Articles
Of Growth
And Strength

Young Lions

Psalm 34:9-11 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.

In scripture there are many, many passages that speak of lions. In these passages lions speak of spiritual strength, spiritual power, and the spiritual prowess of the people of God. However in the passage above, lions are spoken of as a fallen and corrupted people, a people that should indeed have the normal attributes associated with lions operating in their lives but do not.

If the passage read the “Old Lions” or perhaps the “Infirm Lions” or “Sickly Lions” or “Lions in the Day of Famine” this passage might seem to some make more sense but the passage here speaks instead of “Young Lions” Those that are supposed to be filled with the most spiritual strength, and most vigor, and who are theoretically at their height of and power – but instead are suffering from a hidden weakness and malaise that has led to this hunger and their being filled with lack. 

These Young Lions should be out exercising themselves daily and moving from faith to faith and from glory to glory in the things of God, but instead they are moving sideways and or backwards from sin to sin and from corruption to corruption. So much so that these Young Lions do not hunt in their neighborhood, and immediate surroundings and they do not bring back meat to supply the needs of the members of their household and those of their greater household.

These Young Lions should be moving fearlessly about, roaring forth; proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and the words and commandments of Jesus Christ, all the while God is manifesting Himself to them and on their behalf.  But this is not at all the case as these Young Lions have been brought to silence and are filled with timidity, and the fear of men. So they sit and lay in their dens and under the shadows of great trees; the hunger and starvation eating away at them in body soul and spirit and one by one those of their pride are taken away by sickness weakness and ultimately death.  In my ears this has the ring of the parable on the coin where one young lion wrapped his coin in a napkin and hid it in the earth and then returned some time later with that one thin lifeless coin in hand to bring it back to his master.     

The Lord would ask is this you? Is this how you live your life in Christ, being filled with emptiness and lack, being fruitless before the Lord and being fruitless to those of your household and greater household?

In the Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Pentecostal and Charismatic Church there are a great many preachers and their disciples today that would declare themselves to be “Lions of God” and to be “Young Lions.” Many of these preachers and their disciples boast and brag of their great spiritual prowess, of the great power of God that is exhibited in them, of their great knowledge of the word of God, these same make themselves out to be apostles, and prophets, great evangelists, great pastors and great teachers that are on par with Paul, Peter, John and the other apostles. And these same churches and ministries boast and exult those that are their churches and fellowships and declare themselves as their disciples. – They Laud these believers as being equal or superior to any of those in the  churches or fellowships that are recorded in the book of Acts or the Epistles.

But in fact none of these things are so at all, neither for any of these ministers nor for any of their disciples.

Despite all their great swelling words high rhetoric and boasting we find quite to the contrary, these preachers and their disciples do lack. For in all actuality these do not know the Lord personally and intimately, and are not known of Him.

Matthew 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, (The multitude of these preachers, teachers, and their disciples) I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Luke 13:27 But He shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

Jesus Christ in this portion of the parable is citing the Prophet Jeremiah

Psalm 6:7-9 Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping. The LORD hath heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer. (It is not with great joy that Christ sends away these corrupted and dysfunctional Lions and their Young Lion disciples, it is with great sadness and weeping over ever single one of these souls – souls to whom Jesus Christ gave so much, with which they produced so little spiritual meat for themselves and others that He casts them out.)

These boastful Lions speak not the words of the Lord, and therefore they do not the works of the Lord either. But rather they speak their words and the words of other men that are filled with emptiness, filled with dysfunction and filled with disobedience.  It is only the natural man and the flesh that seek after and hunger for the words and teachings of these men and their ministries. (Words which we rightly identify here as the Talmudic doctrines and traditions of men)

Why? O why? The Lord cries out to this people do you hunger after and eat and drink that which satisfieth not?

Though these same teachers preachers and their disciples declare themselves to be filled with this endless supply of dainty food and teaching,– the fact is they suffer hunger and are in fact spiritually starving themselves and their hearers to death.

Christ speaks of this spiritual lack and suffering hunger in:
John 15:6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth (Cut off) as a branch, and is withered (As he starves to death) 

We again find this same phenomenon of the young lions of God being filled with lack and suffering hunger in the church of Laodicea. A passage that is quoted oft and routinely preached and taught from. – And yet none considers and none understands the implications of what Christ is saying here within the bounds of their own lives and within the bounds of the churches and ministries they have bound themselves to for Spiritual Sustenance.

Revelation 3:16-17 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue (Vomit) thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

From this passage we see Jesus Christ crying out to His people in this day and hour. – But lost in our blind and perverted doctrines and traditions, we have nulled out the words of Christ, declaring that the church of Laodicea is always someone else. It always is some other church, and some other denomination. So therefore we as true hearers and true believers justify ourselves and declare ourselves to be free and clear of Christ’s sharp admonition and condemnation here.

Revelation 3:16-17 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue (Vomit) thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: (But in all reality our absolution of ourselves as not being any part of the church of Laodicea condemns us all the more before God even as the Pharisees who said: We see. To which Jesus Christ responded: Therefore you sin remains.)

Christ in Revelation 3:16 cites the following passage to the leadership and membership of the church of  Laodicea.

Leviticus 18:27-29 For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled; (Idolatry, fornication, divorce, adultery, abortion all of which the church of this hour is filled to overflowing.) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. (Their Candlestick shall be removed)

And the Lord says here to the young lions of the Church of Laodicea you are blind, naked you’re wretched. You have nothing.  You’re filled with lack.  And, and you’re – starving.   

Over the past two or so years I have met several believers that have been “Saved” and “Filled with the Spirit” for thirty something years. Today each of these are regarded as elders and pillars in their respective fellowships across the country by their pastors, and looked up to and asked questions about their walk with God by younger believers.  

Yet the terrible truth is that each of believers stopped growing spiritually (By their own admission) decades ago.  We declare that they have became lukewarm, as they stopped reading the bible, stopped praying, and ceased having any kind of fellowship with the Lord on their own decades ago. Privately these have confessed their emptiness and nakedness before God – and privately these have admitted that they are frightened now that they somewhat see themselves.

These people spoke of how they often spouted off outright lies and greatly misleading statements, so as to cover their own skirts when they were asked about the nature of personal relationship with God and all the great things that God has spoken and shown them over the years.  (Do you also fit this bill? Do you lie, and imply things concerning God and yourself that are not or have not been in your spiritual life for years?)

Just as these have lied and filled with hypocrisy do not tell the truth to their younger bright eyed peers, so also their pastors and those who taught them do the identical things themselves, while walking in emptiness, and being filled with lack.

In another article I testified of how a pastor of a Pentecostal church and the head of the entire Pentecostal denomination confessed after decades of pastoring that he has never known how to pray.  At the time of his confession in a midweek church meeting after he spoke one after another of his congregation stood and confessed they had never developed any kind of prayer lives under his tutelage either.  People can smell the spiritual lacks in their preachers teachers and elders, they can see their sins and the spiritual short cuts that they try get away with before God – and surprise, surprise they incorporate all of this in their lives and then seek to further gyp God of His due. Is it any wonder the young lions under these do lack and suffer hunger? 

All the while these preachers and teachers and ministries declare themselves to be “rich spiritually and in need of nothing.”

This is an accurate description of many young believers, and many older believers that are reading this article now. – And if you are honest with yourself and God this should give you great pause, as to what you have been doing and who you have received your truth from.

The characteristics of the Church of Laodicea as to why  they have been overtaken by lack, and their suffering hunger, is that they have been blinded, blinded and  polluted by their partaking of the poison filled fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This partaking of these Talmudic doctrines and traditions of men in place of their not individually and personally praying, not individually and personally reading the bible, not individually and personally meditating upon the word of God, not individually and personally repenting and cleaning up their own act, and not individually and personally coming themselves into obedience to Christ’s words and commandments results in their Individually and Personally Suffering Lack, and Individually and Personally Suffering Hunger, and Individually and Personally knowing not.  

We have a generation of spectators that continually wait for surrogates and some one else (As in their preacher, teacher, or ministry) to fulfill their spiritual life and growth for them. And if it has never occurred to you yet, I will rain on your parade by telling you that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross and shed His blood for you to do thus and so. This slovenly lazy lifestyle does not get it before God, as in you have not found and not entered the straight and narrow way that few find, you are walking in the broad way of Churchianity that leads to eternal death.   

Jesus Christ in His calling unto us demands that we be not spectators, but that we are to be partakers, individually and personally.

Matthew 11:28-29 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Christ calls unto individuals and these individuals either respond and come, beginning with their willingly bowing their heads for Him to place His yoke upon them, and then their willingly spending time at His feet learning of Him in prayer, waiting, reading the bible and meditation so as they might learn of Him.

Immersing oneself in preachings and teachings from CD’s and books, is not a viable spiritual shortcut to one’s spiritual growth in Christ. Rather it is the siren call of Talmudic preachers and teachers to come out into the spiritual wilderness and waste places where their followers are filled with lack and do suffer hunger, and in the end perish there just as the children of Israel did with Moses. 

Isaiah 55:1-3 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

The true manna and true spiritual drink we hunger and thirst after comes directly from Jesus Christ, and from Jesus Christ alone. Alone in prayer. Alone waiting upon the Lord. Alone fasting. Alone meditating. Enter thy closet -- alone (Note this includes your husband or wife as you are one flesh) and shut the door and that which you pray in secret – that which you do alone before Me; when you emerge I will reward you openly. Reward us with what? Reward us with our daily bread, Reward us with our daily spiritual sustenance so that we do not lack, so that we do not suffer hunger and so that we can provide bread for our household and for those of our greater household.

Isaiah 49:10 They (Those that have entered into the secret place of The Most High) shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them.

Isaiah 41:17-20 When the poor and needy (Those who are no longer blighted Laodiceans) seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, (For they have turned away from the withered paps of their Talmudic preachers and teachers and returned unto the Lord) I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.