Many Do Not Acknowledge the Authority of God's Word

“I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

“Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true” (3 John 1:9-12 ESV).

The situation today in much of these modern institutional and market-driven “churches” is that they do not acknowledge the authority of Jesus Christ and of his word, but they are teaching the teachings of men, instead, which are a crafty blend of truth and deceptions, and therefore they are deliberate lies. And they are attacking the truth of the Scriptures and the servants of the Lord who are teaching the truth of the Scriptures. And some are putting out of their gatherings those who are speaking the truth of God’s word.

For the primary goal of these modern institutional market-driven “churches” is to attract the ungodly of this world to their gatherings. They don’t want to say anything that will offend the ungodly and those who practice sin, and so they have diluted and altered the gospel of our salvation to make it more acceptable to the people of the world, and to human flesh. So, rather than teach them the full gospel message, they entertain them so that they will like coming to “church,” and so they will want to come back.

But “the church” is not an institution of men. It is not to be market-driven, because it is not a human-based business, although that is what it is being turned into on a large scale, at least here in America. We who believe in Jesus Christ with God-honoring faith in him are the church. We are the living stones in God’s building, which is spiritual, not physical. And the purpose of our gatherings is not to attract the world but to train us in godliness and in holy living so we take the truth of the gospel of Christ out to the world.

But most of these gatherings appear to have it all backwards, for they have become the creations of man and not of God, who are following business models and marketing schemes on how to “grow their churches,” rather than submitting to the will and purpose of God for his church, his body, his temple. And most of these gatherings appear to be more concerned with pleasing human flesh and the people of the world than they are with pleasing God and saving the world from their bondage to sin.

And since the gospel has been diluted to make room for sinners to continue living in sin, while claiming Jesus as their Savior and heaven as their eternal destiny, we have multitudes of spiritually AWOL people within the gatherings of “the church,” many of them the pastors of those churches. And thus we have a multitude of spiritually AWOL men within the gatherings of these “churches” who are not taking their spiritual responsibility before God to lead their wives and their children in godliness and in holy living, because they are not living godly lives, but many of them are trapped in sexual sin.

But so many of them who are trapped in sin, while believing that they have the hope of eternal life with God promised to them, regardless of how they live, are, thus, not supporting (encouraging, helping, assisting) those of us who are living in moral purity and who are walking the walk that God laid out for all of us to walk, and who are proclaiming the truths of God’s word. But they are standing in opposition against us, instead, refuting the truth of God’s word, and attacking us in character. And they are calling us out as though we are the ones in the wrong for teaching the truth of God’s word.

But we are not to be those who imitate evil, but who imitate good. We are not to be those who continue in deliberate and habitual (addictive) sin against the Lord while claiming Jesus as Savior and heaven as our eternal home. We are not to be those who are living for self and for self-pleasure who are all caught up in the world of entertainment and whose lives are not surrendered to Jesus Christ to do his will. But we are to be those who deny self, die daily to sin, and who follow Jesus in obedience (Luke 9:23-26).

And we are to be those who are proclaiming the truth of God’s word to the people, and not the lies, and who are refuting the lies of the enemy that so many are spreading in the name of God, and in the name of the Scriptures. But we have to accept that if we do that, which some of us are actively doing, we will be persecuted. We will be hated. We will have people sinning against us, doing evil to us, and speaking evil against us because we follow Jesus Christ with our lives and because we speak the truth and not the lies. 

But to this we are called, to suffer for the sake of Jesus and for his gospel message. And so we rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer on account of our faith in our Lord and because we are walking in fellowship with him.

[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 6:22-23; Lu 21:12-19; Jn 15:1-21; Jn 16:33; Jn 17:14; Ac 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer 

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897

Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,

Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,

Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,

Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,

Holy and harmless, patient and brave;

Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,

Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg 

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