Denying the Power Thereof
We live in age of disbelief. For many God has been reduced to a God of the gaps: filling in what science has not yet explained. And for Christians who claim to believe in Jesus belief has become shallow, self-serving and devoid of the power of God.
Please pray with me.
The aging Paul warns Timothy of the condition of the church at the end of the world. Please turn with me to 2 Timothy 3:1. Paul says:
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 Timothy 3:1:
Perilous means to be full of danger and risk. Why are the last days so perilous? Paul begins to explain saying:
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 2 Timothy 3:2-4
According to Paul people at the end of time will be doing many sinful things. But this is not the only reason that the last days will be perilous. In fact it is not even the greatest reason. Paul says that people at the end of time will be doing all these things and then he adds in verse 5:
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 2 Timothy 3:5
It is this last description that truly makes the last days perilous. For not only will people be wicked they will appear to have a form of godliness but will actually deny the power thereof. What power are these people denying? Please turn with me to Romans 1:16. The Bible says:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The people in the last days then are denying the power of the gospel. What then is the gospel? Turn with me to Luke 4:17-19. In this passage Jesus is called upon to read the bible in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. The bible says:
17 And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; Luke 4:17,18
These words in Luke come from Isaiah 61:1,2. In that passage instead of using the word gospel we find the words good tidings. Some translations may say good news. The gospel then is good news for the poor. But when the bible says poor it does not mean financially poor. It means spiritually poor. We know this because Jesus says in Matthew 5:3:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3
Jesus came to preach the good news to those that are poor in spirit. What is this good news? Well let’s continue reading what Jesus was reading as it is recorded in Luke 4:18,19:
…he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4:17-19
Jesus was sent to heal the brokenhearted and to preach deliverance to the captives. Who are these captives to whom Jesus has been sent to preach? They are those that have been enslaved by sin. In Galatians 5:1 we read:
It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NASB
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus came to set us free from sin. He came so that we would no longer be under the yoke of slavery to sin. According to Luke 4:18 He also came to recover the sight of the blind. In Revelation 3:18 Jesus says to the last day church of Laodicea:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. Revelation 3:18
The good news of salvation is that we no longer have to be blind to our sins. Through the power of the gospel we can see where we have strayed from God’s word. The gospel then is for those that recognize their poverty of spirit. It is the good news that Jesus sets us free from sin and enables us to see ourselves as we truly are. But even more than that it is the power of God to set a liberty those that have been bruised by the serpent. Through Jesus Christ our spiritual bodies that have been broken and bruised by the tempter’s snares can be restored. The bible says in Philippians 3:21 that Jesus will:
…change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. Philippians 3:21
The gospel then is the power of God to change us to be like Jesus. Not partially but completely. In Hebrews 7:25 we read:
25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
This is what those with a form of godliness deny when they deny the power thereof. They deny that Jesus can save us to the uttermost. They deny that Jesus can truly change our sinful bodies into His glorious body. They deny that we can truly be free from sin and truly see ourselves as we really are. All of this they deny while still having a form of godliness. This is why they are so dangerous because they deny the power of the gospel yet they still profess to follow Christ.
Ellen White tells us in Ministry of Healing p17 that it was Christ’s:
…mission to bring to men complete restoration; He came to give them health and peace and perfection of character. Ministry of Healing p17
And then in a quote that I have shared before Ellen White says in God’s Amazing Grace, p253:
Those who put their trust in Christ are not to be enslaved by any hereditary or cultivated habit or tendency. Instead of being held in bondage to the lower nature, they are to rule every appetite and passion. God has not left us to battle with evil in our own finite strength. Whatever may be our inherited or cultivated tendencies to wrong, we can overcome through the power that He is ready to impart. God’s Amazing Grace, p253
How could it be any clearer? We can overcome every hereditary or cultivated habit or tendency through the power of the gospel. This is the good news. Jesus came to save sinners from their sins. If we deny that Jesus can do this in our lives or in any one else’s life we are denying the power of God.
This is why Paul warns us that in the last days perilous times will come. In the last days there will be people that continue in the ways of the world but have an appearance or form of godliness. The apostle Paul says in Titus 1:16:
16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. Titus 1:16
They look like Christians on the outside but they deny that God can truly change them on the inside. They tell others that in this life we will always have sin. They tell others that in this life with all of the sin around us it isn’t possible to completely overcome sin.
But by saying that we can’t overcome our sinful natures through the power of grace they are saying that God is weaker then the devil. Is not God more powerful than our adversary? In 1 John 4:4 we read:
4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4
How can we claim to be Christians and deny the power of Christ? Just because some fail, just because many fail does not mean that victory in Christ is not possible.
Many years ago a nine year old girl was walking home with her twin sister. For some reason or another a 13 year old girl threw a rock and broke the younger girl’s nose. After being carried home by her twin sister and a friend the young girl remained unconscious for three weeks.
When she finally did wake up she found that she was sick and in pain. As she lay in her bed she wondered if her life would ever be the same. Sometime after this her father returned home from a trip that had kept him away for the past several weeks. Despite her pain the young girl began to be excited as she heard her father speaking from across the room to her mother.
“Where is my daughter,” her father said confusedly.
“She’s lying in the bed right there,” her mother said.
It was at this point that the young girl realized her own father did not recognize her. The injury to her nose and face had been so severe it had distorted her features. Over the years the pain and memory of that incident would stay with her. And despite healing from her injury her life was never the same. Plagued by illness she struggled to be healthy. Enduring hardship she and her family were disfellowshipped from their church.
Later she would lose not one son but two to illnesses of their own. And finally her own husband succumbed to an early death from what many felt amounted to exhaustion. And yet despite all of the difficulties that Ellen White faced she became the most widely translated and the most published female nonfiction writer of all time. Her biography of the life Christ, entitled the Desire of Ages, has consistently been voted the greatest biography of the life Christ.
Truly she overcame by blood of the lamb and the word of her testimony. And like her we too can have victory. But we must heed the warnings of the apostle. We live in perilous times. Times in which Christians the world over, and members in our own churches, profess godliness but deny the power of the gospel.
We live in perilous times when like the pharisees of old men and women in the church are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but full of wickedness on the inside. All the while claiming that the restoration of the man of God must wait. That overcoming sin in this life has limitations and that believing that all things are possible through Christ is not only not true but not worthy of attention. And yet we have from that little old woman the words:
"Let us strive with all the power that God has given us to be among the hundred and forty-four thousand. And let us do all that we can to help others to gain heaven."--Review and Herald, March 9, 1905.
Do you want victory in Jesus? Than believe in the power of the gospel. Believe in the power of Jesus to do what you on your own cannot. To make you into a new creation, a child of God. Don’t deny the power of a God to change you into His image. Believe. Believe the words of Jesus who says:
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. John 8:36
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