Subject: Deception XI: Humanism...in the church, Pt. I
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 13:07:56 -0500
From: Jesus Christ is the ONLY Way to God <tracy@jesus-is-lord.com>
To: tracy@jesus-is-lord.com

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Deception XI: Humanism...in the church, Pt. I
sis. tracy
Mar 29, 2003

Deception XI: Humanism...in the church

Dear Christian Friends:

Greetings in the name of the ONLY wise God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

At the end of Deception X we postulated/concluded that the doctrine of the
baptism of the Holy Ghost has been stolen from us...

YET WE STILL HAVE A CHURCH.

This then begs the question, "If the Holy Ghost is not empowering and
leading the church, THEN WHO IS?

The answer is man.

That's why the church is so messed up. WE'RE DEPENDING ON **MAN** TO
INTERPRET THE SCRIPTURES (preachers, scholars, Greek lexicons, fiction
books, etc.), WE DEPEND ON **MAN'S WEAK POWER** TO TEACH US, TO MOTIVATE US,
TO ENCOURAGE US, TO SUSTAIN US, TO TELL US HOW WE SHOULD SERVE, ETC.--AND
MAN IS NOT BIG ENOUGH TO FULFIL ALL THOSE NEEDS. HE DOESN'T FIT THE BILL.
THAT is why we are so lacking. By and large we operate **WITHOUT** THE
SPIRIT and **WITH** MAN

Humanism n.
ANY SYSTEM OF THOUGHT or action BASED ON THE nature, dignity, INTERESTS,
**OPINIONS, IDEALS AND KNOWLEDGE** OF **MAN**. Specifically a modern,
nontheistic, rationalist movement that holds that man is capable of
self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, etc. without recourse to supernaturalism.

Thus saith the LORD; CURSED BE THE MAN THAT TRUSTETH IN MAN, AND MAKETH
FLESH HIS ARM, and whose heart departeth from the LORD (Jer 17:5).

****MAN'S WISDOM VS. THE SPIRIT****

THE BIBLE makes the distinction between PREACHING **WITH MAN'S WISDOM** and
PREACHING **WITH THE HOLY GHOST** sent down from heaven (I Cor 2:4-6, I
Peter 1:12).

In Chapter 4 of "Experiencing the Holy Spirit", Andrew Murray leads in with
the following scripture --

1 Corinthians 2:4 And my speech and my preaching WAS **NOT** WITH ENTICING
WORDS OF **MAN'S** WISDOM, **BUT IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND OF
POWER**: 2:5 That your faith should NOT stand IN THE **WISDOM OF MEN**, BUT
IN THE **POWER OF GOD**.

"Paul speaks here of two kinds of preaching and two kinds of faith. The
spirit of the preacher will determine the faith of the congregation. When
the preaching of the cross is given only in the words of human wisdom, then
the faith of the hearers will be in the wisdom of men. When the preaching is
in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, the faith of the Christian
people will also be firm and strong in the power of God. Preaching in the
demonstration of the Spirit will bring the double blessing of power in the
Word and in the faith of those who receive that Word. If we desire to know
the measure of the working of the Spirit, we must consider the preaching and
the faith that springs from it. In this way alone can we see whether the
full blessing of Pentecost is truly manifested in the church.

"Very few are prepared to say this is really the case. Everywhere among the
children of God we hear complaints of weakness and sin. Among those who do
not complain is reason to fear that their silence is ascribed to ignorance
or self-satisfaction. It is important that we concentrate on this fact until
we come under the full conviction that the condition of the Church is marked
by IMPOTENCE and nothing can restore her except the return to a life in the
full enjoyment of the blessing of Pentecost. THE MORE DEEPLY WE FEEL OUR
DEFICIENCY, THE MORE SPEEDILY WE WILL DESIRE AND OBTAIN RESTORATION. It will
help to AWAKEN LONGING for this blessing if we earnestly consider how little
it is enjoyed in the Church AND HOW FAR THE CHURCH IS FROM BEING WHAT HER
LORD HAS THE POWER TO MAKE HER." (Experiencing, p. 41-42)

****HUMANISM IN THE CHURCH****

Now let's consider the words of the late Paris Reidhead taken from from his
sermon, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt".  By cogent arguments, he shows us that
even the way that we present the gospel is humanistic. I read this some time 
ago, and I need to read it again.

In the sermon transcript, this section is titled, "Humanism"

...[G]o back 150, 100 years at least, to a conflict that attacked
Christianity. Just after the great revivals in America with Finney, the
Spirit of God having been marvelously outpoured onto certain portions of our
country, there came an open attack on our faith in Europe under the higher
critics. Darwin had postulated his theory of evolution, certain philosophers
had adapted it to their philosophies, and theologians had applied it to the
Scripture. And so about 1850 you could mark the opening of a frontal attack
upon the Word of God. Satan had always been insidiously attacking it. But
now it was open season on the Book, open season on the Church, and Voltaire
could declare that he would live to see the Bible become a relic and just
have it placed only in museums; that it would be utterly destroyed by the
arguments that he was so forcefully presenting against it.

Well, what was the effect of this? The philosophy of the day became
humanism. And you could define humanism this way, humanism is a
philosophical statement that declares the end of all being is the happiness
of man. The reason for existence is man's happiness. Now according to
humanism, salvation is simply a matter of getting all the happiness you can
out of life. If you're influenced by someone like Nietzche who says that the
only true satisfaction in life is power and that the power is its own
justification, and that after all the world is a jungle. And it is therefore
up to the man to be happy, to become powerful, and become powerful by any
means he can use. For it is only in this position of ascendancy or as we saw
in the worship of Molech that one can be happy. This would produce in due
course a Hitler who would take the philosophy of Nietzche as his working
operating principles and guide and would say of his people that we are
destined to rule the world. Therefore any means that we can use to achieve
this is our salvation.

Somebody else turns around and says, "Well no, the end of being is
happiness, but happiness doesn't come from authority over people, happiness
comes from sensual experience." So you would have the type of existentialism
that characterizes France today, that's given rise to beatnicism in America
and to the gross sensuality of our country. Since man is essentially a
glandular animal who's highest moments of ecstacy come from the exercise of
his glands, salvation is simply to find the most desirable way to gratify
this part of a person. And so this became the effect of humanism, that the
end of all being is the happiness of man. John Dewey, then an American
philosopher influencing education, was able to persuade the educators that
there were no absolute standards. Children shouldn't be brought to any
particular standard, that the end of education was simply to allow the child
to express himself and expand on what he is and find his happiness in being
what he wants to be. So we had cultural lawlessness, when every man could do
as seemed right in his own eyes and we had no God to rule over us. The Bible
had been discounted and disallowed and disproved according to what they
said. God had been dethroned, He didn't exist, He had no personal
relationship to individuals. Jesus Christ was either a myth or just a man,
so they taught, and therefore the whole end of being was happiness. The
individual would establish the standards of his happiness and interpret it.

LIBERAL, FUNDAMENTAL or...NEITHER?

Now religion then had to exist because there were so many people that made
their living at it, so they had to find some way to justify their existence.
So back about the time, in 1850, the church divided into two groups. The one
group was the liberals, who accepted the philosophy of the humanism and
tried to find some relevance by saying something like this to their
generation, "Ha, ha, we don't know there's a heaven. We don't know there's a
hell. But we do know this, that you've got to live for 70 years! We know
there's a great deal of benefit from poetry, from high thoughts and noble
aspirations. Therefore it's important for you to come to church on Sunday,
so that we can read some poetry, that we can give you some little adages and
axioms and rules to live by. We can't say anything about what's going to
happen when you die, but we'll tell you this, if you'll come every week and
pay and help and stay with us, we'll put springs on your wagon and your trip
will be more comfortable. We can't guarantee anything about what's going to
happen when you die, but we say that if you come along with us, we'll make
you happier while you're alive". And so this became the essence of
liberalism. It has simply nothing more than to try and put a little sugar in
the bitter coffee of their journey and sweeten it up for a time. This is all
that it could say.

Well now the philosophy of the atmosphere is humanism; the chief end of
being is the happiness of man. There's another group of people that have
taken humbridge with the liberals, this group are my people, the
fundamentalists. They say, "We believe in the inspiration of the Bible! We
believe in the deity of Jesus Christ! We believe in hell! We believe in
heaven! We believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ!" But
remember the atmosphere is that of humanism. And humanism says the chief end
of being is the happiness of man. Humanism is like a miasma out of a pit, it
just permeates everyplace. Humanism is like an infection, an epidemic, it
just goes everywhere. So it wasn't long until we had this, that the
fundamentalists knew each other because they said "We believe these things!"
They were men for the most part that had met God. But you see it wasn't long
until having said "These are the things that establish us as
fundamentalists!", the second generation said "This is how we become a
fundamentalist! Believe in the inspiration of the Bible! Believe in the
deity of Christ! Believe in His death, burial, and resurrection! And thereby
become a fundamentalist". And so it wasn't long until it got to our
generation, where the whole plan of salvation was to give intellectual
assent to a few statements of doctrine. And a person was considered a
Christian because he could say "Ah hah" at four or five places that he was
asked. If he knew where to say "Ah hah", someone would pat him on the back,
shake his hand, smile broadly, and say "Brother, you're saved!" So it had
gotten down to the place where salvation was nothing more than an assent to
a scheme or a formula, and the end of this was that salvation was the
happiness of man because humanism has penetrated. If you were to analyze
fundamentalism in contrast to liberalism of a hundred years ago as it
developed, for I am not pinpointing it in time, it would be like this:

The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he's alive,
and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he
dies. But again! The end of all of the religion it was proclaimed was the
happiness of man. And where as the liberal says, "By social change and
political order we're going to do away with funds, we're going to do away
with alcoholism and dope addiction and poverty. And we're going to make
HEAVEN ON EARTH! AND MAKE YOU HAPPY WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE! We don't know
anything about after that, but we want you to be happy while you're alive!"
They went ahead to try and do it only to be brought to a terrifying shock at
the first World War and utterly staggered by the second World War, because
they seemed to be getting no where fast.

And then the fundamentalists, along the same line, are now tuning in along
this same wavelength of humanism. Until we find it something like this:
"Accept Jesus so you can go to heaven! you don't want to go to that old,
filthy, nasty, burning hell when there is a beautiful heaven up there! now
come to Jesus so you can go to heaven!"

And the appeal could be as much to selfishness as a couple of men sitting in
a coffee shop deciding they are going to rob a bank to get something for
nothing! There's a way that you can give an invitation to sinners, that just
sounds for all the world like a plot to take up a filling station
proprietor's Saturday night earnings without working for them.

Humanism is, I believe, the most deadly and disastrous of all the
philosophical stenches that's crepted up through the grating over the pit of
Hell. It has penetrated so much of our religion. AND IT IS IN UTTER AND
TOTAL CONTRAST WITH CHRISTIANITY! Unfortunately it's seldom seen. And here
we find Micah, wants to have a little chapel, and he wants to have a priest,
and he wants to have prayer, and he wants to have devotion, because "I KNOW
THE LORD WILL DO ME GOOD!" AND THIS IS SELFISHNESS !!! AND THIS IS SIN !!!
And the Levite comes along and falls right in with it! Because he wants a
place! He wants ten shekels and a shirt and his food! And so in order that
he can have what he wants, and Micah can have what they want, THEY SELL OUT
GOD! For ten shekels and a shirt. AND THIS IS THE BETRAYAL OF THE AGES !!!
And it is the betrayal in which we live. And I don't see HOW GOD CAN REVIVE
IT! Until we come back to Christianity. As in DIRECT AND TOTAL CONTRAST WITH
THE STENCHFUL HUMANISM that's perpetrated in our generation in the name of
Christ.

I'm afraid that it's become so subtle that it goes everywhere. What is it?
In essence it's this! That this philosophical postulate that the end of all
being is the happiness of man, has been sort of covered over with
evangelical terms and Biblical doctrine until God reigns in heaven for the
happiness of man, Jesus Christ was incarnate for the happiness of man, all
the angels exist in the..., Everything is for the happiness of man! AND I
SUBMIT TO YOU THAT THIS IS UNCHRISTIAN !!! Isn't man happy? Didn't God
intend to make man happy? Yes. But as a by-product and not a prime-product!

REVERANCE FOR LIFE

It was that good man that's so admired by the fuzzy thinkers of our day, out
there in Africa, dear Dr. Schweitzer. Bless his heart, he's a brilliant man.
A philosopher, doctor, musician, composer, undoubtedly a brilliant man. But
Dr. Schweitzer is no more Christian than this rose and he would call it a
personal insult if he were to say he was a Christian. He doesn't see Christ
as having any relevance to his philosophy or life. Dr. Schweitzer is a
humanist. Dr. Schweitzer was sitting on the bow of the boat going up the
broad Congo river toward his station, watching the Belgian government
officials with their high power rifles, shooting at the crocodiles sunning
on the mud flats along the river. They were expert marksman. They would use
these dumb-dumb bullets that would explode inside the crocodile and just
SEND THEM SPINNING UP INTO THE AIR, from the contraction of muscles. You
say, "How do you know so much about it." Well to my shame, I was guilty of
the same thing in the Nile. And they were there, this was what their sport
was, they bagged them, and they kept count, and they'd put strings around
the place where their gun was, and have a little place for the gun and then
they'd tie knots so that they could see how many crocodiles they killed. A
COLOSSAL WASTE OF LIFE!

And it was there that Schweitzer saw the essence of his philosophy. And do
you know what it is? Three words - reverence for life. REVERENCE FOR LIFE!
Crocodile life....., human life....., and other kinds of life. My friend,
George Kline who was with us last week and is going back to the Gaboon, was
just about 50 or 60 miles away from this Dr. Schweitzer's station. You know
Dr. Schweitzer is so convinced of reverence of life that he doesn't like to
sterilize his surgery. He has the dirtiest surgery in Africa. Because
bacteria are life and he doesn't want to hurt any of the good bacteria with
the bad, so he just sort of let's them all grow together.

His organ broke, someone had sent him out an organ and the means of playing
it. Mr. Kline is an expert organist and an organ repairer as well so he went
over to see Dr. Schweitzer, and Dr. Schweitzer said, "George do you think
you can fix my organ?", he said "I wouldn't be surprised, let me try it". So
he took the back off and to his amazement he discovered a huge nest of
cockroaches. With characteristic, American enthusiasm and zeal George
started trampling all over the cockroaches not to let a one of them get
away. And the good doctor came out, his hair standing straighter than it had
for a long time, and because of his anger he said "YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!"
George said, "Why? their ruining your organ." He said, "That's alright, they
were just being true to their nature," he said, "you can't kill those." So
one of the boys came in and said, "It's alright Mr. Kline." And he reached
down very tenderly, picked them up, and put them in a little bag, and
crimped the top, and he put each cockroach in, and they took them out into
the jungle and let them loose.

Now here was a man that believed his philosophy, reverence for life. UTTERLY
COMMITTED TO IT! UTTERLY CONSISTENT! Even when it came to the matter of
cockroach or a microbe. Do you see? This is humanism, this is consistency.

NOW I ASK YOU WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF MISSIONS? WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF
EVANGELISM? WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF A CHRISTIAN?

If you'll ask me why I went to Africa, I'll tell you I went primarily to
improve on the justice of God. I didn't think it was right for anybody to go
to Hell without a chance to be saved. So I went to give poor sinners a
chance to go to heaven. Now I haven't put it in so many words, but if you'll
analyze what I just told you do you know what it is? Humanism. That I was
simply using the provisions of Jesus Christ as a means to improve upon human
conditions of suffering and misery. And when I went to Africa, I discovered
that they weren't poor, ignorant, little heathen running around in the woods
looking for someone to tell them how to go to heaven. That they were
MONSTERS OF INIQUITY !!! THEY WERE LIVING IN UTTER AND TOTAL DEFIANCE OF FAR
MORE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THEN I EVER DREAMED THEY HAD!

They deserved Hell! Because they utterly refused to walk in the light of
their conscious, and the light of the law written upon their heart, and the
testimony of nature, and the truth they knew! And when I found that out I
assure you I was so angry with God that on one occasion in prayer I told Him
it was a mighty ...... little thing He'd done, sending me out there to reach
these people that were waiting to be told how to go to heaven. When I got
there I found out they knew about heaven, and didn't want to go there, and
that they loved their sin and wanted to stay in it.

I went out there motivated by humanism. I'd seen pictures of lepers, I'd
seen pictures of ulcers, I'd seen pictures of native funerals, and I didn't
want my fellow human beings to suffer in Hell eternally after such a
miserable existence on earth. But it was there in Africa that God began to
tear THROUGH THE OVERLAY OF THIS HUMANISM! And it was that day in my bedroom
with the door locked that I wrestled with God. For here was I, coming to
grips with the fact that the people I thought were ignorant and wanted to
know how to go to heaven and were saying "Someone come and teach us",
actually didn't want to take time to talk with me or anybody else. They had
no interest in the Bible and no interest in Christ, and they loved their sin
and wanted to continue in it. And I was to that place at that time where I
felt the whole thing was a sham and a mockery, and I had been sold a bill of
goods! And I wanted to come home.

There alone in my bedroom AS I FACED GOD HONESTLY WITH WHAT MY HEART FELT,
it seemed to me I heard Him say, "Yes, will not the Judge of all the earth
do right? The heathen are lost. And they're going to go to Hell, not because
they haven't heard the gospel. They're going to go to Hell because they are
sinners, WHO LOVE THEIR SIN! And because they deserve Hell. BUT, I didn't
send you out there for them. I didn't send you out there for their sakes."
And I heard as clearly as I've ever heard, though it wasn't with physical
voice but it was the echo of truth of the ages finding its' way into an open
heart. I heard God say to my heart that day something like this, "I didn't
send you to Africa for the sake of the heathen, I sent you to Africa for My
sake. They deserved Hell! But I LOVE THEM !!! AND I ENDURED THE AGONIES OF
HELL FOR THEM !!! I DIDN'T SEND YOU OUT THERE FOR THEM !!! I SENT YOU OUT
THERE FOR ME ! DO I NOT DESERVE THE REWARD OF MY SUFFERING? DON'T I DESERVE
THOSE FOR WHOM I DIED?"

And it REVERSED IT ALL! AND CHANGED IT ALL! AND RIGHTED IT ALL! And I wasn't
any longer working for Micah and tens shekels and a shirt. BUT I WAS SERVING
A LIVING GOD! I was there not for the sake of the heathen. I was there for
the Savior that endured the agonies of Hell for me, who didn't deserve it.
But He deserved them. Because He died for them. Do you see? Let me
epitomize, let me summarize. Christianity says,"The end of all being is the
glory of God." Humanism says, "The end of all being is the happiness of
man."

And one was born in Hell, the deification of man. AND THE OTHER WAS BORN IN
HEAVEN, THE GLORIFICATION OF GOD! And one is Levite serving Micah, and the
other is a heart that's unworthy serving the living God, because it's the
highest honor in the universe.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

What about you? Why did you repent? I'd like to see some people repent on
Biblical terms again. George Whitefield knew it. He stood on Boston Commons
speaking to twenty thousand people and he said, "Listen sinners, you're
monsters, MONSTERS OF INIQUITY! You deserve Hell! And the worst of your
crimes is that criminals though you've been, you haven't had the good grace
to see it!" He said, "If you will not weep for your SINS and your crimes
against a Holy God, George Whitefield will weep for you!" That man would put
his head back and he would sob like a baby. Why? Because they were in danger
of Hell? No! But because they were MONSTERS OF INIQUITY, that didn't even
see their sin or care about their crimes. You see the difference? You see
the difference? The difference is, here's somebody trembling because he is
going to be hurt in Hell. AND HE HAS NO SENSE OF THE ENORMITY OF HIS GUILT
!!! AND NO SENSE OF THE ENORMITY OF HIS CRIME !!! AND NO SENSE OF HIS INSULT
AGAINST DEITY !!!

He's only trembling because his skin is about to be singed. He's afraid and
I submit to you that where as fear is good office work in preparing us for
grace, it's no place to stop. And the Holy Ghost doesn't stop there. That's
the reason why no one can savingly receive Christ until they've repented.
And no one can repent until they've been convicted. And conviction is the
work of the Holy Ghost that helps a sinner to see...

THAT HE IS A CRIMINAL BEFORE GOD AND DESERVES ALL OF GOD'S WRATH. AND IF GOD
WERE TO SEND HIM TO THE LOWEST CORNER OF A DEVIL'S HELL FOREVER AND TEN
ETERNITIES, THAT HE DESERVED IT ALL! And a hundred fold more. Because he's
seen his crimes. He's not been convinced he's caught, but HE'S SEEN HIS
CRIMES!

THE PREACHERS

This is the difference between twentieth century preaching and the preaching
of John Wesley. Wesley was a preacher of righteousness that exalted the
holiness of God. When he would stand there with the two to three hour
sermons that he was accustomed to deliver in the open air and he would exalt
the holiness of God, and the law of God, and the righteousness of God, and
the justice of God, and the wisdom of His requirements! AND THE JUSTICE OF
HIS WRATH AND HIS ANGER! Then he would turn to sinners and tell them of the
enormity of their crimes and their open rebellion and their treason, and
their anarchy, and THE POWER OF GOD WOULD SO DESCEND UPON THE COMPANY, that
on one occasion it is reliably reported that when the people dispersed there
were 1800 people LYING ON THE GROUND, UTTERLY UNCONSCIOUS! Because they had
a revelation of the holiness of God and in the light of that they'd seen the
enormity of their sins and God had so penetrated their minds and hearts that
they had FALLEN TO THE GROUND!

It wasn't only in Wesley's day. It was also in America, New Haven,
Connecticut, Yale. A man by the name of John Wesley Redfield had continuous
ministry for three years in and around New Haven. Culminating in the great
meetings in the Yale Ball, the first of the Yale Balls' back in the 18th
century. The policemen were accustomed during those days, if they saw
someone lying on the ground, to go up and smell his breath. Because if he
had alcohol on his breath they'd lock him up, but if he didn't, he had
Redfield's disease. And all you needed to do if anyone had Redfield's
disease was just take him into a quiet place and leave him until he came
too. Because if they were drunkards, they'd stop drinking, and if they were
cruel, they'd stop being cruel, and if they were immoral, they gave up their
immorality. If they were thieves, they returned what they had. For as they
had seen the holiness of God, and seen the enormity of their sin, the Spirit
of God had DRIVEN THEM DOWN INTO UNCONSCIOUSNESS because of the weight of
their guilt! And somehow in the overspreading of the power of God, sinners
repented of their sin and came savingly to Christ.

THE DIFFERENCE!

But there was a difference! It wasn't trying to convince a GOOD MAN that he
was in trouble with a BAD GOD! But that it was to convince BAD MEN that they
had deserved the wrath and anger of a GOOD GOD! And the consequences were
repentance, that lead to faith, and lead to the life. Dear friends, there's
only one reason, one reason for a sinner to repent and that's because Jesus
Christ deserves the worship and adoration and the love and the obedience of
his heart. Not because he'll go to heaven. If the only reason you repented,
dear friend, was to keep out of Hell all you are is JUST A LEVITE SERVING
FOR TEN SHEKELS AND A SHIRT! THAT'S ALL! You're trying to serve God because
He'll do you good! But a repentant heart is a heart that has seen something
of the enormity of the crime of playing God and denying the just and
righteous God the worship and obedience that He deserves!

Why should a sinner repent? BECAUSE GOD DESERVES THE OBEDIENCE AND LOVE THAT
HE'S REFUSED TO GIVE HIM! Not so that he'll go to heaven. If the only reason
he repents is so that he'll go to heaven, it's nothing but trying to make a
deal or a bargain with God.

WHY SHOULD A SINNER GIVE UP ALL HIS SINS? WHY SHOULD HE BE CHALLENGED TO DO
IT? WHY SHOULD HE MAKE RESTITUTION WHEN HE'S COMING TO CHRIST? BECAUSE GOD
DESERVES THE OBEDIENCE THAT HE DEMANDS !!!

I have talked with people that have no assurance that sins are forgiven.
They want to feel safe, before they're willing to commit themselves to
Christ. But I believe that the only ones whom God actually witnesses by His
Spirit and are born of Him, are the people, whether they say it or not, that
come to Jesus Christ and say something like this, "Lord Jesus, I'm going to
obey you, and love you, and serve you, and do what you want me to do, as
long as I live even if I go to Hell at the end of the road, simply because
YOU ARE WORTHY TO BE LOVED, AND OBEYED, AND SERVED, and I'm not trying to
make a deal with you!" Do you see the difference? Do you see the difference?
Between a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt or a Micah building a
chapel because God will do you good AND someone that repents for the glory
of God.

Why should a person come to the cross? Why should a person embrace death
with Christ? Why should a person be willing to go, in identification, down
to the cross and into the tomb and up again? I'll tell you why! BECAUSE IT'S
THE ONLY WAY THAT GOD CAN GET GLORY OUT OF A HUMAN BEING !!! If you say it's
because he'll get joy or peace or blessing or success or fame then it's
nothing but a Levite serving for ten shekels and a shirt. THERE IS ONLY ONE
REASON FOR YOU TO GO TO THE CROSS DEAR YOUNG PERSON. And that's because
until you come to the place of union with Christ in death you are defrauding
the Son of God of the glory that He could get out of your life. For no flesh
shall glory in His sight. And until you've understood the sanctifying work
of God by the Holy Ghost taking you into union with Christ in death and
burial and resurrection, you have to serve in what you have and all you have
which is under the sentence of death: human personality, and human nature,
and human strength, and human energy. And God will get no glory out of that!

So the reason for you to go to the cross isn't that you're going to get
victory, you will get victory. It isn't that you're going to have joy, you
will have joy. But the reason for you to embrace the cross and press through
until you know that you can testify with Paul "I am crucified with Christ"
(Gal 2:20), it isn't what you're going to get out of it, but what He'll get
out of it, for the glory of God. By the same token: Why aren't you pressed
through to know the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Why aren't you pressed
through to know the fullness of Christ? I'll tell you why? BECAUSE THE ONLY
POSSIBLE WAY THAT JESUS CHRIST WILL GET GLORY OUT OF A LIFE THAT HE'S
REDEEMED WITH HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD IS WHEN HE CAN FILL THAT LIFE WITH HIS
PRESENCE AND LIVE THROUGH IT HIS OWN LIFE.

The genius of our faith wasn't that we were going to go through the motions
like a Levite that was hired to serve God. No, No! The genius of our faith
was that we'd come to a place where we knew we could do nothing, and all we
could do would be to present the vessel and say Lord Jesus "You'll have to
fill it. And everything that's done will have to be done by You and for
You." But, oh, I know so many people that are trying to know the fullness of
God, so that they can use God.

Please see Deception XI: Humanism...in the church, Pt. II

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