Whiteout!

Recently I was watching a movie called ‘Shooter’. It is an old movie, a 2007 American conspiracy thriller film. The film concerns a former U.S. Marine Scout sniper who is framed for murder by a rogue secret private military company unit.

I enjoyed it, but came across the word…‘whiteout’.

So what is a whiteout?

A whiteout is a weather condition in which visibility is severely reduced by snow. The horizon disappears completely; there are no reference points at all, leaving the individual with a distorted orientation…this is not my definition! I got this definition from a book called ‘Spiritual Avalanche’ by Steve Hill.

(Steve went home to be with the Lord sometime ago. But his words and his life reverberate in my own spirit. I cannot forget this man of God. If you haven’t read Spiritual Avalanche…you should get your hands on it. When I read it this book it challenged the daylights out of me! An avalanche of judgment is coming! Steve’s voice is a trumpet of urgency to the church worldwide.)

Paul warned that the “time will come when [believers] will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

My 4 year old grand-daughter is growing some plants outside our home. She visits us daily to water it herself and I watch in amazement her eyes as she sees growth everyday. But today I noticed some weeds have slipped in almost unnoticed and taken root.

This is what deception is. Easy to get in…but hard to get out.

Let me be absolutely open to you.

There is gross deception coming in like weeds into the Indian church today.

The hyper-grace gurus have come in with a wrong, out of context, human driven un-theological concept of God…who forgives us but as believers in Him we never have to confess or repent of sin. The Holy Spirit will no longer convict you of sin.

In truth there is no Gospel without true repentance of sin. There is no Gospel without the cross of Jesus. There is no Gospel without obedience to His Word. Anything else is deceptive nonsense.

What about when Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25)?

Then we have those guys who say that the Bible must live up to ‘my’ standards. Everything is about ‘me’. We judge God based on our morality rather than the purity of the Scriptures. So we can define, put norms and classify what is not sin and what is sin. We live in a fantasy, make believe world of our own architectures and designs. And we fully believe we are right.

What utter rubbish!

The Bible stands as the plumb line for man’s lostness and God’s measures are taken from His Word rather than man’s vain philosophies…so matter how great they sound.

Then what about those that say…it’s fine to attend church man! But I don’t have to listen to what the preacher says…I can do my own thing. Hey! The preacher is not the problem…your flesh is the problem! You want to sin. You love sin. You crave for the desires of the flesh. And you long for that roll in the hay…and it does not matter with who!

Remember sin will love you during the good seasons of your life…but will trap you for all eternity.

I met a young guy the other day. “Let’s debate”, he said to me. “How can a loving God like Jesus send so many people to Hell!” It was not an inquiry. It was arrogance. So I had to be straight with him. And I was. His smile was as stupid as his question.

If judgment is erased, then where is justice? If disobedience is removed then where is reward? If authority is not recognised then where is community? And if the Bible is not believed, then where is purity…and righteousness…and forgiveness…and the dying of Jesus on the cross of Calvary…and the power of His resurrection?

Listen beloved…just like what’s happening in my little grand-daughter’s flower pot…weeds have slipped in and growing with the real thing. So is deception come inside the church.

If you don’t deal with it now…it will kill the life out of you!

A whiteout has come over the church. We have lost the sense of our horizons, our parameters and our pathways. Get up! Awake! Rise up!

Get back to God’s Word…that is the epitome of truth in the world we live in.

Shalom!