Posted on 01/30/2018 10:11:48 AM PST by pastorbillrandles
Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say. (Luke 12:8-12)
We have been making the point that true spiritual warfare has a confessional component. We live in the day and age of Satan’s lie. It is the conventional wisdom, accepted and approved by virtually the entire world.
But God would have a people who would live as witnesses to the Truth. What Truth? Isn’t truth a vast and broad concept? Other than obvious call of the church to witness to the gospel, which Truths of God are we to be witnessing to at any given time?
Whichever of God’s truth the world spirit is currently denying.
In a day of the lie of “gay marriage”, God would have a people who will bear witness to the Christian revelation of marriage, gender, family, and chastity.
To make the good confession presupposes that to do so would expose the soul and perhaps even the body to various levels of difficulty. Usually we are called upon to do so in hostile environments.
But the other side of this war, Satan, and the Spirit of Antichrist which is in the world, would not only shut our mouths from confessing the truth of Jesus, He would go further. In this warfare, the Devil wants to pressure us to have to confess to what we know very well is an out and out lie!
This is the way they deny Christ. They do not necessarily deny that they are Christian, but when they are called upon to stand up and confess to the truth of the teaching of Christ on that element which the world is currently denying, they cave under pressure and in some cases they make the bad confession.
I wrote an article about a remarkable case of this I saw one evening, a small (but large) skirmish in the very real spiritual war for the souls of men. The following is from the article which was called How They Deny Jesus;
I happened upon an airing of a Larry King show, in which two evangelical preachers and a noted evangelical pop musician were the guests. The musician, a young woman, had become noted for coming out as a Lesbian, yet wanting to continue in her ‘music ministry’, to which she testified that there was much popular support.
One of the evangelical pastors, compassionately urged her to repent, assuring her of the prospect of God’s forgiveness for all sins, citing scripture against the sin, as well as promises of God’s love. This was indeed a faithful witness of the truth.
He did this over the objections of Larry King, who obviously took the worldly position on the subject, treating lesbianism as a valid lifestyle, and those who objected to it as bigots and haters. He accused the faithful pastor of being a’ homophobe’ and inferred he was a hypocrite and was similar to those in the fifties who would have objected to inter racial marriage.
Larry stood as we would expect, an avid proponent of the spirit of this age. He forced the good pastor to pay for the truth that he had espoused.So also did the young musician, who laughed and mocked the pastor’s attempt to call her on her sin, and to bring her to repentance.
But the other Pastor, a well-known evangelical, in fact a former head of the national association of evangelicals, sat by, until Larry King asked him what he thought of the issue.
He turned to the faithful shepherd and said, “Remember Pastor, the only thing Jesus ever condemned anyone for, was for judging others and telling them they are wrong!”. At that moment, the young musician smiled, Larry King beamed , and I have no doubt that many in the listening audience appreciated the words of the second pastor.
It is as if they were all saying, “Here is someone who ‘gets it’, not like those obnoxious evangelical haters,(such as the first pastor), this pastor is compassionate, understanding, humane, and non judgmental, our kind of pastor. If only all christians were as loving as this one…”.
But at that moment, I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “Do you see what He just did? That man just gained the world…”. No, He didn’t become rich and famous, or better looking or more popular. That is not what ‘gaining the world’ means, in the teaching of Jesus.
For just a sliver of the approval of a misguided pop singer in rebellion to God, and the applause of a depraved, godless television personality, Larry King and his audience, the second pastor in effect denied the biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality, and sided with unbelievers against a faithful witness of Jesus. That was what he was willing to exchange for the chance to look ‘compassionate’ before a television and radio audience, that was the price he was willing to pay.
The second preacher was willing to look good at the expense of his more faithful brother, who was being accused of being a ‘hater’ by King, the young Lesbian, and by inference, himself, when he chided the preacher for judging. This is the very way that ‘many shall betray one another’ as our Lord warned us would be a characteristic of the last days.
That was what he was willing to ‘exchange for his own soul’. The man may have gained the world, but he lost part of his soul. Do you see what I mean by referring to constant transactions? In little or big ways, all of us are being put in that position almost every day, even if we don’t realize it.
Every day in thousands of ways, such skirmishes are being fought, as Satan seeks to pressure people to confess what (they know) is not true. “Political Correctness” is not a mere childish fad, it is a Spiritual warfare. The corruption of our very language and the pressure to go along with the godless consensus, is by Satanic design, a way to brainwash and change people and to further the lie.
There are many like the Pastor in the above story, who betrayed his brother, his faith and who has lost something of his soul, becoming a Spiritual “prisoner of war”, by denying the well known teaching of Jesus on the subject of gender, marriage and human sexuality, not recognizing the true nature of the battlefield.
But if you would have asked him, He would gladly have told you he was a Christian.
At the same time there is a remnant of believers like the faithful pastor in the story, unashamed of the teaching of Jesus, idling to bear the reproach, and humbly confessing to it even in the face of ridicule and hostility. HE overcame the Devil, by the very word of his testimony, he made the good confession and overcame!
There is not a person reading this who hasn’t already been in similar, but lesser known scenarios time and again. There is such a pressure in these days to succumb to the various lies, ecumenism, sexual anarchy, feminism, relativism in general and multiculturalism, all are part of the same big lie. And we will be called up once again also, in the days ahead.
Very good read, Thank You
Excellent. Thank you.
Inspiring! Thank you Pastor Bill.
In his sermon last Sunday our Pastor made a remark that really hit home. To me, t-shirt material!!!....Better to be Biblically correct than Politically correct! AMEN!
Well said.
I think we do not understand what spiritual warfare really is.
It's not just about rebuking, binding and casting out demons in Jesus' name that seems to be so popular these days.
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