OPENING OF HEART – Chapter 1 -part 5
NEW HEART AND MIND continued
Let us continue…
I wrote a letter to that Fellowship in Prešov and also attached my booklet “Truth about Salvation” requesting them to read it and respond to me. I considered the subject very important and I did indeed hope that they would see it that way as well; that they would consider the Word of God pertaining to that subject and would take the article out of their website. My booklet is short, so I hoped for their early answer.
After several months, I received a brief note where their elder questioned whether I was “under the power of the Lord’s Spirit” when I wrote my letter to him. I was told that I was “too authoritative”, and coming to them “from above” and not “from below”; plainly speaking, “I was elevating myself above them.” No mention of my booklet or of the serious matter of losing one’s Salvation!
I wrote them back again telling them that coming with authority and “from above” does not mean a self-elevation. Every true servant given by the Lord to the Church was given “from above” and never “from below” and was always given the necessary authority by the Lord. This is clear throughout the Scripture and requires from the Church the discipline to discern and assess the given Word. A true servant of the Lord without authority doesn’t exist. Furthermore, we should all know what kind of servants come “from below”.
Then their elder wrote back a brief letter where he admitted that he did not read “The Truth about Salvation” at all, he would not be expressing himself about it and that “as far as he understands the Lord”, he will not communicate with me in any foreseeable future! Wow… what an astonishing answer! Any common sense stops right here! The Lord, Whom that elder tries to understand says: “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of a sound mind.” (2Tim. 1:7)
I am asking myself a simple question: Where is the LOVE and the SOUND MIND of that elder when I am receiving from him such a spiritually sick and arrogant answer? Is it possible that we both were given to the Church by the same Lord and are responsible to Him? Or is he responsible to some other lord?
It seems that the Church is guided by a modified Word of God, namely: “A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE UNTO YOU, THAT YOU UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER; AS I HAVE UNDERSTOOD YOU, THAT YOU ALSO UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER… BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES IF YOU HAVE UNDERSTANDING…” (Jn. 13:34,35?) But mutual and right understanding comes only through love… and suffering.
After another three months without response, I finally decided to write my third letter to that elder stating my belief that he did not like any discipline or authority “neither from above, nor from below” and that his decision not to communicate with me is NOT OF THE LORD! (Heb. 13:16) Hence, it had to come from somewhere else. That was in May 2004 and I do not expect any more replies from that offended elder. But he will have a hard time before the Judgment Seat of Christ explaining his decisions on the basis of the Word of God. (Rom. 14:10)
In the conviction of this elder, GOD CANNOT SPEAK TO THEM OR CORRECT THEM THROUGH ANYONE THAT HE HIMSELF SOVEREIGNLY CHOOSES! They are “perfect”, thus they need no counsel, no help, no instructions, no corrections, no advice of any kind. They can neglect the Word of God, His warnings or any needful and appropriate action and “feel fine”. Is this possible in the living Church of Jesus Christ? Well, of course, it is! Today, it is the norm in the Church.
The Lord granted me the knowledge that this particular elder himself hated it when a woman was leading a fellowship in the City of Košice in Slovakia because the Word of God is against it! (1Cor. 14:34,35) So he left the fellowship. I say: Good, he did it with the right motive. But when I, in a similar way and with the same right motive, hate it when somebody acts, speaks or writes against the Word of God and tell him about it, he considers me proud and not under the power of God’s Spirit!
So, 1Cor. 14:34,35 is the Word of God worth considering, but Rev. 3:5; 20:15; 22:19// Heb. 6:4-6// 2Pet. 2:20-22// Jn. 15:6// Mt. 3:10; 12:31,32// Lk. 13:6-9// 1Jn. 5:16 and many other verses (see[7]) are not the Word of God worth considering! Is he living under a double standard? The only other explanation may be that the case with 1Cor. 14:34,35 hurt his pride while Rev. 3:5; 22:19 and the other verses shown above did not, because pride is not really concerned with the perishing of people.
A PROUD HEART is never set to reply to truth, receive any counsel, advice, correction, discipline or any authority, not even from the Word of God! A proud heart HATES instructions, despises reproofs, hates learning new things from the Lord, learning obedience and never needs help from anybody! (Pr. 5:12-14)
Here the Lord declares to all the proud elders and leaders in His Church this simple truth:
UNLESS YOU LEARN TO BE UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THOSE THAT I SET OVER YOU, YOU YOURSELVES CANNOT HAVE AUTHORITY OVER ANYONE ELSE!
PROUD PEOPLE ARE NON-SUBMISSIVE, DISOBEDIENT, OVER-SENSITIVE AND STUBBORN, SEEKING ONLY THEIR OWN SATISFACTION. TRUE, OR NOT?
A proud heart can be hurt by any little thing. I know. My heart also received wounds, which it never expected, and which were not healed in 24 hours. But they all worked for my good simply because I love the Lord and am called according to His purposes! (Rom. 8:28) Thanks to the wounds by which the Lord afflicted me, I am today able to pause without discarding what I do not like or what hurts me. I am now able to turn to the Lord and enquire of Him whether I am breaking or neglecting His Word, whether I stand for the truth or against the truth or just for myself. I am able to keep His Word and not go stray. (Ps. 119:67)
What do you believe? Is it normal that anyone calling himself an “elder” in the Church of Jesus Christ would totally disregard the vital question of losing one’s Salvation? Should he not even respond? Also, should he keep publishing on a world-wide website anti-scriptural writings dangerous to believers? Should he refuse to read facts about it and reply at least in his own human honesty?
Too many Christians have lost even their common sense! Unfortunately, many will not return to their senses and they will not move until God’s fire touches their own skin! And it will… soon! They will then remember that God CAN choose any man He wants and send him “from above” and give him His Authority! And if Christians with their leaders cannot discern this simple fact or even admit it, they will then reap very unexpected consequences as is clear throughout the Word of the Almighty God.
The truth may also be shown from the following angle. The Word of God says: “Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth…” (Jn. 16:13)
Is this a reality or a dream for believers? When they see something, hear something, read something or stand before a problem, many of them never turn to the Spirit, Who lives in them, to guide them! They either consult and trust their own heart and mind (in which case they are fools – Pr. 28:26) or come to other men and say: “Well, what do you think?” (in which case they are not any better – Ps. 94:11// Jer. 17:5). And if the respected men say it is wrong, then they will not touch it, whatever the Spirit may say. Because most of the respected men also consult their own hearts and minds and do not turn to the Spirit and do not verify it in the Word of God. Don’t you see this?
It is ever so easy for any believer to keep saying: “the Spirit has shown me this… He showed me that… He told me this… He led me there…”. Really? In truth? What more obedience to the Word of God has He produced in you or through you to others since He started to “show you things” or “speak to you”? Has He ever guided you to your cross, seeing that your cross is the most important truth to you? (Mt. 16:24,25) If not, then it is a very strange spirit that is guiding you and speaking to you. This kind of deception may be fatal for your destiny and for the destiny of those that you are leading or giving advice to.
The blindness (the darkness of body) of carnal believers is not natural – it is supernatural caused by the devil, the god of this world. He and his forces of evil and darkness have blinded the minds of them that do not believe (pagans AND “believers that do not believe”) so that the Gospel of Christ, the Word of God, is not shining upon them (2Cor. 4:4).
The eyesight (the light of body – Mt.6:22,23// Lk. 11:34-36// Acts 26:17,18), which the Lord gives is also supernatural. You may have 20/20 perfect natural vision and be totally blind in spiritual matters. But this spiritual eyesight does not come to us easily, but rather slowly, as we mature and battle the forces of darkness. Whatever the Lord desires to show us, Satan will always oppose, thus, there will always be a conflict and a battle between light and darkness. Do you see and believe these above facts?
Another spiritual reality is that God will not judge the blind because they do not see. He will judge those blind that refuse to see! He will judge the blind that refuse to admit they are blind and insist that they see!
The Lord says: “For JUDGMENT I am come to this world, that they which see not (and admit it and ask for eyesight) might see; and that they which (claim that they) see MIGHT BE MADE BLIND”! (Jn. 9:39)
The Lord had not come just to heal the blind, but also to make blind; to shut the eyes of the proud and worldly prudent that they might not see. He also came to close their ears and make their heart fat – unresponsive – for they have never had intentions to perceive and understand! (IS. 6:9,10) If you have no desire to see, you will gradually lose the ability of seeing again! The same for hearing, perceiving and understanding. If you keep not wanting, you will lose the ability of ever wanting again.
IF YOU ARE (NOW) SOWING UNWILLINGNESS, YOU WILL BE (LATER ON) REAPING INABILITY. (Gal. 6:7, Lk 13:24)
And then there is a man, whom I brought to the saving Grace of the Lord, baptized him in water, fed him with the Word and gave him my love and substance. Whenever I came to Slovakia, he travelled with me and I paid all his vacation, food, lodging, travel and whatever else was needed. After several years of being a struggling, but good and willing brother, he wrote me one day a letter claiming that he was “also right” in some thing, which “thing” he never specified. Therefore, he decided to stop helping us but “his door remained open to us”. Really? In truth? We wrote him back seven letters within three years. He never answered even one! Well then, what door does he keep open to us?
He is also living in the City of Banská Bystrica where he attends the same Baptist Church where I preached and whose elders never answered my letters. He has become an unfaithful, disloyal and treacherous man. Why? Down deep in his own conscience he knows! But Satan keeps him from speaking. Yet, nobody asks how the Lord sees and judges, how He looks on this man, on his family and their future, if there is any future for his pagan family. (2Pet. 2:21) Yet, I am never losing hope that His Great Mercy will prevail and that they may not perish if the Lord just detects a tiny whisper of desire to repent to Him in their hearts.
But I thank the Lord even for this man though he is presently fulfilling the Word of God in 2Pet. 2:22. Through him and others like him, the Lord had brought me into the “fellowship of His sufferings”. And through them I gained more of Him and of the power of His resurrection, and I am being made more conformable unto His death. (Phil. 3:10).
The Lord gave the man four years to repent and start bearing at least some fruit. And if not, He would cut him off from His “vineyard where he was planted” after he was baptized. (Lk. 13:6-9// Mt. 3:10) It is a heartbreaking thing and this truth is more bitter to me personally than others. Deep sufferings only come when deep love is hurt.
One part of “His sufferings” is when the Lord desires to help us – but we refuse! When He is ready to forgive us if we would just admit our fault, our sin, our unrighteousness – but we refuse! The Lord must watch evil in our soul resisting Him, even laughing at Him – with our approval! These are His sufferings, and He brought me into the same.
I also had opportunities to preach and hold seminars in Brno, the Capital of Moravia, in the Czech Republic. The beginnings were very promising. After my first sermon, I received a spontaneous applause, which I did not expect in the least. It took me by surprise and I did not even know how to receive it. Even later on at another seminar, people were very friendly and the question-and-answer period was quite lively. I was in Brno three times ministering and each time we had profitable and promising fellowships. One organizer kissed my cheek and expressed his love for me.
But then, as it is in many cases, the communications came to a grinding halt. The powers of darkness did not like one bit of what they had witnessed. So, I was accused of stupid things by the two chief organizers and never invited again. Those that had applauded me disappeared behind the horizon and a typical quietness descended on their spiritual wilderness. Their hearts were a “way side” and could not receive and profit from the Word sown to their hearts. (Lk. 8:11,12)
Then, I preached once in Pezinok, near Bratislava, the Capital of Slovakia. A small congregation of mostly middle aged and good-hearted women, and a few men gathered together. Then, unexpectedly, one of the chief elders from the church Headquarters in Bratislava also came. He sat in the first row with recording equipment on his lap making (probably unconsciously) noise during my preaching.
He showed his true colours after the sermon when a question period was announced. There were no questions and no answers because he started to bombard me with his criticism of my book[14]. He was demonstratively leafing through it holding it above his head and looking for anything he could “hang” me on or accuse me of. Clearly, there was not even one sentence in the book, which would have been profitable or a blessing to the poor “spy”. How transparent the devil, “the accuser of brethren”, (Rev. 12: 9,10) can become in men. The Spirit, Who was there during the preaching had become silent as the elder kept saying: “I think that on this page… and I think this… and I think that…”. Finally, I told him that what he thinks has no value for the Lord, and for anyone of us, and it is vanity. He looked at me totally astonished. So I asked him to read Ps. 94:11. He did and stopped talking… the Lord shut his mouth.
There was no sense in him for the Spirit of the Lord, no spiritual intelligence, no seeking of truth, he just came in like “an elephant into a china shop”. What is more, some of those women, as I was giving them personal goodbye, told me privately that this particular elder was so vain and proud that it pains them whenever he comes to their assembly. So much for that fact and experience that further confirms the despicable state of the leadership of that particular church organization.
And then there was a man who was supposed to help our Mission in Slovakia and we put our trust in him. Little did we know what was in his heart even though he was a believer for many years. His dwelling place was found to be a true mirror of his heart: dirty, poorly maintained, in disrepair in many ways. He himself had no job and was not seriously looking for one. He was slothful and preferred to live on government welfare with his wife (who was rather diligent) and their six children (1Tim. 5:8). He had no taste for any diligent work except to “preach” in churches. Later on we found out that he turned our Mission into his personal “milking cow” charging us everything he possibly could including his private car trips. It did not occur to him that he was wasting the Lord’s money.
Such believers are simply absorbed in themselves, fully occupied with their own interests, and the Spirit of the Lord is nowhere. Yet, the Spirit knows us completely and sees exactly what obstacles there are in our heart and soul, which effectively prevent Him from guiding us and taking us further than just to our bare redemption.
One example of this man’s soul is this. In one of his letters (Sept. 7, 1999), he wrote to me: “My dear brother, I do not know who you are, but I believe that you are the Servant of the Most High God and that you are the Voice of God for my life, that it might be built for His Praise and Glory.”
In another letter, he wrote that having been a believer for about 25 years, he experienced the “whip” of the Lord and His chastisement for the first time. (Heb. 12:5-8) Everything seemed to be going the right way for that man. But later on, his “old man”, old nature with his plans, desires, intentions, beliefs and habits proved too strong for him to continue on this “narrow way”. The true reason for his inability was the fact that all his religion was in his head, his beliefs were all intellectual and NOT IN HIS HEART. He also suffered from a great selfishness. This fact generally applies to every carnal believer.
OUR OLD SELF (OLD CHARACTER) STANDS IN THE WAY OF GOD, AND GOD WILL NOT FORCE IT AWAY. God often brings our self into a deep despair, great problems, storms, sufferings and conflicts and pains in order to complete in our soul a necessary further work. And if God does not do that work, OUR OLD SELF PREVENTS US VERY EFFECTIVELY FROM RECEIVING FROM GOD ANY FURTHER LIGHT AND TRUTH AND BLESSINGS.
Let us never forget that our “old man”, old nature, OUR SELF IS QUITE ABLE to become religious and quite successful in religious circles, to pray nice, even elaborate attractive prayers, to “praise the Lord” when it feels good, or when it is expected of him, to preach or teach his intellectual knowledge of the Bible to others, to behave as a “good Christian” and thus become an “example” to others. How is it possible? Because HE IS BLIND TO HIMSELF and thus SELF-DECEIVED! BECAUSE HIS SOURCE, HIS LIFE, IS NOT OF GOD! This applies to multitudes of believers and many ministers. Furthermore, our “self” is not different from the “self” of pagans, except that our “self” went to the baptismal water with us… if we were baptized at all!
Now, we understand our former brother and those like him. It was not uncommon for believers to consider us as a “rich American Mission”. Hence, we were supposed to pay for all that they did, planned or dreamed about. Nobody ever enquired about the reality concerning us and this ministry. Nobody knows that we are now only four families receiving no subsidy from anyone! We never undertook any fundraising and never will. Yet, we write, edit and print our books and send them free & post-paid to 68 countries of the world! And for all our ministry to the Church in these countries, we pay from our own salaries and pensions! You might as well consider it a true miracle from the Lord what you are holding in your hand and reading right now. It is truly His gift to you (see also page ii, and 1Cor. 1:26-29). Back to our man…
When he was finally deposed from his position in our Mission, his pride was deeply hurt and he became furious. He mailed personal letters to the addresses he had from our Mission accusing us how we owed him money and refused to pay him. He spewed his poison of bitterness all around and managed to take some of our former “brethren” away from us. We are sure before the Lord that to this day he has no clue what he has done and that he has done it to his own Saviour (if he is truly saved) and to His vineyard. I would not like to be in his shoes when he stands before the Judge of all the dead and living. Nevertheless, I pray to Our Lord to graciously look down on this victim of the devil, to forgive him and prevent anyone from his family to perish. Amen.
The tragedy is that none of such men seem to be willing to pause, ponder, see, admit, repent, be forgiven, cleansed and delivered from the powers of evil that had caused them to do all that evil, and go on unto perfection. (Heb. 6:1)
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST IS ONLY AS GOOD AS EVERY INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN IS. HOW WE ARE INDIVIDUALLY AFFECTS THE WHOLE CHURCH – AND HER HEAD.
I want you to see and understand in your HEART and not just in your mind that the experiences described above are very serious. They show how believers, no matter how sincere, decent or in what church leadership position they are, may be deeply deceived when their HEART is not renewed and cleansed by the Spirit of the Lord; when it is only their mind that tries to understand, direct and govern their religious life. I am also sure that many of such believers do not believe in the powers of darkness and their influence on their own hearts and minds.
For that reason, I must quote from the excellent book “The Battle for Life[3]” by T. Austin-Sparks (page 99):
“You can never undo divisions among the saints by bringing saints together to discuss their differences, and to ask them to make them up. The only way in which such things can be dealt with amongst the Lord’s people is to get down on your knees and deal with the forces behind. The power of the enemy behind that thing has to be broken. You can never ever patch up a situation like that, because it is devilish.”
The Lord is showing the state of the Church and of its leadership whether it is a large denomination, small fellowship, house group or other gatherings of believers. Most of their leaders, NOT ALL, are sufficiently self-righteous not to recognize the voice of the Lord, His desire or judgment for HIS Church, which HE is building and not them! (Mt. 16:18) They would not respond to anyone who shows the slightest sign of endangering their image or their position or their traditions or their way of doing things!
THE MOST TRAGIC FACT IS THAT MANY MINISTERS DO NOT CARE FOR THE WORD OF GOD! THUS, THEY DO NOT FEAR GOD! MAY THE LORD BE MERCIFULL TO THEM IN THE DAY OF THEIR JUDGMENT… FOR IT IS THEIR FLESH THAT IS TRYING TO BUILD HIS CHURCH AND DO THE WORK OF HIS SPIRIT. THEY WILL NEVER SUCCEED IN THEIR EFFORTS.
(To be continued next week in part 6)
brother Hanola
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