Archive for June, 2019
Posted by appolus on June 21, 2019
Who is on the Lord’s side?
In Exodus 32 we read a very disturbing story. Moses leaves the people and goes up into the mountain to be with God. It was not long at all before the people come to Aaron, his brother, a priest, the religious head, and demand from him an idol to worship because Moses was seemingly gone and would not return. Aaron, rather than stand his ground, placates the people and gives them what they want. He gathers from them gold and from that gold he makes a calf, the very god that was worshiped in Egypt, and the people fall down and worship this calf as they give this false god credit for taking them out of Egypt.
We are living in a day when the Lord’s presence has all but departed from our gatherings, our meetings, our churches. The people have come to the religious leaders and demanded that they ignore divorce. They have demanded that they recognize gay marriage. They have demanded that they recognize trans-genders. Every form of sin one can imagine the people have demanded the religious leaders legitimize. And once they got it the people have risen up and played the harlot with other gods while the King of Kings is relegated to a mere afterthought and a slogan.
Now, when Moses returns and confronts Aaron, listen to what Aaron says to Moses. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf (Exo 32:24) Aaron has not only completely ignored his role in the whole affair by blaming the people, he lies through his teeth. He says that he throws all the gold that was gathered, into a fire, and out pops, as if by magic, a golden calf. Yet we know from the previous verses that this of course was not so.
And all the people break off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.(Exo 32:3-4)
You see? He fashioned the idol with a graving tool. He, very particularly created the very god that they had been delivered from, the god that was worshiped by the Egyptians and under whose name they had been enslaved and treated cruelly for hundreds of years. They had fallen back into slavery. When Moses found them they were naked, they had been involved in every kind of sexual sin as they had thrown of all the restraints of a Holy God.
Now, the religious leaders of many of today’s denominations have thrown of all restraints. All over the world we see denominations embrace sexually sinful lifestyles for the same reason that Aaron did. Aaron feared the people. He was not a leader at all, Moses was. He feared that the people would reject him or kill him so he not only gave them what they wanted, he himself crafted the very gods that the people were bowing down to and rising up to play in the name of.
We see that the punishment was severe. Three thousand were killed by the hands of the Levites. Now we know that God could have slain them, He had slain others before who had been involved in rebellion. Yet here, the Levites must decide whom they serve. Undoubtedly they were called to slay those whom they knew, family members, friends and the like. Today, we must decide whom we shall serve. We are certainly not called to kill anyone but we are called to discern with whom we shall fellowship with.
Brothers and sisters do you dwell within an organization that is run by religious leaders who have capitulated to the noisiest and basest of people? Will you partake of their sin? We know from our reading of Scripture that not all the people indulged in this rebellion. In verse 26 Moses calls to the people “Who is on the Lord’s side?” The question for Christendom today is as relevant “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Will you be found standing upon the Lord and His Word or will you be found fallen and naked before the golden calf? The rebellion that we see in the Christian camp today all over the world is as serious if not more serious than what we read in the scriptural account here in Exodus. There comes a time when you must make a stand, you must decide if you will follow the people and what seems right in their eyes or will you follow the Lord and His Word even if it means that you will be despised and rejected by the world. As Moses learned a long time before it is better to ” suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” (Heb 11:26)
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Posted by appolus on June 18, 2019
Heb 13:13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
There is such a profound and deep truth in this scripture in regard to the subject of clergy/laity. Outside the camp, this was where the tabernacle was. the place of meeting God, the presence of God and that culminating in Jesus being sacrificed outside the camp, outside the walls.
And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the LORD went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.(Exo 33:7)
And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle. (Exo 33:8)
Moses met face to face and the people worshiped from their tent doors. There was a distance between God and man. Moses was their intermediary. Now in our modern church system, the pastor has become the intermediary in so many cases and the people stand at a distance at their tent doors. But as a royal priesthood we were not called to worship from a far with a man in the middle, unless that man is the man Christ Jesus. We have been called to be face to face.
We see in verse 7 that “every one which sought the LORD went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.” Most stayed by their tent doors within the camp. There is in an inherent risk going outside any camp, there is safety among the group, yet the ones which sought the Lord, face to face had to go outside of the camp.
Every single servant leader will point you in this direction. He will point you to Jesus, He will elevate Jesus and his greatest desire will be to see every single genuine saint come into a very deep and meaningful relationship. If possible, the servant leader would work himself out of a “job.” He would constantly be desiring to decrease so that the Lord our God would increase in the hearts and minds of the saints.
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Posted by appolus on June 15, 2019
Between 1489 and 1561 there lived a dear brother in Christ called Kaspar von Schwenckfeld, he was a nobleman from the German region of Silesia. He neither joined himself to the Catholic church, the Lutheran church nor the Anabaptists. He was a man of great influence not just in his own region but far beyond. At the age of 30 it is said that he was “awakened out of his indifference,” by Martin Luther’s “Wonderful trumpet of God,” and became very influential in the reformation movement in Silesia. Now before very long there was things that he found withinn the reformation that made him greatly uncomfortable, especially in matters surrounding “communion.” Luther and his minions viciously attacked this brother. Despite this, bro Kasper always acknowledged the great debt owed to Luther, this did not stop the attacks and being labeled a heretic. He was a lover of the Word of God and never ceased to read and to study it. He says of the reading of scripture that it was “a brooding over, seeking, boring into; indeed a reading and re-reading of all, chewing, meditating, turning over and thoroughly thinking out everything,for there, undiluted treasure is revealed to the believer, pure pearls, gold and precious stones.” Listen what Broadbent in his book the Pilgrim Church says what happened to Schwenckfeld about eight years after his first revelation……..
“Eight years after his first “visitation” he had a further experience which seemed to him to affect his life even more. Up to this time he had been zealous in proclaiming the Scriptures and Lutheranism; but now what he had intellectually believed turned to an entire persuasion of the heart. He was made aware of his heavenly calling, received an overwhelming assurance of salvation, yielded himself to God as a “living sacrifice.” A deep sense of sin and appreciation of the sufficiency of the redemption wrought for us in Christ, by His death and resurrection, captured his will, transformed his mind and brought him to that obedience in which he found liberty to do the will of God. He also made the discovery that the Scriptures not only give sure guidance as to personal justification and sanctification, but that they also contain definite instruction with regard to the Church.”
Schwenckfeld writes after this “”If we would reform the Church”, he said, “we must make use of the Holy Scriptures and especially of the Acts, where it is clearly to be found how things were in the beginning, what is right and what is wrong, what is praiseworthy and acceptable to God and to the Lord Christ.” He saw that the Church in the time of the Apostles and their immediate successors, was a glorious gathering, not only in one place but in many. He asks where such assemblies are to be found to-day, for, he says, “the Scripture knows no others than those which acknowledge Christ as their Head and willingly yield themselves to be ruled by the Holy Spirit, who adorns them with spiritual gifts and knowledge.” Jesus Himself directs through the spiritual gifts which He dispenses, not only to the whole Church, but also to the separate assemblies. In these assemblies spiritual gifts are manifested for the common good; the same Spirit divides the gifts, but they are manifested in each one of the members. The Spirit has un-trammelled liberty. If one, led by the Spirit, rises, the one already speaking must cease. The churches are not perfect, it is always possible that hypocrites may creep in unobserved, but when detected they must be excluded. Schwenckfeld could not therefore recognize the Reformed religion as a Church, because the great mass of the baptized Christians were without the Spirit of Christ and took the Sacrament without the grace of God. He was willing to receive the help of missionary organizations, if they did not pretend to take the place of churches of Jesus Christ. A National Church is one, he said, that has gone back to the stage reached in the Old Testament. (The Pilgrim Church)
Listen to what Tozer says in the last piece every written by him prior to his death, entitled “The waning authority of Christ in His churches.” “In the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be right because we have always done it that way, as have the other churches in our group.” Is this not the same complaint as our brother who lived four hundred years previously? Schwenckfeld claims that the great mass of the Baptized Christians were without the Spirit of Christ and therefore could not be part of God’s Church. Whitfield, two hundred years later would make the claim that almost none of the ministers knew anything of the new birth. Wilberforce (abolisher of slavery and friend of John Newton) fifty years after that would make a similar claims in his book “True Christianity.” One thing these men had in common was that they were viciously attacked by the pastors and ministers of their day as heretics, these same pastors and ministers knowing fine well if what these men claimed were true, most of them would lose their lofty position in life.
Sad to say brothers and sisters, nothing much has changed in our day, in fact I would argue that the Lord’s influence in our modern day services is even less again than it ever was. The same charges can be made, and the same violent rhetoric would be meted out to whoever has a heart for the Word of God and His instructions to us on how we should gather. Amazing is it not just how much men love the preeminence. It really always comes down to authority. Remember what Satan wanted Jesus to do? He wanted Him to bow down to him. It always comes down to authority. Whether it was the martyrs refusing to bow down to the Roman gods, or the martyrs refusing to bow down to the popes and their bishops and priests. Or even the martyrs who refused to bow down to the reformers authority. Yet in almost every pulpit throughout the world, as Tozer stated, men have robbed God of His authority, they have usurped the Holy Spirit and His instruction in the Word in favor of their own traditions and systems. Some less than others, some more than others, but in the end Jesus Christ must be preeminent in His Church.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the deeper life, the persectuted church, the remnant, The State of the Chuch and Manifest presence, the state of the church, theology | 6 Comments »
Posted by appolus on June 13, 2019
One of the most powerful weapons we have as a Christian is the power of a clear conscience. Without a clear conscience there is a battle that takes place between the flesh and the spirit, and it is noisy. And that noise is designed to drown out the still small voice of God by nature of its distraction. Sin of course is the agitator. It is trying to draw you away from a sweet and powerful relationship with Jesus and His Holy Spirit. When we are flowing in the Spirit of God we are powerful. The accuser is all but silenced when we walk with a clear conscience. When we do not we allow that voice to come against us and accuse us in a very loud manner. That voice will remind you of your sin and just how far you have fallen short of the glory of God, then it will mock you at even the thought of speaking on behalf of God or standing up for the truth. Act 24:16 And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men. Paul trained himself to never violate his conscience. So, much like he learned to be content in every situation, there being no magic wand involved, so therefore we train and we learn in regard to our consciences. Ignore our conscience and act according to the flesh, not putting right that which caused the conscience to be unsettled, and we walk with a great reduction in our influence of those around us. Our light is dimmed so to speak. Exercising ourselves to respond to our conscience and denying or repenting for the deeds of the flesh, increases the power of our testimony, removes hindrances and obstacles from our prayers and strengthens our walk with the Lord. We draw deeper into the Fathers heart and the light that shines from us as saints shines so much brighter.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, testimony, the crucified life, the deeper life, the remnant, the state of the church, theology | 1 Comment »
Posted by appolus on June 11, 2019
Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.(1Co 14:29-33)
Is that not amazing that all may prophesy one by one that all may learn yet unlike the pagan men of that time, the gifts that God gave a man were subject to his own spirit, meaning that he could wait his turn so that all may be in order. And Paul states this is the case in all the churches. Imagine that, all churches had multiple prophets who spoke as the Spirit moved them, to whatever degree the Spirit had given them the gift, that through them all may learn. Who could or would deny such a simple and magnificent truth? Can you imagine the beautiful thread that would run through those teachings? Like a multifaceted diamond, the Body of Christ though many, speaking as one for the edification of all.
Now, speak to one who is taken up by the one man system we labor and groan under and your soul will be wearied. There will be no biblical discussion, no Scriptures quoted as to why our modern day church no longer looks anything like the church of Corinth, or, and this is important as Paul stated above “as in all the churches.” There will just be anecdotes of some famous churches that everyone recognizes, as if, somehow by their “success,” the Scriptures are somehow nullified in favor of what man has replaced it with.
God has a pattern for our gathering and He laid it down. Imagine the audacity of those who think that they know better than God, better than the Word of God. The one man system comes from the Catholic model. It is designed to render the royal priest to nothing more than a spectator. It robs him or her of their God given gift to edify the Body. Many pastors who exercise their gift every week, simply do not get it. And why would they. Stop a man with the genuine gift of preaching from preaching and see what happens to him. He would dry up for lack of exercising his gift.
He sees this plainly, yet is somehow blinded to the fact that the exact same thing happens to every gifted saint who is quenched in the Body from exercising their own gift. And so we end up with a dried up Body starving for lack of being able to edify and to be edified. And yet the primary purpose of the shepherd is to feed the flock. God will judge the shepherd who refuses to allow his flock to be edified in the prescribed manner that goes beyond his own particular gift.
Joh 21:17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
Those who are forgiven much, love much. We see this with the woman who wept at Jesus feet. Here Peter had been forgiven much and so His love for His Lord is very great. It is into these hands Jesus commits the sheep. Every true shepherd loves the Lord His God with all of his heart and his soul and his spirit and he loves the sheep with an everlasting love and would lay down his own life to save the sheep. This is the minimum expectation the Lord has for shepherds of His sheep. Imagine, preferring your own gifting and your own edification over the sheep of your care. The primary importance for the Lord is that His sheep be fed. He has clearly laid out how the sheep are to be edified. We should prefer others before ourselves, this is one of the marks of the saint.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Php 2:3-5)
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the deeper life, The presence of God, the remnant, The State of the Chuch and Manifest presence, the state of the church, theology | 4 Comments »
Posted by appolus on June 9, 2019
I have had two dogs now for about a year. Jack is three and Bailey is one. Jack is older and wiser, Bailey is young and more unpredictable. I walk them both of leash so discipline is very important. They are both required to sit to the side when a bike or walker or runner approaches, hold that position until they pass, then they can get up and go. Every now again Jack decides he does not want to sit. He stands still but he does not want take the effort to put his bum on the ground then raise it back up again. If I let that go without challenge, the next time he slips a wee bit further and so on. In other-words his discipline begins to unravel. Left unchecked he would not mind me at all. So, he gets a stern warning ( tone of voice is important, low and menacing) I remind him that sit is not a suggestion but a command. He is brought back into line.
So much of Christendom is in a state of lawlessness. Each man does what is right in his own eyes. They may know the commands but long ago they decided that these commands were mere suggestions. God commanded His people not to venture out until they were endued with power from on high, for without this power they could do nothing, they could build kingdoms of men but not the Kingdom of God.
When Paul comes across groups of people following Jesus in the the book of Acts he first inquires of them if they have yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit. They reply they have not even heard of such a thing and he deals with it. It was his first order of business. Imagine preaching to men and women you know are not baptized in the Holy Spirit without ever mentioning that, would that not be an act of total futility? What could we expect of men outside of being endued with power from on high?
Is it not actually a cruelty to place expectations on men and women whom we know not to be baptized in His Holy Spirit? Jesus did not do it, neither did Paul or Peter. God’s commands are not suggestions. If we choose to ignore the only reliable pattern that we have, the living word of God, for the patterns and traditions of men let us not expect God to move, He will not. Obedience to His Word and fearing God over men is the beginning of wisdom/discernment. Without that we are mere waves tossed upon the sea of circumstances and the opinions of men.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, The presence of God, the remnant, the state of the church, theology | 2 Comments »
Posted by appolus on June 9, 2019
2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
Against the backdrop of darkness( pain, trial, defeat,sorrow, spiritual warfare) light shines out brilliantly from the yielded vessel. It’s the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. The yielded vessel may have trouble on every side but he will not be overtaken by distress. The yielded vessel may not understand what is happening to them yet despair will not prevail. They may be persecuted, forsaken and brought down very low but they shall never be destroyed. They represent the sufferings of our Lord while demonstrating His very life. All day long they may be like lambs led to the slaughter yet all day long the treasure of the light that lies within their heart comes against the very darkness that would try and consume them. It is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. The more broken the vessel, the more light that pours forth from within.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the remnant, the state of the church, theology | 4 Comments »
Posted by appolus on June 4, 2019
“Now I want you to see three paradoxes. To be happily forgiven, and yet wounded with perpetual contrition. To be correct in the finished work of another and yet feel so sympathetic and compassionate as though the burden lay on you heart. And finding God and yet pursuing God, of having Him, yet always wanting Him.” (Tozer)
The above quote describes the Remnant church of God. Who are these Remnant souls? Well, they are those who are genuinely saved and have a hunger and thirst for God Himself. They are scattered to the four winds and the Lord knows who the hungry hearts are. The question is , have you been wounded by Christ? Have you been wounded for Christ? The remnant saint knows the pain of having been wounded at the very core of His heart. Evan Roberts from the Welsh revival used to cry out “Lord, bend me.” The Lord bends His saints. He tries them and He tests them but He never tries and tests the unwilling. The trials and the tests are in response to a heart that longs to be closer and useful to his Lord. The saint is given many glimpses of the glory and the majesty of God. He has a deep longing to be away from this world and to be fully reconciled to the next. Think about the “pain,” of being in love. If you had a child or a husband who went off to war, would not your heart long with the deepest pain, to see your loved one return? Its that kind of longing only its more than that. Its the very seat of our affections.
This love, by virtue of having it, will compel you to walk a lonely path. Most will never understand you. You will see things that those around you do not see. Eze 9:4 “And Jehovah said to him, Go through in the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men who are groaning and are mourning because of all the abominations that are done in her midst.”
The people of God that were marked were the remnant. Judgment was coming but the remnant were marked on their foreheads. They groaned and were in mourning for the condition of Jerusalem. Do you groan? Are you in mourning for the state of the church? Does the condition of a sin sick world lay heavy upon your heart? Will you heart be satisfied with anything less than to walk in the presence of the Living God? Have you tasted of the heavenly food and drunk from the waters of life? Has it ruined you for everything? If not, do you desire this kind of longing? Have you left your first love? If you have answered yes to any of these questions then you belong to the Remnant church of God. This church has been known by many names down through the centuries, the Waldenses, Albigenses, Lollards and Hussites and Brethren. Anabaptists and Moravians, the list goes on. God has always had a witness in the land, He has always had His Remnant that would not ”bow the knee to Baal.”
The Remnant man or woman carries their cross. Carrying a cross is a lonely business. Its their very loneliness that compels them to seek an even closer walk with the Lord. The trials of the cross, the narrowness of the path, the desert and wilderness often stretches out before them. There is a lack of fitting in. You often despair at your own walk even although people tell you what a man or woman of God you are. You hear that and it makes you cringe because you know how far you fall short of the God that you have seen high and lifted up. You continually seek Him, you live for the next encounter with Him. You know that it is only a moment but there will come a time when it will be an eternity. You long for everyone to radically encounter the Living God for themselves. You hear people say that they would like your anointing and you wonder. You wonder if they could walk through the refining fires of the living God. Would they really want their whole lives dismantled piece by piece? Would they like to walk through seasons of total despair? Would they like the bread of adversity and the waters of afflictions to be their teachers? God’s Remnant people walk this path.
To encounter God is such a deep and meaningful way is a two edged sword. The deeper you are drawn into the Father’s heart, the less you care for the things of this world. The world has ambition, it awakes them in the morning. The saint of God has no such awakening. His desire is to awake the dawn with the praises of God. The world takes enjoyment in many things as does the people around us, our families our friends, our neighbors. Yet the many pleasures of this world, many of them not in anyway bad in and of themselves, slowly but surely become strangely dim to the remnant saint in the light of the glory and the majesty of their God. The things of this world fall away as our eyes are ever drawn upwards. Our appreciation for His creation grows as we draw ever closer to Him. A mountain or a river or a valley can bring the saint to tears because he or she knows the artist who created such things.
And yet always in the back of the remnant saints mind they know that just as the world hated their Lord and crucified Him, they too will be hated and killed all the day long for His names sake. And just as He arose, they know that they too will arise. As they draw nearer to “the one who was pierced,” and He pours out His Spirit on them and they become more like Him, then the same forces that came against their Jesus, hell and all its fury, will come against them. They know that “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies it brings forth much fruit.” The remnant know that they have been marked by the ink-horn of the Lord. The more they love the more they will be hated. There is a mighty culmination to all of this and it draws near. You know that in your spirit isn’t that right dear saint? You do not need me to tell you that, the Holy Spirit already has. You know that the Bridegroom cometh. You know there is a call in your heart to arise, to awake fully to His Kingdom and to become unattached to the things of this world. The wise virgins time is at hand and the time of slumbering is at an end. We have been called to light up the path for His return. That which has been invisible for so long is being called out. The wheat will finally be identified and separated from the tare simply because the time of the harvest is at hand. God is separating and calling His saints out of their ease in Babylon. He is calling the remnant, it is a call to the Remnant to arise and trim their lamps.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the persectuted church, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Posted by appolus on June 2, 2019
And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.(Luk 22:35-37)
There was a time when the saints had the respect of the people. They went out in two’s and ministered and lacked for nothing. At one point they had even attempted to make Jesus their king. But now, it was all about to change. Jesus was about to fulfill His purpose here on earth. He was about to suffer at the hands of the very crowds that had followed Him around and tried to make Him king. And as a servant is not greater than his Master, then so too would the tide change for the saints. The admonition to buy a sword was not a call to arms obviously, as we later see Peter rebuked for his actions. No, it was a way of getting through to His followers the level of persecution very soon to come, they would indeed be scattered.
I would like to suggest that Christendom in the West is about to experience just such a radical change. What is written of us in Matt 24 and in the book of Revelation must be fulfilled. We will indeed be, as written in Romans 8:36, killed all the day long. We will be counted as so many sheep for the slaughter. Yet we must bear in mind as this unfolds, what is also written in that great chapter, perhaps one of the greatest chapters, that we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
And nothing shall separate us from that love, not tribulation or distress or persecution. Neither shall famine or nakedness or any kind of trial nor sword. Principalities and powers and the devil himself will come against us, most of us will die, some of us will live, but whether we live or die, we shall glorify God. For nothing shall separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus. We will, by the power of the Spirit, endure to the end because we shall count all loss as nothing, preferring rather to be found in Him for we know that in Him lies the very heartbeat of who we are and the very breath of life that sustains us.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the persectuted church, the remnant, The State of the Chuch and Manifest presence, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Posted by appolus on June 1, 2019
The Church cannot be a religious theater where paid men perform for the religious amusement of the people who pay them. The Church is an assembly of redeemed people who have been called out and they are called by His own name. Moreover, He is taking out of the world a people for His name, and time waits while grace operates. The Lord says He will call out of the nations a people for His name, and after that, He will return. I am going to believe that. I am not going to let anybody argue me out of that. Then our Lord will come back, and when He comes back again, the big question will be, are we ready for His coming? I do not believe that we are automatically ready. A Bride is now being prepared for our Lord, in a secret place. The idea that there is an automatic legal aspect, that if you have your citizenship in heaven, you are all ready, I do not believe for a second. God is not going to allow His carnal, lustful, money-loving, pleasure-seeking children to go rushing pell-mell, singing gospel boogie, into the presence of the Holy God. Something radical must take place to shake them loose from their carnal appetites (A.W.Tozer)
Tozer was definitely speaking prophetically there. He says something radical must take place to shake the church loose from their carnal appetites, from the hold that the world has upon them, from the presumptuous mindset that tells them that they are ok. God is a Holy God and He is looking for people who will seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. In order to do that we must be blind to the temptations of the world and the distractions that it causes. We must have a singular eternal mindset. The lives that we live must be lived in the context of the eternal Kingdom of God. So what is this radical thing that must take place that shakes the Church loose from the grips of the world? I believe that this radical thing is that the world itself rejects the Church and turns upon all those who refuse to bow down to their gods. There is coming a dividing line and on one side is black and on the other side is white and there is no grey middle ground. This may seem like a judgement to the Church but it is in fact a mercy from Heaven. This refining fire will be God ordained and its purpose will be to make the Bride ready. Tozer says that there is a Bride being prepared “in a secret place.” Amen, I believe that. God has a remnant up and down the land and in almost every church and in every nation. The time is coming soon when they will be called out. A pure spotless Bride called out from among the religious with no walls of denominations or barriers of membership. They belong to Christ Himself. One can only imagine the gross darkness of religious gatherings when the Lord Himself removes His own from among them. The secret place is our hearts and the something radical is persecution……….bro Frank
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A Call To The Remnant 