The Classical God

One of our best known and highly respected TV journalists died of cancer a few days ago. In response to a question about mortality he said, “I believe very strongly in the classical God and Jesus Christ. I went to a Anglican boarding school who came very close to driving any concern or respect for religion out of me but fortunately I survived it. It was bad. It’s left me with a deeper and singular faith. It’s a very private faith. I don’t need to go to church but I do need to pray … it helps, believe me it helps.” Five years earlier in another interview he said, “I believe very strongly in God and Jesus Christ, but not so much on organised religion. I had a boarding school knock that out of me.”

What a blot on Anglicanism! What a blot on organised religion! The time he spoke of was the 1950’s when both had much more respect and influence in society than they do today. In fact, no wonder both have little respect or influence in society today! “It was bad,” he said.  I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for him … and for the many thousands like him who’ve experienced similar things. Some of the most smug and self-righteous religious people I’ve encountered in Christian ministry have come from Anglicanism and organised religion. One or two of the most anti-gospel and anti-Christian people I’ve encountered have come out from them too. For whatever reason, they had not survived it.

Instead of developing deeper and singular faith, they had developed deeper and singular indifference. It blesses me to know the TV Journalist had a deeper and singular faith; I would never have thought of him as a brother in Christ. It’s a grand lesson to relearn! God has His people scattered in every industry, in every place in every nation and the fact that we don’t hear them talk of Jesus as we might talk of Him, doesn’t mean a lot. I recall a pastor once saying we’ll all be very surprised to discover who’s in heaven and who’s not. Perhaps he’s right. For certain, those not in heaven will be (unrepentant) religious men and women who came very close to driving any concern or respect for Christ out of those given into their charge.

Hell will consist of such people … there’s every chance there’ll be more of them than perverts, junkies, whores and thieves, the kind of people the smug and self-righteous get their thrills out of looking down upon. Church-going people are always shocked to discover Christians who, “don’t go to church.” An Anglican practitioner was shocked with me some time ago. He couldn’t get it that his institution was anti-truth, anti-Bible and anti-Christ. Jesus’ name gets a mention in his church gatherings and the Bible is quoted from in the sermons so he thinks he’s got the real deal. He doesn’t see that he and his crowd are little more than  man-pleasers Galatians 1:10 by allowing female and homosexual ministers into their pulpits.

I’ve never heard of anyone describing their Christian faith as a very strong belief in the classical God and Jesus Christ before. He shared no Scriptures but seeing as though he’d had organised religion knocked out of him as a school kid, it’s fair to assume he took the Bible more seriously than many who are caught up in organised religion. The anaemic spiritual state of today’s church is evidence that the classical God and Jesus Christ were rejected and cast out a long time ago. This applies not only to Anglicanism but to various denominations and groups. We are living in the Laodicean age of the church Revelation 3:14-22 and there’s no turning back. It’s the age of soft options … pick and choose what you want your God to be.

I pray that someone will be encouraged by this man’s brief testimony. For reasons similar to his and not similar, so many many Christian people suffer guilt because they can’t bring themselves to associate with church people and organised religion. God would love them to be assembling with other Christians, “exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day (of Jesus’ return for the church) approaching’ Hebrews 10:25. The problem being, however, that’s not what takes place in most of them! Too many Christians don’t see the Day approaching because they’re not looking for it. They’re not looking for it because they don’t believe there is such a Day approaching.

Sometimes the question is asked, “If Jesus were back on earth today, which church (group or denomination) would He attend?” He wouldn’t attend any of them! What He would do is front up, walk in the midst of them, call out the true believers from the false and say, “Follow Me.” There would not be many in each group! He would spot one or two here, three or four there, a half dozen elsewhere, leaving the rest behind dumfounded as He walked out. That would be a harsh way to discover that the gate really is narrow Matthew 7:13-14. It won’t happen like that of course; what will happen is the Rapture of the church from the earth, leaving the entire world dumbfounded.

I’ve sometimes pictured Jesus walking amidst one hundred people in a church environment, then amidst one hundred people in a secular environment. Those He calls out are more in number from the latter than the former. It’s a private faith is probably the testimony of thousands of people out there in society. Years ago I met people who said something similar and when clarifying if Jesus was their Lord and Savior I encouraged them to “come to church.” I couldn’t do that today based on what I see, hear and read about church groups; I don’t want any of that private faith in a person to get contaminated. I would love them to learn the pure doctrines of Christ, but the name of the game today in most places is impure indoctrination.

A man told me he had left the church because he was informed unless he spoke in tongues he was not saved. That’s one of the common lies of Pentecostal organised religion and I was glad to tell him so. He was pleased to have it reconfirmed that he was saved not because of speaking in tongues but because he was trusting in Jesus and His shed blood for the washing away of his sins. I also told him that there are plenty of people in Pentecostalism that speak in tongues who are not trusting in Jesus or His shed blood for the washing away of their sins! Today I would tell him about the many Pentecostal church leaders around the world who are caught up in adultery, fornication and homosexuality!

Recently I read an article on why people leave churches. The writer gave seven reasons, all of which are probably true. What I found disappointing though, he laid all the blame at the feet of the people who’d left. Nothing’s changed, it seems. They were saying that when I first went into the church years ago. It would have been encouraging to have read of a few reasons in addition whereby some blame were laid at the leadership’s feet. On the other hand, if one doesn’t think such a reality exists, one is not likely to write of such a reality. That kind of reality never entered the minds of the leaders who said it in my case. Yet, when it all hit the fan, it was the leaders who got hit the most!

Most of us are aware of the history of abuses suffered upon boarding school children at the hands of Romanist, nuns, brothers and priests, but I say there’s a difference. None of them had any truth to impart with regards the gospel of Jesus Christ, His free gift of salvation and liberty-living in the Holy Spirit. Mary and the dead “saints” have always gotten in the way of such good news for man, but that was not the case for Anglicans in the 1950’s. For the late TV Journalist to describe his experience as bad tells me none of his superiors were born again believers. If that’s not true then where was their light? Why did it not so shine before men (children)? Matthew 5:13-16. Kids know the difference between discipline and tyranny!

I’ve encountered men and women who had been mentally scarred as children by Romanists, Fascists, Communists and Nazis, but to think there are those who’ve been mentally scarred as children by Anglicans in charge of a boarding school is a heart-breaking thought indeed. Who could they go talk to? Who would listen to them? Perhaps this man, as a child, realized  early that he couldn’t rely on any human being, only the classical God and Jesus Christ … perhaps his deeper and singular faith was developed in that environment. Maybe the Holy Spirit led him to Deuteronomy 31: 6, “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.”  

Anyone reading this post that is identifying with the experiences of the TV Journalist but lacks the depth of faith he had, the above Scripture is for you, regardless of your age today. God is on your side. God hates organised religion for numerous reasons, not the least of them being  it’s often controlled by insecure, Spiritless men and women. They don’t truly know what it’s like to be spiritually free and liberated themselves so there is no way they can impart spiritual freedom and liberty to anybody under their charge. That’s the curse of it all … their concepts of God are faulty and when these faulty concepts get passed on they create victims in the church, not victors! God says to you today, “The days of you being a victim of organised religion are over.”

You may struggle in believing that last statement, but line it up with the Scripture above. Line it up often. When God gives strength and courage, when He tells you not to be afraid, when He tells you He’s the One going with you, when He tells you He will never leave nor forsake you, He’s telling you, “From this day forward, you are not simply a victor, you are My victor because that’s what I’m going to make you.” What God calls us, He always makes us. That’s what He did with Gideon Judges 6:12, that’s what He’ll do with you – male or female. That’s why we can say we are a child of God, His friend, a saint, a believer, a soldier of the cross, a holy person and a righteous person. Many in Anglicanism and organised religion cannot truthfully say the same. “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” Isaiah 26:3.