“¹³ What thing shall I take to witness for you? what thing shall I liken to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? for your breach is great like the sea: who can heal you?

¹⁴  Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you: and they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for you false burdens and causes of banishment.” Lamentations 2:13-14

Israel’s false prophets comforted them in their pending Babylonian captivity saying it would only be for a little while instead of calling them to repentance for their disobedience and turning from God.  They then, just as false prophets do today, tickled the ears of God’s Children who would not endure sound doctrine and have turned their ears from the Truth and turned unto fables and vain philosophies from man’s own mind (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Comparing Israel’s pain to other’s pain would not console her. Comparing our own unpleasing circumstances to other’s or our own past and more pleasant circumstances will not bring understanding or comfort to our current circumstances…whatever that particular circumstance may be.

“³⁹ Wherefore does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins ⁴⁰ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. ⁴¹ Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.” Lamentations 3:39-41

Only the Lord can heal the affliction He has allowed in the life of His disobedient children and to be certain this affliction is allowed to turn us again to the Lord.   Self will causes us to stray from the Word of God and results in the Believer being out of the Will of God.  Instead of complaining about our circumstances, let us search and try our ways and turn again unto the Lord.  As we lift up our hands in worship, let us lift up our hearts in repentance unto God.

“⁶ But He gives more grace. Wherefore He said, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble. ⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:6-7

For the Child of God, we live in a fallen world and our circumstances are not always pleasant.  However, there is a peace there beyond all understanding and joy unspeakable when we look unto Jesus…He IS our Blessed Hope.  Because of Who He is and what He has done for whosoever will believe, we lay up our treasures in Heaven and understand we are just passing through this fallen world in this temporary tent of flesh.  Along the way, we spread the Good News of our Blessed Hope, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

However, for some, they have not yet submitted unto God’s Will and His Plan for victory this side of Glory and they are bound and afflicted…yet they are not defeated.

“²¹ This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. ²² It is of the Lord‘s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. ²³ They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness. ²⁴ The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.” Lamentatians 3:21-24

Consider the affliction before complaining about the affliction.  Perhaps we should search our own ways and turn again unto the Lord.  When we lift up our hands in praise, should we also be lifting up our hearts in repentance?

“If My People, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Prayerfully consider.

-Donna Clark Warren

In the world souls are nothing more than mere merchandise as a means to profit. The souls themselves have no value to the worldly system other than merchandise of which to peddle goods in exchange for money. This is the worldly system that Believers are in but not of. We lay up our treasures in Heaven, not here in the worldly system.

It is this worldly system that the watchmen, the preachers and teachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, are to guard against infiltrating the church. If God called preachers and teachers do not tend to their duties of watchmen and contend for the faith, then the world and it’s ways will enter, and has in fact already entered, into the church where souls have become nothing more than mere merchandise.

Consider the seeker sensitive churches and their methods of filling the pews. When the teaching and preaching of the Word of God is set aside for entertaining, movies and cookouts your soul has become nothing more than merchandise and the preacher a hireling. This may offend some but I’m telling you the truth. Jesus said “…if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” (John 12:32); not a feast, festival, social or civic event but JESUS, Who He is and what He has done for whosoever will believe.

The worth of man’s soul is not found in the worldly system but in the Word of God. It is there we find the Creator of our soul created us in His image and considered our eternal soul worth the shed Blood of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. It is also there, in God’s Word, that we find the value of our soul is by no account deserved, yet so freely given and given abundantly by simple faith in the Son of God.

At the Cross of Christ, the sinner sees the perceived value of his soul to the worldly system and the true value of his soul to a Holy God and recognizes that no matter the sin, God did indeed first love us.

At this same Cross of Christ, the Saint recognizes their vain labor in the religious yet worldly systems can secure nothing more than weariness and they find rest in the Arms of a graceful and merciful Savior Who values their soul worthy of the price paid on Calvary’s Cross; a Savior Who will give the desires of our heart when we look unto Him, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Recognize the worldly systems in the seeker sensitives churches seeking the your soul and understand your soul has no value in that system…it is nothing more than a pawn in the trafficking of souls to further the preacher, teacher or religious institution. The purpose of the church is to declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified to a lost and dying world and tell them the value of their soul according to God.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

Such is the value of man’s eternal soul; God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The Eyes of the Lord search to and fro searching to show Himself strong in those whose hearts are perfect toward Him (2 Chronicles 16:9). How will He find your heart?

Prayerfully consider.

-Donna Clark Warren

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” 2 Corinthians 6:17

Untold thousands of God’s people have attempted to warn corrupt Christendom, the modern spiritual Babylon, of their apostasy to no avail.  The endtime church shows Jesus on the outside knocking.  The Lord has purposed His Children and His Plan for victory over the world, the flesh and the devil.  Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s Children who did not follow His Plan perish for their lack of knowledge and obedience.  Instead of following the precepts of God, they were seduced by the worldly system of victory.  If it is not God’s Plan, it will fail and fail it must.  When God’s Children fall into the deceit of vain philosophies, they too are overtaken with the fall of the worldly system they have chosen.

The Lord sent Jeremiah to warn the Israelites of their pending 70 year captivity and told them to build houses, take wives and bear children so they would not be diminished in their captivity (Jeremiah 29), yet many would not hear and perished.

After 70 years in captivity, the Lord raised up King Cyrus to overtake Babylon and begin rebuilding the Temple.  Those who heeded the warnings and were obedient to the Word of the Lord (not Jeremiah but GOD Who sent His Prophet), were delivered.  While those who followed the false prophets perished.

“But the natural man receives 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

God’s Plan for His Children’s victory over the world, the flesh and the devil is given to us in the atoning work of Jesus Christ.  Our faith in Jesus and His complete and utter dominion over death, hell and the grave through His perfect Sacrifice on Calvary’s Cross, places us in HIS victory and allows the Holy Spirit latitude to do that which He is commissioned to do….guide us into all Truths according to the Word of God (John 16:13) and free us from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2) which in turn gives us dominion over sin (Romans 6:14).

“⁵ For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

⁶ For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Romans 8:5-6

The modern church has taken up the precepts of the world for victory and forsaken God’s Plan for His Children, namely faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  Those who have come to the knowledge of this great Truth cannot heal the modern spiritual Babylon but they can call God’s Children out and warn them of the apostasy.  Jesus is outside of the church knocking on individual hearts, calling them out.  Can you hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to the churches?

Prayerfully consider.  The Lord will lead you out if you will hear.

-Donna Clark Warren

“²⁸ Whereupon the king (Jeroboam) took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

²⁹ And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.

³⁰ And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

³¹ And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.

³² And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

³³ So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.” 1 Kings 12:28-33

Even though symbolizing Jehovah God, the golden calves Jeroboam built with all sincerity and good intentions were an abomination unto God.  As he appointed priests who were not called by God, ordained feasts and made sacrifices to the golden calves, he led Israel into idolatry.   Jerobaom had devised all of this from the misguided sincerity of his own heart.

Today, the golden calves are not physical statues but spiritual idols, namely humanistic psychology, presented by the modern church who appoints priests according to a questionnaire, ordains feasts (ceremonies, traditions, etc.) according to philosophies from the vanities of man’s mind and gives their sacrifices of praise to another Jesus and another gospel.

“Jesus said unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man comes unto the Father, but by Me.” John 14:6

The Way, the Truth and the Life is through Jesus Christ, Who He is and what He has done on Calvary’s Cross.  Everything we need for life and living is made possible by Jesus and the Cross is the means.  Too many Believer’s attribute their deliverance to humanistic psychology and not to the atoning work of Jesus Christ because it too is presented with sincerity in honor of Christ.

Make no mistake, this is another Jesus and another gospel.  Seek to understand when humanistic psychology is presented to the people as a symbol of God’s deliverance.  It is a mere form of godliness but denies the power thereof…from such turn away (2 Timothy 3:5).

“And ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13

Seek Him. Find Him. Jesus Christ and Him crucified…be determined to know nothing else among you.

-Donna Clark Warren

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12

Jesus is the Light of the World.  Who He is and what He did on Calvary’s Cross to pay the penalty of sin for the sinner and break the power of sin for the Believer, allows the Believer to reflect HIS Light into a dark world.

“¹⁴ And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. ¹⁵ 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 11:14-15.

Not all perceived light is the light of God when said light is reinforced with a lie. When Truth is corrupted, it is no longer Truth but a lie.  It is the devil’s intent to corrupt the Light in order to deceive both the Believer and the lost.  In order to discern false light from True Light we must seek the Lord through His Word and by His Spirit.  You will know them by their fruit.  The fruit of the false teachers and false prophets will reflect their false light…not the statutes of God. The Spirit of God will guide us into all Truths according to His Word and they will never contradict one another.

“Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come.” John 16:13

The Lord will show us the right way but never force our free will.  The very nature of obedience demands free moral agency, otherwise it is slavery and not obedience. The sinner is called to believe and the Believer is called to follow.

“And He said to them all, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

False light, which is in reality darkness, will only be recognized when it is exposed by Truth.  The best way to show a crooked stick is to lay a straight stick beside it.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ will always, without fail, lay waste any other gospel.

“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2

-Donna Clark Warren