By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
Jesus rebuked His disciples who doubted that He had risen from the dead:“… O fools, and slow of heart to BELIEVE ALL that the prophets have spoken.”(Luke 24: 25);
“Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts? And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet.” (Luke 24: 38-40)
“Afterward He appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them for their UNBELIEF and HARDNESS OF HEART, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen.” (Mark 16: 15)
St. Paul testified before King Agrippa: “But this I confess unto thee, that after the WAY which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, BELIEVING ALL THINGS which are written in the law and the prophets: And have hope toward God…that there shall be a resurrection of the just and the unjust.” (Acts 24: 14,15)
Jesus said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8: 32)
During the past 47 years it has been my privilege to serve God and my fellowman in many nations of the world as a Minister. By God’s grace I have spoken the words of Jesus Christ thousands of times to huge crowds of spiritually hungry people.
It has been my joy to look at a sea of faces and upraised hands in surrender to the Lord and hear their prayers of repentance and faith in response to the preaching of God’s Word!
JESUS CHRIST ALONE SAVES!
OUR LORD said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” (John 14: 6); “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” (John 10: 9-10); “I am the Good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” (John 10: 11)
“Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto Him and sup with him and he with Me.” (Rev. 3: 20); “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” (Matt.11: 28); “He that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6: 37)
I have led hundreds of thousands of precious souls in the ‘SINNER’S PRAYER’ in our crusades using those power – filled words.
And I have personally witnessed the changed lives of many people after they sincerely and humbly bowed their knees and hearts before Almighty God inrepentance and faith. Jesus Christ’s finished work on Calvary ’s cross and His victorious resurrection from the dead changes lives!
One of the things that has upset me, however, is that even though the Gospel of Christ is totally reliable, compelling and available, and the Holy Bible has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be inspired, authoritative and inerrant, yet multitudes still refuse to receive the risen Christ as their Lord and Saviour!
They doubt the Word of God, but believe a damnable lie without an honest investigation of the facts! How could this TRAVESTY happen? The only possible explanation is found in God’s Word:
“The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not … that they may be damned.” (2 Cor.4: 3-4; 1 John 2: 11; Rom.1: 28)
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” (John 3: 19, 20)
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL once said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
Then you will understand why millions of uneducated and gullible people believed the outright lies and manufactured myths like the Da Vince Code, Jesus Papers and other garbage written by pea brains Dan Brown and Michael Baigent. And promoted by their money hungry Hollywood lapdogs Ron Howard and Tom Hanks!
THESE ARE PERILOUS DAYS!
Many of the people inhabiting this planet are very wicked. Antichrist forces are at work everywhere trying to remove faith in God’s Word from the minds and hearts of people.
Satan’s goal is to bring God down to an unreal and superstitious figure, thus relegating His Word to the category of myths and fairy tales of folklore!
These sinister, dark and unholy powers are at work today through the brain washing technique of political correctness, sarcasm, bigotry and hatred of Evangelical Christianity!
They are using academia, religious cults, apostate churches, governments, print and broadcasting media – to infiltrate, brainwash, ridicule and destroy faith in God, the Holy Bible and eternal salvation through the vicarious, all - atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross and His glorious resurrection from the dead!
SATAN WORKS WHILE CHRISTIANS SLEEP!
The sad truth is that while Christians are sleeping, Satan is desperately working to deceive, enslave and empower lustful, proud and spiritually empty individuals to do his unholy dirty work!
While Christians sleep, Satan works furiously through his emissaries, henchmen and cohorts! He is never idle and works untiringly since he has a cadre of flunkies – some unwittingly and others willingly - doing his bidding.
Using the New Age Movement and apostate theologians with connections to reputable Seminaries and Bible Colleges, ‘the Cosmic Liar’ has manipulated a cacophony of organized Church bodies and recognized clergymen to be his errand boys.
By employing well-known personalities like actors John Travolta and Tom Cruise into promoting the erratic, deceptive and slavish cult of Scientology and television personalities like Oprah Winfrey to become purveyors of the antichrist teachings of the New Age Movement, he is deceiving millions!
ENOCH PROPHESIED OF THESE APOSTATES!
And a number of compromising, lust-filled theologians have joined with the Evil One to wallow in the murky waters of so-called higher criticism of the Holy Scriptures, causing doubt by their irreverent and confusing babbling!
May God have mercy on the congregations where these modern day ‘Judas and Quisling’ copycats are employing their parasitic actions! And may all Christians awaken to the danger posed by this dangerous ‘fifth column’ in our midst and that such apostates be exposed and driven from their lofty and lucrative positions!
The HOLY BIBLE emphasizes: “Even as Sodom
Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
“These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear:
clouds they are without water, carried about without winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
“Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints.
“To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” (Jude 7-13)
ST. PETER warns of the judgment that those who trifle with God’s Word will receive: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the Way of Truth shall be evil spoken of.
“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak of dignities.
“And they shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots are they and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls; an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children.” (2 Peter 2:1,2,9,1013,14)
PAUL DID NOT PULL ANY PUNCHES!
“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you.… Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made made perfect by the flesh? He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (Gal.3: 1- 4)
ELYMAS the sorcerer tried to turn the deputy of Paphos, Sergius Paulus from the faith.!
The Apostle brought God’s judgment upon him: “O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13: 6-12). Immediately, he was stricken with blindness and the deputy believed the Gospel. Hallelujah!
The Bible says of itself: “For the Word of God is quick (alive) and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul (mind) and spirit, and of the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.” (Heb.4: 12)
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
We do not sit in judgment of the Word of God. We must conform to its laws, counsel and admonition. We dare not judge God’s Word. It judges us.
The Word of God ministers to every area of our lives: spirit, soul (mind) and body! It brings the life of Jesus into our inner man, peace to our minds and divine healing to our bodies!
Here is the Word of Almighty God to us: “For the Word of God is quick (alive), and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb.4: 12)
WHAT IS GOD SAYINGTO US
Our Lord is informing us that His Word is living and active in our lives and reaching into the very fabric of our lives. We do not judge His Word, but rather it is God’s Word that judges us.
The Word of God ministers to our entire man; spirit, soul and body He convicts us of sin and forgives us. He gives us a new nature and He renews our minds and He heals our bodies from sickness and disease!
How do I know that? Have you ever wondered what God’s Word is doing in your joints or in the marrow of your bones? There is NO SIN there, but there could be ARTHRITIS or CANCER there that needs to be driven out.!
“And the very God of Peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Th. 5: 23)
The Holy Bible states: “God is not a man, that He should lie, neither the son of man, that He should repent (change): Hath He said and shall He not do it? Or hath He spoken and shall He not make it good?” (Num.23: 19)
I believe all of God’s Word and will settle for nothing less. Amen!
