Post date: Sep 02, 2014 3:34:33 AM
Self-examination is not an easy enterprise. It was never intended to be. When you look deep within your soul, the light of God’s Truth switched on, you are bound to discern things that would set even the peace of God near to boiling. The one who is not humbled by such an examination is the one who has not truly examined themselves at all.
What is it that the Scripture says? Take a quick, cursory glance in the mirror as you rush past? No. In fact, it says προσεχτε εαυτοις (“Prosecute yourselves!”). Those who refuse to critically and prosecutorially examine their own decisions and beliefs will never know when the profligate loved ones in their lives have betrayed them, because they will stupidly believe whatever they are fed in order to avoid difficult confrontations with those in whom they have quite errantly invested their lives.
It is no secret that, according to my own observations, my Christian walk has resembled the life of the patriarch by whose name God has been known to refer to me: Joseph. One such resemblance can be found in Genesis 39.
When I found myself called to bring this forward yet again I also found myself wishing it were not the case. I have been through this battle before, and have the scars to prove it. I, long ago, wearied of the battle with those who think themselves righteous and are unwilling to listen to Godly reproof, but unfailingly seek to turn the case against those bringing that reproof.
How many times I have been accused of making excuses for my own sin! How many times I have been accused of trying to blame my own sin on other people! How many times I have been ridiculed and lambasted for admonishing people to obey Luke 17:1-3a and prosecute themselves for the sake of others who are victimized by their behavior and that of the Potiphar’s Wives, indeed the Delilahs, in whose defense they stand against the innocent victims of the profligate lives they lead! How many times!
The slanders know no end, and have been errand-boy’d against me by “leaders” of the “Christian” church! Even as Potiphar, rather than offend his precious, oh-so-faithful Delilah of a wife, and in spite of the clear and obvious evidence to the contrary, threw away an innocent man to rot in a prison of slanderous accusation for 13 years until his Divine deliverance at the hand of God, so have these “leaders”, in spite of the clear and obvious evidence of one of my own accusers being forced to face them for the sin that resulted in her unhidable condition, and in clear spite of my previous efforts at confrontation, remained unrepentant of having kept me in a prison of slanderous disapprobations at the behest of Jezebels and Delilahs for how many long years!
Those men who treasure and praise the Presbyterian Church in America should watch their backs and allow God to convict their souls. Your leadership is polluted by the putrefaction of sin most foul and must needs be purified. How can you say you love your Brother if you seek to drive him out or throw him in some prison rather than confront the sins of your own wives? How can you claim to love your wives if they are driven to making you jealous in order to get any real attention from you?
Stop slanderously accusing me and others and start repenting of your own sins!
Luke 17:1-3a (in the NIV, the first paragraph of the chapter) is exceedingly clear in its admonition that a person can be and far too often is the avenue through which other people are tempted and fall into sin, giving, in fact, a dire warning to—whether by intent or negligent ignorance—not be that tempter at all. You cannot be loving your brother if you are tempting him into sin.
In our society that tempter, far more often than not, is some girl or woman who thinks it is their God-given right to present themselves as deliciously as possible before men and then blame and accuse the men when they, because of that very temptation, fall into sin—and expect to never be confronted, as a result of their uncaring, selfish, and unloving hearts, by divine justice.
Of course, this travesty is brought forward by those leaders who absolutely refuse to confront the women of their own congregations, and instead turn and accuse the victims of those very temptations and temptresses.
How can you think to face down Satan when you hide from and quail at the idea of facing down the women of your own church?
Their lives are difficult enough already, but you make them impossible by your cowardice.
You women, sit down! You’re not free to go just yet.
How is it that the Apostles admonish you to adorn yourself? Do they not rebuke physical adornment in all its tempting varieties? Do they not, instead, command you to adorn your spirits, to adorn your souls? If you seek to attract Godly men, then God is not tempted by the flesh, so you waste your time in adorning it; if you are not seeking Godly attentions, then there is a wide gate awaiting you—and it will not be heaven that it opens onto.
If you would seek God, then stop seeking self.
If you would have God’s sacrifice be efficient for you, then sacrifice your self-interests for the sake of the purity of others. Just as Christ did upon the cross, so should you do in your own lives.
As a Christian, you live by grace, not by rights. You have no rights, so stop defending what you do not have, and start living for the sake of the purity of others, for this is the truest emulation of the life of Christ.
For the Christian, living in this putridly profligate, self-justifying society is a difficult life to live, constantly upbraided and assaulted by the Satanic pursuits that the Godless see as their very purpose in life. It is the drug that feeds their addiction to sin, and it purveys itself via the denial of sin’s very existence, and blaming its victims is its stock in trade.
You, most excellent theophilus, speak of that most dangerous face, that one thing that could most easily draw you away from Christ, and you cry and you wail and you moan that the closet profligates who refuse to even allow the church to be that truer sanctuary, refuse to hear your cries and stand in defense of the victims of their brethren. Do you not yet know who they are, who they have made themselves to be?
I ask you, Sir, if that face truly be so terribly dangerous, why do you continue to gaze upon it?
Have you given up on purity, like Elijah, crying out to God, “There is none left but me, and they seek to take my life”? Do you not recall God’s gracious reply? Have you not even searched the pages of this very tome (see the linked PDF file below)? Purity lives! You have looked into its eyes, and it embraces your heart and prays for your soul, for when you look into those eyes you do not see your Sister, but Christ, the purifier of all His children’s souls.
What God has promised you He will deliver—but it will not be in your time and it will not be according to your methods. Therefore stand your post, for the enemy is nigh and advancing upon your position, and your weaponry is the sword of the Spirit and the cannon of the Word of Christ, against which no shield is truly sufficient. Its ammunition does penetrate to the destruction and changing of souls and to the blinding and opening of eyes.
Do not be surprised if it should swerve away from where you aim, for its aim is true and its eye is swift to seek out the targets of the Commander of the Host who has paid the price for you and who seeks to bring more in.
Therefore, be not amazed at the opening of shields, for repentance does its work, and it very well might be that the only ammunition you are given to bring to bear is the bullets of forgiveness, for in this way are His promises to you fulfilled.
Seek grace, deliver mercy, and enjoy peace, “for it is by grace you are saved”, and His mercy upon you, you should be passing through, for peace to be your due.