Godly Affliction
The world is backwards on reality. You hear commercials suggesting that you go seek help (for a charge of course) if you find yourself sad, tired, depressed, anxious, stressed, etc. This would describe the majority of the population. Dr Fat Bottom and Professor Know-it-all with their PhD's (post hole diggers) have all the solutions it seems. However, this is not good advice for the Christian. "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly…", Psalm 1:1. We need Godly counsel.
The Bible says, "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness", James 4:9. This is the opposite of what nearly all psychologist's and psychiatrist's will tell you. The word "afflicted" means "to realize one's own misery." Sadly, many believers live in sin and denial. They live their life like everything is just fine, but things are far from ok. They live for self, in the name of Jesus. They cheat and break promises without no remorse whatsoever. They are unkind, hot-tempered and abusive but somehow, they think they are always in the right. They move forward in life, without righting their wrongs behind them.
There is no better example of this than King David. King David had committed adultery with a man's wife, Bathsheba. She was beautiful. She became pregnant by David while her husband (Uriah) was at work, enlisted in Israel's military. David panicked and devised an evil scheme to have Uriah murdered. Uriah was deliberately murdered to try to hide David's horrible evil. David went on with his life like nothing happened. David married Bathsheba and took her into his own house. This was so wicked and it seemed like David was going to get away with it. But God sent Nathan, the prophet, to rebuke David and to pronounce judgment upon him. Bathsheba's child by David died. David's many victories had now turned to defeats. David's family turned against him. Some of his best friends became his enemies. We read David's repentant prayer in Psalm 51. It took David nearly one year to realize his sin of murder and adultery. He had been proud, now he is repenting.
To be honest with God, you first have to be honest with yourself! King David learned this the hard way.
James 4:8 speaks of drawing nigh to God. There is no allowance for human pride or self-righteousness at Jesus feet. If you want to be nearer to your God, you need to "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up", James 4:10. Search your heart today as King David did in Psalm 19:12. Are there any secret sins in your life? David in his self-righteousness failed to see the grievous sin in his life. He had lost his joy and was miserable as a person. Sin does this!
The root cause of our troubles in society today is SIN! The world is too busy having fun to "be afflicted." The secular kooks and quacks that claim they can help you (for a charge of course) are not going to counsel you based on the truth, the Bible. God says we are to be "afflicted."
Notice that the word "afflicted" also appears in James 5:13, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms." This is NOT the same meaning. "Afflicted" in James 5:13 means "to endure hardship." Hence, we are supposed to pray while going through hard times in life. We are relying upon the Lord through prayer. We do not turn to the devil's crowd for advice, we turn to God's Holy Word and to fervent prayer. We do not turn to liquor or drugs for comfort, but to the compassionate Savior Who loves us so. "Afflicted" in James 4:9 means something entirely different. It means "to realize one's own misery." James is speaking about having a closer walk with God. We do this by "drawing nearer." Bible study and prayer, obviously are required--Bible study so we can grow (1 Peter 2:2); Prayer so we can have the peace of God which passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:6).
By being "afflicted," James means that we need to stop and consider who we are--woefully sinful and in need of God's help. We need to look at the world around us and realize what is happening--The world is going to hell!!! "Afflicted" means that we are driven to our knees in sorrow because of the billions of souls that are headed for hell-fire and damnation. It means that we are soul-conscious. Even when we are enjoying life, there is a sadness and a call to duty in our heart to win souls to Christ. "Sadness" because so many are going to burn in hell, "duty" because we are commanded to preach the gospel to others.
Many foolish neo-evangelical believers today think they are fellowshipping with God, when in reality they are very far from God. They are NOT "afflicted" by sin and the reality of hell. They are playing church. They do not have a concern for lost souls. Oh sure, they'll talk the talk--but they do not walk the walk. They laugh at the idea that the King James Bible is God's preserved inerrant Word. They laugh at the idea of separating from other backslidden believers. They make light of doctrine and have no quarrel with John Mac Arthur's heresy on the blood. They have no problem with Billy Graham saying, "Pope John Paul II has been the moral voice of the 20th century." They have no problem with Hollywood movies and the Satanic liquor traffic in this nation. They are dead-beat church-goers, Christian bums, scornful of those who are on the front lines going soul-winning. These believers have no desire to walk closely with Jesus Christ. They learn to be manipulative and pharisaical (hypocritical). Sadly, many of them are ministers.
Are you afflicted friend over the condition of the world today ? Is it nothing to you that 40,000 children are starving every day? Is it nothing to you that 156,000 people die every day in this world, the large majority of them plunging into the depths of hell-fire and torment (Matthew 7:14). Is it nothing to you that Catholicism (the cult of Mary Worship) has a membership of over 1,000,000,000 people? Is it nothing to you that 1,000,000,000 Muslims do NOT believe Jesus ever died on a cross? Is it nothing to you that well-paid Hollywood men and women are committing adultery and fornication on the TV screen? Is it nothing to you that America has become a sex-perverted nation? Is it nothing to you that Ozzy Osbourne and Harry Potter are idolized by hundreds of millions of people? Is it nothing to you that 16,000 people died in 2001 from alcohol caused accidents? Is it nothing to you that 1,000,000 babies are murdered each year in this nation through abortions? Do you realize the misery of sin today? If you truly want to be closer to God friend, then you must be "afflicted" about sin. Do you realize the misery of sin? Do you realize your wicked heart? If not, make it right with God now.
Printed in it's entirity by David J. Stewartby
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An exorcist has warned young people that promiscuous lifestyles could lead them into being possessed by the Devil. Fr Jeremy Davies, the diocesan exorcist for Westminster [England] since 1986, said that more and more people in Britain were becoming afflicted by evil spirits through “perversion”. “Among the causes of homosexuality is a contagious demonic factor,” he said. “Even heterosexual promiscuity is a perversion; and intercourse, which belongs in the sanctuary of married love, can become a pathway not only for disease but also for evil spirits". “Some very unpleasant things must be mentioned because young people, especially, are vulnerable and we must do what we can to protect and warn them.” His remarks come in a new book entitled Exorcism: Understanding Exorcism in Scripture and Practice published by the Catholic Truth Society. In the book Fr Davies, 73, also compared followers of “atheist scientism” to rational satanists. He said that the “spirits inspiring atheism” were those who “hate God”. He said that satan had blinded secular humanists from seeing the “dehumanising effects of contraception and abortion and IVF, of homosexual ‘marriages’, of human cloning and the vivisection of human embryos in scientific research”. The result, he said, was that Europe was drifting into a dangerous state of apostasy whereby “only by a genuine personal decision for Christ and the Church can someone separate himself from it”. He denounced the founders of Islam, the Mormons and the Moonies as “false and heretical prophets” who led their followers into a “demonic bond of conscience”. He says occult practices such as magic, fortune-telling and holding séances to contact the spirits of the dead were “direct invitations to the devil which he readily accepts”. He says the occult was closely linked to the scourges of “drugs, demonic music and pornography” which were “destroying millions of young people in our time”. He said: “They all involve an abandonment of the self-control with which human beings are entrusted. The thin end of the wedge (soft drugs, yoga for relaxation, horoscopes just for fun and so on) is more dangerous than the thick end, because more deceptive – an evil spirit tries to make his way as unobtrusively as possible. Beware of any claim to mediate beneficial energies (eg reiki), any courses that promise the peace that Christ promises (eg enneagrams), any alternative therapy with its roots in eastern religions (eg acupuncture).” He continued: “Even when these panaceas are more the work of auto-suggestion than of the devil, they are not harmless. Sanity depends on our relationship to reality". “What is called the New Age Movement is paganism reduced to absurdity but unfortunately it has not lost its poison in the process.” Eight years ago Fr Davies warned people that the loss of faith in Britain had contributed to a boom in diabolical activity. Exorcists are now in such demand that some no longer list their numbers in directories because they become inundated with calls. In his book Fr Davies spelled out the degrees of demonic influence a person may experience, which range from temptation and sin, to obsession and possession – with “perfect possession” being the gravest and rarest form, which usually entails a commitment to evil on the part of the person involved. There are sections on the rites and methods of exorcism and deliverance – including those of buildings and places as well as people. Fr Davies said that if a person was in desperate need of help and felt stranded, he or she should go straight to their bishop. The Catholic Church has always insisted that exorcism is a vital part of its ministry, with the gospels describing no less than eight exorcisms being performed by Jesus Christ himself. Pope John Paul II carried out exorcisms in 1982, 2000 and 2002 and last year his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, ordered his bishops to reinforce the ranks of priests able to carry out such rituals.
SIN CAUSES SUFFERING - NOT GOD
