I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 

John 14:1-3 

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 
 
We live in a day and age where many of us choose to be politically “woke” as opposed to being theologically honest in regards to God’s word. 

Despite the numerous warnings about hell and the wrath to come to the children of disobedience, increasing and alarmingly we are seeing doctrines that are no longer aligned with the true gospel and are powerless to save any sinner. 

There are a few tell-tale signs of misalignment. 

• No preaching on repentance from sin 
• The focus is on principles and not Jesus 
• There are no new converts 
• There is more focus on socio-economic benefits than the spiritually transformative power of God to redeem from the sinful nature 
• There is little or no time set aside for the church to pray and fast as a body 
• The final authority is no longer the written word of God 
• The church is led by men and not the Holy Spirit 
• Strive and malice are rampant 
• No mention of the resurrection or heaven 

The list above is only a few of the signs of not being in God’s will. Our prayer for revival is a request for God to come down and clean up the mess we created in the first place. 

Even after we have a revival it's usually only a matter of time before we find the body of Christ in disobedience again. The devil has done a good job of deceiving the world (yes, even the church). 

Many of these new-age doctrines sound so appealing and are virtually indistinguishable from the authentic gospel to the undiscerning. 

This article is not intended to critique any denomination, creed or the universal church, I seek simply as Peter said to, “Remind you of the truth”. The enemy does a good job of attacking us, and the church globally needs to unite, but there can be no true fellowship between light and darkness. 

Now back to the message.  

God’s external redemptive plan for us, has progressively been revealed to us over thousands of years. Those of us living in these times have access to more information than our early church fathers did, yet we have very little desire for an intimate knowledge of him. 

Heaven has now become classified as “kindergarten elementary school stuff” in favour of the new-age revelation. 

Yet, it’s the same bible that tells us “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” 

Is God so precious and dear to you, that you would be willing to give up on everything for him? Or are you ensnared by the distractions and the pleasures of the earth? 

The good book says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 

So where is your heart? What do you love the most? The kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of men? 

The simple fact is our heart is betrayed, by what comes out of our mouths. If our hearts were 100% with Jesus, then Jesus would be at the centre of all our speaking, thinking and understanding. The mouth is the true revealer of the heart. 

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would come to comfort and teach us. But the Spirit teaches us within the context of what was already taught by Jesus and the apostles. 

The new-age teachings of some ministries are not consistent with the teachings of Jesus. 

 The Spirit and Jesus are one and it's impossible to be indwelled with his Spirit and not be predominately disposed to speaking to about Jesus. The Spirit will draw us to Jesus' teachings and make Jesus the centre of our lives. Any Spirit that leads away from Jesus cannot be of God.  

Jesus said, “the law and the prophets, spoke of me”. The job of the Holy Spirit is not just to instruct us in the way of righteousness but to also reveal the concealed Jesus that was hidden in the “law and prophets”.  

When we look at the Old Testament is very hard to see Jesus without the help of the Holy Spirit. All Spirit revelation leads to Jesus, but carnal understanding tries to find meaning and application to life via biblical narrative (“you search the scriptures because you think in them you have life”). This is exactly what Jesus accused the Pharisees of. Yet the modern church is still sometimes making the same mistake the Pharisees did. 

 

John 14:26 

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 

 

John 16:13 

13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 

 

There are a few things we can learn from the scriptures above 

• The Spirit reminds us of the teachings of Christ, so all Spirit-inspired preaching should sound like Jesus or the apostles. 
• The Spirit does not speak on his own accord (and neither should we) 

If Christ focused so much on the kingdom of heaven and the Holy Spirit is supposed to remind us of the teachings of Christ? Why is there so little mention of the kingdom of heaven today? 

In the beatitudes, Jesus brought comfort to the poor and afflicted with the hope of heaven. In John 14 he comforts the disciples by giving them the hope of heaven so they would find strength in whatever persecution or trial they would face. 

Some may say that the Spirit is bringing “new revelation” but don’t be deceived as Christ is THE REVELATION and beyond Jesus, there is no additional revelation. 

In case you missed it, the clue is in the name of the final book of the bible “REVELATION”.  

The book of Psalms and the book of Revelations are somewhat books of allegory. But if we don’t dismiss the word of God as revealed in the Psalms then why have we binned the book of revelation? 

Jesus says about himself, “I am the alpha and omega”. 

Revelation 22:19 

19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. 

Jesus is the beginning and the end and there is no new-age revelation that can change that. 

In our attempt to be “seeker-friendly”, we often try to edit the gospel to make it more palatable to sinners.  

Have we become so scared of persecution that we have removed everything that is offensive to a carnal man? Have we ended up with light-hearted powerless rhetoric that can’t save anyone? 

We have removed repentance, sin, heaven, hell and Jesus. We have over-emphasised things that were previously only peripheral. 

“If I, be lifted up. I will draw all men to me” Jesus said. But we don’t trust Jesus and have decided to try and lift men ourselves. 

When we lift up Jesus, he will lift us up and we invariably will lift up each other. When we focus on “lifting” sinners and deny Jesus and his teaching we are simply nothing more than seeker-friendly. 

Being seeker-friendly on its own is not a problem as even Jesus was a friend to sinners, but do we tell people of the glorious life that awaits us in eternity, after we have courted them for days, weeks, or months? 

More importantly, do we warn unbelievers away from the wrath to come?  

There are churches where a sinner can attend for an entire year or decade and never hear one single message on repentance. But we proclaim “faith cometh by hearing” when unbelievers will not even once have an opportunity to repent of their sins. 

Sadly, even the scripture “faith cometh by hearing” is no longer taught under the original context of sinners needing to hear the gospel before they are saved. 

It boils down to a love issue. There is a love that is accommodating enough to see past failures or mistakes and embrace people long enough for the Spirit to do a work of salvation. 

But there is also a love that demands great sacrifice. A love that makes us willing to lay down our lives for the gospel. A love so strong we do not fear persecution or rejection from the world but embrace it as a cross we bear until the lord calls our number. 

Persecution is the cost of preaching the true gospel. We shouldn’t run from persecution or rejection. We must let the Spirit lead us to minister to the lost in whatever way he sees fit, including when we must stand up and contend for the faith entrusted to us. 

Regardless of what we face, we know he has prepared a place for us, it’s a wonderful place, where no thief or moth can get to. The things he has in store for us, we can truly say “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” 

 

Prayers Points 

• Pray that Christ will be revealed to you in all his glory 
• Pray that he will search you and know you and remove any wicked ways 
• Pray that your eyes will be fixed on Jesus  
• Pray that God will use you in any way he can to deliver the unsaved 
• Pray the earnest of your inheritance will make known to you the hope of the resurrection 

 
Additional Prayer Point 

Remember the church in Ukraine. Pray that God will strengthen their faith even in times like these.