Isaiah 29:13-16 ESV
And the Lord said:
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
Our Present Situation
In America, and perhaps in other nations, as well, this
describes the majority of those who call themselves Christians and who profess
to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. For most of them are believing
in a half-truth gospel which does not put sin to death in the sinner, but it
coddles them in their sins so as to not offend them with the truth of the
gospel. And it makes no requirements for biblical repentance nor for obedience
to Jesus Christ.
And since many (or most) of them are using Romans 10:9 out
of context as their gospel of salvation and their invitation to believe in
Jesus, many people are declaring with their lips that Jesus is Lord, and they are
making verbal acknowledgments of belief that God raised Jesus from the dead,
and so they presume that is all that is required, that they are now saved for
eternity, and that heaven is their eternal destiny, regardless of how they live
their lives.
But even many who know better, who have been taught the
truth, and even many who have taught the truth themselves are not living the
faith they profess, but they are also buying into the lies that excuse away
their sinful practices and which give them carte blanche now to continue in
deliberate and habitual sin without conscience, without remorse, and without
compassion for the people they hurt when they sin against them.
And so they end up living double lives, professing one thing
outwardly but then living another, with many of them engaged in habitual and
secretive and deliberate sin against God and against other humans. So they may
give an outward impression that they are living for the Lord, and that they
love God, and that they are worshipers of Jesus Christ, but it is in pretense
only, based in lies and not in truth. It is lip service only with hearts far
from God.
For their professions of faith are in the flesh and not in
the Spirit, for they are not walking by the Spirit but they are still walking
according to the flesh. For those who still live according to the flesh live to
gratify the sinful cravings of the flesh. And this is what they keep going back
to cyclically and deliberately. For their faith in Jesus is not genuine
God-given faith but it is a cheap copy of the real thing which barely resembles
the real thing.
And so these are people who give lip service to God while
their hearts are far from God, for their hearts are being given over to the
desires of their sinful flesh, instead. And instead of following the teachings
of Christ and of the New Testament apostles (in their fulness, in context),
they are following the teachings of men, much of which come from Scriptures taught
out of context and made to say what they do not say in context.
And although I am not looking forward to these liars and deceivers
coming under the judgment of God, for I pray for their salvation, I do look
forward to the day with great expectation when the lies will cease and the
truth will be exposed and all these liars and deceivers’ fleshly wisdom will
perish. For all these lies are leading people in the wrong direction, away from
pure devotion to Jesus Christ to walks in the flesh and not in the Spirit.
Isaiah 29:15-16 ESV
“Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel,
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us?’
You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
‘He did not make me’;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
‘He has no understanding’”?
Deeds Done in the Dark
Wow! This so much describes so many professing Christians
today, for so many of them are caught up in habitual and addictive and
deliberate sin against the Lord, in particular in the area of sexual
immorality. And since they don’t want others to know what they are doing in secret,
they will often cover up the truth with lies. For they have this false idea
that if no one sees what they are doing then it will be just like they didn’t
do it at all.
These people are fleshly, idolatrous, irresponsible,
self-indulgent, foolish, full of lust, selfish, dishonest, corrupt, immoral,
destroyed, ruined, wrecked, and damaged goods. Their professions of faith in
Jesus Christ are therefore a sham. For although they give the appearance of being
honest, genuine, faithful, upright, spiritually whole (healthy) and morally
pure, they are liars, adulterers, the sexually immoral, and the spiritually
dead.
For they turn the gospel upside down. Good now is spoken of
as evil and evil is now spoken of as good. The adulterer and the abuser are now
being defended while the godly and the faithful are being accused falsely and
not protected. If you teach the truth of the gospel you are now considered
hyper-religious or judgmental or legalistic or unloving. But if you are walking
in deliberate sin and you are being abusive, you are being consoled.
But here is the truth of the matter. Jesus died on that
cross, not just to forgive us our sins, and not just to give us the hope of heaven
when we die. He died to deliver us from our slavery (addiction) to sin so we
would now be slaves of God and of his righteousness. He died that we might die
with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness and that we would no
longer live for ourselves but we would now honor him with our lives.
So, if our faith in Jesus Christ is genuine God-ordained
faith, then we will surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, we will submit to him
as Lord of our lives, we will die with him to sin, not just once but daily, and
we will walk in holiness and in righteousness in obedience to his commands (New
Covenant), by the grace of God, in His power and strength, and for the glory
and praise of God and not for our own glory.
But if you refuse to accept our Lord for who he is, and his gospel
for what it is, and if you refuse to let him be the Potter, and you be the clay
for him to mold according to his will, but you try to turn it the other way
around, then that salvation and eternal life you think you have is not yours to
have. You will die in your sins. You will not inherit eternal life with God
because you chose to live a lie and not the truth and you would not obey Jesus.
Broken
Cord
An
Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
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