This week I asked an Iranian Christian Brother to share his thoughts on the Western Church. He told me I could use his name, knowing that I try to keep those in the persecuted church safe by not using their real names. However, I am choosing not to use his name this time not because of security reasons, but because I do not want you to see this as a message from an individual, but one that is from the Iranian church watching its Western counterpart being “lulled to sleep”. This a description of an Iranian sister of the American church in a documentary I watched recently. She was living “comfortably” in the United States with her American husband, but she did not want to fall asleep like the slumbering church she saw around her, so she told her husband she wanted to go back to Iran. She gave up her earthly freedoms and comfort to be free in Christ in a country that oppresses Christians.
Therefore, when you read this week’s message look at it as coming from the Iranian Church to its brothers and sisters in the West, who although having a lot of freedoms and maybe even worldly wealth, may still be missing out on the truth of the Gospel.
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Unfortunately, the church in the West has become an individual business or sometimes a family business. In the West, three things take precedence: money, money, money. Everything is measured by money. In the past, humans, made idols with a seductive body to attract people, so that they could make money. Even today, it is preached in the church as if Christ were the giant of the magic lamp and owned by the people. The people forget that they should take up the cross and it is not that Christ should take their wish list and fulfil it.
Unfortunately, there are many false and poisonous teachings in the churches. I remember a program in which a reporter asked a preacher woman, “People do not have the money to pay their bills and taxes, then you say give me one-tenth?” She said that if someone gives me one-tenth, God will bless him four times. They want to take money from people under any pretext. They become rich with the money of ordinary people and now the same people ask them the secret of becoming rich!!!
The church is the only hope and safe house of human beings, but it has become a place of adultery, impurity, theft, and the sale of Christ. For them, Christ is the means of income and progress. And these are not good images of Christianity and they do not understand that they are the showcase of Christianity. Even though they are not believers as they see the church as a means of trade, and the lives and souls of human beings are not important to them.
For example, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche sees from outside the churches, and he did not hesitate to say that Jesus was the "only one true Christian.”
But when I look at the Western Church, I think of Martin Luther King. He never deceived the people. He did not misuse Bible verses. He did not deceive my black brothers and sisters who were in persecution. He did not tell them, “If they beat you and you do not have the right to vote, there is no problem, if you are raped and insulted, there is no problem, one day God will wipe away every tear from your eyes.” Yes, he did not say that. He said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Yes, as Jesus stood against the Jewish mullahs (religious leaders), he also stood against the injustices according to the Word of God and the law of the United States, with the help of the people and gave his life in this way. He introduced Christianity to the world in practice. He showed that Christ creates freedom and revolution in the hearts of human beings, and this leads to the formation of freedom and revolution in societies. Unfortunately, he is no more. And I have never seen anyone like him. I wish one day to serve my Lord like him.
Amen
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This Iranian Christian brother also shared a couple Bible verses as a profile of false teachers, many of whom he has seen while watching satellite television in Iran.
Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. Jude 11-13
Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of his gifts falsely. Proverbs 25:14
Please do not think that only the preachers in the West should make changes in their lives and turn back to the truth of the Gospel. We, as Christians, all have to ask God to search our hearts to see if there is any wicked way in us.
Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith. 2 Corinthians 13:5
For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come—and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame. When the ground soaks up the falling rain and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has God’s blessing. But if a field bears thorns and thistles, it is useless. The farmer will soon condemn that field and burn it. Hebrews 6:4-8
“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. Matthew 7:21
Our Iranian Christian brother also said told me, “They don't talk about sin. They tell people what people want to hear.”
Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception. 1 John 4: 5-6
He also wanted to leave this Bible verse with us all.
Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places. Habbakuk 3:17-19
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