Yea Hath God Said?

by Mike Ratliff

3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12 (NASB) 

Sola Scriptura is under heavy attack in the visible Church. Some of those who are leading this battle against it are already predicting victory. The central theme of Phyllis Tickle’s book The Great Emergence is, “Where is our authority?” This question is asked in order to stress the need to do away with Sola Scriptura in order to make way for “the step and subsequent journey out of traditional church expressions and into new ones.” She also said that there are forty-four specific events that underline the move away from Sola Scriptura and that it’s not if Sola Scriptura ends, but when… 

Bought With a Price to be Slaves of Christ

by Mike Ratliff

20 Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called.
21 Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it; but if you are able also to become free, rather do that. 22 For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called. 1 Corinthians 7:20-24 (NASB) 

During the ministries of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles there was a full understanding of the nature of slavery. It dominated their culture. Therefore, we must take that into account when we read from God’s Word the true nature of our “personal relationship” with our Lord. The Greek word for Lord or Master is κύριος (kyrios). This title describes Jesus Christ as Lord in the sense of being the owner, possessor, or master. Some may teach that Christians can be genuine without them submitting to Christ as Lord, but that concept is alien to the Bible. We do not make Christ Lord of our lives my brethren. No, He is Lord of all those whom He bought with the price of His precious blood.

This Age and the Age to Come

by Mike Ratliff

15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might 20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:15-23 (NASB) 

Many years ago, when was in my twenties, eschatology books were being pumped out by every “evangelist” under heaven. They were dazzling with their complicated charts with arrows for Christ’s multiple returns to get His church then later to bring His kingdom into fulfillment. It was so complex that it was impossible to follow without those pull out charts. I had friends who became experts on this. They could quote chapter and verse on every point in the end times as revealed in these books. However, as I have matured (hopefully) and learned to trust what the scriptures say more than what men say I have come to believe that eschatology shouldn’t be that complicated. When Jesus talked about the sin of Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit he said something very interesting.

The Ancient of Days Reigns

by Mike Ratliff

1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. Revelation 20:1-3 (NASB) 

If we listen to much of the preaching these days we might get the idea that our God was an old grandfatherly type entity who loves people so much and wants to save them all, but is helpless to do anything to make that happen. Also, He really isn’t in control of anything. He simply set the Universe into motion and now it’s on its own. He simply waits helplessly in a far off Heaven for people to make the right decision by their own reasoning capabilities. He is sorry for all the suffering and heartache in the world, so if people would simply follow the right preacher they could be happy, rich, and healthy. Is that what the Bible teaches us about God?

God’s Wrath of Abandonment

by Mike Ratliff

7 Ephraim is joined to idols;
Let him alone. Hosea 4:17 (NASB) 

Idolatry is the natural state of man. Left to themselves, people will worship or idolize someone or something. On the top of the list of those things we place on pedestals of idolatry is self. Professing Christians are not immune. They idolize Christian leaders, their churches, their doctrine, their liberty, their self-righteousness, their denomination, their particular translation of the Bible, and anything else they can view as something that gives them a sense of religious identity. Tragically, most see nothing wrong with this. Genuine Christianity has been supplanted by religiosity and there are only a few left who see the difference. We lament over the growing apostasy in the Church, but should we be surprised?

The Coming Day of the Lord

by Mike Ratliff

1 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. 4 In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. 5 You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him! Zechariah 14:1-5 (NASB) 

When I preached in a small Baptist Church in northern Missouri several years ago the title of my sermon was, “Are you ready to meet God?” The main theme of that sermon was who Jesus Christ really is and what He has done to redeem His people from the wrath to come. I can still see the expression on those faces as I preached. It was obvious they had not heard that sort of preaching before. My brethren, God’s wrath is coming. His wrath burns against all sin. Only those who bear the mark of His Son will be rescued. I have been part of some discussions lately where we all agree to an extent that the growing apostasy in the Church could be a precursor for the soon return of our Lord. Since the Church seems to have abandoned its mission to a large degree, and instead, has become Compromised with the World and its ways, then we see only two alternatives. Either God will send another Reformation / Revival / Restoration or this Church we see now is the beginnings of the apostate church similar to the Church of Laodicia.

Revelation of Jesus Christ

by Mike Ratliff

27 Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 They told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.” 29 And He continued by questioning them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter *answered and *said to Him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And He warned them to tell no one about Him. Mark 8:27-30 (NASB) 

The Compromised Church is in the lap of apostasy. Why? What is it that Christians do that starts them on the slippery slide into apostasy then heresy? It starts with a denial of the veracity of the Word of God. This takes away the solid foundation of truth that keeps us from going about helter skelter making up theology by the seat of our pants. However, once scripture is either diluted by these attacks or is allowed to be interpreted according to someone who is trying to make it fit a certain theology or lifestyle, the next step into the abyss is the preaching of a different Jesus than the one we find in scripture. This different Jesus is usually a wimp who doesn’t care how far off base anyone’s theology is. Instead, this false Jesus becomes the servant with the leaders in these false churches becoming lord. God becomes a source who has to fulfill their desires based upon their own whims.

Possessing the Treasure

After I wrote my first book, Walking the Walk by Faith, back in 2004-2005, I started a web site to help promote it. Then I started a blog on Blogger. It was as I began posting things on Blogger that I came into contact with Ingrid at the old Slice of Laodicia blog. One of her admins was a man named Jim Bublitz. He seemed to take an interest in helping me. He encouraged me to start commenting more on Slice and I did. Ken Silva was part of that as well, but Jim seemed to be the one who was always ready to “counsel” me and discourage me from “getting into it” with certain other people on Slice. It was also his advice which I took to move over to WordPress. He didn’t know it, but I had been working on a second book and I already had a title for it, Possessing the Treasure. When I got my new blog online in 2006 I named it after that book. It is no longer in print. However, if you are interested in it you can read it here. Both Jim and Ken have preceded us to Heaven. Ingrid is out of the discernment work business, but we are still friends on Facebook.

Walking the Walk by Faith

In 2005 I self-published a book titled “Walking the Walk by Faith” This was two years before I became involved with discernment blogging. It was a full year before Ken Silva and I became friends. In those two years I matured a great deal. After I joined the Christian Research Network team “reality” set in. I looked back on what I put in that book and realized that it did contain the truth, but it had not really prepared me for the brutality of discernment ministry. However, as things have settled down a bit I and that book has been “out of print” for over ten years I have been asked if I can provide access to it again. I have gone through the manuscript and cleaned it up some. I shudder at how naive I was about some things when I wrote it, but I have left some things in like interviews I did and referenced people who are no longer with us. My understanding of how to be in the fire as a soldier of our Lord Jesus Christ has certainly matured a great deal since I wrote that book, but there is still a great deal of truth in there. Here is a link to the e-book. To God be the Glory.

The Lamb opens the Scroll

by Mike Ratliff

Those with discernment from God know that the “Church” is very sick because it has been deceived through decades of bad theology and spiritually weakened by leaders who are bent on ministering via pragmatism. As I write this, there are so-called Christian leaders who are proclaiming a new Golden Age for the church with millions of people each year coming to Christ in their ministries. These proclamations, however, fail to note the tragic turnover rate in their pews whereby those “millions” of converts each year exit their churches to be replaced by new “seekers” who continue to fuel the revolving door that brings in new faces while those who did not find what they were really looking for exit never to be seen again. Those making the claims of gigantic growth turn a blind eye to this problem. Why? Are they blind to what is really going on? Could it be that a worldwide deception is taking place right before our eyes? Let’s look at what the Bible says.

The Letter Kills but the Spirit Gives Life

by Mike Ratliff

25 For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God. Romans 2:25-29 (NASB) 

I often receive requests from dear brethren who are desperate for assurance, but as I attempt to “dig into” their spiritual background, so to speak, those with the most dire sense of that desperation also seem to be mired in a works righteousness type of understanding of salvation. It’s not their fault and we cannot help them if we approach the solution from that angle. Whenever I get a request like this, and they are all different, I think of Luther. He was a monk who was desperate to be right with God, but no matter how hard he worked at being righteous, he was continually confessing his sins to his confessor. It was only as God opened his heart to the wonderful truth of justification by faith alone as he studied the book of Romans that Sola Fide became a reality in his heart and so the spark of the Protestant Reformation was ignited.

The Letter of Paul to the Philippians Chapter 3

by Mike Ratliff

7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:7-11 (NASB) 

From where does the righteousness of the Christian come? If you think that is an unimportant question or one that we do not need to spend much time on, then you could quite possibly be one who is either the next victim of a deceiver or have already been deceived. If we look at the opposition to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by professing Christians, in other words, either apostates or the religious who believe they are Christian through their religion, they claim righteousness comes from some other way beyond what the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ says. Many of these were like I was growing up as a Southern Baptist. My understanding of salvation was that one had to be religious, but it all started with that profession of faith that was followed by Baptism, which I did in the 4^th grade (1960). I was not regenerate. I was religious and since it was all works of the flesh in order to please God (law), I could not do a very good job of it nor did I like nor did I keep it up very long. However, my heart goes out to all those like me who grew up like me and did that same thing. I pray that God has mercy on you and draw you into His light and obedience to the Gospel as He did me in 1986. 

The Letter of Paul to the Philippians Chapter 2

by Mike Ratliff

1 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; Philippians 2:1-3 (NASB) 

There is much controversy within the Reformed Theology ranks at this time. I have written about this some and referred to it quite a bit. Many of former Reformed leaders have now become leaders of the Critical Race Theory and Social Justice movements within what used to be what Christians referred to as Conservative Christianity. It is troubling to be sure. Of course, there are those who have not “taken the bait” and remain firmly grounded in God’s truth and have not compromised their ministries with the ways of our culture. Many in the CRT and SJ movements complain that the Biblical Gospel divides. Yes, God’s truth, especially the Gospel, divides, but those who are truly in Christ are called continually in Sacred Scripture to come together, to unite in love and humility as exemplified by Christ himself. On the other hand, what I see in those who are compromising is a co-opting of a genuine restoration of Reformation Theology by those who are attempting to blend it with the seeker sensitive, cultural relevance, and gospel contextualization which are all corrupting influences that move the focus back to the mis-direction mainstream evangelicalism was going, but with the hope or desire of “getting a pass” because they proclaim themselves to “be reformed.” As those in the Seeker Sensitive paradigm have found though, emotionalism and getting people to work through motivations other than the genuine moving of the Holy Spirit will work only for a short period of time. Why? It’s all of this flesh and that means, of this world. That is not what Christians are called to do.

The Letter of Paul to the Philippians Chapter 1

by Mike Ratliff

1 Παῦλος καὶ Τιμόθεος δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ πᾶσιν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις σὺν ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις, 2 χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Philippians 1:1-2 (NA28)

1 Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus in Philippi with the overseers and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:1-2 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)

In vv1-2 Paul and Timothy gives the standard Christian greeting that was very common in the early Church. Notice that it is from both Paul and Timothy, who identify themselves as δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (slaves of Christ Jesus), but it addressed to all the ἁγίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (saints in Christ Jesus) at Philippi. The word “saints” translates ἁγίοις, which is actually a form of an adjective that means “holy.” That root word is ἅγιος (hagios), which in the Dative form, as used in this passage, designates “saints.” Paul used this word in Ephesians 2:19 saying, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Who are the “overseers?” This is the Greek word ἐπισκόποις the Dative, Plural of ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos), “overseer, bishop.” In the Greek, it literally refers to someone who “looks over” or “watches over” a group of people. It is translated as “overseers” or “elders” in the church. Paul gives their qualifications in 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:7. What we must understand my brethren is that in 1 Peter 2:25, Peter refers to our Lord Jesus Christ as “the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls..” Therefore, Jesus is, the chief overseer of our lives. Those men who are appointed as elders and such in our churches function on His behalf and should use His life as a model.