"House of David/House of Saul"
The kind of war I dread is when you have to fight against your brethren.
Download or email this sermon (~310k) Introduction
Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, have said, "Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy." But they will be put to shame (Isaiah 66:5).
When your brethren hate you and exclude you for the sake of the Lord's name, your life becomes difficult.
The Worst War
The book of Judges is a book about wars. It is Jews fighting Amalekites, Canaanites, Philistines. It gives all the statistics of how many were killed, how many were captured. The worst of those wars was the last war in Judges. And the worst war, the bloodiest war with the most fatalities, was not against Amalekites, Canaanites or Philistines, it involved Jews fighting other Jews.
What caused Paul the most consternation? Was it being dragged before the Roman authorities, flogged in the synagogue, attacked by mobs in Ephesus? Read his epistles, these things did not cause him the most grief. Persecution is not what distressed him. Rather, it was false brethren, false teachers and false prophets trying to seduce the churches that he planted.
I am not afraid of going against Freemasonry, or Rome, or Orthodox Rabbis, or Islam, or New Age, or the homosexuals. The kind of war I dread is when you have to fight against your brethren. In the last war in Judges, they had no choice. A woman's body was hacked into fragments and divided. And the Body of Christ in the Western world is being hacked to death and divided. We have no choice but to pick up the sword, the body is being hacked to death.
False Teachers, False Prophets
E. W. Kenyon was the patriarch of the "Jesus died spiritually" doctrines that are being taught today. He said that Jesus did not win the victory on the Cross. Jesus said, "It is finished," (Jn. 19:30) but, according to Kenyon, that was not the victory. Jesus died and rose again, but Kenyon says that Jesus descended into hell and became of one nature with Satan. Jesus was born again in hell – that is the “gospel” of Frederick K. Price, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin and Benny Hinn. They believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross, but the victory over sin and death was not accomplished on the Cross.
The Body is being hacked to death. "You don't have to suffer, God wants you rich." By virtue of the fact that you live in a Western democracy, you are rich. You are better off than at least two thirds of the people in the world. The body is being hacked to death by a gospel of mammon which calls itself "Faith Prosperity." But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith. (1 Tim. 6:9-10).
Hebrews 11, the ‘faith chapter,” talks more about faith than all the rest of the New Testament put together. It does not mention money once, only alluding to wealth to tell you about those who could have had it, but turned their backs on it for the sake of the kingdom (Heb. 11:26).
The body is being hacked to death. It is very difficult when you have to lift your sword against your brother.
A Long War
Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David; and David grew steadily stronger, but the House of Saul grew weaker continually (2 Sam. 3:1).
David and Saul both had a common enemy, the Canaanites and Philistines who were over-running the land. The enemy prevailed because the leadership of Israel had become so corrupt. David could do nothing about it until the leadership was replaced. He could not replace the leadership because Saul was God's anointed. He was stuck in a situation where wickedness was prevailing and God's people were being defeated, just like today. God's people are being defeated and there is going to be a long war between the growing house of David and the failing house of Saul.
Believing a Lie
If you want to, you can have your ears tickled with blab-It-and-grab-it Western consumerism, which is all the “prosperity gospel” is, people trying to redefine the truth of the Bible in light of Western consumerism. The people who subscribe to these errors do so because they want to believe lies.
They did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false (2 Thess.2:10-11).
But there is something much more difficult and much more painful than that here.
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.