Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
February 09, 2010
How many people have come under the sway of the antichrist spirit through the religion of Christianity? Are the stained-glass Jesus, the cold unwelcoming cathedrals and the endless, mindless, pointless religious rituals not enough to turn one against the name of Christ? I wonder how many have been lost forever because of these very things that are done in His name?
“For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many (Matthew 24:5).”
It is a corrupt priesthood that talks about being born again, yet involves itself in child molestation, misappropriation of funds for personal gain and the preaching of a gospel that does not line up with Scripture.
The problem generally begins with lack of understanding of Biblical truth and prophecy. If one does not know what the guidebook has to say, then one is going to have trouble when it comes time for making the right decision at the crossroads of life. One is forced to ask oneself many questions.
“What is my direction? Which is the best way to go? If it sounds good does that mean it is good? If the road appears to be dry and bumpy ahead, would it not be better to take the smooth road surrounded by grassy fields?”
Are our responses to the lusts of the eye and the desires of our heart good enough reasons for winging it through life, thinking we have a tiger by the tail? I say to you that many are being deceived by religion, having no knowledge of the truth, which will cause countless numbers of people to lose their eternal lives unnecessarily.
One of the most misused terms in religious circles is the expression of a born-again Christian. It is the result of deception and Satan establishing a counterfeit message to the message Jesus actually gave about being born again. He never, at any time, suggested one could identify the born-again experience with a religious system. To the contrary, it is quite the opposite.
To understand the concept of being born again we must go all the way back to the Garden of Eden and the lies of Satan, which drew Adam and Eve into believing in the first religious system. They accepted the fruit of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of rendering obedience to the truth of God’s commandments, which allowed them to eat from the fruit of the tree of life but not from the forbidden tree. At this point, the spirit of death overcame them while the Spirit of life departed from them.
At that very same moment, the government plan changed in their lives as they gave up God and His truth for the religious government of Satan based on lies. Having been deceived by Satan, they chose to live under a religious/state system, which brought with it a death sentence for mankind. And the natural provisions God had in store for man, gave way to a world economic system by which he would be required to labor by the sweat of his brow to provide for himself and his family. It was not as though Adam had not been given any guide-lines; he simply chose to ignore them.
Being born again is a very simple, yet misunderstood, beautiful, life-giving experience as described by Jesus. His message on the subject in the book of John states that, for every human being on the face of this earth, He can reverse his/her death sentence if he/she chooses to allow Him to do so for him/her. And, you guessed it; He gave the message first to a priestly member of the corrupt religious system and not to His apostles. He would wash them clean with the Word, but a man of the religious priesthood, which had not received the Word, needed a jolt in the ‘gut’ by Jesus taking the enquiring priest right to the heart of the matter.
Nicodemus was his name and he was one of the ‘big guns’ of the religious system. He was a Pharisee, one of those Judaic priests who believed themselves to be superior to others, because they were the priests of the chosen Hebrew people who had been given the Law. They believed that if you were a Hebrew of the nation Israel, then you could expect the coming of a Messiah. He would defeat their Roman enemies and set Israel up in their place, with this Messiah being the earthly king of the Israelites, destined to rule over them and over all the peoples of the other nations.
The Pharisees faced Jesus, not knowing they were staring God, Himself, in the face while trying every means possible to kill Him in order to perpetuate their religious system. Does this sound familiar today as the many denominations of Christianity divide themselves over Jesus, with the truth being discarded in order to be part of the upcoming religious unity of the One World Religion?
Jesus explained to Nicodemus what it really meant to be born again. One must be born again of the right water and the right Spirit – water, unlike seawater, giving life as it quenches spiritual thirst, and the Spirit of life, which man had rejected for the spirit of death in the Garden. Yes, man would die, with the flesh of the body returning to dust. But if the Spirit were right within, because one had accepted Jesus as one’s Savior Who had taken man’s place in the judgment so he could live, then God was prepared, through the death of His Son, to give back to man the incredible gift of eternal life.
The body will return to dust but the good news is that God can provide a new incorruptible body, as easily as He created the first one. The hard part is for us to accept an outright, free gift of the right Spirit that gives life in the name of Jesus. We do so badly want to believe that we can be good enough to earn our own way to heaven by our good works.
Are we not like petulant two-year-olds who want no help as they try fruitlessly to do everything for themselves? God will struggle with us as He struggled with Jacob but, unless, like Jacob, we bear the battle wounds and mature during the struggle, then there will be no victory in the struggle with God and man.
The result of being born again means one death and two lives. Death will then release that Spirit of life in us, which we were given when we chose Jesus as our Savior, asking Him into our lives so that He could rule over us. The result of not being born again of that Spirit means one life and two deaths.
We all die in this world, only to be raised from our sleep for the judgment. God will ask the all-important question: “Did you accept the gift of life I offered you through My Son, Jesus, Who stood in for you at the cross to take your judgment there? If the answer is “No”, then you will take your own judgment only to be returned to dust in the second death, for there is no Spirit of life in you to be released, and no one is good enough to pass the test of righteousness without Jesus, the only truly righteous Man Who kept the Law in its entirety.
It is very simple when understood, if you can get past the stained-glass Jesus of the corrupt religious system. He always wanted nothing more than to be your Savior and your best Friend. You see, He created you and He loves you as a father loves his child and as a bridegroom loves his bride. It is Satan who hates you and wants to destroy you with the systems of this world.
God picked up a people from out of Satan’s religious world system of nations and commanded them to live. He injected the Spirit of life into this nation so that it could lay down the pattern for drawing the world back into the original government plan of God, which was set before man in the Garden. He made a covenant with that nation to restore a kingdom on earth that would be His people, the house of Israel. It was not a kingdom intended only for Hebrew people. The nation failed the obedience test and, for this reason, was turned over as a harlot to the other nations of this world, whose gods she chose to embrace instead of the Most High God.
Jesus stands in authority at the crossroads of history. The Scriptures are our guideline for discerning God’s plan for kingdom rule on earth. It all depends on what nations and individuals do with the person of Jesus in their lives and in the life of their nation. Scripture reveals that the plan has been a redemptive plan from the beginning for all mankind, but only those of any nation who should choose Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Get out the guidebook, folks, and start reading, for unless you truly understand what it means to be a born-again believer, trusting in the truth of Jesus, and not in religion, then you are not likely to be going anywhere except down. If it is victory and success you want in life, then He is the only answer for receiving it.
The nation of Canada needs to have a born-again experience in this the year of the Winter Olympic Games being held in what is God’s territory. This is a nation in covenant with Him, as is spelled out on the stone wall of one of our parliament buildings. It clearly states that He shall have dominion from sea to sea in this land. Does the slogan for the Games, “Do you believe?” not cry out for the answer to what it is that you really do believe? Should the contestants who believe in our God and Ruler over this nation not declare it by giving all the glory to Him for whatever victories they might achieve?
How is it that we willingly carry the torch for the pagan gods of Olympus, the gods of the other nations, but are unwilling to be the light bearers of liberty for our God in our nation on this incredible platform set before the entire world? It is here where we, as Canadians, have such a wonderful opportunity to be witnesses for Him.
There is one contest that is worthy of our attention. It was the battle between the shepherd boy David and the giant Goliath. David was assured of a most unlikely victory by all appearances. Yet he knew that one contestant entering into battle for his nation with God, no matter what the odds appeared to be, was assured of the victory before the battle even began. The victory was declared before he ever raised his sling-shot against a giant clothed in the full metal armor of a pagan nation.
The believing Olympic contestants are as young Davids of God’s nations of America, facing the giants of all the nations under pagan gods, as was Goliath a Philistine and a worshiper of the pagan god, Dagon.
One can only imagine the incredible opportunity for God to grant Gold Medals to all who enter the contest in His name and declare the victory for His glory. Never would there be a more sure guarantee of a Gold Medal in the entire history of the Olympics, except when Eric Liddell ran in a race for which he was ill-prepared but in which the glory for his victory went to God and the fact he declared to the king of his state that he ran, first, for God and, secondly, for the state.
Has he not been, perhaps, the most remembered gold medalist in all of Olympic history? Such a victory is available just for the asking. Our youth have been deprived of the truth long enough. There is only one truly gold-medal performance and it is that which is won in partnership with Jesus. One can only imagine the number of Gold Medals that could light up this entire nation if achieved in His name.
Let the real trials begin here in this land of Canada, which has the name Cana (the town of the wedding feast) in its name with its original old capital called Kingston, the King’s Town. Let it be just the beginning of the rebirth of a nation with a new Spirit of life injected into it for the entire world to see!