English – Spanish
Thus says the Lord: You condemn those who come to you, those I send to you, because they convince you of your wrongs, your evils, your sins and transgressions. “Not of God, not of God!” you cry, stopping your ears, and joking with one another about the fool who comes to you, contrary to your ways. But he comes, contrary to your ways, because you are contrary to Me, says the Lord.
“How are we contrary?” you ask. Firstly, do you not criticize those religious in different circles than yourselves and condemn them for their doctrines and practices, as false as they are? How is it that you reserve the right to condemn others but insist that you yourselves are beyond reproach when I speak to you of your faults and silly notions? “We are right and true and holy!” you insist. “They are the false ones!” you cry.
Tell Me, if you can (and you will have your answers, while in stubbornness, in your stiff-necked, proud and rebellious ways), where in My Scriptures you find one solitary testimony where any of My servants solicited money from those to whom I sent them, or declared to the brethren they needed money to serve Me and speak My Word. Did any of My prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders or deacons do so by Me? Not one, no, not one. And did I not provide for them? And was not My Word spoken to them, and by them to others? But your god is mammon and not Me, says the Lord. You have many gods and I am not among them, says the Lord.
“But it costs for radio, newspaper and television and literature today, unlike the old days,” you protest. Am I only above the old and not above the present? Do you suddenly find Me insufficient in the day of your clever inventions? Will you tell Me that without money from man, I will be unable to accomplish My purposes of redeeming him? Again, which one of My servants ever asked for money to help preach the truth? I sent them to one here, one there, a multitude here, ten there and provided for them at the hands of widows and bills of ravens. But you must live in style and trust in the arm of flesh.
But I am not sending you, nor do I send My servants to those to whom you would presume to go, and while you presume to reach others in My Name and for My sake, you are in dire need of being reached yourselves. Neither do you speak the truth, not knowing the truth. You compass the world with your doctrines and self-made compassion to win souls, producing spurious conversions, enticing them with fine words and promises of prosperity, bringing them into your halls of pleasures, the prisons you live in, binding them in the chains you are bound in yourselves.
You walk in the spirit of the world, which is at enmity with Me, and entice both young and old with entertainment, thinking to win them to Me. Since when must I become as the sinner to win the sinner? Since when do I send you to be as the young in their darkness and foolishness with their notions of what is “cool” and what is “in” with clothing, fashions, music, customs, peer pleasing and attitudes of this world, manifesting pride, machismo, rebellion, philosophies, carnal humour and vainglory? Must I use humour and drama and sensationalism to win the repentance of those who enjoy these things and despise Me because they take pleasure in these things?
“But we become all things to all men to win them, as did Paul,” you reason, “and did not Jesus eat and drink with sinners?” While I ate with sinners, I did not surfeit with them, and when I drank with them, I did not get drunk with them, and when I saved prostitutes, I did not sleep with them; neither did My servant Paul. Do you not contradict yourselves in your darkness? You blaspheme in your words and ways. You vex Me with your thoughts and ways and do great evil in My Name, taking upon yourselves My Name in vain; I will not hold you guiltless, and you suffer for it.
Why do your children drown in rivers, get killed and maimed in accidents, which are not accidents, get hooked on drugs and become pregnant out of wedlock? Why do you suffer all kinds of diseases, which the Egyptians suffered and which unbelievers suffer today? Why are you divorcing and suffering financial hardships?
“God is trying us, because He loves us, and to see if we will be faithful, like Job!” you surmise. I am not trying you, but you bring damnation upon yourselves. My servant Job was not like you. He did not serve other gods, as do you. He did not glory in his judgments, as do you. He did not suffer loss in your ways. And when I was through with him, he was improved beyond your measures, but you, in your sins, languish and die and are not bettered. Instead, you harden yourselves even more.
Why, at the same time, do you prosper and spend what you have on those things I hate? Why do you take so lightly the things of God and laugh and giggle about them? Where are the sobriety and the vigilance I admonish those who are Mine to have? But you do not believe.
Why are the pastors and elders of your churches and religious organizations of works going in to their neighbors’ and congregants’ wives? Why are the leaders in whoredoms? Why do they lie and cheat in business while making themselves out to be pious, preaching and testifying as though on fire for Me and serving Me with fervency, or not at all, yet professing My Name?
Why do you celebrate My Passover in diverse ways, one of those ways in the name of a pagan goddess? Why do you partake of the shadows while claiming to have the substance? Why do you celebrate pagan festivals in My Name on pagan deity birth dates with pagan customs and traditions of this world, which is at enmity with Me? Why do you eat the unclean, calling it manna from heaven? Because you are in darkness and there is no truth in you.
If only you knew the pain and sorrows you bring upon yourselves by doing these things that you think are so pleasing to Me! If only you knew the peace that could and would be yours if you listened and believed! It is a peace such as you do not have and not as the one you do have.
Why do you scoff at the truth and despise rebuke?
“We are exhorted to focus on the positive,” you declare in your own righteousness. “We will not allow anyone to bring anything negative into our minds and hearts,” you adamantly insist.
Hear this, you adulterers and adulteresses, who paint your faces and dress your hair and wear fine things and speak high and lofty words: Those I love, those I receive, I rebuke, chasten, and scourge. Those whom I call suffer persecution, tribulation, and loss by My hand and not only by their own. Those whom I call and choose are afflicted and mourn, learning the value of the houses of mourning, despising the houses of mirth wherein fools congregate and destroy themselves ever so wisely.
Are these things positive? When I command you to repent of your sins, sparing nothing, to take up the cross and die, to forsake your loved ones and all possessions, are these things positive or negative? Is not your judgment of what is positive or negative at fault?
You make ceremonies, construct great buildings, publish yourselves, calling yourselves reverends, as though some ought to reverence you, and doctors, as though you knew anything by and of Me, ordain yourselves, and make yourselves to be heard in all streets and cities and, yes, it is indeed yourselves you publish, pretending to be publishing what you call “The Good News.” You call and pay impressive and charismatic speakers to further your ends and to entertain yourselves and your captives, building your own kingdoms, speakers who long ago forgot Me or who never knew Me.
You hold seminars and presume to sell My gifts and ministries even as Simon expected of Peter. Peter’s reply portrayed My feelings precisely. You perform great works, thinking you lay up treasures in Heaven with Me, says the Lord. Your own works you do, and despise Mine. You know nothing of Mine.
There is a testimony that goes forth to you that is always there, protesting against you and your froward ways, and I will not forever protest with those who presume to serve Me but who insist on pursuing their own pleasures and serving their own bellies. Even now, the times have come when you have called on Me and I did not answer, though you imagined, in your own perverse notions, that I did. “Sometimes He answers with a ‘No,’” you and your “loving” pastors and elders ever so wisely rationalize, and remain in your sins. Because you would not listen to Me, I will not listen to you.
Yet again, I call to those who would be saved from this evil generation and who will say to Me, “Your will and not mine,” in all earnestness of heart, prepared to obey and take upon themselves My yoke, forsaking their own and that of their tormentors, forsaking the pleasures of Egypt – churches parading in My Name with great religious, Biblical titles. To those I say, “Come and be saved; come and be healed; come and believe the truth, whereby you will save yourselves and your little ones. Quit believing the lies you call truth and believe the truth you call lies and fabrications.
“Consider for your lives; run for your lives. Come out from among them and be separate and do not so much as touch the unclean, and I will be a loving Father to you, embracing you with great compassion, showering you with blessings your eyes have not seen nor ears have heard.
“Tearfully, I will receive you, forgive you, cleanse you and clothe you anew, anointing you with oil and fragrances you have never known, and you shall be My sons and daughters, rejoicing in the light, saying, ‘Who could have known what we held from ourselves and what we have now? We will rejoice in God our Saviour Who is no respecter of persons, Who alone does wondrous things, Who is longsuffering and Whose mercy endures forever, Who delivers us from our own delusions, Who daily loads us with great benefits, Who reveals Himself to the humble and makes us free, Who causes us to tread upon the high places, and Who rejoices over us with joy.’”