Category: spiritual warfare

A Brother Offended

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

“A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle” (Proverbs 18:19 KJV).

Today’s Scripture reminds us that backstabbing (betrayal) often has irreversible results.

Within the last few weeks, I have personally had to endure two backstabbings, so today’s Scripture is especially fresh in my mind. What grieves me is that both parties were professing grace Christians. Both gained my trust, and both played the hypocrite rather subtlety. One inflicted great damage on me spiritually and emotionally, which I cannot adequately express in words.

One was a “friend” of mine for just over a year, and the other a family “friend” for decades. Both of those relationships were highly distracting for my ministry, they still are, and they pose some difficulties for the ministry and me in the coming years. I was insulted, humiliated, and betrayed, and it makes it all the more painful that they claimed to be grace brethren in Christ. In short, dear saints and readers, I have a broken heart.

As today’s Scripture indicates, an offended family member—either physically or spiritually a family member—is “harder to be won than a strong city.” You can eventually conquer a walled city, but the upset human heart is far more resilient. Some broken relationships can never be restored. We do make every human attempt possible to “live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18), but this does not always come to pass. There are people who are stubborn and prideful, and while they claim to be Christians, they persistently mock Christian charity (even after being repeatedly admonished). They make fellowship with them impossible, so we must avoid them in order to keep the situation from escalating.

Saints, we may lose all of our “friends” for the Lord’s sake—even professing grace Christian brethren will forsake us. Let us not be surprised, but let us rejoice that the Lord is glorified in that. Saints, since our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ lost everything to provide our eternal salvation, let us be willing to lose every relationship in this life for Him.

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

Sunday, October 28, 2012

“For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29 KJV).

Saints, let us be mindful that today’s Scripture is truer today than ever before.

In the context of today’s Scripture, the Apostle Paul is bidding the Ephesian church leaders farewell. He is determined to return to Jerusalem, unsure if the Jews will kill him there (verses 22,23). Paul warns these church leaders to “take heed therefore unto [themselves], and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made [them] overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (verse 28).

They need to be on guard, for in the next verse—today’s Scripture—he cautions them that false teachers will come in and spiritually devour these Christian leaders and their local assemblies. Satan’s ministers, denominationalists/religionists/legalists, will devastate the spiritual health of God’s people. They will come in from the outside world, and infiltrate the church with heresy so Christians become ineffective.

But, the subsequent verse says, “Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (verse 30). Not only will people outside the local church come in and deceive, there will be false teachers within the church (already doing the damage subtly and hypocritically). They claim “Jesus is Lord,” they talk about God’s love and grace, and some will even go so far as to agree with us by teaching the special ministry and gospel committed to the Apostle Paul’s trust. But, when you read the King James Bible for yourself, and compare their teaching to it, you realize that their ministry confirms today’s Scripture.

“With tears,” Paul warned the Ephesians for three years about false teaching (Acts 20:31). By the end of Paul’s ministry, several years after that warning in Acts chapter 20, Ephesus and the rest of Asia (Turkey) went into apostasy (2 Timothy 1:15). Dear saints, how we would STRONGLY URGE you to be very careful about what preacher, ministry, and/or church you follow. “Many corrupt the word of God” (2 Corinthians 2:17).

333’s 500th: Grace Publishers

Friday, October 12, 2012

“The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it” (Psalm 68:11 KJV).

Saints, by God’s grace, 333 Words of Grace reaches yet another milestone!

For the past 500 days, I truly have been honored to teach God’s perfectly preserved Word (the King James Bible) rightly divided, to you all. Our goal from the very beginning was to provide free, quality, sound, brief devotionals to anyone who had an open heart, so that he or she could be edified, encouraged, and enlightened by God’s Word rightly divided.

How we desired to “have all men saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3,4). How we shared God’s desire “to make all men see the fellowship of the mystery” (Ephesians 3:9), to proclaim the precious and clear Bible truths that, sadly, religious tradition has deliberately muddled and hidden. Our goal was to demonstrate that the King James Bible is interesting and practical, intricately designed and divinely preserved, trustworthy and majesty. How we praise the Lord that He accomplished His will!

God is doing something so fantastic in this the Dispensation of His Grace, and as members of the Body of Christ, we are privileged to teach and preach His wonderful grace to us in Jesus Christ as found in His preserved Word, and preserved words, the King James Bible. With humble and thankful hearts, as the Lord gives us strength, we will continue to minister to you here in this venue.

Saints, by God’s grace and faithfulness, and with your prayerful support, we now aim for 1000. We will continue to hope, pray, study, and write, with the intention of further “publishing” God’s Word in a clear, sound manner—dispensationally studied, believed, and taught. My, how we have come such a long, long way, but we have much more from God’s Word to “publish.” Only by God’s grace, our next 500 devotionals will be even better, covering an even greater variety of topics. We do ask for your prayers, as we now have 800 new devotionals planned and begun.

Thank you, and please remember that all of our posts are archived here at https://333wordsofgrace.wordpress.com. 🙂

Expect the Adversaries

Sunday, September 30, 2012

“For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:9 KJV).

Hypothetically, if we are the Lord’s children, then we will have an easy life? Right? Wrong!

As one Christian brother expressed it, “God has not promised us Christians a rose petal pathway.” Contrary to the feel-good cliché “God wants you healthy and wealthy,” our membership in the Church the Body of Christ does not ensure our lives will be trouble-free.

While we Christians serve the Lord Jesus Christ, this world has never been and will never be His friend: “They hated [Jesus Christ] without a cause” (John 15:25; cf. Psalm 35:19). During His 33 years on earth, the world was very unkind to our Lord and Saviour. He was hated, belittled, and executed by His own people. The world will “love” Christ living His life in us to the same extent they “loved” Him living His life during His earthly ministry—not at all!

In the verse previous to today’s Scripture, Paul is staying at Ephesus until Pentecost. Today’s Scripture says that while Paul had opportunity to preach and teach in Ephesus, the satanic policy of evil had its men in place. Evil men, Satan’s cohorts, were eager to divide Paul’s audience and persecute Christians, including harming the Apostle himself. Today’s Scripture refers to Acts 19:21–20:1, when Paul preached against the pagan goddess Diana in Ephesus. Fearing financial ruin, the local idol makers anger the Ephesians and cause them to turn against Paul. This riot in Ephesus (present-day western Turkey) forces Paul to depart to Macedonia (present-day northern Greece).

The Philippian believers endured intense persecution, yet Paul encouraged them: “And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God” (1:28). Do not fear or be intimidated by Satan’s evil world system. (“Satan” is a Hebrew word meaning “adversary.”) The devil is our adversary because he is God’s adversary. Thankfully, Satan’s tactics do not have to destroy us: God’s grace is sufficient for us to bear them (2 Corinthians 12:9,10).

Expect the adversaries, and expect God’s grace to endure them! 🙂

My Kingdom is Not of This World? #5

Thursday, September 27, 2012

“Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36 KJV).

What did Jesus mean when He spoke today’s Scripture?

“Iniquity”—a selfish, rebellious, anti-God attitude—existed first in Lucifer/Satan (Ezekiel 28:15), who is now “the god [ruler] of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Hence, the world’s governments abound with injustice and iniquity (“not equal;” that is, “not fair”). “[T]he mystery of iniquity doth already work” (2 Thessalonians 2:7), whose context describes the seven-year Tribulation, when the antichrist will epitomize this world’s blasphemous political system by claiming to be and exalting himself as God (Daniel 8:25; 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4), just as Lucifer did in Isaiah 14:14.

Daniel 2:31-45 is King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and God’s interpretation as spoken through the prophet Daniel. Essentially, Nebuchadnezzar saw a giant image, symbolizing major Gentile world empires (most of which were future from his time). Nebuchadnezzar then saw a “stone cut out without hands” demolish this image, which stone “became a mountain [kingdom], and filled the whole earth” (verses 34,35).

This stone is “cut out without hands,” meaning it is not of human origin: it is “not of this world” (this is what Jesus meant in today’s Scripture). This stone is Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:6-8) at His Second Coming to set up His glorious kingdom on earth, a kingdom established by “the God of heaven” (Daniel 2:44), one not founded by “the god of this world,” Satan, nor influenced by his autonomous spirit.

Try as we might, political reform is impossible in this world. Though politicians can and are replaced, the underlying corrupt political system (described earlier) remains the same. Political reformation is only possible if the existing satanically inspired world system is replaced with God’s, and none of us mortal humans can achieve this. In God’s own time (Christ’s Second Coming), He will abolish Satan’s evil world system that has dominated earth for 6,000 years, and replace it with His righteous world system.

Indeed, Christ’s kingdom is “not of this world!”

Not in Vain

Saturday, September 8, 2012

“For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain” (1 Thessalonians 2:1 KJV).

The believers in Thessalonica demonstrate that ministry work for the Lord is not done in vain.

Paul and Silas, on Paul’s second apostolic journey, arrive in Thessalonica in Acts 17:1. Here, there are Judaistic Jews and Greeks (verse 1), people who have some comprehension of the Old Testament and the one true God. However, there are also pagan Gentiles, individuals who later “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).

The Lord through Paul and Silas preached the Gospel of God’s Grace to us in Christ (dispensational Bible study). By placing their faith in that message, the Thessalonians either progressed to further understand God’s Word (that is, how God was now revealing advanced information—the mystery program—not found in the Old Testament), and/or learned that the one true God, unlike the pagan gods they had worshipped as heathens, had come in the form a Man to die for their sins. After the Thessalonians trusted Christ, today’s Scripture and its context (1:3–2:1) describe how God used them to evangelize their neighbors!

Ever wonder, “Are our preaching the message of God’s grace and teaching the King James Bible rightly divided, really worth it?” After all, many—even professing Christians (!)—hate it. Too prideful and too attached to their religious tradition to admit that God’s message to us Gentiles is Paul’s epistles (Romans through Philemon), denominational Christians vehemently oppose and attempt to suppress dispensational Bible study… THAT is vain. For, though we are few in number, we Pauline dispensationalists “serve the living and true God,” and nothing God does is ever “in vain” (worthless, futile). “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Again, “Are our preaching God’s grace and our teaching the King James Bible rightly divided, really worth it?” Today’s Scripture is a resounding, “Yes, it is worth it! It is ‘not in vain!’” 🙂

Myriads of Itching Ears #3

Thursday, August 23, 2012

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3,4 KJV).

Beware of the megachurches, for they teach mega error!

Today’s Scripture teaches how, as time would pass, people with “itching ears”—an eagerness to hear an entertaining, soothing message void of God’s truth—would “heap to themselves teachers.” Literally, they accumulate (“heap”) more and more of these false teachers to themselves. Religious (false) teaching is like a drug. Not only is it addictive, it also inhibits common reasoning, it promotes incontinence and hysteria, and worst of all, it prevents Bible understanding.

There were perhaps 250 million people on Earth during the New Testament times. Today, almost 2,000 years later, Earth’s human population has increased nearly 30-fold. False teaching has also exponentially increased, especially due to megachurches.

What are we Bible-believing Christians to do? Throw up our hands in defeat, and just “go along with the crowd” in their doctrinal error? This would be quite easy to do, but it would not honor the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The context of today’s Scripture explains that our surrendering to the devil’s policy of evil is not the answer!

In his final instructions to Timothy, the context of today’s Scripture, the Apostle Paul “charged” (commanded) him “before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (verses 1,2). Paul urged Timothy to continue in sound Pauline Bible doctrine: “Preach the Word, Timothy. Prepare yourself for the false teaching that will grow progressively worse and widespread [as described in today’s Scripture].”

Paul’s directions to Timothy are God’s instructions to us. As more professing Christians abandon sound Bible doctrine, we continue in faith in God’s Word (the King James Bible) rightly divided, and we refuse to join the “myriads of itching ears.” 🙂

Myriads of Itching Ears #2

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3,4 KJV).

Beware of the megachurches, for they teach mega error!

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly [clearly], that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:1,2). False teaching within professing Christianity is nothing new: these verses (including today’s Scripture) foretold an explosion of it. Ever since Paul wrote these Scriptures almost 20 centuries ago, literally tens of thousands of apostate religious systems, denominations, creeds, and ceremonies have been devised.

Furthermore, the rise of megachurches in the past few decades has exacerbated this false teaching. These monstrous congregations have incorporated a mishmash of the aforementioned doctrinal errors in order to accommodate just about anyone. Sadly, it is “hypocrisy” (it professes to be Christianity, but it is everything but, and it deceives Christians and lost people alike). So many good, sincere souls are “bewitched” by religion, especially in megachurches. They, seeking entertainment, are under a satanic spell, as described in Galatians 3:1-3 and 2 Timothy 2:24-26, and many are oblivious to it.

In Paul’s final epistle, written just prior to his martyrdom, he admitted—2,000 years ago—that the Body of Christ was in apostasy: “This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes” (2 Timothy 1:15). Two false teachers, Phygellus and Hermogenes had convinced “all they which are in Asia [that is, present-day Turkey]” to “turn away” from Paul. Basically, Phyllegus and Hermogenes had undone everything that Paul had labored so hard to accomplish with these Christians in Asia.

With the doctrine Jesus Christ committed to the Apostle Paul now forsaken, the Christians in Asia had only one way to go spiritually—down, down, down, down, down! This is true of Christendom today, especially within the megachurches. Beware!!!

Sifting Through the Silliness

Monday, August 20, 2012

“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21 KJV).

Seeing as to I am returning to college today, we admonish ourselves: “Have an open mind, but use it not to vacuum!”

It is almost six years to the day that I began college to study environmental geology (the study of the earth and its natural processes). I can testify firsthand that, in a realm where God’s wisdom (the Holy Bible) is deemed “foolishness,” man’s idiocy is (unsurprisingly) termed “scholarly.” Frankly, some of the most absurd, vulgar, and blasphemous statements I have heard and read in my life were encountered in the college setting!

Today’s Scripture instructs us to “prove all things,” to test (verify) everything we hear, see, or read. “We search [study!] the scriptures daily, whether those things [are] so” (Acts 17:11). Once we use the rightly divided King James Bible to identify teaching that is “good,” we “hold fast” (seize, possess) it, and NEVER relinquish it. Any teaching to the contrary is sifted out, and mentally relegated to a permanent, inferior status.

We Christians should have an open mind, but we are not to use our intellect as a vacuum cleaner. We do not “suck up” everything, believing anything and everything. God’s Word has established parameters and principles, and it would be utter stupidity to ignore them as though we knew better, as though we were God.

To college students just beginning the first semester, and to high school students considering college, you would do well to memorize today’s Scripture and repeat it to yourself through your collegiate experience. Your young mind is pliable, meaning that it is easily persuaded. Thus, God’s Word admonishes us to be careful what we believe. In college, you will learn a lot of interesting information, teachings that do not contradict the Holy Scriptures. Yet, you will also hear, see, and read a lot of nonsense. You need to be able to use God’s Word rightly divided to discern (judge) that which is good, and filter out that which is garbage.

I wish you all the best for the upcoming school year! 🙂

Be Not Pierced By the Sword of the Spirit #5

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

“And take… the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV).

Saints, we are engaged in spiritual warfare, so let us take heed. A giant sword, not a butter knife, is what we need!

In the context of today’s Scripture (verses 10-18), Paul describes the spiritual warfare, the battle between God and Satan. As God’s people—we who have trusted Jesus Christ alone as our personal Saviour—we are Satan’s enemies and he seeks to deceive us! Thankfully, the Lord has given us “the armour of God” to “stand against the wiles [deceitful schemes] of the devil” (verses 11ff.). Additionally, we have God’s Word, the Holy Bible, which defends us and saves us from Satan’s corrupt doctrine (1 Timothy 4:13,15,16).

However, Satan perverts God’s Word, so that instead of it being a weapon for Christians, it becomes a weapon used against Christians. Corrupt “bibles” troubled the Thessalonian Christians’ minds (2 Thessalonians 2:2), and this perversion of the Holy Scriptures is ongoing. Instead of today’s Christian soldiers wielding “the sword of the Spirit,” many have been duped by false bibles, which are actually butter knifes when it comes to fighting Satan. (Instead, they are only sharp when Satan uses them against God’s people… in God’s name too!)

Almost from the beginning of man, Satan has sought to corrupt our mind (Genesis 3:1-5). The devil sidetracks man using false doctrine, so that he can neither understand nor appreciate God’s will for him. By deceiving man, Satan hinders God’s will for man (and Satan thereby furthers his own purpose and plan of robbing God of His glory!). Throughout Israel’s history, evil men cooperated with God’s adversary (Satan) to accomplish Israel’s spiritual ruin; the same is happening today to us, the Church the Body of Christ, as counterfeit “bibles” poison Christian souls and hinder God’s will (their spiritual maturity).

Comrade, the battle is waging…. Fellow saint, I exhort you to abandon the butter knives, and “take the sword of the Spirit,” the King James Bible, study and believe it rightly divided, and watch it defend you against “the wiles of the devil.” 🙂