The Pride of the Nations Will Fall

[Christ's Free Servant]

I know that you are led by the Spirit of God. I am glad to hear that you are keep your morning revival with God, that is so important. Just know that man's messages most often do not receive any opposition. It is when we receive a message from God that we receive most opposition from the Church. People do not realize that Satan is unconcerned about the lost...they are already His...Satan is worried about the strength of the Church. The Church is what Satan wants to tear down so it does not come as a surprise that Satan is most active in destroying it.

That is why many true messages to the Churches are not being received. The people of the Church become complacent in their man-made ways and concepts that they think are of God but are not. They are using the Grace of the Lord Jesus as a license to sin...they do not have contrite spirits and hearts. They do not know the spirit, they only know the letter which kills. They quote scripture yet not by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, but only with their own understanding and agenda. For even Satan can quote scripture to His uses.

But we can know when we are right with the Lord and know the things He has revealed to us. We have a relationship with Him where it is all clear. Man will always question this because the spiritual things of the Lord they do not and cannot understand.

Oh, Felix, I love Jesus so much!! Sometimes I could spend all day at my Savior's feet just listening to his voice. We talk a lot, God and I do. But, I still know in part. I look forward to the day when all my questions will have answers, but that day is not here yet. It is so true that God calls the foolish things of this world and the weak things... so that he may get the glory!! If we were perfect, there would be no room for God, you know. I will always be a work in progress until the "imperfect disappears." But, you know, I would rather risk being wrong than to never risk at all; than to just play it safe. I don't know anyone who gets it right 100% of the time. That is why we need the body of Christ. We fill in each other's holes.

And, you are so right in the things you just stated here. I agree! That is the condition of the church. You know, I did a study about a year ago on how to discern a true prophet of God from a false prophet (which I'll include in the next message), based upon the OT, but most of it still applies, I believe. I don't think we hear exact words from God other than what are written in his word, because there is not the need for people to speak the exact words of God since we have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to speak to us. So, I think there is a margin of error. But, God does still give messages to his servants to give to others, because that is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the body of Christ, but we are called to examine those messages to see if God is telling us the same thing. And, I think that's a good thing to check it out with God.

But, what I see happening a lot, instead, is people just disregarding the message because it does not fit with their theology or because it is not perfectly communicated or they write the person off if they have, or they perceive they have erred in the slightest manner. I'm sure glad God does not deal with us in that way. What we need to realize is that when we share a message we believe is from God, it is not "thus saith the Lord." It is subject to the discernment of the Church body. It is up to them to pray about it and ask God to give them understanding. That is where the decision is made - by the receiver of the message - as to its authenticity. But, in order to be discerning, people need to be listening to God. And, if God tells them that a message is not of him, then that's ok, but you know, sometimes it is not necessarily that it did not have its source in God, but maybe the person receiving the message lacked discernment in understanding the message, so they need the body of Christ to help them understand what God may be saying. In other words, I may have a dream or a vision that I believe is from God, and it may be from God, but I may err in my interpretation of the dream or vision. That does not nullify the vision nor does it mean that this is not from God. It just means I erred in my understanding. So, the body of Christ should then come alongside me and counsel me in how to interpret or how not to interpret visions or dreams I may or may not have received from God.

But, often, instead, we harshly reject them and treat them as though they are evil, when they aren't evil. They are sincere believers of Christ trying to listen to what God's Holy Spirit is telling them, and they are sharing that with the body of Christ, with great fear and trembling I might add, because they believe there is a message there that needs to be heard, no matter how imperfectly it may be communicated. But, these sincere believers and followers of Christ are not the enemy. It just means they have not perfected their particular gifts, so they need encouragement and counsel from the body of Christ to help them to grow, to learn, etc. but so often we fail them by treating them as though they are the enemy. It is so sad! And, I have seen this so much in the church. We need to give people the opportunity to grow instead of just writing them off because of their imperfections, whatever those may be. We need to speak the truth in love to them and help them. Well... that's one of my soapboxes.

Anyway, this is what I learned about true and false prophets (following), but I will only add that messages received from God, other than what is expressly written in his word, today need to be understood in the light of I Co. 13:9-12. We need to stop condemning and attacking one another, but instead work together to gain understanding, speaking the truth in love for the purpose of helping a person to grow and to develop his/her gifts. That's what the body is for.

[Christ's Free Servant]

Some of these references are from the NT, too:

FALSE PROPHETS VS TRUE PROPHETS

I decided to do a Bible study recently about false prophets vs. true prophets, because the Bible warns us that in the last days there will be false prophets and that many people will be deceived. I wanted to know how to discern a false prophecy or a false prophet, so I did a word search on the words

[Guest Pioneer]

This is for Christ's Free Servant

That is an excellent Bible study.

Truer words were never written.

I thank you!

Pioneer

[Christ's Free Servant]

This is for Christ's Free Servant

That is an excellent Bible study.

Truer words were never written.

I thank you!

Pioneer

Butero and Pioneer,

You are welcome! And, yes, this does give us hope.

[Guest jckduboise]

well for those who are resting on their laurels as being a "Christian" and having already been judged..let me just say that Pride and a False Sense of Security will get ya..God will judge ALL, if you have a closet to be cleaning best clean it.

God is looking for humble and pure..not proud and boastful..not complacent and lazy..so what if there is no judement indicated for Christian's, we Christians are people and will fall in line for judgement just as everyone else..

No, we won't. We have already been judged in Christ. To suggest we need a future judgment is to suggest Christ's work on the Cross was insufficient. I am sure you don't mean to suggest that.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.--Romans 8:1

And there is no condemnation Marnie, if we are truly in Christ Jesus..Christ's work on the Cross was sufficient for me and it seems for you..but was it sufficient for those who claim Him but their actions prove hypocricy, boastuflness, pride and many other charicteristics of a non-believer even though they claim Christianity?

If we don't want harsh judgement then we had better start judging the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts thuroughly because God will (Heb 4:12) and if we find that we are lacking in our faithfulness to God, if we find that we are hypocritical, if we find that we act proudly, treat others poorly, are boastful when we should be humble..then look to God and ask for redemption of those things which hold us back from the Glory of God and eternal life in His Kingdom. Because if we do not we will be judged.....we are ALL going to be.

We are in a time I truly believe, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that just mouthing the word Christian and putting on a good show is not sufficient. 1 Peter 4:17 has been stated 2 times in this thread that I know of and we will be judged first..also the letters to the churches in Revelations of the 7, 5 had abhorable things against them in the eyes of God..

Letter to the angel of the church in Ehpesus

Rev 2:4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

to make clear what the lampstand represents we can look at Rev 1:20

The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

In other words, even though we reach a certain height in our walk with God we will still be judged and we will face losing our places in the kingdom. There is no confusion in those words.

It is wonderful to have the knowledge that we have a place reserved for us in Heaven. I glorify God in this and am in awe of the fact that I have been invited. But if I become lazy in my dilligence to lean on the Lord to keep my path straight and fall back into old ways of doing and thinking, if I am so bold as to rest in this knowledge and do not keep reverence for the Lord and respect of His Almightyness then I am laughing in the face of God and I face harsh judgement.

We all (each and everyone of us) know what we are and what we do. We all know how we live and how we are supposed to live. If we are not doing it and just continue to think we have a place of honor at the wedding feast, the table WILL be empty.

Many are invited few will be chosen. Noah and 7 others in the entire world were kept alive. Yet many were invited to have life. Everyone else perished in their sin, and they all knew what was needed to be given LIFE and they chose to ignore it. Now I know that someone is probably going to comment on the fact that I bring Noah into the picture and that what occured in the OT isn't applicable in this day and age and just to end that I will say "poppycock" now and be done with it..

It all applies to EVERYONE every single day. No exceptions..IMHO

I have accepted the invitation of God to be with Him eternally and I treat it with respect. I keep in mind that He is my God and He loves me and that I do have a place in Heaven. I have been chosen and I know this and have absolutely no doubt that Christ dying on the Cross was sufficient for me. It is the souls of others that I cry out to today, take Him seriously, He isn't joking at all. We have all witnessed throughout the bible that He finally does say enough is enough. We are in the FINAL days..we don't have much time left. I am frightened for many who claim Christ and claim to be part of the church.

Blessings to all.

[Guest jckduboise]

Well said jckduboise.

At the same time, I don't think Marnie believes we can live like the heathen and make it to heaven. Even the verse of scripture quoted here is conditional.

THERE is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH, BUT AFTER THE SPIRIT. Romans 8:1

I dont believe that she does either and that is what I said to her. Please see the first sentence of my post..smiles

Blessings

[felix]

I know that you are led by the Spirit of God. I am glad to hear that you are keep your morning revival with God, that is so important. Just know that man's messages most often do not receive any opposition. It is when we receive a message from God that we receive most opposition from the Church. People do not realize that Satan is unconcerned about the lost...they are already His...Satan is worried about the strength of the Church. The Church is what Satan wants to tear down so it does not come as a surprise that Satan is most active in destroying it.

That is why many true messages to the Churches are not being received. The people of the Church become complacent in their man-made ways and concepts that they think are of God but are not. They are using the Grace of the Lord Jesus as a license to sin...they do not have contrite spirits and hearts. They do not know the spirit, they only know the letter which kills. They quote scripture yet not by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, but only with their own understanding and agenda. For even Satan can quote scripture to His uses.

But we can know when we are right with the Lord and know the things He has revealed to us. We have a relationship with Him where it is all clear. Man will always question this because the spiritual things of the Lord they do not and cannot understand.

Oh, Felix, I love Jesus so much!! Sometimes I could spend all day at my Savior's feet just listening to his voice. We talk a lot, God and I do. But, I still know in part. I look forward to the day when all my questions will have answers, but that day is not here yet. It is so true that God calls the foolish things of this world and the weak things... so that he may get the glory!! If we were perfect, there would be no room for God, you know. I will always be a work in progress until the "imperfect disappears." But, you know, I would rather risk being wrong than to never risk at all; than to just play it safe. I don't know anyone who gets it right 100% of the time. That is why we need the body of Christ. We fill in each other's holes.

And, you are so right in the things you just stated here. I agree! That is the condition of the church. You know, I did a study about a year ago on how to discern a true prophet of God from a false prophet (which I'll include in the next message), based upon the OT, but most of it still applies, I believe. I don't think we hear exact words from God other than what are written in his word, because there is not the need for people to speak the exact words of God since we have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to speak to us. So, I think there is a margin of error. But, God does still give messages to his servants to give to others, because that is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the body of Christ, but we are called to examine those messages to see if God is telling us the same thing. And, I think that's a good thing to check it out with God.

But, what I see happening a lot, instead, is people just disregarding the message because it does not fit with their theology or because it is not perfectly communicated or they write the person off if they have, or they perceive they have erred in the slightest manner. I'm sure glad God does not deal with us in that way. What we need to realize is that when we share a message we believe is from God, it is not "thus saith the Lord." It is subject to the discernment of the Church body. It is up to them to pray about it and ask God to give them understanding. That is where the decision is made - by the receiver of the message - as to its authenticity. But, in order to be discerning, people need to be listening to God. And, if God tells them that a message is not of him, then that's ok, but you know, sometimes it is not necessarily that it did not have its source in God, but maybe the person receiving the message lacked discernment in understanding the message, so they need the body of Christ to help them understand what God may be saying. In other words, I may have a dream or a vision that I believe is from God, and it may be from God, but I may err in my interpretation of the dream or vision. That does not nullify the vision nor does it mean that this is not from God. It just means I erred in my understanding. So, the body of Christ should then come alongside me and counsel me in how to interpret or how not to interpret visions or dreams I may or may not have received from God.

But, often, instead, we harshly reject them and treat them as though they are evil, when they aren't evil. They are sincere believers of Christ trying to listen to what God's Holy Spirit is telling them, and they are sharing that with the body of Christ, with great fear and trembling I might add, because they believe there is a message there that needs to be heard, no matter how imperfectly it may be communicated. But, these sincere believers and followers of Christ are not the enemy. It just means they have not perfected their particular gifts, so they need encouragement and counsel from the body of Christ to help them to grow, to learn, etc. but so often we fail them by treating them as though they are the enemy. It is so sad! And, I have seen this so much in the church. We need to give people the opportunity to grow instead of just writing them off because of their imperfections, whatever those may be. We need to speak the truth in love to them and help them. Well... that's one of my soapboxes.

Anyway, this is what I learned about true and false prophets (following), but I will only add that messages received from God, other than what is expressly written in his word, today need to be understood in the light of I Co. 13:9-12. We need to stop condemning and attacking one another, but instead work together to gain understanding, speaking the truth in love for the purpose of helping a person to grow and to develop his/her gifts. That's what the body is for.

Exactly right! Sorry it took a while for me to reply. Thanks for explaining this so well.

One thing people think about in terms of prophets, they think they are infallible like the OT prophets. But during the OT the Spirit of God did not dwell in man, it dwelt in the tabernacle. So prophets would prophesy in the manner, "thus saith the Lord". These would be the Lord's own words, and thus were infalliable.

We now live in the age where Christ Jesus (God) dwells in us where we are the tabernacle. He is in us as the Spirit with our spirit. So prophesying is from the spirit which is grafted with the Spirit of God. The message we receive in spirit must then go through our mind where we can then speak it through our physical body. Yet the moment of where it crosses the spirit/mind we can make mistakes. When our mind takes the place of the spirit, we put in our own opinions and ideas which are not of God...though not necessarily bad. This makes us fallible in delivering the message of God. The message itself is not in error...it is us abiding in our own mind. It's all about letting God do everything and us do nothing. We only need to trust and obey. It's all about abiding in Jesus Christ...being a branch of Him.

This led me to share the following....

Jesus Christ, who dwells in all of us, is awaiting His Bride. The believers all together make up this one Body which is to be God's bride. To become such a bride we need to become the same "species" as the bridegroom...for we as humans marry only other humans. In the same way we must become like Christ in our life and nature that we would be made fit to become this bride.

Jesus as the life-giving Spirit in us wants to do that right now. We know the Lord's words and commandments to us...but what keeps us from fulfilling and obeying them? It is our own nature. The way to let Jesus Christ change us is by letting go and surrendering our own nature. It is not about the effort of doing good works but simply about us surrendering to Jesus Christ that we can be changed.

As different parts of the same body we should not try to be like other members of the Body. What kind of body has eyes all over its body? So we should just be ourselves but let God have the first place in our being. We do not exchange our life for Christ's life, rather we get our life grafted with Christ's life. In this way God destroys the Sin nature we have.

Here's an excerpt from the "Wisdom of Sadhu":

Some moral teachers and many religious leaders say,

[jamie]

Exactly right! Sorry it took a while for me to reply. Thanks for explaining this so well.

One thing people think about in terms of prophets, they think they are infallible like the OT prophets. But during the OT the Spirit of God did not dwell in man, it dwelt in the tabernacle. So prophets would prophesy in the manner, "thus saith the Lord". These would be the Lord's own words, and thus were infalliable.

We now live in the age where Christ Jesus (God) dwells in us where we are the tabernacle. He is in us as the Spirit with our spirit. So prophesying is from the spirit which is grafted with the Spirit of God. The message we receive in spirit must then go through our mind where we can then speak it through our physical body. Yet the moment of where it crosses the spirit/mind we can make mistakes. When our mind takes the place of the spirit, we put in our own opinions and ideas which are not of God...though not necessarily bad. This makes us fallible in delivering the message of God. The message itself is not in error...it is us abiding in our own mind. It's all about letting God do everything and us do nothing. We only need to trust and obey. It's all about abiding in Jesus Christ...being a branch of Him.

This led me to share the following....

Jesus Christ, who dwells in all of us, is awaiting His Bride. The believers all together make up this one Body which is to be God's bride. To become such a bride we need to become the same "species" as the bridegroom...for we as humans marry only other humans. In the same way we must become like Christ in our life and nature that we would be made fit to become this bride.

Jesus as the life-giving Spirit in us wants to do that right now. We know the Lord's words and commandments to us...but what keeps us from fulfilling and obeying them? It is our own nature. The way to let Jesus Christ change us is by letting go and surrendering our own nature. It is not about the effort of doing good works but simply about us surrendering to Jesus Christ that we can be changed.

As different parts of the same body we should not try to be like other members of the Body. What kind of body has eyes all over its body? So we should just be ourselves but let God have the first place in our being. We do not exchange our life for Christ's life, rather we get our life grafted with Christ's life. In this way God destroys the Sin nature we have.

Thats wisom, felix! Thanks

[Christ's Free Servant]

This led me to share the following....

Jesus Christ, who dwells in all of us, is awaiting His Bride. The believers all together make up this one Body which is to be God's bride. To become such a bride we need to become the same "species" as the bridegroom...for we as humans marry only other humans. In the same way we must become like Christ in our life and nature that we would be made fit to become this bride.

Jesus as the life-giving Spirit in us wants to do that right now. We know the Lord's words and commandments to us...but what keeps us from fulfilling and obeying them? It is our own nature. The way to let Jesus Christ change us is by letting go and surrendering our own nature. It is not about the effort of doing good works but simply about us surrendering to Jesus Christ that we can be changed.

From my Quiet Time with God early this morning:

"Declare a holy fast;

call a sacred assembly.

Summon the elders

and all who live in the land

to the house of the LORD your God,

and cry out to the LORD.

Alas for that day!

For the day of the LORD is near;

it will come like destruction from the Almighty" (Joel 1:14-15)

"Blow the trumpet in Zion;

sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble,

for the day of the LORD is coming.

It is close at hand

[Marnie]

If we don't want harsh judgement then we had better start judging the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts thuroughly because God will (Heb 4:12) and if we find that we are lacking in our faithfulness to God, if we find that we are hypocritical, if we find that we act proudly, treat others poorly, are boastful when we should be humble..then look to God and ask for redemption of those things which hold us back from the Glory of God and eternal life in His Kingdom. Because if we do not we will be judged.....we are ALL going to be.

We are in a time I truly believe, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that just mouthing the word Christian and putting on a good show is not sufficient. 1 Peter 4:17 has been stated 2 times in this thread that I know of and we will be judged first..also the letters to the churches in Revelations of the 7, 5 had abhorable things against them in the eyes of God..

In other words, even though we reach a certain height in our walk with God we will still be judged and we will face losing our places in the kingdom. There is no confusion in those words.

It is wonderful to have the knowledge that we have a place reserved for us in Heaven. I glorify God in this and am in awe of the fact that I have been invited. But if I become lazy in my dilligence to lean on the Lord to keep my path straight and fall back into old ways of doing and thinking, if I am so bold as to rest in this knowledge and do not keep reverence for the Lord and respect of His Almightyness then I am laughing in the face of God and I face harsh judgement.

We all (each and everyone of us) know what we are and what we do. We all know how we live and how we are supposed to live. If we are not doing it and just continue to think we have a place of honor at the wedding feast, the table WILL be empty.

Many are invited few will be chosen. Noah and 7 others in the entire world were kept alive. Yet many were invited to have life. Everyone else perished in their sin, and they all knew what was needed to be given LIFE and they chose to ignore it. Now I know that someone is probably going to comment on the fact that I bring Noah into the picture and that what occured in the OT isn't applicable in this day and age and just to end that I will say "poppycock" now and be done with it..

It all applies to EVERYONE every single day. No exceptions..IMHO

I have accepted the invitation of God to be with Him eternally and I treat it with respect. I keep in mind that He is my God and He loves me and that I do have a place in Heaven. I have been chosen and I know this and have absolutely no doubt that Christ dying on the Cross was sufficient for me. It is the souls of others that I cry out to today, take Him seriously, He isn't joking at all. We have all witnessed throughout the bible that He finally does say enough is enough. We are in the FINAL days..we don't have much time left. I am frightened for many who claim Christ and claim to be part of the church.

Blessings to all.

Right, I am assuming we are talking about a genuine believer, here. Unless you believe one can lose their salvation, which I do not. I believe one can be in a backslidden state and still born again. For the apostate, there is no hope, though, and I know we agree on that.

I remember growing up in the early '80's. I had Christian friends who used to worry about going into a movie theater for fear that the rapture may occur and they'd miss it because they had "backslidden." I always thought it was a little dopey, but somehow it seems to fit the unBiblical theology of some here. I would draw your attention to the parable our Lord told of The Generous Employer, found in Matthew 20:1-16. The words of the employer (the Lord) are very striking to me:

"Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' 16 So the last will be first, and the first last."

The workers who had been working all day got the same pay as those who worked just one hour. There are many applications one can glean from this parable, one them being the reward for all believers will be the same, that is, entrance into the kingdom without having to pass some kind of test, ie., our Lord measuring their works or the softness of their hearts or even the strength of their devotion to Him. You cannot apply man's standards, you have to apply G-d's. I can look at you and say, "You are such a worldy Christian, the Lord's gonna judge you for that." But that's what I would do, not G-d. Either the Blood of Jesus covers it all, or it doesn't. The "get right or get left" preaching should be reserved for unbelievers, not believers, for even a worldly believer (one who just worked the hour) gets into heaven just like the Billy Grahams (those who worked all day). Seems unfair, but grace is like that. Now, don't carry grace to an extreme, like Paul warned, because then you'd be misunderstanding the nature of grace and what I am saying.

What I get from your post, the parts in highlighted, is that you believe Christians will be judged along with unbelievers, If this is true, then you misunderstand the judgments in Revelation. Either that or you are pure Arminian in your view, and I have never met a pure Arminian, whose grip on salvation depends on their own actions. That is a tenuous grip at best; that is works-based salvation, not a grace-based salvation.