Modern Churches Have Substituted An Institutionalized Religion For The Life-Changing Dynamic Of A Living Faith

                                                 When The Door Slams 

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ.                                                                             (1 Corinthians 2:2-3 ESV) 

            While the church may seem to be experiencing a season of growth and prosperity, it is failing to move people to commitment and sacrifice. The hard truth is that we have substituted an institutionalized religion for the life-changing dynamic of a living faith. For most of us the church is the building where we assemble to worship; its ministries are the programs that we get involved in; its mission is to meet the needs of its parishioners; and its servants are the professional clergy we hire to shepherd us. Church growth has come to refer more to such things as location, marketing, architecture, programs, and head counts than to the maturity of the body of Christ.

            When compared with previous generations of believers, we seem among the most consistently at peace with our culture, the least skillful at transforming society, and the most desperate for a meaningful faith. Our reason for being is confusing, our mission unclear, and our existence as a people in jeopardy. Worst of all, our leaders know it--but seem unable or willing to do anything about it. 

            Think about this: In light of this, it should not surprise you that while plenty of people are still walking through the doors of churches, secularism reigns as the dominant world-view of American culture. It is hard to imagine, therefore, a more urgent or critical task than the recovery and restoration of the biblical view of the church.

            Affirmation: And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousands souls.                                                            (Acts 2:38-41 ESV)       

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness.        

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Religious Churches Praise The Lust Of The Eyes, And The Lust Of The Flesh

                                                 When The Door Slams

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people." Therefore "Come out from among them And be separate, say the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you."  I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty."  (2 Corinthians 6:14-18 NKJV)  

            At this point Satan is doing his deadliest work because what has just occurred went unnoticed, unseen, and produced no shock or alarm. It is not by the open confrontation of evil that Satan corrupts and disrupts the church, but by quite, unnoticed substitution. The holy things of God are being removed, the spiritual gives place to the natural, and the divine is eliminated because it is made secondary.

            A growing trend among Evangelical churches is to attract people through their events, clubs, shows, performances, sports, and any other convenient methods. But these activities appeal to the sinful appetites, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. This alarming and scandalous and cries out for God's judgment. How radical the contrast between the activities of the modern, worldly church, with those of primitive church. The original methods and gatherings were wholly spiritual, calculated to strengthen and cultivate all the graces of the Spirit to preserve a deep experience of God. 

            The church was a training school for the spiritual life. They never lingered in things exclusively moral, aesthetic, and mental. They developed no taste or inclination which was not spiritual. They took it for granted that all who came to them really desired to flees from the wrath to come, and were sincerely sorrowful after full redemption. These carnal activities are regarded by many as the perfection of spiritual things. But in the end all that is distinctly spiritual is eliminated, and when this occurs anything that is deeply holy will not survive the death of things spiritual. Edification, a high priority of the church, is wholly forsaken, and vain amusements and things pleasing to the flesh take its place. The social forces not only suppress the spiritual forces, but effectually destroy them. What do church activities and meetings filled with worldliness and carnality have in common with true holiness and the fruit of the Holy Spirit? "How can two walk together unless they are agreed?' (Amos 3:3). "What communion has light with darkness . . . and what agreement has the temple of God with idols?" (2 Cor. 6:14,16). "Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?" (James 3:11). 

            Think about this: Disguise it as we may, apologize for it as we do, we vainly boast of growth, but the truth is, we have lost that intense type of experience, that deep conviction of spiritual things which are evidences of the blessing and presence of the Holy Spirit. Many preachers and people have fallen so low in their experience that they don't hunger for spiritual channels of grace, but attend "churches" to gratify their non-spiritual tastes which are halfway between Christ and the world. Few of them might possess one grain of spiritual power, and can never be the means of communicating spiritual life.

Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin.                Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness

                                                                    Never Rest Ministries           

The Holy Spirit Or The World

                                                When The Door Slams

Jesus answered, "I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot [even] enter the kingdom of God. [Ezekiel 36:25-27] "That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical], and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.                                                                 (John 3:5-6 AMP)     

            The religious leaders, secular thinkers and philosophers used the phrase "let's save the world." All this sounds fine, and agrees with this material age, and becomes practical in operation, and impressive in results. But does this agree with the essential purpose of the church? Do we need any church to obtain these ends? Councilmen, police, and social workers can achieve these results. It requires no church, no Bible, no personal holiness, to secure these ends. The purposes of the church rise in praiseworthy above these childish dreams and fanciful philosophies.

            Our goal is to regenerate and sanctify the individual; to make him or (her) holy and prepare him for heaven by purifying and training him in the school of Christ. The church is like the net cast by fishermen into the sea. The purpose is not to change the sea, but to catch the fish. Let the waves roll in their natural way, but the net will catch the fish. To save the world and ignore the individual is not only unworkable, but damaging in every way. In the hopes of saving the world, as noble as it appears, it will be the undoing of the church. It will make the church worldly and unfit for her holy and praiseworthy mission. Christ said that gaining the world and saving the man are antagonistic ends. Christ taught Peter[Matt. 16:16-24] that his satanic suggestion would gain the world for the church, but would lose the soul. Everything seems helpful to the cause of God, when in reality it was death. 

            The church is distinctly and preeminently a spiritual institution. It is created, energized, and directed by the Spirit of God. Her methods, activities, rituals, services, and officers have no beauty, no sufficiency, no power, except as they are vessels and channels of the Holy Spirit. It is His indwelling and inspiration that equips the inner man and secures its divine purpose. If the Holy Spirit is persistently grieved and quenched, the church will lose its power to bring divine life into the world. If the devil can blind the eyes and dull the minds of church members to the desperate need of the Holy Spirit's sanctifying power, he has effectively lulled the church to sleep.

            Think about this: Satan tries to accomplish this by marginalizing and retiring the means which God has ordained, and replaces them with natural talents and fleshly works that are useless without the Spirit's power. Christ announced a universal and immutable law when He said "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit" (John 3:6). The church may have a holy preacher, a man of prayer, who is filled with the Spirit. But if Satan can instigate his removal and replace him with a prayerless, popular, and eloquent man, the church may seemed to have gained, but it has substituted the spiritual for the natural, a change that has unconsciously weakened the church.

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness.

                                                Never Rest Ministries                          

We Need Holy Spirit Power

                                                 When The Door Slams

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1-4 ESV). 

            The Holy Spirit is able to make the word as successful now as in the days of the apostles. He can bring in by hundreds and thousands, as easily as by ones and twos. The reason why we are not more prosperous is that we don't have the Holy Spirit with us in might and power as in the early times. If we had the Spirit sealing our ministry with power, it would signify very little about out talent. Men might be poor and uneducated; their words might be broken and ungrammatical; their words might have no polish or glorious thunder; but if the might of the Spirit attended them, the humblest evangelists would be more successful then the most leaned theologians or the most eloquent preachers.

            It is extraordinary grace, not talent, that wins the day. It is extraordinary spiritual power, not extraordinary mental power, that we need. Mental power may fill a chapel, but spiritual power fills the church; mental power may gather a congregation, but spiritual power will save souls. We need spiritual power. We know some religious leaders have nothing compared to their talent, but have no spiritual power; and when they speak they have not the Holy Spirit with them. But we know others--simple-hearted, worthy men, who speak and stand up to preach in their place and the Spirit of God clothes every word with power. Hearts are broken, souls are saved, and sinners are born again. O Spirit of the living God, we want You! You are the life, the soul, the source of your people's success. Without You they can do nothing; with You they can do everything. 

            There are two ways of directing the church, God's way and the devil's way. God 's way and man's way of running the church are worlds apart. Man's plans, methods, and solutions are Satan's devices. The cross is retired, the world comes in, self-denial is eliminated, and all seems bright, cheerful, and prosperous. But Satan's hand is on the steering wheel, men's schemes prevail, and the church fails to produce, under these devices of men, any spiritual fruit. 

            All God's plans have the mark of the cross on them and death to self and crucifixion to the world in them. But men's plans despise the offense of the cross. Man's plans have no self-effacing, self-denouncing, self-denying in them. But the devil brings as much of the world as he can into the church until all the holy, powerful, life-changing work of the Spirit is forgotten and retired. This satanic device is designed to distort the purpose of the church and to teach that the church's mission is not to save individuals, but to save society, culture, and the dignity and worth of man. This popular, seductive, deadly, and misleading the very foundation of Christ's church. It is a trend so strong that it will sweep away every ounce of spiritual life if we do not watch, pray, and speak out with the Holy Spirit power.

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness  

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Having A Form Of Godliness But Denying Its Power.

                                                 When The Door Slams

But mark this: 

            There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV). 

            The church must be made to see and feel the horror of this delusion, this transfer of her strength from God to the world, this rejection of the Holy Spirit for the use of gimmicks, salesmanship, fund raising, slick professionals, and marketing--which amounts to laying down our spiritual weapons by carnally yielding to Satan's devices. The church leaders has increasingly disregarded its source of spiritual strength and set it aside for impressive, worldly ones. 

            The entire next generation of church goers is conditioned to believe that a statistical increase of people attending worship services, classes, making decisions, baptisms, programs, and activities are signs of spiritual blessing and success. We live in an age where everything is judged by outward results. 

            The body of Christ must be awakened to the fact that the strength of the church does not lie in outward appearances, empty boastings, or self-manipulated activities, but in the power of God, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the LORD of hosts" (Zech. 4:6 NKJ). "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain" (Psa. 127:1 NKJV). How tragic it is today that countless church leaders say, "I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing...," but God says, "You do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked..."                     (Rev.3:15-19 NKJ) 

           Think about this: The devil does not make a frontal attack where his diabolical schemes are thrown into the open for all to see. No, he seeks greater advantage through deception where the most damage can be done. His methods of destruction are usually two-fold: First, the devil sows seeds of discontentment in the minds of worldly church members. They are unconverted religious people who have no heart for spiritual discipline and communion with God. These deluded souls won't be happy until they find a church that gratifies their "itching ears" for man-centered, popular Christianity that is devoid of the knowledge of Christ. "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables" (2 Tim. 4:3-5 NKJ). "Having a form Of Godliness but denying its power. And from such people, turn away!" (2 Tim. 3:5).       

            Church leaders, often gripped by amazing blindness, and falsely attached to what they believe to be the truth, remove from the gospel its offensive, painful, and self-denying features to which it owes it saving power and divine stamp. We have an illustration from the life of Peter that is instructive: Read (Matt. 16:21-24 NKJ).

            The strategy of the enemy is to distract pastors from spiritual ministry and prayer. When this is accomplished the church becomes popular, modern, and progressive. Christ is no longer present. The practice of crucifying self to the world is removed, and there is no more mention of judgment, sin, hell, and repentance. Nothing that savors of God is in it, but all that savors of man is there. The world is sought and gained in the devil's church, but their souls and heaven are all lost, lost to all eternity. 

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness.  

                                                        Never Rest Ministries                                        

             

The Devil The Politician and The Church

                                                 When The Door Slams

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18 NKJV).   

            There are very few Christians in America who have an intelligent concept of citizenship or of the way that God would have us interrelate to the body of politic. So we have allowed alien ideologies to fill the vacuum in America, so much so that Christian values have virtually been crowded out. Clearly, America is struggling with its own moral identity, but at least we have the benefit of an ethical tradition. If it were not for the incredible reservoir of Christian beliefs and customs which we have inherited from the precepts of our founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution, I have no doubt that we would have lost our own moral vision years ago.

            The devil is too wise, too large in mental understanding, and too grandiose in ambition to confine his attacks to the individual. He seeks to direct the policy and religious leaders of nations. Intoxicated with much freedom, passion, and success, "he goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth" (Rev. 20:7-8). 

            He is skillful in deception and an expert in every deceptive art. An archangel in trickery, he often succeeds in seducing the nations that are most loyal to Christ, leading them into plans and policies which pervert all Christian principles. Similarly, the church, when seduced from her purity, degenerates into worldliness. 

            The "gates of Hades shall not prevail" against the church (Matt. 16:18). This promise of our Lord stands against every satanic device and assault that would take away from the church's ultimate victory in glory, but it doesn't always protect the church from the devil's strategy in spoiling her aims and goals. 

            The devil is a many-headed monster in plans, in wisdom, and in deception. His master plan and supreme effort is to get control of the church, not to destroy its organization, but to hinder and pervert its divine, spiritual purposes. He does this in the most deceitful way, seemingly innocent--no startling change, nothing to shock or alarm. Sometimes this deceptive change is introduced under the disguise of a greater zeal for growth of the organization. It is initiated by a person of influence or religious leader, but the advocate for such change is often totally ignorant of the subversive nature of this idea. 

            Think about this: Satan's scheme in seeking to weaken and distract the church from its spiritual vitality and purpose is to establish a false estimate of strength. If he can raise false perception of church power, if he can create the illusion of strength in non-spiritual activities, if he can push the material and social issues to the front, if he can present the church's efforts, numbers and resources to appear impressive, imposing, influential, and commanding attention, he has accomplished his purpose.                                     

            Renewal: Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us."                                                                   (Psalm 2:1-3 NKJV)

Ask the Holy Spirit to Search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness

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The Whole Field Of Battle Deception And Delusion

                                                When The Door Slams

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.                (2 Peter 2:1-3 NKJV)

            It is imperative that in the matters of religion we should not be mistaken or deceived, but should have the most correct, exact, and vivid impressions and opinions; because religion deals with such momentous subjects as God, the soul, and eternity. And if in these life-giving interests we are deceived, and our understanding and actions in response are wrong, the consequences will be weeping and eternally fatal. There is no other way of acceptance with God, no other refuge from the wrath to come; nor can we offer acceptable worship and service to the Most High, if our understanding of His character be false. For, remember, God cannot be deceived. 

            Think about this: The Bible says, "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). The Christian believer, by having the Holy Spirit within him, has power over all demons. When Jesus Christ sent His disciples out on their mission, He gave them authority and power over all demons, and to cure diseases (Luke 9:1).

            As a dragon the devil is full of cunning and ferocity. If he cannot achieve his purpose at once by power, he waits his time. He deludes, he deceives; in fact, he is the deceiver of the whole world. What a power of deception must reside in him, when under his influence a third of the stars of heaven fell, and myriads of men in all ages have worshipped demons and idols today! He was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies.    

            After thousands of years of constant practice in deception he is much too cunning for us. If we think that we can match him by craft we are damn fools, for he knows vastly more than the wisest of human. To this cunning he adds great speed, so that he is quick to attack at any moment, darting down upon us like a hawk upon a poor chicken. He is not every-where present; but it is hard to say where he is not. He cannot be omnipresent; but yet, by that majestic craft of his, he so manages his armies of fallen ones that, just like a great general, he oversees the whole field of battle, and seems present at every point.

            No door can shut him out; no height of piety can rise beyond his reach. He meets us in all our weaknesses, and attack us from every point of the world. He comes upon us unawares, and gives us wounds which are not easily healed. But yet, powerful as this infernal spirit certainly must be, his power is defeated when we decide never to be at peace with him.

            Renewal: Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world (1 Peter 5:6-9 NKJV).        

 Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the LORD and thank Him for His forgiveness                             

                                                       Never Rest Ministries