Good Friday Service
April 19, 2019
(links to hymns are in blue font)
Matthew 26:36-46
Hark the Voice of Love & Mercy (Trinity Hymnal #259)
Category: Gospel
What Does it Mean to Believe in Christ?
The large majority of the readers of this blog do not need to be told that a false gospel, gutted of a call to genuine faith and repentance, is the wolf’s great ally. This “gospel,” which the Apostle Paul says is no gospel at all (Galatians 1), only produces nominal Christians, meaning that they are Christian in name only. Survivor after survivor of domestic, sexual, or spiritual abuse will tell their stories of how their abuser hid in the pews, playing the role of “Christian” and enjoying the affirmation of his fellow church members. Where a false gospel is preached, false Christians are produced, and an environment that is ripe for the practice of evil is cultivated. Sadly, we must admit that such a false gospel is widely preached in our churches today, as it has been for decades now.
So Just How do we “Test the Spirits?”
Gal 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
2Co 11:3-4 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (4) For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough….2Co 11:14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
1John 4:1-2 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (2) By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
We are seeing claims of late that Jesus Christ has appeared as a so-called “light man.” The claim made is that since the Bible says God is light and Christ is the Light of the world and so on, then if someone reports that “the light man” appeared to them and said he was Jesus bringing them salvation, we must at minimum believe that such a claim is possibly valid. Even if it is made by a woman who claims to have been molested as a child by Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, and other notables who were all part of a secret conglomeration conspiracy organization consisting of the CIA, the Masons, the Roman Catholic Church, and others. The woman insists that at the age of six she was held in a cage with other children in subterranean levels of an army base and these children told her that they used to get visited by “the light man”. When asked during an interview what does that mean, the woman said, “they (the other children) described him and I said to them, “oh yeah, I know him. That’s Jesus Christ.’”
And now we are being told that if we don’t believe these reports then we are denying the ways that Christ works today, that we are refusing to help abuse victims, and worse. But this is not Christ. Nope. It is not, and I will tell you why.
