My People perish for lack of knowledge…. (Hosea 4:6a)
The waves of cunning and craftiness, embedded in Christianity today, are making the multitudes fall in the traps Satan, who has seduced many gifted men and women into his nest with sweet promises of glory and triumph. Satan tried this trick with our Lord Jesus (Luke 4:5-6), and I am sure He tried many other tricks with Him, but this particular one is recorded in the Bible as a warning to those who would follow on Jesus’ steps.
The truth is that if our leaders were instilling in the brethren the profound knowledge and wisdom of Christ, the situation would be different. Yet our churches are rather spiritually disheveled and unkempt, bent as they are instead on social activities, on holding on to traditions, on going with the waves and trends of modern worship and ministering.
Yet true freedom has been sacrificed to a pantomime of faith, which focuses on almost anything except the true knowledge of Christ.
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18)
But how could there be a vision if the knowledge which drives that vision has been cast away from the pulpit.
How could there be a vision for souls, a vision for learning, a vision for service, a vision for missions, a vision for stewardship, a vision for ministry, when the church of Christ Jesus is turning into an entertainment network, when the many have turned to the seductive attraction of power and fame and appeal and popularity, when the glory of God has been stolen and set on stage for the glory of men.
It is no surprise that so many mega churches continue to flourish and that so many television evangelists are becoming so powerful. (I must clarify, some of those mega churches might be doing a good job for Christ and maybe a few of those television evangelists might be honest about their commitment to Christ, yet although I have not made a study to this respect, most of those I have observed so far are no more than simple merchants of lies).
The traditional church however has gone flat and it continues to shrink. It has lost power, the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and this is happening because there is no true teaching coming from the pulpit.
The Job of the pastor is to equip, it is to prepare, and it is to build up, to fatten the brethren for ministry, and to motivate their desire to serve.
to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:12-13)
And for the lack of that knowledge, for the absence of powerful guidance and teaching, and for the lack of preparation, the Body of Christ is being quickly overtaken by a devastating disease.
I have seen around me great ministers who have fallen in the trap of this aberration, who have fallen victims to the seduction of Satan and who have tossed the Bible aside, to teach their sheep their own doctrines.
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
This warning is for you Christian, and for you Minister of the gospel. There is only one gospel and one Spirit and one body of Christ, there is only one god and Christ, and his teachings are fat with instructions to stay away from the deceptions of this word and of the artful men and women who have sold their soul to the Devil in exchange for carnal glory and riches.
Soak yourself in the knowledge of Christ through the only true inerrant guide to his life and philosophy, the Bible. And submit any teaching of this world to the knowledge of Christ. For God will never say a single word against His written revelation.
(Revelation 22:18-19)
May the Lord of knowledge, continue feeding you with the knowledge of His will, and may He put around you a shield of revelation through His word, against the foolish knowledge of this world.
Rev. Jose A. Luna
A servant of Christ Jesus