… and having done all, stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt with truth … Ephesians 6:13,14
Q. What’s it mean ‘to stand’?
Most people stand against a hurtful spirit in defiance. Defiance is the opposite to standing. Defiance = you’re never going to put me down again / you’re not going to tell me / I’ll prove to you I’m good / I’ll prove to you I’m right and you’re wrong. Defiance is standing up for your rights or trying to prove to God you are of value, whereas, standing is standing up for God’s rights. Standing = not moving from God’s righteous position because you love and trust Him.
When you feel empathy for a child because they are telling you their parent is not doing the right thing by them, be careful you don’t stand on the side of a defiant spirit in the child who is actually disrespecting the authority of the parent, even if the parent is wrong.
You can’t stand … if you elevate yourself; it’s the wrong platform. If you want to stand with the 2nd Adam it has to be from a position of de-elevation.
You can’t stand … if you’re seeking what’s best for you
You can’t stand … if you’re seeking the easy road
You can’t stand … if you take the side of a deceptive spirit
In 2Chronicles 18, Jehoshaphat joined affinity with his Jewish counterpart Ahab by allowing his son to marry into Ahab’s family (21:5,6). What’s wrong with that? If you evaluate everything from a physical viewpoint you’ll miss it. Jehoshaphat had a God-spirit, Ahab had a satanic spirit. Jehoshaphat turned a blind eye to Ahab’s spirit that was being manipulated into evil by his wife, Jezebel. By linking with Ahab, Jehoshaphat made a serious error of judgement which contaminated his spirit and almost killed him.
Once Jehoshaphat connected himself to Ahab, his decision making went further array. He must have known that the prophets of Ahab were counterfeit, or else he wouldn’t have requested to hear Micaiah’s perspective. God, Himself sent lying spirits to deceive Ahab. Even when Jehoshaphat learnt the truth from Micaiah and watched him being mis-treated he still committed himself to dress as Ahab and be the target of the enemy. That’s losing your mind because you’re afraid to offend. The reality is, most modern Christians operate in the same fear, afraid to offend and thus think they’re doing the right thing by being nice to evil.
God told Jehoshaphat off … ‘ should you help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?’ 2Chron.19:2. Jehoshaphat paid a heavy price for allowing himself to be contaminated … all his children and the princes were killed by his son, Jehoram (21:4).
Ezra 9:12 … don’t mix blood with evil, don’t seek peace with evil, otherwise you’ll lose your strength
Serious Christians must protect the blood line of Christ at all costs. Fellowship means mixing blood. If you are serious about wanting the blood of Christ to flow in your spiritual veins, then you shouldn’t be ignorant about being separate from people who have Satan’s blood flowing in their spiritual veins.
When you ignore spiritual forces operating through a human being, and out of fear of offending or fear of loss, you make a choice to be nice to that spirit, you inadvertently and ignorantly link your thinking to that spirit, and your spiritual thinking goes haywire without you even knowing it.
You’ve become double-minded … one foot in God and one foot in evil, and thus unstable in all your ways. If a Micaiah tells you the truth, you can’t digest it, and you unwittingly put your life in a position of death.
1 Corinthians 5: 6,9,11 … a little yeast leavens the whole lump; do not company or eat with so-called Christian fornicators or covetous
When a Christian defies the principles of God’s Word, the bible calls for drastic measures to address the issue, to challenge the sin and to protect the church from contamination. Most Christian families turn a blind eye to the principle of separation in 1Corinthians 5. Thus, Christianity is watered down, and the blood of Christ is contaminated with the blood of Satan. Thus the church has become sick and powerless in the face of an ever increasing ant-Christ campaign to decommission the church’s purpose of resisting evil.
1 Corinthians 6:14,17 … what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness; touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you
When you blindly stand on the side of your child or friend who’s practicing fornication, you’re actually standing on the side of fornication and joining forces with that spirit. You mightn’t think you are, but you are. When the church turns a blind eye to divorce and re-marriage by using niceness and love as a lie to keep the offender happy, it’s declaring it’s not serious about the principles of God, but rather, fearfully it’s into mixing the blood of Christ with the blood of the world.
1 Timothy 2:11,12 … I suffer a woman not to teach nor to usurp authority
When a woman rises up in defiance to a man, or elevates herself above a man, or starts telling the man how to run the show, she is declaring disrespect to the principles of God’s Word. She is unwittingly surrendering to the power of feminism (which is simply the spirit of Satan). This is the beginning of the end of correct spiritual headship and the consequent destruction of the family unit, and the men are sitting back and letting it happen. A woman is called of God to be a help-mate, not an authority over the man. That’s the opposite to most Christian homes today who practice the satanic principle of two heads.
When parents believe their daughter is leased to their son-in-law, they declare a defiance against God’s principle to’ leave and cleave’. In this instance, the daughter will eventually have to decide whether the manipulated lie of having to honour your parents is valid in preference to joining forces with her husband. The woman is caught in a tug-o-war between parents and husband, and either she has to decide where she stands, or else the husband will have to compromise his stand and give ground to his in-laws to release the tension. Under the influence of Satan, the in-laws have demanded their continued rights over their daughter and thus opposed God’s principles. That’s not faith in God to look after their daughter, that’s manipulation and intimidation.
To be a unit for Christ, the wife must stand with her husband. Few modern women stand there. They stand in the middle trying to keep both parents and husband happy, and because they’ve chosen middle ground, they actually stand over their husband, a position of anti-God. You can’t stand in the middle and assume you’re safe. You either stand on the side of Christ and verify it by standing on His principles, or you’re inadvertently standing on the side of Satan.
Standing on the side of the majority is not working. Standing in middle ground is not working. Take a look at society. Most states in Australia now legally condone homosexual marriage on the basis of equality. The world argues equality and ignores sin. Islam, mosques, and Buddhas have infiltrated every area of our Christian based society. The church is meant to be the salt of conviction but it’s staying neutral, because it’s mixed its blood with the world and therefore softened its resolve towards God’s principles.
The lie of niceness
Most people measure you on whether you are nice to them; they don’t measure you by your spirit. The average person measures you by their emotions; how you make them feel; if you are nice to them they like you and turn a blind eye to your inappropriate deeds, and if you are not nice to them they don’t like you. That’s not how Jesus operated and it’s not how God operates. The definition of niceness to most people is whether you do what I want and whether you make me feel good or not. The Pharisees measured Jesus on whether He said nice things about them, they ignored His deeds. When standing against sin is not nicely received but rather taken as an offense, then it confirms where the sinner is standing … rebellion, and it puts the messenger on the opposite side to the offender.
Q. When it comes to the crunch, why don’t people stand?
A. No spiritual backbone. Everyone is afraid to offend the majority. They like the security of popular opinion. One example is, the world celebrates ChristMASS and Easter (the goddess of fertility), and Sunday Sabbath without even thinking about their heathen origin and conflict with the biblical feasts of Tabernacles and Passover, and the 7th day Sabbath instituted by God. You won’t see the truth of God’s biblical feasts without changing where you stand. If you stand on the opposite side to the truth, your truth will be the truth you stand on and you’ll believe it’s God’s truth, but it isn’t, it’s yours, and you can measure it by your moody reaction, and your elevated attitude against the person presenting the opposing opinion.
The truth is, the church keeps modifying its principles according to the mood of society, and thus reveals its heart is into niceness, not protection of God’s ways. Two obvious examples are divorce and homosexuality.
Ephesians 5:11 … have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them
If you don’t stand on the side of God’s principles, despite the overwhelming opposition, you have inadvertently chosen to stand on the side of evil.
Proverbs 28:4 … They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them
You don’t have to take up a sword and attack evil. Simply seriously standing on the rock of God’s principles automatically keeps evil in its place, but complacency opens Pandora’s box. The church is disunited and Laodicean (comfortable and rich, complacent and without principle, but pretending it has) and few if any are standing, so USA, England, Canada, and Australia are clearly in moral and financial decline.
May God awaken His remnant for the sake of His Name!
Pastor Wayne Riley
