BEYOND SEDUCTION
PART THREE
Christ declared that in order to be His disciples we must be disciplined by His Word. This will require submission to His lordship in every detail of our lives, even to allowing Him to take us through trials of faith that are intended to mature and strengthen and deepen our understanding and fellowship with Him. Charles Colson reminds us:
Obedience is the beginning of the Christian life: obedience is essential to truly living as a Christian....
It takes courage to be obedient, courage found only in total dependence on the Holy Spirit.24
There is a tendency in the church today to emphasize unity and love at the expense of truth and to speak disparagingly of those who place great emphasis on doctrine in contending for the faith. Those who put “unity” ahead of truth and fail to rebuke today’s false values and superficiality among Christians (and especially the many charismatics who reject the call to repent of false teachings as “negative” and insist that we are now in the greatest revival in history) would do well to take seriously the prophecy spoken during the famous Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906:
In the last days three things will happen in the Great Pentecostal Movement: 1) There will be an overemphasis on power, rather than on righteousness; 2) there will be an overemphasis on praise, to a God they no longer pray to; 3) there will be an overemphasis on the gifts of the Spirit—rather than on the lordship of Christ.25
Keith Green warned about a “man-made unity [which] is not what God desires” because it is not based on holiness and obedience to God’s Word.25 While we ought not to split hairs in disputing over trivial questions, we must also recognize that our Lord demands obedience. We dare not take lightly the call to obey His commandments—and we can hardly obey His Word if we are loose concerning doctrine. It is folly to imagine that we can love our Lord and worship Him without knowing and obeying His Word. Jesus solemnly said:
If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings (John:14:23-24 [23] Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
[24] He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.
See All...).
Seeking promised blessings from God is biblical, but at the same time we must heed God’s commandments, exhort one another to obedience, and contend earnestly for sound doctrine. We do well to remember what the prophet Samuel told King Saul: “Rebellion [disobedience] is as the sin of witchcraft!” Disobedience cost Saul his kingdom and his life. Saul had lost his earlier humility and had begun to think he was somebody. He had forgotten that his position as king had been given to him by God. “When thou wast little in thine own sight,” Samuel reminded Saul, “the LORD anointed thee king over Israel” (1 Samuel:15:17And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
See All...).
Saul mistakenly thought that offering a large sacrifice to God would take care of everything. We can easily enough understand God’s contempt for such an attitude. Is a mother who is neglected and exploited all year pleased when her husband and children “honor” her with a present on Mother’s Day? On the contrary, she is grieved and even insulted at such blatant hypocrisy. Nothing we can give God can substitute for obedience; and “love” without this vital ingredient is declared by Christ Himself to be unacceptable. We lack stability and strength and joy in our lives if we are not willing to submit to His daily discipline. It is through obedience to His Word that we are shaped and formed into the pattern He has planned so that He can use us for His glory.
It helps to remember that we are being disciplined by love for our good and that the ultimate purpose is that we might know Him who is love. As Hugh Black said: “Life is an education in love, but the education is not complete till we learn the love of the eternal.”26 His love can only effect its purpose in our lives if we submit humbly and obediently and joyfully to His will. [Poet Martha Snell Nicholson] put it so beautifully:
When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ
And He shows me His plan for me,
The plan of my life as it might have been,
Had He had His way; and I see
How I blocked Him here, and I checked Him there
And I would not yield my will,
Will there be grief in my Saviour’s eyes,
Grief though He loves me still?
He would have me rich, and I stand here poor,
Stripped of all but His grace,
While memory runs like a hunted thing
Down the paths I cannot retrace.
Then my desolate heart will well nigh break
With tears that I cannot shed;
I shall cover my face with my empty hands;
I shall bow my uncrowned head.
Lord of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me and break me, mold me
To the pattern Thou hast planned!
The True Path to Victory
What God can do in us is at least as important as what He can do through us. That we should be molded to God’s will as we bow before His majesty in prayer is far more important than that He should grant our every request. The victory that Christ won over Satan came about through His submission to the Father’s will: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done” (Luke:22:42Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
See All...). When we follow that same path, then His triumph is ours. This way of victory confounds not only Satan but also sincere Christians who mistakenly believe that God’s purpose has been frustrated and the church defeated if we do not take over the world and set up His kingdom. They misunderstand true victory. For His own, Jesus conquered sin, death, and hell by allowing His enemies to kill Him (Acts:2:23Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
See All...). “’Tis mystery all, the Immortal dies!” wrote Charles Wesley. Christ destroyed death and Satan by dying: “That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death—that is, the devil—and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews:2:14-15 [14] Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
[15] And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
See All...). As the old classic hymn, so long loved by the church, puts it:
By weakness and defeat
He won a glorious crown;
Trod all our foes beneath His feet
By being trodden down.
He Satan’s power laid low;
Made sin, He sin o’erthrew.
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death by dying slew.27
It is beyond our comprehension that the wounds inflicted in murderous hatred and contempt by thorns, lash, nails, and spear drew forth the blood that saves those who believe that Christ died for them. Who can fathom such grace and mercy! Prophetically the psalmist declared: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm:85:10Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
See All...). For evil He returned good; for hatred, love—and not mere sentimentality, but a pure and steadfast love that unswervingly obeyed His Father’s will and satisfied the claims of divine justice.
It is this path of the cross that we must take if we are to be Christ’s disciples. And only as His love is awakened in our hearts is this possible. Contrary to popular thinking, this way of the cross and the denial of self to know His resurrection life is the way of inexpressible joy! Describing the secret of victory over “that old serpent called the Devil and Satan,” John writes:
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death (Revelation:12:11And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
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Victorious Christians are those who have gained such an insight into the cross that it has left its indelible stamp on their hearts and lives. Overwhelmed by the staggering realization that the Creator of the universe would become a man in order to bear the full weight of the eternal judgment that they deserved, they have been captured by His divine love. Gladly confessing that they no longer belong to self but to the One who has purchased them with His blood, they have been freed from that inner tyrant and its self-centered anxieties that blinded them to the joy of surrender. Their lives are not their own, for they now belong to Christ totally and forever. They are securely under His care. He who has given them eternal life will never let them perish.
That divine love which has won their hearts and transformed their lives is to be the unmistakable mark of His true disciples. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,” said Christ, “if ye have love one to another” (John:13:35By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
See All...). John added this insight under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God” (1 John:4:7Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
See All...).
Such love is described as “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians:5:22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
See All...). Christ declared, “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing” (John:15:5I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
See All...). It is Christ who produces in us the beautiful fruit of “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians:5:22-23 [22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
[23] Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
See All...). The branch need not be concerned whether it rains or shines; it needs only to remain open to the flow of life and fruitfulness.
Without this simple abiding as branches in Christ “the true vine,” the call for a return to biblical Christianity would generate the frustration of ineffective self-effort and a stifling legalism of words without the power of the Spirit. One can spend a lifetime attempting to “master the written Word,” when what is needed is to be mastered by Christ the living Word. There is a simple faith in God that delivers from the sophisticated foolishness of this ungodly world; there is a love for the truth that deepens as we meditate upon the Word of truth and upon Him who is the truth; and there is a godly prosperity and success that is not temporary but eternal because it is not earthly but heavenly. The psalmist worded so beautifully what we have tried to say in calling the church back to biblical Christianity:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper (Psalm:1:1-3 [1] Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
[2] But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
[3] And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
See All...).
FOOTNOTES
24.Charles Colson, The Role of the Church in Society (Victor, 1986), pp. 37-38.
25.Jimmy Swaggart, “The Pentecostal Way,” in The Evangelist, Dec. 1986, p. 6.
26.Keith Green, Unity...At What Price? The Divisiveness of Truth (Last Days Ministries, 1980), Tract LD #18.
27.Black, Friendship, p. 217.