Showing posts with label Truly Knowing YHWH. Show all posts

Rick Warren recently appeared on the Fox channel's Hannity and Colmes show to peddle his new book, "The Purpose of Christmas." Unfortunately Mr. Warren took this great opportunity on a nationally syndicated show, in which millions will see him, NOT to proclaim the true Gospel of Christ by which men can be saved...NO, instead this world famous, super celebrated and highly esteemed false teacher pushed the extremely popular, hippy-buddy-magical genie Jesus who is so often taught throughout America's Churches.

This false Jesus overlooks everyone's sin, and would never dream of men actually admitting their guilt and being remorseful to the point of repentance over their transgressions, because that way of thinking is so negative. Rather than all that "fire and brimstone" stuff, he’s all about love and wanting you to be happy no matter what. I mean, after all, Joel Osteen teaches that Jesus died to save you from a life of mediocrity and exists to give you an abundant life…in the material and financial sense, of course.

Furthermore, this pathetically weak and lonely false Jesus is so starved for fallen humanities love and affection that he stands outside the proverbial door of your heart knocking, waiting, and begging, like a cold and hungry puppy hoping that one day you will let him in. Deceivers like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen would have you believe that this Jesus’ main agenda is to do all our bidding and to answer every one of our trivial, selfish and materialistic prayers with an astounding 'YES'.

Rick Warren's Jesus does not even demand any sort of exclusivity of man's affections, because Rick's Jesus is willing to be put on some sort of probationary period, so that people can test him to see if he lives up to all the hype. I guess under those kind of circumstances, Rick's Jesus better start coughing up the goods real quick like, if he knows whats good for him, or he just might find himself thrown right back outside the heart's door, forced to go back to his knocking and waiting.

Is this the real Gospel? Does any of this resemble what the Scriptures really say? Is that the biblical Jesus? Does any of this accurately describe the true Christ? How is it that America as a whole has bought into these obvious heretical lies, and exchanged the Almighty God for this puny pitiful idol?

Matthew 16:24-25
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

The true Gospel is harsh, abrasive, and utterly offensive, because the true Jesus, found within the Bible, does not proclaim a message of self-fulfillment but demands from His disciples absolute and total self-denial. Why do you think that Jesus' own family, friends and neighbors tried to throw Him off of a cliff after delivering his first sermon? Or why did they attempt to stone Jesus on several occasion? Seriously, why do you think Jesus was ultimately crucified? If men like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen are correct, the crucifixion of Jesus doesn’t even make sense, because who on earth would kill such a fun loving guy, whose sole purpose is to make everyone happy and give them all their hearts desire? If Jesus were going around, as those deceivers would have you believe, giving fluffy, feel good messages in which people's self-esteems were being boosted, then why on earth was He murdered?

John 3:18-20
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

Jesus was killed because He proclaimed a message that the world hated, and the world hates His messages because He exposed their true nature…that of radical depravity. Many people try to deny the inherent sin nature of man, and even within the Church itself, false teachers claim that we are not wretches, even removing that word from the old hymns, and they attempt to claim that our hearts are not desperately wicked (Jer 17:9) but those lies contradict the Scriptures. God's Word is unapologetically clear about the utter sinfulness of man and that only God alone is good...if this were not true, and we are not inherently evil and increasingly worthless, then Christ died a needless death. But the fact of the matter is that man's heart is evil from youth (Gen 8:21) and that man is totally incapable of doing good (Rom 3:12) and because of our spiritually bankrupt state, we are in desperate need of a Savior, because without the sacrifice of Christ we face the wages of our sin, which of course is death and the eternal punishment of a fiery hell.

Acts 4:12
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.

Furthermore, the Gospel is hated because of it's exclusive nature, in which it clearly states that many will travel the broad road leading to hell, and only a few will enter the narrow gate leading to heaven. Yet, men like Joel Osteen deny this, and they also deny that Jesus is the "only way", thus implying that Christ lied when He said that “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me (John 14:6)." Mr. Osteen, I am guessing, in an attempt to be seen as “loving,” claims that he has seen Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Mormons all love God in their own way and he says that he just can’t imagine God rejecting that. Not only does Joel's teaching make Jesus' death and resurrection totally worthless since, according to him, you can believe whatever you want and still enter the narrow gate of the Kingdom of God, but Joel once again denies the truth of the Scriptures. I guess I am curious why Joel is even a professing Christian or a "Preacher" for that matter, since truth to him is merely relative.

I will continue the various reasons why the true Jesus along with the true Gospel message is hated in the next few blogs...although I will probably have a blog or two inbetween.

t was quite a few years back the first time I saw one...my wife and I were shopping at our local grocery store and I heard an elderly woman gasp, lean over to her elderly husband and comment on this kids t-shirt who happened to be walking down the isle toward us. I couldn't hear exactly what she was saying but I knew this much, the t-shirt she saw offended her. The mother of the kid quickly piped up saying something about how a bunch of inner city gang kids had "gotten saved", and now spread their testimony through these t-shirts. If you haven't figured it out already, I am speaking of the shirts that irreverently proclaim, "Jesus is my homeboy". The details of the actual story are slightly different, so if your interested in hearing about the incredibly cheesy, more than likely false, origin of these shirts then click here. Even if this tale is accurate, one thing is for sure, these shirts are just yet one more thing to add to the list of disturbing trends becoming more and more prominent in our culture that blatantly dishonor, mock, and blaspheme our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Revelation 1:12-18
"Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."

Some of you may be wondering how this verse is at all relevant to the "Jesus is my homeboy" t-shirts. Well...I will explain. First off, let me remind you that the book of the Revelation was written by the Apostle John, who, as we know from the Biblical record spent a substantial amount of time, approximately 3 straight years, with Jesus traveling all over Judea and Samaria. Needless to say, they would have gotten to know each other quite well, in fact, they were so close that during the last supper, it is written that John rested his head on the chest of Jesus. Not only that, but out of all the Apostles and disciples there was but one who was singled out in which it was specifically said that Jesus loved him, and that man was John.

So with all that in your mind, look at the reaction of John when he sees the glorified Jesus...the Apostle "fell at His feet like a dead man". Now, if John falls at our Lord's feet like a dead man, what do you think we will do? What would our reaction be, having never known Jesus like John knew him? Yet, for some odd reason we ignorantly think that we can treat the King of kings in a way that is anything less than fervent adoration and reverence. This falling on your face reaction is not some isolated incident. John's reaction is the standard reaction of everyone who has seen God. Abraham also fell on his face, Moses, whom is said to have talked with God face to face as one talks to a friend, constantly fell on his face before YHWH. The Israelites fell on their faces after witnessing the Lord consuming rebellious men with fire. Joshua, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Manoah all fell on their faces before the Lord God, not to mention all the people who witnessed the fire coming from heaven when Elijah proved there to be only one true God, and Peter, during the transfiguration, fell on his face "in much fear".
It is surprising, with so many instances of people trembling and falling on their face before God that professing Christians continue to have this flippant disrespectful attitude toward the Almighty. He consumes people with fire for offering Him incense which He had not ordained, and we think we can call Him our homeboy? He causes the ground to open up and swallow those who do not honor Him and we make figurines in His likeness calling them "buddy Jesus". He tells us to not to fear those who can only kill the body, but rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell, and yet we entertain ourselves with TV and movies that contain the very sins He died to save us from. Think about it, our "entertainment" is a world void of Christ and God, where the only mention of Him is one of blaspheme in which His name is used as a common cuss word. No wonder His wrath is being revealed to us from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.

It is written that judgment begins with the house of God. So judge yourself, and judge rightly to see if you are truly in the faith. Do you abuse your liberty in Christ? Do you flirt with the world and adopt its ways, attempt to drag our Savior into the muck with us? Some Christians think that if there is not a clear straightforward text condemning something, then they are free to do it, even though the whole of Scripture makes it abundantly obvious that said behavior is wrong and sinful and the very thing that held Jesus to that cross. Just because one of the commandments is not 'Thou shalt not wear a Jesus is my homeboy t-shirt', does not mean God condones such irreverence. He not only created everything that we enjoy and take for granted, but He gave Himself up to a sinful and wicked people who tortured and killed Him so that we might have eternal life with Him. Show Him some respect!

n the news I occasionally hear stories of people who claim God instructed them to do some horrific act that is contrary to His law and what He has revealed to us in His Word. On that same note, while at the Shepherd's Conference, I took a class on Church discipline in which the elders at Grace talked about how often they have married men and women claim that God's will for them was that they leave their husband or wife to pursue a relationship with another person. I had a friend (now former) who started dating a married man, and she claimed that it was God's will that this sin occur otherwise God would not have allowed them to meet. As absurd as that sounds, I am sure there are many other so-called Christians out there rationalizing and justifying their sin in similar ways. Using that same logic...if I was offered some crack, does that mean that God's will for me is that I become a crack head? Any Christian with half a brain should know these things obviously do not harmonize with the Word of God, so how is it that so many Christians have such a skewed view of what God's will truly is? I believe the number one reason why people have absolutely no clue what God's will for them is that they are not in the least bit familiar with Scripture. In the epistle to the Romans, Paul tells us how we can know the will of God, saying...

Romans 12:1-2
"Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect

So...by default, our minds become fashioned after and adapted to the external,
superficial customs of this world system. The Greek verb "conformed" is in the passive tense, which means this progressive downward spiral of sinful thinking which, of course, leads to sinful actions (James 1:14-15) happens to us regardless of our opinion or will in the matter. We will be indistinguishable from the fallen world without the transforming power of God's Word. Scripture alone transforms and renews our minds into Christ-likeness, which arms us with the wisdom to know that certain situations and circumstances will arise, but they are trials and temptations, and through a knowledge of God's Word we should see them for what they truly are and cling to the solid rock of Christ so as to become victorious through Him. I think its so interesting that the Greek word for "transform" is where we get our English word "metamorphosis" from. Just as a caterpillar is made into a beautiful butterfly, we too through the miraculous Word of God are made into awesome new creatures with godly new desires that can, and only then, please our Creator. One of those new desires should be a hunger and thirst for His righteousness. We should long to know who God truly is and as I have said time and time again, we can not know that apart from yearning to know what God has revealed to us through His Word. This is why Peter says...

"like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation" - 1 Peter 2:2

I recently became a father and seeing how often a child needs to be fed really made this verse hit home all the more. My son, like any other new born baby, would wither and die off without being fed every few hours, and we to will wither and die spiritually if we neglect to feed on the pure milk of the Word of God. I am sure this is why the hymn writer wrote "I need Thee every hour, teach me Thy will" Which brings us back to the verse in Romans. We can not claim to know God's will if we are not constantly feeding ourselves with His Word (Matt 4:4). Before you speak presumptuously of God and say that His will is this or that for your life, ask yourself if you have been transformed by the renewing power of His Word. Examine yourself to see if you are so intimately familiar with Scripture that you are sure that what you are about to do does not violate the Law of God. It is only through a constant diet of God's Word that we will know His good and perfect will.

However, do not forget that having a mere head knowledge of Scripture will lead to a cold orthodoxy if it is not accompanied with charitable love (Rev 2:2-5). That is exactly why Paul ties together our minds being transformed with how we ought to be presenting ourselves as living sacrifices. We should be continually denying ourselves to the point of death (Luke 9:23; Phil 2:5-11), giving ourselves wholly to God, so as to put aside our desires, and crawling upon that alter before the Almighty and allowing Him to slay us, so that it is no longer I that live, but Christ in me (Gal 2:20) who works and accomplishes His will through me, so that all the glory may be His and His alone.