Messengers and Negotiators

This is from the blog Homeward Bound:

For the most part things used to be simpler in the olden days. God would choose a man, equip that man for service, give him a message, and that man would faithfully deliver the message he was given even if it meant prison or death for having delivered it. More often than not, it did.

Being called of God was neither a way to grow rich nor was it a way to grow famous. It was a calling, one that was to be carried out diligently by the individual who was chosen for the task at hand. Faithfulness, obedience, humility, and boldness were indispensable, and the men chosen to speak on behalf of the Almighty possessed these things to overflowing.

In some rare cases, individuals chose to attempt and skirt their duty. As I said it was rare, but it did happen. Even back then there were men who attempted to flee from their responsibility, but eventually, whether voluntary or compulsory, they carried out their mandate and delivered their messages dutifully.

It goes without saying that one does not try to run away from umbrella drinks and endless days in the sun. One does not attempt to flee prosperity and blessing, one does not attempt to bypass a life of ease and leisure. Whenever we see men within the Word of God attempting to skirt their duties, we must always keep in mind that their duty, whatever that duty might have entailed was always difficult, treacherous, and would likely cause personal distress of some kind or another.

All one need do is read the lives of the prophets and study what they went through to realize just how difficult a task and calling these men had on their lives. Rarely lauded, frequently derided, these men became the repository for the rebellious heart’s lashing out against the will of God, the physical manifestation of the cringing of the teeth and the shaking of the fist. If those rebuked and corrected by the mouthpieces of God could not lash out at God Himself, they would lash out at the next best thing; the messenger He had sent to speak on His behalf.

Nowadays men aspire to more than just being messengers. Nowadays the selfsame virtues that were indispensable to the servants of old are mocked, looked down upon, and wholly rejected as antiquated practices which can be interpreted as intolerant. Boldness is seen as aggression, faithfulness is seen as zealotry, obedience is seen as shortsightedness, and humility is seen as fear of success.

For many in the limelight today, being a simple messenger is construed as an offense. It is too lowly an office; it is too humble a calling. It is too insignificant as far as their egos are concerned.  As such, they take it upon themselves to become negotiators, assuming they know the mind of God, and feeling as though they are within their rights to negotiate on behalf of God. They give leeway where God gives no leeway, and they are overly gracious toward those whom God commands to repent and turn from their wicked ways. The messenger is still derided to this day. The negotiator is praised and embraced by the world, because given enough time they know they can whittle the negotiator down to agreeing to the proposition of men entering heaven laden down with sin.

What those praising the negotiators don’t seem to realize is that they are not negotiating on behalf of anyone other than themselves. They come neither in the authority or with the permission of God. Their promises are just as empty and hollow as their hearts, and though they promise heaven, they can do nothing in the way of making good on that promise.

Even so, many within the household of faith today prefer the career of the negotiator to the calling of the messenger.

A messenger is a lowly, thankless job, but a negotiator has the power to wheel and deal, to speak words that have profound impact on the lives of others, and those without understanding, those whose pride has blinded them to the need for humility, revel in the notion of possessing power, even if said power is an illusion.

It takes but a passing glance to realize that there are far more negotiators in the church today than there are messengers. Though some of them have not the temerity to outright say “Thus says the Lord”, they nevertheless insinuate it, and only backtrack when called out for their supposed message of open and unrepentant promiscuity being A-Okay with God.

Until the masses realize that the negotiators are negotiating without sanction or authority, they will gravitate to them, elevating them to prominence ever so joyfully because they offer them an easier path than that of the cross of Christ. Love for sin has compelled many to search for an alternative, while conveniently forgetting that no man can serve two masters.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

The Spirit of a Prophet
Killing the Prophets
Wearing a Rough Garment

How Far We've Fallen

This is from the blog Homeward Bound:
 

High standards seem to be a thing of the past. What once was ordinary and expected of everyone is now deemed gifted, talented, and exceptional. Even simple things like being able to write longhand are considered extraordinary, and if perchance you happen to be an immigrant that speaks fluent English without the frequent insertion of ‘know what I’m sayin’?’ in your dialogue, people are surprised and dumbfounded.

We have consistently lowered the bar to accommodate the lazy and uninspired, and although that is a choice the world is free to make it ought not to be so when it comes to those responsible for the spiritual welfare of the household of faith.

The quality of shepherd has been steadily diminishing during the first few decades. We have let things slide, we have ignored the warning signs, and now the quality of shepherd has diminished to the point that no one seems to be put off by the idea that some 400 pastors, deacons, elders, and other church leadership have enrolled themselves and pay fees to a website whose sole purpose is to provide partners for illicit extramarital affairs.

In layman’s terms, they pay a subscription to facilitate the commission of adultery with other individuals who pay a subscription to likewise commit adultery on their significant other.

The surprise in the church was almost nonexistent. Some are even breathing a sigh of relief that the names of these pastors and elders were found on a website that facilitates heterosexual intercourse rather than one providing hookups for men to reciprocally sodomize each other.

At least they were looking to commit adultery with women. The fact that we can even think of framing the argument in such a manner proves how far we’ve fallen and how little is expected of our spiritual leaders nowadays.

It used to be men whose function was to serve food to widows were expected to be of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Nowadays, as long as you can fit into a pair of skinny jeans and look hip enough wearing a pair of horn rimmed glasses, your spiritual pedigree, how much you know of the Word, or even what you believe is no longer relevant.

We make idols of men only to be overcome by hopelessness and despair once our idols turn out to be less then human, never mind a demigod.

In this entire unfolding there are no innocents. Everyone is culpable for the spiritual condition we find ourselves in. Everyone is culpable for the lukewarm, halfhearted, heretical offerings we bring before God, thinking we are doing Him a favor, and expecting to be generously rewarded via the material for our efforts.

The leaders are culpable because they stopped preaching truth, and began floating the idea that sin is no longer sin, and what you do  the rest of the week is irrelevant as long as you pay your tithe and show up on Sunday.

The sheep are culpable because they desired a wider path than that the Bible prescribes, and found themselves teachers to suit their proclivities and give them license to sin.

Those still preaching truth are likewise culpable, because they didn’t yell loud enough, or long enough, or often enough, but in their defense, even a dog can only be smacked upon the head so many times by those he considers friends before he just gives up his barking, and goes to sit in a corner somewhere.

We tried preaching the Word, and were called legalists. We tried preaching righteousness and were called zealots. We tried preaching the power of the Holy Spirit and were called mystics. We tried preaching Jesus and were called intolerant. We tried preaching the narrow path and were called exclusivists. We tried preaching the cross and were called old-fashioned, outmoded, and obsolete.

 

We were not called these things by the world; it was not the world that was persecuting us, but those who claimed to be of the household of faith, those who claimed to be of Christ, those who claimed to stand for truth. Yes, the selfsame individuals who now embrace sin with open arms, who see no problems with adultery, and whose notion of salvation is one even a toddler can poke holes in until it looks like a slice of Swiss cheese.

Who have we to blame for the world we’ve created but ourselves?

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

The Future in Hindsight

This is from the blog Homeward Bound:

Before Romania was a democratic country it was a communist country, and before it was a communist country it was a monarchy. With each transition certain things took place that shaped the nation for the next fifty years, and most often not for the better. One need not be a student of history to see certain key events play out and draw certain conclusions based on said events.

One of the first things the communists did when they came to power was strip the rich of their wealth, imprison every voice of dissent, and appoint little more than troglodytes to positions of power.

Nothing is more dangerous than an imbecile with power, and all that was required of them was to remember who gave them said power, and obey whenever called upon to act.

And so, people who had worked their entire lives to build something for themselves were kicked out of their homes, and their homes were given to others who never had either the desire or wherewithal to succeed in life, all in the name of equality.

A strange thing happened when these homes were given away to those who had neither worked to build them or upkeep them. Within a matter of years these homes were nothing more than hollow shells, raped of their beauty and their once stunning presence, because those who had been given stewardship of them did nothing to maintain them and treated them as one would something they didn’t have to work for.

Even here, in Botosani, a relatively small and poor city, there are the husks of once breathtaking homes, and one need only close their eyes and imagine what they were like at their peak to be both speechless and broken of heart.

What all those foaming at the mouth and screaming about equality, and taking it all away from the rich to give to the poor don’t understand is that equality has always been and will always be a fantasy. No matter the government, no matter the system, no matter the restrictions, there will always be those who will outwork, outthink, and outhustle the vast majority, and make a better life for themselves and their families.

Give a man who didn’t have to work for it a mansion, and within a hare’s breath it will be turned into a dung heap, because what you didn’t work for you don’t respect, and what you don’t respect you don’t strive to maintain.

I am poor by choice. I’ve made money in the past, I know how to make money in the present, but money does not appeal to me, nor do material possessions. Wealth and the message I preach are irreconcilable and forever destined to be apart, and that bothers me not an iota. I choose to see my daughter grow up rather than spend my time and energy amassing possessions. Those experiences are more valuable to me than a new car or a big home. That said, this is a personal choice, and as such I cannot ask someone who has chosen to pursue wealth to give what he has amassed to me because I chose not to pursue the selfsame wealth.

I write this article today because given that another election is around the corner, our beloved politicians will once again be beating the inequality drum at a fevered pitch, not bothering to include themselves among the evil rich, but though they are multi-millionaires in their own right somehow consider themselves removed from said title.

When you fuel the fire and fan the flame of such a mentality, when you make a mass of individuals believe they are entitled to something they didn’t work, sweat, bleed, and sacrifice for, it becomes impossible to put the genie back in the bottle and have things be as they once were.

The utter desperation to win elections have made people nearsighted, and as yet they do not see the reality that once you let this particular dog off the leash it will not stop until it has devoured everything in its path.

If you want to see the end result of what this mentality produces you need look no further than former communist bloc countries where the entrepreneurs, the visionaries, the educated, and the hard working were stripped of their possessions only to watch them be squandered by the mobs who were told that they deserved what others had worked for simply because it was more fair this way.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

When Romania Executed its Dictator

A Most Inoffensive God

This is from the blog Homeward Bound:

A god who does not condemn one’s sinful nature is not the God of Scripture. A god who does not insist upon a standard, some plumb line to which he must hold those who purport to serve and worship him is not the God of the Bible.

The god of many today is a most inoffensive god, a god who is permissive of any and all things, a god that eerily resembles the self, because there is no more permissive a god than the god of self.

The one true God is offensive to man’s sinful nature. Man’s sinful nature bristles, rebels, and rejects the one true God because He demands a mortification of said sinful nature, a doing away and parting of ways with what the flesh once enjoyed and reveled in.

The modern day church jumped the rails when it stopped preaching repentance, and it has been hurtling towards a shattering impact ever since. Because we now preach self rather than Christ, because we now preach personal growth rather than spiritual growth, because our focus is squarely set upon the things of this earth, we are as toothless lions, something for strangers to look at and try to imagine in their prime. We pose no real threat to the enemy, we pose no real danger to the darkness, but we’re fun to look at and make light of once in a while.

Righteousness has ceased being our banner, obedience has stopped being our goal, and as such we have become the devil’s footstool and a punchline for perverts and pederasts. The lunacy of our self-destructiveness will be a tale told for as long as the world turns, because no generation has wasted more potential, and been altogether more ineffective as pertains to the kingdom of God than this present generation.

We have ways and means to reach the world in a heartbeat, we have ways and means of getting the message of the cross to billions of souls, and instead we elevate men who can barely string two words together because one of those words happens to be prosperity.

Instead of charging the gates of hell, we’re peaking over the wall hoping to see something memorable, enamored with the idea that someone from the other side may throw us a glance.

We’re climbing all over ourselves to call any has been musician or never was actor an honorary Christian simply for speaking the name Jesus in passing, as though their mention of Him validates Him in any way.

What wonderful news: the lead singer of the Idiot Savants said Jesus was a cool cat! Now I can die happy.

We’ve bought into the cultural relevance lie, and though it has proven itself ineffectual time and again we’re still trying to find people to validate the King of Kings, thereby hoping that some will be drawn to Him and begin to worship Him.

It’s not the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit the church needs, it’s someone with enough star power, someone truly famous to give Jesus the thumbs up. Once that happens, boy, look out, you’ll have them stampeding the altars, and fighting over who gets dunked first in the baptismal.

If it were not so tragic it would be comical to an extent.

We have betrayed our principles, abandoned our dignity, and sold out our Savior all for the hope that some ignoramus on some reality show will give Jesus the nod, even though he doesn’t subscribe to all that morality stuff, but just thinks it would have been cool to have a beer with Him.

The ‘sin no more part’ has been conveniently left out of ‘go and sin no more’ because it might offend the sensibilities of some hedonist or another, and we don’t want to exclude anyone from our big tent approach to God.

All that stuff about the way being narrow and those who find it being few must have been a mistranslation, and so we’re filling heaven to the rafters with men and women whose garments are soiled and muddied, waiting for the wedding feast, not bothering to acknowledge the reality that once the King arrives and finds them without the proper wedding attire they will be bound and cast into the darkness where there is but weeping and gnashing of teeth.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

A Message from Michael Boldea Jr

Hand of Help Ministries

What Angers God
A Most Dangerous Theory
Why I Weep! 
A Disciple of Christ 
Old Ghosts