Tactic #4: Condemnation and Lies

God hates you.
Believe it or not, I’ve actually heard this.  From a church.  There’s this church in Kansas called Westboro Baptist that has been so warped by religious judgmental thinking that they actually believe God hates people, and they carry signs around that declare this and other absurd distortions about God and His message.

The sad truth is, when you get mired in sin, you hear things like this in your head.  God’s mad at you.  He’s tired of you.  You keep screwing up because you’re a loser.  A hopeless loser.  And God is tired of you and has given up.  All this talk about the fear of God is true, because God’s finally given up on you.  You are worthless.

But here, this will make you feel better.  Take a look at this pretty lady’s website.  I know it’s not the best, or what you really want, but I can get you something better if you come back tomorrow.

Am I exaggerating?  If you think so, then you must be doing pretty well in your spiritual walk, and I exhort you to maintain it.  Because for those of us who have failed in some area of sin for any length of time, at some point we have felt this way.  It’s hopeless.  I’ll never change, and God is tired of me messing up.  He might forgive me, but He doesn’t really care about me like He does all those other Christians who don’t do what I’ve done.  (Like those ones in Kansas…they must have never sinned in their lives to be carrying signs like that…I wish I was as good as them)

A lot can be said about condemnation; we hear it from other people, from spiritual forces, and from ourselves.  Condemnation’s goal is to convince you of things about God or yourself that aren’t true, and then drive you into depression, self-loathing, rebellion, and apathy as a result.  The most important truth that you must hear, however, is that none of it is true.  This is not who God says you are.  It is not what He sees in you.  And it’s not who He is.  The way you will know and believe this deep in your heart–not just hear and acknowledge it–is to pursue God’s word with more passion than you have pursued your sin.

God does forgive us.  He hasn’t given up.  You can change, and He wants to help you do it.  You have hope.  I can go on and on, but you won’t believe it for long until you have God’s word inside you, reminding you that it’s true.  In the armor of God in Ephesians, the only offensive weapon is the sword–the word of God.  Maybe you’ve heard that before.  Listen to it this time!  If I speak a Bible verse to myself in a moment of discouragement, I am fighting against the enemy.  If I declare a verse about forgiveness and repentance, or mercy, or God’s love, or against fear, I am fighting the enemy.  And I’m fighting him in the only way that will work.  Willpower doesn’t work.  Trying hard doesn’t work.  And don’t misunderstand, but accountability doesn’t “work” either.

We’ll get into that more later, so please don’t run off and tell your pastor what a loon I am.  Because accountability is important, and if you’ve never told anyone about your addiction, I’ll tell you right now that you need to do so urgently; it is absolutely vital.  For one, it will quickly dispel the notion that no one else struggles with this.  It’s shocking how many people still believe that.  The porn industry makes over $11 billion dollars a year.  That’s more than all four major professional sports, combined.  Other surveys have found discouraging percentages of pastors who struggle with pornography.  The point is, we need to win the battle, and too many people are losing and are discouraged about it, and the enemy is lying to them and condemning them for it.

But accountability doesn’t “work” in the sense that, if I go join an accountability group, then I’ll beat my porn addiction.  It doesn’t “fix” the problem.  It is a part of a much more holistic and deeply rooted heart-changing process that must take place.  Since we live in an ‘instant’ culture, some people have been deluded into thinking there are quick fixes for things like addiction.  Sorry to burst your delusion, but God wants you to walk with Him for a lifetime.  A lifetime.  He wants your whole life.  You can give Him your heart right now, completely.  It’s called “taking up your cross,” which Jesus says we need to do daily.  Once you do, He will help you fight to let Him keep it.  But it is a fight.  A fight you will win.

And the first and best way to learn to fight this battle is to know your Bible.  If you don’t like the idea of spending time there, then go back and read the Introduction and the 13 Reasons to Want Freedom, because you didn’t make the right decision after reading them.  Freedom is a serious business.  In fact, another lie of the enemy is that you don’t have time to read the Bible.  Yes you do.  Make time.  If it’s your top priority, you will make time for it.  You will turn off the TV, shut down the internet, turn off the iPod, and spend a good ten, twenty, thirty, or forty-eight minutes reading, thinking, and praying about God’s word.  Is thirty minutes better and more “holy” than ten minutes?  Compared to zero, they’re both infinitely better.  Learn to use your weapons.  One of my all time favorite verses:

II Cor 10:4
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of fortresses. (NAS/NT Transline)

I love the word ‘tearing down,’ because it implies a process.  The fortress doesn’t blow up instantly, but it is going to come down one piece at a time, and nothing is going to stop it.  Our weapons are not in our minds (sorry, there is no ‘Force’), they aren’t in our hands, and they certainly aren’t in our hearts.  Our weapons are the word of God being spoken out of our mouths in faith, and planted inside our hearts.  Use them, and you won’t get discouraged when the enemy lies to you.

Tactic #3: Discouragement

Ezra 4:4
Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and frightened them from building.  (NAS)

This is one of the most pervasive and hard to detect tactics of the enemy.  In the story of Ezra, the Jews have returned to their land from exile, and want to build a new temple for the worship of God.  But the people living in that land want them to fail.  They delay and frustrate the building process using a variety of methods, from intimidation to bureaucratic inanity (how well we know this one…).  The people get discouraged, and they become afraid.

It was an eye-opening experience the day I learned that discouragement is a sin.  As we saw previously in Deuteronomy and as we see in the famous passage in Joshua 1:8, God commands us not to be discouraged.  It’s a command.  Not a suggestion.  Discouragement is not a psychological ailment that can be whittled away with a prescription.  It is a spiritual attack, specifically designed to keep you from trying to get out of your cycle of despair and start doing something to advance the kingdom of God and His will in your life.

And wallowing in it leads to all kinds of sins and addictions.  Pornography is just one of them, as I’m sure you can imagine.  The enemy tries to make us think we will never win, and so we should just give up.  It sounds similar to the fear of failure tactic we looked at before.  I began this list with fear because ultimately, all of these tactics come back to fear, which is why God had to tell Joshua multiple times to “be strong and courageous.”  God knows that courage–which He supplies in abundance when we walk in His will–is the key to overcoming and defeating the enemy and walking out His purposes for our lives.

When we fail, and later give up, it doesn’t take long before we give in.  Maybe you’re going for a job promotion, or want to get accepted into a new school or program.  Or you want to get a paper published this year, or get a new house and hope your offer beats the others.  Maybe you want your credit approved so you can get a new car.  Dozens of possible scenarios that entail some risk of failure.  Pick any one of these and put yourself in that position.  Someone else gets the job.  You don’t meet the deadline.  The house sells to someone else.  You don’t get approved for the car.  What is your response?  If we are weak in our faith, it is very, very easy to become discouraged in situations like this, especially if there is a lot riding on it.

And it is in that moment you have to decide what you believe about God.  Is He good, and can I trust Him?  Will He carry me through this and provide for my needs?  Or is this one failure too many?  I just can’t take it anymore.  I’m tired of this.  It’s hopeless.  And to alleviate your discouragement, off you go to a strip club you haven’t visited in two years and thought you’d never visit again.  Discouragement is a gateway sin that leads to others many times worse.  That’s why when you get discouraged, and learn to catch it early, you can in that very moment strengthen yourself in the Lord, and He will help you get through.

The story of David in 1 Samuel is filled with one situation after another where David suffers under immense pressure and has nowhere to turn, and God delivers him.  Many times though, you wonder how God will do it, and if we were in those situations, it would be really hard to maintain our faith.  Many of David’s men faltered at times in theirs, but he kept them strong.

Another statement implied in this tactic is, “This is the best you’ll ever have.”  It’s discouraging to think this way when life is at its worst.  What if it never gets better?  What if God is treating me like one of His prophets, who often suffered their whole lives and never saw joy or victory.  What if I’m the new Jeremiah (who, by the way, was told to never get married because of what God knew was coming to the nation)?

When these thoughts bombard you, they aren’t just coming from you.  The enemy is filling your mind with doubt, because he wants you to question God’s goodness, look at the facts that back up your feeling, and then give up.  This porn is the best I’ll ever have.  It’s lousy; it makes me feel bad; I know it’s wrong; but God isn’t doing anything about it and so there’s no reason to hope.

If you have felt this way, then you need to know the truth is actually the reverse of all this.  God wants to save you from this painful discouragement.  Jesus didn’t die just to pay the penalty for sins.  He wants to save us from the power of them as well!  He doesn’t want us mired in depression and sorrow our whole lives.  We get there by not trusting Him, taking the easy choices, and then figuring there’s nothing better.

Proverbs 23:27, 28
For a harlot is a deep pit, and an adulterous woman is a narrow well. Surely she lurks as a robber, and increases the faithless among men.

See, God knows what happens when we become mired in discouragement from sin.  We lose our faith.  Getting lost in sexual sin robs your faith.  No wonder then that it’s so hard to believe God has something better for us if we try to escape!  Down in the pit, it’s pretty hard to see the mountains and forests and abundance that waits above.

If you’re mired in an addiction, God says to you now that this is not the best life can be.  I struggled with that thought for several years.  Once I realized it was there, I prayed against it and found these and other Bible verses that tell the truth, from God’s perspective.  Romans features a series of statements that declare what we have “now” because of what Jesus did.  This is the kind of truth that sets us free.  Keep reading, and later we will do an in-depth study of six decisions you can make each day that lead to freedom in Christ.