|
Robert (PA)
About ten years or so ago I was driving home from a long days work listening to one of those preacher radio stations. He was speaking from 1 Peter 3:15, and it was impressive. He made the statement that we should know God and the Word of God so well that we can confidently and boldly give an answer, he referenced Deuteronomy 11:18-21, and how they were to know God's law, that the same should apply to us today in that we should know God through his Son, Jesus the Son of God.
I was intrigued with how he associated the OT with the NT and how he related these two passages. It drove me start doing a more personal study of the Word like i have never done. Over the course of the following 4/5 years i noticed that i started to lose my closest friends and Brothers and Sisters in Christ, all because as i learned more i shared more, but most of what i learned contradicted what i was hearing from the pulpit and the teachers of the church i was associated with at the time. It got to the point that i was feeling shunned and rejected by those whom i thought were supposed to be my family. Sadly, i was told by the same preacher that i was headed down a lonely path and that i would eventually be asked to leave the assembly if i did not stop. This only added fuel to the fire and after multiple appointments with this same preacher, i was asked to leave since i could not Biblically agree with his teachings and that i found them to be out of context to the Scriptures i was reading.
I would have to say without hesitation that the main point of study that opened my spiritual eyes as well as my deeper communion with our Beloved Savior and His Heavenly Father was when i delved into the Doctrine of the Trinity study. What i found was astonishing as well as enlightening. Never had i heard it preached or even taught for that matter that it was a new revelation, by a man, well after the NT was established. The bloodshed and the deceivable nature's that shrouded this doctrine were most detestable. The more i learned of it and the more i read from varying scholarly backgrounds made it ever so clear how this one doctrine infested the Century's of Bible students across this great and vast cosmos. The 'mystery' of this doctrine and the inconclusive decisions of its 'mystery' led me further and further from the traditional orthodox christian belief. Preacher after preacher were labeling me a heretic, an Arminian, and a few other words. I would admit that i was not aware at the beginning of the study how a pagan belief system could creep into the men of God and be indoctrinated as part of God and the Word of God. I could go on, but i am quite sure you have done your own study's. Of course, this one study opened the door to more. It is fascinating how that at the beginning if we distort the Word of God that it is like a torrent or of having a domino effect. It diminishes and distorts the reader of the Holy Writ so that they are blinded to the Truth.
In the most current 4/5 years i have notice a slight decrease in my 'christian' social group'. Mainly because i find how little they really know of their Bibles, the Word of God. I have been repeatedly asked to leave home Bible study groups and different sunday classes, only because when they start talking the 'Jesus is God' syndrome, i question this belief and often they are left to exclaim that this is still a 'mystery', then i bring up Paul and what he said about the 'mystery'. Then they stop talking and start asking, strongly suggesting, that i leave. I recall one preacher who actually came to my home and did his best to explain the 'mystery', i politely asked that 'if i do not believe this am i not saved?' he replied yes. So i asked for a Bible verse that makes this clear, when he could not produce such a verse i asked him how he could say i was not saved by a doctrine that contradicts Scriptures. He started to sweat profusely and started fumbling through the Bible as if looking for something. Again i asked for Biblical evidence that what he stated was Truth and that it came from God, he got more disturbed, He finally left and in such a hurry that i do not think he heard my invitation to return.
Today, Sunday, as even i write this, i am in humble prayer that God brings those who understand and have been given the truth by the Comforter, and those who have endeavored to read Gods Word for the deeper communion through His Holy Spirit, not relying on the gainsaying's of man, to knock on my door. Also, i am in a slough of disdain knowing that i have possibly lost another Brother in Christ, because of his refusal to accept that God cannot be tempted and that Scripture records this as well as that Jesus was tempted, still he refuses to accept that true reading and claims that Jesus is God, also adding that it would be best if we parted ways. Truly, the delusions of man have been replaced by the leading of the Spirit..
|
