Pharisees, scribes and hypocrites of today

Since last week I have stayed at home working on the house. I have also had the privilege to be attacked by in my opinion one of the biggest pharisee, scribe and hypocrite in our country. It all started when I wrote a blog and encouraged the church to evangelize and to encourage everybody to testify about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. It was then this former Lutheran priest (not longer in the Finnish evangelical Lutheran church) attacked me and told me how I should consider something else instead of traveling around telling people about Jesus. 

He started to quote the scriptures about what the Apostle Paul wrote about church leaders and teachers and said things that had nothing to do with the truth. I never claimed I was a church leader or a teacher. He did not understand this and could never understand that I travel around with my guitar singing songs about my life, about Jesus and about different things while I tell my life story and about the mighty things Jesus have done in my life. According to the word of God we ALL should do these things. He could not drop it and said that I should not travel around and get paid for this. It was not God's will. 

I tried to mail him and it is now around three weeks since all this started. He wrote about me in public and asked people to pray against my ministry. I told him that it is not right to do so and write all kinds of rubbish in public. I am not telling that I would be any better but when we start to judge others saying stuff like he did we have to react. I studied what he wrote for a couple of days and to me it is today obvious that his strange doctrine has nothing to do with the pure word of God. In one letter he commented the healing I received four and a half years ago and said that it is necessary not good. He said that the devil can do the same things and he even said that sickness and being ill can be important. It is so strange and to me it feels sad that people who are priest or ex. priests have no faith in the word of God. If we read the four books in the New Testament about Jesus and what He did while He walked on earth we can see that most of it is about healing and deliverance and forgiveness of our sins. Jesus DID it all at the cross when HE took all our sins. The Bible even says that we are healed by HIS stripes. I never red anything about that Jesus met an ill or sick person and said to this: Sincerely I say to you, it is now very important that you are ill, I wont heal you.

When we are out there speaking about Jesus the devil gets mad. For every seed we sow the devil is reacting. I thought more about the priesthood and about people who have served the church of Finland than this. I could never have thought about that they would run the devils errands and cause strife and division. Of course I reacted as he also involved my employer and other people I am working together with. On his website and blog he claims that I have threathened him, his wife, his relatives and friends with violence. He also wrote open about me on Facebook that I wont leave his wife, his relatives, friends or siblings alone. I find all those false accuses strange as I have never been in contact with any of these people. I could never have imagined that a man who claims himself being Christian and studied theology for many years and have served as a priest could be so mean. What can we do? Yes, we shall definitely pray for him.

In my heart I feel good about all this as Jesus Himself said: 
"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:10-12)

Jesus did not have an easy life on earth. He was persecuted, followed and people spoke evil things about Him. These people were pharisees, scribes and hypocrites. Finally they beat him up and nailed Him to the cross. These people thought they were right and thought they had the right doctrine but their biggest mistakes were that the did not believe that Jesus was Messiah and the killed Him. The word of God also says that we shall do even greater things than Jesus.  

Jesus was followed by these people and as we are walking in the will of God with our eyes on Jesus we will also be followed but the same religious spirits that followed Him BUT we have it totally different. We are just followers of the Master, Jesus IS the Master and He suffered for us. Jesus IS God and without HIM and HIS works on the cross we would not be able to do anything. 

So, I take it as a sign that what God told me to do, to encourage the church to evangelize and encourage their youth to get out there was totally the will of God and therefore the devil sent us this pharisee, scribe and hypocrite that went way too far. Right now he is just digging his own pit and it is now our responsibility to pray for him as well as we pray for all the others who are possessed by religious spirits. Let's do it in Jesus name!

Next week we will be at Frank Mangs Center together with Pastor Tommy Lilja, a great man of God. The week after that we get Lili-Ann Karppinen and Karl-Erik Appelfeldt there for a three day revival conference. 

At the moment we are working on the dates over in USA in november and I am looking forward to visit my brothers and sisters over there and together with them serve the Lord. This time we start in Texas and from there we do a short stop in Ohio before we end our one month long tour in USA in Florida. Before that there are meetings coming up here in Finland as well as in Spain.

Keep your eyes on Jesus and not on religion or doctrine. Doctrine or religion never saved a single soul but JESUS did it all. It is finished just to receive.

 In Christ!

Pontus