Archive for July 2014
The severe drought in California is God’s wrath on sin: the sins of abortion, homosexuality, earth worship and other sins. California also has its fair share of evangellyfish Christians.
I Kings 17: 1: “And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”
Jeremiah 14: 1-7: “The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth. Judah mourneth and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowman were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass. O, LORD, though our iniquites testify against us, do thou it for thy name’s sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee.”
For those who promote the sin of homosexuality by teaching it to children in public schools:
Luke 17: 2: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Hollywood also loves to promote the sin of homosexuality through TV programs and films.
This is Sodom! This is Sodom!
Flee California!
Homosexuality is a Sin
Jackson, Wyoming
Dimitru Duduman—America Will Burn
Brian’s Dream about the United States and Africa
California Earthquake
How California’s extreme drought will lead to a wave of earthquakes
California: The Great American Wasteland
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San Francisco Could Have Its First Rainless January in 165 Years
America’s Drought: The Curse of Abortion
Hebrews 11: 21: “By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.”
Excerpts from Tozer’s Whatever Happened To Worship?:
“Did you know that the often-quoted Jean-Paul Sartre describes his turning to philosophy and hopelessness as a turning away from a secularistic church? He says, ‘I did not recognize in the fashionable God who was taught me, Him who was waiting for my soul. I needed a Creator; I was given a businessman!'”
“The strange and wonderful thing about it is that truly winsome and loving saints do not even know about their attractiveness. The great saints of past eras did not know they were great saints. If someone had told them, they would not have believed it, but those around them knew that Jesus was living His life in them.”
“Any untrained, unprepared, unspiritual empty rattletrap of a person can start something religious and find plenty of followers who will listen and pay and promote it. It may become very evident that he or she had never heard from God in the first place.”
“True worship is to be so personally and hopelessly in love with God that the idea of a transfer of affection never even remotely exists.”
“Another kind of unacceptable worship is symbolized by the attitude of the Samaritans in the Bible. The Old Testament history reveals that Jeroboam, the first king of Israel after it became the Northern Kingdom, set up two places of worship. He wanted to be sure his people were weaned from their habit of worshiping at Jerusalem. He installed golden calves to be worshiped at Jerusalem. He installed golden calves to be worshiped in convenient places, Bethel and Dan.
“The heresy of Samaritanism—the practice of picking out what we like to worship and rejecting what we do not like—is widespread.
“Actually, it has opened up a whole new field for applied psychology and humanism under a variety of religious disguises. In this context, men and women set themselves as judges of what the Lord has said. Instead of getting down on their knees and letting the Lord judge them, they stand with pride and judge the Lord.”
“The stark, tragic fact is that the efforts of many people to worship are unacceptable to God. Without an infusion of the Holy Spirit there can be no true worship. This is serious. It is hard for me to rest peacefully at night knowing that millions of cultured, religious people are merely carrying on church traditions and religious customs and they are not actually reaching God at all.”
“In Europe many generations ago, the dear old saint of God, Brother Lawrence, was on his deathbed. Rapidly losing his physical strength, he witnessed to those gathered around him: ‘I am not dying. I am just doing what I have been doing for the past 40 years, and doing what I expect to be doing for all eternity?’
“‘What is that?’ he was asked. He replied quickly, ‘I am worshiping the God I love!'”
“The man whom God will use must be undone. He must be a man who has seen the King in His beauty.”
“How long do you think it will be, if Jesus tarries, before some of the amazing new churches like those in the primitive Baliem Valley of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, will be sending gospel missionaries to Canada and the United States?”
“Through that encounter I realized that unless we arouse ourselves spiritually, unless we are brought back to genuine love and adoration and worship, our candlestick could be removed. We may need missionaries coming to us indeed. We may need them to show us what genuine and vital Christianity is!”
“I am going to say something to you which will sound strange. It even sounds strange to me as I say it, because we are not used to hearing it within our Christian fellowships. We are saved to worship God. All that Christ had done for us in the past and all that He is doing now leads to this one end.”
“Why should the church of Jesus Christ be a spiritual school where hardly anyone ever graduates from the first grade?”
“The sum total of the deep and eternal wisdom of the age lies in Jesus Christ as a treasure hidden away. There is no kind of true wisdom that cannot be found within Him. All the deep eternal purposes of God reside in Him because His perfect wisdom enables Him to plan far ahead. All history becomes the slow development of His eternal purposes.”
“In relation to Jesus Christ, it has been the uniqueness and the perfection of His moral beauty that has charmed even those who claimed to be His enemies throughout the centuries of history. We do not have any record of Hitler saying anything against the moral perfections of Jesus. One of the great philosophers, Nietzsche, himself an instrument of antichristian forces in this world, died finally beating his forehead on the floor and moaning, ‘That man Jesus I love. I don’t like Paul.’
“Nietzsche objected to Paul’s theology of justification and salvation by faith, but he was strangely moved within by the perfections of moral beauty found in the life and character of Jesus, the Christ, the Lord of all beauty.”
“If you do not know Him and worship Him, if you do not long to reside where He is, if you have never known wonder and ecstasy in your soul because of His crucifixion and resurrection, your claim of Christianity is unfounded. It cannot be related to the true Christian life and experience at all.
“Meanwhile, I believe that we as Christians must become willing to allow every ugly thing in our lives to be crucified. We must indeed worship the Lord of all beauty in spirit and in truth. This is not a popular thing, for so many Christians insist that they must be entertained while they are being edified.”
“We have such smooth, almost secularized ways of talking people into the kingdom of God that we can no longer find men and women willing to seek God through the crisis of encounter. When we bring them into our churches, they have no idea of what it means to love and worship God because, in the route through which we have brought them, there has been no personal encounter, no personal crisis, no need of repentance—only a Bible verse with a promise of forgiveness.”
“I think the prophets of God saw farther into the centuries and into the mysteries of God than we can with our great modern telescopes and electronic means of measuring lights years and planets and galaxies.
“The prophets saw the Lord our God. They saw Him in His beauty, and they tried to describe Him.
“They described Him as radiantly beautiful and fair, a winsome being. They said that he was royal and that He was gracious. They described Him as a majestic being; and yet they noted his meekness. They saw Him as righteous and filled with truth. They tried to describe the manner of His love, with its gladness and joy and fragrance.
“When the prophets try to describe for me the attributes, the graces, the worthiness of the God who appeared to them and dealt with them, I feel that I can kneel down and follow their admonition: ‘He is thy Lord—worship thou Him.'”
“Two of Spurgeon’s greatest sermons were ‘God in The Silence’ and ‘God in The Storm.’ The heart that knows God can find God anywhere. I surely join with Spurgeon in the truth that a person filled with the Spirit of God, a person who has met God in a living encounter can know the joy of worshiping Him, whether in the silences of life or in the storms of life.”
“The Beheading of John the Baptist” by Massimo Stanzione, 1634
Psalm 105: 15: “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.”
This is from Wikipedia:
An account of John the Baptist is found in all extant manuscripts of the Jewish Antiquities (book 18, chapter 5, 2) by Flavius Josephus (37–100):[26]
“Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus*, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God’s displeasure to him.”[27]
Refusing to Hear
Who was Flavius Josephus?
The Archko Volume—Historical Evidence of Jesus Christ
Pilate’s Report on the Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus
The Spirit of a Prophet
Wearing a Rough Garment
“Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons famous.”
–Leonard Ravenhill
*The Fortress of Machaerus
Reject God’s Prophets At Your Own Peril
Of John the Baptist, and the Baptism of Our Lord (Book of the Bee)
Truth breedeth hatred
Dr. Andreas Noack – Graphene Razor Blade Injections (Bioweapons)
“If ye were not strangers here, the dogs of the world would not bark at you”
–Samuel Rutherford
Dreams from the LORD 2011-2014
13 July 2014
Last night I had a dream where I was standing near these two women who were sitting at a table. They were talking about this Scripture: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16: 18).” The two women were saying that Matthew 16:18 meant that Peter was the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
I then said, “No, that scripture means that the church is built on the rock of revelation knowledge.”
The two women smiled at me and were happy that I told them this truth.
Matthew 16: 13-19: “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
The key scripture in the above passage is: “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
On the rock of revelation knowledge the Lord will build His church and the gates (strategies) of hell shall not prevail against it.
Faith, Revelation, Obedience
The Gates of Hell
The Last Supper
Revelation Knowledge
Revelation, Love and Intimacy
Chapter 1 from The Harlot Church System
By Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr.
Chapter 1 – Zion And Babylon Compared
We often sang scripture songs about Zion. I was a new convert then, gathering with a room full of very Spirit-sensitive believers. Those songs always struck a chord of joy in my heart, but I didn’t know why. “Do you know what Zion is?” I asked one of the sisters.
“Yes.” She meekly answered.
“Would you explain it to me?” I eagerly asked.
“You’ll discover it in time.”
“That’s it!? You know the answer, but I’ll have to wait to discover it myself?” Having no other choice, I waited.
Some years later I came to understand that Zion is a symbolic place in the spirit where Jesus is the only thing there is. He alone takes preeminence.
Then, I came to understand that Babylon meant something as well, that it stood in contrast to Zion. Symbolically, Babylon is all that the carnal (fleshly) mind devises in the exaltation of Self–the preeminence of Self over God. It is a place in us where we think we are IT. We exalt our imaginations and every high thing above the knowledge of God. 2 Cor. 10:5.
Both Zion and Babylon were historical places, yet the scriptures also speak of them as spiritual states of being. Hebrews 12:22 speaks of Zion (Sion, in KJV) in this figurative sense: “But we are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.” 1 Peter 2:6 reads, “Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he who believes on Him shall not be confounded.” This Zion is Jesus.
Revelation 14:8 is a good example of how Babylon has been used in this figurative sense: “And there followed another angel, saying, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’” Most notable is Revelation 17:5 which identifies the mother of harlots as Babylon: “Upon her forehead was a name written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
Both Zion and Babylon mirror the condition of our hearts.
Symbolic Babylon is that attitude of the heart that makes us think we can solve all of our problems and meet all of our needs without God. We look to government, politics, science, technology, psychology, sociology, economics, entertainment, and religion for our help–things mankind has invented. Therefore, we look to ourselves to save ourselves.
In this book, however, my reference to spiritual Babylon is limited to the institutionalized, organized, religious church systems which I contend are products of the carnal mind. Please read on to see what I mean by this.
(The word church and the pronoun it when used in italics in this book refers to this Thing we call church. When it is not in italics, I am referring to buildings that have been dedicated to the worship of a deity, or I am directly quoting other sources.)
SPIRIT AND FLESH
In order to understand these two “spiritual states of being”–that is, Zion and Babylon–we must understand the difference between Spirit and flesh.
In the context of this book, the difference between the body of Christ and this Thing we call church is that difference between Spirit and flesh–what is of the Spirit of God and what is of our old man nature of flesh and sin, even the carnal mind.
Zion represents the Spirit; Babylon represents the flesh. The body of Christ needs very much to discern between what is Spirit and what is flesh, for that which is of the flesh is an enemy to the Spirit. True believers in Christ have been given the power of the Spirit to live a life separated from the flesh. This separation is what we call sanctification.
The word flesh is used in both the Old and the New Testament in reference to the natural, physical existence of all mankind such as we see it used in Matthew 24:22: “And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.”
Flesh has also been used in reference to an individual’s human body. After His resurrection and before His ascension, Jesus appeared to His followers and said, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” Luke 24:39.
However, the kind of flesh written about in this book is in reference to that fallen nature of sin within all mankind that came about when Adam rebelled in the garden. Paul wrote regarding this, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery [which is witchcraft], hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Gal. 5:19-21. Flesh is capable of committing the most vile evils without conscience even while having an awareness of what is good and evil. Such occurred in the days of Noah. Gen. 6:5-7. These practices are not the deeds of the physical body, but of that fallen sin nature that resides in us.
Paul had already established in Galatians 5:17 that “the flesh lusts [sets its desire] against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” Romans 8:7 attests that “the carnal mind is at enmity [hostile] against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”
The carnal mind and the Spirit of God speak languages that are foreign and unknown to each other. The carnal (fleshly) mind cannot speak Spirit and the Spirit of God cannot speak flesh. The carnal mind has no ability whatsoever to understand the things of God which are Spirit. 1 Cor. 2:12-14. When inspired things of God are reduced to rigid doctrines, systems of theology, reasoning and logic, they are no longer Spirit but have become flesh. And if flesh, then deception. The carnal mind is at total odds with the Spirit of God; it is hostile to God.
THE DEATH SENTENCE
The sentence of death has been pronounced over the flesh. The flesh nature of man is separated from God who is life; therefore, the flesh is dead and all that comes from the carnal mind is death.
Nevertheless, flesh has a life of its own. It is earthly, sensual, self-centered, and at war with God. Its life is born out of the seed of death. It has an inherent drive to preserve itself at all cost. It fears annihilation. Yet, it cannot save itself because it is destined to self-destruction. The flesh nature rules a person until the life of God in Christ is planted within his spirit, at which time the old seed of flesh and sin is understood to be what it already is–dead. Unfortunately, even after we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and while we remain in this life, we carry about both seeds: the seed of flesh and death, and the seed of Spirit and life.
THE HARLOT OF SELF
The flesh loves Self. Self with the capital “S” is the term I use throughout this book to refer to that the self-centered, self-indulging, self-absorbed, self-willed, self-serving nature of fallen flesh. The flesh nature of Self turns in on itself. It is selfish, prideful, arrogant, haughty, vain, narcissistic, manipulative, controlling, dominating, impatient, stubborn, insensitive, resentful, angry, unteachable, rebellious, fearful, anxious, complaining, disagreeable, judgmental, negative, critical, cynical, indifferent, greedy, lustful, sensual, envious, covetous, jealous, fault-finding, dishonest, and deceitful. It is deceived and suffers from delusions of grandeur. It always asks, “What’s in it for me?”
The harlot, broadly defined, is anything for Self. I refer to these Things we call church as the harlot church system because they have been created out of our fleshly minds and desires for Self.Churches as we experience them today have no basis in scripture. They are icons of self-worship. Moreover, they are idolatrous, deceptive, and dangerous.
A TROUBLING MESSAGE
I will hit hard on the idolatry of the church system as we know it and experience it today. If you are not prepared to hear this message by the Spirit, you will no doubt take serious offense to it. The message of this book will be troubling to many of you who are victims of the church system, but will be most troubling to those of you who depend upon the church system for your livelihood and who find your significance, identity, validation, recognition, power, and security in it.
If you choose to continue reading this book, it will take you where you may think you do not want to go. You will journey beyond the facade of that Thing we call church and see how it is an invention of flesh. You will discover the demons that empower it. If you go the distance, you will hopefully find, with Abraham, that “city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is the Lord.” Heb. 11:10. You will “come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirit of just men made perfect.” Heb. 12:22-23.
ZION AND BABYLON
Before I plunge forward into exposing the idolatry of this harlot system, I want to abbreviate some comparisons between spiritual Zion, where Jesus is the only thing there is, and spiritual Babylon (the harlot), where the carnal mind of Self exalts itself, in order to provide a better point of reference for what follows. Many of the thoughts below are developed further throughout this book.
Zion refers to the true body of Christ, the bride, the ekklesia; Babylon refers to the false church system of men’s traditions and religions. (Ekklesia is the Greek word in the New Testament which has been mis-translated “church” in most English versions, but it literally means “called-out-ones”.)
Zion is a people–the people of God; Babylon is a Thing–church institutions and systems.
Zion is a living organism; Babylon is characterized by organizations, institutions, and systems.
Zion consists of people who have been born into it; Babylon consists of people who have joined it or been voted into it.
Zion is a people who are called by the name of Jesus; Babylon is a people who are called by many different names that represent divisions within this Babylonian church system: Baptist, Catholic, Charismatic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and all the rest.
Zion is Jesus-centered; Babylon is self-centered.
Zion is living by the Spirit; Babylon is living after the flesh.
Zion is heavenly; Babylon is earthly.
Zion is grace; Babylon is law.
Zion is life; Babylon is death.
Zion is being; Babylon is doing.
Zion is rest; Babylon is works.
Zion is light; Babylon is darkness.
Zion is humility; Babylon is full of pride, arrogance, and haughtiness.
Zion is liberty in Christ; Babylon is bondage to the flesh.
Zion is the Kingdom of God; Babylon is the kingdoms of men.
Zion has Jesus Christ as her head; Babylon has elected or appointed men as their heads.
Zion is a Spirit-led people; Babylon is led by rules and regulations of man’s own making.
Zion is Spirit-sensitive; Babylon is man-pleasing.
Zion is obedience to the Holy Spirit; Babylon is busy church work.
Zion accomplishes things in Holy Spirit power (Zech. 4:6); Babylon tries to accomplish things in self-strength.
Zion has its authority in the Word of God; Babylon places its authority in man-made doctrines.
Zion is one body in Christ Jesus as Lord; Babylon is sectarian and divisive, consisting of many divisions of people.
Zion worships in spirit and in truth; Babylon programs praise.
Zion preaches Christ and Him crucified; Babylon proclaims denominations, doctrines, heritage, traditions, creeds, personal views and opinions.
Zion is the priesthood of all believers; Babylon is the clergy system. The clergy are those who want to make a difference between themselves and others.
Zion answers to God as the highest authority; Babylon answers to men and their institutions as the authority.
Zion calls forth revelation; Babylon depends upon imagination.
Zion conforms people into the image of Jesus; Babylon conforms people into its own image.
Zion decreases that Christ may increase; Babylon increases itself in power, position, riches, and domination.
Zion counts the cost; Babylon counts the money.
Zion lays down its life; Babylon preserves and protects itself.
Zion waits upon God to raise up what God wants in His timing; Babylon schemes, organizes, and promotes to execute its own plan in its own way and time.
Zion seeks the Lord with a whole heart to be possessed by Him; Babylon goes after things and people to possess them.
Zion is the city of God; Babylon seeks to build a city, a tower, and a name for itself. Gen. 11:4.
Zion longs to be gathered into Jesus; Babylon passionately seeks to gather people unto itself.
DENY SELF
To be a disciple of Jesus Christ one must be willing to deny Self, take up his cross, and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23. Self-denial is the cross we bear. The old man of flesh and sin has to be rendered dead. The laid-down life defines the New Testament concept of agape (love).
When we live according to the flesh, we are living for Self. Conversely, when we are living for Self, we are living according to the flesh. When we live according the Spirit, we will bear the fruit of agape. We have not been called to live unto ourselves. We have been called to surrender our lives to Christ that He might live His life of agape through us. We cannot be the bride of Christ and at the same time live selfishly in this world. We are either the bride or we are living the life of the harlot.
Self-centered living is making ourselves out to be god; therefore, it is idolatry. I will show in a subsequent chapter that idolatry is spiritual harlotry. I will also show how this Thing we call church is an idolatrous extension of ourselves–thus, spiritual harlotry.
We become spiritual prostitutes when we create something and give our hearts to it rather than to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what men have done with this Thing we call church. They have made church a substitute for Jesus. Many within these harlot church systems are true believers who love the Lord, but are uninformed and deceived. They have unintentionally given their hearts to these Things we call church. God loves us all but hates our idolatries.
Judge the words in this book for yourself and judge yourself by these words. Open your heart to the Holy Spirit that He might instruct you and point you to Jesus. I hope to reveal Father-God’s heart to you that your heart may be revealed to you; that you may dare face your idolatries, cleanse His temple of whom you and I are, and return to the God of your salvation. The idolatry revealed in this book is not about “them” but about each of us.
Called Out: Now What?
The Babylonish Church—Isaac Penington
The Harlot Church System
Abram and Lot
A Harlot, an Emergent and a Pope Walked into a Bar. . .
Dover Beach
Breaking off the Greek Mindset
Modern Babylon in the Church – Dr. Etienne Graves
Apostasy and the Spirit of Grace
Tower of Babel Replica was Burned in Russia
What Church is NOT: Reviewing Some Basics
By Roger Thoman
Church, by definition is not a building, not a place of worship, not an organization.
As Neil Cole likes to say: “We are the church. Where we go the church goes.”
“God does not dwell in temples made by human hands.” Stephen, before being martyred.
Church is not a come-and-sit service to attend.
“The church’s true nature is best seen by the life that Jesus modeled: he took the life of the kingdom everywhere that he went—out into the world that he was ministering to.” Roger Thoman
Church is not a passive gathering where some participate and others just listen.
“The bleachers are beginning to empty as 707 million action-oriented Christians start to pour out onto the playing field and discover the joy and challenge of every-member ministry.” Jim Rutz
Church is not a professionally-led entitity.
“In the New Covenant we do not need a human priest (pastor) to mediate or pray for us as we now have a High Priest as our mediator… Having a pastor as our priest violates our own priesthood as it leads to hierachization, compartmentalization and fragmentation and makes us lazy laity… Priests do not lead worship but the Body of Brethren (Body of men, women and even youth) minister to each other.” Victor Choudhrie
Church is not a business.
“In the first century in Palestine Christianity was a community of believers. Then Christianity moved to Greece and became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome and became an institution. Then it moved to Europe and became a culture. And then it moved to America and became a business. We need to get back to being a healthy, vibrant community of true followers of Jesus.” Priscilla Shirer
Church is not a club that isolates from the rest of the world………………………….
Read the rest of the article here at SimpleChurch Journal and post your additions.
Called Out: Now What?
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This morning I received a nice email from Joke (pronounced “yoka”) and Hans Grutter:
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Dear Tim,
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Last week we received your book the High Plains Drifter. It was very interesting to read. I read through it in “one breath” as we call it. When I read all the places you have been, it brings up memories because we visited some of the places (cities) too.
I now also know why your email address is “sawman”.
We hope and pray that you are doing fine and that the Holy Spirit keeps sending you where HE wants you to go and that you may be a blessing to the people you meet.
We are doing fine, and if we ever do a trip again like this year, we will inform you where we will be travelling so maybe we can meet somewhere along that trip.
We will pray for you.
Love and greetings,
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Joke & Hans Grutter, The Netherlands
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This is from the blog Called Out: Now What?
The Early Christians Were Intensely Christ-Centered
by Ray Spellbrink
The early Christians were intensely Christ-centered. Jesus Christ was their pulse beat. He was their life, their breath, and their central point of reference. He was the object of their worship, the subject of their songs, and the content of their discussion and vocabulary. The New Testament church made the Lord Jesus Christ central and supreme in all things.
The New Testament church had no fixed order of worship. The early Christians gathered in open-participatory meetings where all believers shared their experience of Christ, exercised their gifts, and sought to edify one another. No one was a spectator. All were given the privilege and the responsibility to participate.
The purpose of these church meetings was twofold. It was for the mutual edification of the body. It was also to make visible the Lord Jesus Christ through the every-member functioning of His body. The early church meetings were not religious “services.” They were informal gatherings that were permeated with an atmosphere of freedom, spontaneity, and joy. The meetings belonged to Jesus Christ and to the church [Ed: the people]; they did not serve as a platform for any particular ministry or gifted person.
The New Testament church lived as a face-to-face community. While the early Christians gathered for corporate worship and mutual edification, the church did not exist to merely meet once or twice a week. The New Testament believers lived a shared life. They cared for one another outside of scheduled meetings. They were, in the very real sense of the word, family.
Christianity was the first and only religion the world has ever known that was void of ritual, clergy, and sacred buildings. For the first 300 years of the church’s existence, Christians gathered in homes.
On special occasions, Christian workers would sometimes make use of larger facilities (like Solomon’s Porch [John 10:23, Acts 3:11] and the Hall of Tyrannus [Acts 19:9]). But they had no concept of a sacred edifice nor of spending large amounts of money on buildings. Nor would they ever call a building a “church” or the “house of God”.
The only sacred building the early Christians knew was the one not made with human hands.
The New Testament church did not have a clergy. The Catholic priest and the Protestant pastor were completely unknown. The church had traveling apostolic workers who planted and nurtured churches. But these workers were not viewed as being part of a special clergy caste. They were part of the body of Christ, and they served the churches (not the other way around). Every Christian possessed different gifts and different functions, but only Jesus Christ had the exclusive right to exercise authority over His people. No man had that right. Eldering and shepherding were just two of those gifts.
Elders and shepherds were ordinary Christians with certain gifts. They were not special offices. And they did not monopolize the ministry of the church meetings.
They were simply seasoned Christians who naturally cared for the members of the church during times of crisis and provided oversight for the whole assembly.
Decision making in the New Testament church fell upon the shoulders of the whole assembly. Traveling church planters would sometimes give input and direction. But ultimately, the whole church made local decisions under the lordship of Jesus Christ. It was the church’s responsibility to find the Lord’s mind together and act accordingly.
The New Testament church was organic, not organizational. It was not welded together by putting people into office, creating programs, constructing rituals, and developing a top-down hierarchy or chain-of-command structure. The church was a living, breathing organism. It was born, it would grow, and it naturally produced all of what was in its DNA. That would include all the gifts, ministries and functions of the body of Christ. In the eyes of God, the church is a beautiful woman. The bride of Christ. She was a colony from heaven, not a man-made organization from earth.
Tithing was not a practice of the New Testament church. The early Christians used their funds to support the poor among them, as well as the poor in the world. They also supported traveling itinerant church planters so that the gospel could be spread and churches could be raised up in other lands. They gave according to their ability, not out of guilt, duty or compulsion. Pastor/clergy salaries were unheard of.
Every Christian in the church was a priest, a minister, and a functioning member of the body.
Baptism was the outward expression of Christian conversion. When the early Christians led people to the Lord, they immediately baptized them in water as to testimony to their new position. The Lord’s Supper was an ongoing expression whereby the early Christians reaffirmed their faith in Jesus Christ and their oneness with His body.
The Supper was a full meal which the church enjoyed together in the spirit and atmosphere of joy and celebration. It was the fellowship of the body of Christ, not a token ritual or a religious rite. And it was never officiated by a clergy or a special priesthood.
The early Christians did not build Bible schools or seminaries to train young workers. Christian workers were educated and trained by older workers in the context of church life. They learned “on the job”. Jesus provided the initial model for this “on-the-job” training when he mentored the Twelve. Paul duplicated it when he trained young Gentile workers in Ephesus.
The early Christians did not divide themselves into various denominations. they understood their oneness in Christ and expressed it visibly in every city. To their minds, there was only one church per city (even though it may have met in many different homes throughout the locale). If you were a Christian in the first century, you belonged to that one church. The unity of the Spirit was well guarded. Denominating themselves (“I am of Paul”, “I am of Peter”, “I am of Appolos”) was regarded as sectarian and divisive (See 1 Corinthians 1:12)”
I do believe these are some of the aspects of God’s vision for His church. Remember, the goal in our lives and in our church should be the absolute centrality of Jesus Christ. Nothing less will suffice.
We need more revolutionaries today who will stand against the religious system of our day. I encourage you to catch the vision God has for His church! The freedom His plan and will brings is beyond words! Let’s “buck the system” and seek a complete upheaval of those church practices that are so engrained in our churches today that are contrary to biblical principles. Let’s build on the right foundation – Jesus Christ. Anything less results in defect.
Let’s return to Bible basics and New Testament Christianity where Jesus is Lord!
BE A REVOLUTIONARY!
Until next time, enjoy the journey!
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“If someone proved to me that Christ
is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.”
–Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Christian History
The Road 