Two kinds of religious people. It appears there are two kinds of religious people. The one seeks the will of God continually and is careful to do all God says. The other is desirous of status in religious affairs and makes a profession of loving and serving God. However, this type of person does not hear from God and does what seems to him or her to be the Lord's will.

The difference is expressed as follows:

Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. (Habakkuk 2:4)

The individual who lives according to the desires of his soul is not upright in the sight of God. The righteous trust in the Lord and constantly wait on him for direction. They live by faith in God.

Again:

Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. (Isaiah 50:11)

The individual whom the Lord uses is often barren for many years, sometimes confined in some kind of prison. It is in the place of waiting that the true witness of God is formed. The self-directed religious person looks on all such barrenness and imprisonment as the efforts of people or of Satan to frustrate his desire to serve God. He simply cannot understand why God would prevent someone from performing the work of the Kingdom in the earth.

He views waiting on the Lord as passivity and foolishness. Why should he wait on the Lord when there are obvious needs all around him? If he sees someone injured in the street is he to wait on the Lord before he will help the person? So his reasoning goes.

The man or woman of God, even when he is compelled to act quickly in an emergency, is calling on the Lord for wisdom while he acts. He does nothing apart from the Lord!

Perhaps religious denominations often do what seems good to them before they hear from the Lord. It would be well for every denomination, every religious institution, to set a time aside at least once each year to hear from God; not to pray to God to accomplish the needs perceived by the institution but to wait until direction is given.

If the Catholic Church had waited on the Lord through the centuries it never would have persecuted the true Christians that God raised up. To keep on performing religious service, assuming that this is God's will, and yet not hearing from the Lord, can prove to be the most destructive wickedness there is. Religious zeal (religious efforts apart from the immediate direction of the Lord) is a murderer of the prophets. It does not come from the Lord! It comes from the ambition of Satan. Those who participate in such wickedness are tares in spite of all their professions of faith in Christ, and shall be removed from the Kingdom in the last days if they do not purge themselves. Babylon, which is the efforts of religious people to reach God by their own strength and wisdom, is destined to become a prison containing every kind of foul spirit.

To be continued.