Character Assassins

General James Green, Oct. 17, 2011

“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Lk. 6:26, KJV).

ONE PASTOR ONCE SAID: “It is interesting how, in spite of all the warnings in Scripture against gossip, slander, and tale bearing, just how much stock we tend to place in people’s opinions. It is said that where there is smoke there is fire. However, the smoke may be no more than dust and hot air.”

We can pretty much tell who is walking with Jesus by the way people react to them, especially in today’s “Politically Correct” world. If Jesus was here today, He would no doubt receive the same treatments, from the “religionists”, as He did back then…and so will His true followers.

John Calvin once declared: “No greater injury can be inflicted upon men than to RUIN their reputation.” It has also been said that of all the members in the body, there is none so serviceable to Satan as the tongue! The apostle James wrote: “…the Tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature: and it is set on FIRE of HELL!” (Ja. 3:5, 6).

Sins of speech include lying, gossip, false witness, false doctrine, slander, hateful words that are not true but are meant to kill!!

On The Other Hand…

JESUS TELLS US TO BE CAREFUL “when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the FALSE prophets” (Lk. 6:26). Pay attention to who is spoken well of these days. One mega-Church pastor especially, (from Texas) is well received and loved by the world and the media (which, is 99 percent hateful towards Biblical Christianity). This pastor is treated like Billy Graham of by-gone years—favorable coverage, praise, well received worldwide, hardly ever condemned over his compromise, his phony reporting of bad situations in other countries where there is severe persecution against God's true children, the list is long—yet, Billy boy was always praised and loved. So it is with our Texas boy who never, ever pin-points SIN, always has an up-beat positive message, avoids the SIN issue like the plague etc., etc. The world loves to hear that they are going to Heaven no matter how in the Hell they live. This pastor even prayed at the official appointment of the lesbian mayor of his city. Was Jesus wrong in telling us to BEWARE of such a slobbering love affair with the world?

This is quite different from the way we have been treated for teaching / preaching God's Word. It is quite different from the way Jesus and His true followers were treated.

If one dares to be “Biblically Correct” these days, WATCH-OUT—there are character assassins just waiting for you! Well, DAMN the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

Enemies Within / Without

ONE EX-PRIME MINISTER OF AN AFRICAN NATION ONCE DECLARED: “We were never beaten by our enemies—we were betrayed by our friends.” This, my friends, is all too common among those who preach / teach God's Word without compromise, without a “pink” twist, and without hypocrisy.

Another preacher once stated: “The more prominent you are in Christ’s service, the more certain are you to be the butt of calumny. I have long ago said ‘farewell’ to my character.”

We’ve all heard Mark Twain’s great saying: “A lie can travel halfway across the world while truth is still getting its boots on!”

While the world remains, without, the enemy of Truth, but today, we who love God's unadulterated Truths, face religious (more often than not) homosexual antagonists who are bent on silencing their opposition. Along with these LOST persons, we have the Emergent Church crazies to contend with. This ever growing anti-Christ phenomenon has launched a systematic and sustained full-scale war against any and all who oppose their ecclesiastical insanities—tyrants, terrorists, and traitors who manipulate and murder the Truth…bullying and condemning dedicated Christians who still hold to God's eternal Truths.

Sadly, too often those who love the praise of the world fall victim to the assassin’s knife in the back, and the poison cup.

If the assassins can’t get any smut on you, they manufacture it…arrange a GUILTY verdict and condemn the innocent to die.

Paul the Apostle

THIS MAN WAS THE TARGET of character assassins many times, as Jesus was. “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).

Seeking to please men has become a plague today. When we try to please the enemies of the Gospel, we lose favor with the Gospel creator Himself. Paul, in verse 9 “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” is refuting those (as we do have) who preach “another Gospel” (V. 8). Paul’s anathema was in no wise evil as some suppose, but was in defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A few MSS omit ὑμν (you) (v. 8) suggesting that his anathema rests upon preachers everywhere who denature his Gospel. The Gk. preposition παρά means “by the side of”, “beyond”, as in “parallel”. The legalist “gospel” is contrary (παρʹ ο῞) in the sense that it lies on a lower plane of religious experience, where the Law’s curse rests upon all who do not obey perfectly. Such a “gospel” leads Paul to repeat his anathema.

Galatia (like America today!) was exposed to all sorts of religious / “spiritual” quacks and peddlers of specious gospels (esp. the homo/ Emergent ones), and the whole world was infested with religious racketeers (like the kind you see on T.V. etc) who knew how to make $$ by BEWITCHING the masses in an age of catastrophic social change and spiritual bewilderment. Hey, pay attention to today’s religious scene—what are you buying from these crazies??

Today

TODAY, IF ONE REMAINS “Biblically Correct” one becomes a target of character assassins. You’re DAMNED if you do what is right, and you’re DAMNED if you don’t. Cruel snobbery is a weapon that is used against God's true followers. Be also aware of subtle genteel-ism, the velvet noose of death.

We can be “nice” and preach a “crossless Christianity” to please the backslidden Church rebels or a “Hell-less Christianity” to please the world…but if we insist on preaching the Cross / Hell, we place ourselves in harm’s way. Keeping the scandal of the cross alive is the very heart of the Gospel—but we will face the dire consequences of such insistence.

A “theocracy” of the dead is insane. Preach the “living Christ” to a dead people and a “theocracy” will result.

Jesus’ denunciation of the “religious” in Matt. 23 was ON TARGET—He was not trying to assassinate their character because they were in right standing with God, but because they were not! They did not “practice what they preached” as the old saying goes. But when they attacked His character, His works, His love, they did it out of evil and maliciousness. No good man has ever had a worse press; no Christian is so often scorned; so regularly attacked as those who refuse to compromise their faith. The attacks are incessant and cruel.

Back to Luke 6:26

VERSES 24, 25, AND 26 ALL BEGIN WITH WOE! Verse 24 deals with men who find complete satisfaction in this world’s riches / stuff and things; verse 25 deals with those who are content to satisfy only their earthly needs; verse 26 deals with those who compromise God's Word in order to be spoken well of—Hell’s Church!!

Flattery in ancient times was the reward of “false prophets”, and universal acclaim should therefore lull no man into a sleep of death.

When those of the world and those “religious” ones speak well of us we need to examine our lives. Not that we go about to make enemies, Jesus didn't, but standing whole-heartedly for Christ will bring separation—God's Word is the Sword that separates the precious from the vile, Truth from falsehood, good from evil.

Ministry of Malice

THIS COULD SUM UP MANY TODAY. There are those within the Church and outside the Church that are assassins for the cause of Satan. These bear false witness (see Ex. 20:16) against the righteous; The Holy Scriptures tell us, “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, and deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind” (1 Pet. 2:1).

Along with the above sins we find idlers, gossips and busybodies. 1 Timothy 5:13 speaks of this, also 2 Thes. 3:6, also 1 Tim. 6:4. Yet we still find plenty of these character assassins that do nothing righteous, but only evil. I’m sure you’ve met some of these folks before.

Suffer for Christ

WE’RE WARNED IN 1 PET. 4:15 “If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or as a meddler.” We’ve had certain people who did nothing but meddle in our affairs—always looking for something, ANYTHING to stop us from doing the Lord’s Work. We still have those waiting, watching our every move so they can move in for the kill!!

They steal our time, murder the truth we preach, meddle in our personal lives—all done without shame.

Against the Tongues of Detractors

WE DO NOT TAKE IT TO HEART if some people think ill of us, and say things about us which are not true. We live in a wicked generation, a generation of hatred for God's Truth.

Evil words can wound, even kill. Nothing is so apt to give us uneasiness and trouble as false judgments passed upon us. But Gods' Word declares that those who walk uprightly WILL SUFFER PERSECUTIONS—as 2 Tim. 3:12 declares.

The safest place to be in Christ is when we are not moved by either frown or favor. Biblically speaking, it is better to obey God rather than man. Yet too often, the flesh considers it a happiness to please men, and a misfortune to meet with their contempt. This is why we see church after church bowing to the world’s opinions, not God's.

Stand or Flee?

OUR TEST COMES SOONER: will we stand on God's side or flee from it when persecutions come? We can either fly into the storm or allow the storm to blow us here and there.

When temptation to betray our Savior comes our way it must ever be resisted with firmness and constancy. God will allow all of us to be sorely pressed by the enemy, weighted down by the load of our miseries, as to leave us NO other means of escape except in Him, not the arm of flesh, but in Him, relying upon Him for grace and mercy.

You see, the fewer resources we find within and without, the more should we be induced to seek them in Him. How else can our faith be tested, purified as gold?

It is He!

IT IS GOD WHO GIVES GRACE, mercy, and strength in the day of trouble. Wherefore, upon occasion of interior or exterior affliction / persecution, we must, in the first place, have recourse, have faith to stand and keep on standing. We must resign ourselves to His blessed will—and HIS will is to stand not fall.

When those character assassins, those pathological antagonists strike, don’t let them get you down except on your knees.

The enemy will use intimidation, terrorism in order to get us to betray our Lord. Some of these enemies may even be charming, yet full of HELL! Some pretend to be oh, so “spiritual”—we know some of these. Trust me, these are people with personality disorders, narcissistic souls who serve Satan, not God. They spin yarns, tell big and small lies, living on a very slippery slope of life. Acts 20:28, 29 tells us that SAVAGE WOLVES had infiltrated the early congregations and they were not sparing the flock. Wolves love lambs and sheep!

Have you not noticed all this? One minister had it right when he wrote:

When God speaks, we don’t listen.

What the Bible teaches, we don’t apply;

What God commands, we don’t obey;

Where God sends, we won’t go.

Enough said.

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[Study material has been adapted from its original sources.]