I want to thank all of you who participated in the 3 day s of ‘Renewell’. I feel a greater spirit of unity and participation from the church as a whole. It’s my desire and I know it’s yours as well to allow the Spirit of God to have His way in our lives and to have His way in the church. I pray that this time we have set aside in prayer and fasting will ignite a revival in your spirit which in turn will ignite a revival at AVT.
I pray that it also ignites a desire for the truth of God’s Word. We live in a world that doesn’t love truth because when the truth of the Word shines into your life you see all the things that need to change. The world, as a whole, fills their time with entertainment and worldly pursuits to keep truth drowned out and at arms length; even the religious world has watered down truth and will pick and choose scriptures to appease the ears of the hearers and thereby avoid confrontation with truth 2 Timothy 4:1-4 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. 3For 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; 4And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Don’t be drawn in by sweet words and a flattering tongue that can dance around the scriptures. Make sure that what you are hearing lines up with the whole Word of Truth and not just the parts that tickle your ears. Proverbs 23:23 “Buy the truth and sell it not…”
Here is another chapter of the book ‘People are pitiful and we’re all people’ by Ron Mullings
Considering Truth
In his novel, Les Miserables, Victor Hugo says, “To lie a little is not possible. Whoever lies, lies a whole lie.” Although this is not scripture, it probably should be. Truth either is or isn’t. A partial truth is a polite way of calling it a lie. The problem with truth is that our world, as a whole, doesn’t want to face it. Ted Koppel said, “Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form truth is not a tap on the shoulder, it is a howling reproach.”
Thus, the challenge for the 21st century Christian is laid bare. In a society that has as its primary goal “feeling good,” the message of truth becomes that much more critical. Certainly, the gospel should not be used as a club. The fact does remain, however, that Jesus didn’t say, “If you want to be my disciple, go out and fulfill yourselves.” He said, “Let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
The rationalization that “Everyone’s doing it” has taken hold of our world. If we allow it to become woven into the fabric of our beliefs, we will no longer be able to tell right from wrong. Robert Bork stated, “As behavior worsens, the community adjusts its standards so conduct once thought reprehensible is no longer deemed so.”
We cannot allow this to happen in the community called The Church. In this generation, we must pray that preachers can lovingly preach the truth without adjusting truths that are already settled in heaven. The only power satan has is through human belief in his lies. The only force powerful enough to turn aside satan’s lies is the preaching of settled truth. We cannot become apologetic of truth. We cannot be embarrassed by truth. We cannot surrender to the momentum of mediocrity. God’s truth and the work of the Church insist that truth demands loving confrontation, but confrontation.
Let’s let our light shine!
Pastor Robert W. Warlick