I was recently at a “multicultural” event, where people living in my area who have immigrated from foreign countries shared some of their native culture. Whether it be poetry, song or an account of what led them to live in Canada. It didn’t take twenty minutes and I noticed something that was extremely obvious. Atheism and agnosticism are truly Western diseases.
Throughout the entire evening not a presentation passed without a mention of God. Now granted, that God was not always necessarily Yahweh as there were Hindus, Catholics, Pagans, etc. here. But one thing I noticed right away was that no matter what circumstances people came out of, no matter what hell hole they escaped from, every single one of them believed that there is a spiritual realm that has influence over the physical realm. While I believe that some of them are deceived and following false gods, the fact is that everyone there knew that the spirit realm was a real and present force.
Some would say the reason behind this is that people getting out of bad situations need a “crutch” in the form of a god or gods. I would look at it from the opposite side of the corner. I think the reason all these downtrodden people believe in the spiritual realm is because they can’t afford to lie to themselves about it. This is not going to be an anti-atheist rant or debate. Nor is it going to be a lengthy article on the logical problems with an atheistic worldview. Suffice to say that I believe that being an atheist requires a high level of faith and a low level of intellectual integrity. However, this will be a comment on how the Western church itself has become, or has been manipulated into becoming, atheistic.
WOW! I can hear it now, “I’m not an atheist! I believe in God!” OK, intellectually that’s probably true. I’m sure you believe in God. But let me explain what I mean. In faraway places where missionaries go and return with slideshows of starving children and broken homes, there are also (almost without exception in my experience) returning stories with those same missionaries. Stories of people’s experiences with demons, ghosts, fairies, monsters, or the powers of healers and shamans, etc. I for one strongly reject the downright silly notion that all these stories are the result of primitive superstition and overheated imagination. You can also see this throughout the story. If the Greeks were primitive enough to believe in minotaurs, hydras, Hercules, Zeus, etc., how did they build one of the greatest civilizations to ever exist on the face of the earth? I am going to venture here and say that ALL myths and ALL legends are based on truth. Even if it gets over the top.
Many people in the “third world” live with the spiritual every day. So why not us? Even much of Europe to this day still has a strong belief in things like trolls or fairies. So why not here? With the exception of the Native Americans, even among so-called “churches” there is no belief in tangible spiritual manifestations, either fallen or holy. I realize there are exceptions, but I’m talking about the average.
This type of thinking causes, as we have seen, an ideal seedbed for atheism. If the church doesn’t even believe in or get involved in the spiritual, why would the average citizen on the street care one bit what goes on behind church walls? Paul talks about the spiritual gifts that are sent as a sign to the unsaved. Jesus said in Matthew 10:8 that Christians should raise the dead. Raising the dead! Don’t lure them in and prop them up in the pews so they can fill up your plate like mindless zombies! Here’s an idea, instead of filling the church house with a bunch of frozen picky people who are nothing more than butts and ears. Buttocks to warm the bench and ears to listen to the preacher and tear him apart afterwards. And through the mundane entertainment copy to interest people to come, how about a little fire from the Holy Spirit?
Don’t you think if word got out that there were REAL healings, REAL personal prophecies, REAL words or knowledge and the like, you might see REAL revival? I’m not talking about these fake, plastic so-called revivals that are televised and advertised and, pardon the expression, prostituted to the media. I mean a real revival, equipping the saints and spreading as the people spread out. Where GOD joins the congregation instead of a fanciful campaign of deceit and lies. Steve Quayle likes to point out that the national judgment begins in the house of God. Well guess what! National reconciliation also begins in the house of God. It will not come from the government house. It will not come from a protest or civil disobedience. National reconciliation and a reprieve from divine judgment will only come IF the true followers of Jesus Christ, Yahshua, review their preconceived, man-made doctrines of demons at the door, stand up and pray. Taking the written word at his word and beginning to operate in the spirit instead of operating in the flesh. God decreed that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, but due to massive repentance 400 years were saved.
All that to say this. The doctrine of cessationism is nothing more than Christianized atheism. Cessationism takes all the New Testament promises of Jesus Christ and cuts off their knees, cuts out their tongues, gouges out their eyes, and drives a nail into each ear. To be a Christian and a cessationist is to be a member of a theological history club. Going to church can be NOTHING more than an exercise in self-help, and hearing facts and figures about people and places from long ago and far away, a bit like a fairy tale. A cessationist God is a God without power. And a God without power is a different God than the one you find in your Bible. If God doesn’t change, why do all the cessationist adherents BOLDLY claim that he did? Yahweh works miracles and gives signs from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. So where does someone come out saying that he won’t do it today? What a shame! And with a belief like that, he probably won’t do much for you unless you stop listening to man-made crap and start digging to find the truth of things.
And for those of you who say “the perfect has arrived and it is the Bible”. All I have to say is, which is more perfect, your bible with 66 books (interesting number to be associated with your bible, huh?), or Yahshua coming in the clouds to wage war against the antichrist and reclaim nations as their own? THIS IS NOT A TRICK QUESTION!! You CANNOT read a new testament and come off as a cessationist without doing mental gymnastics. Period.
You can’t blame an atheist for being an atheist when the church and individual “Christians” have nothing to show for their faith. Engaging an atheist in a battlefield of logic is like fighting an army at home. If you can logically back someone into a belief, you can logically go backwards.
The Western church has been under greater enemy attack than any third world persecuted church in at least one way. They have been completely lulled to sleep and turned against themselves by a spirit of apostasy and apathy. They have been reassured to the point of helplessness. To those pastors who perpetuate a dead message of self help, facts and psychology instead of power in the name of Jesus through the Holy Spirit, REPENT! To those of you sitting in a dead church with a dead walk, COME OUT OF BABYLON! And for those of you who just can’t be bothered, Revelation 3:16. I have been heard to say that the best thing that could happen to the church today would be persecution similar to that in Stalinist Russia. Obviously, I don’t want that, but it would certainly change a person’s priorities, wouldn’t it?
Now, having thrown away that morsel, let me add here at the end, I come from an extremely cessationist background. Not only were the gifts deceased, but anyone who said otherwise was likely demon possessed. That was my Sunday school. Which I’m sure is part of why I just can’t stand his still life anymore. If you don’t agree with me, just read your new will. If you ask for understanding, you will be shown where the truth is. As for me, no more Christian atheism!
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