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Posted: 09/02/2015 at 8:10am
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Where
are our Children?
August 31, 2015 by Duane Stewart
While humankind, for the most part, has failed God, we can be thankful that God
remains faithful to that which He has purposed. The words that God spoke, even
from the beginning, shall happen as God’s judgments are manifest. These
judgments shall become the “redeeming factor” that shall become salvation to
our individual households and the household of God. God’s house of today had
its beginning on that great day of Pentecost some 2000 years ago. Yes, God
birthed His church on that day in the upper-room, with the order needed and
included for its continual growth, that is, the order of reproduction, with
every seed intended to bring forth after its own kind from generation to
generation. Generations that were to grow until the Christ returned fully as
the head of a body of people, a many member body. A body of people that would
manifest the nature of God, covering the earth as the kingdom of God
establishes its reign.
For
this cause, we are seeing many events taking place before our eyes. The great
day of the Lord is upon us, which results in the greatest time of separation
the world shall ever see. A separation, which is causing two distinct camps to
manifest in the earth, while one camp enters into the household of God, the
other camp enters into the time of God’s wrath. Why is such a time upon us and
why is it necessary? Could it be because there are those of the Christian
community that have not followed the order in which God established for His
church to follow? Gods order is that every seed shall bring forth after its own
kind. But, the church, likened unto the children of Israel, have broken that
order, they have allowed themselves to play the harlot, they have transgressed
against God while allowing the seed to mix itself with the humanistic orders of
the carnal world which makes themselves their own god. Consumed with a desire
for success, much of the Christian community has patterned their order, their
ministries, after the orders of what the world sees as being successful and
then they call it God. Nevertheless, which god is it? Jeremiah 2:21 states,
“Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have
you turned before me into the degenerate plant of an alien vine”?
Conditions
now exist that have affected the lineage of the church and its offspring. What
has happen to our children and where are they? In answering the question we
find it necessary to ask another question, where are the fathers? In looking at
the condition of the fathers, it becomes necessary to consider not only the
natural fathers but also the spiritual fathers that are set in to be leaders
for the children, the offspring of God into the spiritual things of God. In the
natural, the home life finds itself, for the most part, falling short as to
meeting the needs of the children. Society as a whole has purposely instituted
a need to take, not only the fathers from the home, but the mothers as well.
What, in many cases does this lack of any parental examples create? Are the
children becoming children that are undisciplined, children with a lack of any
balanced guidance, creating a lack of self-worth because of the feeling of
being inadequate, without having the ability to live a balance life-style? This
results in children that run wild in the streets and community without the
proper adult training in what it really means to become a loving adult or
parent. Even in most church groups, their hearts are not turned toward the
children and their needs, with this creating a lack of spiritual insight to
become one with a well-balanced spiritual life, a spiritual life that knows how
to follow or relate to God as a Father. Thus, an atmosphere created that causes
our children to seek other pleasures, places, and activities to bring
fulfillment to them in the area where loving God, loving the parents and loving
the ministries of God should be.
Why
do such conditions exist among the Christian community? The answer to this
question is found in the example given to us in Ezra 9:1-2, “When these
things were done, the leaders came to me, saying, the people of Israel and the
priest and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the
lands, with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the
Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves
and their sons, so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands.
Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this trespass.”
Lest we forget, let us remember, God’s instructions as given to the children of
Israel prior to entering into and receiving the Promised Land that God gave to
them. The instruction, they were to keep themselves pure by separating
themselves from all the peoples of the land. Deut. 7:2-4, “and when the
Lord your God delivers them over to you [the nations], you shall conquer them
and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy
to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your
daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn
your sons away from following me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord
will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly”.
History
shares with us this truth. The children of Israel, once a mighty nation, reaped
the results of disobedience, to be scattered to the four corners of the earth
and live in captivity. The error, receiving the seed of the nations into their
household, which mixed the seed of God with the seed of the nations, that which
they were instructed not to do. Thus, God is always faithful to that which He
has spoken. This remains a word spoken and a reminder to us who are living
today, that we are not to enter into a binding or a covenant relationship with
those involved in ungodly behavior, those who pursue the ways of the world.
Remember that we are the dwelling place of the living God. Thus, we are to live
our lives and conduct our relationships to honor and glorify God.
How
then does this fact concerning the children of Israel concern us of the
Christian community today? Many times God has spoken over the years that the
condition of the church reveals and determines the condition that the world
finds itself. In considering the upper-room church, it must be declared that
they became the power-pact church that affected the then known world. In a
short span of years, they turned the world, as they knew it, upside down. What
has happened, the further the church moved from the influence of the upper-room
crowd, the more they lost sight of the cross that had opened the door for the
heaven sent Holy Spirit. This removal of the meaning of the cross that Jesus
died on resulted in losing God’s power and presence. Thus, a community that no
longer married the truth and light of God’s word, but they began allowing
marriages to take place with the doctrines of the carnal world as to its
measure of a sign for being successful. What did and even more so today does
these types of marriages produce? The results of this type of marriage are one
of a mixture of the holy seed of God with the seed of the world of men with
carnal minds. Is it not true that God hates a mixture? 2 Cor. 6:14 relates for
us God’s command, “Do not be unequally yoke together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has
light with darkness?”
Thus,
a word spoken but one restricted by most to mean just a natural marriage
between husband and wife. While this certainly applies, the greater meaning
speaks of the order of God and His marriage with the church. Meaning, that the
pure revelation of God’s word is the holy seed which He desires to place within
the womb of the church that it might bring forth offspring of a pure holy
nature. However, what happened? The leaders and rulers of the Christian
community have been foremost in this trespass. How, by incorporating carnality
into and mixed with the word of God to establish doctrines that creates the
traditions that establish the mind-sets that pervert the pure word and purpose
of God. What kind of results does this bring but children, offspring that are
strangers to the true ways of God? By being removed from the pure and true ways
of God, these children began running after the seemingly excitement that the
world, in a deceptive manner, seems to offer. Nevertheless, it is true; man has
within himself a place that only God can occupy. Therefore, by running after
the ways of the world and man’s religious mixture, junk is occupying God’s
dwelling place. Junk that never does nor can it fulfill the need that exists
within these children. Again, we see the result of such a state in searching
for completeness, a running from one addiction to another as they become
bruised, abused, torn, empty, and scared, with scars and deep hurts. These
become a group of youngsters with the majority losing any hope for the true
meaning of life.
Dads
and Moms, Shepherds (Pastors) and Ministers, success does not come as measured
with the eyes of the carnal world. What good is a well-paying job with plenty
of money if our children are lost in a swampland of worldly entrapments? What
good are big houses if they are empty of true love, which never becomes a home,
one that the children can cleave to as a place of true safety and protection?
Shepherds (Pastors) and Ministers should ask themselves, what good are big and
wealthy church buildings if the presence of God is removed, to be replaced by
any number of empty activities. If the multitudes of people are spiritually
null-and-void, because the word of God and the Holy Spirit has departed, does
the many members and large buildings meet the spiritual needs of our children?
Where are our children to go? If the house is, absent of parents and the church
whose spiritual light has gone out continues, what are our children to have any
hope? Are they to seek out their peers and classmates, drugs and alcohol, gangs
and sex clubs, toys and empty careers? In all this, where is the hope for our
children?
God
who is rich in mercy and grace is prepared to correct the life-style man has
created for himself. The requirement as spoken of in James 4:8-10 declares, “Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you, cleanse your hands, you sinners; and
purify your hearts, you double minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your
laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the
sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” In all of men’s desire to
excel, as well as the church, they have forsaken God even as the people of
Babel in erecting for themselves a tower. Thus, a warning to fathers and
ministries, the Bible warns us that exalting ourselves will result in a
disgraceful fall; but humbling ourselves leads to exaltation in this world and
the one to come. Mal. 4:4-6 declares, “Remember the Law of Moses, My
servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and
judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the
great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers
to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come
and strike the earth with a curse.” A people, those who humble
themselves, they are surely knowing such a time of restoration as it is going
on in the earth. However, unto the proud and stubborn, are they not knowing and
feeling the results of a curse? Are the children being lost?
Yes,
we as human beings have made many choices over the expanse of time. We often
have chosen to follow the dictates of our own desires above that which God has
established for the benefit of humanity. Have the choices we made caused us to
lose our children at the expense of earthly success? Scripture tells us to
choose daily that which we will serve, God or worldly riches and fame. A
separation is surely taking place as the tares and wheat is to be gathered.
Which reaping will you be a part of as again we ask, where are our children? Is
this not the time to pray a like prayer as the prophet Habakkuk, “God,
I’ve heard what our ancestors say about you, and I’m stopped in my tracks, down
on my knees. Do among us what you did among them. Work among us as you worked
among them. And as you bring judgment, as you surely must, remember mercy.”
To this, we say amen.
Duane
Stewart
https://voiceforgatheringsaints.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/whe re-are-our-children/
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Topic: Where are our Children? - Duane Stewart
