A Chilling Love Story
The work of Satan, to destroy the church of Jesus Christ, does have a great number of casualty stories. Many tragedies begin with a local congregation, calling an unbelieving pastor to shepherd them. Other cold cases begin when God sends a man of God to preach and teach God’s Word to a congregation, who despises the messenger and casts him out. It is God’s judgment, in removing a lamp stand, to send a false teacher, who will then tickle the unloving congregation’s ears with psychology or spiritualist babble.
The only way a person or family can protect themselves is to know the Scriptures and sound doctrine for themselves. They enter a local church, and they listen to the teaching and the Spirit, who gives them discernment, causing them to stay or leave. Growth, in the grace to love the truth, is entirely dependent on the Spirit granting that grace, to lead a Christian to a true embassy of the King of heaven.
When the called man of God is granted release of the fire in his bones (Jer 20:9), he preaches both heat and light. Light illumines the mind, and heat inflames the affections of believers. The result is a warming effect upon the Christian’s life and ministry. The preacher blows the wind of the Spirit on the embers of a cold, almost dead, congregation, which has left its first love (Rev 2:4). The end result is known as, “revival,” an exclusive work of God’s Spirit, by His will.
The false teacher is a menace to the church. His or her sermons serve to produce apostates to the faith. Serving Satan, in Christ’s church, will eventually result in apostasy. The regenerate elect surely came out of that congregation long before. The lamp stand is removed from the church that once had a reputation for faithfulness and vibrant holiness. What happened?
Love waxed cold (Mt 24:12). It is the ever-present danger for every church family. Diluted and twisted preaching is cold and dark. The knowledge of the truth wanes, faithful ones leave for greener pastures (rightly divided Scripture preaching), and the situation worsens. Love for the truth gives way to love for the world and its philosophies.
Christ is not the head of an apostate gathering. His Spirit is not present. The reprobate have poisoned the bread and wine, and the filthy unrepentant are granted an ice-cold baptism in sewage water.
The lover of Christ loves to hear the voice of Christ from His sent messenger. Christians hunger and thirst for His words of love and comfort. Knowing His love and experiencing His Spirit’s love in their hearts, they are set ablaze, in the Spirit, to serve His glory.
Lovers of the truth gravitate toward one another. They share in their delight at sound doctrine. The Word of God is everything to them. The comfort of God’s Word, during past trials, inclines their desire to hear and know more.
Jesus warned that love would grow cold with apostasy, brought on by false teaching — an act of lawlessness. Many will fall away in this repeated scenario. As false prophets arise, and many are deceived, love is replaced by hate (Mt 24:10–11). This ugly denigration in the church will find its ultimate expression with the preaching of Antichrist (2 Thess 2), the false messiah, who serves the god of this world (2 Cor 4:4).
Those who tasted the good things of God, and subsequently departed the church, later serve to be the worst critics and persecutors of God’s people. Whereas, the Christian proves her love, by obedience to the Law of Christ, the Law of love, the apostate forsakes the Law of God because the love of the truth, the love of Christ, is absent. The latter promotes sin, and sinful lifestyles, in open defiance.
Christian, examine yourself, and examine your preacher. Is the Word of God why you attend your local church? Are you growing spiritually enough to recognize the value of your privileged position, sitting under the appointed man of God, sent to you? Or does he fail the test? Are you comforted by the presence of those who are seasoned saints, mature Christians, who also attend your congregation? Or do they also fail the test?
Love never fails (1 Cor 13:8), but if love grows cold, doom is written on the wall of that church. Love is the warm wind from heaven, exclusively received in the faithful preaching event. What is the temperature in your heart for God’s Word? Hopefully, yours is not a chilling love story.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
November 29, 2021
