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No Other Doctrine A publication of My Father's House, inc. Volume 5/Issue 8 Prophecy: I am the Almighty saith the Lord. Nothing is too difficult for Me. And I will bring My people, My church together and it shall be one people. And it will not be by the machinations of men. It shall not be by the wisdom of men. It shall not be by the efforts of men to unite with one another. It shall not be a Babel. It shall not be a Nimrod that brings My church together. But it shall be by My Spirit. For those who are Mine know My voice and they will hear My voice. And I will call them to unite to Me first. And they will come to My way and they will receive My word and they will know Me and they will know My voice and they will know My ways. And then they will know each other for they will see that all who hear Me have been hearing the same voice, learning the same thing, coming to the same ways. And they will have no problem recognizing each other when they recognize Me. For I shall bring My church together; I shall bring the family together by bringing them first to Me, to know Me, to hear Me, to follow Me, to love Me and from knowing Me they will see and know each other, saith the Lord. And those that are thinking to subvert My ways and to achieve a carnal unity by human power they shall be seen for what they are, for their very efforts to bring together apart from Me that which is not together with Me exposes them for what they are. They are not My children. They do not know My ways. They are the children of Nimrod and they shall be seen to be so, thus saith the Lord. (Prophecy delivered at "My Father's House") Holding fast the faithful word… that he may be able by sound doctrine to exhort and convict those who contradict. (Titus 1:9) Speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. (Titus 2:1) Now the scripture God woke me up to earlier this morning was Charge some that they teach no other doctrine. (1Tim 1:3) And we are living in a time when most churches feel they have a right to teach whatever doctrine they want to and God is speaking very strongly saying, “You do not have the right to teach any other doctrine than the doctrine which I give you which is the correct doctrine.” You see we are living in a time when people are trying to form unity around the name of Jesus while they ignore the words of Jesus and the doctrine of Jesus. And this is not going to succeed. We have people trusting in false doctrines today, instead of trusting in Jesus to save them and being obedient to Jesus. They think that just because they acknowledge some things about Jesus being the Son of God that they are forever saved no matter what they do. It is a false doctrine. Charge some that they do not teach that doctrine because it is not true. And they do not have a right to teach it because they are teaching something that is not true and they are doing it in the name of a God whom they do not know and they have no right to use His name in that way and use His word that way. And God is offended with it and He is going to be angry with them if they don’t repent. And if repentance doesn’t come then judgment will come. And the first step that God does before He sends judgment is He sends a warning. And the prophet warns you in Isaiah 28 that those who are trusting in lies and making lies their refuge and thinking that lies are their salvation, that God is telling them that, “I’m going to send hail that is going to destroy your refuge of lies and I’m going to send a flood that is going to overflow your hiding place. You are not going to be able to escape. There are so many places where God indicates the fact that you cannot escape from His judgment when the time to judge comes. I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and He said: "Strike the doorposts, that the thresholds may shake, and break them on the heads of them all. I will slay the last of them with the sword. He who flees from them shall not get away, and he who escapes from them shall not be delivered. "Though they dig into hell, from there my hand shall take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down; And though they hide themselves on top of Carmel, from there I will search and take them; though they hide from My sight at the bottom of the sea, from there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them; Though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall slay them. I will set My eyes on them for harm and not for good." (Amos 9:1-4) And the reason for that is that they have taught a different doctrine than what God has taught. And His warning to them is you had better repent or I am going to do this to you. Now therefore, do not be mockers, lest your bonds be made strong. (Isa 28:22) Your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with hell will not stand; (you may believe “once saved always saved” but when the time comes you’re going to find out it isn’t going to save you. God is going to break down these lies that you are trusting in) when the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it. (Isa 28:18) Now therefore, do not be mockers, listen to the warning. Turn away from these foul and unclean doctrines that are made by man. Turn away from them. Ask the Lord to show you what the truth is. Bow the knee and humble yourself before Him, lament and mourn and weep, draw near to God and He will draw near to you and He will show you what the truth is and you will be able to repent and be saved from the judgment. Because the first stage is what God is doing now. He is sending the warning. But if the warning is not heeded He will then send the judgment and though you dig into hell you will not escape from it. And He is serious about this. Charge some that they teach no other doctrine. (1Tim 1:3) The law is made for anything that is contrary to sound doctrine and breaking the law brings about wrath. (vs 10) The book of Titus is devoted to the subject of sound doctrine. Holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict. For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. (Titus 1:9-11) But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. (Titus 2:1) God is very much concerned about sound doctrine because sound doctrine has to do with behavior and whether your behavior is righteous in the sight of God, whether your behavior adorns the word of God. (Titus 2:10) If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness… From such withdraw yourself. (1Tim 6:3,5) And “from such withdraw yourself” is an exercise of the doctrine of shunning. An exercise of, Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? (2Cor 6:14) and But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner-- not even to eat with such a person. (1Cor 5:11) because the church is to keep herself pure. And yet we have churches today who have perverted the word of God so they say, “judge not” in such a way as they will not remove from themselves the unclean person. They will not disassociate from the sinner. They will not reject the heretic. Titus says after the second admonition you reject a heretic because he is self-condemned. (Titus 3:10) And the indication here is that it’s very important to God that people not be allowed in His church to cause division, confusion, strife and contention by disagreeing with sound doctrine. They are not to come in and do that. The church is not to let them do that. The brethren are not to let them do that. The pastors are not to let them do that. And as we have seen in 1John 5:2 says this is the love of the brethren, when we keep His commandments. And the commandment to shun or to remove those that are divisive and unrepentant, those that are preaching something other than sound doctrine; that is a protection so that households are not subverted, so their faith is not overthrown. As it says in Timothy, they overthrow the faith of some by preaching things that are not sound. And all this indicates that there is a need for the protection of the brethren, particularly when they are not yet established in the faith. They are to be protected from those things that would overthrow their faith or subvert their faith because such heresies can destroy their soul. False teachings will hinder their growth in the Lord and can even destroy their salvation. In the book of Revelations there are many admonitions and rebukes from Jesus to the churches that have to do with the fact that they allowed things into the churches that ought not to be there. And in some places they are commended for not allowing those things. You have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; (Rev 2:2) Yet today we have a people who would say we are being judgmental to reject false apostles and in fact such people are heretics who do not rightly divide the word. They do not love the brethren and they do not protect the brethren from false apostles and they use the covering of “accusing us of judging” as an excuse to allow sin to go on in the church, doctrines that God despises. And they allow people to preach what is not sound doctrine instead of what it says in Timothy, charge some that they teach no other doctrine, (1Tim 1:3) And this has happened because they have not been diligent to rightly divide God’s word. For example, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. (1Tim 1:6-7) A lot of people want to be teachers. There is something in the pride of flesh that likes to instruct others. And so a lot of people pridefully seek to become the teacher when they are not fit and they are not called. Now notice that passage in Thessalonians, But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness-- God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. (1Thes 2:4-6) Paul here indicates why some men like to become teachers because they want to please or impress men, because they use flattering words as a cloak for covetousness, because they seek glory from men. These are some of the reasons that they want to become teachers. But there is a stern warning in the book of James. My brethren, be not many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. (James 3:1) That you had better be called by God and you had better be approved by God because it is God’s word and it’s God’s people you are messing with when you start teaching. And there is an admonition where God’s Spirit says very plainly, "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matt 18:6) And there isn’t an easier way to cause somebody to fall or to offend than to be a false teacher. So there’s a great judgment on false teachers and great warnings. An example in the book of 2Peter where it talks about the people who bring false teachings in says, “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption,” (2Pet 2:12) There is a great curse upon being a false teacher. To be a teacher you’ve got to be approved by God. And if you have been approved or appointed by God it is God you are going to please. And if you have a heart to please God then you are going to be looking for how God wants things to be taught and the way God wants to teach them. And that’s the responsibility that is upon teachers, when Paul admonishes Timothy to charge some that they teach no other doctrine, you have got to know what is the right doctrine to be able to teach right doctrine. And the Lord has been showing us that He is going to bring the church into unity because He is going to bring them back to sound doctrine which is the same doctrine for all. "I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; (Rev 2:2) and liars would be teaching a different doctrine.. It is right to find out if people are actually sent by God or not because Paul warned that he wanted to cut off opportunity for those who are attempting to be regarded as true apostles when in fact they are serving satan. (2Cor 11:12) They are serving satan and it is no big thing that satan pretends to be an angel of light and it is no big thing if his ministers pretend to be ministers of righteousness. And you had better discern if they are serving the devil or serving God. And you can discern it by the effect of the doctrine upon the people because if the doctrine is sound it produces a Christ like behavior in the people. Christ like behavior is the good fruit that shows that the doctrine is of a good tree. And if you have a preaching that produces a behavior that is not Christ like then you know that it is a bad doctrine. So you can look at many things going on in churches today, you can look at the so called security of the believers – “once saved always saved” – and you can see that it produces a Laodicean lukewarm spirit that is contrary to diligent holy behavior. It produces a false confidence in a salvation in which the people are not behaving according to what Paul calls in Timothy “the doctrine according to godliness.” It’s not producing godly behavior. You can look at the Calvinist doctrine. You can see that Jesus certainly didn’t believe what the Calvinists believe. For predestination to agree with the scriptures we must believe that the elect are predestined to be preached to, they are predestined to believe what they hear, they are predestined to act upon it and behave in such a way as to be holy and love Christ with all their heart. They are predestined to do all those things if they are predestined to be elect. Whereas many Calvinists believe if you are predestined to be saved that’s it and you don’t have to do anything. Well they sure don’t have a doctrine that accords with godliness. Godly predestination is not an operation of God apart from man, but includes men being “sent” or predestined to preach the gospel. And the elect are predestined to hear the gospel, they are predestined to respond to the gospel, they are predestined to believe the gospel, they are predestined to act upon the gospel, they are predestined to become holy and conformed to the image of Christ, they are predestined to seek the Lord and draw near to the Lord, they are predestined to repent of all sin, and they are predestined to walk in the Spirit, and they are predestined to glorify God, and that is why they are predestined to be saved. And if you understand predestination that way you’ll see that you and I are predestined to take an active part in obedience to what God is predestinating. I’m predestined to behave in a way that’s glorifying to God if I’m predestined to be saved. And when you find something that contradicts the behavior that Jesus teaches and the apostles teach and the bible teaches, you have got something that is not sound doctrine and God is not friendly to unsound doctrine. Unsound doctrine is an enemy to Him, an enemy to His church and an enemy to His people. And it can cause people to be subverted from the true faith. It can cause them to be cut off from salvation. (Gal 5:4) That’s what a heresy does; it cuts you off. And if you are heretics or if you are allowing people who are preaching unsound doctrine to get away with it in your church then you do not love the brethren because you are not protecting them from the things that are dividing them, confusing them and destroying their souls. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.” (1John 5:2) If you keep the commandments you love the brethren because all these commandments, including shunning and judging, work to save and protect the brethren, they work to save the church and to keep the church in a place of peace and unity. Remove those things that are non-peaceable so the church can have peace. Grace and peace be unto you from our Lord Jesus Christ and from the Father and from the Holy Spirit. If you want to have that grace and peace, get rid of what is not peaceable. Put out the divisions. Put out the confusion. Put out the rebellious. Put away from you those sinful people. And that is what you see in Acts chapter 20 that Paul is warning the church that there are going to be grievous wolves coming in the flock and he is telling them, “Don’t let it happen!” "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. (To make merchandise of them.) (Acts 20:29-30) And you can see that warning in Jude, you can see that warning in 2Peter, you can see that warning in Timothy. This is not some little thing. God does not wink at heresy; He does not wink at those things that are not sound doctrine. And He hates those things and charges the church that they should prevent that from happening in the church. And then in Revelations Jesus commends those churches that are doing something about it and rebukes those churches that are not. "But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” (Rev 2:6) He sees that the Nicolaitan doctrine is not sound and is not producing righteous deeds and so He hates it. He hates it! And so people think we can have whatever doctrine we want and God is going to accept it. If it isn’t God’s doctrine, God hates it and so should the church. I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. (Rev 2:9) And He is saying the same thing today. He is saying, “I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Christians” and then they preach “eternal security” or they preach “predestination” or they preach some form of grace that doesn’t have holiness in it. He says, “I know they are a church of satan. They are undermining the sound doctrine of the true church.” They claim to be Christians but they are not. They are working for the devil and causing people to be lost who ought to be saved. If the people were preached to right and if they could hear the word right and they could obey the word right they would be saved. But I know their blasphemy. They speak evil of the truth. Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. (Jude 1:8) They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, (2Pet 2:10) They claim to be teachers but they are not. And they speak evil of the true men of God. "But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, (Rev 2:14) Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. (Jude 1:11) These are three types of unsound doctrine in the churches: Cain – he killed his brother because his brother’s works were righteous and his were not. Cain’s type of religion was not acceptable and therefore he killed his brother, therefore he blasphemed his brother, therefore he comes against his brother because the righteousness of Able exposes the unrighteousness of Cain. And we have whole denominations today that are Cain churches. They won’t give an acceptable offering and they blaspheme those that do. Or they run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, like the faith movement and many others. They are trying to make a profit from Christianity, make money from God. From such withdraw yourself. Now godliness with contentment is great gain. (1Tim 6:5,6) But those who desire to be rich… pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (1Tim 6:9,10) When people think that faith and confession of scriptures is a way of making themselves rich in this world, withdraw from them! Are we supposed to call them brethren? They are not brethren! They are churches of satan. They are abusing and opposing God’s word. They are ignoring and opposing sound doctrine. We can have no unity with them. They can have no unity with us. Light cannot unite with darkness and that which opposes God’s word cannot connect with that which stands up for God’s word. And the true church is the pillar and ground of God’s word. God’s word is truth. Then there are those who are of the rebellion of Korah and the rebellion of Korah is “We are all God’s people and we have just as much right to be in charge here as you do” and what they don’t understand it is that God appoints certain men to be in charge and He gives them the authority. He appoints the true apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. (Eph 4:11) And believers have to discern which ministers are true and which ones are false. And if you are trying to be a minister when you haven’t been called or trying to usurp yourself above a true man of God when you haven’t been called than you’d better repent else you are going to perish in the rebellion of Korah. And if you accept a prophet in the name of a prophet you will receive a prophet’s reward. (Matt 10:41) But if you accept a heretic you will receive a heretic’s reward. These are three heresies that are common in the “churches” today. And then we see back in Revelations He speaks about Balaam. Balaam did two things wrong. One he went after money and then he tried to subvert the holiness of God’s people by tempting them into sin so he could gain an advantage over them. He knew that if God’s people were in sin God would judge them and they would lose their power to defend themselves. So there is a doctrine in the churches that is a doctrine of Balaam that seduces people into unholy behavior and destroys their power to pray and stand before their enemy. That is a very pernicious doctrine. And we are not to let it go on in the churches because if it goes on in the churches the church becomes prey to every wolf that comes along because they have no defenses. "But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.” (Rev 2: 14,15) So God is concerned about doctrine. Jesus is concerned about doctrine. He hates the Nicolaitans. He hates their deeds and He hates their words. He hates the Jezebel. "Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, (Rev 2:20) in other words, she called herself and you allow someone who called herself to teach and seduce. And if they have called themselves they sure aren’t doing the work of God. Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. (Jude 1:8,12) Now in Acts chapter 20 Paul warns, “Don’t let them into the church. If they do rise up among you, throw them out.” They came in secretly Peter says. Jude says they came in unnoticed. For certain men have crept in unnoticed…(Jude 1:4) Now how did they do that? They come in pretending to be one of us. They come in quietly not blaring their horn, not blowing the trumpet on the things they believe. They behave themselves until everybody gets used to them. And then little by little they start bringing out the poison. And you don’t realize it is happening until it is too late. And this is the subtlety and stubbornness of satan that you have to watch out for. We always have to be alert. Satan hates a holy church. He hates the church that has sound doctrine because that church is going to be victorious. Because sound doctrine produces a church that will be victorious over him, he is going to attack sound doctrine every chance he gets and he is going to try to bring in these pernicious false teachers that produce divisions and produce corruptions in the church. And they have a pernicious influence and God is against them because God doesn’t believe in “once saved always saved” because if He did He wouldn’t be warning us about these things. For if there were no danger of a believer losing his salvation then a heretic would be of no danger to us. But God regards them as dangerous! Heretics destroy the faith of some and they subvert whole households. And the fact that they are able to overthrow somebody’s faith shows that God doesn’t believe in “once saved always saved”. And you have to protect believer’s faith and keep them in the faith. This is what Paul does in the book of Galatians. I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off! (Gal 5:12) Paul wishes the heretics would be cut off! And they will be cut off! Somebody came in to the Galatians’ church and started troubling them teaching that they should go back to the Judaic law instead of teaching them to hold on to Jesus Christ as their Head And to walk in the Spirit of Jesus by faith. And Paul warns them that if they believe this they have fallen from grace and have been separated from Christ. Paul wishes the one that was troubling them would be cut off. Now I’m telling you God doesn’t believe in “once saved always saved” because He is protecting the churches from heretics. He is warning them from the people who preach doctrine which is contrary to godliness, contrary to walking in the Spirit, contrary to trusting in the living Christ so they will not fall from grace. He is admonishing the believers not to depart from their trust in the Spirit of the living Jesus and to continue in faith to listen to Christ and obey Him because that is where real salvation is. And when you are listening to and obeying Jesus, He produces in you a life that is holy and glorifying to God and He leads you in and to eternal life. Look at how many scriptures there are that talk about the promise of eternal life, the hope of eternal life, which means you haven’t got it yet. You see “eternal life” is in the sense of immortality when it says that. Then on the other hand when you believe in Jesus and He is in you His life is the eternal kind of life that comes from God and it is in you and if you live that life it will lead you to immortality. You see you can’t claim that you are already immortal. You are not. You have got to hold on to that eternal life – live that eternal life to lay hold on immortality. You see how rightly dividing the word of God is very necessary in the church because wrongly dividing it is going to lead you to believe wrong things like that you already have eternal life in the sense of a guarantee of immortality when you really don’t. Titus says, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, (Titus 1:2) you sure don’t have it yet, not in that sense. Jude 21 says, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And again you are looking for the prize that He would lead you unto it not that you already have it in that sense. 1Timothy says, lay hold on eternal life twice. (1 Tim 6: 12,19) You have got to lay hold on it. Therefore there is a conflict in the idea that I believe in Jesus therefore I have eternal life in the sense of immortality. You don’t have it yet. You have the life that will lead to immortality if you will live it, if you will stay in it. But you don’t have immortality yet. 1Timothy indicates the doctrine that is according to godliness will have godly behavior. And you see again in Titus a sound doctrine produces a behavior that adorns the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, "Stand in the gate of the LORD'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!'" Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Amend your ways and your doings, (notice it is your behavior that God is speaking about) and I will cause you to dwell in this place. "Do not trust in these lying words, saying, 'The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.’ “For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, "if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, "then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. But "Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. "Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, "and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered to do this'? (because we are “once saved always saved”) (Jer 7:1-10) And this stares directly in the face of trusting in some form of a doctrine to save you instead of behaving correctly which is what sound doctrine produces. A sound doctrine produces a godly behavior which is what God is looking for. His word can produce a godly behavior in you. And His word soundly interpreted can save you. But if you are not going to allow Him to do that and you are going to trust in lying words saying, “once saved always saved” “once saved always saved” “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these, and we can’t be lost.” Then God is going to show you that your doctrine is not from Him. "Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it," says the LORD. (Jer 7:11) What produced this statement? This is the place where in the New Testament Jesus took the whip and chased the moneychangers out of the temple and He was quoting this passage. And what was He trying to get across to them? He is saying you aren’t saved because you are in the temple. You aren’t saved because you go to the temple. You aren’t saved because you are children of Abraham. If you don’t behave in a way that brings glory to God then you’re not saved. And you are not going to be able to turn God’s house into a den of thieves and pervert it and use it any way you want to and God is going to bless it. He is not going to bless sin. If you’re not going to preach sound doctrine then God is going to come against you. If you’re not going to repent and start teaching what the bible teaches then God is going to come against you. He is not going to let you get away with it. You don’t have the right to do it. You had better repent. If you don’t know what the Spirit of God through the bible teaches you aren’t fit to be a teacher. And if somebody can reveal to you that you have been teaching error then you’ve been called by man and by self and you had better get on your face and repent deeply and get down out of your pulpit because if you had been called by God you would be teaching what is right because whom God calls God equips. (2Cor 3:6) Next God goes into what happened in Shiloh and Shiloh is talking about Eli. What was Eli doing? He was not restraining his children so that they were doing wickedness in the priesthood. And what has been going on in churches today? No restraint. They are not disciplined. God says those He loves He disciplines and many of today’s churches say, “No if you discipline then you hate. If you rebuke you hate.” God says, “If you keep the commandments you love the brethren. You are protecting them.” And many of today’s churches say, “If you keep the commandments and rebuke the sinner you are being mean to the person that you are rebuking.” But that person that we are rebuking is being mean to the brethren. His sin causes the true Christians to be troubled and hinders the church from moving on with God and that’s why we rebuke him. We have a choice to be either mean to the person who is doing wrong or be mean by letting that person do wrong to the brethren. It is like you have a choice of being mean to the sheep by letting the wolves eat them or you can be kind and love the sheep and protect them from the wolf by being mean to the wolf. And it isn’t hard to figure out which God wants us to do. He is going to protect the sheep from the wolf and He is going to expect the true shepherd to protect the sheep from the wolf. We have to be mean to the wolf. It isn’t our fault that the wolf is a wolf. It is the wolf’s fault that he’s a wolf. If he’d repent he could become a sheep. We aren’t mean to him because we like being mean. We are mean to him because he forces us to be mean by his behavior. But our meanness is not sin. It is love. It is love for the sheep we are protecting. And those who do not understand this have never known God. They do not know how to rightly discern the Lord’s body or what the call of God is upon the church and how the brethren are to protect one another and how the shepherds and the pastors are supposed to protect the sheep from the divisive false teachers, the wolves that come in and try to lead people away from God. They want them for themselves and are trying to make merchandise of them. And He says, "I’m going to do to you what I have done to Shiloh." (vs 14) He totally destroyed Shiloh. "Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.” (Jer 7:16) Do you understand what He is saying here? This is just painting a picture of the evangelical Christianity of today that refuses to believe that behavior is a requirement of their salvation. Behavior is an expression of real faith. Behavior tells you whether you are really saved or not. They want to teach you to believe you are saved instead of teaching you to inspect yourself to see whether you have a real faith that’s producing a real fruit of salvation. Now if they were real Christians they would teach you the truth. They would teach you how to inspect yourself, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith, (2Cor 13:5) to see whether you really have a good tree, to see whether Jesus is really in you and whether His Spirit in you is producing Christ like action – Christ like behavior; whether you are really obedient to Him. Because then you could examine yourself and say, “I know I’m saved because I see Jesus working in me. I can see how He is overcoming the flesh in me. And I know that He is taking me on to perfection and I love Him and I listen to Him and I’m following Him.” But instead of inspecting to see whether Christ is actually working in them to will and to do of His good pleasure, they want to teach you, “Don’t worry about it. Just believe that you are saved and your behavior has no meaning as to whether you are saved or not.” And in that lie they become exactly what Jeremiah 7 is condemning. You are going to believe you are saved no matter what kind of wicked behavior comes out of you – worldly behavior comes out of you – selfish carnal behavior comes out of you? You are just going to keep believing you are saved no matter what you behave like? “Don’t even pray for people like that”, God says, “Don’t even pray for them! Don’t ask Me to bless them.” Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place-- on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and not be quenched." Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. (Jer 7:20,21) Go to church – have church – have your gatherings, your rummage sales, your T-shirts, your bumper stickers, your songfests, your fellowships, and all that. But I never commanded you concerning those things per se. This is what I commanded you. I didn’t command you to have a Christmas pageant on Christmas and an Easter egg hunt on Easter. I didn’t command you to do that stuff. That isn’t the stuff I am interested in. "But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.'(Jer 7:23) And then you go into the New Testament and you see the same thing. God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. (Acts 5:32) Obey My voice. I am going to read something out of The Ante-Nicenes, Vol VIII the epistle of Clement. Barefaced men, as they are under the pretence of teaching, set forth a variety of doctrines. And would that they taught the doctrines of truth but it is this which is so disquieting, that they understand not what they mean and assert that which is not true because they wish to be teachers and display themselves as skillful in speaking because they traffic in iniquity in the name of Christ, which it is not right for the servants of God to do. And they hearken not to that which the scripture has said, “let not many be teachers among you brethren and be not all of you prophets.” For he that does not transgress in letter is a perfect man able to keep down and subjugate his whole body. And if a man speak let him speak as the oracles of God and if there is in thee understanding give an answer to thy brother but if not put thy hand on thy mouth. For at one time it is proper to keep silence and at another to speak and again it says when a man speaks in season it is honorable to him. And again it says let your speech be seasoned with grace for it is required of a man to know how to give an answer to everyone in season. For he that utters whatsoever comes to his mouth, that man produces strife. And he that utters a superfluity of words increases vexation. And he that is hasty with his lips falls into evil. For because of the unruliness of the tongue cometh anger. But the perfect man keeps watch over his tongue and loves his souls life. For these are they who by good words and fair speeches lead astray the hearts of the simple. While offering them blessings they lead them astray. Let us therefore fear the judgment which awaits teachers. For a severer judgment will those teachers receive who teach but do not do the things which they teach themselves. And those who take upon them the name of Christ falsely and say, “we teach the truth” and yet go wandering about idly and exalt themselves and make their boast in the mind of the flesh. These moreover are like the blind who lead the blind and they both fall into the ditch. And they will receive judgment because in their talkativeness and their frivolous teaching they teach natural wisdom and the frivolous errors of the plausible words of the wisdom of men according to the will of the prince of the air and the spirit which works in those men who do not obey, according to the training of this world and not according to the doctrine of Christ. (And this includes the philosophers and psychiatrists and psychologists in the churches today and so many of those in the pulpits.) But if you have received the word of knowledge or the word of instruction or prophesy, blessed be God who helps every man without grudging, who gives to every man and does not upbraid him. With the gift you have received therefore serve your brethren the prophets, those who know the words which thou speaks are those of the Lord; and declare the gift which thou hast received in the church for the edification of the brethren (for good and excellent are those things which help the men of God) if so be that they are truly with thee. And what he is saying here is if you have a true gift the true prophets will recognize it. Why? Because there is a Spirit of unity. Because those who hear God, they know when someone else is hearing God. We have seen it continually here. You can tell when the brethren are hearing the Spirit and bringing in the message the Spirit is speaking. We can judge who is of God and who is not. We can tell when something isn’t of God. (1John 2:27) And if something is not of God it is not to be regarded. This is the gist of what the Spirit is trying to say; let him who has ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. Which means what? Which means not everybody understands what the Spirit says. You have to be Spiritual to understand; so let him who has ears to hear understand. The rest we can’t do anything for you unless you repent. If you don’t understand we can’t help you. You have to repent. But if you have ears to hear we are talking to you. What we are saying is that you’d better be speaking the words of God or God’s wrath is going to come upon you. You had better not mess around with God’s word. You had better not exalt yourself into a position of teaching and arguing, twisting His words because God is in charge of His church and He is not going to let you get away with trying to destroy it by bringing division upon it. And He may have been winking at it for some time because of other things going on but He is starting to move to bring His church back into unity and He isn’t going to play with these false teachers anymore. Judgment is at the door and they had better turn, they had better repent, and they had better get out of His way because when God starts to move nothing is going to stop Him. We know that which is of God. We can judge that which is of God. We have the Spirit. And that which is not of God is a sin. It’s a sin to preach something that is not sound doctrine. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s a sin! When God says charge some that they teach no other doctrine; if you are teaching a different doctrine – you’re sinning! You are sinning if your church is teaching a different doctrine. Your church is sinning. If your denomination is teaching a different doctrine your denomination is sinning. And you need to repent of it. And you aren’t going to get revival until you repent of it. You are not going to be worthy to be received by true brethren until you repent of it. Because it is just as great if not a greater sin to teach unsound doctrine as it is to fornicate or commit adultery. And in some weird strange stupid way the churches today think that there are some sins which are bad sins and there are other sins which don’t matter. And they think that teaching doctrines that are not from God doesn’t matter. That everybody has a right to their opinion and maybe it is a sin to go out and get drunk but it is not a sin to teach something that just came out of your own head. And I will tell you that a drunkard does less damage than someone who comes into a church claiming he is from God and teaching doctrines that aren’t from God. And such a person is an awful sinner! And he is sinning in an abominable way. And there is a great judgment going to come upon him for doing that if he doesn’t repent. And that judgment is about to fall because God is starting to move. And He is going to bring His church back together. Let us therefore ask of the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth workmen into the harvest. (Luke 10:2) So we are rebuking, rejecting and we are uncovering the sins of false teachers, rejecting the teachings that are not sound doctrine, that do not produce a proper behavior but at the same time we’re saying God send workmen into the harvest – workmen from God. Listen to how the Ante-nicene early church describes it here. Such workmen as shall skillfully dispense the word of truth - workmen who shall not be ashamed – faithful workmen – workmen who shall be the light of the world – workmen who work not for the food which perishes but for the food which abideth unto life eternal – workmen who shall be such as the apostles – workmen who imitate the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – who are concerned for the salvation of men - not hireling workmen – not workmen to whom the fear of God and righteousness appear to be gain – not workmen who serve their belly – not workmen who with fair speeches and pleasant words mislead the hearts of the simple – not workmen who imitate the children of light while they are not light but darkness, men whose end is destruction – not workmen that practice iniquity and wickedness and fad – not crafty workmen – not workmen drunken and faithless – not workmen who traffic in religion, pedaling the gospel of Christ – not misleaders – not lovers of money – not malevolent but men who are holy men of God. (Excerpts from Vol VIII of the Ante-nicene Fathers pgs 59-60) Now these are the workmen that we should be praying for God to send. And if the contemporary churches have not had such men, it is no surprise since they have hardly even thought to pray for such men. And so for lack of prayer we’ve had hirelings, and imposters, growing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. It’s time to wake up O’ church and seek the Lord till He comes and rains righteousness on you. (Hos 10:12) And pray for Christ to give us His gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers appointed by Christ that we might be established in the sound doctrines of our Almighty Lord through the help of His true servants and chosen men, who will teach no other doctrine than the correct doctrine. May God have mercy on our souls. Amen!
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