You Will Have to Fight

We live in the midst of a vicious war being fought in many battlefields with an array of weapons and armaments. Do not be deceived, most professing Christians are content to attend a local church which meets their needs and the needs of their family, but as far as entering and participating in this Spiritual war they are blissfully and voluntarily ignorant and absent. This is not a battle over moral issues no matter how serious. Abortion, gay marriage, and all the other convenient issues that are political fodder every four years are only a mirage compared with the larger and eternal issues that are slipping away before our very eyes and with which the church has become complicit. You and I will one day give an account before the Master and Author of salvation.

Again, we live in the midst of a doctrinally ignorant and pacifist church that has mistaken love for the acceptance of grievous error that is tearing the very heart out of the gospel. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. The truth is changing within the church without much resistance from the ones who should be the guardians of truth, God‘s servants. Bible study, if any, centers on us rather than Him. What can God do for me and my situation is the self serving teaching not what God commands from me and the privilege it is to be His servant. But what many don’t know or wish to know is that the message of salvation is slowly and not so slowly being redefined, repackaged, and ultimately rendered eternally useless. And there seems to be a slumbering spirit that has enveloped the church while the spirits of anti-christ boldly plunder the faith once delivered to the saints.

If you want to please the Heavenly Father and be found a faithful follower of Jesus Christ you will have to fight. Oh yes, the enemy is upon us and the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and only the violent take it by force. Does that mean we are to become abrasive and unkind? No, we are still to have the aroma of God’s Spirit in our speech but we must make a glorious and unswerving commitment to God’s Word that sends us voraciously to the dining room of the Almighty’s feast of truth. Reading, praying, meditating, learning, comparing, memorizing, speaking, sharing, and living the uncompromising truth of God’s Word must be our lives, if we truly believe it is the Word of God. Awake, says God’s Spirit, and pick up the Sword of the Spirit to both circumcise our own hearts and to wield it in battle. How can the majority of pew dwellers arrive at the building on Sunday mornings with a clear conscience about treating God’s Word so despicably during the week, much less that very morning?? And they leave the service happy and content with their Spiritual walk after having listened to a sermon purchased on the internet.

Oh yes, my friend, what we are doing will never win the victory either personally or ecclesiastically. We will have to push away from the world’s table, rejecting its entertaining delicacies, and put on the whole armor of God and His Word. And do not think that because blogs like this one speak against the falling away that it can serve (you or me) as a substitute for personal devotion and obedience to the Word, no, that is another deception of the evil one when we feel that because we have spoken against the deteriorating truth within the church that it relieves us from following hard after the Savior in our personal lives. In so doing we become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal and our words are fleshly echoes of a hollow Spiritual life. The Spirit is calling all of us to enjoin the battle by drawing closer to our Wonderful Lord and Savior by sacrificially committing our time to His Word.

Here are some of the issues that have doctrinally veered off course and now lie broken in the streets:

The Incarnation.

Men of theological ill repute are questioning the divinity of the Lord Jesus by removing the essential nature of the incarnation and allowing for different perspectives.

The Word.

Many now view the Bible as an overview narrative of God’s dealing with mankind and rejecting the specific doctrinal teaching essence of the Scriptures. They enjoy the gospel narratives and the Old Testament history but soften the specific, apostolic teaching of the Apostle Paul. And inerrancy is a non-essential.

Salvation.

The elements of true salvation are vague and nebulous at best, and the salvation of people who never heard the gospel is now a possibility. The Roman Catholic Church, liberal mainline Protestant denominations, and unbelieving Jews are now part of the body of Christ.

Jesus.

Many now teach that we should not concentrate so much on the divinity of Christ and His redemptive mission, but we need to start to accentuate His humanitarian efforts and downplay the cross.

While we slept the enemy has come in and sown seeds in God’s own fields over which we were to be watching and plowing. Just outrage will not please God, no, only personal repentance with a corresponding revival will please the Father. And one of the main battlefields, the prayer closet, has been fully captured by the enemy which has cut off the supply line to our only power. Without me you can do nothing. Go ahead and consider this little post “melodramatic” and “ over the top” but eternity will show that it is far worse than we can all know. The Word calls us by the Spirit, will we hear and heed the call? If you desire to follow in His steps you’re going to have to fight. It is a glorious fight that started way before we arrived at His camp, but it is now on our watch and passivity means defeat. We need an awakening that allows the Spirit of God to interject Himself into our self-centered lives and break up the fallow ground in order to furiously plant a harvest of God’s Word.

God has given us His Word, His Son, and graciously put Him in written form so that we might understand Who God is, namely, Jesus the Christ. How can we allow strangers to play intellectual checkers with the Holy Scriptures? And more personally, how can we treat God’s Word as a Spiritual curiosity rather than our very life? Before the creation was spoken into being, God made a promise which He swore by Himself. Before the dust swirled into Adam, God had made a promise. Before Bethlehem, God had made a promise. On Bethlehem’s night, God kept His promise. Through Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Matthew, Mark, Paul, John, and others God taught us about His promise, the Word. From the seed of the woman in Genesis to Isaiah 53 to John the Baptist's identfication of God's Lamb, God has kept His Word. Through the scrolls of the New Testament writers, the sacrifice of faithful scribes, all the way to Gutenberg’s press, God was diligent in offering His Word, keeping His promise. From the early church, to the reformation, to the first and second awakening, and through many small revivals, and using many faithful servants both renowned and unknown, God was continuing to keep His promise, His Word. From the first creative Word to the year of our Lord 2007, God has faithfully kept His Word and continued to offer it to those who desperately need it. God has kept His Word…but we have not. And when the modern church movements tamper with and wrest the Holy Word they are in reality attacking the Lord Jesus Himself while the church plays the lethargic fool.

Repent.
Make no mistake, you are going to have to fight to follow.

But first you will have to surrender...