There is probably no greater
hurt and disappointment than that which a man experiences
when he is betrayed by one who is a trusted associate and companion. The Lord Jesus can be touched
with the feelings of such infirmities, for he experienced this and more
firsthand. Zechariah prophesied of his great
trial when he said, And one shall say unto him, What are these
wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with
which I was wounded in the house of my friends. John describes
the summation of his sojourn here upon the earth. He was in
the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not. Isaiah further clarifies His
reception among those whom He came to help, yea, even to those
whom He loved. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it
were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed
Him not. The bitterness of rejection and
disdain lingers in the heart of a man and has no remedy. Yet
all of this and more did our Lord endure in order to accomplish
the redemption of that people which He loved with an everlasting
love, even though they had no esteem for Him, nor did they
in any wise seek to aid Him in His hour of greatest need. For
even His own disciples, His most trusted and loyal confidants,
slept as He wept in agony in Gethsemane's garden. None I among
men did pity him, nor did any rise in his defense when he stood
in the judgment hall. He was born a Jew, and to the
Jews he came as the Messiah, yet his own kindred did reject
him and sought his hurt. The true enemies of the people
of God do manifest themselves in battle array each and every
day, and they are not clothed in the robes of societal ills
and injustice. There is nothing which Satan
and his minions of darkness delight in any more than getting the
disciples of Christ sidetracked and fighting battles which are
not the battle which the sons of God must fight. The true enemies
of God's people will make themselves known in three ways as they rise
in opposition to the finished redemptive work of Christ. First
of all, there are those who will oppose the clear proclamation
of the gospel, which declares that Jesus Christ has obtained
eternal redemption for his elect bride. These are enemies who
may, through ignorance or design, set themselves in opposition
to the preaching of Christ as an absolutely triumphant Savior
who has accomplished in full exactly what is set out to do,
completely apart from any activity or aid of men. They usually consider
themselves as friends of the gospel, but their message declares
a false savior who merely attempts to save men. In so doing, they
bring no comfort to sinners burdened under the weight of their sin,
and who despair of deliverance by any action of their own. Then
there are those enemies which seek to sow seeds of doubt in
the minds of God's people as to the truth of His word and
the faithfulness of His promise. They would include all of those
who seek to bring the sons of God back into the bondage from
which Christ has made them free by demanding adherence to external
codes and rules of conduct which they deem as necessary tests
of one's faithfulness and standing with the Lord. They bring harm
to the sons of God by persuading them to compare themselves among
themselves rather than to Christ alone, and thus encourage them
to go about to establish their own righteousness. But the greatest
of all of the enemies of God's people, however, is that one
who whispers in their ear night and day, that one who never sleeps,
and whose order to destroy the sons of God is never abated.
Though Satan is indeed an archenemy of the sons of God, the one to
whom I refer is this sinful flesh in which we presently dwell,
which is currently in a pitched battle for the souls of the sons
of God, as it wars constantly against the spirit that inhabits
those who have been born from above. The one purpose from which
the flesh never swerves is to seek to turn the eyes of God's
children from the finished work of Christ, and to encourage the
sons of God to rely upon something else, whether it be doctrine,
morality, or their own endeavors. If you would like a free transcript
of this broadcast, email us at ForThePoor at WinStream.net.