War on the Saints

A spiritual maxim was communicated to me years ago that went like this:

The Word without the spirit is death
The Spirit without the Word leads to deception.

For many years I felt like I was experiencing
the first precept of the saying.
That is: experiencing a lot of the preaching
of the word and man's emphasis on the Word
but a real lack of Spirit
communicated with the Word preached.

Not only was there a lack of power in most preaching
but there was a limiting of the Spirit in allowing
others to move in their spiritual gifting.

I experienced countless meetings
where I would be refreshed by the Spirit of God
during a time of praise and worshipful singing
only to have the life sucked out of me
by a speaker who blabbed on powerlessly ad nauseum.
Why do all these guys think
they have to fill an hour with their much speaking?

And then there was the frustration
of not finding opportunity to express
ones own spritiual gifts,
except on the rare occasion,
even when the scripture teaches that our coming together
was to be just for this each and every time.

How is it then, brethren?
when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm,
hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation,
hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.
1 Corinthians 14.26

And so, in reference to such as that
I was seeing the truth of the above maxim played out
in relation to the deadness and powerlessness
of the modern church gatherings
where the Kingdom is not supposed to be in 'word' but in power.

On the other side of the equation:
the idea of too much Spirit leading to deception
when not kept within the parameters
of scriptural truth I had only read about but never experienced.

Well, that is not true anymore.

Now is being played out before our eyes
this other aspect of the above stated truism
ie. that Spirit without Word leads to deception.

Now, I won't go into that.
We talk about it all the time on the itnernet
these days it seems as the Watchmen of God are warning
of modern error and deception.

Suffice it to say, that in our modern worship if you
cannot find it in the scripture it should be avoided.

When it says pray lifting holy hands good and well.
Praise, dance, shout, OK.
But blowing whistles and barking like a dog or roaring like a lion.
That goes beyond the parameters of the Holy Writ.

What I would like to do is to point you to a quote
found in a book which can be found online and
the truth shared below:



THE BASIC PRINCIPLE FOR TESTING TEACHINGS
BY TEACHING SPIRITS

Since thought, or "belief," originates either from the God of Truth, or the father of lies (John 8: 44), there is but one basic principle for testing the source of all doctrines, or "thoughts" and "beliefs," held by believers, or unbelievers, i.e., the test of the revealed Word of God.

All "truth" is in harmony with the only channel of revealed truth in the world--the written Word of God. All "teachings" originating from deceiving spirits--

Weaken the authority of the Scriptures;
Distort the teaching in the Scriptures;
Add to the Scriptures the thoughts of men; or
Put the Scriptures entirely aside.
The ultimate object being to hide, distort, misuse, or put aside the revelation of God concerning the Cross of Calvary, where Satan was overthrown by the God-Man, and where freedom was obtained for all his captives.

The test of all "thought" and "belief" therefore is its
Harmony with the written Scriptures in its full body of truth.
The attitude to the Cross, and sin. ****


The above quote was taken from the book War on the Saints
by Jesse Penne Lewis and can be found in its entirety online.


I thought this was excellent and really pertinent
to what were are seeing in the
church in this hour.