- Increasing Light, Part 12
If our knowledge of God is not affecting our choices, then we certainly do not have a high enough opinion of Him. That is why He said to the Laodicean church in Revelation He would rather they be cold or hot than lukewarm. Indifference is the highest form of contempt in a relationship. To be indifferent about God is one of the highest forms of contempt for Him. We must resolve not to allow this lukewarm spirit in our lives.
How can we know God and not be more passionate about Him than anything or anyone else in our lives? To esteem anyone or anything above Him is an affront to Him and a form of idolatry. What we are most passionate about will be a major factor in how we make decisions and how wise our decisions will be. Are we more passionate about God than we are about anything else in our lives?
Our decisions are a major determining factor in our lives, so having the ability to choose well is crucial. Just as the Lord made the consequences of eating of the forbidden tree clear to Adam, we also must choose between believing and obeying God and His word or not. When Adam chose the devil’s suggestion to doubt the Lord’s word, it led to a bad choice with bad consequences. It also opened the door for continual bad choices.
Fundamental to making the right choices in life is to believe God and seek to obey Him. There is a great and continuous temptation of the devil to get us to doubt God’s word. It worked on Adam and Eve and has worked on multitudes of others since. If Adam had believed God’s word over the devil’s suggestion, he would not have made the terrible choice he made. The key to us making the right choices is to believe God’s Word, the Scriptures, and pay no attention to the devil’s suggestions that God’s Word is not trustworthy.
It is intentional that most universities and colleges have included in their indoctrination for new students an attack on the veracity of the Bible. Most use the same attack because it is so effective at causing young Christian students to begin to doubt the Scriptures and then their own faith. This is followed up by systematic attacks so effective that, as one study revealed, as many as 75% of all Christians who go to a college or university will deny their faith within thirty days.
The arguments and statements made against the Bible by those intent on attacking the Christian faith are shallow and easily debunked. But when used against young Christians who are often on their own for the first time, in a new place, and must trust professors and university staff, they become vulnerable. Most succumb quickly because they have not been prepared for this battle. How can we better prepare them?
It is crucial to equip young believers to be strong in the Word and in their faith in God with apologetics that can fortify them against the attacks on their faith. This is always crucial for all believers since there is a constant attack on faith from the media, arts and entertainment, education, and virtually every other center of influence in the modern world. Presently, the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, and that evil one is most intent on causing Christians to fall into his traps.
Apologetics can help us recognize these traps. However, more is required if we are to avoid them. The primary factor that will keep us is our love for God. If our love for Him is not growing hotter, it will eventually grow cold. This love is fed by our worship, fellowship with His people, prayer, devotion to His Word, and our testimony in witnessing. These disciplines will only grow if we are faithful to them. We must be more intentional about these disciplines than the enemy is intent on attacking our faith.
Since few students receive the kind of preparation they need before being sent off to school, they not only succumb to the attack that shakes their faith in God, but they also have their faith in Him replaced by a terrible evil. This evil is at the root of the “deep darkness” biblical prophecy says will come at the end of this age—the onslaught of deception and Marxist propaganda now prevalent in our schools. This most evil doctrine of demons not only destroys faith but also intentionally destroys families and other relationships as Marxist strategies are designed to do.
“Satan’s cord of three strands that is not easily broken” (see Ecclesiastes 4:12) was woven for these times by Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx. These all sought to destroy faith in God, with Freud and Marx especially targeting the destruction of the nuclear family. In their teachings, we see the beginnings of the social fault line that now threatens to tear our nation apart, having already been successful in destroying many other nations, countless multitudes of families, and other relationships crucial to social stability.
While this “darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples,” the Lord also promises the appearance of His glory on His people, that nations will ultimately come to the light, and that even our sons and daughters will return (see Isaiah 60:1-5). While there is such a meltdown of relationships, with God first and then all others, the greatest fellowship and society there has ever been will emerge and the nations will stream to it.
For at least the first part of this coming year, we will examine the doctrines of demons from Darwin, Freud, and Marx, who were all contemporaries and whose doctrines were all woven together to make this “devil’s cord of three strands.” We will also see how God’s truth in the Scriptures so powerfully counters each one, fortifies us against the great deception of these times, and enables us to live opposite this darkness in a way that will help prepare the way for God’s coming kingdom, which is now very close.
© 2022 Rick Joyner. All Rights Reserved.
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