Do You Confront Evil Or Do You
Tolerate It?
Before you are blessed, you have to be tested. Sacrifice always
precedes blessing. You can see the process in the life of Abraham
(Gen 15-18; 20-23). Those eight chapters are an overview of a long
span of time in Abraham’s life in which God tested him. Abraham
passed the test. He proved faithful. He was willing to do whatever
God said.
In contrast, many of those whom God
wants to bless today have not passed the test. They haven’t yet come
to the point of being willing to do anything God says. God cannot
bless them, except in minor ways.
God’s express will was revealed by
Jesus. His nature of wanting to bless is plainly disclosed:
If you then, being evil
[something many are quick to
forget], know how to give good gifts to your children, how
much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to
those who ask Him! (Matt
7:11.)
But the reason many don’t receive
from God is revealed to be a result of what is in the human heart:
This is the condemnation, that
the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil (Jn 3:19).
“Do you mean Christians?”
Yes.
The problem is one of an
‘uncircumcised’ heart. The selfishness, self-centredness, or
self-will inside a person colours their motives. So, while they may
take Jesus on their lips, and profess to live by His precepts, they
do not actually see their motives in the light of day.
Jesus cut right through the veneer.
Look what He said to Nicodemus:
Most assuredly, I say to you,
We speak what We know and testify of what We have seen, and you
do not receive Our witness (Jn 3:11).
Do you think you are any different
from that ‘man of God’ back then? If you do, you kid yourself. John
the Baptist declared:
He who comes from above is
above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the
earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has
seen and heard, that He testifies and no one receives His
testimony (Jn 3:31,32).
That is, not until you are completely
changed by His Spirit within. When you are willing to do anything He
says, then you can receive His testimony, properly understand it,
and obey Him implicitly.
What the apostle John said of the
people of God of his time also applies to God’s people today:
He came to His own, and His
own did not receive Him (Jn 1:11).
Jesus has come to you who are reading
this. You are among ‘His own’. You may think you have received Him,
and you have up to a point, but is there a point at which you tell
Him to stop knocking on your door? (Rev 3:20.) “Go away, Jesus, I
don’t want to hear that. Why do you bother me?”
I recall a time when I was told by
God to go to a series of church meetings. It was a cult that would
not let people in whom they couldn’t control. He sent us there to
knock on their door. They excluded us, and didn’t realise that they
were excluding Jesus also.
They wouldn’t let us in through the
front door, so we tried at the back. The ‘guards’ were letting
church people in through the back door – until we arrived. Then it
was firmly slammed shut. Even the church folks couldn’t get in,
then. As we stood outside, a woman turned on me, blaming me for her
exclusion: “Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
If only she knew why! She wasn’t
interested in truth, merely what she wanted, which she
was able to get from that ‘church’.
Most believers are like her. Are you?
Or are you like Abraham, willing to hear God’s voice and do what He
says?
You Must Confront Evil!
The woman I mentioned above didn’t
want to know about the evils in that church that she was tolerating.
Through her inaction, and by her opposition of one sent to expose
evil, she sided with Satan and welcomed his demons. She didn’t
realise that she was actually worshipping demons, not Jesus!
A vital part of our testing in this
preparation for the Kingdom of
God is confrontation. Demons are
everywhere – in the world around, in the workplace, in TV
programmes, in churches, in preaching, teaching, and even in some
people’s ‘prophesying’. And of course they are in your personal
life, too, where you let them stay. That is why you must confront
evil. You have to confront the devil, and oppose the subtlety of
Satan in his devious manipulation of your mind.
It’s not pleasant. It’s not easy.
It’s not convenient. Those are three reasons many don’t bother.
But such an approach is based on
selfishness, not godly trust.
This is the condemnation, that
the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil (Jn 3:19).
...he has not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18).
This is talking about many
Christians. Of course most of them would object: “Oh yes I have! I
have accepted Jesus as the Son of God, who died for the sins of the
world. He is my personal Saviour.”
Then why don’t you trust Him? Why
don’t you believe Him, when it comes to confronting evil?
The answer: Because your belief is
merely mental assent. It’s not a deep-down belief in your heart, a
belief so strong that you are willing to lay down your life for Him.
That’s the belief He’s talking about. It’s a belief that comes
from Him – a faith in Him, that is a part
of Him, which He imparts to you as you lay down what
you want, and do what He wants.
When such challenges occur close to
home, you can easily dismiss the prompt of the Spirit and shut Jesus
outside your door, without seeing what you have done. But when you
do that, you have shut out your Saviour, and welcomed a substitute
spirit inside. And he will torment you until you repent of your
self-will.
Let me give you an example. A man was
invited by his elderly mother, all expenses paid, to accompany her
to the other side of the world where she was going to visit her
family. Fred (not his real name) is a believer with vastly differing
beliefs from his mother, who is Catholic. He wants her to be saved,
but he finds it hard to break through her ‘shell’ of religious
prejudice.
He doesn’t see his mother very often
because they live hundreds of miles apart, but the trip will give
him an unparalleled opportunity to share with her and – if Jesus is
living in him – bring Jesus into her life. He will be with his
mother, every day, for a whole month.
A day or so before he left, I was
working in the garden, minding my own business (that’s often a time
when God speaks!). I was just stuffing autumn leaves into a compost
bin, when suddenly my thoughts were taken off what I was doing and
onto Fred and his mother. Then another thought came into my mind,
disparate from the first one. It was of a US prophet (Henry Gruver)
and what God told him about the Russian invasion of America. We had
two of his taped messages. They contain riveting information.
In the second or two that these
thoughts all descended on my mind, the unspoken prompt from the
Spirit was that Fred should give his mother these two tapes to
listen to. He had heard them and concurred with the prophetic
message they contained.
I realised that God may have been
pointing out an avenue which would open meaningful dialogue between
his mother and him about the immediate future and Jesus’ soon coming
– something that Catholics have little idea about.
When I saw Fred later, I told him
what God had put in my mind. Fred’s (standing for fearful,
rebellious, egocentric, demented, stubborn)
reaction was instant. He dismissed the suggestion as preposterous
and entirely inappropriate. It trod on his toes. His approach is one
of consistently putting himself first. And he knew that such a
proposition would not go down well with his mother, who doesn’t want
to know. He would only cause upset or friction, at a time when he
wanted to go away on a nice, leisurely holiday and enjoy himself.
The last thing he wanted was to destroy the peace and superficial
harmony he enjoyed with his mother.
But God doesn’t think like we think.
He doesn’t care about the selfish things we care about. He has
greater matters on His heart – matters to do with the salvation of
‘souls’. His heart is constantly beating in love for the lost,
wanting to lead them to accept Jesus. That was not Fred’s heartbeat.
Remember:
This is the condemnation, that
the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil.
He couldn’t see the evil in his own
heart. So he rejected the ‘word’. He didn’t consider that it was
any- thing more than something I had thought up. He didn’t hear
Jesus knocking on his door. Why? Because he didn’t care about his
mother as much as he cared about himself. And he cared even less
about God.
But try telling him that! He would
reject your words as fast as he rejected mine. Sin blinds a person,
and his life is full of sins that he cannot see for that reason. His
ego blocks him seeing self-centredness for the ugly thing it is, as
well as pride and whatever else is there of lust, greed, envy,
resentment, self-will, self- determination, pleasure-seeking,
intolerance of others, fear, unbelief, stubbornness, rebellion,
etc., that is in his life.
He thinks he is a Christian. He IS,
in name, but not in deed. He thinks he is converted. He IS, in
concept, but not in deed. And what matters to God? What is in your
head, or what is in your heart? There are many believers who will
enter the Kingdom of heaven because of their heavenly hearts,
despite having wrong ‘heavenly’ concepts (doctrines) in their heads.
Conversely, many with ‘right doctrines’ will be shut outside because
of the selfishness, hatred and intolerance that is still in their
hearts.
Because self was No 1, Fred refused
to confront evil and ‘preach righteousness’. He drew back.
Now the just shall live by
faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him
(Heb 10:38).
[So] do not forget to do good
and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased (13:16).
Sacrifice is painful. It’s
inconvenient. It’s not something we like. But it’s something that is
needful.
If you don’t confront evil, it will
swallow you up!
As he left, Helena felt a heavy head,
like she gets in intercession for others. She felt the demons that
he would now be subjected to throughout his trip. A few days later,
a thought came into my mind about him, that he was down or
depressed. And he would be! What he had done, without thinking, was
to shut Jesus out and leave Him behind, while he went off and
submitted himself to all his mother’s demons. Instead of confronting
them, he welcomed them by default.
There is only one way to escape the
snare of the devil – by resistance and confrontation. Don’t let him
take you captive to do his will! (2 Tim 2:26.)
Malcolm B Heap
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