A Just Man Falls Seven Times

Hi Mike,

I just wanted to ask for your prayers and advice as I feel I have just been squandering my life away spiritually for a while now. I see the road ahead of me and how great the trials will be and at the same time how incredibly strong the pulls of the flesh are in my everyday life right now. I see the prayer requests of others and it makes me so sad to read about the trials that others are having to endure. All that wrapped up just makes me very depressed. It seems the beast only grows uglier, and I am avoiding facing the beast. I feel like I have so many flaws that I don’t know which to face first. I can’t think of a single redeemable characteristic of my own that I would say is good, even by the world’s standards. I am selfish, unloving, ungrateful, insecure, unwise, secretive, addictions to so many things and everything else. I am terrified of having to face all of it.

Have you ever come to a point in your walk where you felt like you had been thrown out for the time being? Like you were no longer blessed with the fruits of the knowledge of Christ? I don’t even feel like I seek what the body of Christ seeks and therefore have no place in the body….

N____

Hi N___,

It is always good to hear from you, even when you are feeling so low in spirit.

The answer to your question is, yes, I have “felt like I had been thrown out for the time being. Like I was no longer blessed with the fruits of the knowledge of Christ. I knew I wasn’t seeking what the body of Christ seeks and therefore have no place in the body….” It is only at that point that Christ will ever really take up His abode within us. This experience is the “great falling away” Paul refers to in 2Thessalonians 2. Not coming to this knowledge is the very thing which “withholds… letteth”, the coming of Christ to take up His abode within us.

2Th 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
2Th 2:5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
2Th 2:6 And now ye know what withholdeth [Greek: katecho] that he might be revealed in his time.
2Th 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [ Greek, katecho] will let, until he be taken out of the way.
2Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

“The spirit of His mouth, and… the brightness of His coming” are the same event. It is the Word of God becoming something before which we fear and tremble, to the point that it is far more powerful in our lives than the pulls of our flesh.

That state of mind cannot come until you have come to the state you describe in this email, and you come to that realization a symbolic “seven times.”

Pro 24:16 For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.

The fact that you have written me about this trial means you are a just man who will rise again. So rejoice that you have been counted worthy to suffer for Christ and have been granted to see that the beast is within you personally and that he is in the process of being destroyed by the word of Christ and the brightness of His coming into your life.

This is a part of ‘the goodness of God which leads us to repentance.’

Rom 2:4  Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.

It is completely counterintuitive to our natural mind, but it is still a fact that the Lord’s ‘goodness’ is our judgment, it is our judgment in this present time which bring us “to our wits’ end.”

Psa 107:20  He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
Psa 107:21  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
Psa 107:22  And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
Psa 107:23  They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
Psa 107:24  These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
Psa 107:25  For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
Psa 107:28  Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:29  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Psa 107:30  Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Psa 107:31  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

It is only “when… He [the Lord] raises up the stormy winds” in our lives, and we “are at [our] wits’ end” that anyone comes to Christ and experiences His peace, “[our] desired haven”. It sounds like that is exactly where the Lord has you, and believe me when I tell you that the trials of this life “are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed in us” when He reveals us to this world as “the manifest… sons of God”:

Rom 8:18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Rom 8:19  For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Our “fiery trials [of] this present time” indeed bring us “to [our] wit’s end”, but this is what Peter tells us about these “fiery trials”:

1Pe 4:12  Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13  But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

In verses 17-19 Peter tells us what these fiery trials are:

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
1Pe 4:18  And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
1Pe 4:19  Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

If God grants us the strength to endure the fiery trials of this age to the end of this age, then He will raise us up from the dead in “the resurrection of life” which He contrasts with “the resurrection of judgment.”

You are always in my prayers.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike