Jesus spoke of what is now happening in America when He was asked about the signs of the end of this age. He began His answer with: “Do not let anyone deceive you” (see Matthew 24:4). By this He was indicating that one of the most basic signs of the end of the age would be deception. So, how do we not become deceived?
In II Thessalonians 2:10 it speaks of: “those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” It is not just the lack of truth that can lead to deception, but not having a love for the truth. We can want truth for many different reasons, even selfish and evil ones, such as to use it to hurt others. Any motive but a love for the truth can open us to what would distort the truth.
Philippians 1:9 gives us the most basic factor required for discerning truth as the apostle writes: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.” Here we see that the foundation of “real knowledge,” or true knowledge, and “all discernment,” is love. If we are looking from the perspective of anything less than love, our knowledge will be distorted and our discernment will be incomplete. This is in contrast to what often masquerades as discernment, which is suspicion and fear that will always distort our perception to seeing and believing the worst.
For example, we will not likely find the truth about our national history if we do not begin with a love for our country. We must also love the truth enough not to cover over the flaws and mistakes in our history. As we see through the perspective of love, the flaws and mistakes will be seen more accurately. Also, a redemptive perspective will help us to learn from them rather than just condemning those who made them.
Winston Churchill was not just one of the world’s most notable statesmen, he was a great historian. He wrote what is considered the most insightful accounts of the English-speaking people. These included prophetic perspectives that unfolded with remarkable accuracy. When asked how he received such remarkable prophetic insights he credited his study of history, which he did out of a profound love for his own country and people. He also concluded things about human nature such as, “Positive people see opportunities in every problem, but negative people tend to see problems in every opportunity.”
History verifies this insight. Those who set the course of history and build are positive thinkers who can see opportunities when others see only problems. Negative thinkers, the naysayers and critics, who see problems more than opportunity, are not remembered in history because they rarely do anything or build anything worth noting.
If we view our history, or our present, from the positive attitude of loving our country, we will see opportunities in all of the problems now surfacing. If we look at these with a disdain for our country, or our enemies, we will rarely see solutions or opportunities.
As we discussed, the military principle that you cannot defeat an enemy you do not see, the clearer we see our enemy the greater the advantage we have. In America today, we have possibly the most obvious domestic enemies we’ve ever faced. How have they have grown into such a large and serious threat virtually unnoticed by our leaders? Why has there been so little discernment? Could it be that we’ve had so little love for our country? Could it be because we’ve had so little love for our enemies?
Hardly anyone associates love when considering enemies, but Jesus told us to love our enemies (see Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27, 35). Could it be that one reason He told us to do this is so that we could have “real knowledge,” and “all discernment” concerning them? Not only would this help us to discern them as the enemy, but love is defined in I Corinthians 13:6-7 as “rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” If we begin to love our enemies, we will start to believe “all things” for them. We will then be more likely to see a solution of turning our enemies into friends. Would that not be the ultimate victory?
In times of conflict, we must keep the exhortation of Hebrews 12:14-15 in mind: “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.”
Those who can only think dualistically, who can only see black or white, will see extremes and are therefore some of the most prone to deception. Such will have a very difficult time seeing how they can love their enemies or how to pursue peace with them. We must, or as the above text notes, we will not see The Lord. We will not see Him in the present situation so as to be a part of what He’s doing, we will come short of the grace of God because we refuse it to others, and we will only multiply the bitterness instead of the waters of life that bring healing.
One factor making the present protests and riots so much more dangerous than in previous times is the level of hatred and rage manifesting in them for America and our heritage. Are we as Christians not called to have an opposite spirit to that which is manifesting in the world? Jesus said that Satan could not cast out Satan, which means it is not going to be evil that defeats evil, and that our hatred for the enemy will not cast out their rebellion, but we must “overcome evil with good” (see Romans 12:21).
What does this look like practically? First, love is more powerful than hatred and fear. When they are seen in contrast, love is far more contagious than hate. Many of those who are so angry and full of hate are this way because they have never experienced real love. Real love, the love of God not mere human sympathy and idealism, could go off in some of those camps like a spiritual nuclear bomb. However, to be used this way we have to have such love, and this is very rare in history and these times.
In the present situation, if we go out to confront our enemies by screaming back at those who are screaming, no one is going to hear anything. As Christians our victory is not to beat down the enemy, wound, or kill them, but rather to hit them with the most powerful weapon of all—the truth spoken in love that can set people free. This has the power to convert them that they may have life and be set free from the bondage that has caused them to hate. We do not just want to win the argument, we want to win them.
The above requires elevating the battleground from the physical to the spiritual realm. We must do this in our own hearts first. This is not to negate that the battle is also physical and must be fought in that realm too, which we will cover in more depth in the next Brief. Even so, the real battle is more spiritual than physical.
The battlefield itself can be a crucial factor determining the outcome of a battle. Because of this, warriors know that the one who is able to choose the battlefield will have an advantage over their foe. Presently, the enemy has seized the initiative and been able to choose the battlefield, keeping it in the worldly, earthly domain. As Christians, one of our primary goals in every conflict must be to move the battlefield out of the merely physical realm into the spiritual realm that is our special domain.
In our next Brief we will examine the dual-citizenship Christians have in the earthly nation and the kingdom of God, and how and when we exercise both civil and spiritual authority.
Since the initial publication of the chart of the electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one-millionth of reality. – R. Buckminster Fuller
We are more closely connected to the invisible than to the visible. – Novalis
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. – Anais Nin
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© 2020 by Rick Joyner. All rights reserved.
