“YOUR SILVER HAS BECOME DROSS, Your wine mixed with water.” Isaiah 1:22 NKJV“The words of the Lord are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times.” Psalms 12:6 NKJVIsaiah prophesied destruction upon Israel for a few reasons and one being the gross corruption of God’s holy Word. “Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water”.
The word of God, which is as silver purified seven times, was now corrupted with false glosses and human traditions. The wine of the divine Word, which was mixed and blended with the inventions of men, as before; so the roof of the church’s mouth, which is no other than the ministry of the word, is compared to the best wine, (Sol 7:9).
Jesus spoke to the heart of this very issue, “teaching for doctrine the commands of men”. There is nothing new under the sun. Today we have a mixture of God’s holy Word with human tradition, man’s experience, humanistic philosophy and psychology. Doctrine is only good when it is the pure, undiluted, and unmixed Word of God.
There’s a lot of things I can keep silent about and multiple things we can agree to disagree on; but there are foundational doctrines of the Word that I will not budge on: mixed doctrine is one. I view everything through the filter of God’s Word. I refuse to mishandle God’s Word, or use it deceitfully. I refuse to budge on what God says. Period.
I will not hold up my experience as greater, nor hold up any form of man’s psychology or philosophy as greater, or even equal to God’s Word. I will not twist or manipulate the Word to make it say what I want it say, or to please the heart of men. My opinion on the subject does not matter.
God never asked me what I thought about something. He tells me the truth, and I either believe Him and take Him at His Word; or I don’t. There is a standard. Even if I do not always live up to the standard, there is still a standard. And a teacher according to the gifts and calling of God must teach the supremacy and absolute purity and authority of God’s holy and unchanging Word.
We are judged by the standard of the Word, not our interpretation or opinion. “I didn’t know” will not be an excuse on that day. According to God’s Word, any healing, any deliverance, all restoration, any redemption, all power to overcome, all authority over sin and Satan, the only salvation is in His name and faith in His finished work.
Paul regarded to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Peter says more of the same, “Silver and gold have I none, but in the name of Jesus rise up and walk”. Period. The problem is never with the power of God to raise a man out of His wretchedness and infirmity, or to heal all manner of sickness and disease or the power to make completely whole and overcome— the problem lies within the heart of man.
Any other path, plan, or way is of man and humanly wisdom, and those calling it good. You will NEVER be made whole but by the blood and stripes of Jesus Christ appropriated by faith in His name. You cannot save yourself. You cannot deliver yourself. You cannot heal yourself. You cannot make yourself whole. You can overcome all manner of sin. You can overcome every work of Satan.
You can overcome your past, your present and your future; BUT only in His name and through His finished work and faith in that work. Any other path is falsehood. Yet, here we are thousands of years later, and God still speaks the same: your silver has become dross and your wine is diluted.
You make excuses for bad behavior. “But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”II Corinthians 4:2 NKJV
Do you want an abundant and prosperous life according to His Word? Do you walk in the fullness of peace, joy and righteousness? Take a look at how you handle His Word. Your life will reveal if you are true silver or dross and if you have been drinking the undiluted wine of the Spirit, or mixing it with humanly wisdom.
Want the true life? Stand firm on His Word and do not mix it with your own philosophy. ““Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Deuteronomy 4:1-2 #runyourrace
To Learn More About Pastor Crystal please visit the Leadership Page
