Enemies at the Gate: A Primer
I am a fairly active blogger. Despite the demands of school, work and parenting, I actually consider my participation in blogs a great diversion and there are 2 sites that I regularly engage in. These are not just any blogs but ones to discuss biblical and theological topics amongst other believers in Christ. Now occasionally, there will be someone participating that makes it clear they are not Christian. Except for these rare instances where this is specified, it is assumed that given the nature of the topics, the folks you are interacting with are believer in Jesus Christ. In fact, they say they are. Perhaps that should be good enough.
Along my travels I met a dear woman by the name of Susan who I now call my friend. I quickly recognized that Susan had a heart for evangelism but also had a keen discernment for spotting phonies. What do I mean by that? Well, people who by all accounts appeared Christian, went to Bible believing churches, could even quote Scripture and would readily profess they were Christians…they believe in Jesus. I will admit that there were people I engaged in dialogue with that had me fooled, too. They said they were believers and perhaps that was good enough for me. Of course, after some time engaged in a topic that is considered an essential component of Christian faith, I have discovered that some will diverge and that’s where I’ll begin to question. I admire Susan for being able to pick this up a lot quicker than me and her boldness in pointing it out when needed.
So how do we know who is a true believer? And who are we to judge what is in a person’s heart? After all, if a person says they are a Christian, which is saying they are in Christ, isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t we just take their word for it? I’ll come back to these questions because I think they will bear import for where I think I’m going with this series of posts.
It does occur to me that the blogging community is but a mirror of our churches. That probably in most, if not all congregations, you have non-genuine believers mixed in with genuine believers. But the ungeniune believers will be so mixed in with the genuine believers that it is not likely distinguishable who is true and who is false. There are really folks who go to church every Sunday, who participate in church activities, who raise their hands during worship, who read their Bibles and who even serve in our churches that while making a Christian appearance, do not know Christ. Or rather, are not known by Him. It is this group of people that I believed Jesus referred to in Matthew 7:21-23 that claim to call Him Lord.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness
Not everyone who is immersed in the business of being a Christian actually is one. Jesus also makes mention later on in the 13th chapter of Matthew, that there will be the tares mixed in with the wheat in reference to the fact that in every body of believers exist those that are not His and are implanted to reak havoc in the body of Christ. But this fact will not be so noticeable.
I think this is a very sobering thought. The most signficant reason is that those who do not know Christ as Savior can mislead those who do simply because they are believed to be Christian and even spiritual. Even worse, that there are those who are in fact pawns of the enemy to surreptitiously plant deceptions. It is sobering because it should give us great cause to examine our hearts and our faith, and see if we are actually believers as Paul urges in 2 Cor 13:5.
So I wanted to explore the marks of a true believer, what does Jesus mean by those who do His will and why this is important. I’m not sure how deep I intend to go in the soteriological issues but at minimum there has to be a general discussion in order to understand a genuine salvific process. We need to be aware that there are enemies at the gate and without careful introspection, that enemy could be us.
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Hi Lisa! Nice piece of writing on a topic which we all need to be more aware of. Thanks for the kind mention. It’s rare that we would ever suspect that someone at our church is not a believer, especially if they have attended for a long time. It’s even more unlikely that we would ever seek to know this about someone at church. There was only ever one person I met at our church who I actually asked if he was a believer… maybe not in those words, however. It turned out that he was not. He was a Chinese immigrant who had become an MD here in CA. He was attending church to honor his parents who were both believers in China.
He was considering Christianity…. listening and learning. I always made a point to reach out to him when I saw him. Occasionally I would ask where he was in his spiritual journey. The last time I asked he said that he was close, but he didn’t really want to talk about it. I very much doubt that anyone else at church ever knew that he was not a believer. Eventually he stopped coming, and I never saw him again.
I try to make a point of talking to people who come into our church service alone. I think it’s hard to come to church alone. These people are usually very happy to have someone to talk to….. it opens doors, and helps them to feel welcome.
The main reason that I am so aware of the fact that there are many tares (false converts and pretenders) , is that my own husband was one of them. I thought he was a believer when we married, so did he. He had gone forward at a church concert “Because I was scared to death to go to hell” he told me years later. It was only recently after 21 years of a very painful marriage that I finally told him that I doubted that he was truly a child of God. I prayed about this much. He thought a lot about it. He knew that he lacked peace, and that there were things in his life which were not as they should be. A few months later, through a series of different events and Bible teachers, my husband finally came to faith in Christ. It is very evident to both of us now that a true transformation has been taking place in him since that time. He does and says things which I’ve not seen in him for 21 years. He loves to study God’s word. Life’s best learned lessons are the ones we have to live through!
I’m sure that my experiences have made me much more aware that there are certainly many others who are self-deceived in the church.
I’m glad that you are bringing awareness to this very important subject Lisa! I’ll look forward to the next installment!
Comment by Susan — November 22, 2008 @ 11:22 pm