Idleness (Compilation) — Compilations

The Crippling Idleness Among God's People

Knowledge is increasing at an ever ever increasing rate. It's an incredible knowledge that has come into this generation that we're now living in. Now yet in the midst of God's people there's an incredible crippling idleness that has taken a hold of many lives.

An idleness, a horrible thing I believe in the sight of God. This idleness has rendered many of even the most choice servants of God weak, confused, and ineffective as the representatives of Christ in this 11th hour.

Idleness and the Laborers in Matthew 20

Now how did this happen? How did this idleness set in? We're going to talk about what this idleness is. How did it happen? Well it's just I believe in this passage of scripture in Matthew 20 these people were standing around.

The bottom line really is that they were letting somebody else do the work. But we're living now in a generation where people are content to let somebody else do the digging for them. And they stand around the mine and say to those few who go down and labor, bring us up treasure.

Fill our purses, fill our bags, fill our lives, fill our hearts with treasure. And so this generation has through its idleness become completely dependent upon those who say they are laborers and go down into the depths or supposed depths of Christ or this mine.

Shallow Ministries and Rootless Christians

And so we're living in a church age that has become prey to firstly shallower surface miners. There are ministers that have absolutely no depth. Their gospel is all joy, all wonderfulness, and all goodness, and all love, and all life.

And there's no root in them. They don't prepare, they don't go deep into the Word of God, they don't understand the things of Christ, and they bring the people a very surface gospel that has no root in it.

And they don't prepare the people for the winds, they don't prepare them for the fire, they don't prepare them for the rain that comes into every Christian life. Brothers and sisters, because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're not going to go through trial.

It doesn't mean death or heartache won't touch your door. But being a Christian, Jesus promises when you go through the water it will not overflow you and you will not drown. When you walk through the fire, not around it and I won't circumvent it in your life, but when you walk through it, it will not kindle upon you and you will not be burned.

And when the rain comes, it will not harm you, it will not cause your house to fall like the man who built his house upon the sand. And I see so many shallow ministries today and so many people standing around their supposed revelations of Jesus Christ with so little root.

Jesus speaks to them in Mark chapter 4 verse 17. He said they have no root in themselves and they so endure for a time. And afterwards when affliction or persecution arise for the Word's sake, immediately they are offended.

Or another word for offended would be that they stumble. And simply this happens to many, many people in this generation because of idleness, because of a slothfulness, a laziness. They're not willing to get into that mind, they're not willing to go into the Word of God and dig for themselves.

Searching the Heart and Receiving Pure Gold

They're not willing to call out to the Holy Spirit and say, Holy Spirit come and search the very inward depths of my heart. Go into the very essence of my being and take out of me things that are not good.

And let the character and nature of Christ, the pure refined gold be developed within my life. Miners without discernment, these preachers without discernment going into the Word and coming out with fools gold and filling the bags of the people.

That's where all these Gospels of ease and prosperity and success and self-actualization are coming from. Jesus said, I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire. I counsel you to buy of me the pure word, that unadulterated word that pierces and penetrates and goes into the very depths of the heart and exposes the very nature, the things in us that are not like the Lord.

2nd Peter chapter 2 verse 19, Peter talks about these workers. He says, while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption. They go just into the surface of the Word of God and all they can pull out is good things and promises.

And I love the promises of God. Don't misunderstand me. But they pull half of them out of context and they come to the surface of the mind. And there are the people standing idle in this last hour of time and saying, fill our bags, fill our treasures.

False Prophets and Deceptive Visions

And I can see people in their homes now with bags full of fools gold. Books that they've gotten in Christian bookstores, fools gold. And they sit there and wonder why they're not growing and wonder why they too have no discernment.

We're living in a generation, we're sad to say, thousands upon thousands of people call themselves by the name of Christ. And it's so evident now, in this, especially in the last few years, that we're living in a generation where we're in North America, in the Western world, that they have no discernment.

They have been fed fools gold. They go into these houses where prophets of likeness stand and prophesize visions and dreams out of their own hearts, talking about experiences that they've never known nor never had.

And the people sit there, open-hearted, open to these deceptions. We're living at a time when false workers coming out, supposedly the depths of God, as they say, with dreams and visions of their own hearts, talking about where they have been and what God has revealed to them and what they have seen.

By their likeness, they're causing the people to err. They say to those that walk in the imagination of their own heart, it will be well with you. They say peace to those that despise the government of the Lord over their lives.

But if they had stood in my counsel, the Lord says, if they truly had been where I am, they would have come out of that place, they would have brought pure gold to the people, the word of the Lord would have been a quick two-edged sword, piercing and dividing between the joint and marrow, soul and spirit, would have discerned the thoughts and intents of the heart.

And if they were true prophets, they were true men of God, they would turn my people from the evil of their doings. They would take the mischief out of the hearts of my people, they would talk about the holiness of Jesus in the context of turning from sin and walking in obedience to a holy God who has a lawful right over each and every one of our lives.

The Great Falling Away Caused by Idleness

There are multitudes today being led into ever-deepening foolishness. We're living in that era of a great falling away in the Church of Jesus Christ. Make no mistake about it, it is in reality a great falling away in the faith of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, an ever-deepening foolishness simply because of idleness.

They refuse to put their hands to the plow like the workers of the Eleventh Hour standing around idle in the marketplace. The Apostle Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 .15, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Studying Scripture and Letting God Search the Heart

Brother and sister, if ever there was a time that you and I need to get back into this book, we need to get back into it now. We need to ask God by the power of the Holy Spirit to take this book deep within the inner recesses of our heart, to go down into the very depths, the very essence of who and what we are, rosting out, taking away things that are displeasing to God, letting the pureness of Jesus being formed within our lives.

That's the only hope for the church in this or every other generation. Now the slothful are not necessarily people who are not running around the countryside. You see, you can be buying books and getting all kinds of tapes, you can be running to conventions, going to cities, you can be doing all kinds of religious activity but be slothful in the sight of God, simply because you're standing around the mouth of the well looking for somebody else to feed your soul.

You've never put your own hand to the plow. We're living in a whole generation that's like that now. Instant on television, instant coffee, instant this, instant that. And everybody runs to some worker somewhere, to some man and says, open your mouth and fill me.

Personal Prayer, Scripture, and Spiritual Discernment

Deliver me from having to do any of the work myself. Deliver me from having to go into this book and call out to God and enter the prayer closet and prevail. Deliver me from ever having to say, Lord, search my heart, search my reins and see if there's any wicked way within me.

The slothful is simply a man who refuses himself to put his hand to the plow and to get into the word of God. And that's why multitudes are being led by the nose in this generation. Multitudes. If we would have known in this church age the word of God, most of the men and even women that are standing and leading many of these so-called movements of God would be standing in empty halls today if the church had been in the word of God.

If people had not been standing around idle in this last hour of time, but had said, oh God, had rolled up their sleeves and I'm talking about getting into the word of God and learning the word of God and studying the word of God and letting the word of God study you and study me.

That's where true liberty comes from. That's where the protection of God is. To know this book rightly divided in its proper context. If people in this church age knew this book, three quarters of the doctrines that have crept in, especially through the charismatic movement in the last 20 years would not even be here today.

People would have waved their hands and laughed at it and known what foolishness it was if they would have been in this book. But instead they stood around the opening of the mind. They stood around this treasure and said to some, look for some new voice to feed them.

The Heart of Jesus and the Coming Bride

Instead of asking the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit to take them right into the bowels of this book, which is the heart of Jesus. Take me into the heart of Jesus. Into the church. The Lord is coming. My brothers and my sisters, I don't know how you feel today, but I feel that cry within my heart.

I feel the urgency. Jesus is right on the threshold. He's coming any day, any moment. We, we see a sporadic outbreaking now of an anointing of God. That's because the justice, the judgment of God is right on the threshold.

And Jesus Christ is coming back for a church, a bride without spot or wrinkle. There's a cry coming into the church.