Christendom has Despised Jesus
Posted by appolus on December 18, 2013
Now I realize that this is a provocative title, I make no apologies for that. In 2 Sam 12, we find King David in a very bad situation. He has committed adultery with Bathsheba, he tried to cover his tracks when she got pregnant, but a foreign convert , Uriah the Hittite , the husband of Bathsheba was more honorable that David. Therefore David’s attempts to cover up his adultery was foiled so David had him killed.
Brothers and sisters, this is such a low state for the man after God’s own heart. And after Nathan the prophet comes to David and exposes him, God speaks. God speaks brothers and sisters, one should be very afraid when God speaks, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. And here is the charge that God levels against David, His beloved. ” You have despised me.” ( 1 Sam 12:10) Can you imagine hearing that charge against you from God? Yet that is exactly what David heard.
Now this word despised in the Greek is ” baw-zaw,” meaning to disesteem, to think lightly off. It is the same word used in Gen 25:34 to describe Esau’s selling of his birthright for some bread and some soup. Can you imagine selling your birthright just simply to satisfy your immediate needs? Can you imagine that food on the table would be thought more highly off than the Living God and the birthright that He has given to us? And yet, do we not live in a day and age where our immediate needs, meaning the basic needs of this world and our day-to-day living are thought more highly of than God? Are we not encouraged to live our best lives now? Have we not allowed our desires and hungers to be elevated above our love and desire for God? And are we not blind to it, so terribly blind to it? If David needed a prophet to reveal his wickedness, and this a man after God’s own heart, beloved of God, are we so proud as to think that we would not need this level of rebuke?
We are that blind, Christendom is that blind and in fact has never been more blind to its state. So the question is, is Christendom today representative of Esau or David? It’s a hugely important question. As soon as God finishes speaking to David, rebuking him, David says this “ I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Sam 12:13) We see humility in David as the prophet tells him that by his actions God is blasphemed by His enemies. And because of that humility, David is forgiven, not without consequences, but forgiven none-the-less. The very next thing we here about Esau after he had despised his birthright is that he marries two woman outside of the faith so to speak, he marries two Hittites strangely enough. He is doubling down on his sin and fully immersing himself in the world.
Christendom today has despised God in the fullest sense of that word. They are as blind to their sin as David was. And unless they hear God directly and acknowledge and repent of their sin as David did, they will be hopelessly lost to, and be entangled by the cares of this world. In describing what is and what is not the Kingdom of God Jesus says this “And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful…….For there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed; nor became covered, but that it might come to the light. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.” ( Mar 4:19-23)
So Father I pray this morning, in the mighty name of Jesus our Lord, that Christendom, all that calls itself by thy name and has caused your enemies to blaspheme you, shall hear the word of God as David heard and be broken and contrite before your throne for despising you. For despising their birthright and allowing the cares of this world and their immediate needs to overshadow you Lord, may they find forgiveness rather than further entanglement with this world which will surely choke them to death. Lord you lay before us life and death, may we all reach out and take a hold of life, eternal life and may we despise, think lightly off the things of this world for they are surely passing away and before very long we shall all stand before you. We pray this in the name of Jesus.
A Call To The Remnant 
Christendom has Despised Jesus | Jeremy B. Strang said
[…] Christendom has Despised Jesus […]
steffiedotorg said
Amen.
Leslie Manto said
Amen, dear brother. May we tremble and weep before our Holy God.
KMH said
I praise God for recording David’s repentance and also Psalm 51. The church is so proud. I was very discouraged, this summer especially thinking the church will NEVER repent (I have VERY proud pastors I was dealing with-since left that church but it is very hard to find humble pastors, true men of God -they are more like cell phone plans -just want your monthly “contract”). God reminded me of David. I spent many hours just praising God and reading David’s heart of humility. Thank you, Brother Frank for this post. I look forward to your posts every day. (: May God bless you and your family and give you an INCREDIBLY special Christmas! Know many are praying for you and your wife and family!
appolus said
“Know many are praying for you and your wife and family!” This is a humbling and beautiful thing, it is a privilege to have people pray for us……………..bro Frank
Susanne Schuberth (Germany) said
Amen. Outstanding God-inspired words, brother, reminding us of our duty to fear God alone.
Reading (start of quote) “And unless they hear God directly and acknowledge and repent of their sin as David did, they will be hopelessly lost to, and be entangled by the cares of this world.” (end of quote), and also reflecting upon KMH’s comment, I was reminded of a man’s prophetic call inside the church that has never ceased to amaze me as I wonder about God’s unfathomable ways and thoughts.
His name was Johann Koller. He was an Austrian prelate in Vienna, appointed by John Paul II, who served in the Roman Catholic Church as a priest until his dying day on April 28 in 2010 at 0.55 pm. Let me tell you why I remember his time of death so precisely.
At that time I had never come to know anybody personally who knew Christ’s embraces from their own experience. Not one, indeed. One day as I was writing down my spiritual experiences with God – which finally resulted in a fat book the RCC here in the archdiocese Bamberg in Bavaria didn’t want to publish – I randomly banged into an Austrian website. There, Johann Koller, honestly and humbly, had written about his painful experiences during “the dark night of the soul” (cf. John of the Cross). My heart was set on fire since those anointed books from John of the Cross had been my only help since the year 2000 when God had plunged me into a deep ocean of darkness combined with painful suffering and mourning while simultaneously pouring His heavenly light into my soul.
I remember sitting in front of the computer weeping, and weeping, and weeping…
Yet I was so happy having found his testimony that I wrote an email to him. I saw that my email had been read and since I didn’t ask for a response, I was content about the way things were.
Soon afterwards I found out that Johann Koller had been ill and in the hospital. Therefore I thought, “No wonder that he couldn’t reply to me.” However, only a few days later when I was on my usual prayer walk through the forest, something strange happened to me. I recall having felt a certain kind of bliss which had been unknown to me before whenever I was walking through that forest after having sent my email to Johann.
It was Wednesday, the 28th of April in 2010, a few minutes before 1:00 pm. Suddenly I felt nudged to pray for Johann. Since I knew that he was sick, I tried to pray for healing. But God’s Spirit gently hindered me to do so. I remember having prayed without words, as unexpectedly recurring overwhelming waves of bliss were drowning my senses. I was almost carried off my feet then. Astonishingly, at that very moment, I felt Johann’s presence as near as Christ’s and our Father’s. Consulting my watch, it was 0:55 pm.
This is the fellowship of the saints in His Sprit, isn’t it? There is an invisible cloud of witnesses around us who join us in our suffering and rejoice in our victories as to resisting the devil. These saints, all of them, support us in a way I could not imagine before that very date. Or in other words, quoted from the blog post linked below, “We cannot see the spiritual dimension, but those in the spiritual dimension can see us. Therefore, we are not the audience; we are the show.”
http://blogforthelordjesus.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/we-are-not-the-audience-we-are-the-show/
We are not alone, brothers and sisters.
W.E. Smith said
There is a question that it seems compromised, religious men can never answer – “The baptism of John, is it from heaven or from men.”
Dear saints – for us outside the wall, on the hillside, down in the valley, we must be very clear in this hour that we can discern all that which is from heaven and that which is merely of men (religion).
If it is from men, what will you do? Why are you supporting it? Why does it make you feel empty, guilty, always hungry going back for more to be filled, when it can never fill you?
It doesn’t really matter what is is called – christianity, hinduism, atheism, agnosticism – it is all the same in the end.
It is designed to bring glory and power and authority to men, that they might lord over others, His little ones, the very ones He said warned of bringing offense against.
It is this simple. Just ask Him, Lord is this from heaven, are You in this, behind it, breathing on it, or is it merely from men (and ultimately Satan).
These men in their hearts want to sit beside the Lord on His throne, as the sons of zebedee and their mother. Yet they don’t want to suffer, to lose, to die for it.
appolus said
Amen dear brother. I think this is why suffering is so important and our attitude towards it. It burns away all the flesh, in suffering there is nothing for the flesh to boast in. Some would boast of their ministries and achievements , and others would rather talk about their infirmities and their deep valleys of sufferings because in the midst of them they have found the Lord their God for His sake alone and not for anything that can be found in this world. The only praise that reaches heaven is the praise from those who carry their cross and praise Him in the midst of dying daily……….bro Frank