DRAWING NEAR – PART 11

THE BALANCE OF BEING DOGMATIC

We are living in a time when there seems to be a dwindling amount of people who believe in absolute truth. The traditional generation is becoming older and becoming less vocal and persuasive in our cultures belief system. In other societies around the world, the elderly is treated with respect and recognized as individuals that have learned much wisdom and can be trusted as having a vast amount of knowledge and maturity. Respect and honor is valuable and should be given to those who have experienced many interesting things in life and in their senior years they should be highly valued. Culture has much to do with how society values their elderly as we can see that in several traditions the older people are highly respected because wisdom is considered a very high priority. The experience that comes with long life is admired in these places and the younger generations are taught to recognize these attributes with high esteem and distinction. Anywhere that respect for the elderly is NOT taught, there arises an arrogance among the novice rebels that is opposite from the correct order of divine truth. Today, the older ones are considered a burden and are of no value or worth. This attitude is convinced that the old ways are “out of date” and that a new way is the answer to re-defining forward progress. Sadly, as the Bible has been the standard of living for those who love spiritual truth, even this is now being cast aside as archaic and unreliable and needs to be replaced with a world order based on human intelligence.

The “New World Order” is anything but new. Lucifer was the first independent thinking philosopher that stepped forward in false confidence to challenge absolute truth and he has certainly not been the last. He has the nickname “the father of all lies” and rightfully so because though he failed to overtake heaven and become equal to God, he has never stopped teaching the masses as a professor of twisted, rebellious, insulting and distorted ideas. He is the prince of darkness and the head promoter of chaos that constantly attempts to influence the impressionable mind with the message that it is perfectly normal and acceptable to intentionally make choices that are contrary to God’s Word. As this growing world-view has become like a contagious infection, the young people of this system believe they are MORE wise than the ones that have gone before them and more determined to silence their critics. It is this political system of the “beast” that is in direct competition with God for souls. The concept that truth is relevant to the individual may be partially true in the fact that someone chooses what to believe and according to their “opinion” it is true to them. However, what makes the difference between being right and wrong is whether or not an individual has received and is following GOD’S absolute truth.

When God is NOT recognized as the ONLY perfect judge of all creation there is a tendency to be open minded to other avenues or options of truth. There is a “good” way to be open minded by allowing the Lord to reveal His revelations and mysteries to us and then there is a “bad” way to being open minded when we do not use discernment to “try the spirits” to see if they line up with His Word. When rules and LAWS proclaim that truth must be respected in every different god, idol and religious view, then this supports the message that mankind can live however he wants without feeling guilty that he is making a mistake or being deceived. This is a glimpse of what the lost world is trying to build! This political, acceptable order does NOT respect God as the one and only TRUE God and is becoming a sobering reality that is growing stronger every day. When Christians declare there is only one true God, we are also saying that every other god is a “false” god and this makes the world furious. Human nature hates to admit it is wrong about anything, but especially when it comes to something as important as spirituality because it is connected with the deepest part of our existence. Since many hate the term, “absolute truth” they also abhor the idea of anyone being “religiously dogmatic” unless of course they are explaining about what they believe. The world without Christ does not hesitate to establish laws for example that declares how it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to kill her unborn child simply because she does not want it. Nothing wrong, no regrets or convictions for doing evil; just upholding the legal rights that humans have to kill one another for no reason (?). And of course, those who fight against this evil tragedy are labeled as narrow-minded, dangerous religious extremist.

Since the system is desperately trying to “educate” our children (the future leaders of the world) with the denial of absolute truth, it is not difficult to see where the world is heading. If we think that Christianity is a voice crying in the wilderness now, how faint will the voice be 20 years from now? Those in public school and the older ones in the Universities are being trained to see the Bible and what Jesus taught as just another religious group among thousands. It is a disgrace and insult to a holy creator to teach that the world was created without God and that it is the result of an explosion and everything was created by random chance. When it comes to salvation, the idea of lowering Christ down into being an “option” instead of being required is so that every human idea can become another justifiable road to eternal life. The deception is that whatever path a person chooses will be honored by the powers of the universe and one is as good and true as the other. Many are teaching that EVERYONE is a child of this divine power and that ALL will have eternal life automatically. In this view, there is no such thing as eternal death but rather each person continues their spiritual development with many different progressions and advancements as they learn and grow in the cosmic afterlife. There is only one being that would have a motive to teach this doctrine – Satan! The strategy of Satan and his demons is to deceive as many as he can by influencing them into false theories but there is ONLY life and opportunity to be born-again and the devil is perfectly aware that if we miss God and die – it is too late. It is the goal of Satan to take as many people to hell with him as he can because we have read that his agenda is to steal – kill – and destroy! We know that people do not go to hell because of what they do or have not done – people go to hell because they do not have Jesus Christ as their Lord. The devil will do everything in his power to stop people from knowing Jesus and the confusion from religion is a very clever way! THE one true God was from the beginning! There was not 150 different god’s that all took part in creation because they could not create themselves. ONE God created everything and that GOD is the ONLY way to eternal life.

A great example of how that one way is not as good as another is found in Daniel chapter 3 with the story of the three Hebrew children being thrown into the fiery furnace. King Nebuchadnezzar had created a golden image 90 feet tall and made it a LAW that when everyone heard the music play, they must bow down and worship the image – or be thrown into a fiery furnace and be killed. Of course these men that followed God knew better and refused to serve any other god but the one true GOD of Israel. They were bound and thrown in the fire – but the king could see through the flames that they were NOT being burned and there was another image in the fire with them (Jesus). He called them to come out and they walked out without even smelling of smoke. The king declared that NO OTHER God could do something like this and he said that anyone who speaks anything against this one true God will be killed. Now, if worshipping the golden statue was acceptable as an alternative way to heaven, then why didn’t these men just go with the flow, bow down and not make a big deal out of it? Because there is only ONE God and He is the ONLY way to heaven. When it comes to this subject we MUST be dogmatic or we are lost forever. Sure, we can throw the Bible away and believe whatever we want, but if we are truth seekers and want to find absolute truth – the Bible is the ONLY living Word that has the power to transform a mind, heart and spirit from death into life. Every other religion that does not have Jesus Christ as the King of Kings is an imposter and is being empowered by the spirit of anti-christ! There are not many roads to heaven! “There is only ONE body, and ONE Spirit, even as you are called in ONE hope of your calling; One Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism, ONE God and Father of ALL, who is above ALL, and through ALL.” (Ephesians 4: 4-6)

As we have been saying, being dogmatic about certain pillars of the faith is crucial to our salvation. There might be minor or secondary doctrinal differences that we can discuss in love and we may not even know about these completely until we get to heaven but we must stand strong in basic fundamental truths that we cannot allow to be altered. There are no arguments to these foundations – these are absolute truths. Let us begin

JESUS IS GOD. “I and my Father are ONE.” (John 10:30) We could write books about this absolute truth but for the sake of time and space let’s just say that it would be difficult to be any clearer than this verse. The trinity is impossible to comprehend with the natural brain and must be accepted by faith into our spirit or there will just be endless arguing. We TRUST that God is true and we believe and KNOW with our heart that Jesus was all man and all God. You see, the gospel is the story of Jesus coming (as GOD) to save and ransom sinners, and is the core of our redemption. “And every spirit that denies and does NOT confess that Jesus is come in the flesh is NOT OF GOD: this is that enemy spirit of anti-christ whereof you heard that it should come and even now already is in the world” (I John 4:3). Since there is only one true God and Jesus is that God, we can know and trust by the Holy Spirit that we are in God and He is in us! Those who deny that Jesus is God are trying to lower Him into the role of a prophet and teacher while NOT acknowledging Him as divine deity. This is clearly another huge lie from Satan.