The Church Meeting in Jesus’ Name
602 Oak Knoll Dr.
San Antonio, TX 78228
Epistle
July 2014
Event Calendar
July 7 – 11 Vacation Bible School
July 20 – 27 World Evangelism Conference
Sundays at 10 am, every night at 7 pm, and daily open meetings at 10:30 am, ending Sunday 27th with the morning meeting.
October 17,18 Men’s meeting
November 27 Thanksgiving meeting
Dinner on the grounds
January 9 – 18 Revival Conference
With Bro. David Spurgeon
Helping the Ungodly
1 And Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem.
2 And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD. 2 Chronicles 19
Jehoshaphat was a believer, and a godly man. But he was fascinated by the worldly lives of Ahab and his sons. He visited often, and joined with them in their wars and projects. In the battle of Ramoth in Gilead, which God had arranged to take away the life of that wicked king Ahab, Jehoshaphat was there, out of his place, and out of his mind. The captains of the Syrian chariots had mistakenly pursued Jehoshaphat instead of Ahab, who had cunningly disguised himself. When Jehoshaphat cried out, God “moved them to depart from him” – God’s indescribable, merciful faithfulness to his own backslidden believer. Yet even as God kept watch over Jehoshaphat in the battle, he caused an arrow, drawn at a venture, to pierce old crafty Ahab’s armor between the joints, and that wicked king’s sun finally went down. Nobody outsmarts God.
Jehoshaphat went home in peace, perhaps a little rattled, a little humbled, and probably unaware of what had actually transpired behind the scenes. So God sent him a “seer,” an old-style preacher, to tell him what he had done wrong. This man Jehu was actually the son of a preacher, Hanani, who had been imprisoned for his preaching by Asa king of Judah. By now the son was an old preacher himself who had been preaching in Israel since the days of Baasha. Jehoshaphat took the rebuke well, and straightened up for a while, and went out again and brought his people back to the Lord. In fact, around that time he rejected a partnership with Ahab’s wicked son, Ahaziah (1Kings 22:49). Backsliders sometimes come home and get right. But it was short-lived. He found himself in the wrong crowd again a few years later, hobnobbing with Ahab’s son Jehoram and the king of Edom. Another prophet disapproved of the company he kept, once again.
14 And Elisha said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee. 2 Kings 3
So it makes me wonder. Why do believers love them that hate the Lord? Why do good girls love bad boys? Why do preachers tolerate and even compromise with God’s determined enemies? Why do born again saints of God fawn over screen celebrities, trail their miserable, trivial lives, imitate their shameless and classless fashions, dance to their dimwitted music and illiterate lyrics, and subscribe to their twits?
10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Proverbs 1
Of course believers want to be accepted, to be popular, to avoid ridicule and discrimination. That is a mistake, but it isn’t a mystery. Yet such fascination goes beyond this. Jehoshaphat had a disturbing, unseemly obsession with Ahab and his sons. For some reason their behavior didn’t disgust him. Somehow he found a way to overlook the cold-blooded murder of Naboth, and Jezebel’s relentless persecution of the prophets. He managed to get past the bawdy, gaudy images of Baal in the palace, and shrug off a demonic, counterfeit religion, complete with golden calves and invented holidays, foisted on them by Jeroboam’s paranoid fancies a generation before. Whatever the reason, one thing is clear, helping the ungodly is not a rational, believing decision, based on clear thinking and loyalty to truth. It is a sentimental decision, based on feelings, personal likes and dislikes, and defensible only by rationalizations. Jehoshaphat probably argued that he was doing something honorable or noble, like making peace.
44 And Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel. 1 Kings 22
And peace is nice. We all want some peace. But compromise with the champions of wickedness is not peace. It is surrender. And what is more, it is bald stupidity. Chamberlain’s deal with Hitler may have been praised by all the dovely gentlemen in power who wanted “peace for our time”, but old Neville’s name is now synonymous with dipstick. His peace treaty was a craven capitulation by a spineless blossom. Stupid can’t hide. The thing is, peace is not the ultimate goal. Justice and righteousness are far more important.
21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Isaiah 57
Christian compromise in our day follows hard in the footsteps of Jehoshaphat. They also long for peace, and crave respect. They don’t call it compromise, however. They call it reasonableness, or humility, or open-mindedness. There are some even, who while recognizing the need for firmness in doctrine and righteousness, still tolerate the ungodly in the name of love. Their motivation is compassion. Jesus was a friend of sinners, say they. Hate the sin and love the sinner, say they. And, yes, sometimes compassion makes a difference.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference: Jude
But motivations, even among believers, are often hidden, and seldom noble. So it needs to be pointed out that in our dealing with wickedness there are three interests to be considered, the Lord’s, the innocents’ and the sinner’s. We must first consider the Lord and his interests. We certainly should not put the interests of the wicked before the Lord’s. Compassion for the wicked is not justified at all if there is no repentance, much less if he is destroying God’s interests. Reprobates who denounce the Bible, deny Jesus Christ or blaspheme his character, or openly fight against the cause of righteousness on earth, are not just sinners who need a little understanding. Christians of former generations were right to repudiate the godless French revolution, to rail fanatically against slavery, and even to shed blood against Hitler, and then against Communism as it burned Bibles and bulldozed church buildings. And we are right to oppose the indoctrination of evolution, falsely posing as science, and to hate the depraved lifestyle of sodomy so propagated by the media as the “new normal,” and the licentious obscenity of our generation defended mindlessly as freedom of speech.
21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
Psalms 139
God will notice when we do not defend his truth. He will know the true motivations of our tolerance, or our compromise, or our silence.
But that’s not all. Before considering the sinner’s plight we must also remember the innocent, the victim, the ignorant and even the bystander. Compassion on the wicked may sound noble, but it is misguided if it displaces our compassion for the innocent who are affected by the doctrine of the wicked. Jesus didn’t plead with the Pharisees when victims were involved. He decried them as worthy objects of damnation and woe.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Matthew 23
And what of our own children? Jehoshaphat may have claimed compassion for Ahab and his spawn, but he forgot to have compassion on his own precious children. You may remember that his son Jehoram loved Ahab also, just like daddy, and actually married Ahab’s daughter. So why should it surprise us that after Jehoshaphat died, Jehoram killed all of his own brothers to “strengthen himself”(2 Chr. 21:4). In fact, righteous Jehoshaphat’s friendship with Ahab turned out to be as bad as passing his sons through the fire, like Ahaz did many years later.
You do realize that your children are being stalked and seduced, right now before your eyes, by high-minded, humanistic pot-heads, porn-freaks and pedophiles. Your children don’t need to hear kindly conversations between friendly opponents who pretend to respect each other. They need champions who will openly shame the godless enemies of their souls. Their very lives are at stake.
10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake. Titus 1
People who try to undermine the truth of the gospel and dissuade listeners are not appropriate objects of our forbearance either. The apostles were not tolerant of the determined adversaries of the gospel.
10 And Saul said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Acts 13
5 To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. Galatians 2
10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. 2 John 1
This is because people’s eternity is at stake. When authorities forbid the preaching of the gospel – and they have all over the world throughout history – God does not expect us to hold our peace or keep our place, or plead for permission to preach. People need to hear now, not eventually. When John Bunyan was asked for his license to preach he quoted Peter, “as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same” (1 Peter 4:10). He did time for that, but God didn’t call us to be sweet, warm, fuzzy furballs. He called us to be soldiers.
And only then, after considering the Lord’s interests, and the victims’ interests, are we allowed to consider the sinner’s plight. When repentant, we receive with open arms, when ignorant and rebellious, we instruct in meekness, when ridiculing and persecuting, we possess our souls in patience, but when opposing truth and righteousness, we put on the armor of God and stand, “blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life” (Philippians 2:15,16). Let your light so shine.