Lucifer’s Ancient
Rebellion
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No Authority Is To Be
Known in the Soul Except
Christ’s Authority
“When the soul
surrenders itself to Christ, a new
power takes possession of the new
heart. A change is wrought which
man can never accomplish for himself.
It is a supernatural work,
bringing a supernatural element into
the human nature. The soul
that is yielded to Christ becomes His
own fortress, which He holds in a
revolted world, and He
intends that no authority shall be
known in it but His own.
A soul thus kept
in possession by the heavenly
agencies is impregnable to the
assaults of Satan.
If We Neglect to
Ally Ourselves With the Kingdom of
Light We Are Under the Dominion of
the Kingdom of Darkness
“However,
unless we do yield ourselves to the
control of Christ, we shall be
dominated by the wicked one. We
must inevitably by under the control
of the one or the other of the two
great powers that are contending for
the supremacy of the world. It
is not necessary for us deliberately
to choose the service of the kingdom
of darkness in order to come under
its dominion. We have only to neglect
to ally ourselves with the kingdom of
light. If we do not
co-operate with the heavenly
agencies, Satan will take possession
of the heart, and will make it his
abiding place.
Unless We Surrender to
Christ Moment By Moment We Shall Be
Overcome
‘The only defense
against evil is the indwelling of
Christ in the heart through faith in
His righteousness. Unless we become vitally
connected with God, we can never
resist the unhallowed effects of
self-love, self-indulgence, and
temptation to sin. We may leave off
many bad habits, for the time we may
part company with Satan; but without
a vital connection with God, through
the surrender of ourselves to Him
moment by moment, we shall be
overcome. Without a personal
acquaintance with Christ, and a
continual communion, we are at the
mercy of the enemy, and shall do his
bidding in the end. DA 324.
Ecclesiastical
Structure is to Serve Christ, Not
Itself
“As lovers of
the world make religion subservient
to the world, God requires His
worshipers to subordinate the world
to religion. 7 BC 949.
I am old enough to
remember a time, when evangelists
called people to Christ, to His
truth, and the organizational
structure served Christ and His
present truth. I can remember
godly men such as Stanley Folkenburg,
Sunny Liu, and the Barron brothers,
who won souls to Christ, and took the
position that the church’s
responsibility is to testify of
Christ and win souls to Christ.
However, then a whole
new generation of would-be preachers
arose from the Structure. People who
wanted to be “cool,” to be
‘with-it,” young men who
wanted to gain the social approval of
their peers more than to seek God and
love God and His truth supremely.
The desire to be
“cool,” to be
”socially upward mobile,”
has brought in a host of demonic
derangement into the Structure. They
are “the children sitting in the
markets, and calling unto their
fellows, saying, We have piped unto
you, and ye have not danced; we have
mourned unto you, and ye have not
lamented.” Matthew 11: 16, 17.
These are the men who roll their eyes
up into their head at the thought of
honest-hearted faithful Disciples of
Christ. These are like those who said
of John, “He hath a devil.”
Matthew 11:18. To be open about
confessing one’s love for Christ
in living a life that has sacrificed
the approval of men for the approval
of a God Who cannot be seen by
physical sight. Well, that is just
too “uncool.” The academy
and college campuses fostered this
stance of sophisticated scorn of
those who put God first in their
lives.
The Cross
“And
whosoever doth not bear his cross and
come after Me, cannot be My
disciple.” Luke 14:27.
The Breach of the Call
and the Cross
The offense of the
cross has not ceased. [See Galatians
5:11]. That call, that cross, creates
a breach, a breach between the one
who is called and the closest human
relationships [Luke 14:26, Matthew
10:35], a breach between the person
and his own psyche [Luke 14:26], and
a breach between the called one of
the world. [John 15: 18; 16: 4].
Lord of All
Christ must be Lord of
all. Christ and His cross, the cross
of shame and rejection for
Christ’s sake, come before all
other relationships, and dominates
all other relationships. The allies
that the soul has are the most
powerful in the universe-God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy
Spirit, the angels and the omnipotent
Word of God. For a man must fight the
greatest battle ever fought-the
battle against self, against ego that
must be crucified [Galatians 2:20],
against his own psyche which must be
hated. [Luke 14:26].
The Cross Means
Sharing the Suffering of Christ to
the Last and to the Fullest
“To endure the
cross is not a tragedy; it is the
suffering which is the fruit of an
exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.
When it comes, it is not an accident,
but a necessity. It is not the
sort of suffering which is
inseparable from this mortal life,
but the suffering that is an
essential part of the specifically
Christian life. It is not suffering per
se but suffering-and-rejection,
and not rejection for any cause or
conviction of our own, but
rejection for the sake of Christ. If
our Christianity has ceased to be
serious about discipleship, if we
have watered down the gospel into
emotional uplift which makes no
costly demands and which fails to
distinguish between natural and
Christian existence, then we can not
help regarding the cross as ordinary
everyday calamity, as one of the
trials and tribulations of life. We
have then forgotten that the cross
means rejection and shame as well as
suffering…. The cross means
sharing of suffering of Christ to the
last and to the fullest. Only a man
thus totally committed in
discipleship can experience the
meaning of the cross.” Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, The Cost of
Discipleship, p. 98.
Children in the
Market: Superficial, Emotional
Religion
“But whereunto
shall I liken this generation? It is
like unto children sitting in the
markets, and calling unto their
fellows, and saying, We have piped
unto you, and ye have not danced: we
have mourned unto you, and ye have
not lamented.” Matthew 11:
16,17.
The people in the
field have no idea how wicked this
rejection of the cross is. Years ago,
I heard the scores of hisses directed
at an earnest person just seeking to
carry on an intelligent discussion of
the Sabbath School lesson in a
Southern California structure
college.
And when ministers in
training arrived at the seminary,
they wanted a god who would serve
them-who would help them land a job
in the conference, who would help
them move upward on the professional
ladder. Everything was subjugated to
these goals. I called it a
“human-modulated faith.”
They wanted to use God for their
purposes, instead of in
self-surrender seeking to fit into
God’s purpose and kingdom, like
the old-time faithful ministry. It is
the same principle as the Purpose-driven
Church and the Purpose-driven
Life. No wonder there has been
such wide acceptance of Rick Warren
and Saddleback. It all rests on the
same foundation.
Zeal For God’s
Glory
“Between the
formalists, whose sanctity of
appearance concealed the love of sin,
and a character in which zeal for
God’s glory was always
paramount, the contrast was
unmistakable.” DA 88.
Zeal for God’s
glory? That was out of the question.
That was too dangerous socially and
professionally. Too uncool. Sacrifice
everything for a conviction about
right and wrong? There was no great
concern about what was right or
wrong. Success in the Structure was
what it was all about. In addition,
if there was an issue about right or
wrong, the “church” knew
best anyway. It was all a matter of
fitting in. After all, the Structure,
the ‘Church,’ is the voice
of God, is it not?
It is the same
principle that drove the members of
the Sanhedrin to call Jesus in before
them to answer for healing a man on
the Sabbath. Jesus challenged
their fundamental motivation in life-seeking
the approval of one another rather
than seeking the glory that comes
from God only. [John 5:44] He
told them on no uncertain terms that it
was impossible
for them to believe as long as they
received glory from one another
instead of seeking the glory that
comes from God only.
The Cross and Church
Growth
“Israel is an
empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit
unto himself: according to the
multitude of his fruit he hath
increased the altars…Their heart
is divided. Hosea 10: 1,2.
The Structure is never
to be an end in itself. It is never
to be an end in itself-existing for
its own advancement. That is the
characteristic of cancer. However,
that paradigm shift has taken place
in my lifetime.
Today, the man, who,
as conference president, led the
North American Division into
Celebration in the mid-1980s, is now
the President of the North
American Division. That is the
measure of where “the
Structure” is going.
Bringing Forth Fruit
Unto Itself
“Israel is an
empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit
unto himself: according to the multitude
of his fruit he hath
increased the altars;…
“Their heart
is divided; now shall they be found
faulty…” Hosea 10: 1,2.
The Jewish
structure, once given by God in the
dramatic and powerful days of Moses,
in the end brought forth fruit unto
itself. It rejected the Cornerstone.
It murdered Christ. It
disfellowshipped the Disciples of
Christ. It asked for Barabbas.
The Papacy and Church
Growth
“The
world, cloaked with a form of
righteousness, walked into the
church.” GC 49.
The same principle was
applied by Satan to the early
Christian Church, and the result was
the papacy. It lived for “Church
Growth.” In the name of
“Church Growth,” it
apostatized made common cause with
idolaters, and erected the seat of
Satan’s power in the temple of
God, as Paul wrote. It was the
“Man of Sin.”
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