Rushing Toward Laodicea (Part 3)
The Spewed Church
Look again at the passage we read at the beginning of this study in Revelation 3:14-19
14 " And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ' These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: 15 "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 "Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' -- and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked -- 18 "I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
The time will come when the age of the gentiles will come to a close and God will again raise up the Jewish people to be a light to the gospel. God has promised that in the latter days, He will turn ungodliness away from Jacob and redeem the remnant of the house of Israel. The message of the gospel will not change; however, the blindness of Israel has happened for a specific period of time and one day the veil will be removed (See Romans chapter 11). The Bible tells us that Israel was removed because of unbelief and the gentiles were grafted into the vine of Christ. If the gentiles fall from the faith and into unbelief as Israel has done, God will remove the wild vine (the gentiles) and graft in again the natural vine (Israel).
The ultimate destiny of the redeemed in Christ is to be one flock under the authority of Jesus Christ. The light of the gospel will one day be carried by Israel (Revelation 7:1-15). After God rejects the church for its unbelief, the world will be tried in what the Bible calls the great tribulation. Even after God vomits out the church in disgust, salvation is not taken away from the earth. In truth, if God continued using the watered down church, salvation would cease to be preached; therefore, God ordains those whom He has reserved for Himself and the greatest time of evangelism in history will occur during the world’s darkest time of tribulation.
It is important to understand why the church becomes so repulsive to God. I believe that it begins with the prophecy of 2 Timothy 4:1-4
I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
The very people who are calling themselves by God’s name will (and have) rejected the truth and are looking for teachers who will tell them the feel-good theology that they want to hear. The one sign given to the church to know the times of the last days have arrived is the falling away (or apostasy) of the church as they depart from doctrine and by this depart from biblical faith. The faithless church will pursue a form of godliness (or religiosity) but the power of the message will be focused on the man and not the Holy Spirit. Men will claim that they have the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit never contradicts the word of God and always focuses the believer to submit to Christ and all the commandments of God. The problem is that the church is so dumbed-down that no one can recognize the signs of the times or the deviation from truth. All churches put their trust in a pastor, teacher or outside resource to teach them doctrine and very, very few consistently study the scriptures to learn the truth. God, by His divine power has given each believer everything that they need to live life in godliness and the power of God (2 Peter 1:3-11). You cannot live under the divine power of God if you as the individual do not study the word of God and know His ways. Look at 2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
It is the scripture that equips each Christian for good work – not any book or religious organization. Studying the ‘Purpose Driven Life’ will not equip you. Reading ‘Your Best Life Now’ will not make you experience the Christian life in its fullness. The book ‘Secret Message of Jesus’ will not reveal to you the mysteries of God that are clearly revealed in scripture. Thousands of books are printed each year promising to reveal the hidden things of God to you and make your life complete. All of this is a distraction and if you are depending on theologians to teach you, there is little chance you will ever truly experience an intimate walk with God.
The modern church movement puts all the focus on doctrines of men and dependence on a teacher. If your teacher is wrong, you are wrong. The error will sound good. The wolves that God said WILL come into the church and lead many astray will sound good. They do sound good and no one can see the error. As long as you are not deep in the word of God, you will not be able to distinguish between the truth and the error. Wolves can use scripture to teach error and if you are unlearned in scripture, you will also be unable to recognize error. It is very difficult to convince someone that the focus of the church is wrong when they have no biblical foundation other than what man has taught them to believe. The lie sounds good. The lie will always sound good. The lie will be so close to the truth that unless you know the truth you will not be able to tell the two apart. You have in your grasp the power to live life and obtain godliness. If you have faith in Christ, you also have been given the power to understand the Word of God without being dependent on any man or woman. Look at 1 John 2:26-27
26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. 27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
The anointing comes from God by the Holy Spirit who is given to everyone who has faith in Christ (Romans 5:5 and 1 John 3:9). If you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you have this anointing. If you study the word, you will grow in understanding. The Bible teaches that God builds us up with precept upon precept. As you learn and apply the word, God reveals more to us by building on the foundation He is laying in our hearts. If you read the whole word and you belong to God, you will draw the right conclusions as you grow in understanding. You will NEVER grow in understanding if you are not in the word. The understanding that God gives cannot be found in devotionals, theological books, sermons or any other resource. True knowledge and understanding comes through the Holy Spirit as He teaches us as we apply our hearts to the word of God. Anyone who teaches you differently is trying to deceive you. The purpose of a teacher scripturally is to instruct the unlearned how to become a disciple of Christ and to teach the disciples of Christ by continuously bringing them into remembrance of the principles of God so that they do not begin to slip away from the truth.
When you hear someone teaching you the ‘secret’ knowledge that will change your life, ask yourself if this doctrine can be found in scripture without the teacher guiding you. If you cannot draw the same conclusion by studying the scriptures, it is almost certainly an error and a deception. The person teaching may sincerely believe the lie, but it is still a lie. Modern theology puts all the focus on what you can do to gratify self, the power of your words, the godhood of the man, but God calls us to die to self, rely on His power and that He alone is God and no other god has been before Him nor will any be formed later (Isaiah 43:10). Seek the truth and you will find truth. Seek the man (or woman) and you will find deception. Many teachers send mixed messages by one day sounding very biblical and then later contradicting themselves or presenting a message that appears to conflict with scripture. This is a common practice when false doctrine is slowly being introduced to a congregation that may not be immediately accepting of it. God is not the author of confusion. If a teacher is not consistently adhering to scripture, they are either being willfully deceptive or they are not secure in their own doctrine. Either way, they are disqualified biblically from being a teacher.
As the church abandons the truth and follows men, our focus becomes selfish, our eyes become blinded and the church finds itself contrary to God instead of fulfilling the calling of God. When the church abandons God, God will reject the church. God has told us this time would come beforehand so that individuals who are faithful would not be carried away with the deception. The ONLY people who can truly be faithful are those who love and obey the word of God. Without this biblical foundation, you have no way of determining the will of God. God has commanded you as the individual to study the word and know the will of God and you as the individual will be accountable for your own obedience as will I and also all those who have gone before us.
Man desires his own agenda and the Bible also warns us that mans ways seem right, but the end is death (Proverbs 14:12, Proverbs 16:25). One popular teacher said that making disciples is not the highest priority of the church but it is in the top 5. This is a clear example showing that the most influential evangelical leaders have completely lost sight of the commandments given to us by God. The only commission given to the church is to make disciples and teach them to observe all that has been commanded. Nothing else is important. All the church business, community events, church programs and other benefits must take backstage to the true mission of the church. A church cannot be obedient to God without making discipleship the only priority of the church. If events take away from the mission, the event is wrong. Church programs are good and have a relevant benefit to church members and the community; however, they must take a backseat to the command of God.
If a church is obeying the great commission of Jesus, all the other things will take care of themselves. A church should be equipping leaders and teachers in the word first and foremost. If you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, God has promised to meet your needs (Matthew 6:33). This is where the subtlety of deception occurs. People look at a church and say, “They feed the poor, reach out to the community, provide daycare, educate the illiterate, and do so many good things. How can they be wrong?” If a church does not obey the foundational commandment given by Jesus Christ, nothing else matters. Good works founded upon disobedience are not good works. Many will say to Jesus, “Look at all the wonderful things I did in Your name”, but He will say, “You are a worker of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:22-23). Atheists do good works. Even Al Capone, the famous gangster who murdered many people and was a forefather to organized crime in this country provided soup lines, fed the poor and did many good deeds to the community.
Do not misunderstand, good deeds should not be neglected and are commanded; however, the absolute highest priority of the church is to teach people how to be disciples obedient to the word of God. A disciple will have the love of Christ and by the compassion of the Holy Spirit will reach out to show God’s love by meeting the physical need and using this as a ministry tool to meet the spiritual needs of a person. If a church fulfills this calling, God can use church programs to open the door for the gospel. If church programs are the focus, true discipleship is neglected and then programs mean nothing.
The absolute worst thing a church can build its purpose around is to become relevant to the community (or world). So-called seeker friendly churches substitute the word ‘world’ with the word ‘community’, but the meaning is the same. If you are seeking to make the church a happy place for those who don’t know Christ, you are conforming to the world. God has spoken very harshly against this. Look at James 4:4
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
A church cannot conform to the world (or culture) without betraying God. An adulterer or adulteress is someone who is married but has an affair outside of that covenant. The church is the bride of Christ and each person professing to be a Christian has entered into a covenant with God through the cross of Jesus Christ. If you conform to the culture God has called you to leave, you are an adulteress. You have sworn your loyalty to Christ and are now going back to the ungodly world which is contrary to Christ. Supposedly you have died to your sins and left your old life behind; how then can a church conform itself to the culture that still abides in the world that is at war with God? Today’s church has completely lost its focus. One of the biggest churches in Georgia has produced a music video placing all the focus on money as they sing praises to it. Words can’t describe this so I have placed a link so you can watch this video if you choose. Click here to watch the video. Is there any way the church can justify this idolatry?
The true gospel will never be relevant to the community nor can it be. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18) and the word cannot be understood by the world because it must be spiritually revealed to us by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14). Since those without Christ cannot receive the Holy Spirit, they are very limited in what can be understood. The Holy Spirit reveals the salvation message to the lost world around us through the preached word. If someone refuses the message of the cross, they cannot receive the word. The mission of the church is not to make those who do not want to hear the word feel comfortable. Why would we famish the church by removing the whole council of God in order to grow numerically by adding those who do not want to leave the world behind?
God will cast away (or vomit out) the church because it has become more focused on building our kingdom than God’s. A church with 10 people that are growing in truth is fulfilling the will of God and His commandments, while a church with ten-thousand members who are destitute of truth is worthless in God’s kingdom. God does not care how many members you have; He cares if you are obeying. Obedience is far more important than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22) and knowing God and His word is far more important than works (Matthew 7:22-23, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, John 14:24). If you do not keep the word, you do not love Christ. If you do not obey the word, you do not love Christ. If you do not forsake your life in this world and follow Jesus, you cannot be His disciple. If a church is not teaching these things and making disciples, they are not fulfilling God’s will and are in complete disobedience to the gospel. All the works in the world will not make up for disobedience to God. Only through repentance and submission to His will and word can we find and fulfill the will of God.
Eddie Snipes
Exchanged Life Outreach
http://www.exchangedlife.com
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