Friday, August 31, 2012
'Jumah at the DNC' an official event, according to Obama
'Jumah at the DNC' an official event, according to Obama
Culture
'JUMAH AT THE DNC' AN OFFICIAL EVENT, ACCORDING TO OBAMA
Chad Groening (OneNewsNow.com)
Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:47 AM
Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:47 AM
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch says it should come as no surprise that President Obama has no problem with a large gathering of Muslims who have descended on Charlotte, North Carolina today -- just before next week's Democratic National Convention.The Charlotte Observer reports that organizers anticipate as many as 20,000 Muslims will take part in "Jumah at the DNC," which will feature town hall meetings to address issues like Islamophobia, anti-Sharia, the Middle Eastern crisis, and the Patriot Act. They claim their goal is to make the general public aware that the Muslim community is a healthy and vibrant component of American society.
But the Jihad Watch director believes the thrust of the gathering is clear: "To portray Muslims as innocent victims of racism, bigotry and Islamophobia so as to intimidate Americans into being afraid to resist Jihad and Islamic supremacism."
Spencer is suspicious of Jumah at the DNC because the grand imam for the event is Siraj Wahhaj, a man who had a close relationship with convicted terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman, "The Blind Sheikh," in the early 1990s.
"The Blind Sheikh, of course, is now serving a life sentence for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center attack, as well as for plotting to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel," Spencer reports. "Clearly if Siraj Wahhaj was taking him around in mosques in New York and New Jersey, he does not have a different view of Islam from that of The Blind Sheikh."
Still, the terrorism expert points out that President Obama is endorsing Jumah at the DNC.
"The Obama administration is listing this Jumah at the DNC business as part of the convention activity as an official function," he notes.
But Spencer is not surprised by that.
But the Jihad Watch director believes the thrust of the gathering is clear: "To portray Muslims as innocent victims of racism, bigotry and Islamophobia so as to intimidate Americans into being afraid to resist Jihad and Islamic supremacism."Spencer is suspicious of Jumah at the DNC because the grand imam for the event is Siraj Wahhaj, a man who had a close relationship with convicted terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman, "The Blind Sheikh," in the early 1990s.
"The Blind Sheikh, of course, is now serving a life sentence for masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center attack, as well as for plotting to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel," Spencer reports. "Clearly if Siraj Wahhaj was taking him around in mosques in New York and New Jersey, he does not have a different view of Islam from that of The Blind Sheikh."
Still, the terrorism expert points out that President Obama is endorsing Jumah at the DNC.
"The Obama administration is listing this Jumah at the DNC business as part of the convention activity as an official function," he notes.
But Spencer is not surprised by that.
Huckabee: Obama believes life is ‘expendable’ in the womb, ‘or even beyond the womb’ | LifeSiteNews.com
Huckabee: Obama believes life is ‘expendable’ in the womb, ‘or even beyond the womb’ | LifeSiteNews.com
Huckabee: Obama believes life is ‘expendable’ in the womb, ‘or even beyond the womb’
August 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Mike Huckabee didn’t pull any punches in his speech at the GOP Convention Wednesday night, excoriating President Obama for his attacks on freedom of religion, support for gay “marriage,” and pro-abortion extremism.
In one particularly poignant twist of the rhetorical knife, Huckabee hinted at Obama’s opposition to an Illinois bill that would have protected babies born alive after failed abortions from being killed.
Mike Huckabee speaks at the GOP Convention this week
“I want to clear the air about something that has been said,” Huckabee told his audience. “People wonder whether guys like me, an evangelical, would only support a fellow evangelical?
“Well, my friends I want to tell you something, of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama. And he supports changing the definition of marriage—believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb, even beyond the womb,” he said. “And he tells people of faith that they have to bow their knees to the God of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls, health care.”
“Friends,” Huckabee said to applause, “I know we can do better.”
Click ‘like’ if you want to END ABORTION!
The former Arkansas governor’s mention of life “even beyond the womb” was a reference to Obama’s four votes against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act as an Illinois state senator.
The bill was introduced after pro-life nurse Jill Stanek witnessed babies being born alive after failed abortions, then being brought to a room in the hospital where she worked and left to die.
The legislation mandated that doctors must provide care to babies born alive after failed abortions.
In a clear reference to the Obama administration’s HHS mandate, Huckabee added, “Let me say it as clearly as possible, that the attack on my Catholic brothers and sisters is an attack on me.”
“The Democrats have brought back that old dance, the limbo,” he continued, “to see how low they can go in attempting to limit our ability to practice our faith. This isn’t a battle about contraceptives and Catholics, but about conscience and the Creator.”
The sentiment echoed Huckabee’s remarks from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) earlier this year, where the Baptist minister declared, in response to the HHS mandate: “We are all Catholics now.”
Israel's ''Alleged'' Temple - The Omega Letter
Israel's ''Alleged'' Temple - The Omega Letter
Israel's ''Alleged'' Temple
Prophecy - Signs
Friday, August 31, 2012
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
Israel's ''Alleged'' Temple
Prophecy - Signs
Friday, August 31, 2012
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
One would think that, of all the possible efforts to revise history imaginable, the piece of history that would be the hardest to revise would be to deny the historical existence of a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
First, the Bible is filled with references to a Jewish Temple. And the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 in Qumron have conclusively and undeniably confirmed that the Biblical record is unchanged since the scrolls were buried there in AD 70.
Secondly, the Qumrom discovery included hundreds of Temple artifacts, documents, drawings, and other forms of historical confirmation as to the existence of a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem up until the time of the Qumrom community's destruction around AD 70.
Thirdly, one of the retaining walls of Solomon's Temple, built almost three thousand years ago, still stands on the western side of the Temple Mount. I've seen it and touched its ancient stones. I've prayed at it. It is there.
Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority and cofounder of Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party, recently accused Israel of seeking to "rob Muslims and Christians of their holy shrines, destroy Al-Aqsa mosque and build the alleged Jewish Temple."
In February, Abbas accused Israel had been waging a “final battle” aimed at erasing the Arab, Muslim and Christian character of east Jerusalem. He charged that Israel intended to destroy Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, which sits atop the remains of the two biblical Jewish Temples. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the remarks as “harshly inflammatory” and “baseless.”
Abbas responded with the promise that there will be “no peace, no security and no stability unless the occupation, settlers and settlements are gone from Jerusalem.” He also stressed that the city will remain the eternal capital of the Palestinian state, according to the Palestine News Network news agency.
The very last thing that the government of Israel wants to do is to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque. There would be no tears shed if it were destroyed by an earthquake, or if it collapsed on its own, but the Israeli government would rather maintain the status quo as take on the global Muslim community all at once.
However, the Bible says that in the last days, the Third Temple will be rebuilt. Exactly howthat will come about is anybody's guess. But the fact remains that it is a topic of conversation -- for the first time in twenty centuries.
"Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." (2 Thessalonians 2:4)
According to this verse, when the Third Temple is rebuilt, it won't be the Jewish Temple, or the Israeli Temple or the Zionist Temple or even the antichrist's Temple, (which is how many Christians refer to it.)
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Church at Thessonlonika about the events of the last days, prophesied that the antichrist will sit in the Temple of God. For it to be the Temple of God, the Age of Grace must be over.
There is a reason why the Third Temple is consecrated and a reason why Paul calls it the "Temple of God" instead of just 'the Temple'.
First, if it weren't consecrated, it couldn't be defiled. You can't defile something which isn't holy in the first place. During the Age of Grace, the Bible identifies the Temple of God as the individual believer .
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)
But when the Holy Spirit is "taken out of the way" to allow the floodgates of evil to flow unchecked under the rule of antichrist, so are the vessels that He indwells.
That event, the Rapture of the Church, signals the conclusion of the Church Age and the resumption of Daniel's 70th week, or what Jeremiah 30:7 calls, the "time of Jacob's trouble". The Age of Grace is over and the final week of the Law resumes.
Unless the Law was again operational, the "abomination of desolation" would neither be an 'abomination' -- nor could it make the Temple desolate -- unless the Temple itself were legitimate in the first place.
Understand that the resumption of Temple worship and animal sacrifices during the Tribulation has no saving value. Nobody will be saved because they brought an unblemished lamb to the Temple for sacrifice. (Nobody was ever saved by Temple worshipduring the Age of the Law, either.)
Salvation is and always has been an outpouring of God's grace by faith from every Dispensation.
Secondly, God isn't going back to an "old system" because salvation is not a product of the Temple system, as we've just noted. The Age of the Law had yet to run its full course when it was interrupted by the Age of Grace.
Daniel notes that in the 69th Week, the "Messiah is cut off, but not for Himself"; the Temple is destroyed by the people of the coming prince (antichrist) and then there is a temporal disconnect when Daniel's clock stops for the Church Age.
The Age of Grace concludes with the Rapture and Daniel's clock restarts on the final week, the reasons for which are clearly outlined in Daniel 9:24.
It isn't a re-institution of the Age of the Law. It is the resumption of an unfilled Dispensational Period for which there is a definite purpose. The purpose is six-fold;
- to finish the transgression,
- make an end to sins,
- make reconciliation for iniquity,
- bring in everlasting righteousness,
- seal up the vision and the prophecy, and
- anoint the most Holy.
The Church plays no role, since parts 1 -3 were fulfilled at the Cross and parts 4-6 are fulfilled at the Second Coming and during the Millennial Rest.
Christians have no holy city of their own -- we share Jerusalem with the Jews, but it is notours. Jesus finished the transgression and put an end to sins at the Cross, offering Himself as a reconciliation for iniquity.
So, then, what is the purpose of the Law? Why did God give Moses the Ten Commandments?
According to the Apostle Paul, the reason for the Ten Commandments was to prove we couldn't keep them and to point out our need for a Savior. That realization is offered to both Jew and Gentile. BUT, says Paul;
"I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in."
The 'fullness of the Gentiles be come in' is a reference to the conclusion of the Church Age, which ends when the last Gentile who is going to accept Christ does so. Once the Body of Christ is complete, the Rapture takes place, and God turns His attention back to Israel.
"And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." (Romans 11:26-27)
The 70th Week of Daniel is also called "the Time of Jacob's Trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7) because it is set aside for the judgment of the Gentiles and the national salvation of the Jews.
To summarize: the purpose of the Tribulation is two-fold. First and foremost, its purpose is to effect the national reconciliation of the Jews and their salvation -- as a nation.
The unbelieving Gentiles have already had their chance and rejected it. This idea that God continues His plan for the Gentiles into the Tribulation Period is without Scriptural support. That is not to say that Gentiles cannot be saved during the Tribulation. Some may well be.
But during the Tribulation, God's attention turns to the national redemption of Israel.Revelation Chapter 7 tells of 144,000 Jews who will be 'sealed' with the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Jews of Israel aren't saved during the Tribulation by the Temple practices or law.Zechariah 12:10 makes it clear that the Jews of Israel during the Tribulation are saved the same way we are -- by grace and supplications (prayer).
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only Son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
It is the Temple desecration that causes the Jews to turn their backs on the antichrist and turn towards Christ. That is the event that begins the second half, or "Great" Tribulation.
Secondarily, it is a time set aside for the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world (the Church having already been judged at the Cross). The Age of Grace is over, but salvation by grace through faith is still extended to the Jews.
The 144,000 are sealed with and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, which gives them the power to share the Gospel and enables the hearer to be regenerated spiritually. Without the active indwelling of the Holy Spirit within these 144,000 Jewish evangelists, nobody could be saved.
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1st Corinthians 2:14)
And so that's the overview. When the conditions are right, the Temple WILL be rebuilt.
Jewish religious leaders have already prepared the implements for Temple worship and are preparing priests for the resumption of the Temple sacrifice system.
Daniel 9:27 says that part of the "covenant" he confirms between Israel and her enemies includes the resumption of Temple worship and sacrifice. Indeed, it is that covenant allowing the resumption of Temple worship that starts the time clock counting down the days to the Second Coming of Christ.
Why is that important to you? While there aren't any signs pointing to the Rapture, the signs pointing to the soon arrival of the antichrist are more like BILLBOARDS than they are signs.
And before "that Wicked" can be revealed, the Restrainer and the vessels He indwells MUST be "taken out of the way." So the fact we can see him coming means the Lord is coming even sooner.
"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:18)
Navy SEAL Author Rejects the Pentagon's Legal Threat - Politics - The Atlantic Wire
Navy SEAL Author Rejects the Pentagon's Legal Threat - Politics - The Atlantic Wire
Navy SEAL Author Rejects the Pentagon's Legal Threat
Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette is going to tell his version of events surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden, even if the Pentagon sues him for every last penny.
Last night, the Defense Department's top attorney wrote a letter to Bissonnette threatening to use "all remedies legally available" against him for the publication of No Easy Day, his firsthand account of the mission to kill bin Laden in Pakistan. "You are in material breach and violation of the nondisclosure agreements you signed," wrote Pentagon general counsel Jeh Charles Johnson. The letter hinted at a criminal prosecution of Bissonnete for disclosing classified information and threatened to seize the royalties from his book and go after his publisher Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Group. In a written response, a lawyer representing Bissonnette denied his client breached his nondisclosure agreement in a letter to the Pentagon. (The letter, obtained by The Atlantic Wire, refers to Bissonnette under his pen name Mark Owen.)
"Mr. Owen sought legal advice about his responsibilities before agreeing to publish his book and scrupulously reviewed the work to ensure that it did not disclose any material that would breach his agreements or put his former comrades at risk," wrote Robert D. Luskin, an attorney at D.C. lobbying behemoth Patton Boggs. "Mr. Owen is proud of his service and respectful of his obligations. But he has earned the right to tell his story."
According to the letter, the nondisclosure agreement signed by Bissonnette when he was a SEAL only applied to "specially identified Special Access Programs" and not missions such as the May 1, 2011 raid.
That's an argument that may come as a surprise to some legal experts, who considered the Pentagon's case against Bissonnette a "slam dunk" given his failure to submit his book for pre-publication review. Attorney Scott Hodes, an expert in government secrecy issues, tells The Atlantic Wire that Bissonnette's lawyer appears to be looking out for the interests of Bissonnette's publisher. "I think this is the position of someone defending a publisher who is publishing a book that may have classified information in it," said Hodes. Bradley Moss, a Washington-based national security attorney, also expressed concern that Bissonnette is in over his head:
For a fuller look at the serious legal ramifications facing Bissonnette see our earlier report here. I've posted the entire letter from Bissonnette's attorney below:
Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author atjhudson@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
John Hudson
John Hudson
Following Judah's Lion: Without a Soul or a Savior
Following Judah's Lion: Without a Soul or a Savior
What kind of passion does it take to give one’s life for something? The nineteen terrorists that crashed their planes on 9/11 were willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause. What kind of fanaticism does that take? What kind of faith is so strong that even one’s own life is gladly sacrificed for your beliefs, or even more poignant, for the Master of your faith? Men will volunteer to give their lives to defend their families and their way of life, but who will give their lives for their faith?
Believers in Jesus Christ will say they would gladly sacrifice their lives if asked. If it came down to that they say they would die for Christ. But what they fail to realize is that they have been asked to sacrifice their lives already. We are all called to be living sacrifices for the Lord Jesus Christ. We have lost the will and the desire to explore just what that means and all the present implications. The western version of Christianity has high jacked the Scriptures and used certain phrases like “the abundant life” or “I wish that you would prosper” and they have taken those clipped portions and constructed a faith which requires no sacrifice at all.
It is impossible to communicate with words just how deeply the Christian faith has been deconstructed and turned into a faith of convenience and personal aggrandizement. We have retained some of the words and symbols, but for the most part we practice a westernized form of what used to be the faith of Jesus. After the Industrial Revolution certain segments of civilization began to gain education and material things. And like the first lick of an ice cream cone, each step forward created a thirst for more. Work days became shorter and the home became littered with all kinds of modern accoutrements.
And in the midst of all this was a group of people who believed in Jesus. Perhaps many of them guarded themselves against the onslaught of material things and the spirit of materialism which always accompanies material things. But even if those believers who were living at that time resisted the allurements being enjoyed by their unsaved neighbors, the next generation was born without knowing or experiencing the faith in a much purer time. These new believers saw no point in rejecting what everyone was enjoying, but they knew they would have to make some doctrinal room for all this excitement over all this earthly new.
And make room they did, and each successive generation expanded these doctrines and began to absorb what the world had to offer. Now a television, for instance, is not evil in and of itself. But it provided a vehicle through which evil could enter each house without having the evil entity enter physically. But as believers added the modern inventions within their homes, much of which was innocuous, something very sinister began to take place. The spirit of materialism and personal happiness through material things began to seep into the hearts of believers and eventually in the church itself.
So the Scripture that warns that believers will “heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” was beginning to be crystallized. And what that means in modern parlance is that since believers liked the things of this world and desired to seek more of them, they subtly and openly demanded that their shepherds fed them what they desired. And in order to achieve that end, the shepherds must also come in with the same attractions to the things of this world. And they did.
And little by little, footstep by footstep, and increment by increment the church not only tested the waters of the temporal allurements, and not only embraced the systems of man, but she began to teach them as coming from God. And material things and the systems of man were no longer inanimate tools about which to be very wary, but now they were part and parcel of the divine plan for the redeemed. Slowly but surely man’s life and man’s happiness began to be taught as God’s ultimate purpose. Serving God was constricted to be exercised on Sunday mornings and with every service God would rush to shower you with blessings which are now defined as material and monetary. Any kind of sacrifice was carefully crafted so as not to significantly interfere with the step by step climb that leads to more and more prosperity.
And after many decades, and after many alterations to the faith, the church eventually became a religious practice which enjoys all the artifacts of hedonism, and all the systems of this world, but maintains a thin veneer of Christianity that is remarkably empty of the life and teachings of Jesus. But the western culture by this time has become very proficient at organization and creativity, which the church has embraced and used to revolutionize the practice of the faith. And while maintaining in writing the foundational doctrines of the faith, the church has been able to significantly alter any resemblance in practice to the early church, or more importantly, the clear teachings of Scripture.
And this metamorphosis has become so successful and so penetrating, that even when confronted with the clear teaching of Scripture our hearts and minds cannot even see or accept them in their purist application. In other words we have become brainwashed. Like attempting to deprogram a cult member, the average western believer walks in all sorts of false assumptions and with a comfort level supported by the teachings of the church and the lifestyle of those believers around them which resemble their own. And armed with this kind of buffer any deprogramming can only begin with a miraculous move of God’s Spirit within each individual heart.
The leaders of the church are powerless to guide the sheep toward Christ since they also have the added chains of vocation, personal financial support, human voices of praise, and the unseen but powerful intoxication that comes with preaching before a crowd. Believe me, those kinds of chains are extremely powerful. And when the world has imprisoned the leaders, then the church is at the mercy of the spirit of this world because believers by and large receive the words of their pastor as coming from God. This western ecclesiastical system is a self destructing construct which is spiritually void but insists it alone serves up God’s truth.
Even the forceful protestations about inerrancy and believing the Bible have become little more than doctrinal hubris designed to elicit the applause of men and stroke our religious egos. And with all that and more, the western church operates without a soul. Going through the redundant motions which are accepted as defining a church, believers by the millions become content with activity and all kinds of positive feelings. Most believers will not stay at a local church if they do not like the pastor or if they do not find fellowship with others. And with that clearly in the mind of church leaders, most pastors are professional smilers and strive to create a community atmosphere. There is nothing wrong with smiling or having a community, however when they become the core and the power of the church then what we have is a religious club.
And in addition the church must have an enemy with which to occupy her time and give her a sense of standing strong for truth. So who better to set up as a convenient piñata but the lost kingdom? So we can articultae all the sins of the lost kingdoms of this world and only give a blind genuflect to our own. Like the Wizrd of Oz, we magnify the sins of the world while exhorting everyone to pay no attention to the church behind the cutain. We pay more attention to the sinful expression of the unredeemed than we do to the Savior and pursuing a living reflection of Him.
And the church uses all kinds of sleights of hands in order to pacify our spirits and keep us from any painful self examination. Listen as believers catsigate the gay community. Listen as they assign divine motive to natural disasters. Listen as they demand an entire country adhere to Biblical morality. Listen as they preach capitalism and democracy. Listen as they exhibit a genuine hatred for Muslims or gays or liberals. And all the while they are creating a self righteous fog which blinds them to their own spiritual condition. And while the culture continues to deteriorate, and while this same culture continues to infiltrate the church, there still is no call for a solemn assembly or all night prayer gatherings to seek the face of God. We cannot see that there is anything wrong except what is wrong in the other kingdom.
Without a sacrificial and remarkable seeking of Christ in all things, the church loses her soul, and in so doing, she loses her Savior. And when I speak of seeking the face of Jesus believers look at me as if I am some mystic monk. That right there should tell us something. If the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ, then should we not seek it? And since the average pew dweller sees the Christian faith in terms of moral convictions, political conservatism, and religious activities then he is blind to the very essence of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Every church should be a seeker church, but not in the accepted way western believers think. Our gatherings should be prayerfully set out to seek Jesus in all things and not to seek new members. But when a local church relies on clever slogans and manipulating music and over staffed organization, then you may very well grow in numbers. But you will be left with a religious expression without a soul and without a Savior. That does not mean that most evangelical churches do not mention Jesus in their doctrines or even in their messages, but it does mean that when juxtaposed against Scripture and the life of Christ the church lives in the power of the flesh.
And so here we are, dead to Him and alive to ourselves. Millions upon millions of professing believers pile up large amounts of money, enter into large amounts of debt, carelessly enjoy all the offerings of a hedonistic culture, spend little time in prayer, almost never witness, and laboriously go through the redundant motions of the western ecclesiastical structure. Soulless and hollow, and void of a true expression of the Savior. Repentance and revival are the only paths to a resurrection of the faith once delivered to the saints. But I sincerely believe before any real repentance can take place, and before our eyes can be truly opened to the situation, and even before we can receive the power necessary to be freed form our bondage, there must be a miraculous resurgence of prayer in all its mystery and power. Jesus told us that when we have offended someone we must go and speak to that someone.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Without a Soul or a Savior
WITHOUT A SOUL
WITHOUT A SAVIOR
Without a soul - Lacking sensitivity or the capacity for deep feeling and passion.
Without a Savior - Wandering with a message that cannot save.
What kind of passion does it take to give one’s life for something? The nineteen terrorists that crashed their planes on 9/11 were willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause. What kind of fanaticism does that take? What kind of faith is so strong that even one’s own life is gladly sacrificed for your beliefs, or even more poignant, for the Master of your faith? Men will volunteer to give their lives to defend their families and their way of life, but who will give their lives for their faith?
Believers in Jesus Christ will say they would gladly sacrifice their lives if asked. If it came down to that they say they would die for Christ. But what they fail to realize is that they have been asked to sacrifice their lives already. We are all called to be living sacrifices for the Lord Jesus Christ. We have lost the will and the desire to explore just what that means and all the present implications. The western version of Christianity has high jacked the Scriptures and used certain phrases like “the abundant life” or “I wish that you would prosper” and they have taken those clipped portions and constructed a faith which requires no sacrifice at all.
It is impossible to communicate with words just how deeply the Christian faith has been deconstructed and turned into a faith of convenience and personal aggrandizement. We have retained some of the words and symbols, but for the most part we practice a westernized form of what used to be the faith of Jesus. After the Industrial Revolution certain segments of civilization began to gain education and material things. And like the first lick of an ice cream cone, each step forward created a thirst for more. Work days became shorter and the home became littered with all kinds of modern accoutrements.
And in the midst of all this was a group of people who believed in Jesus. Perhaps many of them guarded themselves against the onslaught of material things and the spirit of materialism which always accompanies material things. But even if those believers who were living at that time resisted the allurements being enjoyed by their unsaved neighbors, the next generation was born without knowing or experiencing the faith in a much purer time. These new believers saw no point in rejecting what everyone was enjoying, but they knew they would have to make some doctrinal room for all this excitement over all this earthly new.
And make room they did, and each successive generation expanded these doctrines and began to absorb what the world had to offer. Now a television, for instance, is not evil in and of itself. But it provided a vehicle through which evil could enter each house without having the evil entity enter physically. But as believers added the modern inventions within their homes, much of which was innocuous, something very sinister began to take place. The spirit of materialism and personal happiness through material things began to seep into the hearts of believers and eventually in the church itself.
So the Scripture that warns that believers will “heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” was beginning to be crystallized. And what that means in modern parlance is that since believers liked the things of this world and desired to seek more of them, they subtly and openly demanded that their shepherds fed them what they desired. And in order to achieve that end, the shepherds must also come in with the same attractions to the things of this world. And they did.
And little by little, footstep by footstep, and increment by increment the church not only tested the waters of the temporal allurements, and not only embraced the systems of man, but she began to teach them as coming from God. And material things and the systems of man were no longer inanimate tools about which to be very wary, but now they were part and parcel of the divine plan for the redeemed. Slowly but surely man’s life and man’s happiness began to be taught as God’s ultimate purpose. Serving God was constricted to be exercised on Sunday mornings and with every service God would rush to shower you with blessings which are now defined as material and monetary. Any kind of sacrifice was carefully crafted so as not to significantly interfere with the step by step climb that leads to more and more prosperity.
And after many decades, and after many alterations to the faith, the church eventually became a religious practice which enjoys all the artifacts of hedonism, and all the systems of this world, but maintains a thin veneer of Christianity that is remarkably empty of the life and teachings of Jesus. But the western culture by this time has become very proficient at organization and creativity, which the church has embraced and used to revolutionize the practice of the faith. And while maintaining in writing the foundational doctrines of the faith, the church has been able to significantly alter any resemblance in practice to the early church, or more importantly, the clear teachings of Scripture.
And this metamorphosis has become so successful and so penetrating, that even when confronted with the clear teaching of Scripture our hearts and minds cannot even see or accept them in their purist application. In other words we have become brainwashed. Like attempting to deprogram a cult member, the average western believer walks in all sorts of false assumptions and with a comfort level supported by the teachings of the church and the lifestyle of those believers around them which resemble their own. And armed with this kind of buffer any deprogramming can only begin with a miraculous move of God’s Spirit within each individual heart.
The leaders of the church are powerless to guide the sheep toward Christ since they also have the added chains of vocation, personal financial support, human voices of praise, and the unseen but powerful intoxication that comes with preaching before a crowd. Believe me, those kinds of chains are extremely powerful. And when the world has imprisoned the leaders, then the church is at the mercy of the spirit of this world because believers by and large receive the words of their pastor as coming from God. This western ecclesiastical system is a self destructing construct which is spiritually void but insists it alone serves up God’s truth.
Even the forceful protestations about inerrancy and believing the Bible have become little more than doctrinal hubris designed to elicit the applause of men and stroke our religious egos. And with all that and more, the western church operates without a soul. Going through the redundant motions which are accepted as defining a church, believers by the millions become content with activity and all kinds of positive feelings. Most believers will not stay at a local church if they do not like the pastor or if they do not find fellowship with others. And with that clearly in the mind of church leaders, most pastors are professional smilers and strive to create a community atmosphere. There is nothing wrong with smiling or having a community, however when they become the core and the power of the church then what we have is a religious club.
And in addition the church must have an enemy with which to occupy her time and give her a sense of standing strong for truth. So who better to set up as a convenient piñata but the lost kingdom? So we can articultae all the sins of the lost kingdoms of this world and only give a blind genuflect to our own. Like the Wizrd of Oz, we magnify the sins of the world while exhorting everyone to pay no attention to the church behind the cutain. We pay more attention to the sinful expression of the unredeemed than we do to the Savior and pursuing a living reflection of Him.
And the church uses all kinds of sleights of hands in order to pacify our spirits and keep us from any painful self examination. Listen as believers catsigate the gay community. Listen as they assign divine motive to natural disasters. Listen as they demand an entire country adhere to Biblical morality. Listen as they preach capitalism and democracy. Listen as they exhibit a genuine hatred for Muslims or gays or liberals. And all the while they are creating a self righteous fog which blinds them to their own spiritual condition. And while the culture continues to deteriorate, and while this same culture continues to infiltrate the church, there still is no call for a solemn assembly or all night prayer gatherings to seek the face of God. We cannot see that there is anything wrong except what is wrong in the other kingdom.
Without a sacrificial and remarkable seeking of Christ in all things, the church loses her soul, and in so doing, she loses her Savior. And when I speak of seeking the face of Jesus believers look at me as if I am some mystic monk. That right there should tell us something. If the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ, then should we not seek it? And since the average pew dweller sees the Christian faith in terms of moral convictions, political conservatism, and religious activities then he is blind to the very essence of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Every church should be a seeker church, but not in the accepted way western believers think. Our gatherings should be prayerfully set out to seek Jesus in all things and not to seek new members. But when a local church relies on clever slogans and manipulating music and over staffed organization, then you may very well grow in numbers. But you will be left with a religious expression without a soul and without a Savior. That does not mean that most evangelical churches do not mention Jesus in their doctrines or even in their messages, but it does mean that when juxtaposed against Scripture and the life of Christ the church lives in the power of the flesh.
And so here we are, dead to Him and alive to ourselves. Millions upon millions of professing believers pile up large amounts of money, enter into large amounts of debt, carelessly enjoy all the offerings of a hedonistic culture, spend little time in prayer, almost never witness, and laboriously go through the redundant motions of the western ecclesiastical structure. Soulless and hollow, and void of a true expression of the Savior. Repentance and revival are the only paths to a resurrection of the faith once delivered to the saints. But I sincerely believe before any real repentance can take place, and before our eyes can be truly opened to the situation, and even before we can receive the power necessary to be freed form our bondage, there must be a miraculous resurgence of prayer in all its mystery and power. Jesus told us that when we have offended someone we must go and speak to that someone.
Without a stunning awakening to elongated and sacrificial prayer
we remain hollow, soulless, and following ourselves and not the Savior.
How tragic, how very tragic.
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