Mixture in the Church
Hi Everyone,
Today I have a vision that concerns every church. It concerns the church embracing philosophies, cultural norms and traditions. This is something that has gone on for not just centuries - but millenniums. We need to uproot these ideas and cultural traditions that have compromised the Word of God.
The Vision
The Woman in the Plaid Skirt
In this vision I saw a large, thick waisted woman wearing a white shirt and a full length red plaid skirt. She was standing, doing nothing. This vision, I believe, is about the church. The woman had long brown hair, hanging down, not tied back or embellished in any particular style.
Usually, the church in my visions is depicted by a young woman with long brown hair. I believe the Lord uses this image to represent the church for we are the “Bride of Christ.”
In this vision, the white shirt that the woman wears represents purity, righteousness and godliness. The red plaid skirt represents something altogether different. Red generally represents sin, blood and bloodshed. Red was the predominant color of the plaid skirt, but the vertical and horizontal stripes that create the plaid are woven using several different colors: green, blue, yellow, black and white. These colors that create and give design to the red plaid, represent the influences upon the church
Historically, in Scotland, each of the clans were represented by their own woven plaid, called a tartan. These tartans are centuries old. According to Smithsonian Magazine:
“...tartan goes back at least 3,000 years, with the oldest example of the fabric found buried with the remains of “the Cherchen Man,” a mummy of Caucasian descent found buried in the sands of the western Chinese desert, according to the Tartan Authority.
“During the 18th century, tartan was co-opted from Scottish family symbol to military uniform under James Francis Edward Stuart’s 1714 rebellion against the English monarchy. At the time, a pattern now known as “Black Watch Plaid” became associated with the Royal Highland Regiment, a Scottish military force that remained the pride of the United Kingdom’s army until it was disbanded in 2003. Although after the Scottish forces were defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the multicolored tartans were banned for nearly a century.”
The plaid skirt in the vision represents mixture in the church. The church has allowed the traditions of man to influence worship and the beliefs of the church. This mixture has come in because the leaders of the church over the centuries have compromised with ideologies and customs that should have been shut down long ago. When we lose our love of scripture and the knowledge of the truth, we lose our way, and become confused. The church has lost its compass in many ways and we believe and acknowledge pagan ideals rather than what God holds as truth.
I had quite an eye opener just yesterday, when I read a sermon given 15 years ago. He spoke about “remez,” a technique of communication with which I was completely unaware. I saw that our learning and understanding of scripture has been crippled by being unfamiliar of the Old Testament scriptures. The apostles often quoted scripture and used it to convey a deeper meaning that only those who understand the reference can discern what is really being said. We see this when Jesus quoted an Old Testament scripture to the Pharisees and suddenly they knew its deeper meaning was directed at them.
Parents can sometimes speak in “code” to keep their children from knowing what they are saying. I have seen in the New Testament how Jesus would say “it is written” to quote a passage that said it all, in just a few words. His audience understood and knew the scriptures. Jesus also spoke in parables so that those whose heart’s were open to God would appreciate and understand the message, and that those whose hearts were not open to receive the message, could not receive it.
This is what David Curtis of the Berean Bible Church in Virginia Beach, VA gave as his sermon, which I read yesterday. It supports what I believe the vision is about - the true meaning of scripture.
“In Jesus' day the teachers used a technique which is today called "remez" or hint, in which they used part of a scripture passage in discussion, assuming their audience's knowledge of the Bible would allow them to deduce for themselves the fuller meaning. Apparently, Jesus used this method often. If you don't know Jesus' text, you won't get His point. An example of this is seen in Jesus' discussion with John. John is in Herod's jail, and he sends his disciples to ask Jesus a question:
Now when John in prison heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples, and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?" Matthew 11:2-3 NASB
This is the man who proclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Was John losing his faith? Was he now uncertain if Jesus was the Christ? A literal rendering of verse 3 is, "Are you the Coming One?" John is using remez here also, to which Jesus answers:
And Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. 6 "And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me." Matthew 11:4-6 NASB
Notice verse 6, it literally reads, "And blessed is he who does not stumble over me." The NIV translates it this way, "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." The word "stumbling" is skandalizo, which means: "to trip up (figuratively stumble) to entice, to sin or apostasy." What did Jesus say that would cause John to stumble or fall away?
To understand this, we need to go back to John's question, "Are you the Coming One?" Why does John ask this? Why does he call Him the "Coming One"? This is from:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9 NASB
Why does John call Him the "Coming One?" Because in this context the Coming One is going to set the prisoners free:
As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the water-less pit. Zechariah 9:11 NASB
John is using a remez to ask, "Am I going to get out of this jail?" John is not doubting the Messiah, he wants to know if he will get out of jail. To which Jesus replies:
And Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. 6 "And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me." Matthew 11:4-6 NASB
Notice the capitalization in the NASB. Why is it capitalized? It is a Scriptural quote. Here Jesus quotes from Isaiah:
To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon, And those who dwell in darkness from the prison. Isaiah 42:7 NASB
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives, And freedom to prisoners; Isaiah 61:1 NASB
In quoting these verses to John's disciples, Jesus leaves out setting the prisoners free. What is He saying to John? "John, you are going to die in prison," and then He says:
"And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me." Matthew 11:6 NASB
That's hard to hear--"You're going to die in prison." You are not going to be set free. The stumbling may come not from what Jesus is doing, but from what He is not doing-- setting John free from prison.
When I read this, I was so amazed because I had always seen John’s question to Jesus as a criticism of what he was doing. I never knew that there was an unseen communication underlying his question. This is why we need to understand scripture and what it meant to the audience of the day. The people of Jesus’ day only had the Old Testament, which was full of passages that reveal the heart of God. I have always had a love for the entire Bible and found that I read more of the Old Testament than the new. The Lord had spoken to me once saying: “The more scripture that you know, the more I can reveal to you.”
The Bible is essential to understand who God is, how he thinks and feels. If we are just going through life simply relying on whatever teachings come from the pulpit, how can we appreciate and distinguish man’s teachings from the word of God? We cannot assume that every word we hear in Church comes from God, just because it was a pastor who said it. We all have filters over our eyes, our ears and our minds. The pastors are no different. They will speak what they’ve been taught and what their denomination or their seminary holds to be true.
What a tremendous revelation “remez” is. We have to look at things from a 1st century perspective instead of only reading the surface words that a translator wrote for us. For deeper understanding we need to recognize the embedded OT scriptures in the apostles teachings. If I was unaware of what Jesus and John were really talking about, what else have I been missing?
How many people read the Bible? How many people actually study the Bible? Without realizing it we could be giving God attributes that he does not have, “like winking at sin.” We could be creating a “god” of our own choosing that identifies with our needs, our wants, and our desires. I have often heard people say, “Well, God may have told you that, but he didn’t say that to me.”
Some people treat God as if he were a vending machine. “I put in a quarter, and pulled the handle, and nothing happened!” “I decided to fast for a meal. I prayed, and God hasn’t done a thing!”
God is holy. He is righteous. He is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. He is just, he is merciful and he is kind. But to treat him as a vending machine, without honor, without the fear of God, without acknowledging what he did on the cross for us, is simply outrageous. No wonder the Lord said:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23
Now let us return to the vision.
The woman in the vision wearing the white blouse and red plaid skirt was large, and heavyset. Normally the bride is depicted as beautiful and slender. What I see is that the woman is self indulgent, “filled up with herself,” materialistic, wanting all things that are pleasurable, and things that stroke the ego. Because the woman was overweight, the Lord is showing me that she is carnal, and indulges the flesh. Rather than being self -controlled and led by the Spirit, she gives into earthly passions.
The white shirt or blouse that she wore represents godliness. But because she was also wearing red, which represents sin, we see that there is compromise. Since she is the church, the Lord is pointing out compromise in the church. There should never be compromise in regards to the truth, for the slightest deviation from the truth is a lie. We cannot misrepresent God to others. And we cannot compromise the Lord’s word for money, or convenience. What we do as a church will affect the lives of all its members. We can not treat what is holy and righteousness with contempt.
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will dwell in them and walk among them.
I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” 2 Corinthians 6:14-16
Mixture is not just having people in our lives who influence us, but it is also the culture, the social media, and the teachings that have been handed down for centuries that were introduced as pagan ideals long ago.
Just recently I had been going to a church for a little over two months, when the pastor mentioned an intercessory prayer group that met on Tuesday mornings. I got permission from him to attend the group. I was well received and felt welcomed, until the following week when the leader of the prayer group told me “Do not pray in tongues. It causes church splits.” There were only 8 people attending the group, and there are almost a thousand who attend the four services every week. This goes against the word of God:
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:18
Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 1 Corinthians 14:39
After praying, the Lord told me to leave. For they claimed to be Spirit-filled but denied the gift of tongues. The Bible speaks of those who have…
“a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” 2 Timothy 3:5
When we put our own ways ahead of God’s, it is rebellion.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. 1 Samuel 15:23
This brings us to the plaid skirt again for it also represents rebellion, as it was in actual history. Plaid was the uniform of those who in 1714 started the Stuart rebellion against the English monarchy.
Jesus is showing me through this vision that the church is in rebellion against the Word of God. It is not in ways that the average Joe can see, but those who read scripture see how the teachings have mixture. The messages are more about self-help, and self focused, than about how to live to serve God. The messages are not teaching from scripture, but are “relevant to today’s audience.” They are “seeker friendly.” “Let’s just fill the pews. We don’t have to teach about godliness and sin, we let the Holy Spirit do that.”
The messages are not about how to equip the saints to do the work of the Lord: to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to deliver those bound by the devil, to reach the lost, to visit those in prison, to care for the poor and to heal the broken-hearted. We have a powerless church when we are led by people who squelch the Holy Spirit’s voice and the Lord’s commands.
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:15-18
The Lord gave his Spirit to us, how can we deny his power? He wants to use us. We need to be available. He will equip us to do his will. Let’s prepare ourselves for his call upon our lives.
In the past, the church went through a process of reformation when things really got out of alignment with the Word of God. Just as it happened long ago, perhaps we need a revival and a new found love of scripture and a desire to know the truth.
Martin Luther wrote and posted his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517. He saw that the teachings and practices of the church were in direct conflict with the Word of God. Here is a pdf file: The Ninety-five Theses by Martin Luther This event brought about the Reformation of the Church.
We seem to be needing an overhaul of the contemporary church. Pagan influences have been around since the world began, and are still seen today. We have allowed these pagan symbols and practices to influence the church for way too long. We have to read the Bible and embrace the original meaning of the words.
For instance, Plato’s teachings on the “immortal soul,” is not Biblical but is a pagan ideology. In the Bible “soul” simply refers to a living being. It is only those who believe in Christ that have eternal life. We do not have a soul– we are a soul. We do have a spirit, but it is dead, until we are born of the Spirit, and only then do we become alive to Christ. That is why Jesus said,
“Let the dead bury their own dead.” All people are dead in their sins. We have eternal life only when we believe in Jesus as our Savior, our Messiah, who forgives our sin when we repent. He reconciles us to the Father through his blood, and we are given the righteousness of Christ.
Plato’s influence on the church is profound when it comes to our beliefs in death and hell. And the church took a sharp left turn when Constantine came on the scene.
Constantine, the emperor of Rome, in the 4th century, was responsible for the merging of pagan religions with Christianity for solidifying and unifying his reign over the empire. The Council of Nicaea, which met at his request adopted many of his ideas that laid the groundwork for the church traditions and beliefs that we hold today yet are not Biblical.
Constantine called for a change in the symbols that represent Christ. The symbol for Jesus for the first 300 years was the X. In Greek this is “chi.”
But Constantine claimed to see a vision and hear the words: “in hoc signo vinces,” which means “In this sign, you shall conquer.” His “vision” occurred before the battle of the Milvian Bridge. He used this phrase to influence Christianity and rally support for his military campaigns. So he pushed for this new sign, a pagan symbol for Tammuz to now represent both the pagan deity and Christ. In this way he united two opposing groups, the Christians and those who worshiped the Babylonian gods, a trinity: Nimrod, the sun God, Semiramis his mother and wife, and Tammuz his son, a god of fertility and harvest. The new symbol was a ” T,” a “tau” for Tammuz.
The Greek word “Stauros” that appears all throughout the New Testament means “stake” or “pole” The text below comes from The Stack Exchange:
NWT Matthew 16:24 "Then Jesus said to his disciples: “If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself and pick up his torture stake and keep following me."
NWT Mark 15:13-15 "Once more they cried out: “To the stake with him!” 14 But Pilate went on to say to them: “Why? What bad thing did he do?” Still they cried out all the more: “To the stake with him!” 15 At that Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Bar·abʹbas to them; and after having Jesus whipped, he handed him over to be executed on the stake."
NWT Colossians 2:14 "He has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the torture stake."
Definitions:-
Cross, Crucify: denotes, primarily, "an upright pale or stake." On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, "to fasten to a stake or pale," are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed "cross." The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the "cross" of Christ.”-Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
The Imperial Bible-Dictionary acknowledges this, saying: “The Greek word for cross, [stau·rosʹ], properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground. . . . Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole.”—Edited by P. Fairbairn (London, 1874), Vol. I, p. 376.
Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire, so to make the transition attractive he allowed all people to worship regardless of their beliefs. Their symbols of worship were allowed as well.
The worship of the Babylonian “The Queen of Heaven,” mentioned In Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17-19 was an abomination to
God. Semiramis, the mother of Tammuz was this “Queen of Heaven”. Her husband, Nimrod, was the son of Cush and a descendant of Ham. He became the first king of Babel, and supported the practices of human sacrifice and idolatry. He married his mother Semiramis who gave birth to their son Tammuz. Nimrod was worshiped as a sun god.
After her son/husband Nimrod died, Semiramis claimed that Tammuz was conceived by a light beam that came from Nimrod, and that Tammuz was the reincarnation of Nimrod.
In Babylonian artwork she holds her baby Tammuz standing or sitting in her lap. They both have halos which represent the sun and the reincarnation of Nimrod manifesting as Tammuz. The symbol that represents the worship of Tammuz as the sun god, is the “T” Tau.
The pagan “Queen of Heaven” depicted as mother and child, eventually became Mary and the Christ child. When i looked at the paintings and depiction of either mother and child, Babylonian or Christian, there was no differentiation that i could perceive.
Constantine championed the pagan infiltration into the church, primarily for political reasons and to keep his great empire more cohesive. At the First Council at Nicaea, in AD 325, the Nicene creed was established, and then revised in 381 at the First Council at Constantinople. It is still in use today.
However, I believe that there is an error which happens when people have a disconnect with the original meaning of the biblical texts.
The church at this time was primarily Gentile and disconnected to the original meaning of the biblical text. They did not see or appreciate what took place in AD 70 with the Lord’s coming in wrath. Just as the Jews did not recognize Jesus as their Messiah, the church failed to recognize that what Jesus came to do, he accomplished.
Before his death, Jesus pronounced judgment on the leaders of Jerusalem in Matthew 23, and promised that he would return in their generation “on the clouds,” bringing the wrath of God in full measure.
“So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers. You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape the sentence of hell?
Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Jesus came in AD 66 to AD 70, a period of 3.5 years in which he lay siege to Jerusalem. He came in wrath to destroy his enemies, to destroy the temple ending the sacrificial system, and to destroy Jerusalem, to “shatter the power of the holy people,” and to bring an end to the Old Covenant. He came in wrath and used the Roman army to destroy from the outside, and he used the Zealots, plague, and famine to destroy from the inside. It was “hell on earth.” It was “the tribulation.” But he also came to establish his kingdom, with the New Covenant in his blood. His dwelling place as he promised would be with his people, for now the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in us.
Spiritual death has been destroyed and we are alive, seated with Christ in heavenly places. We have been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus, and we will be with him for all eternity.
Yes, Jesus came to fulfill all that was written about him. However, the church did not get the memo.
Did they not hear the warning?
“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. Luke 21:20-22
By the 4th century, the leaders were disconnected to Jerusalem and had no memory of AD 70. They did not see or appreciate the Lord’s second coming, because they did not understand the significance of what had taken place. They were disconnected to God’s purpose in coming.
Today we have a creed that has crippled the church. Today people hold to the words in the creed as if they were equal to scripture. The creed places the resurrection of the dead and the judgment seat of Christ, far into the future. They are waiting for Christ to return, just like the Jews who did not see Christ the first time. They will wait for their entire lifetimes until they seek God and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal truth. We must repent for placing man’s word in a creed above the Lord’s Word in his holy scriptures.
It behooves us to know the Word of God, for it is the Word of Truth. And it is the truth that sets us free. We can go on believing things that we were told and things that have become entrenched in tradition. But does is it true? Does it align with the Word of God?
Was Jesus really born in December, even though “the shepherds were watching their flocks by night?” I don’t think so, the sheep were lambing. It was spring.
We can just as easily make excuses for the Lord’s in ability to communicate clearly when he spoke of his imminent return within his generation. Did Jesus lie about “his coming soon,” “his coming quickly,” or about “the time being near,” or that “he was coming in his generation?
“For the Son of Man will come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done.
Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Matthew 16:27-28
We can believe that the sun, the moon and the stars will fall from the sky and the earth will disappear, but we will be wrong, for these words were used many times throughout the Old Testament speaking of national judgment over many cities and many nations. And if you look carefully you will see that the sun is still shining and the moon still gives its light.
Let read and take in the full counsel of God. We will be held accountable for the truth that we know and conceal because of the fear of man. We will be held accountable for all that we teach and preach.
We are to be a city on a hill giving light to the nations. But if we, the Church, are under a cloak of darkness, complacent, and compromised in our faith, how can we see clearly to remove the speck in our neighbor’s eye? We have to remove the plank in our own eye. Please read the Bible and study for yourself.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:17
God bless you all!
