Excerpts from Truth or Consequences, by Steve Blackwell:
The early Church knew the Truth because they were all living examples of truth in their daily life, not just a bunch of hypocrites, pretenders, treading water, calling cell groups "community," just hanging on till the rapture takes place...
...John concludes his book by reminding those real Christians to be careful and "keep yourselves from idols." Even they had to be reminded. Is anyone reminding us today of how deeply we have gotten into idol worship, inside the Church? Preachers today pander to apostates. The apostates say, "don't preach bad things to us; preach only good things, then we will come and listen ." And so, this new breed of preacher runs a survey of the people who would come to his church and finds out sure enough that they don't want to hear about the bad, they only want to hear the good, so that's what they give them. Because we can't see the simplicity of Truth.
...If we cannot discover truth while face-to-face with the Master what hope do we have listening to the most gifted teacher or preacher or attending any program on church growth? It is all mega-marketing to present Jesus in a better light, it is a designer Jesus for the new Emergent Church and Seeker Sensitive crowd. It is the selling of our birthright for a pot of stew .
We are being tricked and sweet-talked on a global scale by those who receive payment to proclaim truth, who instead give us the pabulum of mega-church leaders. Truth has become just another commodity, merchandise, to be peddled, packaged for the consumer, and made readily available through thousands of local truth outlets.
This marketing blitz is a massive cover-up by Satan to hide the severe failure of the Church . It is hard for us to imagine the complexity of this cover-up and all the organized church has been doing wrong for 1900 years. Satan is the master of intrigue and we have bought into his evil production and love it , but it is a lie none the less. We have been deceived but now at the end of the age there is a glimmer of light and some are beginning to see it. But, most will not believe it and continue to put their hope in a Hollywood production ignoring the obvious warnings.
Editor's note: Steve Blackwell describes himself this way...
I am not a preacher; Lord knows we have enough of those. I am just a Christian with some things I need to get off my chest; the preachers have had their shot, so now it's time for Christians to be Christians, and to say what's on his mind...
We have invested our leaders with wealth and prestige and only a handful have returned the investment. They have become whitewashed tombs of dead mens bones. We have a carbon copy of the religious circumstances of Jesus' day, and His message to them still stands.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your support. I have been richly blessed with the turmoil that has been the occasion of my life since taking a stand for truth in the midst of the organized Church. I say blessed because I have proven to myself, and others, that to be obedient to our Lord brings trials and persecution, but that it is the threshold, across which we must pass, if we will truly understand His words (see John 7:17).
At first I thought I was alone, but am finding many, like yourself, who share and love "truth." I have been removed from two Churches for my views. My family and I, and a few others are now experiencing a "Church" of a wholly other sort; a weak, formless, vulnerable, rag-tag bunch of true believers, defined only by a driving love to serve and obey our Lord and Brother Jesus. We are digging out truth as He gives us light, a little here and a little there.
I have two other sites that you may like to visit www.indywatchman.wordpress.com and
www.hoosierphoto.us
On the first site there is an "open letter to Eagle Church" which pretty much tells it all about what follows the believer who confronts the establishment.
Thanks again, and God bless you.
In His service,
Steve Blackwell