For the modern Church to be turned from judgment will require it to recognize where it is seeking itself rather than God. We will not be turned to the Lord until we are seeking Him from the heart as our greatest love in truth. This will require us to wake up and see that we have replaced God with trust in things. God only blesses by grace and grace alone and not on account of works and morality. This must be understood from the depths of our souls. True morality does not result in the blessing of God, but is in fact the blessing itself. True works do not result in the blessing of God, but is a blessing of God. The false idea that God will bless us if we do certain things has so saturated the churches of today that it is accepted without question. What is less understood, however, is that if we seek the blessings of God by our works and by our morality we are doing nothing more than the Pharisees did. Like the Pharisees, then, we might have a religion set up based on self, morality and works rather than grace. It can be a subtle thing because of our use of orthodox words and cry out a salvation by grace and say that it is by faith apart from works. Yet we can still trust in a salvation that is not truly by grace and is not by a true faith.
In previous newsletters I have used the wooden peg analogy. As a reminder, or to someone that might not have read it, the picture is of four large pegs at the bottom of a peg tower. On top of the four pegs is a board and on top of the board there are eight pegs. On top of the eight pegs there is another board and on top of that board there is a group of sixteen pegs. This goes on and on until there are hundreds and thousands of pegs at the top level. Each peg represents a belief. To replace a belief at the very top is not a major deal. But to replace one of the lower pegs is a major trauma because so many other beliefs rest and rely on it. If we change a lower peg belief all the beliefs that rest on it have to totally change or at the least change in a significant manner. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must be one of the bottom pegs on which all other pegs and beliefs rest. If we teach a gospel that simply requires grace and faith in the upper tier, then we have a gospel that rests on other beliefs and loves rather than all other things resting on the gospel. The true Gospel is one where all of our life and beliefs rest on Christ alone.
What can happen, then, is that individuals and churches can have orthodoxy (right belief) and to some degree orthopraxy (right practice) and have all of it in the upper tiers. They can believe in something called grace, and indeed have some right ideas of grace, but the true bottom tier belief can still be a trust in self. The bottom tier faith is in self to trust in grace and in self to do the works that should come by faith in Christ and His grace. We maintain these beliefs in the upper tier of the belief system while the beliefs that support all the other beliefs remain the same. That is also what the Pharisees did. The Pharisees had many true beliefs and many true practices. But the bottom pegs in their belief system on which all of their beliefs and all of their practices came from was self. They were indeed living by faith, but it was a faith in themselves. They were indeed living a moral life, but it was a moral life that they had come up with rather than finding it in Scripture in all of its parts. Indeed they founded their beliefs and morality in some way on Scripture, but they were not fully from Scripture and they were certainly not living by grace. They had the right beliefs and a stringent morality. However, we can do the same things. We can also have moral practices that we find in the Bible if we made the right deductions from the right verses. We can also tell ourselves that we are living by faith, and indeed be living by some form of faith in something, when we are not living from what is received by faith in Christ. We can also tell ourselves that we are being blessed by God and yet be totally confused on what a blessing of God really is.
Individuals and churches must learn to take faith and grace as the Bible sets them out rather than interpret them in non-biblical ways. This is exactly where many of those who have gone astray in history have missed it. It is also where we miss it so badly in our day. The Bible demands a true faith and belief in Christ. By that, using the wooden peg analogy, it means the deepest level of belief in the human soul on which all other beliefs and practices rest and come from (John 8:31-32; Mat 22:36-40). We have replaced that type of belief with an upper tier peg belief. It is just one belief among many and does not threaten the true system of trust and love we have in self. The Bible tells us that unless a person is converted that person will not enter the kingdom (Matthew 18:3; John 3:3-8). We have settled for uttering a prayer or making some sort of choice. The Bible tells us that our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees or we will not enter the kingdom (Mat 5:20). But we have settled for many outward acts that make us comfortable in our external morality. The Bible tells us that all we can do, even giving all we have to feed the poor and giving our bodies to be burned, is of no profit apart from love (I Cor 13:1-3). Yet we have replaced true love with external actions and a general form of niceness. In other words, we have the same principles of the Pharisees in that we have lowered the commands of God so that we can keep them apart from a total reliance upon the grace of God. The human heart is always trying to do this despite the teaching of Jesus in John 15:5 that apart from Him we can do nothing (spiritually). Any true spiritual fruit must come from Jesus the vine to us or the fruit is of our flesh and is not true spiritual fruit. Our deceitful hearts must learn this daily.
In order for the modern Church to be turned again to the Lord will require much searching of our hearts. Individuals and churches must search and get to the very bottom of the heart and hearts. The judgment of God remains on our nation and on the churches and yet we are satisfied with greater numbers. Like the Pharisees we will travel over land and sea to make a convert (Mat 23:15). However, has that person been converted by the methods of men to unbiblical standards (in the name of the Bible) or has that person been converted by and to the Lord? There are many people who are converted in a sense but are not converted to God. When we have changed the standards and call them biblical, we are in dangerous territory and are in dangerous times. We must always remember that the Pharisees and virtually all heresies have used biblical language. However, they did not have the biblical intent and the biblical meaning with that language. We must search our own hearts in prayer and earnestly desire the truth about ourselves and God rather than just assume that all is well in Zion.
How are modern churches like the Pharisees rather than Christ? How many professing believers are like the Pharisees rather than Christ? Do we really want to know? Do we really care as long as the numbers and the money comes flowing in? If we desire the presence of God in Christ in our churches and in our hearts, we must search our hearts with all diligence. We must begin or continue ransacking our own motives and intents. We must learn to look at what the Bible says is the blessing of God rather than assume He is blessing what we do. The blessing of God is when He gives Himself and not when He gives us things. God gives riches and material things to those His wrath is on, but He does not give Himself to those His wrath is on. What we must ask and seek from the Lord in His Word and in prayer is if He is in our hearts in reality and if it is truly His glory that we desire and seek.
As we continue in our praying, thinking, and searching of our hearts, we must know that God is different than we are. The way to return to the Lord is to become like Him by His grace and not seek Him to become like us. We can certainly pray and ask God to bless our plans rather than seek Him for His plans. We can pray asking for Him to give us His plan and then just assume that our plans are His. We can pray and ask Him to give us what we need to carry out our own plans and indeed those plans may be fulfilled. But unless God gives Himself He has not blessed a person or a group of people. We must learn to understand the deceptive nature of our own hearts (Jer 17:9) and know that our own hearts are more deceitful than all else. Our hearts have a high opinion of ourselves and we are so prone to think that God is in whatever we do. But we must learn to seek God to open the deception of our hearts to us and to give us grace in order to seek Him in truth and love.
In the 1920’s the stock market crashed and our nation was plunged into a depression. The market crashed because of certain influences and certain practices that had been carried on for many years. In our day our nation has been plunged into another economic crisis. This was also precipitated by years of corruption and bad (and perhaps illegal) business practices. Corporations had leaders cook the books (change the numbers around) in order to give the impression that they were making more money and had more money than they did in reality. These things can only go on so long before a crash occurs. This is also true in the professing Church. We can practice many so-called “biblical” things and give the appearance that great things are going on. We can pad the church roles with false converts and give the impression that great things are happening. We can give ourselves to many activities and many moral practices and give the impression that great things are happening. But when we do those things apart from the presence of God we are just like the corrupt businesses that set themselves up for a great fall.
The professing Church in our day has been cooking the books and giving an impression that things are going well when in fact the judgment of God is upon us. God has withdrawn His presence from us and yet we are going along in our programs as if nothing has happened. The crash is happening and there may be a final crash in the days ahead. God judged Israel many times before He sent them away a final time. It is time to search our hearts with the Word of God and on our knees. We have settled for so many things without God and deceived ourselves into thinking that God is surely blessing us and is among us. That leads us to think that things are okay. They are not okay and we are blinding ourselves to the reality. We must repent from seeking things to seeking God in truth and love. We must see what we are doing and what is happening. May God grant us all eyes that see and ears that hear.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment