Common Sense

"The things we think but dare not speak..."

By Ron and Karen Schwartz

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Copyright © 2001-2007 Ron Schwartz
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Out of the Wilderness. Part 1 - The Remnant and the End Time Message.  4/6/2008.  Many Christians who contact us are confused and hurt that they are all alone.  They long for the encouragement of other believers and try to make sense of their solitude.  We are unable to offer these saints help since we do not understand the work that God is doing in their lives.  If there is a remnant, they would remain aware that within them still dwells the seed of Babylonian culture which they must continue to purge.  As a result, they would not view their lives as superior to others.  They would be only too aware of their own humanity to believe that they are part of God’s “end-time” remnant.  You see, if there is a true remnant, it is so well hidden that those who are part of it do not recognize that they are.  Therefore, they would not be talking about the remnant: something of which they could not possibly be a part.  The true remnant would be hidden from others who are also part of it.

Joshua-gate. Part 1 - The Great End Time Conspiracy.  3/18/2008.  Do you sometimes wonder why it seems that God has forsaken you?  Then you are not alone.  More and more Christians of this generation are asking the same question.  Have you ever wondered why it seems that you just can’t seem to find a church where the power and presence of God is “really” active (and we are not talking about pretenders and counterfeiters with all their hype)?  Once again, you are not alone.  Have you ever wondered why there is such a great migration and exodus from traditional churches as Christians search for something real?  Yes, you are not alone.  More and more, God is not just forsaking this generation; more and more He is actively working against it.  And now, it is not just churches that are beginning to experience it.  Individual people are, too.  

Dissipation - If Samson Could Warn Us.  2/11/2008.  Every Christian has, at one time or another, asked the question, “What has happened to Christianity?”  It’s impossible to spend any length of time reading the New Testament and not wonder why Christianity no longer resembles that which was practiced by Christ and His followers.  It’s a sad revelation that all Christians must eventually reconcile in their own minds.    Instead of rationalizing apathy, compromise, and sin, let us ask instead, “Why is the Christianity of the past no longer relevant today?”  If the contemporary teaching that “Christianity has changed” is actually a fabrication of modern academia, then just where does this leave modern Christianity?  It leaves Christian leaders with no excuse for the apathetic, backslidden, carnal condition of the churches for which they are responsible.  So, then, why is modern Christianity so different from Jesus’ teachings?  The answer to this contradiction is found in a passage from the Gospel according to Luke: Jesus actually told us it would happen.  

It is interesting that caged wild animals will often lose their instinct to mate.   Then their species simply dies out and vanishes away, with only documents left to prove that they ever existed.  Similarly, we have only ancient and few documents to provide us with information as to what Christianity once was.  Christianity is nearly extinct.  Christians have live within the cages of institution for so long that they have lost almost every characteristic of which they once was.  Slowly Christianity is dying out and vanishing away.  Reading about Christianity, as taught and exampled by Jesus and practiced by His disciples, is like reading about the ancient Mayan civilization.   The people who live in the territory of that civilization today no longer resemble the greatness of that kingdom.  Compared to what they once were, the people who live there today are poor and lowly.

Who owns Your Faith?  1/25/2008.  Of all the apostles, perhaps Peter gives us the best insight into how Jesus sought to develop faith in His disciples.  It was Peter who believed that Jesus was the Christ and proclaimed, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16).”  It was Peter who walked on water and who boldly proclaimed the gospel message on the day of Pentecost, resulting in the salvation of thousands.  We should consider the technique Jesus employed as we determine how to properly raise our children in faith and how to develop faith within our own communities of believers where we fellowship. What was Jesus’ secret?  How did He develop faith amongst His disciples?  Jesus used adversity – in particular, literal storms – to build the faith of his disciples.  

Everything Has an End - Paving the way for the Antichrist.  1/8/2008.  It is called the Transitive Property in mathematics.  Briefly, it means that if A=B and B=C then A=C.  When we consider the contemporary church, it is more like if A=B, B=C, C=D, D=E, and E=F, then A=F.  By this, we mean that we have become so far removed from the origins of what we believe and practice that we are completely unaware of how the philosophical outlook of contemporary Christianity and the attitude of church leaders have been molded by previous generations.  Take, for instance, the progenitor of church leadership.  How did it begin?  What are its roots?  Consider the words, “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.”  It is said that attitude is a reflection of leadership.  Disciples emulate the behavior of their teachers.  They also emulate their perspectives and attitude.  Therefore, if the apostles thought that it was beneath them to wait on tables, so would the rest who follow and model their behavior after them.  If the apostles felt that it was “more important” to study the scriptures and pray, then so would all those who follow.  The apostles did get part of their leadership responsibilities right – the part that required them to pray and minister the word.  But what about the rest of their responsibility - the part that had to do with being an example?  You see, Jesus wasn’t just a great teacher; He was also a great example.  And He continually demonstrated that nothing was beneath Him.  He considered Himself a servant.

His Generation - Part 5, Polymorphic Christianity.  12/2/2007.  “On my way to work a few weeks ago, God began to speak to my heart about a class system in Christianity.  I began to have ideas that I couldn’t find the words to describe.  By the time I got to work, my heart was heavy.  I needed to find some way to write about these thoughts, but I couldn’t find the words to describe them.  At my desk, I bowed my head and prayed, ‘Lord, give me some real world example to explain these ideas You’ve given me.’   Almost immediately, I heard the words, ‘poly’ and ‘morphic.’   ‘Poly morphic,’ I repeated out loud.  ‘There are no such words,’ I said to myself.  So I went to the website dictionary.com and typed the words as one word, ‘polymorphic.’  I felt that perhaps it would recommend a real word.  To my surprise, it was a real word.  Not only that, but the definition was the exact description of the ideas that God was speaking to my heart.”  --Ron Schwartz, November 2007.

There are many different examples of polymorphic insects found in nature.  Incredibly, each of the different castes in each species comes from larvae laid by the same queen.  Though each larva may appear the same, the type of adult they will become is predetermined before they came into existence as a result of environmental factors such as the need for food, workers, or protection.  In this type of social system, the function of a particular insect is predetermined, and they can never be anything different.  Humans and other mammals are not polymorphic and are thus not limited in their social capacity.  They are not predestined to have a single social function.  Instead, humans have the ability to grow, learn, adapt, and expand themselves to become anything that they are physically and intellectually capable of becoming.  In keeping with the old adage, “The sky is the limit,” humans have the ability to grow from one social function into another, even to succeed at many different social functions.  They can breed and give birth like the Drone and Queen, they can work to provide for their families like the Worker, and they can fight to protect the freedom of their society like the Soldier.  They are not “pre-caste” into a single immutable social function. 

His Generation - Part 4, Finishing God's Work.  11/20/2007.  To eat the meat of Jesus means to “finish his [the Father’s] work.”  This requires that you be brave and to believe.  You must be brave enough to step out of your comfort zone and finish the work the Holy Spirit begins around you.  When a woman came to a well near where Jesus sat, He preached to her the message of the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit began the work by drawing her to the well and creating the encounter.  Christ finished what the Holy Spirit began by acting on God’s behalf.  We also must see these chance encounters as Jesus and His disciples did: not as a coincidence, but as divine appointment.  When Peter and John came across a crippled beggar at the temple, they saw it as the divine appointment God meant it to be.  The Holy Ghost began the work, so they finished it!  To Peter and John, meeting the crippled beggar wasn’t about gaining another follower or expanding the size of their church.  It was about allowing a life to be forever transformed by the power of God.  It is those times when we partner with the Holy Spirit that we grow, that we become spiritually strong, that we eat of the meat of the Holy Spirit.  As we work with the Holy Spirit to see lives transformed, we become the rivers of living water that the scriptures describe.  So, if you are spiritually depleted, do not look for a preacher to toss you his crumbs.  Look around for the encounters that the Holy Spirit has created and complete the work. Sadly though, most Christians do not see divine encounters, they only see coincidences, and those who do recognize a divine encounter unusually do not act upon it.  It is because they have been so ingrained with the idea that they are not qualified to minister to others, it’s not their job, and neither do they have the authority to act, that the divine encounter simply slips away.  

His Generation - Part 3, The Church Of My House.  11/9/2007. If Christianity is to ever become the Bride of Christ that it was destined to be, it will not be through today’s institutions.  It must return to its roots.  It must cast aside two thousand years of vain institution and adopt the spontaneous, adaptive, and opportunistic methods of His generation.  They must look to Christ as their head and the Holy Spirit for answers and guidance.  Christians must be unleashed.  They must be turned loose into the wild to discover who they were prior to their domestication, to rediscover their destiny by adapting, overcoming, and subduing this earth and the evil ingrained into it.  In order for this to happen, each home must become a church, every parent a pastor, and every child a fiery disciple!

His Generation - Part 2, What It Means To Believe.  10/19/2007. John 3:16 is, without doubt, one of the most well-known scriptures in the Bible.  Yet for all the tens of thousands of times it is quoted each week, it seems to find no place in today’s Christian culture.  Who today evangelizes with the message of “believing?”  Why does the context of this scripture seem to have little meaning among Christians today?  Even a cursory study of the New Testament will reveal that this passage is far from being an anomaly.  “Believing” is the central theme of the New Testament.   The word “believe” is the Greek verb “pisteuo.” The noun version, “pistis,” is translated as “faith.” The use of “believing” and “faith” are thus interchangeable.  They are essentially the same word.  “Believing” and “faith” were never meant to be used to exclusively describe a process of salvation that was accomplished years ago.  It was meant to describe the everyday actions of believers as they lived their lives.  It was meant to describe how they handled adversity, sickness, and the lost souls they encountered.  It was meant to describe believing that Jesus is the Son of God and following what He taught.  It meant exercising His faith, believing in His active power in their lives, and doing His works.  It meant to be an overcomer, a conqueror, and kings among men.  To the first believers, Christianity was a transformation.  It was not only an inward experience but also an ongoing outward manifestation through their lives of their spiritual rebirth, the operation of the Spirit in their lives, and the realization of Christ’s teaching in them.  They were and strove their entire lives to become all that He was, all that He promised them, and all that He taught.  That is what it meant to “believe.”

His Generation - Part 1, What Shall Become Of This Generation?  10/9/2007. 

The generation of Jesus began about 30AD with a relatively young rabbi walking through the coastal cities of Galilee.  He preached a message not unlike John the Baptist’s message: a message that would become known as the Gospel, or “Good News.”  Twelve men, varying in age within about twenty years of Jesus, joined Him as His Apostles.  We want to declare His generation and what became of it.  Jesus’ generation lasted for about 70 years (30AD to 100AD).  They were a generation of about thirteen men who changed the known world.  They never lost faith, they never lost focus, and they never lost the passion required to spread this “good news.”  They faced severe opposition from their fellow countrymen, and they thrived during a time of great persecution.  They did not have all the answers, yet they were able to leave some of the richest writings ever produced, and the reason why we are able to assemble and worship God is completely the result of their lives’ work. 

The men who followed Jesus were unique.  They were an anomaly for every other generation of Christian leaders that were to follow.  It is safe to say that NO other generation of Christian leaders followed the example taught by Christ and practiced by His original followers.  These original followers did not compete for preeminence or control. They did not split into isolated factions of believers who went about their own business regardless of what the others thought.  In fact, thirty years after the death of Christ, we find these men still operating as a team (rather than as individuals), burning with the same passion of world evangelism.  What was different with them?  Why were they such an anomaly?

What Is A New Testament Church - Part 4 "Within And Without".  9/19/2007. 

What makes up a New Testament church is New Testament Christians.  One reason we fail to see the type of church that the First Century Christians knew is because Christians since then have institutionalized their faith.  They are practicing intellectually what they believe to be a New Testament faith, when it is, in reality, little more than living an Old Testament life.  The Old Testament dealt with the outside.  Consequently, process and procedure were important (e.g., God told Moses, “See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount (Hebrews 8:5).”).  Christian leaders and churches that focus on process and procedure are NOT New Testament but Old.  In the Old Testament, people approached God through following the “process” of the Tabernacle and Temple.  But God is no longer there.  The process for growing closer to God no longer works.  All that these processes can achieve now is religion.  Institutionalizing faith is religion.  It desires to boil everything down to a recipe, a guideline, a process.  If this describes you, then you need to repent and do the first works again.  If your priorities seem skewed, if understanding what the New Testament is seems cloudy, if you are burdened by all the spiritual/religious things that you are supposed to be doing, then you are living in the Old Testament.  You must learn again (like you did when you were first saved) what it means to have a personal relationship with God.

What Is A New Testament Church - Part 3, Contextual Ministry.  9/4/2007.  The practice of the New Testament church was vastly different from its contemporary counterpart.  “Appointed” church offices took a back seat to the manifestation of the Spirit, while those who were spiritually gifted were both encouraged and allowed to express their spiritual gifts.  Today, however, the reverse is true.  In our contemporary church model, “appointed” church offices (i.e., men who are appointed to a position of authority) are often expected to be plenipotentiary leaders who take precedence over the spiritually gifted.  The spiritually gifted are often viewed and treated as troublemakers and renegades.   Therefore, the contemporary church is derailed, primarily because its leaders are.  They have allowed their appointed positions to give them a place in the church that God never intended.  Appointed church leaders were to have authority over that which belongs to men, not that which belongs to God.   In a New Testament church, a believer does not need to be appointed to a church office in order to minister.  ALL MATURE CHRISTIANS are to be regarded as elders and speak with the SAME authority as those appointed to church offices.  Why, then, have church offices at all?  The practice in the New Testament church was to appoint spiritually mature individuals to handle the business and physical affairs of the church.  That is why all the qualifications for a church office in Titus and Timothy deal with the honesty and integrity of a man, NOT his spiritual endowment.  

What Is A New Testament Church - Part 2, Offerings Of Fire.  8/28/2007.  Missing from most churches, especially those that claim to be New Testament, is the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.  You cannot create a New Testament church by setting in place elders and deacons, by being accountable to an apostle, by developing ministries, by giving or listening to anointed sermons, or by seeking spiritual gifts.  If you want a New Testament church, you must do what the first generation of Christians did:  wait for the power!  Do you want to experience a New Testament church?  Then stop trying to create one.  All we can create is an Old Testament church, a church produced out of human will and effort.  Contrary to popular consensus, God does not need apostles and prophets, spiritual gifts, or the New Testament church structure in order to change the world.  God does not need traditional pastors or their programs in our churches.  The form of church and the ministry structure they provide has done little to affect the people, communities, or the nations of this world.  What God needs from us is something that church form and ministry structure cannot provide.  God needs each of us to offer Him our lives as “an offering made by fire.”     

What Is A New Testament Church - Part 1, The New And Old Testament Church.  8/14/2007.  There was an Old Testament Church just as there is a New Testament Church.  Much of the problem Christians face today comes from a misunderstanding of what structure and obligations belong to the Old Testament Church and what to the New Testament Church.  In general, Christians understand that they are no longer obligated to make blood sacrifices for their sin.  They clearly see this as Old Testament obsolescence, but other things are not as clear.  What about the Jewish feasts or abstaining from pork?  Christians tend to struggle with many of the sundry laws and ordinances.  Many Christians are not clear as to how the law applies to New Testament Christians.  The line of separation between the Old and New Testament is blurred with Christians observing many Old Testament practices.  It was a problem that was especially difficult for first century Christianity, and a struggled they never completely resolved.  Consequently, it is no wonder that Christians of today tend to embrace much of the Old Testament structure when it comes to the New Testament Church.   

Domesticating Christians - Part 3, Addicted To Pleasure  8/6/2007.  Today’s Christian leaders are propagating a perversion.  Rather than stand in the gap, they fight to see who can own the biggest share of it.  They have no motivation to want the gap removed since it is that gap that gives them purpose, makes them relevant.  As they see it, God has called them to “fill the gap,” not remove it.  If there were no gap, what would they do?  As long as there exist apathetic compromising Christians, then there is work for them to do.   In addition, they need the gap to get wider in order to have room for a new generation of Christian leaders.  The gap is treated like prime real estate, with every institutional minister attempting to get the biggest share.  As a result, the gap between God and His people gets wider as more and more Christians are turned into addicts.  Christian leaders are not closing the gap; rather, they are responsible for creating and widening it.  

Every time Christian are given alternatives to seeking God themselves and seeking the infilling of His Spirit, there is a new “spiritual gap” created.  Every sermon, book, crusade, and video teaching that does not cause Christians to abandon their pursuit of intellectual pleasure and spend time (however long that may be) seeking God until they are filled with His Spirit and become a river of living water is nothing more than a spiritual gap.  The worst possible thing that could happen to the institutional church and its leaders is for “revival” to take place and the gap between God and His people to disappear.  What would all the Christian leaders do then?  They cannot allow that to happen, so they protect the gap by filling it with their ministries, churches, and sermons, and in doing so, they feed the addiction of God’s people, cleverly keeping them away from God.  God’s people today are slaves to their addictions.  They are addicted to their pleasures, and the pushers of these addictions are their Christian leaders who feed it to them.

Domesticating Christians - Part 2, Unnatural Selection  7/23/2007.  God meant for women to marry men, not angels.  How could men possibly compete with angels for the affection of women?  For “angels, which are greater in power and might (2 Peter 2:11)” are nearly perfect beings.  They exercise tremendous strength and miraculous power.  Angels surely used their power to captivate the attention of human women.  Human men could not contend with such powerful beings. This perversion of God’s order created offspring who were “mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”  It is quite possible that this is from where the legends of Hercules and the other Greek gods came.  It is easy to understand how their offspring could be seen as gods.  Nevertheless, these “mighty men” were a perversion of God’s order.

It is interesting that prior to this event in the scripture there is no evidence of idolatry.  There is no evidence that mankind worshipped idols.  We can conclude that, up until this event, mankind recognized only a single God.  They may not have acknowledged or worshipped Him, but they still knew that He was God. The creation of these “mighty men… men of renown” could, in one sense, be viewed as a fulfilling of the destiny of mankind.  God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (Genesis 1:26).”  So when godlike beings began to emerge, those angel beings could have claimed to be doing God’s will.   But even though their offspring appeared godlike, they only appeared that way.  In reality, they were made in the image of angels, not in the image of God.  

Domesticating Christians - Part 1  7/4/2007.  True Christians who desire to be the subduer/conqueror that God destined them to be are incompatible with institutional churches.  They are incompatible with the church setting that casts them as spectators, like cattle in stalls.  Christians like this have sacrificed their knowledge of how to move and operate in the Spirit for the safety of their church-farm and the mindless duty of being fed by their pastor-farmer.  They believe that only their pastor-farmer is blessed with the gift of feeding.  So they have laid down their swords and armor and quietly conformed to becoming livestock.  They no longer know how to survive and thrive in the environment God designed them to conquer.  They are no longer God’s warriors against the land of spiritual darkness.  They live now in the safety of their stall, and think that this is what God destined for them.  God’s people have quite literally been “destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

Poets Of The Spirit - Being A Doer Of The Word.  6/25/2007.  The Holy Spirit works in our lives, not through lectures and workbooks, but by leading us through the difficult times.  We learn faith by practicing it, and God will make sure that we get ample opportunities to practice it.  We learn patience, mercy, and forgiveness from people who hurt us. Every tangible element in our Christian lives is obtained from living/practicing our Christian faith. Sometimes we don’t know what to do.  That is not the time to run to the Christian bookstore but to pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit.  When you allow God to handle the circumstances in your life, you will begin to see a poet emerge in you.  You will see people being drawn to the performance of your life.  When we allow God to write His law in our hearts (as opposed to drawing from academia and then trying to force it to work in our lives) we will see Christ lifted up and all men drawn to him.

Spiritual Authority - Part 1. Understanding Spiritual Authority. 5/16/2007.  There is a great deal of confusion over the subject of Spiritual Authority because people tend to confuse natural authority and spiritual authority.  This confusion is pervasive in the teachings of well-known Christian teachers like Bill Gothard and Watchman Nee.

Natural authority is the power (or authority) people have over others.  People tend to exploit the areas of their lives that contribute to their sense of power.  For instance, it is not unusual for influential men to spend in excess of $1,000 on a name brand suit, $150 on a silk tie, $200 on leather shoes, thousands on a Rolex watch, and tens of thousands on classy cars.  Men are not alone in their pursuit of power.  Women live in what they consider “a man’s world.”  Therefore, in order to feel significant, women feel they need to have some sort power over men.  But since they are far less physically intimidating than most men, women have had to learn other ways to achieve power and control.  One especially effective tool is there sex appeal.  The most common way to do this is by accentuating their physically sensual characteristics.  They tend to wear clothes that accent their physical shape, stockings and shoes that show off their legs, make-up and hairstyles that accent their faces, jewelry and nail polish to show off their hands, etc.  Women have come to understand that a man’s sexual drive is his weakness, and so when they successfully exploit this weakness, they gain power over him.  Other women go to the opposite extreme and attempt to act and dress like their male counterparts trying to fit in with them.  None of this has anything to do with spiritual authority.  It is merely people using natural authority to have power and control.

Spiritual Authority - Part 2. The Application Of Spiritual Authority.  5/22/2007.  This note addresses the relationship of the husband and wife as well as that of parents and children.  It also addresses the issue of submission.  The following is a sample of the part on the husband and wife relationship:  We learn here that God created Eve to be a “help meet.”  The word “help (Hebrew: help, aid, or succor)” means just as it would seem: “to aid or assist.”   Interestingly enough, the word “meet” means “a part opposite, specifically a counterpart, or mate.  It has the idea of something being set against (as in opposition) something else.”   Eve could help him become better by providing balance through an opposing viewpoint.  Their collaboration and cooperation is known as “synergy.”  It is the friction between these two opposites who work together for a solution that creates synergy.  

The following is a sample of the part on submission:  We must be careful not turn submission into a spiritual act.  When we do that it becomes law, and women will submit, not out of love but out of some sense of duty or threat of sin.  This tends to diminish a wife’s effectiveness as his help meet.  Christian wives submit to their husbands because that is the natural order that God established, and it is therefore pleasing to Him.  But to make submission exclusively a wife’s role is wrong.  We are “all [to] be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”   Consequently, it should not be hard for a woman to submit to her husband and he to her.  Submission should be our lifestyle.  

Spiritual Authority - Part 3. The Voice Of The Holy Spirit.  5/30/2007.  We are convinced that most Christians do NOT know how to hear the voice of the Spirit.  Gleaning truths divined from the scripture is NOT the voice of the Spirit.  Basing your decision on your understanding of biblical truths is NOT hearing the voice of the Spirit.  Coming to a consensus through the counsel of others is NOT listening to the Spirit of God.  Instead of hearing the voice of the Spirit, most Christians have come to accept their own presumptions, cultural values, and intellectual knowledge of the scripture to dictate the answers they desire and their spiritual direction.  Though truth can sometimes be found in this way, it is a poor replacement for hearing what the Spirit has to say.  Only by listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit can one be fully submitted to true spiritual authority.   

When you consider the scriptures as a whole, you begin to see certain themes occurring.  I believe “biblical themes” are certain inalienable truths that the apostles embraced and were therefore reflected in their writing.  For instance, Western civilization embraces justice and freedom.  As a result, someone who embraces these values will unknowingly communicate these virtues in their writing and speech even though they may not directly address the subject.  That is because these values are a part of the way we think and are therefore reflected in how we communicate.  This is also true in the writings of the New Testament.  There are certain ideological truths like love, grace, and faith that were embraced by the authors of the New Testament.  These values were at times subtly communicated in their writing.  They appear as themes in their writing.  Therefore, when we read a statement that seems to be in conflict with other New Testament passages, we must look beyond the words and the Greek meaning, seeking to understand the theme of the concept as it is expressed in the whole of the New Testament.

Spiritual Authority - Part 4. Case Studies In Spiritual Authority.  6/3/2007.  Case Study 1, the First Family.  What happened with Adam and Eve is very common.  Like most wives, Eve’s opinion of Adam was colored by his natural authority over her.  She saw him not as a spiritual being but as the “physical” man that he was.  The Serpent approached Eve not from a position of natural authority but as a spiritual authority.  There was no way that Adam could compete with that.  Even though he knew the mind of God on the issue, Eve had more respect for someone coming from a position of spiritual authority than one coming from a position of natural authority.  Adam lost out because of his natural authority.  Consider the series of events that took place to bring about the fall of mankind.

Case Study 2, The First Church.  Many Christians want to revert back to the spiritual authority of the Old Testament.  They liked having men represent them to God as their priests.  If they don’t have to go to God, then their sin will not be exposed and their conscience will be clear.  Consequently, churches everywhere put men as their priests/pastors in a position between them and God.  These men insulate them from the prying eyes of the Holy Spirit.  It is easy to sit in a church and listen to someone preach, and it satisfies the need to submit to God even if little is actually accomplished.  The pastors/priests have no idea the lives that their congregations lead, and this is the way people like it.  But if God stood before them, there would be no hiding their sin.    

Spiritual Authority - Part 5 Power Over Serpents And Scorpions.  6/15/2007.  When you put the scripture, “we wrestle,” together with the scripture, “power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy,” you begin to understand that the spiritual authority Christians can have “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, [and] against spiritual wickedness in high places” is not given carte blanche to just any Bible-toting believer.  Like the Greeks who trained their entire life for this contest, spiritual authority over “serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” is for them who have conditioned and trained their spiritual lives to be qualified for this fight.  Believers do this through obeying the discipleship described by Jesus, and through “crucifying the flesh” as described by Paul.  The measure of spiritual authority a believer has is directly proportional to the degree that they are submitted to the Lord.  They must set aside sin and personal ambitions and become obedient to God’s Spirit.  And like the Greek sport, this training and discipline must be considered lifelong and life changing. 

Coming Out Of Egypt - Part 1. Seven Times Worse.  3/26/2007.  Repeated over and over again throughout the scripture is the principle of being “called out.”  Even the word “church” comes from the Greek word “ecclesia” which means “the called out ones.”  In this scripture, we find Abraham being called out of Ur.  Later on, the children of Israel are called out of Egypt, and then again out of Babylon.  What is important is that with each calling out there is also a calling to.  God always has a purpose for His called out ones.  Christians are called out with purpose.  We tend to lose sight of the purpose and focus our attention on the coming out part.  Christianity then regresses into a list of “do’s and don’ts,” focusing on our outward appearance and superficial obedience, rather than the process of our transformation (what we are to become) from the inside out.  It is this fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the casting of our crowns at the feet of Christ (making Him king instead of us or our churches), and the yielding to His control and authority that will restore Zion.  Zion will not be rebuilt by simply coming out of a church, it will not come by fashioning a five-fold ministry, nor will it come by pursuing spiritual gifts.  It can only come about when we come into His presence and make Him Lord and King of His Church.  

Coming Out Of Egypt - Part 2. Swept And Garnished."  4/6/2007.  Each week, churches are filled with parasitic Christians.  They are like dry lifeless sponges.  They soak the life out of everything around them.  They come to church after spending a (spiritually) lifeless week in the bowels of this world.  They are like batteries that have been used up all week and barely have a spark of life.   They expect their Sunday morning will renew their spirits and re-charge their spiritual batteries with just enough energy so that they can make it through another week.  Then the cycle repeats itself.  Is this the type of Christianity that is described in the scriptures?  Absolutely not.  Today’s version of Christianity is fundamentally flawed in that it is an exercise in futility.  It is, at best, superficial.  

Coming Out Of Egypt - Part 3. Yesterday's Manna."  4/11/2007.  There is nothing wrong with the bread of life.  The wrong is in our own hearts.  Is Jesus really enough?  Institutional churches have so many wonderful things.  They have great praise and worship teams.  They have articulate and educated preachers.   They have wonderful social programs for our families.  But where is the bread of life in all these things?  Their programs are designed to stimulate our senses.  They captivate our attention.  They add to the boatload of useless knowledge we already have, but they cannot transform us spiritually.  The only way for this to happen is if we get hungry, hungry for something that institutional churches are determined never to allow.  If you get hungry, you will soon realize that you are alone in a crowd, that the people who surround you are shallow, and that the preachers are fake.  You will find yourself hungering for something that cannot be satisfied in their entertainment.  You need Jesus.  You need the bread of life.

If church is something that you attend dutifully, then just remember your family will feel the same way.  Do they go out of obligation?  Then something is wrong.  Stop looking to churches and pastors for answers and spiritual fulfillment, because it’s waiting for you at your very own home.  Your manna, the manna that God has designed specifically for you, is waiting for you.  It is found, not in a crowd of people, but in the intimacy of your relationship with Him.  What you miss today will never be again, so don’t let a single day escape.  Look around.  It’s within reach.  But grasp it quickly before it melts away.

Coming Out Of Egypt - Part 4. The Ultimate Loser."  4/19/2007.  Centuries ago, there existed a great people.  They just did not know they were great.  They were the Greeks.  They were a feudalistic society of city-states each of which possessed its own army.  But their constant fighting of each other kept them from becoming the great empire that they should have been.  That is, until the Persian Empire showed up at their border.  Persia had conquered over forty nations and empires. It has an army of millions.  In contrast, each Greek city-state had an army that usually numbered in the tens of thousands.  Nevertheless, the Greeks inflicted such losses on the Persians that the Persians retreated back to their own homeland, and the Greeks eventually took Persia’s place as the greatest empire in the world.    Just as the Greeks did in their time, today’s Christians fight viciously against each other.  They have no common enemy.  Their enemy is each other.  They are busy trying to turn stones into bread as Satan sits back and laughs in satisfaction.  The temptation Jesus overcame in the desert has become the demise of His followers.

Coming Out Of Egypt - Part 5.  Where Are All The Men?"  4/23/2007.  In every Christian home, the husband/father desires to be the spiritual head of his home.  As a responsible godly man, he tries to put his family in an environment that nurtures spiritual growth.  Some men control access to TV and other media to which his children may be exposed.  Some control who their friends are, the way they dress, and even where they get their education (home school or Christian school).  Often these things are carried out properly with admirable results in that children become mature, respectful, well-behaved young people with a conscience for God.   Most Christian parents know intuitively what is right for their family.

In addition, both the husband and wife know they need the fellowship of like-minded Christians both for themselves and for their children.  Eventually, they settle on a church that they feel can best support their spiritual and social objectives for their family.  It would seem on the surface that this model would go far to strengthen the family unit, but just the reverse is true.  The Barna Group Ltd. studies, as well as that from many other groups show that the family unit of contemporary Christianity is NO stronger than that of its secular counterpart.  In short, the church has had zero impact in strengthening the family unit.  Some studies even suggest that it has made matters worse.  Of course, none of this makes any sense, or does it?  Let’s consider what spiritual principles are really at work and whether these spiritual principles do in fact strengthen the family unit.  

Coming Out Of Egypt - Part 6. Dead Faith."  5/1/2007.  Spoiled and self-centered people tend to see faith as it pertains to their needs.  To them, their faith is not considered in how it can help others but in how it can be used to help their own income, to aid in their own good health, and to make their children obedient.  Faith is not seen in their actions but in God’s.  You might say that they have a passive faith in an active God.  With this kind of faith, God does all the work, and they are the recipients of His loving kindness.  While it is true that we are the recipients of God’s good favor, it is only half of the equation.  At least, that is how James saw it.  To partake of God’s good favor and not return it to those in need meant that their faith was dead.  The Hebrew people who came out of Egypt followed God through the Red Sea, as long as He parted it.  They ate manna, as long as God provided it.  And they drank of water from a rock as long as God brought it forth.  Their job was to believe, and God’s job was to act.  Contemporary Western evangelism is probably the best example of dead, or institutional, faith.  Rather than evangelizing the lost in the neighborhood and the city, institutional churches have found it much easier to “grow” by drawing Christians away from the neighboring churches.  They do this by getting a better speaker, building a newer facility, having better programs, and offering fun social activities.  Then, when Christians begin to arrive, they proclaim that God has “blessed” them.  But if the number of Christians in a city remains the same, how can anyone say that God’s kingdom is growing?  Do you really believe that God glorifies Himself by simply shuffling Christians from one church to another within each city?  That is not “being blessed.”  It is dead faith.  It is nothing more than institutional faith, and it is a disgrace.