Are you Listening to the Lord?

Jeremiah 37:1-2 ESV

 

“Zedekiah the son of Josiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah, reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim. But neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the Lord that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.”

 

The Word of the Lord

 

Today we have the Scriptures, the Bible (Genesis to Revelation) to speak God’s messages to us. But God has also given us the Holy Spirit to teach us the word of the Lord, and to counsel, encourage, correct, and rebuke us, as needed. And God has also gifted certain people within the body of Christ to also bring forth the messages of the Lord from the Scriptures but as applied to our lives and to our world today, to make them practical to us today.

 

So, the Lord speaks to us through the Scriptures, through his Spirit, but also through godly human messengers who are bringing forth the word of the Lord to the people as directed by God and in the power and wisdom of God’s Spirit. But we still need to be testing everything we hear to make certain it aligns with the Scriptures (in context), for not everyone who says he has a message from the Lord is actually listening to the Lord Jesus.

 

The Adulterated word

 

Many people today are professing to bring messages from the Lord that are actually from the flesh of man. These messages may have the appearance of truth, but they are deliberate half-truths, and so they are lies. They may look good on the outside and they may feel good to our emotions, but underneath they are death, not life. They may have the suggestion of righteousness, but underneath are all kinds of immorality and wickedness.

 

For, they have taken the pure word of God and they have altered, adulterated, diluted, and distorted it so that it does not resemble the gospel taught by Jesus and by his NT apostles. Largely what is being taught are Scriptures taught out of context and twisted to make them say what they want them to say. And this is in combination with humanistic philosophy, psychology, foreign religions, and our culture and human nature.

 

They profess to be teaching the true light, but it is really darkness disguised as the true light. They profess to be leading you to true salvation from your sin, but since they don’t teach the necessity of repentance and walks of obedient faith and the fear of the Lord, they are leaving you still in bondage to sin, only now guilt free. And they profess to promise you eternal life, but what awaits you is truly death if you did not die with Christ to sin.

 

So, what they are proclaiming is a fake gospel message, a cheapened form of the true gospel which portends righteousness but does not deliver. It is kind of like a Trojan Horse that has the appearance of one thing on the outside but inside is the enemy ready to take you down and to destroy you. For the cheap grace gospel was designed to destroy the church and the gospel and to lead people into sin and away from pure devotion to Jesus.

 

For, it does not lead the sinner to die with Christ to sin and to live to Christ and to his righteousness. It does not lead the sinner to forsake his sinful practices and to walk in obedience to the Lord in the fear (honor) of God. But it allows the sinner to continue in deliberate and habitual and premeditated sin against the Lord while promising him forgiveness of sins and heaven as his eternal destiny.

 

Can You Hear Him?

 

So, the Lord is calling out to his church to remove this fake gospel from his sight and to return his gospel to the pure word of God that it is. He is calling out to church leaders and to the people who profess his name to do away with the lies and to embrace the truth by teaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins and obedience for eternal life with God, for this is what the Scriptures teach. Read them all, in context. You will see!

 

But few are listening to the words of the Lord. Many who profess Jesus as Lord are turning their backs on the Lord and they are walking away from him, and they are choosing to follow after the ways of the world and of the flesh and of sensuality and moral impurity, instead. And so this cheap grace gospel prevails, and it is spreading far and wide, and the masses are embracing it, but it is a Trojan Horse, and they will die in their sins.

 

So, don’t be fooled by it. It is a snake ready to bite you. It is full of deadly poison. And those who drink from its poison will surely die. For, if you walk according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit, you will die in your sins. You will not have eternal life with God. For we are all going to reap what we sow. If we sow to please the flesh, we will reap destruction, but if we sow to please the Spirit, then we will reap eternal life (Gal 6:7-8).

 

So, test what you are hearing and reading against the Scriptures in their context, for many false beliefs stem from Scriptures taught outside their context. Don’t just read Ephesians 2:8-9. Read verse 10 and all of Ephesians. Don’t just read Romans 10:9-10, read all of Romans. And don’t just read John 10:28-30. Read verse 27 and all of John 10 to get the context so that you make certain you are interpreting what you read in truth.

 

This cheap grace gospel may sound good and it may feel good to your emotions but, again, it has a snake’s bite. Don’t be bitten by it. Please take a good hard look at it in comparison with the whole of Jesus’ teachings and the teachings of his NT apostles and you will see the lies if you are truly seeking the truth. And please ask the Lord to open your eyes to all the deliberate deception going on and to Satan’s evil plan to destroy your life.

 

The Prayer

 

Written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager,

Alberto Testa and Tony Renis

 

I pray you'll be our eyes

And watch us where we go

And help us to be wise

In times when we don't know

 

Let this be our prayer

When we lose our way

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

 

I pray we'll find your light

And hold it in our hearts

When the stars go out each night

Remind us where you are.

 

Let this be our prayer

When shadows fill our day

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFCbtRz1Z0

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P.S. This is not an endorsement of the singers other than as musicians

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:22-25; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Matt 7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10]