We got this message from “Victorious one”:
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
And the fruit of the Spirit is love…
“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”
You will indeed know them by their fruit.
Victor’s reply:
“Victorious one,”
All the Scriptures you quote are true and we believe them, by the grace of God. Now it is possible that you send us this message because you love us and are exhorting us, but we cannot help but doubt it. Here is why:
One, you call yourself “Victorious one,” presumably in Christ. Those who are victorious in Him do not advertise it by labels and titles as do you. Those who name themselves such are always phonies, bearing witness of themselves, walking in their own righteousness, presuming to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ, but not knowing Him. While they think they mean well and do good, they err.
Two, whereas Jesus, being real, direct, and personal, did not simply or solely quote Scripture to communicate with people, all you do is present your Scriptures and expect us to get the message. What? Can you not tell by our site that we are familiar with, or aware of, the Scriptures you send us? Or are you trying to tell us something?
You cannot allow your “yea to be yea and your nay, nay.” You must be surreptitious about it. This is often the fruit or mark of someone with an agenda, but with no love for anyone.
Three, you do not identify yourself as did the Lord and His servants. When they came speaking, they identified themselves and came reasoning with their hearers to reach them, giving them specifics. You don’t do that.
We must conclude by the testimony of Jesus Christ and the example of His servants, as recorded in Scripture, that you are accusing us of lacking love. If we are mistaken, we are willing to hear otherwise.
Now let’s take a look at what Jesus might say to you, or at least has said to others who conducted themselves as you do (tell us if it is the kind of love you are looking for from the Incarnate Man of Love):
“Offspring of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34 MKJV).
Matthew 23:13-36 MKJV
(13) But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men. For you neither go in, nor do you allow those entering to go in.
(14) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and pray at length as a pretense. Therefore you shall receive the greater condemnation.
(15) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
(16) Woe to you, blind guides, saying, Whoever shall swear by the Temple, it is nothing; but whoever shall swear by the gold of the Temple, he is a debtor.
(17) Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold, or the Temple that sanctifies the gold?
(18) And, Whoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is a debtor!
(19) Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift?
(20) Therefore whoever shall swear by the altar swears by it, and by all things on it.
(21) And whoever shall swear by the Temple, swears by it and by Him Who dwells in it.
(22) And he who shall swear by Heaven swears by the throne of God, and by Him Who sits on it.
(23) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and you have left undone the weightier matters of the Law, judgment, mercy, and faith. You ought to have done these and not to leave the other undone.
(24) Blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
(25) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of extortion and excess.
(26) Blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of them may be clean also.
(27) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outside, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
(28) Even so you also appear righteous to men outwardly, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
(29) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous,
(30) and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
(31) Therefore you are witnesses to yourselves, that you are the sons of those who killed the prophets;
(32) and you fill up the measure of your fathers.
(33) Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?
(34) Therefore, behold, I send prophets and wise men and scribes to you. And you will kill and crucify some of them. And some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city;
(35) so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Berachiah, whom you killed between the Temple and the altar.
(36) Truly I say to you, All these things shall come on this generation.
Now let’s see if you recognize that we have conducted ourselves here in opposite fashion to the way we say you conduct yourself. Let’s see if you are willing to repent of, and confess, your religious cowardice and hypocrisy. If and when you do, you will find yourself already forgiven.
Victorious over sin, the flesh, the world, the powers of darkness, and the children of the world, by His grace and in reality,
Victor