“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,”
1 Timothy 4:1-2 ESV
Who says this? The Spirit…as in the Holy Spirit. In other words, God Himself tells us that unmistakably, and without fail, in later times there’s going to be people who profess the faith but are in grave error. Oh, and that these errors are the result Satan’s kingdom declaring war on God’s people through the use of deceit. That’s sort of a key point. We should be ready. We’re warned. The battlefield is in the realm of ideas…in the mind. It’s not a mistake, or some weak figure of speech, that our Lord called Himself the Truth (John 14:6).
For a man or woman to proclaim a love for God and yet be ambivalent to the truth, to be illogical, is a contradiction in terms. How can we love the God who is truth and yet dance in the arms of error? The life of the Christian is a marriage to the Lord Himself and yet many live as though they’re merely dating…and not exclusively. They flirt with the world’s evil doctrines. They cover the purity of God’s Word with the presuppositions of humanism. The faithful bride of Christ is faithful to His word/law. And to be faithful in a world of lies requires the full armor of God and complete dedication to the principles of Scripture in every area of life.
If the last few years of lockdowns, church closures, and wokeism has taught us anything is that the church has too easily succumbed to pressure. It’s done this because it has assumed that pastors and elders were not sheepdogs but corporate administrators who speak “Christianese.” The Bible teaches no such thing and those who will easily compromise the truth of God’s word have no business being elders or pastors. They must not only be men of the word, but men of courage too. The Old Testament is replete with examples of how vacillating leadership leads to spiritual catastrophe. God calls elders and leaders to understand that they are in a battle and they must not give any quarter to the lies of the Satan. Elders and pastors, in an age of unrelenting attacks upon God’s word/law and His church, must understand that the only common ground between good and evil is the battleground.
We’re warned that the Enemy hates God and His church and that he’ll use lies and deception as a primary tool to defeat us.
Logically, this means that Christians must be trained to think biblically or else they’re like a soldier going to battle without ammo. We need to hear this and hear it clearly because there’s more coming. Just because a man is wearing a uniform doesn’t make him a soldier. He’s a soldier who fulfills his oath. He fights. Likewise, Christians are called to arms as well…upon the battlefield of ideas and philosophy and allegiance. Our weapons are the truth of the Word of God.
Is this too militaristic? Well, consider:
“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.”
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 ESV
What’s interesting about this is how when most modern Christians think of demons they imagine horror film stuff when, in reality, the truth is right here. The demonic activity we should be trained to look for is usually hiding behind a smile, a pulpit, at a chalkboard in a classroom, and stuff like that. Propaganda and lies have always been the best weapon of the Enemy. He came into the Garden, not with AR-15’s but with the subtlety of lies. The Devil is at his destructive best these days when he captures souls through lies.
And lies are everywhere.
The scuttlebutt in modern politics is something called “misinformation” or “fake news.” Interestingly, the people and political party making the most racket about this are the very ones who reject God and absolute truth. Isn’t it weird for a group of people who fervently believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth to be so concerned with, you guessed it, absolute truth? Well, it shouldn’t be weird at all. In fact, we should expect it because we’re told right here.
In the famous movie Saving Private Ryan there’s a critical scene where an American soldier, Stanley Mellish, is killed in close-quarter combat by a German adversary. The end comes slowly and dramatically as the Nazi enemy overpowers Mellish, gains a top position while they wrestle, and fatally plunges a knife into Mellish. It’s hard to watch. What’s even harder is that there’s another American soldier present – Timothy Upham. If you’ve seen the movie you know that Upham, a technician and translator, cowers in the stairwell instead of helping his comrade.
Having killed the brave Mellish, the Nazi leaves the room and begins to descend the stairs. He finds the coward Upham sitting there in tears and passes him. He goes out and continues to kill Americans.
In the deranged and fading West, we’re supposed to find Upham as another casualty of war rather than as the reprehensible coward that he is. His apologists say he was a symbol of innocence torn apart by the reality of war. They say he was a technician who never should have been in battle anyway. They protect the honor of a man who had none.
To this we know a critical truth:
All men and women will fight. They will all take a stand. The question is for what cause. If we dabble with sin we’ll sit on the stairs crying and covering our ears against the noise of battle. You know these church folks. You see them all the time. They sit by as the enemies of truth attack. They hide behind their so-called desire for peace. The worst of them will sling verbal arrows at Mellish and say he shouldn’t be fighting so fervently. To the cowards sin has wrought, Mellish is the problem. To them, it was the pastors who said that government had no authority to close churches. They “ask,” “why do we need to make such a big deal out of homosexuality and transgender is?” They mewl and complain about the church being divisive if it preaches sin and repentance.
A Christian pastor and/or elder that tries to find any common ground at all – except for preaching the truth about sin and the righteousness that comes through faith alone in Christ – fails utterly. In the battle between God’s word and the world’s word, we must take a stand. We must choose. And we must never fire shots from our foxhole at the pastors who have the courage to go against the forces of evil. When John MaCArthur reopened his church during the COVID lockdowns, many weasels criticized him from their pulpits. They wanted the approval of the world rather than the Lord’s.
Yes, we all fight. We either will fight for the truth, contend for lies, or, worst of all, battle against those who are fighting the lies. Revelation 21:8 condemns the cowardly and lumps them in with murderers and idolaters. Think about that the next time you take a stand with a cause. Ask how this cause brings glory to Jesus Christ. We must tread carefully because this is God’s church, not our own and the scariest words in the Bible are “…holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, almighty (Revelation 4:8).”
Choose this day whom you will serve. A false view of God will invariably lead to a life of false expectations. Conflict will shock you. But we’re warned and there is a way to be peaceful men and women of God and warriors of Christ.
““Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 10:34-39 ESV
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