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Monthly Archives: July 2017


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Culture Assault on Christian Tradition

The West is being swept up in a cultural revolution that will change the face of Europe and North America.  Some say we will barely recognize these continents in 10 to 15 years.  Changes are occurring very fast.  Christianity is being assaulted and efforts are being made to remove this religion from peoples’ memories.  Demographics are changing in Europe to Islam followers rather than Christian.  Populations of adherents to Islam are taking over democracies in Europe because of their numbers.  Democracy favors the majority.  Our Christian leaders are not defending the faith in this culture war.  It is not being talked about in churches.  Many Christians are oblivious to what is happening right now to our nation and our religion.

Muslims are becoming more radical in their demands toward others.  Sharia law is their law of choice.  Women and minorities do not have rights under this law.  Christians and other religious peoples will be asked to convert to Islam or pay a severe penalty.  We already see this happening in Egypt and in other Muslim nations.

Freedom of speech is fast disappearing.  Protections that Christians have had in the past in the West have been removed through recent amendments and changes made to human rights laws.  We are led to believe by our officials that our rights and protections have not changed, but this is untrue.  Dramatic changes in every area of life and in our government have been taking place.  We are facing extreme uncertainty whether our nations can even continue or if we will be overcome by a sweeping movement to global governance and life as we know it today in the West will cease to exist anymore.

 

 


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The Struggle for Righteousness

The wicked will not prosper.   Righteousness reaps great rewards.  This is what the Bible says. The NT teaches that righteousness includes our behavior.   I Corinthians 6:10, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?”  If we go to the OT we see teachings about washings, cleansings, and required duties of sacrifice.  We see teachings about keeping oneself separate.  In the OT this applied to the nation of Israel. They were not to partake with or get involved with the idolatrous worship of their neighbors. They were to abide in God’s commandments as set out in the Mosaic Law.  In the NT we see teachings about keeping ourselves from being spotted by the world.  We see teachings about doing what is right and good.  We see teachings about not loving the world or the things of the world.  Teachings about turning from sin, setting aside the deeds of the old man and his nature, and taking on the new nature of Christ for ourselves.

How is it that we are being taught by Christian teachers today that these things are not necessary?  The Bible is clear that we will reap what we sow.  Proverbs is full of admonitions about the wicked and the just.  The whole theme of the Bible is wickedness and sin versus righteousness and goodness.  God is holy.  “Be ye holy”, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice”, “produce good fruit”, ” you will know the ungodly by their fruit”.  This is the advantage of pulling back from the world’s ways and making time for reading God’s word.   A clearer vision.   A better understanding of God’s ways, and an ability to know what he wants from us.

There’s a struggle on today for righteousness.   The Christian is being bombarded from every quarter saying that righteousness is not necessary, that God does not require upright behavior from us.  The Bible teachings are clear.  If you are in Christ you will do what is right.  God gives you the ability to do this through the power of the Holy Spirit.  He requires it of you.  You will not be excused for bad behavior.


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The Sufferings of Christ

The Bible declares that the believer will partake of the sufferings of Christ.  That this is in their best interests. That the believer will partake of the glory when they have also suffered like their predecessor Jesus.  Jesus has gone before us, we are to follow him.  Job declares that he knew of God, he had heard of him previously, but when Job suffered he stated he then saw God, gained understanding, and abhorred himself for his complaint against God.

Job suffered when he stood alone in his faith.  His friends contradicted him, his wife encouraged him to curse God.  Job experienced the loss of his family, his children, his friends, his possessions, his standing and respect in the community.  He stayed faithful to God, and afterward was richly rewarded by God in this life, and I am confident, in the life to come.  In the kingdom of God.  How could Job be happy with what God gave him after he had experienced such devastating losses?  God makes it possible.  Our further understanding makes it possible.  God’s work in us makes it possible.  The Bible says that with God nothing is impossible.

The New Testament says that we need to arm ourselves with this knowledge of the believer suffering.  It is happening in the world today and believers in the western nations don’t understand it.  Arm yourselves with this mind, the Bible says.  Christ suffered, and so you can expect that you will suffer as well.  Are you greater than your teacher, the Bible says?

Do we suffer in a vacuum away from God?  No, God is with us.  He makes it possible.  He provides.  It is not easy, but the suffering will end.  Paul states that if it is God’s will that you suffer for a period of time endure it like a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  These are teachings that are lost to the western church doctrines in our day.  It should open our eyes as to who is a true leader of God’s people in our day and times.

 

 


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My Sheep Hear My Voice

What does this mean to us as Christians?  It means that when we hear something being taught or expounded by someone else we can connect to it or recognize it as coming from God.  In my own experience I find that I can hear aspects of God in a teaching but I find if it is mixed with error there is more difficulty for me to discern that the whole of the teaching is from God.

This is the deception of our current day.  God’s truth mixed with error.  This means that when we hear truth it does not mean that everything that the person says is from God or is God’s truth.   We need to discern or suss out what is God, or what is of God, in a teaching.  This is done through the Holy Spirit and by our own knowledge of the Bible.  Our personal day by day reading and slugging through books and chapters of the Bible is critical for discerning truth.  We should not miss reading a word in a book of the Bible.  We need to read it carefully and meditatively.

We need to read the full chapter or the full book to get the proper teaching.  What we read and believe the book is saying to us needs to correspond to other teachings in other books of the Bible.  It all fits together in some way.  One book will not teach one thing and be contradicted in another.  If this happens, then some part of what we believe as Christians is in error.  The Word of God is truth.  What we believe about the Word of God can have errors associated with those beliefs.

When I read the Bible I find that I am thinking one way as I’m reading it, and then if I am in error something will come up in another book that will tell me that what I had been thinking is not entirely  correct.  I adjust my thinking accordingly.  I will say to myself that what I had been thinking is not true, or what I had been thinking only has part truth to it.  I will also be corrected in my thinking by reading an article or some other material that expounds the teaching of these scriptures better.  However, I must be careful.  Lots of current Christian teaching sounds good.  The article that I read must also agree with other scriptures that the Holy Spirit will bring to my mind to help me understand truth, and the article must also agree with the overall teachings of that particular book that the article is pulling a scripture from to make it’s point.

The Bible is critical for us as believers and we must be reading it carefully and intently.  We must be searching and looking for the voice of God and allow the Holy Spirit to correct us as we go along.