THAT'S JUST YOUR OPINION! (PART 11)

 

 

Simply because you have a room full of 3 year olds who have never been taught, and therefore do not know, the true answer to 2 + 2, who have differing and opposing opinions, all based on ignorance of what the true answer is due to their guesswork or uneducated methods of calculation, does not give anyone the license to conclude there is no true answer! That there is no truth that everyone must conform to in order to receive a tick from the teacher. That there can't be a true answer because look how many children are arguing about it! Look at how many different answers the children have. The key here is not how many differing opinions the children have as to what the correct answer is. Though none of the children know what the true answer is, the true answer nevertheless exists and the teacher does know it. The children's ignorance of the truth is no evidence whatsoever that there is no truth, but simply that they do not know it.

 

As was mentioned earlier this is how the world prefers to view things. That there be no  absolutes to conform to especially when it comes to matters religious. The world has raised its hands in the air and reached a conclusion that to end all religious argument, and to keep the peace so that no one is offended, whatever one believes the truth to be is what the truth is for that person. In declaring truth to be something which is relative and not absolute, the world has overlooked one vitally important fact which is that, unlike beauty, Truth is not in the eye of the beholder but what proceeds out of the mouth of God. Unless God opens the eyes of the beholder they will never see the beauty of His Truth. What people fail to realise is that the Truth of God is not some privately run enterprise owned and operated by each individual as they see fit, but the Truth is the universally God-owned, operated and protected Word of God. God does not merely speak the Truth, but whatever God says IS the Truth. God has a monopoly on Truth for He IS Truth and so there is no room in Truth for man's opinions of it. Many have learned to not even discuss doctrine so as to keep the peace and not cause any controversy and risk offending anyone. They have been taught that this is the Christian thing to do. Someone once commented, "Truth is nothing, what you believe to be true is everything". The Yin Yang, of Chinese origin, is the symbol used to demonstrate the merging of good and evil, right and wrong etc. "Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts." "There is really no good or bad according to the Taoist/yin-yang view, only what appears to be good or bad. There is no life and death because 'Life and death are one, right and wrong are the same', (from the Chuang Tzu as quoted in World Religions, Geoffrey Parrinder, p. 333)." Can you see how the view that one person's opinion is as good as another's, coupled with the claim that no one knows what the Gospel of God actually is, is at the very least, leading people to adopt a Yin Yang view of things. Many fail to realise that what leads you to something also emanates from that something. According to the Taoist you cannot say anyone is right nor can you tell anyone that they're wrong. Everyone has bits of truth and bits of error in what they believe about God etc., and so the whole is greater than the assembled parts. This leaves no room for proper criticism of a person's beliefs because it is believed right and wrong, truth and falsehood, are the same. This illogical and utterly absurd reasoning which concludes that right and wrong are the same fails to take into account the objective fact that right and wrong, when in the context of truth and error and not merely subjective thought, are totally and eternally mutually exclusive. There is no truth in error nor is there any error in truth. A statement which contains truth and error can never be referred to as true. The error nullifies the truth. Only a statement which contains 100% truth may be referred to as true. Even the Taoist would reject a statement concerning the Yin and Yang as true, if it contained any error. But then, the Taoist cannot even call what he believes as true but only that it appears to be true for right and wrong are one and the same thing to him. The shadow of truth is not error nor is the shadow of error, truth. They have nothing in common and are as far removed as the east is from the west, and as distinguishable, to the discerning eye, as darkness from light (see 2 Corinthians 6:14,15). The Word of God says: "...no lie is of the truth" (1 John 2:21). I have heard people say, of the Calvinist and Arminian views at least, that each group is partially true. That each group is right concerning parts of what the Gospel of God is and that we can learn equally from both. That neither group is right or wrong but that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. This type of thinking strongly resembles the Taoist view, which says, "...opposites are not really opposite; they just appear that way to us because we perceive through a dualistic conditioning and cannot see how opposites are really part of the whole. Opposites actually contain the essence of each other, and eventually merge with each other. Referring to the Tao, Wen-Tzu states that 'The Way has no front or back, no left or right: all things are mysteriously the same, with no right and no wrong', (Wen-Tzu, Further Teachings of Lao-Tzu [Boston: Shambhala, 1992], 109)". In its efforts to become wise the world has only succeeded in revealing its madness. Wrong is right and right is wrong. No sense makes sense, etc. There is no black or white but only gray. This satanically inspired thinking continues to permeate its way into 'modern thinking'. It makes absolutely no sense in Light of Scripture and is designed in order to promote confusion and open wide the door for the legitimization of any and every belief and opinion. Error has been decriminalized, if you will, and been set on an equal footing with truth. As a consequence, every opinion MUST now be respected. To confuse is one of Satan's most oft-used weapons. Making lies sound plausible and logical to intelligent, and even intellectual people is one of the Devil's greatest and readily received means of deception for the purposes of replacing God's Truth with Satan's lies. Ignorance does not have a larger audience than when it is expressed through the minds of the intellectual elite, who though perceived to be wise, remain deceived.

 

 

Many say, 'We are all nice people, sincere in what we believe and so anything which conflicts in our beliefs is absolute proof that the absolute truth is inaccessible and so what we believe the truth to be, so long as our beliefs are accompanied with a few Scriptures, sincerity of heart and good works, THAT is what the truth is'. In other words the truth is what you believe it to be and therefore there can be no wrong. Moreover, God will excuse any errors we hold to about His Person and Works because He is the God of love. The Truth is not one thing for all but has become what each individual believes it to be, or should I say, what each individual prefers it to be. We need not conform to truth but the truth must now conform to us. The religious world has reached the point where the truth is not judged objectively. The truth is not one thing but many things to many people. Truth has become a matter of opinion, of what a person has a propensity towards, but then, I suppose it always has been to those who do not have a true knowledge of it. Most people are only comfortable with that which is convenient to them and few there are who will allow their comfort zone to be interrupted by truth. Most people are quite selective of the reality they are willing to accept in their lives. Many will only listen to those who espouse what they want to hear, what they want the truth to be and therefore what they are comfortable with: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:3,4). "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

 

 

The apostle Paul, having his suspicions raised that some were bringing in false doctrine, urged Timothy to command "...that they teach no other doctrine, Neither give heed to fables..." (1 Timothy 1:3,4 cf. Titus 1:14). Anything which pretends to be the Gospel of God is nothing but a worthless fable. The apostle Peter sets a clear distinction between these fables, these false gospels, which he did not preach and the Gospel he did preach "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ..." (2 Peter 1:16). If you abide not in the doctrine of Christ you are abiding in fables and have not God. Many, today, are not so much concerned with what the truth is, they just want to be right. What so many sincerely believe to be truth, what so many have suffered for and endured persecution over for thousands of years, amounts to nothing more than fables. A fable does not suddenly become truth simply because people have suffered persecution because of their belief of it. The 'wiser' man becomes the further from God he is. The inherent and increasingly confused state of man springs from the fact that the world, when it comes to things pertaining to God, simply does not know what the Truth of God is. Scripture bears this out. The apostle Paul's words to the Christians at Galatia, as seen in chapter 1, was a clear message to listen to no one who preaches a false gospel, in other words, 'do not listen to the world, for the world does not abide in Truth' but in false doctrines and cunningly devised fables. Writing to Christians at both Rome and Corinth the apostle Paul said: "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11). "...the world by wisdom knew not God..." (1 Corinthians 1:21). "...the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; THAT we might know the things that are freely given to us of God....But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:11,12,14). The Holy Spirit of God does not take up residence in the believer to merely have him continue in a state of ignorance concerning the things of God, but is sent to awaken the chosen one to the things of God and to vanquish carnal opinions and speculations. The Spirit of God has made known unto all the elect what is the mind of Christ "For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16). Man has chosen to agree to disagree about what the truth is whilst claiming that everyone is right! Doesn't this acknowledgement testify to, and confirm, the fact that man, left to himself, simply DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE TRUTH IS? Throughout thousands of years of spiritual deadness and darkness natural man has never understood the things of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, for these things are spiritually discerned. Man must be born again, he must be made spiritually alive to God by God to know and believe the Gospel of God. Man, and his numerous gospels of works, has never even come close to God's Gospel of Grace. The true Gospel of God is only understood and believed by those who have been made spiritually alive to God by God not by those who lie in a state of spiritual death. "And you hath He quickened (made alive), who were dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1).

 

 

It never dawns on lost man that all this disagreement and speculation over what the Truth is, is the actual telling factor which discloses their true spiritual state. That all this confusion is not the evidence that there is no True Gospel, or that none can know it, but that none of them actually have it! That it is not the Gospel of God which is lost but rather those who do not believe it. How could the Gospel of God ever be lost when the Gospel of God is said to be everlasting, something which is clearly documented in the Holy Scriptures: "But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which BY THE GOSPEL is preached unto you " (1 Peter 1:25 cf. Revelation 14:6). Where does man expect to find God's Gospel if not in the Word of God? And, if the Gospel is in the Scriptures why don't 'pastors' teach it? Some of these men say the Gospel is love and peace while others say the Gospel is the whole Bible. SCRIPTURE SAYS, LOUDLY AND CLEARLY, THAT "...THE WORD OF TRUTH (IS) THE GOSPEL OF YOUR SALVATION..." (Ephesians 1:13). The Gospel of God contains the doctrines of grace in the salvation of His people and is to be preached and believed for there to be anyone saved. The Gospel is the means by which God conveys His Truth about salvation: what was done to save and what is to be trusted in for salvation. Any 'pastor' who says the Gospel is lost, or that it is anything else but the doctrines of grace in the salvation of God's people, needs to be vigorously questioned and challenged from the Scriptures. Ask them, 'Do you believe God's Gospel?' If they say 'Yes', ask them: 'How can this be when you've just told me the Gospel is lost and no one knows it?' If they admit to you that it is not the Gospel of God they believe and preach, ask, with boldness, 'THEN WHOSE GOSPEL IS IT?' If the Gospel of God is lost then whose gospel is anyone believing? Whose 'good news' are we trusting in? Whose teachings are they? If the Gospel of God is lost, how can anyone have the temerity to call themselves 'Christian', how can they be true followers of Christ, if they do not know the Gospel of Christ, if they are not abiding in His Doctrine? How can any call themselves saved when they admittedly believe in a gospel which is not God's Gospel for they say God's Gospel is lost and no one can know it? Which begs the question, what is it which people today are calling 'the Gospel'? Whatever a person believes about salvation, whatever you believe about what Christ has done to save His people from their sins, IS YOUR GOSPEL! To say no one knows the true Gospel of God is to say no one knows and, therefore, believes in God's salvation Plan. Only God's Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, the rest are dung. Many so-called pastors know much of the truth, however, the majority of them have been silenced by fear due to church politics, or denominational pressure to not rock the boat, as it were, by preaching truth they know will offend and scare off valuable clientele, excuse me, members of their flock, or, perhaps like some of the members of the Sanhedrin, because of their love for the praise of men: "Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:42,43). Woe be unto these men if they do not turn from their sin and be born again men who BELIEVE AND PREACH THE GOSPEL OF GOD and become true servants of Christ who seek not to please men but only to honor the true God!!

 

 

When these so-called pastors say no one knows what the Gospel of God is, are we to presume they include Christians, also? And when they say that the Gospel is lost, to whom, pray tell, is it lost? God's people? Is God's Gospel lost, is it unknowable even to God's chosen? Is the Gospel, therefore, hidden from God's chosen, are their eyes veiled from the true Gospel? How can any of this be when Paul the apostle states quite clearly that those to whom the Gospel of God is hid are those who are lost (2 Corinthians 4:3). Are all Christians lost? Chosen to be saved but lost regardless? This Scripture alone provides ample evidence of the fact that FOR THOSE WHOM GOD SAVES THE GOSPEL OF GOD IS NOT HID, IT IS NOT UNKNOWABLE, IT IS NOT LOST! Those who are saved do not have blinded minds, like those that are lost (see 2 Corinthians 4:4). What they do have is the gift of Faith by which they see and believe God's only Gospel. If a person does not believe, and therefore know, the Gospel of God THAT is a person who is lost. If the Gospel of God is lost why then did the apostle not simply say, 'Everyone is lost'. Why specify that only those to whom the Gospel is hid are lost, if the Gospel itself is lost? If the Gospel is lost then it is hidden from all and everyone is lost. The Gospel of God is only lost to those who do not know it as the power of God unto salvation. In saying those to whom the Gospel is hid are lost, Paul clearly implies that the Gospel is revealed to all those who are saved. That God's saved people DO KNOW His Gospel, that God's Gospel IS NOT hidden from them. God's Gospel is revealed to God's people, it is known and it is believed. Obviously then the one to whom the Gospel of God is not hidden but revealed, who does know the Gospel of God, who does believe it, is saved. To those who say the Gospel is lost and, therefore, that no one knows what the Gospel of God is, I ask, 'Do you believe God knows what His Gospel is?' I would presume that most would answer in the affirmative. Then for what possible reason would Almighty God, Who Authored the Mighty Gospel which proclaims the Good News about the salvation of His people through His Son Jesus, have allowed His Gospel to become lost, or even worse, suppress this Good News of salvation from the very people He has elected to believe it and be saved!! It simply makes no sense at all. Much like an unfinished road which looks completed at first, when all you can see is a smooth black top but when travelled on eventually breaks up into a rough track, many lies and false teachings sound good, even wise, at first but upon closer inspection and tested by the Word of God they are seen for what they really are. They all eventually leave their followers lost and abandoned on an ugly dirt track which leads to nowhere but a fiery Hell. Again, how can the Gospel of God be lost when we still have the Scriptures intact? How can anyone say that the true Gospel is lost when 99% of professing Christians believe the Bible is the complete, unadulterated and infallible Word of God which shall never pass away? What? God forgot to include in His Scriptures the very doctrines which deal with salvation, the most important teachings that have to do with Who God is and what He has done in the salvation of His people? Or have all the Scriptures which teach the Gospel of God been lost and all we have been left with are the ones which do not? What then of the Scriptures throughout the entire Word of God which do teach the Gospel? The confusion and the lies are in the hearts of the lost, the ones to whom the Gospel is hid, the ones who cannot discern the true Gospel of God. Of the woman who poured spikenard upon the head of the Lord Jesus, Christ said: "Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her" (Mark 14:9). Those who claim the Gospel of God is lost would have us believe that though the Lord went to great lengths to preserve what this woman did to Jesus, has allowed His great Gospel, which details what His Son has done for all His people, to be washed away by the waters of time? THIS IS NOTHING BUT A CONTEMPTIBLE AND SATANIC LIE!! AN OUTRAGEOUS AND OVERT ATTACK UPON GOD AND HIS VERY POWER TO SAVE! Always remember that only the person who insists that God's Gospel is lost, or that no one knows the true Gospel of God, is the one that is lost. That spiritual things cannot be discerned by the wisdom of man, by those who do not possess the gift of Faith, but only by those who have been made alive unto God by God. That no man is right when it comes to the matter of the Gospel of God, except the ones to whom God has revealed Himself and who, therefore, know and believe Who the True God is and what His True and only Gospel is.

 

The apostle John states in 1 John 4 that Christians, ALL Christians, know the Truth. Paul the apostle wrote to, and of, his brethren at Philippi, "...in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the Word of Life..." (Philippians 2:15,16). Paul may be referring here to Christ as the Word of Life (John 1:1; 1 John 1:1), or to the Gospel of Christ through which Christ the Word is preached and made known. Writing to fellow Christians the apostle John says: "I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth....Ye are of God little children....They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error" (1 John 2:21; cf. 3:1; 4:4-6). Say something like this today and the world looks upon you as some unloving, judgemental religious extremist, whilst professing Christians, like headless chickens, run around shouting, 'CULT! CULT!' Further on in his Letter, the apostle John explains, "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19). That there is a marked difference, not to mention distinct consequences, between believing the Truth of God and holding to the untruths of the Devil is seen in this verse. Particularly in the phrase lieth in wickedness. It means to be under the power, or influence, of the Devil who as the god of this world has blinded the minds of all those who do not believe the Gospel of God, all those who are of the world, all those who are lost (see 2 Corinthians 4:3,4). If you do not believe the Gospel you are of the world and serve the god of this world, you are lost and lie blinded in wickedness. If you do believe the Gospel you are of God and are saved. Those who are of God love His Truth for they are filled with the Spirit of Truth, and believe the Gospel of God and have been granted eternal life. Those who are of the world, who lie in wickedness and believe not the Gospel of God, are filed with the spirit of error and appointed to damnation (see 1 Thessalonians 5:9,10). He that knoweth God is not of the world as Jesus is not of the world. Christ said of His disciples, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:16). Those who are of God are not of the world meaning they no longer live as the world does, nor do they share in or partake of the world's conversations, in particular, the world's undiscerning and ignorance-based religious beliefs. Those who are of God believe His truth and those who are of the world have not the truth of God. Christ said: "O Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee: but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me" (John 17:25). The world remains blind to the true God and His Gospel but the true followers of the true Jesus have, not only been given eyes to see and ears to hear but also, the true Faith to believe Him. Those who are of God lie in the loving arms of Truth and those who are of the world lie in the false carnal and temporal 'security' of wickedness.

 

 

According to the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle John, the world is composed of two groups of people: those who have been/will be saved of God, who are not of the world but are the elect of God and, therefore, know God for they believe His Truth, and the rest, who are led by the spirit of error, all lie in wickedness. "Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God..." (2 John 9). These are not of the Truth but of the world and so lie in wickedness because "...the great Dragon...that old Serpent, called the Devil, and Satan...deceiveth the whole world..." (Revelation 12:9). The whole world which is deceived by Satan includes not only those of the secular world but of the entire religious world made up of every religious person on the planet including all who profess themselves to be Christian yet know not the Gospel of God. How is the world, made up of all those who are not of God, deceived? Paul reveals the truth in his second Letter to the Corinthians: "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the Image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Corinthians 4:3,4). God's Word does not change for it is Truth. God is the God of Truth, whilst Jesus is Truth itself (see John 14:6), the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and the glorious Gospel of God is the Word of Truth. Interestingly, no lie is of the truth refers to the fact that no lie "either springs from it, or is according to it, but just the reverse. The apostle, with respect to the errors and heresies of the above apostates (1 John 2:18,19), which were flagrant contradictions to the Gospel, and as distant from it as a lie is to truth; and of such lies, and of those liars, speaks in the next verses. The Arabic version reads, "and that every liar is not of the truth". It is God's chosen ones who know the truth, and those who are not of Him, those who do not know His Gospel, shall continue to abide in the wasteland of man's opinions and not in the fertile garden of the Doctrines of Christ. Notice what John is saying here. The apostle is saying that only his fellow believers, other Christians, those who are of God KNOW the Truth. Those who are of God and those who are of the world are not the same (John 10:27). The Lord Jesus Christ establishes a clear distinction between the two stating that He does not pray for those that are of the world, those whom God has not given Him, but only for those God has given Him: "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine" (John 17:9). Those who are of the world are not God's people. Christ is speaking of two separate groups of people: one that knows the truth and one which does not. The spirit of truth and the spirit of error. One is of God and the other is not. One knows God, and therefore recognizes the Truth of God when it is spoken, and the other simply does not. One has been blessed with, and is led by, the Spirit of Truth and the other is driven by the spirit of error! One is saved and the other is accursed. The Letter to the Hebrews further enriches our understanding: "Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25 cf. John 14:6; 17:2,9). Christ does not make intercession for those of the world but only for the called of God (see Hebrews 9:15). Nor does Christ appear in Heaven in the Presence of God for anyone other than for those He died and prays: "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the Presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24). As High Priest, the Lord Jesus appears on the behalf of God's chosen, the ones He laid down His life for, the ones He exclusively makes intercession for. Who else would Christ appear before God on the behalf of? Those He did not die for? Those whom the Father had not given Him? Those for whom He does not pray? Hardly. The ones Christ saves are the ones He prays for because these are the ones He made Sacrifice for because they are the ones the Father has given to Him. The Lord Jesus saves only those He prays or, the ones who come to the True God by the True Jesus via Their Gospel. Christ gives eternal life to those God gives Him for He is the Author of eternal salvation. "And being made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him" (Hebrews 5:9). "This shows that salvation is done, and that Christ is the sole Author of it, and that all the glory of it should be given to Him; and those to whom He is the Author of salvation, are such as hearken to the voice of His Gospel, and obey Him in His ordinances. Christ is not the Author of salvation to all men; all men do not obey Him; all those whom Christ saves, He brings them to an obedience to Himself..." Man's wisdom has never reached the heights of what the truth of and about God is and what salvation entails. This conclusion is arrived at by the fact that man in his sinful state does not know God, does not have God and is therefore without God and without hope in this world (see Ephesians 2:12). Without God, man is beyond any hope or help. "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Romans 3:10-13 cf. Ephesians 2:12).

 

 

The sad fact of the matter is that the religious beliefs of the lost world are steeped in perversion and ignorance. The religious world of the lost has carefully erected, in some cases, architecturally spectacular, temples to its imagined gods. Worshippers, not of God, but only of that which is ignorantly perceived to be God. A god which is not of, or from, the Scriptures, but one who has been injected into the Scriptures by spiritually dead men and subsequently into the hearts and minds of the unsuspecting. As with Frankenstein's monster who, upon seeing the sun for the first time, stretches forth his arms towards it in some vain hope of laying hold upon it, so too, these temples reach for the skies in an apparent symbolic, and quite bizarre, attempt to lay hold on the truth and yet all that can be heard within their walls are lies and fables, the only things that are within their reach. Many of these temples have also been built by lost men in honor of and in the name of the true God and yet they do not know Him. Merely because you say you 'believe in Jesus' and pray to 'Him' is no evidence that you are believing in and praying to the true Jesus (see Matthew 7:22,23). They all claim to teach the truth of God and yet any truth they do happen to proclaim is mixed with the Devil's lies thus producing a putrid, toxic concoction that can never give life but only ever serves to confirm the lost in their fatal, spiritually poisoned and condemned state. Importantly, simply because your beliefs contain some truths is no guarantee that you believe in the true God. Knowing God is believing His Gospel entirely and without error. To believe the Truth of God is at once to reject the lies about Him contained in false gospels. The Gospel is perfect and anything added to, or taken from, it leaves that which cannot be called God's Gospel but only a man's invention, only a man's gospel. The casual employment of truth among phony churches is only to help prop up their multitude of lies concerning the Person and Works of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many so-called Christian Churches today have ceased to preach what little they know of the true Gospel and have opted rather for a mellow, softer, far more palatable and appealing, crowd-drawing meal of psychological and moral pep talks combined with inoffensive and inspirational stories involving the 'characters of the Old Testament', designed to entertain the regulars and not frighten off newcomers. A sort of spiritual McDonald's if you will. Whatever they preach/serve it is certainly not the Gospel of God. They do not provide the people with what they need but only give the people what they want to have. With offering plate in hand they mostly speak on how man is to live and suggest ways to make life easier for himself and better for others. Concentrating on the moral health of the congregation, rather than its doctrinal well-being, the hirelings fill their flocks with mindless drivel and their temples with lies that echo throughout their darkest recesses. They, and those who follow them are nothing but a stench in the nostrils of God, an utter offense to the Most High God, Who has commanded His people to preach the Gospel, His Gospel, to every creature. The fact that they do not preach the Gospel of God is the loudest and clearest declaration from all such 'churches' that they simply do not know what the Gospel of God is, thereby revealing the surest sign that they have not God for they know not God. If they did have the Gospel of God surely they would preach it for why would any place a light under a bed. Why, if you had the Gospel would you hide it from the people?