A Light and Seed Christmas Message :: By Jean-Louis Mondon

Published on: December 28, 2019 by RR7

As people celebrate Christmas with all its symbols, regardless of what they think the exact time and year of God’s divine condescension among us are, this is what this season represents to me as a spiritual reality.

As I was reflecting upon the incarnation of our Savior Christ Jesus as the supreme gift of our Heavenly Father to mankind, I could not help but think of the limited perspective that we sometimes have of the infinite measure of all of God’s attributes and works in the vast universe He created but also in each of our lives.

The first thing I consider when I ponder the miracle of the supernatural birth of Jesus-Christ is that God chose to manifest His presence in the flesh as a seed of the Holy Spirit in the chosen womb of Mary.

Imagine a little! The creator and sustainer of the endless universe becoming a frail human being Himself, subject to the natural law of human birth and physical existence.

What is amazing is that as we follow the course of His birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and His coming back to take His own faithful ones to reign with Him, the same characteristic stages apply to us who have experienced the second spiritual birth and have passed from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous light.

As the mature tree is essentially contained in the seed just waiting to develop through the different stages of growth, so was the life of the Lord Jesus, and so is every one of our lives.

An illustration from the sharing of presents on Christmas day comes to mind. Imagine one of the presents being a huge box with someone’s name on it. The person feverishly tears off the paper, hoping to discover a big present that will provide a level of satisfaction commensurate to its perceived size. But as the box reveals another smaller box hidden under the packing peanuts, he suspects someone is playing a joke on him as he realizes from the sheer weight of the box.

As he keeps on opening another box, then another one, he finally opens the last tiny box; and no matter what the value of the present, it leaves him or her with a sense of unfulfilled expectation and diminished satisfaction. Here in brief is how the acquiring and enjoying of material things which are supposed to fulfill our lives from the cradle to the grave end up being a great disappointment and a snare in the end. Not so with the present from our God, the free gift of salvation available to anyone willing to accept and receive it.

Conversely, imagine that you received the gift of God, salvation by grace in a small box. After receiving and opening the gift, once your life is changed by that spiritual tiny seed, you realize that as you grow, the gift keeps on growing as you learn and mature into eternal everlasting life, the box of our life, so to speak, getting bigger and bigger.

Now consider another angle to giving and sharing presents:

Jesus, talking about greed, said that life doesn’t consist in the abundance of things (Luke 12:15). And He told the people, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

Jesus is not only talking about treasures, but incorruptible treasures! What is He talking about? He is talking about treasures that have their beginning as an intangible seed beginning here on the earth and continuing in Heaven and/or enjoying all the stages of the growth of the seed in two dimensions simultaneously, in the physical body while at the same time in the invisible realm of the spirit.

He means treasures like the Christian virtues: generosity of spirit, goodness, mercy, humility, faith, wisdom, spiritual knowledge, love, patience, fruits of the Spirit, all intangible but whose effects are felt when translated into good works and service to our brothers, sisters and fellow man. And, of course, included are all the material gifts that he has blessed us with in superabundance to share with those less fortunate than us and to provide the means to advance the Kingdom of God, through preaching of the Gospel through gifts to missions throughout the world. Everything that will become the stones building the foundation of our sphere of influence in the coming Kingdom.

In I Timothy 6:18-19, Paul tells Timothy to “Command those who are rich in this present world… to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up for themselves a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

It is obvious that one can build a house or a building only as tall and as large as the dimensions of the foundation supporting it, otherwise the building collapses.

In the Bible we can find several mentions of this manifestation of life as encapsulated in the title of Our Lord who is the Alpha, the beginning and Omega, the end and, of course, everything in between.

We can find the image of the seed in I Peter 1:23. “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is through the living and abiding Word of God.”

Isaiah 9:6-7 promise of the coming Messiah follows this development: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest upon His shoulders … there will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace.”

To give another perspective to our modern misguided interpretation of authority, let’s look at the test of authority as it applies to governing a people. To resolve the problem of questioning of Aaron the high priest’s leadership by the other leaders of Israel, God caused Aaron’s rod, sign of his delegated authority, to instantly sprout, put forth buds and bear ripe almonds (Numbers 17:8). And the best of it is that it started from a piece of dead wood, the wood of an almond tree. Here in a nutshell, we have a transformation (resurrection), new birth and growth, a flowering branch and a mature nut ready for nourishment. Now real and good delegated authority consists in extracting the nut out of the shell without crushing the nut. Why would God choose an almond branch out of all the possibilities?

To have a more thorough understanding of the use of the Almond Tree in the Bible, click Here, and the following links: Daily Bible Study: Almonds and The Lesson of the Almond Tree.

As an aside, it is a good lesson in the discipline of children. If we want almond paste mixed with hard bits and pieces of shell mixed together, then we can crush the entire almond with brute force. If we want to raise emotionally and spiritually healthy children, we need to apply discipline with the wise and loving, but firm instruction provided by God, breaking the strong will, but not crushing the spirit. Thus, the seed will grow into maturity and produce a good fruit or a good nut in this case!

Salvation, knowledge and wisdom are part of the incorruptible treasures that Christ talks about in Matthew. Talking about Christ, Isaiah 33:6 declares: “He will be a sure foundation for our times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge: The fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.”

This salvation which starts as a spiritual seed planted by the Holy Spirit Himself in the hearts of men who have received Him on His terms is ever expanding and revealing the loving heart of our Heavenly Father at this time of the year and all year long. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5).

Paul prays for the Ephesians in Ephesians 3:14-17 that: “He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

This is also my prayer for all of us today and for the coming year.

Contrary to the philosophy of this passing and dying world, the present of eternal life in Christ Jesus started as a tiny seed: first the human seed inherited from our natural father, and then the Holy Spirit seed that contained all that is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which our Father and Creator put us on this earth. See I Corinthians 15:45-46, “So it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual” (NIV).

So this Christmas season until the beginning of 2020 and beyond, I invite you to remember with grateful and humble hearts, that the tiniest and most humble manifestation of life, a human seed, a tiny baby in his or her mother’s womb, is infinitely precious and worthy of protection and nurturing because it was made in God’s image (Psalm 139).

I invite you also to let your hearts and minds expand onto other amazing dimensions of life and consider all the stages of the life of the Savior in His birth, His death, His resurrection, His going back into the glory of Heaven, and His coming back to give us glorified bodies; for we have already been resurrected (spiritually) if we have been born again, starting as a tiny seed wrapped up in a small and fragile package that we all are, as pilgrims on this earth.

This season, Jesus offers us hope, joy and peace in a world sadly lacking these blessings.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

Lord God, our loving Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for the gift of life present and eternal in Our Lord Jesus-Christ.

http://lightnseed.blogspot.com

The New Church Where All Degrees of Evil are Okay :: By Joseph Chambers

Published on: December 28, 2019 by RR7

God is quickly turning the church world over to a reprobate mind.

Their minds no longer grasp the spiritual because God has removed that ability. Reprobate minds do not and cannot see the revealed mind of truth or God in the Bible. It is all a blur. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:28).

Signs of a New Church World

Preaching is academic teaching.
The atmosphere is entertaining.
There are no standards on moral issues.
Everything is relative.
Transgender is okay.
Sodomy is no longer sin but choice.
The Bible calls it apostasy.
The devil loves it.
Worldly people love it.
It cannot go in the Rapture.
It will be heartbreaking on the day after the Rapture.

There is a strange and mystical spirit which governs the whole life of the new church world, especially the mega churches. It is impossible to read the Bible and not see the total disconnection between Bible Christianity and the new church syndrome. “Take up your cross and follow me,” as Jesus said, just does not fit the Sunday morning (the newest thing now is Saturday night) meetings of these mass churches. Please do not confuse this article with the possibility that a good church should not grow big. There is a difference today in the mega church development and in the fact that there have been and still are good churches that have become very large and effective for the gospel, especially in other countries.

The New Church Paradigm Is The Difference

As I view it, two basic philosophies are the controlling ideas within the new church world. These ideas are totally different from the Biblical basis of the Kingdom of God. I remember the last few years of my experiences in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN). Everywhere you went, the men who were speakers and the ideas they taught were from these two new thought patterns. It was all new to me, and I remember asking questions and raising concerns, to the dismay of my peers and leaders. On one occasion I called the Dean of the Greek language and the most respected teacher in our Theological School in Cleveland, TN, to make inquiry of my concerns. He established my worst fears and agreed with me regarding the danger of what was happening.

Let me try to begin my suggestions with an added invitation to my friends across our reading audience. Please respond and either add or disagree with this discussion. Maybe I’m all wrong, and if I am, I will do my best to retrace my steps. Honestly, I do not think I am wrong. If you agree or disagree, please let me hear from you. I have waited several years since my departure from the above-named denomination to even try and speak to this issue. Somehow, I believe it is time to address these concerns.

The new paradigm of the church, and especially the mega churches, stretches across the spectrum of doctrines. One of the strongest possible signs that something is wrong in this new church world is the fact that doctrine and the level of the gospel message have nothing to do with these churches. From Willow Creek, where the cross is totally removed, to the Harvest Church in Atlanta, where Earl Paulk is a moral basket case [he has since died], they grow and grow. When the two philosophical factors that we will discuss are rightly united with a personality persona of the proper order, its success from the beginning.

The First Philosophy Is Sociology or Sociological Factors

I actually remember one of the Assistant General Overseers of our church teaching a seminar to District Pastors based on this method of thinking. It was the great teacher at the School of Theology that told me the book to read and the identity of this thinking. During the course of the presentation, not one Bible basis was ever suggested. We were simply told what the wave of human interest wanted and the results we would get if we followed his suggestions. As the dear Doctor of Theology had told me, it was the new sociological approach to church growth.

What is Sociology? It is the humanistic study of human nature. As the idea develops, all of us have certain buttons that affect our responses. If the minister will learn to only affect the positive button or emotion within the human mind, he will get mainly positive results from those he encounters. The thoughts of this sociological world are many times more complex than my simple illustration, but it serves to establish what I’m suggesting. Sociology is dealing with people based on secular humanism and its methods of understanding and affecting our world.

You will probably recall hearing terms like “user-friendly churches,” “positive evangelism,” “relevant church life,” “soft evangelism,” “dressing down,” etc. All of these terms were apparently developed to make the sociological idea acceptable. No one has done the job of building “secular humanist” churches better than Willow Creek. They are identified as being one of the strongest advocates of the “genderless Bible” that the NIV has developed. That’s the natural outgrowth of a humanistic philosophy. Every church that continues to develop by their paradigm will become just as liberal and will continue to spiral downward from truth to error.

You must understand that sociology at best is nothing but dressed-up humanism, and at worst, nothing but the ideas of the fallen nature. Its ultimate end is the work of the flesh. The possibility of sociology being a true paradigm for church life does not exist. It is building your life on the sinking sand of human inadequacies. These churches will ultimately fail and take a host of souls to hell in the process. The Holy Ghost of God does not anoint one idea or program that is not totally and utterly Biblical truth. We are saved by the naked truth of God’s Word anointed by the authority of God’s Spirit. If this generation is too wimpy to accept truth on the Biblical level, then the only answer is God’s judgment.

These mega sociological churches are giving the people an experience in soulical entertainment that actually feels like church. We are religious creatures that have a built-in need for an “out of the natural” relationship with God/god. The dead mainline churches are losing members by the thousands to the new church world, especially the mega churches that are built on sociology. The lifestyle within these two church factors is discernibly no different, except for this sense of a religious experience. The latest report on divorce just discovered that for the first time ever the divorce rate in the church is now 2% higher than the pagan world. This report almost certainly reveals the very lifestyle within these new paradigm churches. They represent the overriding percentage of developing church life. The inferior picture of the absence of holiness could not be more glaring. It feels like church, but it does not produce righteousness because it is nothing but humanism.

The Other Philosophy Is Called Psychology

There is great similarity between sociology and psychology. The first deals mainly with the physical side of man, while the second deals with his inner person. The first is about how man feels and acts, while the latter is about how he relates to his deeper self and his relationship with others. Psychology is an even more pure form of secular humanism than sociology. At least sociology is easier disguised than psychology. They make an incredible pair of ideas for the subtle works of destroying the vitality and Holy Ghost life of the church.

Psychology does not need the life-transforming work of the Holy Ghost. Even if and when it is stated that the church is still dependent on the Spirit, it is only a beautiful cover up. Every program of these churches, from the Counseling Department and the Ten-Step Programs, right down to the style of preaching in the pulpit, is a constant reliance on psychological ideas and principles. Sermons on relationships deal with the exact same psychological paradigms, as you would find in a psychoanalysis class setting. It is a constant “how you can help yourself” approach to the Christian life rather than the pure Gospel, which is about the transforming redeeming work of Jesus Christ. It is a totally different world than the true church of Jesus Christ.

Redemption by the blood is preached mainly as a cold, calculated idea that men blindly accept. Once the person has redeemed himself/herself by making this so-called decision, he/she is then responsible to use all of these sociological and psychological tools to start the process of changing himself/herself. Of course, they will need the church’s Counseling Department to help with major problems (at a fee) and the small groups (Sunday school, etc.) for the weekly discussions and psychoanalysis setting. The study of the Bible makes a wonderful sounding session to allow for the therapeutic relief of pent-up emotions. If these young humanistic converts will avail themselves of all the sociological and psychological help, they should be better and more dependent on the whole process week after week.

Just a little investigation will quickly reveal that the back doors of these new and often mega centers are just a bit smaller than the front doors. Crowds are flooding through the doors and from the center to center, and often to nowhere. It is not even kin to the great revivals where men and women were gloriously transformed to the kingdom of God. Psychology is the most deceiving of all ideas to be integrated into church life. Man has a natural fallen tendency to want to attend to his spiritual needs by his own worth and wisdom. It has been a fallacy plaguing the true church at every turn of history. Bringing this idea into the heart of a religious movement as represented in the mega church paradigm was bound to be temporarily successful by large numbers. It cannot and will not stand the test of time.

Adding the Personality of the Guru

These new paradigm centers must have their individual gurus. No idea has controlling power until it is given some flesh and bone. These new religious programs are always dependent on a good charlatan that has credibility. It may seem unfair to call these “senior pastors” charlatans, but it is unfair to “godly pastors” to call these men anything else. They are charlatans with the great magical ability to take the sociological and psychological ideas and to build the crowd’s confidence into something so utterly false. They rob one great church after the other in the process of their success.

A pastor that attended a training center for this kind of religious idea told me the one transcending thing that they were instructed to do. They were told that they must first create a “mystique about themselves.” What a revealing idea! Anyone that has pastored in a city where these churches exist will quickly affirm the fact of this information. These men are mystical-type leaders that quickly carry themselves off into a strange world. It is not all their fault. In fact, I am not sure how such an idea developed.

Jim Bakker Was a Striking Example

This dear man certainly did not design the plan that enveloped and destroyed him. He was indeed one of the first gurus of this magnitude. He was elevated, exalted, and finally worshipped until he was totally unable to protect his own mind from believing the crazy world into which he had fallen. His programs (whoever designed them) gave the people (sociologically) what the flesh (in a basically good sense) wanted. Mix these satisfying plans with enough religious emotions, and you had success on a grand scale. Paul and Jan Crouch represent [both have since died] this same world. It is sociology (feel-good flesh) and psychology (human religion) mixed together with a churchy feeling of strong emotions. Our flesh-loving world goes crazy over this mixture. [Joel Osteen is an example today.]

The men and women who lead these religious centers are not bad people. They are certainly misguided and, in most cases, will end up on the ash heap of destroyed lives. The list of such failures grows with each day. Humans were not designed by our Creator to lead such man-centered programs. The only way to make the new paradigm centers successful is to exalt the guru to the place of human insanity. No person will survive this position of human worship, but for a limited time. They will either give it up themselves, or pride and sin will do it for them.

Conclusion

The only possible conclusion is that the new paradigm and mega church idea is totally unbiblical. The idea we heard in our denomination was words sometimes similar to this statement: “We have the same message, but we are using different methods.” It is easy to see how that idea has hooked so many good people. There is some truth in the thought as long as the methods never depart from Biblical principles.

Sociology and psychology are humanistic ideas that have no place of importance in God’s church. Our understanding of man and his needs must be based totally on Christ-centered principles. Our influence over men must not be human manipulation, but Divine inspiration.

“And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one” (1 John 5:8).

Whatever His church needs is found completed in His Holy Spirit, His infallible Word, and in the shed blood of His Son. To move one inch from this Biblical center is to invite failure and ultimate judgment.