I read this and I completely agree that people will use rebuke as a means to show off a God's gift of repentance and discernment. However, God commands us to preach that God's right and that includes preaching against SIN and the exceeding sinfulness of sin. At the same time, PEOPLE can be SIN. Since sin is TERRIBLE-God does require us to say that at times.
For that, I will join in with a brother in Christ when I sin in that manner. Otherwise, the truth remains of certain things... Amen. It's just something we ALL have to do... be concerned about being too harsh about the truth. Moses fell into that trap in showing off and He could not enter into the Promised Land of spiritual rest. Secondly, we must repent of our motives in telling others-to be a life-saver, to gain a reputation in the future, or to FALL into the trap of being holier-than-thou.
God does demand that we righteously judge; we just do make FLESHLY, unrighteous judgments. The sin of hypocrites is that they have no judgment, mercy, or faith. In the final analysis, WE do not do it; we speak the Bible, which is the Judge. We speak against sin and go to God. Righteous judgment is Biblical, in other words.
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n Open Public Confession
by Patrick Ersig
I would like to openly and publicly repent, and in doing so bring forth a very serious warning in the form of exposing some of the tricks that the enemy has used on me and has been propagating among many saints and many of those I have come to know and love personally. Please do not take this warning lightly, but rather regard this as a serious warning given out of a pure heart of love and concern.
I believe the Lord has exposed in my life two distinct but similar sets of spirits or tricks of the enemy that have infiltrated the ranks of many holiness, revival and repentance preachers, fellowships, brothers, sisters and close friends I say this not to point fingers or to judge or condemn my fellow brothers and sister but rather out of extreme love and concern in hopes to bring about repentance and right standing with God. I also believe, through personal experience, the Lord has shown me how these demonic influences or tricks of the enemy mask themselves as supposed good things of God. My desire is to write a short and concise pulling away of the veil and an exposing of the enemy based on my own experiences. My heart is not again to point fingers or to judge anyone, but rather bid the reader to judge himself lest he be judged based upon my personal testimony and the Word of God. I will name the influencing spirits or tricks, expose their cover (pull off their mask), and describe how they manifest in ones life, from my own personal encounters.
1. The first set of spirits from the enemy is judgmentalism and criticism. These spirits mask themselves as the gift of discerning of spirits. They tell those they have infected or seek to influence that they have a gift of discernment of spirits. They manifest themselves in ones life by constantly noticing the faults and shortcomings of other saints. Constantly noticing and picking apart the shortcomings and faults of other saints is not discernment of spirits picking apart the faults along with the doctrinal and theological errors of other saints in NOT discernment of spirits. I would often have weird or icky feelings about other saints when I meet them I would just know something is wrong and I must beware and find out what is wrong with them. Do you have similar feelings when you meet or get to know other saints? If the answer is yes, then there is a very good chance you are operating under the influence of judgmental and critical spirits. I would constantly see the faults and errors of other believers morally, doctrinal or theologically that would cause me to want to separate from them, not work with or even to not listen to sermons of those who dont agree with my doctrinal or theological convictions (i.e. Calvinism - Arminianism, gifts of the Spirit, denominational background/affiliation, etc, etc, etc..) Take a look at your own life and see if you have similar feelings. If the answer is yes then there is a very good chance you are operating under the influence of judgmental and critical spirits as I was.
Discernment of spirits is a gift that is for the edification of the Body. If you do discern something in another person out of the true gift of discernment of spirits, the result would be a rush of overwhelming love and concern for this poor soul and strong desire to help, intercede in prayer for and to work with the person you have discerned correctly about out of love and concern for their soul. Spirits of judgmentalism and criticism working and operating under the mask of discernment of spirits produce weird or icky feelings and desire to distance yourself from and not to work or fellowship with a person or persons. See I will still at times discern things about certain people but the result of the discernment is different - the old was based in separation, anger- that person is TERRIBLE! and a desire to come against the person; the new is based in love and concern- a desire to help along with patience and longsuffering to work and strive with the person. You can clearly see the difference between the old and the new one is clearly from the devil and the flesh, the other is from God.
BEWARE - often judgmental critical spirits tell you TRUE things about people, so it appears that you are right. Other times they tell lies about people or cause one to mis-apply Scripture AGAINST another brother or sister. If you think you have a gift of discernment of spirits test yourself against the words above! |
