Conversion, Part 6

March 13, 2009

As we move through the teaching of Scripture on why souls need to be converted rather than just what is called to be “saved,” we need to keep Scripture at the center of our thinking. Most likely we have been influenced in some way by what goes under the guise of the Gospel. This may sound like an extremely negative approach, but it just might be that God has turned our nation over to a spiritual judgment that has left us in great darkness. It might be the case that the professing Church has been in spiritual darkness for a long time and we are in the depths of it at the moment. If that is correct, then we need to understand that much of our thinking is not in accordance with Scripture but in accordance with religion and religious traditions. It might be the case that there are vast numbers of people in the conservative parts of the professing churches that have prayed prayers and live moral lives, but have not been converted by God. It might be the case that there are many Reformed people that have minds that are converted to doctrines but do not have the life of Christ. It may be that there are nice and kind people that are religious and yet have not been truly converted. It might be that there are religious leaders and ministers that know a lot about the Bible but are unregenerate. Scripture speaks of this often: “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (II Tim 3:5). There are many that have the form or external of what appears as godliness, but they are without the true power of godliness because they have not been truly converted by God.

What we must see is that there is a real difference between the form of godliness and that which is real godliness. In the context of II Timothy 3:5 Scripture tells us one result of true godliness: “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (II Tim 3:12). Paul does not say that many or most people that desire to live godly will be persecuted, but “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Jesus said this: “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” (Mat 5:11). Jesus said that people are blessed when people are insulted and persecuted because of Him. He did not say that they may be persecuted, but that “when” they are which is at the least a strong implication that all will be persecuted if they are those that are blessed of Him. Perhaps we don’t understand the nature of true godliness.

It would seem, then, that we can make a deduction from the teachings of Jesus and Paul at this point. If our godliness is not the kind of godliness that results in insults and persecution for His name’s sake, it may be that our godliness is nothing more than a form of it. In America today we are so concerned to be gracious and nice that we are not teaching the offense of the cross. No one will ever be won to Christ because believers are gracious, but instead the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the offense of the cross must be preached. If we are more concerned about being gracious, non-offensive, and nice than we are about being like Jesus Christ, perhaps we have nothing more than a form of godliness. Preaching, teaching, and talking about the truth of Jesus Christ will bring out the opposition of the human heart to God. Jesus Christ was love incarnate and He was persecuted and hated. When we are like Jesus we will be persecuted and hated as well. Indeed we are told in our day to be like Christ and treat others graciously, but the truth of the matter is that if we were like Christ in reality we would be persecuted.

There is a true humility and then there is a form of humility that people wear on the outside. There is also a lowly feeling that people have that make them think that they are humble. There are forms of love that pass as true love and forms of repentance that pass as true repentance. There are many teachings on how to be like Christ that are but forms of being like Christ rather than true Christ-likeness. All of those are forms that sound good to hearts that want to be religious but not like the true Christ. We must remember that the fallen heart does not want the truth of God and comes up with all sorts of teachings about Christ rather than the truth of Christ. The religion of the natural man uses the Bible and has the appearance of biblical teachings, but instead they are but forms of religion and do not have the power. The power of godliness and being like the biblical Christ is one that will bring the sinful hearts of men to the top and it will be expressed. If our godliness is nothing more than being nice, good, and being “gracious” to human beings most likely we have a form of godliness and do not have the power.

We must be awakened to the biblical teaching on the utter need of conversion and true holiness or the Gospel will remain hidden from our eyes. In the 1930’s a man by the name of Arthur Pink issued this dire warning:

“Alas, alas, God’s ‘way of salvation’ is almost entirely unknown today, the nature of Christ’s salvation is almost universally misunderstood, and the terms of His salvation misrepresented on every hand. The ‘Gospel’ which is being proclaimed is, in nine cases of every ten, but a perversion of the Truth, and tens of thousands, assured that they are bound for Heaven, are now hastening to Hell, as fast as they can take them. Things are far, far worse in Christendom than even the ‘pessimist’ and the ‘alarmist’ suppose…it is now almost universally supposed that saving faith is nothing more than an act of the human will, which any man is capable of performing; all that is needed is to bring before a sinner a few verses of Scripture which describe his lost condition, one or two which contain the word ‘believer,’ and then a little persuasion for him to ‘accept Christ,’ and the thing is done. And the awful thing is that so very, very few see anything wrong with this-blind to the fact that such a proves is only the devil’s drug to lull thousands into a false peace…But this we greatly fear-unless God is pleased to grant a real revival, it will not be long ere ‘the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people’ (Isa. 60:2), for the light of the true gospel is rapidly disappearing. (Genuine Salvation, International Outreach, 1999).

Mr. Pink wrote this in the 1930’s. Surely we can see that things are worse instead of better. Pink points out that the nature of salvation in his day was almost entirely unknown. Instead of us thinking of the 40’s and 50’s as a great time for the Gospel, perhaps we need to think through this again in a different light. Perhaps those were days when public morality was respected a lot more, but that might have been nothing more than a form of godliness. Indeed we do not read of people being persecuted in those days, but the Bible promises persecution for all that wish to live godly in Christ Jesus regardless of the day they live in. He said that the nature of salvation was almost universally misunderstood. Was he right about that? If so, have things changed since then? It may be the case that things are worse now than then. He said that the “Gospel” which was being proclaimed was nothing but a perversion of the truth. What if he was right and we have continued that perversion and it is even more of a perversion now? He thought that at least part of the perversion was thinking that saving faith is nothing more than an act of the human will. Has that changed? No, it is the cry of virtually every evangelist today. While there may be some that say they deny that, does the way they evangelize reflect that?

Could it be that the vast majority of “Gospel” preaching and presentations of that same “Gospel” is nothing more than the devil’s drug to lull sinners to sleep in churches today? Pink certainly believed that darkness was covering the earth and that people were in gross darkness because the light of the true Gospel was rapidly disappearing. He wrote that over seventy years ago. If that darkness has continued to grow and the light of the true Gospel has continued to rapidly disappear, where are we in our day? I am sure there are many that think that because we have nice buildings and a lot of activity done that is attached to the name of Christ that things are okay. But we must remember what Christ told us: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’

23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS'” (Mat 7:21-23). It could be that our very religious practices, which would include our way of evangelism, will be declared by God on judgment day as the practice of lawlessness. It could be that many are crying “Lord, Lord” in the present day and yet will not enter the kingdom. We must face this as a reality.

Simply the fact that we do something called “evangelism” does not mean that we are teaching the biblical Gospel. The Pharisees went about “evangelizing” and all they did was to make others twice the son of hell as themselves (Mat 23:15). We are in a great darkness today and part of that darkness includes the message of the Gospel itself. We can preach justification by faith alone by itself with great biblical fidelity and simply miss the point of the whole Gospel. Souls must be wholly converted. The Gospel is the good news about how God converts sinners from being children of the devil to being His children. The Gospel is not the good news about how man can make a decision, pray a prayer, or make an act of his own will in his own power, but it is about the living God who changes the hearts of sinners Himself and makes them partakers of His holiness. That is an unknown Gospel today. When the Gospel is viewed in terms of souls being converted by God, then things change. When the Gospel is seen as that which God does and men now have the power of holiness rather than a form of it, this is a Gospel that truly changes. However, it does not make us just a little better and a little nicer; it makes us into new creatures in Christ Jesus. The converting power of God makes us truly like Jesus with the life of Jesus in us. That is such a conversion that we now truly love and seek true holiness and so the desire to be godly is now the life of Christ shining out through us. He was hated in the flesh and He will be hated in us as well. The true Gospel will bring persecution.

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Hating God, Part 31

March 13, 2009

In the last BLOG we considered out attitude toward those that hate God. In this BLOG we will look at one way to see in our own hearts and others if there is hatred for God there. When the world has brought the idea of love into the professing Church, love has to be looked at from a different way in order to see what it really is. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he shows us one way to do that. In previous BLOGS we have looked at how we can only keep the commandments of God out of love. Paul shows us another other side of the picture: “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Rom 8:7).

In this text Paul shows us that the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God. He makes this statement, but he does not just leave it there. He gives the reason for this. The reason that the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God is that it does not subject itself to the law of God. In fact, not only does this mind set on the flesh not subject itself to the law of God, it is not even able to do so. The word for “able” in this verse is dunamai (dunamai) which is the Greek word for power. As easily seen it is also a word that we get the word “dynamite” from. It has the meaning of “to be able” or “to have power.” The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God and that can be seen in the refusal of people to subject themselves to the law of God. At some point the unbelieving person will not subject him or herself to the Word of God because it has no ability or power to do so.

This is a very hard teaching, but it is the Word of God. In fact, it may be that some reading this may hate what they read. If that is so, then it may be that they are having a hard time subjecting themselves to the law of God. Hatred for God, then, can be seen by the refusal of people to follow the law of God. This will not always be so obvious to outsiders, but it can be obvious to the person and at times to those around them. In line with the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5:17-20, our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were content to set up laws around the biblical laws which gave them the appearance of keeping the law while they actually violated it. This happens today as well. The biblical law goes to the heart and not just to the external person. The Pharisees would not commit adultery as they counted it, but they were not concerned about their hearts or about unbiblical divorces. They had no power to keep the law because only those who are born of God and know God can keep the law in the heart out of true love (I John 4:7-8).

The Pharisees sure thought they loved God and others seemed to think so as well, but they did not. Since they had no power to keep the law from the heart, they simply “adjusted” the law so that they could make themselves think that they were keeping it. The same thing is happening in America and Europe as well. There are many that want to twist the Scriptures to say that homosexuality is not a sin. Some have no power or ability to flee from that sin and so they twist the Scriptures to their own destruction. Others see that divorce is a problem so they live together in fornication to try marriage out. They also twist the Scriptures to their own destruction. Others don’t like having to believe certain things that the Bible teaches about creation or social issues and so they twist the Bible in order to fit in to some degree with the intellectuals of the world.

There are also many within the professing Church that want to do away with various commands in Scripture in one way or another. We must not hide our heads in the sand and just allow things to go on in this way. The Word of God must be handled with reverence and awe. We understand that people that hate God want to do away with the words and commands of God. What we don’t understand is how people that claim to love God and to revere His Word can still work to hack and hew away at it. When the heart that is opposed to the law of God runs into something it cannot and will not obey, instead of seeking God for repentance it takes out its hermeneutic (interpretation) knife and goes to work to give itself a biblical reason to say that the commandment does not mean what it plainly says. There is a lot of hatred for God that could easily be seen in its opposition to the law of God except that it is hidden under the rubbish of a theological disguise and interpretive gymnastics. But why is it that the heart that hates God hates the law of God? It is because the law of God sets out the character of God and keeping the law from the heart is to be like God. The glory of the holiness of God shines through the Great Commands and then the Ten Commandments. The heart that hates God does not like the God that shines through the law nor does it have the power and ability to keep that law. So in its self-sufficiency it sets out to do away with the law of God. In doing that a horrible self-sufficiency and pride is seen in the heart. Twisting the law of God is nothing less than twisting the character of God and trying to make Him appear like self. Attempting to make the thrice holy God to look like fallen self is an act of hatred far more hideous than words can describe.

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Hating God, Part 30

March 11, 2009

In the last BLOG we saw that Moses prayed against those that hated God. He was a man that knew God and spoke to Him face to face. He was the man that cried to see the glory of God (Ex 33:18) and God revealed His glory to. Was Moses in sin in this prayer? Is there that much difference between the Testaments? It brought us to the thought of how to treat those that openly hate the God we love with all of our being. While we are to treat our personal enemies with love, how are we to treat the public enemies of God? David was a man after God’s heart and wrote many Psalms about how much he desired God and longed for God from the depths of his heart.

63:1 – A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. 3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You. 4 So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. 5 My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. 6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, 7 For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.

139:19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. 20. For they speak against You wickedly, And Your enemies take Your name in vain. 21. Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22. I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me.

It might appear that these Psalms are direct opposites and we might question whether the same man wrote these. However, these are all from David and all reflect the same heart of love for God. David longed for God and desired to taste His glory. When others oppose God and hate Him, a hatred for them from David was a sign of love for God. David, as King of Israel, was on the throne of a theocracy. In one sense his enemies were God’s enemies. However, in Psalm 139 we see the enemies of God taking His name in vain (v. 20). This is a violation of the third commandment and we hear that in America all of the time. David wrote this after words of exalting God and expressing His love for God. This should be seen as a continuance of praise and worship of God.

In Psalm 139 David prays that God would slay the wicked (v. 19). He says that he hates those that hate the LORD and loathes those that rise against Him (v. 21). He even says that he hates them with the utmost hatred (v. 22) which is more than just a little. What is interesting, then, is that David then asks God to search his heart and to try his heart and his anxious thoughts to see if there was a hurtful way in him (v. 23). This last part shows that David did not see one thing wrong with his attitude toward God and those that hated God, but instead he saw it as true worship of the true and living God. He saw his prayer and attitude as flowing from His love for God. In his younger years we see David killing Goliath. His words as he approached Goliath are very relevant: Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted”” (I Sam 17:45). David’s love for God and His kingdom at that time was seen in his taking up arms and killing Goliath.

Some might say that Jesus had a far different attitude. I am not so sure that He did. He had very strong words for the Pharisees over and over again. Matthew 23:33 is one location for His strong words: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?” He came and disarmed rulers and authorities and triumphed over them (Col 2:15). He came to rule until all the enemies of God are put under His feet (I Cor 15:25). At the cross Jesus defeated the devil and took captives from him. Jesus came and was the kingdom of God that fought against the kingdom of evil. The kingdom of God is in every person that has truly repented of sin and has Christ as his or her life. But we must be very careful here. While indeed we are truly in a spiritual war with the devil and the enemies of God, we are not longer a physical nation to take up arms. We certainly are not to kill our personal enemies nor take it upon ourselves to kill the enemies of God. But surely this should instruct our prayer lives. While we pray for our personal enemies and pray for the Gospel to go out, surely we must pray for God to overcome His enemies. While we don’t know whether He will convert them or not, surely a prayer for His kingdom to come will include the defeat of the enemies of God. Do we really love God?

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Hating God, Part 29

March 9, 2009

It is not a pleasant thought to think that true believers are joining with those that hate the LORD. It is not pleasant on at least four counts. One, it is not pleasant to think this because of the greatness and glory of God who deserves a true and pure love. Two, it is not pleasant to think of because of believers who are being deceived. Three, it is not pleasant to think of because of unbelievers who are being deceived. Four, it is not pleasant to think of because the nature of true and pure Christianity is being diluted and misrepresented. The world appears to have taken over in many ways and much of what seems to be happening in the professing Church is more like the world than of Christ. This is simply appalling and unacceptable. Even worse, it is wickedness.

Why is it that the world wants to be religious? Why is it that ministers that don’t believe the Bible at all still want to be a minister? Why do so many people in our day want to be religious in some way? Psalm 81:15 has one part of the answer: “Those who hate the LORD would pretend obedience to Him.” The context of this passage is what would happen to the enemies of Israel if Israel would follow the LORD. Instead of the people listening to the LORD, they followed their own wisdom which came from their own stubborn hearts. This is true of the professing Church today. It is following after the wisdom of men instead of the LORD Himself. In the context of Psalm 81:15 they were told that if they would listen to the LORD He would subdue their enemies who would then pretend obedience to Him. The same is true today. When the LORD rises even His enemies pretend obedience to Him. There are still many people in our day that know that they will die and be in the hands of the living God. That moves them to a pretended obedience. But they have not had their hearts changed to where they love God.

On the other hand, there is the tendency of those that hate God to exalt themselves. Psalm 83:2 tells us this: “For behold, Your enemies make an uproar, And those who hate You have exalted themselves.” Psalm 83 is in the context of those that hate Israel and want to destroy them. It is also a prayer for God to destroy His and Israel’s enemies. The principle is that those that hate God exalt themselves. The Pharisees hated God as seen by their hatred for Jesus. John 15:23 shows that: “He who hates Me hates My Father also.” They used religion to exalt themselves over others. When they prayed and gave alms they sought the honor of others (Matthew 6:1-6). When the true God is hated, people seek to exalt themselves in many ways. Some want to take leadership in churches as a way to exalt themselves. Others want to distort the teaching of the Bible and yet it is to exalt themselves. It is not inconsistent with the hatred of God to desire to be exalted in the things of religion.

In our day people judge the success of a church by the numbers. For some reason they seem to think that God is impressed with numbers, though it may be more likely that it is more like the Pharisees who sought honor among men. The focus of a church is to be God. A church is only successful in a biblical sense if God is present among it. On the other hand, it may have a million members and be a total failure. It is so easy in that atmosphere to be one that exalts self and also bring in false theology and practices. As the Israelites did not think that they were committing idolatry when the made the golden calf, so many today do not see it as a problem to be innovative in things of theology and bringing people into a building under the idea of church. It is within the heart of all human beings to be to one degree or another religious. It is also within the sinful heart of unregenerate human beings to twist and distort the true God in order to live as they please and even to worship as they please.

Scripture is clear that believers are commanded to love their enemies. However, there is a distinction to make here. While we are commanded to love our personal enemy, that is not the same thing as those that that clearly hate and oppose the living God. While all unbelievers hate God, there are those that have given themselves over to a fuller hatred of Him. Num 10:35 is an example of this: “Then it came about when the ark set out that Moses said, “Rise up, O LORD! & let Your enemies be scattered, And let those who hate You flee before You.” This was from the most humble man on earth at the time (Num 12:3). Perhaps the Church needs to consider things like this more. We like the idea that we are to be nice to everybody and think that God will be nice to us. True love, however, loves the objects of its love enough to hate those that want to harm the objects of its love. If we love God with the love that He puts in us, we will not always be nice and polite to those that hate Him and abuse His holy name. If we will defend the family we love, we should speak for our God and defend His name against those that hate Him. Those that oppose and hate the Church of the living God and God Himself are different than just being personal enemies of believers. This is a subject that needs a lot more thought. But can it be said that we love God if we love those that utterly hate and despise Him and His Church?

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Hating God, Part 28

March 7, 2009

One reason that we must consider the reality that all human beings are divided into two kinds (those that love God and those that hate Him) is that we must be careful or those that love God will be greatly influenced by those that hate God. When those that hate God in reality water down the truth to be more acceptable to themselves and others, the problem is not that believers stop loving God, but are deceived into a false standard. If the professing Church has swallowed a false idea of what love is so that people that hate God actually think they love Him, then it is also possible to deceive other about what humility really is as well. So we have love replaced with politeness and niceness and humility is replaced with the idea that it is prideful to assert something as true. In reality humility is the emptiness of self and then the faith that is there receives grace from God. If God reveals Himself to humble souls, it is no longer humility to say that we may not know and assert certain things. It is but nothing but vile pride not to assert truth. It is not love to be polite and externally nice when we must stand for the truth of God and the true good of eternal souls. Those that hate God will not like what is said and will be what moderns think of as offended, but it is not really hate. Those that hate God are offended by the truth and call it unloving and rude.

We must think very carefully through things like this or we will accept in the name of Christ what is in reality directly opposed to Him. Exodus 20:5 warns us of the dangers of idolatry: “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” James 4:4 warns us of the dangers of being friends with the world: You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” When the world is brought into the professing Church in the name of Christ, idolatry is sure to follow. When worldly ideas using biblical words and concepts are brought into the professing Church, being friends with the world is sure to follow. What will follow both of those things, then, is that many within the professing Church will be at enmity with God.

In 2 Chronicles 18 we have the story of Jehoshaphat becoming allied with Ahab against Syria. Jehoshaphat was King of Judah and Ahab was King of Israel. It would perhaps have appeared natural to them to be allies since they were, after all, the ones that God had brought out of Egypt and gave the land. They were the twelve tribes of Israel. But remember that Israel had sold itself to idols when it left Judah. The words to King Jehoshaphat in II Chronicles 19:2 are stunning: “Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD and so bring wrath on yourself from the LORD? Jehoshaphat was a good leader compared to many and made many reforms. Yet he was soundly rebuked for helping the wicked and loving those who hated the LORD. He brought wrath on himself for what he did.

Deuteronomy 7:10 says that the LORD “repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.” God does judge each sin now, but also in eternity if a person does not have Christ. Romans 1:18-32 tells us that God judges sin now. It is correct that a believer that has Christ will not suffer torment in hell for sin. However, the true believer should be moved by love for God and others to flee from sin. When God comes in judgment on the professing Church it does not mean that true believers will be unscathed. God does discipline His children when they are in sin and it is sin when they are joined with those that hate God. This is simply the character of God in both Testaments.

Colossians 1:21 describes what a believer formerly was. They “were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.” That has to do with religious unbelievers as well. That would include Arminian and Reformed unbelievers as well. That includes both legalistic and liberal religious people. People that are religious can also be alienated from God and hostile to the truth of God. Religious people that do not truly know God are engaged in vile and wicked deeds even in their acts and works of righteousness (Isa 64:6). When believers are deceived and are mixed in with those that hate God, this brings the judgment of God upon all though it is in differing ways. The professing Church is under the judgment of God in our day. Some of it is because believers have been deceived and are mixing in with unbelievers in professing churches. If we wish to be a friend of the world, even though it calls itself a church, we are at enmity with God. It may be that we love those that hate the LORD. Whatever the case, we need to be on our faces seeking wisdom from the LORD to deliver us from those that hate Him and are yet very religious and perhaps orthodox. We need to be delivered from the world’s idea of love and humility that we may be truly humble and truly love from the love that flows from God.

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Conversion, Part 5

March 5, 2009

The last Newsletter ended with the thought that pride cannot deliver itself from pride and that it takes an outside power, that is, divine power to deliver a proud soul from itself. The proud soul does all that it does from its pride and so can never deliver itself from itself. All that the proud soul can do is from pride. It can do nothing but what is from pride. It loves itself and enjoys the feelings of its pride though it will try to hide itself behind other things out of that pride. Down deep we all know that obvious pride is wrong. The soul either lives by its pride and self-centeredness or by faith. This is why Christ the humble Lamb of God only lives in souls that are humble and the truly humble soul has faith in Christ rather than faith in itself by pride. God hates pride which is the stench of the devil and so opposes it at all points, but He dwells in the humble heart because the humble heart has been cleansed of its pride by the blood of Christ and the application of that by the Holy Spirit. Proverbs 16:5 tells us that “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; assuredly, he will not be unpunished.” Notice that this verse does not say that everyone who does not attend church and is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD. It also does not say that all the proud except those who have prayed a prayer and are active in church are an abomination to the LORD. It says that those who are proud in heart are an abomination to the LORD. It also does not say that those who have an outward humility have hidden their pride from God, but that those who are proud in heart are an abomination to the LORD. It matters not whether the person is a preacher or an outward saint to others; if that person is proud in heart that person is an abomination to the LORD. Unless a person is turned from pride by grace, that person is an abomination to the LORD. There are no exception clauses in this verse.

We must be saved and freed from our sin and not just saved from a future hell while in our sin. Romans 6:7 and its context points to this: “for he who has died is freed from sin.” If Christ does not save His people from their sin He leaves them to the cruel taskmaster of pride that leads to misery and death. Christ, as absolute Lord, does not totally take away sin from His people but He breaks the slavery to sin. His people are no longer under total slavery to sin, but now they are free to serve and love Christ. The heart of sin is pride and until a person has been saved from that pride as ruler that person is not saved from sin. A true humility is needful for there to be true faith which is a sign that Christ dwells in the soul. Faith receives Christ by grace alone. A true faith merits nothing at all, but instead requires us to be broken of pride since all faith does is receive grace. It is only the humble soul that has been broken of pride and emptied of self that will relinquish all hope in itself and receive grace apart from any works or merit. It is only the humble soul that will look to Christ alone and stop working for salvation.

The heart that has Christ lives by faith in Christ. The heart that has pride lives by its pride as Proverbs 21:4 tells us: “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.” The proud heart may be religious, but it trusts in itself to have faith. The light that the wicked follow is a proud heart, even if religious. The humble heart receives Christ and all that it has by receiving grace. The humble heart has nothing to be proud of but boasts in the cross alone. The truly humbled heart is emptied of self as the controlling power in the soul and now lives by the life of Christ in the soul. The proud heart is deceived about its pride. People go to church and hear that sin is bad, but they may never hear the real issue of the heart is pride. They may stop their outward sin and think they have repented, but if they have not repented of pride they are stopping outward sin because of their sin of pride. The very root of sin has not been cut off. When the heart has not been opened up and pride exposed, people will live in pride while it is hidden from them. They may even think that they are humble, but that is nothing but pride hiding itself under the mask of humility. They may become very religious, but that is to do nothing more than the Pharisees did. They may speak against the Pharisees while they have the very spirit of the Pharisees lurking in their hearts.

But, others may argue, we prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, made a decision, or something like that. Those souls may well argue that they go to a church where the preacher preaches the gospel and that one day they heard that message and turned from their wicked ways. Now, they would say, they are changed people that attend church on a regular basis and live moral lives. But have they ever been convicted of the sin of pride? Have they been broken from their self-sufficiency? If they have never seen their own hearts as full of pride and self-sufficiency, their prayers and their morality may come from pride. Indeed they may have repented from outward things, but they have not been delivered from the very root of sin which is pride and self-centeredness. That is the same mistake that the Pharisees made. We can become the nicest and most helpful people around and yet it is all from the heart of pride and self if we have not repented of our proud and self-centered hearts. We must be converted.

A person is not truly converted apart from being delivered from the ruling sin of pride, yet we hear little of this in our day. Jesus said very clearly and without equivocation: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). While there may be some differences about what that means, the context does not allow us a lot of latitude. In Matthew 18:1, which is the start of the context, the text tells us this: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The answer of 18:3 is an answer to the pride of the disciples of 18:1. Then we have the words of verse 4: “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 18:4). Whatever else conversion is, the soul must be converted from its pride to humility. There is no conversion apart from the soul being turned from its pride to humility. Unless we are humbled, we are still in our pride.

The teaching of Scripture on the conversion of the soul must be restored in our day. When the churches are being filled with proud people that have prayed prayers or walked aisles out of pride, that pride will not be repented of but instead will have found even more ways to hide itself from the eyes of people. We must always remember that the heart is deceitful above all else (Jeremiah 17:9) and is constantly deceiving. The proud heart does not want to admit that it is prideful. A proud heart knows that pride is wrong and does not want to admit to itself that it is proud and even more does not want to have others know that it is proud. It is possible, however, for some to admit that they are proud in order to get others to think that they are humble. How utterly deceitful the heart is.

People cannot cast out pride by their pride because all of their actions would be from pride. Pride cannot always be seen by a self-centered and proud attitude by others. Sometimes pride hides itself under the mask of an outward humility. Pride lives by the strength of self and its own sufficiency and can live by an outward deference to others and be very helpful to strangers. Pride is at home in church buildings and will do any and all religious actions that the Bible demands except repent of pride and be humbled. Without humility, however, a person will not have true love (I Cor 13:1-8) and so pride spoils all that a religious person can do. Without humility there is no true faith and so a person does not have Christ. This means that the person lives by faith, but by a faith in self. It is true that a person that is full of pride and self may live by what is called faith in Christ, but the reality of the matter is that the person trusts in self and perhaps even in its own faith which comes from self rather than Christ. Pride is an insidious beast that can turn the most beautiful creature God created into the devil. Pride is so awful that it can turn an angel into a demon. Pride is so wicked it can take two human beings made in the image of God and make them into fallen creatures with the image of the devil in them. Pride is so deceitful that it makes all the religious actions of a human being into things that are done for self and pride rather than out of love for God. One drop of pride ruins all that the soul can do. Pride is fueled by self-love rather than the love of God.

The devil (the father of pride) promotes the religion of pride and self-love because He loves Himself. All whose love comes from self are his children. To put it differently, the only true source of love is God Himself as triune. All that goes by love in the world is not love at all but is generated from the self. This love that is generated from the self as the center of all things has its father as the devil who does not want God to be loved and adored. The devil delights (if he had anything but utter misery) in religion that is focused on self because it does not come from God but is from him and his worldly schemes. The devil does not care if people take up with conservative religion, Reformed theology, and evangelize in the name of self-love and man-centeredness because that is doing his work for him. He is not concerned with the externals of religion but is involved in making sure that human beings love self. He is not just involved in satanic rituals, but instead is very involved in “Christian” rituals as well.

Surely it is clear that if souls are governed by pride, self-love, and are deceitful to self beyond all other things, then for true conversion to take place a soul must be broken from its pride, self-love, and self-sufficiency by a power outside of itself and become a humble soul. The only acceptable sacrifice to God is “a broken and a contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17). We must begin to think in terms of what the Bible teaches about conversion or we will go astray in evangelism, assurance, sanctification, and church membership. If we do not take Matthew 18:1-4 and Psalm 51:17 seriously, we will not do more than the Pharisees (Mat 5:17-20) but will instead be just like them. We will live by our pride, self-love, and self-sufficiency while we go on in our religious and possibly conservative ways. Let us close with two penetrating quotes from Jesus who told us about conversion: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). “Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

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Hating God, Part 27

March 5, 2009

Jesus, Paul and John tell us in many places that to love God we must keep His commandments and love His people. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments” (John 5:2). These verses show us what the heartbeat of Scripture is on this. Those that love God will keep His commandments and love His children. There is no love for God and no love for human beings apart from loving God and keeping His commandments. In fact, it demonstrates hatred for God when we do not love Christians (His children) and do not love and keep His commandments. This is based on two things. One, there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those that love God and then there are those that hate Him. Two, John 7:7 tells us that “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. People hated Jesus when He preached the Law and told people that they were sinners. God is the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge and sinners hate Him and all about Him.

The Law of God stands in the way of the comfort of sinners in their self-love. The Law stands and tells them that they are violators of God’s Law, that they cannot make up for the guilt of sin, and that they cannot do what they want. The bent of their hearts lead them against the Law and they want to live in the lusts of their pleasures of the body and mind. But the Law stands against them and their consciences. The Greatest Commandment tells them that they must love God with all of their being, but their hearts lead them to love themselves with all of their being. The Second Greatest Commandment tells them that they are to love their neighbors as themselves, but their heart tells them to love their neighbor only to the degree that the neighbor is good for them.

The first command of the Ten Commandments tells sinners that they must always have God first in all things, but sinners do not want God to rule over them and tell them what they can and cannot do. Each sinner is first in his heart and will do what he wants. The second command is not to have idols, but the hearts of men are idol factories. Some think the second command has to do with worship which then tells us to worship God as He has commanded how to be worshipped. But human beings want to worship God as they want to worship Him. The third command tells us to use the name of God and all He has to do with in a reverent way. Yet man reveres himself and will treat God with disdain in order to set up his own rule. Man is far tenderer toward himself and his own honor than he is toward the honor of God. The fourth command sets apart one day in seven to devote to the things of God in an especial way. Yet throughout the history of the Israelites the Sabbath day was violated and opposed. The same is true today. Man wants each day to be at his own disposal and each one wants to rule over all days for himself. We can see, therefore, without going into the commandments in detail how those that do not love God oppose Him in all four of the first table of the commandments. To oppose Him in these is to hate Him rather than love Him.

The second table of the Ten Commandments begins with the command to honor our parents. But of course children want to follow their own heart and modern ways so they violate this commandment. Add to that a society that wants to do away with spanking and allow children free reign of their hearts and we can see a big problem. Then we move on to the sixth which forbids murder. We see and hear about a lot of murders, but we don’t see all the hate that people have for each other. If we hate another person we have hate in our heart and we are guilty of murder. Hate in the heart is a sign of hatred for God. If we love God, we will obey His commandments. Then we come to the seventh which prohibits adultery, but people want to be free in their expression of their sexuality. But as Romans 1:18-32 shows very clearly this is really God turning people over to their sin and hardened hearts because they do not wish to keep Him in their knowledge. People will steal in many ways, lie in many ways, and yet think they are keeping the basic commands. They want to possess what they want when they want it and they think they are lord of their own lips and tongues. But the tenth command reaches the hearts in even deeper ways when it tells us not to covet. This is a direct commandment to the heart. The first command tells us that we are to have God in all things and the tenth command tells us that He is to be all in the heart.

The violation of the laws of God demonstrates a hatred for God and holiness. Deut 20:5 which speaks of those that hate God is in the context of the second command and idolatry. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” All sin is idolatry in some way and so all violations of the commands are idolatry and hatred of God. We keep the commandments from love and violate them from hatred. The hatred of God is widespread because the violation of His commandments is widespread, even in the church.

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Hating God, Part 26

March 2, 2009

Scripture teaches us that “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Rom 8:7). The unbelieving person lives out of self-love and then hatred of God. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God and it is not able to do anything else but be hostile to God. Many are talked into saying prayers, walking aisles, and signing cards. Those things are professions of religion but they do not change the fundamental nature of the heart. For a person to be truly converted that person’s heart has to be changed from hatred of God to love for God. All the prayers in the world will not change a heart from hating God to loving Him. The Pharisees prayed much and hated even more.

What we see, one would hope with clarity, is that a person of flesh that is hostile toward God cannot subject him or herself to God. This means that the only hope is for God to change the person’s heart and indwell that person with Himself so that the person can love Him. What that means is that all the religions of self are nothing but acts of hatred toward God. That also means that much of what has the name of Christianity today sure appears to be the works of the flesh and so is hatred toward God. The flesh will always be the flesh and will always act like the flesh apart from the regenerating work of the living God. Religious works and activities apart from the work of God can be nothing but the work of the flesh and as such is hatred of God. The flesh will not and cannot change apart from God doing it. All that the flesh can do, despite the appearance of religious activities, is hatred of God. As can be seen from the Israelites God seemed to hate their religious activities when done in the flesh more than the world that did not have the revealed ways of God.

We know that the Greatest Commandment is what is to guide all that a human being is to do. A believer has the love of God in the soul and so lives out of love for God. However, the believer is still far from having a perfect love for God. But the fact that there is some love in the act shows that God is at work in the soul. But the unbeliever has nothing but hatred for God. The unbeliever has no love for God at all because the God of love is not in his or her soul. Nothing the unbeliever does can possibly be acceptable to God apart from the love of God in the soul. Yet the believer is acceptable to God because Christ has died for the believer and God lives in and works love in the soul of that person. What the believer does is accepted on behalf of Christ. All that the unbeliever does is moved from a heart that hates God in all that it does.

It is true, however, that unbelievers do not hate the god they believe in. But the god they believe in is not the holy and just God who revealed and reveals Himself in nature and Scripture. Professing atheists try to convince themselves that they do not believe in God, yet others try to convince themselves to twist the Bible or other things enough to enable them to believe in a god but not the God. Much religious activity happens in the spoken name of the God of the Bible but it has nothing to do with love for the true God. Many will weep and shed tears for many things in the name of love for the god of their own imaginations while using the name of the God of the Bible. This is very deceptive to them and to the watching world. It is no wonder that the world mocks Christianity so much because the fake gods that are presented are worthy of nothing but disdain. The world mocks “Christians” because of their behavior and irrational outlook, and the truth of the matter is that the world is right much of the time. Many of those who speak name of Christ actually hate the true God and so their religious and moral behavior is indeed irrational in many ways. A false god leads to false behavior. A fleshly person following a god of the imagination is not one that will gender anything but contempt. But the world and religious people alike, apart from the regenerating work of God, hate the true God. While they come at it from different ways and are hidden under different guises, the hatred of all those that hate God comes from a love of self which is the true idol.

People are afraid to hate God, so they must do something to cover their hatred of Him. They will twist and turn to get out of a conscious awareness of being in His presence. They intellectually try to deny Him or distort who He really is. Psalm 10 gives us a picture of this. In verse 4 it says that “The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thoughts are, “There is no God.”” Yet it says in verse 11 that “He says to himself, “God has forgotten; He has hidden His face; He will never see it.”” On the one hand the wicked tries to make self think that there is no God in order to commit the wicked acts. Yet after the wicked acts s/he will try to convince himself that God will never see it. Both are acts of hatred against God. Both come from a desire to be god to self and to distort reality for the sake of self. Both reflect the heart that hates the idea of the true God because He is in conflict with the desires of the sinful self. Both are undiluted hatred of God, religious or not.

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Hating God, Part 25

February 27, 2009

If it is true as has been asserted in past BLOGS that there are only two kinds of people in the world, then the inferences from this are unpleasant to our way of thinking. If it is true that the division between human beings is really between those that hate God and those that love God, then we have to look at the world and all things differently. It is easy to divide the world into nations, races, economic classes, religions, denominations, and so on. However, that which really divides people is whether they love or hate God. Those that hate God will divide over any and all things. Those that love God will unite together as brothers and sisters despite all the other so-called divisions. Yet the world seems to desire to unite in many ways and the professing Church divides in many ways.

What we must see is the reality that goes on underneath the appearances. There is no problem in understanding that the world can unite in its hatred of God as it tries to gather humanity into one. The professing Church is full of unbelievers and so it is no problem to see how it would seem to divide. But it is also true that the true Church is not unified in all things and so it is understandable how people that consider themselves brothers and sisters in Christ would worship and work together in different ways. The world wants to unite humanity in its opposition to God and so it sets out to do so. It is not surprising that those that hate God would want to unite together to suppress the truth of God together. It is not surprising that those that hate God would want to help each other cast out the knowledge of God that He put there. It is not surprising that the world would want to set itself forth as righteous and as loving since they have the knowledge of those things built in and they want to find a way to think of themselves as righteous. So the world comes up with a pseudo-love and thinks of it as love. That pseudo-love has now entered the professing Church and passes as true love.

The Bible sets out the truth of love, yet as the Pharisees that did not like the standards of Scripture and so changed them, so many if not virtually all do the same thing today to love. We imagine that God would not command us to do what we cannot do, so the thought of love is that it is something that the human being can do of his or her own power. However, Scripture does not command us to do what a human can do of self but what humans can only do in the strength of grace and the power of God. A meditation on John 13:34-35; 15:1-11; 17:26, and I John 4:6-21 will show this without any real question. True love is not within the capacity of human beings, but a human being can only show love when that human is born of God and knows God (I John 4:7-8). The nature of the triune God is love and one will only truly love if one is in communion with the God of love. There is only one source of love in the universe and that is God. Human beings must learn that what is not true love for God is hatred of God, yet true love for God can only come from God. So when God is rejected true love is also truly rejected. When Christ came to this planet He was love incarnate and the very display of Divine love. Yet He was hated and killed. That is what the world thinks of true love and that is how the world would treat God if they could. But for the moment they hate Him and do all they can to cast Him out of their minds and hearts. Religious people do that too. Reformed people do that as well. Hatred for God is what all have that do not have the love of God dwelling in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 13:4 – Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

Love is kind and does not seek its own. The world has bumper stickers that tell us that “mean people suck.” For the most part they know that being mean is not moral or good, though many practice that. The world, however, has come up with its own brand of kindness and its own way to seek self while appearing not to seek self. For the most part it is still thought to be wrong to exclusively seek self. What the world has done, however, is replace true kindness with acts that at least seem to help others. True love in the Bible has to do with a true love for God and so kindness is always related to that. It is not kind to others to do things for them and have no concern for their love to God which is their Greatest Commandment. True kindness can only be practiced when a true love for God is in the soul. True kindness can only be practiced where there is concern for the person’s soul. True kindness can only be practiced when there is no seeking of self involved. The seeking of self can be a person that wants to think of self as loving or perhaps as trying to please God by doing things it thinks is kind. But when a person is trying to be kind in order to obtain honor for self or to think highly of self, it is not love because it is not true kindness and it is a form of self-seeking. It is an awful delusion when all that a person does is hatred of God and yet that person thinks it is love. The same thing is true of worship and religion. Hatred of God is practiced under the guise of love.

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Conversion, Part 4

February 25, 2009

Why is it that a prayer or a moral change is not enough to save a person? Why is it that the soul must be really and truly converted in order to have eternal life now and then after physical death? It is indeed far easier to tell a person to pray a prayer, walk an aisle, sign a card or do something that has the appearance of a commitment or decision. But we must always remember that Jesus never taught us that a person is saved by a prayer, a commitment, or a decision. He taught that sinners were saved through faith and faith alone. One is not saved because they come up with faith, but because they have Christ who is united to the soul. It would appear that there are numerous people in the professing Church today that have jumped through a low or high hoop in some way and think they are saved because that is what they have been told to do.

Jesus taught that a soul must be converted or it would perish. He did not say that a soul must say a prayer or walk an aisle; He said that souls must be truly converted or that they would perish. Jesus did not say that a person could be a good person and do good things to be saved; He said that a soul must be converted. Jesus did not say that a person could make a moral transformation and attend church a good percentage of the time to be saved; He said that the soul must be converted in order for the person to be truly saved. Why is this being stressed over and over again? It is because we have heard the opposite of this so often and rarely if ever hear what Jesus really said. Souls must truly be converted from being the children of the devil to being a child of the living God. Souls must be taken from the bondage and dominion of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved. Souls must be turned from those that love sin to those that love holiness. Nothing less than the hand of an Almighty God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit can change a sinner to a saint (holy one, set apart by God for God).

The soul of the unbeliever is a soul that is full of pride. Proverbs 21:4 tells us that “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin.” Proverbs 16:5 says that “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.” In multiple places in Scripture, and in various ways, we are told that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; I Peter 5:5). God loves the humble and yet we are told that the proud will be brought down. God will not dwell in the proud soul regardless of what kind of decisions that soul has made and no matter how much intellectual belief that soul has. God is opposed to the proud and certainly will not give Himself to that proud soul.

Isaiah 66:2 tells us with certainty the kind of soul that God looks upon with favor: “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD. “But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” The Jewish people wanted to build God a temple so that He could live in and rest. But God told them that the whole earth was nothing but a foot stool. Where was the house they could build Him? Then He tells them what does please Him. It is the humble, the contrite, and the one that trembles at His Word. The humble one is the humility of the creature. The contrite one is the humility of the sinner. The one that trembles at His word is the humility of the saved sinner. In other words, God is opposed to the proud in any and all stages. God will never look upon the proud with any pleasure at all no matter what they do. The verses from Isaiah below show His opposition to pride at all points.

Isaiah 2:11 The proud look of man will be abased And the loftiness of man will be humbled, And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. 12 For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.

Isaiah 2:17 The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased; And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,

Isaiah 3:16 Moreover, the LORD said, “Because the daughters of Zion are proud And walk with heads held high and seductive eyes, And go along with mincing steps And tinkle the bangles on their feet, 17 Therefore the Lord will afflict the scalp of the daughters of Zion with scabs, And the LORD will make their foreheads bare.”

Isaiah 5:15 So the common man will be humbled and the man of importance abased, The eyes of the proud also will be abased.

Isaiah 13:11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.

Isaiah 25:11 And he will spread out his hands in the middle of it As a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim, But the Lord will lay low his pride together with the trickery of his hands.

Isaiah 57:15 tells us the only kind of soul that God will dwell in. “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.”” We might look at Isaiah 57:15 in a few ways, but one obvious way is that God will only dwell with the humble and He will not dwell with the proud. He dwells with the humble and the contrite in order to revive them or to give them life. As we have seen in the verses in Isaiah above, God is opposed to the proud in all ways. But how He looks with favor on the humble and indeed dwells with them. God did not just dwell in a temple because people did the things He said, but He dwelt among a people that were humble. Perhaps there were only a few, but Moses was the most humble on earth.

The great mystery of the Old and the New Testament is given to us in Colossians 1:26-27: “the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” In our day we speak as if the great mystery was of salvation by faith, but that is not correct. Abraham was justified by faith apart from works as well. The Old Testament believers did walk by faith and trusted in Christ as they looked ahead (Hebrews 11:23-27). He looked ahead to Christ. Christ said that He came to fulfill the Law (Matthew 5:17-20) and so the Law pointed to Him. But the great mystery that was revealed through Paul and has been forgotten in the modern day is that Jesus Christ now lives in His people. The very temple of God now is in His people. He lives in them by faith. The reason for faith is this is how Christ dwells in His people.

We can then go to Habakkuk 2:4 which tells us very plainly that one that is proud cannot have true faith: “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.” The righteous that lives by faith is opposite of the proud one whose soul is not right within him. What we must see is that faith and pride are opposites. The soul that is proud will not have faith. The one that has faith is the one that is humble. Psalm 25:9 tells us that God “leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way.” The proud do not want justice, they want self asserted and defended. The proud do not truly want the ways of God, they only want themselves. Clearly, then, only the humble truly want true justice and to be taught the way of God. The believer walks by faith and not by sight while the proud walk by the sight of their pride. Pride and faith are opposites so the humble soul looks to God through and by Christ alone. One cannot follow Christ and pride at the same time.

What must happen to a proud soul in order for it to be saved? Psalm 34:18 gives the obvious answer: “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Isaiah, the book of the verses above that show how God opposes the proud, says this in 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.” This is the verse Jesus declared about Himself in Luke 4:18. Jesus was not here to save the proud in their pride, but to save people from their pride. There is no faith where pride reigns so the faith of the proud is from pride. God will not save people in their pride and He does not hear the prayer of the proud. Proverbs 15:8: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight.” Do we really think that God will save a proud sinner because s/he says a prayer when even their prayers are an abomination to God? But, one says, God saves because of faith. Yet we have seen how faith cannot be in the soul of a proud person. Matthew 18:3 tells us that unless we are converted and become as a little child we will not enter the kingdom. We do not become true believers just because we believe the facts of a few verses of Scripture, but only by Christ alone who dwells with those who are humbled and broken. One is not saved by humility, but one will not have faith in Christ apart from humility either. A prayer that comes from a proud heart is a proud prayer and is verbalized pride. A faith that comes from a proud heart is pride expressed as faith in self rather than faith in Christ. We must be broken from our pride or we will never have true faith and so will never have Christ dwelling in us. A converted soul is one that has been broken from pride as that which rules it and now has Christ as its very life. We know that Scripture teaches us repeatedly to repent and to turn. We must repent of our pride to repent at all. Can pride move itself to repent of pride? Only divine power can do this.

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