FAITH FIGHTING
“Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."1 Timothy. 6:12

Fighting a battle is not something luxurious or comfortable that many people would look forward to. Fighting is a struggle between two parties, and when it comes to battle; it is a win or loose affairs. Fighting is not always a convenient alternative and many would prefer to compromise than fighting. But there is fight you can’t afford to compromise, you can afford to loose, and that is a fight of faith. The fight of faith is not about religious fight, but it is a fight between the children of God and the kingdom of darkness. The Bible says “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians. 6:12.

The fight between the kingdom of God and darkness wasn’t something that started in your life, it was not a matter that started in our generation, but a long time battle which sparked off from heaven. The word of God says in the book of Revelation 12:7-9 “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon;’ and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old; called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

That was the beginning of the fight, the first war ever in heaven and earth was between the kingdom of God and Satan and his angels. And when Satan was cast out of heaven to the earth, this world became the battle ground between Satan and the seeds of God. When Jesus came into this world to restore mankind to God and impute the gift of life into men, the battle started in full range. Satan was enraged that Jesus was restoring the gift of life back to humanity and that they could also reign with God forever in heaven. Satan knows he has lost his chance of eternal life and he has no place with God in heaven, so he is ready to fight every man and woman from making the blessed and beautiful heaven. The same Book of Revelation chapter 12 reveals in verse 13,”Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.“ In verse 17, “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

So you need to understand the beginning of the fight, the cause of the fight and if you are a child of God , why those principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places are fighting against you and why you need to fight back. It’s called the good fight of faith.

When you give your life to Jesus Christ and become a new creation, Satan would want to use everything to fight against you, because the life of God is in you. Jesus did not only make the necessary weapons available for you, but He has also won the victory for you, all you need to do as your responsibility is to confirm the victory into your personal life through the fight of faith.

Gate Of Hell With Persecution
The gate of hell began the battle against the early church with persecution, tough persecution. It started with mockery, then to threatening in Acts 4:21, then further to imprisonment and beating in chapter 5 .When Satan saw the disciples could not give up by threatening, beating and imprisoning, he moved to killing, stoning to death in chapter 7. In chapter 8 of Acts the more the persecution, the more the spreading of the gospel. James was killed in chapter 12 but the church was waxing stronger and stronger. The persecution continued all through. Many of the disciples and Apostles were brutally murdered, some were beheaded, some saved, some were thrown into the dens of lion and some were burned to death. Some had their goods and properties confiscated, some were banished into the desert and so on. But the believers kept on the good fight of faith. Persecution only served the believers as confirmation that the faith was genuine, they concluded that they were in the right faith, that was the reason Satan was angry with them. Acts 5:41, "So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name."

As the Bible says in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose; the bitter persecution turned to better means of propelling and procreation of the gospel of Christ Jesus. As the discples were scattered by persecution, the gospel was spread all over, because they were preaching every where they went. When we trust God in the presence of problems and persecution, He turns them to progress and blessing in our lives, everything works together for good for us; no matter how ugly everything is, but at the end, good comes out if it

Gate Of Hell With Perversion
When Satan saw that he could not eliminate the precious faith by persecution, he joined it with perversion; if he could not eliminate it, he would corrupt it. After about 300 years of persecution, Christian faith continued to wax stronger and spread everywhere. Then the devil brought in perversion into the church, it started during the period of Emperor Constantine when the church was polluted with different idolatrous system and with the worshiping of Babylonians idols. The battle swing from external to internal fight. The Bible says in 2 Peter 2:1 “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction."

The fight and battle within is the battle of perversion, strange doctrines of Babylonian worshiping of mother and child which was inculcated as Mary and Jesus, the doctrine of absoluteness, Gnostic doctrine of absolution of Bishops, worshiping saints and satanic angels. That was how the church was perverted. This perverted Catholicism kept on and on until the period of Martin Luther, who rose up for the true Gospel of the Bible, of Salvation through grace and new life in Jesus. This man contested for faith, he fought and protested for the precious faith. And that was the inception of the protestant faith and there has been the discrepancy of the Orthodox and Protestant faith. There were great men of God who fought for the faith since it turned to the domestic battle within the churches and doctrines. We had about John Wesley and many others.

The church waxing stronger again under the protestants, Pentecostals and others until early 1950 when another perversion rose up within the Protestant, Pentecostal churches. A man rose up in America with a new dimension of perverted gospel of modern church concept, the teaching of liberty and modernization .This man was called Norman Vincent Peale, a pastor and author. He began with comparing Jesus with Sigmund Freud; his teachings implied that the gospel should serve as social psychology of more encouragement and upliftment. He went ahead into perverting the mission, method and message of the Gospel. The modern church concept oversimplified the gospel that it lost the major principles of the gospel. The system of confess and claim without the works of righteousness.

Norman Vincent with his doctrines of modern church concept believed the sermons and messages in the church should no longer be for conversion and godly sorrow, but for motivating and uplifting people, that church should not scare people away with the true message of repentant, salvation, sanctification and second coming of Jesus, but we talk about abundant blessings, prosperity, healing and earthly success. That the the preachers should not mention hell or hell fire, it should be forbidden, and rapture should be forgotten; that the church should not say what the people need but what they want to hear, what would make them happily scream and shout in the church. His system implied that church services should be of more dancing and entertaining rather than having solemn assembly.

Around 1958, Peale was joined with Robert Harold Schuller, the author of “Though time never last.” Robert Harold Schuller improved on Peale modern church concept, he was the originator of mega church concept. Then many other ministers joined the system including Oral Robert, Billy Graham and many others. Their teachings focus on earthly blessing, breakthrough, success and prosperity; their method is permitted with unguided liberty and indulgences. This strange doctrine began to spread all over the world and right to Africa in late 1980s. It was first called modern Pentecostal system; some denominations call it modern parish or modern church. We can call it mega church concept in American, we can call it modern pentecostal system or modern church parish, but the truth is that the system is the same and satanic to pervert the church. Some ministers claimed God gave them the system, some said God directed them to start the modern church. But the Bible warns us in Galatians 1:8, 9, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed."

Today, the church is having lesser persecution, great population and greater perversion; we are having more churches (denominations), more than ever before but lesser righteousness and godliness. Our society and countries are having more Christianity but less nature of Christ, lesser sincere and decent society. We are building mighty and beautiful Church auditoriums more than any period in the history of the church, but we have become more worldly than the people of the world.Our Pastors are luxurious than the politicians, devoted muslims are more sincere than ordained ministers, our sisters can confidently wear indecent dresses to church which they were ashamed to wear to night parties 15 years ago. Today, the church is more financially and materially richer than any time of the history, but we are poorer and starving spiritually.

Our Pastors are living in luxury, our Bishops and General Overseers are flying with private jets, living in mansions, gorgeously and sumptuously than the rich man with Lazarus. Sincerity, honesty and purity are diminishing while number of churches are increasing. In the past our pastors were content with basic necessities, but today, our senior pastors, G.Os and Bishops are getting richer and richer while the poor in the church are getting poorer .Capitalism and selfishness is now the order of the church; materialism and egoism are the system of our pastors. No more sharing or equity, everybody is on his own .The charity group of the world are more caring than the church, church primary and high schools are so expensive that a full time pastor from the same church can't afford to send his children except he steals from church money. Church universities are more expensive than individual private universities who borrowed money from bank. Our members are being heavily taxed in the name of giving, offering, automatic blessing of giving, worst than the civil society. That is the result of satanic perversion in the church, the modern prosperity system.

The modern church concept is the worst thing that has ever happened to the church since the inception of protestant, full of worldly indulgences and cares, riches of this perishing world. Many people have been polluted and deceived by this liberal and modern gospel because it is receptive, it is nice, it is sweet and cheap, no stress; just confess and claim, catch and carry. Just confess and you are saved; just claim it, and hey pesto, you are born again! What about the work of righteousness? "No need, you are saved by faith and covered with the righteous of Jesus." says the modern gospel. And we say, “Wow that is cool! But what about new life in Jesus and bearing the fruit of the spirit?" They will respond, “Oh, that is good, but it is all about your confession and faith; speak in tongue, dance and let’s praise God, we are going to heaven."

Does that not sound interesting? Is it not sweet if all I need is to claim without work of righteousness? If all I need is to receive sweet promises without sweat of self disciplines? That is the modern gospel for you, Christianity without cross, claims without new life action; faith without work. Many people have been deceived, many Christians and ministers who started well have swayed from the sweat faith to sweet faith, because the modern gospel sound interesting, because it has the forms godliness but it denies the power thereof as Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:5. It has the form of truth, but it’s half truth; it has the form of confession and faith but denying the power of righteousness and purity. That is the typical illustration of many preachers, their doctrines and their members today.

Jesus Christ predicted the coming of modern church concept. In the end time false teaching which Jesus said would deceive many. In Mathew 24, when Jesus gave the disciples the sign of end time. In verse 9, Jesus said there would be persecution of the church, and then in verse 11, the Lord said, “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many”. In verse 12, the Lord said, ”And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold."

Are you a believer? But what type of faith are you holding? The modern faith or the old time faith which was once delivered to the saint? Are you among the few that are taking the old narrow way of self discipline, godliness and contentment? Or you are part of the many on the broad, glittering and liberal part of modern church system. Jesus said many would be deceived, and we are seeing many today: many parishes, many people, many denominations, many wonders, many miracles and many worldliness.

The fight between the kingdom of God and the darkness is no longer in heaven, it is not only in our countries, but the real battle ground is your life; between light and darkness, between godliness and worldliness, between sound doctrines and perverted doctrines, between faith and fake peace. It is right between your self indulgence and self discipline. Apostle Paul said, I fight not as one who beats the air. I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:26,27.

Have you always been the defeated zone of sin and old life? Today is the day of your salvation, confess your sins and forsake them, accept Jesus Christ into your life and start a new life in Him. And beware of mutilation, beware of false teaching of Christianity without cross; the modern day church system. Let your heart and face be on eternal life and your ambition to being more like Jesus with godliness and contentment.

If you are a minister of the gospel, which of the minister are you? Are you an old Christian, minister, or you have swing into pernicious delusion of modern church system of urbanity and worldly cone? Return to the old and original faith. if you cannot trace it back again, go back in the word of God. Don’t be deceived by these psychedelic modern gospel, don’t be among the foolish "many".

Brethren, as fellow believers, ministers of God, let's heed the warning of Jesus Christ in this very end time, "Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” Matthew 16:6. Their leavens are sweet but poisonous, these leavens are the false teachings are doctrines. "Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leavenof bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Matthew 16:12

" Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. “ Jude 3, 4.

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