“Christianity is decaying and going down the gutter, because the god of modern Christianity, is not the God of the bible”— A.W. Tozer (Pastor)… Is Tozer correct?
Christian rebuttal,
Premise: A “decaying” Christianity is theologically and spiritually impossible.
Pastor Tozer, if the quote is accurate, obviously does NOT understand the immutability of true Christianity. Christianity is a personal, intimate, relationship with the Father by faith in the Son and daily sanctification performed by the Holy Spirit in the life of the redeemed in Jesus.
Christianity is NOT a mass “religion;” therefore, its efficacy, its viability, its future, are not reliant upon an organization, council, group think, denominational affiliation or Church but Christianity, as a personal relationship with Elohim by faith, will be relevant throughout Eternity as intimate relationship through faith will, forever, be the KEY to the Father’s heart. If one serves a god other than the Father, Son, Spirit, as clearly introduced within the Canon of Scripture, they are not a Christian but a cult, a religion; therefore, Tozer’s warning is baseless, logically irrelevant.
Religions and sects and cults have a form of godliness but deny the Truth of the Living God, Elohim; therefore, such religions have ZERO relevance in Time and Eternity as they are reliant upon self-righteousness to earn one’s audience with a god or deity; this, an insult, an affront, to the Living God, Elohim; therefore, the theological premise upon which Christianity exists, grace through faith, is eternal Truth that is immutable and NOT subject to decay or the gutter (John 3; Galatians 2:16).
There is one Christianity; that is, intimate, eternal, relationship with Elohim by grace through faith in Messiah Jesus…there is no “modern Christianity” only a facade purporting itself as legitimate Christianity and accepted by the spiritually dead, the naïve, the spiritually ignorant, the demonically deceived, and often cited by those with a religious motive to denigrate true Christianity, the culprits are overwhelming religionists in Judaism, Islam, Atheism, Secular Humanism.
If you are redeemed by faith in Jesus as your Messiah and the Holy Spirit, who is Elohim, indwells you, you ARE “Christianity” and your faith, your intimate relationship with the Father by faith in the Son is “Guaranteed” by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14); therefore, it is better to take refuge in Jesus than put your confidence in sinful, fallible, men and their illogical ramblings about the faltering of the Christian faith (Psalm 118:8).
Judaism-Islam-Catholicism are prominent examples of “religions of decay” in the World today as their constituency adhering to their tenets, their doctrines of demons, works and self-righteousness, will not find life in the Kingdom (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:10; James 2:10; Galatians 2:16).
A deceived cult member said that you must first turn to the Father and learn the ways of the Kingdom and change your way of thinking in order to receive eternal life. Is this true?
First of all, if you desire to please the Father your must first comply with His will; that is, “believe in the One He has sent into the World” to provide you atonement for your sin (John 6:29); that is, believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah who died for you (John 3); then, receive the indwelling Holy Spirit as your Guarantor of New Covenant relationship with the Father (Ephesians 1:13-14). It is only by faith in the Son as Messiah that one is redeemed from sin and Hell. It is only by faith in Jesus as one’s Messiah that one receives the imputed-gifted righteousness of Jesus over their life in exchange for their sin and the covenant promise of forgiveness (2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 8:12).
Sanctification following Salvation by faith…
It is the indwelling Holy Spirit who provides you a redeemed conscience (2 Corinthians 5:17) that desires the will of the Father and the Holy Spirit then enlivens the spiritual law (Romans 2:14-15; Romans 8:2) that is written upon your heart and by this, the Spirit forms a catalyst via the combination of your redeemed conscience and the enlivened spiritual law to walk you daily in the process of sanctification (Galatians 5:16) and the Spirit produces through you “fruits of righteousness” and there is NO LAW against this fruit but that fruit fulfills all law (Galatians 5). Jesus said “You will know them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:15-20).
Therefore, if you desire to turn to the Father for salvation you must first come to Him via the Son by faith (John 14:6).
Why are people aghast at the ideological LEFT, the Progressive, the Socialist, the Democrat, SUPPORT for Islamic terrorism and murder against the people of Israel?
Why are there protests in the streets of America’s major municipalities and municipalities around the World advocating for Islam’s butchering of the Israeli people, a hatred for Israel that mirrors their hatred for the United States who supports Israel?
Perhaps it’s a failure of education; perhaps it’s a result of historical revisionism? Truth be told, every ideological difference between the Progressive and the Conservative is SPIRITUAL at its root. Anyone who advocates for the murder of children in or out of the womb; anyone who advocates for unconscionable sexual perversion – gender confusion forced upon children; anyone who advocates for the horrors of Marxism; anyone who hates the Nation of Israel and Jacob’s children and revels in terrorist acts against them; anyone who advocates for the decimation of the American citizen through the horrors of open borders, legalized drugs, a weakened justice system; anyone who advocates for, supports, American terrorist organizations represented by Black Lives Matter; ANTIFA, Black Panthers, White Supremacist Clans, are servants of Satan and they do NOT know our Creator, Elohim.
Jesus said “You will know them by their fruits;” that is, you will know a person by the way they act, the things they support, their lifestyle, their affections (Matthew 7:15-20). The ideological “line in the sand” is distinct and irrefutable as those who LOVE Elohim love the things Elohim cherishes; those who serve the Devil advocate for the works of the Devil. Yes, one can put forth a sundry of logical arguments supporting one side or the other but those arguments are rooted in the SPIRITUAL and they too will be judged.
Christians support Israel because our Messiah is Jewish emanating from the Tribe of Judah and our daily lives and our eternity are wholly in His hands. Elohim chose Israel, Judah, to enter the Realm of Time and Elohim poured His heart into Jacob’s children. Israel, Jerusalem, is the Center of the Earth and Elohim’s sovereign choice concerning His eschatological plan for Time and Eternity; therefore, what Elohim loves, Christians love; what Elohim supports, Christians support.
Islam’s history – the World’s destiny explained with succinctness…
Islam’s Allah is Satan masquerading as an angel of light via the Arabic moon god (2 Corinthians 11:14). Muhammad is a 7th-Century demon-possessed nomadic pedophile murdering thief who plagiarized the Torah to construct the Quran.
Muhammad is a product of the Ishmaelites, a virulent enemy of Israel, whose progenitor is Ishmael, a “wild ass” of a man born of adultery between Abraham and Hagar (Genesis 16:12). Ishmael via Hagar is NOT the son of promise but only Isaac is the child of promise through Sarah and Abraham through whom the promise of Messiah was given (Genesis 12:3b; Genesis 22:2).
Islam is a demonically rooted religious cult of death and Hell and its presence within the Realm of Time represents the spiritual wickedness of Satan and his fallen angels.
The spiritual struggle between Israel – Christianity and Islam is a physical manifestation of the spiritual war that rages in both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm (Ephesians 6), a spiritual and physical conflict that will NOT be concluded until subsequent Messiah’s Millennial Reign where the entirety of Elohim’s enemies will be destroyed by fire and Satan, the Beast, the False Prophet, the fallen angels, interned in the spiritual Hell, forever (Revelation 20).
This present Earth, peace, a New Heaven and a New Earth, Judgment, the Lake of Fire…
There will be no peace upon the Earth until Messiah’s 2nd-Advent to the Mount of Olives manifesting toward the conclusion of the Tribulation Era – 3.5-years of nuclear horror that ravages all of humanity and every Nation and tongue. This 3.5-year Tribulation horror will culminate with Messiah’s victory over Russia-China-Iran/Islam and Messiah’s majestic entrance into the Temple Mount and the initiation of His Millennial Kingdom; this, accompanied by the simultaneous incarceration of Satan and the fallen angels who are bound for 1000-years within the Spiritual Realm having no influence upon human kind in the Physical Realm (Revelation 20). This Millennial era will be a time of peace and joy in the majesty of Jesus our King as Jesus will receive the Kingdom denied Him at His first Advent.
As a final example to the faithful angelic creation observing the horrors of sin and disobedience upon the Earth, Satan will be released and ravage-deceive the Nations once again who will rebel against Elohim, once again; but ultimately, the rebellious, demonically persuaded, of humanity will be annihilated by fire culminating in the Judgement of the Condemned (Revelation 20:10-15) where all of the unfaithful in humanity will be adjudicated “guilty” and suffer the “second death” and their resurrected mind, body, soul, will be completely annihilated in the “Lake of Fire;” a “Lake of Fire” that is the burning and purification of this Earth and the Heavens (2 Peter 3:10-14) as Elohim purifies the defilement of this Earth and forms a New Earth and a New Heaven and subsequently places His eternal Kingdom, “The New Jerusalem,” upon that New Earth and the resurrected righteous in Jesus will serve their resurrected Creator-Messiah, forever (Revelation 21-22; Philippians 3:21).
“12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Brief exegesis concerning Kingdom violence,
Causation for our creation in Time is a Great Kingdom War that was initiated by a rebellious cherub angel before Time began. Time and matter, the Heavens and the Earth, which are temporary creations constrained by physics, were created as a repository for that Kingdom War to remove said War from the Kingdom of Elohim where nothing impure is permitted to exist (Revelation 21:27). The primary reason Messiah entered the Realm of Time was “to destroy the works of the devil” (Genesis 3:15;1 John 3:8b) via a battle strategy of selfless love known as the Gospel which was ordained “before Time began” (2 Timothy 1:8-10) and first pictured for humanity in Genesis 3:21.
Violence and the violent are causation for the creation narrative and said violence ravages both the physical World and the Spiritual World. Jesus tells you that His Kingdom is NOT of this Realm and that His servants are warriors who are currently fighting this violence in both the Spiritual and Physical Realms. We have but two-options in this life, ally with Jesus by faith and be victorious over evil or ally with Satan through a rejection of Jesus as Messiah and King. You are commanded to choose this day whom you will serve (Joshua 24:15).
Current events involving the massacre of Jacob’s children by the demons of Hamas demonstrates the Kingdom spiritual war that rages around us and through us and exerts itself into the Realm of Time as the demonic rages against the covenants and promises of Elohim (Ephesians 6). These scenarios manifest as an example to the faithful angelic creation who observes with awe the horrors, the atrocities, committed by their former leadership represented by Satan and the divine work of their God in Elohim as He destroys the works of Satan via Messiah via selfless love (1 John 3:8b).
These atrocities will act as a bulwark against future rebellion in the Kingdom as free will exists in the New Jerusalem by necessity. Elohim is currently restoring His Kingdom disrupted by Kingdom violence and those who trust in Jesus as Messiah will be granted access to the New Kingdom as Jesus prepares a place for those who trust in Him (John 14:2-3).
Pray for Israel; Pray for Jerusalem. Eschatology unfolding…
Saturday, 07 October 2023, the Nation of Israel was invaded by Hamas Terrorists supported by Iran/Islam as Hamas proceeded to murder hundreds, if not thousands, of Israeli women, children, husbands, wives, grandparents, grandchildren…gunned down much like the Jews of the Holocaust, this time, by Islamist Nazis whose god is Satan.
Israel, blessed by Elohim,
A couple of decades ago, I spent some time in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, Masada, the Dead Sea, Capernaum, Bethsaida, the Sea of Galilee, and I felt and appreciated the love of the Israeli people, Israeli hospitality, and I felt and internalized the hate of the Muslim-Islamist. Employed by a local government in the United States, maybe it was my demeanor, one Muslim said it was my walk…but I was followed, surveilled, through the Old City, I was pelted with fruit in the Muslim Quarter. I was scorned for my love of Israel and the Israeli people while visiting vendors in the Muslim Quarter.
I received information from the State Department to leave Israel…the threat to American citizens was too high. I did not leave but watched Israeli soldiers and police make every effort to guard against Islamist terrorism, the traffic stops, the bus inspections, the check points, the armed citizenry, the M-16’s carried over the shoulders of Israeli students and military trainees. I watched a van load of Islamists breech a gate at Jericho. I was almost arrested by Muslim security at the Eastern Gate for having trespassed in a Muslim cemetery as I prepared to climb the last 50-feet to the Gate’s base and touch the very place where my Messiah would enter the Old City of Jerusalem to initiate His Millennial Reign.
I had walked down the Mount of Olives, passed through the Kidron Valley and entered the Muslim Cemetery, tracing the footsteps that Messiah will take at His 2nd-Advent. I observed the Eastern Gate that has been walled over, closed and sealed, by Ottoman Sultan Suleiman in 1541AD with the intention of preventing Messiah Jesus from entering the Temple Mount at His return. No doubt, the Muslim cemetery that prevents access to the Eastern Gate is also an Islamist attempt to prevent Messiah’s entrance to the Temple Mount as the Islamist naively believes that no respectable Jewish Rabbi would traverse the grounds of a Muslim cemetery and defile Himself.
What is happening to Israel and the World?
First of all, understand the Islamist enemy of Israel is simply fulfilling prophecy. The hatred for Israel that is pervasive in the Middle East finds its origin in the adulterous sexual interlude between Patriarch Abraham and his servant named Hagar. This adulterous union produced the “wild donkey” of a man named Ishmael.
11 And the angel of the Lord said to her [Hagar],
“Behold, you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” Genesis 16 (ESV) (Emphasis mine)
Ishmael is the father of the Ishmaelites, a virulent enemy of Israel. The Ishmaelites are the progenitors of a 7th-Century demon possessed, nomadic, murdering, pedophile, thief, named Muhammad. Muhammad, in his demonism, plagiarized the Torah to create the Quran as Muhammad desired to proselytize the Jews in Medina with his new “religion” but the Jews and Christians rejected Muhammad which eventually led to the creation of the Islamic Caliphate that butchered via the sword many thousands of Jews and Christians until temporarily stopped in 1929.
The “Allah” of Islam,
The Allah of Islam is Satan masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) via the Arabic moon god. Islam’s virulent hatred for Israel is demonically rooted and bolstered by Satan’s efforts to eradicate the Jewish people from the face of the Earth via Hitler’s Holocaust which initiated the “Never Again” movement by Holocaust survivors; in response, Israeli leadership initiated the rebirth of the Nation of Israel in 1948 and Israel, in the midst of Satan’s Islamic Empire, continually suffers today from Her demonically possessed and demonically motivated Islamist “neighbors.”
Israel’s struggle today,
Ultimately, what we’re observing today in Israel’s struggle to survive among Satan’s servants is the birth pangs of the Tribulation Era that will involve an alliance between Russia-China-Iran/Islam (an Islamist coalition) v. Jerusalem, Israel and a nuclear war foretold by the Holy Spirit through the major prophets Zechariah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, the Apostle John, Messiah Jesus.
The final days of the Tribulation Era will initiate Messiah’s 2nd-Advent and Messiah’s Millennial Kingdom as Jesus, alone, will rescue Israel from Her demonic adversaries and Messiah will be victorious (Revelation 5:5).
The Revelation given the Apostle John by Messiah is a brief overview of a horrific nuclear war that will soon come upon the entire World as the Apostle John, from his isolation on the Island of Patmos in 90AD, makes every attempt to describe 21st-Century battle and sophisticated armament using 1st-Century knowledge and vocabulary.
The Kingdom War in the Realm of Time,
For all intents and purposes, what we’re observing today in Israel is a physical manifestation of the Kingdom War initiated by a rebellious cherub angel before Time began, a Spiritual War that was removed from the Kingdom and placed upon this temporary Earth to be dealt with by Elohim here, apart from the Kingdom and partially constrained by Time and physics…a Spiritual War in which humanity is uniquely and intimately involved.
Jesus told us that as we observe these things coming to pass, we who are redeemed by faith in our Messiah, we are to look up and know that our redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28-31). MARANATHA!
Do you really believe people go straight to Hell for not believing in Jesus?
Anyone who denies Jesus as Messiah will NOT enter the Kingdom of God (John 14:6). From Adam forward, those who die rejecting Elohim by faith and those who die in the New Covenant rejecting Messiah as Lord are currently interned in Sheol-Hades/torments awaiting the Judgment of the Condemned (Luke 16; Revelation 20:11-15; John 5:28-29).
Subsequent Messiah’s Millennial Reign, there will be a Judgment of the Condemned (Revelation 20:11-15) and those who have rejected the Father’s offer of a pardon from death in Hell due to sin will be judged and adjudicated guilty and lose both resurrected body and soul in the Lake of Fire, a place of eternal death created for the Devil and his angels (Revelation 20:10; Matthew 25:41).
We are in the midst of an unfathomable spiritual war and we have but two-options concerning our alliance…Jesus or Satan. If you choose Satan by rejecting Jesus as your Messiah, you will not be provided a place in the coming Kingdom; therefore, your resurrected mind, body, soul, must be eliminated as a participant in the Great Kingdom War…there will be no place for you, your reality will be annihilated as your defilement will NOT be permitted to enter the Kingdom…there is no place for the rebellious and arrogant (Revelation 21:27); therefore, you are commanded to choose this day whom you will serve. That choice has eternal ramifications.
Concerning those who believe Israel is exempt from Messiah as Lord and repentance is sufficient for the Father’s grace…
You can repent till your dying exhalation but unless that repentance is coupled with faith in the Messiah, believing that Messiah Jesus died for you, you will perish in Hell (John 3; John 14:6; 8:24). The Father has provided ONE STANDARD for righteousness and covenant relationship with Him…Jesus the Messiah as one’s Lord and Savior; that is, one must receive the imputed-gifted righteousness of Messiah Jesus over their life by faith in Him as their Messiah who died for them (John 3; 2 Corinthians 5:21). No one enters the Kingdom of God based on genealogy or heritage. Jew, Israelite, Gentile, must all pass through the same Portal…Jesus the Messiah by faith (Acts 4:12).
A wayward Jew asked: “…why are Christians so obsessed with bringing Jews to Christianity?”
Christian response,
Christians don’t want the Jew or Israelite to perish in Hell and Scripture tells us that an overwhelming number of Jacob’s children will die in unbelief having rejected their Messiah and consequently die in Hell (Isaiah 10:22; Romans 9:27); therefore, the redeemed faithful in Messiah are obligated to the Great Commission; therefore, the Christian feels the need to tell the Jew and Israelite about Messiah Yeshua that they not perish in abject spiritual ignorance; therefore, plant the seed so-to-speak.
Jacob’s children are under Judgment relevant to the Jewish Curse in response to their forefather’s demands that Messiah’s blood, His murder at Golgotha advocated – initiated by Jacob’s children, be upon them and their children (Matthew 27:25); therefore, Israel’s children are spiritually blind, spiritually deaf, their heart is hardened against the Truth, they are sheep being led to the slaughter by Satan; therefore, it is incumbent upon those who love Jesus Christ to tell and warn the Jew and Israelite of their precarious spiritual situation and plead with them to shake-off the bonds of spiritual lethargy and arrogance and repent of their sin, fully-sincerely believe and trust in Yeshua as Messiah and LIVE! Judaism-Torah are simply a roadmap and NOT the destination; Yeshua as Messiah by faith is the destination (Galatians 3:24-26).
Israel’s self-deception,
The obstinate religious Jew and Israelite will often cite Ezekiel 33:19 and/or Ezekiel 18:21-32 and incorrectly assume that they can repent, turn from their wicked ways, follow Yahweh’s statutes, and be saved through self-righteousness e.g. works of the Law; others, will also cite Romans 11:26 void context and incorrectly believe that “all of Israel will be saved” actually denotes the entirety of Jacob’s children will be saved from Hell due their genealogy or heritage; this too, is a lie from Hell as the Scripture is applicable to a besieged and proselytized remnant that endures the Tribulation Era, witnesses Messiah’s 2nd-Advent to Mt. Olivet and accompanies Messiah into His Millennial Kingdom; therefore, it is incumbent upon every faithful Christian to witness to the lost and Hell-bound Jew and Israelite concerning their need for Yeshua as Messiah by faith.
A Theological Error emanating from Judaism and other religions that do not impart life… “Law finds its genesis at Sinai with Moses via Torah” “Law finds its genesis with Allah through Muhammad via the Quran”
The Holy Spirit tells us that where there is no law there is no sin (Romans 4:15; 5:13); therefore, how was Satan judged, adjudicated, convicted of sin i.e. covetousness and extricated from the Kingdom for that sin if the law was initiated at Sinai?
How were the Adamic and Noahic generations judged of defilement worthy of death by water save eight if there was no law prior to Sinai?
How did Elohim differentiate the righteous by faith (Hebrews 11) and the wicked by disobedience (Romans 1:18-32) prior to Sinai lest a form of law existed to provide a differentiation between good and evil?
There is a theological error that abounds throughout Judaism and other religions that Sinai/Moses or Allah/Muhammad was the genesis of Law when Sinai is NOTHING NEW or novel but simply a fragmented codification of the moral aspects of the law of the Spirit (Romans 8:2; Romans 2:14-15) that has been relevant as an arbiter of free will subsequent the creation of the angels. Sinai, the Law of Moses, was given Israel for sanctification – eschatological purposes and its relevance is but a moment in Time when compared to the eternal spiritual law of the Spirit of life (Romans 8:2).
Islam’s Allah is Satan masquerading as an angel of light via the Arabic moon god (2 Corinthians 11:14) while Muhammad is a 7th-Century demon-possessed nomadic pedophile, murdering, thief, who plagiarized the Torah to construct the Quran.
Elohim (Genesis 1:1), the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, IS the origin of Law; this, before Time began.
