Foreword
An enormous number of books have already been written about faith. Attempts to describe and to explain faith and belief have been made from A to Z. Actually, there is little to be said about belief and faith. These are already perfectly described in Hebrew 11, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, many misleading books have been written about faith.
Many people claim that they believe or have faith. But in fact what they have is merely a fleshy, feint hope. Also, many have tried to say that doubt is not the opposite of faith, explaining that this is unbelief. This, of course is wrong, because doubt and unbelief are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is produced by Satan.
Furthermore, today’s teaching is that unbelief is to be pitied as a kind of sickness. And that lack of faith is a normal thing to have, even if you call yourself a “born again”. This is the most pitted fault there is; not to treat unbelief and rebuke it, like Jesus does. Moreover, there is the big lie that doubt is a part of our faith. We shall address all these lies in this book.
In the last book written in Norwegian – “Hovmod” (Haughtiness) we address some of these issues. Some of these chapters will be translated and put in this book, where they belong as the Holy Spirit dictates.
Let us start by quoting a man of God led by the Spirit;
“Today (in the congregation) unbelief is treated as a “sickness” that ought to be pitied instead of being confronted as the sin that it is”.
Unbelief is mentioned in the bible as “The Sin”. It goes hand in hand with haughtiness and it has to be confronted, which indeed we will do in this book. We will confront all those pastors who think they can twist the Scripture with no consequences and all those leaders and elders who do this deliberately. We will correct the congregation in their mistaken understanding and we will furthermore preach a simple, pure, full and true Gospel.
There are today mainly three (among many) kinds of false teachings which tend to spore atheistic churches, which pop up like mushrooms after the rain. This is so called “hyper grace” – the false grace gospel, witch walks hand in hand with the “once saved always saved” (OSAS), or “eternal safety” if you like. And the other is known as the “prosperity gospel”. First and foremost, we should probably be mentioning the false doctrine of the Catholic Church. Then on top of these there are all the sects and cults.
They are all false, and those who preach them have accursed themselves and can expect a big fall. Many of those who have “bought into it” are confused and are lukewarm and they all have to repent.
As with “Hovmod” (Haughtiness), this book is not for the faint hearted. It is going to confront you big time, and hopefully make you want to repent. This is what Jesus calls agape love. It is not a loving attitude if you tell someone who is walking the highway to Hell that he is OK. That is cowardly and hateful to the Truth.
There will be many times in this book you will read; “If you believe, you obey” and it also follows that “if you don’t obey you don’t believe”
It will be mentioned so many times that you will probably get pretty tired of it. But before finishing the book you will give your heart and your will to the Lord. Or you will quit reading and continue to be disobedient, full of your own pride and rebellious unbelief.
Another comment you will hear often in this book is: “To go out and preach is a commandment, not a suggestion!”
Hell will one day be full of people to claim they believe in God.
Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ (Underline added)
Mat 7:23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
All of these will claim they believe. But as the teaching of Jesus continues; He declares that it is those who do the will of the Father who will go to Heaven.
That means that those who choose NOT to do the will of the Father, purposely being disobedient, will not go there.
As I mention in the foreword of “Hovmod” (Haughtiness), it is of course not all the time pleasant to focus on the negative about being a Christian and being one who is constantly confronting and angle into the text in the Scripture to allow the negative side of the believer come to light. I believe on the other hand that it is time for books like this to appear more and more on the market, as the time is more and more imminent for the return of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Therefore the reader has to bear over or be patient in a way that we can “overdo” some times. It can be too much. Our advice when that happens is to put the book aside, but not forget about it. Start reading again when the Holy Spirit reminds you. Bear over with us also if we should make the error of having belief that is negative or even wrong. After all, it is good if we are wrong when we address unbelief and haughtiness in the church.
When you are in Spiritual, emotional and even physical pain, when some of the members on the Body are in pain, you know what this means. What the Body needs today is the voice of all this who feel this pain. So many are controlled to be silent! So many have the teaching of “don’t rock the boat”! So many have wrongly been thought to not oppose the leaders no matter what! So many are sitting idle when the ship is obviously going to hit an iceberg and sink!
So our hope is that you as a “churchgoer” will raise your voice after reading this book and first take the plank out of your own eye, and then remove the speck in your brother’s eye. Then unison confronts the leaders and pastors in the church about their unbelief and haughtiness. That you pastors and leaders, elders and what ever you call yourself, will be humble enough to admit your unbelief and haughtiness, repent and start to preach a pure Gospel and doctrine. Full of Faith and Truth!
John 3:36 (KJV)
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
John 3:18 (KJV)
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
The fact is that the church is in a prophetic state of rebellious unbelief and haughtiness. It might be wrong to even say this about the Church where Jesus is the Head. But if the Church is the Body and the Body is those who believe, as the Scripture say, the born again, the obedient assembly of men of woman of God, then it is time to realize what we are facing approx. 2 billion (2000 million) people who think they are on the way to heaven but roam around on the highway to Hell.
John ends the Gospel of Jesus Christ this way:
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:31 (KJV))
It seems to us that the Bible is crystal-clear about the fact that faith and belief come from hearing (or reading) the Word of God. It can’t be many sound doctrines and preachers or evangelists, nor many who study their Bible.
We hope this book will open up your eyes to your rebellious unbelief and harden of heart that comes from haughtiness and, by that, you will start to ask the Lord of the gift of discernment of spirits and then again also start to really, really STUDY your Bible.