Today I want to deal with condemnation. When it comes from the world, it can sting, but when it comes from within ourselves, it can open a portal for depression, oppression, self-pity, regression and even suicide. I want to look at two disciples. One who found a place of grace and the other who established his place in hell.
Of course, I am talking about Simon Peter and Judas Iscariot.
To start, I want to build this daily word on the foundation of this cornerstone of “maintaining” your salvation:
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; In other words, you are not any better or any worse than everyone else because sin has attacked and conquered you. It comes to everyone and the shame is not in the fall, but in the inability to get back up. (Proverbs 24:16 For a just man falleth seven times, and rises up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.)
Temptation is the battle in the mind. (Col 1:21 And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled)
Sin is a description of losing a battle. That victory that Satan claims is toward a greater end for him. He doesn’t care if you win or lose a battle, necessarily, but that victory or defeat gives him occasion to bring either pride and self-righteousness or condemnation. In either case, as a Christian, we must be very careful. We all know (including Satan himself) that pride comes before a fall. We also know that going into condemnation can cause your soul drift into the abyss. Since depression and oppression and condemnation are spiritual tools of the enemy, the kind or encouraging words of man many times will not be able to stop this drifting.
Did you ever try to talk someone out of a deep depression or condemnation? It’s like speaking to the deaf. The only way those ears can be opened is through the WORD of God. Remember that the weapons of our warfare ARE NOT CARNAL.
Good intentions, kind words, pity, hand holding, back rubbing and chicken soup, contrary to popular belief cannot set that prisoner free. When the enemy brings defeat, he locks the cell to an inner prison of the mind with supernatural locks that the Master lock company cannot compete with. These are as I have spoken – depression, oppression, regression, condemnation.
He leaves a back door open, however to this prison and that is the back door to hell itself – which is the door of suicide. He convinces you that going through that door is painless and full of great comfort, better than feeling left alone and in a prison where he promises you there is no end. He tells you that going through that door will make everyone in the world feel sorry for you – which would, in your mind, be a type of revenge on those who hurt you. Getting your last shot in, so to speak. These are lies – and he wants your soul.
One of the first things you have to remember is that staying down when you get knocked down IS NOT AN OPTION. The battle comes to us all – and we will not escape it.
We will never retire from the battle. Case in point – the fight of old age and the body dying. It is an ongoing battle. Temptation. Everything from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life. It battles you every day and our adversary is relentless. That is why Peter in his old age – still in the battle tells us… 1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
And in every battle that you lose, you can bank on the spirit of justification to come along with the depression. It tells you that nobody else has hurt as bad as you hurt. Nobody else has battled as fiercely as you have battled. Nobody else has felt what you feel. Nobody cares for your soul. It’s a warped and wicked battle that he fights.
Suffice to say, we’ve all been there. The battle didn’t come ONLY before you were a Christian, but now that you are… the stakes have just gone up in the kingdom of darkness. Your stock in the exchange of hell just hit the ceiling. You are now REALLY worth the investment of the time of the dark forces of the enemy.
The apostle Paul struggled with sin. He wrestled with not being able to get the victory over that messenger of Satan. (2 Corinthians 12:8-9) Messenger in that context is very good because it partially translates out to “soldier that will take you captive and lead you away to prison.”
1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Paul also talked about losing battles in the letter he wrote to the Romans… and notice in the first verse… he was not unsaved or unlearned or religious. He called himself… Rom 1:1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
Now, I don’t care who YOU think you are… Paul was a SERVANT. An APOSTLE. SEPARATED unto the gospel. But. Not above the battles. Not above temptation. And NOT above losing battles.
After Paul tells everyone WHO he is and what his calling and credentials are… he gets to the seventh chapter and drops a bombshell on the Christian world who think that they should be sinless after salvation and AFTER the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Rom 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave.
Yes… “as if” I was its slave. One difference. Slaves didn’t fight back. They submitted. Soldiers on the other hand FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT.
Paul goes on to say… Rom 7:15-16 I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. And if I don’t want to do what I do that means I agree that the law is good.
Paul was bearing his soul to the soul of every Christian that has ever lost a battle to temptation. If you will study further the rest of the verses in Romans 7, you will find that Paul not only struggled, but sought God to find out HOW to deal with the sin. How do we deal with DEFEAT?
In part two we will deal with dealing with defeat. A lost battle. A bad day.
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