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WALKING WITH GOD
It is possible to walk with God. Examples
of individuals walking with God are given in the Bible. God gives a
qualification: “You only have I known of
all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities. Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
(Amos 3:2-3). Speaking to the Jews, God tells why He dealt harshly with them
at times. They were the only nation He had “known.” Obviously God knows
about all peoples, but this speaks of a special relationship. God's purpose
in chastening the Jewish nation was to bring about their agreement with Him.
Only when in agreement can two individuals or nations walk together. That is
also true of those who would walk with God.
How does a sinner come to agree with God?
He can do nothing of himself that will even please God. Proof: Paul wrote,
“...they that are in the flesh cannot
please God,” (Romans 8:8). It must be that
God has a way of bringing sinners into agreement with Him. He has given us
His Word, the Bible, “But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto
him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,”
(1 Corinthians 2:14). So then the lost sinner will not and cannot receive
Bible truth is a spiritually profitable way. He may know certain facts, but
that is the extent of his experience. Until the Holy Spirit makes the sinner
alive, the sinner has no ability to understand the Bible because it is
“spiritually discerned.”
If we would walk with God we must be made
to agree with what God says. Truth is what God says about a thing: not what
some man says or thinks regardless of his appearance. The Bible warns us of
men who go about, “...transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is
transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his
ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end
shall be according to their works,” (2
Corinthians 11:13-15). That preacher who claims to be teaching the Bible may
in fact be one of Satan's ministers for they have the ability to look like
“ministers of righteousness.” Beware!
The acid test of any man's religion and
teaching is this: is it in agreement with the Bible? In the last few hundred
years many men and women have come upon the scene who have successfully
fabricated their own doctrines. We say successfully because some of them
have large followings.
“But there were false prophets also among the
people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall
bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and
bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their
pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken
of,” (2 Peter 2:1-2). Believe only what
the Bible teaches! |