2 Words in 1

A Den of Thieves
Ye Hypocrites

 

A Den of Thieves

My house is the house of prayer: but you have turned it into something else. There’s part of a verse many once used, or likely now use from the Old Testament. It starts out, “Will a man rob God?” Let’s stop right there for a few minutes. People like to use this verse as a doctrine for people to pay tithes and offerings to their church today. We’re not getting into a debate on this last part of that verse; maybe you’d like to do it on your own page. The truth is, some are attempting to rob God even today, of much more than just those two things. Let’s reason it together.

Using the house of the Lord for making money to be put in your very own pockets, is fraud.

Appearing in God’s house so that you can perform and receive personal recognition and adoration, is not only a sin, but it is one of the worst kinds of thievery.

Wanting glory for yourself, and using the Lord’s platform in his house to stage your own production, is taking something, that does not belong to you. This might sound too critical and a bit odd to some people, but it’s just how I feel. Taking the organ and piano out of the church and using one instrument to dominate the entire service by one person, is likely taking something away from others in the assembly.

Removing the altars in the church, to make a more attractive stage, may have seemed harmless for a while. Plastering monitors all over the front of the church, took away the experience of old fashioned church for many.

I love choir services; that’s what I believed in back in my time. It was where the Holy Ghost could have liberty, even as we rehearsed; we could lay our hands on one another, right there and minister to one another. I’ve seen a lot of videos in the past few years. By now, I can close my eyes when I click on a presentation that says “choir,” and tell what is really going on. This idea of putting your best singers on the front row, with microphones in each of their hands, takes something away from the rest of the choir. It robs them of unity, of functioning together as one, and it limits true power.

If you steal peoples chance at depth, you’ve stolen their heart. Dear God, if you take away their freedom to move in the Spirit, you’ve taken the very thing they live for. If a man or woman has paid the price for some kind of gift that the Spirit has endowed them with, and someone in authority is envious or prevents them from using that gift, they steal from the Spirit.

I also believe today, that if you claim a certain experience and you cannot demonstrate the true power and operation of the Spirit, you are robbing souls of what they were told, they could have. We are taking away some things, that do not belong to us, when we prevent others from having it.

“And He went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold there, and them that bought.” It was to be a House of Prayer, for everyone. If we as the church, do not allow the fullness and completion of the house that was set in order within each of us, we have robbed ourselves. We so often blame the devil for things that have been taken from us; much of that is true. But how much have we allowed him to steal, and how much have we allowed others to take?

The gates of hell, shall not prevail against the true church of Jesus Christ. But they will, against those who have tried to take those precious things out of His house. Christ will, bring them back.

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Ye Hypocrites

Teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men. Wow! . . I wonder, if anyone would care to guess, who said that. The Lord was most often so kind and loving and mild mannered; even to sinners. But, there were a few things that seem to push Him over the edge; there appeared to be some situations that He had very little tolerance for. One day, He turned on a group of people and read them; right to their face.

He said, “Well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people, draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart, is far from me” (Mark 7:6). The folk He made mention of, made a mistake. They were being judgmental and critical, and asked Him, why his disciples did not follow the teachings – and why He did not require it of them to do so.

I suspect, we’ve all heard this kind of complaint before; coming from those who see anyone not obeying what they believe is right. It is so often, the kind of attitude, one meets, when they encounter those who are right, in their own eyes; in themselves. Hence the term, self righteousness.

What is a Hypocrite anyway? The simple definition is, a person who pretends to be what he or she is not. There is another verse that also says something, about when we think ourselves to be something, when we are not, we are actually nothing. We’re only fooling ourselves; and we are truly offensive, to the Holy Ghost.

I don’t think it ever occurred to some of us, just what it might look like, if we were teaching and preaching things, that were actually only things some men came up with. It’s obvious that’s true, because, you find those today, who realize the truth of that. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be watching a certain football game, on television right now.

The seriousness of this topic is that Jesus said, their hearts were far from Him. Before we ever restore anyone, we will likely have to come to the place, where we can see the difference between the commandments of men and the commandments of Jesus Christ and the Apostles.

Jesus didn’t say a lot of things. He had only one new commandment. And I fear it is past time, that we understand that the apostles did not preach anything other then what Jesus taught. There were never two doctrines. If the word of Jesus Christ and the word of the apostles is not the same, then all of us are in grave error. We’re like the people above; it’s not His heart.

Paul said something so many do not want to hear or acknowledge. He said that, “Christ came into the world, to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” I wonder why he said that; maybe it was the thorn.

We will never be any thing at all, until we first make ourselves nothing, in His sight. I do like it when people say great things about me and it is so greatly appreciated; but I’m not fooled.

I’ve tried being something without Him; I didn’t get very far. As long as He remains everything, I get a chance to be something. He did not come into the world to condemn people; He came to bring them life.

 

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Robert Blackburn