CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

I had a convicting thought (thoughts) as I was re-reading Philippians over the past few days.

After my message last week on "Death to Self and Living a Life of Humility" LINK, I had to go back and edit the message (deleting stuff) and adding an Addendum at the end (about 12 minutes) explaining how I let the "sin in others become the sin in me" (to use use a well-known expression from Dan Mohler).

While comparing and contrasting the lives of Kanye West and the Catholic nun Cabrini in an appropriate way I believe, I kept going and started naming some other names and being hyper-critical of other ministers and ministries. And it wasn't/isn't that the points I was making about these other ministries wasn't/isn't true. It was that I was NOT speaking about their errors/excesses in the right way. While criticizing their self-exaltation, I was doing so with an elite spirit (PRIDE), all during a sermon on the topic of dying to self and humility. Ugly stuff. I explain that in the final 12 minutes of the above message which is worth listening to.

So getting back to Philippians. As I was reading Paul's letter, I realized that he was dealing with something quite similar to what I was trying to address in my message. He too was dealing with other "Christians" whose ministries were characterized by arrogance/pride and which manipulate others in the name of Christ. Again, this was/is true of far too many ministries, and is especially true of those advocating some form of the prosperity Gospel in the Charismatic wing of the Church. And we have a LOT of them nearby to where we live, both ministries and churches. And it is easy for me to be extremely critical of them.

What really challenged me was Paul's response in Phil. 1:12-18 to his equivalent of the same types of false teachers in his day. AND he was actually imprisoned and those doing what they were doing out of "selfish ambition" were undoubtedly gaining influence in his "forced" absence and probably feeling like his circumstances proved God's blessing upon them (the false teachers) and their ministries - over and against the one (Paul) who is being sidelined/disciplined (from their perspective!) 

And I was so convicted that Paul's response was so incredible, so unlike my response to them this past week! Even with all their bad motives, as they were doing it for themselves (v. 18), Paul rejoiced that Christ was getting communicated! When I think about all the megachurches that surround us here with their watered-down messages, and the false prosperity teaching in the Charismatic churches/ministries and the itinerant ministers I know of who have a mixture of all this stuff, I need to have Paul's perspective!!!

And rejoice that despite all of the bad stuff, the false stuff, Christ is being preached/communicated. 

I can reason, "but they distort things"..."they manipulate people"..."their motives are selfish"..."they've been BOUGHT by wealthy patrons" - Paul would tell me (or he TOLD ME), "Rejoice that even though that may all be true (and I believe it IS TRUE) Christ is being preached!" 

In short, Paul recognized that God was using people that I'm sure Paul did not think God should be using. And fast forward, I think the exact same thing! That God shouldn't be using people that are doing what they are doing out of impure motives. And yet, God uses me when I minister with impure motives! Lord have mercy!

Anyway, this is what I've been dealing with and may the Apostle Paul encourage us all today when we are able to look around the Body of Christ and see the same types of things he saw in the 1st century. For him, one of those entities was the Judaizers who were perverting the Gospel. Today, the modern Prosperity false teaching is quite similar. Taking Old Testament teachings that do not apply to Christians and teaching as if they do. The Judaizers were putting Old Covenant teachings that no longer applied on New Covenant believers in Paul's day.

But somehow Paul could rejoice that even the false teachers were proclaiming the Name of Christ! And God was using that. 

At the end of the day, it was Paul's message that God ultimately used/blessed in spite of the fact that the Judaizers and other false teachers of Paul's day had influence. When Paul was imprisoned, they were able to "take ground" and somehow undermine the purity of Paul's Gospel message.

And just HOW did God do that? During those times of arrest and imprisonment, Paul wrote his Epistles which are now enshrined in our New Testament as God's Word! 2000 years later we don't know the names of those false teachers. We know they existed. We know they were polluting the truth of the Gospel. 2000 years later we have 14* of Paul's letters that have been battling false teachings for nearly 2 millennium of Church History!

These modern false teachings will NOT prevail over the truth. And yet, God who is OMNIRESOURCEFUL will use the proclamation of Christ's name being preached even by those who do so selfishly and/or full of mixture.

*Others say 13 letters, but I believe Paul wrote Hebrews in Hebrew and that it was translated into Greek by someone else)