There’s a phrase we use in the world: “The devil is in the details.”
It’s usually applied to negotiations or contracts, a warning to examine how things will actually work out. But there is another application to that phrase.
When you are in a trial, in a tribulation, and you allow your mind to go over and over and over every aspect of the circumstance, something begins to happen. You surrender control of your mind. We are told to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Yet when we rake over every detail of what has happened, rehearsing it, replaying it, analyzing it, and then telling one person, and then another, and another, adding to it each time, we are not walking in that obedience. We are multiplying our sorrows.
The Scripture says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3).
Notice, peace is connected to where the mind stays.
Think about this.
How does a bird feed its young? It regurgitates food from its stomach back into the mouths of its chicks. That is how nature works.
But when we regurgitate, and let’s use the plain word, vomit, our circumstances to five other people, and then they begin to add their own details to our story, we are not seeking peace. We are reliving it. We are feeding on it again.
The apostle Paul instructs us clearly: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).
The guarding of the heart and mind comes after we bring it to God, not after we rehearse it before men.
Instead, when we continually retell and relive the circumstance, we rake over the ashes and coals of what has happened. We fan embers back into flame. We reset the fire of the circumstance rather than bringing it to the Lord and finding peace in Him.
We forget that the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice (1 Kings 19:11–12).
And that stillness cannot be heard in a mind that is constantly agitated.
So remember this, brothers and sisters: Unless you are in a place of peace, unless you have quieted your mind enough to hear the still, small voice of God, do not regurgitate the story. Do not relive it again and again.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
If the treasure becomes the injury, the offense, the trial, then the heart will remain there.But if the treasure is Christ, then the mind will return to Him. You are not glorifying the Lord by rehearsing the wound.You are not edifying your brothers and sisters by spreading the ashes.
And you are not strengthening yourself by reliving the fire.
We stand in a time when the Lord’s description of the harvest is no longer theoretical, but increasingly observable, to the point that what once lay hidden within the field can now be discerned as the age moves toward its consummation.
The Lord did not frame the close of the age as a single moment, but as a harvest season, as He Himself declared when opening the parable of the field [Matthew 13:24].
A closing span in which what has long grown together can no longer conceal its nature, for the harvest, He said, is the end of the age [Matthew 13:39].
When the grain reaches fullness, weight comes upon the head of the true wheat. It bows, heavy with formed life, while the tare, light and fruitless, remains upright, exposed by its own barrenness.
This is why there must be a period of unveiling. The distinction, once hidden in the green blade, becomes undeniable in the ripened field, just as He taught that both must grow together until the harvest [Matthew 13:30].
What could not safely be touched in the early growth can now be handled without harm to the wheat, because maturity has made separation just, visible, and irreversible. So within the synteleia tou aiōnos (Matthew 13:39), the consummation of the age, there unfolds a measured work of exposure and removal.
It is not haste, but precision. Not impulse, but ripeness that governs the reaping. The tares are taken from among the wheat because their habitation was never separate, reflecting His own words that the enemy sowed them among the wheat while men slept [Matthew 13:25].
They shared the same soil, the same rain, the same sun, yet bore no grain. And when the reapers move, they do so in a window of divine timing, for He said the reapers are the angels sent forth at the close of the age [Matthew 13:39–41].
In that solemn interval, the uprightness of the tare becomes its own testimony, and the harvest, long foretold, proceeds without injury to the wheat, fulfilling His declaration that all things that offend would be gathered out of His kingdom [Matthew 13:41].
And in an actual field, as the season turns and the wind moves across the ripened grain, another distinction appears.
The wheat does not only bow from weight, it moves differently.
When the gusts come, the true wheat sways in unified rhythm, heavy heads yielding, bending without breaking, the whole field rolling like waves of gold.
But the tares, stiffer and lighter, resist the movement. They jut upward, visually discordant, unable to flow with the humbled harvest around them, a living contrast between fruitfulness and barrenness. Farmers have long known that near reaping time, the mixed field reveals itself not merely by fruit, but by motion, posture, and response to pressure.
And so too in the closing span of this age, when the winds of testing, exposure, and judgment begin to blow across the house of God, ministries once indistinguishable from the surrounding wheat find themselves revealed by how they stand, echoing the apostolic warning that judgment must begin at the house of God [1 Peter 4:17].
The recent unravelings surrounding International House of Prayer Kansas City and controversies touching streams connected to Bethel Church have, for many, felt like that late season wind moving across the field.
Not creating what was hidden, but revealing what maturity and pressure made visible. For the first labor of the harvest is not the gentle gathering of the wheat, but the careful and deliberate removal of the tares from among it.
Separation is the primary work. For they did not grow in distant fields, but intertwined in the same soil, their roots wrapped together beneath the surface, their blades indistinguishable in the early season. And so when the harvest begins, the more exacting task comes first, just as the Lord instructed, gather the tares first and bind them [Matthew 13:30].
The tares must be identified, drawn out, and gathered away with precision, lest the wheat be harmed in the process. It is a judicial work before it is a restorative one, a clearing of the field before the securing of the grain.
Only when that difficult labor has been sufficiently accomplished does the harvest of the wheat proceed with swiftness and clarity. For once the choking growth has been removed, the bowed heads stand unobstructed, ready for the reaper’s hand.
Then the work becomes one of gathering rather than separating, of bringing in rather than casting out, fulfilling His promise that the righteous would be gathered into His barn [Matthew 13:30].
The barn awaits what the field has produced, and the weight of the wheat, once hidden among the tares, is now brought safely home. The paradigm shift has taken place in the world.
Thus the parable and the apostolic warning converge, revealing that the exposure of the tares is not reserved for a distant day, but is taking place even now.
What was planted in secrecy is being uncovered in the present hour. The likeness that once concealed is breaking down, and the field itself is bearing witness to the difference.
For the harvest is advancing, the separation is underway, and the righteous stand on the threshold of that moment when they will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father [Matthew 13:43].
This is the primary role of God’s remnant here on earth, to be His witness. In every age His remnant have suffered. They were and are a living witness to the underlying truth that suffering is a major part of our walk with Christ. Scripture does not say if we pass through the waters, but when. The passage assumes the trial. It establishes it as certain.
Job, of course, stands as the perfect example of a mere man. It is no surprise that his account is widely regarded as the earliest book of the Bible, written before Genesis itself. God was laying down markers from the very beginning. He was clearly showing that there is no vital connection between worldly blessing and relationship to Him. Job’s friends, like most modern day Christians, and certainly almost all within Charismatic circles, trying to “live their best lives now” could not and would not understand this mystery.
Yet when Job shaved his head and tore his robe over the loss of everything, and then fell to his knees in worship and blessed the name of God, we are given the model. There it is unveiled in raw humanity and holy reverence.
Suffering, and our reaction to it, becomes the great separator. It separates the legitimate from the illegitimate. The many from the few. And it has been this way down through the ages, right up to and including this present day.
When the great tribulation comes, when trials grow fierce beyond anything previously known, God will already have trained a remnant over the many decades of their lives in the ways of suffering, enduring, and overcoming. They will not be novices in the furnace. They will have fought many battles long before the great battle arrives.
They will know the Scripture well from Revelation 13 where the great enemy of our souls wages war against the saints and, in human terms, prevails. And yet the question stands. How do we overcome when that time comes? The same way we overcome now.
By the Blood of the Lamb. By the word of our testimony. And by the fact that we do not cling to our lives on this earth, even unto death.
This power to wage war agsinst us, along with authority over all nations, is must be remembered has been “granted,” by God for a specific and limited time. It represents a divine allowance for testing, not an independent victory of the beast. As it was with Job. Its reach is measured. Its duration is bound. And even in its fiercest hour, it remains subject to the sovereign limits set by the throne of Heaven.
This is the one thing I do know. As long as He is with us, those of us who remain will pass through the waters and the fires. He knows us. He has redeemed us for this appointed time. He has called us by name. And He declares over us, You are Mine.
We fight not with carnal strength, but with proximity to Jesus. To bask in the glow of His presence is to walk in the beauty of holiness, to move in the overflow of His majesty and His glory. His grace will be sufficient, no matter how fierce the battle becomes.
I was saying to a brother only the other day, as long as I am granted breath enough to make a final speech to the baying crowd, to proclaim to them the glory of the God they have rejected, then I will be satisfied to say, let the blade fall.
And if not even that, then I shall declare that very same thing to the principalities and powers. For their blade does not end my story. It only propels me home.
I want to respond to some objections raised against my initial piece on Yancey, though in truth it was never really about Yancey at all. It was about grace, what it is, how Scripture defines it, and why it matters. If the Body of Christ is ever to walk in true holiness and righteousness, so that a dying world can genuinely contrast us with itself, then grace must be taught and held in its proper biblical place. We have not been called to soothe the conscience of the saint, nor to dull the edge of God’s holiness, but to bear faithful witness to a God who is righteous, holy, and not to be treated lightly.
Philip Yancey presents a grace-first theology in which God’s mercy precedes human response, repentance is real but functions relationally rather than judicially, and the fear of God is redefined primarily as reverence and relational grief rather than warning or dread.
In this framework, repentance restores fellowship but does not place salvation genuinely at risk, and passages that warn of falling away are treated pastorally rather than with the full weight that tge words carry.. Yet Scripture speaks of those who were “once enlightened,” who “shared in the Holy Spirit,” and still “fell away,” and of judgment that is described as “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Jesus Himself warned that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom, and that “the one who endures to the end will be saved.” The tension lies in whether these words are allowed to carry their full weight.
“Those once enlightened… who shared in the Holy Spirit… and then fell away.”
Hebrews and the warnings of Jesus present a gospel in which grace and holy fear coexist without contradiction.
Grace initiates salvation, yet believers are repeatedly urged to “hold fast,” to “take care lest there be an evil, unbelieving heart,” and to remember that “our God is a consuming fire.” This fear is not terror for the weak or the repentant, but sober awareness that holiness is real, covenant is serious, and perseverance matters. Scripture never pits love against Godly fear, but assumes they walk together in a proper union.
“Take care… lest there be an evil, unbelieving heart… for our God is a consuming fire.”
This tension is made unmistakable in the account of Ananias and Sapphira.
They were not outsiders but members of the church, and God judged deliberate hypocrisy in such a way that “great fear came upon the whole church.” The text offers no apology and no softening. The early believers learned, in a single moment, that the God who pours out grace also disciplines His people, and that His presence is not merely comforting but holy.
“Great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard these things.”
Throughout Scripture, promises are consistently attached to endurance and overcoming.
Life is promised to “the one who overcomes,” rest to those who “do not draw back,” and reigning with Christ to those who “remain faithful.” The other side of that promise is never hidden: hardening the heart, refusing to repent, or presuming upon grace carries consequence. These warnings are not written to frighten the faithful, but to awaken the complacent.
“To the one who overcomes… do not draw back… hold fast.”
This is why a softened, purely pastoral presentation of grace is ultimately dangerous. Grace was never meant to remove fear altogether, but to place it rightly. When grace is framed mainly to comfort, it risks producing peace without perseverance and assurance without obedience. There has always been a market for teachers who tell people what they want to hear, but Scripture was not written to soothe the unwatchful — it was written to form a people who endure, overcome, and remain faithful to the end.
“They will not endure sound teaching… turning aside to what they want to hear.”
I am less interested in his fall than I am in the response. Many who have read anything I have written over the years will note, much of it has been on grace, and of course, Phillip had much to write on that subject. This is my response to much of what I hear, and much of what I hear plays into “cheap grace,” and it’s multiple shades.
Grace That Saves vs. Grace That Reigns: A Cautionary Reflection
The issue before us is not whether sin is real, nor whether grace is necessary. Scripture is clear on both. The question is what kind of grace we are talking about, and what kind of Christianity it ultimately produces.
In recent years, public moral failures among respected Christian figures have often been framed almost exclusively as inevitable expressions of “shared human brokenness.” While this language sounds humble, it subtly shifts sin from a moral failing into some kind of inevitable human failing. In doing so, it does not merely acknowledge weakness, it lowers the expectation of transformation for the redeemed.
Scripture never denies that believers can sin. But it emphatically denies that sin remains our identity, our default, or our governing power. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2)
When Christian theology repeatedly insists that believers are always on the brink of collapse, always fundamentally the same as before conversion, it may sound realistic, but it is not apostolic. It is Romans 7 isolated from Romans 6, and Romans 7 elevated over Romans 8. It treats ongoing struggle as the final word, rather than the cross, the resurrection, and the indwelling Spirit.
The familiar phrase “we are just sinners saved by grace” is often offered as a summary of humility, yet it is theologically inncorrect. Scripture does not primarily identify believers as sinners with an added provision. It calls them saints, new creations, those freed from sin, those led by the Spirit, those no longer under condemnation.
Grace in the New Testament is not merely pardon after failure. It is power for obedience. It is the power to overcome. “For the grace of God has appeared… training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.” (Titus 2:11–12)
When long-term, concealed patterns of sin emerge in the lives of Christian leaders, the appropriate response is not surprise, but neither is resignation. Scripture does not reduce such failures into “this is simply what humans do.” It speaks instead of accountability, sobriety, discipline, and, in some cases, disqualification. “Be not many teachers, for you will incur a stricter judgment.” (James 3:1)
An extended pattern of deception is not merely a momentary lapse. It reflects a sustained resistance to conscience and to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. To explain such outcomes primarily in terms of “low anthropology” is to misdiagnose the problem. The issue is not that we expected too much of human nature, but that we expected too little of regeneration.
Grace does not erase distinctions between light and darkness, faithfulness and betrayal, maturity and self-indulgence. Nor does it dissolve moral responsibility under the banner of shared frailty.
The New Testament does not warn believers against being shocked so much as it warns them to be sober. It is not unspiritual to be sobered by contradiction between confession and conduct. It is a recognition that truth was professed while obedience was withheld.
Grace does not merely arrive after the wreckage. Grace, when obeyed, prevents the wreckage. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2)
To insist on this is not moralism, nor denial of weakness. It is fidelity to the gospel’s claim that sin no longer reigns, that believers are not trapped in inevitability, and that holiness is not exceptional but normative Christian life.
Grace that only forgives after the fall but never empowers before it is not amazing grace. It is cheap grace.
And cheap grace inevitably reframes defeat as realism and victory as naïveté.
In Corinth, Paul lifts the veil and speaks of glory.
In Corinth, Paul lifts the veil and speaks of glory. Even the law, etched upon tablets of stone, a ministry of death, bore a splendor from God. Yet if such a ministry shone, how much more shall the ministry of the Spirit blaze. If condemnation itself arrived clothed in glory, then righteousness must surely outshine it all. Praise be to God. (2 cor 3:7,9)
Now see the glorious transition Paul teaches in Romans.
For when we enter Romans 7, the apostle stands exposed, a man laid bare beneath the weight of his own inability.
“O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
No pause, no philosophy, no remedy of self. Only the one solution.
“I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This is like dawn breaking upon a battlefield, the cry of despair yields to the trumpet of triumph.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
What wonder is this. What glory unimagined.
The ministry of condemnation dissolves into the proclamation of no condemnation at all. The Old Covenant had passed, and the new one was born in Christ Jesus, and Him crucified and resurrected!
Let none suppose that Moses trafficked in darkness. Far from it. The Law was holy, its purpose sure, its season appointed. It revealed the blazing holiness of God, gave sin a name and a measure, set boundaries against the flood of evil, and pointed every soul toward Christ.
The fault lay not in the Law, for the Law was perfect. The fault lay in us. Flesh, frail, rebellious, unyielding.
So Christ came in flesh, and that flesh was lifted upon the cross. There it was nailed, restrained, undone. The cross was no swift end. It was a long and gasping death. The flesh struggled. It fought for breath. Yet dying it was, all the same.
We wrestle still, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers. And yes, the flesh wars against the Spirit. But the war is already decided.
The sentence has been overturned. The gavel has fallen. The court stands adjourned.
There is therefore now no condemnation. Saints, this is what victory looks like. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus “HAS,” set me free from the law of sin and death. (Rom 8:2)
To breathe in the beauty of God’s creation, while walking with the Creator, is to inhale something of the rarified air of heaven. To listen to the quietness is to set our spirit at ease. Noise is the great distraction of this world, the noise of current events, the noise of the TV and the radio, the never-ending noise of the device in our hand, now intimately connected to our ears in a constant stream of stimulation. It dulls the soul and renders the spirit deaf to the still, small voice of the Master.
It is the great tragedy of our age. In such a place it becomes impossible to “seek ye first the Kingdom of God,” for the Kingdom of God is fundamentally still. Who, in our age, has ears to hear what the Spirit would whisper to our souls?
Tell me… can you hear the willows whisper on the wisp?
Can you hear the wings of the swallow as it sweeps through the soft-dying light of dusk?
Can you hear the river murmur as it winds its ancient path beneath the gathering dusk?
Can you hear the sigh of the pines as the evening wind passes through their crowns?
If you can hear these things, then perhaps you can hear the beating heart of God
and find His rhythm.
Many years ago, I walked with a very heavy burden of a particular situation, the constant noise of it filling every step. I did not even notice when the Lord was no longer in the midst of my thoughts, so completely had the season overtaken me. Then, breaking through that long silence of my spirit amidst the great noise of my flesh, came a still, small whisper: “I miss you.” Its simplicity undid me. Only then did I see how long the noise had carried me away. Through tears I answered, “I miss You too.” And in that sacred moment, after a season of distance, we were together again.
Expressions of love are the first clear waters that gather at the river’s beginning.
To encounter the Lord is not merely to learn of Him, but to know Him, and to be known in return.
It is in this deep, Spirit-breathed knowing, far beyond thoughts and far above language, that eternal life begins its quiet pulse within the heart.
The heart steps forward, and the mind bows back, and suddenly what we know of His glory is no longer information, but illumination.
Scripture tells us Joseph did not “know” Mary until after Jesus was born. Yet even that sacred intimacy is but a distant shadow of the knowing God invites us into.
There is a depth of communion with Him no earthly union can ever touch.
For it is in the tasting, that one comes to understand what fruit truly is.
Many speak of fruit, many can weigh it, name it, analyze it, fruit “experts,” confident and polished, and yet they have never let the sweetness touch their tongue.
But the psalm still whispers its ancient invitation, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Goodness is not a theory. It is an encounter. It is a knowing.
And when the tide of our soul recedes, when insecurities rise like exposed stones and longing aches within us like a deer panting for the brooks, the Lord does not turn away.
He sees the weakness of our frame. He understands the fragile tremble of our flesh.
So we wait, dear saint, not in despair, but in quiet expectancy, for the tide always returns.
His presence always comes again to the seeking heart.
And when it rises once more, we are refreshed, restored, and know again that we are known by the One who called us His own.
When I was seventeen, my first child was born, Stephen. He lived for two days.
Two days—barely enough time to understand love,
but long enough to understand loss. “He is not going to make it.” “His lungs are not developed.” “It might be time to turn off the machine……but it’s your decision.”
Everything around me felt blurred, the world was suddenly condensed and it was pressing in on me, crushing my heart and spirit. “Do you want to hold him.” Inexplicably, and something that would torture me for many years……”No.” I did not want to hold my own dying heart, how utterly selfish.
On the day of the funeral, I sat in the back of the hearse,
a small white coffin resting on my knees.
It felt too light. Too still. Maybe just an empty box….. like my heart.
I was there but I was distant in my mind, none of it seemed real.
He was to be laid in the place reserved for stillborn children,
though he hadn’t been stillborn.
He had lived. He had tried, he had tried hard.
The driver took a corner faster than he meant to,
and the tiny body shifted inside the box.I could “feel,” him move.
That was the moment all the walls I had built
collapsed in a single breath.
I knew what was in the box.
The truth I had been keeping at arm’s length
pressed itself into me with a weight I simply could not carry.
For a long time I carried anger for that driver—
that unnamed man who broke the silence for me
before I was ready.
There are things we bury deep,
not because they are gone,
but because we cannot look at them, cannot handle the weight of it, but is still caries the same weight whether we look at it or not.
Years passed.
I came to the Lord.
Life moved on in the way life does—
slowly, quietly, with its own kind of insistence.
And then one ordinary day,
standing under the warm water of the shower,
the deep finally broke open.
Grief rose from the hidden places
like something long trapped beneath ice—
cold, vast, unstoppable.
My legs buckled.
I held the walls with both hands.
A lifetime was passing through me in moments, years
were flooding out of me, threatening to sweep me away.
My wife heard me and thought I was breaking apart.
Maybe I was.
But when it was over, I could breathe again.
The bitter waters that had filled that sealed chamber
were gone, emptied out.
In its place came something pure, living waters
from a pure crystal stream, unmistakably from Him.
The Lord leaves no room untouched.
Every locked door is His.
Every deep place is His.
He moves like a glacier—nothing stands in its way
slow, sure, reshaping everything in His path
until what was buried
finally meets the light. No chamber left untouched.
If you are carrying within you something hidden—
something buried away, unnamed, unknown to the world
know this brother, sister
it will not stay buried forever.
He will touch it.
He will open it.
And when He does,
what comes will be healing.
Unmistakable.
Beautiful in its own way.
Stephen, you are not forgotten…..but your father is forgiven.
Last year, in the midst of chemo, my house became unbearable. Nausea was a problem I never overcame for the several months of treatment and every smell made my stomach turn. I just had to be outside so I would take refuge on our deck—a south-facing suntrap where the fresh air seemed like heaven itself. Out there I could breathe again. Out there the warmth, the breeze, and the open sky were gifts. The Spirit of God would literally rest upon me. This was a place for me where sky and earth seemed to become one.
I told a friend I felt as though I were taking a Masterclass in Grace. Because the Spirit of God would rest on me out there, even as nausea raged through my body. I forced myself to walk a block each day, slow, steady, determined, and then I’d return to my lounger on the deck. Between me and the heavens were trees full of birds I had never noticed before. Dozens of tiny frenetic little guys. Great joy filled me as I watched their antics. How could I have not noticed these wee fellas before A thousand songs in the branches.
I was strangely alive.
I sat there for hours, looking up.
That was the lesson He pressed into me:
Lift up your eyes, Frank and see where your help comes from.
Even while chemo ravaged my body, grace flooded my spirit.
Behind my house is a field owned by a church. I have always loved that openness, the privacy, the flow of wildlife, the quiet beauty of it. During that season, I watched a BBC documentary on rewilding, taking a low-yield field, restoring native plants, planting indigenous trees, letting the land become what it was meant to be again. The transformation was stunning. Butterflies returned. Birds returned. Life returned.
Somehow I felt like that rewilded field. Early stages for sure. There are no fences in the fields God restores. He works in wide open spaces. There are no straight edges in nature, nothing to tell you where the old man-made boundaries once stood.
No manicured edges to remind you of the places trimmed by the hands of men. Only the quiet rise of something wild and free beginning to grow again.
That show stirred something deep in me. In the flush of my enthusiasm
I contacted the church.
“How about you rewild your field,” I suggested, with great enthusiasm. “It would save you lots of money, you would not have to mow it.” And “you would be helping the environment.” I was hoping to appeal to something, anything. He explained to me that the city wont let them grow the grass over a certain height.
I called the city, found grants, stirred possibilities, sent the information to the church…….and then, life and treatment and circumstances pulled the thread from my fingers, and the idea slipped away into the quiet. Like many great stirrings, it got swallowed up by circumstances that press in and with great tyranny, demand your attention.
A year and a half later, just last week, I walked through my back gate which leads to the field, which leads to a familiar path, the trail where so many prayers have risen like incense. Many of you have seen the prayer videos and the pictures I have taken along my narrow path. But this day I saw poles driven across the field, a line, a boundary, dividing the ground in half. Close to my house. Too close.
I told my wife, “Something is being built in the field”
We were dismayed at the thought of construction in our peaceful oasis in the back. Some parking lot perhaps that would be illuminated at night like a stadium?
Then the neighbor,the keeper of all neighborhood knowledge, you know the one (the guy who would complain to the church if they did not cut their grass in time) told me what was going on:
They are rewilding the field!!!
The aeration, the markings, the disturbance, it was preparation for wildflowers.
Boy Scouts were involved. A grant had been given.
The city approved the letting-go of their height rules..
Our field will very soon rise up and bloom.
Then I realized that the enthusiasm for my field, in the midst of my chemo with the Spirit of the Lord resting on me was Spirit breathed. And what He breathes upon springs to life……in it’s time.
I had forgotten, but the Lord had not.
A thought born in weakness, planted in sickness, had been carried by God until its season came.
Wildflowers were coming to my back door.
God had not forgotten.
A memory from early in my walk with the Lord returned to me.
I once lived near manicured neighborhoods, gardens shaped by tape-measures and string lines, flowers placed with military precision. Beautiful, yes… but controlled, tamed, measured. As I walked that neighborhood and surveyed these impressive gardens in these huge houses, the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear “look the other way.”
Across the street was a culvert beside an open field, and around that culvert grew thousands of wildflowers, flung by the wind, seeded by the unseen hand of God. No symmetry. No order. Only life, and that more abundantly.
And the Lord said to me then:
“Look, Frank. This is what I want for you.”
Not the regimented garden of man’s expectations, his denominatons, his preconceived notions…….
but the freedom of a wildflower field—
growing where His wind carries me,
rooted where His hand plants me.
Now, all these years later, and after chemo last year, after grace under the open sky, after the birds and the sunlight and the prayers in the field……it comes full circle.
The field behind my house is becoming what God once whispered into the soil of my soul.
A place of wildflowers.
A place of return.
A place of restoration.
And I know now:
I have been rewilded.
This is where I am.
Not in the place of always striving for perfection…
Not in the place of certainty.
But in the tender, trembling ground of becoming.
I am standing in the field between who I was
and who He is forming me to be.
The soil is soft.
My soul, undone.
My life, waiting like a seed beneath the surface —
buried, broken, but not forgotten.
In order to restore God has to reclaim. He has to undo the work of man. He has to carefully remove all of their marks and then the allows the ground to lie fallow. And then the wind begins to blow and the seed fall upon the prepared ground, good ground, ready to receive.
And when God restores, beauty returns.
Color returns.
Freeness returns.
The wildness of grace returns.
The butterflies come home.
Life begins to inhabit the field again.
When the Lord returns us to our true beginning…….
the place He dreamed for us before we were shaped by the world…..
something magnificent unfolds.
The complexity of life falls away.
The garden grows without our striving.
For in a rewilded field, the hand of man is no longer the gardener.
The Lord Himself tends the soul.
He sends the rain.
He calls forth the flowers.
He arranges the seasons.
He brings beauty from earth we thought was barren.
And now I can see it. He has been rewilding me all along. Slowly, surely, and my unawareness of it, up till now, only makes it all the more the Masters work.
He has taken the field of my life,
cut square by the expectations of organized religion,
shaped by the hands of others,
emptied by suffering,
and He is restoring it
to the original design He designed for me
before I ever took a breath. Now the calling is to us all, come off that road and walk through the gate into the open field that leads to the high mountain passes and wildflower alpine meadows. He is restoring His Church, He is rewilding it.
And what He does is marvelous.
What He does is holy.
What He does is beautiful to behold.
I am being rewilded — and the work of His hands is wonderful to behold.
What does it mean to have faith? What does it mean to exercise faith? And what does it truly mean to trust in the Lord? The words faith and trust are often used interchangeably, yet Scripture distinguishes their shades of meaning. The Greek word for faith, πίστις (pistis), carries the sense of conviction, fidelity, and steadfast belief , a firm persuasion of the truth and character of God. It is not vague optimism but anchored certainty rooted in who He is. The Greek term for trust, πεποίθησις (pepoithēsis), flows from pistis and means confident reliance, settled assurance, and inward persuasion. It is faith extended through endurance, faith that has matured under testing. Thus, pistis believes what God has spoken, and pepoithēsis continues to rest in that promise when sight fails and the storm gathers. Both are born of the same root: confidence in the unchanging nature of God. This is the foundation upon which all true preparedness stands, the faith that acts and the trust that endures.
Faith, then, is the spiritual substance of what is unseen, the invisible made certain in the heart of the believer. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It is not mere belief that God exists, but confidence in His goodness, His promises, and His Word. Faith does not rest upon sight or circumstance; it rests upon the immutable character of God. It looks into the unseen and says, “Thou art faithful.” It is the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which enters within the veil where Christ Himself has gone before (Hebrews 6:19–20). Pistis is not a feeling to be maintained but a conviction to be lived by, it sees the eternal in the midst of the temporal and moves the heart to obedience.
To exercise faith is to act upon that conviction. Faith untested remains theory; exercised faith becomes testimony. The one who believes that winter is near cuts his firewood before the frost. His pistis (faith) moves his hands; his belief produces action. But the frail widow, who has no strength to lift the axe, exercises faith in another form. She cannot labor, but she trusts , her pepoithēsis (trust) clings to God’s faithfulness, believing He will make provision where she cannot. In both, faith lives and breathes. The strong man acts upon what he believes; the widow rests upon what she cannot see. Faith is not idleness. It is obedience moving in harmony with the will of God , for “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Yet these works are not self-reliant striving; they are the fruit of divine persuasion , the evidence that pistis (faith) is alive within the heart.
To trust in the Lord , to walk in pepoithēsis (trust) , is to place one’s full confidence in His sovereign care when reason falters and outcomes remain hidden. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6). Trust is faith stretched through time; it is the steady endurance of the soul that refuses to doubt the character of God though all outward things collapse. Job, sitting among the ashes, spoke this divine paradox: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15). That is trust refined in the fire , pepoithēsis (trust) at its highest expression. Faith says, “God can.” Trust declares, “God will.” Love adds, “Even if He does not, He is still my God.”
What, then, is our part in this divine partnership? Scripture tells us to “put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11), to take up the shield of faith, to gird our loins with truth, and to shod our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. These are commands of readiness. The armor is given by grace, but it must be worn by choice. The believer must take up what God has provided. Preparation is not unbelief — it is the living demonstration of faith’s reality. The man who sharpens his sword before battle is not denying God’s help; he is aligning himself with it. Our pistis (faith) equips us; our pepoithēsis (trust) steadies us. The one is the conviction that moves; the other is the confidence that endures.
And did not our Lord Himself prepare? The supreme pattern of readiness is found in Gethsemane. Beneath the olive trees, Christ waged the invisible war before the visible cross. “And being in agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). The disciples slept, but the Captain of our salvation fought alone. The struggle was not with men but within His own humanity , the surrender of His human will to the divine. And when the moment came — “Not my will, but Thine be done” , the victory was secured. From that garden He rose, His face set like flint (Isaiah 50:7), and for the joy set before Him He endured the cross, despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2). The battle of Calvary was the outworking of the triumph of Gethsemane. Pistis (faith) led Him into prayer; pepoithēsis (trust) carried Him through obedience.
What, then, does it mean for us to be prepared? It means to cultivate a heart steadfast in pistis (faith) and anchored in pepoithēsis(trust). The prepared soul is not caught unaware when the storm descends. It has stored the Word in its heart, for the Word is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). It has guarded its thoughts with the helmet of salvation and girded its life with truth (Ephesians 6:14). It prays without ceasing, for prayer is the breath of faith (1 Thessalonians 5:17). It stands ready with the gospel of peace, for readiness itself is part of the armor. Such a soul walks neither in fear nor presumption, but in quiet confidence. The unprepared are like those who wait for winter with no firewood; but those who live by faith have already kindled the flame within their hearts.
The battle, as the Lord showed us, is won not first in the field but in the heart’s preparation. “The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:1). Victory begins in surrender. When a believer bows in the secret place and whispers, “Not my will, but Thine be done,” the triumph is already assured. From that hidden Gethsemane he rises clothed in divine strength, able to endure the cross set before him, whatever form it takes. Faith has believed; trust has endured; preparation has secured the victory.
To have faith is to believe. To exercise faith is to act. To trust is to endure. To prepare is to triumph before the battle begins. And when the soul, through pistis (faith) and pepoithēsis( trust), comes to that holy place of surrender, it finds, as Christ did, that peace flows where agony once reigned. For the Lord who prepared Himself in Gethsemane now prepares His saints likewise , that they may stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:13). Praise be to the Lord, for the battle is His , yet He trains our hands for war and girds us with strength for the fight (Psalm 18:34, 39).
Scripture Appendix
I. Πίστις (Pistis) — Faith, Conviction, Persuasion
Hebrews 11:1 – Faith as substance and evidence of the unseen.
Romans 1:17 – ‘The just shall live by faith.’
Ephesians 2:8 – Faith as the gift of God in salvation.
Romans 10:17 – Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
Galatians 2:20 – Living by the faith of the Son of God.
James 2:17 – Faith without works is dead.
Hebrews 11:6 – Without faith it is impossible to please God.
2 Timothy 4:7 – ‘I have kept the faith.’
II. Πεποίθησις (Pepoithēsis) — Trust, Confidence, Assurance
2 Corinthians 3:4 – ‘Such trust have we through Christ to Godward.’
Philippians 1:6 – Being confident that He who began a good work will perform it.
Philippians 3:3–4 – Having no confidence in the flesh.
Hebrews 3:14 – Holding the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.
2 Corinthians 1:9–10 – Trusting in God who raises the dead.
Ephesians 3:12 – Boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.
Faith (pistis) is the seed; trust (pepoithēsis) is its fruit. One believes God’s word; the other continues in that belief when all else fails. Together, they form the unshakable posture of the prepared soul , believing, enduring, and standing firm until the end.
Then “He delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull… where they crucified Him” (John 19:16–18). And as He hung between two criminals—with Jesus in the center—the crucified Lord spoke: “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said…” (John 19:26–27).
The crucified man speaks.
This is not merely a historical moment—it is a spiritual revelation. When I say “the crucified man,” I am not referring only to men, but to all mankind—male and female. In Scripture, “man” refers to the old nature we inherited from Adam, the fleshly soul-life within us. This old man was judicially crucified with Christ at the moment of salvation. Yet crucifixion is not instant death. It is a lingering, agonizing process. The flesh is on the cross, but it still speaks.
The apostle Paul declared: “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him…” (Romans 6:6). “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). “I have been crucified with Christ…” (Galatians 2:20). “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31).
All of these verses reveal a spiritual truth: our flesh has been crucified. Yet our experience testifies that it still cries out. It still resists death. It still seeks to exert control. This is why Jesus commands us to take up our cross daily. If the flesh were silent, there would be no need to deny it daily.
Many can “take up” the cross for a moment. They can lift it onto their shoulder in a burst of zeal. But to bear the cross—to carry it through deep valleys, across raging rivers, and up steep mountains—is another matter. To bear is to endure when every natural instinct cries out for relief. To bear is to persevere when the flesh screams, “Lay this burden down!” To bear is not to escape the cross, but to remain upon it until the flesh is silenced.
The day will come when we lay our burdens down—but that day is not today. It is not tomorrow. It is the day when we take our final breath, and like our Lord, we shall say, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Consider the two thieves crucified beside Jesus. Both were nailed to their crosses. Both were dying. Both were suffering. Yet one railed against Christ, while the other surrendered and was saved. This is a prophetic picture for every believer: the crucified flesh still speaks, but only the surrendered soul will see Paradise.
The voice of the flesh cries, “Save yourself! Come down from the cross!” But the voice of the spirit says, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”
So I appeal to you, saints of the Living God: Surrender quickly. Obey immediately. Glorify Christ even in your pain. Do not give the flesh any place. Deny its arguments. Silence its cries. Let your spirit ascend with Christ, fixing your gaze on the glory that awaits you.
For what awaits is beyond imagination. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
There is a day coming when you will be redeemed from this corruptible body, delivered from this sin-sick world, and welcomed into a heaven where there is no more striving, no more sorrow, no more temptation, and no more voice of the flesh. There, the crucifixion gives way to resurrection, and every tear is wiped away by the hand of God Himself.
Our cross is but for a moment—but the glory is forever.
The Latter Rain, Sinless Perfection, and the Crucified Flesh (part of our small home-group study)
The Latter Rain and Sinless Perfection The idea of a “latter rain” greater than Pentecost has no footing in Scripture. Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost — Peter said, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16).
There is no promise of another outpouring that will eclipse it. To claim the Spirit withdrew for 1900 years and will return only at the end denies Christ’s own words: “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
Likewise, Scripture never promises sinless perfection in this life. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on” (Phil. 3:12). John warns: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Victory is real, but it is lived daily in dependence on Christ — not by declaring the battle finished.
The Spirit Wars Against the Flesh Paul wrote: “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). If the flesh were already silenced, Paul’s warnings would be pointless. Why command us, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16), if there were no struggle?
Romans 6 shows our union with Christ. Romans 7 shows Paul wrestling still: “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good” (Rom. 7:21). Deliverance comes not by denying the conflict, but through Christ: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:25).
The Crucified Flesh: Decisive, Yet Lingering Paul declared: “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” (Gal. 5:24). Crucifixion was decisive — but it was not instant death. It was slow, agonizing.
A crucified man’s fate was sealed once nailed, yet he still lingered in pain until death. Spiritually, our flesh has been nailed to the cross, its fate sealed — but it still struggles.
This is why Paul said, “I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31), and urged believers, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Col. 3:5). The cross was applied once, but its execution unfolds daily until glory.
Jesus said: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily” (Luke 9:23). If the flesh were fully dead, why would He command us to do this?
Walking According to the Spirit “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1).
To be in the Spirit is our position (Rom. 8:9). To walk according to the Spirit is our practice.
The flesh condemns: “You are weak, defeated, guilty.”
The Spirit builds up: “You are sons and daughters, more than conquerors.”
Gideon heard two reports: his flesh said he was the least (Judg. 6:15). God’s Spirit called him a mighty man of valor (Judg. 6:12). The question was: whose report would he believe?
Conclusion The Bible does not teach sinless perfection now, nor that the flesh has vanished, nor that a greater “latter rain” revival is coming. It teaches this:
The flesh has been crucified with Christ.
Its death is certain, though it lingers.
We must deny ourselves, take up the cross daily, and walk according to the Spirit.
To collapse this tension is to miss the biblical balance. Christ’s cross guarantees victory — but discipleship requires daily cross-bearing until the war is over.
Let the Word close the matter: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5)
In nature, when water flows over sandstone, it slowly carves a channel. At first it is shallow, but as the water continues, the groove deepens, until it becomes a permanent path. When the rain returns, it always follows the same course.
The human mind works much the same way. When we experience pain in the body, for example an injury to the elbow, the signal travels from the point of pain along a neural pathway to the brain. The more often that signal fires, the more established that pathway becomes.
In the same way, when someone wounds us through word or deed, a kind of spiritual signal travels from the point of the injury to the soul. Over time, that pain forms an inner pathway, a reflex of hurt, fear, or anger that becomes easier to travel each time it is triggered.
And so, just as the sandstone is shaped by the flow of water, the soul becomes shaped by pain. It cuts deep grooves into the inner life, and our thoughts begin to flow along those old tracks without effort. We do not even choose it, it becomes instinct.
Yet there is a remarkable truth found even in the world of medicine.Surgeons sometimes use a method called mirroring, where a patient focuses their attention on the healthy limb instead of the injured one. The brain begins to believe that healing is occurring in the damaged area, and the pathways of pain are slowly rewritten.
In the same way, Jesus is our healthy limb. When we take our eyes off our wounds and fix them on Him, we begin to heal. As we behold Him, His forgiveness, His grace, His mercy, we begin to mirror Him. We start to think as He thinks, to love as He loves, and to forgive as He forgave.
And this healing does not simply restore us to our original condition. It lifts us higher, it transforms us. For we are not merely conquerors over pain and sin, we are, as Scripture says, “more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:37)
Paul writes, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) This is an invitation to transformation, to a spiritual rewiring of our inner life. The Holy Spirit begins to pour living water through us, and slowly, the current changes course.
Where fear once ruled, trust begins to flow. Where bitterness dug deep, forgiveness takes root. Where sorrow carved its mark, peace begins to move like a river.
Paul also says, “Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Each time we catch a thought before it slides into the old groove, we redirect the flow toward Him. This is the renewal of the mind, the Spirit reshaping what pain once defined.
Each surrendered thought deepens a new channel of grace. Each moment of obedience erodes the old pathways of pain. Soon the soul begins to flow naturally toward Christ. The old grooves may still be visible, but they no longer control the current.
Ask yourself: What grooves in my mind were carved by pain or fear?
Do I still let my thoughts run down those channels?
Or am I letting the Spirit redirect the flow toward peace, mercy, and faith?
The final reproach of the saints, when truth itself is branded as hate.
From the earliest days of the church, the saints of God have endured the reproach of being called what they are not. To stand for truth has always been to invite slander, and to speak the Word of God faithfully has never been received without hostility. As Jesus Himself said, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). History testifies that the righteous have consistently been accused of hatred, malice, and cruelty when, in reality, they were bearing witness to the love and holiness of God.
In our present age, particularly since the cultural shifts of the early twenty-first century, a new distortion has arisen. It is no longer permissible in much of society to disagree with the prevailing moral fashions without being branded a hater. A deliberate conflation has been made between disagreement and hatred, as if to question the legitimacy of homosexual practice or transgender ideology were to harbor malice against those who embrace it. But disagreement is not hatred. To call sin what Scripture calls sin is not to despise the sinner, but to speak truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), the truth that alone can set men free (John 8:32).
This inversion of meaning is no accident. It is the inevitable fruit of a culture that prefers sentimentality over truth, appearance over substance, and human approval over divine authority. The saints of God must see it for what it is: an attempt by the spirit of the age to silence the proclamation of the gospel by weaponizing false accusation. For if every Christian who holds to biblical teaching is deemed a “hater,” then every genuine believer is, by that definition, worthy of scorn and—according to some—even worthy of destruction.
And make no mistake, saint: the false accusers of the brethren have almost always come from within the ranks of what calls itself Christendom. Nearly all the martyrs of the last two thousand years were condemned at the insistence of religious institutions, who sought to preserve their own influence and protect their own power. Secular authorities and atheists may join in, but the fiercest opposition is often religious. Those who speak the truth boldly are always a danger to the religious establishment, because they expose its corruption, its hypocrisy, and its lifeless form. And so the institutions respond either by silencing themselves in cowardice or by attacking the voices of truth with fury—denouncing, separating, and historically, even putting to death those who dared to stand in the light of God’s Word.
This is the way of religion versus relationship. It has always been so, and it will always be so until the end of the age. Jesus reserved His harshest words not for pagans or atheists, but for the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes—the religious authorities of His day (Matthew 23). Though divided among themselves, Pharisees and Sadducees, Herodians and Zealots, even Rome itself, found common cause in their hatred of Christ. In an unholy alliance, they conspired to destroy Him because His very presence threatened every institution and every system of control. And kill Him they did.
That same religious spirit has not died. It has persisted through the centuries, raising its hand against prophets, apostles, reformers, and martyrs. And it remains strong today. As the end draws nearer, that spirit will only intensify, aligning with worldly powers to silence, discredit, and ultimately destroy those who walk in genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. For “the time is coming when whoever kills you will think he offers God service” (John 16:2).
Therefore, the genuine saint must not shrink back. He or she must understand that as the darkness increases, so too will the accusations, the betrayals, and the persecutions. Yet none of this is strange, for our Lord told us beforehand: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). The darkness hates the light and will always seek to extinguish it (John 3:19–20).
But take heart. The slanders of men are but passing shadows. The record of heaven is clear, and the Judge of all the earth will vindicate His people. To be falsely accused is grievous, yes, but it is also glorious—it means we are walking in the footsteps of prophets, apostles, martyrs, and of Christ Himself, who “was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
So let the saints stand firm. Let them embrace the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (Hebrews 11:26). For though the world brands them as haters, heaven knows them as beloved, faithful witnesses of the Light. And as the night grows darker, their testimony will shine all the more brightly until the Day dawns and the Morning Star arises in their hearts (2 Peter 1:19).
The Doctrine That Christ Hates: The Rise and Return of the Nicolaitans (Did They Ever Leave?)
Christ’s Piercing Words
In the opening chapters of Revelation, the risen Christ speaks directly to His Church—piercing words, burning eyes, a two-edged sword proceeding from His mouth. Among the commendations and rebukes, there is one name that echoes with particular disdain: the Nicolaitans.
To the church in Ephesus, He says, “You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” To Pergamos, a more grievous charge: “You have there those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.”
Rarely does the Lord speak with such pointed hatred. What was it that provoked such divine revulsion?
Who Were the Nicolaitans?
The Nicolaitans were not outsiders attacking the faith. They were insiders—wolves in sheep’s clothing—sowing seeds of compromise. Rooted in a doctrine that perverted liberty and corrupted grace, they encouraged the early believers to indulge in idolatry and sexual immorality under the guise of Christian freedom. They blurred the line between the sacred and the profane. They whispered, “God is gracious,” while leading souls into darkness.
Many early church fathers—Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius—linked them to Nicolas of Antioch, one of the first seven deacons. Whether or not this connection is historically solid, what is certain is the nature of their teaching: a doctrine that offered a crown without a cross, a kingdom without righteousness, and grace without repentance.
The Meaning of Their Name
The very name “Nicolaitan” is telling: Nikao—to conquer, and Laos—the people. The conquerors of the people.
This was a sinister inversion of Christ’s model of leadership, where the greatest is the servant of all. In their wake rose a clerical hierarchy, a division between clergy and laity—a spiritual caste system that stripped power from the Body and vested it in a ruling class.
The Nicolaitan spirit enthroned man-made authority in the place of the Spirit’s leading. It built platforms and pulpits where once there had been tables and towels.
A Doctrine of Compromise
But the sin of the Nicolaitans was not merely institutional—it was deeply immoral. They taught that one could follow Christ and still feast at pagan altars. They sanctified sensuality. They preached a gospel without holiness, a salvation without separation, a Christ without a cross.
In them was the spirit of Balaam, who taught Balak to seduce Israel through compromise. And like Balaam, they prophesied for profit.
Has the Doctrine Returned?
And now, we must ask with trembling hearts: Has the doctrine of the Nicolaitans returned to us in this present age? Or worse, has it never left?
Look around the modern Church. In the pursuit of relevance, we have forsaken reverence. In the name of love, we have lost truth. Preachers boast of grace, yet never speak of sin. Congregations are entertained but never convicted. Holiness is ridiculed. Repentance is optional.
Sexual immorality is tolerated—even celebrated—and leaders who should be shepherds build kingdoms in their own names. The altar has become a stage, and the sanctuary a marketplace. We have fashioned a Jesus who fits into our culture, but not a Christ who calls us out of it.
The Nicolaitan Spirit Today
The Nicolaitan spirit thrives where there is no fear of God. It preaches freedom, but enslaves. It promotes unity, but at the cost of truth. It claims to speak for Christ, yet it is the very doctrine He hates.
Yet not all have bowed the knee. Even in Pergamos, where Satan’s throne was, there were those who held fast to His name. And even now, Christ calls out to His people:
“Repent, or I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.” (Revelation 2:16)
The Call to the Remnant
This is no small matter. The Lord of glory will not share His bride with Baal. He will not allow His house to be defiled with the teachings of those who flatter the flesh and poison the soul. The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. The line is being drawn.
Let every remnant heart arise and echo the cry of the saints in Ephesus:
“We hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which our Lord also hates.”
Let us cast down the altars of compromise, break the scepters of clerical control, and return to the simplicity and power of the faith once delivered to the saints. Let us be those who love truth more than comfort, holiness more than relevance, and Christ above all.
For the sword of His mouth still speaks. And the One who walks among the lampstands is watching.
More than a decade ago, I wrote The Fall of Christendom—And the Separation of the Remnant. Since its publication, I have been humbled by the many messages from readers who shared how it opened their eyes to the larger story, the sweeping overview of how Christendom arrived at its present state. That “big picture” view has always been the burden of my spirit.
Today, I return to those themes, not to rehash old arguments, but to press them further—deeper, into the marrow of our collective conscience. The question remains as urgent as ever, perhaps even more so in our time of great religious confusion:
How did we get here?
Apostolic Warnings
The New Testament contains not only proclamations of grace but also sobering warnings. Three texts stand out as particularly vital:
Hebrews warns against retreating into Judaism.
Galatians cautions against beginning in the Spirit but seeking perfection through the law.
Revelation presents Christ’s own admonitions to the churches, declaring that their lampstand would be removed if they refused to repent.
And here lies the burning question: What would it look like if they did not repent?
What if the Galatians persisted in finishing in the flesh what began in the Spirit?
What if the Hebrews clung to the forms and ceremonies of a passing covenant?
What if the churches ignored Christ’s rebuke and carried on with cold orthodoxy, lukewarm faith, or lifeless ritual?
History itself gives us the answer: Christianity, once ablaze with apostolic fire, slowly morphed into a religion of priests, altars, incense, and empire. A living faith became an institution. The Spirit was quenched. The lampstand removed.
And yet—even in the darkest chapters—God preserved a remnant. A people who chose Spirit over ceremony, truth over tradition, Christ Himself over the systems that claimed His name.
A Prophetic Call
This post is not merely history, nor is it theory. It is a call. A prophetic summons to look unflinchingly at where we are, to trace how we got here, and to reckon with what it means that the lampstand has already been removed from much of Christendom.
The only hope lies where it always has:
In returning to the Word of God and the Spirit of Truth.
In joining the remnant outside the gates.
In embracing Christ as the living Head of His people.
1. Hebrews: Warning Against Returning to Judaism
The Epistle to the Hebrews insists the old covenant is obsolete:
“Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb. 8:13 NKJV)
To return to temple and priesthood was to crucify Christ afresh (Heb. 6:6).
History confirms the warning was ignored. By the late 2nd century, the Eucharist was increasingly described as a sacrifice, bishops as priests. Cyprian of Carthage argued the bishop stood in the place of Christ in offering the Eucharist. Thus, shadows of Judaism crept back under Christian names.
2. Galatians: Warning Against Finishing in the Flesh
Paul’s rebuke was stark:
“Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3 NKJV)
By the 3rd century, salvation was widely understood as mediated through sacraments. Baptism, Eucharist, and penance became a system where grace was dispensed mechanically. The life of the Spirit was overshadowed by ritual performance.
3. Revelation: Warning to the Churches
Christ warned the churches: Ephesus had lost first love, Sardis had a name but was dead, Laodicea was lukewarm.
By the 4th century, Christianity outwardly triumphed with basilicas and liturgies, but inwardly the flame dimmed. Nominal Christianity flourished while true discipleship waned.
4. Historical Development: From Apostles to Constantine
a. Second and Third Centuries
The monarchical bishop system arose. Ignatius urged obedience to bishops as if to Christ.
The Montanists resisted, emphasizing the Spirit, prophecy, and holiness. Tertullian joined them. They were condemned as heretics, proof that institutional Christianity preferred order over Spirit.
b. Constantine and Imperial Christianity
The 4th century marked a dramatic shift. Constantine favored Christianity, making it the religion of empire. Bishops gained power, councils met under imperial patronage.
Christianity outwardly triumphed but inwardly conformed to worldly structures.
5. The Hollowing of Christianity
By the medieval period, the warnings were ignored:
Hebrews ignored: a priesthood and continual sacrifices (the Mass).
Galatians ignored: salvation by works and sacraments.
Anabaptists (16th c.) – Radical discipleship, voluntary faith, often martyred by both Catholics and Protestants.
7. The Reformers: A Partial Recovery
The Reformers restored key truths—justification by faith, authority of Scripture, priesthood of believers.
But much of the medieval framework remained:
Luther retained infant baptism and the state church.
Calvin enforced conformity and sanctioned persecution.
The Reformation was real, but incomplete.
8. Theological Reflections
Warnings are Perennial – Drift to ritual, reliance on flesh, loss of first love appear in every age.
Apostasy as Substitution – Replacing Christ with religion, law, or cultural Christianity.
The Remnant Principle – God preserves a faithful witness in every generation.
Conclusion: A Prophetic Word for Today
History demonstrates the accuracy of the apostolic warnings. Christendom became ritual without reality, tradition without truth, form without fire.
The prophetic word today is urgent:
The lampstand has already been extinguished in much of what calls itself church.
God’s people must leave man-made religion and come into the light of Christ.
They must go outside the camp, bearing His reproach but gaining His glory (Heb. 13:13).
The hope does not lie in the institutions of Christendom, but in Christ Himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The choice is clear: remain in the darkness of religion where the lampstand has been removed, or come into His marvelous light where His Spirit gives life.
At the turn of the 20th century, we witnessed the birth of two monumental Pentecostal movements. First, in 1904, came the Welsh Revival in Britain, and then, in 1906, the fires of revival swept through Azusa Street in Los Angeles. These were no ordinary stirrings, they were powerful outpourings of the Holy Spirit that would give rise to entire movements, such as the Elim Pentecostal Church in Britain and the Assemblies of God, which would spread globally and impact hundreds of millions.
From these humble beginnings, in every corner of the land, small Pentecostal churches began to emerge. Their message was simple: salvation through Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the restoration of spiritual gifts. These fellowships sprang up in the shadow of massive denominational institutions, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and others, hige edifices steeped in their own traditions. Yet right beside them, in modest, unassuming buildings, were these Spirit-filled gatherings where lives were being radically transformed, adults were getting saved, and the gifts of the Spirit were active and alive.
This was a profound blow to the kingdom of darkness. The enemy, seeing the explosive growth of this movement, would not sit idly by. His question became clear: How can we bring this down? And so, beginning in the 1940s, we saw the emergence of new “theological,” trends, the Word of Faith movement, the Prosperity Gospel, and of course the Charismatic movement in the 60s, which would swallow up the others and become indistinguishable.
It was a cunning strategy: If you can’t beat them, buy them. The philosophy was simple, promise the very things that human beings everywhere fear to lose: health and wealth. Whether you’re in New York City or a remote village in the jungle, the universal concerns remain the same, our bodies and our bank accounts. The enemy offered a counterfeit gospel, one that shifted the focus from the cross of Christ to the desires of the flesh.
The Charismatic Movement became a Trojan horse. It infiltrated Pentecostal churches across the globe, not with persecution, but with promises. And it worked, brilliantly, tragically. The smoke from the fire of true revival has been replaced by the smoke machines of performance and entertainment. The altars were replaced by stages, the message by motivational speaking, and the Spirit by self-help and “self,” seeking
What followed was the tearing down of the very pillars upon which the early Pentecostal movement had stood. The purity of the Gospel was traded for a gospel of gain. Faith, once the precious link to Christ Himself, was twisted into a tool to manipulate blessings. Prosperity or tge lack of it, once counted as rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ, became the goal.Christ had become but a means to a materialistic end.
It was a disaster for the Church, and a stunning success for the enemy. The people rose up and played, just as they did before the golden calf in the wilderness. Think of “holy laughter,” and roaring like animals. And today, we stand in the shadow of that fall, in the ruins of what once was a mighty move of God.
These false ideologies, health and wealth, Name It and Claim It, the separation of faith from Christ Himself, have infected almost every corner of the modern Pentecostal and non-denominational world. Rare is the church untouched. Subtle or blatant, this taint remains, and it must be recognized for what it is.
Now, in this late hour, a remnant is rising, a people who are returning to the simplicity and the power of the cross, who walk not in the counsel of the world but in the fear of the Lord. Let us not be seduced by the glitter of gain or the lure of comfort. Let us remember the foundation laid in tears and prayer and holy fire. It is time to leave the circus behind, with all its many forms of entertainment, and “come out from among her.”
We encourage one another, it is a beautiful thing, a sacred rhythm in the Body of Christ. It has been the highest privilege of my life to minister to the few, those precious souls who once believed they were utterly alone. They are the ones who, at great personal cost, have come out from the organized church, misunderstood, maligned, and often mistrusted. They have been accused of elitism, of arrogance, even of falling away, when in truth, they could no longer endure the weight of a system that quenched the very Spirit they were called to walk in.
These are they who began in the Spirit, and, like Paul’s plea to the Galatians, refused to be perfected by the flesh (Galatians 3:3). They yearn to hear not the rebuke, “O foolish Galatians,” but rather the commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). They seek to gather where the Spirit is free to move, where the saints may truly fulfill the exhortation of 1 Corinthians 14, that all may speak, all may learn, all may be encouraged, and the gifts be exercised for the edification of the whole.
They long to walk simply, with humility before God and sincerity before men (Micah 6:8). In their gatherings, Christ alone is exalted, Jesus, the Lord of glory, lifted up as the only Head, the only Shepherd, the only One who is preeminent (Colossians 1:18). There are no stars, no stages, only saints, broken and burning, desiring nothing but Him.
Yet to walk this way, there has been a call, an unrelenting summons from the Lord, “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17). This is the remnant road, walked not in bitterness but in obedience, not in pride but in pursuit of the living God, Christ in us, the hope of glory.
You know, tomorrow is Pentecost (I wrote this a few weeks ago) And like many sacred things in the church, we have made a symbol of it. We have reduced it to a ritual, a religious observance marked by a date on the calendar. Pentecost, like Christmas or Easter, has become a ceremony. But, brothers and sisters, let me tell you plainly, that is not what it was meant to be.
Pentecost was not a celebration of a day. It was the arrival of a Person. The Holy Spirit descended like fire from heaven. As the Word declares, “Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:3–4, NKJV).
That moment was not meant to be memorialized once a year, it was meant to revolutionize every day. One encounter with the baptism of the Holy Spirit transforms a life utterly. It sets the heart ablaze and loosens the tongue with boldness. It becomes the source of power that causes the devil to flee. It strengthens our feet for the narrow way, “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14, NKJV).
The Spirit enables us to pass through valleys, to climb spiritual mountains, to face the enemy of our souls. Not with trembling but with power. For “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4, NKJV). Pentecost is not a date, it is a way of living, it is heaven’s breath within us, propelling us forward in divine strength.
Jesus Himself declared, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled” (Luke 12:49, NKJV). And John the Baptist testified of Christ, saying, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16, NKJV). This fire, I believe, was taken from the coals of the heavenly altar, the very presence of God, and placed upon frail men.
And what happened? Those few, filled with that fire, “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6, NKJV). They did not wait for a Sunday. They did not look to feast days. They carried Pentecost in their bones, in their breath, and in their speech. They were pierced by power and spoke so that “when they heard this, they were cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37, NKJV).
You must be born again. You must be baptized in the Holy Spirit. You must have the fire of God within. Without Him, Christianity becomes religion, an empty shell. But with Him, it becomes life and that more abundantly (John 10:10, NKJV).
A Call To The Remnant 