Their Latter Day Jesus by Pearl Adams – Preface: Three things inspired me to write this book- my disenchantment with organized religion; a message by an ordained minister of the gospel and nuggets of gold gleaned from books authored by some old time preachers like Charles Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, John Wesley, John G. Lake and A. W. Tozer.
The minister in question got me thinking when he admonished Christians not to expect too many miracles in their lives, for according to him, it is only in rare cases that God chooses to interfere in our affairs. In fact, he gave statistics that almost dampened my spirit as a Christian. He asserted that God expects us to live within the means available to us and that miracles constitute barely one percent of our existence.
My immediate reaction to the message was fury. I thought it was the height of apostasy. How could a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ call his Lord a liar? Jesus had before His ascension given a blue print of what His church would achieve in the power of the Holy Spirit. He said in Mark chapter sixteen, verses seventeen and eighteen, “These signs will accompany those who believe: they will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak new languages. They will be able to handle snakes without being bitten, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick and heal them”.
When my anger subsided, I could empathize with the poor man. He was on the pulpit trying to tell people about a God he had not experienced. I was too sure that if he had an encounter with God, he would have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the power of Jesus Christ. God would have given him the keys to unlock doors to the treasuries of heaven and release manifold blessings to his followers. I can imagine the frustration of some ministers of the gospel when confronted with issues that are beyond their capacity to handle!
You might ask, “Who called them into the ministry in the first place? While we cannot speak for God in terms of His choice of ministers, we are conscious of the fact that light and darkness operate at different realms. There is no way a man that is a mouthpiece of the devil can use scriptures to mask his evil agenda. As Jesus declared, “You will know them by their fruits”.
It beats my imagination that a Christian would declare that his faith is ninety-nine percent ‘reality’ and one percent supernatural. Is this line of thinking not a license to replace the gospel of Jesus Christ with humanism? Was the atonement of Christ intended to make me ‘a better person?’ Was it intended to energize my self-life to enable me handle the affairs of life in my own strength without God? What did Paul mean by his comment that Corinthian Christians were living like ‘mere men’? If I should not live like a ‘mere man’, what specie of human being am I?
I will let the scriptures answer the last question. Jesus said in Luke chapter seven verse twenty-eight, “I tell you, of all who ever lived none is greater than John. (John, the Baptist). Yet even the most insignificant person in the Kingdom of God is greater than he is”.
Think about this. Jesus is saying in effect that every one born of the Spirit is greater than all the great prophets of God in the Old Testament. What makes a Christian greater than all of them? Jesus speaking of the new birth in John chapter three, verse five said, “Humans can produce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven”. In chapter one of the same book, John, an Apostle of Jesus said, “This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan- this rebirth comes from God”.
What is my contention? I am strongly opposed to a man or woman climbing the pulpit to preach the gospel unless he or she has received the mandate by the Spirit of God. Of course, God in His wisdom has given us the plumb line for measuring the usefulness of every worker in His vineyard. Mark chapter sixteen, verse twenty says, “And the disciples went everywhere and preached, and the Lord worked with them, confirming what they said by many miraculous signs”.
My counsel to ministers who find it difficult to meet the spiritual needs of their followers is that they should weigh their version of the gospel against that preached by the early Disciples of Christ. Should it not bother them that God has chosen to ignore them even when they fast and pray? Should they not be perturbed that people who run to them for help end up on the psychiatrist couch because they could not find succor in the Church? Should they not worry about the growing criminality among some people who profess followers of Christ? Are they satisfied that their auditoriums draw capacity crowd every Sunday? Is that their own measure of success in the things of God? Will they escape His judgment on the day of reckoning?
Hard questions you might say, but then, none of us will escape the wrath of God if we continue to spit on His face by misrepresenting His Son, thereby making the gospel unattractive for unbelievers.
The apostasy resulting from dead religion is so deep that it needs high voltage candor to awaken some ‘Christians’ from their slumber. This is the thrust of this book, that in presenting their version of the gospel alongside the original, I might give them a rude shock to return to the true and tested faith. To achieve my aim, I intend to draw inspiration from the Bible to project their latter day Jesus. You might ask, “What’s the difference?” I will attempt a fitting response.
Let me start from Mathew chapter five. The Jesus of the Bible commands His followers (or disciples if you like) to love their enemies –those who claim to speak for Him in the 21st Century encourage believers to call down the fire of the Holy Ghost to ‘destroy or uproot’ their adversaries or other words to that effect. The Jesus of the Bible had answers for all of man’s problems. The one preached in some of our churches appears powerless and insensitive to the plight of those who run to him for help.
The Jesus of the Bible turned the known world upside down with his simple message. You have to acquire at least a university degree to understand the high-sounding words of some ‘great men of God’. You also need a college degree to preach the gospel in our ‘enlightened society’. Contrast this with the caliber of people to whom the Jesus of the Bible entrusted the gospel.
The Jesus of the Bible charged his followers to give alms or perform great deeds in secret. The Disciples of the latter day Jesus use trumpets to call attention to theirs. They just cannot have enough publicity on cable networks to rally support for their worthy cause.
The Jesus of the Bible said His disciples would do greater works than He did in the power of the Holy Spirit – most of those who parade themselves as ‘men of God’ in our generation clearly lack the unction of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the difference is so clear that even unbelievers can discern that something is wrong with their version of Christianity.
My fervent desire is that I might provoke rebuttals and rage among those who profess Christ but are lords over their own lives, with the aim of causing them to see themselves in the light of God’s Word and ultimately repent of their religious pretensions.