SWORD OF THE SPIRIT                                                                                               1212

“Polluted Water”

You shall not pollute the land in which you live…; The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. – Numbers 35:33-34; Isaiah 24:5

We are all keenly aware of how our industrialized society has polluted our water and land – all in the name of progress and prosperity. Water pollution is defined as the contamination of water sources by substances which make the water unusable for drinking, cooking, cleaning, swimming, and other uses. But what about the Living Water of the Word of God? Have we polluted it also?

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it; All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem. – Exodus 20:25 (NHEB); 2 Chronicles 36:14

The Living Water of the Word of God is as essential for our eternal life as the physical water of this world is essential for our temporary physical life and we have polluted them both.  By ‘lifting our tool on it’ that is, our secular wisdom and desire to conform to current societal norms and/or to profit by the Word of God, the modern ‘church’ has polluted the Living Water of the Word of God by embracing and promoting false doctrines such as:

• Teaching that there is more than one way to eternal life besides Jesus
• Denial of the Virgin Birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus
• Denial of the Trinity, three persons in one God
• Compromising the Truth of creation
• Compromising the Truth about our sexuality and embracing homosexuality
• Compromising the Truth about conception and embracing abortion
• Compromising the Truth about marriage between one man and one woman
• Adding to the Word of God with extra books and doctrines of man.
• Avoiding the ‘hard teachings’ of the Gospel in order to keep ‘church numbers up’.

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar; You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. – Proverbs 30:5-6; Deuteronomy 4:2

Avoid being contaminated by the pollution of false doctrine by seeking out the pure, undefiled Living Water from Jesus through His Word. read the Word, meditate on it, and allow the Holy Spirit to teach you how to apply it. Seek the gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit that you may recognize what is false.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. – Peter 2:1

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They are from the world; therefore, they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. – 1 John 4:1-6

May the Holy Spirit fill you and baptize you with a fresh infilling of His presence that you may know the undefiled, unpolluted Truth of the Living Water of the Word of God.