Psalm 68:1-3 ESV
“God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who
hate him shall flee before him!
As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away;
as wax melts
before fire,
so the wicked
shall perish before God!
But the righteous shall be glad;
they shall
exult before God;
they shall be
jubilant with joy!”
Enemies of God
Who are the enemies of God? They are all those who refuse to
bow to him as Lord, who will not come underneath his authority, and who refuse
to turn from their sins to walk in obedience to his commands. They are also those
who oppose the teachings of his word, and who twist the Scriptures for their
own advantage to deceive naïve minds, to lead them away from Jesus.
Many of them know the way of the cross, too. Many of them
even profess faith in Jesus Christ, but by their lifestyles they deny him. They
have known the truth, for they were taught the truth, but they chose the lie,
instead. They know the way of righteousness, but they want to continue living
in sin, and so they reject God’s righteousness to fulfill the lusts of their
flesh.
The church which has unequally yoked together with the world
and with the government (state church) is an enemy of God. For, she does not
serve Jesus Christ as her only Lord, but her loyalties are divided between the world
and God, and so she ends up following the world over the Lord Jesus.
She not only unequally yoked together with the unbelieving
world, and she not only is following the world in place of God (or above God),
but she turned the house of the Lord (his body) into a marketplace, and she is
marketing the church just like any other business. And, her target audience is
the world, so she conforms the church to the world to win the world.
So, to “win the world,” she has also diluted the gospel
message to make it more appealing and palatable to the ungodly. Therefore, she
has removed the message of the cross of Christ – the part where it says that
Jesus died for us that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his
righteousness.
And, she replaced the gospel of Jesus with a cheap grace
gospel which requires no death to sin, no submission to Christ as Lord, and no
following of Jesus Christ in obedience to his commands, which is lawlessness.
Scattered
So, the Lord has scattered her. He broke her up. He
separated her by closing the doors to her buildings in hopes to lead her away
from man-made religion, and away from false gods, back to the cross of Jesus
Christ, and back to making him her only Lord and master.
And, even though some congregations are beginning to gather
in person again, it is very constraining, for they have to follow specific
guidelines set down by the government regarding how they can conduct their
gatherings, and the congregants are still being required to social distance
and/or to wear masks. So, it isn’t like it was before. It is not very “seeker-friendly”
now.
It is not very comfortable now. It is not as much fun as it
was before. And, I would imagine that these “churches” will begin to lose those
who were there just for the fun and entertainment and socialization. For, all of
that is being greatly hindered now. They can’t do all the fun and games they
did before and still follow the guidelines set down for them by the government.
And, all this is a moving target, too, for so much unrest is
going on in our nation and in the world right now, so things could change by
the day or by the week, and new rules will follow suit. So, even if they can
meet today, with severe or moderate limitations, tomorrow could be a different
picture.
Division
I would suspect that all this will have a way of dividing
those who were just there for the party from those who are serious about their
walks of faith with Jesus Christ. Those whose testimonies of faith in Jesus Christ
were superficial only will either change, and commit their lives to Jesus, or
they will dessert and abandon the church, the faith, and Jesus altogether.
For, when tribulation comes to the church, which it has, it
will have a way of separating the sheep from the goats. There will be no more
room for apathy and for spiritual laziness. We will either choose to follow the
Lord wholeheartedly, to the death, or we will choose to follow the world,
instead, and to take the mark of the beast.
And, just know here that this “mark” of the beast, although
it may have a physical form to it eventually, is first and foremost taking on
the character, the pattern, the nature, and the traits of this beast. It is
adopting the ways of this sinful world into our lives as the pattern that we
follow instead of us following in the ways of the Lord in holiness and
righteousness. It is taking on the mind and heart of the world, instead of the
heart and mind of God.
And, those who choose the world over Jesus Christ, and who
decide to be in solidarity with the world instead of being in unity with the
mind of Christ, will perish in their sins, and not have the hope of eternal
life with God, even if they once made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ
(Rom. 8:1-17; Gal. 5:16-21; Gal. 6:7-8; Rom. 2:6-8; Eph. 5:3-6; 1 Jn. 1:5-9; 1
Jn. 2:3-6).
The Righteous Glad
The reason I believe the righteous are glad and will be glad
through all of this is not because people are turning away from Jesus Christ to
follow Satan, instead. If they are truly righteous, they grieve over lost
souls.
But they are glad, and they will be glad because they are
seeing evil being exposed for what it is, and therefore the truth is being
revealed. And, some people are beginning to have their eyes opened to see both
the lies and the truth. And, I believe this is going to result in a great awakening.
I am already beginning to see the beginnings of this take
place, I believe, as pure evil is being displayed before us daily. But
discerning the evil requires that we get alone with God, that we get into his
word, that we humble ourselves before God, and that we inquire of him regarding
what we are seeing with our eyes, and that we listen to him speak truth to our
hearts.
For evil takes many different forms. And, one of those forms
involves much deception and the manipulation of human minds. So, a lot of what
we see in videos or we hear or read in the news is being manufactured to
deceive us, and to get us angry, and to incite hatred and division. And, that
is because they want us fighting with each other so that they have an excuse to
conquer us (see Rev. 13).
For, this is where all of this is headed. It is headed to
the rule of the beast and to the fulfillment of prophecy of Scripture regarding
the last days before Jesus returns. And, so things will continue to get
crazier, and lawlessness will increase. Oh, and the Lord showed me something
about that today.
When the church diluted the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they
did away with his commandments, and they began to teach that we don’t have to repent
of our sins, and that we don’t have to walk in obedience to our Lord’s
commands, they turned the gospel of Jesus Christ into lawlessness.
And, so we are now seeing the fruit of that choice by the
church. We are seeing the fruit of many years of the church entertaining
herself and trying to win the world to their businesses falsely called “church.”
Because the church in America largely turned her back on
Jesus Christ to follow the ways of the world, instead of going out into the
world with the true gospel, and because she taught a gospel of lawlessness, we
now live in a society which is increasingly becoming lawless, but which
fulfills prophecy.
So, these are difficult times. Certainly I don’t know God’s
timetable in all of this, but we can see daily how what is going on is
fulfilling Scripture, and we can see how our world is moving much closer to
this mark of the beast and to the persecution of the church all across the
globe, not just in some countries. So, people of God, get ready to have to
stand on your faith or to not stand at all. But we don’t have to go it alone. For,
Jesus is our strength!
Hide Me, Rock of Ages
Brantley C. George,
1946
Oh Thou blessed rock of ages
Trusting now dear Lord in Thee
Keep me till my journey's ended
Till Thy blessed face I see
Keep me when the storm clouds gather;
‘Til the sun comes shining through;
Keep me ‘til my work is over;
‘Til I bid this world adieu.
Hide me oh blessed rock of ages
'Til Thy blessed face I see
When the storm around me rages
Rock of ages hide Thou me
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