The old Puritan Manton, he said it so well. Apostates do not have a sense of awe about God. No, to them, God is a buddy to go to the zoo with, or sit on His lap, and who appears in the bathroom while they are shaving. Be in awe of Him, His majesty and power!
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I used to wonder why it is that so many of the false teachers tend to speak freely of God but not so much of Jesus. They rarely say the name of Jesus when they are teaching but instead they often say "God." Then I remembered this verse:
Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:3)
If they don't have the Holy Spirit they can't teach Jesus is Lord because they can't say it. Like when Jesus said at the Last Supper that one of them will betray Him, all 11 of the Disciples said Is it I, Lord? but Judas could not say that because he was apostate and he said "Is it I, Rabbi?" (Matthew 26:21-25). S. Lewis Johnson expounds a bit here
He goes on to say, “And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” And I’d like to devote just a few minutes before we close to this because I think this is rather important. No one can call Jesus Lord. Now, the statement, Jesus is Lord, is very interesting because Lord — kurios is the New Testament word that is used to translate the tetragrammaton, the Yahweh of the Old Testament. When we say Jesus is Lord, we are saying Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, the covenant-keeping God. The God who made the covenant with Israel and drew them out of Egypt into the land and into the promises. And if we say Jesus is Lord, then we are saying Jesus is Jehovah. Now, we have — remember our studies on Hebrews, we know that the term “Jehovah” is a term that is applicable to all three persons of the Trinity. That’s one of the reasons — many reasons why we know our God is a Trinity. There is Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the Son, Jehovah the Spirit. So no one can say that Jesus is Jehovah. That very fact lets us know that when we call our Lord “Lord” we are talking about the one true God in the case of our Lord Jesus God the Son, the one God who subsists in three persons.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In mid-November of 2012, God dropped a word so convicting on my heart through another teacher’s lesson...
God spoke to my heart one Saturday morning while I was preparing for Sunday school...
I believe God placed it on my heart to tell you...
What God began to say to me about five years ago and I'm telling you it is in me on such a trek with him that my head is still whirling over it. He began to say to me, ...
All of the above quotes from Beth Moore. Visions, whispers, secret knowledge laid on of the heart, are NOT from Jesus. It is NO basis from which to teach. But we hear these phrases so often today, From false teachers, and from true converts. We should stop that habit. Here is John MacArthur with a good word of advice on How To Identify Terrorists in the Church
"...False teachers inevitably have to have a source for their deception. And they have to have a source that's believable. They have to have a source that has some authority, or that is convincing. So they can't just say, "I think..." They can't just say, "I feel..." They can't just say, "We've got a committee in our group and we came up with this deal." The really effective false teachers and apostates will inevitably tell you God communicates to them in secret ways, in their dreams, in their visions. These are revelatory experiences. Apostate false teachers from Joseph Smith to Benny Hinn and everybody in between claim that God speaks to them in their dreams, in their visions. And this, of course, transcends the necessity to be submissive to the Word of God which is not in their hearts anyway. And it gives them the illusion of authority and God gets blamed for all their aberrations. They reject the Word of God.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Did you know? Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. In Exodus 21:32 we learn that 30 pieces of silver was the price of a slave.
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I liked these from several different Twitter friends:
The purpose of the Bible is to reveal who God is, His will for mankind, & to document the prophecies about, arrival of & ministry of Jesus.
Socrates said, "Know yourself." Marcus Aurelius said, "Control yourself." Orient sages said, "Give yourself." Christ said, "Deny yourself."
You may think there's no reason to take an interest in eternity, but sooner or later, eternity will take an interest in you.
Succinct!
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Cartoonist Adam4d has some thoughts on if Jesus had listened to Joel Osteen's advice
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Finally, this thought: As Christians we so desperately want the lost to come to know Jesus as Lord, we sometimes continue in presenting the beautiful Gospel beyond the time when we should not. After a certain point, the Holy Spirit will have His way, either pushing the person's heart more into being reprobate, or will soften it to salvation. But if we persist all that will happen is they will trample the truth and we might sin in our frustration. Know when to leave it alone.
SDG!
