John 15
13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Today, we have such a thing called #BestFriendsForever and the truth is there is no best friend forever but Jesus, because we human beings while we were still in the loins of Adam, we disobeyed God in the garden of Eden. How? In the same way Levites paid Melchizedek their tithes in the loins of Abraham (Heb 7:9-10). So, coming back, the wages of that sin is death, which the God-the-Son bore in our stead, by taking on human flesh in the womb of a virgin, to become that perfect substitutionary sacrifice and save us from our sins. You know, there is this saying “a friend in need is a friend indeed”. The fall of Adam sold us into the bondage of sin & our very nature turned sinful, to the effect that every child born to this day, is born into sin. Nobody needs to teach a child to be disobedient, they naturally disobedient thanks to the fall of human kind in Adam. It’s almost like we are locked up in this prison called Sin & no one is willing or able to bail us out, but then Jesus comes, and He doesn’t just bail us out, but clears us of every charge by take all those charges upon himself, which were all deserving of death because whom we have sinned against, is a holy God. Take a look at what the prophet Isaiah prophesied about Jesus who was to come…

Isaiah 53
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.

The above scripture shows you that there is no true friend like Jesus. To proceed, the Bible says that Jesus is the only mediator between God and men (1Timothy 2:5), interceding for God’s elect (Rom 8:34), before God. Not just that, He has been the very medium through which God-the-Father has revealed Himself to humankind from the very beginning (John 1:18). In the Old Testament, He was known as the Angle-of-the-Lord, where He promised to make Ishmael a great nation (Gen 21:18), & He could only do so, because the Angel-of-the-Lord in the only begotten Son of God, who is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. In the New Testament, we know Him as Jesus, as He took upon Himself human flesh to be that perfect/sinless sacrifice for all sin (Luke 1:35/Mat 1:21). So, it is by faith in Jesus, that we human beings who were spiritually bastardized by Satan unto death in the fall (Rom 5:17), are adopted into the family of God unto eternal life through our Lord/King & Saviour Jesus Christ (John 1:12-13).

1Peter 2
6 For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.” 7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,” 8 and,“A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

On expounding the above scripture, I would first like to say that though the prophet of Islam’s Allah: Mohammed, who often tries to duplicate Biblical Christianity is claiming to be sent by God. This Mohammed tried to replicate the citation of this corner stone as being the Kaaba, when Biblically this is actually, the Son of God: Jesus Christ (Eph 2:19:20), upon whom the believer builds his life and is not disappointed (Mat 7:24-27). This Rock is not the Apostle Peter either, whom Roman Catholics claim was the first Pope so as to bring the Church under the Pope. The Church is not under the Pope but under Christ, & the scripture (Mat 15:16-18) which Roman Catholicism misinterprets to support its Papacy [since they claim Peter was the 1^st Pope], actually refers to the rock like foundation of the apostles have laid (Eph 2:20), in building the Church (body of believers), as established through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Ezek 36
27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 28 You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. 29 Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you. 30 I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations.

A beautiful aspect about friendship is how you rub off on each other, and how the happiness of the other becomes your own. So, when you are brought to desire what God righteously desires, you are filled with more joy than you could ever hold because which fool can stop God from getting what He wants. In knowing Jesus as a friend, it so happens that we don’t have anything to offer Him but our sin, which He willing took upon Himself at the appointed time (Rom 5:6), and what He offers us instead is a new spirit, a heart of flesh, in exchanged for our hearts of stone, which He bore almost as though we stoned Him with our sin filled stone hearts, by which He suffered death on the cross for our sins. So, while Jesus bore the chastisement for our sins, He offers us a new Spirit, a spirit of righteousness, a spirit of obedience unto God, where we delight in the righteousness of God & His Law, instead of our sin. This is what is theologically referred to as the double atonement, where on one hand Jesus pays the penalty for all our sins, and on the other hand, He shares His own righteous nature with us through God-the-Holy-Spirit. Where can you find such a friend, but in Jesus!

Mat 11
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Mat 6
31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

So, if you are genuinely looking for friends in “high places”, and I mean genuinely looking, then look no further because Jesus is all you need and when you have a friend in Jesus, then you will also find a friend in fellow believers, who although not as perfect as Jesus, delight in the Law of God and fear the Lord (Ps 119:74, 79) unto receiving wisdom and understanding (Ps 111:10) to love the Lord with all their strength and second their neighbour just as they love themselves (Mat 22:36-40).

Happy Friendship Day!

I have been meaning to write on this topic for quite some time now as I have noticed most humanist Churches have a significantly large female attendance as over a male attendance & then when you listen to the preacher preaching, he is doing nothing more that sharing a load of sentimental mush that’s shared by people over the internet. Today, I attended a Good Friday Service at this Anglican Church and I was left distraught at the preacher focusing on the Agony of Mary at the foot of the cross. I mean, just think of it, this fool misses the whole picture of Jesus being scourged and beaten beyond the point of not being recognizable as a human being (Is 52:14), He is dying on the cross, an innocent Man given the death penalty of the most vile criminals in his time and this fool on the pulpit misses all that and focuses on the heart-breaking agony on Mary, and that too on Good Friday where we are to be moaning for Jesus, not Mary. This preacher then goes on to call the Gospel a Feminist Gospel and said he wished a woman, either Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene would have written one of the Gospels, fully forgetting that Bible commands women are to shut up in Church (1Cor 14:34), so that they may not try to self-righteously dominate men in the house of God.

Gen 3:16
16 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

Mat 19 (note that the eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven, are not castrated men but celibate men & women who are not overpowered by sexual lusts)
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

1Cor 7
8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

In the light of Gen 1:28 & 1Timothy 4:3, 5:14, I would like to state that I am in no way forbidding marriage and I do recognize men and women as having equal dignity before God but differing in the roles lived out for the glory of God, where I have a problem is that in an unbelieving atmosphere where people have no sight of God and find no fulfilment in obeying His commandments. In such an atmosphere, equality is not considered from the sight of God as revealed in the Bible, rather it is seen from the perspective of doing what the other is doing. So it follows that today, humanism/feminism encourages women to wear men’s clothes, do men’s job, play men’s sport, smoke, drink and hustle like a man because human equality supposedly comes from being like a man and doing as men do.

So having stated the above, I would like to come to what this post is about and that is this humanist feminism that is this rotting the Church from within. This world loves to entertain thoughts of a god, who is so full of love that he is ever ready to forgive whenever you feel like coming to him. With this kind of sentimental mush preached in humanist Churches today, it is no wonder that Church pews are filled with twice as many women as there are men because the women of the world love baseless sentimental nonsense. The Bible teaches on the contrary that the Triune God Almighty is a formidable (Heb 10:31), who’s every attribute is perfect. His justice is as perfect as His love and that is why Jesus died that we may have life. It was our sins He bore in all that scourging, beating, humiliation and death on the cross. If you understand this, it should be clear that sin, or shall I say immorality is not something God takes lightly out of love.

If you were to read the account of fall in Genesis 3, you would notice that God first curses Satan, then the woman & then man. The severity was also likewise and the reason I am stating this because I would like expose self-righteous feminism/humanism for what it really is. Now from the fall, be it the fallen angels who followed after Satan, Adam, Eve & their posterity, they are each a law to themselves, for they foolishly forsook God & His Law to be a god to themselves. So, the woman’s curse as sighted in Gen 3:16 mentioned above is that, from the fall she is not God-centred but self-centred & since God has decreed that man is the head of woman (1Cor 11:3), from her guilt she is subconsciously driven to rebel against what God has decreed by trying to dominate the men her life, whether that be her father, her son, her brother, her friend or even her colleague for that matter. The worst case scenario is her husband/boyfriend, he bears the worst of it because here she feels the need to rebel very strongly against submitting to her man (Eph 5:23) and so from self-righteousness she will dominate and belittle him to make herself feel in control. Now, here’s something interesting, though all women do their best to control the men in their lives, the natural response of the unbelieving man is to savagely silence the woman who is trying to dominate him, despite which she will stay but only if she really loves him. This rebellious desire for absolute control over her man which arises from a woman’s self righteous insecurity, causes a lot of infighting among women, like a mother who has held the reigns over her son suddenly has to deal with a daughter-in-law who is even more desperate to dominate her man and so there is a clash between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law concerning who the son/husband should listen to. This is precisely why advises men and women alike not to marry, unless they are burning with passion and this why Jesus also says that who can accept living a celibate life, should accept it. Just in case you’re curious to know how a guy ought to handle things between his mother & wife, the guy calls the shots, he is to honour his mother but makes his own decisions as per what he believes would honour God best, he protects his wife from his family but at the same time he lets his wife know who wears the pants in the house because the man is the head of the house/family.

1Timothy 2:11-15
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

It’s funny that Churches today believe that humanism/feminism is the right approach to the Gospel and then go about sucking up to patriarchal (male dominated) societies like Muslims and Punjabis. This very much reflects how counterfeit Christians (Ps 49:14-15 & Jn 10:25-27) are not as Sheep unto God & His true Gospel but lions, while being sheep (not Lions) unto Satan’s lies & his tyrants. Like the Serpent who was cursed to slither despite being a vertebrate, is the humanist who appears to have no backbone to live in the truth and believe in a God who is formidable, a God who curses Satan, binds him in chains (Mark 3:27) and makes him do His will in the area of sanctifying His people (1Cor 5:5). Whenever I have been invited to Churches, I have seen people texting, playing with the slippers, looking around when the preacher is preaching and this is understandable when you consider, the preacher almost never admonishes his congregation against the evils, or shall I say the immorality that is so prevalent in society today. You know, when Charles Spurgeon would preach, people in his congregation would actually grind their teeth in anger against what he would preach from the pulpit & Spurgeon to then preach saying you may grind your teeth now at the Gospel but if God has counted among His elect, you will love Him… then there was also Martin Luther, who actually forbade people from participating in the Lord’s Supper, if they were leading an immoral life, this given because at that time the Church was pretty close-knit, just like a family. Today nobody wants to preach out against homosexuality, fornication, piracy (stealing) & abortion because all these things are prevalent in these humanists congregations itself, & so the elders are given not to admonish immorality and lead the people to repentance but only to supposedly keep encouraging them so that they continue to occupy the pews during Sunday service and make the Church seem full, so as to outwardly reflect well on the Church leadership.

Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

To conclude, I would like to say that though we are not saved by the moral law of God but by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Moral Law gives us that picture of what man or woman should be in the sight of God. As Paul said he would not know covetousness is sinful had the law not forbade it. So, I believe Churches today should use the Moral Law as guideline to admonish the believer that he/she may repent in his heart (without performing any Charismatic backflips over the chair) in feeling no longer ashamed of the Gospel but of his/her wretched state before God and graciously receiving Jesus’ mercy to live righteously for the glory of God.

Mat 7
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

John 14:26
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

I am writing this because I thought I should exposit a little on spiritual warfare for the benefit of Christian Living. We must remember that we live in a fallen world that hates truth, and this is evident by the fact that the people of the world don’t mind it so much if you use the foulest language on them but tell them the truth about themselves and they are agitated enough to get rid of you for good. The armour of God is the battle raiment of every Christian in a world where the battle is not just against the reprobate but also against Satanic spiritual forces that has the masses in their sway. The armour of God is therefore a Biblical discipline we are given to have in righteously reclaiming the stewardship of this world from self-serving fools, who use everything that is around them including people to serve their sinful appetites. We were made in the very image of God, meaning we share in His very nature. We are obviously not omnipotent, omniscient & omnipresent but we were made to share in the very nature and character of God but after Adam sinned against God by eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil despite being warned not to; but in doing so Adam forsook the Law of God to become a Law to himself which he passed to us all through procreation and we have all sinned in Adam because just as the Levites paid Melchizedek their tithes while still in the loins in the Abraham (Heb 7:9-10). So too, all of mankind sinned against God in the loins of Adam during the fall. For those of you who are still on spiritual milk, please note that even though am going to be quoting outside Jesus’s word in the 4 Gospels, this is still very much Jesus speaking because scripture itself says that all scripture is written under the influence of his spirit (2Timothy 3:16-17).

Ephesians 6
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Now Ephesians 6 sites the full armour of God and this is what I will be expositing. It starts with verse 13 & 14 saying that we are to stand our ground and gird our loins with the truth. If you have heard the term, he’s got balls then this is easy to understand because from the testis flows a man’s masculinity, so too when the believer girds his loins with truth, he is able to look another in the eye and speak the truth without even flinching because in learning to be unashamed of the Gospel, which is the truth concerning God, a person also learns to be unashamed of the truth concerning himself. So, while the world emasculates themselves of the truth, the Christian learns to man up and gird his loins with the truth because he draws his strength from the teachings of Christ that is in the Gospel, which is the ultimate truth.

Jeremiah 9
23 Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.

Coming to the breastplate of righteousness, we all know a man will only puff his chest up when he is proud of some thing and so to where the breastplate of righteousness is to wear that pride of knowing God, as mentioned above in Jer 9:23-24, & reformed theology is therefore more like having 6 pack abs where knowing we are heirs in Christ of God who is sovereign, gives us the attitude that says as Paul said in Rom 8:31… If God is for us who can be against us! It is a pride backed by our very heart… not the heart of stone from the fall of Adam but the obedient heart of flesh and enjoys the exercising God’s pleasure (Ezek 36:26-27) because on this new heart God wrote His Law that we may die to being a law to ourselves and live for the Lord (Phil 1:21). This breastplate doesn’t just protect our heart, it reflects that righteous pride we have in God which we puff up as we march against self-serving unrighteous goats and the dark forces that accompany them to their destruction.

Rom 10
14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”

Coming to Eph 6:15, where the believer is called to wear shoes on his feet alludes to being ready to go out and preaching the Gospel of peace as mentioned Rom 10:14-15. As believers we called to live in peace with everyone if possible (Rom 12:18), after all as adopted sons of God in Jesus we are called to be peace makers (Mat 5:9) but very often you come across people who hate you, simply because the nature of Christ you exhibit convicts these self-righteous fools as sinners, which is unbearable for them as they go about life serving their own selfish interests. Eph 6:15 therefore very much bears reference to the Great Commission mentioned in Mat 28:18-20 where we are called to bear witness for the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and the hope of Salvation that is in the Gospel while making disciples at every opportunity that presents itself from God and teaching them His commandments. I am reminded of Deut 29:5 at this time because after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years the footwear of the Israelites did not wear out, which brings Isaiah 40:31 to mind because it was God who sustained them through all the hardships they faced. So also, God will see us through all the hardships which serves to sanctify us instead of wearing us out, in our passionate labour for His Gospel. After all we are His Church, the new Israel who have overcome all by the saving power of Christ, having striven against God & men because after all, salvation is about God saving you from Himself as the wages of sin is death and it was Jesus who graciously substituted us in death by taking the wages of our sin upon Himself.

Psalm 91
2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
My God, in whom I trust!”
…
5 You will not be afraid of the terror by night,
Or of the arrow that flies by day;

1John 5:4
For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Coming to the shield of faith that extinguishes the flaming darts of the evil one as mentioned in Eph 6:16, we understand from Psalm 91:2 that it is our faith in God which is our refuge and fortress. It’s as 2Cor 4:8-10 says, though we are hard pressed on every side, we not crushed; though we are often perplexed, we are not in despair; though we are persecuted, we are not abandoned; because through faith we carry the death Jesus died for our sins, so that His righteousness and life may be revealed in our bodies. This how we walk in faith and not by sight (2Cor 5:7) and not even the gates of hades shall prevail against such faith (Mat 16:18), which is established on the rock that is Jesus Christ (Mat 7:24-25).

Mat 16
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Coming to the helmet of Salvation mentioned in Eph 6:17, we understand that just as a deadly blow to the head can be fatal. So also, spiritually the helmet of salvation says that even if one were to lose his life for standing by the precepts of God, so be it, though he may die in the body, he shall live with God forever and when the new heavens and new earth is created, he will receive a new body, one which is not tainted with sin. The helmet of salvation is beautifully reflected in Ps 84:10 which says that better is one day living in the courts of God than living a thousand in the tents of the wicked… because His court is symbolic of God’s presence in our lives and a particular moral discipline we are to live by in his presence. Remember, in life we have only two choices either we worship God in His righteousness as revealed to us in Christ or we suck up to people in their sin as revealed in our fallen Adamic self-righteousness.

Hebrews 4:
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

2 Timothy 3
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Come to wielding the World of God that is the Sword of the Spirit, we understand that the knowledge of God’s word is a formidable weapon because as shown to us in Hebrew 4:13, it exposes the wicked intentions of people, as Scripture is the very life breath of that gives life to His elect and condemns the reprobate. To explain this to you in a manner you would understand, I would compare the piercing discernment the believer is blessed with through his knowledge of scripture to the Eye of Sauron in Mordor in the Lord of Rings story from whom little is hidden. It’s like the sea of glass the ungodly masses of this world are compared to in Rev 15:2-4, which is mixed with fire indicating their persecution of believers. The reason these masses are called a sea of glass over whom the elect are victorious is because before the sight of God these self-righteous fools can’t hide anything. Their intentions and their sin is all laid bare before God. This power is given us in the knowledge of scripture where the believer can slice through the deceit unbelievers operate under and exposes the spiritually rotting corpses they really are deep down in their hearts and minds.

1Timothy 6:12
Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

To conclude, just like martial arts encourage a combination of different blows, kicks, headbutts and throws, so as a believer matures in the Lord, he is to master the use of his heavenly armour in his life as mentioned in above in 1Timothy 6:12.

Everything God gives us, He gives us to serve His interest because the Triune God Almighty is truly God and so unlike man who sins when he seeks after his own interest, Almighty God does not sin when He seeks after His own interest because man is not God but it is the Triune God Almighty who is truly God. So, when God seeks after His own interests, there is no sin, rather there is an increase in righteousness to the extent that when we put His interest before our own, we are blessed with everything we need (Mat6:33).

1 Cor 14
22 So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers but to those who believe. 23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.

Now if you were to look at 1Cor 14:22-25, you would understand that the reason God gave the Apostolic Church the gift of tongues and prophesies is because they served as a sign to the unbeliever that the Church (body of believers) was of God. However, after the Bible was compiled in about 325 AD, these gifts ceased in the early Church because from that time on to today, the Word of God is complete & sufficient to convict the unbeliever to repent and believe in the Gospel and also for the believer to be edified in the Word of God. In the three years I spent with Pentecostals and Charismatics, I noticed that in Churches as big as 100-200 members there are hardly 10 or 15 who have read their Bibles from cover to cover, and for these lazy Biblically illiterate people a personal revelation falls rather conveniently is their comfort zone of unbelief. One fool will just blurt out the hardships he/she is going through and the other will play God and try to comfort him with nothing more than some emotionally led good wishes. I remember, it was New Year’s Eve 2010, when a Charismatic hypocrite who I gave a ride home said to me… I have a word from the Lord for you… he then went to say that the Lord had laid it in his heart to tell me I would get married that year. Now that wasn’t exactly good news but time went on and when New Year 2011 came, the first thing I did was call up this Charismatic fool and let him have it. That idiot was too proud to say thank you for giving him a ride home, so he haughtily played God in being emotionally led to convey his good wishes. Psalm 1:2 says that the believer mulls over the Word of God and in doing so, receives insight into how he needs to approach different aspects of his life in the light of scripture. You can however only do that when you know your Bible like the back of your hand and have learned to interpret scripture in the light of scripture itself to the Glory of God. A person who meditates on the Word of God in this manner is not looking for cheap thrills in the form of personal revelations & prophesies, which though well-meaning is terribly misleading.

2 Timothy (edifying)
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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

Rev 22 (No extra revelations & prophesies after the Bible)
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

From 1Cor 14:27, we understand that for a Church must have one interpreter for every three speakers of tongues but today’s Charismatic Circuses have no interpreters, it’s just hundred and hundred of fools murmuring gibberish together because their naive pastors assert that those who don’t speak in tongues don’t have the Holy Spirit, which is lie even within the construct of the Apostolic Church (1Cor 12:30). Rarely does one stop and think that the reason there aren’t any spiritually gifted interpreters today because the gift of tongues in itself has ceased. However, ignorance is bliss among Charismatics & Pentecostals alike, and so their congregations find it more convenient to go into spasms of murmuring gibberish than take the effort to know their Bible from cover to cover. Their Pastors too is not really concerned because the more Biblically illiterate they are, the easier it is for them to have a strangle hold on their congregation concerning what they must believe and what they must not. In the time I was a Charismatic, I learnt that the Pastor instructed newly married couples to abstain from sex after marriage for 1 year. This was unbiblical (Deut 22:15-17), and this is what jettisoned me out of the Charismatic Church but for the others who stayed, they believed the Pastor was a man of God and knew better and till today these people haven’t bothered to read and study their Bible from cover to cover.

Mat 7
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Galatians 5:14
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Coming to healing, I have heard Charismatic leaders tell their congregation that if they have a hospital emergency, they are to tell the ambulance to bring them for the healing service even it be on a stretcher, if they had that kind of faith the person would definitely be healed and would then even dance for the Lord but when the family of these same leaders fell sick, we were urged to pray for them and go see them in hospital. The requisite of faith conveniently changed for these two-timing hypocrites when their family fell seriously ill and no one dared to ask them why they didn’t conduct a healing service and have their family members brought from the hospital for that healing service. You see the second greatest commandment (Mat 22:36-40) says we ought to love our neighbour as ourselves and this in itself exposes their leaders as heretics. Take Benny Hinn for instance, he claims to have raised people from the dead but he has been caught repeatedly for money laundering. You will notice most of these leaders like Robert Tilton who prayed in tongues and prophesied (which according to Charismatics is evidence of having the Holy Spirit) through their televangelism have been sued for fraud more than anything else. So, in the light of scripture (Mat 6:24 & 7:22-23) though these leaders who have made their Christian Ministry supposedly evident by speaking in tongues, prophesying and raising dead people, these people are not true Christians, they’re nothing but a bunch of goats who wishfully think they are saved when they are not (Mat 25:41-46).

1Cor 13
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

Gal 5
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

Today, it is the fruit of Spirit as mentioned in Gal 5:22-25 that serves as the evidence that we have died to ourselves and are living for the Lord (Jn 12:24-26), and as much as animal sacrifices were required of the believer till Christ came in the flesh (Heb 10:1), so too tongues, prophesies & healing were given to the Apostolic Church till the Word of God was compiled adequately for the believer. Concerning healing, we must understand that God is sovereign and the healing that doctors offer people is as much from God than it would be from having people pray for you and get well. Sickness is nothing more than a trial (Ps 119:71,75) and as it is said as gems are polished by friction, men are perfected through trials God decrees to edify us as Christians.

1John 2:16
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

The above scripture shows you what exemplifies a great life in this sinful world… the lust of the flesh (that desire for wicked pleasure), the lust of the eyes (that thirst for corrupt power), the pride of life (selfish pride), which is nothing but the veil that blinds the unbeliever to the redeeming merit of the Lord Jesus Christ as presented in the Gospel (2Cor 4:3). The Bible teaches us that the believer must walk by faith and not by sight (2Cor 5:7) and in doing so, it qualifies saving faith as that sixth sense which overrides all our five senses because our flesh naturally from the fall of Adam, is wired to resist the good pleasure of God, but faith teaches us to say no to ourselves and say yes to God. In any case, when you take a look at the end result of our indulging in our own pleasure, when you have had all that you have wanted, whether it be: drunkenness, gluttony, drug addiction or nymphomania, when have had all of what pleases you personally, you are left feeling very squeamish if not diseased. The reason our pleasures handed to us from Adam are so morbid is because we are not God, we weren’t meant to serve our own interest. Instead we were made to serve the Lord and make his pleasure our own (Psalm 37:4).

John 12
24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

Rom 5:17
17 For if by the one man’s (Adam’s) offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)

When we look at the above two verses we realize how the free will of man traces its way after the sovereign will of God, like water flowing through a channel made in the mud by hand (Prov 21:1). Keeping this in mind, when we look at the above scripture we realize that the dying to ourselves, which must happen in the life of a believer, is not God calling you to commit social suicide but instead it is the saving power of the Jesus’ Spirit working in the believer (Phil 1:6), in the bringing the believer to repent and believe in God. When Jesus said He didn’t come to call the healthy but sinners (Mk 2:17), we realize that we cannot receive the righteousness of God unless we lose our terribly fraudulent self-righteousness & acknowledge we are nothing but sinners in turning to God. Take a look at the thirst for corrupt power, people will do anything to climb the corporate ladder, sleep with their bosses, bribe their way to get a promotion, bear false witness against their colleagues, then when you look at politics we know that in most socialist countries the best upgrade a gangster or religious baba/conman can get is to become a politician, the whole world practically goes about trying to gain the whole the world at the cost of losing their soul (Mk 8:36).

Gen 3
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

The above verse sights the Biblical account of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Notice how Satan baits the woman, he says you will be like God, in the sense you will have your own standard of what is right and what is wrong, separate from what God has set. Verse 6 of Genesis 3 is where the fall happens because the woman actually believes Satan and all the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and pride of life appears to take root in Adam & Eve here. In doing so the living faith that was in them perished but not just for them but for us all who are their progeny. Ever wondered Jesus was born of a virgin? It is so that he would have no part of Adam’s sin (Heb 4:15). It is no wonder that today people are more willing to listen to spirit mediums who communicate with demons impersonating the dead but these same people have the least interest in knowing what the good Lord says in the Bible, because it doesn’t quite whet their rebellious appetite, which is all thanks to fall of Adam.

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

When you look at the above scripture, you might begin to realize that unlike man, the reason good comes from God pursuing His own purpose/interests, is because the truth is God and God, man is not God, and to go against this simple and yet critical truth/principle is to dangerously err but we do it everyday unknowingly, and the Bible in this context is quite right in saying: the fool says in his heart- there is no God (Psalm 14:1); because that is the kind of ungrateful lives we are living and then we wonder where’s the joy all gone and why the suicide rates are so high. Still, God in his mercy keeps us alive each day, blessing us with sunshine, rain and all the other pleasures of life, which we can never put a price on. Now take a look at our selfish pride, besides it flying in the face of the Almighty Triune God, you also come to realize that selfish-pride and self-respect are mutually exclusive, the things selfish pride will make an unbeliever stoop to, is something no self-respecting believer will have anything to do with. For any person who takes pride in being very smart/learned, strong or attractive will senselessly speak ill of the other in his attempt to sabotage people’s perception concerning how the other excels in that field, which that person himself self-relates with so proudly. You will also notice that people who speak with great haughtiness concerning themselves can actually do very little, even for themselves. It is as the Bible says that the truth in not in them.

Psalm 37:4 (Pleasure)
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Romans 8 (Power)
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Do you remember the parable of the pearl of great value in Mat 13:45-46, the Gospel is compared to this pearl of great value, where a merchant in realizing its value (1 Cor 2:14) relinquishes his self-righteousness in receiving Jesus Christ as His Lord/Master & Saviour? From Jesus we learn that a man cannot believe in the Gospel unless he repents (Jn 12:24-26), which is to say that he willingly and happily renounces his self-righteousness in receiving the righteousness of God. The scripture I have quoted above, tell us what exactly is the pleasure, pride and power a Christian is genuinely brought to yearn for. We must remember that we were made in the image in God (Gen 1:26) that was broken in Adam but restored in Christ (Rom 8:29), and so the pride, pleasure & power we ought to reflect must be all for the glory of the Triune God Almighty.

P.S. I DON’T SUPPORT #GayRight or #GayPride for the same reason I DON’T SUPPORT the Right to murder, or the Right to rape, or the fallen Pride murderers/rapists take in their capacity to sin. After all these are all sins deserving of death but our world is lost ever since the fall.

Mat 10
26 “Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. 28 Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

Have you ever heard that story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, it took a kid to tell the emperor he was parading naked! The people of this world vehemently despise those who are morally straight, it’s almost as though the righteousness of God which is revealed through the Spirit of Christ working in the believer, convicts the unbeliever of his sin and in that moment the unbeliever’s heart is either hardened (Rom 9:18) or his unbelieving heart is pierced with the weight of godly sorrow that brings him to repentance (2Cor 7:10-11). Today, Christianity for many namesake Christians is just a story but for those who really believe in the Lord Jesus, this religion is an original filled with substance. Take a look at Stephen (Acts 6:8 – 7:60), the first Christian martyr, when he was brought before the council, he spoke boldly of his faith in Jesus Christ before the pharisees and the apostate Jews, to the extent that their hearts were hardened and they took his life because God did not grant those poor fools the capacity to repent and be saved from their sins. Look at the average Christian witness today, does his life testify of the righteousness of Christ working in him, does it convict the unbeliever as Stephen did. No! To a great extent, unbelievers see namesake Christians living the same lives they are living but only believing in a different story and there is really no conviction in that. So, what is the point am driving? I am certainly not implying that the true Christian must be on a suicide mission. This is not Islam, where you can excuse yourself from the hardship of life by blowing yourself up in the midst of non-Muslims and fool yourself into thinking this is your straight ticket to heaven because that’s more like going from the frying pan into the fire.

Mark 1
14 Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

“Until Sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” Thomas Watson

If we are living by what is right in God’s sight then we are walking by faith and not by sight, knowing that the righteousness of Christ we are called to exercise in this world, will be met by hostility, but our lives and theirs, is in God’s hand and they shall be able to nothing to us, until and unless God decrees that we suffer martyrdom for His namesake. After all, if Christ could suffer and die at the hand of sinners what right do we have to consider ourselves as more privileged to lead a Godly life without paying a dear price, which even if it be we lose our lives, it is nothing compared to what Jesus endured. Think about this, God’s wrath was not satisfied when He destroyed all of mankind in the days of Noah but His wrath was satisfied when He poured out the wages of all sin upon His Son Jesus Christ, who suffered the humiliation of this world leading up to death on the cross and then 3 days in hell. Look at us, we have a rough week at work and an anxiety filled weekend and we start grumbling against God. What we are going through for the sake of Christ is nothing compared to what Jesus went through, He was born in the stable because there was no room in the inn, Joseph and Mary had to flee to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill Him when He was a child, in the wilderness in His weak state (from His 40 days of fasting) he was tempted by Satan, during his ministry the pharisees in their inability to deal with their own guilt claimed He performed miracles by the power of the leader of demons, the foxes have their holes and birds have their nest but my Lord Jesus had no place to lie down, then His own disciple Judas betrayed Him and He was slandered, whipped, scourged and put to death on the cross among two thieves and then after He died He went to hell for three days. So, if the Captain of our Salvation could go through all this why should we surprised when affliction visits us as the means of perfecting our faith in Jesus Christ and proving our religion as genuine.

John 16 (Jesus Speaking About the Holy Spirit)
8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

The world garnishes their sinfulness with hypocrisy, it’s like the unbeliever sins against his neighbour in the full view and knowledge of his neighbour, so as to subdue & assert his godless authority over his neighbour, which is in keeping with the ungodly leadership this world resorts to, in controlling their environment through tyrannical/unholy fear (Mat 20:25). However, if you have the courage to confront them with what is clearly evident, they will be taken aback because somehow it seems they have no problem with sinning against God and their neighbour but tell them about it, and God will either harden their hearts to hate you or God will take away their hearts of stone and give them a heart of flesh to obey His Law (Ezek 11:19). So what God reveals to you in your quite reflection of scripture, it is good to hide in your heart & keep your peace (Ps 119:11), till you confront your neighbour in the light of that knowledge at an opportune time as guided by the Holy Spirit (1Cor 6:2). Remember, the world’s people are neither your standard nor your audience, whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord (Col 3:23-24). When God is your audience and standard, your hands and tongues will not be tied to speak out against the sinfulness that plagues the whole world, instead you will be shouting out their judgement from every rooftop for the Glory of God alone.

Yes, this is all possible when you are in Christ (Mark 3:27).

Rev 22:17
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

John 4:13-14
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The true believer is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, by whose sacrifice the anger of God against him/her as a sinner is quenched, while the rebellion in the sinner is doused, conforming the sinner to the image/nature/character of Almighty God in which he/she was made. In Christ, we are a new creation, that old Adamic nature withers away while a new nature (of Christ) germinates in us occupying more and more of us each passing day. We aren’t just called unto Christ for our salvation, we are also called to reflect Christ to those around us, which is why the second greatest commandment after loving God with all our strength is to love our neighbour as we love our selves. Take a look at the above verses, it helps you see that Christ is so influential in breathing life into the lives of His elect that we can’t help but continually seek Him and in doing so we become more and more Christlike each day.

John 8:12
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Mat 5:14-16
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

I have quoted another set of verses for you to help you see that Jesus rubs off on the believer. If there’s one thing I have noticed in a heresy or cult is that it thrives simply because of the people’s sloth in not genuinely seeking the Lord. In most cults like Roman Catholicism and the Charismatic Movement, only about 10% of them know their Bibles from cover to cover, and among those ten a good majority have neither the guts nor the gumption to question their pastors/priests on the cherry-picked Christianity they have been teaching and move out of there. Most of such congregations, are more concerned about themselves than seeking the Lord, so while in the world they remain Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers and Managers, their knowledge of the Lord is shoddy because they don’t know their Bible as well as they know their worldly studies, which goes to show they do not rely on the Lord for their sustenance. These people therefore remain within these cults/heresies as they don’t know any better and frankly speaking, they don’t really care because the reality with a majority of them including their priests & pastors is that these people are only doing what they are doing to serve themselves and not unto serving the Lord.

John 13:34
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

Mat 25:40
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

The Bible says that life is in the blood, and blood is what makes family but as spiritual descendants of Abraham through the promised seed that is Christ (Gal 3:16), the family that is established in sharing of Jesus’ Holy Spirit is of much greater value than a family established by blood, for two reasons as I see it. One because, a family established by blood lies still in Adam where each member primarily serves himself from the fall, in the family of Christ however, every member learns to put Christ first & love their neighbours as themselves. Second because, the life that is in the blood is perishable but the life we have in the Spirit of Christ is immortal. Therefore as Christians in fellowship, we do more than just reflecting Christ to the world, we actually reflect Christ to each other, making His presence known to our brothers and sisters in Jesus (Jn 13:34) who can appreciate and digest that is spiritually appraised. As children restored to God through Jesus Christ we are called to be conduits of His blessing in the lives of our brothers/sisters.

Mat 5
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
…
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

2 Cor 8
6 Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. 7 But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.
8 I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

I would like to conclude this post by citing the above verse in Mat 5:44, 45, 48 which shows us that we who have received the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, do so only to become bearers of grace to the elect and to the reprobate in the context of Jude 1:23 as unto serving the Lord & not in the context of sucking up to the world to serve our own sick interest, because the grace of God we exhibit unto others testifies of the salvation that God is working in us (Phil 1:3-6) while proving our love for the Lord to be genuine (2Cor 8:8). For as Rom 8:30 says those whom God predestined, He also justified and glorified but why would God do so… because He predestines us to conform with the Image/nature of His Son as explained in Roman 8:28, which takes us from being recipients of grace to being agents of grace, not by our own capacity surely but by the power of the Triune God Almighty who saves.