1 My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall
receive the greater condemnation.
For a somewhat clearer understanding, let’s look at verse
one in the Amplified version. (Amp) Not MANY of you should become teachers,
self- constituted censors and reprovers of others my brethren, for you know
that we teachers will be judged by a higher standard and with greater severity
than other people; thus we assume the greater accountability and the more
condemnation.
Matthew 23 makes this even more clear. “8 But
be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are
brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father,
which is in heaven. 10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master,
even Christ. 11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.”
If I teach this lesson and allow my own will to enter in I
have become a transgressor. Ministers
who teach anything without specific scripture to back them up will receive the
greater condemnation. I know of teachers
whose personal beliefs ran against scripture who have gotten involved in the intimate
lives of married couples. The things
they taught against were not even mentioned in scripture. They taught their own opinions based upon
what made them uncomfortable and presented it as coming from God. Some things they themselves practiced went
against scripture though I believe we have a grace in Christ that the Jews do
not.
Our prejudices often come to the forefront in our words
though God Himself does not subscribe to the same prejudices. I have read in scripture that righteousness
has no place with unrighteousness and a born again saint of God must not marry
a sinner. In this country we would
rather teach that God is against interracial marriage when our God says He is
against interspecies marriage. Why
interspecies you ask? Because my Bible
tells me that if I am in Christ I am a new creature; old things are passed away
and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). If I am in Christ I am a heavenly creature
and am now living on a higher plane than those creatures I have left
behind. Though we have similar DNA we
are no longer what they are spiritually and that is what matters to God. In His grace God has made an allowance for
those of us who are already married to unsaved people, but the allowance is so the
sinner may be sanctified by the believers faith in hopes they will themselves
come to God for themselves. God does not
allow for a saint to marry a sinner.
Sadly, this not only occurs but is prevalent in today’s church. We would rather marry into the world than
live without carnal affection for a season to allow God to change us or prepare
a godly mate.
Apostle Paul was extremely careful when presenting Biblical
truths and when he came to an area where he was uncomfortable or had a personal
opinion he was quick to say it was his opinion and not the Lord’s commandment
(1 Corinthian 7:6-11). Jesus railed upon
the scribes and Pharisees who according to Him would cross oceans to make one
convert and then make that person a worse child of the devil than they
themselves (Matthew 23:15). Not only is
it wrong to teach your own opinions in the place of scripture, but God Himself
takes personal interest in every word that proceeds out of your mouth in His
name.
2 For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not
in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
Once again, let’s look at the Amplified version. 2 For
we all often stumble and fall and offend in many things. And if anyone does not
offend in speech never says the wrong things, he is a fully developed character
and a perfect man, able to control his whole body and to curb his entire
nature.
Perhaps I’m the only one who has struggled with his tongue
over the years. I came from the land of say
the first thing that comes to mind and that place will never bring you to any
level of maturity and success in Christ Jesus.
Verse two is accurate. We often
stumble and fall and offend. We are
spiritual beings and yet we live in a body that is a bundle of impulses and
desires. It wants what it wants and
without proper scriptural training our brains think what our body wants. We must have our minds renewed by the Word of
God. Out of the abundance of the heart
(spirit) the mouth speaks. The Word of
God must go through your mind to get to your spirit. Living scripturally is anti-common
sense. God wants you to have uncommon
senses.
The carnal mind cannot understand the concept and so it must
be turned into the renewed godly mind.
Only then will your mouth speak as the oracles of God. If you renew your mind and thought processes
with God’s Word and as the preacher said in service today, meditate day and
night, you will have a spirit that allows only the words of life to come forth.
3 Behold, we put bits
in the horses 'mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole
body.
You cannot put a bit in a horse’s mouth and expect the horse
to obey unless the horse has been trained.
An untrained horse will stomp you into the ground as they did to Jezebel
(2 Kings 9:35). The real point of this
verse is that your mouth must be trained.
Your heart must be obedient. Your
mind must WANT to obey God and that DEMANDS training. Have you ever read the responses that follow
online news reports? There are always a
few Christians who offer a godly response to the report. The posts that follow are usually violently
angry and rude toward the Christian. Our
way of life is hated by the earth dwellers (unsaved) and you will never be able
to stand in this way of life if you are not fully committed and trained. Once a saint of God is trained the faintest
whisper by the Holy Spirit will move you wherever God chooses.
4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great,
and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small
helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. 5 Even so the tongue is a little
member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire
kindleth!
I have spoken rashly in my younger days and caused pain to
others. I have been rudely spoken to by
others throughout the years and if I had not been strongly committed to God I
might have backslidden. How you mumble
and complain about your treatment is a strong indicator of the state of your
heart. That ship in verse four requires
an exquisitely balanced rudder to properly guide it. A badly designed ship’s rudder will make a
ship dangerous and hard to steer during foul weather. Only by intelligence and wisdom is a child of
God led by His Spirit. Without that
wisdom and an ear to hear we live in great peril.
One wrong word spoken in the ear of an immature saint will
bring their godly walk to a screeching halt.
God expects us to endure hardness and that requires maturity and a heart
to serve above all else. Saints who walk
around with a chip on their shoulder will never become successful until they
grow up and learn to endure insults and rudeness. I frequently hear born again saints tell me
they do not have to put up with this or that.
Hogwash! They absolutely DO have
to put up with it. Does this mean you
have to accept physical or emotional abuse from someone day after day? No.
For those who simply refuse to change or grow up there is a time to cut
them loose and allow God to lead them down the road of hard knocks.
6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is
the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on
fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.
I think we can see how hard it is to control our
tongues. Far too many saints don’t even
try. They are babes, unable to handle
strong meat, drinkers of milk. To handle
strong meat we must learn how to spit out the bones before they stick in our
throat and choke us. In the same manner
we must learn to spit out insults and threats before they choke our peace and
begin to damage our spiritual walk. Of
all people, Christians should not wear their emotions on their sleeve to be
pummeled by others. Our GOD GIVEN love
ought to have a strong enough hold upon us to allow us to walk away with peace.
Does it make us stronger to move against every person who
speaks out against us? I’m not talking
about someone who is actually harming us, just about that person who talks
about us or cusses us out. Most of our
discomfort will be words rather than physical threats. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is full of actual
physical danger leading to death. In
these cases you enter an entirely different arena. In this country the threats are usually to
our self-esteem or feelings. That is a
tremendous area of weakness in American Christians. We believe we have a right to feel good about
ourselves and be universally loved.
Anyone who assaults that right makes us angry. Our spiritual control should be greater than
that. God expects us to walk in His
Peace (John 14:27). If God has told us
not to be afraid or troubled He must have given us the ability to walk in that
level of faith.
I am adding to this because of a news story from Syria. A Christian pastor was out preaching the
gospel last week when the Muslims came and murdered all four of his sons in
cold blood and left them laying on the ground.
The oldest looked to be about fifteen.
He was asked if he would stop preaching the gospel. He said he would NEVER stop preaching the
gospel and in the midst of his weeping said, “I will preach the Gospel of my
Lord Jesus with every breath I possess.”
Would you?
7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of
serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:
We have a tremendous ability to control the world around
us. One powerful example of anti-God
attitude is the movement over the past few decades to give animals rights and
remove any marks of mankind from the Earth.
Animals were given to us for our pleasure and we have chosen to worship
them, humanize them and relate to them.
There is nothing wrong with treating animals humanely but there is a
serious problem placing their needs over man’s.
They are here to serve us and make our life better. It’s foolish to destroy entire species of
animals out of ignorance, greed and wanton destruction but it is insulting to
God on a personal level to place the needs of an animal over mankind’s. Man is created a spirit just like God’s
Spirit. Animals are natural beasts
without spirit. They are not in the same
league as we are.
It always astounds me how God shows me real life examples to
reveal not only how we are supposed to rule this earth but how we might fail
Him so extraordinarily. In the news
today was a group called 269life who often heat a branding iron like we use on
cattle and brand themselves. Their
purpose is to show solidarity with animals we raise for food. They call all meat eaters the ‘Nazi’s’ of the
animal kingdom. They drag their member
examples from cages by chains around the neck and after heating a branding iron
with the number 269 on it, press it toward the member’s flesh. What caught my attention this particular time
was the most recent example was done to an Israeli man in Tel Aviv Israel who
allowed himself to be branded.
The Jews ARE God’s chosen people. Gentile Christians are loved by God but we
will never have that particular status though we are part of the spiritual
Abraham. God specifically told the Jews
which animals He was allowing them to eat.
The ones they were NOT allowed to eat were unclean, not more noble. Only man is created in the image and likeness
of God; in other words, we are spiritual creatures and animals are not. They are carne, flesh, while we are pneuma,
spirit. They have taken a white calf
marked with the number 269 as their symbol.
This entire group and their symbolic actions are an affront to God on
many levels.
God demanded the sacrifice of a lamb on the day of Passover
so His death angel would pass over the Jews and spare their first born. The death of an animal for our sins has
existed since the time of Adam and Eve. Animals
have always been sacrificed for our sins, a life for a life. It is something we should not take
lightly. The Egyptians worshipped cattle
and that practice caused Aaron and Israel to sin with the golden calf. The fact that a Jew has placed himself on a
level with cattle and has allowed himself to be branded for what amounts to a religious
belief of equality must be viewed by God as a terrible sin. We have chosen to identify with a creature
God made us masters over and spit on the living spirit that is a human. Satan has once again shown his hand by
raising up this terrible sin in Israel itself.
8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil,
full of deadly poison.
My parents used to tell me, “If you don’t have something
good to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” That good advice aside, it rarely prevents
others from offering an opinion about those around them. I can’t recall my father having much to say
against others. He went about his life
assisting others whenever he could and I rarely saw him angry toward another
person. Scripture is full of examples of
wagging tongues speaking against others.
I have been cursed by people all over the world. In most cases it came from my inability or
unwillingness to help someone financially when THEY felt I should.
If we trust God to be both the author AND the finisher of
our faith (Hebrews 12:2) we ought to trust God to be the preserver and builder
of our relationships with one another.
We should also trust Him to ensure our needs are met and direction is
given. That seems to be the most
difficult for us, to trust Him for direction and guidance. Proverbs 3:5-6 is pretty specific. If we trust in the Lord with all our hearts
and lean not on our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge Him, He
shall direct our paths. Fussing about
others because we do not approve of their actions toward us is not trusting
God. Prayer is a much better use of your
time.
9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith
curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same
mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so
to be.
Once again we read that we are made after the similitude of
God. He does not say this about any
creature on the face of the earth except man.
We are a living spirit. Our
spirit is made alive, made connected with God’s Spirit by the sacrifice and
resurrection of Jesus. We alone are
capable of being redeemed. There is no
such gift for the other living beasts on the earth. They are alive and capable of reproduction in
a natural sense but not in a spiritual sense.
God has given us humans alone that blessing. This is why it so offends God to see us
worship animals or place them on the same level as us. He sent His Son to die for mankind, not
animal kind.
Animals are little more than reproducing machines with limited
intelligence. They used to flee from us
until we bred them to be used as food animals.
They have no rights nor can they.
How foolish is it to allow yourself to be branded so you, a higher level
being made in the image of God can feel kinship with a dumb animal. What an incredible insult for our God when we
do so. Treating them with kindness or
even dispatching them as painlessly as possible so they do not needlessly suffer
is a gracious thing offered from a higher being to a lower one; but do not anthropomorphize
them in your mind to being human. They
are not.
You might ask what this has to do with your tongue; but if
you esteem mankind to be on the same level as animals and believe yourself to
be more noble because of your position, you place yourself in the position of
cursing man AND God, telling Him that His great gift to us is unappreciated and
that we consider the dumb beasts of the field (who we still worship in parts of
the world), to be of equal importance with those He sent His Beloved Son to die
for. If God destroyed us outright for
this sin rather than giving us freedom to one day grow up and accept His
wonderful gift then there would be few of us left alive to come to Him.
11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet
water and bitter? 12 Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either
a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
God made us male and female.
He called homosexuality an abomination.
He created animals to serve us as barely thinking servants. He made us living spirits capable of being
reborn into fellowship with His Spirit.
Man has chosen to curse those who tell them they are not free to love
and have sexual relationships with whoever they wish if it goes against the
Word of God. They mock us for believing
something which God decided millennium ago and tell us we need to get with the
times. If you do not believe there is a
press toward this lifestyle of sin and degradation, watch the news and other
sites. Whenever you see a tearing down
of Christian standards of living or those calling sodomy and twisted sexual
practices noble, you are seeing direct action of Satan in the lives of
man. To see an Israeli on the news this
week placing himself on the same level as cattle shows just how much Satan has
sought to destroy the work of God.
13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you?
let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. 14
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not
against the truth.
Notice it says the meekness of wisdom. Wisdom simply states her case and then
rests. She does not strive or insist on
having her own way. You may choose to do
what you will. This is what free will
means for mankind. God will not force
you to serve Him, though He will judge you eventually for your decision. If you are two men and want to have the same
opportunities as a married man and woman your hearts are filled with bitter
envy and it causes you to bring strife toward those around you. God is not impressed with your arguments or
cute turns of phrase. He is calling you
to cease from your glorying and stop lying against God’s law. He will always prove His law and calling Him
a liar is not the way to survive. Your
time on the earth will end quickly and then the judgment.
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly,
sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and
every evil work.
Where it says, ‘this wisdom’ it speaks of the wisdom of man
and Satan’s demonic touch. Notice it
says it is earthly, SENSUAL and devilish.
It comes from your wayward bodies which God has often called you to get
under subjection. That you feel like you
are a homosexual is not an excuse nor a reason before God to become one. It is just a feeling and God is greater than
our feelings. Notice in the previous
verse it was bitter envy and strife and now it is simply envy and strife. The natural man does not want to serve God
and fights against His commands. The
natural mind brings confusion and even greater evil to bear against the forces
of God and good. They lash out in ever
increasing ways against God’s people and eventually will try to bring an end to
the life of God’s children.
We are even now approaching such a thrust of anger and rage
against the church. Many godless
organized churches will welcome those sinners with open arms and not require
any change in their lives. The churches
that believe God’s Word will be regularly attacked and held in derision by both
the sinner and supposed saint who like the Sadducees believes only in what
comforts them and not the truth which will make them free.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
As a saint of God I do not rail on those who have left
God. I pray for them, encourage them to
do better and hope they will draw close to God and make proper decisions. Our motivation is above all pure. We are not striving to take money. Giving is part of our walk but not our
motivation. Salvation is. We are peacemakers and gentle. The Southern church that has preached so much
hatred toward homosexuals is not this sort of church. They are drama seekers and rage
multipliers. We are easy to be entreated. You can talk to us, tell us where you’re at
and solicit our help in drawing closer to God.
We are merciful and our lives are full of godly fruit. We do not judge anyone’s worth or value to
God since He Himself has chosen them and is their judge and strength. We are only here to help and live honestly
before you in truth without hypocrisy or lies.
Satan is the big hypocrite. He
calls truth a lie and a lie truth. He
can paint any picture to seem beautiful and if you do not know God’s Word you
can be made to stumble.
18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of
them that make peace.
I have seen those who lie and do not do the truth. I have seen them fall short and be filled
with hatred and rage. We are supposed to
be peaceful and filled with righteousness.
Our peace is passed from saint to saint but it will also cause the
unrighteous to hate us. They have no
peace and will threaten all those who do.
They want what we have and cannot obtain it any other way but
God’s. This is not acceptable to them
and they continue to rage against us.
Beloved, trying times are coming to try our faith and labor
of love. I pray you hold to that love
and keep your faith.
Bishop J
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