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The last words Jesus said to his disciples before he left the earth focused on what their purpose would be after he was gone. He told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt 28:18-20) Everyone who has joined up with Jesus and is a disciple of his shares this same purpose. Jesus left his mission for us to complete, but there are many obstacles that stand in the way. The evil one hates those who have dedicated their lives to Jesus and to making disciples. He arrays his troops, evil spirits, against God’s people in order to throw them off and keep this mission from being completed. How do we know this? In the book of Ephesians it talks about our conflict with the devil.
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Eph. 6:10-12
So we are part of a global spiritual struggle, and the devil schemes against us. What are his schemes? Since the way that leads to life is a narrow way, the evil one tries to get us off the path. It has been said that on either side of the path of life there is a ditch. We can discern spiritually that Satan’s first strategy is to try and pull us off the solid footing we have in God’s word. The reason for this is because the words of scripture are truth and they are life. Anything that the devil can do to undermine their reliability will impact our faith and trust in the Lord. Take for instance the very first temptation. Satan, as the serpent, came to Eve and openly questioned what God had told her. “Did God really say you must not eat any of the fruit in the garden?” (Gen. 3:1, NLT) He planted doubt in Eve’s mind about what God’s word really was, and this continues to be Satan’s strategy against us.
Have you ever heard anyone wonder something like this: “How could a loving God allow that to happen?” Where do you think thoughts like that one first originated? It wasn’t from the Bible. The Bible says things like, “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God for God is love.” The Bible says, “Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above.” The Bible says, “The LORD is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.” The Bible says, “The LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” Our God is a loving Father whose goal is to rescue his children from the curse of sin. But Satan is a liar and a deceiver who will use whatever means is at his disposal to get us to doubt God and His word.
The devil, I’m sure, considers it a great success when people consider parts of the Bible to be no longer meaningful and applicable to modern life – especially when those are people who call themselves Christians. I’m sure that the evil one loves it when people believe that humans evolved from a lower life form rather than were created by God. I’m sure he loves it when people consider an unborn child to be a choice rather than child of God. I’m sure he loves it when people think that marriage is not just between a man and a woman. But for all the times that people pick and choose which parts of God’s word they want to keep and which parts they want to throw away, for all of the times people want a swiss cheese Bible rather than holding on to the sum total of God’s word, I’m sure the devil is tickled pink when God’s people simply fail to stay in the Word. Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” The foundation of our relationship with God rests in his word, and if want to stay on the path of life, it is God’s word that will keep us from slipping.
If the evil one is not successful with his strategy to undermine the word of God, he will turn to his secondary tactic. He will attempt to push us beyond the boundaries of sound Biblical teaching. We need to be aware that many a Christian or church or denomination has been tempted to add to the words of scripture. We are tempted to go beyond God’s words, teachings and commands. This is a problem that is as old as the human race. Remember Eve and the serpent? When Eve told the serpent that God told them not to eat or to even touch the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she was adding on to what God had said. He didn’t tell her not to touch it but not to eat it.
We read in the gospel of Mark that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day also added to God’s words, and Jesus was not happy about it. “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition...” They also added rules to God’s word that a person couldn’t be healed on the Sabbath day. When Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath whose hand was shriveled up, they were furious. They were so mad that they began to talk about how to stop Jesus from that point on.
Does this continue to be a problem among God’s people today? Oh yeah. In the church world it is common to add to the teachings and the commands of the Bible. Things like: No dancing, no drinking, no makeup, no eating meat, no drinking coffee. Are these bad rules? Not necessarily. Are they in the Bible? No. We believe that the basis for the forgiveness of sins is the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Bible teaches that when we place our trust in Christ, we become a brand new person, and the Lord forgives our sin and takes away the penalty of sin. However, I was recently a guest speaker in a church where we were told that the act of communion took away the penalty of sin. There are those who teach that unless you are a Sabbath keeper, you won’t be saved. There are those who teach that unless you speak in tongues you are not saved. The evil one is alive and well on planet earth working overtime to push people into adding to the things that God has said. He does this to try to get us off the path of life in Christ Jesus.
We must recognize and esteem that God’s word is holy and true. There are consequences for adding to or taking away from it. In Revelation 22:18-19 it says, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.” This is serious stuff. And we should take it seriously, not just for ourselves but for those to whom God has called us to bring his message.
Why do people, why do we add to the commands of the Lord? Rather than obeying the teachings of scripture and listening to the voice of God, we are tempted to live by rules and rituals. Rather than a living, growing relationship with Jesus Christ, we are tempted to make an outward show of religion and go through the motions of a Christian life. The Bible tells us as Christ-followers to be “led by the Spirit” and that those who “live by the Spirit…will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (Galatians 5:16) However, the evil one tempts us to go beyond what is written because of our lack of self-control.
On the one hand there are extra boundaries, walls that are built up around life in order to keep the demons out, to keep us from doing bad things. This reaction to the problem of sin is to attempt to so insulate ourselves from its influence so that it doesn’t get us. Some Christians get caught up in separating themselves and insulating themselves from the world around them. They even go so far as to cut off contact from other Christians who don’t do the same. Yet as the apostle Paul declares in Colossians 2, these rules “lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” He says they are based on “human commands and teachings”, not on what God says in the Bible. This is the problem that Martin Luther faced. He was the monk whose pen began the protestant reformation. He realized in his seclusion as a monk that all the walls designed to keep the world out never could.
On the other hand, some walls are built to keep the demons in. These rituals are meant to “clean the outside of the cup while on the inside is all kinds of evil.” (Jesus) This may be taking communion, or praying a certain way, or even giving my life over as a martyr whether that’s a physical death or death to a way of life. These rules are designed to cover over the deficiencies caused by sin rather than trusting in Jesus’ death and resurrection alone as fully sufficient for our salvation.
The devil even tried to tempt Jesus to go beyond what the Father had told him to do. Jesus answered the devil’s temptation to turn stones into bread by upholding the God’s Word, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone.” Jesus said he only did what he saw his father doing. Moses forgot that and it cost him the promised land. Rather than speaking to the rock to give water, Moses struck the rock. He went beyond what God had spoken. He took matters into his own hands.
In fact, this is the basis of our problem. It comes down to acting on God’s word. It comes down to trusting in God’s word. When we add to his word or take away from it, whether in ritual or in seemingly well-meaning boundaries, we are showing that we do not trust what God has said. The evil one is more than happy to push us off the narrow way. The devil is more than happy when we use our methods rather than the Lord’s. These methods may have the world’s stamp of approval as tested and tried and true, but if they add to God’s word, then they are human and human methods will produce human results. But we are not seeking human results but God results. The human solutions to the problems people face are rapidly failing. The world is falling apart at the seams, and unless God’s people do things God’s way, there will be no place for the lost to turn to find the path of life.
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