Leaven In the Pulpit :: By Grant Phillips

Published on: by RR7 Category:General Articles, Grant Phillips

The Levites of Israel were the messengers of God to bring life and peace to God’s people by His Word. They were the ministerial crowd of that day. As ministers of God, they were to revere and stand in awe of His name. They were to walk with God in daily living and help others do the same.

“The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin. The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies” (Malachi 2:5-7).

However, the priests of Malachi’s day had failed miserably by turning away from God and thereby shortchanging God’s people. This did not sit well with God at that time, and it does not sit well with Him today any more than it did then. God was very clear about this in the following verses.

“Listen, you priests—this command is for you! Listen to me and make up your minds to honor my name,’ says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, ‘or I will bring a terrible curse against you. I will curse even the blessings you receive. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you have not taken my warning to heart. I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile. Then at last you will know it was I who sent you this warning so that my covenant with the Levites can continue,’ says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies” (Malachi 2:1-4).

“But you priests have left God’s paths. Your instructions have caused many to stumble into sin. You have corrupted the covenant I made with the Levites,’ says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. ‘So I have made you despised and humiliated in the eyes of all the people. For you have not obeyed me but have shown favoritism in the way you carry out my instructions” (Malachi 2:8-9).

Through the apostle Paul, the Lord Jesus said these words to the pastoral leaders in the Church age.

“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: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 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; And they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:1-5).

Then again through the apostle Paul, Jesus speaks to the Church age leaders and their congregations.

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:6-9).

After conveying the Lord’s message in the previous verses, Paul makes a statement that very, very few of our pastors today could truthfully repeat. Many of them may give a resounding “Amen!” to each other, all the while patting themselves on the back, but it would be a total sham. But praise God, even though they are in the minority, there are still God’s faithful few who can rightfully claim the following verse along with Paul.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10, NIV).

“Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant” (Galatians 1:10, NLT).

What is actually being supported from most of the pulpits of America these days? I can’t list everything, but following is a short list in no particular order.

FALSE GOSPEL

  • Attacking God’s Genesis creation account and replacing it with evolution
  • Defying the sanctity of marriage
  • Denying God’s judgment and an eternal hell
  • Homosexuals in the pulpit
  • Preaching works salvation

GOD

  • Mary portrayed as God
  • Denying Christ’s death, burial and resurrection
  • Denying Christ’s true humanity and divinity
  • Denying Christ’s miracles (Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes never did)
  • Denying Christ’s soon return (Rapture and 2nd Coming)
  • Denying Christ’s sinlessness
  • Accusing Jesus of an affair with Mary Magdalene

CHURCH

  • Support of homosexuality
  • Bible teaching/preaching replaced with entertainment
  • Watered down, worthless sermonettes

BIBLE

  • Attacking the authenticity of the Bible
  • Attacking the prophecies in the Bible

CORRUPTION

  • Stealing from gullible people
  • Pastors and other leaders involved in immoral affairs
  • Pastors and other leaders living like kings and queens
  • No condemnation of sin within the church
  • Support of abortion

Instead of the Church taking the Gospel out into the world, the world is moving in and corrupting the Church.

Have you ever shoveled manure before? Well, this is what many so-called pastors support and are feeding their congregations today. How can any man call himself a pastor and support this sort of drivel? Do they even know Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, as their Savior? I seriously doubt it.

Again, we who are followers of Christ should thank Him daily for the few pastors who are His true servants, and follow Him as Savior and LORD. Let us not forget to pray for them. They are few in number and need our prayers.

No true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ would support any of this false gospel from hell. This is why we also need to pray for the souls of the violators, that they awake and see their need to be saved before it is too late.

The really sad part about this is that these charlatans are leading millions to hell right along with them. Is it any wonder the “average” Christian is so confused today? They have been led by wolves in sheep’s clothing, thinking Jesus approves of this nonsense.

Listen, there is only one source that can be completely trusted, and that source is God’s Word. It is called the Bible. Read your Bible. In it, you will find the Truth, but you have to read it. Any true pastor of our Lord would wholeheartedly agree.

Don’t allow others to do your thinking. Check whatever you read and/or hear by the Bible. Be like the Bereans.

“And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men” (Acts 17:11-12, NLT).

This morning, my wife and I just finished our reading of Matthew 23. As we were thoughtfully reading these words of Jesus to the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes of that time, I kept thinking how appropriate His words are for many church leaders today. Even though Jesus’ condemnation was to the leaders of Israel at that time, don’t think for a minute that we can ignore them.

The Jesus that the liberals are pushing off on their congregations today cannot be found anywhere in the Scriptures. The harshest words ever spoken in the entire Bible are spoken by the Son of God (Jesus) in this 23rd chapter of Matthew, and they are just as applicable to us today.

Please read this chapter prayerfully, and realize we are not exempt. At the same time, notice the next verse as Jesus closes His message to them.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).

This is one of the saddest verses in the Bible, especially noting, “but you were not willing.” The Jewish leaders of that day were unwilling to recognize and accept Jesus as the Son of God. It appears the same can be said of many of our leaders today.

Much of this 23rd chapter of Matthew is prevalent among most church leaders today, but how many are listening? Jesus said, “I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” Many of today’s church leaders need to come to Jesus and be saved. Will there be any who are willing to do so before He comes for His Church? All who come to Him, He will accept.

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:37, 40).

Grant Phillips

Email: Phillip5769@twc.com

Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com

Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html

Chariots of The Gods? :: By Jim Towers

Published on: by RR7 Category:General Articles, Jim Torres “Towers”

Remember the book “Chariots of the Gods” by Erich von Daniken? It was a book that explored the idea that Elijah was whisked away in a spaceship, never to be seen again. The writer also posited the idea that space beings also built many of the monolithic structures throughout the world, including the great pyramids and Machu Pichu on the mountains in Peru. He wrote that lines on the Nazca plain in Cusco were also put there by space aliens, a kind of landing field for their spacecraft.

Being of an inquisitive nature, I have read many accounts of ancient beings coming to earth at different stages of our societal development. However, before you jump the gun in judging me, I much prefer and believe the biblical account of the creation and development of mankind. (I was well into learning scripture at the time the controversial book came out.)

At the time, it all seemed plausible since there are still things we don’t understand about our world. For me, the book wasn’t contradicting the scriptures, only re-enforcing them. After all, Elijah was taken away in a fiery chariot.

Even Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning….” If an armada of spaceships were cast to the earth, they, from a distance, would appear to be a falling star or lightning. But I don’t want to open up a can of worms with that statement.

Now, some would say that angels are spiritual and space aliens are physical. Who am I to argue? If that were so, it would only serve to expand the debate over which is which?

Nevertheless (and this is a contentious subject to explore), new series of documentaries on that subject are made strictly for monetary gain and not to inform the sheeple, who will follow anything and everything so long as they don’t have to deal with the God of the Bible, even though it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God.

This UFO phenomenon will soon be a thing of the past, with more serious and pressing problems cropping up in the future. Scary stuff like more violent earthquakes, more virulent diseases, manmade and not. Worldwide famine is another thing coming in the near future. God said these things would happen, and God doesn’t lie.

These so-called space aliens are unable to destroy us even with their advanced technology, simply because God has stayed their hand like he stayed Satan’s hand when he told Lucifer not to kill Job. He is and has the ultimate power over life and death over all His created beings. Just the mention of Jesus’ name sends Satan fleeing. It will be a new revelation to many that these demonic entities exist and are able to disguise themselves as angels of light, even going so far as to invade our educational and political systems as well as our churches with doctrines of demons.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be something flying around in our atmosphere that we don’t fully understand. They seem to be able to appear and disappear at will in great bursts of speed, and some appeared to help the Israelis in time of war.

But this poses another problem. Is this to say that Michael and the “good guy angels” are still at work in the realms of space as well? Elisha called on God to open the eyes of his terrified companions, who feared the hordes of the Syrian army surrounding Israel. “And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”

In my testimonial manuscript I wrote while living in Davie, Florida, a close Christian friend called me on my cell and asked me excitedly to come to his house. He said he had something to show me. With nothing better to do, I went right over and found him standing on the porch of a close neighbor in the cul de sac. I stopped and went over to him, and he led me into the house to the young woman who lived there. He said, “Show Jim the video you took of the UFOs.” She led me to the computer and brought up the video she had taken just minutes earlier. Her grandmother sat in a rocking chair nearby, rocking nervously and near to tears, as her frail hands shook.

As I watched the video, the young lady explained that she and her children and grandmother were out on the porch watching the children play with the neighbors’ kids. It was a clear sunny day with few clouds in the azure blue sky. Just above the tree line that included a couple of palm trees, the objects of our attention began to appear. They were wheel-shaped objects that paraded one after another in an arc above the houses across the street. They were almost translucent and had the form of chariot wheels about the size of a big car, and they flew about fifty feet in the air. On occasion, one would turn on its side and appear to take on a different shape, not unlike a boomerang.

It was all astonishing, to say the least.

The grandmother sat there, still shaken and terrified. “Grandma was the first to see them, and she nearly had a heart attack,” the young mother said. I turned to face the old woman and felt so sorry for her that I felt compelled to go and hold her hand. “Do you want me to pray for you?” I asked. “Would you please? …I never ever, in all my life, saw anything like that!” she said. Not knowing what else to say, I uttered, “The Bible says that signs will appear in the heavens in the last days.” At this, she shuddered, and I felt I had said the wrong thing. But I recovered and asked if she was saved, and she replied that she had been to church. Then I prayed for her salvation and recovery from the obvious shock she had undergone.

As time goes on, we will undoubtedly hear more about this phenomenon. But one good thing about being a “born again” Christian is that we need not fear anything. “If we fear God, we have nothing else to fear.” After all, God created everything and is in complete control. As for UFO sightings, if they are extra-terrestrial beings, they may be setting the stage for the tribulation period.

As for me, I’ll stick with what the Bible says every time – since the Word of God has always proved to be true no matter who questions it.

YBIC

Jim Towers You can write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.dropzonedelta.com or visit my website www.propheticsignsandwonders.com.