Author: Fuel For Faith

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PRIDE OR TRUTH

Over the years I’ve been blogging I’ve seen that the biggest yawn for readers, judging by their response-or lack of it-is any discussion of what truth is and what it means to us. I’m almost writing this post for myself, knowing that very few will be interested: hair color, hurt feelings and virtue-signaling are far more important to people now.

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Our post-modern culture has infected everyone, including the Church. Chat in some depth with a few people in your church, and you’ll find a surprising number who either don’t know their Bible-the indispensable source for the follower of the original Jesus Christ-or who think they and the “experts” know better than Paul, Peter, John, Jesus Christ, and even the Father himself. They know more about Creation, science, history, the reason for the suffering of Christ, what sin is, and almost every foundational doctrine. God didn’t create the universe or Adam, there was no world-wide Flood, Moses didn’t usher in a series of plagues to punish the Egyptians, Jesus wasn’t the Son of God and he didn’t rise from the dead.

I was once invited to dinner with a gentleman who attended the same church as I. He would always sit in a prominent place in the front row, singing louder than anyone else, as proud as he was of his voice, and his greatest efforts were always in the songs about the blood of Jesus. He was a nice guy-the model Christian, it seemed.

After dinner our discussion turned to Scripture at my request. When I read a few verses and commented on them, he replied that the passage didn’t mean what I said it meant. So I asked him what he thought it meant. His reply was “I don’t know, but it doesn’t mean that”. I pursued the issue and discovered that he believed nothing remotely similar to what we would consider to be generally accepted evangelical doctrine. The entirety of Scripture, to this man’s mind, is impossible to understand without imposing our own faulty views upon it.

Try telling the IRS that their demand for payment has no correct interpretation.

My friend attended church for years before finally and publicly renouncing his faith totally. He was not grounded in truth. He hadn’t built his house on the rock.

My response to the arrogant opposers of scripture within the Church is that you should either repent of your pride and distrust of God, or go off and start your own religion. Just don’t call it “Christianity”.

 

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WHEN IT’S GOOD TO JUDGE

There’s a serious epidemic at large in the Church these days-and one of the symptoms is the refusal to make a judgment on whether something or someone is right or wrong…

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Somehow Christians have bought into the multicultural mindset to the extent that they think they would be committing a crime against humanity by pointing out that someone has got it wrong. Well pardon my incorrectness, but that’s just plain wrong!

I once wrote at some length in answer to the now common mantra that “it’s wrong to judge”, often linked to the words of Jesus when he said “Do not judge”. I pointed out that once you get that plank out of your own eye, said Jesus, you are free to lovingly help take the mote out of someone else’s eye. Therefore, Jesus wasn’t saying it’s always wrong to make a judgment: he was speaking of hypocrisy. Do not pass judgment on someone else if you are no better than they are, but do…do, once cleansed of your own hypocrisy, go on to point out faults in others, and to tell them they are wrong.

One of the many huge reasons this epidemic is a problem is that there is a multitude of false teachers out there. Some are just mistaken, but some are of the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” variety. And the wolves are leading sheep away, sometimes intentionally. The Church is in need of more sheepdogs, to give the warning that there’s danger, and then to chase off the wolves and the bloodsuckers. We’ve all been so conditioned by left-leaning philosophy that we’re afraid to point out anyone for fear of being called “judgmental”. Perhaps, in many cases, people either don’t know when a teaching is wrong, or they really do know and they’re happy to go along with it anyway.

We’ve wandered away from our Guide, which is the written Word of God. Or else the godless culture around us has had such an effect on us that we really like what we’re hearing, and we’re content to wander away from the true faith once delivered to the saints. But if we aren’t following what Christ and his apostles taught, we aren’t really Christ-Ones at all. Call that a judgmental statement if you like-I can take it.

Without the Maker’s instructions to guide us, we can only wander into mistakes, error, sin and eventually insanity. Isn’t that what’s going on in our culture already? And should we, the Church of Christ, go the same way? If we would only look at what He said we would know that it is not only the right thing to pass judgment on false teachings and false teachers, but it’s actually commanded repeatedly in the very Scriptures which tell us about our Lord and what He said to us. You can’t go a single chapter in the Bible without seeing that it’s vital for us to constantly make judgments about what is right or wrong: it’s fundamental to our faith. God has standards which He expects us to know and to keep, and there is no wishy-washy confusion or ambivalence in the mind of our Creator:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves…” (Matthew 7:15).

Yes, dear readers, some things are wrong, some people are wrong and some teachings are wrong and often in direct opposition to our God. Very often the ones promoting them are in our churches and on our TV and devices. And it’s up to us, and particularly those claiming to be our shepherds, to get rid of them! So get that mote out of your eye, get into the true Word, and then start judging!

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GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT GOD

Thank you to my loyal readers who keep coming back and wondering where I’ve been: I’m planning on being back regularly from now on…

Two things have been on my mind lately above others. One is our current political and social climate, and the other is the widespread belittlement of God even among professing believers. These two things are inextricably linked. The loss of reverence for our Creator in society as a whole but also in the Church, was bound to result in lawlessness and degradation. The worst aspect to this is that many professing Christians have succumbed to it-often without realizing it themselves. Our testimony and witness to the world is compromised by our own lack of belief, dedication, and fear of God.

The half-hearted church was foreseen by our God, and we can know how He feels about it:

“So, because you are luke-warm-neither hot nor cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth…” (Revelation 3:16).

The corrupt, compromising church was also foreseen by Him who knows the end from the beginning, so that He warned us to separate ourselves from the evils of fallen man:

“Come out of her my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues…” (Revelation 18:4).

Those who reject the deity of Jesus, who reject the fact that our God created all things, who reject the supremacy of Scripture, and who put their own words and the words of their favourite teachers above Scripture are all included in references to hypocrites and false teachers contained in the New Testament especially, but also in the Old. And once you cast off from the absoluteness of the truth of Scripture and invent your own, you are then metaphorically on a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, without navigation, radio contact, charts, or even the benefit of experience.

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Ironically, the One who will spit the luke-warm church out of His mouth identifies himself as “…the ruler of God’s creation” (Revelation 3:14).

Just as bad as the rejection of the Bible as our ultimate guide, is the determination to use it to support false teachings and faulty or corrupted interpretation. This attitude is rampant in the Christian world now: “Let’s follow what so-and-so says and find one or two verses which appear to back him up”. In contrast, Scripture tells us:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man…” (Jeremiah 17:5).

The Western World is now in moral free-fall, and there’s no way of stopping or slowing that fall if all we have to offer is a few jangling guitars and singers shaking their hair, a weak impersonation for spiritual gifts, an effort to bow to political correctness, and politicians who make promises in order to promote themselves. (Having said that, I say “Trump 2020!” The alternative is the destruction of America and so the West).

More than that, we have an insular Church which has largely rejected what God has to say. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” says the word of God, and, “In six days God created the heavens and the earth”. A large percentage of ministers prefer to follow what unbelievers and atheists say-that in the beginning, billions of years ago, something happened, our ancestors crawled out of slime and swung in trees, and later on God, or a few good teachers, came along and got involved, trying to get us all to be nice to each other. This is belittling God and calling Him a liar. This is putting the word of fallen, God-rejecting mankind above the Word of the Immortal, Almighty, Omni-present, omniscient Creator and sustainer of all things. This is nothing short of foolishness!

It not only calls God a liar, it calls Him weak and  incapable and irrelevant. “We know it’s all science now” is one pathetic view: pathetic because the real logic is that anyone who created all things would have to be The Master and Creator of science! Did an infinite being create all things by His infinite miraculous power, or did the universe create? That’s your choice! There’s no middle ground without putting God down beneath the feet of man.

Any true science today is only observing the handiwork of God. He is the Creator of science…not someone who just came along so that he could make us fall over backwards, or offer us new ways of being nice to each other. God is our Creator and He will be our Judge! He has the power to save us or to throw us into hell!

Its time for those of us who are serious about our faith to fall on our knees and worship the incredible being who made us, and who holds our souls in His hands.

 

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ELECTION FEVER

Acknowledging that there is a real virus out there…one of many… my own expectation is that fear of Covid-19 will continue to be pumped up to fever pitch until after the election in November.

393px-Gojira_1954_poster_3After that, look for considerable deflation, courtesy of a totally biased news media, were the Democratic party to succeed, and alternative “crises” to arise no matter which presidential candidate gets elected. Crises are perfect tools with which the governing classes (which now include the news media) gain more and more control over people, and in the wrong hands (which is most of them) more and more taxes. If Trump wins, the crises will consist of continued lies and slander against him and his followers. In the longer-term future, look for the Christian world to be blamed for all the evils of society.

Just how did the virus manage to arrive, as if on-schedule, right after the latest in a series of political “crises” which began in election season four years ago? Following the attempted impeachment of Trump, we barely had time to catch our breath before we were being told to hold it in with masks: masks which will not stop a real virus entering your eyes or even your nose unless you have the prescribed medical kind.

Where does hatred for Western values come from anyway? And no, I’m not changing subjects. All kinds of commentators attempt to pin down the reasons for current rabid attempts to demolish all that the US and the West is founded on: it’s slavery, its selfish capitalism; it’s America’s abuse of other nations; it’s misogyny;  it’s the Constitution…

In my opinion, these are not the ultimate, core reasons for all that we see going on: the core reason is the rejection of the ways of God.

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So as an ex-socialist myself, and one who has lived a life unworthy of the Lord I now profess, I am the first to admit that the West falls far short of the ideals which we all wish to see. After all, we are all human- there’s no perfect system because there are no perfect humans. All we can do is our best, and attempt to improve. The United States is, unless the rebels succeed, that best. Everyone has a chance to better themselves, and everyone has the chance to make changes to improve society: tearing it down will only take us back in time: back to tyranny, clan warfare, bitterness, more division and stalled progress in every field of human endeavor.

What it’s all about is a rejection of our Judeo-Christian roots. Marxism, which is near the heart of the enemy of America, is naturally opposed to faith in God and to any moral code but its own. It’s opposed to the family and to the Church. It’s opposed to the value of individual life and instead promotes that of the state and the ruling elite. In a Marxist country there would still be super-rich, but they would be the ones in control. The rest of us would certainly be equal-equally poor and powerless. Our religious roots, badly maintained at the best of times, have up to now given us the dignity of the value of individual life, enterprise and reward. But it’s more than just money which is at stake here.

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In recent decades the secular world has been trying to throw off the moral constraints of our founding and to re-make mankind, or perhaps I should say “personkind”. The monster being created is far from the dignity of the original model. Now we have abortion for any reason up to and even after birth. We have God and the consideration of creation banished from our schools. We have sexual attraction considered to be love. We have gay marriage; demolished marriages and families; universalism; the glorification of violence; the blurring of genders, and just down the road we have euthanasia as population control, and government sanctioned pedophilia.

Biblical precedents are common for anyone who cares for the Word of God. The story of Noah, and the book of Judges clearly demonstrates what happens to a society where every man does what’s right in his own eyes. And when Israel insisted on having a godless monarch instead of having freedom as the people of God under Samuel the prophet, God told Samuel:

“It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:7).

Rejection of God and of his ways in the Bible is sometimes called “lawlessness”. How relevant to our times this is. Having said that, I believe a large percentage of the population just want to maintain their homes, their families, their way of life, and their beloved country. Let’s hope and pray that the moral and foundational disintegration is at least paused, if not stopped. And more than that, let’s do our own small part to stop it.

 

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EMBRACING DIVISION

If you’re interested in truth you belong to a rare breed in today’s world. In fact, truth is so out of style that a large number of individuals and organizations are intentionally working at avoiding it, and in preventing you from finding it…

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Who checks the so-called “fact checkers”? Where did they get their diplomas in absolute truth and neutrality? The answer is that they didn’t: the claim of neutrality is itself a lie, a deception. Even judges are making rulings according to their political and social biases. The Supreme and only Judge will one day call them to account. So-called “news” media and social media corporations are intentionally working hard to influence and sway millions of people-entire nations, both here in the US, and in my country of origin, the United Kingdom, and doubtless around the world.

The expressed desire of some that we should “all just get along” is, unfortunately, redundant, because “getting along”, and “uniting”, and “coming together” has to be done under their political, religious and social viewpoints and moral standards. There’s no more genuine debate to find genuine middle ground or to find the best way. There’s no more desire to go half way, or to compromise, or to come to an understanding of truth: we are all, whether we ever wished to be or not, of necessity taking sides.

This taking of sides was an unavoidable outcome of events which have transpired particularly in recent years. When you are publicly shamed or fired from your job because of a view you have, the concept of freedom is severely under assault. The time has come to either fold and go along with the pagan crown and the tide of godless secularism, or to take a stand and say, “No more”. If your nation is just about to be sold out to globalism and Marxism, the time has come to either give it up to the revolution, or to take a stand and do something to stop it while there’s still anything to be done.

And in the Christian world this division is also taking place. Pardon my duality, but to shrink the entire issue to nutshell size, on the one hand we have those who believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and on the other side, those who don’t. Behind all of what is taking place in politics and in society and in the church is the choosing of sides: do we want to live according to our Creators standards, or do we want to rebel and go our own way? People in the Christian world who have cut themselves adrift of the finality of scripture are really throwing in their lot with the political and social rebellion. To support my assertion, we can go to Scripture itself. If you profess to have faith but that idea offends you, be aware that you may really be travelling or at least loitering on that broad road which ultimately leads to destruction.

Of course, if the Bible is not your ultimate guide; if your favorite super-wealthy minister has got it more correct than God did; if your guide is your belly or your favorite activist or your sexual proclivities, what I have to say here will mean nothing to you. For the rest of us-those on the narrow road which alone leads to Life, be aware that Jesus Christ said this:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

Read the rest of that chapter and there can be no mistake: the world of people is not going to all get along, and there will be no peace until He returns. More than that, it’s God’s intention that the world of men be divided. Some professing Christians deny this fact. They are among those who reject the truth of scripture, except to use parts of it to promote their own ideas. The entire concept of the final judgment is as stark a reminder as can be that there are saints, and there are aints, and there is nothing in between. There is a heaven and there is a hell, and there’s no neutral part of the universe-God’s universe- where the agnostics and the uncommitted and the rebellious can retire to. There is no middle ground. There is no “salvation for all” from the wrath of a holy, almighty God apart from Jesus. There will be no world-wide revival and turning to God as some Charismatics claim, according to the testimony of scripture concerning last day things. Instead there will be a “falling away”, or “rebellion” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). And God himself has called us out of the world marching to destruction:

“Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins have piled up to heaven…” (Revelation 18:4).