The great falling away
and our great hope (2)
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons
of God” (Matthew 5:9).
“But the wisdom
from above [which is Jesus, Col. 2:2-3; 1 Cor. 1:30 -31] is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering,
without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace
by those who make peace” (James 3:17 – 18).
It is an evil
thing when political movements and governments adopt the language of the Bible to
propagate their agendas. It is from the abyss of the pit when they ensnare the
souls of men in this language, when they deceive those who should know better,
when they turn the hearts of those who profess to follow Jesus into their own
messengers of hate and destruction. And what can we say when those who are
charged with pastoring Christ’s sheep, instead lead them into the darkness of
this present evil age?
Those who follow
the Lamb are not called to kill; they are called to die. We are called, just as
the Lamb, to overcome through laying down our lives for others, through
offering ourselves to God for the life of others on the altar of the Cross,
always the Cross.
When we violate
this holy Nature which has been placed within us in our relationship with Jesus
Christ, we repudiate Him, we reject our Great High Priest, we trample the Cross
and our calling, we reject the Way of the Father (which is Jesus Christ) for
the poisonous ways of the pit, we exchange the air of the heavenly for the
noxious fumes of hell.
I suppose there
are no words for all this, it is too incredible, but there are the images of
Revelation, the images of the unthinkable, the indescribable – these images
from hell ought to be worth thousands of warnings. Yet, when we lose our ear to
hear the Spirit, we also lose our sight, our center of gravity in Christ, and
we can no longer think or see clearly.
And no wonder, for
not having “received the love of the truth…God sends upon us a deluding
influence so that we will believe what is false, so that we may be judged who
do not believe the truth but take pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thess. 2:10 – 12).
“You cannot
drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the
table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21).
We think we can,
otherwise we would not see the wholesale adoption and endorsement of political,
social, national, and military evil by much of the professing church that we
see.
We, who are
called to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29; 12:1 – 2),
are now being transformed into the image of the world, the flesh, and the
devil.
How ironic that the
image of gold of Daniel 3 has reappeared in our own time. At least in Daniel 3 there
were those who were found faithful. What about today?
What about me?
What about you?