Mat 12:46-50
46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

I have seen people using the term brother, sister, mother, father, uncle and aunt in referring to others with endearment. A believer who grows up in these cultures, also naturally follows these same terms of endearment in referring to others. The problem however is not in the endearment but in expressing love which is devoid of truth because when a person is saved, he is no longer in fallen family of Adam but in saved family of Christ. The Bible says life is in the blood (Lev 17:11) but the Bible also says that the Spirit of Christ is a life-giving spirit (1Cor 15:45), which every true believer shares in. So, just as people can be related by a bloodline which they share in, so too people can also be related by the Spirit of Christ, which they share in.

Gen 17:4-5
“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

Gal 3:16
16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.

If you were to dwell a little on the above two verses, you will understand why Islam is a liar concerning Ishmael being the promised son of Abraham because Christ who is the seed of Abraham came through the bloodline of Isaac not Ishmael. So, today you have Christians all over the world because they all share in the living Spirit of Christ, who is the seed of Abraham. However, it seems Mohamed did not think his lies through in denying God-the-Holy-Spirit because with Mohamed denying the Triune Godhead, it implies that Muslims all over the world are all of the bloodline of Ishmael.

Psalm 61:5
For you, O God, have heard my vows; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.

It is said blood is thicker than water because it is far easier to be thick with someone you are related to that be thick with someone you are not related to by blood. So too, it is the same for those who are share in the Spirit of Christ. It is not that we are not to love those who are not in Christ. People who are not in Christ but within our area of influence, are our neighbours and these we are to love as ourselves (Mat 22:36-40) but what you do for a brother/sister in Christ is akin to doing it for Jesus himself (Mat 25:40). That is how thick we are commanded to be with our brothers and sisters in Christ (1Jn 3:23), because after all the life that is in the Spirit of Christ is greater than the life which is in the blood. I must however repeat saying that this does not mean we are to hate our own family, on the contrary that is for your family to naturally do for seeing the expression of God’s righteousness in your life (Mat 10:36), which they will unrighteously try to suppress unless God grants them repentance (2Cor 7:10). Despite this as a believer, you are not called to hate your neighbour but love them and be concerned about them as you are about yourself (Luke 6:27-33).

Mat 23:9
Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.

Eph 5
8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light 9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

James 1:17
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

If there is one peculiar thing about family, it is that they share certain common traits. The world recognizes Pathans for instance are brave, simple and sincere in their dealing with others, as these are the values inculcated in them by their parent in their upbringing. Similarly, there is a certain amount of pride that runs in the family. For example, Pashtuns swear before the world that “Pashto is the language of lions, jackals cannot understand it”. So also, as God has fathered/adopted us in His son Jesus Christ, by the very design of family, there are certain traits, which inherently exists in every believer (Eph 5:8-10 & James 1:17); and as much as a Pashtun will never be proud of calling himself a Pathan, so too a believer can never ascribe to the values he has learned as coming from the world. Rather the Christian is proud that he is taught of God (John 6:45 & Mat 23:9) and takes immense pride (Jer 9:23-24) in knowing Almighty God revealed to him in God’s Son Jesus Christ.

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.

Another detrimental aspect that exist in a believer calling a non-Christian a brother or sister is that calling someone brother is synonymous with sharing fellowship but as much as the Bible says light cannot fellowship with darkness (2Cor 6:14), so to a person who delights in sin cannot share and enjoy fellowship with one who delights in exercising the righteousness of God. So, the next time you as a believer wants to call someone who is not a believer with endearment, call them either politely as friend if you don’t their name or call them respectfully by their name but never as brother, sister, uncle, aunt, mother & father, that is unless they are related to you by blood in that way.

John 1:12-13
12 But to all who did receive Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

It is said that two wrongs don’t make a right. However, ever so often we come across Arminians who believe it is by our human will that a person believes in Jesus and possesses salvation. So, given the vacillating nature of our human will, the Arminian secures this lie with another lie (confirmed in John 6:39), which is that Salvation is losable because it is after all secured by the vacillating will of man. Now for man to be able to choose God, it must mean that man inherently is not totally depraved and knows what is good when he sees it. So, this is another lie (confirmed in Rom 3:12), which goes into securing man’s ability to choose Salvation. Now if man can choose salvation, it must mean Salvation is an open invite, which is another lie (confirmed in Acts 13:48). Also if Salvation is an open invite, then it means that man wilfully keeps the love of God presented to us in Jesus Christ waiting on him, till he is ready to accept Christ but then this is another lie (confirmed in Eph 2:1 & Mat 13:13) because the Bible says that man is dead in his sins, and concerning the Gospel it is said that man hears but cannot hear, looks but cannot see and listens and does not understand. Such are the five lies of Arminianism, which tries to suppress God’s sovereignty in Salvation. Why is this so? It’s because the Arminians typically cannot trust God with their salvation, and as vacillating as their nature could be, they feel more secure believing the onus of their faith is in their own hand, than in the hands of God.

Mat 15 (the reprobate heart)
11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
…
17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?[d] 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person.

Jer 31:33 (the regenerate heart)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

2Cor 5:17 (the regenerate heart)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

You may ask me, does man have such a thing as free will? Well, the answer is yes obviously but it doesn’t supersede the sovereign will of God in Salvation. In the fall (Gen 3:2-6), man became a law to himself, forsaking the law of God and receiving a righteousness of self. In doing so man was sold into the slavery of sin but in Christ (Mat 11:28-30), man is reconciled back to God, going from being enslaved to sin to being enslaved to the righteousness of God. By his own will a man cannot change his own heart because his heart is the source of his being, from which his will which delights in wickedness springs forth. The free will therefore follows after the heart. So, in the reprobate state when the man’s heart is a stone (Ezek 36:26), his will delights in lawlessness/sin (Mat 15:19) but when he is saved, God gives the person a new heart (Jer 31:33), which matures delighting in God, His will and His righteousness (Ps 37:4). It is for this reason it is said that David was a man after God’s own heart, because he delighted in God’s law (Ps 40:8), which was the very nature and character of God, that was written on David’s heart to follow after.

I need to mention that just because God’s will supersedes man’s will, it does not mean that God makes man sin (James 1:13-15). Man sins by his own free will and God simply lifts his restraining hand and hands man over to his lusts (Ps 81:12/Rom 1:24). It is therefore man’s free will that makes man culpable of his sin, but man being the hypocrite he is from fallen Adam, blames God when he is tempted by his own sinful desires, & when it comes to salvation, he somehow sees his own free will as the instrument by which he chooses God’s salvation, as though his reprobate will ever had the desire for anything that is genuinely good.

Ezek 36
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Ephesians 2
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

If you care to notice, there is great similarity in the above 2 verses of scripture. We see salvation is by grace through faith, it is 100% the work of God in us (Phil 1:6) and we cannot boast of those things which God has brought about for us to do because those things are the works of God’s Holy Spirit in us. By ourselves, we would have no desire for God and to know him. We would all be just like the world, who couldn’t care less about God and doing the right thing, unless it served their own vested interest. So, don’t say that it was by your will and you chose to believe in God because that would be like a wolf saying he loves to eat grass. From the fall, all of mankind loves sin and hates the truth about God. So, as I have proved to you from the Bible, Salvation is not by the will of man but by the will of God, who gives us a new heart, from which springs a new will/desire that freely enjoys doing the good will of God.

Psalm 3:8
Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!

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.

Isaiah 8:19
When they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?

Ecclesiastes 9
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Growing up as a Roman Catholic, I am all to familiar with how they pray to dead saints and pray for souls who have departed from the midst. I have also even seen them offer mass for departed souls on Christmas Day. Roman Catholicism, claims to adhere to the Word of God & tradition but what if the tradition they adhere to is explicitly spoken against in the Bible? Well, from what I have learnt about most heresies like Roman Catholicism, is that they thrive simply because of the sloth and ignorance of God that is prevalent among the people (Hos 4:6). In a study conducted in the US, the number of Roman Catholics who had read the Bible from cover to cover stood somewhere between 5 to 6%. In Sept this year, the Biblically repugnant Pope Francis asked Roman Catholics all around the world to pray to Mary (the Mother of Jesus) to protect the Church from the Devil supposedly. When you look at the scripture provided you above, it is very clear that beyond the grave people are cut-off from this world and the only Person whom we can pray to is that One Mediator who Died and Rose Again i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. He is the only Person who can hear your prayers, no other Saint or Angel has either the capacity or the authority to hear people’s prayers.

1Timothy 2
5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

2Cor 11
14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

1John 3:10
10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

When we look at how Roman Catholic priests have been caught on pedophilia sex tapes and to top it all justify themselves saying that they didn’t know pedophilia was a crime while the Pope keeps silent, we understand that Roman Catholic priest have proven themselves to be the children of Satan because the dead saints they have been praying to all this while are actually demons in disguise. There is after all, good reason why the Bible refers to consulting the dead as an abomination as over consulting with the Lord (Isaiah 8:19). We must understand that there is no return for the souls beyond the grave but what is here on earth are those 1/3rd of the angels (now demons) who fell with Satan (Rev 12:4) and it is these demons who impersonate the dead and deceived people into praying to and for the dead.

Luke 20:38
Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to Him.”

1 Jn 4:20
If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

I few days ago, I came across this Roman Catholic Church sign that said “fight for the living & pray for the dead” & when I came to reflect on what it meant against the background of what the Bible taught, I thought to myself… man… what a bunch of hypocrites these people are knowingly or unknowingly. You see, growing up as a Roman Catholic I have always understood that people only sincerely pray for the dead because deep inside they believe God is incompetent in dealing with their souls & come to think of it we live in the world that honours and is concerned about people only after they die. Here are a couple of examples: Vincent Van Gogh, who cut off his ear for a prostitute; then you have Emily Dickinson, who had a veiled English sophistication in going about her disrespect for authority while never accepting the Bible as an inerrant guide to life. You also have James Dean, the Hollywood bad boy who died with only one movie released and two in production. When I look at these people who because famous only after they died just like Roman Catholic Saints who are canonized only after their death, I realize and see the sorrow of the world which breeds death (2Cor7:10), that while these people were alive they did not care for them but when they died they suddenly felt that strong need to transfer their guilt to God because they did sweet nothing for them when they were alive. The fact however remains that what marks the people’s unbelief when their neighbour is alive also marks their unbelief after their neighbour is dead and gone. I say this because scripture says that if a person says he/she loves God whom he/she cannot see but does not love his/her neighbour whom he/she can see then this person is a liar (1Jn 4:20). Then when a person dies, his friends and family erect a beautiful tombstone to ease their memory of the neglect that person suffered at their hands when he/she was alive, while they pray desperately to God because from their unbelief they are given to believe God is no better competent than they are themselves.

Deut 18
10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you.

To concluded, I would only like to say that there is barely much difference between a Roman Catholic who prays to the dead saints or for the people who died and a necromancer to consults demons disguised as departed spirits to tickle the itchy ears of the unbelieving masses because as the Bible says where the corpses (unbelieving masses) are, there the vultures (heretic/apostate leaders) will gather.