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His Word ... a prophetic perspective

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What this article is:
        This article has limited application to a small segment of believers in Jesus Christ.
        It is addressed to those who have exited, or are exiting, from the institutional church.
        The view expressed here is my own personal opinion.
What this article is not:
        This article is not is a blanket condemnation of the organizations I talk about here.
Who am I speaking to in this article?
        If you are ...
        (1) exiting, or have exited from an institutional church
        and
        If you are ...
        (2) a Christian considering social contact on a regular basis via the internet on a Christian community, Christian message board, or Christian email list or other on line gathering place for Christians.
        Then I’m speaking to you. If you don’t meet both the above descriptions, then this article is not for you.
        I have no objections or problems with Christians exchanging dialog with each other on the internet, or with any of the many, many places that have established themselves for that purpose.

        John 8:36: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Free Indeed

        I would caution every believer who is seeking total and complete freedom from the institutional church system to not only remove yourself from where you are, but to also avoid any such institutional church, and also avoid those who are still functioning with an institutional church mindset.
        Whether you recognized the hypocrisy and left because you were fed up with it, or whether God called you out of there, God’s purposes will be accomplished by your staying away from that tainted spiritual environment.
“Withdrawal symptoms from the institutional church mindset symptoms can last for years.”
        Because of the fear and resultant guilt generated by the institutional church mindset there is an addictive factor which is many times more powerful than even the commonest addictive chemical substances. Withdrawal symptoms from addictive substances may last for days or weeks. Withdrawal symptoms from the institutional church mindset symptoms can last for years.
        You will need time to sort out your thoughts and reorient yourself to the true love, life and liberty that God intends for all of His saints. When you come to that point of understanding by the leading of the Holy Spirit you will have human reactions of bitterness, hostility, anger, rage and other emotional experiences as you begin to recognize the horribly perverted teachings, doctrines and practices that the institutional church reveres.
        When you exit the institutional church God will place you in a cave/desert/exile/wilderness situation and will gradually strip you of that addictive mindset. The important thing is that you stay in that place of loneliness where God put you until you are absolutely clear that He has led you to another place (which will not be another institutional church or a place where the institutional church mindset is predominant).
        In your loneliness for what passes for fellowship in the institutional church, you will be tempted to return there. You may also seek relief through internet Christian communities or message boards and/or email lists. Especially those that appear, on the surface, to be opposed to the institutional church and/or promote the house church concept. Are some of these really “good” and would you benefit from some of the advice and sharing? Yes. Then what’s the problem? The problem is you. And the IC mindset that you still have. Let’s turn the question around. Will those on the “good” boards benefit from some of your advice and sharing? No. You run the double risk of continuing to be contaminated by the institutional church mindset from those you contact and also of contaminating those who are working very hard to rid themselves of the IC mindset. You need to share with God and receive His advice by allowing Him to teach you. All by Himself. This is a time for reading and studying your Bible, consulting Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and concordances, and reading Godly commentaries. Equally important is staying in fellowship with God by His Holy Spirit, Who will teach you the things you need to learn. You will have to unlearn the institutional mindset you have been taught and practiced. It’s also advisable to stop absorbing the teachings of those within the institutional church. All the books, articles, web sites, tapes, videos, newsletters and any other sources originating from the institutional mindset will continue to pull you away from what God is attempting to teach you. The Holy Spirit will also lead you to those places where you will find what you need. You will know when class time is over, if you will apply yourself to His personal teachings to you.
        If you cater to that desire to compromise where God has placed you by seeking human contact with those still in the IC, or those from the internet communities or message boards and/or email lists who have exited the IC, or advise you to do so, you will short circuit what God is doing in your life.
        Or, after a period of time of months or even many years, you may be so foolish as to think that you can enter into that same spiritual atmosphere that you left and “teach” and/or “evangelize” those who are still immersed in the institutional church system.
        As a matter of simple fact, you will become just like them. But that is not what God is attempting to reshape and remold you into!
“... God will place you in a cave/desert/ exile/ wilderness situation and will gradually strip you of that addictive mindset.”
        There are no institutional churches, or on line communities, message boards or email lists that will help you. It will only pull you down to the level of those who have no discipline in allowing God to reshape them. Or you will contribute your own IC mindset and spoil the “good” ones.
        You will encounter those who love that type of IC setting where they are in control. What am I saying? I’m saying that you will encounter the Jezebel spirit, most probably in multiples, when you open yourself up to what you think is “fellowship” on a community, message board and/or email list. These Jezebel spirits always, always, always attempt to gravitate, by manipulative methods, to a position where they can exercise some type of authority over others. Just as occurs in the typical institutional church. In addition you will have the Pharisee and Saducee mindset to contend with. Just as occurs in the typical institutional church.
        If you continue to stay there and spend some time, you will become just like the predominant spirit that prevails over that community/message board/email list. You will short circuit God’s working in your life, and you may, just may, be well on your way to becoming a Jezebel spirit yourself. Or a Pharisee or Saducee.
        “But,” you say, “how about the many that I recognize as being sincere and seeking the truth of God? I need to reach out to them in the love of God.” To which I would say, Beloved, God knows those that are His and He will not leave them or forsake them. Let God be God and you be His obedient servant.
        Many such boards/lists appear to be Godly. They may use good sounding, biblical names incorporating terms such as Bible, Christian, Christianity, Church, Community, Spiritual, Watchman and etc. Stay away from them! Even the ones you think are “good.”
        The human logic you see there may appeal to you. However James says that human wisdom is earthly, sensual and demonic. The Bible is our one and only standard by which we must measure all statements that originate from human wisdom. When you do that, you will see where that human wisdom may apply to one or several specific situations, however it will fail the litmus test of scrutiny by the words of the Bible.
        Don’t be impatient, and above all, don’t be fooled! Sure, it’s tough out in the cave/desert/exile/wilderness situation. You will be lonely. You will question God as to why you are there. You will question God as to how long you must endure.
        You will question as to the fairness of you being so lonely and wanting desperately to “fellowship” with other like-minded saints. Why, God, why? you will cry out many times.
        The answer to all your questions is that the Potter can do whatever He wants to with His clay in order to make a suitable vessel of honor for Himself.
“... share with God and receive His advice by allowing Him to teach you. All by Himself. ”
        It’s really a simple decision, but one hard to live with. Do you want to be shaped by God, according to how He will shape you if you let Him, or do you want to be shaped by a spiritual environment of your own choosing that’s like all those around you?
        When you begin to understand that they have short circuited God’s work in their lives and that you will become just like them, instead of what God wants you to be, then you must, simply must, have the resolve to let God have His way. The hope that you may influence them in some “good” way is extremely remote.
        If you were a drug addict trying to kick the habit would you seek out the fellowship of other drug addicts who deny their addiction? Or who have left their one and only Godly source of cure so that they can assemble and huddle together as pathetic human beings who can only display their weakness? Would you try to draw strength from such a group of people? You will be like the reformed drunk, who thinks he has been sober long enough to go and enjoy the companionship of his former drinking buddies at the bar he used to frequent. He may even think he can go and be an example to other alcoholics of how they can conquer their addiction. But it won’t be long before he is again “one of them.” Why? Because of the natural human desire for companionship and for the social approval, appreciation, acceptance and recognition from the group of their peers that they have chosen to socialize with.
        In a very real sense you are an addict trying to seek a cure. Stick with God’s program and He will see you through. If you seek out other addicts you will continue to stay an addict, thinking that you are cured, but in reality only having changed the addictive source from an IC to a place where people with an IC mindset congregate.
        In James 1:8, and 4:8, he uses the term “double minded.”
        Vine’s Expository Dictionary tells us: “Double-Minded dipsuchos lit. means “twosouled” (dis, “twice,” psuche, “a soul”), hence, “double-minded,” (Jas. 1:8; 4:8).
        James 1:1-8 (NIV):
        1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.
        2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
        3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
        4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
        5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
        6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
        7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;
        8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
        James 4:1-8 (NIV):
        1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
        2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
        3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
        4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
        5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
        6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
        7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
        8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
“... you are an addict trying to seek a cure.”
        During the trial time you endure in the cave/desert/exile/wilderness situation you are to be joyful and persevere. You are to also rely upon the wisdom of God and not doubt that when you asked for it, that He gave it to you. Failure to do so, says James, will result in you becoming a two souled person.
        Submit yourself to God, resist the devil and the devil will flee from you. That is the simplicity of personal spiritual warfare.
        If you don’t you will be a two souled person. Twice God had James say the same thing in different ways. That stresses the importance of what God is saying through James.
        You will have one soul, i.e., mind, emotions and will that will think, feel and choose according to the situation you find yourselves in with your peers. Peer pressure is an extremely powerful motivating factor. You will think feel and choose the way they do because of the powerful influence of peer pressure and the desire to be one of them and “belong.”
        You will have another soul, i.e., mind, emotions and will that will think, feel and choose according to what the Spirit of God has convicted you of at those times when you are not associating with that group.
“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
        Note that James says that “friendship with the world is hatred toward God.” And that “Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Continuing the thought, James also says “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
        If you will read the articles I have posted on this web site you will see that the institutional church is based upon “friendship with the world.” Increasingly so at this late hour. (If you are exercising the Holy Spirit gift of discerning of spirits, you know it anyway). Which means it’s an enemy of God, in effect an antichrist. Completing the thought, James says we are to submit to God and resist the devil.
        Can you see from this that the worldly IC system is not submitting to God, and is in fact, equated with the devil himself?
        The end result is that the two souled person “should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”
        You will not receive from God and you will become unstable.
        Don’t you really want to receive from God and become stable?

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