by Mike Ratliff
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34 ESV)
The character and the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ is not well understood by the majority of people on planet Earth. In fact, many professing “Christians” have an image of Him in their understanding that is based upon fleshly reasoning. This “other” Jesus is not Biblical for the most part. They have given their Jesus a whole new set of values and traits that conflict sharply with the Jesus presented in the Gospels in His own words.
One of the most damaging false images of Jesus that we have among us in the 21st Century is one that presents Him as a man of peace no matter the cost. When false doctrinal positions are brought into the light and so that the error can be dealt with Biblically, the supporters and quasi supporters of that false doctrinal position will often declare that those who are doing this are not Christlike because of their virulent attacks against what amounts to lies about God and His nature. They declare that Jesus would never do that.
The fact that they say or write something like that is a clear indication that they don’t know the real Jesus who is presented in scripture. Jesus was very blunt and vocal in His opposition against false religion and its leaders in His day. He presented God the Father and His nature to everyone who would listen and never compromised the message of the Gospel nor did He flinch from presenting the truth in stark black and white–right and wrong. Jesus did not give us gray areas open to interpretation. People are saved or lost. People are sheep or goats. People obey God or they don’t.
In this post we are going to look at a teaching by our Lord taken from Matthew 10. In this chapter Jesus prepares His twelve disciples to go out on their first missionary journey. He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every afflictions. (Matthew 10:1) Before sending them out Jesus instructed them about what to expect when they took the same uncompromising, black and white, right and wrong stance on God, His character, His ways, and the Gospel. The warnings Jesus gave them are not just for these men on this specific mission. They have been proven to describe the world’s reaction to Jesus and the Gospel from the beginning to our current time in the 21st Century.
Jesus instructions about what to expect when they proclaimed the truth can be broken down into five main points. First, not everyone will believe. Second, persecution will come to those who proclaim the Gospel. Third, Even so, have no fear because they are in the Father’s hands. Fourth, the Gospel divides people into two groups, believers and unbelievers. In this there will never be peace. Fifth, Righteousness before God will result in eternal rewards.
A little over a year ago on a Sunday morning I was teaching in my Sunday School class in my former church about the high cost of standing for the truth. When I mentioned that persecution was coming, I was scoffed at by several of the people in the class. This puzzled me for quite a while. Then when this church went head-over-heels into the Purpose Driven deception, I was ostracized and looked at as a trouble maker and dissenter because I refused to stay there if they would go down that path. I told the truth to the pastor and some of the other leaders there and was simply ignored. I presented a very well researched 8 page paper that showed the Biblical fallacies of the Purpose Driven Church model. I gave it to the pastor and within a couple of hours lost nearly every friend I had in that church. Since then I have been informed by some of my former class members that they have completed the 40 Days of Purpose. One of my students saw the truth and left right after we did. The rest have stayed and, I assume, are now Purpose Driven. Those who contacted me who have stayed just cannot comprehend what is so wrong with it. Yes, they understand that I would have to compromise my stand to come back, but, hey.
Several years ago when the coming persecution of Christians was talked about it was always assumed that in the US that it would come from the government. It never occurred to me or anyone else that I know of at that time that it would come from within.
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39 ESV)
God’s truth divides people. Of course it does not divide those who believe God and are genuinely saved by grace through faith. At least it shouldn’t cause persecution. There may be disagreements, but not all out war. On the other hand, there are many professing Christians and Christian leaders who are anything but. They are unregenerate and teach a false gospel that gives them power or privilege or license. It is not the genuine Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings God’s peace into hearts. The sword of division that Jesus has brought into the world divides the true from the false, the believer and unbeliever, the genuine Christian from the false Christian.
The genuine Gospel creates Christians who will never be satisfied with superficial religion. They are regenerate and are New Creations who partake of the Divine Nature of God. Because of this, they will always have a passion to live uncompromising lives based upon God’s nature and ways. When other people put pressure on them to conform to the ways that are different then the sword that divides comes into play. Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 10 makes it very clear that we must never compromise our stance on the truth even when the pressure to do so comes from loved ones or our church family.
Jesus’ teaching in this passage was that we should not be surprised when we are persecuted for Righteousness’ sake. This is the natural function of the sword that divides. Not only are we not to be surprised, but we are to not fear the evil that can come upon us. All in Christ are eternally in God’s hands and control. People may persecute us even unto death, but all that does is send us to be our Lord that much quicker. We may be tempted to compromise when the division that will happen if we don’t is between us and someone we care about very much, but we must always put our Saviour first.
All in Christ are at peace with God. All not in Christ are God’s enemies and are children of wrath. Our job is to tell the truth of this and give everyone who will listen the Gospel. We do no one any favors if we soft-sell this. We must tell the truth and let the chips fly. I was on the Irish Calvinist Blog several weeks ago commenting on a particular post. Several self-proclaimed atheists were commenting there as well. The discussion went on a very long time. It got to the point where one particular atheist kept challenging our faith attempting to use man’s reason. After I while I just could not stand it anymore and simply told the man that the Gospel had been clearly given to him by many of us over the length of the discussion and unless He believed he would go to Hell when he died. He called me many unprintable names and had to be censored by Erik. Then he started attacking my blog using comments that appeared to be by me that were insulting and vicious. I turned him over to Akismet as a spammer. After a while I had to turn on comment moderation to keep that from happening continually not only from him, but also some others with their own agendas.
This is normal folks. If the Gospel message being preached never causes this sort of reaction from some people then something is wrong with the message. Jesus told us what would happen to us if we preached His message to the world. The fact that, at least in the US, this is a rarity is a clear warning that what is being preached is something other than the genuine Gospel. Hence, that is why I left my former church because they were preparing to preach a corrupt gospel which is the heart the Purpose Driven Church model.
Never stop praying for the repentance of those who are preaching from the platform of spiritual darkness. Never stop praying for God to send a great awakening to the Church. Never stop praying for strength and wisdom and opportunity to tell the truth to people God brings into our sphere for a divine appointment with the Saviour. Never stop praying for superficial “Christianity” to be obliterated by the light of the truth being shown into it. Never think that you are self-sufficient and capable of tackling the darkness all around us without God right there with you. Never stop praying for me and this ministry to be used for God’s glory alone.
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I have to agree with you here. A huge problem is that Christians are being conditioned to believe that their faith should not cost them anything; that they should not have to suffer the things that Jesus Christ, the apostles, the prophets, etc. did, not just martyrdom but also a life of suffering, pain, and rejection. While I believe in the rapture, I think that most of the speaking about it is “tickling the ears”, getting WESTERN Christians to think that they are going to get to escape the persecution that our brothers in sisters in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are facing, as if we are better than them or something. As a matter of fact, how many churches even talk about the persecution that Third World Christians face, or urge us to pray and advocate for them? The “liberal” churches don’t talk about it because it harms their notions of Christianity being a western oppressive institution that we have to apologize and feel guilty for and reinvent, and the “fundamentalist” and “evangelical” churches don’t talk about it, because speaking too much of people who are being raped, tortured, imprisoned, and starved to death for the faith challenges their own sense of self – worth as people living in “a Christian nation.”
Amen healtheland!
What these false believers don’t believe is that Jesus is holy and righteous and any heresy will bring His sword into their lives. I agree with healtheland we don’t know what true suffering for Christ is in this land…but we will. Salvation is free with a cost.
Sarah,
Amen! I believe that a marker of an unregenerate professing believer is that they are super religious but only in a superficial way. They make up their own version of Jesus, but it very rarely matches the Jesus we see in scripture.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Now that’s interesting.
Just yesterday someone put a booklet into my post box. It was by Rick Warren, and the title was “What on earth am I here for?” and said it was from The purpose-driven life
It seemed banal and full of platitudes, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. Is it really that bad?
I agree, but what else can they do. A dog behaves like a dog so we should expect it. Our rebuke should never be to the unregenerate, it should be to the believers who compromise. As to God bringing His Sword into an unbeliever’s life, well, they are already condemned and actually dead. A dead man cannot die, he already is. An unregenerate man is heresy incarnate, the rejection of Christ.
Steve,
You answered your own question.
If it was of any value would it be banal and full of platitudes? That is the issue with the PDL and the PDC. They are man’s version of the church modeled after marketing techniques from business. It is pragmatism and makes the huge error of countering everything Jesus taught from Matthew 10 and other parts of the Gospels that teach us that His people will live by faith, not by sight. The PDC and PDL being pragmatic, remove the need for faith and replace it with religious activity.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Rick,
Look at Jesus’ statement about the sword that divides. He was telling us that when the gospel comes into a group of people, some believe and some don’t. Some obey Him some don’t. Those who believe are so radically changed because they are new creations that their New Life causes them to no longer conform to whatever rules or norms the group had previously. This causes them to obey God and not man. This means that there is division. The anger and hostility always comes from the unregenerate against the regenerate. It should never be the other way around (see, I agree with you here). On the other hand, there are many professing believers in the world who are not genuine. In these cases the genuine believer will also cause stress and will fracture the norms because he or she, being new creations, will be constantly taking on more and more of Christ’s character. When this happens, the unregenerate professing believer’s sacred cows of their man-made religion will come under attack. Jesus did this against the Jewish leaders of His day and we must do the same here. However, the hostility is still in the same direction. We tell the truth and rebuke them, but we do it to the level they and way they respond to those truths. Jesus most definitely rebuked religious leaders who were leading the people astray or keeping the people from the truth. Aren’t we to do the same?
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Its a sad experience when people we love and believe just stop communicating to us because we point out some errors in who they listen or watch.. they make us to be totally unchristian and it often pains us a lot. This has opened my eyes, though I do like to speak out almost everyone (including people whom I look up to) say that people who preach wrongly at least preach and I am not doing anything at the same time.. then I feel bad and tend to speak less.. but nevertheless it does make us marked and its the saddest when christians around look upon us as an outsider, its easier to bear the reproach of unbelievers while the criticism and reproach of fellow believers is like an arrow piercing the heart.. and at the same time even I know that I am no good and that I might be far off from the Lord and that just adds to the agony..
by “This has opened my eyes” in the above comment I meant the message you have conveyed has opened my eyes and thanks again for that!
Paul,
Your synopsis sounds very much like a summary of Matthew 10. God laid that chapter on my Heart yesterday during my morning devotion. It was amazing how I got all excited about writing about a small section of that chapter on the Sword that divides then found as I started writing that He wanted me to write about the experience we all have as we become separate from the world because we are now walking by faith, obeying Him in all things instead of living like we used to, and telling the truth in love to people who don’t want to hear it. I do believe that there will be a part two to this post. Please pray for me in this.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
I’ve steered clear of the PDL & PDC stuff. I’ve been to churches that get all excited about those books and wonder why they aren’t just as excited about THE BOOK–God’s Word? If you are able to see my email info in your dashboard area, I’d like to read a copy of your 8-page paper on the issue if you could send that.
Finally, I’m sure we agree that (1) no church is perfect and (2) we are admonished remove the larger specks from our own eyes before we attempt to help others with their own smaller ones. But your point is on target that when fundamental, Biblical teachings are being perverted in the church, true followers of Christ must draw the line in the sand and take a stand.
Jalan, I have sent you the “paper.” Thanks for you comments.
Mike, more and more as I read your blog and others it seems as though we Christians are encouraging one another on-line and building one another up in the faith. It is a real encouragement because we are surrounded by unbelievers and shallow “believers” who do not understand us or our message. There is so much compromise that it can be staggering at times. I am so thankful that the Lord has given wisdom and biblical discernment to some faithful saints who also are good communicators and who are working, praying, studying the Word and abiding in Christ in order to be able to daily encourage, rebuke, and help others less discerning or mature to see and to learn and to grow. Please keep confessing Jesus Christ and His gospel. You reminded us again that there are those who do profess Christ but the christ they profess is not the biblical one. Yet they persist in their error. We who do know and believe in the biblical, the real Jesus Christ, must continue to know Him, to grow in wisdom and knowledge and love of Him, to seek Him and to draw near to Him. He will lead us and equip us. So many talk about the Holy Spirit and here too, it isnt the Holy Spirit of the Bible. Make no mistake: for the biblical Holy Spirit testifies of Christ – the biblical Christ! If someone comes bringing a message, no matter how plausible, helpful or relevant it may seem, if the biblical Jesus Christ is not exalted and His gospel is left out or distorted – folks, it’s not from the Holy Spirit. It’s not of God, so do not believe it!
Julie,
Thank you so much for your comment and encouraging words. It means more to me than you know. However, we must never forget that these truths are God’s truths not ours. What I find truly amazing is how, as you pointed out, these truths are being proclaimed all across the blogosphere by many Christians. That too in very encouraging because it validates the message.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Hi Mike,
I believe that as we stand up more and more for the Truth of God we will battle against more and more pursecution. We are one with Christ but enemies with the prince of darkness.
These may sound like harsh words but I believe them to be true
“… We are called to peace as God’s people. We are called to war as God’s people. We are called to peace with those who are like-minded in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are called to war with those, to contend for the faith against those, who oppose the truth of the Word of God.”
Cristina,
Yes, you are right. I agree with that quote completely as well. I am reading a book right now by D. A. Carson called How Long O Lord? He makes it very clear that all in Christ are aliens in this world and that our persecution or suffering because of our faith is not only likely, but inevitable. That is why we must draw as close to our Lord as possible so that His Joy will be our strength rather than our flimsy will power.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Hello Mike,
What you just said is so true. I was just telling my church today that all along we thought our persecution was going to come from unbelievers. However, as we see the growing hostility even within evangelical circles from those of us who do what God’s Word says I’m afraid they will be the ones who will “soon” be persecuting us. It truly is sad.
Yes Ken it is very sad. I for one am very surprised. This possibility never occurred to me. However, having experienced this very hostility personally, and having an analytic personality
, I think the number one point of contention that will incur the wrath of many professing Christians is for us to take a black and white stance. What I mean is, if we proclaim something as truth such as what did Jesus mean when said that His disciples are those who deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow Him, we get into trouble when we say that only those who are on that path are genuine Christians. I have received a lot of heat in church by saying things like that.
Isn’t this just one small example of what happens in the Compromised Church?
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Mike,
Like you, I also received the label of being an outcast because I objected to the use of the book as well. My letter and supporting documentation were discarded too. It definitely breaks my heart that many of my friends do not know the whole truth and are believing a lie about me. But that’s ok, I know the truth and the truth has set me free, especially from that church.
Thanks for sharing your experience here.
Semper fi in Christ,
Kurt Michaelson
Kurt,
Welcome brother. Yes, it is heartbreaking, but the fact that others believe what we are saying or not is not up to us. Thank God for that because who could take that sort of pressure? Yes, God knows the truth of our stance and that is really all that matters.
In Christ
Mike Ratliff
Dear Blogger,
Thank you so much for writing this. I also encountered the same experience at my church when I realized the true Gospel was not being preached. I confronted the pastor about this, only to be shunned and labeled as a dissensioner. Within a week of telling people to listen to a message that presented the true gospel, my husband and I were ousted by the deacon board and pastor.
Please visit wayofthemaster.com for biblical ways to share the true gospel of christ. The church is presenting a man-centered gospel. The law is meant to convict us so that we can repent and turn to Christ. Somehow the church has left out the whole repenting part.
Thanks again for this blog. It has really helped me and encouraged me from my own experience.
N