Living Hope Fellowship Church...Sermons From the Pastor
CONFUSION
by Pastor Kevin Badgley
Beloved, it is a blessing to be able to think with a clear mind. If you don't have a clear mind, you are confused, and you can't make a decision for the Lord. You won't make the right decisions for yourself. If you made the right decision about anything, it would be by strictly by chance or by the grace of God. That is living in literal torment.
Many times we relegate confusion and unsound minds to the elderly. Some say that after you get so old, you get senile, and that's a normal process of life. I have some shattering news for you! That is not a normal process of life. The Bible declares to us in I Corinthians 14:33, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." He is the author of peace. If you are confused, you don't have peace or joy. You can't have anything like that, because things are going around like a squirrel in a cage, running around and around in your mind. You can't concentrate but for a few moments on any subject or thought pattern, and you are just vexed and troubled.
Everyone has had this difficulty at one time or another either through dreams or actual occurrences. It could have been through trials, tribulations, arguments, wars, or any high stressed situation. This does come on people. You've seen confusion in individuals. You've seen confusion in whole churches and other whole groups maybe for a short time, or perhaps at length. Beloved, God wants you to know that he is not the author of that; he doesn't create confusion. Are you listening? God does not bring confusion. II Timothy 1:7 says, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
A sound mind is not a confused mind. A mind that is not sound is not the mind of Christ. We are supposed to put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). According to 1 Corinthians 2:16 we are supposed to have the mind of Christ. Our minds are supposed be more and more like Christ as we obey and live for God. A confused mind is vexed, troubled, and is being controlled and hounded by the devil.
It doesn't matter how young or how old it is. If the mind is confused and troubled, it can be fearful, or paranoid, or vexed, or irrational, and open to any strangeness or abnormality. It will bring things of vanity and just foolishness in general. A mind that is vexed in that fashion is confused and is a breeding ground for the devil. Beloved, we need to be set free! 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." God has given us a spirit if we are saved, a spirit of a sound mind. Romans 8:9 says, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
God does not bring confusion. He brings clarity and understanding. He brings knowledge and the love of God. Some can't understand the Bible, because their mind is being vexed by the enemy; it's not sound. This is why the Bible is confusing to people who are in rebellion to God. They spend more time looking up scriptures to justify their sin and rebellion than they do finding scriptures that will lead them closer to God. They are so busy looking for loopholes that they aren't studying out the deep truths of God that they might go further in God. They are in confusion.
If you will look in the Bible with me in Daniel, Chapter 9, you will notice that Daniel is making a great prayer of intercession to the Lord for his nation, and he says these words in Verse 8, "O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee." The reason for confusion in individuals, in our nation, in our churches, in our families, in our own lives is because of our sin against God.
When you sin against God the devil is there to confuse you and to cause you to go further on in that sin.
When you are in confusion you will invariably go on in that sin and greater sins, because you can't make a clear minded decision to turn away from sin! To divert you even further, or if you aren't going fast enough to suit him, the devil will actually set up prophets, preachers, and doctrines that are contrary to God's Word to bring on more confusion. People will say these contrary doctrines are truth.
Beloved, if a man says something contrary to what the Word of God says, he's a liar, and you don't need to be sitting under him or be around him. These contrary things will teach you rebellion if you believe them. Many people believe what others tell them because they respect that person, but Proverbs 28:21 tells us, "To have respect of persons is not good. . . ." Listen carefully to what they are saying, and judge it by the Word of God. If it doesn't line up with God's Word, that person is deceived and he will deceive you. Matthew 15:14 says, "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Why? They are in the confusion that Satan brings because of sin and rebellion against God.
We have preached it straight down the line that without holiness no man shall see the Lord (see Hebrews 12:14). I know of individuals who have sat under our ministry, and yet they have self-will, and in rebellion have gone against the Word of the Lord as it was shown to them. God had even demonstrated mighty signs and wonders, yet they have done their own will. They went on out anyway, and then they came back to church and tried to serve God. They are the most confused individuals that you would ever want to see. It troubles and torments them because they are in rebellion against God, yet they are still trying to serve the Lord. That is confusion! What's worse is that, in that confusion, they think that they are still going to go to heaven! They think God is still going to bless their actions, their words, their church attendance, or whatever else they happen to be doing that they think is going to make them righteous before God!
When a person is living in open rebellion to God, willfully sinning, (I'm not talking about sins of ignorance), they can expect confusion to come. They obeyed the devil, and they will receive confusion from the devil so that they will not hear the conviction of the Holy Ghost dealing with them to quit what they are doing.
The Holy Ghost will try to deal with them to repent and ask God's forgiveness so that they can have and keep a sound mind from God. Satan brings confusion, vanity, and foolishness. God brings clarity, a sound mind, peace, comfort, and joy in the Lord.
However, if you are in open rebellion against God, you can expect to be confused. You can expect to believe a lie and be damned. 2 Thessalonians 2:12 says, "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Why? They didn't have pleasure in righteousness, but rather in unrighteousness. The reason people are confused and can't seem to get victory in a lot of areas is because they have sinned against God! (See Daniel 9:8.)
The Bible says in James 3:16, "For where envying and strife is, there
is confusion and every evil work." Where there is envying, strife, backbiting,
rebellion against the things of God, fighting in the church, resistance to the
truth, or hardness of the heart there is going to be confusion! When there is
confusion, there is every evil work, and anything can happen in confusion! People
say things that they don't mean and some are completely taken over by the devil;
riots can take place.
People will say and do anything, because they are provoked. They are goaded
by the power of the devil. I believe, according to God's Word, that when Jesus
was on trial and the Pharisees and religious leaders prompted and pushed the
crowd to say, "Crucify Him," they did it by way of confusion. The
people were looking at Christ and knew what he could do. They knew who He said
He was, and understood what he was saying. However, the religious community
came along and said, No, that's not so. It's not that way. There's a better
way. God didn't mean it when he said that. They became so confused that they
actually got turned around completely from Christ and were yelling, "Crucify
Him," instead of receiving him. Do you see that? When they did that they
crucified the one who could save them. It is the same way today.
When you reject the Word of the Lord, and you've got open rebellion, confusion comes upon you. You will then think that you are okay even in your sin. The devil hounds you, but you think you are going on in righteousness. You go to church, maybe pay tithes, and you'll do anything that you think is according to the Word of the Lord, yet you continue in sin. The preacher may tell you that you are just fine because you are at church, and yet you are in rebellion to God.
Many people on judgment day will be horrified when they realize that they, thinking themselves to be righteous, go to hell. They said, "Lord, Lord," to him all the time, yet God will say to them, ". . . I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (see Matthew 7:23). They will go to hell, being amazed and horrified, not just at where they are going for eternity, but that they were so deceived!
Deception comes as a form of confusion that Satan sends against a person when they are openly rebellious against God! If you know God's Word, then obey God's Word, and live his truth. If you make a mistake, then ask God to forgive you. Get back up on your feet and say, "My God, thank you for giving me another chance." However, if you by your own will reject the Word of the Lord by saying, "I can't do that, and I won't do that, but I'll obey God on all the other points," you are going to come in condemnation of the Lord. You will be in confusion, but you will have plenty of "helpful" people around you to tell you that you are fine. You will fall into that trap of deception of the devil, and you will lose the sound mind of Christ. You will take on the confusing, vexing, lying, deceiving mind of the devil, and you will go further into sin. One day you will wake up on the bottom of the pit.
By the grace of God, I pray that whoever reads or listens to this, will be shaken. I pray that they will hear this word, and realize that they are in confusion. Delusion is the last call and fall of confusion. Today, don't harden your heart against this word. Get yourself right with God. When in doubt, cast it out. Reject that which is not true and say, God, be merciful to me a sinner. Set me free, Lord. God, I don't want to be deceived. I want to walk your holy and upright way. God, strengthen me and deliver me from this thing. God, give me the sound mind of Jesus. As you live for God and obey his commandments, you will take on more and more the mind of Christ, which is never confusing. You will always have an answer for them that will ask you of the hope that is within you. You will always know what to do, according to God's Word, by prayer and obedience to His Word.
Today, don't stay in confusion. Come out from that mess. You who know those in confusion, whatever the age, begin to pray and fast that they might have a clear mind. Pray that they will understand this word, and that God will set them free. Pray He gives them another chance to live for him, because you cannot make it to heaven insane.
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