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+--- Thread: What To Do Now? Stay And Die? Or Get Out? (/Thread-What-To-Do-Now-Stay-And-Die-Or-Get-Out)
What To Do Now? Stay And Die? Or Get Out? - itgwfdisciple - 30-06-2016
The new a lot worse than the old
Well, the time seems to have finally come to find out if there is anyone left in the world who is prepared to do things like how they were in the days of the Apostles. I have been sitting in a church building listening to the singing, dancing and screaming for the last few years and I am certainly not convinced by anything that I have seen and heard so far. The praying, preaching and music is loud but this seems to not have improved things in the slightest and the young and middle aged men are still missing; maybe they know something that the current members do not.
When I read the book of Acts in the Bible I see some seriously motivated people who are very active in their own and the external community and if we read Acts 4:32-37 where it says "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,: And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet." we see that these people had been totally convinced of the words that the Apostles had spoken and they were ready and willing to sacrifice their belongings in order to please God.
It is not too difficult to tell when you are in a place that has people that are like the ones that are mentioned in the scripture above because the love would be obvious. I have yet to find a church like the one above on my travels and I wouldn't be surprised if you have not either, but I am sure that people like this do still exist in this world and I am writing this article to try and get in contact with them. There is a particular man that I speak to at the church I go to and he is very good at coming up with excuses for why the things above are not happening at it, so I like to use him for when I am trying to hone my skills in how to counter people who are good at finding excuses. If I get any replies to this article from people with the same excuses then I just want to tell you that I am ready for them.
Should we follow this nonsense?
There are some thoughts that have appeared in my mind recently that are the main motivation for this article. I realised that labouring for 6 days and then spending much of the sabbath sitting in a church doing nothing is not the way to the kingdom. Some people seem to be convinced that this is all they have to do, but Jesus has something else to say in Matthew 25:41-46 where it says "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." and we see here that we are being given an ultimatum, visit the sick and look after your fellow men or die in everlasting fire. It is obvious that sitting in a church while singing, dancing and listening to a preacher, will not satisfy the above requirements, so we know that something else has to be done.
Or should we follow Jesus' example?
The main thought I had was that I need to find a group of people who are convinced about Gods word, are prepared to take it out to the masses and are willing to give up on the pleasures of this life in order to achieve this goal. The first thing to do, that came to mind, was to do a tour of all of the hospitals in London and then just talk with the patients who are there. We could just start off the conversation on a general basis, say like asking them about how their life has been, then if they are friendly we could then try to slowly change the conversation over to something relating to God. Some people might say that they do not have time to do something like this, but this is why I said that the pleasures of this life would have to be sacrificed. If some people decided to give up their television, holiday and general leisure time then they would have plenty of time for the visits and of course they would have treasure in heaven for doing this (the treasure will not be Gold, Silver or Diamonds, but something that would be classed as a treasure in the heavenly kingdom).
The next thing to do would be to go out and find where the homeless people tend to hang out and to go around and see what we can do for them, this would obviously mean no time for services with singing and dancing, but that was not how Jesus started things either. If you read the gospels you will notice that it only mentions at the end that Jesus sang a hymn with the disciples, so it looks as if it is better to do the work first, then have some success and we will then be ready to sing of how good God has been.
I have heard that there are some churches that do do hospital visits, but it seems as if too much of their time is used up at their church building and this causes them to not be that effective. The other problem they might have is that they do not take the commandments of God seriously enough and this might be the reason why no healings are being experienced.
God's word or the lust of the flesh?
The majority of people do not take God's sabbath seriously and I feel that this has a detrimental effect on how they are helped by God. People seem to think that the sabbath was done away with but in Matthew 24:20,21 Jesus says "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." and we see that the sabbath will still be in force even when the end of the world is near, which is a time that is close to now rather than at a time that is a long way in the past. In Mark 2:27,28 Jesus also says "And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath." and we see here that the sabbath was not just for the children of Israel, but was for the whole of mankind and Jesus has never resigned from his lordship off the sabbath.
So the main question is are there any people out there, in the modern church, who are prepared to do this, or do we have to give up on the people who are in the modern church and then do things the way that Jesus did. In Luke 5:36-39 it says "And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better." and we see here that it will be difficult to convince the old timers of the modern church to do anything different, from the singing, shouting and dancing, because they are too far down the path of their mission, which they seem to be enjoying too much at the moment. From my observations the ultimate mission/experiment of the modern church is that they are trying to merge the Spirit with the flesh, they will not succeed in this mission, though, because of what it says in Galatians 5:16-18 which is "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." and we see here that the spirit and the flesh are contrary to one another which shows that they cannot be merged. This means that we might just have to give up on trying to recruit them, like Christ did, because they seem to prefer the Spirit-less wine that they are drinking at the moment. This must mean that there is an invisible group of people out there, who do want to follow Christ the proper way, but they know that the modern church is fake and it is as if the Spirit is holding them away at the moment.
Finding the real church members
If God really does have a hidden remnant of people out there, who are still prepared to keep His commandments, then the answer to the question must be to get out and then set things up in a way that will allow them to be with people who want to do things the way that Christ would expect. Doing this will obviously be difficult and it would require people to give up all the fun things of life so that they will then have the time to do the things of God.
I have spoken again with that brother that I mentioned previously and he seems to have now confirmed that getting out is the only option. I was discussing Matthew 13:18-23 with him which says "Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." and he was having a difficulty understanding that the fruits, that were produced by the plants in the good ground, will obviously have seeds in them so one would expect those seeds to also be spread out afterwards. When I look in the current church, that I am visiting, I do not see anyone who seems to be eager to put out any seeds to their local community, but they seem to prefer doing the things of the world, which will obviously then get in the way of them bringing forth even thirtyfold. Therefore I can only conclude that they are of the kind that received the word among the thorns, due to the fact that they still condone trying to enjoy this life, which would mean that I had better get out quick before I get choked along with them as well.
Roll on God's social services
Just to rub things in double, another incident happened that only seemed to double seal the inevitable result. My Mum had gone missing, which has happened before because she has Alzheimer's, but this time she had been missing for two days and some people at the church had known about it on the Saturday. The rest of the family decided to stay away because how can they join in with the dancing and singing, while one of their members was missing. She was finally found later that day and I went to the hospital to see how she was, while there I asked my sister if any of the people from the entertainment hall had called to ask if my Mum had been found, but it seemed as if they were too busy entertaining themselves. We stayed at the hospital until late in the evening and my phone was silent, it was also silent throughout the next day so I decided to send a text in the evening to two of the church brothers. They gave the expected replies that entertainment hall members would give, but seemed to forget to ask me where she was. When the next Sabbath arrived, it seemed as if no-one had been to visit and the excuse given was that none of the family members had told anyone that my Mum was in hospital or what ward she was on. A while back I heard that a church sister was in hospital so I found out which one, when I got to the hospital I had to ask reception where she was, then I had to call someone to get her surname, then I finally made it to where she was. It would have been nice if someone from the entertainment hall had gone to even half this trouble for my Mum. I find that entertainment hall is a good name for that place because they will not allow anything to interrupt their dancing and singing, if someone complains about the noise then they are in for a frosty reception and now it seems that you can expect a similar reception if one of your family members goes missing as well.