Spiritual Warfare

Feelings are the language of the soul, but there are some people who appear to have no feelings. Modern terminology describes these people as sociopaths, or psychopaths. Their identifying characteristic is their lack of feeling for others, and their lack of regard for the feelings of others. This is exactly the kind of people the Bible refers to in Ephesians 4:17-19. These people have serious spiritual problems. Feelings are the issues of life. What matters more to you about someone than how they feel about you? Which is a greater confirmation of love, the words you say, or the feelings you show? The closer we walk to God, the more sensitive we will be to the feelings of others. A person that never shows any sign of feelings, and is insensitive or indifferent to the feelings of others, is someone to keep your eye on. That is a road that leads to a bad end somewhere.

From God's perspective there are two groups of people in the world. There are the children of men and the children of God. There are the sons of men and the sons of God. It has been this way since sin entered into this world, with the sons of men always outnumbering the sons of God. These children we just dedicated to the Lord will either be the children of men or they will be the children of God. We must fight for their souls and not let the devil and the sons of men steal them from the fold. Here are some things that might help these young families in this battle.

No true spiritual awakening ever begins with murmuring, complaining, blaming, accusing, realizing you are a victim, or in any other way dishonoring other people, especially those who came before us. No real turning to God ever begins with contempt for other people. It is an evil spirit that is working in this generation, not only in the churches, but in the whole population. Being a "victim" is everyone's excuse for everything that is wrong with them, and for their low life way of living – that will not fly when they stand before God. It is poisoning the minds of this generation and neutralizing any hope of true revival. We will never see any kind of spiritual awakening or any kind of revival until we rise up and resist and cast out that spirit of contempt and condemnation for all that came before us. We have to view our situation like Nehemiah, like Ezra, like Daniel, WE, as a people, have sinned and departed from the ways of God, and WE, as a people, must return to the true and the right way, by opening the book and committing to obey what it says, and live according to God's precepts.

This is the day after the election. Trump won, now what? Here are just a few sober thoughts about what has just happened and what our situation is now. Many people are living in some kind of fantasy or delusion about what all this means. We still live in a pagan country and world, and our family members and neighbors are still lost. The whole world is still full of war and violence and misery. Assuming the best, God has granted us a small mercy to work a little longer before the night cometh. Let's not waste the next 4 years being lazy and stupid in the Lord's work. Let's do all we can, with all that we have, everywhere we can, to reach the lost in this dying and wicked world and hold our celebrations for something real and lasting.

Do you keep God's commandments? Better not answer that question too quickly with the "no" that you have heard so much from preachers and half-hearted professors of religion. Keeping God's commandments is connected with every blessing promised in the Word of God, and the Bible makes it very clear that it is the mark of a true born-again believer. It is not sinless perfection, or strictly obeying a list of rules like a Pharisee, but to order and arrange and conduct our life according to what we know God has designed, ordained, and commanded in his Word. It is to do it willingly, with a desire to do so, and to diligently seek to know and do the Will of God. Certainly, it is obvious that there are few people like this, and most are running from any knowledge of what God desires, knowing that it will conflict with their sin and their desires. Many will be in hell for eternity because they swallowed the devil's lie that keeping God's commandments is working for your salvation, but this is not works for salvation, it is the evidence of a new birth and a new man.

In these past several weeks we have tried to show and establish the fact that paganism is fast becoming the prevailing spiritual influence in the world and in our nation. We are moving in leaps and bounds back toward the darkness and violence that ruled the world until Jesus came 2000 years ago. Christians are about to lose their long-held protections that were purchased for us by our ancestors with their blood. Those who call themselves Christians in this country have never known what it is like to live under the evil, bloodthirsty, merciless, and godless rule of pagans, but we are about to find out. We need to be waking up to what we are facing, and we need to be preparing ourselves and our children. Elections and politicians will never save us, but this election will have much to do with how soon the darkness of this world will have complete control. In this message we are talking about some things every true believer in Jesus should be considering and preparing for.

When it comes to witnessing to the lost the situation has changed drastically in the past few decades. The prevailing concept concerning sin, salvation, and God seems to be that everyone is going to heaven no matter what they do with God or how they live their life here on earth. Sinners seem to be confident in the fact that God is a loving and forgiving God, but they know nothing about what the Word of God says about that matter or any other. Someone has made them believe that their sin does not matter and that God is going to take them to heaven to live with Him forever in the same state they are in now. They must repent of what they BELIEVE because that is what is going to damn their soul. Someone has to tell them they are wrong and call them to repentance! Jesus and the Apostles preached the Gospel to their pagan generation and the Great Commission was given so we would do the same in ours.

The first two men who came to God to make an offering and worship are examples of the two ways that men have always came to God. Abel 's offering was accepted and Cain's was rejected. Most worship is of the kind that Cain offered and it is no more acceptable to God now than it was then. Abel worshipped the LORD God that created the heavens. Cain's idea of God was much lower. Evidently, his concept of God was just a better version of himself. He that worships God must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Contemporary worship is generally focused on self, not on God, and that is not acceptable to God.

That God created man male and female is the most important foundational thing to the divine order of Creation. This fact is repeated in the story of Creation and in the New Testament by Jesus himself. In order to destroy man Satan always begins by breaking down this pillar of the divine order and thereby destroying the image of God in which man was created. Both male and female have their strengths and weaknesses, and they have their roles in life precisely laid out in the Word of God. When confusion and disorder is introduced to the distinction and roles of men and women it leads to complete abandonment of God and a return to paganism. This is the spirit of Jezebel we read about in Revelation 2:20.

The slide into paganism, which is the total abandonment of the LORD God and the embracing of false gods, is much more than throwing out the moral law of God. The strategy of Satan is to change what we believe, and at the same time to change the very way we reason and think. The heart must be corrupted, and the mind must be corrupted, also. Good becomes evil and evil becomes good, but then rational thinking is abandoned and replaced with insanity on a national or even world-wide scale. All anyone has to do to know this is true is simply look around at what the world has become.