Are we Hearing the Truth?
The
thinking that denominated seminarian educated leaders are God's
chosen qualified dispensers of truth is foreign to scripture. John
14:26, informs us that God's appointed Teacher the Holy Spirit, that
Father God sent in Jesus' name, will teach us all things spiritual relating to Jesus, the works He dis and the words He said.
God's
appointed Teacher has come to lead believers into the full
realization of every thing Jesus is and desires to endow us with all
truth that is resident IN Christ within us.
As
much as yo may believe that the Bible contains "all truth",
the bible itself does not make that claim. Certainly everything that
Jesus taught His disciples was truth. "the word's that I SPEAK
unto you, they are spirit and they are life." (John 6:63).
Though what He taught them was truth it was NOT ALL the TRUTH that He
knew. There were many things He wanted to teach them, but they were
not up to receiving it at that time. See John 16:13.
Following
Jesus is a spiritual journey leading to higher spiritual
revelation...not a performance journey of religious do's and don'ts
as a means of being spiritual.
It
is one thing to read the truths of scripture, but becoming obsessed with believing that because we have read it and the Spirit has brought it to
our remembrance that we are fully living in the reality of all the
truth of the Spirit, is not necessarily so. It is the Spirit that knows the mind of Christ, the
written word about Christ does not, though in some instances it reveals the partial mind of Christ. If we only hear the written
record of what Jesus said in the past, or what the saints have said
about the Him in the past, we will miss the present voice of the Spirit of what
Christ is doing in the now and what He will be doing in the future.
Christ has not wrapped up all he knows between the two covers of a
book that man has put together about Him. To do so strips His
sovereignty from Him and to insinuate that man has receive all the
spiritual knowledge that Christ Himself knows...how absurd!
As
revealing spiritually the written word is, it does not contain
"All Spiritual Truth". Only the Spirit of God can lead us
into the full experiential knowledge of all truth contained in the
risen Christ. Paul wrote, "But one and the same Spirit works all
these things, distributing to each one "INDIVIDUALLY" as
"HE WILLS" (1Cor. 12:11). The Spirit works in each of us as
HE WILLS, not as some denominated seminarian wills. This is true
spiritual life. As a religionists you may not believe it, but Jesus
said it Himself, "I have many things to tell you, but you can't
bear them now. However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come. HE
WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH."
So,
can religious man appointed denominated leaders bring God's people
into all truth? Not according to Paul.
William
Law wrote, "But as Christ's teaching was only preparatory to His
future vital teaching by the Spirit, so the teaching of scripture by
words written with ink and paper is only preparatory, or introductory
to all inward essential teaching of God, which is by His Spirit and
truth within us. Every other opinion, of the holy scripture,
but that of an outward teacher and guide to God's inward teaching and
illumination in our souls, is but making an idol-god of it." End
quote.
Jesus
did not lead His disciples into ALL TRUTH, the Comforter God the
Father sent in the place of Jesus would.
The
great need of the Community of the Redeemed is not more
denominated Bible teaching, it is not more seminarian trained preaching, it is not more
prayer-less demand praying, nor is it gaining of more Bible knowledge. What is
needed is the revelatory understanding of what took place during the death and
resurrection of Christ, to understand the breath, length, height and
depth of His accomplishment, and to understand the gospel message
given to Paul by Christ. That will only happen by a working of the
Spirit of Christ in the inner man because of Christ living in us. We
need to shut out the musings of the intellect of religious men and
open up to the Spirit of Christ within. Paul prays in Ephesians
3:14-21 that the inward virtue of God's Spirit would provide the
ability to grasp the vastness or entire dimension of this truth, not
just parts of it.
Without
the inner working of God's Spirit we are powerless to understand spiritual
things in the dimension that we ought to know. See Philippians
3:11-14. Though The Lord taught Paul for fourteen years in the
Damascus wilderness, he realized that he did not know all truth.
There is much more to know about the workings of God therefore, we
are on a journey of spiritual learning that can only be taught by God's appointed Teacher, His
Spirit. In order to hear the voice of the Spirit, we as Paul did,
should count the things of our religious past as "mere dung",
and reach forth unto those things which were before, he pressed
toward the mark. We, as Paul did, need to realize that all wisdom,
knowledge and truth is found in Christ and not in fallible men or the book that fallible men wrote.
Most
people within Christendom, gladly hear what Jesus, Paul and others
wrote in the past (the scripture), but refuse to allow the Spirit
to lead and teach them in the present. We serve a God that is active in
the present and wants to reveal His workings in the now and for the future. Instead
God's people are dull of hearing because they are deafened by the
loudness of religious rhetoric.
You say and I quote: God's appointed Teacher has come to lead believers into the full realization of every thing Jesus is and desires to endow us with all truth that is resident IN Christ within us.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this statement but I also believe that the Holy Spirit will not lead us into any truth that conflicts with what Christ has already taught us in His Word. For the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one.
Why do I know this? Because of what Paul taught us.
What did Paul say in Gal. 2:1,2? Here is what the NIV says:
Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also.
I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.
When Paul always got a new revelation he always checked it out with others in body of Christ. He wanted to be sure he was not just out there on a limb somewhere teaching something contrary to Scriptures.
Also Paul didn`t tell those who heard him about his new revelations with out backing them up with Scriptures.(Acts 17:1-5)
When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.
As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said.
Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.
5 But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd.
It says here that this was his custom to prove it from Scriptures not just to give a revelation. Paul knew that he provided everything from Scriptures so he had nothing to fear in telling the Berean`s to check all of his revelations with the Scriptures and comended them for doing it.
In Paul`s great sermon on Mars Hill among a very religious bunch he stuck to what was Scriptual. Paul didn`t mince any words. He spoke about love of Christ and the ressurection. He also spoke about salvation, repentance, and God`s judgment. Where did this idea come from that the grace message is only about love?
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
I love this sermon. It is one of Paul`s greatest grace messages if you read it in it`s entirety.