WITCHCRAFT 2

I have been looking at Judaism which the foundations of our faith is based on. It is not Greek or Roman, it is not roman catholic or the reformation; it is clearly based in Judaism.

When you compare the New Testament Church and the church today, it has definitely abandoned its roots. Mainly due to the fact that it has chosen to be dictated to by our cultural traditions.

Anything without roots loses its ability to be what it was meant to be and is usually forced into expressions of life that it was never meant to adopt.

A classic example is the Jewish New Testament Church that met in homes, usually around a meal. When that was abandoned in favour of public buildings designed on the architecture of civic society, the intimacy, care, relationships and fun was replaced with liturgy, form, order, religion and control.

We allowed our Jewish roots to fade away and Greek and Roman pagan ideas to infiltrate the way that we live. (If you don’t believe me read Frank Viola’s book “Pagan Christianity”). It is not surprising then that the church has become captive to witchcraft, which at its heart is religion, control and avoiding submission to God and his word.

The spontaneous and fluid fun loving family relationships of our founding church have been replaced with ecclesiastical ritual that robs everyone of their inheritance in Christ.

The New Testament is full of references to the church in terms of being a family. Brothers and sisters and the word ‘family’ loom large and are a common metaphor.

Another metaphor is the body, with each part being interdependent on each other.

Conversely, the spirit of witchcraft demands rote, form, submission, ritual and activity. Just being is no longer part of our Christian faith. Witchcraft takes all the fun out of being.

Unfortunately, we have swallowed this hook, line and sinker to the point where we defend such jaundiced expressions of church life that are a clear substitute for the real thing.

Even to the point where we do not believe that what is written in the word of God is relevant to the church today. Most denominational statements of faith by their very words and misappropriation of scripture to prop up cultural tradition, deny that the words of the New Testament Church are relevant and that is despite many of them clearly stating that the word of God is their authority for their doctrine and practice, which it clearly isn’t.

When a spirit of witchcraft takes over, deception looms large. We should not be surprised at this as Jesus said to those who said to him that they had prophesied, cast out demons and performed miracles in his name “depart from me, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.”

He went on to say that everyone who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock and those who hear his words and don’t put them into practice is like a man who builds his house on sand and it collapses (Matthew 7).

From this we have to assume that there are going to be some Pentecostal preachers out there who are going to hell. Witchcraft has deceived them and they have spent all their time building their kingdom, not God’s.

When we say we are the church and what we do is contrary to what God says in his word about the church one of us is not telling the truth. It doesn’t take much to work out who that is.