Sunday, March 20, 2016
Messages From Heaven: The Single-Minded Christian!
Messages From Heaven: The Single-Minded Christian!: Your view of money and material possessions is an effective barometer of your spirituality. Wealth is neither good nor bad in itself —...
The Single-Minded Christian!
The Bible does not forbid the possession of money. In fact, many in the Bible — Job (Job 1:3), Abraham (Genesis 13:2), Isaac (Genesis 26:12-13), Jacob (Genesis 30:43), Boaz (Ruth 2:1), and Solomon (1 Kings 10:23) — were extremely wealthy as a result of God's blessing. But the Bible does forbid an affection for money with this warning: "the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (1 Timothy 6:10).
When you love money and things, you will forget God (Proverbs 30:9), trust your riches rather than Him (Job 31:24-28), buy in to deception (Mark 4:19), compromise convictions (2 Timothy 4:10), be proud (Deuteronomy 8:14), steal from God (Malachi 3:8), and ignore the needs of others (1 John 3:17). Love of wealth and possessions will cause you to pursue them illegitimately by stealing (Ephesians 4:28) — whether through force (1 Kings 21:1-16), through fraud (Amos 8:5), or through usury (Psalm 15:5; Proverbs 28:8) — or by gambling, an irrational trust in chance rather than the kind providence of God.
If you want to avoid the sins that accompany the love of money, Jesus prescribes a single-minded attitude toward wealth and possessions. And in Matthew chapter 6 He commands us to store up a single treasure, maintain a single vision, serve a single master, and seek a single goal.
A Single Treasure — "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (vv. 19-20).
It is right to provide for your family, make reasonable plans for the future, make wise investments, and have money to carry on a business, give to the poor, and support the Lord's work. It is being dishonest, greedy, covetous, stingy, and miserly about what God gives you that is wrong. To honestly earn, save, and give is wise and good; to hoard and spend only on yourself is not only unwise, but sinful as well.
The key to Jesus' warning here is "yourselves." When you accumulate possessions simply for your own sake — whether to hoard or to spend selfishly and extravagantly — those possessions have become idols. But when you wisely, lovingly, willingly, and generously use things for kingdom purposes, you can turn them into a means of accumulating heavenly possessions.
G. Campbell Morgan wrote:
You are to remember with the passion burning within you that you are not the child of to-day. You are not of the earth, you are more than dust; you are the child of tomorrow, you are of the eternities, you are the offspring of Deity. The measurements of your lives cannot be circumscribed by the point where blue sky kisses green earth. All the fact of your life cannot be encompassed in the one small sphere upon which you live. You belong to the infinite. If you make your fortune on the earth — poor, sorry, silly soul — you have made a fortune, and stored it in a place where you cannot hold it. Make your fortune, but store it where it will greet you in the dawning of the new morning. (The Gospel According to Matthew [New York: Revell, 1929], 64-65)
A Single Vision — "if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light" (v. 22).
The eye here is an illustration of the heart — it is the lamp, or lens, through which all light comes to you. The eye is like a window which, when clear, allows light to shine through, but, when dirty, or bad, prevents light from entering. If your eye is bad, if it is diseased or damaged, no light can enter and the whole body will be full of darkness.
The heart is the eye of the soul, through which the illumination of every spiritual experience shines. It is through your heart that God's truth, love, peace, and every other spiritual blessing comes to you. When your heart — your spiritual vision — is clear, then your whole body will be full of light. But if your heart is diseased and damaged, being encumbered with an affection for stuff, it becomes "blind" and insensitive to spiritual things.
A defective eye is a picture of a selfishly indulgent heart — the master of every unbeliever, the tempter of every believer. If you are materialistic and greedy, you may be spiritually blind and not a Christian at all. The eye you trust to discern true light may be, in reality, fooling you — you think you have light, but you don't. What you interpret as light is really darkness, and because of the self-deception, how great is that darkness!
If a selfish heart of greed is your master, you must abandon it to follow Jesus Christ. He is the Lord who says, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny Himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). To obey Him is to enjoy the fellowship of God and true believers, a fellowship of light (1 John 1:5-7).
If Christ is truly your Master, you may still be tempted toward materialism. "Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). Prove yourself to be filled with the love of the Father and keep your eyes clear from the love of temporal things. You will maintain clear vision — eyes that truly see — and enjoy God's gift of light.
A Single Master — "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (v. 24).
As I observe our culture, it is apparent that many evangelicals don't really believe that verse. Some passively float down the stream of American affluence, others lustily drink it in, never questioning the legitimacy of their confession of God as Master. But the verse above is very black and white. Allegiance to one master is hatred toward the other — there is no middle ground.
A slave in Jesus' day was a piece of property, an asset over which the owner had absolute control. For a slave there was no such thing as partial or part-time obligation to his master. His full-time service to his full-time master left no time for service to anyone else. It was not simply difficult, but absolutely impossible to serve two masters.
If you are a Christian, you are a slave of God and righteousness (Romans 6:16-22). You cannot claim Christ as Lord if your heart is tied to anything or anyone else. John Calvin said, "Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority" (A Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 1 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979], 337).
A Single Goal — "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (v. 33).
If you want to be single-minded about your treasure, your vision, and your Master, you must pursue a single goal — move your thoughts up to the divine level. God wants to free you from the mundane, temporal, passing vanity of this life to seek the things of God. In His right hand are pleasures forever (Psalm 16:11), so "set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2).
The Greek word translated "first" in Matthew 6:33 means "first in a line of more than one option." Of all the priorities of life, seeking God's kingdom is number one. It is doing what you can to promote God's rule over His creation. That includes seeking Christ's rule to be manifest in your life through "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17). You seek His kingdom when you long for the return of the King in His millennial glory to establish His kingdom on earth, and to usher in His eternal kingdom.
Jesus is coming, the embodiment of God's perfect righteousness and holiness, and when He comes, "we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (1 John 3:2-3). That's what it is to seek His kingdom and His righteousness.
Christians in this country are blessed with unparalleled affluence, have unprecedented opportunity to pursue the interests of the kingdom, and live under the unwavering gaze of the God who will call each one to account. So what is your heart's preoccupation? Are you more concerned with the kingdom of God or with the things of this world? Think about where you are storing your treasure; consider the condition of your eyesight; contemplate which master you serve; and assess what it is you seek. If you are on the wrong side of His will, return to a single-minded pursuit of His kingdom and His righteousness, and enjoy the blessing of His favor.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Messages From Heaven: The Film Industry's Celebration of Gays and the Wa...
Messages From Heaven: The Film Industry's Celebration of Gays and the Wa...: Once again, true to form, the film industry is celebrating the two latest gay and lesbian flicks, both featuring torrid affairs between a...
The Film Industry's Celebration of Gays and the War on the Age of Consent!
In France, there was such enthusiasm for a pornographic lesbian film that the top award at the Cannes Film Festival was given to both the director and the two leading actresses. Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the best film prize, nominated by a jury led by none other than Steven Spielberg and Nicole Kidman.
The movie, which features scenes that leave nothing to the imagination, tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who falls in love with an older woman. But not to worry—the age of consent in France is already 15.
Here in America, HBO aired the original movie Behind the Candelabra, hailed as “a moving and beautifully made film that traces the clandestine half-decade romance between Vegas showman and pianist Liberace and his much, much younger live-in boyfriend Scott Thorson.”
The film, which features Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson, was reportedly deemed “too gay” to be successful by other studios, hence its airing on HBO. (In today’s gay-happy media culture, saying that the film was considered “too gay” is saying a lot.) Thorson became Liberace’s live-in lover when he was just 17.
The extreme praise for these two movies is reminiscent of the media frenzy over Brokeback Mountain, the first mainstream movie with gay sex scenes. It “won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was honored with Best Picture and Best Director accolades from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Golden Globe Awards, Producers Guild of America, Critics Choice Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards among many other organizations and festivals.” It was also “nominated for eight Academy Awards, the most nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, where it won three.” The same year, Capote, about Truman Capote, and Transamerica, about a woman undergoing a sex-change, were also honored with awards.
Isn’t it fascinating that all these LGBT films are so incredibly good—or could there be a little bias in the movie industry?
Back to the real world. While these movies were airing, a national campaign was gaining steam on behalf of Kaitlyn Hunt, aged 18, who was charged with committing statutory rape and molestation on her 14-year-old girlfriend.
Why the national outrage over this case? Aren’t 18-year-old boys regularly charged with statutory rape for having sex with their younger girlfriends? Why aren’t we hearing about national protests on behalf of these young men?
It’s simple. They were charged with heterosexual offenses, while Kaitlyn Hunt’s case involved lesbian sex—and so it can only be “hate” that is driving the prosecution against her.
Robby C., commenting on my article “Immorality Is Trending,” wrote, “So being gay is immoral? An 18-year-old and 14-year-old being in love is immoral? What's wrong with you people. Love is love. Leave the poor girl alone and stop being bigots and hateful.”
Kaitlyn’s father, Steven, has launched a petition calling on the assistant state attorney to “stop the prosecution of an 18 year old girl in a same-sex relationship,” which begs the question: Why bring up the fact that it’s a same-sex relationship?
The petition also claims that “Kailtyn’s girlfriend’s parents are pressing charges because they are against the same-sex relationship, even though their daughter has stated that this is a consensual relationship.” How utterly hateful of them!
Kaitlyn’s mother claims "the parents of the 14-year-old who pressed charges are ‘out to destroy my daughter [because] they feel like my daughter "made" their daughter gay,’ and these ‘bigoted, religious’ parents ‘see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter.’” (How dare these parents not give full approval to their 14-year-old’s lesbian affair!)
As for the laws in question, one signer of the petition had this to say: “If this is an event you feel strongly about, and would like to see the decay of these archaic laws striking down children for being children then please take a few seconds out of your day to sign the petition to aid Kate Hunt in her search for justice.” As the Facebook page cries out, “Stop the Hate, Free Kate.”
Lost in most news reporting is that the younger girl’s parents, Jim and Laurie Smith (he’s white, she’s black), told WPEC-TV reporter Jana Eschbach that they "had twice asked Hunt to leave their daughter alone, and only went to police after a January incident in which their daughter ran away and spent the night at Hunt’s house.” And they made clear that they would have done the same had their daughter taken off with an 18-year-old boy.
But why should we believe them? After all, they must be hateful bigots. The talking points say so.
Interestingly, the 1972 gay rights platform called for the “repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent,” while in 2010, British gay activist Peter Tatchell argued that “the best way to protect our children from sexual abuse is paradoxically to give them more sexual freedom." Furthermore, "Age of consent laws vary from state to state in the U.S., with the majority being 16 and some ranging as high as 18, but Tatchell says they should all be lowered to 14.”
I bet Hollywood can hardly wait.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Messages From Heaven: The Lie of the New Spirituality!
Messages From Heaven: The Lie of the New Spirituality!: The Gospel according to Oprah and her friends Oprah Winfrey has always had a fondness for promoting guests who tout their New Age belie...
The Lie of the New Spirituality!
Oprah Winfrey has always had a fondness for promoting guests who tout their New Age beliefs. But recently she has done so with focused determination, using her media empire to promote three authors and books whose views are deceiving millions. In doing so, she has become the high priestess of the New Spirituality, which can be simply defined as more occultism packaged for the Western mind.
The authors are Eckhart Tolle, whose book The New Earth is flying off the shelves, breaking records for sales; Ronda Byrne, who wrote The Secret and is selling millions despite its absurd teachings; and finally Marianne Williamson, who wrote a book titled A Return to Love, a commentary on a much longer work called A Course in Miracles.
In the interest of space, I shall comment on only this latter volume.
In 1965, an atheistic psychologist named Helen Schucman began dabbling in the occult. A spirit guide (whom she believed to be Jesus) dictated to her the book A Course in Miracles. She said she was just a scribe, writing what was given by this inner voice. Schucman died several years ago, after years of deep depression and emotional pain.
Marianne Williamson has written a popular exposition of this book to carry on Schucman’s teachings. She and Oprah are team-teaching the course in miracles every day on her XM satellite network. Millions are tuning in.
There is no doubt in my mind that a demon dictated the book to Helen Schucman, even though she thought it came from Jesus Christ. When you hold it in your hands, you can be assured that you are holding a satanic bible.
Throughout, it ridicules the sacrifice of Christ and the cross. In one section, “Atonement Without Sacrifice,” Jesus is quoted as saying that the notion of sacrifice is totally unknown to God and furthermore, “Those who represent the lamb as blood-stained do not understand the meaning of the symbol, it is a very simple symbol that speaks of my innocence.” Jesus supposedly went on to say that to believe that there was a sacrifice for sins is a notion born of fear.
Regarding the cross, the spirit dictated, “Do not make the pathetic error of clinging to the old rugged cross. The only message of the crucifixion is that you can overcome the cross. Until then you are free to crucify yourself as often as you choose.”
Despite such obvious heresies, some people listening to these teachings by Oprah and her friends think they can be harmonized with Christianity. No wonder the Bible warns about false Christs and prophets who, if it were possible, would deceive “even the elect.”
What makes this difficult is that Oprah has done so much good—helping the poor, building orphanages, and speaking to issues such as domestic abuse that are so important to this generation. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to spirituality, she is being used by Satan to deceive millions.
In the article below, I answer some common questions people ask me about Oprah and the New Spirituality. My goal is to help you evaluate these teachings from a biblical perspective so that you can guide others in their spiritual journey.
Recognizing (and Combating) the New Spirituality We live in a celebrity-crazed culture, and when a celebrity as influential as Oprah talks about spirituality, a lot of people are ready to believe every word she says. And Satan can provide what looks a lot like a genuinely beneficial spiritual experience! So in an age where more and more people are coming to equate sincerity with truth, how do we avoid the traps being laid for us by the New Spirituality? Here’s a quick preview of some helpful tips Pastor Lutzer will cover more fully in his upcoming book, Oprah, Miracles, and the New Earth.
Q: You said that Helen Schucman believed her book, A Course in Miracles, was dictated to her by a spirit guide. What does that really mean?
A: This is also called “automatic writing” and is popular in occultism. A spirit speaks to you so that the content of the book bypasses your own consciousness. You do not know what you are going to write until you are told what you should say. In that sense you become a scribe, simply writing what is dictated. I could tell you about many other books promoting occultism that were written that way.
Q: You are critical of spirituality. But aren’t we as Christians supposed to be “spiritual?” In fact, isn’t the spiritual part of us (our souls) the most important part of us?
A: I need a full chapter to answer your question, but I’ll try to do it briefly! Yes, of course, we have a soul which is in some sense the most important part of us—it can even survive without our bodies. But our body is also very important and will be raised in the future.
But when people today speak about spirituality, they mean something different. In summary (1) they believe that spirituality is found not by looking outside of us to God, but rather by looking within where we discover that we ourselves are deity. And (2) it follows that you can be into spirituality without believing any doctrines at all, except the notion that your own consciousness is in touch with the divine and finally, (3) because we are spiritual, the physical world is an illusion and does not have real existence.
This last point is critical. In these teachings, sin, evil, and death do not exist but are an illusionary dream from which we must simply awaken. Thus when a New Ager says, “I am essentially a spiritual being,” she/he means that because evil does not have actual existence, there is no need for redemption, no need for repentance or God’s forgiveness. The real me is simply my mind, my consciousness.
Q: What should we be looking for when we hear these kinds of teachings? What are the tell-tale signs that this is occultism and not Christianity?
A: A couple of things. First, ask: what is their view of God? Do they ever speak about God as exisiting outside of us or is God merely the God who is “within us?”
Second, and most important: do they believe that we are sinners who need redemption or just ignorant people who need enlightenment? Virtually all teachers of the New Spirituality teach self-salvation—that is, that we save ourselves by finding God within.
Third, how do they define conversion? Is that something done by God when we admit our sinfulness, or is conversion a “transformation of consciousnesses” based on getting in touch with the God who is within us—the God who turns out to be us.
Finally, what about heaven and hell? Will we exist in one place or the other after we die, or are these just concepts that speak about our present existence?
Q: How can we help friends who are into spirituality and don’t know they are being deceived?
A: Good question. First, be prepared to hear things like, “this changed my life” or “I’m finally understanding what religion is,” etc. Never underestimate the ability of Satan to duplicate religious experience.
That said, I’d ask the person to answer the four questions I’ve outlined above. Rather than reacting to your friend in a condemning tone, I’d recommend you say, “let’s study the Bible on these topics and see if it agrees with what you are coming to believe.”
Expect a battle. This is spiritual warfare. In my book I shall point out that it is in these teachings that Satan rules. But with love, faith, and much prayer, God can win a victory.
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