For when for the time ye ought to
be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again
which be the first principles of the oracles of God;
and are become such as have need of milk, and not of
strong meat. For every one that useth milk is
unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a
babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of
full age, even those who by reason of use have their
senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of
Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again
the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of
faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of
laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead,
and of eternal judgment.
Hebrews 5:12 - 6:2
The clock is ticking, and the time
is short. The time is short for you to minister, and
the time is short for the body of Christ to work
together to counteract evil spiritual forces that are
at work. If these forces are not counteracted you may
not see the immediate results, but your children and
grandchildren most certainly will. They will reap the
results of our generation not uniting and forsaking all
to follow Christ.
I continue to preach and write
things that, hopefully, will fall on hearing ears and
hearts before time runs out. This is another attempt to
reach someone, anyone, who will be touched and say, I
am ready to forsake all and follow Jesus Christ. I am
praying that people will come forth who realize they
are in the world but are not of it. I am also praying
that professing Christians will grow restless with
modern-day Christianity and will not only cry out for
restoration of the Church, but will take whatever steps
are necessary to bring forth and be part of a Church
that is in the image of Jesus Christ, not in the
various images of man. The result will be a mature
remnant Church that, in the unity of faith, will bear
fruit to the glory of Christ.
Lasting peace and unity will not
come through compromise.
Part of the fruit that the
spiritually mature body of Christ will produce is peace
and unity within the Church. Unity is associated with
peace, but it is also associated with truth. There will
be no mature and lasting peace and unity within the
Church until the body of Christ is sanctified by truth
(John 17:17). The Church has prospered when it was
sanctified by truth. The Church suffers when she moves
away from truth to any degree.
When the Church compromises in the
effort to find a place of agreement, a pseudo unity
forms that is not Bible-based, disciples are not
equipped for every good work, and the Church’s
witness and power in the world are weakened. Can we
pick and choose which parts of the Word we will obey
and still call Jesus Lord? Unless one is adhering to
both the elementary teachings and the meat of the Word
of God, he will have no secure foundation when the
storms come, and they will assuredly come.
The devil is the archenemy of the
Church. He rebelled against God and His truth in
heaven. He brought rebellion against God and His truth
in the Garden. He attacked the people of God under the
old covenant. He has attacked the Church, the apple of
the eyes of Christ, since her inception, and he
continues his attacks today. His methods do not change
much and have always included infiltration, lies, and
deception. His lies are not always openly flagrant, but
are intended to be deceptive to move people away from
truth. His lies are often packaged in very beautiful
and wise-sounding sayings, such as agreeing to disagree
and about essentials and non-essentials to unity,
liberty and love. The enemy knows that human beings are
vulnerable to beautiful things. This is revealed in Genesis 3:6: “So when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the
eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took
of its fruit and ate.” Whether it is a tree that
is pleasant to the eyes, a woman beautiful to behold (2 Sam. 11:2), or a beautiful and wise-sounding
saying, it is rooted in the world and will not achieve
the lasting peace and unity that come only by being
sanctified by truth. The result is the same when we
take of the fruit of compromise and eat. It produces a
less than mature and unified Church and hinders us from
working together to share the peace and love of the
Lord, which we and the world so greatly need.
God desires spiritual maturity and
fruit.
The account of Jesus cursing the
fig tree in Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 is evidence of God’s desire for
His people to bear fruit. The lessons of Hebrews 5:12
through 6:2 reinforce
this message and teach the importance of moving to
spiritual maturity. They also reveal that maturity is
connected with knowledge of both the milk and the meat
of God’s truth. One cannot become mature in
Christ without being thoroughly grounded in the
elementary teachings as well as in the meat of the
Word. One will not comprehend the meat of the Word
unless they thoroughly comprehend all of the basics of
the Word, the elementary teachings. Test yourself; can
you name and explain the elementary teachings listed in
Hebrews 6:1-2? Many people will not understand much
of what I minister verbally and in writing until they
grasp the full intent and importance of the
aforementioned verses and the principles involved.
Man’s religion hinders
spiritual maturity.
Man’s religious teachings
and traditions always keep people in a box that will
not allow them to grow to maturity. It can even be said
that man’s religious teachings put people in
varying degrees of bondage. Martin Luther probably
recognized these problems and was trying to change
things with the posting of The Ninety-five Theses. Rather than looking objectively at
what Luther was saying, many in the established Church
of that time branded him a heretic. Today, the
Protestant Church has been infiltrated by man’s
religious teachings and traditions as much or more than
the Roman Catholic Church of Luther’s day. In
some cases, the religious teachings and traditions may
be subtle, but they are not any less devastating to the
original intents and purposes of Jesus Christ for the
Church He is building. Behind all of this is the master
deceiver, Satan himself. He infiltrated the Garden of
Eden, he infiltrated the Jewish religion of the old
covenant, and he continues to press his strategic
attack of infiltration in any area where God is
working.
Any honest disciple of Jesus
Christ must recognize and admit that the Church under
the banner of being Christian is characterized by,
among other things, both good and bad, division and
disunity. Wherever Satan is successful in his scheme of
infiltration, the seeds of division and disunity are
always sown. Every major part of the Christian Church
has also added to and/or taken away from the truth of
God’s Word. Any adding to and/or taking away from
God’s word is a serious breach of the Word.
Churches and denominations may promote these things and
even draw people because of them, but there will be an
accounting given before Jesus Christ in the future. Can
these things be changed? The answer to this question is
unequivocally yes, but how? How can we restore the
Church? How can we have a restored Church without spot
and wrinkle of both sin and man’s religious
teachings and traditions? How can we finally have a
restored Church in the mature image of Christ Jesus
that gives no place to the wiles of the devil?
One may ask why I am not
addressing the carnality in parts of the Church. I do,
and I will continue to address those issues, but the
truth is that there will always be carnality where
man’s religious teachings and traditions are
found. Some months ago, I met with a group of people to
help them find things in the Word of God that would
give them wisdom for choosing their next pastor. The
one who tried to dominate that meeting, and actually
was in opposition to what I was trying to accomplish,
left her family for another woman not long after the
meeting. These and similar things will continue to
plague the Church until she continues in the Word and
knows truth that will set her free.
The Church needs true prophets.
We need true prophets of God to
help restore the Church. A large part of the Church
does not believe prophets exist anymore, and another
part of the Church is following prophets of hype. We
need to discern the difference between the office of
the called-out prophet who truly hears from God
concerning His will and directions for the Church, and
the gift of prophecy. We must cry out for real prophets
to come forth and then start listening to them. Stop
debating about whether or not they will be like the Old
Testament prophets, and just let them be what God wants
them to be when they come forth. They will speak what
the Church needs to hear from God without looking at
the faces of the people, i.e., they will only be
influenced by what God says and not by what man says.
In order for God’s purposes to be accomplished,
prophets need disciples who have ears to hear.
We must have a remnant of
disciples of the Lord Jesus who see the problems
clearly, and who are willing to give their lives to
change things. There must eventually be witnesses all
over the earth, but at the beginning, they will be
found in various locales throughout the earth. All of
them will be united in Spirit, but in various locales,
there must be a core group of dedicated disciples
working in one mind and accord to demonstrate what
Jesus intended when He said, I will build My Church and
the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. We must
first have the remnant united, not only in Spirit, but
in actuality, in geographical locations throughout the
earth.
Restoration requires breaking out
of the box of man’s religious teachings and
traditions.
From Martin Luther’s
attempts, we learn that restoration will probably not
be from the inside, at least not in the beginning. If
one tries from the inside of the box to change the box
of organized religion, one is usually going to be
kicked out of the box. Begin declaring all of who Jesus
is, what His kingdom is and what it is about, who the
Holy Spirit is and what He came to do, who you are in
Christ, and then see what happens! Do all in a humble
and loving Spirit, but see what happens!
There are people who have spent a
lifetime trying to influence various parts of the
Church from the inside, and to their credit, they have
touched some lives for the Lord. They have not,
however, changed the box. There are others who have
recognized problems in certain boxes, but their
solution was to move to another box. With their
families, they moved to a place of personal comfort.
Although some may be tempted to be offended by my
words, they are still in a box, just a different size,
shape, and color. In a box, one might listen to a whole
year of sermons and find that every sermon was totally
in line with the Word of God. Every sermon had
something that helped them and/or their family! But if
it is a box, it still violates the lessons of Hebrews 5:
12 through 6:2.
A minister can preach only truth
and still be personally immature—and leave all of
their hearers in an immature spiritual state. This is
why the devil causes many churches to ignore or
disallow the book of Hebrews. The truth is that no one
will ever fully understand who Jesus is, what His new
covenant is, and who they are in Christ without being
thoroughly grounded in the book of Hebrews. In the end
there will be victory, but will we, our children, and
our grandchildren have to suffer needlessly because we
stayed in the box, though it is a comfortable box, and
never went on to perfection (maturity) (Heb. 6:1)?
Looking for alert disciples who
will forsake all to follow Jesus and continue His work.
I am trying to reach disciples who
will be wide awake and will forsake not only the things
of the world but all of the things of man’s
religion to follow Jesus. Jesus must have sensed some
degree of urgency while on earth because He knew His
time was short to share His message and find disciples
who would do the above. I hope I have many more years
to share Jesus Christ and His message, but the time is
short for changing things before devastating things
occur.
After writing this on Monday,
April 16, [2007], I learned of the tragedy at Virginia
Tech. I was reminded of speaking a word several years
ago that mothers would be crying, and a few days
afterward hearing of the shootings at the high school
in Columbine, Colorado. I also noticed a difference
about this tragedy. Many reporting it and hearing of it
were not as deeply touched as they were about things in
the past, such as Columbine or the events of September
11, 2001. The devil is desensitizing people about these
things as he has about other things in the past. God is
looking for disciples who are very sensitive to His
Spirit and His Word and will not be distracted from
seeing clearly.
In conclusion, I remind you that
there must come godly repentance and restoration, or
devilish storms will continue, and they will increase
in number and severity. We had to face the fact on
April 16 that not all storms are weather related.
Let’s draw near to God. Let’s study to show
ourselves approved and move on to spiritual maturity
and the unity of faith. Together, in the full measure
of the stature of Christ, we will bear much fruit to
His glory. It has been said that you are as spiritual
as you want to be. Let’s be prepared for the day
when the devilish storms approach our door.
That’s when you will want to be spiritual. Like a
mature marathon runner, however, spiritual maturity
does not happen overnight; it takes discipline.
Let’s be disciples who are sensitive to
God’s Spirit and His Word and who are ready to
forsake all and follow Christ, bearing the mature fruit
of righteousness.
* * * * *
Pastor R. Wayne Wilson
New Covenant Church of Jesus
Christ
3147 Klondike Road, SW, Conyers,
GA 30094 USA
770-760-1101
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© 2007-2008 New Covenant
Church of Jesus Christ, Conyers, GA USA
www.JesusAndHisWord.org
