Pick Up the Sword of the Spirit
In the last article, I presented a long-dormant biblical teaching on the conditions for entry into the Millennial Kingdom. To quickly recap it, I show where Jesus and the apostle Paul teach that a sinful, unprofitable Christian can be excluded from ruling and reigning with Christ, instead being cast into Hell or Outer Darkness. Most Christians today do not know of this teaching, and as a result, have a misconstrued view of the afterlife, end times, and God’s attitude towards unrighteousness. As a result, they see the coming time of standing before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ, waiting to be baptized with fire, as a completely non-threatening event. While troubling, this trend is largely not their fault. Pastors have been completely disregarding what the Bible teaches on the subject. Such things are almost never uttered in an American pulpit anymore.
The State of the Church
As a result, a majority of Christians today have no fear of God. Many of those that claim to have it say they are simply afraid because the Bible told them to be. They cannot be genuinely afraid without a real threat of judgment and punishment for disobedience in the afterlife. This means that the fear of God most claim to hold is a fake fear. It is manufactured. As such, when that fake fear of God comes up against a genuine fear that is derived from our secular society, it oftentimes loses, and the Christian falls into sin.
Societal data shows this to be true in almost all areas where societal morality approves or condones of a behavior that God abhors. The sexual revolution in the U.S. is a prime example: among young Christians (18-29 years old), a full 80% have had premarital sex; the abortion mills kill the children of Christian women more than any other religious and non-religious group combined; and divorce rates among Christians stands at 45%, which is only slightly less than non-Christians.
In the opposite situation - where society abhors or disapproves of a behavior that God has commanded of Christians - we see the same type of behaviors: 70% of Christians who attended church at least once a month never share their faith with a stranger. Two-thirds believe they do not need to attend church or assemble with believers, and the vast majority of them rarely attend more than once a month. Many Christians have even abandoned voting for godly morality, insisting that it is wrong to “impose our morality” on unbelievers. To be fair, many moral matters are best left for the church to handle, mainly because human laws do not make people moral. But, the argument that someone should not vote for what they believe because it “imposes a morality” is in itself an imposition of morality, making it self-defeating; though that is beside the point.
One’s Worldview Influences Behavior
This sinful behavior among Christians is largely the fruit of the common view’s tree. To borrow an analogy from a cartoonish cliche, think of the classic scenes of a tiny angel and a tiny devil arguing with a character about a moral choice.
From Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove
In the common view, the devil makes his usual appeals to the immediate and fleshly satisfactions of whatever sin he is trying to tempt into; the angel, which should be using the fear of God and calls to God’s commands to be good, makes no such argument, instead focusing on the pain one might cause another to feel. Then, to cap it all off, he summarizes his argument like this: “It would please God if you choose to be good, but if you do not, fear not, for you are already forgiven.”
This is the whole reason why premarital sex, fornication, and in many cases, abortion are plentiful in the church. All is forgiven or pre-forgiven in the common view, and many of these sins have no direct pain within the individual acts. Even in the case of abortion, many make the case that if it is done before the baby is 20 weeks, he or she will not feel pain. The devil makes a compelling argument, and the angel, at best, makes a weak one, and in the worst cases, condones sinful behavior altogether.
In the view I am teaching, a Christian’s sins are indeed forgiven, but that does not mean that Christians are automatically exempted from giving an account of their actions, nor will the be exempted from punishment. As Jesus established in Matthew 5, and the apostle Paul affirms in this epistles, Christians that are exceptionally sinful and routinely disregard our Lord’s commands may miss out on ruling and reigning with Christ, instead being punished for 1,000 years. From this view, the angel-devil debate is quite different: The devil’s usual temptations are met with real reasons to fear God. Not only can the angel argue that we shall be judged and punished for what we do, the angel can also argue on a comparative basis using the Millennial Kingdom. The desire to be awarded that grand prize of ruling and reigning with Christ dwarfs all sinful desires this world can offer by orders of magnitude. With it, that little angel could simply ask, “Do you really want to risk losing your place ruling and reigning with Jesus for this!?”
Any thinking Christian will answer with a firm no. Even in periods where we are not thinking and have chosen poorly, there are great lessons to be learned in the period of retrospection. Some may even draw parallels between their choices and Esau’s choice to sell his birthright for “bread and a stew of lentils.” (Gen 25:33 NKJV)
Oftentimes when I bring this up, critics wishing to hold onto the common view often assert that God wishes for us to be good for goodness’ sake, but they are missing the entire point. God is aware of both our fallen state and the devil’s tenacity in temptation. The question is: Would God, knowing all these things, send us into battle not only completely unarmed, but oftentimes allied with the devil in tempting us? The answer is clearly no. From God’s word, we can see that in making the Millennial Kingdom conditional, he is equipping us with an exceptionally powerful weapon we can use to combat sin and be a genuine force for good.
Paul spoke of this very weapon in his epistle to the Ephesians. It was a major component of the full armor of God. (Ephesians 6:10-18) “The Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” derives the vast majority of its strength from this teaching. The weapon itself is strong and can defeat anything the devil throws at its wielder, but as Paul told the Ephesians, a Christian must choose to wear that armor, and wield that weapon in order for it to be effective. Will you wear that armor, pick up that powerful weapon He gave you, and do battle with the devil? Or, will you say that you do not need a weapon, for you can invite the devil in and indulge in the depths of his temptations, and still be seen as good and righteous in the sight of the Lord? That choice is yours.
