LEAVING THE WAY
1 Corinthians 9:22
2 Peter 2:9-22
One of the greatest problems that I see in the realm of Christianity is that there is a wholesale turning away from the ways of holiness and righteousness, and there is a tendency to leave the ways of the Lord that have been passed down from the time of the early church. The modern church has been deluded and deceived into believing that “anything goes” and our fear of God’s judgment for sin has been dulled by teachings on self-esteem, man centered worship and social gatherings in the name of Christ. We have compromised our convictions for holiness and lowered our standards of righteousness before God so that we will become more acceptable to man.
We have taken the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:22, "...I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some," and we have interpreted them to mean that we should become like everyone else to be accepted so that we can reach them for Jesus.
I believe that we have looked at those words of Paul and that we have used them for an excuse to become a church that has no power, no testimony, and very little ability to see the hearts of people changed through the anointing power of the Holy Ghost. In fact, I believe that we have grieved the Holy Spirit so much that most of the modern-day churches that are labeled “Full Gospel”, or “Charismatic”, or even “Pentecostal” are actually labeled as “Apostate” in the mind of God.
They might be Charismatic because they certainly know how to appear spiritual and to act as though the power of God as in the midst, but in reality there is no power. It’s all a show and a performance to draw people into their charade. How can God be present when man is glorified instead of God? There is no real move of the Holy Spirit in the “moshing” that goes on in most of our youth pep rallies. Jumping up and down with the music, diving off into a crowd of youth in front of the platform and “body surfing” across the upraised hands of those who pretend to worship Jesus has nothing to do with real worship. It’s all a show of the flesh.
When you can’t tell the difference between the world’s music and that of the modern “worship band” and you see those who are supposed to lead the congregation to a higher standard in Christ actually lower their own standards of dress and appearance of holiness to be better accepted, then I believe that we are headed in the wrong direction.
God calls us to come out from the world and be a separate people unto him. He calls us to lift up his standards of righteousness, not to lower them. He calls us to be more committed to him and to become more like him with each passing day, not to conform to the image of this world. Whatever happened to abstaining from all appearance of evil?
I know that the voice that I raise today is not popular with the modern church crowd. Most will only laugh and say that we are “old fashioned” or that I am an “old fogey” who is behind the times and unwilling to “move on”. To those who would think so I say AMEN!
If it means that I choose to live holy and righteous before the Lord and to refuse to compromise the convictions of the Holy Ghost upon my heart and life to maintain the standards that I have been convinced are right and in line with the Word of God and the Will of God, then I guess I am “old fashioned” and I will always be that way.
I like what I heard one preacher say, and there ought to be a lot more saying it –
“That statement by Peter does not mean that we are to see just how far into the world we can go or how much we can become like the world and still call ourselves Christian. It does not mean that we can get so close to being like the world that we are walking a tightrope between godliness and ungodliness.
What it does mean is that we must pray and seek the face of God to know how far from the world we can get and how much difference we can become from the world of sin and still be able to call out to the sinner so that they will hear us. We are to lift the sinner out of his miry clay of sin and call him to a higher level of righteousness in Christ. If there is not difference between our life and his, then why would he need to be delivered from what he is doing right now?
We are to lift up the standards of holiness and righteousness so that sinners will see a better way, not bring them down so that they can walk along with us without changing and still feel comfortable. It isn’t the sinner who is lifted up in that situation, it is the Believer who is brought down and God is not pleased with that at all.
Peter had a lot to say about those who would leave the ways of righteousness and holiness to walk after the lust and desires of the flesh and still call themselves Christians.
2 Peter 2:9, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:”
What is happening is that the vast majority the Christian world of today has succumbed to the temptation to become more like the world. Most churches cater to the desires of the flesh of the congregation rather than minister to the needs of the spirit and the heart.
James says that we are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lusts, or desires, and enticed, or led by our own wants and our own pleasures to begin to serve self instead of serving the Lord.
Why do we not hear of more revivals? It’s because there is no power to “revive” in a covered dish dinner and a movie. It’s because there is no power to deliver a soul from sin in a song about love. It’s because there is no anointing to bring a miracle in the hearts of people in telling them how good they already are or how magnificent their talents are. Why should a soul seek deliverance if they already believe that they are everything that God desires for them to be? How can the Holy Spirit convict us of our sin if that sin is never revealed in us because all we hear is praise for self?
Christian churches have become so engrossed in becoming worldly to attract the sinners that the sinners actually feel at home.
They can go to church, claim to be Christian and still live together without ever coming under conviction. They can go to church, dress, act and look like the devil and see other Christians with their hands raised who look just like they do. The sinner can walk into our worship services and join right in and may not even know that it is a worship service and not a rock concert. Sinners can go to church and tell everyone that they know about Jesus but their words have no power because all they know is about him, but they don’t really know him as their Lord and Savior at all.
You can go church on Sunday morning, jump up and down, clap your hands and sing some beautiful songs of love, mercy and grace, then show up at the night club on Sunday night (because the church doesn’t have service on Sunday nights anymore because the crowds only want to come one time a week and it’s too much trouble and expense to have a regular service for only a handful of people), drink your adult beverages, listen to a worldly band, jump up and down, clap and sing along with them, then go home with Mercy or Grace and have a night of “love” and never feel the first tinge of conviction because you think it’s all right between you and God.
My friend, that’s mixing the Light of the Gospel with the Works of Darkness and that dog don’t hunt! Light and Darkness do not mix. It’s all darkness, every bit of it. There is no gospel there. There is no righteousness there. And the false prophet of a pastor that won’t teach against such things and won’t proclaim the truth of the gospel in separating ourselves from the world unto the Lord will face judgment and the flames of hell right along with every member of his “church” that follows his ministry.
2 Peter 2:10, “But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.”
God is not ignoring the sin of the church. He is recording every wrong sermon, every song that glorifies man, every sin of omitting the truth of the gospel, and every compromising spirit that arises. There will be a Reckoning Day, a day when every church member, every pastor, every prophet, every evangelist, and every man, woman and child, will stand before God and answer for how they handled the Word of God and what they did with the death of his only Son upon the Cross.
The church may think that it is “getting by” with sin but there is no escaping the wrath of his judgment. The compromising churches and the Christians that attend them are Presumptuous, presuming upon the mercy and grace of God to cover their sin when there is no repentance. They are Self-willed because they will to satisfy self and not God. And they are unafraid to speak out against those who would preach and teach holiness and righteousness. They preach that their self-styled manner of living is just as good as those who preach a higher standard and they will not be convinced of their sin. They are headed for destruction as fast as life can take them and they are convinced that they are in the right way.
Proverbs 16:25, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
2 Peter 2:14, 15, “ Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; “
The eyes of the compromising church and the compromising Christian are not upon the Lord but upon the desires of the flesh. Spiritual adultery is committed every time we place anything of this life above our love for the truth of God’s Word.
The church commits adultery against God when we choose to have a social gathering rather than worship him in spirit and in truth. The church commits adultery against God when a football game is being watched in the “upper room” while the service is going on in the sanctuary. The church commits adultery against God when the congregation would rather gather in small groups around the dinner table of some friend’s home and discuss their “plans for the ministry” next week instead of being in God’s house praising him and learning of His Word.
These “cursed children” are cursed for their sin of adultery and may never come under conviction because some false prophet of a preacher condones and supports what they are doing because it gives him a break from sermon preparation and an extra night off to do other things.
2 Peter 2:18, “For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.”
It’s not hard to build a big church in our present world. Just compromise your standards of righteousness, down dress to appear laid back, bring some well recognized entertainment in, cater to the desires of the flesh, make people feel good and loved, give them what they want and they will come by the thousands. But you had better never start preaching holiness and righteousness from the pulpit or they will leave as quick as they came.
There are even a lot of “old time, Holy Ghost filled, sanctified, born again Christians” who are “allured” into that same church. The scripture says that even these people will live in error because it is error to serve in a place where the truth is not preached and it’s a sin against the righteousness of God to be found as a partaker with those who don’t preach the truth of the gospel.
2 Peter 2:20, “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.”
How many Christian have been trapped by false doctrines and fulfilling the desires of the flesh and not the Spirit? How many have been delivered by the power of God from their wallowing in the miry claw of sin and then been enticed back into that old lifestyle because “everybody else is doing it”? They have turned to their life of sin, in name of living for Jesus, still claiming to be a Christian, saved and ready for Heaven. What message can reach them now? Their hearts are hardened to the truth and Satan has blinded their hearts to their sin so who can reach them now? Short of a mighty miracle of God, I fear that most will never turn away from that lifestyle again because they think that everything is all right the way it is.
2 Peter 2:21, 22, “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”
He that puts his hand to plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God. Most of the church world has not only looked back but turned back from the ways of righteousness. They have left the ways of God and followed the ways of convenience and self-gratification, catering to their own desires and not the will of God.
An old dog will eat just about anything, even when it will make him sick enough to throw it up. Then, because he is still a dog, will turn back to see if what he threw up is good to eat again. A pig that is taken out and washed clean, is still a pig and when you turn it loose that pig is going straight back to the mud because its in his nature.
That’s the way it is with most of the “Christians” that are “saved” now. They will come to church and get cleaned up because they want to fit in for a while, or they like what they see because it makes them feel better for a while. They will “throw up” the garbage music that they have listened to and “throw up” that old lifestyle in the night clubs, daiquiri shops and gambling casinos because they know that even though it tasted good going down it has left them with a sour spirit and an empty heart.
But their heart isn’t changed. The dog is still a dog, the pig is still a pig, and a sinner is still a sinner unless he repents and is Born Again by the Holy Spirit into a new man and dies to the old man.
Without repentance there is no forgiveness of sin. Without turning away and running away from the life of sin, that desire for sin is still in the heart and sooner or later it’s going to resurface again. If there is no sell out of our desires to the will of God and allowing Jesus to become the Lord of our lives, then we retain that power to rule over our own self and we will sooner or later go back to serving self.
Just as a dog can’t stop being a dog, a sinner can’t keep from going back into sin unless his heart is changed by the power of God.
Just as a pig can’t stop being a pig and will turn back to the mud pit, so will a sinner return to his life of sin, if he is not changed by the power of God.
No amount of compromise will bring a change in your heart. No amount of self-gratifying worldly pleasure, even in the church, will change your heart. No amount of praising, worshipping, shouting or anything else will change your heart.
The only thing that will bring that change is a complete repentance for sin before God from the heart and a surrender of your will to the will of God, allowing the Holy Spirit to take over possession, rule and reign in your heart and life and to allow Him to bring your from your old life to the new life in Christ through the New Birth.
Let us strive to surrender our will to God’s will. Let us strive to become more righteous, more sanctified, to live more holy and to keep our eyes on the Lord, thinking only on those things that are good, righteous and holy. Let us strive to reach the world by preaching the truth of the gospel, not by catering to the desires of the flesh.
That’s how the early church was built and that’s how God’s true church is still being built. Every other way is the way of compromise and will end in death. Our God is still a holy God and without Holiness, no man shall ever see Jesus nor enter Heaven’s Gates.
Has there been a lot of compromise in your life? Have you found yourself beginning to turn back to your old ways? Are you turning again to those things that you know will make your spirit sick? Are you turning back, leaving the way of holiness, to pursue the life that is found in the miry clay of sin?
Turn back to God right now. Don’t wait. Turn back to him while you can. The farther we go back into sin, the harder it will be turn back to God so don’t wait. Fall before Jesus in repentance again and ask him to take control of your life once more. Let him be both your Savior and you Lord. He is waiting to see what your decision will be.
