As foretold in the Old Testament and warned of in the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, today’s church in America embraces such compromise and tolerance of (if not embracing of) worldliness, that we are reminded of the reaction to godly teaching many centuries ago: “Tell us pleasant things….and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel” (see Isaiah 30:10,11). Paul prophesied that in latter days, “a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (see 2 Tim 4:3,4).
Such times are clearly upon the church in America. The gospel presented in most of the denominational as well as independent churches strays widely from that illustrated in parable of the Vine and branches in John 15. Lordship is minimized as a requirement to enjoy the blessings of Jesus as Savior. William Booth, founder of Salvation Army, warned that we’d come to the preaching of forgiveness without any demand for repentance and of regeneration without reformation. In pleasure-seeking materialistic societies like the United States, the words written by John usually fall on deaf ears: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
One of the greatest distortions of truth concerns the person and work of the Holy Spirit. In contrast to the covenant of the Law and commandments given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, Paul describes the new covenant as the “ministry of the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:8). Yet biblically-revealed work of the Holy Spirit described in the gospels and book of Acts is denied as being in operation today by the misguided teaching of entire denominations. But the experience of the early church including divine healings and the miraculous as well as dealing with the demonic is clearly meant as a pattern for today. Our inheritance for victorious life in the power of the Spirit in these respects has not changed one iota over the centuries since the ascension of Jesus.
Books available on this website bear witness to this with examples of instantaneous divine healings, others delivered from demonic influence, and even the raising of the dead. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit does that described in the Bible become manifested in the life of the church today. Yet the biblical command of the following is rarely proclaimed in a great majority of churches: “This is how we know that we are in him. Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 Jn 2:6). Such cannot take place in the absence of what is spoken by God through the prophet, words which remain true for every believer in Christ today: “’Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit’ says the LORD Almighty” (Zech 4: 6). May these lessons speak to the heart all who are still striving to find victory in their own strength.
