Perversions of the truth

The Major Photonic Mixup

eejoseph, ,

If every time one misrepresents the gospel the kingdom of God took a hit the walls may be deemed to have been breached.  One of the profound paradoxes of our times is the idiotic fear gripping people who identify as Christian that the Church is suffering loss and needs their protection. True enough, people can see whatever they want, and they can repeat it until it becomes the truth, but the truth as we know it is in Yeshua God’s son, namely the salvation which only the heavenly Father can provide. Another profound paradox of all times is the idea that light functions as bringing attention to light. Flushing that paradox out of one’s system requires a resolute view of God and as resolute conviction. The Moon is by no means an equal to the Sun, even though both the sun and the moon are called great lights. Their greatness can only be discerned by observing the times in which the two operate and by keeping them separate. Christ is the light, incomparably so, to the extent that all else are thieves and robbers. When day and night, in the spiritual sense, contribute to confusion about Christ we are victims of a major photonic mix up. Are we of the day or night?

Another fascinating day-moon

The church is the ground and pillar of the truth, and needs no help from people who have not acquainted themselves with the teaching of Yeshua and the apostles. Far too many people are trying to make the church like Israel; an entity within borders, an entity with priesthood, an entity with endless regulations and prohibitions, an entity with genealogical priorities, and an entity with a phony and showy righteousness. And where do they get that notion from? From the teachings of the ancients, that which John describes in his vision, in Revelation chapter 12, as the Moon.

Devil message and angelic light

“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;”

1 Timothy 4:1-4

There should be little difficulty locating these beliefs identified as demonic in the Christian community. We have to be able to see the passion with which people embrace minor and irrelevant things and call them major. The sun does not need the moon. When it is day the moon contributes no light.

The lunar custodians belong under foot

“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.” (Galatians 4:9-11, NASB)

Men and women who study formally and informally to facilitate a career as leaders in the church should be able to recognize one set of elemental things in Leviticus 23. Idolatry knocks loudly at the door of people who do not see Christ as the place where the buck stops. The Gospel did not become any more relevant in the 19th century. Since Christ died and returned to Glory human beings have been waxing more wicked, more desperate, more rebellious, and more benighted. It is not surprising that we want the moon to be the clarifier of God’s revelation when the sun is shining as at noonday. You just cannot have Moses and Aaron as the foundation of spiritual security and at the same time say that Yeshua and the Holy Spirit are the centre of your joy. How much detail does moonlight allow someone to see? Does not the sun make everything distinguishable so we do not stumble? You can end the photonic mix up. Put the moon in its place.

That’s not a prayer

eejoseph

You are likely to have received a forwarded message asking you to pray and forward to a specific number of contacts. Typically I ignore such messages with a “Thank you”. When the message comes from someone who is in a position of influence I have found it helpful to put a spotlight on the particulars of the so-called prayer campaign.

Here is the pitch

We are trying to form a thousand-person prayer group to pray for the children of this generation. We want to ask God to save them... (italics are mine).

This may look like targeted prayer, but it is just another example of the kind of thing a secondhand or copycat “exorcist” or “prayer warrior ” might want to do. In the book of Acts there is the narrative about the sons of a Jewish high priest who were going around the city of Ephesus using the Saviour’s name in what they hoped would be exorcism experiences. They made the mistake of using the phrase “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” (Acts 19:13, NASB)”. These men were rascals exploiting what they thought was an effective formula, namely, “in the name of”.

The rascal sons of Sceva were not even Christians, just as there many capitalist and fame-seeking imps posing as pastors and evangelists of the Church of Christ.

The sons of Sceva, like many people in our times, were unaware that simply saying “in Jesus’s name” cannot makeover things which are not in character with Jesus. People have the power to ask God for anything whatever but they had better remember that God has a will (and testament) for all humans, and he is not about to set that aside because 1000 or 2 persons make a case.

Save people by preaching the Gospel

Here is what the message says the children of this generation need to be saved from.

  • the negative side of the Internet…
  • games addiction
  • pornography
  • wrong relationships and influences
  • rebellion
  • lewdness
  • laziness
  • greed
  • ignorance of God’s presence
  • confusion
  • helplessness
  • anxiety
  • depression

There is a name for what God saves people from: sin.

If your view of sin is legalistic you are in the misguided majority. People are not saved because they stop certain behaviours, but when they believe that Christ died and rose from the dead.

Lost people need to be found by gospel workers

This 1000 man campaign has a list that does not include unbelief. It is incredibly daft to not know that people are in darkness – lost – until they believe. Saved people know that they could not have been made aware of salvation without God personally intervening. Noone gets saved without preaching. The campaign hopes to have an entire generation just turn around because of a 30 second prayer.

Here is the rationale and instructions

They do not realize that they are moving into a deep darkness slowly but surely. Please love and care for them by joining us in the next 30 seconds to PRAY aloud (or silently as you wish) for every child of every color in every country in the world today. Then take the next 30 seconds to forward this prayer to 10 of your friends whom you think will invest 1 minute of their lives to unite with us in this prayer.
Let’s us pray:

THANK YOU! Now please forward to 10 people so we keep this prayer alight for the hearts, minds and souls of our precious children!
Prayer Works because God Answers!!

Of course the children of this generation do not know they are lost condemned. Neither did we until Christ arrested us. God has demonstrated his tender love for humanity. His hands are wounded for every human being IN SPITE OF ANYTHING THEY CAN BE ACCUSED OF DOING. The human race is in his care. We cannot put our neighbours in his care any more than we can interpret the Bible without reading it.

God answers, “you talking to me or performing for your peers?:

Our Father in Heaven, we place all the children everywhere in the world of all ages today into Your gentle but powerful hands. Please save them, have mercy on them and free them all from rebellion, lewdness, laziness and greed. May they be conscious of Your presence Lord Jesus as You take away all their confusion, hopelessness, anxiety and depression. Release Your supernatural faith, love, hope and peace in them. Heal all their broken hearts as You replace it with Your joy and strength to withstand all the temptations that come before them. Teach them how to yearn for righteousness and to detest lies and immorality. Preserve their innocence and keep their hearts pure! Save these children from every snare set up by Satan and the world that surrounds them. We claim victory for each child in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”
🙏🙏🙏

I shudder to think that the message is the brainchild of a church leader. Claiming in prayer what we should be doing is as off the wall as are prayers to Mary and departed saints.

Can a river not wet your feet?

eejoseph

For more than a few years now I have been wondering why the favourite verse for many Christians is John 3:16 when the majority know what the verse says, ignore its context, really do not care what the writer intended, and are more in love with themselves than with God others.  You cannot reason your way out of the plain truth that loving like God does has little to do with keeping the rules.  What rules is God subject to and where would that put absolute and perfect freedom?  In my very pleasant work of searching the Scriptures it was a joy to see that “so” in John 3:16 has nothing to do with the amount of love God has.    Even the revered Billy Graham fell for it, even though he remain totally sold on the Lord Christ as the only Saviour.  The UK’s two great universities, Oxford and Cambridge, settled for it, publishing in the 1960s a New Testament translation called the New English Bible, with John 3:16 saying “God loved the world so much…”.   The very point of Messiah’s mission is to declare that God loves sinners.  If God can love a little then we can all jump into a river and not get wet.

Certified knowledge and experience

I am not surprised that godliness is a childish perspective of being obedient (Galatians 3:21-23, 4:1-3). It takes an abundance of convincing for me to believe that people who think they have captured what love really looks like in a policy of law and righteousness, misogyny and xenophobia, injustice, prophetic bondage, and sheer ignorance.  People running around with their own explanations of God’s character (while having no certainty of salvation or God’s gifts) will say God loves them and hates the disobedient or infidel. Fortunately for believers the revelation pipeline does not include a ton of human speculation about God’s intentions. There are only four lanes on the highway to understanding God’s interventions.

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it (signified it having sent it) by His angel to His bond-servant John,”

Revelation of John 1:1, NASB

Follow the trail of Messianic revelation in John’s prophecy.

  • God gave the picture to Messiah Yeshua
  • Yeshua gave it to his angel (most appropriately, the Holy Spirit)
  • Certification and transmission follow
  • Through the angel (the messenger) gave to John

There are no ‘sides’ to the question of God’s love.  Reorienting our “loves” to mirror God’s does not call for us to die for the sins of the world, but it most certainly means that our love for people cannot be anything less. If we let anyone take the place of God in the transmission of his doctrine (how to live with other people) then it is certain that we have missed the transmission of his message (the good news).  The rumour that the centre of spiritual life and human accountability is something other than caring about others does not come from a flowing river, but from a stagnant pond where the water has lost its wetting ability.