Lucifer’s Ancient Rebellion
continued
:
1 : 2 : 3 :
The True Church is Built Upon Christ
Alone
The True Church is Built
Upon Christ and Obeys Christ; It Does Not Depend Upon
Man, and Is Not Controlled By Man
“”The head of every man
is Christ.” God, who put all things under the
Savior’s feet, “gave Him to be head over
all things to the church, which is His body, the
fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” 1
Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 1: 22, 23. The church
is built upon Christ as its foundation; it is to obey
Christ as its head. It
is not to depend upon man, or be controlled by man.”
DA 414.
If the Biblical
Christ be not truly the true Head of the church, Who
alone is obeyed, then it be no church at all.
To confuse our coming out of the devil,
the world, self and sin to Him alone, with coming to
the Structure-and a Structure at that immersed in
worldliness, self-esteem, and Jesuit Formation, is
the rankest idolatry. Christ is the head of the
church, not an ecclesiastical hierarchy. And Christ
intends that no authority will be known to the soul,
except for His own authority.
God’s name is Jealous:
“For thou shalt worship no other god: for the
Lord, whose name is JEALOUS, is a
jeolous God.” Exodus
34:14
No
Authority Is To Be Known in the Soul Except
Christ’s Authority
“When the soul surrenders itself
to Christ, a new power takes possession of the new
heart. A change is wrought which man can never
accomplish for himself. It is a supernatural work,
bringing a supernatural element into the human nature.
The soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His
own fortress, which He holds in a revolted world, and
He intends that no authority shall be
known in it but His own. A
soul thus kept in possession by the heavenly agencies
is impregnable to the assaults of Satan.
If We Neglect to Ally Ourselves
With the Kingdom of Light We Are Under the Dominion
of the Kingdom of Darkness
“However, unless we do yield
ourselves to the control of Christ, we shall be
dominated by the wicked one. We must
inevitably by under the control of the one or the
other of the two great powers that are contending for
the supremacy of the world. It is not
necessary for us deliberately to choose the service
of the kingdom of darkness in order to come under its
dominion. We have only to neglect to ally
ourselves with the kingdom of light. If we
do not co-operate with the heavenly agencies, Satan
will take possession of the heart, and will make it
his abiding place.
Unless
We Surrender to Christ Moment By Moment We Shall Be
Overcome
‘The only defense against evil is
the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith
in His righteousness. Unless we become vitally
connected with God, we can never resist the
unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and
temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits,
for the time we may part company with Satan; but without
a vital connection with God, through the surrender of
ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be
overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with
Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the
mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the
end. DA 324.
Ecclesiastical Structure is to Serve
Christ, Not Itself
“As lovers of the
world make religion subservient to the world, God
requires His worshipers to subordinate the world to
religion. 7 BC 949.
I am old enough to remember a time,
when evangelists called people to Christ, to His
truth, and the organizational structure served
Christ and His present truth. I can remember
godly men such as Stanley Folkenburg, Sunny Liu, and
the Barron brothers, who won souls to Christ, and
took the position that the church’s
responsibility is to testify of Christ and win souls
to Christ.
However, then a whole new generation
of would-be preachers arose from the Structure.
People who wanted to be “cool,” to be
‘with-it,” young men who wanted to gain the
social approval of their peers more than to seek God
and love God and His truth supremely.
The desire to be “cool,” to
be ”socially upward mobile,” has brought in
a host of demonic derangement into the Structure.
They are “the children sitting in the markets,
and calling unto their fellows, saying, We have piped
unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned
unto you, and ye have not lamented.” Matthew 11:
16, 17. These are the men who roll their eyes
up into their head at the thought of honest-hearted
faithful Disciples of Christ. These are like those
who said of John, “He hath a devil.”
Matthew 11:18. To be open about confessing one’s
love for Christ in living a life that has sacrificed
the approval of men for the approval of a God Who
cannot be seen by physical sight. Well, that is just
too “uncool.” The academy and college
campuses fostered this stance of sophisticated scorn
of those who put God first in their lives.
The Cross
“And whosoever doth not bear
his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.”
Luke 14:27.
The
Breach of the Call and the Cross
The offense of the cross has not
ceased. [See Galatians 5:11]. That call, that cross,
creates a breach, a breach between the one who is
called and the closest human relationships [Luke 14:26,
Matthew 10:35], a breach between the person and his
own psyche [Luke 14:26], and a breach between the
called one of the world. [John 15: 18; 16: 4].
Lord
of All
Christ must be Lord of all. Christ and
His cross, the cross of shame and rejection for
Christ’s sake, come before all other
relationships, and dominates all other relationships.
The allies that the soul has are the most powerful in
the universe-God the Father, God the Son, God the
Holy Spirit, the angels and the omnipotent Word of
God. For a man must fight the greatest battle ever
fought-the battle against self, against ego that must
be crucified [Galatians 2:20], against his own psyche
which must be hated. [Luke 14:26].
The
Cross Means Sharing the Suffering of Christ to the
Last and to the Fullest
“To endure the cross is not a
tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an
exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes,
it is not an accident, but a necessity. It is
not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from
this mortal life, but the suffering that is an
essential part of the specifically Christian life. It
is not suffering per se but suffering-and-rejection,
and not rejection for any cause or conviction of our
own, but rejection for the sake of Christ. If
our Christianity has ceased to be serious about
discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into
emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and
which fails to distinguish between natural and
Christian existence, then we can not help regarding
the cross as ordinary everyday calamity, as one of
the trials and tribulations of life. We have then
forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as
well as suffering…. The cross means sharing
of suffering of Christ to the last and to the fullest.
Only a man thus totally committed in discipleship can
experience the meaning of the cross.” Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p. 98.
Children in the Market: Superficial,
Emotional Religion
“But whereunto shall
I liken this generation? It is like unto children
sitting in the markets, and calling unto their
fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye
have not danced: we have mourned unto you, and ye
have not lamented.” Matthew 11: 16,17.
The people in the field have no idea
how wicked this rejection of the cross is. Years ago,
I heard the scores of hisses directed at an earnest
person just seeking to carry on an intelligent
discussion of the Sabbath School lesson in a Southern
California structure college.
And when ministers in training arrived
at the seminary, they wanted a god who would serve
them-who would help them land a job in the conference,
who would help them move upward on the professional
ladder. Everything was subjugated to these goals. I
called it a “human-modulated faith.” They
wanted to use God for their purposes, instead of in
self-surrender seeking to fit into God’s purpose
and kingdom, like the old-time faithful ministry. It
is the same principle as the Purpose-driven Church
and the Purpose-driven Life. No wonder
there has been such wide acceptance of Rick Warren
and Saddleback. It all rests on the same foundation.
Zeal
For God’s Glory
“Between the formalists, whose
sanctity of appearance concealed the love of sin, and
a character in which zeal for God’s glory was
always paramount, the contrast was unmistakable.”
DA 88.
Zeal for God’s glory? That was
out of the question. That was too dangerous socially
and professionally. Too uncool. Sacrifice everything
for a conviction about right and wrong? There was no
great concern about what was right or wrong. Success
in the Structure was what it was all about. In
addition, if there was an issue about right or wrong,
the “church” knew best anyway. It was all a
matter of fitting in. After all, the Structure, the
‘Church,’ is the voice of God, is it not?
It
is the same principle that drove the members of the
Sanhedrin to call Jesus in before them to answer for
healing a man on the Sabbath. Jesus challenged
their fundamental motivation in life-seeking
the approval of one another rather than seeking the
glory that comes from God only. [John 5:44]
He told them on no uncertain terms that it was impossible
for them to believe as long as they received glory
from one another instead of seeking the glory that
comes from God only.
continue
