The following is a post I wished I did not have to make. In fact, I consider this a new low for those who spend their days publicly attacking other Christians with whom they have disagreements.
What I am about to share is to date, the most horrendous example of abuse of the so-called "discernment ministry" by the host and author of the web site named DiscernIT.
It is an example of what I have warned my readership about these past few months within the Christian Evangelical circles in this country. It is a manifestation of what I warned would happen with time; the critics of The Harbinger would eventually make it evident who the wheat and who the tares are in this controversy. Well, here is the exchange I had recently with the blogger on DiscernIT. I have expunged her name and other information to protect her privacy. But that she would have been so kind with me. I have also not included our private e-mails, because I have not had the author's permission to post it here, and to guard her privacy as well. She has since apologized to me privately for what she had originally posted on her web site, though she still holds her opinions pertaining to the author of a book I am unfamiliar with and have no interest in reading, or connection to, and neither does Rabbi Cahn and Beth Israel to my knowledge.
My replies are all preceded by MY REPLY/CORRECTION, and the other person's posts are preceded by YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING.
Thank you,
The Pepster
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TITLE OF HER ARTICLE IS IMMEDIATELY BELOW:
Johnathan Cahn’s Beth Israel Church Promotes “Sacred Path”
I had the strangest exchange of emails.
It began with a testimony of deliverance from “Hyper-Pentecostalism, and the teachings of the Word of Faith/Name it and Claim It preachers such as Robert W. Schambach, Kenneth Hagen, Kenneth Copeland, Charles Capps, Ernest Angley, W.V. Grant Jr., Peter Popoff, Jimmy Swaggart, Eugene Scott, and the rest..”
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: There is nothing in my testimony that betrays in any way anything other than my sincere heart-felt personal testimony to you that you have trumped before the public to discredit me and bring into question my veracity and walk in Christ. It will become evident, even to many of your readers; just how wrong you are in what you have done here dear lady. I forgive you, and pray your repentance before our Merciful Father, because most assuredly the Lord who knows all things and sees into all hearts; will hold you personally accountable for the falsehoods you have written in your article and posted publicly for all of your readers to read. The Lord Himself on the day when all of us stand before Him, will ask you why you had to write the lies that you did against someone you do not know, and others whom you have slandered in the past by writing fabrications of your own invention against them. Everything you have written in your article against Rabbi Cahn and against me, and against my Christian brethren at Beth Israel are nothing but absolute lies and fabrications invented by you to discredit and marginalize Rabbi Cahn’s book, The Harbinger, his ministry; Hope of the World Ministries, and the work of God being done at the Jerusalem Center and the Arise and Shine Academy. LET ME PUT THIS QUESTION TO YOU: HAVE YOU READ THE HARBINGER YET? Or is your review and criticism of it simply based on second and third hand hearsay? Be honest in your answer, you stand before the Lord God and your readership, not me dear lady.
________________________________________
YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING:
This was interesting and good news but then came some bad news. “As an early Christian I remember telling a friend what he had done the entire day in exact order without knowing a thing about what he had done or the places he had been to, but God knew.” I have come to know this as remote viewing and I do not see this capability in my Bible. This is an occultic experience. He later admitted to being previously involved in spiritism. It is difficult to give up what we may consider as gifts from God as actually gifts from the enemy.
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: I have written above that you better very careful with what you write and what you infer, because when writing of other Christians and attributing the gift of Word of Knowledge (1Corinthians 12: as an “occultic experience,” as you called it, and then connecting a work of the Holy Spirit – which you call – REMOTE VIEWING – to me NOT BEFORE, BUT AFTER I RECEIVED CHRIST AS MY SAVIOR, GOT INSTANTANEOUSLY DELIVERED OF DEMONIC POWERS, AND BEING FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD, and practicing one of the gifts of the Spirit for the edification and encouragement of another brother in Christ, and attribute it with demonic activity because of my previous life and very brief experience in spiritualism – READ BEFORE I RECEIVED CHRIST AND GOT DELIVERED AND BORN AGAIN – you are treading on water. You are running the risk of attributing a work of God with Satanic activity, if you haven’t already done so. This is the only sin that God will not pardon. Be very careful. I fear for you. Lady, your statements are not just an offense and an affront to me, they are an offense and an affront to God.
I reminded of the following Scripture pertaining to this. And I quote:
Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”
And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.
The Unpardonable Sin
“He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
Words Reveal Character
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
(Matthew 12:22-37)
When a person is born again of the Spirit of God, he or she is sealed with the Holy Spirit, whom God gives to the believer as a pledge of His vow of marriage to that person as part of the Bride of Christ.
I was born again and have been walking in the grace and Spirit of God in Christ for thirty-five years. This is the first time in all of my walk that I have ever encountered anyone who has brought into question the gift of the Holy Spirit in me that Christ has given me to serve Him, bear witness of Him, and testify of His faithfulness, trustworthiness, and Lordship over all of us as our God and Savior. But then, why should I or anyone else be surprised by this. It is not the first time it has happened. We read of it in our Bibles, and the Lord Himself warns all of His disciples in the following way:
The Lord is God and Jesus Christ is Lord, make no mistake about it. If I didn’t have the Holy Spirit, I would not write as I do about this, for the Scripture which cannot be broken, says where the Apostle Paul writes in the Holy Spirit the following:
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
(1Corinthians 12:1-3)
This is why we must test the spirits to see if they are from God, because not everyone who quotes Scripture is a child of God. Satan quoted Scripture and misapplied it to the Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness. He had the audacity to approach God against Job (Job ) when the sons of God gathered to call upon the name of the Lord (Genesis 4:26) – the godly line of Seth mentioned in Genesis 5; Satan tried to destroy Job, and in the process caused great pain and suffering to him. We see the same deceiving spirit at work even speaking a truth about Paul and his associates when they visited the city of Thyatira. We follow the story here, where Luke’s Acts records the following:
It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment.
(Acts 16:16-18)
Here we have a slave girl with a spirit of divination, a practice that is forbidden by the Law and of which the prophets have spoken against (Leviticus 19:31, 20:6, 27, Deuteronomy 18:11, Isaiah 8:19, 19:3, 47:12-13), proclaim publicly that Paul and his associates are bond-servants of the Most High God, an absolute truth; yet Paul is not only disturbed by this, but he rebukes the evil spirit out of the girl after three days, having had enough of its attention gathering shenanigans. You see, Paul who knew the Law also understood that the purpose of this evil spirit was to discredit him and his associates and the Gospel message by attaching this medium to them with her public outbursts in what appeared on the surface to be a show of support on her part, but was really meant by Satan to sow distrust and suspicion among the Jewish public towards Paul’s testimony. Think about it, what self-respecting observant Jew would believe Paul if it were found that a spiritist claims he works for God? This was what this spirit sought to do in Thyatira against Paul and against the spread of the Gospel in that city. Discrediting servants of Christ is a very old trick of the enemy. He has come between you and me, and between you and Rabbi Cahn and what God has been doing in both our lives.
I have had the opportunity to test a spirit according to the manner prescribed by God’s Word. Let me give you an example of this in practice by relating the following story. It happened when I went to get my haircut. While I sat waiting for my turn, a man entered the barber shop and began shouting Scriptures at everyone there, focusing primarily at the owner of the business who is a believer (as are most of the other employees, including my barber). As he shouted his hellfire and brimstone unintelligible message at everyone, he sought to collect some money from the owner. There was something very wrong about this man, and when he came to me, I asked that spirit point blank, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord!” He kept talking without reacting as though I hadn’t said anything. I repeated my question to that spirit, “Do you believe that Jesus is Lord!” He answered very quickly, “No,” and continued his preaching. At that instant, I thought, “Got you.” As he continued to preach at me, I asked another time, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord,” to which he again repeated, “No,” and continued. It did this in for three reasons; to test the spirit, to confirm a second and possibly a third time that it was not from God, and to allow everyone there to hear it for themselves, if some missed it the first time. The spirit in that man was preaching and quoting Scripture, but made no sense to what he was saying, not testifying of Christ, and when put to the test, failed it. This is what the Scriptures mean when it admonishes us to test the spirits.
People who get demons driven out of them without receiving Christ afterwards stand the chance of relapsing into a worst state than previously, because the Holy Spirit must take the place of residence in that person through the new birth, without which that person can either enter or see (be aware of and believe in) the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit seals us in Christ unto the day of Redemption, so that the following will not occur to those who believe:
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”
(Matthew 12:43-45)
This is precisely why it is of paramount of importance when sharing the Gospel with an unbeliever, especially if he/she has dabbled in the occult, that they repent of sins and receive Christ as soon as possible, so Satan will not come and steal the seed of the Word planted in that person with whom we have shared the Gospel. If a person gets delivered of an evil or familiar spirit, they must pray as soon as possible to receive Christ, to prevent what Our Lord warns about above. In this manner that person is sealed from and protected from this happening, because rather than the house (we are a temple of God ) being swept and clean, but empty, as Christ describes it, the house is now occupied by the Lord and therefore His temple. A person does not belong to Christ unless he/she has the Spirit of God dwelling in them. (Romans 8:9)
This is where we are told to test the spirits to see if they are from God, as the Apostle John writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
(1John 4:1-21)
I don’t see this love in you or in any of the others who spend their days criticizing other Christians, their walk in Christ, their faith, and their personal salvation, because of religious and doctrinal differences and questions over eschatology and spiritual matters. But we are to test the spirits to see if they are from God. And I am concerned for you as a brother in Christ (though you may or may not regard me as such, and it matters not to me whether you do or don’t, but that you do not stumble or cause others to stumble by what you’ve written), and write to you to admonish you in the Lord to be very careful with what you write.
The person who has the Holy Spirit manifests the fruits of the Spirit, and Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit lists them as follows:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
(Galatians 5:22-24)
The Holy Spirit declares Christ Lord (1Corinthians 12:3), that is, He ascribes to Christ His proper role in the Godhead as God manifest in human form. This is what Christ Himself has said of the Holy Spirit and His advent on the night He was betrayed:
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’
(John 14:16-27)
________________________________________
YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING:
It did not take long till a reference to Beth Israel popped up. “ Beth Israel and the ministry I am involved with at the Arise and Shine Academy are the culmination of a dream I had since 1978, when I began to awaken to the Messianic Movement within the Body of Christ at the time, and began what would become my own personal study of Judaism and Christianity.”
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: “It did not take long,” indeed. There is nothing in what I wrote up until that moment that you found wrong other than what you mischaracterize as “occultic” without understanding or knowing what you are writing about. I was honest with you, and shared with you my personal testimony and how I came to Christ. HOW DARE YOU DRAG ME UNDER THE MUD LIKE THIS! Then try to imping an intent to do wrong because I wrote you in the first place. This is contemptible.
________________________________________
YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING:
Beth Israel? That is the church led by author Jonathan Cahn. Turns out all the long letters were really to get me to view David James, who wrote a rebuttal to the novel, “The Harbinger” as someone “who is at the epicenter of this controversy and who is the primary agent of it having sown discord and division in the body of Christ.”
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: NO THEY WERE NOT! I wrote my letters – below this posting – in sincerity and in truth – sharing my personal testimony with you. How dare you accuse me of backhandedness! But this is what you do and this is what you’ve been doing for a long-long time, as I read by your postings. I opened my heart to you as a friend, a brother in Christ. Only your suspicious nature and distrust of everyone was used by the enemy to sow distrust in my intentions in writing you. As to your quote of what I wrote concerning David James’ book, I stand by that, because this is what his book has done. Look at your own behavior. It testifies of this. If I hadn’t written to you that I teach by God’s grace and election at the Arise and Shine Academy at the Beth Israel Jerusalem Center, where Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn presides and teaches; you would never had treated me the way you did. There is nothing up until that moment that I wrote to you indicated and less than honorable intent on my part. HOW DARE YOU EVEN POST THIS CANARD!
________________________________________
YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING:
Not having thought about this book for some time, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the Arise and Shine Academy. There was not much information on the Beth Israel website about the source or content of the teachings, but I did notice a series on marriage. There is a book being used by Gary Thomas who wrote “Sacred Pathway.”
Source HERE
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: You are welcome to come and sit in on any one of my classes. Currently, I am teaching the History of Messianic Judaism. It is a work I have been researching and writing for thirty years. The Arise and Shine Academy is at the Beth Israel Jerusalem Center in Wayne, New Jersey. I don’t know how far you live from there, but if you do not live in this state, you won’t be able to attend classes there. I have no interest however and supplying you my teachings for you to rip apart and post publicly. I’m on to you and others like you, who operate in this manner against Evangelical Christians whom you do not like for any varying reason, and with whom you might have one or more doctrinal disagreements with, or with whom you might have questions about hermeneutics about Eschatology.
________________________________________
YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING:
ZIP – Up goes the red flag. Read the list of people promoted by ”Sacred Pathway”. Richard Foster, Thomas Merton, Brother Lawrence, Basil Pennington, Henri Nouwen, Bonhoeffer, St. Francis of Assisi, and Mother Teresa.
Source HERE
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: A tree is known by its fruit. If what a person continuously speaks about is against other people who have professed faith in Christ and have even died for that faith, and bring their salvation into question because they “connect” them with clever epithets they’ve created to categorize those with whom they doctrinally disagree with, then I question the fruit of that tree, whether it is glorying Christ and declaring Him Lord and Savior by sharing the Good News and what it means; or spend the bulk of their days peering at other Christians in the public arena to find fault with them. There is something seriously wrong with this, especially when those doing it trump their attacks out in public. This is not the Biblical method of conflict resolution among Christians, nor is it the Scriptural method of resolving differences of doctrine and interpretation, etc. between two or more differing Christian parties.
________________________________________
YOUR DISCERNIT POSTING:
Why is Beth Israel, led by Jonathon Cahn, allowing a course on marriage using a book with catholic contemplatives?
It is because it is deeply steeped in mysticism and esoteric teachings which is more gnostic in nature than biblical.
________________________________________
MY REPLY/CORRECTION: Dear lady, you do not know at all what you purport to know and be talking about. If you did, Jonathan Cahn and I and others like us would be burned at the stake just for what you accuse us of, and are so wrong about. First I would ask what on earth you are referring to here? What book are you referring to? And why do you persist in accusing other Christians – my brethren in Christ – and fellow congregants with being steeped in mysticism and esoteric teachings, when you would not know the first thing about what this is, as I can tell by what you’ve accused me and Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn of in your article? Jonathan Cahn is not a mystic, he is not a Kabbalist, a I have pointed that out to you. Nor is he a Gnostic, or a practitioner of Theosophy or Christian Science, or any of the tenets of the cults. HOW DARE YOU DISCREDIT THE SERVICE OF ANOTHER FOR CHRIST WITH SUCH ABANDON AND DISREGARD!? HOW DARE YOU! The manner of your writing and your false witness against me reminds of this warning the Lord Jesus Christ has given and it applies here. I quote:
“It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!”
(Matthew 10:25)
I thank the Lord my God and Jesus Christ my Lord, and the Holy Spirit of Truth; that I and Rabbi Cahn, and my brethren and fellow congregants at the Beth Israel Jerusalem Center have been found worthy of being mischaracterized in the same way and manner as our Lord was by the religious bigots and disbelievers of His day. After Jesus Christ has saved me out of Roman Catholicism, Jehovah’s Witness, Spiritualism, and Agnosticism; and delivered me of its influences and demonic powers – how dare you accuse me or Jonathan Cahn, or anyone else at Beth Israel with being steeped in mysticism and esoteric teachings which is more gnostic in nature than biblical!? How can you speak of people you haven’t met or known personally with such abandon and cast aspersions at their confessions of faith in such a despicable manner!? Who do you think that you are to stand in judgment of another servant of Christ!? HOW DARE YOU JUDGE YOUR FELLOW AND BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST HIM!?
Let me tell you something dear lady; the Lord has saved people out of Roman Catholicism, examples we may cite are most of the Spanish speaking people at Beth Israel, Italians, etc., just as He has saved many others out of Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witness, The Moonies, the Church of Bible Understanding, Christian Science, Theosophy, Christadelphians, the Worldwide Church of God (including those who reformed it to mainline a more mainline Evangelical Theology), and a good many other cults; and that there are a remnant within the ranks of Roman Catholicism who are true believers in their hearts and have been born again (the Catholic Charismatics). Yes, the Lord has even saved many Protestants from the myriad number of “mainline,” as well as “liberal” denominations that fill our great nation. Not everybody who says Lord, Lord is saved, as well you know. The words of the Lord Jesus clarifies why this is so:
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
(John 7:13-14)
A brief comment, Jesus is that narrow gate, and any other manner and effort of man to try to reach God is nothing but attempted robbery. (John 10:7-10) There is no other way of salvation. Salvation does not come by any other means or any other person, nor belonging to any fraternity, religious order, church, synagogue, brotherhood, congregation, or denomination; it is by Christ alone and through Christ alone. Thus, He is able and does all the time, save those who are lost within all of these and much more than the Discernment/Apologists among us give Him credit for. How do we know this? Keep reading.
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
(Matthew 25:31-46)
You hear people say in defiance, “I was born a Roman Catholic, and I’ll die a Roman Catholic,” or, “I was born a Jew and I’ll die a Jew,” and even, “I was born a Baptist and I’ll die a Baptist,” without giving thought that the day they were born, they, we, all of us have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. (1Timothy 6:7) Everything we have or shall ever have, was first given to us by God. It does not belong to us, but we belong to Him. In the end, it will make no difference whether you were a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Mormon, or anything else in this life. The only thing that will determine your eternal destiny is whether or not you have been born again of the Spirit of the Living God through Jesus Christ, having accepted and received His redemption.
The transformed new life will have evidence in the life of the one who has born again, and the evidence will be many, but discernible in the person whose life has been transformed by Jesus the Messiah by the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father of those who have been adopted as His children through Christ. A good tree grows fruit, and it is the fruits that evidence the indwelling Holy Spirit of God in the life of a believer. It is unmistakable, and their life, speech, behavior, conduct, and associations will show it. Make no mistake about it. It is very real, and noticeable. If a person claims to be a Christian, but shows no evidence of the change, they must reevaluate whether or not they have truly come to Christ in true repentance, and seek God with all of their hearts in reexamination. Just as the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes:
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
(2Corinthians 13:5)
A Tree and Its Fruit
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
The Two Foundations
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
(Matthew 7:13-28)
In context of what Our Lord has said, Jacob, the Lord’s brother (James) under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit has written the following:
My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?
If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
Faith and Works
What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
(James 2)
In short, the vindication as evidence of a person’s faith is the manifestation of that faith in that person’s life – their confession of faith, their behavior towards others in the love of Christ, their works in God – and it is limitless – because in God’s house the smallest peg is as important as the largest piece, and all form a vital function within the body, just as every component within a device is important to the smooth and correct function of that device. There is no such thing as apathetic, complacent, compromising, and secluded Christians – the evidence in the life of the people who claim faith in Jesus Christ whose faith is alive, not dead, and because it is alive they are manifesting it, just as the Scripture affirms above and this one affirms in the following manner: the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. (Ephesians 5:9), whether it is the Fruits of the Spirit, such as the Word of God enumerates in the following manner:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.
(Galatians 5:16-25)
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
(Romans 8:23)
As for these Catholic Charismatics; I must confess I don’t know what they’re still doing in there, because the Lord tells all Roman Catholics to get out of that Church in Revelation, where He lovingly tells them, “I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” (Revelations 18:4-5)
But when I wrote you, I was commenting on the points in your earlier e-mails I agreed with, though I should’ve pointed out my disagreements with you as well, such as those very hardened positions you take which mirror those of the critics of The Harbinger; that only Christians who hold certain theological positions are the true Christians, without taking into account whether that person or those people have been born again or believe the core principles of the Christian faith which all Christians affirm, and they are:
Jesus Christ as the only Way of salvation, the deity of Christ; Jesus Christ the Only Begotten Son of God and God in human form, His death by crucifixion, burial, bodily resurrection from the death, appearance to various disciples during a forty day period following His bodily resurrection from the grave, His ascension to the right hand of God where He sits after providing eternal redemption for all who place their faith in Him for salvation, His role as our High Priest and Mediator between God and men, His role as our Advocate before His Father; His Lordship over all creation, the promise of His eminent return, and the bodily resurrection of the dead – first the redeemed of the Lord, and a second resurrection of the unrepentant to the second death and lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet will be hurled into after a brief period of time in which the dragon will deceive the nations for one last time. The inerrancy and divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures – both the Old and New Testaments; teachings that form the fundamental core of our Christian faith.
Other variations as to when certain events will take place and how they will take place is still debatable among the devout, and open to debate, but certain not a litmus test as to salvation.
You know that for a good time after getting saved, we have all had one or more beliefs that were not Scriptural, but with the reading of the Word and the revelation of the Holy Spirit to illuminate our thoughts and understanding of it, we have been weaned away from a many false doctrines that we held on to before we received the Lord. The Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has written:
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
(1Corinthians 13:8-13)
Everyone at the present and since the beginning of time, has limited knowledge and limited understanding. Some have more than others. Some have knowledge, but no understanding, and little or no insight, and their teaching suffers because of it. This is known as dead scholasticism, even though it may contain some living truth. Everyone, according to the Apostle Paul, sees in part and knows in part. If any brother or sister in Christ is inaccurate about something, it is the responsibility of one who knows the topic or the Scripture to take them aside privately, as Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos, and share with that person the more accurate way of God. But they never should put a stumbling block in front of that other person by hurling public abuse at him/her. The world is full of this. You see it on your nightly news. What does the Scriptures teach? We’ll examine quickly what the Apostle Paul has written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with regards to dietary laws and the observance of days. He writes:
Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall give praise to God.”
So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.
(Romans 14)
This is the fallacy and extreme points of view that a good many from the Discernment/Apologetics Movement make in judging others. I am of the opinion that God is able to save anyone within any movement and eventually take them out of it. He saved my wife and me from a Christian cult named the Church of Bible Understanding/Forever Family – a commune type community comprised predominantly of young hippies who wore large red badges which said, “GET SMART GET SAVED” who appeared during the national revival of that time known as the Jesus Movement in the US. This was the 70s, specifically 1976. Two months after saving us, the Lord took us out of this cult, and He has led us in His grace and love ever since. The two greatest blessings my wife and I got from this group whom the Lord God used to bring us to Himself through faith in His Son Jesus Christ; was for us to receive this great salvation – and for me to meet my dear friend and “brother from another mother,” Ronald Wilfred Jackson.
Beyond the most essential heart-felt confession of our faith, I do not believe that what a person believes beyond the most essential tenets of our faith; such as Jesus the Messiah being the only way to God, marks that individual as saved or unsaved, because the Scriptures are implicit in this regard, Our Lord Jesus saying:
“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:1-6), whom the Father draws all those being called to the Lord Yeshua/Jesus, as Messiah has said: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.””
(John 6:37-40, 44, 65)
I continue, that Jesus the Messiah is Lord, which only one can say if the Holy Spirit of God is in a person’s heart, and He has put it in his heart to say: Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. (1Corinthians 12:1-2)
The day will come when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, (Philippians 2:11), but between now and that day, we must discern the spirits, and only they who have the Holy Spirit in their hearts can with full conviction of salvation declare affirmatively that Yeshua/Jesus is Lord, that is, that He is God, because the Greek word here means nothing short of that. Messiah Himself told His Apostles:
“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
(John 14:7-15)
Herein lies the faithfulness of God in Christ to all who believe in Him, that He would do according to their petition, because He loves them; and since they love Him, they keep His commandments from the heart, For Jesus Himself has disclosed this and Himself to us in this way: “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (John 14:21) And in order for this to happen, they must be born again into a new life, in order for the spiritual blindness to fall from their eyes and that they may see the kingdom of God and it may become real to them in a very real way in their lives, not a concept or a mythological belief, but a reality, just as the Lord Jesus Himself declared to one of Judaism’s great Sages – Nakdimon (Nicodemus) when Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) This is because they have been born into a new life; the life of Jesus Christ who lives within them because of the New Birth, just as it says:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:12-13)
Ezekiel the prophet, though he is prophesying of the house of Israel and the house of Judah; speaks of a time when God’s people will receive a new spirit and a new heart to love and follow God. He prophesies the following beautiful words:
“And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.”
(Ezekiel 11:19-20)
And Jeremiah prophesies in Holy Spirit this promise in much the same way, where he relays God’s promise in the words which follow:
I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 24:7) Repeating this promise later on, he says: “and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them.” (Jeremiah 32:39) And we know that these prophecies pertain to the Jewish people who would come to faith in Messiah, but we also know that they apply to all of the people of every nation and tongue on the earth, because the promise of God’s blessing in Christ has extended His gifts and calling to the Gentiles, which is why the Apostle Paul and the New Testament applies these generally to all Christians – be they Jew, be they Gentile. God’s promise to Abraham was that He would bless all of the nations through him – that is – through the Messiah through whom we – Jew and Gentile – have our redemption, and with this redemption are united in spirit with His Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul in the Spirit describes this way:
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
(1Corinthians 6:17)
And conclusively, the person who does not have the Holy Spirit, does not belong to Jesus Christ, for the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes in the Spirit:
However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
(Romans 8:9)
When Peter wrote his first letter, he preceded his entire letter with the following confession which held both a blessing to God, and the testimony of this new life in Messiah, when he wrote the following: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Messiah from the dead (1Peter 1:3); and in the same letter later on he writes in the Holy Spirit the testimony of the New Birth in the Holy Spirit of God in Christ, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. (1Peter 1:23)
At a time when only priests and prophets and kings in Israel received the Holy Spirit and prophesied God’s Word which we now have preserved by God’s people Israel in written form; we who by God’s grace are sealed into this salvation by the Holy Spirit of God, who is given to us as His pledge of this salvation (1Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13-14, 4:30); this same Holy Spirit of God who spoke through the prophets of old, and inspired the holy people of God to write His Word under His inspiration, who continues to work in us – His people (Jew and Gentile) – to understand and learn from His Word the truth unlocked within it only by the Holy Spirit.
This is why only through the Holy Spirit can one truly testify and bear witness with full conviction of salvation the Gospel of Salvation through Jesus the Messiah, because the Holy Spirit teaches every Christian of this truth, and helps them to articulate it with power and meaning, the person bearing witness of the change that is self-evident within them, just as it says:
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.”
(John 14:16-17, 25-27)
Only through the Holy Spirit of God’s grace in Christ can anyone, Jew, Gentile, Catholic, Protestant, Coptic, Orthodox, or anything else, declare Jesus truly as God, and mean it from the heart with full conviction of faith, regardless of what society they belong to, national origin, organization, or any other man-made construct of man’s invention – these will all pass (Isaiah 40:8), but only Christ as Lord will prevail, for it says:
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
(John 16:13-15)
It is because they did not have the Holy Spirit and did not belong to Jesus, that a group of Judean Jews who approached Jesus during Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles), could not understand why it was that He taught with such authority and knowledge of God’s Word in their midst, even without quoting from their rabbis as was the custom, but straight from the TaNaKh – the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, and disclose their meaning with great clarity, having made them relevant to the people who heard these words. The Gospel of John says of this:
But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach. The Judean Jews then were astonished, saying, “How has this man become learned, having never been educated?” So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
(John 7:14-18)
The Holy Spirit is the One who teaches the Spirit-filled believer – the Born Again Christian – the New Creation – the One New Man in Messiah – the Living Word of God – for John the Beloved Apostle, again bears witness of this as he does in the Gospel which bears his name; when decades later he writes his fellow Christians about the anointing of the Holy Spirit opening the closed Book of the Bible, and disclosing the meanings of its pages to the believing Christian who reads and studies it in his/her search for its unlocked truths in the Spirit. In the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he writes many years later about the pivotal role of the Holy Spirit in opening the eyes of our understanding to the Word of Almighty God. I quote:
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
(1John 2:20, 27)
The crowd who came up to the Feast in Jerusalem, all had something to say about the coming of the Messiah; questioning among themselves the finer points of Messianic Eschatology – one group would posit where He would come from (Bethlehem of Judea, see below), while another group would wonder whether or not they would know His origins (where He would come from, see below), whether He would be David’s direct descendant (see below), even conjecturing about what He meant when He said where He was going they could not follow (see below), etc., and they all could not reach an agreement over Him on these points.
The Pharisees themselves, as well as the Sadducees, were conflicted along these lines also, because when Nicodemus cited the Law as giving an accused person the right to testify for himself (John 7:50-51), implying that they were denying the Lord Jesus that right; they retorted by telling him to search the Scriptures, because according to them, “no prophet arises out of Galilee.” (John 7:52)
Now take note, it was not any of these people were wrong in what they were saying, but they erred was in the manner in which they applied these. Much in the same way, the critics of The Harbinger as well as many Christians who are very harsh in their personal assessment of others who do not hold to their brand of “Christian Orthodoxy,” are doing the same. As Solomon wrote: There is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Questions Arise About Messiah’s Origins
So some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill? Look, He is speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to Him. The rulers do not really know that this is the Messiah, do they? However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Messiah may come, no one knows where He is from.” Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.” So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. But many of the crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, “When the Messiah comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?”
The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize Him. Therefore Jesus said, “For a little while longer I am with you, then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me, and will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come.” The Judean Jews then said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find Him? He is not intending to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks, is He? What is this statement that He said, ‘You will seek Me, and will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come’?”
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Division of People over Jesus
Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.” Others were saying, “This is the Messiah.” Still others were saying, “Surely the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee, is He? Has not the Scripture said that the Messiah comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.
The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?” The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” The Pharisees then answered them, “You have not also been led astray, have you? No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.” Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them) said to them, “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” They answered him, “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.” Everyone went to his home.
(John 7:25-53)
Conclusion and Closing Thoughts
In closing, with regards to many of the critics of The Harbinger – as is with all religious bigots who split hairs over the letter of God’s Word in their attacks of other people with whom they disagree with. They do all of this, while forgetting the essence, or spirit and intent of what the Word of God teaches, and often do it resulting in the very confusion they claim they are attempting to clarify others to and warn others about. Oftentimes, they create more chaos in such situations than they intended, and the result of what they do is to foment divisions, altercations, and disputations between Christians themselves, while an unbelieving and unregenerate world looks on.
Is it possible for a born again Christian to be a religious bigot? It is possible for anyone to be a religious bigot if they forget who they are, what it took Christ to get them to where they are, and lack the empathy, the understanding, the humility, and the compassion and mercy, to refrain from doing what comes very natural to them – to criticize, to condemn, to speak against another, even before gathering all the facts – and yes, even David James’ many hours of research as he claims only yielded him the grossest inaccuracies largely based upon misunderstandings of fictional book based on facts contained in a topical series of teachings that Rabbi Cahn wrote into a fictitious literary work – a novel called The Harbinger – treating this novel as though it were an encyclopedia of theology; by reading into what Rabbi Cahn has written a good many things he did not write, and redefining them in his book to mean what was never intended. (I will present these, Lord willing, in a book I am working on)
This is a form of false witness. Very likely unintentional, but it is bearing a false witness against another, and misusing God’s Word to do it, because what is being presented against that person is both inaccurate and untrue. This is a very serious thing for one to do as a teacher of God’s Word, because the Word of God says that teachers will incur a harsher judgment in the manner they handle His Sacred and inspired Word. (James 3:1) Anybody can be a critic, the world is full of critics. We see them all the time, hear them on our radios, and now have their deskbound criticisms hurled at us without cause and without provocation by people whom we do not know, haven’t even met, who know nothing about us. Why are you involved in doing this as well? What glory does God get from this?
If one confesses faith in Jesus Christ, and one’s life has the evidence of that faith, but attend or are a member of a church or organization that they consider Unorthodox according to their standards, you may very well be branded a heretic or even an unbeliever by them, or one who is led astray or leads others astray. This is what many of them are doing with Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and his book, The Harbinger. This is what has just occurred with the article written about me, Rabbi Cahn, and Beth Israel.
And this is why they have an issue with Christians who associate with others who do not meet their standards of faith whom they consider heterodox. This is why they are apt to criticize harshly Rabbi Cahn when he appears on radio or television shows not of their liking, or when he meets with people like Glenn Beck and others like him. They forget that Christ met with the very people the religiously righteous of His day ignored and avoided at all costs. There’s no difference between the reaction of the religious bigots of Jesus’ day and those every age, even those of today.
But there is one big difference between the group that Jesus Christ visited and dined with and many of those whom the discernment ministries target – the people with whom Our Lord ate and drank were unregenerate, whereas many of the people who are targets of these discernment ministries are sincere Christians. Many of them may be misguided, some may teach error – I am speaking generally here – while others may not, and in fact don’t, but ministries like the Berean Call and the Alliance for Biblical Integrity have serious theological differences they feel they must make public – and they use their platform to do it and make it look like they’re fighting apostasy in the church. History repeats itself. And so it is in our present day, and it certainly has happened with your article, dear lady.
Listen closely to what I am about to write here, because I have no intention of writing you any longer. I was willing to honor your request that I contact you no longer, as my last e-mail of Thursday, January 17th below shows. I was willing to allow the Lord to sort things out in heaven, as I trust He will, between us. I was actually looking forward to our meeting up there, because I would have embraced (I’m stubborn, I think I still will, Lord willing and by God’s grace in Christ) I see, however that you have taken it upon yourself to persist in attacking and mischaracterizing my pastor, our ministry, and now me; in order to marginalize and discredit us before the bar of public opinion.
I have labored with great difficulty and I must confess, with mixed results; to keep above descending into the abyss that others in this controversy – almost exclusively critics of The Harbinger – have descended. People today can disagree without being disagreeable, but what you have written is not only a complete fabrication and falsehood, it has compelled me to write to you as I do, and dear lady, I do not take any pleasure in this. I much would rather have shared with you, as we did when we first wrote each other; our common faith and discoveries along the path of God’s truth in Christ through the years. But you would not once I mentioned my personal associations and work with the author of The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn. I am a believer and born again and washed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and live implicitly by faith in His complete work. But consider if I had been an misguided unbeliever seeking truth, and corresponding with you about my beliefs, and to have gotten the reaction I did from you as a believer; do you think (now search your heart) that tossing me off as you did would have won me to Christ under such circumstances? I think you know the answer to that question, and I ask it rhetorically by the way. Your acts, behavior, and written record speak for themselves.
I wrote to David James in the beginning of this controversy that the Lord in His time would make it evident who the wheat and who the tares were in this debate over The Harbinger. I believe that with your post, and what you have written, the evidence is amply laid out for everyone who truly is discerning to see and have that question answered for themselves.
I don’t know what happened to you, but someone must have really burned you really bad somewhere in your past for you to be so suspicious and distrustful. I understand and agree with the need to be discerning in these times we live in, because there is much deception, but what you have done here dear lady, not only borders on spiritual slander, but paranoia! I have never had anyone question the gifts of Jesus Christ He has by His calling bestowed and used for His glory in my life until you came along. Not even the most hardened Cessationist. I speak the truth, and the Lord who knows the hearts of all men and women, knows mine as I write this.
One last word I would leave you with is the following: be very careful who you decide to write about before criticizing either them or something they wrote, and compare what they say or write to the Word of God; before you make an opinion of them. If at all possible, contact them and ascertain exactly where they stand regarding the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and begin from there, because people are more apt to destroy with their words than they are to create; and as Paul has warned us not to do, Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died.(Romans 14:15). We know the Apostle Paul when writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was not just referring to dietary lawas here, do we. You can substitute food with any other word, and the principle remains intact, because Christ has warned against stumbling blocks and those who put them in other people’s paths for them to fall over. Tread softly sister; tread very softy.
________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment