Run With It: The Battle for Truth is Intense

Psalms 11:1-3 ESV

“In the Lord I take refuge;

how can you say to my soul,

    ‘Flee like a bird to your mountain,

for behold, the wicked bend the bow;

    they have fitted their arrow to the string

    to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;

if the foundations are destroyed,

    what can the righteous do?’”

We are at War

Do you realize that we are in a war? I am not talking about a political battle, though that, too, and I am not talking about the endless wars the US government engages in with other nations, though that, as well, but I am talking about a spiritual battle, and the battle is for the truth of God’s word and for his gospel of grace (of salvation from sin).

For, the enemy of our souls and his hordes have devised a wicked scheme to destroy both the church and its witness, and the gospel of our salvation. The enemy has inundated the gatherings of the church and the teachings of the Scriptures with a “drink” that will not become in us a spring of water welling up to eternal life, although it will promise it is, but a drink to our deaths.

What they are pouring into the church gatherings, and into the teachings of the Scriptures, is an intense and fierce evil which is permeating both the gatherings of the church and the preaching of the gospel. And this evil is infiltrating the gospel with lies which are altering the message of the gospel to make it say what it does not teach. And this is purposeful!

And the people who are delivering this “drink” to the church and to the world are salespeople whose con job it is to pitch this different gospel in a way that Christians and the world will embrace it. So, they appeal to human flesh and to fleshly desires and to the sinful nature with their sales pitch, but with enough truth mixed in so that some Christians will accept it as truth.

So, they are pouring their lies into their false gospel of salvation which is replacing the true gospel in many people’s hearts and minds. The shift has taken place slowly over many years, and it has been subtle, and it has been introduced one small piece at a time so that the shift has barely been noticeable to most people in the gatherings of the church.

Thus, they have so filled the teachings of the word and the gospel with their evil lies that the truth is being removed along with all the restrictions, restraints, and controls taught by Jesus and by his NT apostles. Now what they teach is a very diluted gospel message which makes no requirements at all for forsaking one’s sins, for submission to Christ as Lord, and for obedience to his commands, so a “believer” can keep on in his sin.

Destroying the Foundations

So, what they are doing is destroying the foundations of the church and the gospel as laid down by Jesus and the prophets and the apostles (Eph 2:20). They are shaking them to the core. They are disturbing and disrupting the tenets of the Christian faith and practice as taught in the Scriptures and they are turning the gospel into some humanistic trash (pep) talk.

And while this is going on the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians, at least here in America, are largely being lulled to sleep by the media, whether it is TV, the internet, movies, games, music, the news, or social media. And they have become so much like the world that it is indistinguishable between the church and the world for the most part.

So, we who profess faith in Jesus Christ need to take this seriously. We need to unite together as soldiers in the Lord’s army and fight these lies of Satan with the spiritual armor which God has supplied. We must speak out. We must confront the lies and proclaim the truth, for many people are being deceived and they are following pied pipers to their deaths.

So, we need to put on our spiritual armor and take it seriously that we are in a battle for the truth against Satan and his hordes who are pouring out his lies through every avenue they can to reach as many people as they can with the big lie. We need to stand with each other on the truth of God’s word and let the world know the gospel Jesus taught.

And the truth that is in Christ Jesus is that you are “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

[See: Eph 4:17-24; cf. Lu 9:23-26; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Tit 2:11-14]

The truth is that Jesus Christ died on that cross not just to forgive us our sins but to deliver us from our slavery to sin so we would now be slaves of his righteousness. The truth is that he died that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness, and that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for him who gave his life up for us. For, he shed his blood for us to buy us back for God so we would now be God’s possession, and so we would now honor God with our lives.

[Rom 6:1-23; Lu 9:23-26; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15, 21; 1 Co 6:19-20]

For, if we continue in habitual, premeditated, and deliberate sin against God, we will die in our sins. We will not inherit eternal life with God. It doesn’t matter what we have confessed with our mouths or think we have believed in our hearts.

If we don’t surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, but we keep on making sin our practice, we will hear him say one day that he never knew us. And he will tell us that we are workers of iniquity and that we must depart from him. So, please take this seriously and don’t be left behind.

[Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Matt 7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10]

The Battle for Truth

An Original Work / May 18, 2013

Based off Malachi 1-4