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The ignorance of the things of God |
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Brothers, you
must flee the ignorance of the things of God, because God does not want you
to be ignorant of His will. Some expressions of the apostle Paul show this
very clearly. |
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Paul wrote to the Romans: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that
blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be
come in” (Romans 11:25). |
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● Paul
wrote to the Corinthians: “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be
ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed
through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the
sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same
spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them:
and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for
they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5), and again:
“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant” (1 Corinthians
12:1), and also: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is
Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God”
(1 Corinthians 11:3). |
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Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “But I would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as
others which have no hope” (1 Thessalonians |
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Paul wrote to Timothy: “I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am
delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s
household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation
of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:14-15 - NIV). |
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As you can
see, the apostle Paul wanted the saints to know certain things, he did not
want the saints to be ignorant of those things. Obviously, Paul wanted the
saints to know not only the above mentioned things but also all the other
things he wrote in his epistles. However, today the attitude of many Church
leaders is not the same as that of Paul, because they don’t want the saints
to know certain things. Yes, they want you to know that you must pay tithes
or that you must give the ‘8 per mille’ (8 cents per thousand) to their
Church - which is a percentage of money that an Italian citizen may choose to
give to the State or to the Roman Catholic Church or to the Waldensian Church
or to the Assemblies of God or to some other religious groups, and that sum
of money which he gives according to his income tax return to the Italian
Revenue (afterward the Italian Revenue will give that sum of money to the
religious group chosen by the taxpayer) will be used by the religious group
for humanitarian aims or for supporting the ministers of the religious group
(it depends on what the religious group decided to do with that money when it
reached an agreement with the Italian Government) -; they want you to know
that you must attend the Sunday service (which is a right thing), or rather,
that you must go to the House of God (so you are induced to think that those
four walls of the place of worship are the House of God, when on the contrary
it is you who are the House of God); they want you to know that you must
submit to the statute of the denomination you belong to (which is a document
which resists the Holy Spirit, but perhaps you have not yet read it because
only the Church leaders of your denomination are allowed to read it); they want
you to know that you must not have fellowship with brothers and sisters who
belong to other Churches because they are dangerous (on the contrary, the
dangerous people are right those who tell you such a diabolic thing and
therefore you run the risk of being deceived by them) and many other things. But,
as far as many other things are concerned, they want you to be ignorant of
them or they try to frighten you in order to keep you from having certain
experiences, which they call sarcastically ‘mystic experiences’. So you hardly
ever hear of visions or dreams or revelations, and when you hear of them you
hear people speaking about them in a negative way and thus you have come to
the conclusion that such things are not important today or that today God is
not so much interested in giving visions, dreams and revelations as He was in
ancient times or that God has ceased giving visions, dreams and revelations; and
they may frighten you by telling you always the false revelations which many
who claim to be Christians have received (which false revelations of course
exist); when you hear of the miracles and the healings recorded in the Bible
they are allegorized, so you think that miracles and healings are not so much
important today. As far as the baptism with the Holy Spirit is concerned, you
hear of it and you have come to the conclusion that it is a biblical
experience but not a revolutionary experience, as it was for the early
disciples, therefore it is sufficient for you to hear someone saying ‘I spoke
in tongues’ in order to think that he was baptized with the Holy Spirit, but
unfortunately those tongues are the fruit of his craftiness or of his
ignorance because such a person was without power beforehand and he is still
without power after he has spoken these so called tongues. And what shall I
say about holiness? Of course, you hear of it, but in the way they want you
to hear of it. ‘No rules’, they say (while their statute is full of human
rules), and again: ‘Yes, we must be holy, but not bigot’ (by that expression
they mean that ‘exaggerations’ are not allowed) and many other things. Therefore
you have formed a particular idea of holiness. What’s this idea? You think
that God looks at the heart and he does not look at the clothes you wear or
at many other ‘trifles’ (such as watching television, going to the beach to
get sun tanned and to bathe, going to the cinema, going to dance, attending
amusements parks, etc). So you wear haughty and indecent dresses, as when you
were under the power of Satan; you go to the beach to get sun tanned and to bathe
(maybe along with your blind pastor), and you watch television as if nothing
happened in your life; and you do many other things which now I can’t write
because it would take too much time to speak about them. How then can you say
that the old things have passed away and all things have become new? You
can’t say such a thing; if you say it, you will deceive yourselves. But why are
these ‘Pentecostal pastors’ interested in letting you know certain things and
they speak about them to you with boldness, but they are not interested in
letting you know other things (provided that they know them)? Why, if some
believers do not pay tithes, on Sunday do they preach their sermons based on
Malachi accusing the brethren of robbing God? While, if a sister comes to the
place of worship wearing a miniskirt or a low-necked dress or a close-fitting
dress or jewelry or with her face made up, do they close their eyes and keep
silent? Why do they insist so much on the fact that believers must give money
for the work of God, but they don’t insist that the daughters of God must
wear decent and modest dresses? Why do they proclaim with power and boldness
that some Churches don’t accept the doctrine of the baptism with the Holy
Spirit, but they do not expose with the same power and boldness the counterfeit
baptisms with the Holy Spirit as well as the counterfeit interpretations of
tongues, which are passed off as prophecies but are nothing but inventions?
Why do they say to you with so much boldness and power that you must not
attend a particular place of worship because there the full Gospel is not
preached, but they do not say to you that you must not go to the beach to get
tanned and to bathe lest you defile yourselves? And I could go on, but I stop
here. |
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The reason
why they don’t want you to know these things is because they fear that those
who hear these things will choose another Church, that is, a Church whose
pastor tolerates these things and therefore they are afraid their Church
might lose some members and thus the offerings might decrease and their
prestige might decrease as well because in their denomination the more souls they
shepherd the more important they are in the sight of believers. |
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But as for
me, I want you to know these things and many other things these pastors hide
from you, so that you may grow spiritually and be consecrated to God, and I
will do my best by the grace of God to remind you of them every time I will
have an opportunity to do it. However, on your part, you must desire
earnestly to know the truth about all things pertaining to the counsel of God.
Therefore, brothers, search the Scriptures every day, meditate on them,
devour them, absorb them, asking God to explain to you those things which you
have not yet understood. pray, fast and abstain from every form of evil, and
you will see that little by little you will find out those things many people
want you to be ignorant of or don’t know or don’t want to know in their
ignorance. Every time it seems to you that something is wrong, kneel down
before God and ask Him to give you wisdom and to guide you and He will answer
you, He will not disappoint you. |
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Do not be
afraid of anything and of anybody because I know that the devil will try to
dissuade you from doing what I have just told you to do; then you will see
the awful ignorance existing in many brothers, who take pleasure in being
ignorant, and you will realize that those who do not seek the good of the
people of God, but only their own interests, are very numerous. And when you
know the truth about this or that thing, acquaint the other brothers with it,
so that they also may know it and you may be a testimony to them. |