Cyber Truths By E-mail
21. The Faithfulness of God and His Word (August 7, 2006)
Dear Friends,
As Sue was doing some research, she came
upon some startling statistics from a survey of clergy in the
late 1970’s. The survey reveals an insidious distrust in
the Bible as God's inerrant and unchanging Word. And since
then, the situation has only gotten worse...
Ten thousand clergymen from 5 major
denominations were asked this question:
“Do you believe the Bible to be the
inspired Word of God?”
Would you like to know how these leaders
responded?
“NO!” answered 82% of the
Methodist clergy;
“NO!” answered 89% of the
Episcopalian clergy;
“NO!” answered 81% of the
United Presbyterian clergy;
“NO!” answered 57% of the
Baptist clergy;
“NO!” answered 57% of the
When church leaders deny the inerrancy
(the freedom from error as it was written) of God’s Word,
they pick and choose what they preach so that people are
entertained rather than convicted of sin.Without the authority
of the Bible as a foundation, it becomes easy for clergy and
hearers at large to give way to the ungodly standards of the
culture around them.
"Your kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and Your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all His promises
and loving toward all He has made" (Psalms 145:13)
If you hold, as we do, to the inerrancy of
the Scriptures as foundational for your way of life, be
encouraged: When you determine to walk in obedient trust in the
authority of Scripture, you can be sure that its timeless truth
won’t vary with the life circumstances you face or the
cultural chaos around you.
What you may not realize is this:
When God's Word isn't trusted, then His faithfulness is brought into doubt.
If His Word is considered unreliable, then He is perceived with the same misgivings.
Do you see the sinister connection here?
When His Word isn't trusted to represent His unchanging and
holy nature and standards for relating to mankind, then the God
Who created everything isn't trusted either. His Word that was
breathed out by Him to His chosen writers for all generations
has given way in the hearts and minds of men to an optional,
historical collection of moral sayings.
What a treacherous and evil scheme of
Satan to stir man's sin nature by developing distrust and doubt
in God: by undermining confidence in His Word. The rotten fruit
of giving in to such a lie is devastating millions in
Christendom today. How?
Remember what the Hebraic Restoration is
all about—it is our Father's affirmation for His people
to live in Covenant union with Him in our trust in Jesus. It is
a desire for relational oneness with each of His own. And, our
Father is seeking child-like dependency from each of His
children: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and
become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom
of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).
Dependency is based upon trust in the
Person on Whom you depend. Pause here to think about this for a
moment. If you don't have complete trust, then you're prone to
apprehension and distrust. You have either complete trust, or
distrust. Consider how that makes our Father feel in light of
His wondrous love for you. Those of you who are parents can
identify somewhat with this. Just think of how your heart would
grieve if your children distrusted you. That would create a
painful void in your heart.
Unfurling ever-increasing distrust in God
is exactly what Satan has done over the generations. A survey
of many Christians in this nation would probably reveal more
confidence in their personal survival skills and
self-sufficiency than in unrelenting dependence on God. Many
count more on our military to keep them free than they rely on
God to do whatever is necessary to cleanse and purify hearts in
this nation. Perhaps you're as disquieted as we are by brazen
bumper stickers that demand that our God "Bless
America". Rather, for such a time as now does this
scriptural warning from our Lord apply:
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain,
or command locusts to devour the land or
send a plague among My people,
IF My people, who are called by My name,
will humble themselves and pray and seek
My face and
turn from their wicked ways,
THEN will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land"
(2 Chronicles 7:13,14).
This cry for repentance was once the
herald of the "Moral Majority" back in the 1970's
until they gave up calling for repentance and trusted instead
in political maneuvering.
You may wonder how Satan has succeeded in
undermining confidence in our unchanging God and His Word
throughout so many avenues of Christendom. Well, on the broader
scale the devil has used public education and the National
Education Association to displace the biblical responsibilities
of parents, especially fathers. That is the stated goal of the
Humanist Manifesto embraced way back in 1932 by those of the
NEA mindset. (For more on this, see our Hebraic Article: He Has
Showed You.)
The success of public education to capture
children's minds enticed the Nicolaitan religious system to
follow suit with youth programs and Sunday schools and
"entertaining outreaches". Such activity-based
programs have encouraged parents to "outsource" to
others their responsibilities to "train up their children
in the way they should go." (We address these issues in
these website resources: August
2002 Newsletter—Restoring Covenant-based Communities;
Lifebyte 30. Your Home: Our Father’s Primary Place For
Combating Your Sin Nature; May-June 2004 Newsletter—Be
Warned! Greasy Grace Fuels the Fires of Hell)
Perhaps you outsourced your children to
one of the denominational programs whose surveyed clergy
discounted the Bible as God's unchanging, inerrant Word. What
do you think the probability is for your sons and daughters to
develop a lifelong confidence in our Father's faithfulness when
their spiritual role models have their doubts? Today, less than
23% of churched children follow in the faith of their parents.
And most of the other denominations not mentioned in the survey
are similar in their fruit: generations who practice religion
but have no Bible-based, obedient trust in God.
We've discussed in previous teachings that
all of us were conceived with a sin nature. This evil force
within each of us is similar in character and motive to that of
the devil. Your sin nature desires to entice you to live
contrary to God's Word. (See Lifebyte
18. Certain Of What We Do Not See—The Powerful Influence
Of Your Sin Nature.)
God's design for parental discipline is to
help our children resist their sin nature and turn to God's
good ways. Then, when your son or daughter embraces the
Father's Covenant in Jesus, the Holy Spirit strengthens them in
this battle. A follower of Jesus has a war inside them over Who
or what will rule their soul—the Holy Spirit or their sin
nature!
Our victory in this battle is found when
we remain repentant and abide in fellowship with our Father and
His Son, Jesus. You can be sure that the repentant have
confidence in both our Father and His Word. Repentance is key
for us who follow Jesus because it keeps us on the path of
righteous living and in relational fellowship with our God.
From the time of the Apostle John right up
to today are those who may call themselves
"Christian" but live with unconfessed sin. As the
faithful apostle reported, these people have no fellowship with
the Father. By failing to uphold God's holy standard to repent
as is repeated in both testaments of the Bible, the
presumptuous discount the Word and believe the lie that they
are still acceptable to God no matter how they choose to live.
What a crock!!! But tragically, they can go on any Sunday and
sit with others who also may be hiding unconfessed sin. They
can feel comfortable and accepted in a building filled with the
spiritually dark (see 2 Corinthians 6:14), yet never touch the
heart of God.
Our faithful Father is faithful to His
inerrant Word, even the parts that seem hard: "For this
reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will
believe the lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Like the
Israelites of Jeremiah's time, whom our long-suffering Lord
finally exiled from the land, deluded people today construct
whatever religious expression suits them. With sin-darkened
souls they can sing feel-good songs, believing the lie that
their "praise" is acceptable worship to God. But
that's not strange, especially since they don't trust that
God's righteous requirements for worship are found in His holy
Word. Therefore, they can worship their own
"custom-designed" god however they choose without
being concerned about the only true God of His Word. And this
is the same dark deceit of Jeremiah's deluded compatriots.
How does this all apply to you?
Well, there's a very real tug-of-war going
on inside you. On one side is your sin nature that's vulnerable
to the devil, who's always waiting for an opportunity to entice
you to evil. That goal is made that much easier if you distrust
the Father and the reliability of His Word. You align with this
evil force if you live with unconfessed sin. The fruit of your
delusion will be this:
You will fail to experience and appreciate
how truly faithful our Father is. And THAT is truly grievous...
On the other hand, if you live
repentantly, that is, if you continue to respond to the
Spirit's nudge and repent immediately when you do sin, then you
are wonderfully privileged to experience our Father and His
faithfulness. Your righteous standing is the glue in your
Covenant relationship with God (see 1 John 1:9). To use an
analogy, not only are Sue and I married, but we have the same
identifying last name. Well, righteousness is the last name of
the family of our God: "This
is the name by which He will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6).
No doubt you'll have up days and down
days. You're going to have times of feeling distanced from God,
even though He hasn't forsaken you. Use these times to see if
there is any unconfessed sin, AND to cry out like a small child
who has lost his parent in a crowd. Remember, dependency and
loving trust are what our Father seeks from you. He hasn't lost
you. Far from it! He is attentive to see if you want Him—DESPERATELY WANT HIM!!!
A point you may be interested in:
When we share communion in our home
fellowship family, we're renewing our Covenant with our Father.
We review that His five stipulations for our Covenant in Jesus
are still viable as a weekly reminder for each of us:
1. Are we still repentant?
2. Do we still trust Him?
3. Do we still love Him?
4. Are we still determined to live
diligently for Him?
5. Is there anyone we haven't forgiven?
And, we pray blessings on those who've hurt us in the past.
Family in Jesus, our Father is ABSOLUTELY
faithful!
His Word is ABSOLUTELY trustworthy to
guide your life into righteousness.
To lose confidence in either Him or in His
Word is to expose yourself to the slippery progression of
doubt, delusion, habitual sin, and ultimately eternal
condemnation.
We encourage you to scrutinize whatever
spiritual teachings you embrace. They may be dangerously
undermining your confidence in God and His Word. Let Jesus
speak to you:
"Be on your guard against the yeast
of the Pharisees [and clergy intermediaries and Nicolaitan
teachers]" (Matthew 16:
11; see also 2 Peter 2:1).
We hope this e-mail will be helpful if
you're suffering doubt about our God in whatever circumstances
you're facing. And, we continue to solicit your prayers as we
press on in our video production. Thank you for thinking of us!
Mike & Sue Dowgiewicz
