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Lowell Brueckner

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J W's Hatred of Truth

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The love of the truth

How important is truth? How important is it to love truth? I cannot think of anything that is more important. The opposite of truth is falsehood and falsehood invalidates every good thing. Joy, peace, humility, righteousness, and all the other virtues in the world, have their counterfeits. Even love, if it lacks truth, becomes a false love and is probably the most deceptive of the whole spectrum of lies.

Love is of vital importance in Christianity to the degree that the person, who does not walk in love, according to the Apostle John, “does not know God, for God is love” (1 Jn.4:8). The Apostle Paul ranks love above all gifts and virtues: “Now abide these three, faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Co.13:13). Because this is so and because the father of lies understands its power, he comes under the guise of love and today millions of people are deceived… in the name of love.

Paul calls truth the girdle of the armor of God (Eph.6:14) It ties the whole armor together and without it, everything falls apart. Truth stands by itself and because of the virtue of its very name, it cannot deceive. Truth reigns eternal. Christ proclaimed, “I am the truth” and therefore everyone, who comes to Christ, must face truth: “He who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God” (Jn.3:21).  

Very carefully consider the following warning of Paul to the Thessalonians and you will see that God values and loves truth more than He loves men! “That lawless one will be revealed… the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth…” (2 Thes.2:3-12).

The Individual Call

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“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”    Rev.3:20

The Laodicean identity

What we are considering in this lesson is a call of Christ from outside the Laodicean church. From the very beginning of this lesson, I would like you to notice two Greek nouns. One is apostasion and its feminine form is apostasia. The first means divorce and the second means apostasy. They are obviously very closely related in definition and a common meaning would be separation. When Paul speaks of an apostasy in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, he is speaking of an end-time condition in the church, which can easily be interpreted as a divorce from Christ… a bride gone her own way.

Would this not describe the situation in Laodicea? Christ is outside seeking entrance and inside, the church is operating without the presence and direction of the Lord. One of the evidences of the divorce is that the mentality of the church is very different, even opposite, from the mind of Christ. The church says, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing”; Jesus says, “You are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Not long ago, a believer told me that he had come out of a certain group thinking that he knew just about everything. Shortly thereafter he joined a good Bible study course and very humbly confessed, “I found out I knew nothing.” The light of truth is painful to our spiritual eyes, when it gives us an accurate picture of our condition.

Roots of Seventh-day Adventism

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Miscalculated prophecies and a blow in the head

In eight words, this is the story of the roots of Seventh-day Adventism. It is the second in a series of three articles, in which I am making an attempt to give the reader a basic knowledge of three major cults, all having their origins in the United States. They are the Mormons, or more formally, The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. The second cult is the Seventh Day Adventists and the third sect is the Jehovah Witnesses. I entitled the first article, “The God of Mormonism” and you can read or review it at the following link: http://calltocommitment.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/the-god-of-mormonism.html .

Let me list a number of characteristics and ideas that these three groups have in common.

1.     The founders had unstable spiritual beginnings that show no evidence of a biblical new birth, therefore they are not born or taught by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that without the new birth it is impossible to “see” the Kingdom of God (Jn.3:3). The apostle Paul tells us that the “natural man”, that is, man alone without the Holy Spirit, cannot understand the things of God (1 Co.2:14). Any person in that position is doomed to be led by his own mind into multiple kinds of error (not to mention the fact that demon spirits will capitalize on the attempt.). You will see all of them making an effort to fit the unspeakable mysteries of God into the natural human mind, and rejecting all that their mind cannot contain. This is the basic problem.
2.       All of the founders of these sects were people exposed to the gospel, but who rejected the established churches of their day. They were anti-church people, who found a new revelation. They taught that the churches were going in the direction of apostasy and could not guide their flock into truth.
3.      The founders were largely ignorant people with no good theological background or training.
4.      You will find that none of them accept or teach salvation that comes purely by the grace of God. They are all “works” oriented.
5.      All of them point to and are highly dependent upon extra-biblical literature and teaching, without which no one can be properly enlightened in their particular views of Christianity, and they emphasize experiences, such as visions and dreams, through which they received light concerning their callings and claims.
6.      Physical and outward things, such as food, days, baptism, and many like things play an important part in their presentation of “salvation”. Authoritarianism plays a huge role in their government and no kind of individualism is accepted. No move is made without the express approval of leadership. A personal relationship with God and the personal leading of God is not tolerated.
7.      They all experienced rapid growth and today number in the millions on a world-wide basis.

A Romanian Hero

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Nicolae Moldoveanu (1922-2007)
Romania is rich in heroic Christians. Usually we look for outstanding men and women of God in the distant past, centuries ago, in times so different from our own that it is difficult to identify with them.

However, in Romania some of their heroes are still alive and others have not left this world so long ago. We know of them from the testimony that they have obtained in the middle of the Twentieth Century. Who has not heard of Richard Wurmbrand, the Romanian Lutheran pastor of Jewish descent? He was tortured for his faith for 13 years in a communist prison, while his wife worked like a man in the construction of a state canal.

Songs composed without paper or pencil

I listened today to an interview with Nicolae Moldoveanu. Observing the man in the video, he probably would not have liked the title of this article. I would explain that I did not write it for him, but for the legacy that he left behind, demonstrating the fact that God is still doing His work of grace in the lives of individuals and the glory goes entirely to Him. Outside of Romania, he is not as well-known as Wurmbrand, but just the same, he is a hero of the faith. He was born near Sered River in Moldova. In the year 1938 at the age of 16, he was converted to Christ. In 1940, he wrote his first Christian poem and began to arrange songs, as well. Still a teenager, his compositions were used in Christian songbooks.

A Birthday Affirmation

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I solemnly reaffirm on my seventy-first birthday: Not to conform to the tendencies of the times, which insist on only positive "truth", but to declare TRUTH... PERIOD... regardless of its unpopularity. Society has gone mad in its hatred for God and is now coming after His people. There is only one hope and that is a restoration of the fear of God... Join with me in the prayer that our Lord taught us to pray: "Hallowed be Thy name", even in this godless society, even in a chuch plunging head-long into apostasy, and in my life, above all, sanctify Your name!

From the Daily Meditations in the Psalms which I compiled from my notes on the Psalms many years ago.  


July 14

Psalms 64:7-10

8. But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
9. So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.
10. And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God; for they shall wisely consider of his doing.
10. The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.

Trust the Lord for Everything

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It’s the Lord’s Day believer; spend some time meditating on the things of God...

“Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.”           Hebrews 13:7

The writer of Hebrews refers to the ones who evangelized the Hebrew Christians. They spoke the word of God to them, the gospel which brought them salvation by grace through faith. Now he speaks of the conduct of these Christian leaders, beyond their evangelism. It depicted a life of faith; a life of trusting the Lord. Not only is faith the means that brings us salvation, but it defines the whole of the Christian life. On old hymn says, “Those who trust Him fully, find Him fully true.” Therefore true Christianity is called The Faith, and its leaders must be an example to the believers of a life of faith. He who does not lead in faith, is not qualified as a leader.

C. H. Spurgeon
We will go to that great Christian leader, who has taught the church, not only in his lifetime, but continues to do so through his written works. Not only did he lead his church in London, but he continues to lead believers of all evangelical denominations around the world, who are edified by his anointed teaching.

Charles Spurgeon was a God-made preacher. Is there another kind? Without formal Bible training, he disciplined himself and enrolled in the school of the Spirit. He began to preach as a teenager and caught the attention of a Christian leader in London, who invited him to preach there. He became a London pastor at the age of 19, clothed with godly wisdom far beyond his years. He was short and stout and not very handsome. His attraction was the Word of God. The time came, when there was not a building in London big enough to hold the crowds that came to drink in the Word, as it was poured out through the lips of Charles Spurgeon. His secretary claimed to see angels over the hills of the resort town in France, when Spurgeon died there, trusting the Lord.  

Intense Desire

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In the article entitled, How Deep the Father’s Love for Us, I tried to show the depth of His love basically through the apostle John’s statement, “Jesus knowing that His Hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). We noticed that the Greek phrase “to the end” implied something more than an end to a time element, in which he expressed His love. In fact, it described the unending extent of His love, which had no limits.

John’s comment is given along with his account of the last supper, particularly the washing of the disciples’ feet, which took place, for whatever reason, on Thursday night before Passover. Jesus’ crucifixion is less than 24 hours away and He is crucified as the lambs are being slain for the Passover meal. At the completion of the article, I mentioned that we would take up two more verses of Scripture, Luke 22:15 and Revelation 3:20.  So now we return to that evening, just as the Passover supper is to begin, when Jesus states: