AM I TRYING TO WIN THE APPROVAL OF MAN, OR GOD?
In the end, we have to choose either Christ or the world, i.e., fear of God or fear of man as Pilate was made to a dicision on whish side he should take.
Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’ ‘If he were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.’ ‘But we have no right to execute anyone,’ they objected. This took place to fulfil what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’‘Is that your own idea,’ Jesus asked, ‘or did others talk to you about me?’‘Am I a Jew?’ Pilate replied. ‘Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?’ Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’ ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.
Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’ ‘What is truth?’ retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, ‘I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release “the king of the Jews”?’ They shouted back, ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.JOHN 18:28-40.
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged… When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’ As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify! Crucify!’ But Pilate answered, ‘You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.’… From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.’ When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. ‘Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, ‘Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!’ ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ Pilate asked. ‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief priests answered. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.JOHN 19:1-16.
We are now approaching the most precious season of the year for the Christian faith and it would be right for us to focus on the very essence of the gospel; that Christ died for our sins, He was buried and He was raised from the dead. The passages quoted above show how illegally Christ’s trial started among the Jewish leaders to carry out predetermined sentence during the night and then how deliberately and intentionally Christ was sent to Pontius Pilate, the Procurator of Judea, who had ruled Judea and had the right of adjudicating capital sentence in the days of Jesus Christ. Knowing the fact that the Jews had delivered Christ to him for envy, Pilate attempted six times to release Him as seen in the passages quoted above.
First, he said to the Jewish people: ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law’, and secondly he declared His innocence in v.38. Directly hearing Christ’s good confession in response to his inquires, Pilate must have recognised His true authority and messianic credentials. Apostle Paul mentioned this Christ’s ‘good confession’ in his First Epistle to Timothy when he encouraged His followers to fight the good fight of the faith with their ‘good confession in the presence of many witnesses’ (6:12-13). At this point Pilate should have released Christ according to his own convictions. Instead, he sent Christ to Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee who then abused Jesus, which was illegal according to Roman law.
Thirdly he offered to grant amnesty to Christ but the Jews wanted Barabbas, a robber to be released instead. Thus, Barabbas who had been rightfully placed under the righteous condemnation of the law was freed from his own cross. He did not do anything to merit going free, while Christ, the utterly innocent took his place.
Fourthly, Pilate attempted to satisfy the Jews by severely punishing Christ with a flogging but with a view to releasing Him afterwards. Flogging without cause before sentencing was actually an illegal act. Moreover, the Roman soldiers’ limitless flogging was so severe that Jesus was subsequently too weak and He could not carry His cross-beam up to the place of the crucifixion.
Fifthly, Pilate attempted to win the Jews’ sympathy once again by demonstrating how harshly their own king had been mocked and humiliated before their eyes and proclaimed Him innocent. Nevertheless the Jews just cried out to crucify Him.
Lastly, in v.14, Pilate again emphatically reminded the Jews of the fact that the One who was about to be sentenced to death was their king. Before finally proclaiming Christ’s capital sentence, Pilate had been given three warnings by Christ’s own testimony, his wife’s dream and through the real, self-seeking motive of the Sanhedrin:
‘We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God’ (19:7, Line added),
and he sought every means to release Him. Nevertheless, in the end Pilate handed Him over to them to be crucified. This account tells us of the fact that in the end Pilate had to choose either Christ or the world, i.e., fear of God or fear of man, although the Scripture is clear:
‘Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe’ (Pro.29:25).
Today, we also face Pilate’s choices as the following articles show.
Apostle Paul mentioned ‘another gospel’ brought about by the Judaizers in Galatians 1:6-12
‘I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ’.
Today there are a number of Bible translations on the market, some of which could not even be classified as a paraphrase. On such a list is a “Gay-Friendly” Bible, on which Dr. Steve Elwart comments in the following way:
Another affront to the inerrancy of the Bible is the Queen James Version (QJV) of the Bible, a homosexual-friendly work. The editors have the tagline, “You can’t choose your sexuality, but you can choose Jesus. Now you can choose a Bible, too!” In their words, the editors chose that name because, “The obvious gay link to King James, known amongst friends and courtiers as “Queen James” because of his many gay lovers.” Their rationale for this translation is: The Bible is the word of God translated by man. This (saying nothing of countless translations and the evolution of language itself) means the Bible can be interpreted in different ways, leading to what we call “interpretive ambiguity.” In editing The Queen James Bible we were faced with the decision to modify existing interpretively ambiguous language, or simply to delete it. Some examples of the changes made to the Bible
Genesis 19:5: They called out to Lot and asked, “Where are the men who came to visit you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!” (ISV) Has been changed to: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may rape and humiliate them. (QJV) … They state: We side with most Bible scholars who understand the story of Sodom and Gomorra to be about bullying strangers. Strangers were not well-treated or well-regarded at the time of Bible…They also single out the Book of Leviticus for the largest changes because it is an “outdated moral code”. Two passages in Leviticus are highlighted on their website: You are not to have sexual relations[a] with a male as you would with a woman. It’s detestable.” — Leviticus 18:22 (ISV)
This was changed to: Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind in the temple of Molech: it is an abomination. (QJV) Leviticus 20:13 was changed from: If a man has sexual relations with another male as he would with a woman, both have committed a repulsive act. They are certainly to be put to death. (ISV)
To: If a man also lie with mankind in the temple of Molech, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. (QJV)
This verse, pointing to idolatry (the temple of Molech) as the sin rather than homosexuality.
(For a complete rendering of the rationale for this translation, go to the Queen James Bible website.)’
Thus, the Bible has tended to be translated with these types of variations in it as shown above, to suit each individual’s tastes. If the Scripture itself turns to be inaccurately translated or altered, it would only increase a danger of apostasy. The following article entitled ‘Megachurch Pastor “Prayerfully” Allows Practicing Homosexuals Into Leadership’, which was issued on 16th Feb. ’15 might inform a herald of an increasingly secular and ungodly coming age.
Is the Bible Belt coming unbuckled? Stan Mitchell, pastor of the GracePoint megachurch in Franklin Tennessee, has apparently taken his Bible belt off altogether. Mitchell told his congregation—a congregation that includes superstar singer-songwriter Carrie Underwood—that practicing homosexuals can be card-carrying members of his Bible-believing protestant church and can even hold their gay weddings in the sanctuary. “Our position that these siblings of ours, other than heterosexual,… cannot have the full privileges of membership, but only partial membership, has changed,” Mitchell told the church. “Full privileges are extended now to you with the same expectations of faithfulness, sobriety, holiness, wholeness, fidelity, godliness, skill and willingness. That is expected of all. Full membership means being able to serve in leadership and give all of your gifts and to receive all the sacraments; not only communion and baptism, but child dedication and marriage.”
Removing the Belt of Truth
Wait, what? Mitchell seems to completely misunderstand—or at least misinterpret—the Bible. Practicing homosexuals may indeed be faithful tithers and attenders, but one cannot reconcile homosexual lifestyles with holiness and godliness. As kind, generous and loving as some practicing gays may be, sexual sin defiles homosexuals the same as it does heterosexuals. With his announcement, Mitchell has removed his belt of truth (see Eph. 6:14), ignoring altogether Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Timothy 1:10 and other verses of Scripture in coming to his decision. He set down a key piece of spiritual armour in a culture war that is seeing antichrist spirits watering down the Word of God. The question here is this: How did Mitchell fall into this deception? What caused him to accept this strong delusion that counters the holy Scriptures? Mitchell is certainly not the first preacher—or denomination for that matter—to reject the Word of God on this topic. What happened?
A Divine Wind?
According to Mitchell’s own testimony, the Spirit of God moved on his heart several years ago, causing him to reconsider his stance on full inclusion for practicing homosexuals at his megachurch. He calls it a divine wind, but God does not speak with a forked tongue. “We were thrust, I believe, by a divine wind, into a prayerful, painful, invigorating, careful and hopeful conversation regarding sexual orientation and gender identity,” he said. “My soul has been stretched to the point that if I do not say what I say today, I cannot be here any longer. I have felt this way for many, many years.” Clearly, Mitchell is in angst over this move, which I believe is the Spirit of God bringing conviction to his heart over his present unbiblical conclusion. Indeed, if the Spirit of God—or a “divine wind” as he called it—moved over his soul at all it was not to give practicing homosexuals church leadership positions or hold gay marriage ceremonies in his sanctuary. If the Spirit of God moved over him it was to pray against the deception he has now embraced.
Fear of Man Brings a Snare
So what happened? I don’t have all the answers but I believe it comes down to cowardice and compromise in the end. If we are willing to compromise God’s Word in any area, we open ourselves up to all manner of deception. Mitchell may be dealing with the fear of man, since he’s lost so many members while he wrestled with his revelation. The Bible says the fear of man brings a snare (see Prov. 29:25). He has certainly been snared. Owen Strachan, assistant professor of Christian theology and Church history at Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky, put it this way: “If you fear man, God will become small to you. The approval of fellow sinners will matter more to you than obeying God by the witness of his Word.” I agree with Strachan, who also points out that many professing evangelicals today have no appetite to honor the Lord. He rightly notes that these professing evangelicals recognize that the winds of culture are against them…
There Is Still Hope
The only saving grace here is that Mitchell remains double-minded about his decision, which means there is still hope for him to come to repentance. “I am not sure I am right, but I am sure I sense the presence of God, and I know I’m doing my best,” he said. “And I believe before God Almighty to this we have been called, and here we stand.” I pray he turns from this skewed theology and repents publicly, which could give other pastors the courage to do the same. I also pray that professing evangelicals—whether they are in the pulpit or the pews—will stand and withstand the winds of culture that are raging against us. The days are growing darker. The Great Falling Away is underway. And the next great move of God is emerging even now. I want to stand on the right side of eternity on these issues. What about you?
(http://barbwire.com/2015/02/16/0655-megachurch-pastor-prayerfully-allows-practicing-homosexuals-leadership/)
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This month, a money gift of￡**** has been sent to Mary Jane in the Philippines to support her outreach to Danny’s tribal people in Sap-al, where no missionaries have ever reached. She and her team are participating in a traditional tribal farewell to Danny as a public event for the whole community of a population of 240 people, which is planned to be held for a week, and for two days of which she is planning to lead almost a nearly hundred children of the community to the Lord.Pray for God’s blessing upon her plans for the outreach to Danny’s tribe, “Mabaka” as the first Christian mission over the area being a success.