The Black Dog Is Dead.....

Gideon,

In the chronological order of the 7 churches of Rev, 3 have passed off the scene, Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamos, and 4 are on the planet today, the churches of Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, I'm not in the Laodicean church where Jesus is outside of the church knocking on the door, I'm in the Philadelphian church, which even though we have a little strength, Jesus promised take us home in the Rapture, ...if you are in a Laodicean church then I strongly urge you to leave, because Jesus said He will vomit them from His mouth!

To answer your question, I do walk in victory, not that I have attained the prize, but I press on for the high calling of God, I'm anxiously awaiting a City whose foundations were not made by human hands, I don't battle with my old nature, I reckon it dead and I walk in the liberty afforded to my in Jesus Christ, ...I don't know what you are experiencing in your church, if you are the most miserable of all men then I suggest you pray to Father and ask Him to place you in the church He has planned for you, ...the church where Father placed me has all of the gifts operating in order, all of the body parts knit together in Love, we support missionaries, have a kindergarten through 6th grade Christian School with plans of adding a Junior High soon, we host a Pastor's Conference, a Worship Leaders Conference and we provide a free Harvest Festival open to the public with plenty of games, hot dogs, popcorn and cokes as an alternative to Halloween, so hopefully you can see I'm not in a Laodicean church.

Blessings,

Gene
Hi Gene, please do not think my post is accusatory to you personally.Are there those who do not need to hear what I share? Yes. I am aware of what God is doing in China with the underground church and in the face of much in the way of cost to follow hard after the Lord, the church is growing by leaps and bounds. I can only speak for the church in the west, and there I do not back off my statement. The American church is lukewarm.

I think it important that we make sure we are using the same definitions though of "free indeed" and "lukewarm". Not yours or mine, but God's, amen?

As to whether or not we are lukewarm, here is the test. If sin is still our master at times, if self still gets to rule the roost, if we are not walking in all the light He has given us all the time, we are lukewarm. We view it as comparison of us to others, saying "Well, at least I am not ______" but the word tells us:

"They that compare themselves among themselves are not wise".


It is not whether WE think we are lukewarm, but what God thinks. Lest we forget, it is the cold ones that Jesus said He would rather we be than lukewarm. Why? Because a cold one KNOWS he is in bad shape and can thus repent. But a lukewarm brother or sister is often not aware of his state in God's eyes, so he ends up going through the motions, his service becomes a ritual, going through the motions. He may be convinced he is ok because he may not do the "grosser sins". He or she may actually look outwardly very nice, but the sin that is not defeated and eradicated, the old nature that has not been put off forever will eventually harden his heart, to the point that he sees no danger at all in his state. Keith Green called it "asleep in the light". By continuing to use grace as an excuse to stay right where he is ends up a dangerous path. This can actually evolve into so leaning on grace during temptation, that a man counts on grace before he even sins, assuring himself that all will still be well. THAT is dangerous ground. THAT is lukewarmness.

I heard a good and true story defining what it is to be HOT for God. See what you think....

A condemned man was to be executed and the priest came, as was his duty, to administer last rites. As he walked in front of the prisoner towards the gallows, praying, the prisoner stopped him and asked "Do you believe in hell and it is for eternity?" The priest stopped going through his religious but non-heart felt prayers and answered that he did. The condemned man, soon to face such a horrid place, had these words which pierced me as I read them for the very first time.

"If I believed in such a place, and that all the lost would end up there, suffering for eternity, though all of England were strewn with razor shards of broken glass, I would crawl across it on my knees to save just one from such a place."

Hot saints have passion for lost souls. It just follows. Lukewarm saints, however, do not have the gaze of eternity, but their eyes are more firmly fixed on this world, this life, THEIR life. Hardened hearts have been deceived by sin, and have no burden for the lost. Oh, we may pass out a few tracts, but as to weeping between the porch and the alter over a lost friend, a spouse, a child,a neighbor? Lukewarm does not do that.

Gene, what I am sharing is that Christ called us all to walk in the glorious liberty of the children of God, free indeed. This is not just a place of just pardon, but a place where darkness is not in us any more. Its grip has been broken.

Jesus defined free this way.

"He that commits sin is a slave to sin, but whom the Son sets free is free indeed."

That is the only true definition of what our walk was always destined to be. If one is found walking there? Praise God! And even if a man is NOT walking there, but believes it possible, thank God for that faith! I will even go so far as to state that if a man is walking far from that liberty, bound by strong addictions, and even if he does not belief it possible that our God can keep him from falling, but IF that man hates his life, his sins, his lack of passion, and in brokenness comes to God and cries out as a wretched man for liberty, freedom from guilt and shame and self-loathing, praise God for that one! That cold one WILL be made hot!

But how many there are who are not free, but "doing OK", They are not tightly bound to disgusting types of sins and addictions. Yet, if the truth be told, how many there are who are using grace as simply a covering, a ticket to heaven, never hungering to be freed from the evil that is still within them? These peoples, whoever they may be, you, me, the American church, any such are.... lukewarm.

The word tells us that godliness with contentment is great gain. But woe unto any of us who have swallowed the lie that we ought to be content with a grace that does not bring with it godliness, without true victory over the evil that nailed our Lord to the cross.

Paul once lived in Romans 7 but he escaped its grasp into Romans 8! Why? His heart hated his wretched life.... and with all that was within him, he cried out for a deliverer. He could not be satisfied with forgiveness and yet continue to live out his life as a flesh-ruled self centered man. He wanted to walk pleasing to God as a living sacrifice, and the fact that he couldn't do it drove him to the edge. This is the path, the "edge", we too are called to tread, and thank God to pass through into the light, but up til now we have become far too content with far too little. God is awakening us to what He has for us, and calls us to become overcomers, and to discover the secret to victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. If any is walking here, I rejoice. If not, I say the things that can lead them back to the God who can keep us from falling and "cause us" to walk as obedient, holy children.

Gene, may God bless you richly.

Gideon
 
I understand what you are saying and I agree with most of it, however you story about the condemned prisoner is slightly askew, it was a pastor, it happened in England, I've forgotten the man's name and most importantly he was not saved, but was executed and entered into a Christless Eternity, this story was told by that pastor and was used to cause him to repent, he was the lukewarm one, ...in a nutshell, lukewarmness is apathy.

Blessings,

Gene
 
I understand what you are saying and I agree with most of it, however you story about the condemned prisoner is slightly askew, it was a pastor, it happened in England, I've forgotten the man's name and most importantly he was not saved, but was executed and entered into a Christless Eternity, this story was told by that pastor and was used to cause him to repent, he was the lukewarm one, ...in a nutshell, lukewarmness is apathy.

Blessings,

Gene

It is not the same story, but let me ask you a question that is far more pertinent. If our life was judged, would we be more like the apathetic priest using all the right words, yet with our hearts and treasure involved with earthly things, or are we more like the man who would crawl across broken glass to save just one person from a Christless eternity? Honesty here.

Hell is real, and the separation is eternal. The truth is, if we are honest in front of God, we would melt before Him and admit that our hearts are far too occupied with things that have no eternal weight. For the most part, we do not know what being burdened for souls of others even is. Paul said that he could wish himself accursed for his Jewish brethren, so great was his burden and passion that they get saved. We hide under the excuse that "Well, he was an apostle!" Do we not think that God's will is that we all get so filled with the love of God that walking as strangers and pilgrims is not a burden to us, but the highest honor and our greatest joy? Do we not think it is God's will that we ought always to pray and to not faint, or not not be conformed to the world and what it touts as important?

Lukewarmness breeds excuses, all very logical and well thought out, of course, but at the root is a flesh that does not see the need to die or even want to see it. Godliness breeds passion for all, the lost, the saved, the poor, the hurting. The fact that the world NEVER says "Behold how they love one another!" is the greatest sign of all that we are far, far from where God wants us to walk.

He is waiting for tears, for honesty, for brokenness, and when we finally come to Him as wretched men, admitting that we are still captive to the desires of our old nature, God will move mountains to insure that we walk as obedient children, joy filled children, overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.

A fork in the road is facing all of us, as we have to decide if we will lose our lives to find His. That is what it is going to come down to, and the longer we put it off, the harder the decison will be for us. Up until now, compromise seems to get us by, as everyone does it. It is the accepted norm,but soon, that option will be closed, and we will either run to the light and BECOME light, or run away from the light and let darkness overtake us. We are entering the valley of decision and it is a life or death choice. It is time we made our tree good. It is time we lit our lamps.

Blessings,

Gideon
 
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[QUOTEIt is not the same story,][/QUOTE]

Oh really...

Charlie Peace was a criminal. Laws of God or man curbed him not. Finally the law caught up with him, and he was condemned to death. On the fatal morning in Armley Jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death-walk. Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses. The criminal touched the preacher and asked what he was reading. “The Consolations of Religion,” was the replay. Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he professionally read about hell. Could a man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow-human there and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this fellow must fall? Could this preacher believe the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase with a tremor? Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, “You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings”? All this was too much for Charlie Peace. So he preached. Listen to his on-the-eve-of-hell sermon:

“Sir,” addressing the preacher, “if I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!

Recorded for us by our brother Leonard Ravenhill.

Gene
 
[QUOTEIt is not the same story,]

Oh really...

Charlie Peace was a criminal. Laws of God or man curbed him not. Finally the law caught up with him, and he was condemned to death. On the fatal morning in Armley Jail, Leeds, England, he was taken on the death-walk. Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses. The criminal touched the preacher and asked what he was reading. “The Consolations of Religion,” was the replay. Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he professionally read about hell. Could a man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow-human there and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this fellow must fall? Could this preacher believe the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase with a tremor? Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, “You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings”? All this was too much for Charlie Peace. So he preached. Listen to his on-the-eve-of-hell sermon:

“Sir,” addressing the preacher, “if I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!

Recorded for us by our brother Leonard Ravenhill.

Gene[/quote]
Hi Gene, thank you for the accurate story. It is fitting that it was shared by Brother Ravenhill, who I have had the priviledge of talking to by phone twice in my life. If there are any men who have had a large influence on my spirit, it is Keith Green and Leonard Ravenhill. I have known for 25 years that something is amiss in the church, a lack of passion, a religious going through the motions. but even then, neither of these fine men of God had what I needed to turn my sinking ship around. I saw clearly the results of the problem, but the problem itself was hid from my eyes, and thus toe solution to that problem was hidden from me as well.

My doctrine was askew, my faith lifeless and stiff, and as a result, I could not find the pathway to the freedom I saw from afar. I knew it was there, I saw the promises, but there seemed a giant gulf between it and me. I read the words "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. I read the words "Let all who name the name of the Lord depart from iniquity, but I simply could not, so great were the chains that bound me. I was a poster child for Romans 7.

But five years ago, when the God of all comfort took the scales from my eyes and showed me that in all my trying, I had NEVER truly reckoned my self dead AND BELIEVED IT, stood on it, resisted in it, armed myself with that truth, I finally GOT IT. And when I got it, I DID it and spoke out the truth of who I was in Christ. At first it seemed hypocritical, but something clicked and I have not been the same since. The battle was not mine, It was the Lord's and was already won. I was not to try to act new. I WAS new. You see, I was fighting to gain the liberty when the word told me to stand fast IN it.

Brother, I pray you do not misunderstand my intentions. If I sound accusatory, even confrontational, please forgive me. It is only so that we can acknowledge our need and find the relief that is there for even the weakest among us. I am convinced it is this one truth, that NOTHING profits but a new nature, that has been lost to this generation. It is the core reason WHY we have become lukewarm or have little strength. But praise God, He is going to restore what the cankerworm has eaten from our lives, our joy, our victory, and he will indeed "cause us" to walk as love-filled obedient children. The church is about to discover the highway of holiness and cast off as unprofitable the highway TO it.

Thank you for your patience with me. You are a good brother.

Blessings,

Gideon
 
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