Late
last night I read two warnings against Pastor Paul Washer and one against Pastor
John Piper. I truly was not looking for that. Instead, I was looking for a rare
puritan book and because both pastors’ names are associated with the puritan I
stumbled on those reviews about them.
My
heart was breaking as I read these reviewers words. One of them is so eloquent
that if you do not know God personally and intimately, you would be inclined to
believe everything he says because he phrased things so beautifully and so
eloquently. I have to confess, for a moment I envied this man’s vocabulary and
his writing style. Oh the beauty! The other reviewer is a man who has a popular
site dedicated to reviewing everyone else except himself. He hides himself well
and no one on earth can get in touch with him. (I wonder why?) If your ministry
is truly from and for God, about God, with God, through God and in God, and if
you are not led solely by Satan, why on earth wouldn’t you avail yourself, just
in case there was someone out there, reading your blog and that God could use
you to actually lead this person to Him?
His
website is dedicated to tearing down every pastor who writes a book or preach a
sermon that teach people to grow in the Lord, to make every effort or to
examine oneself. It is so strange to see that most pastors that are truly
called by the Lord, those pastors who are truly men after God’s heart are so hated
by him and he is warning everyone who wants to read him, to stay away from
these pastors. My heart was breaking, not for the pastors because I know they
are truly “work in progress” and in good hands with the savior. My heart was
breaking for those reviewer’s ignorance, arrogance, and spiritual blindness. In
fact, I know Pastor Paul Washer's boldness has not only been gifted by God with the gift of boldness, the Holy Spirit witnessed it to my soul when He gave me the gift of boldness. All of you who are used to reading me know that this gift comes only after a long painful training process with Him.
If you take the time to read about Pastor John Piper, you will notice how
he does not hide his flaws. This man still has a lot of work to be done. I love
reading about how he humbles himself and shares with his congregation, very
openly what God is doing in his life. He confessed his 3 years of counselling
to improve his marriage. He confessed the fact that he was once a white supremacist
all the while being a Christian at the same time. (Click here) Not long ago I read how God is dealing with
him because he needs more humility in his ministry. The bottom line is, this
pastor truly what we Christians call “works in progress” and God is at work in
his life.
What I
like the most about him is that I can see he is truly walking in the light. When
you walk in the light with God, He does something to you. Even though you can
see how disgusting you are on the inside, yet, there is an authenticity and integrity
that the light calls for, it causes you not to hide behind even the worst thing
about you. It is all in the open for anyone to see. Another reason that you
feel this way is that you do not dread the Day of Judgment and there is nothing
that God can put out there that would embarrass you, because He has already
dealt with you in His mercy.
This
morning as I was reading 2 Chronicles, I was reminded of those reviewers. I
KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that they do not see through the eyes of God. I
know they are spiritually ignorant, they do not understand God’s word and I
know they have stubborn hearts toward God. In fact, they reminded me of the
Pharisees who killed the same savior whose mistake was to care for their souls.
When I
read about God’s covenant with Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:12-22, and when you
consider how wise Solomon was, you are inclined to ask yourself why didn’t he
listen to God in order to reap the blessings of honoring the covenant God made
with him? What would make him ignore the dreadful consequences of disobedience?
No one in the right mind would choose voluntarily to go toward a life of disaster.
But, this is exactly the choice Solomon made.
The problem is that sin is so deceptively attractive, so Solomon turned
away from God.
But
God never changed. His covenant with David, Solomon and Israel
These
reviewers who seem to be allergic to anyone who elevate Christ to His right
place are blinded by their spiritual ignorance and stubbornness. They are
naturally hostile to Him and they are also holding to some form of religion, but
never truly experienced a life changing reality of true Salvation. The sign that
true Salvation has entered the heart is that the Holy Spirit is at work in us
and instead of sitting still, with one verse of the Bible, we go forward like
the apostle Paul in the book of Philippians, to claim the prize. The
need to pursue Him and persevere through the journey is one of our proof that
Salvation has reached us and we have accepted the good news exactly like Christ
meant it for us. Grace does not mean God has taken away the need for us to make
every effort. On the contrary, if indeed you have been saved by His grace and
His gift of salvation has entered your heart, then this same grace brings with
it the power of the Holy Spirit to enable you to strive, to pursue, to make
every effort as He continue to work out His Salvation in you and me.
When
you claim to have been saved by grace through faith and you have received the
gift of God, yet you are like a dog with a bone holding onto one or two verses
of the Bible and you have no inclination to go forward with Him spiritually,
then ask yourself why is it the transformational work of the Holy Spirit seems to be absent in
your spiritual life. The lesson here, be very careful when someone is trying to
shove down your throat what they know about God, when in reality they have not
even been chosen by Him….., yet. When you stand before God, you cannot tell Him
that you read one of those ignorant people and you were duped. Adam and Eve
tried that approach and it did not work in their favour and they died
spiritually. No one in the right mind should make a decision to go forward with
Christ or stay behind because you read something that you feel was right with
you. The only person who should have this much power over your life is God and
He is waiting with open arms for you to ask Him. You know why it is important
to go directly to Him? Eternity is way too long for you to live without and
away from Him. Choose carefully. Let him have the last word.
The
Holy Spirit is more than willing to show you who is right and wrong. Which
pastor is after His own heart and which is not. Which pastors have been ordained by
Him or not and which pastor is failing miserably or not. Because it is about
how and where you spend eternal life, do not use your feelings to decide
whether you are right or not. Neither use one or two verses of the Bible to
fight or bad mouth everyone who tells you to go forward with God.
Ephesians 1:18
I pray that the
eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to
which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy
people,
I am leaving you with two important verses of the Bible. Several people
on the internet have put a different spin on those verses without truly knowing
God intimately and without understanding what walking and living in the Spirit
even means in their own lives. They are
like Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness, by telling Him what God meant to
say in Psalm 91:11-12. It is interesting to see that Satan tried to keep
something from Christ when He told Him in Matthew 4:5-6
“Then the devil took him to the holy city and
had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of
God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command
his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
Satan
can be tricky that way. He could have continued and told Christ about verse 13 which
is:
“You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
You
will trample the great lion and the serpent.”
If he had said verse 13 to Christ, it would have been like shooting himself in the foot because this verse refers to him.
Here are those two verses in question:
Hebrews
6:4-6
It is impossible for those who have once been
enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have
shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the
goodness of the word of God and the powers of
the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to
repentance, because to their loss they
are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public
disgrace.
"What sorrow awaits you teachers of
religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make
one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you
yourselves are!
If you in fact received the gift of Salvation, do
not let anyone dupe you into putting God to test or putting words in His mouth.
The word of God tells us
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test”
DEEPEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIBLE. DIG DEEPER INTO THE WORD OF GOD
