The Power of Darkness
There is nothing wrong of course with doing studies in the Bible but when our motive is not to find truth but to try and disprove something someone else is saying, we are then doing something simply to prove someone wrong. When I read/study the Bible now I don’t go in to see if what I hear someone else say is true or not. I go in to find Truth and only Truth, regardless of any of my preconceived ideas as to what may be true or not true.
Paul expressed in Philippians 3:10 that his goal was to know Him. He was not interested in trying to see if what was preached was right or wrong, but just searching the Scriptures for a more intimate knowledge of Jesus. This is not to say Paul did not confront error because he did on many occasions as we all know. But his primary purpose was to get to know what Jesus had done and to know the power of His resurrection.
This gospel that some of us proclaim is not something we have made up in our own minds so we could be controversial. Quite the opposite really, because those of us in this area at least were all interested in knowing Truth because we all saw and had experienced first hand the deception and bondage that was being proclaimed from behind pulpits. I am not saying this deception was and is preached while knowing they are preaching deception. No, I don’t believe for a moment that this is so.
But regardless of why it is being done, deception is deception, whether it is known to be such or not. The problem with this is that same deception has been brought down through the centuries of denominational teaching and no one even dares to question if it is so or not. The vast majority of the time, it is taken in as truth when most of the time it is not that at all. We are under grace since the event of the cross and what is being preached is law. You cannot mix these two things. They just don’t mix.
In Colossians 1:13 we see Paul saying that we have been delivered from the power of darkness. Now what do you suppose this power of darkness was and still is? I believe it was the law and living under that law. To try and keep any of the laws will take you away from grace and back into darkness. There is power in that darkness, make no mistake about it. It will take you deeper and deeper into deception. The latter part of verse 13 says we have been translated into His Kingdom when He took us from the power of darkness. The word translated there means to be transferred.
If you are doing studies to just dispel what the gospel of grace and peace teaches which is freedom and rest, then you are taking yourself back into darkness and will just get yourself deeper into deception. Search the Scriptures (OT) to see what the prophets said about the coming Messiah. My prayer is for the Lord to open eyes and ears to see and hear the true gospel of grace and peace. There is no darkness in that.
