05/10/23 LORDSHIP OF CHRIST IS THE ISSUE

05/10/23 LORDSHIP OF CHRIST IS THE ISSUE

I had people turn against me, my message and my ministry, years ago because I preached Christ's exclusive Lordship over His Church and over the individuals in His Body.

Make no mistake. The Lordship of Christ in our lives is radical and crucial. Most folks who claim salvation do not surrender to His Lordship. His Lordship means that He is God and therefore He has supreme authority over His people personally and corporately. This, in turn, means that we are going to be at odds with the world around us, including society and the State.

I preached a separated life from, and victorious life over the world, the flesh and the devil. This is costly. It has cost individual believers and entire nations their freedom to worship and serve God, as well as the loss of friends and family.

My preaching held to Biblical standards and sure enough, it resulted in oppression and losses. Because some folks were not willing to pay the price of total commitment, they chose to blame me and my preaching. They slandered God's message and ministry by saying I was an ISSUES PREACHER. I did not preach legalism, which usurps the rule of God with external rules and regulations made by men. 

I was an ISSUES PREACHER. But the issues I was concerned about were morality, Divine authority, Christian submission. Remember, God is an, "issues God," as we see in the Ten Commandments. God forbids certain behavior and requires certain other behavior. His issues are also found in the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament makes it clear that God's issues are spiritual (forbidding lust, not only physical adultery; forbidding covetousness, not only stealing; forbidding anger and hatred, not only murder). Not only does God forbid sinning in the Christian life, He delivers His people from sinning.

Though people faulted me for being an "issues" preacher (because of certain Biblical issues they did not like), they continued to raise their children by the same issues that I had taught them, and as a result they have reaped the benefit of being the parents of believing children. If other preachers had been focused on the issues, with which God was concerned, then maybe our country would not be traveling the path taken by society in the days of Noah and the days of Lot. Perversity and persecution are rising like a flood, destroying souls, families and our nation.

My, "issues preaching" was Biblical and salvific, for individuals and our society, if it had been accepted and followed. People are less impressed with Biblical truths today than they were 40 years ago. We are approaching a time when God will give entire swaths of society over to perversity and deception, because they have loved the lie and refused to obey the gospel. 

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 (NKJV)
7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 

Don't consider the call and invitation of God to holiness of heart and life lightly. Nonchalance will cost you and your family eternal life with God.