Pastor John,
Below is an excerpt from Michelle’s email to you, in which she shared her thoughts on your chapter on Constantine and on your recent message about the rank abuse men have suffered in the name of God at the hands of Christianity:
“After reading this, and what you taught us on Wednesday night regarding the cruelty and the torture by the hands of Christians in the Middle Ages, it made me think, ‘Jesus, if your people only knew where Christianity came from, surely they would run out of it!’ But then, the thought came immediately, ‘Knowing all this is not it. It is Jesus touching your heart. Him giving the understanding and feelings to take it in is what gets His people out.’”
After reading Michelle’s email, I considered how many people in the world embrace Christianity and must know something about the Christian religious system, if not its origin, then its history of torture, theft, and abuse. Knowledge of those heinous events, particularly during the Crusades, is widespread. Many must know that Christianity is now riddled with what the Bible and the hearts of honest men will confess is an abomination to the Lord.
Yet men still do not flee the Christian institution. They remain and support its disobedient practices.
It is not because they are ignorant that they stay, as Michelle pointed out, but because many of them have no love for the truth God has given to men. Many folks enjoy Christian ceremonies and various forms of worship, and openly reject worship of God in spirit and truth as Jesus commanded. Beth and I both have family members who fit that description. Those folks are there simply because they want to be there.
Christianity is a place where members practice being nice to one another, and it appears clean compared to so many things. It is, in many ways, a refuge from the filthiness of this world – but its messages and practices are aimed at men who want some relief but want it on THEIR terms; it offers them a dry place out of the rain, so to speak, without having to change or be changed by Christ. Men can embrace Christianity and be embraced by it without repenting. The sin remains. That is not the way of Jesus.
I am glad I understand this and have learned over the years that it is OK for folks who want it that way. It is not my business what those folks desire or do. The Lord’s Gospel and the messages Jesus has given to his ministers are not for the people who love the spirit that is reigning in the religious system of Christianity. The Gospel and the word of God delivered to his ministers are for those who have heard Jesus’s call within themselves, are GLAD they have heard it, and want to respond. It is for those searching for the real Jesus, so they CAN put it all on the altar and be changed to be like Him.
It is just as you have said. Your work is not a work or effort directed against anyone, whether those who embrace Christianity or anyone else, but a work for people who are searching. It is a work to shine a beacon, a light in this world, for people who want to respond to God’s call on their hearts and who are hearing the same message from Jesus that you are broadcasting. Those precious people (we have seen) exist all over the world, and many of them have become entangled in the Christian religious system in their effort to heed Jesus’s call.
Thank you for the recent Constantine chapter and the message on the history of Christianity. I got so much out of both.
Jerry