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The Status of Message Believers: Difference between revisions
→The Main Problem
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In short, William Branham's message is not healthy. You can eat junk food, but if that becomes your diet you will eventually experience side effects. A Christian will have a healthier spiritual life outside of a faulty belief system, and that is what William Branham taught – a view of the scriptures and reality that is seriously flawed. | In short, William Branham's message is not healthy. You can eat junk food, but if that becomes your diet you will eventually experience side effects. A Christian will have a healthier spiritual life outside of a faulty belief system, and that is what William Branham taught – a view of the scriptures and reality that is seriously flawed. | ||
==The solution to the problem - Follow Christ== | |||
We are not pointing to ourselves, to another man, or to any church. Paul said that we are to follow the teachings that he laid out in scripture (2 Tim 1:13). Peter said the same thing: | |||
:''For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), 1 Pe 2:21–25.</ref> | |||
A minister of the Gospel only speaks authoritatively to the extent that what he says agrees with scripture. But we don't follow these men, we follow Christ. We examine their lives and if they are worthy of being examples of the Gospel, then we may want to imitate them. But we must judge their teaching and their lives by the Gospel as the writer of the Hebrews stated: | |||
:''Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Heb 13:7–9.<ref> | |||
We are not to follow a single man but those leaders (plural) that provide a godly example of a Christian life in word and deed. And we are to judge their teachings based on scripture. | |||
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