Let the Others Judge

Let the Others Judge

The way to the Father (perfection) through Christ (the way) is very simple, but men have sought out many schemes. God’s Spirit gives us power and instruction on the way because He does not speak of Himself. He speaks what He hears. His voice can be heard day or night, sometimes with chastisement, sometimes with guidance and exhortation. And yet it is very common for people to believe that they are perfected once they have received the Holy Spirit. Instead of listening so they can hear what the Spirit is speaking, they rejoice over having received the Spirit. What a tremendous deception. This is why many people who received the Holy Spirit a few years ago are now on the verge of dying from lack of nourishment. They miss out on the spiritual food the Holy Spirit gives because they are so taken up with having received the Spirit that they don’t receive what the Spirit has to give them. Consequently, they eventually become exceedingly dry, and the gifts of tongues and interpretation, which should have been used for edification, are used as weapons to attack one another. The baptism of the Spirit has been called by many different names. During the most recent “revival,” the baptism of the Spirit was called “liberation.” A lot of people were liberated, and they rejoiced over having been set free from the law. But most of them went astray in their liberty and, without even noticing, slipped into “false liberty” because they hated the cross. They loved good feelings and gladly shared everything good with Christ, but they hated Christ’s sufferings. They refused to have fellowship with Him there.

Christ still has His winnowing fan in His hand, and He is cleansing His threshing floor. Every revival has a time of testing. Now is the testing time for this most recent “revival,” and you can be sure that many will fall away. Already in many places people are raging against the message of the cross. They speak in tongues, interpret and speak prophetic words against those who dare to bring a cross over their sweet feelings and sense of well-being. But just as Christ overcame all principalities and powers on the cross and triumphed over them in it, we will also, with that same cross, overcome and bring to naught every enemy of the cross of Christ—even if they employ all their gifts to battle against the eternal word of the cross.

Right from the beginning, this revival has lacked leaders who were able to care for the sheep in the love of Christ. They have traveled around to various conferences and then have written and spoken about those conferences and all the things they saw and heard. They have especially admired people who are famous in this world and who graced the conferences with their presence. There have been conversations and discussions about what should be done in order to get the world to believe that the gift of tongues, for example, is of God. And while the leaders have been attending conferences, the wolves have wreaked havoc in the sheepfold. There has been a great concern about what the world has to say, but leadership for the flock has been totally lacking. This has not been without consequences. Everywhere fleshly, carnal people have used their gifts to exalt themselves and gain personal advantage. All sorts of shepherds have arisen. They have had one thing in common: they all share an ability to shear the sheep for their own profit. That is why the sheep have been sheared of real spiritual wisdom and discernment. Yet, thanks be to God, all folly has its end, and this folly will also end. Then people will be left with the experiences they have gained. Just as it has always done, the cross will now separate the noble from the ignoble. But it will not go well for those whose lives are in their gifts.

God has not given us spiritual gifts to intimidate and beat down our fellow men. We are not to use the gifts to gain control of other people. We have received them in order to serve and edify one another, and when they are used in this way, the gifts will be a blessing. They will build up the church.

Let the world believe whatever it will. It is utter folly to spend time and energy trying to get the world to believe that speaking in tongues is of God. That only shows how ignorant a person is of the testimony that the Word of God gives about the gift of tongues. In 1 Corinthians 14:2, it is written that he who speaks in tongues does not speak to man but to God, so no one understands him, because he speaks mysteries in the Spirit.

If speaking in tongues is not to men but to God, how vain it is to expend a lot of effort trying to get the world to believe in something that is meant for God alone and has nothing to do with people. It is written that they speak mysteries in the Spirit. What does the world have to do with mysteries in the Spirit? These are people who can barely understand the things that they can touch with their own hands. No! Give up on all such effort. It only serves to gratify the flesh, and we are not debtors to the flesh. Our time is much too precious. No one can understand these things. That’s just the way it is. Speaking in tongues can only be understood by faith in the Spirit, so that believers can be edified.

The leaders (shepherds) must always bear the responsibility when the sheep go astray. But when shepherds have looked out for themselves and have only tended the sheep for the sake of their wool, their days as shepherds will always come to an abrupt end. The thing that is needed more than anything else is the word of the cross—the power of God. We have seen again and again that nothing can bind us together as strongly as the nails of the cross. Satan flees before the cross. Enmity disappears on the cross, and the power of God is revealed by the cross. God has blessed the word of the cross, and many have had their eyes opened recently to the fact that nothing else is of any benefit. They have come to see the emptiness in all of this “freedom” that is being preached without the cross. People are promised liberty by those who are in bondage themselves to temporal things. But the cross drives these liberty preachers away. It exposes them for what they are, because everything that comes from the prince of darkness flees from the cross.

On the cross brotherly love flourishes because people are sharing in the same sufferings—the sufferings of Christ. People who have the same spirit see things the same way, some more clearly than others, depending on how far they have progressed. What people have tried to glue together with external bonds, the cross has made one on Calvary. Glorious cross! On it offendedness and everything that would bring division is destroyed. Cowards and murderers and everyone who lies, either in word or in deed, have to flee. People who cling to deceptive spirits and false doctrines must flee before the cross. This also goes for those who only seek to satisfy themselves and their own feelings but who avoid suffering of any sort.

The law is the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ, but once we have come to Him, the cross takes over. It replaces the law and is able to fulfill what the law was not able to do, because we no longer serve sin. We can be set free from the law, but we will never be set free from the cross as long as we dwell in this body. This is something that those who rejoice over liberation from the law ought to consider. We are not without law to God; the cross testifies to this. But we are under the law to Christ by this same cross.

Vain people who hate the cross of Christ believe they have more power than those who patiently bear their cross. This is nothing but false imaginations, the fruit of blind ignorance. Power does not consist, as they believe, of speaking in tongues, but in overcoming oneself and all sin by the cross of Christ. Because people fear the gifts, they allow carnal people to disrupt and dominate the meetings. These people use tongues and emotional outbursts to interrupt people who are praying or speaking so that they themselves can speak. It’s high time that people like this are brought into the light and exposed. Nothing can test them more effectively than the cross, because everyone and everything that is not of God, and therefore does not love the truth, flees before the cross.

We are entering into a new time now, a time where people need power so that they can resist and overcome the spirit of antichrist, which is daily pressing closer and closer to us, trying to draw everyone along with it. We know that ungodly people cannot resist this spirit, but by the cross, we in the power of God will remain standing after having overcome all. Therefore, may we learn to watch and pray and be sound in faith and in the teaching of Christ so that, with joyful expectation, we await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.