Do you know truth when you hear it?

The following video was shared with me after preaching on humility, surrender and death.

Before watching this video, I must ask you this question:

Do you know truth when you hear it or are you part of the "Christian" pandemic of having deaf ears having been murdered by flesh tingling messages that mock the cross?

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RETURN of THE JUDAIZERS??

The following is an interesting post from Andrew Strom...Enjoy

RETURN of THE JUDAIZERS??
-by Andrew Strom.

I have friends who call Jesus "Yeshua". I don't mind it at all. I have other friends who keep the Saturday Sabbath. It doesn't bother me too much, unless there is a kind-of "aggressive attitude" about it. But in recent years I have witnessed a worrying trend - that in my opinion is growing worse - and we need to address it.

Today when a Christian tells me that they are "Torah-observant"
then all kinds of alarms go off. It may be that they are just into 'Hebrew roots' - but usually it is a lot more than that. We all know that in the early church, the biggest problem they had was with the "Judaizers" who went around trying to convince the Gentile Christians that they must obey the letter of the Old Testament Law. This shipwrecked the faith of many. It was the biggest problem they had. The book of Galatians is all about it - and many other sections of the New Testament. It was a battle between the old Law - with its subtle bondages - and the new walk of the Spirit and of grace.

A few months back, we published the testimony of a Christian woman who got involved with a Messianic group that slowly under- mined her faith in Jesus - and basically converted her gradually into a practicing Jew - even though they all thought of themselves as "Messianic Christians"! She realized later that in almost every way she had slowly had her faith in Jesus and the New Testament replaced with the keeping of the Torah. She had been "Judaized"!
And I fear this is happening to a great many Christians today - in all kinds of subtle ways.

This is exactly what the Bible warns against - losing the "simplicity"
of the faith. And that is why Paul was so strong against the Juda- izers. He saw that Christians were being tempted - not to place their faith in Christ alone - but rather in Christ PLUS the keeping of the Law. It was no longer a simple trust in JESUS to be their righteousness. They now started to feel they had to keep the letter of the Old Law too - in order to be truly "holy". And so they became "Judaized". This is the worst trap possible. And so subtle!

Let us look at a few vital Scriptures. Please open your Bible to Acts 15:1-29. This whole passage is about a great meeting of the apostles to decide whether - with the new Gentile Christians - it was "necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses" (v 5). So what did the apostles conclude about this? As Peter declared during the debate about it, "Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" (v 10).

At the end of the great meeting, the apostles put out a letter to the Gentile Christians that declared: "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well."
(v. 28-29). And as far as the Old Law went, that was it!

In other words, no "Torah observance", no Sabbath, no circumcision, no Old Law apart from these few things. This brief list only. That was the pronouncement of the apostles. If they wanted to tell the Gentiles, "You must keep the Jewish Sabbath," then this was the place to do it. But it is definitely not included. And neither are a thousand-and-one other things from the Old Testament.

Of course, this should be no surprise to us. In Colossians 2, Paul tells us very clearly that Christ has "wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us" by nailing it to the cross (v. 14).
He then goes on to say: "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ."
(v. 16-17).

So all these Old Testament practices are only a "shadow" of the New. In fact, as Hebrews makes clear, the entire Old Covenant was only a 'type' or shadow of that which was to come. It was not the real thing! It does not make us more "holy"! The substance is found in Christ - and Him alone. The Old Torah "requirements"
were nailed to the cross with Jesus. We don't need them any more.
If anybody ever tells you that the New Testament is simply a "continuation" of the Old, run a mile from that person. They simply do not know what they are talking about. In fact, what they are spouting is dangerous heresy.

Thus, as Paul tells us in Romans, observing the Sabbath is only necessary if our conscience is weak in this area - and we feel we have to:- "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it"
(Rom 14:1-6).

So we do not "have" to observe the Sabbath. It does not make us more 'holy' or righteous to do so. It is simply a matter of conscience.
This runs against a lot of the teaching that is doing the rounds right now. There is a lot of dangerous "Back to the Torah"-type emphasis that is bringing a lot of harm to a lot of people. Many of them don't even realize what is happening to them.

Paul clearly tells us in Galatians that you can lose your salvation by beginning to rely on the Law in your Christian walk: "You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain" (Gal 4:10-11). He then goes on to say, "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace."
(Gal 5:4). Alarming statements, are they not?

You see, it is a direct insult to the work of Christ and to God for us to go back to the "works of the Law" to try and make us more 'righteous' in His sight. It is placing our trust in something other than just Jesus. We are "adding works" for our salvation. And it will not do.

I believe that just like the Galatians, a lot of people today need to repent of trying to add the Old Law to their salvation - sometimes in subtle ways - sometimes major. This is not the kind of thing to toy around with. It can be utterly deadly. If you are someone who is adding "Torah observance" to your faith, I urge you to repent.

The testimony of the woman who slowly lost her faith in Jesus through Messianic Torah-observance can be found at the top of our website. Here is the link-

http://www.revivalschool.com

Please send feedback to- prophetic@revivalschool.com

God bless you all.

Andrew Strom.

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Amy Charmichael's dream about the lost

Amy Carmichael was a missionary to India in the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s. Read this moving and convicting dream that she had about the church’s reponsibility to rescue the lost. Powerful.

“The tom-toms thumped straight on all night and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:

That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step . . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks, as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.

Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could only call; though I strained and tried, only whisper would come.

Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But the intervals were too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.

Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned toward the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. “Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven’t finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish,” they said, “to leave us to finish the work alone.”

There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.

Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.

Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called-but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn.

Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was-the Cry of the Blood.

Then thundered a voice, the voice of the Lord. “And He said, ‘What hast thou done, The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.’”

The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and weird, wild shriek of the devil-possessed just outside the gate.
What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it?

God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!”

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