Mailing #77 Dealings Within The Church Chapter 2 Part 14 (Word to the Church)

Normally, PEOPLE ARE NOT FREE TO SPEAK TRUTH or what they believe is truth! On the other hand, many people seem to be ready to open their hearts and divulge their most private mat­­ters on national TV talk shows or at media inter­views rather than to their brethren or pastors from the Lord. Do you see it?

This flies squarely into the face of Satan’s principal de­cept­ion of telling believers that they are “fine”, they just have to sit in their church and “be good Christians”. Of course, Satan does not mind if they pray, worship, sing, give tithe and offerings, participate in the activ­ities and programs of their church PROVIDED that they do not start to participate in their own salvation, fight their own hypocrisy and open their heart to the Lord! NO, NO, NO! Satan would throw at them all his devilish and demonic forces, tricks, temptations, lies and deception the moment they dare to do that. Why? Well, if they would open their heart to the Lord, Satan’s kingdom in it and its influence or governing of their souls would be de­stroy­ed without any doubt! It would just be a matter of time.

7.    After considering the above described phenome­na and spirit­­ual facts, I do not believe that it should be difficult for us to see and understand, what may be happen­­ing in the Church of Jesus Christ in terms of preach­ing, teach­ing or just sharing or fellowshipping.

We may have never considered in our mind and heart that the things described above are possible without us even being aware of them in our own conscience. We may have never felt that there might be something wrong with us or in us, in our mind or in our heart. We may have never believed that the Lord may have different ways and prio­rities for us than we have.

 In our mind, we are always “fine” and all our ways are clean and wise in our own eyes. (Pr. 16:2) We are not prone to foolishness or make mistakes, hence nobody should tell us what to do, how to do it or give us any counsel of any kind. Right? Well, this is exactly the true depth of our deception! And this also applies to many mini­sters who may have been mini­ster­ing 15, 25, 35 years or more. For many of them it is absolut­e­ly un­think­able and impossible to receive counsel from anyone else!

THEY KNOW IT ALL… THEY WILL NEVER NEED ANY COUN­SEL, INSTRUCTION OR CORRECTION OF ANY KIND… EVEN FROM THE LORD! AND THEY HAVE NO TIME… THEY “WORK THE LORD”, FOR they are very busy… but He may have no access to their closed hearts! And what keeps them from the Lord’s necessary counsel or correc­tion? PRIDE! That is all!

Imagine that I should come to Joyce Meyer (of TBN, see p.47) and tell her: “Sister, you are breaking the Word of God and are in danger of God’s Judgment. You should stop your ministry and ask the Lord what you should do according to His counsel.” Do you think she would reply: “Oh, thank you brother very much for telling me this truth. I am so glad that you came and told me. I will go to the Lord immediately”? Forgive me, please, but this could be the greatest joke on this side of the Universe. The Lord says that it is only God’s fire that will change her mind! (Heb. 12:28,29) Do you believe this simple fact? Well, you might see it if you live long enough.

Try to ask anyone in any church: How are you? You will get only one answer: “Fine…” even if the man may be divorced, have cancer, be in deep debt and his two children were in jail! Many Christians are such masters of hypocrisy that they should deserve an “Oscar” for their performance. However, the “Oscar” they are going to get will be awarded to them at a different ceremony and on a different stage.

UNLESS WE OPEN OUR HEART TO THE LORD AND WITH HIS HELP DILIGENTLY SEARCH ITS DEPTHS, WE WILL NEVER FIND ANYTHING WRONG WITH US OR IN US!

We will never find out that such phenomena and spirit­ual facts may happen in us or to us from others and that we might not even be conscious of those facts.

8.    I also want to share something about our relation­ships, our dealings with one another whether it be in church­es or home fellowships or just between some indivi­duals. These dealings create our relationships with one another, with the Lord and also show our spiritual progress or regress or our stagnation.

Let me give you one very practical example of what I mean. Get an elastic band, attach one end to a solid sup­port and begin to pull the other end away from the support. It is only a matter of time when you reach a certain distance from the attached end of the band and… it snaps! Suddenly, no warning. So it is with our relationships. When we move in a certain direction and the other person keeps sitting, we cannot remain together for long. Our mutual departure may come very suddenly and without any warning. It should be easy to translate this fact into our spiritual life.

The soul that moves, “presses” forward focusing on the Lord, growing up into Him, CANNOT FELLOWSHIP for long with the one who loves to sit and play in his “religious sandbox” and has no intention to move! The brethren that the Lord removed from our fellowship in Montreal were typical examples. They just loved to do “their own thing” and had no intent­ion to step on the narrow way, deny their old life and childish religion and begin to grow up in spirit, mature. So, the time came when the spiritual situation became in­toler­able, the link snapped and we were suddenly separated from one another – by the Spirit of the Lord Himself! Then they dis­appeared into their spiritual wild­er­ness never to be seen again. (read also detailed accounts in Parts VIa and VIb^[9])

Some brethren just desired to “sit in our boat” and not row at all. They allowed the other “foolish” brethren to toil in rowing while they “enjoyed the scenery”. (Mk. 6:46-48) It took us a long time before the Lord finally showed us that this is not exactly what He expects His disciples to do. The truth is: Row or swim … or walk on the water… if you can. Choose one of these, because our “boat” is not a cruise ship where you are fed without moving your finger.

We must realize that the Lord first sends us His Light by spoken or written Word through His servants and then He gives us a sufficient span of time to con­si­der it, re­pent and change our ways, if necessary. Only then the Lord brings His Judgment, but never with­out first warning us and granting us sufficient time. (Rev. 2:21)

9.    Speaking about judgments, I will share with you how I learned to judge many situations prepared for me by the Lord. I learned many of them on my own skin so what I will share is from a practical Christian life.

   a) It happened many times that the Lord had quite clearly shown a problem, either created by a believer or magnified by his words or actions or inactions. When it was pointed out to him, his reply was: “So, that means that next time, I have to be more careful, right?”

On one hand, his reply was not bad since he did not try to “weasel out” of his part in the problem. On the other hand, it was a true sur­prise for him to learn that “next time he does not have to be more careful!” I told him, in fact, that next time he should be LESS careful! He was puzzled. But this kind of a “puzzle” has enormous applica­tion­s in our earthly lives and in our salvation process. Why?

Whenever we create or become part of a problem, we try to FIX THE PROBLEM INSTEAD OF FIXING OURSELVES! Most of our problems are either created or magnified by our old self. Often the problem is not the “problem” – the problem is OUR SELF. The problem often dwells in our flesh and not in outside circum­stan­ces. We need to be delivered from the offensive, evil or foolish spirits in our souls and not “try to be more careful” in our flesh and there­by pre­­­serve it or improve it! Our “New Man” will not create such problems, hence, he does not have to be “more careful”.

Problems will never cease or change for better. If we, there­fore, desire a true success with problems, WE must change and not the problems. If we do not change, our specific problems will never disappear. This may not be difficult to imagine but rather difficult to do.

   b) Another situation may arise quite frequently when a believer has sinned, done foolishness or offended some other man, or the Lord may have uncovered unright­eous deeds from his past. The believer repents in tears and even on his knees. He declares that he hates it and does not desire to repeat such things in the future. He desires to do what is right and close the door to his past. Thus far, all is well.

Then, maybe in less than 30 minutes, he becomes jovial, making fun and jokes. Next week, he repeats the foolishness or takes the wrong he had done in the past lightly. His fruit clearly does not correspond to his repent­ance including his tears! But, what a performance of the old man! Of course, his tears are “crocodile tears”, which he is shedding primarily in self-pity that he was caught and ex­posed. We do need such shocks to start perceiving the true depth of deception and recover from our human naivety.

It took me quite a while to recognize a simple fact, that our old man is truly a master of performance and is well able to deceive even the most experienced ones. Tears of self-pity are common, promises of “the moon and stars” are also common, declarations that “I am doing my best” are most common. The man is able to deceive himself by such performances. How true rings the Word of Our Lord where He says that “we shall know them by their fruits” and by nothing else! Our old man is a “corrupt tree” in us and cannot bring forth good fruit. Our New Man is a good tree in us and cannot bring forth evil fruit. (Mt. 7:18-20)

   c) Another situation, which I have observed many times depicts a believer who has been convicted of wrong­­doing, sinning, unrighteousness or some foolishness at the meet­ing of the Body of Christ. He is unable to repent or say any­­thing accept­able. He has the countenance of a man “fallen from Mars”. He is absolutely convinced that he is a “nice guy” and we all have been judging him unright­eously… and he does not deserve it! Satan is working overtime to give him the most stupid and untrue thoughts to justify him­self and fight any truth. He cannot stop his thinking process and grasp some faith because faith, if any, is in his heart and, thus far, his heart has been closed & locked. So, even if the Lord had deposited into his heart some faith about the man himself, he has no way of grasping it and thereby overcoming him­self and also his  sinful or awkward situation.

He begins to defend himself with every­thing available to him, then to accuse others of being responsible for some of his failures or problems mentioned. He tries to “weasel out” of the situation by any means. Then he starts compli­cat­­­ing things by bringing chaos into an otherwise clear situation or bringing doubts into what is absolutely clear to every­one else. He is able, without blinking an eye, to stand alone against several brethren who have the same mind and faith about him! Finally, he tries to say in a long speech what he is going through and how he is suffering. He will take any step to avoid declaring that he is the guilty party and is willing to start his recovery in the hand of the Lord. It is clear that the man is blind and desires to stay blind. So, the Lord has to send thunder & lightning into his life to crack open his heart and give him sufficient Light so that he would start seeing himself and thus be enabled to repent and change his course. More­over, when he overcomes and admits his guilt, his burden will depart and he will feel light as a “feather”.

   d) A very important situation arises when such a man is finally “cracked” and becomes able to see at least some of the truth about himself. He may even admit that, yes, he was wrong, his spirit was evil at such-and-such a time, he showed pride, jealousy, self-righteousness, self­ish­ness, fears, etc. He is then able to repent, BUT… he is still unable to perform the truth that he received. He can only see and understand the truth, but his heart is unable to execute it, live it. There is still a deep resist­ance in the heart, and the flesh of his heart is still proud and unrespon­sive.

This man needs some time to “cook” in a spiritual pot; in a press­ure cooker of adversity, where the “flesh” of his heart would soften up and he would finally be WILLING IN HIS HEART to live the truth. This is the last stage of breaking Satan’s bunk­ers and defence lines, breaking the very “spine of his nature” in the believer’s heart and soul!

How should a believer be “cooked”? There are many ways to do it. If we follow the Lord, He will always give us the wisdom, which again de­pends on the circum­stan­ces of each believ­er. The Lord will teach us everything that is necessary for every believer. (Mk. 1:17) The Lord will also arrange the degree of adversity, its temperature, pressure and timing so that the saint will “come out of the fire” meek and thankful, precious as re­fined gold. (1Pet. 1:7// Rev. 3:18) Do you know what I am saying here?  Do you believe it?

Have you ever observed such situations in your church meet­­­ings? I am not speaking about auditoria with hundreds or thousands of people, but about smaller home or cell fellowships. If none of the above situations has ever happened in your meetings, then it is hardly the Lord’s living Church. It may just be a gathering of believers debating the Bible or their never-ending problems with no real work of the Spirit taking place, with no change in the nature of the believers, no deliverance of their human soul from the spirits of dark­ness and evil.

Before we conclude this important chapter on the TRUE DEPTH OF DECEPTION, I must mention two perhaps unusual facts, which nevertheless greatly influence and deter­mine the ROAD TO OUR DESTINY.

(1)   The first fact touches my own spiritual childhood and what was, in my faith, the most important step, which the Lord took with me about 2 years after revealing Him­self to me by His Spirit. I must be extremely brief because, in fact, such steps continue and we have to take them in some form or another during our entire Christian lifetime.

The very first thing the Lord started to show me was my spiritual NAÏVITY! Then He showed me that I was not any exception, but rather the rule because EVERY BORN-AGAIN BELIEV­ER AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS NARROW ROAD IS SPIRITUALLY TOTALLY NAÏVE!  In what way and why? Well, all believers are born into a total­ly different sp it­ual world, into a Family with a totally dif­fer­­ent Charac­ter, Life, Exist­ence, Real­ity! NONE OF US HAD ANY CLUE ABOUT THIS NEW SPIRITUAL WORLD AND ITS REALITY!

Even after our Redemption, we all have the tend­ency to keep living in our imaginations, expectations or soul­ish dreams unless we start to desire and allow the Lord to begin reveal­ing to us this New Family, Reality and Life and how HE LIVES IT. Very few believers aspire to His Reality. The main reason is that the Lord will never take the hand of our “old man” and reveal to him anything. Hence, the majority of believers re­main naïve as children, but not innocent as children! They seeing see not, and hearing hear not, neither do they under­stand anything because their heart is closed – unresponsive. (Mt. 13:13-15)  Accord­ing to the above Word of Our Lord, such believers are not even con­verted or healed.

IF WE REFUSE TO MATURE, WE REMAIN NAÏVE IN ALL SPIRITUAL MATTERS. WE WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THOSE THAT TRULY MATURE AND WILL ALWAYS RESIST THEM AND JUDGE THEM UNRIGHTEOUSLY.

(2)   The second fact touches the way which God has pro­vided for people to get out of their dark­ness, decep­tion and naivety. In the Old Testament, God had given Israel some prophets who received the Word of God, which means, Light from God and gave It to the people. This Light from God for the people was the only means to keep them from darkness and deception, from remaining naïve! No one else could see what only the prophets, the “seers”, could see. (1Sam. 9:9// 2Ki. 17:13// Is. 30:9,10)

In the New Testament, the Spirit of God was given to all the born-again believers who were baptized in water. (Acts 2:38) We are told that He will guide us into all truth. (Jn. 16:13) The Israel of the Old Testament never had such chances but had to rely completely and totally on their comparatively few prophets whom God had given them.

YET, in the New Testament, God, again, gave to the Church “some prophets”. (Eph. 4:11) What does that mean?

Our God must have seen it as wise and necessary to have the office of a pro­phet, seer, he who sees the spiritual world, also in the New Testament. This despite the fact that the Spirit dwells in every born-again believer and is able to “guide him into all truth”, meaning, THAT “all truth” that he personally needs for HIS function­ing as a believer, also as an evan­gel­­ist, pastor, teacher, preacher, etc. But to interpret the Mind and Heart of God to the Church at large, to judge or warn the Church about various dangers and to demystify import­ant steps or Judgments of God belongs to the pro­phets. This is a very unthankful work for which they were and still are hated, rejected, killed or otherwise mistreated. (ex.: Mt. 23:30-34// Rom. 11:3// 1Thess. 2:14-16)

 The truth is that no man can call himself, or study to be­come a prophet or an apostle. No seminary, no amount of study or knowledge will make you a prophet and no one can ordain you to be a prophet or an apostle. These are not just offices that man may assume or someone else may assign to you. Not at all. It is a sovereign calling of God usually from man’s birth. What MAN IS IN HIMSELF, is what makes (or does not make) him a prophet. Prophecy is his life and not just his “office”. Great prophets have been called from their mother’s womb, (Is. 49:1,2,5// Jer. 1:5// Lk. 1:15 // Gal. 1:15,16) no man had ordained them but God! Man may ordain elders who are to direct churches in differ­ent cities (Tit. 1:5) but not apostles or prophets.

When such a man is called to speak what he sees with God and we do not listen, we are automatically in big trouble! If you do not believe me just read what happened to the chosen people of God who did not listen to the One sent to them. He Himself wept over them and told them plainly that they killed the prophets and stoned them that were sent unto them. Then He told them: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” (Mt. 23:37,38)

For two thousand years, the chosen people of God be­came so desolate that no other people in the history of man­kind suffered such desolation! And the Holocaust seems to be, as it were, a “crown of thorns” of that desolation. Shall I continue?

*         *        *

I pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to help every reader who desires sincerely in his heart to change his ways, his life, his cir­cum­stances, his living conditions, his fears or doubts about his future and his destination itself. May the Lord enable every such soul to begin walking on the new way, the narrow way, which leads to Life Eternal, to the King­dom of Heaven on Earth and finally to the New Heaven and New Jerusalem.

 I KNOW that He will answer this prayer to every reader who turns to Him and opens his/her heart to Him. Amen.

Mailing #77 Dealings Within The Church Chapter 2 Part 14 (Word to the Church)

Normally, PEOPLE ARE NOT FREE TO SPEAK TRUTH or what they believe is truth! On the other hand, many people seem to be ready to open their hearts and divulge their most private mat­­ters on national TV talk shows or at media inter­views rather than to their brethren or pastors from the Lord. Do you see it?

This flies squarely into the face of Satan’s principal de­cept­ion of telling believers that they are “fine”, they just have to sit in their church and “be good Christians”. Of course, Satan does not mind if they pray, worship, sing, give tithe and offerings, participate in the activ­ities and programs of their church PROVIDED that they do not start to participate in their own salvation, fight their own hypocrisy and open their heart to the Lord! NO, NO, NO! Satan would throw at them all his devilish and demonic forces, tricks, temptations, lies and deception the moment they dare to do that. Why? Well, if they would open their heart to the Lord, Satan’s kingdom in it and its influence or governing of their souls would be de­stroy­ed without any doubt! It would just be a matter of time.

7.    After considering the above described phenome­na and spirit­­ual facts, I do not believe that it should be difficult for us to see and understand, what may be happen­­ing in the Church of Jesus Christ in terms of preach­ing, teach­ing or just sharing or fellowshipping.

We may have never considered in our mind and heart that the things described above are possible without us even being aware of them in our own conscience. We may have never felt that there might be something wrong with us or in us, in our mind or in our heart. We may have never believed that the Lord may have different ways and prio­rities for us than we have.

 In our mind, we are always “fine” and all our ways are clean and wise in our own eyes. (Pr. 16:2) We are not prone to foolishness or make mistakes, hence nobody should tell us what to do, how to do it or give us any counsel of any kind. Right? Well, this is exactly the true depth of our deception! And this also applies to many mini­sters who may have been mini­ster­ing 15, 25, 35 years or more. For many of them it is absolut­e­ly un­think­able and impossible to receive counsel from anyone else!

THEY KNOW IT ALL… THEY WILL NEVER NEED ANY COUN­SEL, INSTRUCTION OR CORRECTION OF ANY KIND… EVEN FROM THE LORD! AND THEY HAVE NO TIME… THEY “WORK THE LORD”, FOR they are very busy… but He may have no access to their closed hearts! And what keeps them from the Lord’s necessary counsel or correc­tion? PRIDE! That is all!

Imagine that I should come to Joyce Meyer (of TBN, see p.47) and tell her: “Sister, you are breaking the Word of God and are in danger of God’s Judgment. You should stop your ministry and ask the Lord what you should do according to His counsel.” Do you think she would reply: “Oh, thank you brother very much for telling me this truth. I am so glad that you came and told me. I will go to the Lord immediately”? Forgive me, please, but this could be the greatest joke on this side of the Universe. The Lord says that it is only God’s fire that will change her mind! (Heb. 12:28,29) Do you believe this simple fact? Well, you might see it if you live long enough.

Try to ask anyone in any church: How are you? You will get only one answer: “Fine…” even if the man may be divorced, have cancer, be in deep debt and his two children were in jail! Many Christians are such masters of hypocrisy that they should deserve an “Oscar” for their performance. However, the “Oscar” they are going to get will be awarded to them at a different ceremony and on a different stage.

UNLESS WE OPEN OUR HEART TO THE LORD AND WITH HIS HELP DILIGENTLY SEARCH ITS DEPTHS, WE WILL NEVER FIND ANYTHING WRONG WITH US OR IN US!

We will never find out that such phenomena and spirit­ual facts may happen in us or to us from others and that we might not even be conscious of those facts.

8.    I also want to share something about our relation­ships, our dealings with one another whether it be in church­es or home fellowships or just between some indivi­duals. These dealings create our relationships with one another, with the Lord and also show our spiritual progress or regress or our stagnation.

Let me give you one very practical example of what I mean. Get an elastic band, attach one end to a solid sup­port and begin to pull the other end away from the support. It is only a matter of time when you reach a certain distance from the attached end of the band and… it snaps! Suddenly, no warning. So it is with our relationships. When we move in a certain direction and the other person keeps sitting, we cannot remain together for long. Our mutual departure may come very suddenly and without any warning. It should be easy to translate this fact into our spiritual life.

The soul that moves, “presses” forward focusing on the Lord, growing up into Him, CANNOT FELLOWSHIP for long with the one who loves to sit and play in his “religious sandbox” and has no intention to move! The brethren that the Lord removed from our fellowship in Montreal were typical examples. They just loved to do “their own thing” and had no intent­ion to step on the narrow way, deny their old life and childish religion and begin to grow up in spirit, mature. So, the time came when the spiritual situation became in­toler­able, the link snapped and we were suddenly separated from one another – by the Spirit of the Lord Himself! Then they dis­appeared into their spiritual wild­er­ness never to be seen again. (read also detailed accounts in Parts VIa and VIb^[9])

Some brethren just desired to “sit in our boat” and not row at all. They allowed the other “foolish” brethren to toil in rowing while they “enjoyed the scenery”. (Mk. 6:46-48) It took us a long time before the Lord finally showed us that this is not exactly what He expects His disciples to do. The truth is: Row or swim … or walk on the water… if you can. Choose one of these, because our “boat” is not a cruise ship where you are fed without moving your finger.

We must realize that the Lord first sends us His Light by spoken or written Word through His servants and then He gives us a sufficient span of time to con­si­der it, re­pent and change our ways, if necessary. Only then the Lord brings His Judgment, but never with­out first warning us and granting us sufficient time. (Rev. 2:21)

9.    Speaking about judgments, I will share with you how I learned to judge many situations prepared for me by the Lord. I learned many of them on my own skin so what I will share is from a practical Christian life.

   a) It happened many times that the Lord had quite clearly shown a problem, either created by a believer or magnified by his words or actions or inactions. When it was pointed out to him, his reply was: “So, that means that next time, I have to be more careful, right?”

On one hand, his reply was not bad since he did not try to “weasel out” of his part in the problem. On the other hand, it was a true sur­prise for him to learn that “next time he does not have to be more careful!” I told him, in fact, that next time he should be LESS careful! He was puzzled. But this kind of a “puzzle” has enormous applica­tion­s in our earthly lives and in our salvation process. Why?

Whenever we create or become part of a problem, we try to FIX THE PROBLEM INSTEAD OF FIXING OURSELVES! Most of our problems are either created or magnified by our old self. Often the problem is not the “problem” – the problem is OUR SELF. The problem often dwells in our flesh and not in outside circum­stan­ces. We need to be delivered from the offensive, evil or foolish spirits in our souls and not “try to be more careful” in our flesh and there­by pre­­­serve it or improve it! Our “New Man” will not create such problems, hence, he does not have to be “more careful”.

Problems will never cease or change for better. If we, there­fore, desire a true success with problems, WE must change and not the problems. If we do not change, our specific problems will never disappear. This may not be difficult to imagine but rather difficult to do.

   b) Another situation may arise quite frequently when a believer has sinned, done foolishness or offended some other man, or the Lord may have uncovered unright­eous deeds from his past. The believer repents in tears and even on his knees. He declares that he hates it and does not desire to repeat such things in the future. He desires to do what is right and close the door to his past. Thus far, all is well.

Then, maybe in less than 30 minutes, he becomes jovial, making fun and jokes. Next week, he repeats the foolishness or takes the wrong he had done in the past lightly. His fruit clearly does not correspond to his repent­ance including his tears! But, what a performance of the old man! Of course, his tears are “crocodile tears”, which he is shedding primarily in self-pity that he was caught and ex­posed. We do need such shocks to start perceiving the true depth of deception and recover from our human naivety.

It took me quite a while to recognize a simple fact, that our old man is truly a master of performance and is well able to deceive even the most experienced ones. Tears of self-pity are common, promises of “the moon and stars” are also common, declarations that “I am doing my best” are most common. The man is able to deceive himself by such performances. How true rings the Word of Our Lord where He says that “we shall know them by their fruits” and by nothing else! Our old man is a “corrupt tree” in us and cannot bring forth good fruit. Our New Man is a good tree in us and cannot bring forth evil fruit. (Mt. 7:18-20)

   c) Another situation, which I have observed many times depicts a believer who has been convicted of wrong­­doing, sinning, unrighteousness or some foolishness at the meet­ing of the Body of Christ. He is unable to repent or say any­­thing accept­able. He has the countenance of a man “fallen from Mars”. He is absolutely convinced that he is a “nice guy” and we all have been judging him unright­eously… and he does not deserve it! Satan is working overtime to give him the most stupid and untrue thoughts to justify him­self and fight any truth. He cannot stop his thinking process and grasp some faith because faith, if any, is in his heart and, thus far, his heart has been closed & locked. So, even if the Lord had deposited into his heart some faith about the man himself, he has no way of grasping it and thereby overcoming him­self and also his  sinful or awkward situation.

He begins to defend himself with every­thing available to him, then to accuse others of being responsible for some of his failures or problems mentioned. He tries to “weasel out” of the situation by any means. Then he starts compli­cat­­­ing things by bringing chaos into an otherwise clear situation or bringing doubts into what is absolutely clear to every­one else. He is able, without blinking an eye, to stand alone against several brethren who have the same mind and faith about him! Finally, he tries to say in a long speech what he is going through and how he is suffering. He will take any step to avoid declaring that he is the guilty party and is willing to start his recovery in the hand of the Lord. It is clear that the man is blind and desires to stay blind. So, the Lord has to send thunder & lightning into his life to crack open his heart and give him sufficient Light so that he would start seeing himself and thus be enabled to repent and change his course. More­over, when he overcomes and admits his guilt, his burden will depart and he will feel light as a “feather”.

   d) A very important situation arises when such a man is finally “cracked” and becomes able to see at least some of the truth about himself. He may even admit that, yes, he was wrong, his spirit was evil at such-and-such a time, he showed pride, jealousy, self-righteousness, self­ish­ness, fears, etc. He is then able to repent, BUT… he is still unable to perform the truth that he received. He can only see and understand the truth, but his heart is unable to execute it, live it. There is still a deep resist­ance in the heart, and the flesh of his heart is still proud and unrespon­sive.

This man needs some time to “cook” in a spiritual pot; in a press­ure cooker of adversity, where the “flesh” of his heart would soften up and he would finally be WILLING IN HIS HEART to live the truth. This is the last stage of breaking Satan’s bunk­ers and defence lines, breaking the very “spine of his nature” in the believer’s heart and soul!

How should a believer be “cooked”? There are many ways to do it. If we follow the Lord, He will always give us the wisdom, which again de­pends on the circum­stan­ces of each believ­er. The Lord will teach us everything that is necessary for every believer. (Mk. 1:17) The Lord will also arrange the degree of adversity, its temperature, pressure and timing so that the saint will “come out of the fire” meek and thankful, precious as re­fined gold. (1Pet. 1:7// Rev. 3:18) Do you know what I am saying here?  Do you believe it?

Have you ever observed such situations in your church meet­­­ings? I am not speaking about auditoria with hundreds or thousands of people, but about smaller home or cell fellowships. If none of the above situations has ever happened in your meetings, then it is hardly the Lord’s living Church. It may just be a gathering of believers debating the Bible or their never-ending problems with no real work of the Spirit taking place, with no change in the nature of the believers, no deliverance of their human soul from the spirits of dark­ness and evil.

Before we conclude this important chapter on the TRUE DEPTH OF DECEPTION, I must mention two perhaps unusual facts, which nevertheless greatly influence and deter­mine the ROAD TO OUR DESTINY.

(1)   The first fact touches my own spiritual childhood and what was, in my faith, the most important step, which the Lord took with me about 2 years after revealing Him­self to me by His Spirit. I must be extremely brief because, in fact, such steps continue and we have to take them in some form or another during our entire Christian lifetime.

The very first thing the Lord started to show me was my spiritual NAÏVITY! Then He showed me that I was not any exception, but rather the rule because EVERY BORN-AGAIN BELIEV­ER AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS NARROW ROAD IS SPIRITUALLY TOTALLY NAÏVE!  In what way and why? Well, all believers are born into a total­ly different sp it­ual world, into a Family with a totally dif­fer­­ent Charac­ter, Life, Exist­ence, Real­ity! NONE OF US HAD ANY CLUE ABOUT THIS NEW SPIRITUAL WORLD AND ITS REALITY!

Even after our Redemption, we all have the tend­ency to keep living in our imaginations, expectations or soul­ish dreams unless we start to desire and allow the Lord to begin reveal­ing to us this New Family, Reality and Life and how HE LIVES IT. Very few believers aspire to His Reality. The main reason is that the Lord will never take the hand of our “old man” and reveal to him anything. Hence, the majority of believers re­main naïve as children, but not innocent as children! They seeing see not, and hearing hear not, neither do they under­stand anything because their heart is closed – unresponsive. (Mt. 13:13-15)  Accord­ing to the above Word of Our Lord, such believers are not even con­verted or healed.

IF WE REFUSE TO MATURE, WE REMAIN NAÏVE IN ALL SPIRITUAL MATTERS. WE WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THOSE THAT TRULY MATURE AND WILL ALWAYS RESIST THEM AND JUDGE THEM UNRIGHTEOUSLY.

(2)   The second fact touches the way which God has pro­vided for people to get out of their dark­ness, decep­tion and naivety. In the Old Testament, God had given Israel some prophets who received the Word of God, which means, Light from God and gave It to the people. This Light from God for the people was the only means to keep them from darkness and deception, from remaining naïve! No one else could see what only the prophets, the “seers”, could see. (1Sam. 9:9// 2Ki. 17:13// Is. 30:9,10)

In the New Testament, the Spirit of God was given to all the born-again believers who were baptized in water. (Acts 2:38) We are told that He will guide us into all truth. (Jn. 16:13) The Israel of the Old Testament never had such chances but had to rely completely and totally on their comparatively few prophets whom God had given them.

YET, in the New Testament, God, again, gave to the Church “some prophets”. (Eph. 4:11) What does that mean?

Our God must have seen it as wise and necessary to have the office of a pro­phet, seer, he who sees the spiritual world, also in the New Testament. This despite the fact that the Spirit dwells in every born-again believer and is able to “guide him into all truth”, meaning, THAT “all truth” that he personally needs for HIS function­ing as a believer, also as an evan­gel­­ist, pastor, teacher, preacher, etc. But to interpret the Mind and Heart of God to the Church at large, to judge or warn the Church about various dangers and to demystify import­ant steps or Judgments of God belongs to the pro­phets. This is a very unthankful work for which they were and still are hated, rejected, killed or otherwise mistreated. (ex.: Mt. 23:30-34// Rom. 11:3// 1Thess. 2:14-16)

 The truth is that no man can call himself, or study to be­come a prophet or an apostle. No seminary, no amount of study or knowledge will make you a prophet and no one can ordain you to be a prophet or an apostle. These are not just offices that man may assume or someone else may assign to you. Not at all. It is a sovereign calling of God usually from man’s birth. What MAN IS IN HIMSELF, is what makes (or does not make) him a prophet. Prophecy is his life and not just his “office”. Great prophets have been called from their mother’s womb, (Is. 49:1,2,5// Jer. 1:5// Lk. 1:15 // Gal. 1:15,16) no man had ordained them but God! Man may ordain elders who are to direct churches in differ­ent cities (Tit. 1:5) but not apostles or prophets.

When such a man is called to speak what he sees with God and we do not listen, we are automatically in big trouble! If you do not believe me just read what happened to the chosen people of God who did not listen to the One sent to them. He Himself wept over them and told them plainly that they killed the prophets and stoned them that were sent unto them. Then He told them: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” (Mt. 23:37,38)

For two thousand years, the chosen people of God be­came so desolate that no other people in the history of man­kind suffered such desolation! And the Holocaust seems to be, as it were, a “crown of thorns” of that desolation. Shall I continue?

*         *        *

I pray to the Lord Jesus Christ to help every reader who desires sincerely in his heart to change his ways, his life, his cir­cum­stances, his living conditions, his fears or doubts about his future and his destination itself. May the Lord enable every such soul to begin walking on the new way, the narrow way, which leads to Life Eternal, to the King­dom of Heaven on Earth and finally to the New Heaven and New Jerusalem.

 I KNOW that He will answer this prayer to every reader who turns to Him and opens his/her heart to Him. Amen.

*     *     *

To be continued next week in part 15

brother Hanola

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