Christian Living

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The Blessing Bullies Need
Excerpt from my current project:
Bullying: A Spiritual Battle

The best way I can reconcile the gentle Jesus with His future role as soon-coming Trampler of the Grapes of Wrath is this: the old carrot and stick approach. It seems God has put His stick on the shelf for awhile. During the 2000 years of the Church Age, mercy has rejoiced over judgment (James 2:13). God has tried to woo the souls of men to Himself by offering them the carrot (love and mercy). Throughout this long dispensation of Grace He has sent His rain of blessing on both the righteous and unrighteous (see Matt. 5:45). God has told His children to pray for their enemies and to love them (Matt. 5:44.). That really takes the power of the Holy Spirit, doesn’t it? But what do you mean by “love”? There are times love must be tough. Love must take a stand against wickedness and stand for righteousness. If you see a teenage thug ripping the clothes off a frightened girl, you must do all in your power to protect her. And as for praying for a bully, what blessing should you pray on him? You should pray that God will save the bully, so he will know the blessing of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus. But you don’t have to pray the same type of blessing on him that you would on a Christian. You would pray that God gives your Christian friend an open door for service. But you don’t have to pray for the bully to have an open door to get behind the driver's seat and steal someone's car. You don’t have to pray that the bully will have a fun time serving satan. You would ask God to bless your Christian friend’s business. but you don’t have to pray that God will bless the bully’s bullying business as he looks for more victims to terrorize.

Sometimes God disciplines His own children for their own good, when they go astray or rebel. David was humble enough to write: It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes (Psalms 119:71). And if discipline is good for people who serve the Lord, why on earth isn’t it good enough for a wicked bully? Why should cruel sinners get preferential treatment if God expects responsible behavior from his own children? God just might need to use a little tough love on the bully to wake him up in case he gets hit by a bus and goes to hell. In one way or another the bully must learn not only about the sweetness of the love of Jesus, but about the awful judgment of God which shall fall upon all those who disregard that tender love and reject Christ. Jesus didn’t go around soothing evil men to sleep with warm and fuzzy lullabyes. He said, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish (Luke 13:3). God wants to save a vicious bully’s soul, not shower him with Hershey’s Kisses while he’s robbing a church poor box.

So far as this wicked planet is concerned, God has put His stick away for a time, but He has not thrown it out for good. A wise mother will focus on tender love but she is also realistic. She wishes with all her heart her love could always be happy and smiley. But sometimes her toddler will pitch such a fit she'll stop whatever else she's doing and get to the bottom of the problem before the conflict escalates. That’s tough love. The most rebellious lost souls won’t respond to sweetness and gentleness only. God is about the go get His hickory stick out of the cupboard to give the nations a hard thrashing for turning Planet Earth into one big Sodom. When Christ reigns over all the earth He will no longer bless disobedient nations with rain (Zechariah 14: 17-19).

In their zeal to shout from the rooftops: “JESUS LOVES YOU!”, politically correct preachers often overlook one very sobering truth. One which limited human understanding finds difficult to reconcile with a God of Love Who is supposed to be even-handed in the way He dispenses mercy: Some people are predestined to be vessels (containers) of honor while others are vessels of destruction. It seems unspeakably unfair, but that's what the Bible says. The bully, like the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites, is a vessel of destruction, who treasures up (stores up) wrath which will fall full force upon his head on the Day of God’s wrath and judgment (Romans 1:18; 2:-9). Payday may be a very long time in coming to the bully, but every insult and every evil deed only guarantees him a fatter check from the heavenly Paymaster. On that dreadful day the sinner will find it no laughing matter to be a vessel of wrath destined for destruction. God’s only purpose for this container will be to fill it to overflowing with His terrible, fierce wrath, which shall burn like an oven until His enemies are totally consumed (Malachi 4:1). God will gather in the wheat and burn the chaff, which is useful only as kindling for the fire (Luke 3:17). Far better for a bully to dare to be different and repent, so he can become instead a vessel of honor fit for honorable use in the hand of the Master, someone Christ can fill to overflowing with His Spirit and all the treasures of His goodness and grace. Eternal treasures are lightly regarded by the cool crowd, but are the only ones which will last for eternity (Matt. 6:19-21).

In Romans Chapter 9 Paul sets forth Pharaoh as an example of a man God chose before the foundation of the world to be a vessel of wrath destined for destruction (verse 22). God’s purpose for the existence of the vessel of wrath is that through executing righteous judgment upon the basest of sinners God might demonstrate the greatness of His mercy toward the vessels of honor. Once I made a patchwork quilt of many brightly colored squares. I sewed a black border around it, and because of the darkness of the border the colors looked that much more beautiful. It's hard to understand now, but in witnessing God’s severity toward impenitent sinners our own salvation from eternal damnation will appear that much sweeter to us and God will receive an abundance of grateful praises from us, His redeemed saints.

In Romans 9:15, Paul reiterates God’s message to Moses in Exodus 33:19: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Mercy, compassion, and grace are God’s personal property and it’s His prerogative to decide how to dispense them, and to whom. I believe the same principle applies for the atoning Blood of Christ. Somebody still owns this priceless Commodity. That One is God the Father, Who received it when His Holy Son sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat in heaven as an atonement for our sins (Hebrews 9:12). Be careful of your attitude toward the precious Blood of Jesus. It is your red lifeline to eternal life, the only hope you’ll ever have of being allowed access to the Presence of a Holy God. Peter gives a solemn admonition to believers in II Peter 1:10: Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. The clear inference is it is possible to fall even after becoming a believer. How much more perilous is the position of the hardened bully who has only contempt for the things of righteousness!

Predestination to eternal salvation is a deep mystery of God which only He fully fathoms. If it weren't in the Word of God, I would question predestination as being a valid doctrine, since at first glance it seems glaringly unfair. But God does have foreknowledge of who will receive Christ and who won't. On the one hand you have salvation offered freely to all mankind. And whoever receives Christ and faithfully follows Him into heaven is obviously one of God’s vessels of honor. But sinners who keep saying “no” to the gentle drawing of the Spirit of God will one day discover that He has ceased to deal with them about their need for redemption and has turned His back on them forever (Genesis 3:16). The hardest thing for me to comprehend is that God has a purpose even for the vessels of dishonor who reject His Son. It is a dreadful role to fill, with an awful reward vastly different from what the true believer in Christ will receive for his honorable life of service. What you sow you shall reap. A bully is only out to gratify his own powerlust and he sows lots of hurt. Apart from Christ, his greatest hope is that he has a crop failure at reaping time. Yet if a violent person is always shielded from the consequences of his actions, does he ever truly learn the fear of the Lord?

Ezekiel 33:7-9 declares that the wicked are doomed unless the faithful watchman warns the wicked to turn from his wicked way. God tells his servant to "warn them from Me." God did not say: "Tell the wicked Jesus loves him so much that He'll look the other way if he feels like mugging that old man for his wallet." No, the bully, like all other criminals, is in deep trouble unless he is brought to a repentant faith in Christ which leads to forsaking his wicked way. It might be politically incorrect to warn him of the judgment of hell, but you do him no favor by selling him soft soap religion which doesn't require repentance.

Some teach that since we are saved by grace and not through our own good works, there is nothing at all we can do to help ourselves, even to ask God to save us. There is a false teaching going around that one need not even pray for salvation, and all that is needed is silent assent in the heart to what Christ has done on our behalf. But in Acts 8:22, Peter rebukes Simon Magus and advises him to PRAY for God’s forgiveness. With our mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. 10:10), and the only excuse for omitting this step of salvation would be if a person were mute. The doctrine of passive assent even relieves the sinner of the responsibility to do his own repenting. The Son of God goes out to seek and to save that which was lost, but it was the Prodigal Son who went home to his father. In turning back, he repented. The word “repent” is an ACTION verb, not a mere sentiment. "Repent" comes from the Latin re+pentare, which means to “turn again”. Repentance is an act of the will. WHOSOEVER WILL may come to the Fountain of Living Waters, Christ Jesus, and be born anew (Rev. 22:17). In this darkened era, the very notion of sin is questioned. But bullies will be forever lost and sealed in sin unless they learn that there is a sin they need to be forgiven of, and a hell they need to avoid. It behooves each person to act responsibly toward God on his own behalf, and by God's grace, to make his or her own calling and election sure.

[email protected] http://www.kingdomageministry.com

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