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REAL CHRISTIANITY HAS THE ONLY CURE FOR THE SIN DISEASE (BEWARE THE BLIND GUIDES)
Sin generated a maelstrom of evil upon God’s perfect Creation. Every time someone sins evil is released. Sin is the real deadly virus. Sin is the real pandemic.
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WHAT HAPPENED TO ALTAR CALLS?
Much of Christianity, that which refuses the Lord’s full authority, and that which I have long termed Unreal Christianity, has, in recent years, especially the last two, become that much more obvious regarding its true nature. There is no greater proof of this than its outright refusal to preach and teach the truth about sin.
If you don’t preach sin there is no conviction of sin experienced by the hearer. It is conviction of sin which tells a sinner he is one, is in possession of sin, and must do something to eliminate it from his account and be cleansed. The sinner is then drawn to the Lord Jesus, who paid for his sins, to have his sins eliminated, gain power over sin, and receive salvation. This is clearly a vital component of the Gospel message.
However, instead of telling sinners they are sinners and attempting, per the Lord’s New Covenant teachings, to bring them to real salvation and transform them into disciples, the proponents of Unreal Christianity do the very opposite. They don’t want to bring it up. They are afraid of the negative reaction from unrepentant sinners. They are afraid people will leave their church. They are afraid of losing their social standing in the local community. They are afraid it will negatively affect their market share. They know it’s bad for the bottom line. They might even go out of business. They would thus rather coddle sinners and bless them on their way to hell. They are fearful and faithless. The New Testament reveals them as deceptive imposters.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
One may note the strong and unwavering Biblical directive on correctly measuring up to God’s righteousness standard in this statement:
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. [James 2:10]
In this declaration, the brother of our Lord states clearly that anyone who does not keep the Law of Moses in full is guilty of violating the entire Law. It does no good to keep as many as nine of the Ten Commandments, for example. One must keep all ten or one stands in violation. God doesn’t grade on the curve. He demands 100%. We must score an “A.” Of course, there are actually a total of 613 commandments in the entire Torah. Imagine acing that test. Seeing as how it appears to be an impossible task, how can one actually attain God’s standard of righteousness?
In addition to the Law of Moses which lists and defines sins, and which primarily concerns “the mere performance of externals,”[1] the Lord Jesus goes even further in His teachings to incorporate “the inner stirrings of motives.”[2] He obliterates the idea of a religious checklist in which one can outwardly appear to keep the Law (or church protocol) while possessing an uncircumcised heart filled with sin and corruption. His teachings expose the false standing of the likely majority of Christians in America who only pretend to be Christians, hide their true nature, carry hidden sin, and compromise with the enemy. In mining the depths of the following example of the Lord’s teaching in this regard, in which He insists on getting to the very root of the problem and leaving no stone in a stony heart unturned, one can see just how far one must go to live a truly righteous life:
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” [Matthew 5:21-22]
From this, it is apparent that violating the sixth commandment involves much more than Thou Shalt Not Kill. In the Lord’s Community, we are supposed to love our brothers and sisters as true family members. If one becomes angry with his brother to the point of a break in relationship and refuses any attempt to make peace, he is guilty of a relationship trespass violation and becomes “liable to the court” the same as one who commits murder. Now, keeping in mind that murder was a stoning offense (the death penalty), being angry with one’s brother is a much worse offense than we may realize. Anger itself is not the problem because anger in itself is not a sin. The apostle Paul, quoting Psalms 4:4, taught this:
“Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” [Ephesians 4:26]
We know the Lord was angry on occasion as was Paul, but what both are getting at is continuous anger with no forgiveness. This not only results in a break in relationship, which the Community of the Lord must never have, but causes the object of the anger to be falsely characterized as unworthy of relationship, essentially meaning he is evil and beyond redemption. To make sure anger does not lead to such a separation, one must deal with it before the sun goes down so it won’t gain power and eventually become set in concrete.
The Lord then goes further and speaks of the highest court, the Sanhedrin, which had the greatest earthly authority among the Israelites to pronounce sentence. Here, the Lord says whoever says to his brother “You good-for-nothing,” (Raqa) will also be guilty of violating the murder commandment. This is probably an Aramaic word. It means “empty” or “good for nothing,” One authority (Bruce) says, “Raca expresses contempt for a man’s head=you stupid!” The Lord says this is a great offense against one’s brother, even greater than being angry with him. Even so, the Lord does not stop at this point because there is yet a greater offense than these two that also deserves the same sentence as murder. However, it appears that the first two contain the possibility of redemption. The third does not. What could be so bad that is not actual murder but would cause one to be in grave danger of hell? –“You fool!” Yes, calling your brother a “fool” will do it. The Greek word is Moros, defined as “dull, stupid, or foolish.” Bruce says it “expresses contempt for his heart and character=you scoundrel!”[3]
Thus we see that, though a man be not guilty of actual murder, he can still violate the sixth commandment by having murder in his heart. This evil condition starts with unresolved anger and a refusal to forgive. It grows into accusing one’s brother of being empty headed, good for nothing, and stupid. Beyond that one expresses utter contempt for his brother’s heart and character and accuses him of being a fool and a scoundrel. Note that the accused brother in question, probably originally guilty of a minor infraction that caused his brother’s anger, is most likely none of these things but has been subjected to character assassination and had his good name slandered, all because someone was offended at some slight and then built up the offense into a bonfire. The sixth commandment does not spell out these details but the Lord Jesus sure does. If the willfully sinning unrepentant angry man is able to convince enough people of these lies, the innocent man could actually lose his place in the Community by being effectively convicted by false charges and innuendo, have his reputation destroyed, and suffer greatly in life as a result.
Consider this while you consider the existence of so many Christian “denominations” and how the extreme disunity they caused ever happened in the first place. Each denomination exists because it diverted from the original or diverted from another denomination but stopped before it advanced to honoring the original.
REAL CHRISTIANITY
The Lord Jesus started only one Church (Ekklesia)—the Community of the Called-Out Ones. He has only ever had one Church. He still has only one Church. It is composed only of real Christians. A real Christian is defined as one who is 100% under the Lordship of the Lord Jesus. Regarding sin, real Christians fully obey the Lord’s teachings regarding being completely freed from sin. They do this through initial repentance as a type of sacrifice on the altar of burnt offering in which the cleansing Blood of Jesus is applied coupled with full immersion in water invoking the Name of Jesus for the remission of sins per the command in Acts Chapter 2, and ongoing repentance of sin as required:
Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” [Acts 2:38-39]
The entire purpose of real Christianity is to free people from their manifold sins, from the destruction their sins cause to themselves and others, and from the deadly disease of sin which wracks their souls, and then bring them into the New and Living Way:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. [Hebrews 10:19-22]
Our great Founder, the One who created His Creation—all that exists around you sans sinful man’s additions to it—decided on His own before He ever created anything that He would have to one day pay a visit here, walk among us, teach us the truth and the proper way of living, and then, in the greatest act of love anyone could ever possibly make, and in His case, the greatest act of love of all time, actually surrender His perfect life as a perfect sacrifice to make payment for our sins and to save and deliver humanity.
His sacrifice works because He never committed any sin, not a single one, in His entire life as one of us. He obeyed the Law of Moses to perfection, never violating a single proviso. Obviously, no one had ever done this before or since. His perfection was in part unequivocally proven upon His resurrection from the dead. He actually defeated death. Death could not hold Him. “It was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:24). He was and remains the only perfect antidote or cure for all sin for all time.
WHY UNREAL CHRISTIANITY FAILS THE LEGITIMACY TEST
It doesn’t properly address the sin problem.
Again, the whole point of Christianity is to address what we must do about sin, which is defined as “missing the mark” or violating the laws and teachings of God which exist to lead one to righteousness. Christianity is supposed to have the means to allow people to be cured of and released from their deadly disease that will cause them to struggle through life, lose their souls, and go to hell. The teachings of the Lord Jesus perfectly address this. He tells us what sin is, how it got here, and how to get rid of it. His teachings instruct us on how to stop sinning, overcome the hold that sin has on one’s life, and cease being slaves of sin. If this central teaching of the Lord Jesus is not being properly and correctly addressed by a minister, church, or denomination (and many ministers, if not most, no longer preach about sin), then it should be obvious that those ministers, churches, and denominations are frauds. They may be clueless brainwashed frauds in that they are too deceived to know it or more likely, they know they are frauds but don’t care. They don’t care because they are not in it for the right reasons. They are merely using the platform for their own purposes.
Note: It is impossible for those hungry in heart searching for truth to hear the real Gospel and not be convicted of sin. This conviction is designed to activate faith, which leads one to repentance, which then leads to salvation. Unless one’s temple is thoroughly cleansed through proper repentance by washing away all sin with the Blood of the Lamb, the Holy Spirit of the Lord will not take up residence within it. The same is true for churches. This is why it is imperative to preach and teach about the disease of sin. Refusing to address sin and expose it allows for its destructive hidden presence to remain and allows the enemy a place of residence and a foothold from which to operate.
THE PRESENCE OF THE DEVIL
The Lord Jesus saw fit to give us a perfect allegory in His time of false shepherds in action which can be applied to any time or geographic location. The first century Hebrew/Israelite major religious parties, the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes, had control of almost all religious thought. Almost every Israelite of the first century AD identified with one of these three parties, mainly, of course, the first two.
One of the reasons the Essenes are not addressed in the New Testament Scriptures is because they were not involved as movers and shakers in the overall society at that time. The original group of them had long since left town in the middle of the second century BC. Happiness for them was Jerusalem in their rear view mirror as it was the only way to appease their conscience regarding the sinister machinations transpiring in the City of David. They took up residence out in the wilderness to the east, close by the northern edge of what the later Romans called the Mare Asphaltum. Scholarship consensus maintains these Essenes were the monastic group inhabiting the ruins of Qumran associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient writings discovered initially in 1947. As former members of the viable Zadok priesthood, this group of men left the temple and Jerusalem because they grew disgusted with what became the official priesthood of that time—a shady group placed in power through political means.
Over the next two centuries this illicit priesthood in Jerusalem became staffed through political appointments which had nothing or little to do with God’s original intent. The political had merged with the religious. Sound familiar? Rather than the priesthood addressing sin as the Torah commanded, the appointees thereof merely went through religious motions appearing as real while saturated with sin and fraud, not the least of which was masquerading as being legitimate. This corruption started a fight for control which eventually congealed into two main religious parties that controlled Jerusalem, Judea, and Galilee, and also the temple and the synagogues: The Sadducees, who worked hand in glove with Rome and had authority over Jerusalem and the temple, and the Pharisees who controlled the local synagogues.
These two parties made a mockery of God, the prophets, and Moses the lawgiver, by appropriating their own versions and wrongheaded interpretations of God’s Word, which even included mass exclusions of Holy Writ (the Sadducees) and a wholesale rewriting of Scripture through ultra-interpretive, casuistic, and specious renderings, the so-called Oral Law, which, in the words of the Lord Jesus, invalidated the Word of God! (the Pharisees). Think about that. These religious leaders were so wicked they both trashed Scripture and rewrote it while pretending to teach it! This is exactly what Unreal Christianity has done and is doing.
Also, keep in mind that the prophetic word had ceased 250 years before that time, in the late 400s BC, so there were no Hebrew prophets correcting these ultra-erroneous shysters. At present, of course, in American Christianity, we have a parallel condition. It explains why most ministers and churches get away with their multitudinous errors. They are all non-Prophet organizations.
KNOWING THE TREE BY ITS FRUIT
The majority of that which is referred to as Christianity in America is incomparable to the original. It refuses the truth of Scripture regarding sin, refuses to teach it, and thus refuses the actual teachings of the Lord Jesus. It has rejected God. It merely uses the Lord and Scripture for its own purposes without actually submitting to Him. Again, maybe the majority of those engaged in this are completely duped, but if so it is the greatest duping ever known to mankind. Why? Because they have the Word of God. They read it. They teach from it. They claim to honor the Lord Jesus. And all in all, they disregard and refute anything in His curriculum they do not feel comfortable with or agree with. Remember, one both strives to follow the Lord fully and obey His teachings fully or one is in violation of not following Him at all. This halfway walk of the false ministers who pick and choose what they believe and teach, and make a god to suit themselves, is the height of ministerial evil but it is an evil couched in faux righteousness. It is an evil that leads people toward the pure and holy stream but never gets them there. They would never allow anyone under their jurisdiction to partake of it. They only want to get close enough to appear real without actually being real. This means they are exactly the same as the ancient Israelite Pharisees and Sadducees though with simulated Christian clothing.
In other words they are mere actors. On a stage. Loving the limelight and place of honor. The Lord called them false stage players or hypocrites. And all unreal Christians deceived and captured by Unreal Christianity are living in a controlled simulation. It appears to be real but is nothing more than a choreographed program in which people go through spiritually meaningless motions which have no effect on their eternal soul and their personal sin. They enter church services as sinners and they leave church services as sinners. They substitute false religious rituals heavy on surface connotations with little or no spiritual effect. The vast majority have never repented of sin properly or had a real born again experience, both of which the Lord Jesus said was mandatory for all. This is deception of a very high order.
BLIND GUIDES
There is no new thing under the sun. The world has never been devoid of religious charlatans. No matter what the righteous may do expose their trickery and eliminate their influence they always somehow manage to creep back in and establish a foothold. In closing, the following passage is a great refresher on this recurrent “goats as sheep” problem that presently exists as a nationwide mainstream false representation of Christianity. It gives a great explanatory illustration of these pretenders in action. It exposes those of today just as it did those of yesterday. Read, watch, and pray:
Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,” he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”
After Jesus called the crowd to Him, He said to them, “Hear and understand. It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?”
But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” [Matthew 15:1-14][4]
© 2022 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] ISBE
[2] ISBE
[3] See A.T. Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament
[4] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
THE TEARS OF GOD
For all the senseless sins of humanity
For all the hate
For all the children
Whose lives are snuffed out
By their parents.
And other beautiful children
Born deaf or blind
Who love their lives
And give their might to prove their worth
While privileged ones
Throw theirs away
For so many so rebellious
No one can reach them
Intent on evil
Who deceived them?
And on it goes
Century after eon
Nothing ever changes
Man’s inhumanity to man
Brings untold misery
And hard, hard work for nothing
Destroyed in a day
Lifetimes achieving
She said it wasn’t worth it
And darkness descended
But what of another choice?
What of beauty?
What of kindness and love
And compassion?
What of joy?
Why the hate and discontent?
When air can be so pure
And nature so rich?
How can creatures so bright
Descend into such a pit?
Day after day after day
Misery upon misery
And evil people in power
Will no one ever stand to save?
Will we let it all slip away?
Day after day, tears fall
Year after year, tears fall
Century after…
The dry void receives the wet
Salty, salty tears
The levels rise
Overflowing banks
And continuing upward
So much sin
So much pain
So much flat out rejection
Of the cure
Of the means to stop it
To live right
To get it right
To stop the bleeding
But they would not
And the levels rise
More tears, flowing daily
Won’t you stop?
Won’t you try to live right?
Won’t you take care of one another?
I’ve given all I can give
I can give no more
And the levels rise
Drowning continents
Filling the earth
Overcoming all bounds
An unending stream
Of the Creator’s anguish
Oceans of tears
Jesus Wept
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© 2020 by R.J. Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION: SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION (4)
Every person who ever lives and dies will be resurrected one day. Soul will be reconnected with body. The majority, however, will then undergo the second death…
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RESURRECTION CONNECTION
We were never meant to die. God did not create us for death to overtake us. Nevertheless, due to His foreknowledge, He knew Adam would inevitably choose incorrectly and open Pandora’s Box. He knew Adam would sin.
And He made provision for it. Still, it was not inevitable that Adam would choose incorrectly. This man had the best Teacher. He was prepared for any and all events. He was warned. Adam, the first man, a type of Him who was to come, knew everything he needed to know and had an exemplary record of obedience and wisdom until that one fateful day in the garden. Though certainly tempted on that day, as he likely was any number of times before, he was never deceived. He knew full well what was going on. And when he decided to sin and break fellowship with his Father it was only because of one reason: He chose Eve, the first sinner, over God.
At that point perfection ended. Then the ultimate plan of God kicked in. The last Adam would have to come and fix what the first Adam did. Paradoxically, somewhat, the last Adam would also die. But unlike the first Adam he would not stay dead. And He arranged things in such a way that whoever applies His perfect sacrifice for sin to their own life will not stay dead either.
“Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” [John 5:28-29]
Thus we see that souls will be reunited with bodies. And just as sin caused a disconnection between Adam/Eve and their perfect garden, so does it also cause an inevitable disconnection between body and soul. In essence, because of personal sin, every human soul is eventually separated from its body. The animate is disconnected from the inanimate. One part goes to the grave and the other part goes to a nebulous netherworld of which we don’t know much about.
But there is more to this resurrection story.
THE DEATH CYCLE
The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” [Genesis 2:16-17]
They surely did die. But they were still walking around. From without, at a certain distance, one could not have ascertained a change. But from within, Adam suddenly felt a coldness, a spiritual draft as it were, a cold wind blowing upon his innards. He was suddenly empty. He was lost. He didn’t know which way to turn. What had happened? He couldn’t think. His brain no longer worked as it did before. He was a mere fraction of his former self. Eve, feeling the same, clung ever closer to her mate, but neither felt the slightest bit of relief. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Scripture reveals that the human being is actually composed of three principle parts and not only two. Adam and Eve had died but remained animate, meaning that there remained an animate life force within them that was still alive. What, then, had died? And this is where the entire human question gets really tricky really fast. From Adam’s original perspective, before he sinned, he possessed some form of higher strength, ability, and intelligence. He was also a spiritual being because he communed with God. He was actually born of God:
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. [Genesis 1:27]
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. [Genesis 2:7]
Hence, Adam was originally, by this world’s standards, not a normal human. Of course, this world’s standards are based on a worldwide sinful consensus created by people with a sinful perspective whether they know it or not or know they are sinners or not. I would think that the vast majority in this world would agree, however, that the very idea of actual communion and communication with God is perceived as the haunt of the weird and the wacky. It gets laughable when one considers the fact that most Christians in the world also hold this view. They never talk to God and nobody they know in their awesome circle of friends and associates talks to God. Therefore, the notion of talking to God is strange. But God talking back is even stranger.
Anyway, getting back to the narrative, Adam was created of the Spirit of God. He had the same spirit within that God has, or that God is. God is a Spirit. When He breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life He wasn’t just exhaling air into Adam’s lungs but was filling Adam with His very Spirit. Sound familiar? Also, when Adam was formed, before receiving the breath of life, was he simply an inanimate slab of beef lying on the ground? Or was he already animate the way all other creatures are animate? How is it possible to create a human being without animation? Babies are conceived in the womb, in the very beginning, by the connection of an animate seed with an animate egg. Both of these pulse with life and animation. Each must be alive. Therefore, Adam must have been alive once the Lord formed him but the life he possessed was a lesser form. At that point he was the crown of Creation but was essentially the same as all other earthly creatures. When he received the Spirit of God, however, he became both a person of this lower world and also a person of the higher world. He became a spiritual man. Again, Scripture clearly states this:
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. [Romans 5:14]
Adam was a type of the Lord Jesus. He was not simply a soul man but a spirit man. Some animals are what we might term soulish and some are more soulish than others, such as dogs and horses. These animals have a higher propensity toward communicating with human beings. These kinds of animals can relate so closely to humans they can actually love people and people can love them. We can see then, that just as animals can communicate with people and vice versa, that humans can communicate with God and vice versa. But why is it the case that most people do not communicate with God? Is it not for the same reason that Adam and Eve could no longer communicate spiritually with God after their fall into sin? Once they sinned, the only remaining communication with God was on a merely soulish level. This descent from the spiritual realm to the soulish realm is what happened right after they ate the fruit.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” [Genesis 3:7-14]
And that, my friends, is the entire human story in eight verses. It plays over and over again every day in this world as the only song on a 24 hour radio station. Translated, it becomes:
“I’ve messed up!” “I keep trying to fix it but I can’t!” “Now I’m afraid of God!” “I must hide from Him!” “It’s that woman’s fault!” “The devil made me do it!”
The preceding is not spiritual communication (Duh). These people go from having a close loving relationship with God involving who knows how many in-depth conversations and wonderful fellowship to actually being afraid of God and wanting nothing to do with Him. They were far too fearful to have any relationship with Him. Their entire concept of God changed. This is what they passed on to everybody else until now. Their spirit within them died and Adam and Eve became mere soulish individuals likely finding it far easier to communicate with animals than with the Lord. Every human is initially infected with the same attitude.
When humans die physically in this condition further separation takes place. Where there was once in Adam’s case a perfectly intact person composed of spirit, soul, and body, there eventuates after the first death only a mere fearful soul floating around in an undefined nebulous netherworld likely in the heart of the planet (See Matthew 12:40). The soul’s separated body is decaying somewhere up on the surface. The soul’s spirit had never been alive to begin with. And if that soul’s body died while the soul was in sin then the time will come when the soul will die also, completing the celestial strikeout.
But before being called out by the celestial Umpire some final business will have to be attended to. God will resurrect that person’s body and rejoin the soul within it. Then that person will stand before God in judgment. Then that person will suffer the second death by taking a one way trip to the hot place. So much death! Sin is a killer! The spirit dies, then the body dies, then the soul and resurrected body die together.
“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28]
SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION
There had to be a way to fix the mess Adam and Eve created. Logically, it would simply be a matter of creating a way for the human spirit to be regenerated. But how does one go about doing that unless the candidate involved agrees with the process and submits to it? Every human on the planet is composed of body and soul but also possesses a “dead” spirit somehow existing in seed form. There must be a way to reactivate this spirit. There must be a way to bring it back to life. In the beginning God breathed His own Spirit into Adam. Eve was then created from a part of Adam and also possessed a living spirit. How must God go about trying to implement this plan for anyone else, as a kind of Garden of Eden do over? Wouldn’t it be logical to simply breathe the breath of life into anyone willing as He did with Adam in the beginning?
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” [Luke 11:13]
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. [John 7:37-39]
So you see, God wanted to give His Spirit and reanimate our spirits but the only way to do that was to first become one of us so He could have a pure Spirit originating from His humanity to give. The Spirit of God must first become resident in a human being before it can be transferred to other human beings. The Holy Spirit is therefore the form of God’s Spirit that can safely become resident within people. The Holy Spirit is obviously still very powerful but also able to reside within relatively fragile human bodies. (Think of the way electricity must be transformed down to a safe level before entering our dwellings and electrical devices so it will not cause harm.)
Regarding the chosen candidate who must be the last Adam, there was obviously no human being in existence who qualified for such a Spirit-through-humanity mission so God would have to do it Himself. The process of God becoming a human being and living a life without sin would thus allow Him to share His Holy Spirit. Remember, the Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Unlike everybody else, His human spirit was always alive, animate, and active. Also, the Lord Jesus had the Spirit of God without measure (John 3:34).
To sum up, the Lord said whoever believes properly and correctly would be eligible to receive His Spirit. His Holy Spirit is a gift. How hard can it be to simply receive it? Ah, but there is spiritual battle involved. Evil entities exist to censor this Good News and keep people ignorant of it. The devil fights the process. The world makes fun of it. Fake Christianity denies and opposes it. And human flesh, perhaps the worst enemy, is all too often so caught up in pride (including the religious variety) and the promotion of oneself, though the Lord called such people “evil” (which denotes an otherwise obvious incongruity) that people are themselves often their own worst enemy. Then when one considers that the new birth could end relationships and one must make the relational choice that corrects Adam’s huge relational miscue, one can see that receiving the Lord’s Spirit can be quite challenging with reference to one’s residence in this fallen world and the resistance thereof.
You see, Adam chose Eve over God. Before he joined her in sin Adam could have simply refused. She would have been banished but he would remain sin free in the garden with God. So in order to reverse what Adam did, a person must be willing to embrace relationship with the Lord at the possible loss of every person in one’s life. One must be willing to want the Lord’s Spirit and the resultant animation of one’s human spirit more than any other relational connection. Adam made the wrong choice. We must make the right one. The Lord Jesus must always be first.
If one chooses to live for Him and believe in Him the way He said one should, his or her spirit will be resurrected from death. Again, such a spiritual resurrection is and should be a powerful experience demonstrating a great transformation. One will for the first time in his or her life become whole, composed of body, soul, and spirit with sin removed and be filled with His Holy Spirit. And it will not be some innocuous by osmosis not sure when it happened occurrence but a powerfully memorable event just as the Day of Pentecost was an event:
“It is this Jesus whom God raised up, a fact to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.” [Acts 2:32-33]
“For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” [Acts 2:39]
FIRST DEATH / SECOND DEATH / ETERNAL LIFE
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” [John 11:25-26] [1]
By His sacrificial atoning death for our sin the Lord Jesus makes it possible for us to be rescued from the second death and be given spiritual life. It cost Him everything to do this. It will cost us everything to receive it. This is the definition of the New Covenant. It is a covenant between two members giving their all to bring forth new life and it includes the promise of the Holy Spirit, an advance security toward our eternal inheritance.
Thus, the Ministry of Reconciliation demands the greatest love.
© 2021 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission
IMPORTANT NOTE: The actual anniversary date for the Lord’s resurrection this year is Tuesday, March 30. This date is Nisan 17 on the Hebrew calendar. Nisan 17 is the day of First Fruits and the THIRD day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION: RESTORING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD (1)
THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION: WORD STUDY AND APPLICABLE VERSES (2)
CHRISTIAN WITNESSING: A CHILD’S PERSPECTIVE
The term adult is overrated. It is often ill-defined and based on a confined perspective. In reality, when compared to God, eternity, and an ancient earth, we are all mere newbies, children trying to find our way.
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YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME
We see ourselves as sovereign. It is this way from childhood. Some children are more vocal than others on the subject and the little highnesses don’t hold back when perceiving a challenge to their noble standing. Once they understand they’re behind the generational eight ball, however, at least for the present, and the big people have the drop on them, they begin making plans for the future—“When I get big…”
Wiser children are a tad more circumspect. They somehow understand intrinsically that their little lives are good or at least not so bad. They have shelter and food and… toys!
“But they’re just using toys to keep you in line and under their authority.”
“What? You don’t like toys?”
“Toys are just tools of the capitalist bourgeoisie to train you as future oppressors of the proletariat.”
😶
“I gather by your lack of proper retort that your brainwashing has already progressed to a probable point of no return and I must therefore and forthwith identify you as my enemy and insufferably target you with my considerable wrath, the first thrust of which is leaving you bereft and alone in the midst of this sordid establishment to suffer the misery of a wasted existence built on false hopes and dreams rather than join the glorious people’s revolution and overthrowing the man!”
“Johnny, are you spouting Communist propaganda again? Okay, to the playpen…”
“You may imprison me but my heart will stay free!”
“Want some apple juice?”
“Okay.”
(The little Commie might have been more successful if he had conformed his propaganda to the interactive fine art of playing with toys. He overplayed his hand.)
THE SIN PANDEMIC
Here is an interesting fact. Many years ago, three months before I gave my heart to the Lord, I was witnessed to for the first time. Then, three months later, I was witnessed to once more, by the same person (It bore fruit). And guess what? I don’t remember ever being witnessed to again. That little factoid doesn’t speak well of American Christianity in general which surrendered its previous hard-charging evangelistic DNA maybe a century or so ago. And I was raised in a denominational church but I don’t recall ever hearing the term “witnessing.”
But there we were. And there they were, telling me about a big new change in their lives. I had already heard something about it. They were close friends, a young married couple. This was the first time they came over to see me since it all went down and tell me the weird news in person. Only it wasn’t so much them telling me about them but them telling me I had to also be like them. I was roughly their age, and was doing a good job of being friendly and open.
My associates and I had always prided ourselves on being open-minded and often partook of great conversations on any number of subjects and were never concerned about getting too deep. In fact, getting deep was cool. We were young adults. Everything was new and open. Being dogmatic was better left to canines. It was much more fun to hear many different points of view and gain information. No one owned the information and if you didn’t care for it, it was no big deal.
We opposed any form of censoring for the simple fact that we could end up missing good ideas and positive information, and things we might apply in our lives to make them better. Conforming to a dead orthodoxy was the last thing we wanted.
But these people, who I used to know and hang out with, had changed in what I soon perceived to be in a not so good way. I started feeling pressure. Are they trying to sell me on something? Really? And the answer was yes, they were. Rather than a conversation it switched over to a sales pitch. I started getting irked. The smiles were gone from their faces. I know now what was going on. They themselves were under pressure. They felt they had to do this, to witness to me, to tell me I must change…”
I got quiet briefly, my mood transformed from being welcoming, open, and very friendly to a tad somber. I’m sure I must have lowered my eyebrows and effected a somewhat borderline dismayed expression. At last I told them that if they didn’t stop they may as well leave. (What they were doing was not cool. Not in the least.) He looked more upset than she did and said “Let’s go.” She showed more concern and didn’t want the visit to end on a bad note but they’re the ones that brought it on. They overplayed their hand.
WITNESSING IS A FORCED OPTION
So you see, sinners don’t like being referred to as sinners. No one likes to be thought of as inferior in need of a major remodel and paint job. Pride always kicks in. We stand up for ourselves and should. It is in the heart of every person to defend their honor regardless of morality level. There might only be a half tank or so left but good things still reside within and besides, aren’t these people a tad arrogant to think they’re better? This is why witnessing is tricky and witnessers must have some level of proper training. The Lord did this. He prepared His men before sending them out.
I think a much better witness would have been for my friends to come over still exulting in the joy of the Lord as I know they did in church and at home. They were too young then spiritually, as we all are early on, to understand that witnessing is a forced option in that it happens no matter what we do or how we do it. What I saw was a religious sales pitch. What they saw was the need to make me convert just as they had. Although they didn’t really convert. They were actually gloriously filled with the Holy Spirit and had a powerful and positive life-changing experience. If they had come over with absolutely no pressure tactics and allowed me to see the big change for the better in their lives simply by their love, joy, and outward actions, I would have been more impressed. It would have planted a seed within that would have grown into greater curiosity on my part and later on I might be more willing to open up, likely when I was down or struggling.
And this is exactly what ended up happening. They changed tactics and began praying. The whole church prayed for me. Over a three month period I felt my swagger and manly security slowly slipping away. I began being more aware of my shortcomings. In a tender and loving way the Lord was showing me my sin. The Lord Himself was witnessing to me! He was preparing me for what He knew I really wanted, and part of the preparation was “breaking up the fallow ground of my heart.” He was plowing deep furrows in my heart is what He was doing. He was getting the soil ready to receive the Gospel seed. When the time came for the final witness I was ready.
That second time around it was exactly like what I had suggested before. It was a time of smiles, laughter and joy. Whatever it was they had, I wanted it.
But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” [Luke 18:16-17][1]
© 2020 by R.J. Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
THE CONTROL TEST: PROVING THE MAJORITY COMPLIANT
None of this would be happening without a predetermined confirmation that the controlled have reached a majority and will readily comply with every directive from upper management.
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HIDDEN THREATS EVERYWHERE ON A DAILY BASIS
When a person ventures into public areas everything he touches has already been touched by many other people. At the grocery store, for example, every item on every shelf has been handled by any number of people by the time it got there. Were any of them sick? How about the last guy to touch the item, the store employee that stocks the shelves, was he sick? One grabs a grocery cart that had been handled by an endless succession of people including the employees who went out and rounded them up from the parking lot. Every item in the produce section was handled by probably even more people on its way there and many of those items have no protective containers. How about the floors? What did people track in? What unseen entity did one step on or in during the day and then track into the house?
At the checkout line one unloads one’s groceries onto a conveyor belt that everybody else has used. Might any of them have been infected with something? If using cash to pay one may wonder how many thousands of people touched that cash on its way in and out of one’s wallet. If paying with a card, one uses a machine that has been touched by thousands who likely left unseen residual reminders of their presence which now transfers to your hands and your card, the latter of which goes back into your wallet infected with whatever. When one breathes, everything in the air around a person goes into one’s nose and mouth, travels to one’s lungs, and possibly enters one’s bloodstream. Not everything breathed in necessarily goes back out when exhaling.
Drinking unfiltered tap water likely does more to promote illness than breathing in possible pathogens. Tap water is loaded with chlorine, ammonia and many other unsafe chemicals. It is basically swimming pool water. Those with knowledge of built-in pools know what happens if one fails to keep the chemical levels correct. The water will turn green due to the presence of all the little unseen life forms that also like to swim and hang out there. They must be killed. Chlorine and other chemicals work very well. The same thing must obviously be done in municipal water systems which have infinitely more extremely serious contaminants than swimming pools. If one tests the water in either, one will get about the same result. Tap water, of course, is said to be safe because the chemicals in it are diluted to the point that they have no detrimental effect on one’s health. Right.
Over the last few weeks, there are suddenly many people who now comply, though not before, with the directives handed down from on high, such as hand-washing, using sanitizers, wearing face masks, donning gloves, trying not to touch their face while out in public, and attempting to keep the suggested proper distance from other people. They are responding very well to control directives. It is obviously good advice, but most never engaged in any of these protective efforts before. Every year hundreds of thousands die from the flu but this is never reported, meaning most people go about blissfully unaware of the danger or are simply too apathetic to act. Perhaps that’s why hundreds of thousands die from the flu.
But some people are already aware of the manifold threats to health out there. They have known most of their lives the great value in washing their hands and using sanitizers. They do their best to steer clear of unhealthy people and avoid those who are infectious. They never drink tap water but only the best purified water available. They have learned the value of organic Vitamin C. Those are the first two items in one’s pro-health anti-getting-sick starter kit. In addition to those one knows to take an excellent organic multiple vitamin, most of which one will never find in the usual haunts. Such vitamins provide a wealth of nutrients for the body starved by the lack of proper nutrients in most food available today. From there one can add additional supplemental vitamins as necessary. Vitamin D, for example, is excellent (among many other things) at defeating viruses. The Creator has blessed us with a wealth of proper foods to keep us healthy and strong.
THE KEY IS HAVING A STRONG IMMUNE SYSTEM
The issue before us then, is not simply obeying control directives from on high during times of crisis that come and go, but being disciplined enough to take care of one’s health on a daily basis regardless of whatever else is happening or where one might reside. Many people have been preaching this for decades. The Creator has already blessed us with immune systems that fight off those evil little entities that cause sickness and disease.
THEREFORE, WHAT ONE MUST CONCENTRATE ON IS TAKING CARE OF ONE’S IMMUNE SYSTEM AND PROVIDING IT WITH EVERYTHING IT NEEDS TO BE AS HEALTHY AND AS STRONG AS POSSIBLE.
This is the real test. It is not principally about being fearful of exterior threats using exterior means but insuring interior protection. It is about being healthy enough to withstand the enemies of our health from the inside out. Those who educate and discipline themselves in this regard have the best chance at staying healthy and avoiding illness.
It is obvious, however, that only a relatively few people do this. Judging by the way many people look and function nowadays it is readily apparent they refuse to address the real problem. Weakness of will, lack of discipline, absence of critical thinking, and wholesale acceptance of authoritarian directives often prove weakness of health, lack of proper information and truth, and gross personal irresponsibility. By throwing caution to the wind and placing all of one’s faith in the medical industrial complex—excellent for many treatments but also a massive earnings-engineered economy in itself in which the profit-incentivized leaders thereof are treated as gods—it is no wonder that the time was ripe for scaring everyone to the point of mass hysterical panic and unadulterated obedience toward their worshipful masters.
Such people continually pass the control test. Rather than doing their own research, being extremely careful about whatever they ingest, and doing their due diligence to steer clear of the causes of illness, one of which is fear, they simply decide to bow down and obey a few effortless orders until the all clear sign is given and then quickly return to their unhealthy lifestyles.
Their behavior proves the existence of a compliant majority under authoritative control.
© 2020 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
JESUS IS THE ANSWER
Those in high positions of authority are not revealing all they know. Others in lesser positions may be clueless but will dutifully comply with the agenda and continue to drive the panic.
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BOY HOWDY, THIS GOT UGLY QUICK
From the beginning, back in early January or so, there were a few rational people who saw what was happening, as the few often do, and began warning against the warning. Since then both sides have ramped up their rhetoric, though the rational voice has been completely deluged by now. Once the major media gets on board and begins relentlessly driving the narrative it is case closed. That’s because the majority of Americans are addicted to the major media and treat it like God.
You might have heard me say this before a time or two, but this phenomenon is not unlike what goes on in many churches, in that members have knee jerk reactions in times of such trouble to seek out their leaders and abide by their pronouncements. Mainline Christianity is thus no different than the mainstream media, in that they all say the same thing, never tell their people to not honor them as difference makers, but accept their middle man role and dole out the advice, which not surprisingly sounds exactly like the government’s advice.
I was at the grocery store late last week. It’s a big store, and relatively new. There were loaded and semi-loaded shopping carts and shoppers waiting in a ridiculously long line that snaked all the way along the main drag checkout area to the far end and down an aisle. It was probably that way on the other side of the store also. I had never seen such before in that store. And when a store has about thirty or so check out stands that says something. I didn’t notice how many were actually in operation but it appeared to be most.
While finding my place in line, almost halfway down a central aisle, still somewhat amazed, I did what I always do. I tried striking up a conversation with the man in front of me but he wasn’t very talkative. Another middle-aged woman came by, with a small child, and a young man in a wheel chair with a leg injury. They asked if this was the line. They had to cut across from their direction. I said yeah and she, with a big smile and jovial attitude, and a slight incredulous manner, dutifully lined up behind me. As we got closer to the front of the store the line parted in two, one for shoppers with lesser items. And we waited, and shuffled along. I’m sure many of you have experienced the same thing by now.
I was successful in this particular line in finding someone to discuss the situation with, and we carried on a conversation the rest of the way to the checkouts. Our theme, of course, was this strange happening and the current crisis which suddenly jumped out of nowhere but without what one would normally associate with such a crisis. There were not thousands dead, for example. Not even hundreds. At that time, across the entire country, there were about fifty and most of them were in one specific location in one state.
But the authorities continued saying it was about to get much worse. By that time a national panic was in the works. It was not based on reality, however, but on projected reality. I was not thinking there was not a potential crisis but that the crisis continued to appear overblown. Those voices I told you about back in January, who were saying the crisis showed all the signs of being manufactured? Well, they continued on, some with greater fervor, trying their best to tell the truth of the matter. But as always, you had to search for them. The mainstream media was now in lockstep, all saying the same thing, that the end of the world as we know it is upon us, and for all of you out there who are unprepared, well, you better hunker down, bunker or not.
Even the President was reluctant to get on board. He knew the entire thing was fishy, apparently, but was soon forced to go along. Again, I am not saying there is not a real danger here, but only that it’s been blown entirely out of proportion. Nevertheless, national fear has now set it. It is being taken advantage of to drive an agenda. I tried to warn you with my latest posts. You can gain a lot by reading them. You will have greater understanding of how this crisis was planned and carried out. You may figure out who’s driving it and for what reasons. It gives the PTB a good look into the present American psyche. And it lets them know who the lemmings are.
WHAT ABOUT GOD?
Meanwhile, for all real Christians out there, those who actually follow the Lord Jesus, especially those who have been around a while and are mature disciples, what is presently occurring is not so earth-shattering. They have already been through much worse. When whatever crises that happened to them took place, it wasn’t national news. No one except a very few knew about those occasions. They had to weather the storm though, and do their best to overcome and survive. The world at large didn’t care. It didn’t know. These were private struggles. But the Lord came through for each and every one. He made a way where there was absolutely no other way. They learned all the more to live by faith in their Savior who loves them, and trust Him. They have confidence in Him. They know He does what He says. They learned to not give in to fear and panic, especially when it regards a largely manufactured crisis.
It is good that you can’t find any hand sanitizer anywhere. People know what they need. It is good that the nation is being instructed to wash their hands. Really? That says a lot, that the people of a nation this large and influential doesn’t even know they should wash their hands. A hundred and fifty years ago, no one knew germs existed. They never made the connection between unsanitary practices and conditions with disease and illness, or on some occasions, general pandemics. And then America apparently forgot this knowledge. And America continued to slip headlong into the worst social practices ever when very few understood or cared that such behavior has a massive downside. When the majority practices such the end of that nation is in sight.
So this, again, is a test, on several levels. Doing one’s best to stay away from the virus is good. Taking all the proper precautions is good. Those who do the best in this regard will have the better chance. Maybe this will help the country turn the corner. Maybe Americans will discover that proper sanitation actually works. Maybe they will learn to be more disciplined regarding how they protect their bodies, what they put into their bodies, and what they engage in with their bodies. Maybe more people will get the big idea that the Lord’s instructions along these lines are there to protect us.
But I’ll believe when I see it. I have been teaching whoever might listen about all of these things for several decades now, and have only seen things get worse overall, though there does exist a percentage of the country that pays close attention to healthy lifestyles and nutrition. Most people prefer ignorance and apathy. This makes them easily led. They are then taken advantage of and steered into whatever thinking is desired at the time. They become dense to the truth they need. They make the mistake of being led by the wrong leaders. These wrong leaders, whether civil or religious, don’t really care about people but only their own interests and agendas. When I see it among Christians, however, it is most disconcerting. People think they are escaping an evil world and joining Christianity but are unaware they are often only jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak. And then they continue to be misled.
Those who refuse anything less than the full truth never stay in a place where they discover the full truth does not exist. They move on. They continue seeking. Perhaps this is why all the spiritual greats mentioned in the Word of God were relatively obscure in their times and associated with only a relative few, especially the Master Himself. Not only did few follow Him, He suffered terribly by this world’s leaders, most of whom never knew Him or appreciated Him.
My advice at this time is the same for any other time: Seek the Lord. None of this is any surprise to Him. And carry on in your work. Never trust those who merely talk the talk but rarely or never walk the walk. You will be led astray. Rather, seek the One who has already walked it out and will even walk a mile with you, or a hundred, or a million.
You can trust a Man who gives His life so you can live.
2020 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
PANICKED OVER A TRICK PANDEMIC
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Whatever this actually is—a pandemic, yet another disease scare, a hoax, a biowarfare attack, or a government response test—the REAL pandemic remains unacknowledged.
.
It’s getting worse. The infection rate continues to rage and rise, in some places exponentially. The worst perpetrators thereof are either too preoccupied to notice or care, or owe their lives to practices which make them vulnerable. If they stop they lose everything and their kingdoms crumble. They built their lives on dirt foundations with no escape hatch and could lose their existence of error when the big one hits. Many are so tied-in to a lesser-based life they will never get free without major disruptions from which they may never recover.
Yet there has always been a way out. Most humans see it, though, as too way out. Their social credibility suffers at the prospect of embracing it. Thus, those with the most invested in the fake world have the most to lose in leaving it, and choose a temp existence over long-term reality. This is why the Master opined on this quizzical matter by saying the worst are often first, in that they are less invested and more free to enter. Their baggage is the kind happily left behind. And besides, they’ve usually been treated like outskirts scum by the success party and denied membership since their résumés don’t add up. But the Master’s door is always open.
The rich man faithless deniers do anything they want with access to anything money can buy but will end up in the hot place with Mr. Dives craving a mere rain drop on their desert palates to no avail, while all the poor little faithful formerly sore-ridden Lazarus’ hang out safely in Abraham’s comfy air-conditioned crash pad. This reversal of fortunes is really cool when you think about it and does justice proud. It proves once again that playing by the rules of a dog-eat-dog world will get you a dead dog death in the long run regardless of manifold plaques on your wall and trophies in your case. None of those sorts of things are transferable to the great beyond.
Therefore, this latest scare we must beware means more effort wasted on things that don’t matter and playing right into the hands of the unseen gear grinders always coming up with more dastardly plans to insure their control and lessen yours. If you can’t see through it you must clean your windshield, change your perspective, and try harder to focus. Maybe take off those dark shades that look so cool. And don’t trust the ones the Master instructed us not to trust but trust Him.
Only He has the cure for the real pandemic.
© 2020 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
THE UNDYING THREAT OF NEW COVENANT TRUTH
They killed the Lord Jesus but He didn’t stay dead. It was a nice effort although a failure. Every other effort to destroy His living legacy also failed. All present and future efforts will end in failure as well.
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“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” [John 10:10]
It was the Lord Himself who was the initial target. Herod tried to get Him in the very beginning. There were probably pre-ministry attempts on His life that Scripture does not record. After stepping into open destiny He was under constant threat. The following are four historical instances of such murder attempts from each gospel to illustrate what He faced on a daily basis:
Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. [Matthew 2:16]
The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. [Mark 11:18]
Just at that time some Pharisees approached, saying to Him, “Go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill You.” [Luke 13:31]
For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. [John 5:18]
We can gather from the preceding accounts that the Lord had many enemies, both civil and religious. We also know the Lord never committed a single sin, never violated the Torah, and never broke any legitimate civil law. He was accused of violations, but interestingly, only by the actual violators.
It reminds one of Catholics and Protestants taking turns burning each other at the stake. Catholics killed some people representing a threat who did not believe and practice the Catholic religion properly. Protestants killed some people representing a threat who did not believe and practice whatever Protestant religion properly. Protestants killed non-Catholics. Catholics killed non-Protestants. Why all the killing? Why were these crazy religionists so threatened?
We know why the Pharisees were threatened. They didn’t spend two centuries formulating their perfect religion only to have the Lord reveal it for what it really was. There were no prophets during the time the Pharisees created their belief system, loosely based on the Law of Moses, but heavily dependent on oral commentaries and connections to Babylon. Because there were no prophets in the land no one had the spiritual anointing to object and expose them. It wasn’t until John the Immerser came forth that a true prophet was once again in the land of Israel/Judea. After him, of course, came forth the greatest Prophet of all time. These two revealed Phariseeism for the sham it was and its connection to the devil. It was just another thing prophets were sent to do on a routine basis. Prophets kept the land clean from false beliefs and interpretations. They stood only for the real Word of God.
This same dynamic invaded Christianity in that new denominations were only based on the New Testament. Additions were made. Subtractions were made. Commentaries were added. This is what the New Testament really means, they said. The new denominations, of course, must have a priesthood or clergy to denote the real and rail against the unreal. But they were only defending their own man-made belief systems and not the actual New Covenant Scriptures. Hence, when they gained enough power, they forced people to believe what they advocated and installed strong penalties for those who refused, including, of course, the death penalty.
All this within a religion of peace? Right.
Regardless of all the initial attacks against the Lord, His men, and the early believers by unbelieving Jews, the Lord’s Community not only survived but thrived. Try as they might they could not destroy it. Keep this in mind when trying to differentiate among various Christian denominations and their early histories. The Lord NEVER operated this way, never would, and never will. If you chose not to follow Him or believe His teachings He would still love you. The early Community of the Lord never advocated for such a thing. But false religions know they can be destroyed without using every tool at their disposal including the death penalty. Real Christians know the Lord is eternal, His Word is eternal, the Gospel is eternal, and nothing will ever eliminate Him or them.
This means New Covenant Truth is an ever-present threat against the forces of evil. Unreal Christianity is an enemy of the truth. Whatever religion or belief system is anti-Lord Jesus or antichrist is an enemy of the truth. One either honors the Lord and the fullness of His teachings or one does not. But if one does not, he or she is okay to believe whatever he or she wants to believe without being under threat by the Lord. The Lord threatens no one. He never stoops to such lowlife tactics as do the false religionists.
He does warn us, however, that sin is a killer, and unless one does something about it one will pay. One will lose one’s soul. He paid the price for sin with His life. He can remove sin from a person. He can clean us up. He will remove the power of sin in a person’s life. Only He can cure us of the sin disease. This requires repentance on our part. If one refuses the Lord’s free gift then one stands in opposition to Him by his or her own choice. Unlike false religions, including the Christian variety, the Lord never forces conversion. Forced conversions are false conversions.
Those who oppose New Covenant Truth are the enemies of God. Those who create false religions and belief systems espousing this and defending them to the point of taking lives are the worst offenders.
And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” [Luke 9:20-24] [1]
© 2019 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
AMERICA IS NOT BEING JUDGED!
Many Christians continue to erroneously paint the entire country with a very broad brush. They could not be more wrong. Good is actually overcoming evil.
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In my last post six days ago I revealed the truth of Selective Judgment. Regarding the bold, unapologetic political moves of the abortion industry last week, I asked the question: Is Selective Judgment Looming? The very next day judgment descended.
A prominent state governor was exposed for being a hypocrite. Earlier last week he spoke in no uncertain terms about actually killing a baby that had just been born. On Friday, the day after my last post, a huge news story broke that served to expose the depravity of the abortion industry. Since then the mainstream media is doing all it can to reverse the process. This story, however, is not going away. It was featured prominently in the President’s State of the Union message last night. Ungodly practices are being exposed and condemned and the people who support such practices will no longer be able to hide.
This is proof that America still has a moral conscience and that millions of Americans are good people living right and honoring the Lord. This is why Christians must stop insisting that God hates America and is bringing judgment. For example, there are Christians who actually support the idea of any number of doomsday scenarios, such as God allowing America to be struck with nuclear missiles. They talk about how depraved the country has become and that America must be severely punished. This perspective could not be more asinine and short sighted.
WHAT HAPPENED TO MY PRIOR POST?
I’m not sure what happened to my traffic last Thursday but my post Re: Legal Baby Killing—Is Selective Judgment Looming? was effectively invisible. My post before that had received exceptional traffic. It appears as though many of you may not have known I posted anything at all last week. I wonder sometimes about the usual censorship suspects. I know the mainstream media always fights to ban Pro-Life news or anything that shines a light on the evil of abortion. Perhaps something of that sort is at play here. Whatever the case, the Lord is on the side of righteousness.
Also, regarding The Notorious RBG, who has been missing in action for over six weeks, there was at last a claimed reported sighting the other day at a concert venue. But strangely enough, there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever. In a world of ubiquitous cell phones, this is curious. I waited until last night to see if she would show up at the State of the Union. She didn’t.
THE FUTURE OF AMERICA
Many of us have children and grandchildren. We would like them to live in a great country. We would like them to be blessed. But the forces of anti-America have become so powerful they render such desires as evil. They hate the idea of America being great. Where the hell did these people come from? Why are they here?
I assure you that the Lord Jesus is here to love us and save us, not condemn us. He has no plans to destroy America.
He knows people usually end up destroying themselves without His intervention. It is His intervention that He cares about. He wants to save us, help us, and bless us. That’s what the Good News is all about. As Christians, we are supposed to be telling everyone the Good News, not that God is going to get you.
The pastor of the previous President wanted God to damn America. That’s one of the most asinine messages to ever come forth from a pulpit. Such people are raving lunatics. The current President wants to make America great again, and for that he and his supporters are pummeled on a daily basis. By such behavior and rhetoric they are only hastening their own demise. Their treachery is being exposed. They are being outed for what they are.
The same is true for the all the fake Christians who incorrectly see God as a destroyer of worlds. In reality, if He is forced to bring judgment, He does it selectively. One can read about this throughout the entire Old Testament. One can also see such judgment as it happened in the first century. When the forces of evil reach a place of such concentrated power that they defy the possibility of any societal corrective against their evil, and vast numbers of innocent people are being greatly harmed, something must be done to stop them. Otherwise they will eventually eliminate the righteous. Thus, the Lord fights on the side of goodness and supports those on the righteous side of battle for the sake of saving those who want to be saved and appreciate His great salvation.
“He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” [John 12:45-48][1]
© 2019 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
NEW COVENANT REALITY VS. RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. [2Corinthians 5:17]
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For the early believers, salvation included an experience. It constituted a complete change—an actual spiritual circumcision of the heart. Their lives were entirely transformed and the transformation was undeniable. Each individual had become a new creation. It happened through a prescribed course of action. It did not happen by osmosis. They had to make a conscious decision to leave the old and become the new:
…That, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. [Ephesians 4:22-24]
As the centuries passed, however, Christianity became ideological. It became philosophical. It became led by men who never had such an experience. Converts who had never fulfilled the New Covenant requirements of the new birth were accepted into the Christian fold. Indeed, many if not most of these conversions were coerced.
They created a counterfeit construct. Their agenda was diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Lord in this context, in that they rejected the call for spiritual transformation and instead created mass groupings of cultural Christians, or what may be termed Christians in Name Only. They manipulated their constituents, those unaware of the spurious nature of the dogmatic belief system thrust upon them, to follow it without question and instituted penalties for those who did not, and greater penalties for those who failed to honor their leaders properly.
Consequently, those subjected to the fable generators obeyed them without hesitation, even against their own conscience and ethical beliefs, thinking their superiors were wise above measure and in possession of a higher truth they could personally never master or fully understand. Their surrender was such that they feared the repercussions of not honoring their respective religious ideologies more than they feared not standing up for the Lord Jesus, as if His judgment of their eternal status was inferior to their present societal status within their chosen religious cultures.
As time passed, future generations of these people took cultural pride in their faux Christian constructs and the leaders thereof, not wishing to even consider the possibility of other alternatives, including the only correct one.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. [2Timothy 4:3-4]
MOCKING THE NEW BIRTH
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [John 1:12-13]
The majority of those who call themselves Christians have never had a true born again experience. Though the experience is fully documented in the New Covenant writings, excuses ad infinitum have come forth over the years toward rejecting it and even mocking it. It is clear the people who do this are either unaware of Scripture or have been taught one of these excuses as a point of doctrine. It must be acknowledged that unregenerate flesh hates the idea of being spiritually crucified and it is therefore no wonder it will always fight for self preservation, even if said preservation destroys any chance of spiritual preservation.
Most Christians understand the concept of sin but have also accepted varying definitions of it. There is, of course, from a New Covenant perspective, only one definition. From the Greek word hamartia, it is defined as “missing the mark,” “to err,” and even “to be without a share.” That is, whoever is in sin or is in possession of unconfessed sin misses God’s requirements for inclusion within His Community. If someone wants to create another community, however, and call it Christian, and does not acknowledge this definition or fails to require the only cure for sin, then its members are off the hook and will receive no conviction from peers or even from their own conscience, though the latter will take some time.
Thus, justifying sin is in league with justifying the rejection of the new birth. Both of these protect resident sin and unregenerate flesh, and the acceptors of such a non-New Covenant belief system will receive no power over sin and one will thus be subjected to its ravages.
The Lord Jesus went through great personal expense to buy our freedom and we, by comparison, even through a full born again experience, pay nowhere near the same price, but any price we pay is a bargain. To be rid of sin is the goal. To be filled with His Spirit is the further goal. Yet both are also Christianity 101 and prerequisite to anything further. The apostles began this way. Mary, the Lord’s mother, began this way. The 120 began this way. Prior to Acts 2 they were essentially no different than they had ever been on a spiritual level. The new birth awaited. The circumcision of their hearts had yet to take place. Such could never happen without the Spirit of the Lord.
Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” [Acts 1:4-5] [1]
So they waited. They went to the Upper Room and prepared themselves. They paid the price. Some likely dropped out and never made it to the day of the great event. By giving it their all the 120 made themselves worthy. They never substituted mere religious ideology for spiritual reality. They wanted the real thing and nothing would stop them from their goal.
© 2018 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
THE LORD JESUS IS HOLY: ALL SIN WILL BE JUDGED ACCORDINGLY
The Lord obviously knew when He created free-will human beings that some would rebel. Some would choose a life of sin and never depart from it. This is why there must be judgment.
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“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” [John 16:7-11]
REJECTERS OF MESSIAH
There is a certain class of people who routinely take the Name of the Lord in vain. They use the Name of Jesus like a cuss word. They have no conviction about it whatsoever. They actually take honor in doing this. And pretty much everyone gives them a pass.
I happened to be watching television a few weeks ago when a quite egregious example of this appeared. I was not watching the show in particular but saw it while flipping through channels. A former talk show host has a show about cars. In this particular episode he had a former well-known national newscaster with him. The former newscaster was driving. All of the sudden out of nowhere he started laughing about something and then let loose with the Lord’s Name in the most incredibly disrespectful manner. The former talk show host said nothing to correct the former newscaster and even chuckled. Though we see this all the time I was truly shocked. I wondered how people could do this with absolutely no conviction whatsoever.
We also know that the Lord’s Name is fair game for utter disrespect on public television as well. No one may ever say anything even remotely disrespectful about Mohammed or Buddha or the Pope or any other religious figure. If they did they would be immediately censored for a gross violation of the PC code and made to pay. But whoever wants to trash the Name of Jesus can do it all day long with no repercussions. There is no PC police when it comes to Him. The world hates Him. It is the same in movies. When restrictions were lifted on movie content about fifty years ago all manner of vile garbage began coming forth and one thing in particular was the outright trashing of the Lord’s Name. In fact this is where it got its start in its large-scale infecting of the American populace, most of which was Christian. Things have now changed in that regard. The devil has done a great job.
Now, one must ask oneself: “What kind of people use the Lord’s Name as a cuss word and do it with no conviction whatsoever and even do it as a badge of honor, as if they are speaking of a hated enemy?” While reading an article on a news site a few years ago I was alerted to an uncensored clip available for anyone to see in which a female comedian is talking about the crucifixion and she asks herself something to the effect “Would I do that? Yes! I would crucify Him all over again!” She wasn’t smiling. But the entire audience breaks out in laughter. There is a lot of this. Those particular people make jokes about the crucifixion, They dis the Lord Jesus every chance they get and are often very bold about it. There is no doubt a level of great hatred involved. They may think they are special but when the time comes they will find themselves before the very Person they constantly trash. He will be their eternal Judge. What chance do you think they will have?
THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD
For those of you who have been reading my latest posts you understand that there was no way the Lord could send the Holy Spirit unless He went away first. Part of going away was becoming the effectual sinless Sacrifice Lamb who would pay for all the sin of the world. Once that process was started He would have to die in order to take care of a few matters that no one before Him had ever been able to do, because everyone else dies as a person who has sinned. The wages of sin is death. But He had no sin. This means death could not hold Him. Even though He died physically He did not stay dead. He had to go through this process to become glorified. Once he completed this He was able to then bless whosoever will with His indwelling Holy Spirit.
“What is this statement that He said, ‘You will seek Me, and will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come?’”
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. [John 7:36-39]
From this we know there is a certain mandatory type of believing that will result in being filled with the Holy Spirit. For Christians who are not filled with the Holy Spirit, it is likely because there is a problem with their “believing.” Regarding all those who outwardly reject the Lord Jesus, they have no chance whatsoever to be filled with the Holy Spirit and certainly remain in great need of salvation. As long as they reject the Lord they remain in their sins. Unless they change they will die in their sins. When they come before the Lord in judgment they will be condemned because of their unrepentant sin and rebellion.
THE CONVICTING POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
As we read earlier, the Spirit of God is sent in part to convict us of sin. God is holy. He will not dwell with sinners. He has no personal relationship with sinners. If there is to be a relationship the sinner must acknowledge his or her sin and deal with it. They only way to be rid of it is to come before the Lord in repentance with a contrite heart and want to be delivered and set free. There must be great sorrow for committed sins and a powerful desire to stop. Once one is set free from past sin the indwelling Holy Spirit is made available for a person to have power over sin and no longer be subjected to its power. But this entire process starts by coming to faith in the Lord Jesus.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health.
“He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:8-12]
The Lord Jesus is holy and pure. Though He is the Creator of the universe and much more importantly, each one of us, He became a Man and lived among us. He never sinned. He kept the Law perfectly. We have a million proofs that He is exactly who He says He is. There is salvation in no other. There is no other way. He is the only Way.
It is only through Him that our sin can be dealt with. Through His great love and mercy, He has already paid the price. All we must do is acknowledge what He has done on our behalf, come to Him and live for Him. Receiving His Holy Spirit makes living for Him possible. It makes overcoming the power of sin possible. It makes loving everybody possible. Whoever consciously rejects Him or refuses to grant Him the highest honor, however, for any reason, has no chance. He has made it very easy to choose life. The fate of each person is thus completely in their own hands.
STORM CLOUDS
As you follow the latest news regarding the slow revealing of great sin and corruption, keep in mind that all that sin and corruption was always there but hidden. We may be temporarily unaware of it and most people may be completely blissfully ignorant of it and never know any better. But those who cannot help but notice the effects of corruption and begin doing research to discover its cause also eventually discover much more. This has now been happening on an ever-increasing scale for years. Much is now known. But wheels must turn. And they are turning.
Part of Great Awakenings is the exposing of sin.
We are each given the opportunity to freely confess our sins before the Lord before we are brought up on charges. In His great mercy He always allows us to tell on ourselves and repent, and thus be done with it. For many others, they refuse to repent and will eventually be exposed. Their sin will be exposed. There is no need for anyone’s sin to be exposed otherwise. It is only those who love sin, continue to sin, and refuse repentance whose sin must eventually be revealed.
There has been great corruption. The revealing of this corruption has started but we have a ways to go. As one case in point, many people associated with Hollywood were always quick to judge others who were trying to live right. Many of those who were trashed were Christians. They were made fun of. Then the big scandal hit and many of those same people were getting slammed. What goes around comes around. The same thing is happening in the government. Massive corruption will eventually be revealed. Those who got away with so much will get away with it no longer. The Lord is shining a light on everything. The perpetrators have no place to hide. Those who will be judged the most severely are those who have judged others so severely and ruined their lives. There will especially be great judgment on those who did their best to destroy morality and the rule of law, who sinned to their heart’s content and greatly violated the law and got away with it. Their actions have done great damage to the country.
This is also true of so-called Christian leaders who have led their flocks away from the Lord Jesus and refused His leadership and Holy Spirit which would otherwise convict them toward holiness. Bold Christians are rising up and coming forth to do His will regarding this. They honor their Lord.
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household! Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.” [Matthew 10:24-27] [1]
© 2018 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
DEFEATING THE RULER OF THIS WORLD: Christian Heroes and Villains
We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. [1John 5:19]
WARNING
The apostle John said the entire world lies in wickedness and is under the power and authority of the devil. Because I would think that “professing Christians” are not anti-John, I would think that “professing Christians” would agree with him.
But most do not. This falls under the heading the Lord referenced when He said that some people honor Him with their lips but actually refuse to obey Him. Unless one is under a deceptive trance, most likely a trance of the religious variety, one must agree that one of the main problems the Lord has is convincing “professing Christians” to actually obey Him.
REJECTING TRUTH IS A SIN!
On the other hand, if a “professing Christian” is otherwise under a deceptive trance, he simply cannot obey Him because he does not have “eyes to see” or “ears to hear.” And this is obviously why most of that which is perceived as “Christianity” is not the real thing. It simply can’t be the real thing, (1) Because it looks nothing like the Lord’s original, and (2) Because no one within it actually obeys Him.
This is what churches should look like:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” [John 14:12]
Therefore, the problem is not that the Lord cannot get His own people to obey Him, it is that most of those who refer to themselves as Christians are not really Christians. How can they be if they do not obey the Lord? They are certainly not doing the works that He did.
“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” [Luke 6:46]
Of course, the Lord said they can’t obey, or actually do not obey by their own choice, because they only act on what they know, which means they simply cannot “see.” How can anyone act on what they do not see?
THE BIGGER PROBLEM
So it appears that the bigger problem, the problem for unreal Christians that is bigger than their rebellion, disobedience, living in sin, or insisting on believing things the Lord never taught, is the problem of perception—they are spiritually blind.
Now, this is not said to cause offense, but is a simple statement of fact.
One wonders how Christians can read the Gospel accounts and not see that the Lord continually made statements about the spiritual blindness of His own people. These statements have obviously not had the intended impact upon Christians in general. Most Christians must think that yes, the great majority of the Hebrew people, from the late Patriarchal Age until the first century AD, could certainly be spiritually blind, deaf, deceived, and compromised by sin, but certainly not us.
The facts, of course, are not that the Lord said His own people were especially more prone to rebellion against Him and thus to spiritual blindness than others, but that ALL people the world over are prone to rebellion against Him and thus to spiritual blindness.
In other words, it’s not a Jewish problem, it’s a human problem.
THE RULER OF THIS WORLD
This takes us back to the very powerful statement that John made about who really runs this world and how the power of this evil entity has essentially blinded the entire world to the Truth:
We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. [1John 5:19]
From the very clear perspective of the early first-century Community of the Lord Jesus, they saw themselves as us against the world, especially since this perspective was confirmed by none other than John. The early Christians—the real Christians—knew that there were only two master kingdoms on the planet: The righteous Kingdom of the Lord Jesus and the evil kingdom of the devil, the god of this world.
The apostle Paul confirmed this truth—the fact that the devil runs the entire world and everyone other than real Christians support the devil, most completely unaware—and Paul completely agreed with John’s statement by writing the following:
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. [2Corinthians 4:3-4]
The Lord Jesus also referred to the devil as the ruler of this world. The devil was ruling the world at the time of the Lord’s temptation. But the Lord, when speaking of His coming crucifixion, said this:
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” [John 12:31]
What He meant by this is that the devil would be defeated at the cross and all the devil’s garbage would, at the crucifixion, begin to be cleaned out of the world. Therefore the real Gospel has two main objectives while this cleaning out process proceeds:
(1) The salvation of souls—rescuing people from the devil’s kingdom, his control, and the power of sin—and transferring them to the Lord’s Kingdom.
(2) Taking authority back from the devil for the Lord Jesus, the only real King, through the power of His Name.
Paul said the Gospel is veiled to those who are perishing because the devil has blinded their minds. Now think about that. How is it possible that one cannot see the BRIGHTEST LIGHT in the entire Universe? It can only be due to spiritual blindness of the worst kind.
A VERY THICK GARMENT
The word “veiled” in the above passage is from the Greek word kalupto. This word appears 8 times in the entire New Testament. It appears 4 times in the Gospels. It is translated as (1) cover, (2) covers, (3) covered, (4) concealed, and (5) veiled.
Based on these definitions, the veil or covering that causes the blindness must be very, very thick, as the ultimate blackout curtain. The real Gospel (there’s only one) is hidden to everyone not in the Kingdom due to a very thick covering. What is this covering?
And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?”
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” [John 9:39-41] [1]
In this passage the pure teachings of the Lord Jesus also perfectly agree with the two passages written by John and Paul, especially, of course, since He’s the one who taught John and Paul. The Lord also paints a picture of only two kinds of people in the world:
First of all, before seeing “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” EVERYONE is blind. EVERYONE. But the Lord said He came so that some will be healed of their spiritual blindness, “that those who do not see may see.” These are people who will readily accept the Good News and will repent of their sins, since it is their sin which causes their spiritual blindness.
The other kind of people in the world comprises those who will never be healed of their spiritual blindness simply because they refuse to admit they have any sin. They reject the only cure. They insist they are righteous without the real Gospel. Their “no Gospel” righteousness, in the eyes of God, however, is characterized by the following:
For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. [Isaiah 64:6]
If you want to gain more insight regarding this spiritual phenomenon, you can read the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, from which I quoted earlier. It is a perfect allegory created by the Lord in the three dimensional world with an actual blind man who was made to see. The Lord Jesus was teaching a lesson, and for those who can see, He taught it perfectly. He showed how we can be healed of our spiritual blindness by having our sin removed.
Our sin is exactly as a filthy garment that covers our spiritual eyes.
Now perhaps you can see how the devil has blinded the entire world, and how there is only one cure for this blindness. In the same way he tempted the Lord in the effort to get Him to sin, without success of course, he tempts us.
He knows that if he can get us to sin he can make us spiritually blind.
This is why we must always do our best to obey the Lord’s actual teachings. They are designed to rescue us from the sin that blinds us, give us eyes to see and ears to hear, bring us to full spiritual health, and empower us to defeat the enemy through His indwelling Holy Spirit and the power of His Name.
FAKEWORLD
Anything and everything outside the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus on this planet is nothing but a façade, an illusion, and a powerful deception. The devil is a liar, and everything He says and creates is a lie. It is not real. Other than those in the Lord’s Kingdom, the devil is fooling EVERYONE.
This is why the Lord said that those who refuse to repent of their sin and stop sinning can never be healed of their blindness. This is especially true of those who have been deceived by some form of religion. As long as they stay under the power of their religion they will always be made to believe a lie. They will always respond to the illusion. They will always obey the devil, even though they are unaware of it.
Therefore, in the final analysis regarding the purpose of this article, the majority of “professing Christians” are also blind simply because they refuse the real Gospel and they believe in something that masquerades as the real Gospel. The fake gospel, in all its many forms, does not have “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Whenever it is applied to the blind man of John 9, the blind man stays blind. He might have the same willingness to honor God, but because he chooses a powerless unreal gospel, he stays blind and he stays in his sin. Many churches are filled with such people.
This is the main problem, of course, with all the devil’s fake gospel forms—they actually do nothing at all about sin. People who choose fake gospels may think they are delivered from the power of sin but they keep denying the proof that repeatedly shows up in their lives that they have not been delivered, in that they have little or no resistance to sin: They keep sinning. Uncontrollably.
As a result, they have created a false form of righteousness which includes sin. They insist they are righteous, though the fruits of repentance do not exist in their lives. Their spiritual blindness makes it impossible for them to obey the Lord.
And instead of defeating the ruler of this world, they have joined him.
© 2016 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
Real Christianity—The Nature of the Church
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Parallel History?
He kept saying He wanted to set people free—free from the disease of sin. Yet, the nation of Israel was awash with synagogues on every street corner, scads of rabbis, a plenitude of priests, and major religious parties such as Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes.
With so much religion, why was there so much sin?
Of course, Israel had been a rebellious nation from the get go. It is a wonder she ever had any success at all. God got them the hell out of Egyptian slavery through centuries of effort and as soon as they’re out the majority want to go back. He gave them an opportunity to enter their own promised land a short time later and the vast majority acted like the bunch of faithless pansies they were. Their penalty? Forty years of wandering around a harsh desert waiting for an entire generation to be killed off. There was even a time when God wanted to kill all of them on the spot and start over with Moses.
Yet, we read this stuff and never take it seriously or have any relational inkling what it means.
But America is fixing to find out.
The judgment has already begun and it keeps getting worse by degrees. But only a few are paying attention. Only a few want to do something about it. Two spies out of twelve were pro-active. Only a small percentage of Americans are willing to do what it takes to right the country. Only about a third of the American colonists were for the American Revolution and were willing to die for freedom. The great majority were against it.
Imagine the fact that roughly 70% of Americans in the early 1770’s were against the Revolution.
Then look at what is happening right now. Look at the economic judgment that has come upon this nation in the last four years. Think about the prior president. Think about the current president. Then understand that they were each duly elected by We the People. Americans continue to be deceived.
Why did ancient Israel rebel against God so often? Why was the nation always getting into serious sin trouble? Why did they repeatedly force God’s hand to continually get them out of trouble by sending judges and prophets and military leaders? Why didn’t they just do what they were told?
Why was America founded by people seeking spiritual freedom after being subjected to intense persecution in Europe? And why are direct descendants of the early colonists now fighting against those who want to restore the country?
Our Lord Jesus said it is impossible to serve both God and wealth.[1] The apostle Paul wrote, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.”[2] Could it be that when a person begins to gain wealth he or she has a tendency to live for and protect their wealth and lose sight of God? Is it possible that a wealthy nation with a relatively high living standard could consequently drift away from God and become lost and blinded in sin? Is not this exactly what happened to ancient Israel?
Still, however, there is a problem. Religion was everywhere. Most Israelites claimed to be living for God. The vast majority of Americans claim to be Christian. Is what happened to ancient Israel happening to America right now?
When Israel was right with God she was given righteous leaders. When the nation went south she ended up with one evil despot after another. These idiot Hebrew kings, especially Solomon, despoiled their own people. He was an evil tyrant, much worse than King Saul. The people were warned repeatedly through the prophets what would happen if they had a human king ruling over them. But the nation insisted on bringing judgment upon itself.
Is this exactly what America has been doing for the last several decades?
Soon, the fortieth year of legalized baby killing will begin. Since the reprobate Supreme Court issued its ruling in 1973, well over 50 million American babies have been legally butchered. Do you think God cares?
Watch what happens: Judgment upon this nation will continue to increase as it has been. And unless change occurs, watch what happens when the forty-year anniversary takes place a year from now as judgment increases exponentially.
Also, watch what happens to real Christians in this country. Persecution will increase against them exponentially. But what else will also increase exponentially?
Blessing. God’s people are entering a time of exponential blessing and favor. And there are two principle reasons that it has taken a while to get here: We have lacked love. And we have lacked unity. We have lacked doing for one another because we: (1) Did not believe the same. (2) Belonged to different, competing churches. (3) Held contrary doctrines. (4) Possessed more religion than God. (5) Repeatedly disobeyed the real teachings of Jesus. (6) Refused to honor Jesus as God. (7) Refused to repent and live the truth as reflected within the Book of Acts.
I could go on.
Hence, unrepentant selfish sinners will have no cure since they reject Jesus and His wonderful grace, and real Christians will be blessed and taken care of because they honor the Lord and are humble and contrite of heart.
God so loved Israel despite their gross national sin that He showed up in person to help them.
The majority killed Him and lost everything.
The minority, however, were blessed abundantly and made free.
And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
“THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”
And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them,
“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” [Luke 4:16-21] [3]
© 2012 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13
[2] 1 Timothy 6:10
[3] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
