What made the apostle Paul begin to question the band of men described as “disciples” he met at Ephesus about whether they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed (Acts 19:1-2a)? We do not know for sure which is why, no doubt, there are many opinions. However, one certain thing we know about the apostle Paul is that He took his calling seriously and was not given to spiritual sensationalism or adding anything to the divine requirements for salvation in Christ (Galatians 1:1-10). Surely it was something deficient in the conversation or walk of these men that triggered the apostle’s query.
Contrary to the arrogance of many impostors and willfully sinning weak believers, it does not take maturing, Spirit-filled Christians very long at all to discern their spiritual condition (Matthew 7:15-20). If there were no other fruit lacking in a professing Christian but divine love that would be enough information to send off spiritual alarm bells. However, there is more; much more of the fruit of the Spirit that maturing, discerning Christians are able to see is present or not in one claiming to be a fellow born again believer. After all, truly born again Christians partake together of the same Holy Spirit and divine nature.
On the apostle Paul’s “fruit of the Spirit” list after love in Galatians 5:22 is joy followed by peace. Let us be clear that any of the great apostle’s lists of divine fruit are not intended to present any sort of hierarchy. God is who God is in nature and fullness all at the same time! Nevertheless, in complete contrast to the inabilities of our fallen, sinful flesh to deliver anything like what man most inwardly yearns for by God’s design (Galatians 5:19-21), the apostle immediately lays out the three attributes of God’s nature that satisfy the yearning of our hearts and are experienced exclusively by born again believers as fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is the life of God He offers freely and brings to every soul that will seek Him through faith in Jesus Christ (Isaiah 55:1-3; John 7:37-39, 10:10)!
The joy of the Lord through the agency of the Holy Spirit has consistently attended the lives of God’s faithful from ancient times as recorded in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Unlike human happiness that depends on the right circumstances to cause it, the joy of the Lord is His eternal nature. God is joy! As a result, everlasting joy naturally radiates out of the Holy Spirit as well as into and back out of the lives of the faithful like light and heat from the physical sun that will someday expend all of its energy (Psalm 16:11; John 15:9-11). This is also true concerning peace. God is peace! The peace of God is not like the world’s peace which depends on external factors (John 14:27). God’s peace is of His eternal nature and beyond human understanding (Philippians 4:6-7).
As should also be true for the faithful today, the lives of faithful 1st century Christians were characterized by the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of the promises of Christ and as taught by the apostles (Acts 2:46-47, 8:36-39, 9:31, 13:52, Romans 5:1-2). So, was it the lack of the Spirit’s fruit that the apostle Paul noticed in those disciples he met at Ephesus? Was it the lack of the Spirit’s mighty power pictured at work in the faithful as “fire” leading to the out breaking of spiritual gifts (Jeremiah 20:7-9; Acts 2:1-4, 10:44-48, 11:16-18)? Whatever the exact case may be, when those men said that they had not even heard of the Holy Spirit, Paul pressed them to discover what they had been immersed in.
Finding out it was the baptism of John the Baptist, he immediately instructed about and water baptized them in the name of Christ. Then, after Paul laid hands on the men, the Holy Spirit came upon them and “they spoke with tongues and prophesied,” (Acts 19:2b-7, NKJV). If the apostle Paul could ask supposed disciples had they received the Holy Spirit when they believed as a means to ascertain whether they were truly Christians, we can do no less today. Rather than spiritual gifts which the Holy Spirit in sovereignty may or may not immediately display in a new believer, as a first priority let us look for evidence of His work beginning with repentance from sin to a heart of faith and obedience toward God.
After this, our Lord taught we can know the true from the false by their fruit. Since the fruit of God; the very life of God in nature and character is brought to every soul that has believed on Christ and been baptized into and born again of the Holy Spirit, this is the next positive affirmation of their genuineness. Finally, after evidence of the Spirit’s fruit starting with divine love, look for His fire displayed in spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 13:8-13). The foregoing will mean having mature believers spend some time as Paul did talking to those that present themselves as disciples seeking not only for their right understanding of the Gospel but evidence of new birth before extending church membership to them.
Many pastors and churches fear to do this, of course, because Satan has deceived them into believing everyone’s experience with the Lord is so personal, no matter how unbiblical or outlandish it is not to be questioned. However, if assemblies of genuine believers are to minimize their infiltration by impostors as wolves in sheep’s clothing, they must be spiritually proactive in looking for the mark of a genuine Christian in those seeking formal membership. Also, a weak believer willfully sinning against the Lord must not be invited to serve in any capacity much less leadership in the churches and should be subject to discipline (another New Testament teaching being rejected today) until their repentance is forthcoming.
The Holy Spirit is absolutely critical to the life and perseverance of Christians in these latter days as He has been from the beginning. All that God allows going forward separates the wheat from the chaff; the faithful from the unfaithful so that immediately before the full outpouring of His wrath upon the disobedient, the surviving tested, faithful and true Christian remnant are glorified with the bypass of death to experience instantaneous transformation to immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17)! They proceed from life to life by the agency of the Holy Spirit who indwells them and through whom they persevered in hope to that glorious moment.
Be reminded again in this edited 2012 blog repost the Lord led me to write that Christianity and the Christian life is no mere religion of manmade invention. God has marvelously revealed the divine reality and Kingdom through the life and work of His Son, Jesus Christ; work that saves and baptizes men into the life giving, dynamic activity of the Holy Spirit (John 1:1-34)! With all thanksgiving and praise, I rejoice in the triune God for having become a partaker in the divine nature and what that has meant for me in a journey that approaches forty years (2 Peter 1:2-4)! I am not worthy of this highest of honors to contain in this earthen vessel the exceedingly great treasure of the great “I AM,” (Exodus 3:13-14; John 8:48-59, 2 Corinthians 4:7, NKJV). Bless our God this Thanksgiving, you saints!
Originally Posted July 29, 2012
It is not just for some small and insignificant reason that the apostle Paul commands members of the church at Thessalonica, “Do not quench the Spirit,” (1 Thessalonians 5:19, NKJV). The Holy Spirit is the Christian’s source of new birth (John 3:1-8), eternal, spiritual life (John 6:63), instruction (John 14:26) and power (Acts 1:8) in Christ. Among the analogies of the Spirit’s presence and work in the believer are “rivers of living water” (John 7:37-39) and “fire” (Acts 2:1-4)! The Spirit of God is as elemental to the spiritual life of a Christian as oxygen is to the body. No Holy Spirit, no sign of divine life or salvation (Romans 8:5-9). This is also made clear in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.
As I was taught from the Word by the Holy Spirit in my spiritual infancy, so, I have faithfully taught: the Christian life is a supernatural life that He leads, controls and empowers! The Holy Spirit must do this or we cannot be Christians much less fulfill the will and instruction of Christ that His disciples do the miraculous works He did and in greater number (John 14:12-14). The Lord instructs His apostles (minus Judas Iscariot) that obedience out of love for Him would pave the way for the Holy Spirit to be sent to them as a Helper (John 14:15-17, 16:5-15).
The Holy Spirit equips us to do the will of Christ. If we abide in Christ by faith, we will live and bear fruit in our service to Him through the Spirit. The Father will even prune us to bear more fruit. But if one will not abide--having quenched the Spirit and being fruitless, the Father cuts him as a withered branch from Christ the true vine and he is thrown into eternal fire on the day of judgment (John 15:1-8; Revelation 20:11-15).
All of the foregoing being true, how is it that for the majority of history after the close of the apostolic period, increasingly, the religious educated elite have attempted to dam up the living water and quench the fire of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers and the churches contrary to the apostle Paul’s command? They have done this with high sounding academic pronouncements and writings that in effect render the Holy Spirit a back seat participant and servant of the activities of outwardly pious, but flesh driven men practicing religion. They declare the Spirit does not talk to men, do miracles through them or still empower all of the New Testament listed spiritual gifts anymore.
This gives another insight into why many Western churches are stagnant, declining and dying with this kind of teaching going on. As I recently wrote, it is to the glory of God that the Third Person of the triune God has worked around human religious folly to accomplish His mission in the Gospel anyway (see Praise For The Almighty God, September 13, 2015 under the category, “Glory To God!")!
Moreover, in a grand display of mercy, the Holy Spirit has also periodically (and strategically) in history poured out renewing fire on the churches in the wake of anointed preaching by men such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield in what were called Great Awakenings nearly three centuries ago. And while there may have been some other breakouts of revival here and there since including the 1906 Azusa Street event in Los Angeles that has given rise to the fast growing Charismatic Movement with its accompanying spiritual sensationalism and abuses, parching spiritual drought and cold deadness otherwise grip so many of the churches large and small today.
No human effort can remedy this; only Holy Spirit empowered renewal can bring about the drought busting rains and rekindled fire of revival Christians and our dying churches need. It is time we begin to earnestly seek Him in all confession, repentance and heartfelt petition (Nehemiah 9:1-37; Psalm 51:1-17; Acts 4:23-31).
In being revived, you will be able to understand the prophetic urgency of the strong man of God message and cause. In being revived, surely you will rise up from your religious diddling and aspire to become strong men and great women of God. In being revived, now you can see again the awesome greatness of our God in battle array ready to work through us in all signs, wonders and displays of power to engage and frustrate the enemy as did our Lord instead of the other way around! In being revived, you will understand all of the New Testament spiritual gifts are intended by God to enable His sons to serve His purposes in the Church until Christ returns.
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