Christian?

As we, daily, approach the, soon coming, Rapture, it is becoming more and more common for people that have never darkened the door of a Christian Church to proclaim themselves to be

Christian. This condition is so common in the US that it is reported by various survey companies, from around the world, that eighty-three to eighty-four per cent of Americans are Christians. Yet on any given Sunday, the day Christians celebrate the resurrection of our Christ, Jesus, far less than two percent are present for worship service and in honor of the Christian celebration of the Sabbath.

In a survey oft quoted, by me, taken by the Barna Group in the mid-eighties, less than ten percent of the folks that attend church three times or more a week, in America, believe in things like the Virgin Birth, Christ's payment for their sins and that He is returning to rapture them out of here. I'm told that this group, known as the faithful, are most often fifteen to twenty percent of the membership. That means that somewhere between one and two percent of the one to two percent of the population of the US that attend church are among the saved of the world. The actual numbers can be distressing.

For this reason it is safe to say that the field is white unto the harvest and every Christian should be witnessing to the Lost to bring in the harvest for the LORD. This however is not my point here. I'm concerned with the two groups, calling themselves Christians, that are out on the streets doing what real Christians are called to do.

We will begin with what is a real Christian? First and foremost a Christian is a follower of Jesus, the Christ. Please note that Christ is not Jesus' last name, rather it is who He is! I've been taught by a number of teachers that Christ is the Koine Greek word for the Hebrew term, Messiah. This, then, is who Jesus, the carpenter, is to us, He is our Saviour. This point is the defining point for who is a Christian.

This definition is further clarified in John 1:1-3 and places Jesus in the position of the second person of the Triune God, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. This is also why, no matter how many times they say they are, the Mormons, a.k.a. LDS or Later Day Saints of Jesus Christ and the Jehovah's Witness' are not Christians.

In the Mormon Religion, Jesus is the brother of Satan instead of being a fallen Angel, created by Jesus. Once more the reference is John 1:1-3 where the Bible, the inspired Word of God, teaches that there is nothing that has been created that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, has not created. (Jesus, the Christ, created the Chief Angel, Lucifer, who sought to overthrow God and to assume His place, was cast out of Heaven and became Satan.) Over the years I've had the opportunity to witness to several Mormons as they sat on my porch and to explain to them that they must never believe they are Christians because they are not saved.

Then there is the oft heard Jehovah's Witness. These folks are well intentioned, very misguided people that show up everywhere I've been, except in Christian Churches. These people believe that Jesus is either a created being of God or that God had sex with Mary and is the off-spring of that impossible coupling, I've been given both mistaken revelations by different JWs at different times. Here, again, the reference I'm using is John 1:1-3.

We need to be very careful and guard the ear gate because there are many in the vein of Jim Jones and David Koresh in our midst today but even more dangerous are the people coming to visit us with these 'new' revelations of God that disagree with what God has revealed in His Word for us to hold to.