Are You a
Thermostat or a Thermometer?
Lea Sylvester
People are strange. And
it seems that Christians can be the
strangest. True freedom can only come
through God. Our nation was founded upon
God-given rights, or what is called Natural
Law. These are rights that are given by our
Creator and, not by any person or
governmental body. They cannot be taken
away.
“Stand fast therefore in
the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,
and be not entangled again with the yoke of
bondage” (Galatians
5:1).
It is
unfortunate, then, that most of today’s
Christians (at least in the Western world,
particularly America) are as much in bondage as
those who are not Christians. They are in
bondage to traditions of men, liturgy and
doctrine. They are enslaved much as the
Pharisees enslaved Judaism from accounts we read
in the Bible. Jesus spoke with passion and was
“in-your-face” with the Pharisees about their
“oral law.” These were their additional “rules”
which they took upon themselves to add to that
which was given by God to guide Israel.
This is
very unfortunate, especially considering what we
see unfolding not only across the world but here
in America. This is a nation that was founded
upon biblical principles and laws. Our founding
fathers took these very seriously and crafted
documents that reflect this. Despite what some
“progressives” try to say in order to rewrite
history, the facts are facts. History cannot be
changed. But as we see from history, when a
nation does not honor God, it is not blessed.
All
Christians, particularly in America and
especially pastors, should then be keenly
interested in this and in being proactive by
doing everything within their power to see that
our nation isn’t tolerating the things God has
told us not to tolerate. To call that which is
good, good and that which is evil, evil─and not
to care what the world thinks at all. That was
Jesus’ philosophy.
One of the
founding fathers was a minister. All of these
brave men laid everything they had; even their
very lives on the line in order to do what they
did. They were, after all, committing a
treasonous act. They were taking action against
King George. They were standing in defiance
against a tyrannical government. And Christians
and ministers stood with them. Churches were a
significant force in keeping communities
informed of what was happening. Today, this is
unheard of. The pulpits have fallen silent, with
the exception of a very few.
Instead of
teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ (which
includes how to be a good citizen, if these
teachings are taken seriously and followed), the
Baptists are teaching how to be “good Baptists.”
Methodists are teaching how to be “good
Methodists” and so forth. Instead of
understanding and teaching the great blessing
and significant role God has played in this
nation and therefore, how being a good citizen
is also acknowledging what God has done for us,
they are actually denigrating this. How? By
teaching that Christians are “citizens of
heaven” and therefore have no responsibility to
their nation, state or community.
This has
happened within our generation for our
grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not do
this. They served God and part of serving God
was serving their communities. In doing so, they
built this nation to become the most prosperous,
and therefore, blessed nation in history. This
was because they obeyed God, kept Him first,
served Him and served their communities and
their nation in a way that honored God. God
blessed them by blessing the work of their hands
and their obedience.
Of course, being a “citizen
of heaven” doesn’t keep Christians today from
going to the mall or attending their favorite
sporting event on weekends. Not only are so many
pastors and churches enslaved to
denominationalism, they are enslaved to
incorporationism. Nowhere in Scripture is the
church of Jesus Christ seen or described or
commanded to be a “denomination” or a
“corporation” or even a “business.” It is not
even described as a denomination or corporation.
Yet most churches today are being run exactly
as corporate America is run, using the exact
business model.
This is embracing worldly principles instead of
godly ones. Ask most any Christian today and
they will tell you that unless a church is a
501(c) 3 corporation, has a building and
by-laws, and is under the “umbrella” of a
structured denomination, it is not a church!
Really! In other words, if a church is
not recognized by the state, it is not a church!
Wow. Did Jesus Christ teach that? If so, WHERE,
WHEN?
Read this carefully. The churches in the book of
Acts, the early Christian churches were not
501(c)3 organizations and most didn’t have
buildings. They certainly were not set-up as
corporations and they were not under any
authority such as a denominational organization.
Nope. They submitted only to the authority of
Jesus Christ. There is only one Head of the
church – the church of Jesus Christ – the
Ekkelisa and that is Jesus Christ, Yeshua the
Messiah, Himself!
No man, no pastor, no
evangelist, no one can say otherwise and not be
a liar. The church in Rome is not “the” church,
nor is the pope more than a mere man. We are not
to revere any man but instead look to our
Heavenly Father for all things. No doctrine but
that of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be
obeyed.
Any true church will
refuse to be controlled by anything or anyone
but the teachings of Jesus Christ. History
proves this; the early Christian church refused
to submit to Rome, the Pilgrims refused to be
bullied or controlled by the British Crown, the
German churches refused to submit to the Nazis.
The true church in China today refuses to bow to
communism. What is the excuse for professing
Christians in the U.S. today?
Today’s churches are wimps, filled with greed
and love for the things of this world. Most in
the congregations are not hearing their
Shepherd’s voice. They are scared and will not
stand against anything we see happening in our
nation today. That is why we see homosexual
marriage, we see Christianity being made into
“the enemy” and there are other, far more wicked
things coming down the road. How far “we” have
fallen! Surely today’s church is the church of
Laodecia; lukewarm at best; neither hot nor cold
about anything. Just “comfy.”
Political Science Professors at the University
of Houston wanted to know the source of the
Founding Father’s ideas. After assembling over
15,000 documents, quotes and writings from them
this is what they learned:
Direct quotes (3,154)
showed that 7.9% were from William Blackstone.
Blackstone's Commentary on the Law/span>, 1758 was the textbook for
American lawyers and it contained direct Bible
quotes referencing sources of laws; 8.3% were
from Charles
Montesquieu,
a political philosopher; 2.9% were from
John Locke, theologian and political
philosopher; 94% were quotes from The BIBLE, of
which 34% were direct quotes, and 60% were
quotes from men who quoted the Bible in their
writings.
The study revealed that the
book most often quoted was
Deuteronomy. The Bible (the inspired Word of
God) was used to create the U.S.
Constitution. (Why would anyone then wonder
why so many wish to destroy the Constitution?
This is why!) The following ideals were taken
directly from the Bible: Representative form of
government: Deuteronomy Chapter 1; Three distinct branches of government:
Isaiah
33:22; Logic for separation of powers:
Jeremiah
17:9; Tax exemption for churches:
Ezra 7:24.
The writing of the U.S.
Constitution is attributed to Thomas Jefferson
(who has been painted as a racist, an atheist or
agnostic, and a terrible person...) but here are
a few true FACTS about Jefferson who was
uniquely qualified to write the document: At the
age of nine, he studied Latin, Greek and French.
At 16, he entered the College of William and
Mary. At 19, he graduated and began five years
of extensive study with George Wythe, the first
professor of Law in the U.S. He dedicated
between 14 and 16 hours a day to this study. By
the time Jefferson reached early adulthood, he
was proficient in five languages. He had studied
the Greek and Roman Classics. He had studied
European and English history. He had carefully
studied both the Old and the New Testaments.
These are facts.
While studying the history
of ancient Israel, Jefferson made a significant
discovery. He, along with Reverend Thomas
Hooker, who wrote the Constitution for
Connecticut in 1649, discovered that the most
substantiative principles of representative government were those
practiced by Israel under the leadership of
Moses. He saw that
at one time the Israelites had practiced the
earliest and most efficient form of
representative government. His study found that as long as the Israelites followed their
fixed pattern of constitutional principles, they
flourished.
When they drifted from it, disaster overtook
them. Jefferson thereafter referred to this
constitutional pattern as the “ancient
principles.”
Jefferson was also surprised to find that the
Anglo-Saxons somehow got hold of some of these
“ancient principles” and followed a pattern
almost identical to that of the Israelites,
until around the eighth century A.D.
It is
interesting that when Jefferson was writing his
drafts for the Virginia Constitution he was
already emphasizing the need to return to the
“ancient principles.” Jefferson incorporated
these principles into the U.S. Constitution.
The first eight of these are:
1.Sound
government should be based on self-evident
truths. These truths should be so obvious, so
rational, and so morally sound that their
authenticity is beyond reasonable dispute.
2.
The equal station of mankind here on earth is a
cosmic reality, and obvious inherent aspects of
nature and of nature's God.
3.
This presupposes (as a self-evident truth) that
the Creator made human beings equal in their
rights, equal in His sight. (Of course
individual attributes and personal circumstances
in life vary widely).
4. These rights bestowed on each individual by the Creator are
inalienable; that is, they cannot be taken away
or violated without the violator coming under
the wrath and judgment of the Creator. A person
may have other rights, which have been “vested”
rights by statute, but those are not inalienable
rights. They can be altered or eliminated at any
time.
5. Among the most important of the inalienable rights are the right
to life, the right to liberty, and the right to
pursue whatever course of life a person may
desire in search of happiness, so long as it
does not invade the inherent rights of others.
6. The most basic reason for a community or
a nation to set up a system of government is to
assure its inhabitants that the rights of the
people shall be protected and preserved.
7.
And because this is so, it follows that no
office or agency of government has any right to
exist except with the consent of the people or
their representatives.
8. It also follows that if a government
either by malfeasance or neglect fails to
protect those rights – or, even worse, if the
government itself begins to violate those rights
– then it is the right and duty of the people to
regain control of their affairs and set up a
form of government which will serve the people
better.
Consider the principles above (which are our
right - our heritage and cannot be taken away)
and ask yourself why these are being taken away
today? They are being FORFEITED!
And then ask why Christians are sitting
by and watching as their right to worship the
GOD of Abraham, Jacob and Israel is being
diminished, and the right to pray, to speak in
the Name of Jesus Christ, and to teach their
children about God (instead what the government
chooses). Ask why pastors are NOT teaching the
gospel, why they don’t revere these freedoms? It
is because they are not doing their duty to
protect the very rights given them by God
Himself! Perhaps they serve a different master.
Perhaps they teach a “different” gospel.
FOUNDATIONS:
God:
“In the beginning...God”
Genesis
1:1.
“We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King
but Jesus.” (John
Adams and John Hancock, April 18, 1775)
The Word:
“In
the beginning was the Word...”
John 1:1.
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too
often that this great nation was founded, not by
religionists, but by Christians; not on
religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
For this very reason, people of other faiths
have been afforded asylum, prosperity and
freedom of worship here.” ─Patrick
Henry’s, May 1765 Speech before the House of
Burgesses
The Son:
“And the Word was made flesh, full of grace
and truth”
John 1:14.
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or
modern which have come under my observation,
none appears to me, so pure as that of Jesus...I
am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple
of the doctrines of Jesus.” ─Thomas
Jefferson
The Holy
Spirit: “But ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.”
Acts 1:8.
"The Holy Ghost carries on the whole
Christian system in this earth. Not a baptism,
not a marriage, not a sacrament can be
administered but by the Holy Ghost...there is
not authority, civil or religious-there can
be no legitimate government but what is
administered by this Holy Ghost. There can
be no salvation without it. All without is
rebellion and perdition, or in more
orthodox words, damnation." ─John Adams
THERMOSTAT OR THERMOMETER?
What is
the difference? Which are you?
Webster’s
Dictionary 1828:
THERMOM'ETER,
n. [Gr. warm, from heat, and measure.]
An instrument
for measuring heat; founded on the property
which heat possesses of expanding all bodies,
the rate or quantity of expansion being supposed
proportional to the degree of heat applied, and
hence indicating that degree. The thermometer
indicates only the sensible heat of bodies, and
gives us no information respecting the quantity
of latent heat, or of combined heat, which those
bodies may contain.
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary:
Thermostat, no definition.
Modern Webster:
an automatic device for regulating
temperature (as by controlling the supply of gas
or electricity to a heating apparatus). Device
that detects temperature changes for the purpose
of maintaining the temperature of an enclosed
area essentially constant. The thermostat
generates signals, usually electrical, to
activate relays, valves, switches, and so on
when the temperature rises above or falls below
the desired value. Thermostats are used to
control the flow of fuel to a burner of electric
current to a heating or cooling unit, or of a
heated or cooled gas or liquid into the area it
serves.
Thermometer or Thermostat
Similarities:
Both devices detect the temperature and report it;
both devices are passive detectors;
Differences:
One obeys its direction without further thought; one
responds to the environment presented to it.
One takes the necessary action based on what it
senses.
WHICH ONE DO YOU DEPEND UPON THE
MOST?
Matthew 5:12-17
(Amp)
“Be
glad and supremely joyful, for your reward in
heaven is great (strong and intense), for in
this same way people persecuted the prophets who
were before you. You are the
salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its
taste (its strength, its quality), how can its
saltiness be restored? It is not good for
anything any longer but to be thrown out and
trodden underfoot by men.
You are the
light of the world. A city set on a hill
cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and
put it under a peck measure (basket), but on a
lampstand, and it gives light to all in the
house. Let your light so
shine before men that they may see your [a]
moral excellence and your
praiseworthy, noble, and
good
deeds and [b] recognize and
honor and
glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Do not think that I have come to do away
with or [c] undo the Law or the Prophets; I have
come not to do away with or undo but to complete
and fulfill them.
Matthew 5:18-20 (Amp)
“For
truly I tell you, until the sky and earth pass
away and
perish, not one smallest letter nor one
little hook [identifying certain Hebrew letters]
will pass from the Law until all things [it
foreshadows] are accomplished. Whoever then
breaks or
does away with
or
relaxes one of the least [important] of these
commandments teaches men so shall be called
least [important] in the kingdom of heaven, but
he who practices them and teaches others to do
so shall be called great in the kingdom of
heaven. For I tell you, unless your
righteousness (your uprightness and your right
standing with God) is more than that of the
scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven.”
Deuteronomy 29-30
(Amp)
“I
call heaven and earth to witness this day
against you that I have set before you life and
death, the blessings and the curses; therefore
choose life, that you and your descendants may
live And may love the Lord your God, obey His
voice, and cling to Him. For He is your life and
the length of your days, that you may dwell in
the land which the Lord swore to give to your
fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
ARE THESE BIBLICAL CONCEPTS?
Does the earth overcome the salt?
Does darkness overcome the light?
We could examine people of the Bible
Parables
Doctrines of the Bible
And it is all the same!
God...Christianity is a Thermostat!
Anything else is a thermometer and un-Godly!
WHICH ARE YOU?
Comments or questions to sylvester.lea@gmail.com