PRIMARY COLORS

PRIMARY COLORS

                I love primary colors. In an antique store the colors have all faded, and yet there is a hint, a reminder of a time when black was black and white was white and Christmas was bright red and green and Easter was in pinks and greens and yellows and baby blankets were either pink or blue and fire engines were red and truth and righteousness was generally understood.

                It is not that everyone was good mind you. Sin has always been around… but the difference then is that people knew they were being bad and most strove for a good name and a sense of integrity. Heaven or hell lay at the end of every road and choices were to be made concerning our destiny.

                Manhood was something that little boys aspired to achieve and virtuous womanhood was prized and respected. Now manhood is despised and womanhood has taken on a spirit of Jezebel and many today don’t know for sure which they are and it is just a reflection of our animosity towards a Creator God who made us what we truly are and called us to what we are intended and designed to be.

                And so we have thrown out the primary colors as everything morphs into a dull grey and everyone looks for a global leader that will bring order out of chaos and yet, no one wants it to worship the real Jesus Christ. No one can any longer endure the bright colors of untarnished truth… and they divide the Bible up into sound bites that say only what they want them to say and so they argue about many secondary colors while Jesus is sidelined and no longer center stage.

                Oh, I know that I am painting primary colors over a dull grey mess and history is full of blood and war and slavery and injustice… but hey… do you remember gumball machines with all of their bright colors where you could buy hours of simple pleasure and bubble blowing for a penny?

                You know what? I am getting really old and my memory has washed away all of the evil of the past and painted it once again in primary colors. Of course I love all colors with the exception maybe of yellow ochre and raw umber, but we are not really talking about primary colors here are we?

                The Bible talks about a specific time when people will begin to call evil good and good evil and we see that so clearly today as people in New York City celebrate and dance in the streets over their right to kill babies, where truth and Bibles and prayer become illegal even as we invite the ancient gods to rule our country once again.

                Political correctness has sought to shut the mouths of those who remember the primary colors and many a pulpit complies with the world today, since they refuse to take a bold stand for the bold colors of truth. Today many preachers speak as if everything is under control, even as we are being surrounded and infiltrated and infected by the enemy.

                We have become blind to the cancer that has eaten away the primary colors of truth and left us to swim in a sea of dull grey water and blood crazed sharks. We prophesy peace when we should be shouting out warnings in sack cloth and ashes. We heap our riches upon those who preach prosperity and good times, even as we stone the true prophets of God who weep between the porch and the altar.

                The word “perilous” is used only one time in all of Scripture. It is used concerning our day and Paul goes on to describe exactly what our peril is all about saying:

                “But know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these for among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 2 Tim 3:1-7

                The world can no longer endure primary colors and so Paul goes on to say in verse 12 that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

                If we are not being persecuted today, then perhaps it is because we too have stopped living in the primary colors of truth. In fact there is a great falling away from the truth going on in the world today as even Christians begin to abandon those truths that were once the foundations of Christianity and they beat a trail to Rome to seek security in numbers. We fool ourselves into thinking that peace will come from mixing all of the colors together into one global religion, under one leader , ”be he god or devil.” But the bible warns us that this kind of peace and unity, based upon compromise will result in sudden destruction.

                The church has lost much of its power in the world today simply because we have chosen not to preach in primary colors any more. Like the Pharisees of old, we love to argue various points of the Law while plotting to kill the Lawgiver. We speak of charity even as we withdraw ourselves from the poor and needy, creating plush comfort zones to hide in as the world goes to hell. We pride ourselves in having “The Truth” even though it remains largely theoretical, rather than practical.

                The early church had for a short time a magnificent truth painted in primary colors. Jesus Christ was indeed God in human flesh. He had died and risen again. He had poured out His Spirit upon them and empowered them to carry on His mission in the world.

                Paul said it like this: “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Cor. 2:2

                But in time the Gospel became watered down with factions and interpretations and various denominations, each one championing some portion of Scripture, but in their many factions the big picture was lost and the Body of Christ divided by hundreds of factions each claiming to be God’s remnant people, became divided in an unhealthy way. But their issues are generally over secondary colors even as the primary colors get buried and mixed.

                We need to bring our focus back upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified and raised from the dead. We need to live once again by the Spirit that He poured out upon us… to live the Christian life in living color… in bright and bold declarations of the truth as it is in Jesus rather than as it is in various factions and arguments. We need to live the life… and to live it by the power of Christ, so that it breaks out of the theoretical and into the power of godly love and Truth. (Which is Jesus Christ Himself, living in us and reaching the lost world through us.)

                Our commission is to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, for it is this message that must be preached before Christ can return. Jesus said:

                “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all nations, and then the end shall come.” Mt. 24:14 Do we know what the Gospel of the Kingdom really is?

                And so we see the Jehovah/s Witnesses knocking on doors and the Mormons knocking on doors and this faction and that faction offering their brand of doctrine and we don’t even know what the Gospel of the Kingdom is, but the Bible gives us a clue. Jesus gave us these clues saying:

                And these signs will accompany those who have believed; in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will pick up serpents and if they drink any deadly poison it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.” Mark 16:17, 18

                This may seem like a weird assortment of signs, especially the picking up of snakes or swallowing poison, but remember that the early church was being persecuted, being fed to lions, or poisoned, and by every means imaginable and so we are being told that there is a place of power in Christ where we need not fear any of these things. So think in terms of Psalms 91 instead of whether or not you should go around picking up snakes. For a thousand may fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand, but it shall not come nigh unto us until we have finished what Jesus  called us to do.

                Meanwhile it is time for God’s Remnant people to return to the primary colors of truth and it may get us into trouble with the world, but as Paul said:  “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain… and while we would much rather to depart and to be with Christ, we have a job to do here and we need to be faithful to do it in the power of Jesus Christ until He returns.