Tuesday, June 04, 2013

All too many religious congregations believe that they can compromise God’s Standards for how things are to be done; thinking God will look the other way because after all, they are trying to use their compromised methods to reach people for Jesus. This is something that appalls the CURRENT Spiritual Remnant of God because they know God is Holy and does not sanction such compromise.

I will use an event that took place with the Ark of the Covenant as an example to explain this point.

The touching of the Ark of the Covenant was really the secondary sin that resulted in Uzzah’s death [2 Samuel 6]. Had God’s original commands been followed, the Ark would have never tilted and Uzzah would have never reached out to touch the Ark. The greater sin was in the breaking of the original instruction, which was that the Ark was to be hand carried on the shoulders with poles;[Exodus 25:10-16 and Numbers 4:5, 4:15] it was not to be transported via a cart with animals pulling it. The Ark was to be transported by man carrying its weight.

This is what is referred to as the greater and lesser degrees of sin. Many times, we are both effected and affected by what might be referred to as a secondary sin in our lives, when really the greater sin is that we did not follow God’s first command.

Usually sin can be traced back to a root. Often we can recognize the weeds of sin that are growing and we know they are sin. What we tend not to realize is the root of the sin, which would be the first sin, the original sin, that produced the weeds in our lives. The original sin in the tragedy of the Ark of the Covenant was that they did not transport it as God commanded. The secondary sin was that he touched the Ark, because of the fact that they did not transport it, as they should have.

The CURRENT Spiritual Remnant recognizes that the end result does not justify the means by which one gets there. Many congregations now justify much of their behavior as being Seeker Sensitive. They say they are trying to get people to God, they are trying to lead people to Jesus, they are trying to introduce people and have them arrive at a relationship with Christ. These congregations take the attitude that God is not so much concerned anymore with how they got the people there, the method so to speak. God is and has always been concerned with the method. The event, which took place with the Ark of the Covenant, is a great example of this truth.

Sin can be found in the method. Even if you are attempting to do a great thing, a godly thing, if there are sins in the root of that godly thing or that godly effort, God is not pleased. If there are sins in the roots, there will be sins in the weeds, in whatever it produces. What does sin do? Sin always kills, destroys and/or causes something to die in some manner – either literally or figuratively, meaning in either a literal sense or the spiritual sense.

We have to remember God that is not harsh; God is Holy. Therefore, the end result is not good enough, how we get there does matter! Ungodliness around us, whether in a secular or religious setting is no excuse before God or man for personal ungodliness. Public opinion or religious rules are not our Standard in life; God’s Word, God’s Standard, should be our standard in life.

Spiritual/Political Disclaimer:

This blog will not be for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It will not be in any way politically correct. It will make every effort to share the truth in love, [Ephesians 4:11-16], to a decaying and dying society and church. I share what I share not to hurt, harm, or offend any person[s] or group; I do it because Christ’s Standard and Truth is not being represented by enough of His Followers and I do it out of love. I love enough to tell His Truth.

Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV

¹¹And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹²for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.