THE ENEMIES OF YOUR FAITH

THE ENEMIES OF YOUR FAITH

 ⁵ What I am eager for is that all the Christians there will be filled with love that comes from pure hearts, and that their minds will be clean and their faith strong.

⁶ But these teachers have missed this whole idea and spend their time arguing and talking foolishness. ⁷ They want to become famous as teachers of the laws of Moses when they haven’t the slightest idea what those laws really show us.{1Timothy 1:5-7 TLB}

Those who are fighting against your faith are the enemies of your faith. You have some of them as your spiritual fathers and mentors. You listen to their messages on television and on you tube every week. You read their posts on face book and other social networks. You seat under their preaching every Sunday. The enemies of your faith are all around you. I know it’s hard to believe that these people are against your faith but that is the truth. Another shocking truth is that most of them don’t even know that they are fighting your faith. When they preach, they think they are speaking God’s mind but a careful analysis of their messages will reveal that Christ is not glorified in their sermons. They preach self-glorifying messages. Messages that glorify the laws of Moses and down grade the grace that Jesus brought. They tell you that faith in Christ is not enough to save you. They make you think that you must obey the laws of Moses to become accepted by God. They quench your faith in Christ and make you trust in yourself. They tell you that the price of your salvation was not paid in full at Calvary’s cross and that you have a part left to pay by yourself. They are boastful and insult anyone who preaches the gospel of Christ; the good news that says faith in Christ is the only criteria for salvation. They threaten you with the message of Hell as though you have not accepted Christ and your fear of hell has replaced your faith in Christ. Amongst them are Bishops, prophets, apostles and all the religious title holders who do not even understand the mission of Christ to earth. They wear big crosses on their necks but do not have the slightest idea what the cross of Christ truly means.

I am going to show you how they fight your faith. Just as faith comes by hearing God’s word so also fear comes by hearing man’s word. If your faith diminishes after listening to their messages then it wasn’t God’s word that was preached. God’s word must build your faith and focus your trust on Christ not on yourself. What most of them preach is the tradition of men not the gospel of Christ.

They trouble you with unnecessary rules and regulations. They put a yoke of slavery on you again. Christ came to set you free from the yoke of slavery but these enemies of faith take pleasure in enslaving you again with religious rules and rituals.

 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

⁷ You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? ⁸ That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.⁹ “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” ¹⁰ I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. ¹¹ Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. ¹² As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!{Galatians 5:1-12 NIV}

They preach circumcision and argue that even though you have accepted Jesus Christ as your saviour, you are not truly saved until you obey the laws of Moses and the Jewish rituals. In other words, they esteem your keeping of rules above the cross of Christ. They infer that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was not good enough to purchase your salvation, that his blood is not potent enough to wash away your sins. They claim that you are only righteous when you are able to keep all of God’s commands. They are offended whenever anyone preaches the Cross of Christ. They are not only enemies of your faith but also enemies of the cross of Christ. They persecute the true preachers of the gospel of Christ and make you partake in their slander.

They intercept your faith race and throw you into confusion. They fight your faith until you start thinking that you can only be justified by keeping the laws of Moses. They often win the battle over your faith and you become cut off from Christ just as they are. The moment you lose faith on the cross of Christ and desire to be justified by the works of the law, you are cut off from Christ and you fall from grace.

You must note that the people who fight your faith daily are not the Muslims or any Islamic group. Only a negligible percentage of Christians interact with those sect daily and they rarely try to convince you contrary to your faith in Christ. It is not the pagans either who fight your faith or any other religious group. The real enemies of your faith are in church. They are Christians. You interact with them daily. They claim to have accepted Jesus Christ but they are enemies of the cross and hate the gospel of Christ.

¹⁸ For I have told you often before, and I say it again now with tears in my eyes, there are many who walk along the Christian road who are really enemies of the cross of Christ.{Philippians 3:18 TLB}

Many of them just want to Lord over you and put you in a position of perpetual condemnation so you can depend on them and look up to them as spiritual leaders. They are wicked men. Real dogs and Paul says to beware of them.

² Watch out for those wicked men—dangerous dogs, I call them—who say you must be circumcised to be saved. ³ For it isn’t the cutting of our bodies that makes us children of God; it is worshiping him with our spirits. That is the only true “circumcision.” We Christians glory in what Christ Jesus has done for us and realize that we are helpless to save ourselves.{Philippians 3:2-3 TLB}

We who are true Christians do not put confidence in outward ritualistic ceremonies and religious laws. We depend on God to help us. We know that without the cross of Christ we are helpless. Our faith is the cross of Christ and there we find glory. We know that we are saved by grace through faith and that not by ourselves hence we cannot boast of any works that we have done to gain salvation but our boast is in the Lord and His death on the cross.

Let me show you what Jesus Christ said about those who are fighting your faith. You will notice that they are your religious leaders; pastors and reverends:

Religious Fashion Shows

 ^1-3 Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.

^4-7 “Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’{Matthew 23:17 MSG}

These religious leaders keep making new rules and package them in bundles for you to obey while they themselves don’t obey such rules. They love to see you staggering and breaking the rules without helping you to stand. They sit in high tables in church meetings and love to answer titles “Reverends, Doctors and Elders” They preach what they don’t practice. They tell you that you can’t do anything unless you take permission from them. They like to be in charge of your life so they can glory over you. They are dangerous hypocrites and desire to keep you far from the truth which sets men free from the slavery of the laws. Do you know that these your religious teachers and pastors are leading you to hell? They work so hard to get you converted and once you are, they set you on the pedestal to hell.

¹³ “How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You lock the door to the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces, but you yourselves don't go in, nor do you allow in those who are trying to enter! ^14 [b]

¹⁵ “How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You sail the seas and cross whole countries to win one convert; and when you succeed, you make him twice as deserving of going to hell as you yourselves are!{Matthew 23:13-15 GNT}

These religious leaders block the way to the kingdom of heaven and prevent you from entering the kingdom because they themselves don’t want to enter. It takes faith in Christ to enter the kingdom and Jesus Christ is The way, The truth and The life. No man gets to the father except through Him. Faith is the ticket to heaven. Faith gives you God’s righteousness and that qualifies you for the kingdom of heaven. Unfortunately, your religious leaders are damned for hell and they also try to fight your faith. They introduce you to a road which does not lead to heaven. The road of the laws and religious rituals.

¹⁸ God paid a ransom to save you from the impossible road to heaven which your fathers tried to take, and the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver as you very well know. ¹⁹ But he paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. ²⁰ God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but only recently was he brought into public view, in these last days, as a blessing to you.

²¹ Because of this, your trust can be in God who raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. Now your faith and hope can rest in him alone.{1Peter 1:18-21 TLB}

The impossible road to heaven is the way of the Jewish laws. The way of circumcision and religious rituals. This road doesn’t lead to heaven at all. Unfortunately multitudes are following this road because they believe that they must obey so many commandments before they can make heaven. The road is broad and wide and it leads to destruction. Only few have found the way of the cross, the way of faith and hope in Christ. The narrow way. It doesn’t involve so many rules. Just one requirement; faith which works by love. It is so narrow that only few believe in it. Many Christians prefer to keep Ten Commandments and other religious rituals before they can feel qualified for heaven but the road that leads to heaven is narrow with just one law, the law of faith and love. This is the road that leads to life. The faith road. Those who will live and be justified must have faith.

¹³ “Heaven can be entered only through the narrow gate! The highway to hell^[b]is broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes who choose its easy way. ¹⁴ But the Gateway to Life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it.{Matthew 7:13-14}

Christ Jesus is the door. Enter by Him and you will be saved. Only through faith can you enter by Him.

⁹ I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. {John 10:9}

Let no man therefore destroy your faith because that is all you need to enter heaven.

These enemies of faith didn’t just emanate in our generation, they had been even from the time of Apostle Paul. This was an encounter he had with them.

Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along too. ² I went there with definite orders from God to confer with the brothers there about the message I was preaching to the Gentiles. I talked privately to the leaders of the church so that they would all understand just what I had been teaching and, I hoped, agree that it was right. ³ And they did agree; they did not even demand that Titus, my companion, should be circumcised, though he was a Gentile.

⁴ Even that question wouldn’t have come up except for some so-called “Christians” there—false ones, really—who came to spy on us and see what freedom we enjoyed in Christ Jesus, as to whether we obeyed the Jewish laws or not. They tried to get us all tied up in their rules, like slaves in chains. ⁵ But we did not listen to them for a single moment, for we did not want to confuse you into thinking that salvation can be earned by being circumcised and by obeying Jewish laws.{Galatians 2:1-5 TLB}

I am certain that most of you have these false Christians in your churches who keep bringing up rules and regulations and make you think that your salvation is based on Jewish laws. They send spies to follow you up and down to find out if you are committing sin or not. Their aim is to bring accusations against you. They dare not see you talking to the opposite gender, they will draw conclusions based on lies. Most pastors are preaching their village traditions as to what kind of clothes to wear and what hair style or make up to do and they think they are preaching the gospel. They find fault with everything you do and argue about the wearing of trousers, tying of hair and wearing of gold jewellery. They know nothing about the gospel of Christ Jesus that is based on faith in the finished work on the cross. They preach Jewish laws and call it the gospel. They are not aware that the Jewish laws were never meant for the gentiles. The gospel to the gentiles is salvation based on faith in Christ Jesus. It has nothing to do with laws. Even the Jews who had the laws no longer uphold the law as criteria for salvation because God’s way of putting people right with Himself has been revealed and it has nothing to do with the laws. It is simply by faith in Christ Jesus.

²¹ But now God's way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it. ²² God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: ²³ everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence.²⁴ But by the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.{Romans 3:21-24 GNT}

It is by faith in Christ that we have been set free and stand firm on grace ground. This faith is what your enemies of faith are fighting against. They want to strip you of your freedom in Christ and entangle you again into the slavery of Jewish laws and village traditions. Paul says not to listen to them not even for a moment.

The enemies of faith preach fear every Sunday and you go home feeling like you are the devil himself. They know so much about hell but know nothing about heaven. After preaching the horrors of hell to their congregation, the only thing left is for these members to dream of hell in their sleep and see the illusion of what their pastors preached about in hell. They come up with stories of how they saw Christians in hell just because of the hairstyle or make up they wore.  Their fake stories are exactly the same as the ignorant preaching of their pastors. How come everyone keeps dreaming about hell? What happened to heaven? Why are there only few Christians dreaming about our real home, Heaven? You see, Christians are more conscious of hell than they are of heaven. What an anomaly?

The heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11 were looking forward to a city whose builder and maker is God. They anticipated heaven not hell. Men of faith anticipate heaven. Men of laws, enemies of faith anticipate hell. Men of faith know that Christ in them is their hope of glory but men of laws are fearfully expecting judgement.