Job 8:11-15 ESV
“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?
Can reeds flourish where there is no water?
While yet in flower and not cut down,
they wither before any other plant.
Such are the paths of all who forget God;
the hope of the godless shall perish.
His confidence is severed,
and his trust is a spider's web.
He leans against his house, but it does not stand;
he lays hold of it, but it does not endure.”
All Who Forget God
The lesson here is about hypocrisy. We may profess one thing
with our lips, but if we live another, we have no foundation for what we call “faith”
in Jesus Christ. We can’t grow in Christ if we are not actually in Christ
because we have not truly surrendered our lives to Christ.
If we take Scriptures out of their context to make them say
what we want them to say while we ignore the context in which they are written,
and the whole of the message, and we build a doctrine of salvation around those
select verses, our faith has no real substance.
Our faith ends up being as flimsy as a spider’s web. And
those who spin such a spider’s web are false teachers whose words are poisonous.
They are cunning and crafty in spinning their web of deceit in order to catch
the unsuspecting in their deception.
These are those who are living (walking) in darkness (sin,
wickedness, the flesh) while they are putting on a covering (false
presentation) of righteousness to conceal their evil deeds. But even the
concealment itself is wicked because it is a lie.
Covering Evil with Evil
So, it is like trying to cover evil with more evil, which is
what the cheap grace gospel does, in fact. It gives the impression of being a
covering of righteousness, but it is a concealment (mask) for continued defiant
and deliberate sinful practices.
Those who are being told that they can “believe” in Jesus
Christ and be guaranteed eternal life with God, but that no repentance, no
obedience, and no surrender to Christ is required, they are being lied to. And
those who are believing the lie have been caught in the spider’s web.
So, instead of being cleansed of and forgiven your sins, as
you were promised would happen, you are covering (concealing) your own sin with
more sin, for you are not delivered from your slavery to sin, but you are being
given permission to continue living in your sin.
So, instead of being clothed in righteousness, you are being
clothed in more wickedness which is a covering (protection) for you to continue
living in your sin only now without guilt or a sense of conscience that you
must repent of your sin and obey the Lord.
Putting on The Flesh
So, you aren’t putting on Christ’s righteousness, but you
are putting on more flesh to cover your flesh. So, if you receive this cheap
grace gospel which does not require repentance, obedience, or submission to
Christ, then you are embracing more wickedness.
So, this “faith” in Jesus Christ which is not of Christ, but
of the will of man, and of the flesh, is a conscious choice of the will to
continue living in sin while claiming Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior, but with
no intention to turn from the sin or to obey the Lord.
And those false teachers who are spinning their webs of deceit
are advancing, not retreating. And their intention is not to give people hope
and to heal their sin-sick souls, but it is to steal, to kill and to destroy
them so that they will go to hell on the promise of heaven.
And, that is because they are of Satan and they are doing
his dirty work in convincing people they can be saved from their sins and that
they can be guaranteed eternal life with God, but that they don’t have to
repent of their sin, obey Jesus, or submit to him as Lord (master).
A Flimsy Wall
So, those who have bought into the big lie have this false
sense of righteousness imputed to them, but it will not stand. It is a flimsy
wall which will give way. It will not endure because it is based in a lie and
in the flesh of man and not in God or in truth.
So, while they think heaven is their eternal destiny,
although they willfully continue making sin their practice on the earth, they
will die in their sins, not have eternal life with God, because they chose to
obey sin rather than God, and to make flesh their god, instead of God their
God.
And it isn’t that they don’t know the truth. They do. The
Bible says that they do, so they are without excuse. It isn’t that they don’t
know right from wrong but that they choose to do wrong and to not do right, and
to ignore God instead of to honor God (Rom 1:18-32).
So, when this happens, the Lord gives them over to the lusts
of their flesh to do what ought not to be done, “because they exchanged the
truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Rom 1:25).
Our Heart Response
So, what should our heart response be to all of this? First
of all, we need to seek God’s face in prayer, and then we need to get into his
Word, and we need to search the Scriptures (in context) for the truth if we
have been believing a lie.
Then, we need to obey the truth by believing in Jesus Christ
with God-given and divinely persuaded faith in Christ which submits to Christ
as Lord. And we must surrender ourselves to be crucified with Christ in death
to sin that we might live to Christ and to his righteousness (Rom 6:1-23; Eph
4:17-24).
Then, in the power of God’s Spirit, now living within us, we
must walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the Spirit and not according
to the flesh. For our lives are now hidden in God, therefore we must honor God
with our lives and with our bodies (Rom 8:1-17; 1 Co 6:19-20; 2 Co 5:15, 21).
Daily we must be putting to death the deeds of our flesh, by
the Spirit of God, and we must be putting on Christ and his righteousness. And
we must be walking in holiness and purity of devotion to our Lord, empowered by
the Holy Spirit. And we must continue in this walk of faith until the very end.
A
Believer’s Prayer
An
Original Work / July 31, 2012
With my whole heart, Lord, I pray
To be Yours, and Yours always.
Lead me in Your truth today.
May I love You, and obey.
Lead me in Your righteousness.
When I sin, may I confess;
Bow before You when I pray;
Live for You and You always.
Love You, Jesus, You’re my friend.
Life with You will never end.
You are with me through each day,
Giving love and peace always.
You will ne’er abandon me.
From my sin You set me free.
You died on that cruel tree,
So I’d live eternally.
Soon You’re coming back for me;
From this world to set me free;
Live with You eternally.
Oh, what joy that brings to me.
I will walk with You in white;
A pure bride, I’ve been made right
By the blood of Jesus Christ;
Pardoned by His sacrifice.
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