We Have Lost Our Way
And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee,
saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right
hand, and when ye turn to the left. (Isa 30:21)
We have lost our way and there seems to be no way to find it again.
A lot of folks are zealously striving to do something …anything to
change the course we are on, but nothing seems to work, and in spite
of all the efforts put forth it just gets worse and worse. We keep
losing ground to the forces of darkness and evil on every level –
home, church, nation, and the world as a whole. It is about time to
wake up and seriously reevaluate what we believe and what we are
doing about it.
We lost our way when the Word of God ceased being our authority.
Yeah, I know …we have all heard that a million times. But the fact
of the matter is that until we truly get back to that there is
absolutely no hope! The very ones who are in the forefront of every
battle against wickedness are not under the absolute authority and
direction of the Word of God themselves. Most of them do not even
know what or where the Word of God is anymore. Their lives are not
much different than any other person of the world. They profess to
be fighting evil, but use the same tools the devil does – rock
music, perversions of the Bible, and psychobabble, for example. The
Bible has become just like the god most people serve – simply a
crutch in time of trouble, or a good place to find helpful
suggestions to make their selfish pursuits more successful, but it
has absolutely NO real authority in their life or decisions. Sure,
they say they believe the Bible, but I challenge you to try and
correct one of them with the Bible. You will see very quickly that
they are not about to come under its authority in any practical
matter of life. So fighting against abortion, immorality, and the
filth that has taken over the TV shows, movies, music, and education
of the world may seem to be a noble work, but to do all that while
at the same time resisting God’s authority over one’s own life is
simply hypocrisy.
When the Bible ceased being the authority then morality became just
a matter of individual opinion. “Every man did that which was right
in his own eyes.” That is the character of every apostasy. There are
no absolutes and nothing is wrong anymore and it is not long until
no one knows what is right either. At that point you have lost your
way and we reached that point years ago. Many now call evil good and
good evil. Most fundamental preachers spend far more time defending
and excusing sin than they do preaching that God has commanded all
men everywhere to repent. Is that what you are doing, Preacher? Sin
is now a sickness – not a crime. It is not of our own doing – Adam
did it. It is not something we chose to do – we were born with it.
Modern doctrine has totally removed the guilt for sin and made it a
thing to be pitied and sympathized with. We are no longer delivered
from sin after we are “saved” because we still have a sinful nature
that dominates us and keeps us in continual bondage – and they call
that salvation! The result is that sin is not being dealt with at
all anymore. It is offensive to even breach the subject, so modern
prophets of Baal either refuse to condemn anyone or anything and
stay away from the subject or they preach sermons and write books
trying to comfort and explain to Christians why they keep living in
sin. They are adding to the confusion and raising the stakes in the
judgment that is coming to this sin cursed nation and world of ours.
When sin is not dealt with, or misrepresented and lied about, there
is no salvation. The way of salvation is almost completely lost in
this generation. It has become so watered down and confused that
very few even really understand what true salvation is anymore.
Salvation is about being saved from sin! It is not about a
relationship with Christ – that comes AFTER salvation. The prophets
of Baal talk much about a “relationship with Jesus” but the Jesus
they are referring to does not require holiness or repentance from
sin. Theirs is another Jesus than the One revealed in the Bible.
There is no true relationship with God through Christ until the
matter of sin has been dealt with thoroughly in the individual soul.
You cannot simply stop doing what you have been doing and “start
over.” Sin is more than the things you have done. Its roots,
effects, and consequences will not go away because you stop doing
it.
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but
whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. (Prov. 28:13)
There must be an Atonement made for
sin and that Atonement must break the root of sin in the heart of
the sinner. There is nothing in the universe that can accomplish
that except the death of Jesus Christ. The Atonement for sin made by
Jesus Christ does more than “pay” for sin, and it does more than
“give us a home in heaven when we die.” It makes a defiled, wicked,
black heart pure and turns a sinner into a saint of God! It delivers
us from the power of sin and gives us a new life! “Behold, old
things are passed away, and all things are become new!” That was the
message that turned the world upside down in the days of the
apostles and it is the same message that has brought about every
true spiritual awakening since then.
Therefore, there will be no stopping this runaway train we are on
unless there is a true spiritual awakening among the people of God.
And there will be no spiritual awakening until the men of God start
preaching the true Gospel again. The true Gospel includes a right
understanding of sin, a faithful dealing with the issue, and a
presentation of the truth about salvation and what it really does
for a soul. If we stopped all the abortions, all the filthy TV
shows, movies, and music, and got rid of all the pornography that is
polluting this entire generation, and then replaced all the corrupt,
low-life government officials, it would not solve our problem. All
the money and all the work and effort that is being spent trying to
accomplish these things is a complete waste while we are
soft-soaping the Gospel message. The sin that has been sown in the
past few generations is going to have its effects and its
consequences. Its roots are firmly grounded in our society, in our
churches, schools, and the reasoning of almost everyone, regardless
of the religion they profess or deny.
There are only two possibilities in our future until Jesus comes.
First, we keep going the way we are going and the people of God keep
refusing to completely believe and submit to the Word of God, and we
face certain judgment from God. There is a point from which there is
no return. Sodom crossed that point, so did Noah’s world, and we are
surely very close to the same point now. The dark clouds of God’s
judgment are not on the horizon, they are almost directly overhead.
The other possibility is a true spiritual awakening among the people
of God and a return to the authority of the Scriptures. It has
happened in the past and it is still possible now. The little
Israelite children who watched their parents refuse to believe and
obey God and then languish in the wilderness for 40 years, when they
came of age, decided they were not going to follow their parents and
grandparents sorry example. They believed God and took Him at His
promises and waded into the Jordan River and took the Promised Land!
There is a generation of young people now who have grown up in a
dark and hopeless world. They can see what kind of world the
previous generations have left for them by tossing the Word of God
aside and living like barnyard animals. They WILL listen if only
someone will preach to them and tell them the absolute truth! But
they will mock at this watered down, weak, ineffective, imitation
gospel that has become almost universal among professing Christians.
It starts with one person at a time. What about you? Does the Bible
carry any authority in your life? Come on now! Really! What effect
does the Bible and what it says have on your behavior? Does the
Bible discern right and wrong for you, or do you do that for
yourself? Does it matter to you what the Bible says about how a wife
is supposed to treat her husband, or how a husband is supposed to
treat his wife? Does it matter to you what the Bible says about
God’s order for men, women, and children in the home and in the
church? Does the Bible have the authority in your life not only to
turn you away from sin, but also from things that lead to sin? Do
you understand that the Bible says that your body does not belong to
you, but to God, and that you ought to treat it like it belongs to
God and not to you? If you think that all these things are just a
matter of opinion then you are part of the reason that our world in
is the sad state it is in, and you will be held responsible by God
for your contribution to it. You can go on deceiving yourself and
others on these issues by trying to believe they do not matter, but
there is coming a time when God is going to separate the sheep from
the goats, and it is likely going to be very soon. So NOW is the
time to get serious about putting God on the throne of your heart
and life! Give up your right to yourself and follow the King of
Kings! Do it NOW and do it for REAL, and abandon this phony religion
that is so popular in our day!
