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BUT YE ARE A CHOSEN
GENERATION, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, A PECULIAR PEOPLE;
that ye should shew forth the praises of him who HATH CALLED YOU OUT
OF DARKNESS INTO HIS MARVELLOUS LIGHT;
Which in time past
were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not
obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
SUBJECT – THE ODD
BUNCH!! [1]
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The message
for this month, concerns something that most people, including most
Christians see as the absolute lunacy displayed by a small group of
people that claim to be Christians.
In
their minds, this group of people are, as most would call them, 'the
fringe Right', or as they are also known as 'extremists!!'
Now,
the question must be asked, 'what are they doing/not doing, to earn
this type of notoriety??'
Quite
simply put, they earn these names because of one simple
characteristic. And that is, they don't go along with the rest of
the crowd.
No matter what it is, they seem to want to stand
out as being against what everyone else seems to agree on as being
the way to go to accomplish a particular goal.
And, what
makes matters worse, is that they have the audacity to call
themselves, followers of Jesus Christ.
One
would think that, if they were really Christians, they would want to
put forth the image of a Christ, that puts Him in a
positive/favorable light!!
After all, this is Jesus Christ that they claim to be
representing!!!
Well, to put this in to perspective, look at
the subject verses of scripture.
We are being told that those
that are followers of Christ, are called to be 'a
peculiar people.'
Now
that term alone, puts forth the idea that we are, by design of
Christ, to march to the beat of a different drum, if you will, than
the rest of the world.
And
why is this???
Because, the rest of the world, as the
scriptures above tell us, is walking
in darkness!!!
What
does it mean to be walking in darkness???
The term
'darkness', carries with it, the idea that they can't see, or are
blind to the causes of problems, and the consequences of the
decisions they are making.
If
you can't see, or understand what is causing a problem, then,
without a doubt, you can't come up with the right solution to fix
it!!
Well, when it
comes to the world [unbelievers], that is exactly the position they
are in.
And how did they get like this???
You can
thank Adam, for that!!!
Part
of the curse that God put on all of mankind, was that they no longer
had the ability to see things the way that God sees them. In other
words, they became blind in that area!!!
The
result then was, when problems arose, they had to rely on what
little sense they were left with, to deal with them.
As time
marched on, century after century, millennium after millennium, the
solutions they came up with, that seemed to work, were passed down
from generation to generation, as being reliable.
Of
course, as anyone can attest to, very few, if any of these
solutions, has been 100 percent effective 100 percent of the time,
if at all.
This is
because of factors that man fails to consider, because he is unaware
of their existence, and how they affect him, and his
surroundings.
Now, as
I mentioned earlier, this mindset is not only in the
world[unbelievers], but has crept in to the Church as
well.
According to
the subject scriptures, the Church, is supposed to be the One that
has been shown the Light, and is tasked with showing the world how
to deal with our problems.
But, as I said, most Christians,
are in the same position as the world. They can't see the rationale
behind what this small group of 'radicals' is doing/saying!!
The
reasons for this are many, but it all boils down to a failure in
leadership in the Church. And that puts the blame on pastors.
If
the pastor is blind, then, it should be no surprise, that those in
the congregation will also be blind.
As Jesus says, 'when
the blind lead the blind, both will fall in the ditch!'[Mat. 15:14,
Lk. 6:39].
Matthew
10:24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above
his lord.
This means,
no one that is relying on their pastor/teacher to help them grow in
Christ, can ever get any higher than the level that pastor/teacher,
is at.
Now, here is one of those areas where, what the world
has no problem with, can be a disaster in the Church!!
Just
because a person goes to college, or some other graduate school to
get a degree in the area of ministry, does not mean that, that
person is fit to pastor a church.
When
it comes to running a business, or heading some institution or
project, in the world, the more degrees, the better.
However,
all the degrees in the world, are not enough, to get God to accept a
person to lead His people. He uses a totally different set of
criteria than most people think is necessary for that
position.
Man, looks
at degrees, while God looks at the heart.
It
is only the anointing, that qualifies a person to be in ministry
period, let alone pastor!!
What
is the anointing??? And how does it apply to us today???
First
of all, it is special abilities bestowed on a person by God to be
able to hear from God, see and recognize things that are happening
in this physical world, and how to deal with them.
Secondly,
they are able to see, and understand that the majority of our
problems, originate in a realm that man might believe exists, but
doesn't completely understand. And that is the spiritual realm.
A
person with the anointing, realizes that every problem we face in
this life, has its root in this realm.
And as a result, just
like weeds in the lawn or garden, the only way to get rid of them
completely, is to destroy the root. Otherwise, if you just cut the
weed down with a mower or other device, and leave the root, it won't
be long before that weed will pop up again.
Well, with us,
and our problems, the world is just cutting the weed [our problems]
down, while leaving the root completely intact.
Why?? Because
they are blind to the steps that are needed to eliminate the
problem, which is dealing with it's root in the spiritual
realm.
There is not
one single college, university or seminary that is aligned with the
world view on issues, that can prepare an individual for ministry,
let alone to be a leader in God's Church.
Therefore,
any building, or institution headed up by one of these individuals,
is not actually God's Church, but rather a place to go to hear
someone that will make you feel good without solving your
problems.
They give you a lot of 'quick fixes', that seem to
get you over the hump for a few days, then you are right back in the
same old mess again. And, in a lot of instances, things have gotten
worse, meaning you will need twice the remedy you had before to get
by.
It's like being hooked on drugs. When a person starts
out, a little $5 shot will suffice them for a while. But, as time
goes on, they need more and more to get them to the level of
euphoria they had the first time they tried it.
Well, in
these churches, the people keep coming back because they need their
weekly, or daily 'fix', to tide them over. And the pastor provides
it for them.
Many of them get your attention with their
abilities of praying, expounding on Bible scriptures, and some of
the performances they put on while preaching. I mean they put on an
academy award-winning performance.
Anyone that didn't know
any better would say, 'this is truly God's man/woman!'
The
problem is, it is a performance designed to make you feel good, and
not solve your problem. It's designed to get you addicted to this
individual, or institution.
The reason being, this person, is
looking for a paycheck.
If we look at the Greatest Preacher
of all time, Jesus Christ, He didn't perform [hoop, holler, dance
all over the platform, have a Hammond organ backing Him up for
effect, or nothing else like that]. Instead, He was quite bland, by
today's standards.
His message was that God has all types of
Blessings ready to pour out on those that want them. However, in
order to get them, the people need to repent of whatever their evil
was, and come back to Him.
As
I mentioned earlier, most of today's preachers never mention this
part of God's plan because they don't see it because that is not
what they were taught. Therefore they have no anointing to see the
real source of our problems.
The
message that Jesus preached was to separate yourselves from the way
the world sees and does things.
He goes on to tell us that,
when we do that, we will become a people that will be at total odds
with them. A Peculiar
People!!
Those of us
that fit in to this group tend to be the ones that go to church, to
get a Word from the Man of God, that will guide us in to being a
better person. And, that means we have to be about changing our ways
of seeing and doing things, so that we will be pleasing to God,
The
world, on the other hand, not only goes to be entertained, but, to
hear someone tell them that their problems are the result of
someone, or some thing else, meaning it is not their fault.
Human
nature tends to guide us away from anything that makes us feel bad
about ourselves. And we will tend to avoid it whenever
possible.
Yet, with
God, if we want Him to Bless us the way that only He can bless us,
then, we have to defy that nature, and face that message.
The
Bible tells us that, Proverbs
1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but
fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
People, we have got a whole lot of fools out there. And the
blame for most of that rests with the fools, with all types of
degrees in the pulpit.
When it comes down to personalities,
and who to take heed to, and who to ignore, the ones that holler the
loudest, and put on a big show to get their point across, are the
ones you need to stay away from, because they want attention. The
quiet ones, that seem to always be at peace, regardless of the
situation, are usually the ones to hang around, because they know
Him, to whom all the attention should be given to.
I
don't blame the PRO-CHOICE CROWD, the LGBTQ community, the 'WOKE
GENERATION', or ANY OF THE OTHER GROUPS of individuals that have
problems with us!!
They
are only acting on the total lack of information that their leaders
supply them with.
Have you noticed that in just about every
instance, there is a preacher that is at the forefront of each of
these groups???
That is what they seek. And there is always
some idiot out there, that will give them legitimacy, as long as
he/she, gets paid for it!!
If
they can't find one, then, one of them will get a degree, in
ministry, and become their leader.
But,
as I said, it is all for naught, because their problems will
continue to expand and get more serious.
Decades ago, women
were complaining about the unfairness of pay and benefits in women's
sports, as compared to men's sports.
Well, just about the
time things started turning around for them, along comes the push
for men, who have identifed themselves as women, to enter women's
sports, The result is, biological girls/women are losing
competitions to these men-women.
It won't be long before
biological females will be totally eliminated from all sports thanks
to the same government officials that passed laws to help them
decades ago.
More
about this, next month.