They totally miss it

Monday this week one of my sister’s grandchildren was hit by a truck as he waited for the school bus. After an ambulance ride to a children’s hospital in a nearby city, doctors treated him for a concussion and a broken bone in his foot. He is going to recover.

Before the ambulance came, and while anxious bystanders were trying to keep him talking, this spiritually-minded little boy was softly singing “Jesus loves me.” After arriving home from the hospital yesterday, he does not recall doing that. My sister told him it was because he was “in the spirit” and the Lord was using his own voice to encourage him.

She talked with my brother, the one I wrote about yesterday who belongs to a large cult. She shared with him about this little fellow singing while in great pain as he waited for the ambulance. My brother said, “He is very well trained.”

Both my sister and I shook our heads, but we wanted to shake him. Our brother has no clue about how the Holy Spirit works, and no idea of the grace of God that produces spiritual fruit, even singing, in a young boy who believes in Jesus Christ. We are deeply saddened by our brother’s response; he is denying the power of God.

I’d called him on Monday to let him know about the accident. As we talked, he proudly told me about his grandson who had recently performed his first ‘religious’ service at their assembly. This little boy had to recite Scripture for five minutes. My brother said, “He was really nervous, but he did it flawlessly, without one mistake. By the time he is fifteen, he is going to be simply outstanding.”

As my brother talked, I realized that this child was taught by rote how to ‘perform’ in front of their congregation. What a contrast compared to the little one who spontaneously declared the love of God while prone on the side of the road waiting for an ambulance. One of the two was “well-trained” but my brother totally missed which one.

The Bible (Jude 3-4) tells Christians to “contend earnestly for the faith” because “certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

When I read that verse I couldn’t help but think about my brother’s total ignorance of the grace of God. Such blindness burdens me, but I’m even more dismayed that the work of God is so grossly misunderstood and misrepresented. Without the power of the Holy Spirit in his life, my brother gives no glory to God and has no power over sin. They discipline themselves to be ‘moral’ but it is not from God. They can be ‘good’ people, but without Jesus they cannot be godly people.

This morning’s newspaper had an interesting article about faithfulness in marriage. It used statistics to show that conservative believers are the least likely to cheat on their spouses. Then it said this, “Non-traditional conservative groups such as Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses display no less likelihood of cheating than people with no religious affiliation.”

The scholar whose work is outlined in that newspaper article said of the above statistical result, “That was a bit surprising, considering you think of these conservative religious groups as having stricter teachings about sexuality.”

I’m not surprised. This statistic backs up what the Bible teaches; those without Jesus have no spiritual power. They might claim to be “Christian” but their teachings are far from biblical and they have “turned the grace of God” into something else.

No matter what form it takes, what rules they follow, or how strictly they enforce their rules, those without the Holy Spirit cannot conquer sin by with legislation or willpower. The Israelites of the Old Testament are strong examples. Their rules were written on stone by God Himself, but no matter how often He reinforced His commands or rebuked and chastened them for disobedience, they still broke them all.

My heart is heavy for my brother and his family. In fear of judgment they submitted themselves to brainwashing by rote teaching from ungodly and false teachers—and have now become false teachers themselves. They are “marked out for this condemnation” and are therefore in grave danger.