Gods Blogs

John the Baptist said to Herod, “it is unlawful for you to have your brother’s wife”.

Was John unreasonable or unfair?  Was John only speaking to the generation of his day?  To listen to some lukewarm and cowardly churches today one would think so.  “How intolerant!”  “Didn’t John ever read Deuteronomy 24:1-4?”  “And who did Jesus think He was to honor John after he said such a judgmental  and intolerant thing?”  I’ll tell you who He was.  He was honest.

Jesus did not say it was OK for Christians to dump their spouses.  He did not say it was OK to make excuses for doing so or to defend doing so.  Jesus did not give churches or pastors the authority to lie and call “Holy Matrimony” something Jesus calls adultery.

But, that is exactly what pastors do when they set aside their honor and integrity and stand before the very congregation God trusted to their care and officiate a marriage for someone who has divorced his or her spouse without cause to marry someone else.

Is that “judgmental”?  Well, if you find God’s Word offensive in this regard, then perhaps you’d prefer to start a church of your own and you can call it “Whores for Jesus” if you like because that is exactly what it is, but I doubt you would have the integrity or the courage to say it as it is.

Unloving?  Judgmental? Intolerant?  Save it for God on judgment day!  But I won’t back down from this stand and neither will you if you have a shred of backbone or integrity in your heart.

Do you think it loving to comfort people into hell with false comfort?  Would you like to spend eternity in hell?  Or would you give up false hopes and press on for a real assurance of heaven?

Don’t think for a minute that being a pastor or being baptized or shaking Billy Graham’s hand will guarantee your place in heaven.  The Bible says we are saved by grace through faith and that not of works (see Ephesians 2:8-9)  Do you have faith?  Are you part of the Kingdom of God?  Have you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior?  How can you know for sure?

Well, it’s very simple.  If you’re a part of the Kingdom of God, then God is your King — not you.  Not sin.  Not lust or pride or greed or cowardice.  Many people try to make this work by redefining God rather than accepting Him as He is for who He is.  We try to make Him more convenient to worship.  We all think we can just worship Him in our own special way, and in part it may be true in that God has made us all unique, but we cannot worship Him our way.  If our worship is to be true and real, then we have to learn to seek Him instead of trying to define Him and making Him after our own image.

You see, when we try to create God according to what is convenient for us, we are only worshipping an idol of our own creation, and we don’t see God for who He is. 

How do you know whether Jesus is your Lord?  How do you know if you have “faith”?  What is faith?  Trust.  Simple trust.  Who or what do you trust?  When something or someone tries to get you to lie or sin or do something you know is ungodly and sinful, what do you do?  Do you trust and obey the sin or Jesus?  If there is anything that gets you to sin and turn away from what you know God would have you choose to do, then God has given you a choice and you chose to deny Jesus as your Lord, and if God’s Son is not your Lord, the God cannot be your King, and if God is not your King, then you cannot be a part of the Kingdom of God.

 Salvation is very simple, but most people opt for substitutes instead.  They go for what’s easy, for what costs them nothing.  Salvation is free, but it will cost you all that you are, all that you have, and all that you will ever be.  But, even the loss is infinitely precious because you only lose the garbage that will tie you down to hell.

The problem with adultery is that it demands full ownership of your soul and gives you a moment of ecstasy in exchange for an eternity of hell.  Another problem with adultery is that it is enticing, enslaving, and so often chosen, and once people get into it, they will do everything they can to get out of having to give it up.

One thing they will do is look for a religious figure and a new set of friends who will accept their excuses and give them comfort and support in their decisions.  They’ll look to the government to help them rob their own spouse and children.  They’ll slander their spouse horribly just to make themselves look justified though their spouse may have loved them very deeply and sacrificially and patiently and faithfully through the hell on earth they had created for their spouse, and their faithful spouse may be willing to give up almost everything just to save the marriage and protect their wayward loved one from perishing into hell for this sin and others.

And, into this situation comes the wayward pastor, comforting, soothing, giving false assurances and even abusing God’s Word to do so, and for cowardice and approval of man and to protect tithes and offerings and avoid confrontation, this pastor will bend every rule rather than stay true to God.  Chances are he knows nothing of the whore-monger and liar and coward that he is to the very root of his being.  He may even think he is going to heaven and may come across as though this were established firmly, but in truth he has no reasonable assurance.

The situation for these pastors is dire and deeply sad for not only do they endanger their own precious souls but the souls of those in their congregation.  There is so much potential for eternal blessing for them and those who learn from them if only they would surrender to God fully and be faithful.  So many had taught yet never learned that the life of a Christian begins at the point of total surrender and not one moment before, though we may be tested many times and fall and get back up again, and yet for the person who chooses to stay in his sin and justify the sin, this person has made a wilful choice to surrender not to Jesus but to Satan through the flesh.

It’s the way of compromise — the way of the hypocrite — the way of the lost and condemned — a life of self-deceit.  And so many pastors live in it, lost leading the lost searching for protection from the truth, crying, “though shalt not judge”, “thou shalt tolerate every sin that is palatable to me — the big me, me, me.”

They know nothing of the truth that one must either surrender all to Jesus or surrender nothing to Jesus except one’s refuse, one’s left-overs, one’s garbage.

And, yet it is so much easier to put things like this aside and stay with what is comfortable pretending to know nothing about any of this.   Wouldn’t it be better to put up with the truth, surrender to Jesus, have a life of purpose and truth and faithfulness and go to heaven?