Let's Make our Calling and Election Sure

There are few places where we can find people who find pleasure and joy in serving the Lord. Living in this kind of world, it's difficult to properly evaluate the privilege of serving Him. One reason is that sin is all around us; it's the popular thing. At times, the devil will make some feel as though they're "out of place" living for God. However, when we get over on the shores of eternity, things will look quite different.

Many today who are refusing to give God a chance in their lives will be among those who will be sorry they didn't serve God in this lifetime. I'm convinced, beyond any and every shadow of doubt, that it really pays to serve the Lord. Thank God, the gift of God is eternal life.

We, as humans, need to continually bear in mind that we're only pilgrims traveling through this land, as was said of Abraham and others. Hebrew 13:14 reads, "For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come." Thank God, we can seek the one that is to come.

Jesus said in John 14:3, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." He is coming again. It may not look as though He is, to many, but He is. Many times, I've wondered and tried to imagine what those I knew on this earth are doing in Heaven. Joy comes to my heart when I realize there's going to be a homecoming, and it may not be very far off.

Thank God for the hope of Heaven. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:19, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." There's a hope beyond the grave. "Dust to dust" and "ashes to ashes" doesn't end it all. There is life after death. In Hebrews 9:27 Paul said, "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."

Too many times, we get so involved with the things around us that we fail to realize that one day all of these things will pass away. One day, you and I will have to stand before God. Paul said we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that we may receive for that which we have done, whether it be good or whether it be evil. May the Lord help us to seriously look into this matter. Let's keep it before our mind and endeavor, by giving all diligence, to make our calling and election sure.

Not only is our Scripture text a very instructive portion of God's Word, but it's also very illuminating. It demands our most careful consideration. Verse 4 reads, "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

The God of This World

Paul made it plain to those Corinthian brethren that there's a blinding effect to sin. he spoke to them in the first letter and said when it came to the knowledge of God, they were behind in nothing. They were in all things enriched by Him. However, they allowed wrong doing to come into their midst and it changed them. It worked upon them in such a manner that they began to see wrong things as right and right things as wrong.

If we read the first letter, we will notice that as Paul began to introduce himself to them, he outlined the way God had graciously blessed them and dealt with them. Then he went on to reveal to them some of the things that they had allowed to come into their midst. We find in the fifth chapter there was a man who was having an affair with his father's wife and yet went on professing in spite of it.

I'm afraid that this is what is happening to many today. They are looking upon wrong things as being right and they are seeing right things as being wrong. Consider the way people are reacting to things as revealed in the Word of God. When it comes to salvation, the Bible makes it plain that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. By the way people are living, they are looking upon following Christ and gaining eternal life as being wrong, but they are going on in sin and seeing it as being right, even though the Bible says the wages of sin is death.

Today this is happening exactly as Paul told the church at Corinth it would happen. People love the god of this world, and he is blinding their minds. If we are refusing to turn our life over to God, our mind has been blinded, and that is the only reason we are fighting, opposing, and rebelling against the one true Gospel way. As long as Satan is allowed to blind our minds, there's but little hope of our recovering.

According to this 2 Corinthians 4: 1-7, note that Paul was making known another great truth. There is someone in charge of the sin business. Who is he? The god of this world. Somebody may say, "I thought that was the God of heaven." No, he was differentiating between the god of this world and the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. These are two different gods. One god is blinding the minds of those who believe not so that the light of the Gospel may not shine unto them, and the other God is striving to get the light of the knowledge of God to shine into our hears. How does the god of this world succeed in keeping people in sin? By blinding their minds to the results of sin.

In spite of all the scientific or technical knowledge we boast of having in this twenty-first century, people are yet unaware of the fact that sin is not left unattended. The idea of people living in sin and doing as much of it as they want to, without it affecting them is a false idea. We can't live in sin for as long as we want to, and do as much of it as we want to, without it having an effect on us. It's going to affect us, and no doubt it has already affected us. That may be the reason we're in the shape we're in spiritually right now. Paul was letting us know, as God is in charge of right living, the devil is in charge of wrong living. It's his business to keep us living wrong.

His Servant We Are to Whom We Obey

First John 3:7 reads, "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." Righteousness is not something that we merely believe in or accept as a doctrine; righteousness is something we do. We don't become righteous by joining a church, nor do we become a Christian by joining a church. Neither do we become righteous by merely paying tithes to the church, although giving is a part of righteous living. For a man or a woman to be righteous, he or she must do righteous. People don't become righteous just because their name is written on a church record book or because they have bowed at an altar of prayer or because they have been baptized.

Verse 8 goes on to say, "He that committeth sin is of the devil..." There's no in between, no fixing up, and no confusion in these verses of Scripture. If we do righteousness, we are righteous; if we commit sin, we are of the devil. If we're living in sin, the devil is controlling us; he is our master. The Scripture says in Romans 6:16, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants yer are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Whomever we yield ourselves to, that's the one who owns and controls us.

See, if more people would take these things into consideration, they wouldn't be doing a lot of the things they are doing. The religious world of our day is filled with people who say and do almost anything that comes to their minds, and yet they still claim to be the people of God. John said he who commits sin is of the devil. There's no way we can deny that.

We may not see something as being wrong; however, that's not what makes something wrong. Our seeing a wrong as being right doesn't make it right. People need to become aware of the fact that wrong is not wrong only because somebody says it's wrong; it's wrong because it is wrong. Many people say, "I don't see anything wrong with this or that." Nevertheless, that doesn't determine the quality of the action.

As a generation, we need to wake up to the fact that there's someone in charge of this business of doing wrong, and there's someone in charge of this business of doing right. Again, to be righteous, we must do righteousness, and to be of the devil, we must sin. The Bible says all unrighteousness is sin. Sin is the willful transgression of God's law.

God's call to the sinner is found in Isaiah 55:6-7. It reads: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

To do anything other than that is to reject the counsel of God. That one action is putting us further under the control of the devil. We may not realize this, but the more we reject the Gospel, the further in sin we are going and the more control and power we are giving Satan over our life. In order for us to become liberated or freed, we must deal with God.

The Devil Sinneth From the Beginning

1 John 3:8, "He that committeth sin is of the devil; [Why?] for the devil sinneth [not God] from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." We can't go back further than that. This Scripture should forever silence people who are telling folks that the devil was in Heaven at one time. He never was, and he never will be in Heaven. Heaven is devil-proof. I believe the only reason some people contend that the devil was in Heaven is that if they can succeed in getting themselves and everybody else to agree with then, that will be their only hope of getting to Heaven.

Again, the devil never was in Heaven. He sinneth from the beginning. Someone may ask, "What beginning was he talking about, the beginning of the world or the beginning of Satan?" The fact that Satan, not the world , is the subject matter tells us that he was talking about Satan. John wasn't dealing with the world here; so why confuse the issue and bring the world into it? This is saying that sin belongs to the devil, and it is because the devil has sinned from his beginning.

Away with the idea that the devil at one time was in Heaven and he raised a rebellion and got thrown out. If this were true, then where was God all the time he was raising this rebellion? Why did He not stop him from the very beginning? Some say that he succeeded in deceiving one-third of the angels, and after that, God still couldn't do anything about getting him out so a war broke out in Heaven. If that were true, why did God let him? And what was the war fought with? nuclear weapons? If there was a war, it must have been fought with something. I'd like to know what shape Heaven was in after the war. May God help those who believe such falsity. This is just another example of how the devil is blinding the minds of those who believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Again, the devil is in charge of wrongdoing; it's his business. The Bible says, "...for this purpose the Son of God was manifested." The express purpose for Christ coming into the world was to destroy the works of the devil. In order for God to do that for us, He has to get our cooperation. It's not going to happen if we merely sit around and wish for it to happen. It is going to happen only if we comply with God sufficiently to let the light of the glorious Gospel shine into our hearts. When the light of the glorious Gospel shines into our heart, it gives us the knowledge of how to glorify God.

What's the Course of This World?

The expression "the god of this world" has reference to the devil. One thing this reveals is that he is more than a match for any man. He is a god, and that puts us in a position that renders us completely powerless against him. Notice, however, he is not the God of the universe; he's the god of this world. Also, he is not the God of right living, but he is the god of wrong living.

Let's compare our text to what Paul said to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 2:1-2. He said: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." Through these verses of Scripture, we can see that there is a spirit and a power. What does this prince of the power of the air and the spirit have to do with us? It is he who was influencing our walk to go according to the course of this world.

It's necessary when we preach the Word of God to show the difference between the ways of the world and the way of God. Some are confusing this thing and trying to get us to think that it doesn't matter how a person lives as long as he's honest with God. Paul said the prince of the power of the air is the one who influences us to walk according to the course of this world. What is the course of this world? The way of disobedience. The course that the world is walking is a course of disobedience to God.

Verse 3 reads, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others."

Where are people getting the idea that God has made so much room for the flesh? In the religious world today, things are being reasoned out along the lines of accommodating the flesh. Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind will make us as much a child of God's wrath today as it did back in the apostolic days. The Gospel hasn't changed; it's still the everlasting Gospel. We hear so much about gospels today, but there is only one, and that it the true Gospel.

We read in Romans 1:16-18: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein [the Gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness."

The Gospel not only reveals the right thing for us to do, but it also reveals the wrath of God, which is against all the wrong things that we may do. Many people in our generation don't want to hear anything against what they're doing. They simply want to hear about the mercies of God. However, in order to preach the full Gospel, not only must I tell you about the goodness of God, the mercies of God, the love of God, and the righteousness of God, but I must let you know that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungoldliness and unrighteousness.

I repeat, Paul was making it plain that the god of this world is the one who is influencing your course of action in the direction of the world. He is also the one who is causing you to follow the course of disobedience. What means does he use to accomplish this end? He blinds our mind and hinders the light of the glorious Gospel from penetrating our heart and showing up the wrong.

The Devil's Deadly Work

Are we aware that the kind of gospel that many are preaching today is a gospel that doesn't make people feel badly? It's a gospel that accommodates people in whatever condition or walk of life they may be in. The true Gospel, preached under the anointing of God, causes a person to "cry out", "Men and brethren, what must I do to be saved?" It pricks the heart and troubles the conscience. However, more and more, the devil is succeeding in causing men and women to be put under the power of the god of this world.

Jesus said in John 14:30, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." Here Jesus acknowledged Satan as the prince of this world. This is equivalent to Paul mentioning the god of this world. The difference is, Jesus said that he has nothing in Him. God wants to raise up men to the place where Satan can find nothing in them to further his plans, his devices, or his work of destruction.

People go along today as if to say it doesn't matter what the Bible says as long as it suits their fancy. The devil (the god of this world) is motivating people in that direction. It is he who is influencing people down that road. Paul told the church at Corinth, "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." When we yield ourselves to the god of this world, he controls us. Living in sin is more serious than people think it is. For once we are under the control of the god of this world, then we stand little chance of getting saved, unless God intervenes. The god of this world is more than a match for us.

When Adam sinned, every human being became affected. He got under a different power. Prior to Adam sinning in the garden, he enjoyed the presence of God. God came down and communed with him. As soon as Adam disobeyed, there was a difference. God had to call on Adam, "Where art thou?"

The trouble today is, people are failing to take into consideration the power they are really under. It goes beyond the idea that someone can talk us out of our salvation and doing right, and talk us into doing wrong. We need to understand that there is somebody else involved. If we are being influenced to do what is wrong, we not only need to look at the individual who may be influencing us, but also the power that is at work behind that individual.

Paul said the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness is the God who shines in our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God. Outside of getting it this way, we will never get it. What deadly work is the devil performing? He's blinding the mind, not the head or the eyes. Why does he go for the mind? He knows that it's the mind that controls the actions.

Let the Mind of Christ Be In You

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and said in 2 Thessalonians 2:2, "That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." If the devil can succeed in unsettling our mind, he has a hold on us. Nehemiah said the people had a mind to work. Their mind to work overcame all of their hardships and problems, and they rebuilt the walls.

When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said in Philippians 2:5-8: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the dross."

Satan knows that when the mind is affected, the entire physical being will be affected. Paul told the Ephesians in Ephesians 4:18, "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." many had their minds affected. This is the place in which Satan begins to work in order to get people to sin.

Genesis 6:5 states, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [without exception] was only evil continually." In other words, it was evil without mixture; it was evil without intermission. As a result of the greatness of the evil, every imagination became only evil continually. That's the drive Satan has on many today.

Sin is being glamorized and popularized by men. Sin is being aired over the radio and the television, and it is splashed all over the covers of almost every popular magazine. Our society is being bombarded with it. We can hardly look anywhere without it being there. What's the intention of it? Satan is working to affect people's minds. By working in these ways, he is alluring and appealing to the minds of the people and blinding them to everything else, and he is making great progress. Once the mind becomes blinded to the right, the whole life becomes lost.

Everything that could happen to discredit the Gospel has been happening in these last days. If we're without God and away from Christ, we need to see how serious the time is. We can't afford to procrastinate serving God any longer. We can't afford to hold off and stand aloof any longer. These are serious times. Our mind might have been already affected so that, even now, the light of the Gospel cannot shine unto many of us.

Let's Renounce the Hidden Things of Dishonesty

What trouble we're having today in getting the light of the Gospel across to people! No sooner does the preacher begin to preach along these lines and various things start to come to people's minds to turn them off completely to the Gospel, and then they follow after something else in the other direction. It's just as important now for us to serve God as it ever has been. It's just as dangerous now to live on in sin as it ever has been. It is urgent for us to seek the Lord and call upon Him. Regardless of what influence is at work upon us to cause us to put this matter off, let's ignore that influence! Let's give our undivided attention to the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ.

Some say, "These (false) preachers must be preaching the truth because they're preaching from the Bible." That's were the trouble is. They're preaching from the Bible, but they won't preach the Bible. If they only preach from the Bible, they'll soon have us away from the Bible. For us to be clothed by the Word of God, we must have the Word preached to us. Paul told Timothy to preach the Word.

In our Scripture text, Paul let us know that we have received this ministry and we cannot afford to faint. We need to renounce the hidden things of dishonesty and not walk in craftiness or handle the Word of God in deceit. Why? Because our generation is in danger of the Gospel being hid from them. Hiding the Gospel from them will terminate in their being lost. How is the Gospel hid? The god of this world is blinding their minds.

Notice that Paul didn't enumerate on the various avenues, the various ways, or the various things that Satan will use to blind our minds. However, he went on to let us know that he is out to blind us. We can tell when that blinding effect is taking place. How? When we begin to encounter difficulties and problems with the light of the Gospel being shown unto us. It was easier to preach the Gospel to audiences in the past. Nowadays it's becoming more and more difficult to reach people with the Gospel message due to the skepticism and the various preconceived ideas that exist. To top it all off, the god of this world has succeeded in blinding people's minds. No matter what the logic or reasoning may be, let's not allow our mind to become affected by wrongdoing.

Wrong is still wrong. It doesn't matter who says it's right, it's still wrong. If we ever intend to make Heaven our home, we must get back to the blessed, old Bible, and we must allow God to shine into our hearts and reveal to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. May God help us and work on us, and may we see the importance of this message and obey the voice of God. May God bless you!

[The End]