When the Pastor is Against Christ

by

When the Pastor is Against Christ, examines the situation when the pastor’s members want things that are actually against Christ and God’s purposes.

How does this happen?

When a person enters the ministry, many times he misses the entirety of what he is doing. Ministers are not there to do what pleases the people under his care, but they are in that position because God has specific purposes that God wants to be done in that group. It is extremely important to understand the difference here. For sake of clarity, I will use the term, “biblical pastor” for one who are seeking to accomplish God’s purposes, and the term, “popular pastor” to identify the pastor who makes his prime objective as what is most desired among his members.

A biblical pastor, firstly, needs to be called by God. There is no other way, purpose or motive for a minister to legitimately enter the ministry. If you are not called by God, and that is the primary understanding in your head, everything that follows will be a disaster. To answer this question (why am I going into the ministry?) at the beginning of a minister’s professional life is extremely important. The reason being is that every time he is confronted with a hard problem, every time he is discouraged, disillusioned, or there is opposition from within or without his church, he will need to reassure his own heart that God has directed his footsteps from the beginning. This issue of being called by God to a ministry saturates and permeates everything a minister does during his entire ministry. It is his internal spiritual compass through everything he does.

If that spiritual bearing is not the singular and only important motive in his thinking, then it will be all too easy for him to simply side-step the problem. What he does as a minister depends entirely on what he feels he is called to do. Notice that in many questionnaires for new pastors, the answer is often “I feel that the Lord wants me to pastor.” That is entirely wrong! Pastoring in an activity, and the mental frame of mind of what that particular person has, is what the pulpit committee wants to know. If you are applying for the position of pastor, then it is presumed that is what you want to go into. How you will work out in that ministry is what people want to know.

God places ministers in the ministry to address what is needed and to find, confront, fix, and resolve the problems of the people under his care. This point cannot be glossed over as unimportant. This is the supreme directive that the minister has to accomplish, or else he will be a failure in God’s eyes. There are ministers that in the world’s eyes (and much of Christianity’s eyes) have, or have had, a great and successful ministry. But in God’s eyes, there were problems which that great minister should have confronted and resolved, but instead he side stepped the problem to make things easier on himself. Worse that side stepped problems, many ministers just responded incorrectly to the challenge placed before them.

Billy Graham had the makings of being a great minister. But truthfully, Billy Graham compromised his positions with “the enemy” (false prophets), and understanding and discerning Christians can only see him as a great failure. In his own words, he projects the greatness of his successes. Graham at one point said, “I have won more people to Christ than Jesus Himself.” (The statement itself shows how arrogant about Graham’s own greatness was. Nobody gets anybody saved except Christ.) But having very large groups of people come to hear him, and many Roman Catholics among them, and instead of preaching against the false salvation of Rome, he catered to the Catholics, using priests and nuns as counselors in his invitations. He treated them as equals, not as pertaining to a false belief system. My point is, what was God’s commission to Billy Graham? Was he the opposite of Martin Luther? Instead of separating and calling out the compromise of Catholicism like Luther did, was Graham’s ministry one of erasing that very difference between true Christianity and Catholicism’s false beliefs, and having an open door to visit and fellowship with the pope at any time? Graham is a good example of a minister of Satan, not a minister of God.

What are the Main Purposes of a Minister of God?

I make a very deliberate distinction here. Some “ministers” are ministers of Satan and not of God. There are two types (at least, maybe more if we examine them) of satanic ministers. There are bad ministers which teach false doctrine, and then there are those who do not teach correct doctrine. They teach and fill their opportunities with people with what can be considered “filler.” It is at first glance good material, but it does not have the “bite” of what God is looking for. It occupies space and time, people’s attention, but it does not work the purposes of God.

Salvation

If a pastor has a church of 10,000 members, yet he does not constantly and wisely teach these members how to be saved, what is involved, what is the plan of salvation, then he has failed. Getting people in a building under a pastor is not the objective, really. The goal that God wants is that there is spiritual change in the person claiming to be a Christian. This is done through the person having a personal salvation relationship with Jesus Christ. We can gauge whether people are saved by a one time proclamation like after an invitation or in being baptized, but again, we miss the point. Is there really a spiritual change, like Jesus explained to that rabbi Nicodemus? Ye must be born again, John 3? Knowing Judaism like a PhD in religion, Jesus saw what Nicodemus really needed was a salvation experience with the Savior. Apparently Nicodemus didn’t have that. Or, like Paul often brought out (2 Corinthians 5:17 for example), before you were saved (your lifestyle was carnal) but after you were saved (your lifestyle is different). A spiritually life-changing event had occurred. So many pastors and preachers miss this very point in what they do and say. They see no importance nor priority in spiritually changing people’s lives.

In a church setting, salvation can never be a settled question. You cannot just assume that everybody is saved because they are sitting in a pew. On the contrary, there are some very striking examples of people who sat in a pew for dozens of years, and then got saved. In fact, I have heard preachers that were pastors of churches that got saved, and then continued preachers and have that fact in their testimony. I have been a pastor for more than 40 years, and it amazes me how people can come to our church, cozy up to the pastor and my wife, “be our best friends”, and then betray me like it was nothing, walking away and never going to church again. Or some even go to a cult or a false religion. One thing is being friends with the pastor, and another thing is salvation. They are never the same in any context. Nobody is spiritually changed just by knowing me. By being my friend. At times, I can get pretty rough when I see and deal with irresponsibility in “my friends” and colaborers. But that is not the same thing as salvation.

But in a minister’s church where the minister is against Christ, a minister of Satan, they always want to make salvation an external show (raise hands, come forward at the invitation, get baptized, attend church, etc.), but when you examine these “saved people,” the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives is not there. As a minister of Christ, salvation is only seen when it is seen in the spiritual fruit in the person’s life.

Take time to read and meditate on Christ’s parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. The teaching very clearly states that there are many who are “identified as being saved” but in the end, their lives show no spiritual fruit, and they go to hell. The point is, we do not judge a plant as being a good plant or bad plant on the basis of a strong stalk or many leaves and flowers, but on whether it produces fruit or not. This singular point should be driven home constantly by a godly minister. Salvation must be lived in a person’s life, or they are not saved. The just will live by their faith, or in other words, the just will guide their lives by what they really believe. To proclaim and not live is just a lie.

Here I have to take a side trail and emphatically denounce works salvation. Salvation is not obtained by living a godly life. This is just as false as any false religion. Salvation is a personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ, and after that is established truly, THEN and ONLY THEN, will we always see good works. Works and a saved life are products of being saved, not the means of being saved. We (ministers) “fish” for people to get saved, but so many times, we want the finished product when there is no true salvation in the person.

We can produce falsely something that looks like a saved person, but while the externals tell you they are a Christian (they read their Bibles, they memorize Scripture, they go to church, they tithe, they bring food for church socials, etc.), they are children of the devil destined for hell. The spiritual discernment that only comes from the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, constantly provoking conversation between the individual and God, a relationship with Jesus their Savior, is just not in them. There is nothing you as minister can do to make that happen without going to the beginning of everything again, and explaining the plan of salvation.

While most pastors have preached at least one sermon on salvation, most do not understand how this works. In my education studies, I remember a research done on who makes the best teachers. The assumption was that the smartest people make the best teachers. When the research was done, the opposite was true. Normal people make the best teachers. A normal person looks at some “hard thing,” and immediately they don’t understand it. As such, they attack the problem of understanding it by looking at it from different points of view. The smartest person looks at it once, and understands it.

The problem with teaching is that while the teacher understands “the hard thing”, the teacher tells the students how to understand it. When they don’t the smart teacher is left with nothing more to give. The normal intelligence teacher will have grappled with the problem attacking it from different points of view. The good pastor has to do this constantly with salvation and his people. He is constantly changing his approach towards explaining salvation so that some will understand even if others don’t. Doing this, he uses dozens of approaches, and some work with one person, and some with another person.

For example, the Romans road (plan of salvation basically in the book of Romans) is a good presentation of the gospel. But for a Roman Catholic, perhaps the best approach is that Jesus is the only Redeemer and Savior, and Mary’s intervention is not biblical. For another person, say a Jew, the prophecies of Jesus as the Messiah is best and what the Jew will respond to instead of a Catholic. The point is not to “brand” one presentation of salvation as “the one and only way” to witness, but to understand the differences between people and change accordingly.

If you want to return to the education research study, the true principle is that the people who are most persistent in their approach to teaching are the best teachers. If one approach doesn’t work, they change and modify what they are doing to take another to see if it works.

Evangelism

Without going too far afield here, if to see true salvation in the lives of his charge is a main purpose of the minister, part of that salvation is confessing Christ by word and deed. Farmers have animals like sheep for the purpose of reproducing themselves. Sheep are supposed to have more sheep. While the gain from sheep farming is basically the wool, their reproduction has to be a main goal also. Christians need to produce more Christians. In other words, many “Christian people” sit on the sidelines on this issue, and they do not “preach their faith” to others. While nobody will go into something without studying it, preparing for it both with book-study and prayer, at some time, they have to enter into it.

There was a “fade” years back of life style evangelism. That in itself was flawed because you lived your Christianity in front of others instead of actually presenting Bible verses and explaining salvation to the people. That is wrong. But in reality, the stand that the Bible takes is that God does not use hypocrites to do His work. A person who witnesses to Christ the Savior but personally lives a hypocritical and sinful life probably will not have people come to Christ with his efforts. God’s Word will always come back with fruit, but so many Christian witnesses do not use Scripture in the first place.

A Vibrant Christian Life in a Good Church

One of the points or goals that God wants is for each and every Christian to be a vital part of a good church. The concept of “church” is totally created and structured by God himself. God is a genius. What we need, God has structued in the church. That is church done correctly, biblically. So many modern “churches” are “have it your way”, and thus are fatally flawed as far as the purposes of God. A spiritual community is not the same thing as a church. Only, and I emphasize that “only,” only when a person believes correct, biblical doctrine, then that doctrine is believed, and having the right doctrine with the spiritual force of believing (faith), there absolutely HAS TO BE RIGHT CONDUCT. That is the only way you can effect spiritual or moral change in a person. It has to start with doctine, and doctrine that has faith, that mixes with faith in the person, will always produce the spiritual fruit of a changed life.

Any other kind of trick or treat, or deception will not work God’s purpose, Christlikeness. Christlikeness comes from loving God, loving Christ, and doing what pleases God. But there has to be a baseline of doctrine and faith to produce actual moral change in people’s lives.

It has been my observation in that most churches are toxic places. As a missionary, I have traveled around and been in probably 500 to 1,000 different churches in my journeys. Granted that I have not been to many services in all of these churches, but you begin to see the same pattern in people although in different churches and people. I believe the real problem is that so many of these “Christian people” just are not really saved. They are in the ebb and flow of a church, but that spiritual change where they love one another is just not there. It is not naturally, natively flowing from their hearts, the heart of a saved person.

In our own church here on the mission field, I have preached dozens and dozens of times on loving one another. I present a brief summary of that here.

1 John 4:1 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. 1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

That Jesus came in the flesh speaks to me of his humility. Being God, he humbled himself. The opposite of humility is arrogance, and this is a prime trait of a false prophet.

1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

If for one minute, we can break the word “antichrist” away from the Apocalypic meaning, an antichrist is very simply anybody who representso the opposite of what Christ is, what Christlikeness is. Arrogance, egoism, narrcissism, etc. are all Satanic character traits. In summary, they are antichrist traits. The passage we are looking at simply plants the teaching squarely on us that God is love, and only those people who incorporate spiritually through the Holy Spirit this self-same love in their moral character are the truly saved ones. While we understand that this relationship with Jesus is what saves us, we need to connect this to love.

1 John 4:4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 1 John 4:6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

The Apostle John is teaching Christians that they have to love one another as a manifestation of their love of God, because they have accepted God’s salvation. But the obligation is always greater in house than the world. That means that Christians have a greater obligation to love their brethren in Christ than the world. How do we identify these “brethren in Christ”. That is the theme or proposition of the entire book of 1 John.

It is extremely easy to be deceived by Satan’s frauds. But we can separate the Spirit of truth from the spirit of error with God’s help.

Without love, you are not saved.

That sounds heretical, but hear me out.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

A person can only be saved by believing in Jesus Christ. But let’s define that because that is not true. There may be a Muslim that believes that Jesus lived one time in the past. But that does not give him salvation. You must believe correctly who and what Jesus is. In other words, Jesus questioned his disciples, Who do you say I am?

The key here is understanding that God is love, and because of God’s moral character, God sent Jesus to die on the cross to save us from our sins. Without a person understanding, accepting, and believing that, they are not saved. The action of Jesus dying cannot be separated from the reality of the divine motive, love. Love is in God. Only by accepting that love is a person saved.

Unconditional Love is not Biblical

Another shocking statement. But it is true. The point here is that love does not exist uni-directionally. Love must be received and then loved back at the person loving you. God is love. God loves the whole world, every sinner. But not every sinner is saved. Only those sinners who have accepted God’s love, the Son of God dying on the cross for him, those are the only people saved. If a person does not respond to the love of God by accepting Jesus, he is not saved. True salvation will ALWAYS PROVOKE a person to love God back. Their whole life has to be filled with this divine love.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Speaking or shocking statements, John says that whoever loves is saved! We understand that this “love” is not speaking of the sex act, but of true love. Divinely commanded love. Love can be defined as “my sacrifice for your benefit.” Loves screams self-sacrifice. Egoism and self serving people have no love. That is why Satan pushes the gay agenda, because it is supposedly people saturated in “love”, but there is no love there. There is just erotic sex that pleases the individual, and they could care less about the other person.

But the point is very important in salvation, the person who does not change spiritually, morally in their character which is seen in their conduct, that person is not saved. We can “tell” (discern) that a person is truly saved if their character manifests selfless love and service of other people, principally with their spouses, their family unit, and most especially with their Christian brethren. While many people claim to be Christian, this tried and true test of loving proves that they are not really saved. John is teaching us this point. We must (moral obligation before God) love in order to show that we have a saving relationship with God.

Get the point very well here. We do not love, therefore it saves us. If we are saved, we will love. It is a natural outcome, consequence, or “fruit” of being saved. Unsaved people who hear this think that they will do good to somebody, therefore they are saved after doing that. It doesn’t work that way. They are approaching the entire matter wrong, backwards if you will. They have the cart (love) before the horse (receiving God’s love of Jesus on the cross).

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This love that manifests that the person is saved, is not us loving others or us loving God. It is God loving us and sending His Son to die on the cross for us. Doctrine has to come before actions and conduct.

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

But the point that John makes is that if you want to be saved, you must accept, receive, and make part of you, that thing God calls love. God is love. We receive a spiritual essence that makes up God, that is love. It is because you have that love relationship with the Savior that He saves you. If you want God’s love, but you reject it in the practice and moral make-up of your life, then you have a serious problem in understanding all of this.

When the “fog” of this clears, moral character is purely based on having (you allow and promote) the spiritual and moral character of God’s love in your life. That is sanctification is essence. That is Christlikeness. So this love is intergral in your life. Without it, you are hopelessly lost.

1 John 4:13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 1 John 4:14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

The love of God has a primal example that overshadows every other consideration of love. That primal example is God sent his Son to die on the cross because He loves us.

1 John 4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 1 John 4:16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

The Christian life has to be based on and rotate around this divine love. If it doesn’t, the person’s spiritual life is extremely insufficient, deficient, and probably the person is not even saved. All of this is intertwined with self-denial, and pursuing the benefits and good of others. While we focus on loving our spouse, our children and parents, and other Christian brethren, God doesn’t stop there. The entire Old Testament set of commandments are based on doing things to protect, prevent harm, and benefit your neighbor.

Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Matthew 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Matthew 22:38 This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Matthew 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Jesus understood that humans that want to go to heaven instead of hell need to understand the love of God, the love principle. If the person has a saving relationship with the Savior (Jesus), then that person wants to please God, and herein is what all the Old Testament tried to teach, love your neighbor. Herein is what the New Testament Christian has to do after being saved.

1 John 4:17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

When we die, we will present ourselves before God, and God will judge us. This is pure fear. But as Christians, we do not live a fear religion. We live a love religion. For a small child who does not understand their parents very well, Christian parents will discipline the child with pain, which engenders fear. But over time, that all changes. It is only as a beginning of the relationship. Over time, the love between child and parent overwhelms any fear, and the relationship is carried forward solely on love. All of this is based on first God loved us. What we do in our lives to please God is showing how we love God for first loving us.

1 John 4:20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

For a person to claim to be saved, going to heaven when he dies, and at the same time he hates his brother or anybody, he is totally clueless about salvation and love.

Conclusion

A biblical pastor understands all of this, and his ministry is bringing about this love by practicing it and teaching it in the local body of believers, the church. Non-participation is a no gamer. If a person doesn’t go to church, or he goes without participating, then he just is not saved. God places this desire for being with and loving your Christian brethren in the heart of everybody saved. It is only through non-functioning thinking that a person says he is Christian and wants no part in love.

Christians will engage in church and participate. Non-Christians will normally tend not to love, but sow strife, disension, and conflict instead. This describes most churches sad to say.

But a biblical pastor understands these divine goals and is working to explain and motivate his charge to love one another. A popular pastor strives to promote himself and his goals, which from the very beginning is what Satan is, not what Christ is.

When the Pastor is Against Christ

 

More Articles about False Prophets

Post Views: 8

Leave a Comment Cancel reply