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On June 22, 2014 in Instruction by Robert Kelley

The final rebellion of this mortal age will feature the combined forces of fallen angels and unregenerate humans in the multiplied millions led by Satan marching against King Jesus ruling from Jerusalem. This occurs after His millennial reign ends in accord with His Father’s will so that He might eternally destroy them all (Ezekiel 38:1-17; Revelation 20:7-10)! You would think they would have learned their lesson at Armageddon when a thousand years before, God moved to restore Israel and displayed His superior power over the opposing fallen angels and human ancestors of those now being destroyed in His holy fire (Ezekiel 38:18-39:29; Revelation 16:15-21, 19:11-20:3).

However, rebellion rooted in sin can and will not reform itself to submit to God (Romans 8:7). This is the reason God in His infinite wisdom has called men to a salvation that immediately begins to regenerate and sanctify them from sin. Consequently, all aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ understand that the urgent imperative of our fathering like the Father is to lead our children to faith in Christ and teach them about Him by precept and example! I want to encourage the godly men who like me nobly set out to do this very thing but have seen only mixed or limited results; godly fathers whose children are rank rebels of this world in spite of our best efforts.

First, let us be clear. No parents in the history of this world have ever raised a perfect child but God, Joseph and Mary of Nazareth! Therefore, those of you reading this that proudly look down on us with rebel children: it was not your perfect parenting that may have spared you from the more obvious displays of sin in your child’s life or some special favor with God that caused any one of them to get saved. Truly, unsaved and rebellious parents end up with children that get saved every day as was my own case. My parents could lay no claim to leading me to faith in Jesus Christ because they did not even try. My grandmother took us to church periodically and that was it for family outreach.

Second, stop measuring yourself against the supposedly perfect fathering of my fellow authors in their how to books, pastors and the men at church whose children seem to be perfect. If you have done your best in seeking to be a father as modeled by God the Father, then hold your head up in thanksgiving that you have pleased Him--He knows you were not perfect and accepts this fact as reality. After all, He as the only true perfect Father had His creatures destined to be sons rebel against Him (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:6-11). Is anyone in their right mind faulting God as a failed Father because Eve and Adam rebelled? Or which of you perfect fathers will counsel Him (Job 36:22-23)?

Indeed, the rebellion against God by Adam’s seed continues to this very hour even among those claiming to love Him; those who by their rebellion show that they despise Him (Malachi 1:6-14; John 14:15; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 14:33-37). The Bible is also sprinkled with incidents of children rebelling against their godly fathers. One of the most famous of these is the case of Absalom when he rebelled against his father, David (2 Samuel 15). Now, David, as an imperfect father, did have some serious failures including when he did not severely discipline his son, Amnon for raping Absalom’s sister (2 Samuel 13). Still, this was no excuse for Absalom to rebel against his father.

For while God did permit the adversity of a rebellious son to come forth as judgment on David for his sin in the Bathsheba affair (2 Samuel 12:7-12), God Himself rose up against Absalom to destroy him in his rebellion against his father (2 Samuel 17:5-14; 18:1-18). Divine destruction in judgment is the final end of all unrepentant rebels whether it is my child or yours. This is why God made honoring parents one of His Ten Commandments and put capital punishment in the laws of Israel as a stern deterrent for those children that would hit or curse them or be rebellious without repentance (Exodus 20:12, 21:15, 17; Deuteronomy 21:18-21). And woe to those adults that support the rebellion of a man’s child against him as has happened to me (Romans 12:19)!

Last, my fellow godly father, keep praying and hopeful for your rebel child until your dying breath. In contemporary history, Franklin Graham, the son of one of Christianity’s greatest Evangelists, Billy Graham, rebelled as a youth against his father by his own testimony. Yet, like the prodigal son of our Lord’s parable given in part to show God the Father’s patient wait in love for His rebellious sons, he returned home in repentance from the “far country” of rebellion (Luke 15:11-24, NKJV). As Ezekiel 18:1-18 teaches, each soul is responsible to God for his own actions. If after having done your best, your children rebel, God does not hold you accountable--you did not fail!

In the final analysis, our rebellious children have done what their God given free will has desired in rebellion to do: rebel! No question about it; watching the self-destructive deeds of our rebel children is painful and it gets worse. Truly, God’s Word foretells a widespread feature of these latter days is the pain of having our rebel children in the midst of much family betrayal, turn on us to the point of betraying us to death--get prepared (Micah 7:5-7; Matthew 10:21-22, 34-39; Mark 13:12-13)! Nevertheless, your pain will never be greater than our holy God who must destroy them if they never repent. At that time, we will see if the children of the perfect fathers stay true to them and God or not.

Tagged With: Godly fathers can and do have rebel children

And Then There Is The War

On June 8, 2014 in Instruction by Robert Kelley

Professing Christians that scoff at the fact fallen angels watch, stalk and hunt men to destroy their lives now and souls in Hell with them after God’s judgment (Matthew 25:41, 46; Revelation 20:10-15), also obviously reject that these same invisible, spirit creatures war against the followers of Christ (Ephesians 6:12). How tragic and unfortunate for these scoffers that they show themselves to be captives and enemy agents of the same creatures arguing against God’s Word plainly written by their unbelief to include those that attempt to cloak themselves behind academia and the high sounding words of theological study (2 Timothy 2:23-26).

The war between God the Creator and His rebel angels was initiated by Him when He booted them and their ambitious leader from Heaven as a permanent residence as well as put them under condemnation (Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:11-19). They war against God until He subdues all rebellion in the Day of Christ very near who has already publically triumphed over them representing mankind on His cross (1 Corinthians 15:24-28; Colossians 2:13-15)! Indeed, Christ came and did as the Father had announced millennia earlier in the Garden when He sanctioned the involvement of men in the war after the enemy’s successful effort to put them into the rebellion (Genesis 3:14-15).

Satan is clever, crafty, relentless and ruthless in prosecuting his war to hurt God by destroying men (Genesis 3:1-5). Thoroughly evil and depraved, he has no conscience. So, as the heartless predator he is, he snares men in traps of temptation and binds them with all manner of destructive cords of addiction and vice. And when he cannot snare or bind up the aspiring strong man of God in the image of Christ as he desires, he goes after unsaved and spiritually weak family members we are charged to protect, but cannot without their cooperation in faith. His goal, of course, is to hurt us and if possible, force us to soften our resolve to trust and faithfully serve God.

The enemy of our souls also brings trouble, adversity, body and mental afflictions to cause men to despair even of life. While all of the afflictions of sin and Satan men endure are terrible, mental illnesses--torments of the mind--which I have been caused to witness up close in my own family and formerly as a pastor are truly devastating. Professing Christian naysayers that refuse to believe mental illness has any origins in the demonic should read again about king Saul and what the Bible says was the source of his murderous paranoia about David (1 Samuel 16:14-23, 18-20:34). Mental illness is on the rise in our nation and world today with no human cure.

An interesting corollary in the rise of mental illness is the corresponding rise in physical attacks on Christians and their property. Christian young people in American schools especially are being targeted such as at Columbine in Colorado fifteen years ago and most recently, this week when a man reputed to be mentally ill sought to kill as many students as possible at the Christian operated Seattle Pacific University. Two were wounded and Paul Lee from the Portland area was martyred. So, while I am by no means saying that all mental illness is demonic in origin, we must understand that in this war with the powers of darkness they afflict men with it and use them as soldiers.

Aspiring strong men and great women of God must be on guard not to deny the teaching of Scripture that we are at war or to live as though it is not so. Truly, in these latter days we must awake from apathy and come to expect as Scripture teaches that all of our journey in this life will be filled with day to day battles and sometimes hand to hand combat with the dark forces arrayed against us. As the apostle Paul instructs and I remind us in my book, The Strong Man Of God, Back To Basics, we must take on the mindset of the athlete and be disciplined with the resolute commitment to win (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). This is especially needful after losing a battle to the enemy. Get back up!

In faith, take up the weapons and put on all of the armor God has given us to prevail in the strength He supplies (2 Corinthians 10:3-5; Ephesians 6:10-11, 13-18). The great apostle also charges us by Timothy to “wage the good warfare having faith and a good conscience,” (1 Timothy 1:18-20, NKJV). All known sin should be confessed to God and repented from immediately giving the enemy no legitimate place to accuse you to God. Too, Paul teaches we are to pursue “godliness” faithfully confessing and enduring the hardships Satan will surely bring through the hatred and violence still to come “as a good soldier of Jesus Christ,” (1 Timothy 6:3-16; 2 Timothy 2:3-4, NKJV).

Tagged With: Christians are beiing warred against!

Strong Man Of God Blog

Robert Kelley's weekly instruction, observations and reflections inspired by the Lord posted each Sunday night.

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