Resistance to Christianity. Is it what we think?

   

    Jesus said He was leaving in order to send "another" Comforter, one like Himself, (Jo. 14:16).  Who is He?  You can't see Him with the natural eye but that doesn't mean he isn't here.  Jesus said the world would not receive this Comforter simply because they couldn't see Him.   He is like the wind.  You can't see the wind, but if you are in the wind, you know it.  You can feel it, you can see the affects of it. 

    Who is this Comforter?  He is God (Jo. 4:24).  He is not a vapor, a force, an impersonal power, a bird or flesh.  He can be "grieved", Eph. 4:30, "quenched", 1st Thes. 5:19, and "blasphemed", Matt. 12:32.  He is gentle but powerful.  He was the power to Moses, Joshua and David.  He was not only the Father of Jesus (Matt. 1:18), He was the hovering Spirit over Jesus, the anointing on Jesus to do miracles (Lk. 4:18).  He is the breath of God (Gen. 1:2).  He is the power of creation by which God "adorned" the heavens (Job 26:13).  He is that One who leads us in the reality, the truth, of God (Jo. 16:7-15).  He is the power of resurrection that raised Jesus and will raise us.  Even now He "quickens" us with a touch of that power (Ro. 8:11).  He is our prayer partner (Ro. 8:26-27).  He is the "oil of gladness" and the "oil of joy".   He gives us manifestations, or "gifts" that are called the "testimony" of the Lord Jesus.  He is the "earnest", the beginning, the down payment of all Jesus provided for us on the cross.

    You want to know the sad truth?  The resistance we think we see to Jesus or God in heaven is, for the most part, meaningless.  It does little good for enemies to resist Jesus for His role, His work, His identity is settled.  For His obedience He was crowned LORD.  We can accept that, or not, but that is done!  No, the resistance to Christianity is not to Jesus, but to the One He sent to take His place, the wonderful "another" Comforter. The Bible says only by the Spirit can we call Jesus Lord, (1st Cor. 12:3).  How much Spirit you embrace determines how much Lord you enjoy.  We can just shout about Jesus all day long, sing a thousand songs, preach a million sermons, but if we do not fully embrace the Holy Ghost, we may still be falling short. And something else: with Jesus, you can get by with just believing in who He is.  But the Holy Ghost?  Oh, you have to experience!   Communion with God is communion with the Holy Ghost.  And, we were made to "drink", experience, taste, be filled with, touched by this other Comforter. And, as we embrace Him, who He is , what His mission is, Jesus rules over us as Lord.

Iniquity will work for you! But, what then?

 
    A lot of folks do not know how iniquity works or the power of iniquity.  Spiritually speaking, iniquity is to do something you own way, without regard to the Word, the Spirit or the government of God over your life.  Basically the word means "to be without law", or "law-less".  Basically, it means to just do your own thing in spiritual matters. 

  The destructive power of iniquity is not that it won't work, but that it will work (sometimes).  When we do something on the basis of iniquity, it will work and then we are stuck with something in our thinking, our theology, our spiritual life that seems to work for us, but is still wrong.  Let me give an example:  One fellow I know was enticed into one of the many schemes presented on so-called Christian television to get people's money.  The promise was that if you sent them money, as a way of keeping a certain Old Testament feast day,  you would prosper prosper greatly.  So, this fellow did it and it paid off handsomely. When confronted with the New Testament knowledge that we do not keep feast days, or that we are not longer under the law (feast days being a part of that),  etc., he shrugged it off with "It is okay, it worked".  So what is wrong with that?  Now, he has inserted an iniquity into his theology that will forever mar him and eventually rob him. He has accepted the philosophy of humanism, "if it works for you, do it".  

    Another example:  remember the stories of an old time evangelist punching people and then they get healed?  We have all laughed at those stories and even admired the boldness.  But, we just accepted an iniquity.  Is there anything in God's word, any example of Jesus, Paul, Peter or any leader doing such a thing?  Is there any instructions for us to physically strike someone, for any reason?  Can anyone honestly say that is what Jesus would do to a person hurting with appendicitis?  I know, according to the stories, it worked. But, we entertained an iniquity.  The fact that it worked is the worst thing about it. You can start counting the cost of such iniquity by taking note of how many people were turned away, turned off, rejected completely the healing move of God by that iniquity.  So one was healed, but what about the thousands who turned away?  Did the gain out weigh the loss?  Example:  Remember how Jesus cast out devils just a simple command?  I knew a fellow who developed a method of ministering deliverance by having demons crawl out of the victim, in to him, and then he cast them out of himself.  He said it worked well. Can you imagine Jesus doing it that way?  How many did he turn away from deliverance?  How secure were those he ministered to in their deliverance?

    Want another sad example?  From the days of my youth, a few were saved by the harsh, hell-fire condemning preaching that threatened destruction for the slightest offense.  A few were saved, but what about the millions who turned away? Our way of getting people saved was to scare the hell out of them, to heap condemnation upon them, to threaten them with the wrath of God, etc., etc.   Did it work?   Yeah - for a few.  How many did we lose? God only knows but far more than we gained.   Worse, we gained a reputation that dampened our effectiveness, even to this day.  Think about it - one one hand we are telling people to come to God and love Him, but that He might kill you if not completely pleased.   Did some come - yeah.   How many didn't?  The list of things like this could be almost endless.  Across the church world today gimmicks abound.  Instead of preaching the gospel with demonstrations of the Spirit, the power of God in the spirit of the love of God, religious men just resort to gimmickery. They just trick,  manipulate, bribe, threaten people into doing whatever we want them to do.  Does it work?  Sometimes - but long term, gimmicks are costly.  We must learn  that whatever we catch a fish with, we have to keep feeding him that or he will die.   It seems that the verse which warns us that unless we do what we do "lawfully",  we will not be crowned, not rewarded, has been forgotten,  (2nd Tim. 2:5).

   Satan, the very spirit of lawlessness does not work on a short term basis.  He works on long-term basis.  He is perfectly willing to allow short term gain to increase long term loss. People for many, many generations have been turned away from God by iniquities, things which at the time seemed good to few folks, but in the end the cost was enormous. Taking a step back and looking at the church world, those things that have hindered, (and do hinder), us the most are things that should never have been accepted in the first place.   Once stuck with them, having called them "of God", letting go is an enormous challenge we seem not to be able to rise to.