Preachers love one, and loath the other!
Naturally! But when their hearers also love the same injurious lie, great indeed is the delusion! They very foolishly rest their eternal salvation (since regeneration involves one's eternal salvation...) in the hands of preachers, and some of them are only hirelings!
John 3
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Is it hard to understand this? Or is the truth too humbling for the high-minded preachers to swallow?
Supposing you were the dead Lazarus lying in the tomb, would you rather have Christ acted on you DIRECTLY, or would you rather have He acted on you INDIRECTLY through the activities His apostles, to bring you out of death?
The former keeps the apostles properly in their place, while the latter deceitfully elevates them to be mediators!
John 11
43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
It was only AFTER Christ Himself had ALREADY raised Lazarus that He summoned His disciples to do something for living Lazarus, i.e. to set him free from the hindrances of the napkin and graveclothes on him! You remove hindrances from men ALREADY MADE ALIVE by Christ!
While Lazarus was dead, Christ did not ask His disciples to do ANYTHING! Christ knew the HARSH realities... the disciples are completely impotent of doing any spiritual good with regard to the dead! He didn't depend on the disciples as the indispensable mediators to get Lazarus out of his deadness!
Get the point? Is that toooooo hard to understand? Or is it an ADDICTION to a form of priestcraft!
See the discussion here:
