God's call to come out of the churches

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Rev. 18:4

“For it was not an enemy that reproached me; Then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; Then I would have hit myself from him: but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked into the House of God in company. “   Psalm 55: 12-14

The Psalm is depicting the eventuality of those in the Temple of the Old Testament sinning in the form of maintaining their spiritual traditions but in the context of worldly values (using the “moral credit” of religion in order to prosper in the values of the world). It is also a picture of the end of the church age when the churches left “their true love” …….

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Rev. 2:4

….this true love which allegedly was God, and replaced it with their love of men’s pursuit of their own glory in a world that tries to justify it’s worthiness (which only comes from a personal spiritual relationship with God) by comparing men with men in their pursuit of worldly goals (money, reputation, influence, power etc).

As God started calling believers out of the “house of God” He, God, established a breach, or spiritual and relational gap between those who did not answer His call to come out, creating antipathy between believers who came out of the churches and pretended believers who stayed in the churches, to maintain the support of other members, accept and believe what their pastors said, thereby avoiding the transformative work of God’s bringing believers out of the carnal realms and orientations of this world to reorient them to the larger but invisible and anti-worldly spiritual realm.

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Phil. 2:12

The terms “fear and trembling” depict the trembling of the life and death conflict between the spirit and the flesh as God’s spirit indwelling the born again believer constantly calls the believer to “mortify the flesh”;

“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Romans 8:13

Mortifying the flesh does not mean the punishing of the self. It means that due to God’s Grace in saving that person, a believer allows themselves the painful struggle of change by dying to their fleshly inclinations (which they have been brought up in the world to respect and pursue and which is part of their worldly identity) that they might live in the spiritual orientation of their Lord.

“God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah.  Because they have no changes therefore they fear not God.”  Psalm 55:19

Those who “abideth of old” are those people who have become wedded to the familiarity of the church culture. Though one might think that those who stayed in the churches for their belief to be supported by men and doctrines of their pastor are lazy in that they do not have to be engaged by God  in the rigorous task of spiritual change, the spiritual root of this laziness is simply rebellion against God which is manifested in this futile attempt to hide spiritually from Him.

God’s admonition for believers to come out of the churches also emphasized the spiritual suicide of trusting in other men: The spiritual definition of “fear of God” is both love of God as spiritual and hatred of evil (evil, of course being newly and spiritually defined in the resurrected soul of born again believers).

“take heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders. And they will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity”

The “supplanting” (taking the place of), slanders (discrediting), deceiving (for personal advantage) and lying are actually the natural attributes of unsaved man and the spiritual meanings are hidden in the worldly delusions of competition, prosperity, flattery and hiding from God;