This piece came from a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. I found it so powerful and profound that I wanted to share it with others:
IN A NUT SHELL – our problems
A different mentality, a different source of authority needed
It is either man or God
My Thoughts on What Is Happening and Has Happened to get us to this state of being, of life! Read on – only if you dare!
As I lay in bed today thinking about the world its impact on us Christians and Christianity today in the western world, especially America, these thoughts are coming together. I pray that I can put these down in a manner to make sense and be helpful.
What is the core of the problem facing Christians today? Is it SSM? Is that the problem? Yes and No! That is a consequence of a very long line of thinking that has been transforming the mind of all of us in this world for a very long time. When people like James Kennedy in 1990 speaks as if he is talking to us today, when Tozer before that tells us our failings back in the 40′s and 50′s, then we have NOT been listening. So did Francis Schaeffer in the 60′s and 70′s. The fact is the Church has NOT been listening to its present-day prophets for a very long time.
We, in actual fact, have been following the world and all its “lusts” and we are now reaping the “rewards”. The consequences are debilitating and, I do not know if they can be corrected. Without a major move of the Holy Spirit on His people, even God will not be able to right these wrongs. Why? Because we refuse to accept His will and repeatedly desire and insist on our own will be done! This is a very sad case we are in present day. [Strange thing—this computer knows me better than my own children and will give me the words even as I punch out the first few letters! Very strange!]
History: This certainly was a Christian nation long ago, in our foundings, and for some time after. The Bible was quoted in most people’s writings and sayings on a regular basis. We can read this to verify the truth of this statement. It is not difficult, if we believe the truth, as our forefathers stated it in their many writings passed down to us. Yet, many reject those sayings and, in the process, reject the basis, philosophy, faith of our fathers. [Remember singing that song: Faith of our fathers, living still? It is no longer sung because we have very sadly and completely rejected that faith and that is the problem!]
We did not do this overnight. It took a long time, gradual replacements of God’s way way of thinking to man’s way of thinking and living. It is apparent every moment of every day in how we live our lives and also in how we speak or do not speak. For we do not speak as those forefathers spoke, quoting as their authority the Bible, simply and clearly without accommodation to the prevailing sentiments of the world around them because the world around them reflected their same values based on the Bible and its truths. They were ingrained in the mind, the computer, with the word of God and this determined how the people as individuals and society thought and therefore lived their lives.
No longer is the Bible the source of our authority. This is in actual everyday experience reminded of me by the way others reject and turn away from my speaking and the sources of my authority, repeatedly. They, meaning my own family as well as those I talk to in church, often do not come from the same place as I do except superficially, and not in the way life is lived, not in the sources they go to for help, rather it is but partially, a mixture. The world and its ways is the main source of material from which most supposed Christians go to and base their “wisdom” upon.
Note here an example: Joy has been in the hospital two times recently, about 14 days. So she is reaching the end of her life. What source would you say that was just recommended to us to go to for help in time of need? From one who is within the structure of the church? NOT the Bible! But Hospice! Now I do believe that hospice has some good ideas, mainly those taken from the Word of God. To that extent they are giving forth the truth. However, I am also sure that there is a big mixture there for hospice is paid for by the state, that institution which has basically replaced God in most lives. However, do you really think that hospice will tell us the whole truth: that there are two places we can choose to go to after this life on earth is ended? Do you really think that they are going to tell their “patients” about Hell? I think not? Do you think that they are going to use as source material much [probably a little] from the Word of God?
Therefore, what is our authority? That is crucial to the matter of TRUTH! We can talk all we want about truth but what source do we use to find it? That is the matter at hand and that is where so much of our lives today get stuck in the mud of worldly thinking daily. We go about our lives as all people on this earth regardless of their “faith”. We are being programmed to accept and accommodate the world into our thinking and therefore into our decisions. That is what pushes us, silently, whether we recognize it or not. This is the predicament we are all in. To choose to follow the Lord and His Will takes effort and it takes a lot of reprogramming into our computer, leaving the ways of the world and taking up God’s ways instead.
However, are we doing that? Are we programing our mind to God and His Word? Are a few hours a week in church enough to balance the rest of the hours of worldly programing? I doubt it! How we live our lives daily moment by moment are unconsciously decided without weighing into what God thinks. Why? Because number one we do not have God’s Word instilled in our hearts, for that is where those instantaneous decisions are made, instantaneously without even “thinking” about them. How do you think most people, even nominal Christians, thought during the founding of our nation. Their actions said different. Why? Daily Bible reading within the family was the norm in most families, undiluted by the words, sights of the world. The Bible was their text book. Their words confirmed their source of authority, even for a Ben Franklin, during the Continental Congress, even for all those in that room who responded to his quotes from the Old Testament and the New Testament. Yes, they willingly by conviction of the Holy Spirit responded to the leading of God our Father. The action proves my case!
So what do we do today? Do our leaders quote from the Bible publicly to lead others to do what is right in the eyes of God—basically to turn to Him as their source of authority? Not hardly! Not many! Not even “good” preachers stand up for God and His Word in the public setting and there is a consequence to that. What is it? If God and His Word do not prevail, then the opposite—the devil and his words—prevail. Note the systems all around the world where that is happening and where Christianity is under assault. However, it has been under assault right here in America and few have stood firm, unashamed, of the gospel of Christ, as if it really is not “Good News”! We bow to prevailing sentiments continually, example, the use of the term “gay” to describe what God in His Word calls “sodomy”. Dare we even use that word in public? We would be committed to the nearest insane asylum quickly. [Note the words of the judge sentencing Dinesh D'Souza recently.] Friends and brethren in the Lord, we are being tested even now and have been for a very long time—at least 50 years, but we have been sleeping and conforming to the world big time. Now we are in the trap set for us and what are we to do?
Only one thing has any possibility of success: Letting the Holy Spirit convict us of our repeated sins of conformity to the world, to make life easier [that is our god, our idol, comfort, affluence]. We have paid any price to make life comfortable and pleasant, easy. Is that what Jesus called us to do, what He did and told us to follow? We have a perverted view of Him and His Word. We have censored much that He said and did in His own life. We, in actuality, are NOT following Him because we have allowed evil to prosper and have NOT resisted evil; therefore, evil and the devil did not and are not fleeing. No resistance, hardly at all, but conformity.
When it is so very hard for Christians to not spend their incomes, their hard-earned dollars, to support evil [like Costco or Starbucks] then the church is exceedingly weak, thinks it is alive but is really dead. That my friends and brothers and sisters in the Lord is where I see the church, the body of Christ today. And it is sad, very sad, because it then has nothing to offer those lost in their obvious sins. Our sins are not so obvious, in fact, we are most likely to not even see them, not ever recognize them as sin and therefore cannot change or repent. I see NO repentance in the body of Christ, none. There is no Daniel attitude in the church not even have this horrible decision from the supreme court [I can no longer capitalize this for this body is not supreme in any way that God recognizes]. Yet, many still do. We are in a very sad state today. The only real resistance I see and hear is coming from outside the established church, not from within, at least I cannot find it within the walls of the churches here in this area. Please prove me to be wrong! I need to be wrong!
However, my interactions, what I see and hear, tells me conformity to the prevailing system rules! Like our response to 9/11 and its “God Bless America” period, this resistance will be short lived when the more severe consequences come upon us by this “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. It seems that the people have spoken and the justices are simply affirming what the people are saying. The people have become thoroughly “transformed”, corrupted [is the bible word], and now await the determination by God to send His judgment upon us.
So is there NO hope? Is there nothing we can do? Is God now impotent? God forbid! He is still on His throne and prayer [with sincere repentance] does change things. His hands still move at the plea of His people when they humble themselves, confess their sin, and turn from our wicked ways. The question is not will God work, for He always IS working. The real question is for us—will we truly acknowledge our sin, repent and turn to Him. He alone can rescue the perishing, those about to die. See, it is not only, Joy who is coming to the end of her live here on this sin-soaked earth, we also are coming dangerously close to the end of our whole earth, our whole system of corrupted life of government where the people have rejected God and sold their soul to the devil. Who then shall we serve? That is the question before all of us that must be answered, and is being answered by our actions if not our words each day. Is it ME and My will or GOD AND HIS WILL be done on earth as it is in heaven!
So does hospice teach about the heaven offered to all who repent, believe, and receive our Deliverer, our Savior? We are lost without Him, now and forever, through eternity and that is very long!
Some solutions on a practical manner:
READ through the BIBLE every year like most families did in the history of our early country.
MEMORIZE, or at least contemplate and put to memory concientiously, repeated daily, portions of scripture and keep in a little book where you can review monthly.
Talk about the Lord and quote scripture in your writings, speech. Let the light shine!
This will get the Word into your mind and heart and it WILL come out, naturally. It will not return unto Him void, but will accomplish what the Lord has set in mind to do.
My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus bood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholy lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
Written by Pauline, July 16, 2015 as led by the Lord and His Spirit for your edification and encouragement.