Ceremony, Communion and the Sabbath

Broadcaster

Am I Confused by your delusions?

No. 116 - John David Clark, Sr. - May, 2000

It was a couple of hours or so before the weekly prayer meeting would begin in my living room when I decided to go out alone to pray along the railroad tracks that lay near our home.

As I walked and prayed, my prayer became more fervent, and soon I began to go beyond prayer. The Spirit of God began to pray for me, and as the intensity of the Spirit’s power upon me increased, something very unusual happened. I began to laugh . . . and laugh . . . and laugh. The ridged tin tops of the warehouses along the railroad echoed my laughter. The holy Ghost overshadowed me and laughed through me so powerfully that I staggered as I continued along the tracks. But it was not a happy laughter. No, not at all. It was a frightening laughter, a laughter of judgment and of the wrath of God. I noticed now that not only was the holy Ghost laughing through me but it was also looking through my eyes, and there was a fierce, unquenchable rage beaming out from them, even as the laughter continued to roll out in waves from the recesses of my spirit. A rising terror seized my heart, and desperate thoughts filled my mind: "God, please don’t ever laugh at me like this! I beg you, dear God, don’t ever let me hear you laugh at me this way!" It was one of the most awesome experiences I have ever had, and the impression it made endures. But there was more to come; God had not finished with me yet.

After the fearsome laughter of God’s wrath surged through my being, the holy Ghost began to preach through me, using words spoken by Christ in Proverbs: "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would [have] none of my reproof; I will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you."

Then, with unspeakable indignation and contempt, the Lord began to passionately proclaim through my mouth these words: "What difference does it make what men call anything! If men call a man a pastor, does that make him a pastor? If men call a man a prophet, does that make a man a prophet? What difference does it make what men say about anything!" And then God uttered this penetrating, contemptuous question: "Am I confused by your delusions?"

God was revealing to me the absolute difference between man and Himself. God is as far above man as I was above the gravel along the tracks; still, even in the midst of my awe and fear, I found comfort and felt a deep peace in that truth. Yet, this experience was more than that. God was not merely proclaiming His superiority over men; rather, God was revealing to me that, in Christ, He offers that same superiority to His children who trust in Him completely. God wants His people to be like Him, to live above the influence of carnal men. He will lift us up above the shadows if we trust in Him.

What difference would it have made to me if all those pieces of gravel along the tracks were to have called a meeting and decided that the world is flat? So, what difference would it make to God if the entire human population of earth were to agree that good is evil and evil, good? God is supremely unmoved by man’s vain imaginations! I can still recall seeing in the twilight along the railroad tracks the multiplied thousands of individual pieces of gravel on which the tracks lay. Those small rocks knew nothing, felt nothing, sensed nothing about me and my life. They were completely void of understanding and had no mind with which even so much as to be aware of their ignorance. They were completely empty of life and had no way to know they were lifeless.

They were us.

Man knows the mind and the ways of God as much as those small stones knew me. God is looking down upon men just as I was looking down on those rocks. And men are just as unaware of the Holy One that hovers over them every day as those rocks were of me. In order for a piece of gravel to become aware of me and my thoughts, I would have had to perform a miracle; I would have had to give it life and then would have to explain to it what I had done. I would then have to teach it what to do with the new life I gave to it. And that is exactly what God must do, and has done, for us. He has given us life, and has then told us what happened to us. He has made us, as Peter said, "living stones" and is using us to build a temple in which to worship Him. We "were dead in trespasses and sins", so dead that we did not even know we were dead, and God picked us up and gave us life, gave us eyes so that we could see life as it really is, gave us ears to hear His voice, gave us thoughts to think, and then promised us that we could live forever with Him in peace.

"How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God!" Wrote the amazed David. He was grateful for the life God gave him, grateful that God had given him eyes to see life as it really is, ears to hear the truth, a mind to think right, enduring thoughts, and a heart that really, really felt. So thankful for life was David that he despised every other way but God’s way. He refused so much as to mentioned the gods of the heathen by name. "Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer," he wrote, "nor take up their names upon my lips." David loved God!

"I hate every false way", he said. And why not? What good did the false ways do him? Once you have tasted of the good word of God, what attraction can the philosophies and doctrines of men still hold? Who wants still to be dead to the thoughts and ways of God?

But do we honor David’s devotion to God by merely talking about it? Is not such devotion recorded in the Bible as an example for us to imitate? Are we to celebrate David’s joyous, determined victory over every ungodly notion of his time, are we to praise his hatred of every false way, and yet partake of false ways in our own time? Are we to rejoice that our God is not confused at man’s delusions, but be deluded ourselves and confused by what men say? Where is the victory in that?

God wants you to come alive to righteousness, to hate what He hates and love what He loves, to think what He thinks and to feel what He feels. Every man outside of His thoughts and His feelings is dead, and God is offering all of us a miracle: life.

The desire of our heavenly Father is that His children grow in grace to be able to say from our hearts, "What difference does it make what men say about anything?" Our heavenly Father is offering us the knowledge that gives us faith to say to this whole wicked world from the bottom of our hearts, "Am I confused by your delusions?" Do we want this liberty? Do we really want Jesus to make us "free indeed?"

To be anointed to love God with all our heart means that we will hate every false way. To have our eyes opened to the truth means that we also have our eyes opened to evils that dominate the entire human race. Are we really willing to hate every wrong idea about God and to suffer the misunderstanding and persecution that comes from doing so?

Are we really willing? Let’s take this simple little test and see if we are.

Step One: Circle your response to these four simple questions.

Step Two: Get alone with God and humbly submit your answers to Jesus.

Step Three: Be willing to receive the Spirit’s judgment of your responses.

1. To love God with all your heart means to love His family with all your heart. There is only one family that is of God, and it cannot be joined. To join something that men call a church indicates that their delusion has confused you. Question: Have you joined a Christian church? YES or NO
2. To love God with all your heart is to love His baptism with all your heart. There is only one baptism that is of God, the baptism of the holy Ghost (with the evidence of speaking in tongues) that Jesus gives. Everyone who submits to Jesus with his whole heart receives this precious baptism from him. Question: Have you submitted to, or do you support any Christian minister who teaches or performs any other baptism other than Jesus’s holy Ghost baptism? YES or NO
3. The communion Jesus died for us to have is "the communion of the holy Ghost". This communion, purchased by Jesus’s death, is fellowship with God in spirit. To love God is to love the fellowship with Him that Jesus purchased for us with his death. To respect or participate in a ceremonial form of communion is to show disrespect for the suffering of Christ. Question: Do you participate in "communion service" ceremonies that are practiced by Christians? YES or NO
4. The baptism of the holy Ghost, with the evidence of speaking in tongues, is God’s gift of being "born again". To love God is to love His witness that you are born again. No one is born again unless God’s Spirit bears witness by speaking through a person when it enters in. Question: Do you claim that you were born again before you received this pentecostal experience, or do you believe that you or someone you love is born again without it? YES or NO

If you circled "yes" to any one of these questions, you have been confused by the delusions of men and do not yet love God as David did, nor hate every false way as David did. When the love of God fills our hearts, we find ourselves hating every baptism except His baptism, despising every communion but His communion, and honoring no one’s testimony of having been "born again" except the testimony of the holy Ghost. To love God with all your heart means to hate with all your heart everything that claims to be of Him but is not. You cannot love God and at the same time love or even be neutral concerning false ways. Jesus told his earthly brothers (John 7), "The world cannot hate you, but me it hateth because I testify of it, that the deeds thereof are evil." Does the world hate you yet?

It infuriated Jesus, and it still infuriates a righteous person to see God’s way misrepresented by Christian ministers. Jesus loved his Father, and he loved people. How could he be silent when people were following ministers into the mouth of damnation instead of into fellowship with God? And how can we who have been shown the truth be silent when we see the same thing happening today? "The lion hath roared. Who will not fear? The Lord hath spoken. Who can but prophesy?"

God’s people need to know that the religion of Christianity is of the devil. Who will tell them, if we who see it are silent? They need to know that Christian baptism is of the devil. Who will tell them, if we who know are silent? They need to know that Christian churches are of the devil. Who will tell them if we who have been delivered from them are silent? They need to know that Christian communion is of the devil. Who will tell them if we who understand it are silent? Who will love them enough to tell them the truth and endure their scorn and reproach? Who will love God’s children enough to declare to them the whole counsel of God and endure their suspicions and hatred? Who will echo the call of Jesus to "Come out of her, my people!" and endure the slander of Satan’s ministers, men who are trained to look and sound good but within are full of lies and the corruption of sin?

We were dead stones, given life by a merciful Creator. He was not confused by man’s delusions, and He took our confusion away. Praise His holy name! In the strength of His Spirit, we are not confused by the delusive power of Satan. Trust God today, my dear brothers and sisters. Be courageous; dare to honor your Father alone, who through His great mercy called you out of darkness into this wonderful light. Be like David, who refused to fear what man could do to him, choosing rather to fear God and serve Him as is becoming His goodness, power and wisdom. You’ll be glad you did.