Mixture Is The Scourge of Christianity
A Hybrid is the offspring of two plants or animals of a different species.
The mule is a hybrid; it is sterile, and as such cannot reproduce. In agriculture
the seed provided to growers today has been modified. Hybrid seed if eaten
will make you ill. It is designed to produce for just one season. Its own
demise is genetically guaranteed. Every denomination sows modified seed into
the hearts of their people thus producing gatherings of sterile saints. History
stands mute testimony to this fact. The original seed was the word of God.
Men have mixed the original seed with their own to produce forms of Godliness
that are sterile and lifeless. Leaders devoid of spiritual insight have become
the cutting edge. These men solicit money from those into whom they have
sown their lies. They hold conferences that keep going over the same old
ground repeatedly. God hates mixture because it produces confusion, division,
pride, and the kingdoms of men Leviticus 19:19.
You don’t have to be rocket scientist to discover a problem.
Websites around the world are bleating about faults in the old order.
It doesn’t take an ounce of spirituality to see that, so please
tell me something I need to know? It takes true humility to put aside
what we think should be done, and start listening to God. However it’s
not in our nature to do that, we prefer to take up causes and in so
doing it invariably compounds the problem.
It seems many writers out there have little more to offer than a personal
synopsis on what’s happening. These overviews do little apart
from satisfying our morbid curiosity. As a spiritual exercise they
are of little value, yet Christians fawn over their statements.
Proverbs 8:34 “Blessed is the man that hears me, watching daily
at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors”. To wait means
just that, do nothing until He comes and tells you what to do. The
secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom.
It is not “what can we do about it?” but “what does
He want us to do?” Until He tells us to do anything, do nothing.
The servant’s prayer, “What do you want me to do?”
“And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a
book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying,
Read this, I pray thee: and he says, I cannot; for it is sealed: And
the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this,
I pray thee: and he says I am not learned. Isaiah 29:11-14
Except He teaches us; then His ways are past finding out. It will
come to pass in the last days, many people shall go and say, come and
let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us
of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. Isaiah 2:2-3
Isaiah 50:4 “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned,
that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary:
he wakes morning by morning, he wakes my ear to hear as the learned”.
Wherefore the Lord said, forasmuch as this people draw near me with
their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their
heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept
of men: Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among
this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of
their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent
men shall be hid”.
MORE ON MIXTURE
Genesis 48:20 “And he blessed them that day, saying, in thee
shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh:
and he set Ephraim before Manasseh”.
Ephraim means doubly fruitful, he was the second son of Joseph born
to him in Egypt. Given preference over the first born. The second born
becomes the firstborn. Blessed in the crossing of Jacob's hands. Here
Ephraim is far from fruitful although he is in line for blessing since
Jacob laid his hands upon him.
When I would have healed Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
Hosea 7:1, 8-11.
Ephraim mixed himself among the peoples; He is a cake not turned.
He is half-baked; neither hot nor cold. Rev 3:16.
Strangers have eaten up his strength. He has grown weak and doesn’t
realise that it is because he follows the counsel of strangers. Therefore
truth is foreign to him.
Grey hairs are here and there on him, yet he knows it not. He has
grown old and stale; the freshness of his spiritual walk with God has
long gone.
Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart; they call to Egypt
(the world); they go to Assyria.
Psalm 78:9 “The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying
bows turned back in the day of battle”. He’s a gutless
coward, faithless, and unreliable. He is not to be trusted.
4 things are the reason for his failure
| Decline |
Fruitfulness |
| Mixture |
Purity |
| Lopsided |
Balanced |
| Dissipation |
Divinely ordered priorities |
| Staleness |
Freshness |
Mixture: Deuteronomy 22:9 “You shall not sow your vineyard with
different kinds of seeds, lest the fruit of your seed which you have
sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.
If you think the only reason for the bible is so you can find verses
to hang your theories on your wrong; but preachers do it all the time.
Because 95% of a prophecy sounds scriptural people readily swallow
the poisoned balance. Or just because they addendum what they say with, “Thus
saith the Lord” don't be gullible, prove it. It only takes an
ounce of leaven to puff up 3 lbs of flour. Just one sniff of cyanide
is enough to kill you.
The original seed was the word of God. The vineyard, which is the
body of Christ, right now is being defiled with diverse seed. We have
made our ineffective traditions more important than God’s commandments.
I venture to say that in a few years people will be asking, what happened
to the “Church Planter Movement?”
Characteristically most Christians think that if something is trumpeted
loud enough and long enough, and if it’s well funded then it
must be God. John says try the spirits and test them, because Satan
is very adapt at assisting carnal efforts. It's one of his most effective
means of deception. There is only one way to know the truth, and that
is to know the living Word. Truth is a bi-product of a life in union
with Christ. Like Father, like Son.
Deuteronomy 22:10-11 “You shall not plough with an ox and an
ass together.” The Ox must be broken in before it can become
useful. How do you know a broken man? He's meek, reasonable, approachable,
and truthful. Matthew 5:5 Meekness is not weakness; it's strength under
discipline.
Isaiah 1:3 “The ox knows his owner and the ass his master's
crib”. The intelligence of animals may be limited, but they use
it; and we have the audacity to call them dumb. The nature of the Ass
is stubbornness. Jesus could ride the Ass because it was tamed. We
too need to be broken. King Saul the peoples’ choice kept Asses.
We need to be careful about whom we are yoked to. Take a look at Ephraim,
and as we do we should think about all those prophecies over him?
Ephraim joined Ishbosheth the son of King Saul in the first division
of Israel while Judah followed David. 1Samuel
2:8-11.
Ephraim joined the revolt against David under Absalom 2
Sam 17:26.
Ephraim revolted with the ten tribes against David in the matter of
jealousy over bringing him back after Absalom's death 2
Sam 19 & 20.
Ephraim were leaders in the final revolt against the house of David
in the last division of the Kingdom of Israel.
Ephraim was a half-baked cake.
Unbalanced. On one half he’s overdone and the other he’s
tacky. Balance is critical. Don't be a prisoner to the expectations
of men and movements. Hosea 7:8
Song of Songs 1:6. Most Christians think that by working in vineyards
owned by ambitious men they are serving God, but all the while their
personal vineyard is being neglected. Be God’s servant and not
another’s 1 Corinthians 7:23.
A brother proudly told me that he was armour bearer for a particular
NZ Pentecostal movement’s mucky muck. I told him how pathetic
he sounds, and suggested that he tell his lazy boss to carry his own
armour.
Dissipation. Strangers had devoured Ephraim’s strength.
A stranger is an outsider, not a family member. He is alien to the
will of God. There are certain things that belong to the family.
We must learn to live by divinely ordered priorities.
“
Thou shall not wear a garment of diver’s sorts, as of woollen
and linen together”. Clothing speaks of enduement of power and
virtue like Elijah’s mantle, a cloak of ‘zeal’, and
the garment of ‘praise’. Deuteronomy 22: 11
Wool speaks of soul power, human effort, sweating it out to put it
across.
White linen speaks of “righteousness”.
We have the double check; the Law and the Prophets. The prophets underscore
the Law, and they too are subject to it. If they speak not according
to this it's because there is no truth in them. In other words they
are liars, should not be listened to or feared. In the New Testament
we have the law of the spirit of life written in our hearts by the
finger of God.
Heb 10:16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and
in their minds will I write them”.
Romans 8:2 “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
hath made me free from the law of sin and death”.
1 John 2:27 “But the anointing which ye have received of him
abides in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but the same
anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him”.
Believe His Prophets but don’t swallow everything; examine what
they say. Grow up, be discerning. Be available, but don’t be
gullible.
Can God give you something prophetically you never thought of, yes
He can, but usually it's out of prayer and the preparation of your
heart before Him.
Truth and Tradition
The problem with Christian doctrine is our tendency
to fail to discern between the truth of the ‘Word’, and
the ‘traditions’ we develop around them. Tradition is an
unwritten body of belief handed down from generation to generation.
Traditions are not evil, unless they conflict with the Word. They present
a problem to all denominations being their greatest stumbling block.
Mark 7:9 “And he said unto them, full well ye reject the commandment
of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.”
Vs 13 “Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.”
The temptation when confronted to ignore truth in favour of our tradition
is very real. Tradition plays a bigger roll than most of us realize
with regard to what we believe. What follows is that we allow our traditions
to shape our theology rather than Scripture.
Jeremiah 23:29
Is not My word like a fire says the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks
the rock in pieces?
Man can violate any law to his own satisfaction.
Luke 5:39 “But no one after drinking the old wine seems to want
the fresh and the new. The old ways are best, they say”.
We have an embedded resistance to change. We don’t object when
other people change, but don’t try to change us, just leave us
where we are thank you. Visitation brings confrontation, so if we want
God in our lives (and we admit they’re not perfect) then He is
going to challenge what we do. Everything that God created, and all
that is born of the Spirit is always moving into new phases of maturation,
and man is no different. In other words, man was not placed in the
garden to become stagnant. God had a purpose for him just as He has
for everything. He had one for Adam, He had one for Israel, and He
has one for you and I, His body. God is not static and the man He created
was not to remain static. I cannot think of anything more self destructive
and boring than an inert existence. People say to us. “Don’t
you get sick of what you’re doing, always moving about?” And
I think to myself, “Will they never get sick of what they’re
doing, attending a church that lives in the past; religiously embalming
memories of a bygone era when their movement was vibrant and fresh.
So we tell them, “Absolutely not, we love doing God’s will.” A
living body is always moving into new phases of maturation. “He
is not here, He is risen,” was the message to those who came
to embalm the body of Jesus. Their intention was pure and noble but
the body was no longer there. We all have memories that we have embalmed
but we must keep moving on. Find out where the living body is and join
it.
All movements have supposed that because they have received something
from the Lord then that gives them permission to formulate it into
a rule for others who; if they wish to join, they must accept that
it is to control everything. They have succumbed to the temptation
to distrust the Word of God and follow tradition, forgetting that we
not only live by what God said, but what He is saying also. And we
are not talking about anything extra Biblical. The temptation is to
dogmatically reject what we may not understand rather than humbly pray
about what we might learn. We don’t want to rock the boat. We
would rather be left alone than confronted. How quickly people forget
that their movement was initially born out of obedience to the truth
and rejection of tradition. The temptations are many and varied that
oppose any Christian that wants to serve God with integrity, particularly
for preachers. They have the most to lose.
Visitation brings confrontation:
- Seeking a method that will serve our purpose, without seeking
the Lord to find out how He wants us to serve Him
- Feeling comforted in the weaknesses or failures of fellow servants,
rather than prompted to pray for them.
-
To reject dogmatically what we may not understand, instead of seeking
what we may humbly learn
-
To make “position” the ground of our authority, rather
than “being given it” as a stewardship from the Lord
God is more concerned with value than volume.
There is the tendency to gauge fruitfulness by numbers that attend,
rather than by the standard of scripture Christ like character Gal
5:22. Other issues do exist, like doctrinal error, but they are usually
less of a problem than imagined. What can be a difficulty is to imagine
our doctrine will save us from fanaticism. Doctrines and creeds are
safeguards against error, not fountains for life. They are hedges
against heresy, not bases for unity. They are there to help protect
the flock. They are barriers beyond which men wander at their own
peril. Sadly they also are walls through which truth seems unable
to penetrate. These tenants are cast in iron. I do not know a single
denomination that doesn’t claim the scriptures as their only
source of faith. Yet they are bound to creeds influenced by some
experience that gave birth to their movement, in some cases a hundred
years or more ago.
Ephesians 4:15.
That we be no longer children but grow up into Him in all things.” We
all have areas in ours lives where we need to grow.
History shows that God has been restoring truth since the reformation.
Hindsight proves that statement to be correct and God hasn’t
finished yet.
When your position is challenged don’t just dismiss
the message by attacking the messenger, show some integrity please.
Matthew 11:18-19.
“
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a
devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold
a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.
But wisdom is justified of her children.”
1 Corinthians 5:6.
“
Don’t you know that just a little leaven will ferment a whole
lump of dough?”
Matthew 16:11, 12.
“
The leaven of the Pharisees is wrong doctrine.”
Every move of the Spirit must come under the discipline of the Word.
If you come into the realm of the Spirit which is life and power, without
relating to the intelligence of the Holy Spirit which is the Word,
then you are in danger of becoming spiritually, morally, and socially
irresponsible.
Looking back we can see that many times the Spirit moved but there
was no teaching priest to give direction and intelligence to what was
happening. People who don’t read history carry on repeating it.
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