Scripture is balanced, are you?
Scripture speaks to grace and to wrath, to reward and to punishment; it is never either/or, it is always both/and. Scripture speaks of Heaven and Hell, blessings, and curses. When we go off on one side and ignore the other, we are in error, always and without exception. It does not matter on which side you err, a half-truth is always a lie, a half-gospel is no gospel at all.
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Jesus said, “I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18 but Revelation 13:7 says “It was also given to him (the Antichrist/Beast) to make war with the saints and to overcome them…” That demands balance.
A major problem with the Pharisees was their inability to accept change… Their whole lives, careers and reputations were built around their religion… the Law of Moses was forever and so nothing could ever change. The Prophets spoke freely of a day when God would take the Law written on stone tablets and write it on their hearts… The Scriptures spoke of a coming Messiah and the changes He would bring but the Pharisees could not see that and would not accept it… the Messiah would come to reenforce their traditions, not destroy them!
When the Messiah came, they did not recognize him, nor could they accept him. Jesus called the people down because, while they could forecast the weather, they had no idea of the times in which they lived. The death and resurrection were plainly prophesied, but they could not accept that… Grace brought an end to their careers and that was more than they could accept.
Between the Church Age and the Millennial Reign, there is a short period called the Great Tribulation. Things in the Tribulation period will not work as they have in the church age. The Tribulation will end the careers of Church leaders and that is something they cannot accept. As a solution to that problem, the great heresy of a Pretrib Rapture was invented. It has no Scripture to support it and it violates dozens of clear and plain Scripture passages, but it is an out for church leaders and a fire escape for believers.
While the “Gates of Hell” were somehow interpreted as being an offensive weapon, “Duck, the gates are coming!”, gates are a defensive weapon… Satan could not stop the advance of Christ’s Church. The American church has taken that truth to the ridiculous extreme and taught that it means that nothing can ever hurt you as an individual Christian… more than seventy million martyrs call that doctrine a lie!
It remains true that, in the Church Age, Satan cannot stop the advance of the Gospel… Can he destroy your church? You bet… thousands of churches have gone out of business in just the last twenty years… But, as has been proved ten thousand times, the church will continue to grow long after a satanic government has burned the last church building to the ground…
However, in the Tribulation, we find a number of Christian martyrs never seen in the history of the church. Satan is given the right to make war against the Saints and to overcome them… Church leaders will lose their careers and their lives. As we approach that day, Church leaders, like the pharisees before them, cannot accept that fact. Nothing will ever change… We will build a bigger church, and even if we have to rewrite the Gospel and redact huge portions of Scripture to do it, we will fill it with people, and they will tithe!!!
Jesus could look at the church today and say, “You can tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow, but you have no idea about the times in which you live!” Church leaders would stand up and call him a liar to his face, and immediately go back to planning their new sanctuary and discussing which parts of the Bible they need to leave out of their sermons in order to attract enough people to pay for it… They have no idea!
We must be real. We must be balanced. We must accept change. Everything changed with Noah. Everything changed with Abraham. Everything changed with Moses. Everything changed with Jesus. When the Tribulation hits, everything will change again.
Deuteronomy 28:6 says, “You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.” But Deuteronomy 28:16 says, “You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.” Preaching either one of those verses without the other is to generate heresy.
2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” But 2 Chronicles 7:19 and 20 say, “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight.” Again, to preach either passage without the other is to preach heresy.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” If you preach that out of context to a people who have no idea what Jeremiah 1:1 through Jeremiah 29:10 teaches, you preach heresy.
I would think that no verse in Scripture has ever been so abused and misused as Jeremiah 29:11.
- When you understand that this is written to people who have just witnessed the death of their family and friends, the burning of their houses, their city, and their temple…
- when you understand that these people have just been marched across 500 miles of awful wilderness to a pagan land where they are being forced to serve the very king who has just killed their families and burned everything they ever knew to the ground…
- when you understand that these people will all, every one of them, die in that foreign land and that none of them will ever get to go home…
Suddenly you understand that that verse cannot possibly mean what most preachers say that it does!
It is this lack of balance that has left the church in America absolutely unprepared for what is about to happen…
I do not care what others do… you need to find balance in the Scripture and in your life… Unbalanced people, believing an unbalanced Gospel will never make it in the days to come…
David…
End Time Thinker 