E21 Part 2 – The Callousness of the Gospel

[Anonymous]

In these last closing days of the Church Age the body of Christ has become so calloused to the message of Gospel. There is everything a Christian has at their finger tips as far as spiritual knowledge is concerned through the source of technology. Yet people are as hardened as ever. A serious sign of the end of this age. Please listen to Brook Ardoin’s Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPvyv..

[Tony Koretz]

For those who haven’t seen it…This is the link to Part One of the series with Brook Ardoin

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[Vlad]

I enjoyed part 1 & 2 of Brook and Joan’s Callousness of the Gospel. A couple of things jumped to mind. Benjamin Faircloth said at the first of the year he felt God spoke to him and said that 2018 would be a year of “the falling away” of people professing Christian faith. The other thing was the over load of “information” Joan mentions that we are subjected to from every angle although much of it is not valuable knowledge and thus we need to turn off our TV, tablets, computers etc. to help prevent callousness. These article bore witness to what has been on my mind lately and some comment notes I had penned a couple weeks ago regarding a callous heart. I will pass my scribbling’s along for you consideration. ++++++++++
Proverbs 4: 23 Keep/guard thy heart with all diligence: for out of it are the issues of life.
What does it mean to “guard one’s heart”?
James writes in James 1:27 that pure & undefiled religion before God is to visit the orphan and widow and to keep one’s self unspotted from the world.
So what does that mean and is there a correlation?
We are all familiar with the expression “garbage in garbage out”. There is a lot of truth in that. As Christians one of our challenges is to find the balance to living in the world but not being of the world. In other words not participating in all the activities and life styles of the world that are unchrist like while at the same time being engaged in life with the society around us. As we see our countries becoming more and more secular and less and less inclined to uphold traditional Judeo Christian values and standards, we face new challenges and dilemmas as we try to find our place in living as a positive and righteous presence without being condemning or condescending toward those who may not be born again Christians. Jesus told us that we were to seek peace whenever possible but without compromising our Christian convictions and sound biblical instruction found in scripture. The longer I live and the more I see society worldwide becoming more evil and self absorbed the more obvious the growing chasm or divide becomes between true Christians and those who are not.
St. Paul taught the church in Corinth that while certain things might be lawful for him to allow into his life they were not always profitable or beneficial in living a Christian life.
There are certain unquestionable things laid out in scripture that there is little debate about. Thou shalt not steal, commit murder, bare false witness, commit adultery and such. There are a great many things that are up for personal consideration as one reads the bible and looks within them self and tries to discern what the Holy Spirit is impressing them to do regarding the issue at hand. In a day when “every man does what seems right in their own eyes” and many seem to adhere to the motto “do as thou wilt” and with the vast majority of churches seemingly adopting these ideas or are reluctant to stand firm and uphold sound doctrine our world is rapidly coming apart at the seams. Each person has to find their own way in living a life pleasing to Christ but this should and must be grounded in sound biblical teaching and instruction. Paul taught in his letter to Timothy that all scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness.
As I travel around it becomes glaringly apparent that everywhere I go Christian presence is being completely eliminated from society. As just an example; I can be in Thunder Bay Ontario, Whitehorse Yukon, Traverse City Michigan in a store, hospital, gas station, restaurant….just about any where and I note shoppers and employee are subjected to the same old grinding grating music. Much of which is blatantly unchristian celebrating or promoting ungodly life styles and sins. I’m sorry to say that I hear the same songs and subject matters highlighted and broadcast over our tax funded CBC radio stations. There seems to be no difference in whether business managers or owners are church goers or not..the godless noise grinds on. Never do I hear Christian living and principals celebrated, revered and encouraged. So…how does this align with “guarding one’s heart”? When I was raising my kids I often used this illustration. If I was a cucumber and was placed in a pickle brine at some point in time I would look, smell and taste like a pickle. I would effectively become a pickle and no longer a crisp, firm, clean cucumber. So it is in charting our lifestyles. What we take in through our eyes, ears. What relationships we enter into. What lifestyles and practices we adopt all influence us in what we are and become. I personally want to be uncomfortable and even shocked by bad language, TV and movies when it is not edifying and upholding a standard of purity. No I don’t mean just watching Huntly Street or CBN Christian broadcasting. I mean refusing to watch garbage on TV, attend movies and listen to what seems to me to be for the most part grinding mindless godless cheap electric white static that is being passed off as music and great works of art and acting. As we live, work and shop in this world we can’t always control the environment surrounding us. But if we as Christians have any hope of maintaining sanity in a crazy world we must set some definite personal boundaries for ourselves to protect our minds and spirits. If I put into my head daily biblical reading and moments to ponder and reflect on what I have read and be very discriminating as to what secular influences I allow to be put in through my eyes and ears and take root in my gut or heart I would find living a Christian life more satisfying. I would find it easier to live in right relationship with God. I would find my ability to discern when there is something amiss or in error. Jesus was addressing the Pharisees who were some of the religious leaders of the day when in Matthew 12:34 he said this- “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh”. So this highlights that what we put into our hearts will eventually be what we say and do. We speak with words and actions and sooner or later what we have allowed to enter our hearts will make its self known. When we hear or see porn which is what much advertising has become, do we turn away and reject it? When we see or hear righteousness mocked and rejected and wickedness and gross violence glorified do we allow it to entertain us and take root in our hearts/spirits or do we shut it off period? I speak from experience. I am a rotten person at heart and my only hope to maintain a decent and respectable life is to daily go before God and confess sins, ask forgiveness and renew my mind with some scripture reading. And because of my propensity to want to be wicked and evil I must set some strict boundaries in what I allow to be in my life. If left to myself I am ashamed to say I would be a far more hard and cold hearted….far more selfish and mean spirited and someone you would never want to be around. If I want a sensitive heart or spirit I can not constantly subject it to ungodly sewage that makes up so much of what fills TV, theater, and internet. It requires the power of the Holy Spirit to enable Christians to be disciplined and committed in their desire to live in right relationship with God. It all begins with deciding and making choices and decisions that we are committed to. When we fail,… we confess we failed, ask forgiveness which includes repentance and then pick ourselves up and move on. Most prison inmates are very sorry for what they have done to land them in prison but sadly the return rate is far too high which means that sorry was not enough. There needs to be repentance added to the equation. Repentance means not only changing one’s mind it means changing one’s actions. I can change my mind but never act on it. This human body will never be good or changed from being corrupted. The book of Hebrew and 9:27 we are told it is appointed for man to die once but after this the judgement. Our fleshly bodies and desires are and always will be corrupted and thus can not inherit eternal life and thus must die. When we are born again of the spirit we begin a course of spiritual life and growth which purpose is to take dominion over the natural fleshly tendencies to live ungodly. This can only come through seeking to be in right relationship with God and learning and obeying his principals and instructions laid out in the scriptures. One of the main ways to get to know God aside from prayer is bible reading and study. Scripture tells and describes all aspects of God. And I dare say 2 life times would never reveal all there is to know about Him. As we see this global push and rush to amalgamate all things sweeping our world and so much of the so called Christian church it is important to guard one’s heart. We need to have Godly discernment as world religions, gender interpreting, political and economic structures are all beginning to merge into a one world system. How do we keep our spiritual equilibrium? How do we understand the right way to live. How do we discern the best way to navigate life and relationships in societies that are ever changing and rewriting traditional norms, ethics and moral standards? How do we summon the strength, determination and commitment to stay focused and true to our beliefs and convictions that have hopefully been formed by our study of scripture and daily communication with God? St. John pens Jesus words in John 15:4-5 “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine: no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” This is the answer and secret. We must abide in the vine/Christ/the word. Rev. 19:13 describes Jesus and it says His name is the word of God. 1 John describes the holy trinity – there are three who bear witness in heaven, The father, the word and the holy Spirit and these 3 are one. John 1:1 reads “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God”. And in the 13th verse it speaks of Jesus and says “and the word became flesh and dwelt among us”. So there are 3 factors that are vitally important in guarding the heart. If we are born again Christians we must 1) abide in the Vine/Christ by reading/studying the word/scripture. 2) We need to be open and honest before God because he knows all anyway. Confess sin and ask forgiveness. 3) Be committed to doing our part in wise living. We don’t earn good standing with God. but he does expect us to grow up and use our brains and common sense that is guided by reading the bible and obeying. God is not handicapped and if we are serious, honest and well intentioned in pleasing him he is well able to make himself known to us and his instructions to us. Often times he just wants to chat by brining to mind something we may have forgotten and that will encourage us. It is not often that huge mistakes or decisions are made that lead to a major and immediate fall. It is usually a series of smaller steps and decisions over a period of time that bring about falls or ruin. Song of Sol. 3:15 reminds us of the little things or decisions or practices we allow that can ruin our relationship with Jesus/the vine. “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines”. What we can take away from that exhortation is the importance of guarding our hearts by serious scrutiny of the little things that we allow and that can become bigger more entrenched strong holds in our lives and cause us not to be sensitive to the conviction and instruction of the Holy Spirit. In my early years of marriage I worked in a steel mill in Iowa back in the good-ole-bad-ole days when everyone smoked on the job. I worked with a man who smoked a pipe and he had a habit of resting his finger in the bowl of his pipe after he would tamp down the tobacco. After years of doing this the end of his finger became callused and he no longer felt any heat from the smoldering tobacco on his flesh. Paul writes again to Timothy in 1Timothy 4:1-2 “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils: Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;” So there is a point where we can become callused or seared in our spirits or conscious so we no longer discern the prompting or warnings of the Holy Spirit and we become desensitized to conviction and become more comfortable, excepting and compromising of the little foxes of the world that spoil the vine or our ability to recognize deceptions and apostasy both in and out of the church world. –I believe as we see the days getting spiritually darker and the spirit of iniquity and lawlessness descending like a flood across our world it would be wise to evaluate and reflect more seriously our life decisions and choices to better guard our hearts. As the apostle John wrote letters of exhortation to the 7 churches in Asia he ended each letter with the words “Let he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”. So I hope these words may encourage us to do likewise as we seek to better guard our hearts and follow Christ in Christian living.

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