The Hebrew Scriptures & the New Testament writings describe the war between light & darkness and life & death over & over again. In order to properly understand what is going on in our time (and in times past) we must recognize the war, and do everything in our power to stay “watchful,” “alert,” and “awake,” as Christ and the apostles all exhorted us to do.
If it were not absolutely essential for us to be aware of the battle we would not have been continually warned. It IS essential and we HAVE been warned. As quoted in my last blog entry, “This is not a Sunday School picnic; it’s a war…”
On the plane to Boston today I began reading a book by the late Paris Reidhead, a friend of A.W. Tozer. He was a wonderful and insightful writer and speaker, and his message, “Ten Shekels and a Shirt” has been downloaded over one million times.
Here are a few notes I took from just ONE chapter. “Love Not The World.”
“While the prince of the power of the air is working God’s people are asleep. They are so comfortable in their compromise that they don’t know what danger they are in. They do not know that they need a way of victory, the one that has been achieved for them through the crucified and risen Lord.”
“It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current during these years is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.” A.W. Tozer
“Charles Hadden Spurgeon said that anyone who claims to be a child of God through faith in Christ and continues to live in known sin is either a criminal or crazy. He said, ‘the election to grace is an election unto holiness.’”
1 John 2:5, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”
What does the word, “world” mean in this context?
“. . . the world’s system. This can mean all the objects, people, advantages, fleeting pleasures, and everything else that entices our desires. Spiritually, it refers to all that attracted you, engaged you, and held you prior to your coming to Christ. Ultimately the world, in this sense, would seduce us from Christ and His love. . . .
“{Mt 16:26} The Lord Jesus meant the political and social philosophy that controls the entire world system. . . .not only what can be apprehended by the five senses but the abstract as well. Moral values are an example. 1 Corinthians 2:17 talks about ‘the wisdom of this world.’ The Christian is exhorted to ‘keep himself unspotted from the world.’”
“The Lord Jesus would have us be alert to the fact that ever since Adam made it possible for evil to enter God’s creation, all that is in the world—its entire system—has been only and always against God. We are speaking of a domain governed and controlled by Satan who is the mind behind the world system. Over and over again John has written of ‘the prince of this world,’ the one who is in direct opposition to the cause of Christ and His people.”
Reihead goes on to describe Nimrod, the human “father” in a sense of the world system. His name actually means. “mighty rebel.” He was the founder of monarchism and imperialism. He erected a temple to a new theology of sexual indulgence. People believed they were fulfilling their religious obligations while satisfying their lustful appetites.
Then he moves on to Judges, etc. where the sons of Israel “mingled” with the inhabitants of the land (something most of us view as harmless) and that it caused trouble—“the people feared the Lord AD served the gods of the land.”
One of the idols was Baal. The people believed that in order to get a good crop (income) they had to “sacrifice” to Baal. Kind of an interesting thought when compared to our society. How much will we/do we have to compromise to “make it” financially? What are we willing to do in order to “get?”
Reidhead says, “That is the price of compromising with the god of this world to get things. Love of this world is idolatry, and God hates it.”
Probably the most interesting part of this chapter was the definitions of Gnosticism, Dualism, and Antinomianism, all philosophies that the early church dealt with/struggled against and the spirit of them has continued.
“Gnosticism is a belief system that attempts to separate God from His creation, especially from man, and to erase man’s responsibility to act in a morally rational manner toward God and other people. It is a system of extremes. It leaves the door wide open for people to gratify any physical desire they can think of it. On the opposite end of the scale, some of the followers involved themselves in excessive practices designed to mortify the body.
“Gnosticism contains elements taken from other religious systems…. Intelligent sectarians, the people in the Apostle John’s day were influenced by popular philosophers and scientists. It is so today.”
Dualism, a basic tenet of Gnosticism . . . says that all matter was created by Satan and only spirit was created by God. Therefore only spirit is good. All matter is bad. The earth is bad the body is bad, the appetites are bad, and so on. But God, you will recall, pronounced His creation, including the body, good (Gen 1:31).”
“ . . . Since man is in a body, and the body is matter, it doesn’t make any difference what man does in that body because the body has no moral significance at all. “Therefore a person can go right on living in darkness and still claim to be a follower of Christ, claiming to have fellowship with God. . . “
Antinomianism means “against law.” This . . . says man in the body does the sinning and not the spirit. God gets grace by forgiving sinners. Therefore the more a Christian sins, the more glory God gets in forgiving sin because there are more sins to forgive.”
This heresy “infiltrated the early church” so the Apostle John addressed it: “This is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
“With this thought in mind John is striking a blow at Gnosticism and Antinomianism. The Gnostics taught that . . . conduct, however evil, is unimportant. . . Today, counterfeits of the truth are everywhere. Dressed up in the current intellectual fashion and using any variety of different names, the lies remain the heresies of old. Lies, no matter how hard they try to pretend that they are Christian truth, are still counterfeits, and they are still far from the reality of Christ. Throughout the centuries God has exhorted His people to be alert and watchful. John the Apostle, our companion in the faith, wants believers to be aware of imposters. The discernment of spirits is a vital gift (1 Cor 12:10). It is not that difficult a job to do. All it takes is prayer and observation.”
…..
“He will arrange things so as to allow us to bring glory to His name through our lives, even while we are in this world.”
“If we have fellowship with darkness it excludes the possibility of fellowship with God.”
“If what you say does not line up with what you do, there is a problem.”
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Excellent!!!