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When All Seems Lost in the Battle

When All Seems Lost in the Battle

by Dr. David Kyle Foster
www.PurePassion.us
January 31, 2019

In the past fifty years (and even more so today), the cause of Christ has been ridiculed and maligned by forces that promote evil. God's moral precepts have been met with derision and rebellion. Day after day, it seems that the enemy has won another battle. As a result, God's people have been increasingly filled with fear and anguish - particularly on issues of morality and the pressure that government has placed upon them to participate in such atrocities (or at the least, to not oppose or speak against them).

Many years ago, the nation was visited by a great darkness when the Supreme Court declared (in essence) that innocent, living human beings in the mother's womb are not persons and can therefore be killed up to the moment of birth - all done under the guise of a "right to privacy". Such horrors are reminiscent of the sacrifice of babies in ancient times at the altar of Molech. Then, babies were burned to death. Today, they are torn limb from limb while furiously trying to escape the abortionist's forceps. Even with saline abortions, the fetus writhes in pain during the procedure and in most cases is not even afforded the mercy of a painkiller (even though science has shown that babies feel pain as early as 8 weeks into the pregnancy).

About the same time, pornography was legalized (essentially) under the guise of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression". Today, any 5 year-old can access depictions of the worst perversions ever conceived by man. And so, as a nation, we have exposed our children to great harm in order to satisfy our own lusts. We have legalized immorality by imagining that things formerly and universally recognized as unlawful and immoral are permissible - behaviors which the original lawmakers (in their litany of enumerated freedoms) never intended.

None of this has escaped the gaze of a holy God!

Some years ago, the courts and legislatures began removing legal penalties against grossly immoral sexual behavior. And as the law of entropy warns, today we are facing an onslaught of legal measures that seek to make it illegal to even speak against immoral behavior or to try to help those who want freedom from its unrelenting grip. George Orwell's 1984 couldn't have been more prescient.

Children are also targeted in our nation's schools with lessons on perversion and are groomed by the culture to embrace all manner of immorality as normal, healthy and in most cases, blessed by God. In many instances, they are even being taught how to perform immoral acts and encouraged to do so.

In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed [referring to Jesus Christ].
(Acts 17:30-31)

In recent years, the courts have once again legalized immorality by redefining marriage so that it is no longer limited to one man and one woman. And there is hell to pay for anyone who speaks against or refuses to recognize this redefinition - echoes of oppressive, totalitarian governments throughout history.

Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done.....For those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
(Romans 2:5-6, 8)

The latest assault on freedom of speech, freedom of religion and God's moral law (sometimes referred to as "natural law") comes in the guise of forcing everyone, (upon penalty of fines and imprisonment), to refer to people by the pronoun that they "identify as" even though it may go against the reality of their genetic make-up. This is so insane that many trans and gay activists oppose this denial of reality. But the juggernaut of evil and rebellion against God keeps rolling. Satan is having a field day deceiving men into defacing the image of God found in human sexuality - sexuality that is intended to reflect the pure and perfect marriage between Christ and His Church.

Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
(Galatians 6:7-8)

Today, there are even licensed psychologists who argue that pedophiles and pederasts exhibit a normal variant of human attraction. And time does not allow writing in any detail about the atrocity of sex trafficking that goes virtually unchecked in the nations of the world. Sadly, most child molesters and sex traffickers will never see a single day of imprisonment.

As one in ministry to sexually bound and broken people, this accelerating departure from reality and increasing rebellion against the character of God is extremely disillusioning. It's one step forward and a hundred steps backward, or so it seems when looked at in the short term.

And the most frustrating part of it is that our churches have been infiltrated by rampant immorality in all its forms and have even begun calling evil, good.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.....and who deny justice to the innocent.
(Isaiah 5:20-23)

Many pastors or leaders of ministries continue to depart from the faith. They seem to be dropping like flies, as the Lord winnows those "who (have gone) out from us so that it might be seen that they were never really of us" (Matthew 3:12; 1 John 2:19).

The Apostle Paul sought to comfort the frustrated believers of his day by writing:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
(Galatians 6:9)

A principle found throughout Scripture (particularly among the Old Testament prophets) is that God has called us not only to win the lost and make disciples, but to also bear witness to the truth to those who refuse to repent even as they are warned of the impending judgment of a holy God. It is a part, I believe, of establishing the rightness of God's final judgment against those who refuse to listen and repent.

Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
(1 Corinthians 15:58)

No matter what the outcome!

Finally, we turn to God's Word for sustenance......

Here is your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with might, with His arm ruling for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him and His recompense before Him. Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him?

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble.

"To whom then will you liken Me that I would be His equal?" says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God?"

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power.

Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary."
(Isaiah 40:9d-13, 21-31, NASB)

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish. You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent. For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, who says to you, "Do not fear, I will help you."
(Isaiah 41:10-13)

Other links to his ministry can be found here:
www.facebook.com/purepassiontv
www.twitter.com/purepassiontv
www.youtube.com/user/davidkylefoster

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Dr. David Kyle Foster (M-Div, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; D-Min, Trinity School for Ministry) is the author of Transformed Into His Image and Love Hunger and is the founder/director of Pure Passion Media (www.PurePassion.us). Read more of his take on sexual sin and brokenness in his newest book, The Sexual Healing Reference Edition.

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