Standing Still

Hello there, today we will be talking/reading about standing still in our walk with Christ. Let me explain... Paul gives a narration of his walk with Christ, and life after the victory in Philippeans 3, in which he says he is always reaching forth unto those things that are before, and in that which we have already put behind us, we are to walk accordingly. That is to say, walk in what we already know, and constantly reach forward for more.

Here a major flaw comes into play, on the part of most "Secular Christianity" today. Many, if not all churches today are deemed "Denominations." What happens in a church organization in order to make it a denomination is simple. According to Websters, the definition of "Denomination" is as follows : 'A large group of religious congregations united under a common faith and name and organized under a single administrative and legal hierarchy.'

The way in which these congregations have the common faith and name, is that they all follow a set guideline, a dogma, a creed of that particular church, as decreed by the said administrative and legal hierarchy. This is where the topic of this sermon comes into play. When Protestantism began, it did so by way of then Catholic men, now known as the Reformers, taking a stand against what the 'Church' was doing, based on what the scripture said.

These men left the Roman Catholic Church after the light was refused to be accepted, and the people who left with them, forming various churches, became known as "Protestants." That being, ones who protest, people who believe that the Bible alone is the sole source of revelation, and that in matters of faith, conscience takes precedent above the Magistrate or religious leaders.

In order for these churches to keep the names Reformer and Protestant in good conscience, they would obviously have to continue to do 2 things : Reform, and Protest. These churches did do this at first, going to scripture and ridding themselves of the initial Pagan doctrines brought with them from Catholicism, abandoning such things as praying to Saints, the Pope as the representative of Christ on Earth, and salvation by works (to name a few universally abandoned beliefs).

However, in time they stopped reforming. Not all stopped at the same point, and this is why we have so many different churches within "Protestantism" today, with so many different sets of similar yet crucially different beliefs. When these churches stopped reforming, they settled where they were. They said, essentially, that they had received enough new light, and that more is not necessary. They ceased to test their faith against scripture, and adopted creeds, dogmas, religious "fundamentals" that described their beliefs, and set them in stone so to speak, declaring these to be true and that all who wish to enter the church (At this point termed a Denomination) must accept these beliefs, regardless of their ability to disprove them by scripture.

When a church ceases to say to a newcomer who shows them by scripture error in their doctrine, "You are right," changing it's beliefs accordingly to the newfound truth, and begins to say "..Well, thats not what we teach... We cant baptize you into our church," it becomes a Denomination. No Denomination can be the true church of Yah, because Yah requires truth seeking hearts, those who are searching for the light in his word constantly, and open to his truth. When an organization ceases to match this criteria, it cannot be his true church.

What about people?

The church of Christ is often reffered to as the body of Christ, and the parallels in scripture between the church body and the human body are many and difficult to miss. If a church body ceases to seek new light, and as such displaces its possible claim as the church of Yah, how does it not stand to reason that if we as individuals cease to seek and accept new light, we displace our claim as the dwelling place of Yah? "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" If a church loses its claim as the church of Yah by ceasing to accept and search out new light, how much more do we lose our claim as the living temples of Yah, by doing the same?

Scripture is clear on the dangers of standing still, and of rejecting knowledge. Christ said plainly, that it does no good even to clean out the heart, if we do not fully commit to Yah's will, and allow the house of our heart to be filled with the Spirit of Yah. According to the statement, A man may clean his heart out and cast the demons out of it (by Christ's power), but if he does not allow Christ himself to dwell in that heart, Completely, then the unclean spirit comes back, and finds the house of the mans heart swept, and clean. And uninhabited. Finding this, the unclean spirit comes back into the house of the mans heart, and not only that, but brings in 7 other spirits even more unclean than the first. Christ says that the last state of that man, is worse than the first. (Matthew 12:43-45)

There is danger, beloved, in stalling. There is danger that is inconceivable, if we even cast out the demons from ourselves, and allow Christ to purge us of our sins and unclean habits, breaking from sin, ceasing to do the things we know to be wrong, but do not make a full commitment to Christ's will. If we stall, if we go a little way, halfway, even 7/8ths of the way there, but do not *Completely* go, our last state will be worse than our first. The demons that were cast out will return to us, those sins, those habits, those ungodly connections, and they will return with 7 spirits even more wicked than themselves.

Christ does not stand still, he is ever walking, leading his flock to the glory of the kingdom of heaven. If one of us, as his sheep, stops, what then happens? He, and the rest of the flock, continue on towards the kingdom without us. He will seek us if we are lost, only if we cry and bleat so we may be found. He will try as hard as he can to make us want to follow, but he will not force us. We must commit, and follow. He does not drive his flock, he leads them. They hear the shepards voice, and they follow trustingly. We must do the same to continue in his flock.

Some may worry about the things they would be missing, or about trying too hard to commit... This is where this statement needs to stop. If we are told that we see things as too black and white, or that we have too many things ruled as right or wrong, or that we are not experiencing all that life has to offer... Are we not being told, essentially, that we are not experiencing all that the *world* has to offer?

Yah is not a God of shadows or of shades. Scripture tells us that in Him there is no darkness nor shadow of turning. He is light, pure and simple. Unshadowed, unshaded, light. Things, spiritually, *are* black and white. In the 1940s a man named C.S. Lewis wrote an unusual look at Christianity at the time called "The Screwtape Letters," in the form of a series of letters written from a demon named Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, speaking of ways to divert Christians' attention from God and make them fall.

Of the major ways in which to accomplish this, one in particular was that they, as demons, must complicate matters. Men who follow God ask questions such as "Is it righteous?" "Is it Yah's will?" They decided that they must make men ask longer questions, such as "Is it in accordance with the general movement of my time?" "Is it in accordance with the way History is flowing?" "Is it progressive or reactionary?"

Such questions, spiritually, are shades, colors of Christianity. They take us from the plain facts of Black and White, Yah and Satan, and implant us with the notion that there are colors in between, there are grey areas in which we may stand while still being considered in the light.

How are colors made?

Color in any form, is the result of something darker than light, being seeded with the pure light in order to make it shaded, into what we would call blue or red or yellow or green or grey, etc. It is corrupted light. It is what Satan used on Eve, when he told her she would not surely die, *that day*. Truth, if mixed with even 0.005% lie, is a lie. It is deadly, and it will "Kill on contact," just as an insect spray with the exact same Inactive Ingredients-to-Poison ratio. We must not dwell in colors or shadows, saying that we have gone close enough to the light. We must live in the light.

When it is day time, if one should want to constantly be in the light, can they do so by standing still? No. The world is constantly turning away from the sun and into the darkness. If we stay where we are, we, with the world, turn from the sun and into night, darkness. Is it not the same with Christ? We may start in the sunlight, the noon of day. If we do not move with the light, follow in it, then colors come upon us. We are in darker and darker light, as sunset comes upon us, and then twilight. And then, finally, after ceasing to break from these colors and shades, into the light... We are in night, darkness.

In the literal world, night passes and day comes again. The spiritual world is not so, and yet at the same time it is. While in the literal Earth, daylight simply comes and we may see again... Spiritually, once we lapse into night, and refuse to chase the light, to walk in it... Daylight comes when we least expect it, and the Sun of Righteousness, by the brightness of its coming consumes us. We become children of the night, identified with it. And we are consumed by the light, along with the darkness itself.

Do not walk in the darkness, nor the shades or colors that precede them. Do not stand where you are and claim the light you have as sufficient, nor say that God excuses some ignorance. He does not excuse wilfill ignorance. Walk, do not stand. Follow in the light, for "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness." Clean the house of your heart, and let it be occupied with Christ completely, lest those 7 demons come upon it in its emptiness, and you are destroyed with them in the last day.

Yah bless and be with you always.

- Luke