Devilish Deceptions
It's been said that God does nothing in the affairs of men except they
pray. Prayer is the catalyst for worldwide transformation. Prayer
incites the angels, restrains darkness, and releases nations into their
destiny. Prayer is the key to revival, building bridges between what
should be and what will be.
The devil also knows the power of prayer and he understands that he
can't stop us from praying. But he is the master of deception and he
tries to convince us that his destructive schemes are "acts of God" so
Believers will not release the arsenal of Heaven against him!
Unfortunately, satan has been more successful at deceiving the saints
recently than he has for decades. One of the ways he has shrewdly
crept into our society is by convincing the Church that it is our
responsibility to release the wrath of God against sinners. This
authorizes the dethroned prince of darkness to kill, steal and destroy
while we stand aside applauding the demise of these ravaged people. To
make matters worse, this evil prince frames the Lord of Redemption for
his crimes, poisoning the people of His passion, which causes many of
them to reject His wedding invitation. Meanwhile, those who have been
empowered to police this property lack discernment and assist these
angels of light in their killing spree.
The Reemerging Of The Doomsday Prophets
In the last decade the "Doomsday" prophets seemed to have come out of
hibernation. In 1997, my own parents moved out of the San Francisco Bay
Area to avoid the wrath of a great earthquake prophesied to strike
southern California. This quake was going to destroy Hollywood for its
immoral pollution of the media and San Francisco for its homosexual
perversion. The word also predicted that northern California would
become "ocean front property."
My mom and dad relocated from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe near Nevada,
hoping to find a prophetic "no-fly" zone. Just about the time my folks
got settled, several prophets began to prophesy about an upcoming
international famine. This became known around the world as the "Y2K
bug." This bug was going to judge us for making our intellect a god.
It was the perfect "God Scheme." The whole plan was to be hidden by
our foolish confidence in man's brilliance. It seemed that the Lord had
blinded every computer nerd in the world, keeping them from discovering
too soon that we would all be starving over the lack of a digit. What
a way to go! There would be rioting in the streets; people would be
fighting off the temptation to cannibalize their neighbors and
children! Businesses and governments would crumble next. Some even
predicted this would start the "Mother of all Wars." People streamed
in mass to buy generators and guns to protect their food in the "Name
of the Lord." Needless to say, these preparations proved to be
pointless, and my parents are still driving for hours to reach the
ocean.
September 11, 2001 will forever be branded in the minds of Americans
as a monument to murder. America woke up to the sounds of people
screaming, many of them on fire as they exited the black smoke of a
man-made hell. Explosions could be heard in the background as buildings
crumbled and thousands were trapped in would-be tombs. Weeping and
wailing were heard for miles as people wandered aimlessly through the
streets looking for their loved ones. Many jumped to their death from
these flaming infernos. Deep sadness and fear blanketed the whole earth
as the news spread. Everywhere, people were crying out for mercy for
those who were still counted among the missing. People were glued to
their TV sets, praying, hoping and believing that life would emerge
from the rubble.
Although the "Prophets of Doom" had not prophesied this disaster,
declarations of darkness began to emerge from what was supposed to be
the "House of Hope." Before we could ask ourselves why such a mindless
act of horror would be perpetrated on the lives of the many innocent
who died that day, numerous Prophets began to proclaim that this
terrorist attack was God's judgment for the sins of our nation. Their
thesis was that God was angry over the abortion, homosexual, and
pornography issues, so he decided to kill a bunch of people to make His
point. Can you imagine the grief that beset those who had lost loved
ones and were now being confronted by an angry God who wanted to kill
more people? This attitude reminds me of something Jesus said, "In the
last days the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12.)
Slow Learners
It seems that many of God's Prophets are slow learners as a whole new
wave of prophetic judgments are being released over San Francisco,
Northern California and Hollywood again. These judgments are predicated
on a huge misunderstanding of New Testament prophetic ministry in the
Church today. The Church needs to realize that the crucifixion of Jesus
fulfilled the Law and the Prophets! We need to stop doing for the
devil what he can't do for himself!
Let's take a look at the goal of New Testament ministry and means of achieving it according to the Apostle Paul. He wrote:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now
all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through
Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was
in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of
reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God
were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17-21.)
Two things come to light in these passages: number one, New Testament
ministry is the "ministry of reconciliation". And number two, the way
God reconciles people to Himself is by "not counting their trespasses
against them!" In the Old Testament the primary role of the Prophet was
to decree judgments for national transgressions because sin required
judgment under the Law. But in the New Testament, the crucifixion of
Christ paid the price that judgment required, thereby fulfilling
justice and ultimately releasing mercy to millions of sinners who
didn't deserve it (people like you and me, for instance).
A Violent Act Of Grace
It never seems to dawn on some Believers that we didn't get into the
Kingdom through our works but through His (Christ's). Sinners who
discipline themselves into good behavior are still sinners who are in
need of a savior. No one can behave their way into Heaven! Trying to
get into Heaven through disciplined behavior is called
self-righteousness and it is ugly to God!
Jesus said, "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since
that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and
everyone is forcing his way into it (Luke 16:16). The Law said, "You
can't come into the Kingdom because you haven't kept all the rules!"
The Prophets continued the same theme, proclaiming judgments on the
world for their (our) wickedness. But then, suddenly, something amazing
happened; unrighteous people began turning the Cross of Christ into a
battering ram and through a violent act of grace they forced their way
into the Kingdom!
Shaking Out The Salt
Jesus told us, "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has
become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good
for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men"
(Matthew 5:13). In Jesus' day, they didn't have refrigerators to store
their food. Salt was the primary means by which they preserved their
meat and poultry. Through this analogy, the Lord is teaching us that
the Church is the element in society that preserves the culture from
the wrath of God and the destruction of evil forces. A great example
of this is Joseph, who released a corporate blessing through his
righteous life. His presence in Egypt caused the Israelites and the
Egyptians to be spared from a worldwide famine.
Jesus also said that when salt becomes tasteless, it is not good for
anything except to be walked on by men. In other words, the people of
that day would taste the salt and if it was no longer salty, they knew
that it would not keep their food from spoiling. It's important to
remember that Jesus is not really talking about preserving meat, but
describing the Body of Christ. So what does it mean to become
tasteless? It implies that we have stopped preserving the world. You
can tell when the Church has become tasteless because we begin to
prophesy against the people we are supposed to be preserving.
Re-Presenting Christ
Not only is the Church preservation (salt), but we are also revelation
(light). In the book of Matthew Jesus said, "You are the light of the
world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden" (Matthew 5:14.) What
does it mean to be light, and what is it that we are illuminating? We
are shedding light on the nature of God; how He thinks and acts in the
affairs of men. We are the revelation of the Father and His love
letter to the world. We re-present Christ to the lost. The world looks
to us to understand world events through the eyes of God. When we
misrepresent our Heavenly Father, the world gets a warped perspective
of God.
James and John are a good example of how many misrepresent God. The
"Sons of Thunder" wanted to call fire down to consume a city, but Jesus
said to them, "You don't know what spirit you are of" (Luke 9:54-55.)
It is interesting to me that this was this same John who wrote to the
Beloved and exhorted us, "Not to believe every spirit, but to test the
spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have
gone out into the world" (I John 4:1.) I imagine that he received the
revelation that even Jesus' own apostles could be influenced by hell
through his own experience of listening to the wrong spirit.
Notice how his exhortation continues in the same chapter: "Beloved, let
us love one another . . . There is no fear in love; but perfect love
casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears
is not perfected in love" (John 4:18.) These verses were written in
the context of testing the spirits. In other words, we test the
spirits by examining them in light of the virtues of love. When we
read love's virtues that are spelled out in the letter to the
Corinthians, and understand that fear has no place in love, we find
ourselves wondering what spirit is encouraging these judgment
prophecies. The greatest tragedy is that the revelation the world
receives from these voices causes them to believe that our Father is an
angry God who is looking for an opportunity to punish people.
The apostle John laid his head on the chest of Christ and was
transformed from an angry, "son of thunder" into John the beloved. It
is time for the prophets of God to lay their head on the Master"s chest
and hear the heart beat of Heaven again.
Jesus said, "If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is
the darkness" (Matthew 6:23)! If we are the light of the world and we
are speaking against the people who are already lost in night, how
great is the darkness! In the same way, when we represent God as
someone who wants to destroy America because forty million babies have
been aborted in our country, we perpetuate the very problem that we are
trying to cure. People are killing their babies because they don't
know or understand the love of the Father. Does it make sense that we
tell people that God is so angry that we are killing our young that He
is going to teach us a lesson by killing a bunch more people? Is our
Father so single-dimensional in His being that He only has one response
to anything man does wrong?
Can you imagine the negative impact it would have on your daughter if
she came to you to tell you that she had an abortion, and in response
you flipped out and tried to kill her? If you reacted out of rage, I
would suggest that your lack of love is a large part of her decision to
have the abortion in the first place.
When we reveal God to the world, it is essential that we communicate
light, life and love. Love doesn't punish or create fear. I
personally don't believe that God is mad at sinners. I do think that
He is grieved over the world's destructive behavior. But grief and
anger are not the same thing.
Love Requires Free Choice
Every time we see the heartless acts of destruction that deeply wound
the heart of God, we must remember the depths of God's desire to share
love. The nature of love is that it requires us to be able to choose.
If God took away our choice, people could only behave in the way that
God programmed them to. Wars would cease, hunger would end, and
poverty would only be an ancient memory. But the desperate cry of the
human heart that beats with passion for a loving relationship with the
most beautiful Being in the entire universe would be gone too.
Day after day, a loving Creator looks down on a broken planet longing
for the day when the object of His affection will walk hand in hand
with Him into indescribable beauty in the halls of eternity. In the
meantime, the destruction continues, not because God is angry with man,
but rather because men choose to kill, steal and destroy. This is the
fruit of those who have chosen the wrong lover (satan).
Meanwhile, a hateful enemy is stalking a wounded and desperate
people. He is seeking to paralyze us with fear, demoralize us with his
arrogant boasts of destructive predictions, and harden us with
hopelessness. Yet still, the future belongs to those who pray. Prayer
is the bridge between what should be and what will be. The diligent
prayer of a righteous people will ultimately determine the destiny of
our children. Therefore, it is our responsibility to leave to those
yet to be born a world in revival as their inheritance. Hanging in the
balance of eternity is the ultimate climax of our Creator - the
kingdoms of this world becoming the Kingdom of our God.
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