Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Is God in total agreement with you?



Jeremiah 14:13-16

My pastor said something close to this:  When we believe that our life and message are on target and God is in total agreement with it, we have become the god to whom we are praying.  He is not a God of the conservatives any more than He is a God of the liberals, God is not a Republican or Democrat, He is the all knowing and all seeing God who is pure and holy in all His ways.  He will judge the U.S.A. in the same way He has judged all nations who have turned to their own desires.

But I found it of interest that it was the prophets who came to the people and said do not listen to Jeremiah because his message is harsh and mean spirited, and you do understand that we are a special people, God’s people and He will never allow harm to come on Judah.  

Now listen to the conversation between God and Jeremiah; “Then I said: “Ah, Lord God, behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’” And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name although I did not send them, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not come upon this land’: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword, with none to bury them— their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their evil upon them.”

It is no different than in our day when men of the cloth, the clergy stand in a place of authority and tell their congregation that God did not really mean what He stated in Scripture.  If you want to look at the list, it is long, but it begins when a false teacher does not teach the whole counsel of the Scripture.  When they say stupid things like, “I will only build you up I will never talk about sin, we will be a positive church with a message that only builds up. “  I have one message for any who attend that congregation, run Forest, run. 

What the apostles have written and left for the church a wise person will ponder on.  And when Jesus, the only Son of the living God speaks a wise person will treasure it in their heart.  The Holy Spirit by the pen of the apostle Paul is talking to you and those false teachers in Romans 3:23-26. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”  We are all a mess, but God, those are beautiful words, and the “but God” is His mercy and grace to sinners like you and me.  The Holy Spirit shows us the hope we have in Christ Jesus, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)  And what a message of God’s mercy, love, and grace in Romans 10:9-10; “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved.”

It matters not what name you go by if you are in a church that is not teaching the whole counsel of the Scripture, “Run fast and keep running till you find a man who is fearful of God and not of man.

From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice

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