Temptation and Faith

I would like to write a little here today on one of the most common, and most crippling sins that bedevils weak believers, and that is the sin of 'consent.' Consent is best defined simply as, 'to permit.' This is such an easy sin for someone who is a little bit fearful to justify, because consent is not an overt, evident sin to most. All someone has to do to be 'consenting,' is just not reprove or speak out against a wrong that is in their midst. The scriptures are clear as to what our position should be, in regard to the evil that is in our midst: "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (Eph. 5:8-11). If we are in a situation where something evil is being perpetrated or spoken of, and we say nothing in opposition to that evil; then we are simply turning off the light that God has put in us. Jesus spoke of the same thing like this: "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light" (Lk. 11:33). If we refuse to speak out and act against something evil around us, then we are putting the candle, which is God's Spirit, 'under a bushel' as Jesus said. Jesus spoke yet again of this ill spiritual condition in another place, with some added emphasis: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mk. 8:38). So the issue becomes a lot more serious when we see it in the light of being eternally lost, as Jesus was certainly stating here. I've seen it too many times, and been sick of it too many times, that many believers when it comes to speaking against someone else's wickedness that is being manifested in their midst, will refuse to 'offend' someone who is either close to them, or someone that they esteem to be something. If we develop this kind of deed by continuing to do it, we may just get developed to the point of no return. It is fear, and is pride to be ashamed of Jesus before this unbelieving world.

John told us the glaring reality about retaining this kind of fear in our spirits: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (I Jn. 4:18). The same John recorded the words of Jesus in 'the Revelation,' and Jesus added some godly terror to that equation: "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8). Did you note the headliner sin that Jesus mentioned there, before all of those other heinous sins? Yeah, fearfulness. That would especially be the kind of fearfulness that is ashamed of Jesus and his words in this sinful and adulterous generation. I would like to convey a spiritual reality about this whole thing of consenting unto someone's sin, that most folks probably haven't thought much about. That is the fact that when you find yourself in the position I've mentioned here, and you turn the light of God's Spirit off by your consent to someone's evil; you are not in a neutral position like you may think. The reality of the matter is that there are spirits that will try to make you fearful so that you won't say anything to 'rock the boat,' and if you submit to that fear then you come under the power of those spirits. Not only that, but those spirits of intimidation are not just random spirits, but rather they are demons that are specifically there to uphold the particular evil that they don't want you speaking against. So what will happen as a result is that you will be far less likely to speak against that evil the next time it surfaces around you, and you could even end up supporting it yourself. Why? Because we are not 'our own man,' or 'our own woman' like so many entertain themselves to be; but rather we are going to be subject to a power higher than ourselves, whether it be God or the devil. We decide whose power we are going to be under by the decisions and choices we make in our lives every day.

I'll give you a really good case in point to confirm what I've said here about how our choices put us under one power or the other, particularly in the subtle case of consent. "Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul" (Acts 7:57,58). This is of course about the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr for the faith of Christ. Most people realize that 'Saul,' whom the murderers of Stephen laid down their clothes at his feet, would later become the apostle Paul. Now this is the first mention of Saul, and we see that he wasn't actually involved in the physical killing of Stephen, but rather he kept the coats, etc, of those who stoned him. What this shows us is that Saul had not begun terrorizing the followers of Christ at this time, but the first three verses of the next chapter show us how he got started on his mad rampage against the saints of Jesus: "And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havock of the [congregation], entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison" (Acts 8:1-3). As I said, we really have no reason to believe that Saul had gone on his violent war path against the faith of Christ before this. If he had, then why wasn't he one of those who actually stoned Stephen? What happened is that Saul, by being 'consenting' unto Stephen's murder, and doing or saying nothing against it, came under the power of an enormous demon that was intent on destroying the early believers; which was probably Satan himself. Not only so, but we see that the haters of the Gospel were all much empowered by demonic forces as a result of the killing of Stephen, and the result was a great persecution against the believers that drove them away from Jerusalem.

Saul made a choice there when these unbelieving fellow Jews viciously and maliciously killed an innocent and righteous lover of God. His choice was to be silent, and to accommodate by silent consent those who did the killing; and the result was that he came under the same murderous, demonic power that those men were already submitted to. We know of course that Saul repented at the rebuke of Jesus himself, who appeared to him when Saul was on his way to do harm to the believers in Damascus (Acts 9:3-8). In fact he later gave this testimony of himself: "And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief" (I Tim. 1:12,13). So all is well that ends well, and of course he became one of the greatest men of God, and lovers of God, in the history of the world. One thing to consider however is that this man had one of the most significant callings and appointments from God in the history of the world, and not many people are going to have a visitation like that from Jesus, when they have gotten themselves under such demonic power. I'm certainly not suggesting that anyone's failure in such things means that they will never recover from it, but it still is not a good thing by any means to be consenting unto anyone's sins. Also Saul was not in Christ, nor had he received the Spirit of God in his life when he was consenting unto Stephen's death. Had that been the case, I believe his outcome may have been far different. It's one thing to be consenting against the faith of Jesus when someone is 'ignorant in unbelief,' as Paul said he was; and quite another thing to already BE in the faith, and then consent unto the evils of this world because we don't want to offend someone close to us, or someone who is something in this world. So how can we ensure that we are not going to fall prey to this sin of consent? Well, I'll tell you this: John Wooden, a legendary basketball coach who had a number of really wise sayings, once said this: "The failure to prepare is preparing to fail." It really is that simple. The scriptures and the examples of the faith, both old testament and new, exhort us continually to pray much, and to thereby keep our hearts in a pure and holy state with the Lord.

One of my favorite Bible verses says, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23). Yet another of my favorites is very similar: "And every man that hath this hope [of salvation] in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure" (I Jn. 3:3). Keeping our heart pure from all manner of sin is not done by thinking about it. It has to be done by prayer every day, and plenty of it. The apostle Paul gave us some specific instructions that are integral to our salvation in Colossians 3: "But now ye also PUT OFF all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him... PUT ON therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye" (Col. 3:8-10,12,13). We don't 'put off' the wrong things from our spirits by talking about it or reading about it. We actually have to do it. The same goes for 'putting on' the things of God's nature. It just isn't some kind of automatic thing that we can think into existence. These are things that must be done through prayer and the power of the holy Ghost, and they must be done daily. If we are not diligent in this assignment then we are, as Coach Wooden said, "preparing to fail." The apostle Paul also told us this: "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (II Cor. 4:16). The very fact that he said our 'inward man is RENEWED day by day," tells us that our spirit NEEDS to be renewed every day. And the simple fact of the matter is, it doesn't do it by itself. It is our spirit, and we have to tend to it with diligence as the scripture says. If we do not, then it just won't get renewed in the 'divine nature,' and as a result the 'old man' will prevail over the 'new man' on the inside of us. That is how we could find ourselves in a circumstance that takes us by surprise, where we find fear in our spirits, instead of the perfect love of God that is not afraid to "reprove the world of sin," as we are commissioned to do (Jn. 16:8). That should cover the bases for now. God bless.

@[100000447953012:2048:Lary Hale]