Truth And Tolerance
Written by Elinor Montgomery – em*********@****co.ca
August 29, 2003
(John 14:6) I am the way, the truth and the life. These words were spoken by Jesus. Do you believe He was correct in speaking them? Do you believe if there were another way He would have told us? Was He intolerant when He said, No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6)? Was God intolerant when He said, You shall have no other gods before Me (Exodus 20:3)? Was He intolerant when He commanded Adam, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Genesis 2:16-17)?
Each and every one of these statements is both truth and intolerance of that which is not truth. They speak of specifics regarding Who Jesus is and the kind of lifestyle required of man if he is to live instead of die. Today, we are living in a tolerant society that claims truth is relevant. What is at the core of such thinking? Relevance comes with man-made philosophies and belief systems, the truth of which depends on how we feel toward them. Truth for one is not necessarily truth for another, we are told. So we have the birth of religion riding side by side with the acceptance of the lies of Satan, which tell us that all religious systems are equal, therefore making all gods we worship equal. John says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The Word, Jesus, and the truth, all become one and the same. Hence, we have the truth at war with religion, which places man and his programs for reaching God ahead of truth.
In dealing with the questions of the religious leaders, Jesus quoted (Psalm 118:22) The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. He went on to say that whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder. Paul states, in Ephesians, that members of the household of God have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone (see Ephesians 2:19-20). He clearly states that life and death is a black and white issue. The cornerstone will either break us by bringing us into submission to the truth, or it will crush us if we refuse the truth. The religious leaders hated Jesus, for the truth brought light into their darkness, and what communion has light with darkness? Truth and religion are as incompatible as oil and water.
What was Jesus’ attitude toward the Scribes and Pharisees, or the religious leaders? Did He join forces with them by saying we are all seeking God? Did He say that they were giving their lives over to do the work of the Lord, in the same way that He was doing, so it would show intolerance to speak evil of them? Did He say, “Hey fellows, your rich full robes and your lengthy public prayers tell me you are good men of God, so let’s join forces in unity before Him. Would this unity not strengthen their cause, reasoned Jesus, to pray together while calling down the power of God in the nation? Could Jesus not tolerate their differences, for, after all, didn’t they all pray to the same God?” Far from having such an attitude that would endorse any one of these ideas, Jesus was completely intolerant of their sin of hypocrisy. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Luke 12:1).
How is it that we say we trust in Jesus for our salvation, yet we endorse an apostate priesthood? Good Baptist ministers and good Methodist pastors come together in unity with a good Catholic priesthood, and in tolerance of all religious practices, in times of national crisis. They share together in prayer to God, often where there is no sign of repentance for sin on their part. How does a priesthood unite in prayer to God for national protection from same sex marriages, when it has refused to be a united voice that could have stopped His prayer and Bible from being removed from the classrooms, the courtrooms and the governments of the nation? Did this same priesthood object to the name of Jesus being left out of prayers by our military chaplains, who did so in fear of offending other religions, not to mention their offence before God? Of course, they must be tolerant, for by their very nature of being religious men, they are tolerant of practices that do not line up with the truth of the Word.
While God’s name was being removed from the land, the Catholic priesthood was behind walls, kneeling before idols, praying to saints and to Mary, amassing a huge fortune within the buildings they called church, and in many cases indulging in abominations as they molested the young boys of their congregations. Many Pentecostal preachers told their congregations to pray but to not take any action that would make them witnesses before kings and rulers. “God does not dabble in politics,” they would tell their sheep. Many denominations and their priesthood do not recognize the need of being born again of the Spirit at all. Their social programs become their doorways to heaven. Is there any place for the true believer to join in such unity of national prayer? Did Jesus not separate His apostles from all such hypocrisy? When the disciples asked the Lord if He did not know He had offended the religious leaders (see Matthew 15:11-12), did Jesus’ response reflect tolerance or intolerance for their traditions with all their emptiness? He said, Every plant which My Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a ditch (Matthew 15:13-14).
A body that calls itself church but is resting on religion instead of the chief cornerstone is not a church at all, but in all likelihood rooted in its Roman roots of Catholicism. It shall be uprooted, for it was not planted by Jesus. Jesus did not lay the foundation for the Christian Church, which began in Rome under Constantine. He laid the foundation for His apostolic church commissioned to be a voice, not a building with another priestly hierarchy appointed by man. It functioned not unlike the hierarchy of the synagogue with its own high priest, called the pope. There was little difference except in name as the pope replaced the high priest of Judaism to become the high priest of the latest new religion called Christianity. Jesus hated these hierarchies of whitewashed tombs, outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. He called them Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? (Matthew 23:33)
Should we be tolerant of the Pharisees of today? As true believers, should we pray in unity with such hypocrisy of a priestly leadership that says nothing when God’s name and His Laws are removed from a nation, and then cries out when it begins to reap the results of its evil doing? Did Elijah receive the call to unify Israel with the prophets of Baal, or to get rid of them from among her ranks, even to the point of killing them all? And how did God deal with the ruler-ship of Ahab and Jezebel that caused a nation to forsake God, in her tolerance for all manner of evil in the land? How much of the priesthood today is in pornography and sexual immorality, being called at the same time to lead in prayer to save the institution of marriage in the land? It is the story of Israel all over again, that of a filthy nation coming before God seeking His help, when her own disobedience to Him is the cause of the problem. Does God hear the prayers of those who are far from Him? Would a true, repentant believer be deemed worthy today to lead in national prayer by calling first for repentance, if he or she were not wearing one of these clerical collars of man?
If you are strapping your cart to a dead horse, no matter what is in the cart, it is going nowhere. Truth cannot be bound to religion. It can only be strapped to Jesus and the Word. This message in itself will cause offence to the religious leaders and the political leaders of today, every bit as much as it did in Jesus’ day, for it is a no-nonsense, no tolerance message for sin or religion in the ranks. The bride will only be pure and spotless, and if one thinks he can straddle the fence with a little truth and a whole lot of religion, he is dead wrong. The time is upon us when Jesus is calling out His bride from institutional religion, from those buildings that have cost the congregations so many dollars and so many man-hours spent in raising funds through man’s plans. God supplies our every need to take the Word to the world. He hates the works of man, and if a man is of the true flock, the Lord will break him as he comes in contact with the Cornerstone. He will be broken into submission to truth, making a departure from religion and the sin of believing a lie. Jesus came to groom, or turn men into apostles who would in turn become fishers of men. He did not come to enlist a man-made brand of apostle, already in place. In fact He found His own among the humble fishermen of the sea, and none came from the high and mighty orders from within the temples of religion.
Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees of today, for you will be bypassed now, as you were then. You may lead the prayers of a nation in tolerance one for another and your traditions, but you will not lead the prayers of God’s true church, the bride. God is about to do a new thing, and woe to you, religious leaders so proud of your positions within the walls of the system. It was pride that took Adam and Eve down as the controlling spirit of Jezebel entered the garden. It will be the pride, the controls and the sins of omission, all coming without repentance that will cause the prayers of many to fall on deaf ears.
Repent, I say, repent! Make straight the way, for the Lord is coming for His own, and He is coming soon.
