Calvary was not a success, it was a victory!
The story of the cross is the story of what happens when a divine omniscient with a plan of victory visits a world of ambitious men bent on success.
God has no plans for succeeding. He invaded this planet to conquer it!
If His objective had been success, then success oriented
and success prone humans would not have rejected and crucified Him!
But take an honest look at the ministry of Jesus. As far
as super crowds He was a failure. He apparently did not want to succeed
at amassing the people around Him. When the crowd came out to Him He blasted
them with denunciations that scattered them in every direction mumbling
to themselves. For three and one half years He stunned the nation of Israel
with miracles of the greatest magnitude and yet out of a nation only a
band of one hundred and twenty tarried for Him in the upper room. Matthew
23; John 8 and Acts 1 and 2. That's not exactly being a success.
He would not allow Himself to become an object of charisma
worshipers. This is where the real battle lines and decisive spiritual
combat begins and where the battles have been lost by the modern preacher
and layman.
Western culture and not Jesus has programed us to success.
Modern Charismatic equate success with spiritual achievement and maturity.
Millions of modern Christians labor under the illusion of the success philosophy.
Excuse me sir, but the Holy Spirit is not come to make
you a success, He has come to help you die - to take up your cross daily
and bear it suffering with Him! Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered
for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he
that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; 1 Peter 4:1
Material gain is a fringe benefit of obedience, not a prime objective worthy of the extreme emphasis Charismatic have placed upon it in this church generation. Our taste for victory has given way to a lust for success.
Jesus knew the difference.
Jesus was not presented to the world as God's Public Relations
agent. He came to transform us morally no matter the cost - to Him or to
me.
Success makes us feel good, victory makes us feel right. If riches constitute a sort of spiritual success or divine approval then Christ's simplistic lifestyle proves Him a failure. But if godliness and purity is a goal, then He was gloriously triumphant!
Success is a cheap substitute for victory.
Where the church necessarily touches the world there will
also be business transactions essential to the church's welfare. Even Jesus
had a bag of money, which Judas carried, to care for the practical needs
of His faithful band. Today the business methods of the church are based
on simple honesty and have very little in common with the business psychology
methods of the business world. What business principles of the world may
apply to the business of the church must be watched and kept properly at
the perimeter of the church's activities. But if that spirit penetrates
to influence the spiritual leadership of the church it may indeed produce
a visibly successful church. But when personal purity and holiness of life
is no longer stressed the living organism becomes an organization and the
outcome promises to be devastating - even if it waits till the judgment
to be exposed.
Success is a business word.
Victory is a battle word.
The Kingdom of God never was and never shall be "big business."
Success depends upon human resources.
Victory depends on Heaven's resources.
Achieving success will make us feel good and then we make
the big mistake of believing that good feeling is the blessing of God.
The next step is natural; we confuse the blessing of God
with the approval of God. It then follows in our thinking that, What God
blesses, God approves.
This is where "big men" jump the track. Scripture reveals that "big men" make the biggest mistakes. When a big man makes a mistake, he only makes big mistakes because his high profile effects so many people with his error. This is the good thing about being a "little man." A little man can only make little mistakes.
Thank God, Jesus did not make the mistake we are making - confuse spiritual victory with material success!
The cross is the greatest paradox of world history!
While Jesus failed to sway the depravity of men to thinking
God's way, He nailed that depravity that rejected Him, to the cross, stripped
it of all of its power and its ruthless enslavement of mankind, and in
an open display of divine compassion He triumphed over His enemies in a
spectacle etched on the conscience of the world it cannot shake off. That
was not success, that was a cosmic victory over all the regions of the
damned! Colossians 2:15.
The paradox of the cross is that, while it contained the
death of a man who did not succeed in the eyes of His enemies, it also
contained the resurrection of a man who was victorious over all of the
enemies of God.
Golgotha was a place where the raging legions of hell engaged the powers of Heaven spilling the blood of our Prince in the course of the bloody battle.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He
might destroy the works of the devil. There has never been any other kind
of relationship between the God of Heaven and the imps of Hades.
You don't succeed in battle!
In war you are victor when you have vanquished the enemy!
To defend the theories of "success" is to give your life and destiny to a myth.
To emphasize prosperity over piety is to pit a fantasy against the mighty lacers of divine truth!
Let's get back to the business of holy lives.
Building scriptural moral lives unspotted from the world is the chief business of the church.
In business, morality is sacrificed for unity.
In the spiritual warfare, unity is often sacrificed for
the glory of victory.
Moses refused the offer of unity with Egypt. He failed
at unity, but joined himself to Israel and achieved moral victory.
Don't be rattled brethren, the greatest achievement of
a child of God is to accomplish the supernatural character of Christ, and
that means a thousand battles, a thousand scars, perhaps for some a thousand
painful wounds with the promise of the victors crown when at last every
enemy has been beaten down in death. (1 Corinthians 15)
The Bible doesn't say, "We can succeed in all things through
Christ, our executive director," but it does say, We are more than conquerors.
To know the difference between the gospel that conquerors and the a gospel
that makes you rich is to know the difference between the apostle's doctrine
and the apostate's doctrine, Nay, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him that loved us. Romans 8:37
The work of Christ in this world is not even relative
to the success mentality of the Charismatic prosperity philosophy. The
gospel message of God's love and redemption of man appeals to man's sense
of sin and guilt and the sinner's desire to know the true and living God.
God cares less about how much money you have in your pocket. God cares
how much love for truth is in your heart. This Charismatic obsession with
reaching ahead and finding a new gimmick, a new doctrine that will work,
that will keep the people coming and the coffers full, works for the world
and the worldly church, but it is not the stuff angels talk about on the
sea of glass, nor does it interest in the least a pure hearted Pentecostal.
Charismatic believe their philosophy is Biblical and perfectly
acceptable to God. You have the choice to believe what they say or check
it out carefully with the Word of God. When they say, "Don't be so sensitive
to just little things and unimportant things." Be sure that what they call
a little thing is indeed also a little thing to God. Remember Shammah.
He fought for beans because God made Israel a promise that wherever they
step foot belonged to the Lord. It may only be beans, but they are God's
beans! (2 Samuel 23:11) they say. "Just get people saved and the Holy Spirit
will do the rest." If we see a mighty church full of the Holy Ghost, and
signs and wonders, it will be because we have endured blood soaked battles
with the enemy! To say the Holy Spirit does the rest is an excuse for running
from the enemy. And the Holy Ghost does the rest? No one enters the kingdom
like that, and no one gets there by accident. We will have to fight for
beans If we are going to take the promised land for God! Matthew 5:19.
When Jesus was nearing Capernaum a man stepped out of the crowd and shouted
a question to Jesus, "Lord, are there few that be saved?
Jesus said, Amen, Amen, strive (agonazomai, literally,
strain every nerve!) To enter in at the strait gate. Authentic Pentecost
does not have this silly message about the Holy Ghost does the rest simply
because it is a philosophical idiom that is not Biblical at all! Pentecostals
preach the Grace of God that is teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly
lusts, and to live soberly, and righteously, and godly in this present
age. (Titus 2:11-12)
Pentecostals believe in ironing out every wrinkle and
removing every little spot. Charismatic teach Grace as God's mercy canceling
God's justice. That is a poor bit of Biblical exegesis! God's mercy never
violates divine justice! If that were true then God's Son would have never
departed the glories of heaven to fall to this earth like a stricken bird
to become rejected, despised and tortured to death on a Roman cross in
order to pay the penalty divine justice demanded. Pentecostals believe
in a moral transformation of the nature when a man comes to the feet of
Jesus in repentance of his sin. Pentecostals teach that God's mercy is
demonstrated when He poured out His wrath in perfect justice upon His own
Son who took the penalty for my sin. By this justice was fulfilled and
carried out perfectly. Mercy was in that Jesus took my place providing
a perfect atonement satisfying all of the demands of perfect justice.
Pentecostals believe that to be a friend of the world is to be the enemy of God. (James 4:4) Charismatic churches hold cosmetic classes for the women of the church in the church. Pentecostals don't wear cosmetics or do anything to accentuate the feminine charm. Pentecostals do not believe in externalism, they believe that to be pure is to be natural. Jude is right again - shameless departures from the truth of God's Word!
Charismatic use this Scripture to support their criticism
of Christians who hold to traditional Pentecostal values. But Jesus was
denouncing the Jews for teaching and living by the interpretations of the
Talmud while putting to naught the Torah (Word of God). Jesus warns those
who ignore the Word and teach their own customs and traditions born out
of imagination of personal interpretation. Jesus said of these Jews who
taught Talmud over the Word, they teach
for doctrine the commandments of men.
In this text in Mark 7 Jesus is rebuking the Jews for
their obedience to the Talmud (not the law of Moses contained in the Torah).
And before someone questions our using this Scripture to expose the Charismatic
tendency to teach philosophy over doctrine, let us make it clear that peculiar
and extreme doctrinal interpretations of Charismatic is exactly what the
Pharisees were guilty of. The teachers of the law "interpreted' the teachings
of Moses and entered these interpretations into the Talmud which were more
binding and more observed than God's Word. This is the Charismatic error.
They have interpreted Scripture to their liking. Every time the apostate
church graduates to another lower lifestyle following after the world,
it has to reinterpret the Bible again to suit the fancies of another generation
with another mentality. This business of interpreting and reinterpreting
the Scripture is where men become like Pharisees. It is not the keeping
of the actual moral law of God that is condemned by Jesus but those who
have believe and obey a the interpretations of men creating a parachurch
with paradoctrine outside of the actual Word of God. Recent dominion teaching
by prominent Charismatic men declaring that the planet belonged to man
and that before God could do anything on this planet He (God) had to have
man's permission to do it, is not only the epitome of arrogance, it is
splendid idiocy!
Doctrine despised by Evangelical Ecumenicals. Many
Charismatic luminaries involved in the Evangelical Ecumenical program discredit
the importance of doctrine. Of course they don't like pure doctrine!
They wrongly teach a conditionless love for the brethren which can be easily
disproved as Scriptural correct. There are wayward brethren, evil
brethren and false brethren. While it is true we are to love them,
this does mean we are to have a full and complete relationship with them
as with true brethren who are faithful and true to the Christ. To
love a brother does not mean that I fraternize with him if he is under
discipline or has been excommunicated from the church. I will be
gracious and friendly with him. But I cannot have a full brotherly
relationship with him until he is restored by confession of sin or has
fulfilled the discipline put upon him by the elders of the church.
My love for a brother and my relationship to him are two different things.
Of course, it is ideal when I love him and we are in accord and have a
mutual love for pure doctrine. The brotherly relationship is conditional
and subject to many other Scriptural factors as noted below. To promote
a fraternity of heretics in the name of God's love is ludicrous and irresponsible.
While the Word of God does tell us indeed to love the brethren, it also
tells us to we should not be joined with brethren who teach false doctrine.
Charismatic by their ecumenical beliefs accept false teachers into the
body of true believers. Pentecostals do not accept false teachers
as brethren who will not renounce their error. Let us see what the
Word of God says about being joined with those who have false teaching
and then accept the fact that Evangelical Ecumenism is a dangerous violation
of the Word of God.
Evangelical Ecumenism teaches that "anyone who believes in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is my brother." Wait a minute . . . Devils believe that. (Read James 2:19). This means that devils, which believe Jesus was born of a virgin, was crucified and rose again, qualify to be my "brother"! Pentecostals do not believe in this ecumenical doctrine, nor do they accept this foolish statement of faith. If a preacher believes in casting out devils, he surely should not be promoting devil's doctrines. The church of Acts taught differently than the modern Charismatic. The apostles did not teach that Christians should receive as a brother a man who believes I must go through Mary to Jesus, or that tradition is equal to Scripture in authority. To say that a man who believes in the infallibility of the Pope, purgatory, and that sins can only be remitted by a priest, is to be received as a brother and that what he believes and teaches must be subjected to "unity" is rebellion against the revelation of God's Word.
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