Basic Battle Training

Chapter 16: Motivations: Anger, Truth, Faith and Debt.

The motivations in this chapter, though not as obvious as the previous three, are still powerful within the arsenal of the properly prepared believer. To this they constitute a strong threat to the enemy and, as such, are targeted by him. These motivations have great need to be understood and implemented to be in proper orientation to the Kingdom of God, God’s mind, and our responsibilities in this world.

Anger?  

In Eph. 4:26 God teaches us to "be angry and sin not".

Anger in today’s culture is not often seen as "politically correct" and acceptable. Within Christian culture as well, the concept of righteous anger found throughout Scripture (as we will document), is frowned upon. The virtually exclusive picture of a loving God, coupled with the weak and even effeminate witness of the 21st century Church, provides little place for the Scriptures that we will cite and elaborate on.

Anger, by itself, can neither be viewed as good or bad. Rather it is the specifics of the situation that determines its "righteousness". Within a believer’s life there can, and should be, many instances where righteous anger should be shown as a witness to God’s mind. As we stated in Ephesians, we are even commanded to have such an attitude and action.

As ambassadors for The Father it might be helpful at this point to remember the obvious: God himself gets angry! The Bible is full of verses that speak of God’s wrath, anger and indignation.

God’s Anger!

Our Job

The nonsense that God is only a loving God and never gets angry stems from a politically incorrect cheapening of God’s holiness and a watering down of the severity of sin. As we have seen previous, God’s anger with Esau’s sin provoked Him to say that He indeed even "hated him" (Mal. 1:2-4; Rom. 9:13). In this, God’s righteous anger and judgment against the person who perpetrated it resulted in His promise “to lay his heritage waste, calling his descendants, the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever"!

As His witnesses, we are to represent not only his Word, but also His actual attitude. Today this is hypocritically done from the safety of pulpit, but to the issues and people where they are actually found, the silence is deafening. The following provide ample evidence of not only God’s attitudes but also what our spirit and action should be.

Our modern hymns are a far cry from the words of David,  “the sweet psalmist of Israel “ proclaimed:

The Cross and Judgment

God’s wrath and anger is abundantly clear in the Old Testament, but it is even more so in the New, which presents us with 2 graphic pictures of His holy wrath:

The blood soaked cross. Where His hatred of sin and love for the world reached to the point of crucifying His only begotten Son!

And Hell itself! The unquenchable, tortuous, inferno of Hell: the deliberate, eternal, fiery torture of unrepentant, rebellious sinners

So, just as God gets righteously angry at sin and those who practice it, should not Godly men feel, and express publicly, anger at the evils and evildoers in our day? Again and as stated Ephesians 4:26: God commands us to "be ye angry and sin not" (implying that it would be a sin to not be angry). He then continues with: "let not the sun go down upon your wrath” which, in context, means we should never stop being angry and demonstrative about the sin and evil we confront!

Truth!

Nothing should drive us to serve God more than this one central fact:

Our message is the truth and we have the answer to all that pertains to life!

Satan is a tough foe however and wants none of God’s mind and truth proclaimed and known. Though bold public preaching of truth is the NORM in Scripture, it has become the EXCEPTION today. In contrast to the slick delivery and the worldly direction(s) of today’s Church, even criticism of boldly proclaiming the truth is often what is heard. Instead of encouragement what we hear is: "this isn’t the way to do it," or "you need to be more loving," or “you are being too forceful and bold” or "you won’t reach anyone doing it like that". And finally the ultimate dodge:  “Preaching like they did it in the Bible is not for today”

But the truth we posses demands application well beyond what we see today! Jesus commanded in Mat 10:27: What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. What the disciples “heard” was, and is, THE TRUTH! Beyond this we see truth in many other areas. For example 150,000 Sodomites demanding our acceptance at one of their annual “parades”.  Believers know the truth of this sin and it’s gravity, and with this understanding are responsible to disseminate that truth. (Read: Ezekiel 3:17-21 and 33:7-9)

Faith!   

"When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)

Faith is the fuel that brings practical action to the truth we possess. Having the truth will not stimulate us to serve if we don’t have the faith to act on it. Perhaps part of the problem today is Satan’s successful re-definition of what it means to believe. Most today are lulled to complacency with the easyJesus message consisting of having "Jesus in your heart”, "being eternally secure," and "positionally perfect" plus, “we all gonna’ be raptured soon anyhow, so no need to panic”.

With these things in place, much incentive to strive is done away with and believers are lulled into a spiritual slumber (or worse, even apostasy). There are however, no such compromised definitions of "faith" in Scripture. Biblical faith always produces works:

James 2:14-26. "What doth it profit, by brethren, if a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? ...Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ... Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? ... Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. ... For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

Ephesians 2:8-10 "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

Titus 3:5, 8: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

Hebrews 11: The "Faith Chapter," records the exploits of over a dozen great men and women of faith, noting that "by faith" each one did something.

2 Corinthians 4:13: "...I believe, and therefore have I spoken."

   Matthew 12:34: "...Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

So how do you get more faith?

Sometimes the problem understanding faith is a misunderstanding of it’s dynamic. Faith is a living thing that needs nourishment to be sustained and grow. Biblically there is only one place that this occurs: within the study of God’s Word (Mat 4:4, Rom. 10:17).

The basic concept found in these verses is that the better you know God, the easier it becomes to believe in Him, trust in Him, and do what He says! Since a sizable number of believers do not study the Bible as they should, the resulting lack of work and motivation to serve Him is the unfortunate result.

Judging Ourselves! (I Cor. 11:31)

So then do we really “believe” that people are going to spend eternity in hell? Do we really “believe” that Christ is coming back? Do we really “believe” that He could return at any moment? Do we really “believe” that sodomy is a capital crime in need of strong rebuke? Do we really “believe” that abortion is wrong? From God’s perspective, the answer to these questions is only answered by what we do with such positions, not what we say.

Debt?  

"We love him, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

As the old hymn declares, "He paid a debt He did not owe; I owed a debt I could not pay."

We were guilty felons on death row awaiting execution, and the Judge himself sent His only Son to go to the firing squad for us so we could be set free. What greater debt could we incur with this sacrifice.

Have you been forgiven much?   Then how much then do you “owe”!

Application

This then completes our four chapters on motivations for service. This arsenal of impetus and encouragement to shun the World and serve God and His Kingdom is further proof of His love and grace toward us. The opportunities we have, coupled with these things, open wide the door to a life that the Father intends and will remember.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, weather it be good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10).

As we have shown, many attacks and misconceptions have worked together to blunt these tools of God’s instruction. Satan is a master at deception, discouragement and is well able to sidetrack us from the goal. It is our hope that through a proper understanding of this subject matter, with the verses and commentary cited, you will attain to the character, sharpness and savor with which to battle the enemy...and prevail!

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