[b]POISONED\t\t\t11/11/2007
How much does God ask from us?
What did God say in the Old Testament?
What did Jesus say?
Perhaps when we answer these questions, we will begin to see how little what passes for preaching and teaching is actually from the Lord.
[color=Orange][b]1Sa 15:7 Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.
1Sa 15:8 And he took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, though he utterly destroyed all the rest of the people with the sword.
1Sa 15:9 Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, oxen, fatlings, lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them; but all that was undesirable or worthless they destroyed utterly.
1Sa 15:10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying,
1Sa 15:11 I regret making Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not performed My commands. And Samuel was grieved and angry [with Saul], and he cried to the Lord all night.
1Sa 15:12 When Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, he was told, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up for himself a monument or trophy [of his victory] and passed on and went down to Gilgal.
1Sa 15:13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord. I have performed what the Lord ordered.
1Sa 15:14 And Samuel said, What then means this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
1Sa 15:15 Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we have utterly destroyed.
1Sa 15:16 Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me tonight. Saul said to him, Say on.
1Sa 15:17 Samuel said, When you were small in your own sight, were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you king over Israel?
1Sa 15:18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites; and fight against them until they are consumed.
1Sa 15:19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but swooped down upon the plunder and did evil in the Lord's sight?
1Sa 15:20 Saul said to Samuel, Yes, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag king of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
1Sa 15:21 But the people took from the spoil sheep and oxen, the chief of the things to be utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.
1Sa 15:22 Samuel said, Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
1Sa 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim (household good luck images). Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.
1Sa 15:24 And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
1Sa 15:25 Now, I pray you, pardon my sin and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord.
1Sa 15:26 And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.
It seems we have a teaching here from the Lord that REQUIRES us to UTTERLY OBEY HIM to the last. In other words, obedience must 100%. Anything LESS than 100% is NOT obedience! Not only that but praises and thanksgivings are called sacrifices and offerings. What did God say thru Samuel about them?
[color=Purple][b]1Sa 15:22 Samuel said, Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
Now please do NOT mistake what I am saying here. Pay CLOSE attention. We are to give offerings and sacrifices to the Lord. However, according to the principle in the above passage, [b]God DOES NOT ACCEPT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES FROM THOSE WHO ARE DISOBEDIENT! Therefore, only THOSE who are walking in 100% obedience will have ACCEPTABLE sacrifices and offerings!
Before you disagree, perhaps we should look more into what ALL the scriptures say.
[color=Blue][b]Gal 5:9 A little leaven (a slight inclination to error, or a few false teachers) leavens the whole lump [it perverts the whole conception of faith or misleads the whole church].
Shall we put this in more common terms than that? Let us take 1 liter of pure water. That is 1000 milliliters. Now, we remove 1ml and replace that with pure untreated sewage. So, you now have water that is 99.9% PURE. Would you drink that? Yet that is considered acceptable today in the vast majority of churches. In fact, much LESS purity is acceptable.
I have worked in medicine for over 30yrs. Let me tell you the truth. If you drank that 99.9% pure water, you would DIE unless you were quickly treated at a hospital! There are many poisons that do not require THAT much concentration in order to kill you. I am NOT an expert on poisons, but certain concentrations of poisons, chemicals, and bacteria far smaller than 0.1% will KILL anyone. Let me give you just a little information about a common chemical we all are exposed to on a daily basis in America.
[color=Yellow]“Chlorine is a respiratory irritant. The gas irritates the mucous membranes and the liquid burns the skin. As little as 3.5 ppm can be detected as an odor, and 1000 ppm is likely to be fatal after a few deep breaths. It was used as a war gas in 1915. Exposure to chlorine should not exceed 0.5 ppm (8-hour time-weighted average - 40 hour week.)” (http://www.scescape.net/~woods/elements/chlorine.html)
There you have details of how a simple common chemical that most of us come into contact with daily can easily KILL if it is in strong enough concentrations. Bacteria are worse, for it just takes a few deadly bacteria to kill a person as they multiply inside the person.
Yet Paul compares false teaching to leaven as does Jesus when He speaks of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. So many today talk about how concerned they are about false teaching, then turn around and promote some teacher/preacher who “says some good things.” What about the rest of it?
My friends, this is HOW we are poisoned. We accept some teacher who says “some good things” NEVER taking EVERYTHING they say to the Lord. Then we end up receiving some bad things along with the supposed good! Jesus told us that NO GOOD TREE produces bad fruit.
Therefore dear ones, if some teacher or preacher or prophet or whatever says ANYTHING that is NOT PURE AND TRUE, they are NOT a good tree! They are a BAD TREE producing BAD FRUIT and we should have NOTHING to do with them! NOTHING! If we play with their teachings and doctrines we WILL END UP accepting some of it and eventually become poisoned ourselves!
How much poison are you willing to drink or eat? How long will you eat or drink it? What do you think it is doing to your spirit and soul?
Listen to this situation I was involved with not too long ago. On an email group someone promoted a particular “prophet.” In doing so, I came across some information about this prophet that STRONGLY SUGGESTED he was a false prophet. I warned the people to beware. The moderator of this group came back and eventually said something like, I have known of this man for years and he has done some very good things and been a blessing to me and others.
Forgive me friends, but what does that have to do with anything? [b]If indeed this man is a prophet of God, then his fruit will BE GOOD ALL THE TIME! If it is NOT good, then he is spreading poison!
Friends, it ought NOT to be. Either Jesus is King in everything in our lives, or He is NOT king at all! As long as we are learning from men and books, we WILL be in bondage and receive more and more poison. It does NOT take much to truly poison us as I have shown you. God demands TOTAL obedience. NOWHERE does He give us an out. Have you read the Book of James with open eyes lately?
[color=Orange][b]Jam 2:17 So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead).
Jam 2:18 But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith.
Jam 2:19 You believe that God is one; you do well. So do the demons believe and shudder [in terror and horror such as make a man's hair stand on end and contract the surface of his skin]!
Jam 2:20 Are you willing to be shown [proof], you foolish (unproductive, spiritually deficient) fellow, that faith apart from [good] works is inactive and ineffective and worthless?
Jam 2:21 Was not our forefather Abraham [shown to be] justified (made acceptable to God) by [his] works when he brought to the altar as an offering his [own] son Isaac? [Gen. 22:1-14.]
Jam 2:22 You see that [his] faith was cooperating with his works, and [his] faith was completed and reached its supreme expression [when he implemented it] by [good] works.
Jam 2:23 And [so] the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed in (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on) God, and this was accounted to him as righteousness (as conformity to God's will in thought and deed), and he was called God's friend. [Gen. 15:6; II Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8.]
Jam 2:24 You see that a man is justified (pronounced righteous before God) through what he does and not alone through faith [through works of obedience as well as by what he believes].
Jam 2:25 So also with Rahab the harlot--was she not shown to be justified (pronounced righteous before God) by [good] deeds when she took in the scouts (spies) and sent them away by a different route? [Josh. 2:1-21.]
Jam 2:26 For as the human body apart from the spirit is lifeless, so faith apart from [its] works of obedience is also dead.
Can you see the point James is making specifically in verse 19 above? Demons KNOW that God is real and they believe this completely and no demon lives in obedience to God. However, that is NOT the point James makes. [u][b] He IS TALKING ABOUT OBEDIENCE and how TRUE FAITH will ALWAYS produce OBEDIENCE.
How many more verses must I copy to prove this point? I could post sweeping passages of verses that all say similar things. I could show you verses where Jesus explains how just a little leaven is more than enough to make the WHOLE leavened. If we have a glass of water and put a teaspoon of sugar in it, will NOT the whole glass become sweet? How much more proof do we need?
My friends, we have come to the point in time that we can NO LONGER allow ANY false doctrine, ANY FALSE TEACHING in our lives. We MUST CEASE listening to what man and organizations tell us. We must even stop listening to ourselves, for how many of us have even deceived ourselves before? (Yes, we do lie to ourselves all the time) We must come to the place where the ONLY thing we will believe is what we receive from the Lord Himself!
[color=Purple][b]Gal 1:10 Now am I trying to win the favor of men, or of God? Do I seek to please men? If I were still seeking popularity with men, I should not be a bond servant of Christ (the Messiah).
Gal 1:11 For I want you to know, brethren, that the Gospel which was proclaimed and made known by me is not man's gospel [a human invention, according to or patterned after any human standard].
Gal 1:12 For indeed I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but [it came to me] through a [direct] revelation [given] by Jesus Christ (the Messiah).
If this is NOT what we teach and preach, then we are doing NOTHING different than all of those that have gone before us. We are doing the same things they did; the same things the Pharisees did. ALL of these teachings and doctrines and traditions MUST be put to death in our lives. ONLY those things that come DIRECTLY from the Lord Jesus Christ via the Holy Spirit can be trusted, yet all of those teachings that come directly from Him will ALWAYS be in agreement with EVERYTHING the scriptures teach, just not OUR idea of it!
Today man and the church say we cannot obey God, but must ALWAYS sin for as long as we live on this earth. That is NOT what the scriptures say though. [u][b]In I John we are told that if we practice sinning, then we do not even KNOW GOD.
I give you a challenge. Go to a good concordance, one on a computer would be better. Now look up two phrases>>> The Word of God and the Word of the Lord. Read ALL the verses that have those specific phrases in them. It CAN change the way you understand and believe, IF you will allow it!
Listen to me my brothers and sisters, the Word of God, the Word of the Lord is NOT a book! It is a living, flowing, breathing being who has thoughts, and desires and will put them within us IF we will allow HIM to! I do NOT belittle the scriptures for it is through them that He can speak to us most, especially at the beginning. They contain everything we need for life and godliness, BUT WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEM UNLESS THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES THEM TO US! We cannot understand what the scriptures actually say UNLESS we are willing to lay down what we think and understand.
We must come to the place where we cease making up doctrines as we understand the scriptures ourselves. The church has done this for years, assuming that all they had to do was read what the bible said and explain it. Because of this, we now have over 33,000 denominations. Most of those have much poison in them, because they came from the teaching of man instead of the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
So, when will we allow the Lord to have preeminence in everything that we think, say, and do? Are we willing to let Him purge and purify what we believe? Are we willing to let Him change us so radically that we are completely DIFFERENT creatures than we used to be? (are these words beginning to sound familiar to you?)
Satan is very good at mixing lies and truth he has been doing it since Adam and Eve. There is MORE deception today than ever before. The organized church today allows so much deception, lies, and false doctrines, that the reformers would not recognize it. What is coming toward us as I write these words will make the previous level of deception seem like nothing. The ONLY way to remain free of deception is to not rely on ourselves. The ONLY place of safety, the ONLY place of Peace, the ONLY place of Truth, the ONLY place of TOTAL SANCTIFICATION is in Jesus Christ with HIM as our source of everything, including everything we believe!
Do not think that we will avoid deception by all of our studying in the scriptures. That is once again relying on our own understanding. We are COMMANDED not to do so. We cannot rely on our intelligence, our abilities or anything that is ours. It is ALL subject to the fall. Those abilities are unreliable, unteachable, and UNREDEEMABLE! NOTHING can make that flesh nature good. The ONLY thing that can be done to it is to put it to death! As long as we are relying on our understanding, our studying, our intelligence, our ANYTHING, we WILL end up deceived.
I want to bring your attention once more to I Samuel. Go back to the beginning and read it once more, or better yet, take out your bible and read all of chapter 15. I want you to notice that King Saul did ALMOST everything God commanded, yet God said Saul DISOBEYED Him. [u][b]God DEMANDS total obedience and TOTAL Truth with NO MIXTURE of lies with it.
May we all allow the Holy Spirit to bring us to this place of TOTAL OBEDIENCE and REST in Him by dying to EVERYTHING in us that is NOT HIM! Only as we come to this place will we truly be prepared for the deception and terrible tribulations that are already upon us. It is only when we cease from our own works and allow the Lord to DO HIS WORKS THROUGH US, will we LIVE in the Holy of Holies as HE desires that we do! We have little time. We have all wasted so much of the time allotted to us we cannot afford to waste anymore!
God bless you all!
A bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk