Satan’s Useful Idiot

On television recently, a Baptist pastor was asked to share his views on same-sex marriage.  He did so, “on the basis of justice, compassion and equality for all people.”  Then he went on to say, “The case would need to be made that allowing same-sex marriage would actually be detrimental to the community in some way before I would argue that the state should legislate against it.  For myself I actually support it and would be willing to conduct a same-sex wedding were such things allowed.”  During my time of association with a Baptist church it was not uncommon for them to compromise the Bible, but hearing what he said raised that to another level altogether! 

How easy it is for a pastor these days to get himself a willing audience.  All he has to do is talk about justice, compassion and equality and they’ll come from miles to have their ears tickled by him.  On the other hand, you will never hear people such as him talk about holiness.  Number one: he can’t do it.  Number two:  he dare not do it because his audience will stay away in droves.  This pastor is fulfilling last-days prophecy 2 Timothy 3:1-5; 4:1-4 and as a result, he will send many to hell.  If I was to go and tell both himself and his church that, I wonder how much true justice, compassion and equality would show up among them.

The late preacher and teacher Leonard Ravenhill hit the nail right on the head when he said, “If Jesus preached the same message that most ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”  True!  How dare this person talk about justice, compassion and equality.  Whose justice?  Whose compassion?  Whose equality?  Certainly not God’s!  This man may use the words of the Bible but it seems he knows very little of the God of the Bible.  It seems he knows very little about holiness also.  If he did, he’d be talking of God’s holiness.  He would be standing up and proclaiming, “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14.

A Christian can hold all the ideas and ideals under the sun about same-sex marriage … or anything else for that matter, but how many can he/she hold up before God in His presence in the Most Holy Place?  In other words, get serious with God, lay them out before Him in prayer, look Him in the eye, let Him look you in the eye … do it every morning for a couple of weeks.  Then ask yourself the same question.  Let me say this.  If after two weeks you can walk out of your prayer room still holding to them, you have not met with the God of the Bible – you have met with a god of your own making – you!  The justice, compassion and equality of God is nothing even remotely like that of same-sex marriage proponents.

This pastor, like so many of them today, appeared to enjoy the admiration of others in the group holding the same views as he and once again I was reminded of the great demonic hold that the fear of man has on society – church and secular.  So many of God’s people have caved in to it on the basis of so-called justice, compassion and equality – and love.  I’m amazed how many Christians there are speaking about love, but most often when looked into from the biblical perspective, it’s not love at all … at least, it’s not divine love because there’s compromise involved.  Jesus is most patient with our many compromises but on the pathway of holiness there is an expectation that we get delivered from them as well.

No deliverance means no pathway, it’s as simple as that … “by their fruits you shall know them” Matthew 7:15-20.  The test of true love (not to speak of true justice, compassion and equality) is always to be found in our attitude towards 1 Corinthians 13:6 “(love) rejoices in the truth” and Romans 12:9 “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.”  If our habit is to continually fail on these two accounts we fail everywhere so far as God is concerned, no matter how often one speaks or preaches on 1 Corinthians 13.  No love for truth equals no love for God.  We cannot afford to be spiritual cherry-pickers.

It’s one thing to be branded a homophobic by today’s in-crowd but it will be something else altogether to be branded a fool by God Almighty Himself – a fool for all eternity if not repented from.  Out there on the streets as a gospel messenger I looked into the eyes of sad people, bad people and mad people and was blessed to be fortunate enough to help those who wanted it.  But looking into the eyes of self-righteous religious people was the most disturbing of all for me – especially those well practiced at quoting from the Scriptures.  More people got delivered from sexual demons than did those from religious demons and it’s no different today.

God’s biggest problem is not with same-sex marriage proponents, it is with those mandated to speak up for Him, to proclaim who He is and proclaim something of His nature and character that would cause people to stop and reflect on where they stand with Him.  Men like this pastor are failing God in their true calling.  Anything that is not of God is darkness and death, it is not light and life.  Can any pastor honestly see the Lord Jesus Christ sitting around a dinner table (as this man did) discussing same-sex marriage views with people whose minds had already been made up?  He would not have given them the time of day and He would have been hated for it.

How many pastors can say they are hated for their stand with the biblical Lord Jesus Christ?  How many Christians for that matter?  Matthew 10:22, 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:17; John 15:18, 24-25; 17:14.  What really saddened me in watching this man on TV was his complete blindness of the fact that (apart from one   man seemingly standing up for truth) those around the table were not lovers of God, lovers of Jesus or lovers of truth.  They were lovers of self … the ultimate in idolatry!  That’s what makes him a fool in God’s eyes – idolatry.  His ungodly, unholy same-sex marriage viewpoints are simply the by-product of idolatry.

Apart from reading some books and doing the odd study on it, I cannot recall hearing a sermon on the fact that true Christians are a despised and hated bunch.  There’s certainly no evidence of it as being so in my neck of the woods and I suspect that is the case all over the Western world.  Not so in Africa, the Middle East or Asia though.  Christians over there get to experience it very quickly … more often than not with rape and torture before murder.  They know all about the hatred of Jesus and His people.  There’s no such thing as people sitting around over there on TV “being nice” to one another as they debate the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.

In political language, the term ‘useful idiot’ was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in the Western world.  The implication being that although the person in question naively thought him/herself to be an ally of the Soviets, they were actually held in contempt by them, and were being cynically used – chewed up and spat out.  That pastor is a useful idiot.  Whilst same-sex proponents will use him, they too hold him in contempt even though you could never get them to admit it.  They hold no respect whatsoever for him as a man of God, and when they’re finished with him they’ll chew him up and spit him out too.

Worse.  He fails to see that he is Satan’s useful idiot and Satan most certainly chews up and spits out all when he’s finished with them – no exceptions.  The thing is though with Satan, he’s had this pastor in his clutches as a useful idiot for a very long time.  He was asked if he had always held his view on same-sex marriage and he was quick to respond that he did not.  That fits.  If Satan threw that on him all in one go that man would have turned the other way quick smart.  That’s not Satan’s strategy, ever.  Gradualism is his strategy.  That’s how he’s been able to change society’s views in a little under forty years.

But since he has changed society’s views, now he’s stepping up his work on Christians.  And, compromising pastors are his specialty.  He doesn’t need forty years to work on them, but he does need to give them time, nevertheless.  And so, just like our first parents in the garden, he gets the younger ones to question the word of God on issues important to him that he’s placed in their mind.  Then he gets them to question more of the same.  As they fall for that, in the name of reason they soon begin to doubt God’s word, on the basis of it being unreasonable to think it reasonable, as they were once taught and believed.  Works every time!

Martin Luther once told a religious heretic that his problem was that of sitting above the Bible and judging it, whereas he sat under the Bible and let it judge him.  Nothing’s changed.  That’s how it’s always been and always will be.  Pastors and Christians like this man are a push-over for our Adversary.  He knows that if he can get them to question, then doubt, then disbelieve, then disobey the word of God in one area, it’s only a matter of time when he’ll have them doing the same in another … then another … then another.  That’s how gradualism works.  Satan has no love for that person, but he loves their unholy, unsanctified heart; because, in reality it is his heart!

“Justice, compassion and equality for all people”  – that’s the desire of a holy, sanctified heart too.  The problem is, however, the world continues to see and experienced so little of it because such hearts are despised – hated.  Why so?  Because God’s ways of bringing it about are diametrically opposed to the ways of this pastor and the rest of his group sitting around that table being nice to one another.  God is not interested in being nice.  Where in the gospels does one see Jesus being nice?  How about the apostles?  If they were nice none of them would have died the violent deaths that history records they did.  It was the nice people who killed them.

 Same-sex marriage will be legislated in this country (Australia), it’s only a matter of time.  But Christians need to let it sink in deep that when it happens, there will be no blessing from God upon it – only His curse and judgment.  Why, is it because of sexual sin?  Not really, sexual sin is forgivable.  It is because God the Creator of heaven and earth (and marriage between a man and woman only) has been denied, rejected and cast out Romans 1:18-32.  That’s the far greater sin.  Jesus called it ‘the unforgivable sin.’ “For all people walk each in the name of his god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.” Micah 4:5. “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Romans 3:18. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8.