Poison, Bible Lovers Jesus Haters: My Testimony of a Mission Gone Wrong
Well praise Jesus
today everyone. I had a message on my heart when I woke up early this morning.
And that message was one word, which is “poison”, and then it was, “Bible
lovers, Jesus’ haters”. We will be poisoned even by the Christian Bible if we
put ourselves before a pastor or before a man who hates Jesus Christ but loves
the Bible. The Pharisees were these sorts of people. They turned people against
Jesus Christ in their time because they loved their scriptures, yet they
absolutely hated Jesus Christ.
It is a bunch of
hypocrisy today because most Christians would never say they hate Jesus Christ
but if they were in the times of Jesus they would side with the Pharisees. They
would take part in the hypocrisy with the Pharisees because they love the scriptures.
I want to give you an example of what this means and how it was played out in
my own life in a time in the past. See I never wanted to be against Jesus but
with my actions I was and I also played the hypocrite.
One time in high
school I had this youth pastor who came to my church. He was hired to be the
youth pastor and he was a godly man. He cared to lead people in the Lord. He
was very biblical, and he started teaching us high school students about the
Bible. We would go to Bible study. We would go to his house, and he would teach
us the Bible verses on how to evangelize people, how to do street evangelism,
how to witness to people if we go on mission trips, how to defend our faith.
There were these verses that we would memorize, and we would learn how to be
devoted. Much of this devotion was to the Bible but of course we thought it was
to God. During this time in my life I was in a lot of sin, lustful sin. I
really didn't follow Jesus the way I should because especially in high school
when you're surrounded by girls and trying to be cool, Jesus is really one of
the last things that is on your mind. But because a lot of my other friends
were going to this Bible study and of course I wanted to be godly. I went to
this Bible study, and I learned from my youth pastor how to read the Bible. I
thought that I was becoming more spiritual. I thought because I was going to
these meetings that I was getting closer to God and pleasing to God.
Well, one day the youth pastor announced that he was going to
plan a mission trip. He planned out this mission trip to this certain Indian
reservation in a different state. We were supposed to go there and prepare for
this trip and speak to the native people there and the children. It was like an
orphanage for some native people. And so we prepared for this mission trip and
it was probably a day's journey to get there or farther by car. So not terribly
far but for a high school student like me it was one of my first bigger mission
trips that I went on. To tell you the truth, this whole mission trip I was in
sin. I was lustful of other girls that were on the trip. My heart was in all
the wrong places. I was trying to impress my guy friends. I was trying to
impress girls on the trip. I was doing things that were very ungodly. But when
my mentors would come around, we would just do Bible study. We would say a
prayer and we looked like the good Christian kids. When we got to this mission
trip, one of our tasks was to do some landscaping. And we were to rent what's
called a ditch witch to put in a certain irrigation line that went from the
orphanage to this other location so that we could bring water to this certain
location.
There had been groups before us that had already put a certain
amount of plumbing in the ground, but it wasn't completely finished. So we
rented this ditch witch which was a kind of machine that you would walk behind
and it had this turning kind of saw that would cut into the dirt. And it would
cut into the dirt about 18 to 24 inches deep and you would push it. Now the
ground where we went on this Indian reservation was extremely hard. You could
not easily anyways dig it by hand. So that's why we rented this ditch witch.
But we were supposed to check to see with either the building department or the
people that were living there if there was any other underground cables or if
there was any underground pipes. But we didn't check and as kind of a leader in
part of this trip I advised everyone that it would be okay and that if I was
running this machine that I would just be extra careful. So we were supposed to
run this by probably like around 100 to 200 feet from one location to the next
location. And as we started pushing this machine it was fine until we got about
halfway in between one structure and the other structure, and we hit a water
line. That water line that we hit got twisted up in our machine. It yanked
other pipes with it that were deep underground, and it damaged a bunch of like
one inch and two-inch water lines. And it ended up being such bad damage that
it shut off the water, the main water to this whole orphanage.
Well, that wasn't enough for us to stop. It's not like I
consulted the Lord. We didn't pray and say Lord guide us on what to do. All I
thought and all the leadership of our mission trip thought well let's keep on
going and we'll just be careful. So we kept on using this Ditch Witch and in
our stupidity we ended up hitting like three or four more water lines. We
totally destroyed the water system that they had. The water was totally shut
off to the main orphanage. The kids couldn't take showers. It was an absolute
disaster. Long story short, this was a mission trip sent from hell. We
basically destroyed all of the progress that the people did before us, the
missionaries did before us to get these people water and all of these
underground lines we broke. They had already landscaped. We broke their
landscaping. It was an absolute nightmare. I remember on the trip just sort of
mocking other Christians because of how they sounded. It was very shameful what
we did on that trip.
And when we returned from that trip back home to our church,
we were to report what we did on that mission trip. And we were able, I mean, I
remember in church even our youth pastor being ashamed to report because it was
an absolute failure. If we were to tell the truth in church, we would look like
such evil people because what we did was evil. Our hearts were evil. My heart
was evil. But we tried to make it sound the best we could in church. We went on
this mission trip. We helped these orphans. We played with them. We had
pictures of ourselves with the kids at the orphanage and we were able to show
the church. So in church on Sunday morning, we were able to make it look pretty
half decent. But I knew in my heart that I was in sin. I knew that we were in
sin as a group and God did not bless the mission trip. It was truly a mission
trip from hell.
That is a scenario of a group of people that loved the Bible.
We loved Bible study. We loved the idea of evangelism. We loved the idea of
knowing how to defend the Bible, knowing how to speak to people on the streets.
We loved the idea of going on a mission trip. But we truly hated Jesus Christ.
Now did we think that we hated Jesus Christ? No. We thought that we were doing
a mission trip for God. We thought that we were reading the Bible for the Lord.
We thought that we were doing it for Jesus Christ. All of these things we
thought we were doing for God, but it was all in vain. In reality, we were
serving ourselves. We were serving our own pleasure. We were lying to the
congregation, to the church, and we were living hypocrites. We were godless.
And God absolutely despised that trip that we went on. He despised us because
we were sinners. Even though we were Christians and the whole church would say
we were all saved by grace and that we were good people going on this mission
trip, it was truly from hell.
This scenario, guys, is not an isolated incident to me when I
was 16 or 17 in high school. This happens all the time. Christians are in deep,
deep sin. And if we don't repent of sin, if we don't purify our own hearts,
then we will also be Christians that are Bible lovers and Jesus’ haters. We are
enemies of God if we are sinning. You can't just say God looks over my sin.
He's forgiven me if you haven't truly repented. The first order to getting
right with Jesus Christ is to confess that you are a sinner and to actually
repent, say “Lord, I can't do anything on my own. I'm a sinner. I have lust in
my heart, hate in my heart. I have abused your words. I've taken your name in
vain. I've put other gods before you. I've lived as a wretched man, and I
desperately want to repent. I know that I can do nothing on my own. I know it
means nothing. How many Bible verses I've memorized. I know it means nothing
how many mission trips I've went on and how many sermons I've went on because I
have this sin in my life and I'm an enemy of you, oh Lord, because you hate sin
and you will be against me, Lord, until I repent.” You need to truly repent, as
it says in the Bible, with mourning and with ashes with sackcloth and ashes.
Until we display that we truly are sad for our sins and that we really have a
heart that wants to repent, the Lord will be against us. He will not bless the
work of our hands.
The Bible itself will be as poison to us. I was poisoned by
the Bible for many years because I believed I was righteous because I knew the
Bible. I believed that I could evangelize others because I knew the Bible. I
believed that because I was in church and going on mission trips that I was a
better person and I felt in my heart when I went home that I had done God good
because I was speaking the things of the Bible, but I was poisoned by the
Bible. My heart was poisoned with sin. If we want to be in right standing with
the Lord, we have to repent of Bible hypocrisy. We have to repent of Christian
hypocrisy, church hypocrisy. We have to look into our own hearts and say, “is
there sin in my life? Am I doing things that are godless?” We have to truly
repent of the evil that is in us. And then once we truly repent, the Lord can
wash us clean. We can be baptized in water and then we can be baptized in the
Holy Spirit. We can speak with our new tongues, not just in some tongue that is
audible to men, but a tongue that truly comes from the Holy Spirit that allows
us to understand prophecies, to understand visions and have visions and dreams
from the Lord, to understand the scriptures, to have wisdom that comes from
God, to be able to enlighten others because the Holy Spirit is now lighting up
our entire life, a tongue that is not of the old flesh, but of the regeneration
that Jesus has made us when we come into the new covenant.
So I share this testimony about myself when I was in church
and on this mission trip because I don't want my fellow brothers and sisters to
fall into the same hypocrisy and Bible poisoning and Bible teaching that ended
in lies that I also fell into for many, many years. I could have died in my
sins except the Lord got my attention and pulled me out of church. He pulled me
out of hypocrisy so that I could live for Him with all of my heart. And I share
this message so that you also may hear the truth of the gospel and genuinely
come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
So if you are someone out there that knows that you are in
sin, because all of us have been in sin, all of us were sinners, if you know
that you want to repent, if you know that you want to get right with God, if
you say, “I know in my heart, I know something is wrong, but I want to get
reconciled with Jesus Christ and get my life in order with Him.” I want to pray
for you and anyone who is ready to give their life to the Lord Jesus. “So
Jesus, I pray for those who want to be part of your true church that don't want
to be Bible hypocrites or poisoned by the Bible because they ate up all the
scriptures, but they didn't come to your truth of repentance. I pray for those
that are in hypocrisy as I was in hypocrisy, as I was in sin. We come before
you humbly Lord, and ask that you cleanse us of all unrighteousness, that you
purge us and that we truly can be part of your new covenant. We thank you that
you died on the cross for our sins, that we could truly be a new creation and
that we could walk in the newness of life with you if we repent and put our
faith completely in you. I pray Lord Jesus that you would become a father to
those who have been fatherless. I pray that you would become a father to those
that have not seen what it means to have a father, even a father in heaven. I
pray that those who are listening to this message today, that God has given
their life to you, would put their life in your hands and that you would
baptize them with the gift of your Holy Spirit. I pray that they would be
obedient to be baptized and that they would be filled with the gifts of your
Holy Spirit, that they would go out in power, being able to rebuke demons, to
send the voices of accusation that come into them out of them, that they would
be able to stand holy and pure before you Lord and that you would wash their
garments, that they would be made white as snow and be ready for the wedding
supper of the Lamb. So I pray for anyone that is watching this that wants to be
made clean, that they would be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, that they
would be washed in your blood Lord and that they would turn a 180 from sin,
that they would put their faith in you Lord Jesus, and say, Lord Jesus cleanse
me and make my heart pure and holy. I pray this in your name Lord Jesus and for
anyone listening that they would be convicted, that they would put their trust
100% in you. In your name I pray Lord Jesus, Amen.”
评论
发表评论