NOTES ON MAKING THE CUT: GOD’S FIERY RESTORATION OF BLAMELESSNESS AMONG HIS LEADERS

SCRIPTURE. “These men must first be tested; then if they are found to be ‘blameless and beyond reproach’ [in their Christian lives], let them serve as deacons.” – 1 TIMOTHY 3:10, AMP

QUOTATION. “The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and ‘terrifyingly normal.’ From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this Normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.” ― HANNAH ARENDT, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, 1963; edited

FIRST THOUGHTS

As have all of you, I have been pondering, even agonizing to understand what has happened to American Church Leadership in the last seven years, causing or revealing it to be so morally vacuous, utterly corrupt and so available to the highest bidder. Most analysts (including myself) have concluded that it is merely the jettisoning of The Biblical Canon. And that is true, but not sufficient to explain the Historic Collapse all around us today.

No, beloved. I now rather surmise that Hannah Arendt has mined the underlying truth of it once and for all, and it fits the Biblical Definition of the Nature of Man perfectly. The APOSTLE PAUL explains it this way.

“Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death as the result of sin, so death spread to all men, no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] ‘because all men sinned.’” – ROMANS 5:12, AMP

Dr. Arendt was a Prussian raised in an aggressively secular family who escaped the German Reich after ADOLP HITLER came to power. Though a non-obervant Jew, she nonetheless did her doctoral dissertation on Augustine of Hippo. That said, what I see her stumbling upon is the Biblical Principle of ‘The Fall of Man’ in The Garden (cf. Genesis 3:1-7). Which is cleanly stated in a Formal Maxim that goes to the very heart of her epic work on ADOLF EICHMANN:

‘The Normal State of Man is Wickedness, Not Goodness.’ Selah.

IMPLICATIONS. If we have ever wondered and yes, agonized over how the American Church has gone so dark so quickly as did Germany a century ago, I believe Dr. Arendt has provided a big part of the answer. ‘This is Man’s Natural Course,’ bent ever downward. Or to cite the slightly amended phrase, “Slouching Toward Babylon,” from the epic poem by WILLIAM YEATS, “The Second Coming” (1920).

We are very nearly there now, beloved, as we reject Precept after Precept of the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ. Apparently, we want ‘a better king,’ one more like us, as the Israelites once desired long before us (1 Samuel 8:19-20). So, God gave them SAUL, and He is likewise giving us, DONALD TRUMP.

But I boldly propose to you all that Almighty God is about to execute a very limited, yet clearly necessary ‘Royal Changing of the Guard,’ if you will, among His Leaders. That is: Pastors, Priests, Prelates, Bishops, Superintendents, Teachers, Evangelists, and Elders as those who are about to be affected soon by what promises to be:

‘A Fiery Ordeal.’ What follows will explain why this must be so.

II. THE TEACHING

KEY TERM: “BLAMELESS.” ‘Anegklétos’ [ἀνέγκλητος]: “Unaccused, irreproachable; not arraignable, unblameable, irreprehensible; unblemished, unspotted; guiltless; not convictable (in a court of law); beyond or above reproach; without fault; innocent; guiltless; not meriting censure.”

COMMENTARY. “‘And let these also first be proved’ – Not that they should be tried in any part of the Deacon’s office [‘diakonos,’ a servant, minister, administrator], to see how capable they are of performing it; but their internal and external characters are to be looked into and examined, and if they appear to be right, then they are to be approved of, chosen and called unto, and invested with the office. ‘Then let them use the office of a Deacon.’ – Let them be employed and minister in the several parts and branches of that office. ‘Being found blameless.’ – Not without sin, but free from any gross and enormous one; not before God, but in the sight of men. See Gill on 1 Timothy 3:2.” – JOHN GILL, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 9 vols., 1746-1763; edited

DK. Most of us of course are familiar with the old catchphrase recently made popular in a song by KELLY CLARKSON, “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger.” Turns out that saying derives from a statement by FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE in 1888 about life being a ‘School of War.’ He was right of course, though from a distinctly anti-Biblical position.

The point here has to do with the very valid idea that ‘Leaders must be tested’ in order to see if they possess the mettle for leadership. The Greek word used in this passage is “PROVED:” ‘Dokimazo’ [δοκιμάζω], meaning “To be put to the test, proved, examined; ‘to be tried [by fire]’ to see if one is approved, fit or ‘deemed worthy’ for leadership.”

This sober definition quickly brings to mind PAUL’S WARNING: “Not many [of you] should become teachers [serving in an official teaching capacity], my brothers and sisters, for you know that we [who are teachers] will be judged by a higher standard [because we have assumed greater accountability and more condemnation if we teach incorrectly].” – JAMES 3:1, AMP

The Apostle well understood that men will often seek positions of influence for reasons less than honorable: Prestige, financial gain, or in one particular contemporary case: “Retribution” against one’s enemies! Selah.

Thus will the Lord assay a candidate for leadership, even as a blacksmith tests gold and silver to forge its purity by fire. “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the priests, the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness.” – MALACHI 3:3, AMPC

THE PREDICTION. I am strongly impressed that God has already begun selecting a ‘New Generation of Leaders for the Last Times’ who will be able to stand His fiery tests. This promises to be painful, and widespread. It shall not take place overnight, but over a period of months and even years. The Gospel of Matthew describes an aggressive King Jesus who shall execute the following in His Grand Selection of both leaders and followers:

“His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear out His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat (believers) into His barn (kingdom), but He will burn up the chaff (the unrepentant) with unquenchable fire.” – MATTHEW 3:12, AMP

If this is an accurate reading of our present Moment, beloved, I should think every single one of us, and most especially our Pastors and Leaders should be paying close attention to their duties and those they are commissioned to both lead and serve.

III. THE LAST DAYS SHEPHERDS

A Last Days Concept I have touched upon increasingly in the past two years or so is the Messiah’s Promise to REMOVE LAMPSTANDS from disobedient churches and pastors. It has been largely overlooked for as long as I have been a Christian professor (over 40 years) best I can tell, and so today we are going to resurrect it for its drastic and immediate implications for our American Church Leaders.

THE WARNING. “But I have this [charge] against you, that you have left your first love [you have lost the depth of love that you first had for Me]. So remember the heights from which you have fallen, and repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, your sinful behavior—seek God’s will] and do the works you did at first [when you first knew Me]; otherwise, ‘I will visit you and remove your lampstand’ (the church, its impact) from its place—unless you repent.” – REVELATION 2:4-5, AMP

Now then, different theologians interpret this Severe Instruction differently, so here is a sampling from just THREE INTERPRETATIONS that represent a Consensus of sorts.

JOSEPH BENSON. “‘And will remove thy candlestick out of its place’ — This threatening, considered as addressed to the Angel or Pastor of the church, meant, ‘Unless thou repent, I will remove the flock now under thy care to another place, and put it under the care of another Pastor, where it shall be better taken care of.’ Considered as addressed to the church, it implies that it should no longer continue to be a church, if the members of it did not endeavour to recover their lost ground, and to shine at least with their former lustre; but that the hedge of discipline should be broken down, and the Light of the Gospel removed from them.” – Notes on the Holy Bible, 5 vols., 1811-1818; edited

WILLIAM MACDONALD. “‘They should ‘remember the days of their early faith’ [pre-Maga Christian Nationalism], repent of their diminishing of their first love, ‘and repeat’ [return to] the devoted service which characterized the outset of their Christian life. Otherwise He would remove the Lampstand at Ephesus, that is, ‘the assembly would cease to exist.’ Its testimony would die out.” – Believer’s Bible Commentary, 1995, p. 2356; edited

JOHN GILL. “‘And will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent;’or thee out of the candlestick, the Pastor from the church, ‘either by persecution or by death;’ or else the church, and church state itself, signified by a candlestick; See Gill on Revelation 1:12; and may design ‘a shaking and an unsettling of it,’ which is sometimes done by violent persecutions, and by false teachers and their doctrines, and by the divisions and contentions of saints among themselves; and by the former particularly was there a change made in the state of this apostolic church, when it passed into the Smyrnean one, which was a period of great persecution and distress.” – An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, 9 vols., 1746-1763; edited

DK. You will note that the first two interpretations amount to nothing more than the Pastor losing his job as the Lord literally shuts the church down, again, ‘once and for all.’ Based on survey data going back to at least 2014 by DR. GEORGE BARNA, they are clinging to those positions with all their might – which is part and parcel of their betrayal of Christ and Canon.

It is JOHN GILL who strikes closer to the heart of God’s Anger at dissolute and unfaithful shepherds here. I believe their sin is vastly graver than just leaving their first love. Indeed, they have ‘Broken Covenant’ with their King, feeding the flock lukewarm leftovers rather than the rich red meat of the True Gospel. The result of which is many of their flock losing faith and apostatizing.

Let me be clear – ‘Thereby sending many to the Flames of Perdition!’

Now if I am correct in my interpretation, then that Pastor or Leader is in a most exquisitely painful set of circumstances elucidated by the Prophet Jeremiah some 1,500 years before Christ issued this warning. It is one of the most terrifying Scriptures I have ever read concerning Pastors and Priests who fail at their calling – especially in the Last Dark Days filled with Falsehood.

I have cited it before, but it demands repeating here as a parallel warning to the one issued by Christ Himself.

“‘Woe to the shepherds (civil leaders, rulers) who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!’ says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, in regard to the shepherds who care for and feed My people: ‘You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; hear this, I am about to visit and attend to you for the evil of your deeds,’ says the Lord. ‘Then I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries to which I have driven them and bring them back to their folds and pastures; and they will be fruitful and multiply. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them. And they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,’ says the Lord.” – JEREMIAH 23:1-4, AMP

NEW SHEPHERDS. In still another brilliant essay by one of the few honorable voices in American Christendom, DR. RUSSELL MOORE holds forth to warn us of confusing the desire for “Revival” with “Nostalgia.” Quoting C.S. LEWIS, he warns that Revival of the Old American Christianity could be our death knell!

“Churches must stop the frantic rhetoric and desperate lack of confidence that seek to hold on to the Bible Belt of the past. Instead, those worthy of the word, ‘Evangelical,’ should nurture the joyous and tranquil fullness of faith that prays for ‘Something New,’ rooted in something Very Old—‘namely, a commitment to personal faith and to the authority of the Bible.’

That starts not with manifestos and strategic road maps, but with small-scale decisions ‘to reawaken the awe of the God Evangelicals proclaim.’ We must refocus our attention on ‘conversion’ rather than culture wars and ‘actually read the Bible’ rather than mine it for passages to win arguments. No individual can change the ‘Evangelical Movement’ alone. Change comes, first, person by person, then congregation by congregation. If enough of us would ‘embrace this sense of homelessness as our new normal’—as where we should have been all along—then we can rekindle a longing for a different Kingdom to call Home.

In a country exhausted by the quest to make America great again, perhaps ‘what we need is to make Evangelicalism born again.’ And, in the end, that’s not a strategy. ‘It’s a prayer.’” – “The American Evangelical Church Is In Crisis. There Is Only One Way Out,” The Atlantic, July 25, 2023; edited

THE NEW BISHOPS. Thus a Grand Return to a generation of Godly Leaders is absolutely vital to the Church Rehabilitation (not revival!). The Scriptures are lucid and precise on what such men should look like.

“This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.” – 1 TIMOTHY 3:1-7, NKJV

The Greek term for “BISHOP” is ‘Episkopos’ [ἐπίσκοπος], meaning: “‘A watcher, or overseer’ [who exercises vigilant care over the flocks and the doctrines]; also, a curator, guardian, superintendent.” WILLIAM MACDONALD points out the chief characteristic of such important Leaders in the Church: “Blamelessness!”

“The qualifications of a bishop are given in verses 2-7. They stress FOUR MAIN PREREQUISITES: Personal character, the witness of the home, teaching aptitude, and a measure of experience … ‘A bishop, then, must [above all] be blameless.’ This means that no charge of serious wrong can be sustained against him. It does not mean that he is sinless, but rather that if he does not commit some fault, he makes it right with both God and man. He must be irreproachable, not only having an untarnished reputation, but deserving it.” – 1995, p. 2086; edited

Such men are reminiscent of the Old Testament “Mighty Men” who served and fought alongside KING DAVID: Mature, fiercely loyal to the King, courageous, passionate, powerful, pure-hearted. Such leaders are nearly absent among American Evangelical Pastors. They just are, beloved! When I try to name them, I cannot get beyond those countable on a single hand.

Precisely why I believe God is raising up ‘largely unknown men’ for such Last Days purposes, men who firmly eschew the stamp of Celebrity Preacher so rife in American culture today. Neither does it matter whether or not they lead a formal congregation or small Bible study group.

As I see this unfolding, I believe ‘House Church’ will again become the norm, as it was in The Beginning (cf. Acts 2). Selah.

IV. LAST THOUGHTS

Beloved, the Nation and World are entering upon a massive, historic ‘Transfer’ from the Church Age to the Last Times. And as with all seismic shifts, it will prove to be chaotic, confusing and for many if not most, quite painful. This is why I continue to raise my voice and occasionally pump my fist in the air to awaken the people from their deadly slumber.

There has never been a time like this in all human history, and we have been blessed to be a part of this Transition from History to Eternity – but only, my dear friends, if we are willing to give God ‘full control’ over what time we have left.

Or as the old Hymn sings of it, one personally special to me as it was played at the conclusion of my first public testimony in 1981 at Lincoln Neighborhood Church to a packed house of about 220 people, most of whom were curiosity seekers from my old consorts from my Bacchanalian days.

THY HYMN. “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” is a Christian hymn that originated in Assam, India. According to tradition, the lyrics are based on the last words of NOKSENG, a Garo man, a tribe from Meghalaya which then was in Assam, who converted to Christianity in the middle of the 19th century through the efforts of an American Baptist missionary. He is said to have recited verses from the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John as he and his family were killed. The formation of the martyr’s words into a hymn has been attributed to the Indian missionary SADHU SUNDAR SINGH. – from Wikipedia, Dec. 21, 2023

The following is a summary of the key verses to the old hymn.

“I have decided to follow Jesus; No turning back, no turning back. Tho’ none go with me, I still will follow, My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus; No turning back, No turning back. The world behind me, the Cross before me, No turning back, no turning back.”

The days ahead will likely prove our most challenging ever, beloved. But if we choose to ‘yield’ to the One who has called us for this difficult hour, I promise you – It shall prove the most thrilling and honorable Adventure of your Lifetime, which shall burst though the very End of Times to splay all about the Eternal City for all to see, forever and ever and forever!

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/14S63_u5lvY