To the priests of ancient Israel, the pastors or spiritual leaders of that day, God had this to say: “You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘Wherein have we wearied Him?’ When you say everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them, or, Where is the God of judgment?” (See Malachi 2:17).
God said, “I am sick and tired of hearing you priests tell my people I do not see their sins, that I am pleased with them though they walk in the flesh and continuously give in to sinful things.” “Where is the God of judgment?” you ask. Simply because God does not move instantly against any and every sin many think He does not see that sin or care that you have sinned, but He does move instantly by removing His peace from that sinful one’s heart and stops short hearing that disobedient one’s prayers until one confesses their sin and abandons the same. “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66:18).
To the spiritual leaders of Ezekiel’s day, God said, “With lies (false doctrine and instruction) you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad, and strengthened the hands of the wicked that he should not return from his wicked way by promising him life!” (See Ezekiel 13:22). The hands of the wicked are strengthened in their wickedness when they are told “It’s all under the blood, brother. God doesn’t see the believers’ sins. All God sees when He looks at a believer is the righteousness of Christ!” That is a devil’s LIE! When one first comes to the Lord and is justified from their PAST sins upon sincere repentance and baptism those sins – all of them – are blotted out. All God sees when looking at that individual is the purity and righteousness of Christ. BUT if that forgiven one turns and commits another sin, any sin, God sees that sin instantly and commands that it be confessed and abandoned.
Revelation 2 and 3 are chapters of holy inspired writ that PROVE Jesus Christ with piercing gaze sees the believer’s sin. So does I Corinthians 10 and 11, as well as Acts 5:1-11 and a host of other texts.
Isaiah 64, verse 6, is one of the most perverted texts in all the Bible: “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags..” I have heard preacher after preacher twist this text to support their urging their followers to view striving for a righteous, holy lifestyle as something to be scorned, that God sees such an endeavor as “filthy rags” in His sight. HOW SATANIC! Satan utterly blinds them to the fact that the previous verse states clearly that when we have continued sin in our life THEN our supposed righteous acts are viewed as “filthy rags” by God. God is not pleased with a hypocrite’s performance. There is no such thing as partial repentance or partial sanctification. We either repent or we do not. We either live sanctified lives or we do not. Jesus Christ is either Lord of all or He is not Lord at all.
Jesus Christ is returning for a pure and holy bride, not for a rag-tag bunch of sinning, carnal, bickering, dissenting religious types who call themselves children of God. “For many walk….and now (I) tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly (fleshly lusts), and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (See Philippians 3:18-19). Many are going to be thunderstruck, utterly dumbfounded when they find they are not “caught away to glory” but are instead left behind to pay in full for their deeds done in the flesh. A deceived ministry will be left behind with them.
“No man can serve two masters.” Years ago I thought that was one statement Jesus Christ uttered that was not one hundred percent true. I thought, two masters could pool their money and purchase a slave at the auction block, agreeing that one master would have the slave’s services for three-and-a-half days each week and the other master could enjoy the slave’s services the other three-and-a-half days each week. Thus, a man could indeed serve two masters. But then the Spirit illuminated my mind to the fact NOT when one of the Masters demands it ALL! And that is how it is with Jesus Christ. He demands it all and for all time, the whole week, the whole month, the whole year. No man can serve two masters when one of the masters is Jesus Christ.
One cannot have one foot in the kingdom of God and one foot in the world. The gulf is too wide, the stretch too great! It’s like trying to keep one foot on the ground when going for a helicopter ride. It can’t be done. Impossible!
Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley