John 8
Scripture:
[42] Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. [43] Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. [44] You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.
[47] Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
Observation:
Jesus was burning the ears of the Pharisees and demons. He hits this issue straight on with His truth. The
truth is that the Pharisees were not of God when they tried to coax Jesus into saying something wrong. If they were not of God then they were controlled by the enemy. There is no in between – you can’t understand because you can’t hear, you can’t hear because you are driven to carry out Satan’s desires. That the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus is proof of that.
Application:
This is brutal truth that you are either for Him or against Him and if you are not for Him you are against Him. There is no lukewarm when it comes to believing who Jesus Christ is.
There are many today who are trying to effectively kill Jesus Christ. Taking Him out of schools, courtrooms, government, private companies, everywhere.. This secularization is killing us and we Christians are letting it happen. Why are we afraid to standup and present Jesus Christ as Truth?
We have to fight hard against Satan’s control in this world. We cannot be silent! We Christians have been silent far too long and we are now in dire danger of secularization of our entire society. The secularization of society happens when the secular, lukewarm or even straight up anti-Christian, values grow to the point where Christian values and the unchanging truth of God’s word in the bible is removed from society.
We have ben like frogs in a pot of water slowly turned up to boiling. The frogs don’t notice the change until it’s far too late. I feel like that is where we’re at in our society with respect to secularization and Christianity. Even some churches are not staying strong and true to God’s Word. Some have sanctioned gay marriages, or have LGBTQ leaders as a couple examples. This is total false teaching and these churches are being coerced into modifying some of God’s basic principals like the fact that a man and woman are different and made in God’s image, or the sanctity of marriage is between one woman and one man. These are only two examples of how the loss of what some think of as Christian privilege, becomes total Christian persecution. The secular movements will force their ideas and ideals on us Christians. If they can’t force their ideals on us, they will remove us. That is their ultimate goal.
We have to stop the madness. We need to pray, and as Albert Mohler says, we need to be ready for the refugees from the LGBTQ movement. When individuals don’t find what they are looking for in their madness, they may come looking to the only place where they can find hope, peace, and joy – in the arms of Jesus. In addition, we need to speak up. We are called to action to abide by and protect the unchanging Word and Truth of the creator of the universe. Our ambivalence in protecting the bible’s God breathed Word and the unchanging truth that comes from it, is nothing more than being lukewarm and will result in an even more despicable world.
Prayer:
Lord we love you. You alone are holy. Lord wake us up! Let us not be silent. We pray that you give us eyes to see and the wisdom to understand the movements sweeping across our governments, schools, churches, and even our homes. We pray for strength to stand up to the tide of secularization in our nation and our world as we are constantly pounded into changing our core, God given beliefs. We know that it is Satan at work Lord and not the individuals he is using. Lord help us remember that in order to deal with the problem and not the people. It gives us comfort to know that you are in control, as you have always been, and that we know how this story ends. We pray this in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.