In Defense of Israel

Personally I think John Hagee's new book should have been titled "In Defense of Heresy" since in it he engages in copious, gratuitous, and nefarious scriptural obfuscation and prooftexting which results in an outright denial of the Person of Christ.

From Biblewheel:
Any man preaching the Bible into 99 million homes bears a massive responsibility before God and his fellow human beings to accurately and clearly proclaim the truth. Scripture warns that "not many" should set themselves up as "masters" or teachers, for in so doing they risk a "greater condemnation" (James 3:1).

Before discussing Hagee's apostasy from the Christian faith, it is important for the reader to know that I stand firm in my support of Israel for humanitarian and political reasons. I love the Jewish people, delight in their music, literature and culture, and deeply appreciate that God used them to bring forth Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Bible that proclaims the Gospel of His Messiahship "to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." I condemn any form of anti-semitism as anti-christian and a sure sign of spiritual alienation from God. But I also know that you do not "show love and support" to Israel by denying that Jesus Christ is their Messiah, which is exactly what John Hagee has done.

In his book In Defense of Israel (2007), beginning in the section called "The Jews did not Reject Jesus as Messiah" (p. 132) John Hagee relentlessly twisted Scripture in his attempt to prove that Jesus Christ did not come "to be Messiah to the Jews." His denial of Jesus as the Christ (Messiah) cannot be overlooked as a mere "slip of his pen" because he repeated his assertion "seven ways from Sunday" as seen in this sample of seven quotes from his book:

If God intended for Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel, why didn't he authorize Jesus to use supernatural signs to prove he was God's Messiah, just as Moses had done? (p. 137)

Jesus refused to produce a sign ... because it was not the Father's will, nor his, to be Messiah. (p 138)

If Jesus wanted to be Messiah, why did he repeatedly tell his disciples and followers to "tell no one" about his supernatural accomplishments? (p. 139)

The Jews were not rejecting Jesus as Messiah; it was Jesus who was refusing to be the Messiah to the Jews. (p. 140)

They wanted him to be their Messiah, but he flatly refused. (p. 141)

He refused to be their Messiah, choosing instead to be the Savior of the world (p. 143)

Jesus rejected to the last detail the role of Messiah in word or deed. (p. 145)

John Hagee's words directly contradict the central message of the entire New Testament. Indeed, John Hagee's words directly contradict the fundamental declaration that defines the Christian Faith, which is that Jesus is the Messiah (i.e. the Christ). This is what Peter declared in his first sermon to thousands of his fellow Jews gathered at Pentecost (Acts 2:36):

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Messiah).

Likewise, this was the first thing Saul, the Jew from Tarsus, proclaimed to his fellow Jews in the synagogues immediately after the scales fell from his eyes (Acts 9:20-23):

And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ. And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him:

Scripture declares that Saul, who soon would be known as the Apostle Paul, preached and proved to his Jewish audience that Jesus is Messiah. The Gospel itself is called the "Gospel of Christ" or in Jewish terms, the Gospel of the Messiah! This fact is so very elementary it seems almost foolish to belabour it. That any genuinely Christian teacher could err on this point is inconceivable because the error concerns the primal definition of Christianity itself. Scripture therefore places this error under the greatest possible condemnation:

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22)

Liar! Antichrist! There is no mistaking the apostasy here. The word "Christ" literally means "Messiah." The New Testament could be faithfully translated with all references to Jesus Christ rendered as "Jesus the Messiah." Indeed, the Complete Jewish Bible translates the verse above as "Who is a liar at all, if not the person who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah?" How then is it possible that John Hagee, who has been preaching and teaching the "Bible" for over forty years, could suddenly turn and deny that Jesus is the Messiah? Is it possible that we are misunderstanding what he really meant? The unfortunate answer is that Hagee left no room for misunderstanding. He repeated his heresies over and over again.

I encourage you to read Biblewheel's entire in depth expose on John Hagee's grossly heretical error here.

Whose Kingdom Come?

Dominionism and the Rise of Christian Imperialism
By Sarah Leslie
Discernment Research Group

There has been a significant rise of cross-pollination between evangelical dominionists and New Age Theosophists. Since the late 1970s there has been a closeted fraternization between dominionists and Theosophists for the purpose of finding common ground for the future. Both groups seek to bring in a “Christ” figure to solve the world’s problems. Both groups have grand utopian plans to create “peace” on earth. During the past decade, the two groups began borrowing doctrinal terminologies from one another and working on common theologies. The events of 9/11 gave a new impetus to this effort.

Jay Gary, who has been a leader within all three sects of dominionism has had close ties with the Theosophists and is adopting new theologies, including a hybrid of preterism called “transmillenialism.” Bob Buford of Leadership Network (mentioned in point 2 above) has been working since the mid-1990s to create a youth culture based on “emergent” theologies called the Emergent Church – a mixture of New Age paganism, eastern mysticism and evangelical dominionism. And Patriotic Dominionist leaders have long-standing, close ties with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who has his own messianic kingdom ambitions.

I highly recommend that you arm yourself with the information contained in ths important article and continue reading here.

Damnable Dominionism

"Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words."

This famous phrase has been attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order. Whether he actually made this statement is mostly irrelevant for the purposes today's post because regardless of the human source the true spiritual source of such blatant nonsense is Satan himself.

Ask yourself, who benefits more when men disobey Christ's command to verbally proclaim the Gospel in its simplicity, God or the enemy? Which can expect more souls as the result of Christians failing to preach the good news to a lost and perverse generation, heaven or hell?

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:14)

Yet this sort of spiritual sounding drivel is very attractive to the self-righteous, man-centered sin nature which resides within each of us. We feel so holy, so spiritual, so enlightened when we speak of men "seeing Christ within us" as we go about doing our "good works"; living holy lives, abstaining from the appearance of evil, and being generally swell Christian folks. But wherein lies that righteousness? Is it not self-righteousness?

The primary problem with a self-righteous line of thinking is the little fact that Christ came to save sinners - God alone justifies the ungodly. In fact He took that title upon Himself in His Word:

To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Romans 4:5)

Does this surprise or offend you? Do you qualify for this justification? Have you secretly thought that salvation was for the good, the pure, or the holy who are prepared to receive it? Have you entertained the thought that if you were good enough God would reward you? Certainly Christ came to bestow justification upon men who are undeserving, wicked, and impure in order to make them just, not because they are just. Men aren't just, God is just. Man's self-righteousness is a delusion and a mockery of God.

During His earthly ministry Christ specifically articulated that He was not sent to those who needed no physician; that He was not sent unto the righteous. Being omniscient Christ was fully aware that those who were steeped in their own self-righteousness would refuse Him, and God doesn't waste time so He simply told them so at the outset. The Lord had no interest in the self-righteous and had nothing to say to them but to command them to repent of their wickedness. This is because He was sent to seek after the lost sheep. Only an insane shepherd would seek after sheep that weren't lost, and Christ was no madman.

Yet we also know from God's Word that "none are righteous, no not one". So what does this reveal to us? It reveals that those who are righteous in their own eyes are either deceived or are deceivers. They are without God and without hope and are in desperate need of repentance, even though they will steadfastly deny and rebuke any such thought. These are those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness and believe the lie that they are "good enough" to attain eternal life by their own merits. Every world religion apart from Biblical Christianity is based upon the foundational error of this false teaching in one manner or another. Let it be known that this is a demonic deception from the pit of hell.

Sinful men cannot attain eternal life by their own merits.

Sinful men cannot please God by their works.

Sinful men cannot even seek after the One True Living God apart from the regeneration and enlightenment of His Holy Spirit.

Yet there is an ever growing apostasy within the professing Christian church that teaches otherwise. You can see glimmerings of this false teaching within Robert Schuller's Re-Think conferences. You can see bits of the same demonic doctrine within Rick Warren's Purpose Driven madness and his P.E.A.C.E. plan. You can also detect its unmistakable influence within the emergent deception with its social gospel which teaches the church's grand purpose is to usher in God's kingdom on earth. This demonic doctrine can also be found within the word faith movement's practice of positive confession. It's presence can also be found within the Charismatic movement's fixation on "spiritual giftings", "prophetic utterances", and "new light" from God.

This deceptive movement represents a man-centered ecumenical madness that is leading the lukewarm Laodician false professing church into the dark spiritual night of rank apostasy. It is a "Non-gospel of Nothingness". It is a wholesale departure from and corruption of the faith that was once and for all delivered unto the saints as revealed in the Holy Bible.

This wildly successful, false, and destructive heresy is variously known as Kingdom Now, Dominion Theology, Reconstructionism, and the Restoration Movement. It's also known as "liberation theology". In essence it teaches that the earth is under the curse of sin and it is the church's responsibility to liberate the earth by ushering in God's kingdom in order to "restore" things to the way they used to be in the Garden of Eden prior to the fall of man. And not unlike a choking weed which blocks out the light of the sun and kills everything beneath its twisted canopy this spiritually deadly vine is proliferating within the spiritual hothouse of the lukewarm Laodician false professing church.

From Lighthouse Trails Research:
[Liberation theology] is an effort to use the church to make the world perfect for our Lord's return. It is embraced and taught in part or whole by the National and World Council of Churches, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Earl Paulk, Bob Weiner, John Wimber, and James Robison (who is called "the President's pastor").

There are many other names that are focusing on the Leftist social gospel in hopes that this will clean up the world and make it perfect for Christ's return. No more disease, war, poverty, AIDS, global warming, etc. Jesus will return when the church is unified, vibrant, forceful, spotless, and wrinkle-free. This is delusional and keeping people out of Heaven.

There is no Biblical support for this belief, for the Bible teaches just the opposite. In the end of days, bad things will wax worse and worse until the world calls out for a savior. They first pick the wrong one. And are the likely billions of saints in Heaven now there because they attained perfection or were a part of a movement to make the world perfect? The Bible says our works qualify us for rewards but not for Heaven itself. There is nothing we can do to hasten Heaven except preach the gospel and save the lost spiritually speaking.

This theology is borne out of the Manifest Sons of God movement and Latter Rain movement in about 1948. It also has ties to the positive confession movement. Major points of the theologies teach:

* Prophetic scriptures are denied or fulfilled in 70AD (as is also the belief of Preterism).

* The church is the new Israel.

* Armageddon is the ongoing battle between the forces of light and darkness.

* The Antichrist is a spirit, not a person.

* We are already in the Tribulation, but at the same time, we are in the Millennium. It doesn't get any stranger! It's one or the other.

* Rather than following traditional Bible prophecy, they follow "new revelations."

* Modern-day prophets must be obeyed and not judged for their inaccuracy.

* They want to restore the Edenic nature even though Eden is where sin began.

To add to the tragedy of this false doctrine is the fact that many churches who had this accurate are now switching to these false teachings.

This is not unique to just the Protestant world. Mother Teresa, who selflessly took care of 40,000 derelicts in Calcutta, basically stopped her ministry to them by providing them a clean bed and comfort. She did not share the gospel. She believed many faiths would get to Heaven so she only saw to the physical needs of the body--admittedly, no small task in India. The Buddhist Dali Lama believes the same. In other words, feed the body but not the soul just as today's social gospel "save the world" leaders are doing.

And unfortunately, those who hold to correct theology in this realm are deemed to be "fundamentalist-millennial-apocalyptic-crackpots."

The church is not in the business of taking anything away from Satan but the souls of men. The world is a sinking Titanic ripe for judgment, not Garden of Eden perfection. Jesus will take dominion of the cleansed earth. For men to speak of doing that before the judgment of this earth is spiritually arrogant. I encourage you to flee such false teachers.

God says in Isaiah 66:3-5, "I will choose their delusions." I believe that is the reason for so much confusion, false theology, and apostasy today. For some reason, likely with an end-time purpose, God is sending delusion. There is no other way to interpret those verses

Find more information on Dominion Theology/Kingdom Now at my Web site at the link Prophecy Watch: and/or Spiritual Deception.

LTRP Note: For an important and compelling biography of a man who was heavily involved with a Latter Rain/Kingdom Now group for many years, read The Other Side of the River by Kevin Reeves.

Visited by Abundance

I had a random commenter drop by today who used the moniker "Rob". Rob took issue with my brief post entitled Prosperity Doctrine wherein I made the case against the word-faith fetishist's fixation on worldly riches in contradistinction to obeying the Lord's admonition to take no thought of such things and instead store up our treasures in heaven.

You can read our exchange in its entirety here, but in a nutshell Rob used his time (and my comment space) to passionately defend the practice of carnally focusing on - and striving to obtain - ever increasing temporal substance. In order to make his points Rob, unsurprisingly and futilely, took his position upon the shifting sands of Dominion Theology. This is a doctrine which is wholly fallacious, Biblically unfounded, and is in truth the invention of demons. It's clear from the content and tenor of Rob's comment that a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Let it be known that the Word Faith adherents of the false Dominion Theology are fundamentally and unrepentantly Biblically compromised. As such they are outside the orthodox Christian faith and thus are at enmity with Christ's true church.

It was on this key point - his grossly erroneous stand on Dominion Theology and the resultant perversion of the atonement which follows such false doctrine as surely and naturally as night follows day - that I took Rob to task in my reply:

Thanks for stopping by, Rob.

You've made a number of points upon which I should comment, but I'll deal with the one which perhaps has the most far reaching and spiritually deadly implications.

I'm deeply concerned by your emphatic assertion that Christ "came to restore us to the dominion we had before sin separated us NOT FROM GOD but from our rightful place as rulers over the works of His hand."

If one misses the entire purpose of Christ's atoning work on the cross - which was to make the way for sinful and doomed men to be reconciled unto a Holy God by imputing His righteousness to those who by faith through grace believe on Him - then everything else is irrelevant.

I fear that by building one's house on the shifting sands of temporal worldly concerns such as our subjective feelings, the wealth we attain, our so-called "abundance, bounty, and style", that when the storms of life come - and they will - great will be the fall thereof. Our lives on this side of glory are but a vapor, therefore let us store up our treasures in heaven as we pass through this sin sick and dying world all the while exhorting men to abandon their sins in repentant submission to Christ.

A true Christian's faith comes from God. It isn't man's gift to God; it's God's gift to man. We don't exercise our faith by "believing for big things", rather our faith is worked out by trusting solely in God and His revealed Word despite our worldly circumstances.

It's hard for me to imagine the carnal "increase and abundance", name-it-and-claim-it style theology being propagated by the apostles as they spread the Gospel to a hostile, contemptuous, and unbelieving world.

It seems out of place to think that the early church was busily counting the nickels and noses within their fledgling congregations as they were being fed to lions for sport and being burned alive as human torches.

It's also hard for me to pretend that the reformers - as they were being slaughtered like cattle by the RCC for their unwavering faith in Christ instead of the Pope - gave a moment's thought as to whether or not they would "ride into heaven with style".

Friend, I'd like to let you in on a little secret; if there's a tiny corner on the utmost fringe of even one small rooftop in heaven that might have enough space for a wretched and unworthy lump of sin like me then I'll give praise to God Almighty that He made such a remarkable thing possible.

Why it's wondrous beyond words that the Infinite Creator and Judge of the universe should open the way of eternal salvation and joy unspeakable in His resplendent presence to one such as myself.

What grace is this? What kind of God should show such care for a wicked and ungodly man such as me? Who is this God which by His sovereign will and good pleasure alone would choose to allow me to spend eternity with Him? Isn't such grace and mercy but to His glory alone forever and evermore?

No friend, I'll never think so highly of myself as to pretend that I can please God by my faith or works, since He alone is the source of anything of value which He may have placed within my life. If I've done anything according to His will then I count myself as an unprofitable servant for I've only done that which is my duty.

Friend, I pray you'll reconsider this matter in the light of inspired scripture and abandon what appears to me to be a variant form of man-centered Dominion Theology in favor of the whole counsel of God.

In Christ,

CD

The Non-gospel of Nothingness

Good News?
Too many false teachers within today's modern professing church are heaping itching ears followers unto themselves by preaching a sinless, painless, unrepentant, and hell-free doctrine which measures solely on God's mercy and forgiveness. One might call it "100% Good News".

But what is the "bad news"? Certainly men must be made aware of the bad news first in order to gain any conception of the glorious Good News; otherwise they're left with a feel good, man-centered, non-gospel of nothingness.

By failing to preach the whole counsel of God and by measuring strictly on His forgiveness without any mention of His absolute righteousness and His holy justice and wrath - which sin demands! - these false pastors are guilty of enabling sinful men to avoid confronting their need for a Savior!

"A Savior? A Savior from what?"
The truth in love is a subject on which I've spent not inconsiderable amounts of time, and I've come to the conclusion that when the subject matter is God's Holy Word truth and love are inseparable. The telling of God's truth as revealed in the Holy Bible is love and anything less is hate.

This is not to say that false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, and their itching ears adherents cannot use God's Word as an occasion for the flesh, but rather to say that truly regenerate Christian exhortation will be starkly truthful.

It will be direct and uncompromising.

It will frankly and unapologetically point sinful men toward inerrant, infallible, and plenary scripture.

And thus it will be perceived as offensive and hateful to the unregenerate.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34)

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).

Quite honestly, and on a personal note, I believe the hour is late and there's little room for tip-toeing around Christ's commands. I believe there's a sense of spiritual urgency at hand.

Please understand this is not to suggest that other truly regenerate born-again believers are not - or can not - be gifted to reach out to the lost in a manner that's more gentle, or that my strident approach is holier or more correct than other approaches, but rather it's my firm conviction in the Lord that the truth ought to be laid bare and in as clear terms as possible. Men must be made aware of their guilt before God, the certain and eternal doom that awaits sinners in the afterlife, and the utter hopelessness of their condition apart from Christ crucified, dead, buried and resurrected.

I came across a couple of powerful articles just today which clearly point to the lateness of the hour and raise the alarm far better than I'm able in this short blog post:

It's time to go

A sobering call to pastors, preachers, and teachers

My encouragement to God’s watchmen on the wall, His foot soldiers in the Truth War which is even now raging across the barren, desolate, landscape of modern church-ianity is to keep fighting the good fight of faith, and to continue standing boldly on God’s Holy Word.

Revelations and Vain Imaginings

I suppose that perhaps no man is above vain imaginings now and again, and as such I've decided to share one of my dearest with the tiny readership of this humble blog.

Oh, that I could have the singularly delicious enjoyment of seeing with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears Charles Haddon Spurgeon laying this Spiritual Smackdown on the likes of Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Jesse Duplantis, Erwin McManus, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Creflo Dollar, T.D. Jakes, Juanita Bynum, Paula White, Joel Osteen, and the myriad other false prophets of the modern day lukewarm Laodiciean false professing church!

I have no doubt that the delicate, effeminate, men-in-skirts spiritual sissies of the ecumenical emergent/seeker sensitive/purpose driven/word faith movements would fall all over themselves in a fit of self-righteous anguish to hear someone speaking such rough words to them! Oh, how surely would they develop a mass case of "the vapors" and need to lie down on their fainting couches in order to catch their collective breath before they indignantly began to engage in their little man-centered pity parties!

"That Charles Spurgeon is so mean!" they would howl! "He's a watch-doggie and he idolizes the Bible!" they would squeal! And those would be the articulate responses that somehow managed to avoid the gratuitous use of four letter obscenities and calls for his summary execution.

I now encourage you to read the Spurgeon excerpt below while imagining that the "Prince of Preachers" is speaking directly to the emergent/seeker sensitive/purpose driven/word faith apostate of your choosing!

Spurgeon, "THE PARACLETE" No. 1074. John 14:16
Take care never to impute the vain imaginings of your fancy to the Holy Spirit. I have seen the Spirit of God shamefully dishonored by people -- I hope they were insane -- who have said that they have had this and that revealed to them.

There has not for some years passed over my head a single week in which I have not been pestered with the 'revelations' of hypocrites or maniacs. Semi-lunatics are very fond of coming with messages from the Lord to me, and it may save them some trouble if I tell them once for all that I will have none of their stupid messages. When my Lord and Master has any message to me he knows where I am, and he will send it to me direct, and not by madmen.

Never dream that events are revealed to you by heaven, or you may come to be like those idiots who dare impute their blatant follies to the Holy Spirit. If you feel your tongue itch to talk nonsense, trace it to the devil, not to the Spirit of God.

Whatever is to be revealed by the Spirit to any of us is in the word of God already -- he adds nothing to the Bible, and never will. Let persons who have revelations of this, that, and the other, go to bed and wakeup in their senses. I only wish they would follow the advice, and no longer insult the Holy Spirit by laying their nonsense at his door.

No Cross to Bear

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:38)

Vast swaths of the professing church have no cross to bear. Through both word and deed they reject the hard demands of Jesus and opt instead for an easy believism that says "You can have your cake and eat it too, brothers and sisters!". These blind guides of the blind teach their itching ears followers a sickly sweet compromised gospel that assures them of their Best Life, NOW!"

Smiling like crocodiles and with a glimmer in their eyes they send their deceived congregants home week after week singing of a heaven they'll never see and praising a Jesus Who will will rebuke and condemn them on judgment day.

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:23)

What does the Lord mean here when he rejects the workers of iniquity and who are they?

INIQUITY
in-ik'-wi-ti (`awon; anomia): In the Old Testament of the 11 words translated "iniquity," by far the most common and important is `awon (about 215 times). Etymologically, it is customary to explain it as meaning literally "crookedness," "perverseness," i.e. evil regarded as that which is not straight or upright, moral distortion (from `iwwah, "to bend," "make crooked," "pervert"). Driver, however (following Lagarde), maintains that two roots, distinct in Arabic, have been confused in Hebrew, one = "to bend," "pervert" (as above), and the other = "to err," "go astray";

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Few...

Few there be that find it.

We can see that the Lord is rebuking a group of lawbreakers, a group who is guilty of committing lewdness, crookedness, and perverseness in contradistinction to being straight, upright, and moral according to God's Holy commandments. I should point out here that I'm not advancing a works based salvation. Salvation is by grace through faith and is a miraculous and sovereign work of God alone. Yet God's holy demands are irrevocable and it is His Spirit that empowers and enables the regenerate to holy and righteous living before His face.

Now back to the discussion at hand. It's interesting to note in the verses leading up to verse 23 a group is described who will call Jesus "Lord" and who will recite a litany of good works they've performed in His name. Still more interesting in this discourse we see that the Lord does not deny or make any effort to refute the works claimed, nor does he dispute that the lawbreakers did the works in His name, rather He simply commands them to depart from Him and summarily states that He never knew them! Clearly Jesus is the omniscient God Almighty so He mustn't mean that He has no idea who they are, rather He is unequivocally stating that He was never in a relationship with them. They are strangers to His covenant of grace, and hence are guilty and condemned covenant breakers.

I have little doubt that this stinging rebuke and rejection of the King of Glory strikes the unregenerate false believers as a complete and utter surprise.

They believed they knew Him!

They claimed their good works were performed in His name!

And the Lord doesn't even deny their claims! Is there some mistake here? Is the Lord guilty of unreasonably and arbitrarily rejecting true born-again Christian men and women? God forbid!

The truth of the matter is that the false believers pictured in this terrible and frightful verse in Matthew are typical of the sort of lukewarm Laodician Christian who is so prevalent in the modern professing church. Today's church is a hothouse within which "shallow root", "weedy" false Christians thrive. These are the tares sown by the enemy which spring up alongside the true wheat of the Lord. This is the false church which exists side by side with the true invisible church. These are the stooges and pawns of the enemy who trust in themselves that they are righteous. They are self righteousness exemplified, an object lesson in damnation.

I personally believe the Lord doesn't bother attempting to refute their works claims because their claims are truthful and accurate as far as they go. By the measure of man they probably did many admirable and noble works in the Lord's name during their time on the earth. They were probably model citizens, faithful church attenders, good parents, community volunteers, and cheerful givers. No doubt within their ranks were pastors, deacons, elders and church leaders and congregants of all stripes. I would imagine they were a congenial and generally wonderful group of people while on this side of glory.

But they had a spiritual problem. They didn't know Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

What does this verse mean? We can clearly see here that Jesus is addressing the very type of person who verbally and/or intellectually assents to Christ's truth claims, but fails to submit to Him as Lord and Savior. This describes the exact types of false believers - the very same individuals - that are rejected by the Lord in Matthew 7:23!

Trusting in Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior isn't simply repeating a "sinner's prayer" or "believing in God". Trusting in Christ is believing God and acting on that belief through repentance and humble submission to His Word, including His hard commands. It's the total abandonment of self to apprehend Christ.

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

Jesus was serious about people surrendering their all in order to follow Him. He didn't preach a gospel that allows men to keep one foot in heaven and the other foot in the world, quite the opposite in fact. Jesus challenged men to be willing, able, and even eager to give up all their worldly comforts, their families, wives, children, reputations, inheritances, even their very lives if called upon by Him to do so. His message was so important, and His demands were so strident that scripture records how time and again He turned away the half-hearted adherents, the curious hangers-on, and the "seekers" by the thousands.

Had they been around in those days there's no doubt that many within the ranks of our modern "evangelical leadership" - so called - would have criticized Christ and counseled Him to soften His approach because of His habit of turning away so many "prospects", so many "seekers". They would have upbraided the Lord and critiqued His application based on His paltry numbers and the puny - and motley! - crew He actually managed to attract and retain during His earthly ministry. I can almost hear them now:

"Aw, c'mon Jesus! You had at least 5,000 men out there, probably 15,000 total when you count the women and children who were literally eating out of Your hands! You had them so engaged in the message, they were practically fainting out there! Oh, and You blew it, You just blew it!

Just think of all the tithes and offerings we could have received from them! And did you stop to consider all the programs we could have implemented and how many churches we could have planted with all that help! You've got to loosen up a little bit and show a little more tolerance for those who don't believe like You do! You're a little overly focused on doctrine, everything isn't black and white You know, we have to be able to operate in the gray areas and speak the truth in love! Sometimes we have to be willing to re-think things and meet people where they are, You know, compromise a little here and there. After all, a little give and take never hurts anything! We shouldn't let a few little doctrinal disagreements cost us fellowship! You have to be careful not to let Your spirituality become a divisive issue that could be construed by other people as being abusive. Let's try to work together to find common ground and seek to gain an understanding of what others think and how they feel so we can have more unity!"

Does this aforementioned line of reasoning sound familiar? It should because by and large today's Bible-lite circus churches are measured and managed like for-profit corporations as opposed to being carefully and lovingly tended as Christ's little flock. These are those who are more interested in obtaining a false temporal "unity" through compromise than they are in counting the costs and serving the Glorious Risen Lord with abandon, dedication, and unwavering singleness of heart. But, I suppose when you answer to the bottom line instead of answering to the Creator it becomes easier to seek after nickels and noses and ignore the weightier matters of the Gospel of grace.

With no cross to bear today's false professing Christians shamefully abuse themselves and call it the "liberty of the Lord". They profess Christ with their mouths but deny Him in their hearts. And just as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow lest they repent of their sinful ways they will someday hear those awful and terrible words ..."depart from Me"...