"SINNING SAINTS"

If you have an open heart and a discerning ear to hear, if you will listen to what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to the church (about the churches) it will become quite obvious WHY the Spirit of the Lord is calling ALL of the church(es) to repentance.

Now is the time for repentance, for prayer, for humbling of self and for seeking His Face for understanding from the Lord regarding what HE is saying to the churches! (IChronicles7:14) For so long we have heard the same call, but time has run out! And we have repented only to the degree or in a measure according to what WE have thought God meant, but we have in fact not humbled ourselves as we ought: we have failed to humble ourselves in our own perception, in what we think God means by repentance, neither have we humbled ourselves to ask or inquire of the Lord to find from Him what HE means by our "wicked ways". We have in fact not sought the face of the Lord for the eyes of His Understanding. We have leaned unto our own understanding of His word. Confident in our knowledge and understanding of scripture, we have failed to get UNDERSTANDING by His Spirit regarding what HE MEANS by the "wicked ways" from which He has continued to call us (corporately) to repent. We have instead presumed to know the mind of God, in our own understanding of His word, we have believed that He has been calling us to repent of sin, that He has been calling us to turn from lusts of the flesh. The sad truth is however, the Lord has been calling us to repent of our spiritual pride, pride in knowledge which has led the churches to depart from the Lord through the stubbornness of our own minds in what we think God is saying... to the point of near absolute apostasy.

If we now fail to hear this final call of the Spirit to humble ourselves, then the Lord will do the humbling for us through much tribulation and sorrow. And God help us if we continue to take His last call to repent and turn it into the pseudo-spiritual "empowerment of man" (so-called revival of man in the image of God) from which the Lord has been calling us to repent!

According to His word, if we will not humble ourselves, then the Lord must do it for us: "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased (brought low); and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." (It is apparent by the recent "shakings" that He has already begun to do just that.)

God's word is forever settled in heaven and ALL that He has said, He will surely do. He has said, what we sow, so shall we reap (Gal.6:7); as we have done to others, so shall it be done to us (Prov.24:29); if we have judged, we will be judged and by the same measure (Luke6:37,38); out of the words of our own mouths, we will be condemned (Mt.12:37); and He will render to every man according to his works. (Mt.16:27)

We (in the churches) have sown to the wind and we shall reap the whirlwind (Hos.8:7) We have encorporated the teachings of the world (humanism & psycho-social sciences) into the churches. If we had sown in righteousness, we would have reaped mercy (Hos.10:12) but we have failed to break up our fallow ground: we have failed to humble ourselves in what we perceive to be right in our own sight. Through stubbornness of mind, due to the hardness of our hearts (in what we have decided is or is not of God) the soil of our hearts has become stony ground, congested with weeds & thorns: uncultivated through prayerlessness. We have sown in wickedness (according to what we have approved in our own sight) and we have reaped iniquity. Through pride and self deception, we have allowed the enemy to sow tares in the field and we have eaten the fruit of lies (false teachings) cf. Hosea 10:13

The church has exalted the image of man in Christ, she has exalted men in the doctrines of men, she has highly exalted her own self and so she will be brought low (humbled.) We are to reflect the glory of our Head which is Christ Jesus but instead we have been reveling in our own glory as kings and priests, in our own glory as heirs of the promise, in the glory of who MAN is in Christ etc.

Expressing gratitude for our salvation is not the same as being proud, boastful of who WE ARE "in Christ" and just plain arrogant because we are saved. In her haughtiness the church has been "glorying in the flesh" and "rejoicing in gifts". She has been glorying so much in what men say is just the joy of her "position" in Christ to the point that she is ignoring her true deteriorating "condition" in the world!

To the "ungodly sinners" -to the WORLD, the church preaches repentance, yet she herself is filled with self-righteousness, division and strife (which stems from contentiousness and spiritual pride). The churches have been fighting among various denominational factions, theologically pointing out each other's ocular specks but ignoring embedded beams. Church leaders and people alike have been religiously straining at doctrinal gnats while swallowing proverbial camels!

If the Church (corporately) only knew that she has in fact been preaching and teaching a false gospel, if the churches understood the extent of the apostasy of Christianity in the Light of the revelation of Jesus Christ, we would all be on our faces before the Lord crying out: "Spare thy people, O Lord".

In keeping with the nature of man, because we have been declared "the Righteousness of God" in Christ Jesus, we tend to exalt ourselves in whatever God's word has to say we are called or counted as (in Christ). With sanctimonious self-assurance, we have taken what things that have been won "for us" through Christ, and we have used what the word of God says about us to evade conviction by the Holy Spirit. Much of the church has become so enamored of our own self image of what we are called to be "in Christ" that we have repeatedly ignored (or perverted the meaning of) His calls to repentance, we tend to automatically assume that when it comes to "wickedness" that does not apply to us, after all "we" are not wicked, we are called to be saints. We tend to exempt ourselves from messages by shoveling them off onto the world at large. ("That part of that message wasn't for me or for our church, Praise God! I'm saved and sanctified, Alleluia. And I know who "I AM" in Christ and I'm going up in the first resurrection, glory to God, thank-you Jesus!")

Although we are "called to be saints" and are "saved by grace through faith" and though we do have an "advocate with the Father" when we sin, that does not mean we are no longer to inquire of the Lord concerning every message we hear spoken forth in His Name. Even though we have an advocate with the Father when we sin (1 John 1:9) we also need to remember that I Jn.1:9 say that His word says that He will forgive and cleanse us from our sins IF we CONFESS them, not if we ignore them and not if we refuse to allow Him to show us what those sins are! It is convenient to dismiss conviction for sin by calling it "condemnation" especially when we do not choose to see our sin. What sin? The sin of pride, the stubbornness of our own minds (stubbornness is as idolatry) by which we refuse to hear what the Spirit of God is saying about the extent of the apostasy. Many are in fact blind to the apostasy because many have eyes to see but refuse to see, and having ears to hear refuse to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the churches about the churches et. al.

We evade conviction even as we continue to wrest (turn & twist the meaning of) the scriptures, and we use our doctrines of men to justify what we teach even while we soothe our consciences by saying: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans8:1) forgetting that it also says: FOR THOSE who walk according to the Spirit and NOT after the flesh, i.e., for those who walk according the Spirit of the word (in Spirit, and in Truth) and not just according to man's understanding of the LETTER only!

There is condemnation (meaning judgment) for those who walk after the flesh and not after the Spirit: "And this is the condemnation (judgment), that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds be reproved." (John3:19,20)

There is judgment from God when men who say they love the truth, love their own error more than they love the truth by His Spirit. "Good men" working evil deeds is simply a matter of man preferring his own will over the will of God, of man preferring what seems scripturally right in his own sight over what the Lord is trying to show him...these are our "wicked" ways: though we say we love God and say we have the love of the truth, in fact many love only the truth they choose to hold to be true according to what seems biblically right in man's own sight, individually and/or denominationally.

More often than not, messages of exhortation and admonition are accepted only to the degree that man decides to accept them -repentance is only in measure, weighed almost exclusively by man's own level of willingness to be corrected. And worse yet, those messages that man does decide to "receive" are most often only applied where and how man himself decides they are applicable, and THAT is our greater sin! Not only do we often reject what we deem to be too "negative" -we also have a tendency not to ask the LORD where and how a message ought to be applied, and then we end up leaning to our own understanding by which the message itself is often rendered of no effect by our misinterpretation &/or misapplication of it! (All because we assume we know more than we really do! and we are too blind in what we think we know, to humble ourselves to simply ask...)

Whenever a message offends our ego, we often reject it because we didn't feel right about it, or we don't feel like it blessed us the way we think it should have or because we didn't think it was edifying...

We (in the churches) tend to also act as though the portions of a message that warn of judgment coming to the nation means the world and not the church. How curious that the judgments that happened to the people of Israel were written as an example to us upon whom the end of the world is come, although we know that those judgments were to the "nation" of Israel, meaning to God's people as a whole, when it comes to judgment for the people of God today, it is assumed that whenever the Spirit of God is warning of judgement coming to the nation, somehow that must mean "America" but not us? When God warns about judgment coming to this nation for abortion, who would consider that God is about to judge the CHURCH for the millions who have been aborted in the faith of Christ because of the apostasy of His people?

No matter how the Lord tries to get our attention, we shovel the thunderings of His Spirit upon us --off onto the world, to the nations etc. We somehow have this idea that we are exempt from judgments because we are saved? Little do many realize that the purpose of the corrective judgments of God is to turn those who can be turned lest we remain for His wrath to which we are not appointed. But if we continue to ignore what the Spirit of God is saying about the apostasy of Christianity, how severe will His judgments to turn us need to be before we will turn? Still we ignorantly "stone" anyone who has the audacity to say anything more than what we want to hear... We defend our self deluded (pseudo-scriptural) positions by fracturing verse after verse of scripture. We love to claim ourselves exempt from judgment by saying: we are not appointed unto wrath, but unto salvation! But 1Thess.5:9 actually says: "For God has not appointed us unto wrath, but TO obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ". And part of the ongoing process of salvation by grace through faith is that (after we have accepted the Lord) we must continue to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil.2:12) in humble obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, in Spirit and in Truth.

When we commit our souls to Jesus by confessing Him as Lord and Savior, He guarantees to save all who come to Him (Jn.6:37) and He gives us His Spirit (I Jn.4:13) as the seal of that promise. Our spirits are reborn in Christ Jesus, but our souls must be cleansed with the washing of water by the word (Eph.5:26). And the water of the word refers to the Spirit of the Word, not man's application of the LETTER only.

God has not appointed us unto wrath (damnation) but to obtain salvation (I Thess.5:9). We are to come to the light of His word -to that which the Spirit of God reveals, that our deeds may be reproved (Jn.3:19,20) but what happens when we turn, twist & turn the meaning or application of that which the Spirit of the Lord has meant for the conviction of hearts? His word tells us that we are to examine ourselves (I Cor.11:31) daily in the light of His word --in our understanding of His word, or His? We are to repent (not do penance, but repent) and daily confess our sins, but according to our understanding of our sins, or His? And IF we confess our sins, He IS faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us, but what of those sins we refuse to see?

God's word also says: If we sin willfully and deny rather than confess our sins, then we must be judged accordingly. "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." (I Cor.11:31) But the fact is that our hearts are deceitful, and we are not able to judge our own hearts apart from Him, and we must submit ourselves to Him to ask Him to search our hearts for us and to show us if there be any wicked way in us, but what if we refuse to hear?

We must either (judge) examine ourselves by allowing HIM to search our hearts, and we must be willing to hear what He is saying or we will be judged accordingly. God judges our refusal to hear, and He "chastens and corrects" so that in judgment we are convinced of our sin. His judgments are designed to turn us again in repentance towards God. "But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world." (I Cor.11:32)

The church is in just such a period of judgment now. We have abused the grace of God and have walked according to what is right in our own sight. We have turned every move of His Spirit into the empowerment of man, and have thereby ignored & annulled His call to repentance. We shall now endure the "chastening of the Lord" because we refused to hear Him in what HE is saying. It is time to take a sober look at ourselves, and our compromise with the teachings of this world. It is time to stop fracturing scripture in self-justification and denial.

Although the Lord "looks on the heart" He is asking us, have WE allowed Him to examined it lately? When will we allow Him to show us what HE sees? Many a sermon expounds upon the love, forgiveness, grace, mercy and faithfulness of God, of His promises and blessings toward us. Few however consider the correction of the Lord to be a blessing. The Lord is merciful and He is a faithful Father. In His mercy, He is faithful to afflict us. (Ps.119:75) In His love (the love of a Father) He corrects & He chastens so that we may be partakers of His holiness. (Heb.12:10)

How many itching ears, how many positive confession advocates, how many "possibility thinkers" have considered the possibility that God is about to "bless" the church(es) with some major chastisement! So many are being "blessed" with "faith teachings" which reverberate "walking by faith, not by sight" so much so that they have lost sight of other verses which are "promises & blessings" we ought to take hold of as well: "Whosoever is born of God doth not practice sin..." (I Jn.3:9a) "Abstain from all appearance of evil." (I Thess.5:22) "And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." (IITim.2:19b) "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (Jas.4:17) "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phil.1:21) "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." (Mt.16:24) "And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me." (Mt.10:38) "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." (James 4:4) When were THESE verses ever the topic of a vacation cruise or weekend seminar?

No one is denying the faithfulness of the Lord to forgive our sins, nor His resurrection power, the gifts of the Spirit or His precious Blood but isn't it interesting how we love to hear all about how forgiven we are, about the "gifts" we have, about the "power" we have in His name!? The Lord is in the process of judging His people, not for lack of good works but due to the attitudes & conditions of our hearts, that includes how we treat each other.

Because many Catholics have yet to come into a born again saving relationship with Jesus Christ, they are often victims of vicious assaults by pharisaical "Christians" who callously attack them, often by innuendo via a variety of ungodly verbal slams. Unlike those poor ignorant Catholics who do not "know the Lord" there are those who stand in the temple and thank God that they have "entered in", they thank-God they can come "boldly before the throne of grace". "I thank God I am not like that overly sin conscious, self-flagellating sinner (aka Catholic, or Buddhist, or J. W. etc.) I thank-God that I worship "in spirit and in truth"... "I tithe and read my Bible, and I go to church more than just an hour on Sundays, and I thank God I know who I am in Christ and I walk in the POWER of the resurrection" Pentecostal, Full-Gospel, main line evangelical and fundamentalist Christians should have long since repented of such pharisaism.

One thing the Lord has shown me that many consider "ignorance of Catholics" instead turned out to be indicative of the arrogance of those who accuse them: "they still have Jesus on the cross" -meaning they still have crucifixes. Whereas "WE KNOW THE POWER" of resurrection life and WE know that Jesus is not on the cross! It's about time WE realize that the image of the "Body of Christ" on the cross is precisely where we belong! -on the cross is where we, the Body of Christ need to be: to crucify our pride in who WE ARE & what we think we know, our high-mindedness & haughty pseudo-spiritual attitudes belong crucified in Christ! Perhaps leaving the image of the Body of Christ on the crucifix might help us all remember where the pride of man belongs...crucified in Christ!

We would do well to remember that without Christ crucified on the cross, there could be no empty tomb & that it is where we find humility and obedience: THE CROSS applied by grace brings the resurrection power: of the Life of Christ (in us) the Hope of glory.

Except for those who follow after signs, in our vain attempts to portray the risen Lord, Christendom is lacking in demonstration of the Spirit [of God] and of power [of the Gospel.] (I Cor.2:4) The church has become proud & arrogant, having gone to calvary once for all, she is neglecting the humility and obedience of the cross.

Although some view a crucifix as a graven image, it is not wrong to depict the work of calvary (providing the image is not worshipped). But it IS wrong to harbor an idolatrous image of "self" and to revel in the glory of the empty tomb while refusing to take up one's own cross.

Such prejudicial treatment of others by Christians reflects a serious failure to maintain a "calvary conscious" attitude of humility and love, towards those for whom our Savior also died.

Satan is doing a marvelous job of using "religious" spirits to fuel trivial "religious controversy" and strife while successfully removing from the view of most of Christendom a very effective reminder of his own defeat. Satan would love nothing more than to remove any reminder of Christ on the cross and to erase every trace of the shed blood of Jesus!

Meanwhile, "Two men went up into the temple to pray; one a __________, and the other a ___________." (Luke 18:10) How many have been driven away from Christ as a result of pharisaical doctrines of men? We talk about the idolatry of others, but what of our own idolatry? "In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men..." Prejudicial "religious" teachings (doctrines of men) are idols, they contain only enough of truth to make them seem credible. Teaching half of the truth is yet a lie: we have eaten the fruit of lies. (Hos.10:13) The perversion of the Gospel in the churches is leading many to destruction.

Although we are "saints of God in Christ Jesus" and are the "redeemed of the Lord" saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves. Therefore our attitudes ought to be the humility of the publican, knowing we are all sinners saved by grace.

The Spirit of the Lord is calling the churches to repentance, to call upon Him to grant us humility of heart through the obedience of Christ. We may have accepted Him as Savior, we must know Him as LORD.

Through His word by His Spirit, He is to reign in the hearts of His people, not just figuratively but literally. Christ in us, governing our hearts, allow God to establish His king-dom, the Kingdom of God within us through Christ!

We are not in bondage to the law or under the law, by grace through faith by His Blood in atonement for our sins we are saved, not through our good works and our "righteousness is as filthy rags." But we are not to claim that all is "under the Blood" and then pick and choose to obey only as we see fit. If we use the grace of God to live as if we are above the law, meaning exempt from obedience to God in Christ, then we will be judged and chastened according to His word. We cannot accept His love and not His discipline. Although we are redeemed from the curse of the law, we are not to become a "law unto ourselves." We must repent of abusing the grace and mercy of God to avoid the discomfort of change. We must "receive the engrafted word" (Jesus) who is able to save our souls (Jas.1:21) and not resist conformity to His word through Christ. We've gotten so "saved by grace" and comfortable with a God Who loves us "just the way we are" -we have become complacent, i.e., self-satisfied and smug. He loved us while we were yet sinner's (Rom.5:8) but Jesus didn't die for us to stay that way.

We need to stop treating the word of God like a what instead of a Who! We must not treat God's word as if the Bible was some type of spiritual smorgasbord or Sunday buffet where we flip through its' pages and pick the promises that look appealing or appetizing. If we are going to claim salvation through Him who is the Word, we must accept all of His word. We cannot arbitrarily pick and choose our way: but must choose obedience by Him who is the Way!

Christians have really become quite adept at fracturing scriptures and tailoring verses: perverting the meaning by taking verses out of context, twisting & misapplying them through carnal misinterpretation due to man's own logic and reasoning. If that's not bad enough, we simply take out our scripture snippers and trim off the "excess" -the parts we don't need or want.

Sometimes more is said by what we've not quoted, than by what we have: a lot can be seen by looking at the parts of verses that we consistently leave out. For example, how often have you heard James 4:7 quoted as follows: "Resist the devil and He will flee from you"? What we have "snipped off" that verse is rather revealing: James 4:7 actually says: "SUBMIT YOURSELVES THEREFORE UNTO GOD, resist the devil and he will flee from you." Apart from the work of God, allowing God to work the submission of man to God in Christ through the cross of Christ, the enemy does not flee from us, He flees from Christ in us, in our acknowledgment of Him who is the power of God over all the power of the enemy!

When the Lord said we ought to rightly divide the word of truth, He did not mean with scissors! We've become diligent scribes in our ability to pick out every promise. We know every "POSITIVE" jot and "POSSIBILITY" tittle in the word of God but verses which deal with submission, admonition, commitment, dedication, consecration, sanctification, obedience, correction or discipline are curiously lacking in most "Promise" books.

As believer's we claim all of God's gifts, we want all of His power, all authority, all the promises and all of the blessings in His word, forgetting that EVERY PROMISE IN HIS WORD IS PRECEDED WITH A QUALIFIER! Every time God gives a promise it is reciprocal. (IF we...then, He...)

One day the Lord told me to go into the kitchen and "read my refrigerator." Like many Christians, my refrigerator is plastered with scripture cards:

"I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." (Phil.4:13) "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God..." (Rom.8:28a) "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." (Rom.8:37) "...With God all things are possible." (Mt.19:26b) "(But) My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Phil.4:19) As I read them, the Lord asked me what these verses all had in common. He then pointed out that they ALL say ALL. Then the Lord said: "My people want to be able to do all things through Christ; to have all things work together for their good; to be more than conquerors in all things; to have all things be possible for them; and they want Me to supply all their needs BUT they do not want to trust Me with all of their hearts and acknowledge Me in all of their ways!" (Prov.3:5,6)

We have turned, twisted, snipped and pasted scriptures together to suit our fancy. It is not just "the world" but the church(es) who have had itching ears: we have been following after our own lusts. Still we refuse to hear: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap up to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (II Tim.4:3,4)

To satisfy our lusts, our own desires, we have learned to "milk the word" rather than desire the sincere milk of the word. We use the word of God to avoid accountability, to evade conviction and to resist change. We reject the truth and use the scriptures to do so.

This message will undoubtedly be rejected by many as judgmental. Pointing out what the Lord says is our sin, can look very much like pointing AT sinners (especially when "sinning saints" are not as separated unto God as the church supposes it is.

Most of what I have been led to write about has been as the direct result of "beams" the Lord has had to remove from my own life, from my own eyes. I share the struggle of my "brother's and sisters" in the Lord against pride, self-deception, pharisaism, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, jugdmentalism, -against the sin which does so easily beset us. (Heb.12:1)

Confessed sin is "under the blood" but their is a difference between what is "under the blood" and that which is hid by sweeping it "under the rug." The purpose of this article is to challenge you to uncover self-deception, to call "sinning saints" to acknowledge sin rather than sweep unconfessed sin (even apostasy) under the carpet of tolerance.

There is a distinct difference between judging people and discerning error, between a call for repentance and condemnation. Rather than judging the messenger, shouldn't we pray and ask the Lord to discern the truth of the message, & hold fast to that which is good?