Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

This writing is a long time coming. It was 45 years ago that I came to realize that if I wanted my sins forgiven; I needed to come to Jesus Christ, confess my sins, and put my faith in Him for my salvation. Because of this, I saw that my religion was not telling me the truth. I wrote a book entitled, “Poison Comes in more that bottles,” but I stop writing it and never got it published.

There were two reasons I never finished it. The first, I found myself full of bitterness and the second; I had no skills in writing. Because of my poor grades in school, and failing English. This made it hard for me to read and write. Today I have improved and with the help of grammar and spell checkers I can write this blog post and publish it in audio as well. Now, back to the subject.

After 45 years of studying the Scriptures, and reading the Bible many times, I cannot find anywhere the office of clergy in the church. Yes, there are Elders and Deacons but they are no clergy that we find today. If you read Matthew 23:9, “And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” Yes, we have earthly fathers, but what Christ is speaking of is spiritual fathers. We can draw that from his comparison with our heavenly Father. No man can take the place of our heavenly Father.

If we were to read further in this scripture, we find, “Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant.” Let’s look at two things. First, we have only one instructor, and that is the Lord Himself. And second, our Elders and Deacons are to be servants, not like the so called Clergy of today. They want the high places, and to be looked up to. Just like the religious leaders of Christ’s day.

I just published a booklet by William Lincoln, entitled “Church of God and the Apostasy,” and will include a link in the description to the Video. To get to the video, just click on the image at the top of this post. I would recommend you read or listen to the audio. In this booklet, and in many more writings, talks about churches that are led by the Clergy are called Christendom. Quoting Mr. Lincoln, he said the world and the church joining hand and becoming one is called Christendom. I would call the so-called church of our day the worldly-church.

In the chapter in the booklet entitled, “The Apostacy: or the Church’s Decline in Seven Successive,” Mr. Lincoln goes through all the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation with some enlightening thoughts. Just to touch on them briefly, here is a list of decline.

One, Ephesus, left first love.

Two, Smyrna, becomes Judaised Christianity.

Three, Pergamos, became worldly.

Four, Thyatira, Papal times and ways.

Five, Sardis, Protestantism.

Six, Philadelphia, separation of true Christians for Professing.

Seven, Laodicea, the ultimate rejection.

I found these seven steps in describing the decline in Christendom described accurately.

I want to share something that may come across as hard and unloving, but please understand that I am writing with a heart filled with love for those who are being lied to. First, if you call yourself a Reverend, or a Pastor, or Priest or whatever, and are a leader in a so-called Christian Church, then you need to inspect why are doing and what you are doing it for. Also, the scripture tells us to work out our own salvation. Ask yourself if you are doing this to earn your way to heaven and to receive rewards. If this is the case, you might be the one the Lord says, depart from me. I do not know you. If you are calling yourself by any other title, then what the Bible says, then I would have to question if you are a true Christian who is a follower of Christ and obeys every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Next, if you are following the person who is calling themselves anything more that a Christian and a brother in Christ, you might follow the wrong person. If he says what the Apostle Paul said that you will be okay. Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

I want to speak to all those who are in a worldly church and are following a man and not Christ, do what the scripture instructs us to do; “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18.)

In the book of Revelation, I came across a word that I never heard before, so I did some research a while back. The word is “Nicolaitan,” or Nicolaitanism. It is Greek. In the old Scofield Bible, there was a note which read “From Nikoo (to conquer) Laos (the people) or Laity; There is no ancient authority for a sect of the Nicolasitanes, and if the word is symbolic, it refers to the earliest form of the notion of a priestly order or clergy, which later divided and equal brotherhood (see Matthew 23:8) into priest and laity.

Later, In read the new Scofield Bible and noticed that someone had removed this note. I am not sure why, but it seemed to have been controversial. Later, others picked up on this word, and made comments like William Lincoln, who said that, where there was no faith to reckon upon a present God, to supply all His Church’s needs. Gifted but carnal men would willingly take the place thus accorded to them, and become “ministers,” claiming the exclusive right to preach and teach. Later on, he said, and I quote: “And thus a distinct and clerical caste grew up within the Church, who gradually drew a hard and fast line between themselves and those they termed the “laity,” claiming for themselves superiority in all spiritual matters, and that they only had the right to recognize and appoint others to perform the same function, so that whoever was received by them into their circle, however glaringly deficient he might be in those heavenly gifts which truly constitute a minister of Jesus Christ, yet immediately upon his masonic-like investiture into the charmed circle he became a minister by that act, and wherever he henceforth happened to be, his voice alone must be heard and everyone else must be mute and passive.”

All this made me think of what happened in the Old Testament when Israel asked for a king. They did not want God to be head of their nation, they wanted a king like the other nations around them.

Today the Christendom is acting like Israel and asking for men to lead and not allowing the Lord to be the Head of the Church. This was just another plan of the evil one to destroy the works of God. But the scripture tells us that the devil will not prevail, and there is a remnant that is holding to the fact that the Lord is the Head of the Church. It is called the brethren movement, and that is brethren with a small “B.”

Christianity and Christendom are both in the Kingdom of God.

The church is not the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, but it is in the kingdom. If one looks at the parables of the Lord, you will find good and evil. In the parables, there is a pattern that runs through them, and if you follow the pattern, you will find the meaning, and come to understand the kingdom. We need to take the ones that the Lord explains and apply the meaning to the ones that are not explained.

Looking at the first parable of the sower of the seed and the parable of the mustard seed. In the first parable, it said, seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them and when the Lord give the meaning of this he said, When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. So we see the birds represent the evil one. Then, looking at the parable of the mustard seed, where it said that it becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. The bird here has to hold the same meaning. They are the evil one as well.

Let us look close at this parable of the mustard seed.

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

In the kingdom, if we see the good and the evil, Christianity and Christendom, I see the parable to be talking about the mustard seed being Christianity, but the overgrowth represents Christendom. So the birds, being the evil one, is tells us that Satan has introduced Nicolaitanism into Christianity and turned it into Christendom, which is an overgrowth. The largest so-called church is being led by the evil one.

Going back to what I said in the beginning, about writing a book that I was going to entitle, “Poison Comes In More Than Bottles,” it was about all the false teaching of this church. Satan and all his demons have made their nests in the branches of Christendom and throughout the centuries have led many down the road, straight to hell.

Before I end this writing, I have to say that there are some true Christians in Christendom, but we find in recorded in scripture, come out from among them, be ye separate, said the Lord.

I and others have come out from them. By staying among them, you will not change them, but they will change you. You will not grow as a Christian. In fact, your spiritual growth will be stunned. I know a farmer who nearly died in died in a tractor accident and even though he was among those in Christendom; he started reading his Bible and got into a Bible Study Group, and because of this, he came to see the truth. He became a true Christian and is following Christ and trusting Him as his savior. If you come out from among them, this will happen to you as well.

I do not write this to offend any, but to tell you the truth.

Irv Risch