The Righteous and the Wicked...

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In our day the wheat and the tares are coming to maturity. The rise of lawlessness in our own country and in the rest of the world is obvious. What may not be as obvious is the way the Spirit of God is moving on some of the Christian believers. While the Christian denominations stagger forward in their spiritual blindness, frustrated because they are not making the impact on the world they desire, individual believers are following the Spirit of God as He leads them on to the fullness of redemption.

(2/21/2010) As I prayed about the sermon this Sunday, the thirty-seventh Psalm came to mind. I have preached many times from this Psalm. Yet, its message is so relevant, as wickedness and unbelief increase in our country as well as in the remainder of the world, I thought I would have another go at it.

The Psalm tells us not to fret because of evil men, nor to envy wrongdoers. I think fretting is going to be a major problem with us who love Jesus.

The New Testament commands us to rejoice in the Lord always. We are told that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. When we fret, which, of course, is what Satan desires, we are not rejoicing. We are coming down from our high place in Christ that we may contemplate the works of Satan among mankind. We are disobeying the command not to fret.

We pastors need to be more firm, perhaps, in urging our congregation to refrain from spending our time cursing the darkness.

"But if we don’t curse the darkness, the wicked will prevail," some may say. Well, it is certain we are not going to accomplish anything by disobeying the Bible. If we are in a position to prevent wrongdoing, that is one thing. But to just fret about the evil in the government does nothing but weaken us spiritually.

Each of us can pray. That is one thing we can do. I have prayed much about the evil I see in our government. You know what? The Lord is telling me that our enemies are prospering because the covering of God is lifting from our country.

And why is the covering lifting? Because of sin, particularly that of abortion. We can rail against the liberals and what they are doing; but until abortion-on-demand is made illegal, all of our efforts, financially, militarily, politically, will end up only in disaster. God will never accept a country which is murdering its children.

One thing to keep in mind is that eventually evil men will wither and die away. The infallible Scriptures promise this; and for this reason we are not to fret. Sometimes God is doing something we do not understand, and we need to pray and ask Him what He is doing before we begin to rage about what sinners are doing.

If we will heed the Scripture, and trust in the Lord and do good, we will be taken care of. We do not have to spend our time fretting about the actions of the lawless.

The fourth verse of Psalms 37 is one of my favorites. It informs us that if we will delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart—not just provide our needs, but grant us the desires of our heart.

I don’t know about you, but I am a dutiful, conscientious person. It is difficult for me to know what the desires of my heart are, because I am so loaded down with responsibilities and worries.

So I have to get before the Lord to find out what it is I really want. But when I do, I often am surprised. Then I am assured that if I keep on delighting myself in the Lord, I finally will receive what I truly desire. Why, then, should I fret about the corruption brought about by lawless people?

I am old and experienced enough to see the stupidity that is being practiced in our nation and it is difficult to quit fretting about it. But fretting does no good. I can pray, and find peace by doing this. You can too.

We are to commit our way to the Lord. Proverbs advises us to acknowledge God in all our ways. I am endeavoring to do this, right down to the smallest decision.

I am tying my shoes. I miss a turn and one of the laces knots up. Now I can rage and fume, particularly if I am late for a meeting. Or I can stop yanking on the lace and look up to the Lord for help. When I do this, the knot comes undone as I work on it. Try it for yourself!

And then there are the major decisions that face every pastor, and every other person as well. "What should I tell this person?" "What should I do about that individual who is causing division in the church?" Of course I can act out of anger, but that only compounds the problem. Or I can commit my way to the Lord. As you might guess, doing this will solve the problem.

Then God makes our righteousness evident. If we ask God’s help, and do what He counsels, we act righteously.

You know, the only people who do not know what righteousness is are the Christians. Why is this? It is because we have perverted Paul’s teaching of grace to mean that we must believe in Christ, but it is not necessary to obey what He and His Apostles have commanded.

We have been instructed to believe in Christ and also informed that if we do not obey Him there is no trouble because we are "saved by grace." This means we will be brought up to a mansion in Heaven and spend eternity admiring how rich we are.

Indeed, it is time for a reformation of Christian thinking!

The scepter of Christ’s Kingdom is one of righteousness. We have been taught that this means we are righteous because we believe in Christ, or are identified with Christ.

How do you like that for a masterful lie?

The result of believing our righteousness is one of belief, and not integrity of behavior, has resulted in a religion that is not bearing witness of Christ. Now the pollsters are telling us that people are leaving the churches. Why shouldn’t they?

The churches are teaching a lie.

The world knows that anyone who really is serving God will behave righteously. The Christian churches are the only group of people, it appears, who do not understand this, believing in a mystical, fruitless "grace."

When we commit every decision and action to the Lord, He causes the onlookers to witness true righteousness. They glorify God when they see our good works. The Christian churches are demanding that the leaders of our government act righteously, while every work of the flesh is being practiced by the Christian people.

There must be a billion people in the world who adhere to the Muslim faith. There is a part of this group who are villainous terrorists. The majority are ordinary people who want to serve God according to their lights. These people, whom God loves, will never, never, never come to Christ when they see how the American Christians behave.

The testimony of America reaches around the world. It is coming from Hollywood. This is where the Muslim people receive their impression of America.

I have felt for some time, that in view of the severe Divine judgment that is to fall on America, it may be too late to save our nation from destruction. But each of us as an individual believer can draw near to Jesus, thus saving ourselves and our loved ones. Let’s you and I do this.

You can hear the morning sermon at morning. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

You can hear the evening sermon at evening. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

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