Earnestness
Many Christians are simply unaware
of their spiritual state.
Just as Jesus prophesied, the Church 'slumbers' (Matt 25:5).
You need to stir up what He has given you before it is too late to
change.
Our society is laid back, complacent, cool,
self-satisfied, aloof, spiritually negligent, physically-minded, and
self-centred, not God-centred. And Christians in this society reflect that
decadent ethos in large measure. That’s not my appraisal. It’s Jesus’:
Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become
wealthy, and have need of nothing’ – and do not know that you are wretched,
miserable, poor, blind and naked (Rev 3:17).
The blindness is alarming! These warnings
were penned in Revelation to alert believers through all succeeding years to
the weaknesses in their spirit that human nature protects. And, though the
Spirit is continually telling us all, the majority choose to ignore it. They
think there’s nothing wrong with them. “I’ve accepted Jesus as my Saviour. I
love Him and live for Him (or so they think). That doesn’t portray me!”
They can’t see that they’re in an in-between
state. Jesus has begun the process of conversion in them, but it’s still got
further to go, and they don’t like what He’s now trying to tell them:
I know your works, that you are neither cold
nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are
lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth (Rev
3:15,16).
That’s a frightening prospect! But it’s not
without precedent in Scripture. You can read of it also in Proverbs 1:20-33,
where wisdom ‘cries aloud’.
She (wisdom personified) is also the subject
of Revelation 12, expanded to include the ideology that God gave Israel, and
later passed on to the Church in fuller measure through Jesus. And yet, the
world’s influences, depicted metaphorically as a flood, have
attempted to erode and sweep it all
away (Rev
12:15).
The effects are to be seen everywhere throughout the Church, as truth is
compromised, watered down and altered. And when Christians accept this
watered down version, they think nothing of it. “I still love Jesus”, they
think.
That’s not good enough to Him. He wants a
pure bride, not one with blemishes and spots that make her ugly. And He
doesn’t want those imperfections masked with make-up. That’s hypocrisy or
falseness.
Jesus foreknew that the faith once delivered
would be lost, retained by only a few, a remnant. He said:
At the coming of the Son of Mankind, will He
be finding the faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8, Concordant Literal
Translation.)
He urges you to contend earnestly for it:
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write
to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you
exhorting you to contend EARNESTLY for the faith which was once for all
delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
Who Is Faithful And True?
Jesus appears to you and me today – because
we live in a Laodicean age, under its self-centred influences – as Faithful
and True:
These things says the Amen, the Faithful and
True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God (Rev 3:14).
Why does He present Himself with this
emphasis? There’s a great unspoken message. “You (Christians) are NOT
faithful and true!”
We live in an unfaithful age, where
Christians for the most part do not care about absolute truth once they have
got what they want from Him. They don’t care about the faith once delivered.
They think – as they go to their respective churches on Sunday, or keep
Christmas, or celebrate Easter – that what they do is OK and that they are
being faithful to Him. What they don’t see – and often don’t care to see!
– is that they are merely being faithful to their church or to their pastor,
or to the traditions their compromised church goes along with for expedience
sake. They are NOT being true to Jesus. He is True. The Church
structure and customs we live with today are not!
We live in an age of deception and sham.
Deceit governs the lives of most. Most prominent evangelists enact a lie –
from Billy Graham to Billy Brag (I coin this name to emphasise what is
behind most evangelists’ behaviour). God spoke in dreams to Kassahun in
Ethiopia about the dreadful deceit in western performance preachers. They
are a sham – ‘sham-ans’. Here is some of what He said:
Billy Graham
Dec 26/06. K.
I met a friend of mine from
the USA whom I hadn’t seen for a long time. We chatted together about the
good old days. When we turned our discussion to religion he told me that
Billy Graham is a member of the underground Freemasons. I couldn’t believe
what I heard.
Meaning:
Billy Graham is not converted. I remember telling someone that Billy Graham
was a false minister, because what he established was a large institution to
glorify his name. The man I told didn't believe me. He thought Billy Graham
was a good man with laudable motives. But the telltale sign of falsity was
when Billy G didn't move on and accept the healing ministries, and didn't go
on to accept faith for God to heal. All he preached was a halfway house
gospel of salvation only, and that was for his own self-glorification as
much as Christ's. Whenever someone draws back from accepting more truth, and
refuses to come into the full will of God, they backslide. The eventual
outcome of that is to even lose what they think they have – salvation.
The Pride Of Some Big Evangelists
December 27/06. K.
A friend of mine invited
me to a crusade. I went there with him. The large auditorium was full of
people. The preacher was preaching about himself being a great prophet. I
didn’t like his preaching because he wasn’t humble before God. But the
people were worshiping him as if he is a god. (The majority of Churches are
under the rule of some kind of hierarchy where people are literally
worshiping ministers instead of God and His Son Jesus Christ.)
Comment:
Morris Cerullo falls into this category (see MM’s article Dreams From God
About Morris Cerullo) and many other preachers with high profile (see
MM’s articles God Is NOT Pleased With Televangelism, and GOD TV Is
NOT God’s TV).
The pride,
complacency and lukewarmness towards purity and truth is not confined to
evangelists. The ‘disease’ infects
many ‘ordinary’ folk, as these visions portray, followed by what God wants
in you:
Hypocritical Christians
Oct. 19/06. K.
I was preaching in a church
of black Americans. I told them that if they don't repent of their sinful
ways death will devour all of them. They all said with a loud voice 'Amen'
but I knew that they were bluffing.
Comment:
Some black American churches are merely singing and social clubs, where
Gospel music has degenerated to the level of worldly entertainment.
Hypocrisy Everywhere
Dec. 3/06. K.
In a dream wherever I went I
came across the number 23.
Meaning:
23 represents hypocrisy. It is 10 (number of man) + 13 (Satan, curse, etc.).
The Church is full of it!
Jesus Wants The Pure In Heart
July 27/06. K.
Malcolm asked me what a
person needs to be married. I answered saying it differs from person to
person. But he simply said to me "Pure Heart."
Meaning:
Jesus will wed those who are pure in heart (Matt 25:8). They will be His
Bride (Rev 19:7,8).
Demonic Charismatic Worship
July 28/06. K.
I was invited to a
charismatic congregation. When I arrived there several people were staring
at a white screen. They were watching a movie. The movie was about Jesus. He
was seen training in kung fu (an eastern martial art that is demonic in its
origin and influence).
I was furious and went straight to the
screen and stood in front of it so that the people couldn't see that trash.
They began shouting and cursing me. Guards came and dragged me to the door.
Meaning:
This is an allegory of the demonic nature of much of charismatic worship. It
has degenerated over the years into welcoming demons, because few people
know how to test the spirits, or don’t care to do so (1 Jn 4:1).
URGENT!
August 16/06. K. Earnestness needed
A new Newsletter arrived from Malcolm.
There were large bold letters on the front page which said, “URGENT!” It
made me curious to know what was written inside.
Meaning:
We are trying to wake people up and prepare people for what is coming.
Changing Your Lukewarmness
To deal with this problem, YOU have to stir
yourself up (2 Tim 1:6). There is only one way to be purified, and that is
through trial. Ask God to humble you (if you are prepared to suffer for this
end). You need His ‘gold refined in the
fire’, the ‘white garments’ of His righteousness, and the Holy Spirit
to ‘anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see’ (Rev 3:18). YOU have
to ‘be zealous and repent’ (3:19).
Zeal is earnestness. You have to be eager
for the things of God, for His purity,
for His righteousness.
You have to be prepared to accept ALL He
says, not just some of His Word. You have to alter your life – drastically,
if need be (it often seems that way to us!) – to abide by what He commands.
When you know the truth, you have to live by
it. YOU have to be faithful and true, too. You can’t continue with a
lukewarm Sunday tradition when you know the 7th day is what God commands to
be kept holy (Ex 20:8).
Seek Him in prayer each day. David prayed
three times a day. It’s a good paradigm. Take time out to be with Him, to
commune with His Spirit, to yield to His Spirit, to let His Spirit transform
you and imbue you with His love, with His earnestness.
Let His gifts flow through you for the
benefit of others. If He has given you the gift of tongues, use it each day;
labour in intercession for others. As you pray in tongues, you don’t know
for whom you are interceding. It doesn’t matter; you don’t need to know. As
you pray for others, God will work for you. That’s the
scriptural principle:
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours,
and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the
land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven
gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit (James 5:17,18).
Earnestness will bring forth its fruit.
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