Wednesday, March 21, 2012


Are You Sick or Well?

Luke 5:31-32 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. KJV
Luke 5:31-32 Jesus answered them, "It is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. I have not come to ask good people to change. I have come to ask sinners to change the way they live." ERV

Luke 5:31-32 And Jesus, answering, said to them, Those who are well have no need of a medical man, but those who are ill. I have come, not to get the upright, but sinners, so that they may be turned from their sins. BBE

You know this matter of salvation or the common used expression of being saved has somewhere down the line lost its true meaning or maybe its true meaning has never been quite understood. In order for any of us to ever be saved by the grace that Christ only can supply, we must do only one thing and that is acknowledge to Him that we are sick with the worse disease known to mankind and that is sin. We read magazines and watch news reports on how much money is being spent to find cures for diseases of the physical body such as various types of cancer and marvel at the effort being put forth by well-meaning people to bring relief or healing to the victims of cancer. I see nothing wrong with any of these efforts, matter of fact they are all good and should continue. However, the disease that is eternally fatal is sin and every person has it. Imagine if the same people put forth the same amount of time and money into leading people to the only cure for sin (faith in Jesus Christ which results in a second birth) how different this world would be to live in. Well, I know that is just wishful thinking. Our Lord told us over and over that things in this world would not get better but only worse and worse.
Matthew 24:12 “Because sin will increase”  

Why is it so hard for we human beings to admit or confess that which is ever before us? Our Lord tells us in our subject Scripture above that we are under the false assumption that we are good people. We all think we are good. We never see the evil born in our own hearts, but we can easily see it in others. I tell you all the years that I drank alcohol, did drugs, had sex with many women, watched porn, and engaged in violence, hated people, and many other wicked things continually, I never considered myself to be bad. I thought I was truly a good person. Because the disease of sin is not diagnosable by some medical test like an x-ray or CAT scan we are lulled into ignoring its growing worse and worse within our souls. We are wretched creatures and we cannot be cured until we see ourselves in that reality. What we do does not makes us what we are, but what we are (vile sinners) makes us do what we do. Are you sick or well?
“Sin is the sickness of the soul; sinners are spiritually sick. Original corruptions are the diseases of the soul; actual transgressions are its wounds, or the eruptions of the disease. It is deforming, weakening, disquieting, wasting, killing, but, blessed be God, not incurable. Jesus Christ is the great Physician of souls. His curing of bodily diseases signified this that he arose with healing under his wings. He is a skillful, faithful, compassionate Physician, and it is his office and business to heal the sick. Wise and good men should be as physicians to all about them; Christ was so. Hunc affectum versus omnes habet sapiens, quem versus aegros suos medicus - A wise man cherishes towards all around him the feelings of a physician for his patient. Seneca De Const. Sin-sick souls have need of this Physician, for their disease is dangerous; nature will not help itself; no man can help us; such need have we of Christ, that we are undone, eternally undone, without him. Sensible sinners see their need, and apply themselves to him accordingly. There are multitudes who fancy themselves to be sound and whole, who think they have no need of Christ, but that they can shift for themselves well enough without him, as Laodicea, Rev_3:17. Thus the Pharisees desired not the knowledge of Christ's word and ways, not because they had no need of him, but because they thought they had none. See Joh_9:40, Joh_9:41.” By Matthew Henry

Imagine this scenario, a man diagnosed with pneumonia and in the hospital fighting for his life and yet instead of listening to his doctors he gets up out of his hospital bed goes outside walking in the rain proclaiming himself to be cured. You might say that sounds foolish and you would be right, but it is no more foolish than a person who is a member of any church claiming to be saved when they own and operate a pornography shop and they indulge in the porn themselves regularly. Which scenario are more ridicules? I submit to you both are equally ridicules.
When our Lord spoke these words in Luke 5:31-32, He did not direct them to a prostitute or a murderer. These words were shot directly at people who exercised themselves in much religious activity, temple worship, paying tithes, fasting weekly, making proselytes, praying in public and private, and many other ritualistic practices that constituted Judaism in that day. However, our Lord was being sarcastic with these people implying that they were self-righteous and therefore still sick with sin and in need of His healing as the Great Physician that He is. Wow, all of those things done in the name of God but void of life. Are you sick or well?

I suppose and believe that the toughest mission field for our Lord today is not a tribe in the amazon or some remote part of Africa, but instead it lies in a heated, air-conditioned, well lit building that may have a cross on top of it. I sadly believe that there are enormous amounts of people that have a false conversion or assumption that they are Christians without the actual life of Christ residing in their souls.

Rom 8:6-9 If your thinking is controlled by your sinful self, there is spiritual death. But if your thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. Why is this true? Because anyone whose thinking is controlled by their sinful self is against God. They refuse to obey God's law. And really they are not able to obey it. Those who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God. But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. ERV
“Unbroken patterns of sin are characteristic of the unregenerate. No matter what a person claims about being a Christian, if he or she continues in sin, it is only a claim and not reality. When you become a Christian, the pattern of sin was broken and a new pattern came into existence. Holy affections took over. Does that mean that there is no sin in your life? No, because your unredeemed flesh is still there. But the more you pursue those religious affections, the less you will sin. Sin as a life pattern is incompatible with salvation. That’s because to experience salvation is to be save from something, and that something is sin. If a person could continue in sin after being saved from sin, that would mean salvation is ineffective.” John MacArthur, page 9, from “Is it Real?”

It becomes so easy for someone who has been confirmed in their Church or baptized to think that was when they were saved, yet their life pattern indicates an unbroken relationship with sin. I truly believe with all of my heart that the mission field of lost Church members is quite large. Just as our Lord received venomous attacks from the religious Pharisees and Scribes, I believe so too will anyone our Lord calls to enter into this realm of evangelism. We have only to look back 500 plus years at the life of Martin Luther. Luther spent years as an unconverted Catholic Monk and He would later remark, "If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them." However, he discovered as all do that salvation is only a free gift that can never be earned by anything we do, but to come to Christ with a broken and contrite spirit. To put it in the words expressed by Dr. John Gill, “Sick with our sin and sick of our sin desiring to be healed. Are you sick or well?

 Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr. (Author of Silent Assassins of the Soul, to be published this May)

Tuesday, March 13, 2012



Lust, What is It?

James 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. KJV
As procreating human beings, we are all too familiar with our English definition of the word conceive. We most often think of it when a man and woman come together in sexual intercourse and a pregnancy is the result of their union, whether intended or unintended. However, the Greek word sullambano used here means something completely different. It is a verb also in the Greek language, but it means to clasp, to seize, to arrest, or to capture. It has the idea of a person being taken captive or prisoner by something or someone very strong. The conception of lust is very strong and it is more corruptive in my opinion than any drug one could put into their body.

However, it gives the appearance that it is not so controlling and thus deceives unsuspecting souls repeatedly. When we look at the statistics of drug use and abuse in this country and the world at large, we are sure in the results we find that those things carry a much greater threat to our way of life. But the breakdown of the family due to sexual misconduct and infidelity is serving as a far greater threat to the destruction of society than any drug. A foreign substance has to be made and then brought from the outside to be introduced into the body. Lust on the other hand lies within the mind and can be awakened at any moment. Therefore, every one of us requires something on the inside of us that can wage war with this enemy lust and overcome it.
Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. KJV

The heart He (my Lord Jesus) refers to here is the soul the mind of every person. Every person has corruption built in but there are external stimuli that work jointly with the built in lust to produce sin.
James 1:13-15 Whenever you feel tempted to do something bad, you should not say, "God is tempting me." Evil cannot tempt God, and God himself does not tempt anyone. You are tempted by the evil things you want. Your own desire leads you away and traps you. Your desire grows inside you until it results in sin. Then the sin grows bigger and bigger and finally ends in death. ERV

Lust is always an inside job and consequently it has to be the greatest threat to society and to the future of humanity. All of the Historian writers document that the great empires of the past like Greece led by Alexander the Great, and Egypt with its many Pharaohs, and Rome with all its Emperors were destroyed from within and not by any outside strong or mighty army coming against them. An individual person is more likely to destroy himself by the horrible choices they make in life than from any outside enemy. Is it the mind or brain of every person that holds lust in storage? How can we delineate between the two? Aren’t they the same thing?
Our English dictionary defines the word brain as mental ability, that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason, and responsible for someone having exceptional intellectual ability and originality. Well, all of that sounds good but is it factual. One might argue that it must be factual if it is found in the dictionary, hold up let’s not get carried away with Excellency in our humanity. Every dictionary is written and published by man who is from beneath and not from above. Listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ said to some Jews who continued to be antagonistic with Him, John 8:23 But Jesus said to them, "You people are from here below, but I am from above. You belong to this world, but I don't belong to this world. ERV

Guess what? Our English dictionary defines the word mind as that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason. Wait a minute, isn’t that the same definition of the word brain. Are we human beings saying that the brain and the mind are the same thing? How is that possible? We can open up a person’s skull and visibly see their brain. Can we see a person’s mind when the skull is opened up? Of course not. The problem with accepting the difference between the physical visible brain and the non-physical invisible mind is due to our spiritual deadness from birth. A spiritually dead man no matter his human intellect or IQ can never resolve or understand what he cannot see, taste, touch, hear, or smell. Get the picture?
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? KJV

The Hebrew word used in the above scripture for heart is the word leb, which means feelings, will, and even intellect. The English word desperately is from the Hebrew word anash, which means incurable, sick, and in an abnormal state.
People this is our mind from birth. It matters not if you were born into a rich family or poor family, whether you were born as the son or daughter of King or the son or daughter of a slave. At birth we all receive the same corruption in the mind.

I submit to everyone reading this that the Bible tells us the mind is the heart or the inner most part of man and it is the seat of all of our struggles. Did you know that there is not one reference in the entire Bible that references the brain as the center of man? I checked 4 different translations and they were absent the word brain. Our human unregenerate mind is the vilest thing in the entire universe. Lust lives there along with its neighbors, hate, greed, envy, jealousy, pride, etc. How can this type of mind ever produce anything good or acceptable to the One True God?
In my book, entitled “Silent Assassins of the Soul”, I document some of the world’s most well-known and highly respected human Philosophers (example Plato & Aristotle), and discovered that they came up with some of the most bizarre theories and explanations for the mind and its function in man. The Greek philosopher and mathematician Plato (429-347 B.C.) theorized that the mind is a nonphysical thing, which enjoys an existence independent of the body, both before the body’s birth and after its death. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) taught that the mind was not a thing separate and distinct from the physical body. Rather, it was the “form” of the body, in the most general sense of the term “form” that includes all of the body’s properties and activities. A body with a mind is not two things but just a body of a certain kind: a body with mental properties.

However to a person without the Spirit of God these things don’t sound so bizarre, but gives to them some way of logically differentiating between the mind and the brain. Let’s be clear people, we all know that the mind and brain cannot be the same thing, if so why won’t the brain function after a person dies? Even in our spiritual deadness and separation from God we know that these two are different. The visible brain without the invisible mind is nothing more than a lifeless blob of tissue.
Finally, then what shall I conclude from the Word of God about lust in every man born of the flesh into the earth. The Bible clearly tells us that lust is sin that we are born with in our first birth and has its seat, place, or headquarters in the mind of every person. Therefore, we need a cure for this corruption of our mind. The cure can’t come from within us because our inner man or woman houses the disease. Jesus Christ’s supernatural birth, His sinless life, His sacrificial death on the cross shedding His blood and being buried, then 3 days later He proved He was God by His resurrection from that death and tomb and any person turning from their sin and trusting Him is the only hope and cure for our mind where lust lives.

Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose MIND is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee. KJV
Listen to what Matthew Henry (1662-1714) had to say, “All moral evil is owing to some disorder in the being that is chargeable with it, to a want of wisdom, or of power, or of decorum and purity in the will. But who can impeach the holy God with the want of these, which are His very essence? No exigence of affairs can ever tempt Him to dishonour or deny Himself, and therefore He cannot be tempted with evil. There is nothing in the providential dispensations of God that the blame of any man's sin can be laid upon. Those who lay the blame of their sins either upon their constitution or upon their condition in the world, or who pretend they are under a fatal necessity of sinning, wrong God, as if He were the author of sin. Afflictions, as sent by God, are designed to draw out our graces, but not our corruptions.”