All hell broke loose in London a few weeks ago when an historic Anglican church there hosted a fashion show featuring satanic designs. Against a backdrop of large Illuminati and Masonic images placed in front of the altar, heavily made-up models strutted themselves dressed as devils and vampires wearing horns and upside-down crosses. “Blasphemous!” was the response of “leading clerics.” Echoing them, one said, “Christians will be outraged…. In the sense that Christ’s name is being dishonored, it is blasphemous.” Too late, Anglican clerics! You blasphemed Christ’s name long before these people did.
Where did you think it was all headed, Anglican clerics, when you made the decision years ago to disregard Christ and His word and ordain women as priests and bishops? Where did you think it was all headed when you made the decision years ago to ordain practicing lesbian and homosexual people into those positions? Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Matthew 7:16. How many among you are prepared to acknowledge the “fashion show” was a God-sent judgment upon you for your blatant disregard, dishonor and blasphemy of Him down through the years? To those saying this event gives Christians a bad name, I disagree; it gives compromising Anglican clerics a bad name and deservedly so.
Some Christians are wondering how a church could allow such a devil-inspired event in such a sacred place. Two answers: 1) The leadership is not Holy Spirit-led, Jesus Christ-centered or Bible-based. 2) The place is not sacred. If it were otherwise that crowd would not have gotten a foot in the door. Unlike the majority of Anglican leaders of yesteryear who were born-again, Godly-wise, non-compromising, politically incorrect men of God who lived and died for Christ and His salvation gospel, most of them today wouldn’t be able to discern Satan the devil if he walked up and slapped them in the face – which is what he’s been doing to them for years, metaphorically speaking. But by allowing this “fashion show” I believe they got a slap in the face from God!
But Anglican clerics are not on their own when it comes to disregarding, dishonoring and blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ today. Clerics from all denominations are doing the same, therefore, it’s only a matter of time when they can expect to receive a slap in the face from God too. As it is presently, Satan is slapping them around but like their Anglican counterparts they’re not discerning it. The most remarkable thing to me about such people has always been the fact that they think they can disregard Christ and His word and get away with it. This tells me that in spite of all their biblical knowledge and qualifications, they seriously lack wisdom. Wisdom is the principle thing; therefore get wisdom…… Proverbs 4:7.
The Children of Israel disregarded God and His word too, thinking they could get away with it. Often they did so for years on end and because God didn’t intervene they kept it up. The devil slapped them in the face lots along the way, but not God, so it seemed. But when God finally did intervene they felt His slap big time! And although they’re still God’s chosen people, the sting of His slap remains with them today, with some even greater slaps to come in the future. Given we’re told, all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition…… 1 Corinthians 10:11, one would think these clerics ought to take very seriously what God is saying here. If they believe themselves as among “the chosen” then all the more reason for them to do so.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap Galatians 6:7. Unlike farmers who only have to wait a few months before they begin reaping what they sow, it can be decades before denominational clerics begin to reap theirs “rewards.” Over 60 years ago they started disregarding Christ and His word like never before in history; turning and twisting it, chopping and changing it, cutting and pasting it, trying to make it say what God would never intend it to say. And what’s been the result of it all? Lawlessness, strife, corruption, crime, immorality, perversions and addictions on scales once thought unimaginable – in the church as much as out of it. How much longer before God intervenes, only He knows, but intervene He surely will.
Last year I stood at the spot in Broad Street, Oxford, UK, where the Anglican Bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer were tried for heresy and burned at the stake for their faith in the 1550’s. It’s a small area cobbled with stones forming a cross in the center the street. As I stood there reflecting I thought of their present-day counterparts, coming to the conclusion that given the spiritual state of Anglicanism at this time, men of the devil are at the helm more so than men of God, believing also that these would be the men to burn us at the stake if given the opportunity. What took place at the “fashion show” recently has only increased that belief, not diminished it! But we are not of those who draw back to perdition…… Hebrews 10:39.
The Satanic imagery coupled with the activity displayed in that Anglican church was merely an outward show of what’s been going on inwardly with false Christian practice for years. Spiritually discerning Christians are not fooled; they know when the devil or his demons are “strutting their stuff” through clerics in the pulpit. They only have to switch on to the way these people use misuse the Scriptures. The moment they hear them being misused tells them all they need to know about where the speaker stands with the Lord Jesus Christ. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ 2 Corinthians 11:13. They’re not Christians, they’re Communists and Marxists – and cursed!
So what about new Christians and those not as yet spiritually discerning? What should be their expectation when they attend a church service? They should expect to hear and experience that they’re in the presence of the most Holy God as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the leaders, the elders and the mature Christians should be living expressions of the Lord, not dead, formal, religious caricatures of Him. When sitting among the former, the results of Christ’s gospel should be demonstratively evident – spiritual liberty and freedom, not slavery to religious rules and dead traditions. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty 2 Corinthians 3:17.
They should expect to have it confirmed that such liberty and freedom comes from submission to the Lord Jesus, not disregarding Him; plus submission to His word, not turning and twisting it, chopping and changing it, cutting and pasting it, trying to make it say what God would never intend it to say. If they are not as yet baptized by full immersion in water, they need to hear Jesus Christ commands them to be so. That’s the first test of submission and the reason many Christians don’t have spiritual liberty and freedom is because they’ve failed that test by their disobedience to the command. They should learn that baptism is more than symbolism; it is a sign of being born again, being cleansed from one’s sin and the beginning of living out the Christian life.
New Christians and those not as yet spiritually discerning need to learn that it’s not what we do for Christ so much as it is who we now are in Him. We are new people. The old person dies with Christ when we turn to the Lord and we are buried with Him when we go under the waters of baptism. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things become new 2 Corinthians 5:17. Now that’s how it is for us in reality. As someone has put it, “My old history ends with the Cross; my new history begins with the resurrection.” What a glorious statement! If that’s not the testimony of a cleric in the pulpit, it’s not likely to be the testimony of too many people sitting in the pews listening to him.
Jesus said of Satan the devil, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy John 10:10. No greater evidence of that is there to be seen than with those “models” dressed as devils and vampires etc. They are dead on their feet and on their way to hell, every last one of them. On the other hand they may not all get there for Jesus also said, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I don’t believe those young people have disregarded Jesus Christ; it is more likely they’ve never heard His gospel and they’re not likely to hear it from clerics such as those associated with churches like the one above. Let’s pray for them; don’t let Satan slap them around! Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved…… Mark 16:15-16.