What is wrong with most Christians?

Really, the question should be: What is right with them? The answer I'm sorry to have to say is, not much!

By asking these questions, I am not judging, for to come to obvious conclusions from all the evidence that is available, cannot even be considered as judging - the problems are manifold, complex and huge and are plain for all to see, if we can see, that is.

So show me your proof, I hear you say.

OK, I will, and I will use a current living, blogging example; someone, who shares his wretched condition for all the world to see on his blog. What sort of picture this example paints for those new to the faith I dread to think, but there we are, these people are out there and they are continually bringing shame on Jesus Christ's name.

Right, here we go, here is what this individual wrote as a supposed Born Again believer.

And before I start, don't get me wrong, for he comes across as very sincere and could well be a True Believer - totally misguided and deceived and thereby unnecessarily hard on himself, but this is because he doesn't understand Grace, nor truly what Salvation means. He believes in an ogre god, a god that is always making demands of him with a heavy yoke. See my web page for details on ogre gods 'cos they're worshipped everywhere.

http://yes2truth.com.istemp.com/index.html

OK, back to our wretched friend:

My Burden is Light?

"Light?

To believe that a God sent his son to die for me? A son I have not met, who has not spoken, whose Spirit goes quiet?

To live putting him first, above family, friends, self? To trust in the promise of his Word, a book handed to me by a man? A creature that this God's Word tells me is full of sin. Yet his word is trusted to man for thousands of years.

Asked not only to believe, but to Go! Needing to understand that those who are not convinced will go to Hell. Good people...friends...family...all condemned to death for not being convinced that Jesus died for them.

Light? Not to me. Not this journey. I need help and cry out for it but get silence and doubt.

God who hears all prayers, hear mine. Reach out to me in a direct way. Make yourself known to me. I go back to my first prayer.

Lord, be strong in my life
Help me to find my faith
And I will follow you!

Be strong, an all powerful God who has pity on a lost sheep. One who made it back into the flock, but is struggling to keep up.

Show me that it is true what you said, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light". Help me lift.

So what strikes us first about this little passage? Well, he is questioning the lightness of the yoke that The Lord asks us to bear, but what he is really doing here is confusing taking up his cross with taking The Lord's yoke upon himself. These are two very different things and I will tell you straight, that if we make, and I did say if we make, the yoke heavy, we can never carry our cross - it's impossible and this is what this individual is experiencing - an unbelievably heavy yoke and his cross weighing down on top.

In the first line he shows his lack of understanding by stating that Jesus Christ is someone he has never met. If we are Born Again we have Christ in us, so how can he say he has never met Him, this again is impossible. Of course he has 'met Him'. He then states another impossibility - His Spirit goes quiet. The Holy Spirit resides with us if we are Born Again so there is no way it can go quiet - again, impossible!

Now, unfortunately, we move into real mainstream Christian error, and error that I, in the past, was also guilty of, i.e. "to live, putting Him first", telling God what I/we 'have done for Him' or what I/we are 'doing for Him'. This remark of his tells us two things: 1) It tells us, in a backhanded sort of way, that his Salvation is dependent upon himself and his actions and 2) he is telling God how great he is and what he has done for Him. We can't do anything for God, nor do we, He does everything for us. Even - "To trust in the promise of His Word." It is The Lord who gives us the ability to trust - Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" Notice, Grace and Faith (trust) are gifts of God. When our friend has learnt these fundamentals he will then be able to begin his walk with Jesus Christ. All the while he thinks he is doing it, he will struggle and eventually fail - it's inevitable!!

Now he displays Biblical ignorance: "A creature that this God's Word tells me is full of sin." If he is full of sin, where is the Holy Spirit? If he is full of sin, how does he explain these Scriptures:

1 John 3:6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

1 John 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

1 John 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.

OK, in fairness to him, what I will say is that most of mainstream Christianity doesn't understand the meaning of these Scriptures either, but it still doesn't excuse the error, an error that causes all his wretchedness. If he is 'full of sin' then there is no room for the Holy Spirit - period. The Holy Spirit would not reside with sin, that again is an impossibility - it couldn't happen and The Father would never allow it anyway. At conversion we confess our sins and when we do that it clears the way for The Holy Spirit to make its home with us in order for Jesus Christ to live with us. Once Born Again we are new creatures not "creatures full of sin." Where do they learn this stuff? Well we know don't we, he told us "a book handed to him by a man" It is more than likely this same man 'explained' what the book said, and therein lies the problem - ravening wolves in pulpits. "Yet his word is trusted to man for thousands of years." No, not at all, The Old Testament Scriptures were entrusted to the religious leaders of the Jews, not to man in general. After Jesus Christ's death and resurrection The Word was then entrusted to those whom The Father called to His Son and to no one else - The Church or the Called Out Ones.

"Asked not only to believe, but to Go! Needing to understand that those who are not convinced will go to Hell. Good people...friends...family...all condemned to death for not being convinced that Jesus died for them."

We are not asked anything, we are called and we can't refuse - how can we? It's impossible. We are then given the ability to believe - Eph 2:8. You see this is the fundamental flaw at the core of mainstream 'Christian' belief - they think it all depends on them, even Salvation itself; can you believe that? Well you better, for that is what this individual is saying. He then compounds one cataclysmic error with another. All these good people he knows are going to hell and of course that's true in part, for we all die and will all go to a place of nothingness known in OT times as Sheol, which basically meant a hole in the ground and that is hell.

I will cut to the quick with this one, because it is too big a subject for this article, but the short of it is this: In Revelation 20 there is the story of the future second resurrection, where all the people that were not part of the first resurrection will be resurrected in a new physical body. According to mainstream 'Christian' teaching and our 'friend', these people after having been resurrected will be judged and then thrown into the lake of fire. Now don't forget our 'friend' said that they were good people. So not only is the Father God going to judge ordinary human kind in general He is also going to judge good people too, (well you would, wouldn't you?) and they too will be thrown into the lake of fire. Naturally this carnage will also include teenagers, children and babies, for they have all 'rejected' Jesus Christ in this life.

Now roughly speaking this is what they believe, but there are some big unanswered questions here with this blasphemous interpretation. Here are just two little spanners in their papist RC works Romans 11:26; "for ALL Israel shall be saved" and 1 Tim 2:4; "Who will have (desires) all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." First of all we have an issue of favouritism here if we follow their silly ideas, because what this Scripture is saying is that all the Israelites and Jews who have ever lived will be saved. This is what this Scripture means - pure and simple. OK we will fast forward to the second resurrection and here is the passage below, but I will add, in brackets, what seems to be missing:

Rev 20:13 "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life (except the Jews and The Israelites) was cast into the lake of fire."

Now we know, that what I have done here is silly because Scripture doesn't say that, but if we apply our 'friend's' ideas or silly notions and The Truth of Romans 11:26, then this is the conundrum or contrdiction that they cause. They say that everyone that 'rejects' Jesus Christ in this life is going into the lake of fire. Well "All Israel" certainly isn't, "All Israel" is going to be saved, but do they explain this? No. Do they even know the Scripture is there? Probably not. Why? Because they don't want to know, that's why. There are none so deaf as those who don't want to hear, that is not Scriptural but it is a Truth. In the other verse I quoted: 1 Tim 2:4 we now have a better picture of what The Lord is going to do in the future. God desires all men to be saved so we now have All Israel and also a Godly desire for all men to be saved. Now with this verse we must use our imagination, if God desires something, do you think it is going to come about or end in abject failure? I will leave you all to answer this question and in the meantime I will contact the deluded soul who wrote the above article and try and lift him from his self inflicted misery.

"Light? Not to me. Not this journey. I need help and cry out for it but get silence and doubt."

I have already dealt with his problem here, but I will just re-cap and add: His load is heavy because he is carrying a leaden yoke of his own making and thinks that The Lord has made it heavy!! This is his yoke, not The Lord's yoke that he is carrying, he is actually carrying a load that has already been carried for him to the cross. Mainstream Christians make their yokes heavy by struggling with sin when The Lord overcame sin and death. As long as Christians struggle with sin they will never know what it is like to take The Lord's yoke upon them, for His yoke is light! Notice too, what he says next: "Not this journey." Now this is a referrence to carrying our crosses, for we are on a journey or in a race as Paul frequently referred to it, a race we are required to finish - not to win necessarily, but to finish. This means to keep on believing, no matter what, through trials and, possibly, persecution. Now this should be more than enough for any Christian to bear without adding other things that The Lord has already dealt with. "I need help and cry out for it but get silence and doubt." Of course he gets silence (until he met me of course, whom The Lord has sent to help him). You see, he can help himself by understanding what I am saying here, it's as simple as that. He should also study my teaching on Grace which has a link below.

"God who hears all prayers, hear mine. Reach out to me in a direct way. Make yourself known to me. I go back to my first prayer.

Lord, be strong in my life Help me to find my faith And I will follow you!

Be strong, an all powerful God who has pity on a lost sheep. One who made it back into the flock, but is struggling to keep up."

Here he asking for something The Lord has already given him - His faith. If this person is Born Again The Lord is already with him - residing with him via The Holy Spirit. The Lord has no need to 'reach out' to him for He is already there with him, but he doesn't seem to understand this. The Lord gives us His Faith, so we can believe, so we can follow Him. None of this is dependant upon us, upon our strength, and this is another reason why mainstream Christians struggle because they think it is their faith that is involved. Our faith is not even alive until we do works, our faith is dead until that point in time when we put our faith into action and in deeds or works - risky living as I call it.

Show me that it is true what you said, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light". Help me lift."

Until he sheds his burden, his yoke, there is no way The Lord is going to help him lift. He doesn't have too, He gave him and us a light yoke to carry!

y2t