Courtesy standingthegap.org
Scattering abroad
He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. Matt12:30
Here Christ is speaking of one who is driven by various impulses other than glorifying God and flies off in every direction collecting for their own self-interests. As the hireling Shepherds of John10:12 allow the Sheep to scatter when the wolf comes, so the multitudes of false teachers in the Pulpits today are against the truth.
Many people will come out of the Church System for reasons other than waking up to the truth of what they preach. That’s why we have such a wide range of denominational and independent type churches. They will split over non-essential matters like when the Rapture is suppose to occur, or whether or not a person is eternally secure. Some will insist so heavily on dress codes, head coverings and facial hair that they will divide into more splinter groups. The tongues, false signs and wonders crowd also never seem to reach any agreement among their pundits and are constantly at odds over these phony matters.
HOWEVER they ALL have one overriding unanimous point of agreement;
That is: ‘You are saved in your sins!’ Even those who reject Original Sin and the eternal security of faith alone will not allow man the ability to Stop sinning or clean up his act BEFORE he comes to Christ. Some will say that the sin stops ‘when’ the person is saved while others insist that a ‘strong willingness’ is enough. They just can’t seem to overcome the hurdle that if man has any innate ability to do virtuous acts then he can save himself. It’s the age old ‘Virtuous heathen’ argument that began in forth century Rome when heretic Augustine concluded that man was born a lump of sin inherited from Adam.
Since then (to our present day) Biblical pundits have been extremely hesitant to endue man with a natural ability toward doing good. Yet it contradicts the very core of reason to claim that every act of man outside of faith in Christ is truly and properly sin. Especially when the ONLY reason to maintain such an erroneous belief is to attribute the performance of good deeds to God. To what purpose is it then to argue that man is not born in sin and has a free will ability to make right choices?
If everything man does outside of Christ is sin how could he ever know within himself that he was making a RIGHT Choice to repent and obey God? Man has to have the ability to Stop sinning before he is saved mainly because GOD demands it over and over again throughout the entire Bible! Note the following passages:
Wash yourself Make yourselves Clean!
Put away the evil of your doings
Cease to do evil learn to do good! (Isa1:16-17)
Amend your ways and your doings
Listen and turn from your evil ways (Jer26:3, 13)
Break up the fallow ground of your heart
And do not sow among thorns! (Jer4:3-4)
Wash your hearts from wickedness, that you may be saved! (Jer4:14)
Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? Ezk18:31
As a point of Contention; DO ANY of these passages imply that man lacks the ability to turn from his evil ways BEFORE he can be pardoned of God? Does that mean that he can save himself? By no means! Nothing of the sort is suggested here. Only God can forgive past sins and restore a person to a right relationship with Christ. But since Repentance and faith are both PROVEN by deeds, God expects man to make use of the Synergy involved here. (2Cor6:1, please look up ‘workers together’ in this passage and find out what synergy is)
In the Churches Grace is being received in Vain, meaning to no affect and without purpose. People are invited to come to Christ still in their sins and trust that He will magically clean them up in due time while they continue to stumble back into their addictions over and over again. Those of us who have come out of the System should be keenly aware of this flaw and how it negates the Gospel Message. YET many in our ranks remain cautious when presenting the message of repentance proven by deeds to the people because their core belief is ‘whatever is not of faith is sin’ Rom14:23. But this passage is NOT addressing man’s ability to do good deeds; it is speaking of violating one’s conscience in matters of food and drink. Thus applying this to dynamic of repentance proven by deeds hinders the Message of Salvation.
Approaching repentance form this perspective creates a major dilemma with the process of godly sorrow and clearing of wrong doing. Given that everything a person does is sin before he comes to Christ (as they insist) the call of Repentance brings them forward ‘STILL’ in their sins…..until some mysterious process happens when they ‘receive’ Jesus, hence it is said that the sin ‘Stops’ when they come to Christ. But HOW could it? Breaking vile addictions such as homosexuality or pornography obviously requires a ‘Season’ of godly sorrow and clearing before the person can scrap clean their vessel to actually receive the Holy Spirit. (2Tim2:21-22)
Denying them this natural God given ability cancels out the godly sorrow that works repentance unto Salvation. (2Cor7:10) Declaring that it all happens instantaneously at the moment a person receives Jesus is really no different than what the Churches are doing telling them to Trust that God will take care of all their problems in due time. The Bondage has to be Broken and that’s what the Crisis of Conviction and Season of godly sorrow is all about. It isn’t that man is ‘Saving’ himself by scrubbing out all the junk, it’s fulfilling the PURPOSE of the Commandment!
Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 1Tim1:5
Because the end result of Repentance is Purity of heart the penitent person has to understand in the Message given that a self cleansing has to take place in the process. As James so rightly says:
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. Js1:21
The person cannot ‘receive’ Jesus without FIRST laying aside their filthiness and wickedness. Failure to understand the proper progression of clearing in repentance results in another person ‘saved’ in their sins and quickly disillusioned with God because they are constantly falling back in their old ways. Constantly disputing whether or not a person can perform virtuous acts outside of God is irrelevant to the more important issue of getting them reconciled to God. (2Cor5:20)
I appeal to the Street Preachers and others who have come out of the System you MUST pull down the Strongholds of lies in the minds of the people. Most of them have already been saved in their sins by the various methods used in the churches today. And they have been convinced they are born already addicted to sin. Unless you confront these issues at the outset few will even understand what Repentance is. They have to get clear of all the lies as well as their addiction to sin. It’s a HUGE Paradigm shift for a person to undertake and if they get the impression from your preaching that the sin is suddenly going to stop if they come forward and receive Jesus; they are going to end up in the same or worse condition than before!
The people are under a DEEP and diverse form of delusion. Certainly it’s possible for God to bring someone out of it instantaneously, but experience has shown that it requires a Season of godly sorrow, mourning, brokenness (call it what you like) to awaken the mind. I realize we all desire to see conversions comparable to the Book of Acts, but we have to understand the times in which we live. The counterfeit Gospel has prevailed! Reformed Doctrines (from the so-called Reformation) has given us an ARMY of Bible authoritarians who are thoroughly convinced they are Preaching the truth! They write the books, publish the material and stand as the authority to the ENTIRE System of Professing Christianity today.
We can all agree that it’s these types of false teachers who are scattering abroad, BUT have some of you out there mistakenly joined them by failing to expose their errors and clarify the Message of Repentance and faith? You face off with the sinners in lavish displays of bravado, even resorting to name calling with the use of corrupted communications. (Eph4:29) They naturally react with what they perceive as the normal retaliation of bitterness and anger. You take it as suffering persecution for the Gospel and push even harder.
Yet what are you really doing, gathering for the Lord or Scattering abroad? The people you’re trying to reach at college campuses, beaches, bars and clubs are profoundly in bondage to the depths of Satan. They DO NOT need to be convinced they are vile sinners with filthy minds; they ALREADY know that! Every professed Christian under the lie is admittedly a human wretch who can NEVER Stop sinning.
Our job in this dark time is to tear down the intellectual blockade of fallacy heralded as the Gospel today; that has persuaded professed Christians and non-Christians alike that sin is some kind of inbred malady they are born with.
As a result the society at large has cast personal responsibility to the wind! We see it so clearly in the Churches where every kind of vile behavior is flouted, including gay marriage, molestation, incest, adultery and fornication. And such conduct is reflected into the general public (especially among the youth!) as they sink further and further into the abyss of iniquity. In spite of all this most of you in the street preaching camp continue to endorse past Reformers on your web sites and in your written material. You spend untold hours arguing against the tenets of Calvinism while you tout Moral Government and side with so-called ‘holiness’ preachers.
We are dealing with a SYSTEM OF ERROR! Not competing about whose on the right team. Your similarity to the Reformers is extremely disturbing, for they did the exact SAME thing; arguing over Systems of Doctrine. The Clarity that needs to prevail here is a COMPLETE departure from ALL forms of Systematic theologies and a return to Apostolic purity! Although they did not have to deal with thousands of years of error, they still confronted their Pagan society head on and contended earnestly against the fictitious philosophies of the day entrapping the minds men. They would not tolerate even the slightest deviation of their base message and warned the Saints constantly that anyone who came to them with a ‘different’ Gospel was not to be welcomed into their midst. (Gal1:6-8, 2Jh7-10, 2Cor11:3-4)
Every pundit of some System of Doctrine has good things to say and always quotes scripture to support their arguments. But broken down their ‘Systems’ always fall flat when it comes to the basics of Repentance and Faith. They confound reason and contradict man’s God given ability and they ALWAYS conclude with the person being ‘saved’ in their sins! Why endorse them and add more confusion to our struggle for clarity?
Stick to the ‘Simplicity’ that is in Christ and HIS Doctrine which is according to godliness!! Be gone with moral government, holiness references and rationalizations from the past. They serve no purpose in our present battle for Truth and only inject more uncertainty into the mix. As for the Reformers they LET God be their Judge and let us strive to avoid their errors.
Scattering abroad
He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. Matt12:30
Here Christ is speaking of one who is driven by various impulses other than glorifying God and flies off in every direction collecting for their own self-interests. As the hireling Shepherds of John10:12 allow the Sheep to scatter when the wolf comes, so the multitudes of false teachers in the Pulpits today are against the truth.
Many people will come out of the Church System for reasons other than waking up to the truth of what they preach. That’s why we have such a wide range of denominational and independent type churches. They will split over non-essential matters like when the Rapture is suppose to occur, or whether or not a person is eternally secure. Some will insist so heavily on dress codes, head coverings and facial hair that they will divide into more splinter groups. The tongues, false signs and wonders crowd also never seem to reach any agreement among their pundits and are constantly at odds over these phony matters.
HOWEVER they ALL have one overriding unanimous point of agreement;
That is: ‘You are saved in your sins!’ Even those who reject Original Sin and the eternal security of faith alone will not allow man the ability to Stop sinning or clean up his act BEFORE he comes to Christ. Some will say that the sin stops ‘when’ the person is saved while others insist that a ‘strong willingness’ is enough. They just can’t seem to overcome the hurdle that if man has any innate ability to do virtuous acts then he can save himself. It’s the age old ‘Virtuous heathen’ argument that began in forth century Rome when heretic Augustine concluded that man was born a lump of sin inherited from Adam.
Since then (to our present day) Biblical pundits have been extremely hesitant to endue man with a natural ability toward doing good. Yet it contradicts the very core of reason to claim that every act of man outside of faith in Christ is truly and properly sin. Especially when the ONLY reason to maintain such an erroneous belief is to attribute the performance of good deeds to God. To what purpose is it then to argue that man is not born in sin and has a free will ability to make right choices?
If everything man does outside of Christ is sin how could he ever know within himself that he was making a RIGHT Choice to repent and obey God? Man has to have the ability to Stop sinning before he is saved mainly because GOD demands it over and over again throughout the entire Bible! Note the following passages:
Wash yourself Make yourselves Clean!
Put away the evil of your doings
Cease to do evil learn to do good! (Isa1:16-17)
Amend your ways and your doings
Listen and turn from your evil ways (Jer26:3, 13)
Break up the fallow ground of your heart
And do not sow among thorns! (Jer4:3-4)
Wash your hearts from wickedness, that you may be saved! (Jer4:14)
Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? Ezk18:31
As a point of Contention; DO ANY of these passages imply that man lacks the ability to turn from his evil ways BEFORE he can be pardoned of God? Does that mean that he can save himself? By no means! Nothing of the sort is suggested here. Only God can forgive past sins and restore a person to a right relationship with Christ. But since Repentance and faith are both PROVEN by deeds, God expects man to make use of the Synergy involved here. (2Cor6:1, please look up ‘workers together’ in this passage and find out what synergy is)
In the Churches Grace is being received in Vain, meaning to no affect and without purpose. People are invited to come to Christ still in their sins and trust that He will magically clean them up in due time while they continue to stumble back into their addictions over and over again. Those of us who have come out of the System should be keenly aware of this flaw and how it negates the Gospel Message. YET many in our ranks remain cautious when presenting the message of repentance proven by deeds to the people because their core belief is ‘whatever is not of faith is sin’ Rom14:23. But this passage is NOT addressing man’s ability to do good deeds; it is speaking of violating one’s conscience in matters of food and drink. Thus applying this to dynamic of repentance proven by deeds hinders the Message of Salvation.
Approaching repentance form this perspective creates a major dilemma with the process of godly sorrow and clearing of wrong doing. Given that everything a person does is sin before he comes to Christ (as they insist) the call of Repentance brings them forward ‘STILL’ in their sins…..until some mysterious process happens when they ‘receive’ Jesus, hence it is said that the sin ‘Stops’ when they come to Christ. But HOW could it? Breaking vile addictions such as homosexuality or pornography obviously requires a ‘Season’ of godly sorrow and clearing before the person can scrap clean their vessel to actually receive the Holy Spirit. (2Tim2:21-22)
Denying them this natural God given ability cancels out the godly sorrow that works repentance unto Salvation. (2Cor7:10) Declaring that it all happens instantaneously at the moment a person receives Jesus is really no different than what the Churches are doing telling them to Trust that God will take care of all their problems in due time. The Bondage has to be Broken and that’s what the Crisis of Conviction and Season of godly sorrow is all about. It isn’t that man is ‘Saving’ himself by scrubbing out all the junk, it’s fulfilling the PURPOSE of the Commandment!
Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, 1Tim1:5
Because the end result of Repentance is Purity of heart the penitent person has to understand in the Message given that a self cleansing has to take place in the process. As James so rightly says:
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. Js1:21
The person cannot ‘receive’ Jesus without FIRST laying aside their filthiness and wickedness. Failure to understand the proper progression of clearing in repentance results in another person ‘saved’ in their sins and quickly disillusioned with God because they are constantly falling back in their old ways. Constantly disputing whether or not a person can perform virtuous acts outside of God is irrelevant to the more important issue of getting them reconciled to God. (2Cor5:20)
I appeal to the Street Preachers and others who have come out of the System you MUST pull down the Strongholds of lies in the minds of the people. Most of them have already been saved in their sins by the various methods used in the churches today. And they have been convinced they are born already addicted to sin. Unless you confront these issues at the outset few will even understand what Repentance is. They have to get clear of all the lies as well as their addiction to sin. It’s a HUGE Paradigm shift for a person to undertake and if they get the impression from your preaching that the sin is suddenly going to stop if they come forward and receive Jesus; they are going to end up in the same or worse condition than before!
The people are under a DEEP and diverse form of delusion. Certainly it’s possible for God to bring someone out of it instantaneously, but experience has shown that it requires a Season of godly sorrow, mourning, brokenness (call it what you like) to awaken the mind. I realize we all desire to see conversions comparable to the Book of Acts, but we have to understand the times in which we live. The counterfeit Gospel has prevailed! Reformed Doctrines (from the so-called Reformation) has given us an ARMY of Bible authoritarians who are thoroughly convinced they are Preaching the truth! They write the books, publish the material and stand as the authority to the ENTIRE System of Professing Christianity today.
We can all agree that it’s these types of false teachers who are scattering abroad, BUT have some of you out there mistakenly joined them by failing to expose their errors and clarify the Message of Repentance and faith? You face off with the sinners in lavish displays of bravado, even resorting to name calling with the use of corrupted communications. (Eph4:29) They naturally react with what they perceive as the normal retaliation of bitterness and anger. You take it as suffering persecution for the Gospel and push even harder.
Yet what are you really doing, gathering for the Lord or Scattering abroad? The people you’re trying to reach at college campuses, beaches, bars and clubs are profoundly in bondage to the depths of Satan. They DO NOT need to be convinced they are vile sinners with filthy minds; they ALREADY know that! Every professed Christian under the lie is admittedly a human wretch who can NEVER Stop sinning.
Our job in this dark time is to tear down the intellectual blockade of fallacy heralded as the Gospel today; that has persuaded professed Christians and non-Christians alike that sin is some kind of inbred malady they are born with.
As a result the society at large has cast personal responsibility to the wind! We see it so clearly in the Churches where every kind of vile behavior is flouted, including gay marriage, molestation, incest, adultery and fornication. And such conduct is reflected into the general public (especially among the youth!) as they sink further and further into the abyss of iniquity. In spite of all this most of you in the street preaching camp continue to endorse past Reformers on your web sites and in your written material. You spend untold hours arguing against the tenets of Calvinism while you tout Moral Government and side with so-called ‘holiness’ preachers.
We are dealing with a SYSTEM OF ERROR! Not competing about whose on the right team. Your similarity to the Reformers is extremely disturbing, for they did the exact SAME thing; arguing over Systems of Doctrine. The Clarity that needs to prevail here is a COMPLETE departure from ALL forms of Systematic theologies and a return to Apostolic purity! Although they did not have to deal with thousands of years of error, they still confronted their Pagan society head on and contended earnestly against the fictitious philosophies of the day entrapping the minds men. They would not tolerate even the slightest deviation of their base message and warned the Saints constantly that anyone who came to them with a ‘different’ Gospel was not to be welcomed into their midst. (Gal1:6-8, 2Jh7-10, 2Cor11:3-4)
Every pundit of some System of Doctrine has good things to say and always quotes scripture to support their arguments. But broken down their ‘Systems’ always fall flat when it comes to the basics of Repentance and Faith. They confound reason and contradict man’s God given ability and they ALWAYS conclude with the person being ‘saved’ in their sins! Why endorse them and add more confusion to our struggle for clarity?
Stick to the ‘Simplicity’ that is in Christ and HIS Doctrine which is according to godliness!! Be gone with moral government, holiness references and rationalizations from the past. They serve no purpose in our present battle for Truth and only inject more uncertainty into the mix. As for the Reformers they LET God be their Judge and let us strive to avoid their errors.