Juda Myers sings a song “War Cry”. I have placed a link at the end of the message so you can hear an excerpt and order the CD, if you wish. Sister Myers is a fervent warrior in the pro-life movement. She was conceived in rape and has a special compassion for those mothers and children. It would be great thing if you had her come and share her ministry with you.
In her song, she boldly states she will take her place in God's army armed with weapons of grace. She will not allow the world to dictate what she says. She gives a four point charge to us as Christians in her refrain that she is sending out as a war cry. I want to use those four point to challenge us to answer that war cry.
Love Your Enemies
It is easy to see that Christians are surrounded by enemies on nearly every side. The irony is that while so-called Christians persecuted the Jews for centuries it is the Israelis who are our biggest friends. True, some of the Ultra-Orthodox may not think kindly of us, but other Jews see us as their friends for they know we believe in the Abrahamic covenant and the ultimate fulfillment of all of God's promises to them. Of course, we have our differences, but we are far more alike than any other group.
Looking around we may well feel like Elisha's servant who saw only the horses and chariots that surrounded the city and was in fear and despair. May God open our eyes so that we can see as Elisha did and know that those who be for us are more than that be with them. (2 Kings 16:6)
There are far too many today that forget who they belong to and that the weapons of our warfare are spiritual and not carnal. I see so many comments about taking up arms by professing Christians and yet, Christ took up no arms against His enemies who took Him captive. He could have but spoken the word and all of His enemies would have been vaporized. He arose victorious from the grave and conquered death and Hell without weapons or retaliation. His kingdom is still not of this world and it is not advanced by the weapons or strategies of this world.
Neither did He break out in angry rants and make threats. He went quietly as a sheep to the slaughter. Indeed, by His actions He caused His enemies to think they had prevailed when in essence they were fulfilling His plan to defeat them. All the bitter rancor I see on social media does not become one who says they are a follower of Christ.
Mat_5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Luk_6:27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
Luk_6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Christ said to love your enemies. That takes His grace and the power of the Holy Spirit to do because it is not in our nature. If it were, there would be very few wars and crimes. He loved beyond the natural urge for self-preservation to where He died for His enemies, which included us before we believed and oft times even after as we cave in to sins rather then resist in the Spirit.
Romans 5 tells us that it is not easy to die for someone. Indeed, some of my military brethren, first responders, and even some random Good Samaritans have given their lives for people they did not know and whose lives may not have been as fruitful as the one who died. I read of a Confederate chaplain who took the place of another man because that man had a wife and children while the Chaplain did not. Dietrich Bonhoeffer also took another's place. They are true examples of John 15:13 of the greatest love being willing to lay down your life for a friend. Ah, but for an enemy would be even harder and yet Jesus did that.
Blessing those who bless us is often a formality or courtesy. We say bless you when someone sneezes out of reflex without really being 100% into it. We ask God to bless our food, family, church, etc., but when is the last time you asked God to bless your enemy with health or even that God would save their soul because it needs saved and not just to get them off our case. Bless them that curse us? Whoa! How do we do that? By obedience and again the work of the Spirit.
Look at the history between God and man as well as Jesus' life and you see God has been loving His enemies since the Fall. When we sin we are not being the friend of God. Indeed, since sin is the antithesis of God and His character we become anti-God or an anti-Christ with those sins. Yet, God loved Adam and Eve when they turned against Him. He offered Cain a way to come to Him when Cain did not make the right offering and even spared Cain's life when he murdered Abel. God offered the world a way out of the Flood, but in His foreknowledge Noah only had to make room and provisions for eight people. Israel in sin was stilled loved by God and He forgave them over and over again. Jesus forgave the men who crucified Him as He was on the Cross. We have the example. With the Holy Spirit, we have the power. Do we have the desire to obey and bless our enemies? That is the real question.
When we sin or live in a worldly manner James said we are adulterers and adulteresses. If we are friends with the world we are the enemies of God. (James 4:4) Let that soak in. Many would never commit the act of adultery against their spouse but they make think about it and that is still adultery. Many would profess great love to God and never desire to be His enemy. Yet, with each sin we commit adultery against Him and each compromise we make to the world means we are siding with them and not Him. Yet, in spite of all that God still reaches out in love to His erring child and the world that rejects Him. We are glad of that. If we are grateful, we will extend the love and grace we receive to our enemies. Remembering what God has done for you when you were His enemy and not His child as well as how He handles our adulteries should make it a tad easier to love those who hate us and despitefully use us. Our mission requires us to do this if we expect to
Set The Captive Free
2Ti 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
2Ti 2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
2Ti 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
We are left on this earth after salvation to bring others to Christ to receive the same salvation and freedom from sin. That is our mission. We were set free to bring others out of the captivity of the devil. Jesus came to save, not to judge. Judgment comes at Second Coming and it is He who will do the judging. That doesn't mean we cannot call sin, sin, but it does mean we do not rant and rave sounding like we are thrilled that people are going to Hell.
It is hard to find some preachers/Christians to be true servants of the Lord by the description in this passage of the job requirements. Too many are harsh and cruel. Because of that some will go too far the other way to try and offset the harm caused by the ones who are too harsh. No extreme is good, We must seek balance. Note that there is nothing in this passage about political correctness or sugar coating your message. It does speak to delivery style and that reveals your heart attitude. If you say you preach a gospel of grace given to you by a God of mercy and love then your gestures and tone should reflect that.
During WWII, our troops did not liberate a POW or Jewish internment camp by going in and brutally beating the prisoners as they were being told that the soldiers had come to set them free. No, they treated the prisoners with gentleness and provided care for them during the transition to freedom. Yet, we bash sinners about their imprisonment by their sin while we say God loves them and so do we. Really? We are not to strive and yet we go to battle with the prisoners and not the real enemy who made them captive. Jesus led captivity free. He did not brow beat them before He did it.
He did not bitterly rant and chastise the woman at the well or the one taken in adultery before He forgave and saved them. He was gentle with both. Indeed, by merely writing in the sand he was gentle to the ones who would have stoned her. He could have called each of them by name and called out their sin publicly. Instead, he let their own conscience convict them as He wrote. That is not how many would have done it. We are to be gentle to all, not just the ones who share the weakness to the our personal sins or our ethnic group.
Since our culture is no longer immersed in the Scripture as it once was, many sinners need to be taught the basics. They sin because they are sinners, but also because they do not know they are sinners because they were taught we are only high tech monkeys and there is no God, but themselves that makes the rules. They may even have some form of religion that does not have the same standards for good and evil as the Word teaches. Gentle teaching is required. You have to plant the seed and water it praying God will give the increase in that person's soul. If you have been taught that two plus two is five all your life it will take some patient teaching by someone to change your mind.
If your attitude is one of meekness where you are seeking the glory of God and not your own then you will be able to understand the principles given in this passage. You will not take their rejection or rancor personally because they are not truly opposing you but God and themselves by not accepting the truth. They have been taken captive by the devil. They are like a wounded animal that lashes out at a person trying to help it. The pain and the lack of trust is delaying their healing. They just don't know that. That is why God has to do the work of grace in them that will allow them to repent and accept the truth. After all it has always been God's work but He calls us to
Prepare The Way
1Co 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
1Co 11:25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is
the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
1Co 11:26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till
he come.
John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus' ministry during the first coming. The Church is called to prepare the way for His Second Coming. Yet, are we really doing that? Oh, you say there are a myriad of churches, TV, radio and Internet ministries sending out the message. Surely, we are preparing the way. It is true that great quantities of seed are being sowed, but it is not all good seed. The enemy is sowing tares as well.
If we are not loving our enemies and setting the captive free we are not preparing the way of the Lord. Also as this passage indicates, how the Church acts is either a roadblock/pot hole or it is making the way smooth and straight. We are to make a straight highway even in a desert to prepare the way of God. (Isa 40:3,4) Are we doing that? Are we really showing forth the Lord's death until His return?
The Corinthians were having as much trouble transitioning from paganism as the Jews were moving from Law to grace. They were living somewhat the life a restaurant promotes; no rules, just right. Yet, that right was pretty much whatever the pagan religions deemed right and that included temple prostitutes and drunken orgies in the name of whatever idol they worshipped. Though they were saved by trading the myriad of gods for the one true God they still needed a lot of work in dropping cultural norms for the godly norm.
By coming to Church to participate in the Lord's Supper in the same way they used to celebrate their pagan gods they were corrupting the purpose and meaning of the ordinance. Paul had to set them straight as God takes the ordinance seriously. It was sending a wrong message to the community as well. Can you imagine Lucas asking Demetrius what he did yesterday and Demetrius says he was at church observing the Lord's Supper and says how he got really messed up and had to go outside to barf because the church did not have a vomitorium. Lucas would think that Jesus was just another one of the gods and he was happy with Athena, but glad Demetrius was enjoying this new god's worship activities. When people think of us or our church do they just see us as no big deal because they see no difference in our lifestyle or patterns of worship?
We are called to be different as we are in the world, but not of the world. I am not sure how that would have spawned the seeker church movement. If we are to come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing why did we start bringing the culture into the Church? Why do we try to dress and act like them to bring them to God when God is so far different than our cultures? I know Paul said he was all things to all men so that by any means he might win some, but that did not mean he was going to join a nudist colony to win the nudists. Yet, we pick out various fads among the subcultures as well as the main culture and take on their attributes.
Do we win some? Yes, but the early church won far more and grew faster because the message and their lifestyle were so radically different. They would not going to be speaking in the public forum which was the talk show of the day. Most times if they were in the public forum it was to be crucified or feed the lions. They were not popular with the culture because they were different, but they transformed culture because people were drawn to them and were saved.
They did not stop preaching Jesus or anything else because they were warned not to speak about Him and many things the culture adored. They did not get piercings, tats and black lipstick to hopefully draw a group to them. They were not really allowed to get into any kind of politics to effect change because Rome was not going to change that way. Changes were made in the Empire as people were converted. It seemed the more the Christians were persecuted and killed the more there were being converted. They did not strive to tick off the world, but neither did they appease the world. The message ticked off the world. Yet, the same message spoke to the hearts of many people and that message was worth facing death because it brought new life here and eternal life at death. They made a pathway in the desert that is the world by their faithfulness unto death to a higher way of thinking and living. We need to make radical changes in our lives and in the life of the Church. We must get back to basics or First Century Christianity if we are going to set captives free and prepare the way
Before It's Too Late
Gen 7
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
2Thess 2
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
I don't worry about naysayers who mock as Peter said they would that it has been two thousand years since Christ died and He is not back yet. Peter says that a day is as a thousand years to God. Indeed, He has eternity to accomplish His will and plan so we are not going to rush Him because we whine that it has been too long.
We need to love our enemies, set the captive free and prepare the way before it is too late. Each second brings us closer to the day when He takes out the Church. After that, it is too late for all who have heard the Gospel and rejected it. There are no second chances after that no matter what a popular novel series may say.
How do I know? God had Noah preach the whole time during the building of the ark and all the people mocked and carried on with their normal lives. When all was finished and Noah's family was in the ark the door closed. God shut him so he could not get out and no one could go in. I am sure that as the water rose people tried climbing the ark trying to get to the small window hoping to get in. Did Noah hear pounding and pleas on the sides of the ark? We are not told, but even if he did and wanted to let people in there was no way. Once the door was shut and the water was rising it was done. The Rapture will be the same way except no one will know they are doomed.
In this age of grace, we have many more proofs of the validity of the Bible than ever before. True science affirms the Word. We have seen the many prophecies already fulfilled and we see many more in the process of fulfillment. We have all of the media being sent all over the world so more have an opportunity to hear than ever before. A person who is a Berean or seeker has all he needs to see if these things are so. A scoffer or scorner has that same information but refuses to seek it or rejects it. A person that hears it today has no excuse to not believe.
All this preaching will go on until the Rapture and then God will send a strong delusion into the minds of the those who rejected. They will believe a lie. When millions of people vanish the leaders of the world will have to try and explain. Whatever they come up with will be a lie and people will believe it, especially those who God gave over to believe it. I suspect the lie will be something like alien abduction. No matter what it is and no matter how crazy it would sound to believers it will be believed by the masses.
You may say that you read where many will be saved during the Tribulation. True, the 144,000 male, Jewish, virgin evangelists will win people to Christ. It will be mostly Jews as well as those who never heard the Gospel. The Word clearly says no chance for those who heard and decided it was not what they wanted or needed.
Unbelieving friend, you may think that if Christ hasn't come in this long it may be a couple of more centuries so you aren't worried about the Rapture. For the sake of argument, let's say you are right. You will not be here to see it. The door on God's ark of grace, Jesus, may close for you any second when your heart stops. There will be no coming back here for a second chance and no way out of where you are for eternity. Open your eyes and ask God to reveal Himself, His Word and His Son to you. Many an unbeliever/skeptic has been converted by honestly investigating the facts because as they sought a way to debunk the “myth” the Holy Spirit has pulled them out of the mist of unbelief bringing them to salvation.
Christian, we need to be about our Father's business. Like our unbelieving friends, we also do not know if we be taken in death in the next second. Will our rewards be great when we stand before the Commander-in-Chief or will we be saved yet so as by fire? Will you answer the war cry? Love your enemies, set the captive free and prepare the way before it is too late. Maranatha!!!
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Juda's main page https://choices4life.org/
