The Holy Spirit and the Church

It continues to grieve the holy Ghost that is in me that God's people are so "church" minded. Everywhere I go someone is trying to get me to "come to their church." Or they are trying to get some poor wayward soul "back into church." Or they are getting more "involved with church" to enhance their relationship with the Lord. Please my friends, put your nose to the grindstone and pray earnestly and honestly until you truly find out WHAT GOD WANTS! But let's look at the scriptures for a few moments, and see some relevant things that God has said to his people in past time: "Therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still" (Isa.. 30:7). God's people have been taught "the doctrines and commandments of men," and that "more church" is equivalent to more God. Yet with all of the doing and all of the going, and all of the social agenda that accompanies it, they fall further and further from God, and the spiritual quality of their life just goes down the drain with it all. Friends, I've been very diligent in Christ for thirty one years, and I speak according to what I have honestly and sadly observed over the duration of those years. What is really needed is to get still enough, as the scripture stated, and honest and humble enough to seek God with serious fervor; until acquiring "an ear to hear what the Spirit saith unto [God's people]" (Rev. 2:7). I DO know what the Spirit is saying, and it is most assuredly NOT saying that God's people need more involvement with "church." What the Spirit is saying is, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. 18:4). The "her" that God's Spirit is calling his people out of is "Babylon [i.e. Confusion] the Great," and she is Christianity with all of her religion of confusion and division. If God's people want to truly find the liberty of spirit in holiness that is in Christ, they need to forsake every "church" and meet him out in the wilderness where they can worship him freely in true holiness, apart from the doctrines, traditions, and commandments of men that keep them from doing just that (Exd. 7:16).

Every single "church" out there is quenching the Spirit of God with its man-ordained religion, its man-ordained rules, its man-ordained ministers, and its man-ordained carnal ordinances. In Jeremiah's day God had to command his people to come out of the land that he had chosen for them, where they had learned to worship God falsely, along with other gods to their own hurt (Jer. 27:6-12). Those who refused to come out were destroyed by the king of Bablylon (Jer. 38:17,18). In Isaiah's time God was sick of the vain worship that his people gave him: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats... Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them" (Isa. 1:11,13,14). You think that has changed? Maybe you believe that history doesn't really repeat itself, or that God's people aren't subject to that unbroken rule. According to the apostle Paul, "the things that were written aforetime were written for our learning" (Rom. 15:4). Actually the children of God were doing the same exact thing when Jesus came, and he made sure to tell them so: "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mat. 15:8,9). And the same exact hypocrisy and vain worship and service of God is what is found in the "churches" of today, and God is calling and commanding his true people, "From such turn away" (II Tim. 3:5). As for me, I am exceedingly well thank you, and in the wilderness with God where I belong, and where I follow his Spirit wheresoever it may lead; and where I compel others to do the same. And as for those who would dare to join me, forsaking the honor of men, they are and will be blessed. And as for those who remain in the religious realm of the "churches," there is no possibility of learning how to be taught or led by God's Spirit, and that is not a prescription for inheriting eternal life (Rom. 8:14; I Jn. 2:27) Amen.