Written by TJ

I am writing this as a warning both to myself, and anyone who desires to read this.  I have prayed for the proper words to get the necessary points across, so please bear with me.  I am all too aware that my words have no power or impact – unless the Spirit of God anoints them.  So here goes…

Let’s begin with some scripture:  And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep his commandments of the LORD and his status which I command you today for your good?  Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it…therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer.  (Deuteronomy 10:12-16) 

This point, to honor God and to obey Him, is repeated in Deuteronomy 11:1, 8, 13, 18, 22, 26 – and many other places.

Now please look at Deuteronomy 9:12-14 to see how God feels about this – when Israel – AND WE – turn to a false god instead of to Him.  For this story, Exodus 32 relates what happened, how when Moses went up into the Mountain to receive the stone tablets from God (and was gone for 40 days), how the people quickly turned to idolatry.  (Note especially verse 6:  “and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”

Now let’s be very clear about something.  Every time you or I turn to sexual sin, dressing up, etc.  – that is the exact same thing that Israel did.  And this occurred despite the fact that those Israelites had personally been witnesses to the 10 miraculous plagues that the Lord visited upon the Egyptians, including drowning their entire army in the Red Sea.  I mention this only because sometimes people may think, “Oh, if I could just see a miracle or some other direct sign from God, THEN I would believe and remain faithful to Him.”  Clearly, this story indicates that such is not the case at all.  For those people were operating by SIGHT instead of by FAITH.  It is the same today.   When we see something by SIGHT, it does absolutely nothing to increase our faith.   Anyway – so what was God’s reaction to this behavior?

Exodus 32:7-10:  And the LORD said to Moses, “Go, get down!  For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.  They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.  They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it…and the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!  Now therefore, let Me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.  And I will make of you a great nation.”  (And Moses desperately pleaded with the Lord on Israel’s behalf, that he would NOT destroy them!)

So let’s look at our own lives in comparison.  We have far, far more knowledge than the Israelites ever had.   Most of us, I think it is safe to assume, have been directly touched by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Yet – in spite of this – (just as the Israelites did even after seeing his signs & wonders) – we indulge our sexual fantasies – idols of our own craft and choosing.  We diligently search the internet for specific items of clothing that will excite us, and we LONG to indulge such fantasies – even though we may tell our prayer group, “Oh, I ordered something that I shouldn’t have“… (but secretly, I can hardly WAIT until my delightful little item arrives, and I can ‘rise up and play’ with it).

Thus, what we are really doing is playing games with God, and actually think that we can get away with it!  The great God, who sees and knows literally EVERYTHING, is never fooled.  Therefore, the bottom line is this:  unless you take his presence, his will, holiness & obedience to him – seriously – and make it a definite priority (as it plainly says to do so in the highlighted scripture above), you WILL FALL, and there is a danger that your fall could become permanent.  Personally, I believe that everyone gets what they truly want.  if you want to hold on to and cling to your CD fantasies, it may well come to the point that you are overcome by them.

A knowledge of these things is important, but I truly believe that the ONLY thing that will keep us on the straight and narrow path that leads to life is regular PRAYER to the Lord.  Jesus himself was an excellent example of this.  If ANYONE did not need to pray, it was Him – yet, there are many scriptures in which we are told that He “rose up a great while before day and prayed to His father in heaven.”

Let us not forget what Acts 14:22 says:  “…confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God…”

Our chosen path is difficult – straight and narrow as it were.  But also remember Hebrews 4:14-16, which confirms that Jesus is our great high priest – “who is able to empathize with our weaknesses…”    We absolutely must make our proper way a priority, lest we deceive ourselves.

Think again about the story of the Israelites explained above. We read an amazing thing in Hebrews 4:2, that the gospel, as they received it, did not do most of those people any good.  How can this be?   Here is the verse, which answers that question: “…but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it”  Wow!  What can we learn from them to avoid such a profound mistake?  The gospel was preached to them (vs 2) and the gospel has been preached to us.  What will we do with the word?  The word failed because it was (as ultimately perceived to be) of no use to them.  So it can likewise be for us, through mere possession of the word (casual bible reading, not taking things seriously).  To put it another way – we can lose our soul with the bible in our pocket; people who go to heaven carry the bible in their heart.

Perhaps the most frightening set of verses in the NT to me is Matt 7:21-23:  Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of m Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works?   And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, you that practice lawlessness.” 

 Quite frighteningly, these verses teach that there are MANY who falsely consider themselves to be saved.  Perhaps they signed a card, or made a verbal profession, or raised their hand, walked down the aisle, etc.   But here is the important question:  DID THEIR LIFE CHANGE?  Such things are just amazing to think about.  From the looks of things as I see them, it appears to me anyway that MANY, MANY people are deceived and are NOT saved, as they believe themselves to be.  If any of you think I am being legalistic here, please devote some time to listen to Paul Washer, or the sermon on YouTube, “Millions of “Christians in Hell – Baucham, Washer vs Graham, Warren, Furtick (Sinners prayer).

Bottom line – If your life has not changed, if you are still doing the things you did before professing to be a Christian, then whatever it was that you thought you received – it was of no effect – simply because when the Spirit of God enters a human heart, there is NO WAY WE CAN REMAIN THE SAME.

So how can we protect ourselves from being so dreadfully deceived?   Because the answer to that question ties directly to the issue of how we handle temptation.  I trust I have made my point about the pervasiveness of sin in so many – even in the professing church.

James 1:21:  “Wherefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” 

Note please Psalm 95:10 – “For 40 years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways; so I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest.’” 

Now compare that to Psalm 103:7 – ‘He made known His WAYS to Moses, His ACTS to the children of Israel.” This verse (and many others) makes it quite plain that God wants us to know his WAYS (not just his acts).  So how exactly is that done?  Because as I see it, if you truly know his WAYS, you will not struggle with sin nearly as much as so many of us do, and give in to it far too often.  I think that the reason that SO MANY will find that they have deceived themselves as they experience the judgment day is because they never realized their spiritual bankruptcy, their quite desperate need to be right in God’s eyes.  In other words, they were completely BLIND to their sin.   All those people in the bible that Jesus touched (in different ways) and they truly repented – was because they were AWARE of their sin, and that massive need drove them to seek out the Lord.  But if you are generally satisfied with your life and think you are doing OK, you won’t.  This brings 1 Corinthians 10:1-12 to mind, which also refers back to the example of the children of Egypt:

10 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, ² all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. ⁵ But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. ⁶ Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. ⁷ And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” ⁸ Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; ⁹ nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; ¹⁰ nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. ¹¹ Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our ^[c]admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.    ¹² Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Now many of you have seen that I have greatly encouraged prayer to enhance your Christian life, and of course we already know that to be true.  But that leads to another question – how should we pray – or even more importantly – WHAT CAN WE DO TO INCREASE OUR DESIRE TO PRAY?  Because that my brothers, truly is the key.  For so many, their prayer life is weak at best.  We pray because we “should,” but derive little practical benefit from doing so, and therefore our prayer life tends to get weaker over time.  Now, regarding assessing one’s personal need for prayer – here are some questions…  Does my life attest to the living God?  Or is it just related to religious living and rote practice?  I truly think that the stiff and wooden quality of our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.

Now I have quoted A.W. Tozer in previous e-mails, and will do so again here.  For those unaware, he was a pastor and profound and unusually original writer, who passed away in 1963.  If you want to read him, I suggest picking up a used (perhaps $5) copy of The Best of A.W. Tozer.   You will not be disappointed!  Copied below is Chapter 24 from that book, which you will see is highly relevant to the topic at hand…

The Importance of Self-Judgment

Hardly anything else reveals so well the fear & uncertainty among men as to the length to which they will go to hide their true selves from each other & even from their own eyes.  Almost all men live from childhood to death behind a semi-opaque curtain, coming out briefly only when forced by some emotional shock and then retreating as quickly as possible into hiding again.  The result of this lifelong dissimulation is that people rarely know their neighbors for what they really are, and worse than that, the camouflage is so successful that they do not know themselves either.

Self-knowledge is so critically important to us in our pursuit of God and His righteousness that we lie under heavy obligation to do immediately whatever is necessary to remove the disguise and permit our real selves to be known.  It is one of the supreme tragedies in religion that so many of us think so highly of ourselves when the evidence lies all on the other side; and our self-admiration effectively blocks out any effort discover a remedy for our condition.  Only the man who knows he is sick will go to a physician.

Now, our true moral and spiritual state can be disclosed only by the Spirit and the Word.  The final judgment of the heart is God’s.  There is a sense in which we dare not judge each other (Matt 7:1-5), and in which we should not even try to judge ourselves (1 Cor 4:3).  The ultimate judgment belongs to the One whose eyes are like a flame of fire and who sees quite through the deeds and thoughts of men.  I am glad to leave the final word with Him.

There is, nevertheless, a place for self-judgment and a real need that we exercise it (1Cor 11:32-32).  While our self-discovery is not likely to be complete and our self-judgment almost certain to be biased and imperfect, there is yet every good reason for us to work along with the Holy Spirit in His benign effort to locate us spiritually in order that we may make such amendments as the circumstances demand.  That God already knows us thoroughly is certain (Ps 139:1-6).  It remains for us to know ourselves as accurately as possible.  For this reason, I offer some rules for self-discovery; and if the results are not all we could desire they may at least be better than none at all.  We may be known by the following:

1.  What we want most.  We have but to get quiet, recollect our thoughts, wait for the mild excitement within us to subside, and then listen closely for the faint cry of desire.  Ask your heart, What would you rather have than anything else in the world?  Reject the conventional answer.  Insist on the true one, and when you have heard it you will know the kind of person you are.
2. What we think about most.  The necessities of life compel us to think about many things, but the true test is what we think about voluntarily.  It is more than likely that our thoughts will cluster about our secret heart treasure, and whatever that is will reveal what we are.  “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” 
3. How we use our money.  Again, we must ignore those matters about which we are not altogether free. We must pay taxes and provide the necessities of life for ourselves and family, if any.  That is routine, merely, and tells us little about ourselves.  But whatever money is left to do with as we please – that will tell us a great deal indeed. 
4. What we do with our leisure time.  A large share of our time is already spoken for by the exigencies of civilized living, but we do have some free time.  What we do with it is vital.  Most people waste it by staring at the TV, listening to music or the radio, reading the cheap output of the press or engaging in idle chatter.  What I do with mine reveals the kind of man I am. 
5. The company we enjoy.  There is a law of moral attraction that draws every man to the society most like himself.  “Being let go, they went to their own company.”  Where we go when we are free to go where we will is a near-infallible index of character. 
6. Whom and what we admire.  I have long suspected that the great majority of evangelical Christians, while kept somewhat in line by the pressure group opinion, nevertheless have a boundless, if perforce secret, admiration for the world.  We can learn the true state of our minds by examining our unexpressed admirations.  Israel often admired, even envied, the pagan nations around them, and so forgot the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the law and the promises and the fathers.  Instead of blaming Israel let us look to ourselves.  (Terry W here:  what we admire about women & especially their clothing comes to mind here) 
7. What we laugh at.  No one with a due regard for the wisdom of God would argue that there is anything wrong with laughter, since humor is a legitimate component of our complex nature…the test we are running here is not whether we laugh or not, but what we laugh at.  Some things lie outside the field of pure humor.  No reverent Christian, for instance, finds death funny, nor birth nor love.  No Spirit-filled man can bring himself to laugh at the Holy Scriptures, or the church which Christ purchased with His own blood, or prayer or righteousness or human grief or pain.  And surely no one who has been in the presence of God could ever laugh at a story involving the Deity. 

There are a few tests.  The wise Christian will find others.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Such tests as listed above are easy to run, and if we are honest with ourselves we can discover not only what we are, but what we are going to become. We’ll soon become the sum of our voluntary thought, for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

So, my brothers, to summarize, I sincerely believe that when we take an honest personal inventory (be sure to pray ahead of time for honesty in this task) we will BEGIN to see our need for God, and our spiritual bankruptcy.  The entire purpose of this exercise is to drive you to Christ, from whence all power for righteous living (and long-needed CHANGE comes).

There are some other things you could pray for as well, to enhance the reality of this experience, which if you do, will make prayer much more meaningful to you, and when you are sincerely engaged therein – the process of real change will come.   Do you want it?  Above all, you MUST BE HONEST.  Otherwise this is all for naught, as Psalm 66:18 makes clear (If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear)

Some prayer topics or actual things to say:

Confess your love for the sin or anything CD-related.  Admit it.  You LOVE engaging in CD behavior.  Don’t just run to God when you feel terrible after the act.

Ask God to reveal your sin or your errors (especially in how you think) to you – to show you how he sees you (trust me, this answer will only come in small pieces, as we are able to handle it).

Create in me a clean heart oh God (read, pray thru Psalm 51), also Psalm 40:12

Lord, please show me your ways, and enable me to understand them… (Psalm 25:4-5, 12, 27:11)

Psalm 119:11, 17, 25-32  (especially vs 37)

By TJ