I Refuse
to Be Shut Up By the Devil
Well,
praise Jesus today everyone. There are a lot of ways that the devil can shut us
up as Christians and keep us from spreading the truth of God even if we do know
the truth of God. There's a lot of really horrible feelings in this world that
we can experience. But one of those feelings that we can experience that's
negative as Christians is knowing the truth but either being a coward to
express what the truth is or being shut down, persecuted, pushed down to the
ground so that we cannot be a light for Jesus. Because at the end of the day,
as disciples we want to be salt and light. We want to be people who are always
shining for the Lord, not people who are timid or a dull light or people that
are hiding our light under a basket like how Jesus said. But we want to be
people who are bold to proclaim the glory of God.
One of
the worst feelings when I first started following Jesus was that feeling that I
was a hypocrite when I was a paid pastor and coming to know the truth and just
knowing that there was this dissonance between what I was doing in church, what
people thought of me, and the person that I knew Jesus really wanted me to be. See
when you are a pastor, especially when you're paid or you're in a congregation
with people that look up to you, the reason why you're in that position is
because the people put you in that position. Rarely it's because God put you in
that position as a pastor. Pastors like to say that they're in that position
because of God, but really they're in that position because the church has
taken a vote and unanimously put them in the position of their pastor. So they
have voted them into that office as the pastor of that church. If you as the
pastor or leader of that congregation, if you decide that you're going to
deviate a little bit from the pale of whatever part of orthodoxy you're
involved with, whether that's Catholic or Baptist or some kind of Protestant,
Evangelical, if you deviate away from those principles of the pale of orthodoxy,
then you'll be excommunicated and they will not be giving you a paycheck. Or if
you're an unpaid pastor, you're not going to have the dignity to stand behind their
pulpit and to preach the truth about Jesus. So I'm telling you, it's a horrible
feeling to know the truth of God, to know the things that the Holy Spirit is
saying, but to be caught in some kind of snare of the devil to where it's
money, it's feeling that your peers are going to persecute you or being fired
from a job, maybe you have a lot of debt and you have no way out of your
situation you feel like, and you have to basically pretend to be someone you're
not. I know there's some wind here guys, so there might be a bit of
interruption in this video. But there may be some major dissonance between how
you approach people face to face and what you actually believe. You kind of
have this mask. You pretend to be someone that you're not, and you're around
people that are your peers or your fellow workers, your fellow brothers and
sisters in church.
So one
way that Satan keeps Christians, true Christians, from really coming out and
being separate and living a sin-free life is peer pressure and being involved
in organizations that keep you within their of
Christendom. So within the , I mean,
there are things that are allowed and not allowed. As far as Baptists, I kind
of had a Baptist background, and so you believe as the Bible is the one
authority, you put that even above hearing from Jesus. Even though Jesus talks
about the gift of the Holy Spirit and about Himself being the final authority,
Baptists put the Bible as the final authority, the Word of God. They elevate
the Bible higher than God Himself, and that is idolatry, and it's insane that they
do that. But that is one of their fundamental principles in their church. The
Bible is their final authority, not Jesus Christ, not His truth, not His living
Word in your heart, not praying and seeking the Holy Spirit. That's all
feelings and emotions, they think. But the Bible is their final authority, and
their interpretation more specifically. So they go on to tell you how it's
about once saved, always saved. And it's crazy guys, because while they act
like Jesus and His teachings are the truth, they will elevate other people in
their church and their doctrines, like John Calvin. They'll elevate these guys'
false doctrines way above the truth of Jesus. And if you start going against
any of those Lutheran ideas, or those ideas of John Calvin, or more modern
people like John MacArthur, then you are a heretic, because you don't know the
Bible as well as we do, you haven't been to Bible college, have you really
studied Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic the way we have. They will start just
belittling you, and they will throw you out to the world and say, “we're not
going to even treat you as a Christian, because you're not inside what we
consider to be the pale of orthodoxy or true Christian faith.” This is huge
guys, this keeps Christians from stepping out in faith. It keeps Christians
from really following the Lord by the Holy Spirit. For years, people will be
detained and chained and held back to these false doctrines.
Doctrines
like “once saved, always saved, we can't give up sin, we have to tithe to a
local church”, all of these doctrines, these false doctrines that surround the
false church system. And if you are part of one of these church systems, the
closer you are to that, the harder it is to see the truth, and the harder it is
to escape. They have major power over you and your family. Once you step away
from that, you realize how real God is, and how He really directs your life,
and He is in charge of life and death, not the pastor or some other person in
that church. You realize how fake it is. But when you are involved in church,
and it seems like the very essence of your salvation in your life and
everything you're doing, your kids are involved in it, then it becomes this way
for people to manipulate and control you, and it keeps people in check with the
system of the world.
So guys, the church of this world, the
apostate church, or the harlot church, the Babylon church, whatever you want to
call it, this is a huge agent of Satan to surrender your mouth that you can't
really preach the truth or live the truth. I never want to be held under the
thumb of Satan. I want to be able to live for Jesus with all of my heart, and
to freely open my mouth. Which brings me to my second point about this, guys.
Some
time ago, I began to do work in the public school system. So, I was teaching
junior high, and some of you listening may have children in public school, or
maybe you yourself are a public school teacher. So I don't say this to
discourage anyone, but the fact is, if you have put yourself in the public
school system, you are playing by the rules of the public school, and at some
point, you will have to decide as a Christian if you are going to be fully
surrendered to Jesus Christ in your faith, or fully surrender and submission to
the government and the school system. It may look to you like you can serve
both, that you can do good being a school teacher, and you can be a good
Christian, but at some point, there's going to be this dissonance inside of you
that resonates enough and shakes around inside of your brain until it hits your
heart and you just realize like a ton of bricks, I can't do this. I can't play
the hypocrite, pretending to uphold all these false ideas that my state and my
country has, and the school district that are trying to make me lie and go
against my faith. At some point, you're going to realize you can't serve both
God and mammon, or false provision coming from that sort of education system.
This
happened to me when I was in the school. The Lord allowed me for about three
years on and off to be teaching substitute teaching, and I had a job for a
while that was full time. And for a while, it was a blessing. I could speak to
students there, I could open my mouth to an extent, but it was like walking on
eggshells, trying not to crack eggs every time I'd walk from the parking lot to
the classroom. Someone is going to get offended if we are surrendering
ourselves to these sorts of jobs to try to make our money. At some point, it's
going to hit the fan, and you're going to have to choose either between
following Jesus with all your heart, or bowing your knee to Satan with all of
your heart. But you're not going to be able to choose both. You may think you
can right now, but it's getting to that point. And so a huge way that Satan is
going to make you as a Christian shut up and not able to speak, not able to
live your faith, or have major dissonance within your soul, is by stripping
that away by telling you you're not going to have a job, you're not going to
have security of money, or retirement, or health care, because the moment you
step out of the school system, or whatever your government job is, you're going
to have no provision. You're going to basically be shut up. You're not going to
be able to speak about your faith in Jesus. And the devil is going to have you.
You're going to be at the feet, bowing and kissing Satan's feet, because you're
going to want a paycheck, you're going to want security for your future when
you're old, unless you want to be still teaching, you know. When you're really
old, you're going to want to be thinking about retirement and how to take care
of your family. So the devil's got you right where he wants you. And you're
going to be sucking up to the devil and kissing his feet, until you realize you
need to really repent and seek after the Lord for your security.
Jesus
said that we cannot serve both God and mammon. Mammon is a demon. It's a demon
of false provision. You can call it money, but it's not only money, it's
provision. And this is how Satan shuts up Christians. I decided, guys, I value
my walk with Jesus more than anything. I don't want the devil to shut me up. I
value being able to preach the gospel to my fellow brothers and sisters. I hope
that more of you hear the gospel and that Jesus becomes real to you, not
because of something that I said, but because you have a real experience with
God and that you realize He's true and that He's the most important thing in
life and that you willfully give your heart to Him. I hope that with all of my
heart, because Jesus is in me and His love is in me. And because His love is in
me, I want other people to experience the same love and overcome this life. Overcome
everything that's evil in this world and not be shut up by the devil. So these
things are huge, guys. These things are keeping people from being true
Christians. The false church system is keeping people from genuine faith, and
the school system is keeping people from genuine faith, and the workplace, a
lot of times, is keeping people from genuine faith.
If
you're not sure where to go, you need to pray and talk to Jesus, because He
says He is the way. So if you're not sure of the way, talk to the way. He is
the way. And just say, “Lord, please give me a job, give me some kind of
provision. Let me put my hand to something where I don't have to bend my knee
to Satan. I don't want to have to please people. I don't want to have to do
things that are crooked or play the hypocrite to have my bread on my table. I
want to eat my meat and bread with sincerity of heart and gladness in my heart,
knowing that I'm taken care of by God. And so we need to get sincere about if
we're going to follow God and have this privilege of being able to speak about
Him, and this faith that we're able to walk with Him without hypocrisy, or if
we're going to be scared, timid, and cowardly, like most people are in the
world, and never resign from ungodly mammon.
Now I'm
not saying or trying to give you direction for what you need to do if you're in
a compromising job, but I am saying you need to call on Jesus and ask Him,
because at some point, 100%, you're going to have to choose in this Y in the
road to go left or right. You're going to have to choose to go with Jesus or
have to choose to go with the devil. You'll either bow your knee to Satan or to
Jesus Christ. As for me, I don't want to give up my freedom of speech, I don't
want to give up my relationship with Jesus that's most important, and whether I
live or die, I want it to be for the Kingdom of God, I want it to be for my
King. That way He can say to me at the end of my day, “good and well done, my
faithful servant”.
None of
us know how much time we have left. We may have an hour, a day, a year, ten
years, we don't know, God knows. But we do know that the present time is a gift
to us, not to squander, but to be fruitful, to bear fruit, and to receive the
Holy Spirit and use His gifts, so that we ourselves can be edified, that we can
serve and glorify God and worship Him and please God, but that also the fruit
that we bear can build the Church, the true Church, that people can come into
the faith, be baptized, baptized physically in water, and then baptized
spiritually in the Holy Spirit, and come into this newness of life, and come
into the Kingdom of God, that they may live forever. This is what is important.
It's important that we are dedicated to God and able to speak for Him and live
for Him. If you can't, then you're like a chameleon, you're playing the
hypocrite, you're double minded, as it says in James, and you're unstable in
all of your ways.
So have
you been shut up by one of these things, by the devil, either by false
religion, you know, your church, your Bible study, your Christian friends? Have
you been shut up by the school system that's always saying, accept everyone,
accept LGBTQT, accept homosexuality, accept all of these things, accept Buddha,
all of it may be true. Have they shut you up? Is it your workplace that has
shut you up? What has shut you up and what has stunted your faith? Choose Jesus
Christ and you will choose life. But choose the way of men in this world and
you choose death. Anyways, I hope this encourages someone to go the way of life
with Jesus Christ.
