Psalms 27:11-12 ESV
“Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.”
Because of My Enemies
So, who are our enemies? They are all who hate God, who hate
Jesus Christ, and they can even be people who profess to know and to love our
Lord. And they can even be our own government heads and our own military, and
heads of church denominations, etc. And they can even be our close friends, our
neighbors, and our family members. And they may give a pretense of liking us
and of being on our side while they are secretly plotting evil against us
behind our backs. And some of them are pastors of churches, too.
Now we live in an age where everything can be staged, where
everything can be Hollywood produced and faked and altered. So just because you
see something in a video or even in person, it doesn’t mean it is real, or that
what you think happened really happened. We can’t trust our news media to tell
us the truth, either. Liars and deceivers abound in our day and time. And since
videos and even news stories can be faked and altered and photoshopped, we have
to not trust that what we are seeing is real.
And so literally we have to test everything we hear or read
or think we see, for again, lies and deception abound in our day and age, just
like the Scriptures said would happen in these last days. And also truth and
lies are being cleverly blended together to where many people are being
deceived into believing lies and even into rejecting the truth. For that is how
Satan works. He doesn’t just come right out and boldface lie, but he mixes his
lies with the truth so that you might be deceived into believing the lie.
So, we are beyond that time in our lives when we can take
everything at face value. We can’t just read a meme on social media, for
example, which supposedly has a biblical message to it, and then just accept it
without taking the time to test what it says against the Scriptures (in
context). And then we need to be aware of the subtle lies which are being told
repeatedly over again, and of how they are being cleverly inserted into the
truth, so that we learn to discern these lies and so we are not entrapped by
them.
Teach me Your Way, O Lord
We, as followers of Jesus Christ, should seek out the truth
of what God’s word teaches us, and we should not be those who just accept
whatever we read or hear coming from the mouths and writings of other humans,
some of whom are teaching the truth, but many of whom are not. Now we should do
this regardless of what anyone else does, but especially because of our enemies,
and because deception abounds everywhere these days, and so we need to especially
be discerning and be those who test everything.
Now, if we are going to test what we read or hear or think
we see against the word of God, it is important that we are using a respectable
translation and not a transliteration nor a paraphrase nor a supposed
translation put out by a singular person. The English translations which I
believe are respectable, although not one of them is absolutely perfect, are
the ESV, the NIV’84, the NASB, and the KJV. And I would definitely stay away
from (avoid) “The Message” and “The Passion Translation” (1).
The other important factor about being taught the ways of
the Lord, and with regard to testing everything we hear against the Scriptures,
is that we test everything against the Scriptures in their context and
according to the New Covenant relationship we have with Christ which we are now
under. For so much deception stems from Scriptures pulled out of their context
and taught wrongly, and usually on purpose in order to deceive, so we need to
know the context of these Scriptures, even ones we learned from childhood.
Also, if you have access to Biblegateway.com or
Biblehub.com, I would make use of their interlinear if you can in order to look
up the definitions of words used in the Scriptures which our English
translations don’t always capture the true meaning of, and especially to get
verb tenses, as much as you can understand, for many verbs in our English
translations appear as though they are speaking of a singular incident (occasion)
when they are actually speaking of something that is continuous and ongoing and
presently active.
And the reason I point all this out is we need the Lord to
teach us his ways and to lead us on a level path because of our enemies, and
because of all the deception that is out there in place of the truth. And so we
cannot trust other humans to tell us the truth, but we need to be those who
search out the truth for ourselves, under the leadership and direction of the
Holy Spirit. And so I am sharing with you some practical helps to getting to
the truth and to not accepting the lies we have been told for generations.
So, if you don’t want to be a casualty in this spiritual
warfare, and if you don’t want to be given up to the will of your adversaries, although
this does not mean that you won’t be lied about or persecuted, you need to be
people of God who are seekers of truth and righteousness and who are not easily
duped into believing the lies because you didn’t bother to test what you read
or heard to see whether or not what you are accepting as truth really is truth
and not a huge deception.
So, I am going to list some Scripture references here that
teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is what I normally do, and I am going
to encourage you to read them in their context, and to do so prayerfully, and
to seek truth, and to be willing to have the Lord Jesus point out to you where
you are believing lies. I had lies I had to unlearn, for I had been taught some
Scriptures out of context which were made to say something they did not teach.
And I am so glad that I finally learned the truth about them.
An
Original Work / September 11, 2012
Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.
Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Men deceiving: We’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.
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