Jump Start # 3340

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

  Our verse doesn’t fit well in the description of a Christian that some have. By their thinking, Christians are always smiling, always peaceful, always getting along and always avoiding confrontations. Never judging, never correcting, never telling others that they need to change, is how some see it. Jude talks about snatching some out of the fire. The Galatians were told to restore those who were in sin. And, our verse today uses the terms “destroying” and taking “captive.” Paul paints a picture of conflict, war and battle.

  Recently, I presented a three part series about “Our Identity.” This was much more than understanding what the Bible teaches about gender, it was about who we are, our purpose and our destiny. Our identity is woven through those concepts.

  Satan is actively trying to deceive the world. He does that by convincing our culture that they know more than God does. He deceives those who are in power, because they shape policy and make products. He deceives those of influence, because people follow them. And, he deceives those who educate because they change minds and the way people think.

  And, all around us we are witnessing these very things taking place. In politics, in sports, in glamour, in media, in movies, in the halls of education, and in stores, we see this strong push to make the unacceptable acceptable. The drive is to make abnormal normal. And, the way it’s talked about so much, one would get the impression that a huge segment of our country is embracing this radical ideology. But major beer companies and stores are realizing that there is a silent majority that does not want these things in mainstream life or on Main Street of life. The push will continue. Say a lie loud enough and long enough and people will accept it.

  Our verse shows us the strong counter move by disciples. Speculations are being destroyed. Thoughts are being held captive. Now, just how is this done?

  First, it’s not a political move. It’s not about electing the right guy for office. Those early Christians didn’t have that option. Our hope is not in the Whitehouse, or even the court house. Our hope is in Heaven. Laws do not mean anything to those who do not keep laws.

  Second, the means of destroying speculations and taking thoughts captive is through the teaching of God’s word. Preach. Preach. Preach. God’s people must recognize what is right and what is wrong. Opening eyes to what God says will reveal how far from those truths that the world has sunk to. Our young people must know that our identity is not up in the air and we must determine it. God has determined it. God doesn’t make mistakes. We must discover what God has declared.

  Third, with our hearts standing upon God’s word, we become absolute in our convictions. We have a confidence in our faith and we become unwavering in our resolve. Much of noise these days is just that, noise. Shouting someone down doesn’t prove a position. Threats do not make right. Truthful evidence is what makes a difference. Those who lack conviction and faith, will cower in fear of being called a racist or prejudice. Rather than standing firm, many cave it. This is true in school systems, corporate board rooms and many religious institutions. Fear and false guilt will cause many to accept what they do not believe in.

  We are destroying…we are taking captive. How? By sticking with what God says. Remaining calm. Presenting truths. Staying factual. This will blow away the smoke of emotions that have nothing behind them.  The facts are, God has already determined our gender, our race and the times we will live in. Our gender cannot be changed. One might change the outside, but chromosomes, bone structure, muscle mass, the amount of red and white blood cells—none of that changes, even if a man puts on a dress, calls himself by a girl’s name, puts lipstick on his lips. A hundred years from now, if his bones were dug up, investigators would declare that he was a man, even though he may have claimed that he was a female.

  Facts. Faith. Bible. There is no way that God can be wrong. The fight is on and we know already who will win. God wins.

  Roger

Jump Start # 1555

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”

  Our verse today fits well with our theme this week of “fighting the good fight.” The language of the passage sounds victorious. “We are destroying…” and “we are taking every thought captive,” sounds as if positive ground is being taken and if Paul was winning the war. How can this be when history tells us that Paul was executed? Shortly after his death, the Roman empire turned against the Christians and their blood was shed throughout the world. Today, the pure form of Christianity, that which has stuck with the Biblical pattern, is alive but in contrast to other religions, it’s not large. It seems that sin is winning. It seems that things are getting worse, not better. It seems that the acceptance of wrong has become popular and the norm.

Understanding the nature of this fight, helps us to understand this passage. The battleground of this fight actually takes place in each person’s heart. It is there that choices are made and faith finds a home. Our religion, if you want to call it that, is not lived through government policies or public ideas. It is personal and lived out by each individual person. It is not even lived through the church. It is within our hearts that we live for Christ. Our faith is expressed through our hearts. It is in our hearts that convictions are formed, decisions made and commitment is secured. So, the battleground where this good fight is fought, is within our hearts. Satan may get the government. He may get the media. He may get schools. He may get the laws, policies and modern thinking of the times, but the one thing he cannot get is your heart, unless you allow that. This is where this verse takes place, in our hearts. It is in our hearts that we are destroying speculations. It is in our hearts that we are taking every thought captive.

This is why in countries that are opposed to Christianity, such as Muslin countries or communistic countries, Christians are there. They may be meeting secretively for safety but they are there. Those countries and their laws have not conquered every heart. There are hearts that have destroyed and taken captive those things that oppose Christ.

But even in a grander sense than the fight against communism, here throughout this country are hundreds of hearts that have refused to be held captive by Satan. I think of the home, where mom and dad have no time nor use for God. The Bible is never opened. Prayers are never said. Alcohol flows freely. Trashy talk and trashy behavior is an everyday thing. Yet in such sorry households, comes a young man or a young lady who doesn’t agree with all that they see everyday. Deep in their hearts they love the Lord. On their own, they pray, read God’s word and live a pure life. When they move out on their own, they do just the opposite of what their parents were doing. They find a congregation and worship each week. They have destroyed and captured all the wrongs and have refused to let Satan have their hearts.

I think of the young college student who sits in a biology or philosophy class and endures ridicule and erroneous statements about Christianity. Books on the required reading list slams and mocks the Bible. Most of the class blindly goes along with this stuff. It doesn’t bother them because Satan has already gotten a foothold in their hearts. Drinking and fornication have become weekly adventures for most students. They are spinning out of control and they do not even realize it. But for the young Christian, he has held his ground. His has refused to surrender his heart. The claims of the professor are inconsistent, illogical and without proof. He sees through the smoke and knows that there are things that the professor refuses to address. If the Bible is not from God, where did it come from? Why is it that there is no other book in history like the Bible? How were things written about before they were discovered? The professor dodges such questions and mocks the person who asks him that and turns to extreme abuses of hypocrites to satisfy his unproven claims. Yet for this believer, his heart has held it’s ground. He has not allowed Satan to take it over. He has destroyed and he has conquered.

The battle isn’t on the national front. It’s not marching with protest signs. It’s not petitions. It’s not over shouting your opponent. It’s not being a spiritual bully. The battle is in your heart. You alone allow whatever you want to come into your heart. You have the key and it is within that heart that the greatest battle ever fought takes place.

We can help ourselves or hurt ourselves by what we allow in our hearts and by what we allow ourselves to be influenced by. Watching worthless TV shows certainly isn’t going to help us destroy and capture what is wrong. When we do that, we are opening the window of our heart and allowing the enemy to sneak in. Filling your day with unprofitable talk, surrounding yourself with conversations that take you down doesn’t help you win this battle for your heart. Anger, selfishness and godlessness prevail. We encounter those three ugly sisters everywhere. They are found in people. They are found in music. They are especially found on reality TV shows. They are expressed on Facebook and Twitter. Do you want to keep your heart for the Lord? Do you want to win the battle? Do you want to destroy and capture? Then you must guard what comes into your heart. Be the only nerd at work who didn’t watch what everyone is talking about today. Be the prude who refuses to flirt around with co-workers. Be the fanatic who actually reads his Bible during lunch. Be the one who prays before he walks into the office and prays before he enters his home. Be the one who ends the day thankfully and begins the next day, hopefully. Be the one who sings hymns in his car. Be the one who seeks the company of quality people. Be the one who reads, watches and listens to things that will make him a better person. Be the one who is thoughtful and kind. Be the one who doesn’t see what others are doing, he does what is right, even if he stands alone. Be the one whose heart has not been taken over by Satan.

We are destroying and we have captured…it was taking place. The Christians were winning. While the world was growing more and more wicked, there were certain ones who were untouched and unmoved by those things.

I fear that too many of us are getting worked up about politics. The Lord will take care of us. Do you want another four years like we have had, someone recently asked me. Things are dark, no question. But it seems that the light shines the brightest in the darkest places. God will take care of you. Be faithful even to death. Remember? The battle takes place in your heart.

This day, what you are allowing into your heart? You have the key. Only open it for that which will bring you closer to the Lord. Rise above everyone else and do what you know is right.

Yes, there is a battle going on. It started the moment you woke up today!

Roger

Jump Start # 1463

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

  Our verse today shows us that Christians aren’t sitting passively on the sidelines of life allowing anything to happen to them. There is an aggression about them. There is a militaristic assault taking place. The Christians were on the move. They were not barely holding on, hoping not to lose ground. Instead, they were taking position away from the enemy.

In this section of Corinthians Paul tells the brethren:

• To be courageous against some (2)
• We war, but not according to the flesh (3)
• We are destroying speculations (5)
• We are ready to punish all disobedience (6)

Paul was not rallying the troops to march upon those who disagreed with them. He was not inciting riots, encouraging civil disobedience, nor was he wanting violence. This would be contrary to the Lord’s instructions to love and pray for your enemies. Paul’s call to arms was against theories, doctrines, ideas, teachings that were false. How they would destroy these things was through the teachings of Christ. Truth destroys error. Christ always triumphs. Christ wins. Put any false theory against Christ and it will be destroyed.

There are a couple of thoughts for us here:

First, we must be careful what we feed our soul. It doesn’t take much poison to ruin our hearts. We can recognize foul language in a movie, but too many cannot recognize foul teaching that comes from a religious book or a blog. That can be even more dangerous. Changing ideas. A new way of looking at things. A different perspective. Seeing things outside of the box. The problem with all those catchy expressions is that a person must understand what’s inside the box before he can start thinking about what is outside the box. Many don’t know. They gravitate to the new and the different. They like to be on the cutting edge of different thinking. They will toss out generations of thoughts that careful Bible students have come up with. Especially today, just about anyone can write what they want on a blog, myself included. Truth will be manifested in consistent and thorough teaching of God’s word. I’ve known some recently who want to consume just about everything an author writes. He is being praised as one of the greatest thinkers in modern times. His books sell. He is radical on so many fundamental thoughts. Bring those things captive to the obedience of Christ. Compare what is said with what the Bible says. Don’t change the Bible. Don’t buy this “re-looking at the Bible.”

So, this is a concern. This is a concern of parents whose grown children are influenced by others. This is a concern of shepherds as they notice their flock being influenced. Not too far from where I live, is a small cemetery. There is a special grave in that cemetery. Her name was Nancy. She died along time ago. In the village she lived a sickness spread. It wasn’t something like smallpox. Instead, many drank tainted milk from cows. The cows ate a poisonous plant, called milk weed or snake weed. That poison got into the milk. Nancy was a young mother who got sick. She died. She would have been forgotten through history except for her son. His name was Abraham. He grew up to become the President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln’s mother died from the milk weed poison. Paul’s words were about a spiritual poison. Some of it is passed around innocently. Friends talk. Things are taught and explored. Today, folks share blogs and websites. Books are read. Without an anchor of Biblical teaching, these lofty ideas take hold. They are not challenged. Instead they are accepted and believed. They are not brought captive, as our passage states. Instead, the heart of the believer is held captive by these strange and new ideas. These speculations are not being destroyed. They are being accepted and taught. This is how error spreads through a congregation. Just as the milk weed disease spread through a village long ago, error finds it’s way into the hearts of a congregation. Folks get confused. Fingers are pointed. Tempers flare. People leave. Radical ideas explode among those who left. In time, what little faith they had  trickles out. They are gone. They have allowed speculations and lofty ideas to win.

We must be careful what we feed our souls. Just because something is written in a religious book doesn’t make it so. Wolves in sheep clothing can be disguised as truth in a bookstore, when it’s really nothing more than lofty ideas that are against the teachings of Christ.

Secondly, we must be active in fighting against these things. It’s not the hatred of the enemy before us but the love of the brethren behind us that compels us to dig in and destroy these lofty speculations against Christ. The battleground takes place first within our hearts. We must decide what is true and right. We must stand upon the word of God. We must understand principles. We must take our study of God’s word seriously. Satan can fool us by thinking we are religious and we are believers in Christ even though what we are doing and believing cannot be supported by Scriptures. We are not dancing to the moon. We are not sacrificing babies. We can be so close to right, that we think we are right. We can be close, but still not there. Satan can get us. So, we must teach God’s word. We must measure everything but the standard, God’s word. We must know God’s word. Our time must be spent in that word. Know it so well that we can recognize when something isn’t right. Those that work in banks are trained to recognize forgeries. They have special ways to tell if money is the real thing or a fake. We must do the same with God’s word. Those in charge of leading God’s people must teach the basics. We must go over the fundamentals. We must help folks to know what is right.

Speculations and lofty ideas that are against Christ—this was a greater threat to those early Christians than the Romans. This remains a great threat today.

Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word.

Roger

Jump Start # 1389

2 Corinthians 10:5 “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ”

  The setting of our passage is combative. The verses leading up to this well illustrate this. The apostle states, “we do not war according to the flesh,” (3); “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh” (4). This language is sprinkled throughout the N.T. Timothy was told to “fight the good fight of faith.”

Some thoughts from our passage today:

First, Christians travel through enemy territory. The culture, the world, society is not friendly toward God’s people. There is a strong leaning toward the wrong side of things. This was true in the first century and it remains true today. I hate snakes. I hate all snakes. I don’t go to the reptile parts of the zoo because they have snakes. Some of our readers will tell me that certain snakes are good. Not in my book. The word “good” and snakes only belong in the same sentence if the snake is GOOD and dead. The other day I discovered a snake skin by my air conditioner. That means one has been there. Every time I go by there, I’m looking. He may be there somewhere. I hate snakes. As a Christian, we must realize that we are journeying through hostile land. It’s dangerous to our faith. Satan has many, many missiles in his arsenal. He’ll use fleshly temptation. He’ll disguise error as pretty looking truth. He’ll use friends and family to pull us from Christ. He’ll try to scare us, chase us and corner us until we give up. The voices of wrong are loud and everywhere today. We must be watching. We must be careful.

Second, Christians are on the offense. That’s the tone of our passage. We are destroying…we are taking every thought captive. We are on the move. We are not hiding in bed with a blanket over our heads. We are not looking for a white flag to wave. We are taking charge of the situation. We wear our spiritual armor. We are marching under the banner of Christ. We know the outcome, Christ wins. The Lord said do not fear the one who can kill the body and do no more. Satan is limited in what he can do.

Third, Christians are winning. The tone of the passage illustrates that. We are destroying, we are taking captive. Ground is being won by Christians. We are not being destroyed, rather, we are destroying what the enemy holds. Now, we might question that in these times. Rainbow flags are flying as a mockery to what God says about marriage. Courts are allowing same sex marriages and ordering courthouses to remove Ten Commandment monuments. God is out and sin is in. Modern churches are afraid and are caving in to the loud demands of a few hell-bent and hell-bound radicals. The media has caved in. Corporate America is caving in. The modern church has caved in. Politicians have caved in. Yet, across this land, there are, as in Elijah’s days, thousands that have not bowed their knees to Baal. There remains thousands who take their orders not from the White House, but from Heaven’s house. They continue to preach, teach and walk with the Lord. Folks living on Main Street are shocked, sickened and tired of liberal agendas. They do not work. It has proven to be a failed and flawed system. Folks are tired of churches being everything but a church. Shallow preaching, empty worship services, lifeless classes are not helping nor answering the problems that families are facing today. Christ remains the answer. He always has. And one by one, folks are turning to Christ. Across this land, nearly every day, someone is being converted to Christ. Sins are washed away, hope is restored, and another person says “No,” to the world and takes up their cross to follow the Lord.

Fourth, the battle is engaged on the spiritual arena. There is no physical pushing, fighting or tearing down of things. This is a spiritual battle. As Revelation shows the battle between Christ and Satan, so is our battle. The greatest tool is the word of God. The greatest defense is knowledge of that word. When some want to get physically aggressive, walk away. That’s not our battle. We do not come with swords, but rather, with the word of the Lord. Shouting matches do little good. Pointing fingers and accusing doesn’t change things. What works is getting into discussions. Prove your point. Who gives you the right to define marriage? Start there. Who makes the rules? How do you know there is no God? It’s the spiritual engagement that wins the battle. Prove your point. Prove all things.

Fifth, these battles involve Christians defending Christ. These charges and attacks were raised up against Christ. It is not against us personally, but against Christ that we defend. We are in this for the Lord. He is our God and our Savior.

There is a hymn that begins, “Troublesome times are here.” Yes, they are. They have been here since Christ left. The Lord told us that men would love darkness rather than the light. He said that men would be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. He said that we would be hated because of Him. Indeed, it’s troublesome. However, we know the outcome and we know what is expected of us.

Onward we march. When we hear things that are wrong and offensive to the Lord, we bring them captive to the obedience of Christ. We don’t go along. We don’t try to build bridges that take us the wrong way. We continue on with the Lord.

This is why Bible classes and worship can be such an oasis and relief for the child of God. They are a rest park for our souls as we continue on our journey. It is at worship that we see others. We are not alone. It is at worship that we get refreshed, reminded and taught. It is at worship that our hearts learn of our loving Lord and the battle that others have made through the act of faith. Fellowship is not about hotdogs, basketball and gyms, but rather, encouragement, hope building and souls being strengthened. Fellowship is about prayers and hymns sung and the word being preached. It is about connecting with one another on a level that the world will never understand. It’s sharing tears and hope and realizing the good that is being done. It is about compassion and kindness.

Those that come to worship just now and then have a hard time understanding all of this. They have one foot in the world and they don’t see all the fuss with things that are wrong. They are missing. They are weak. They will not last long in a spiritual battle. They are more likely to drop the word and run. Be strong were the apostle’s words. Act like men. Be immoveable. Be like Christ.

Our homes and our worship times ought to be safe houses for us. It is in these places that we can find rest for our souls and strength to go on. We need spiritual homes. We need spiritual hours of worship. In every battle, some soldiers fall. In this battle, it’s those who do not recognize the enemy nor understand what is at  stake.

We are at war, but someday, this will be over. Live as if one foot is already in Heaven.

Roger