Why Christians purposefully don't get it

“The fact of the matter is we are distracted from reality and from what we should really be doing for the cause of Christ,” says Columbus, Ohio preacher David Reid, speaking at a Bible conference the other weekend in Concord, N.C.

“What Paul’s saying in Philippians 3:8 is, ‘All those things that are filling my life I count them loss.’ Then he says, ‘for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.’

“Let’s talk about suffering the loss of all things. One of the questions I’ve gotten over the years and probably you have as well, when you teach right division and people start to see it, one of the things they’ll often say to you is, ‘Well, if this is true more people would believe it.’ Of course, that doesn’t make any sense because people didn’t believe Noah and what Noah said was true.

“Another thing they’ll say that’s very similar to that is, ‘Well, look, if this is true, why don’t the big name preachers preach it?’ Right? ‘None of the people on TV preach this. Why’s that?’

“So here’s my answer and this is just my opinion, you can take it or leave it. I think as a saved person, it’s very easy to get comfortable where you are. And so what happens to the big-name preachers, or really any preacher, is you have a life where you have certain financial arrangements. You have a life where you have certain interpersonal arrangements. You have relationships with folks. Sometimes it affects your retirement. Sometimes it affects the size of your ministry. Sometimes it affects your prestige.

“And so what happens is if you’re going to respond to the truth, then there’s a lot of things in life you’re going to have to hold very loosely and you’re going to have to be willing to endure the loss of them.

“What happens is many folks won’t. I’ve had situations where I’ve dealt with someone on the subject of right division, and I think I’ve visibly seen this—I’ve seen the knowing glance where you can tell they got it and then a second later you can see them turn off the lights because they realize, ‘If I go down this path, that means all the current friends and buddies and relationships I have, they’re going to think I’m as nutty as this guy I’m talking to!’

“People just make a conscious choice because they’re choosing NOT to suffer the loss of all things. Preachers, where if they decide to come to that realization that this is the right thing, say, ‘If I preach that, I’ll lose my congregation!’

“But what kind of rationale is that?! ‘Well, if I preach this truth, then people won’t be there.’ What?!

“When you come to the judgment seat of Christ and you say, ‘Look, I kept all the people. I didn’t tell them what was true. Their spiritual lives were a wreck, they didn’t know the gospel, they didn’t have the right bible, but I had a large group.’ It’s utter madness, isn’t it?! That’s what goes on, I think.

*****

“Here’s what we have to embrace and just accept. Everything in life, all position, all prestige, everything on your resume, if it somehow prevents you . . . if it keeps you from the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus . . . where if you decide to set aside growing in that for that worldly stuff, it’s dung! It’s just gross and offensive. You don’t want to be entangled with that, do you? You want to be as far away from it as possible.

“This is the verse that the people on TV just utterly ignore: ‘Yea all they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’ Here’s the way the common TV preacher thinks about this: ‘Look, if you just send me money, God’s going to bless you.’

“It’s like a seesaw. If you just press down on this side of the seesaw, the other side’s going to go up. And so if you just send him money, God wants to make you healthy, wealthy and wise and He’s just going to pour out blessing all over you and you’re going to drown in it. All that’s just utter nonsense because what happens when you live godly in Christ Jesus? You have problems, right?

“The reason that is is in Ephesians 2: [2] 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:
[3] 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.

“When it talks there about the course of this world, I think about a body of water like a river. You know how a river carves out a course, where the water flows in the same location for hundreds and thousands of years and it carves out a path? And so the river has a course to it. It has a direction that it goes.

“There’s a course to this world and it says there that it’s ‘according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’

“This is my observation and you take it for what it’s worth. At times I feel, and I think many of us feel, that we’re alarmed at the dishonesty of this world. Don’t you find that the affairs of life are just full of dishonesty? And it sort of drives me crazy and then I think about it and I say, ‘Well, why are you surprised about that, David?’

“Because the world has a course to it, influenced by ‘the prince the power of the air,’ the ‘father of lies,’ so here’s what the world system’s going to be full of. It’s going to be full of lie after lie after lie after lie and that’s just how it is.

“You watch what happens on the earth and you have, unfortunately, millions and millions of people who follow the course of the world and the reason why is, how hard is it to swim against the current of the river? That’s why Paul says in Galatians 16, ‘Be not weary of well-doing.’

“It’s a wearisome thing to swim up against the river. What Satan’s done is 

he’s designed this world to flow in a certain direction with a strong current, and that direction is the direction of ‘the Lie.’ That direction is directly contrary to what God would have us to do.

“And so our life is going to be weary because we’re always headed in the opposite direction. I’ve said this before, but it’s like walking up the down escalator. It’s fun to do that when you’re six or seven years old and you go to the department store and you’re trying to get all the way to the top.

“That’s what life’s like, though, and that’s why people look at saved people as if we’re weirdos. The world is going a certain direction and as long as you’re going against it, you’re going to suffer opposition and persecution.

*****

“Here’s what the fellowship of his sufferings means. If you live godly, if you walk with Christ, then as you walk in that direction, people are going to throw rocks at you. They’re going to and what happens is the Lord says during His earthly ministry, ‘Count the cost.’

“Here’s what we can decide, frankly. We can decide, ‘Look, I know if I walk the right way, I’m going to face opposition and obstacles and problems. And you know what? I might just choose I’m not going to do it.’

“That’s a possible choice, but what that’s doing is that’s giving up the opportunity to walk with the Lord, which is going to give you joy throughout your life. It’s going to make your life meaningful, and if choosing NOT to do it, because there’s going to be some obnoxious people along the way that throw rocks at you, it’s the wrong choice.  What we’re doing is giving up the joy we could have just because we’re going to face a little bit of problems.

“Paul says in Philippians 3:11-12, [11] If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
[12] Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

“There’s not a reference to the catching up because Paul already knew he would attain to that. Here’s what he’s saying there and just embrace this because this is just fascinating. What he’s saying there is,  ‘There’s nothing in this life that prevents me from walking exactly as I will in the next life.’

“Let me put it this way. Is there any reason that you have to sin? I realize we still have the old nature. Do we have to sin? We choose to sin. Romans 6:4 says ‘Even so we also SHOULD walk in newness of life.’ It doesn’t say we WILL, but it says we SHOULD which means we CAN.

“What Paul’s really saying in Philippians 3 is, ‘Because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for me, because my flesh has been circumcised and the old man has been crucified, I now have the ability to walk in newness of life. I can walk exactly like I should in the next life.’

“What he’s saying is, ‘Don’t give me the excuse that you CAN’T because you CAN!’ "

(to be continued)