#Prophey. Enemy of Truth.

“So, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” People of ambiguity are typically an enemy of Truth. People who work to delude the message of God’s prophecies tend to make themselves hostile.

THE ENEMY OF TRUTH

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

Fact. Those who place the importance of friendship over the immovability of the Lord’s prophecies are nothing less than an enemy of Truth. Since Jesus IS Truth, when “believers” shift their loyalty to friendships, betrayal in its worse form arrives on the doorstep of the Kingdom of God with hostility. We make ourselves an enemy of God.

Here are the questions that Biblical Paul most likely wanted to ask the Galatian Church after he devoted his life to establishing them as a church. What happened to this Church? Why did the Galatian Church betray me, Paul, or worse, the Gospel of Jesus Christ? 

When the Galatians invited Paul for his first visit, he was received as an “angel of God.” After time had passed, the Galatians drifted into the worthless elements of life, and Paul was informed of their weakening demise. Thus, he was compelled to write them a letter, which became the Book of Galatians.

Fact: “Christians” are known for “shooting” their own far more than authentic persecutors.

Betrayal must be the most flagrant act known to humanity, Christendom, and beyond, primarily when propagated within the Church. As for ministers of the Gospel, betrayal is the worst. It tempts us to feel like our investments have gone sour - minimally, leaving us preachers with the reality that we were preaching to a brick wall. A friend once said, “Who needs the devil when we have fellow believers taunting our every move.”

Paul was bewildered but remained focused.

Can you imagine writing to a group of people who once honored you, but a hint of betrayal surfaces through reports? You wonder - will my words return to me before I can penetrate the hearts of those I love? Did Paul sense the probability of faces filled with betrayal while every word was written? What had possessed his once-loyal believers?

As with many of the newly found Gentile churches, Paul was the founder of the Galatian Church. In his lifetime, he began to see the dangers of a perverted gospel infiltrating the hearts and minds of those he assisted in converting. The false teachers who fronted Paul during his mission suggested that Paul had only one side of the gospel. They thought they had adequate evidence to isolate Paul as a narrow-minded teacher and even a false teacher.

Myriads of false teachers at the time were infiltrating these new fellowships with a false and pluralistic gospel, thus, creating questions that rubbed against the authentic Gospel Paul imparted. The first-generation church was tempted to diminish the authentic Gospel's roots, resulting in the enemy (Satan) sneaking up from behind with his newly found licentious grace, as stated by Jude.

“For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness [disregarding accepted rules or conventions] and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  (Jude 1:4)

Paul’s repetitive response to these deluded believers was forthright – that there is no gospel other than that they heard from his lips. While knowing his words would bounce off the minds of false teachers, Paul remained focused on his gentle rebuke.

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-7)

The Galatian church members joined the pluralistic false teachers to formulate a different, licentious gospel. Paul gently rebuked them, noting that this kind of shift is deserting Jesus Christ. Also, it revealed that they were being disrupted by false teachers who distorted the Gospel of Jesus. Being rooted in confidence, Paul dared to say these words:

“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” (Galatians 1:8-9)

Paul sounds like an arrogant man. A man caught up in himself. But no, Paul was devoted to his salvation and the Truth, which the Holy Spirit revealed to him. Not only that but he was also dedicated to saving his flock from the demise of pluralistic gospels. While the believers were tempted to reduce Paul through betrayal, Paul remained focused on one thing – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, these believers choose the route of pluralism at the time. They returned to a pre-saved worldview of fleshly religious ideologies, which caused them to place themselves back under the bondage of man-made laws (homemade gospels) and theologies, hoping to expand their worldview. Their actions blocked Christ from revealing His worldview within them.

People-pleasing is the sin that leads to betrayal. 

Paul’s gracious rebuke tells them, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”  Folks, it always comes back to being a bondservant of Christ. A man who does not understand bond slavery cannot connect with this truth. Therefore, he finds himself held by the sin of people-pleasing.

The most common reason believers betray other believers is in the self-importance of remaining acceptable in the minds of new influencers. They shift their loyalty from the mind of Christ to the mind of overpowering influencers/teachers, which is nothing short of betrayal, or what Paul called “deserting Him,” Christ Jesus.

Today, our Church society is filled with betrayal, a betrayal of God, the Gospel, and the men who preach the immovable indwelling Truths. When a person like Paul comes around, the lion’s share of humanity becomes offended by Truth, making Paul’s question relevant – “So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” As soon as the image of an enemy comes into play, betrayal follows.

You see, the Galatians didn’t understand that the primary Truth of the authentic believer is that they have the mind of Christ living from within – as Paul reminded the Corinthian Church.

“For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)

If we know that we have the mind of Christ living within us, then our focus should shift from pleasing men to pleasing the indwelling Life of Christ. Since this doctrine is fundamental to authentic believers, betrayal of other Body of Christ members becomes THE issue.

“Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.”  (1 Corinthians 1:10)

For this truth to become a reality, all authentic Body of Christ members must start and finish by way of the mind of Christ within them. For those who can’t or who refuse to be centered in this fundamental doctrine, well, they are most likely not authentically indwelt by Jesus.

Body Life quarreling is at the root of introductions to other gospels.

Satan starts here. Quarreling was the cause of loyalty division within the Galatian Church, and many other branches started quarreling in the first-generation Church. The enemy was all about shifting the focus from THE Church to churches, accomplished by loyalty to man’s mind versus that of Christ.

“For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas,’ and ‘I of Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:11-13)

The answer to Paul’s question, “Has Christ been divided,” is relevant. Satan’s goal is always to divide Christ into irrelevant pieces. Without this madness method, he is impotent. But overall, he has been earthly successful. Eternally, Jesus Christ cannot and will not ever be divided. But, earthly speaking, the Church is no longer presented as a single living organism. The Church has been divided into over 41,000 separate denominations, willing to die for their self-interpretive ideologies because of people-pleasing.

Furthermore, each branch is worthless without the whole. This is why Jesus is about to separate the goats from the sheep, ending with the authentic Body of Christ as ONE unit. The book of Revelation proves this.   

Solomon was correct; there is nothing new under the sun.

I believe the Galatian church suffered the same demise as our church today, or maybe it’s the other way around. In our present church society, the Word of the Cross is foolish to those adhering to a pluralistic gospel. Nowadays, few are saved by the power of God. There are two primary reasons for this: First, droves believe that the words of men can save. Secondly, and more alarming, multitudes believe they are saved by following Christ’s words versus being indwelt by Him – a demise leading to fake Christianity, which does not save.

Human reasoning and logic are a trap. The foolishness of God is wiser than the most intelligent of men (1 Cor. 1:25). If God did have a weakness, His weakness would be stronger than the mightiest of men. This might be why God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the intelligent false teachers of our age, minimally nullifying their pluralistic additions to the organic Gospel.

Folks, we need to get back to the basics. By His doing, we are in Christ Jesus, who became the wisdom of God, who placed such wisdom in us through the indwelling mind of Christ. As I see it, keeping our doctrinal thinking within the walls of the think-tank of the Living God is the only solution. Opinions, views, and interpretations are nothing to God. He, God, is narrow-minded, and He has provided a very narrow path TO His mind – that of being crucified with Christ, receiving the Life of Christ through the Holy Spirit and walking in and through the Spirit, who reveals the mind of Christ. Identity is birthed through the mind; both Satan and God know this. Suppose a man maintains a view through a self-guided mind. Indeed, the mind of Christ remains undiscovered.

Furthermore, how can we be prepared to walk out the details of the End Times IF we are an enemy of Truth? We can’t. To understand the Truth being revealed in prophecy, we must be people of Truth. To be a person of Truth, Truth (Jesus) must live within us. For that to happen, we all need the assurance that Jesus swapped our identity of the old nature for His nature – and that is accomplished through receiving the Holy Spirit through an authentic born-again experience. Until next time…