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For any given topic in end time prophecy, there are 57 varieties of opinion. Heinz Law of Eschatology.

Introduction

Childish Things

Over the years, the Lord has shown me many things out of his word. I have written about the end times, revival, the kingdom, the church and the second coming in my other articles. Another topic that comes often is disputes and divisions in the church. We have an unending number of differences of opinion. In fact, it seems that whenever two Christians from different churches get together, one of the first things they do is to find something do disagree about. We have cases where there are a good number of scriptures that support either side of a question. And we have cases where a given scripture can be interpreted in two or more ways. Lack of maturity is what prevents God’s people from agreeing on these issues and coming into ‘unity of the faith.’ How is this so?

Our first opening quote above refers to doubtful disputations. My paraphrase of it is, accept your brothers and sisters in the Lord who are weak in faith, or immature; but don’t get into foolish arguments with them. These next two quotes reinforce that idea.

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In other words, don’t get yourself tangled up in stupid arguments with immature believers. As these quotes indicate, they are ‘doubtful’, ‘unprofitable’ ‘unwise’ and cause a lot of friction.  

One way of expressing why you should avoid these arguments is simply that it’s childish. As I said, the Lord has shown me many things about the end times. Occasionally, he would go over them and summarize them to me. The way this worked was like this. I would imagine myself sharing or speaking on these topics to an audience somewhere, and the Lord would be giving me the things to say to them. [Some refer to this as the anointing to preach.] As I was doing this one day, it occurred to me that in my discussion, I never touched on the subject of the Pre-Trib Rapture. And furthermore, that some listeners would think this unusual since it has been a really big issue for some time. What if, I thought, someone would bring up a question like this: ‘But, sir, you are not even trying to disprove the pretrib rapture!’ Well that’s right; I never even consider it an option. But I asked the Lord, well Lord what do I say if someone asks me that? His answer really startled me! Or rather, as some might say, it blew me away! He said: When I became a man, I put away childish things.

Wow! How like him to cut through all the stuff and nonsense and get right to the heart of the matter! Now even after about 10 years, I’m still learning the full implications of what he spoke to me that evening. That’s what this essay is about.

One of these implications is this. To a mature believer, the pre-trib teaching is absolute childish nonsense, period, end of discussion. What does this have to say about the level of maturity in the church today? Well for the most part it says there is no level of maturity in the church today. Some few individuals are approaching maturity, but for in general you’re not going to find much maturity anywhere. [What maturity I might have myself is purely the Lord’s doing and nothing I accomplished by my own efforts, I assure you.]

So it’s the immature Christians that get caught up in foolish fussin’, fuedin’, and fightin’. The mature are to avoid all that. I have found my self in several cases submitted to men that had far greater experience, authority, and ministry credentials than mine. Yet in these situations I was often puzzled by why they could not see the things the Lord was revealing to me in the scriptures. Now I realize that it’s simply that they were immature. Even those with many years in the ministry, that you would expect to be mature users of the Word, turned out to be immature. In many cases that was because of stumbling blocks in their lives.

I was looking to them as experts in the word, but it turned out that I was more expert than they were. And I was putting myself at a disadvantage by regarding them as superiors. It was realizing this, which lead to this article.

As we proceed, we are going to look at what maturity is; and how it is linked with faith and wisdom. Then we’ll consider what common obstacles to it exist.

Part One
Maturity and Wisdom

Maturity is having the faith to acquire wisdom. The mature have faith and get wisdom. This is a matter of degree, not an either or situation. The mature have a degree of faith and have received a degree of wisdom.

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We see that those who have been in ministry and should be capable teachers are spoken of as those who need teaching. This is the condition of the church today. This passage contrasts the mature, those of full age, with the babes in terms of consuming meat or milk, in relation to the oracles of God. The word oracle is related to oration or speaking. So Hebrews here is talking about God speaking. As we get farther along, we will be able to see exactly what are the first principles of the oracles of God.

Now here is the context of the phrase the Lord spoke to me that I mentioned above.

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In general this whole passage speaks of a great transition. It’s the transition from a child to a man; from the immature to the mature. We change from being those who know in part, and prophesy in part to those who know even as we are known. We go from seeing things very dimly, to seeing things quite plainly.

We start as babes in Christ, who are nourished by the milk of the word. We must mature to become like those of full age who are nourished by strong meat.

This passage from Ephesians 4 covers much of the same ideas. It speaks of the 5 fold ministry and its purpose, to help in the perfecting of the saints. That is another way of saying to help lead them out of the childish ways into maturity.

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Notice how it talks about growing up and being children no longer; leaving behind childish things and childish ways. The children are pictured as being tossed about, and carried away with constantly changing doctrines and differing opinions. They are easy marks for trickery, craftiness and deception. They are contrasted with the mature that come into unity of the faith, and achieve a level of perfection as they grow up into a likeness of Christ.

Those teachers – you have 10,000 instructors in Christ – whom you notice are immature in the word are to be avoided, except in the very basics.

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They are essentially and automatically disqualified as teachers or expositors of the word. They will of course have some truth and accuracy in what they have to share, but you will find it thoroughly mixed with error and man’s opinion. This of course includes all Christian denominations and camps, to a greater or lesser degree. We should not be bothered to argue or dispute with them, as with any who are weak in faith. From God’s point of view, the differences between denominations are often nothing more than children arguing on the playground that really have no idea what they are talking about. .

No Undecided Voters

A few weeks before the last presidential election here in America, I got into a discussion with a co-worker who supported the candidate I opposed. One thing he mentioned was very intriguing. Actually, all the polling data about the undecided voter was just a lot of bunk, he claimed. There are no undecided voters; the election will not be won by swaying the undecided voter, or by persuading those of the opposing party to switch their votes. The election will go to who ever gets out the vote. [I personally feel that the heavy rain all election evening here in Ohio is what swung the state into the Republican camp.]

The next interesting point he made was that people did not give the real or honest reason they vote one way or another. In this election, he felt, people were actually quite indifferent to the personality and character of John Kerry. And they really weren’t moved by the candidate’s stands on the issues. People were going to vote one way or the other because they either liked the incumbent Pres. Bush or because they hated him. And the issues were irrelevant, and the personality of his opponent, Kerry made no difference. Now they might give a great deal of reasons for voting one way or the other, but that meant nothing really. The fact was that most people have their minds made up and simple arguments would not persuade them. And that’s because their minds were made up on an emotional basis. Nobody is going to admit that the real reason they vote the way they do is not based on sound logic. But for some it is a personal like or dislike, and for some, it may be simply party affiliation. Character and programs mattered not at all.

Reason Has A Limited Effect

Generalizing on this idea, it seems that reasoning and logic does not convince people to change their views. Ultimately their views and opinions are not entirely rational. Now reason can have a great influence in many cases, but where it meets resistance it will not carry the day. We know from the bible and from experience that there are great spiritual influences on the mind. And these are capable of controlling or conditioning the thinking of entire populations where they hold sway.

No matter what you say, some people are set in their views and cannot be swayed by any rational means. The real reasons for their attitudes may be will hidden behind a smokescreen of excuses and rationalizations.

This brings us back to avoiding foolish disputes. The immature Christian will get into foolish debates because they are still babes, feeding on the milk of the word. They are still weak in the faith. They will latch onto some theory, and nothing can budge them. Reasoning from the scriptures does not sway them, because their ideas or the ideas they have been taught, have become a stronghold in their thinking.

And what do we mean by weak in the faith? We are told that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. This can mean faith comes by hearing the word of God. Or in a more complex analysis, that faith is the ability to hear the word of God, and this hearing comes from ‘The Word of God’, that is Jesus. This said another way is that Jesus gives the ability to hear his word.

So what do we mean by hearing in this case? Spiritual hearing of course. When Jesus rebukes his critics in John 8 it says:

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Here it’s not whether they can hear what he is saying to them. They could just holler 'Speak Up Louder' if that was the case. Their problem is they have no Spiritual ears to hear the meaning of Jesus’ words. The idea is restated in verse 47.

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This does not only apply to the ungodly, but to the immature Christian. When one comes to the lord, he can read the word and this is feeding on the milk. As you mature, you begin to hear the word as well. This is learning to feed on the meat, and it should always increase. So hearing is not just hearing with the ears, it is understanding. Likewise, seeing is not just seeing with the eyes, but understanding or comprehending.

The First Principle Of The Oracles Of God.

As we mentioned the word oracle refers to speech. So the oracles of God are what God is speaking. And the first principle is that you have to hear. It is repeated 7 times in the book of revelation.

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Skepticism

The hard core skeptic will refuse to accept that there is any spiritual side to life at all. He will always find or make up some natural explanation for anything that happens. To those whose world view allows for a spiritual dimension, and accept the existence of spirits, many events are obviously supernatural in cause. To the skeptic, it’s just coincidence. But coincidence is often exactly what God uses to emphasize things to those who have an ear to hear. [On Sep. 11, 2002 the numbers 9 1 1 came out in the New York State lottery; coincidence?]

The Limits Of Mans Reason

You can only go so far in teaching or explaining the bible. There comes a point where you have to let the student or the audience figure out things for themselves. The immature believer is not going to get it; the skeptic is not going to accept it. Only the Spirit of God will lead them to make the right conclusion.

The Divinity of Jesus

For example in Revelation, there is a description of God’s throne in heaven. It is said to be surrounded by the four beasts. Later you see where it says that in the midst of the throne, and in the midst of the four beasts there stood a lamb. A believer can read this and in a flash of insight, reach a conclusion that Jesus is God. For him, because the Spirit can quicken his insight, this can be a proof text. A skeptic can look at this same passage and just as easily say ‘I don’t see where this proves anything!’

Another passage used as a proof text is in John 20: 28 when doubting Thomas places his hand into Jesus’ wounded side, and exclaims, My Lord and My God! To a believer this is a proof text of the Divinity of Jesus. To a skeptic or a member of a movement or cult that denies the Divinity of Jesus, it’s no proof at all. They can easily claim that Thomas is just using a figure of speech. As someone who says “Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” or “Holy Smoke!” is merely expressing astonishment.

The idea here is that if someone doesn’t want to accept a certain idea, or believe a certain doctrine, they will always be able to come up with an alternative explanation. If they have not been given any insight by the Spirit or they are hindered by one of the stumbling blocks the result is much the same. They will go off in the wrong direction.

Likewise the anti-rapture school will often go too far and reject any covenant promises with Israel as applying to natural Israel. This gets them into replacement theology, and dangerously close to anti-Semitism. It is a typical over-reaction to the excesses of dispensationalism. These thinkers will find themselves saying things like “The restoration of the State of Israel in 1948 has absolutely nothing to do with bible prophecy.” Well, duh! How is anybody going to be taken seriously when they deny something as obvious as that? Man’s logic in this case gets him to the point of denying the obvious.

No matter what you say, some people are set in their views and cannot be swayed by reason or scripture. The real reasons for their attitudes may be will hidden behind a smokescreen of excuses and rationalizations. Or you may just have a case of outright refusal to believe.

Once I had an opportunity to share a taped testimony of someone who God had raised from the dead. Marvin Ford suffered a fatal heart attack and was dead on the hospital bed for one half hour. In his testimony he describes his experience in heaven, and how he saw his pastor come to the hospital, and pray over his corpse. Then he was back in his body, alive again. My neighbor listened to this and refused to believe it. He argued, well that never could have happened because after being dead that long, his brain cells would be dead and he would just be a vegetable if he woke up again. Well DUH! What does it take? Did this guy ever stop to think? If God could bring someone’s body back to life, wouldn’t that include the brain cells? But it was no use debating him. No wonder Jesus said:

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So we are to avoid foolish disputes with those weak in the faith, because unless they can hear directly from God for themselves, nothing will convince them. They are may be swayed by some experience or jostled by a show of power, but mere discourse will have little effect.

Receiving Divine Revelation

How does knowledge come? Through man’s wisdom or God’s? Here is an important illustration from Matthew 16.

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Let’s take a look at what is going on here. First Jesus asks them, who do men say that I am? And they list several alternatives. These are like theories based on man’s wisdom. Then he asks them: Who do you say that I am?

Then Peter, being given a typical multiple choice question on an exam, picks: None of the above. He is saying: none of the theories of men are right, and none of the wisdom of man carries any weight. You are Christ, the Son of the living God!

And then Jesus says [I’m amplifying his remarks] Blessed you are indeed! Blessed because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you. That is you didn’t get it from studying the theories of other men, you didn’t get it from reading the latest best seller, or the most profound scholarly commentaries. And you didn’t figure it out all on your own. Yet you have this knowledge and that’s because you got it directly from God in Heaven.

[And that’s where any real knowledge must come from.]

The contrast between mature and immature is phrased as a comparison between the spiritual and the carnal, or fleshly in 1 Cor. 3

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The passage above mentions that the spoken words are life. This is also seen in the passages on Jesus’ temptation.

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People are set in their views and cannot be swayed by reason or scripture. But we see here that Divine Revelation, God’s wisdom, can overcome and override all of that.

So we are to avoid foolish disputes with those weak in the faith, because unless they can hear directly from God for themselves, nothing will convince them. They are may be swayed by some experience or jostled by a show of power, but mere discourse will have little effect.

Wisdom of Man vs. the Power of God

Now if people are set in their views and cannot be swayed by reason what does it take to make a change? Consider these passages which compare the spoken word to the Power of the Spirit

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Consider how the Spirit is described here in John 14 as one who teaches and brings things into remembrance.

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To provide an example of a more mature, in depth approach consider the following In the above passage from 1 Cor 4 a very similar description is given for Timotheus. This is a clue that the passage from 1 Cor 4 is allegorical. The speaker is Jesus, [not Paul] and Timotheus is used as a type of the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus who is saying be ye followers of me. The Holy Spirit is the one who is to teach and bring things into memory. And the mention of the coming to us and the nature of the Kingdom has end time implications. For now we have ten thousand instructors but where is the maturity? It’s found in those who are followers; those who can hear.

Another Example

We mentioned that someone can always find an alternate explanation for a bible passage. People have used the bible to prove just about anything. And it’s not just the bible; people can come up with reasons for just about anything. Man’s capacity for self justification and self delusion seems unlimited.

Now the bible gives a very interesting example of exactly this process. In Psalms 26 you can find two sequential verses that tell you to do the exact opposites. And each one has a good reason given to justify it. [And the question may well be about foolish disputes.]

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The point here is with the letter of the law you can find a reason for just about anything. There are many issues of debate in the church where people on both sides of an issue can come up with scripture to prove their point. [Do we keep the Sabbath on Saturday or have worship service on Sunday, is one example that comes to mind.] Going with the letter of the law, we are just never going to reach agreement. Some of these questions can never be settled by arguing over the scripture. Proverbs 3 puts it another way.

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When faced with a demand for proof by the scripture, you can talk till you are blue in the face and it won’t make any difference, without the Spirit to open the ears of the listener. Depending on your own logic automatically means you are no longer trusting the Lord. But when you ‘acknowledge him’ you admit that you can’t figure these things out on your own. He will lead the way, trust him enough to follow.

Is it any wonder that Jesus’ would say:

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Once again, reasoning and logic does not convince people to change their views. Someone who is holding a certain view point can always find alternate explanations or simply go into denial. They are leaning on their own understanding.

Existentialism

The famous existentialist philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, based a lot of his arguments on a hypothetical moral dilemma. He proposed a situation in which a young man was torn between duty to his country and duty to his parents. Then he showed that Religion did not provide any answer to this dilemma. You could find strong reasons for both sides of the question and no way of convincingly answering it. Since religion has no answers, he rejected belief in God. [In logic, this is called a non sequitur or as we say nowadays, it does not compute.] The mature Christian will know that religion has no answers, God  has the answers , and they are found in seeking him! Religion is just the dead letter of the law. Or it is a system of man made rules that promise salvation but can never deliver. It is a work of the flesh.

Mixed with Faith

Another way of expressing this is to look at the idea of the word mixed with faith.

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This is saying the word needs to be mixed or received by faith. For those without faith, the word is of little or no benefit.

What is the word that is not mixed with faith? It’s the plain word with no Spirit in it. It is natural, not supernatural; or flesh not spirit. The word mixed with faith is supernatural.

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Let’s look at this verse. He that comes to God must believe he is. The skeptic is not going to get very far studying the word. He will not be very able to hear the voice of one he thinks doesn’t exist! [We believe he is because he says I AM!]

Next, we believe he is a rewarder of those who intensely seek him. How does he reward his seekers? One answer is for those who seek him, he gives of himself. Those who seek him, find … him. That is they find more of him. He reveals more and more of himself to you! And there is always more to be found. This is the Key of Knowledge and way to maturity.

Examples:

This passage speaks of seeking wisdom and finding it as you would find a hidden treasure.

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This next passage speaks of the gradual growth to maturity which comes from seeking Him.

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Now this passage speaks of the hidden treasures found in him, and contrasts it with the enticing words of men.

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This passage speaks of knowing the Lord by receiving hidden riches, or to invert that, receiving the riches which is knowing the Lord.

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Without faith it is impossible to please him. Romans 10 adds this:

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And 1st Corinthians points out that:

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John adds this:

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All of this put together is very significant. Without the hearing of the word, it’s impossible to understand the word. The hearing of the word is the second witness. The Spirit who gives illumination or sheds light on the word will do so to the extent that you are able to understand. So someone with more background knowledge or who already understands some parts of the bible is able to receive deeper revelation of any given passage. In this way each revelation can become the foundation or background of the next revelation. There are often multiple levels, multiple meanings and multiple lessons potentially to be found in the word. So the Spirit may reveal quite different things to different readers from the same bible verse.

Having the word ‘mixed with faith’ means hearing the voice of God. This is inherently a supernatural thing. The hearing of faith is what lets us understand the word. This sheds new light on the verse that says without faith it is impossible to please him. Well obviously, if you’re not hearing what he says, you won’t know what he wants you to do! We need the hearing of faith, then comes the obedience of faith. With these then, we may be able to please God.

Two Witnesses

We just mentioned that hearing the word is the second witness. Let’s look at the idea of having 2 witnesses.

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Here we have a few verses relating to the idea that 2 or more witnesses are needed to prove something. In the Old Testament verses, they are witnesses in a case of a capital crime. The 2 witnesses are needed to establish the guilt of a guilty party when there is a death sentence possible.

In the case of the New Testament verses, capital punishment is not the issue; the principle is applied much more broadly. It covers any situation where positive proof is needed.

Early in my Christian walk, I was taught that these verses were the foundation of a principle of Bible Study. That is they are generalized. This means that in order to prove or establish a teaching or doctrine, you needed to find 2 verses of the bible that said roughly the same thing to support whatever you were trying to prove.

Well this made some sense, and nobody questioned it at the time. It was one of those things you were taught as a baby Christian and never gave much thought to. So what’s the problem with it, you ask? Well, everyone gave this principle ‘lip service’ and that’s all. It’s one of those things that you can use for emphasis when you have 2 verses that support what you’re trying to say. But when you don’t have 2 verses, well shucks, 1 will do just fine. That is to say, everyone said they agreed with the 2 witness, 2 verse theory. But nobody actually applied it in any honest way. I have never heard any teaching challenged because the teacher failed to supply 2 verses to make his point. We all operate on the basis that if you can find it in the word of God, then that’s enough proof. God only needs to say something once. After all the word is considered infallible and without error. So if God said something, even if only once, it’s still something that God said, and has to be true. After all do we go through the bible and rip out every verse that doesn’t have a backup somewhere else in the bible? Of course not! So what’s wrong with this picture? Why does God say to establish every word by two witnesses? Is this meant to apply only to specific situations where witnesses are called to testify? Is it a mistake to apply this to the word of God itself? Does the Word of God need 2 witnesses before we believe it? Or rather does the Word of God require 2 witnesses before we can understand it? Putting that another way, can we believe, and thereby obey something we don’t understand?

We find the 2 witness idea repeated several times in the bible, so it must be important; yet we’re not sure how to apply it. The reason is we are looking at the matter in an entirely wrong way.

Just recently, I got some new revelation on the matter. We were in a discussion with a skeptical young man about some issues of the bible and faith. I had challenged him to puzzle out the events in John 8: 1-11 on the basis of some background info about the Pharisees, and some verses from the law of Moses. One of these was De 17:6 quoted above. His comment about it really opened my eyes to what the real issue was here. And I found it tied in perfectly with my thinking in preparing this essay.

What he said was: Moses is calling for 2 or three witnesses here. But the only witness that I have that this is really the word of God is Moses. Well, I had never thought about it that way! It’s like we take it for granted that the words in the Bible are the words of God which the Holy Spirit spoke to the various authors, like Moses, which they then went and wrote down. So Moses is the witness. When we read the word of God at the hand of Moses, Moses is the witness that this is what God said. Even if we find 3, 4 or 5 verses that support one of our ideas, there is still only 1 witness! And that witness is Moses. So my friend says, here I am taking Moses word that this is what God said. But Moses is still just one witness!

So I explained to this young man how I understood the inspiration for the bible works. As I did so, the understanding came to me, even while I was talking, that the second witness has to be the Holy Spirit! Here is how I presented it.

The Bible says that ‘all scripture is given by inspiration of God. ‘[i.e. the Holy Spirit.] Now this works two ways. Like in the case of Moses, the Lord said to him, take and write these words in a book. Well the Lord appears to Moses and tells him, or he speaks the words directly into his mind. And Moses writes down exactly what God says. He doesn’t need to understand what God means by any of it. All he has to do is write it down exactly as given to him. That’s the first way that scripture is given by the Spirit.

A witness is someone who gives testimony. A biblical writer is giving his testimony that he has written what God told him to write. If you think he is writing down his own thoughts, or doing it on his own initiative, you have missed it big time.

A testament is another word for testimony. So the bible, new and old, is just a series of testimonies. It’s one witness, the Spirit is the second one!

The second way the Spirit gives scripture is by giving it to the reader! As the reader is reading in the bible, the Spirit will give him bits and pieces of it. He opens the understanding of the reader so that it makes sense. And if you’re reading parts of the bible without the guidance of the Spirit, you just won’t get it. Get it?

So in reading Moses or Matthew or any book of the Bible, the first witness is the bible itself. You’re reading a long, confusing, vague and boring book that claims to be the word of God. That’s your first witness, the book claims to be the word of God. Now along comes the Spirit and takes the long, confusing, vague and boring book, and brings it to life by showing you what things mean. That’s your second witness. And with these 2 witnesses you can prove things. The written word by itself is just a dead letter. The letter kills but the Spirit Gives Life. So the letter plus the Spirit gives life. That’s two witnesses. That’s the word mixed with faith!

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So the implication of this is that without the Spirit, no word can be established. The Spirit is our proof, not man’s wisdom. Any speaker or writer who is not inspired by the spirit is just presenting another theory. These theories are mostly man’s logic and wisdom, even when there is some truth in them. Regardless of someone’s experience, status or credentials, their theories are just so much ‘foolish disputations’. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the Spirit behind it.

Stringing Pearls and Connecting Dots

We said above that, when it comes to the bible in many cases, without the guidance of the Spirit, you just won’t get it. The phrase ‘get it’ is especially suited here because it can be a lot like getting a joke. It requires something to click in, in your understanding for you to get a joke. In fact there is a joke on this very topic. For some people, it seems that they laugh 3 times at every joke. The first time the laugh is when you tell it. The second time they laugh is after you explain it. And the third time they laugh is a day or so later when they finally get it!

Apply this to bible study. You can read the verses and get a little bit. You can have some teacher explain them to you, and get a little more. But when the Holy Spirit gives you insight, they you really have a handle on things.

Now consider a children's dot-to-dot coloring book. You must connect the dots in the correct order before you can see the picture in order to color it. Connecting the dots is like stringing the pearls. I first heard the phrase 'stringing pearls' in a teaching of Zola Levitt. It was used in the time of Jesus to describe a common method of expounding upon the scriptures practiced in the Jewish Synagogues in Galilee and Judea. A speaker would hold forth on a theme of his choice and cite verses from different parts of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms as part of his teaching. The scriptures are compared to pearls and the train of thought that connects them is a string joining the pearls. So pearls were understood to symbolize verses of Holy Scripture. The dots are like pearls. When they are strung together in the right order, you begin to see the picture clearly. So it takes some study to connect the dots, and then a flash of insight to recognize what the picture is.

Lining Up With The Word

We hear often that so and so’s teachings do not line up with the word. Or that someone’s vision, dream or prophecy does not agree with scripture. If it doesn’t line up with the word, throw it out we are told. Most often this kind of talk comes from those who are basically immature in the word, and have little understanding of the deeper meanings in the word. In effect, they are saying that ‘such and such teaching or theory’ does not agree with my understanding of the word, so it must be wrong. So they want God to conform to them. In their pride, they never consider that there might something lacking in their understanding.

For example, we have many visions and prophesies about end time revival and harvest. The critics will throw these out, claiming that the bible makes no mention of end time revival and harvest. Now if these visions, etc, are correct, they constitute direct revelation by the Spirit. This is where the critic will jump in and come against the very idea of revelation knowledge. Critics will argue that  God has nothing new to say; he said it all in his word; and the word must be sufficient. And they will maintain this without offering any scriptural proof.

What we need to be asking is whether the Spirit is giving any light on the scriptures that provide an interpretation which lines up with the prophecies. If you look in the scriptures you will find that that’s exactly how God operates. He will reveal something directly and then show it to you in the scriptures. This is two witnesses establishing a word. Here is a case in point from when Jesus meets the two disciples on the road after he has risen from the dead.

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First he tells them directly: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? Then he takes them into the bible and shows it to them in the written word. Many of the passages in Isaiah speak of a suffering servant, for example. But it’s not clear who they apply to. New Testament passages spell out the fact that they refer to Jesus. Here is a well known instance of such a clarification.

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Now Peter, referring to Jesus, clears up the question of whose stripes we are talking about.

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So when immature believers claim they don’t see something in the bible, the problem is not what is in the bible or not in the bible. The problem is in what they can see. It’s not a question of whether something or other is not in the bible; it’s just that they don’t see it! Or rather they don’t see it with spiritual eyes; they don’t understand it.

Part 2
The Stumbling Blocks

What is a Stumbling Block? It’s called stone of stumbling or rock of offense and it keeps you from walking the right path, or getting where you should be going. .

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The stumbling blocks come in two groups, one a set of ideas, perhaps mental strongholds. The other is a set of attitudes. Any one of these can provide a major stumbling block keeping one from receiving revelation knowledge and moving on toward maturity.

Another interesting reference stumbling blocks is in Isaiah 57. Here it talks about the stumbling block being removed and mentions revival to come to those who are humble and contrite. [Those who have repented.] So stumbling blocks stand in the way of maturity, and of revival!

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Stumbling Blocks I

The Sacred Cows

The first group is a set of ideas or methods used to approach the study of the Word of God. I have called them The Sacred Cows of Bible Study, in one of my other articles, so I won’t go into detail here.

Here they are:

Literalism

The literal interpretation of the bible.

Law of Context

The notion that context is all important to understanding the bible.

Historical Approach

The use of scholarly analysis to bring out the meaning of the bible.

Systematic Theology

The attempt to construct a comprehensive theory that explains the entire bible.

The Scholars and the Scholarly Approach

All of these ‘sacred cows’ are part and parcel of a scholarly approach to the Word. Fundamentally, this is a form of worldly thinking, and an attempt to achieve worldly acceptance of theology as an academic discipline. Now this should tell us right off the bat that there is something wrong with this picture. First, in this approach we are using the ways of the world to expound on the word of God, Second, we are seeking the approval of man in our efforts. It shouldn’t be too hard to find scripture that speaks against these ways. [Let that be your homework assignment.]

We need to see that this approach is automatically and inherently immature, period, end of discussion. It will not lead us into the depths of God’s word, but only into ‘foolish disputing’ and fruitless dead ends.

I recently picked up a copy of Introduction to Biblical Interpretation at a used book sale. It was published in 1993 by Word Inc. Three authors and an editor, all carrying the title Dr. and all from Denver Seminary produced this 500 some page scholarly tome. The back dust jacked carried glowing recommendations from luminaries at Gordon-Cromwell Seminary, University of Aberdeen, Fuller Theological Seminary, Asbury Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Trinity Western University. Are you impressed yet?

Now to see what these gentlemen really knew about biblical interpretation, I consulted the index of subjects at the back of the book. Typology is mentioned on only 4 pages, and considered in depth on two additional pages. Allegory is covered on only two pages. Symbols and symbolism were not even listed.

In their analysis of typology, it quickly became clear that they based everything on understanding what the ‘biblical authors’ intentions were. This shows a clear lack of faith in the divine inspiration of the bible. What were Moses’ intentions when the Lord told him to write his words in a book? If Moses had any sense at all, his intent would be to write the words of God in a book! So if you focus on Moses’ intentions, [or any other biblical author’s], you completely miss the idea. What were God’s intentions in speaking these words in the first place?

Since the meaning of biblical passages in not always precisely clear, to make an understatement, you have to ask the author to explain things to you. [We call this, in Christian jargon, inquiring of the Holy Spirit.] To put it bluntly, the bible is deliberately vague, confusing, and boring. [Try and find a preacher who will admit that.] You need the Spirit to reveal the meaning. The authors of this work clearly acknowledge this need, but they get it all backward. Their teaching is that while the Spirit is needed, correct interpretation relies more on careful study and analysis of the text. Their acknowledgement of the need for the Spirit is pure lip service. What you really need, according to the scholars, are dictionaries, commentaries, word studies, and social-historical research; and the proper methods to use them. Could this be a case of the blind leading the blind?

Now the bible is there for anyone to study, not just trained scholars. Religion would have the people depending on the clergy; the rabbi’s, priests, and ministers; especially the theologians. But the bible tells us directly that wisdom and understanding come from the Lord, not from study. True we are told to study and meditate on the word, but also to seek the Lord for wisdom. The bible is a sealed book except to those who have ears to hear.

When I first got saved and came into a Christian church, it was a Pentecostal styled denomination called Full Gospel. [Oddly enough this denomination considered itself non-denominational.] One of the first things we were taught is that God is going to bring a great end time revival and harvest. This I later learned is a keystone of what is called Pentecostal Theology. We were shown various scriptures, references to the latter rain, etc, and taught how these were seen as pointing to such a harvest. Other denominations did not teach this at all. I had long been puzzled as to why some could see this and others couldn’t.

Let’s put it another way. Where some look in the bible and see end time revival and harvest others only see end time falling away, [apostasy] and judgment. Well as the skeptics argue, end time revival and harvest is just not there. That is unless the Spirit shows it to you, it’s just not there. But once you receive it as divine revelation, then it becomes obvious. [A similar issue could be: Is the church the bride of Christ?]

All the scriptures that suggest revival and harvest mean nothing to the skeptic because he hasn’t got ears to hear! As Faith comes by hearing, you can conclude that they simply are just weak in faith. They are not hearing from the Spirit in this area. And that’s likely to be because of stumbling blocks or strongholds in their thinking. But we are to avoid ‘foolish disputes’ with our brothers who are weak in the faith. There is no point even arguing with them about some of these issues. Their understanding is darkened; to them the books of the bible are sealed.

Objective Or Subjective, The Limitations Of Science

One of the objections that scholars have to employing allegory in bible study has been the loss of objectivity. Allegory must be subjective, these scholars feel and thus can’t be depended upon to come up with an interpretation everyone can agree on. This points to a fundamental assumption. This is the idea that we can draw conclusions from the Bible in just the same way that science reaches conclusions based on empirical observation and experiment. Once again this is to approach the word of God using the ways of the world. It’s inherently immature.

In our day and age science is looked on as the ultimate achievement of man’s mind. And the accomplishments of technology as a testament to man’s greatness. So the scholarly approach goes the same direction because it seems to work in other areas.

Few people are aware and still fewer people point out that empirical science and its handmaid mathematical logic have encountered serious dead ends. In mathematics, the queen of the sciences we are limited by the incompleteness theorem, which underscores the limits of man’s reason. Physics, the king of the sciences is even more seriously plagued by the uncertainty principle. This makes it clear that objective knowledge based on observation is always conditioned by the interaction between the event observed and the ones doing the observation. To put that more simply, the act of observing has an effect on the thing you are trying to observe, so you can never be sure of what is really happening. [See End Notes] Ultimately objectivity is a fiction, because the presence of the observer always has some influence on the phenomena being observed. [This is quite easy to see in the field of journalism of course.]

Intelligent Design

Since we’re on the topic of science, these recent hearings on creationism vs. evolution are a real curious case. Is this a debate over the scientific merits of Darwin’s theory, or is it really a debate on the existence of God. Come on, let’s stop kidding around. If creationism or the theory of intelligent design makes more since than the theory of evolution, what does that prove? The existence of God, what else?

This question of the existence of God is not an academic exercise. Nor is it some abstract philosophical puzzle or exercise in objective scientific study. You can say that the question of some obscure fact may be relatively objective. For instance, you can say, OK so Mars has two moons, big deal, what’s that got to do with me? Answer: nothing.

But if you say intelligent design is the only thing that really makes any since, so there must be a God. Big deal, what’s that got to do with me? Answer: everything.

When it comes to God, it’s no longer a matter of objective facts, it’s extremely subjective because you are involved whether you want to be or not. And once you acknowledge God, the next question is what are you going to do about it. If creationism is right, and God exists, then there are rules that should govern my behavior. But if evolution is right, then I can do whatever I want. But then so can everyone else. That’s the law of the jungle. The farther away you get from God’s law, the closer you get to chaos.

God Is Revealing Himself, The Revelation Of Jesus Christ

When you realize that God is revealing himself to you as he reveals the depths of meaning in his word, the scholarly ways just become so much trivia. Now consider that God will reveal different, but not opposite things, to different people about the very same scripture. And consider that he will reveal different things about the same scriptures to the same person at different times. You can see that there are multiple meanings and levels in His Word.

I recall a preacher who preached two weeks every night on John 3:16. Each sermon was different! God showed him different things to preach on each day.

The demand for objectivity in bible interpretation is the search for the single correct meaning of a passage, based on a man made principle of interpretation. This has proven to be fruitless. Objective, independently verifiable truth is an element of worldly thinking. When it comes to the word of God, it just won’t work. After all Jesus is the Word of God, and He says ‘I am truth’. Discovering truth then means receiving the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And this is only by varying degrees, as he reveals himself to different individuals. Objectivity then becomes a myth, a distraction, an error. This requires a pretty radical adjustment in mans thinking. The mature, are in Christ and have the mind of Christ. They can make this kind of radical adjustment in their thinking. They become like him in their thinking. His thoughts are higher than mans. His ways are different.

Divine Revelation and Subjective Truth

Divine revelation is a supernatural thing. It should however, be the normal daily fare for the mature believer. The uncertainty principle throws out unbiased, objective, empirical knowledge, because at certain levels, the act of observation interferes with the subject being observed. There is interaction between observer and the subject at just about any level, and at the subatomic level the uncertainty is overwhelming.

Divine revelation on the other hand, only works when there is interaction. It requires interaction. It seeks interaction. The observer is you, the mature believer. The Subject is God, the creator of the universe. Since he has an infinite scope, only so much of Him can be observed at any one time. And what you observe is what he chooses to reveal of himself as you seek him. You can’t even think of it in terms of observer and subject. It works entirely different than scientific method or any other worldly approach. This is genuine truth, subjective truth, and divine fellowship, friendship and worship.

Scholars and theologians study the word, like a biologist might study a specimen under a microscope. The biologist looks at a dead moth under a microscope. His observations can tell him a lot about the surface appearance of the moth, but little about the internal workings.

The immature believer, scholar or not, looks at the word and sees the dead letter. He can learn a lot about the surface meaning but little of the true depths of wisdom and knowledge. A mature believer is fellowshipping with the Spirit. He can sense the Lords presence. It’s just as if someone were standing next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and whispering in his ear. The Spirit will call your attention to certain words and phrases; he will direct you to look up certain definitions, point you to important cross references, allow you to see new relationships and viewpoints, and put new ideas into your head. Most importantly, he will stir your curiosity for further study and increase your hunger for further insight. And that’s how wisdom comes, line upon line, precept on precept, here a little and there a little.

Stumbling Blocks II

Hindering Attitudes

The second group of stumbling blocks is a set of attitudes or practices that also can hold you back. I call them the hindering attitudes. They are as follows.

Scorn of Others

Skepticism and Unbelief

Quenching the Spirit

Despising Prophecy

Being Offended By The Supernatural

Idolatry In The Heart

Unwillingness To Obey

Let’s look at each of these in depth:

Scorn of Others

The scornful attitude is a byproduct of pride and a spirit of religion. Here is a selection of verses that speak to the issue.

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Let’s look at the first one, from Psalm 1.

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This tells us among other things, that those who are not scornful will be blessed. To invert that, those who are scornful will miss being blessed. The phrase seat of the scornful speaks of authority. Often the scorners are in some position of authority where they pass on their scornful attitude to their flock. One of the blessings they will miss is wisdom, as Psalm 14 points out.

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It’s easy to figure out what the scripture is telling us here. Scorning becomes a stumbling block. It prevents you from getting wisdom and keeps you in the ranks of the immature. If you repent and humble yourself, things will change for the better.

Skepticism and Unbelief

This is a tendency to reject or disregard anything that God is doing which doesn’t fit into your theology. Some call it putting God in a box. Or it can be termed limiting God. It’s closely related to quenching the spirit and offense at the supernatural.

Quenching the Spirit

1Th 5:19 Quench not the Spirit.

This instruction is from 1 Thessalonians 5, where we are given a list of short commandments. It could also be called grieving the Spirit as mentioned in Eph 4.

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What exactly is quenching the Spirit? Any attempt to control or limit what God can do in your meetings, or in your personal life is one case. Those who suppress emotional expression, worshipping in the spirit, or operation of the spiritual gifts quench the Spirit.

Quenching or grieving the Spirit is a stumbling block in that it involves rejection of the ministry of the Spirit. And that same ministry of the Spirit is what brings on maturity, so rejection will keep you in the ranks of the immature. Once you humble yourself and repent, The Spirit will be free to minister once again.

Despising Prophecy

Despising Prophecy is a special case of quenching the Spirit, we are told, again from 1 Thessalonians 5:

1Th 5:20 Despise not prophesyings.

And in Matthew we read:

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This also is a stumbling block in that it involves rejection of the ministry of the Spirit. The prophet’s reward is the benefit of his ministry, and or the message he brings. And also the maturity that can come through his teachings to those who have ears to hear. If you want no part of that, don’t expect to approach maturity.

The Prophet’s Job

The prophet’s job is not to produce accurate predictions. It is not the job of a prophet to produce accurate predictions. Producing accurate predictions is not the job of a prophet. Can I say it another way?

His job is to obey the Lord, period, end of discussion. If that includes predictions, fine. But they are not judged on their accuracy, but on their obedience. That’s why he calls them, 'my servants, the prophets'. They are to go where, do what, and speak exactly as he tells them. This is regardless of the outcome or any effect on their reputation. Man who looks on the outward appearance wants to judge based on accuracy, the Lord sees things differently.

Some time back we had a case of a young woman who prophesied a major seismic catastrophe to happen by a certain date. This did not occur as predicted. I consider it a warning that was heeded by enough intercessors to delay or avert the occurrence. Others considered it a case of false prophecy.

I pay little attention to what goes on over the Christian Internet, and no attention to the other Christian Media. All my material for posting comes to my inbox. Yet somehow it came to my notice that this woman was being pilloried on the Web as a false prophet. I thought to my self: Why are these people picking on this woman just because she missed a date? And the Lord answered me: Moses, in the law says such a one should be stoned, what sayest thou? [John 8:5}

And that was revelation to me. The first thing I realized is that the accuser of the brethren was in operation here. And second is that they were trying to judge her under the law. The letter kills but the Spirit gives life; what was the Spirit saying in this situation? The mature way to approach this is found in 1 Peter and Ephesians

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Offence at the Supernatural

Once again, this is a special case of quenching the Spirit. In Luke 7, we read:

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By inverting the reading of the passage, who is offended misses the blessing, which can often be further wisdom and maturity

Now this can include many types of supernatural happenings. Speaking in tongues and prophecy, expressive worship including gestures, exuberant behavior, wild dancing, people losing control of their bodies, people falling out under the power of the spirit, healings, and deliverance; visions, angelic visitations and others. I once had someone tell me that if someone next to them got a healing, they would get up and run out of church. That’s really going to keep them from progressing if they run away from what God is doing.

In the refreshing of the 90’s many were offended by the phenomenon of the laughter, the stage diving and other seeming silliness. Then there were the screams and shrieks of those getting delivered. Also there were animalistic actions of dog barking and lion roaring. Clearly they felt, these are demonic manifestations and outbursts. They claimed to discern, by some personal set of rules, that it was not from God. Well sure having demons scream and curse is not a manifestation of the Lord. But as you can read in the Gospels, many times these things happened when Jesus came on the scene. Here’s an example from Mark 5.

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They were showing forth demonic actions because Jesus was there and about to cast them out. So the demonic behavior, while not coming from God, was a response to the presence of God. And it is a response we should expect to see whenever God is present in a powerful way.

The screaming and carrying on is a response to God’s presence just as much as the worship and rejoicing. The reason it’s not normally found in our church services, is simply due to a lack of God’s presence, to any significant degree if not a complete and total lack of God at all in today’s church. If you look at the histories of the great revivals, when God poured out large measures of the Spirit, you will find many records of wild carrying on. It’s ‘normal’ when God is greatly present.

Sure the scoffers and discerners could tell there were demons present, but they missed the fact of the Lords presence, that was causing these demonic outbursts.

Being offended by the supernatural also includes hatred of, or attempts to suppress emotionalism, prophecy and worship, as we mentioned above. All of these indicate the presence of God in a meeting. Squelching or avoiding them amounts to quenching the Spirit. This is a sure way to keep people in an immature state, depending on their clergy for everything, instead of learning directly from the Lord. And it also keeps the clergy in an immature state. Again this is the blind leading blind.

Idolatry in the Heart

The following passages are quoted from an article Heart Idols by David Webber. I feel they express this idea far better than I could, so I’ll just quote them.

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So basically Idolatry in the Heart speaks of some area in our lives that’s not yielded to the Lord. It can be a doctrine, mindset or just a hobby or pursuit that distracts us from hearing God. And anything that keeps us from hearing God is a stumbling block to maturity.

Unwillingness To Obey

The previous topic, Idolatry in the Heart, is a special case of this one, unwillingness to obey. In any area where you are willing to obey what the Lord reveals to you, He will provide greater revelation. In any area you are not willing to obey, there will be a stumbling block, keeping you from gaining further wisdom and maturity. Let’s look at this section from John chapter 7.

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In verse 14 you see Jesus teaching in the temple. Then in verse 15 some critics come along and saying in effect, how can he be teaching if he is not a trained scholar? The same critical attitude shows up in Acts 4 where the religious

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In verse 16 and 17 he answers them. We can paraphrase his answer like this. This teaching didn’t just come from a man, but from the God who sent me. Those who are willing to obey him, [do his will], will know that the teaching is from God and not just from a man.

The reason here being that God will provide the witness of the Spirit to those who are willing and obedient, and that’s how they will know it’s true.

Then in verse 18, he contrasts those who promote themselves with those who are dead to self and only seek the glory of God. When you are completely dead to self, you will do more than have truth, it says you will be true.

Summary

We have listed quite a few stumbling blocks, and gone into detail on some. We started by looking at why you should avoid foolish disputes. There we saw that it’s pointless to debate the immature believer. This is because they are still babes feeding on the milk. The mature are those who feed on the meat. They can hear the Spirit by the hearing of Faith. This lets them receive divine revelation.

Immaturity is associated with lack of faith and or lack of wisdom. Maturity speaks of the wisdom that comes by faith. The mature have the letter of the law and the Spirit. The letter is supposed to lead you to Christ.

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And if you are really seeking, the Spirit will bring life to the word.

The Key of Knowledge is to seek it, that is to seek the Lord. The stumbling blocks are things that keep you from going on to maturity. They can be ideas or methods like the sacred cows we mentioned. They can actually discourage you from seeking, or lead you into depending on some fruitless method based on worldly thinking. Other stumbling blocks can be one or more of a set of attitudes which hinder or prevent you from fellowship with the Spirit. Or they may quench or grieve the Spirit. This in turn stymies spiritual growth.

Maturity vs. Immaturity

The immature are Proud
The mature are Humble

The immature are Scornful
The mature are Understanding

The immature are Despise Prophecy
The mature desire to Prophecy

The immature sees Bible text as Literal
The mature sees Bible text as Allegorical

The immature sees Bible text as: Having 1 meaning only
The mature sees Bible text as having multiple meanings

The immature Treat the bible as a Law book
The mature Treat the bible as having many forms of expression.

The immature Studies the bible Depending on a method
The mature Studies the bible depending on the Spirit.

The immature sees bible text as the thoughts of the Writer of the book
The mature sees bible text as the Words of Jesus.

The immature are offended by supernatural phenomena
The mature are comfortable with supernatural phenomena.

The immature honors the sacred cows
The mature Partake of real meat.

The immature think God said it all in his Word
The mature knows that God still speaks today.

The immature applies parts of scripture to certain groups
The mature see that all scripture applies to us.

The immature claim that the Word is sufficient
The mature know that it must be mixed with faith and illuminated by the Spirit.

The immature expect that study will reveal all the secrets of the bible
The mature accept that some things remain concealed.

The immature are stiff necked and resistant
The mature are willing to obey lessons learned.

The immature study the bible to know the Law
The mature study the bible to know the Lord.

The immature are stuck in the old paradigm
The mature are moving into the new paradigm.

End Notes:

The Law Was Our Schoolmaster

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Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn't be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms ... of that mathematical branch itself. You might be able to prove every conceivable statement about numbers within a system by going outside the system in order to come up with new rules and axioms, but by doing so you'll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules. Jones and Wilson, An Incomplete Education

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle the idea that you can measure things exactly breaks down. If a particle has momentum p and a position x, you would not be able to measure p and x precisely. There is an uncertainty associated with each measurement, which can never be eliminated, even in a perfect experiment! This is because whenever a measurement is made, the system is disturbed. (In order to know something is there, the observer has to bump into it.)

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