There's a group of students who meet every Thursday evening at David Kaunda High School (DK). I usually attend their meetings and even though, I am neither a part of their school nor at their level of education (alittle past), I have been privileged to be accepted and involved there.
I have a burden for that fellowship. Most of the students who attend are not Christians and to have a meeting every week where around 60 students meet 80% of whom aren't Christians (just religious) is a golden opportunity to share the gospel if I ever saw one.
I've been attending the fellowship on and off and when I started consistently again, I was disappointed to see that the gospel was no longer being preached, the fellowship had turned into a joke. In God's providence, the leadership realised that they had very few people to share the preaching of God's word and asked me to provide them preachers, for about a month. It has been a joy to see the gospel preached Thursday after Thursday.
A few hours ago, I was at the meeting. I had been asked to provide a preacher again, I was, of course, much obliged. I had no clue that in the meeting were two young charismatic men, with strong pentecostal roots in the audience. They too, like me were outsiders only this was their first meeting. They had asked if they could be given a few minutes to share in the meeting. Their sharing was to come after the main sharing. I had asked a brother in the Lord to preach today at the meeting. He challenged those who weren't Christians, in his conclusion, to repent as judgement awaited us, his listeners.
The two guys were not impressed with this teaching it seems. After the preacher finished they were invited to share briefly. They implicitly encouraged the audience not to be "afraid" or "threatened" by what had been preached (underline implicitly). They spoke of how everyone in the room should seek to "know God so that he is revealed in your life". "So that you will be able to discern which preachers preach truth and which preach lies". "God's revelation in you will be signified by him sending you the Holy Spirit and this will be evidenced by speaking in tongues".
I was appalled. These two guys literally attempted to undo the gospel. I know we disagree on tongues and stuff but why undermine the gospel??
Several times during he's "sharing", I was tempted to rise and leave. But I endured the heresy.
On my way home and even during the sharing which countered the gospel, I wondered why God would allow he's gospel to be undermined. Then I remembered that the devil is not asleep. It flattered me that the devil would be so threatened by what we thought were feeble efforts so as to send false prophets to disrupt the work. It meant that we were actually having an impact in that place. Anything that is truly God centered will attract the devils opposition, which brings me to my point. (That's right, am only getting started!)
In Philippians 1:27-30, Paul takes it for granted that the Philippians would face opposition and would suffer for Christ:
"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have."
I don't blame Paul, do you?
I mean if we "conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ", opposition would be inevitable. If we spoke up when people say or do things which are sinful e.g. cursing, gossiping, ill speech, lying etc, and if we rebuked those workmates or schoolmates who love to sin, they wouldn't really be fond of us, would they? If we always proclaimed the scripture (since the world proclaims their love for sin, why shouldn't we proclaim our love for Christ?), we would be unpopular. If for all the times our workmates or schoolmates spoke of how nice their sinful weekends were, we spoke of how the Lord spoke to us on Sunday, we wouldn't be liked at all, would we?
People would want to get us fired and in trouble, people would literally hate us and slander us. People would oppose us and cause us to suffer.
If, therefore, we aren't suffering, then we must be compromising. We must not, then, be speaking up when we hear sinful talk and see sinful deeds. We're probably silent when our workmates boast of sinful deeds and sinful weekends. We are not speaking up.
The devil will not sit back when our lives and ministries are God centered and have serious potential, he will oppose us and make us suffer.
I see this in the ministry to DK, as the devil has brought our way, charismatic fools. I know that a battle is inevitable as the charismatics will want to move in and influence the DK meetings and I am not keen on fighting, I'd rather pull out. But I got a message from a brother who also has a heart for DK that encouraged me and I will end with it:
"Now more than ever we need to be relentless in our efforts to share the truth,
it will, with the blessing of he who is the truth, sort its on enemies out."
I'm not going to back out, the devil can bring it on!
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