I’m reading back through Exodus again and this passage caught my attention.  “See, I am sending an angelahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land (Ex. 23:20-30).

I think we can draw some significant lessons from this passage regarding our destiny in Christ.  Scripture is clear that “everyday ordained for us was written in God’s book before one of them came to pass (Ps. 139:16). In other words, God established a plan for our lives before we were ever born.  He has prepared things in advance that he invites us to be part of (Eph. 2:10). When we walk in our destiny we are fulfilled and fruitful.  Of course, we can say “no” to the things God has planned for us just like human children can reject good things their father has prepared or provided for them as their inheritance.

The land of Canaan was promised to Abraham and his descendants.  To possess the land was Israel’s destiny. In this passage, God revealed that he had provided an angel to go before them – to guide them and protect them as they stepped into their God-ordained promise.  However, possessing the land or the promise was not automatic.  God warned them there were things they wound encounter that could and would derail them if they were not careful and committed.  First, they had to pay attention to the leading of the Lord. We are directed to be Spirit led.  If we choose to go our own way and then expect God to bless what we have chosen, it will limit our participation in all the things he has prepared for us.  What we choose might be good.  Bur what God had for us would have been great.  It is not always easy to discern the will of the Lord. but God will honor the heart that seeks to know and pursue his will.  If we miss it, he will redirect us.  

Our first step in fulfilling our destiny, then, is to be willing to seek what he has planned for us above our own desires.  God warned the Israelites not to rebel against his instruction but to listen carefully to what he said.  The more responsive we are to the word of God and the more submitted we are to his will, the easier the journey will be.  God told Israel if they would be careful to follow his ways, he would go before them, he would put fear in the hearts of their enemies, and he would oppose those who opposed them.  As Paul said, “If God is for us, who cans stand against us. 

He then warned them of their greatest temptation and that would be the false gods of the people who inhabited Canaan.  As they moved into the land and faced opposition, the temptation would be to make peace with those tribes and to compromise in order to be accepted by them rather than being at war with them.  We have to acknowledge that the false gods of this world appeal to our flesh and our flesh will prompt us to want what others have.  We will be tempted to taste just a little and to participate just a bit, but when we do, the enemy will gain a foothold in our lives that may well become a stronghold.  God said to make no peace and no compromise, but to seek only him and his provision for fulfillment.

Whenever possible, God’s people were not just to isolate themselves and avoid the enemy, but to actively oppose false worship and the demonic spirits behind each idol and each sacred stone. As the saying goes, “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  So…God instructs his people to demolish the false religions and to break or pulverize their sacred stones. He goes on to say, if we worship the Lord and follow him only, we will find our destiny and experience his abundant blessings.  He says he will put his blessing on our food and water.  He will remove sickness from us and miscarriages and barrenness will be a thing of the past. He also promises a full life span.  In essence, he is promising the same abundant life that Jesus promises when we serve him with all our hearts. 

Interestingly, we also see that God is strategic in bringing us into our destiny and the promises he has for us.  To Israel, he promised that he would drive the enemy tribes out…but no all at once.  If they were driven out immediately, Israel would not be able to steward the land well.  Wild animals would take over and vineyards would be choked with weeds before Israel could care for what God had given them.  We often want our destiny now and our promises immediately. But God is wise and only gives us what we can manage well.  As we grow and mature, he will give us more.  Jesus said, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much” (Lk.16:10).  If you want more opportunity, more responsibility, more creativity more prophetic gifting…be very faithful with what you have now and God will give the increase…if you are seeking the destiny he has established for you.  

All of us are guilty of going after what we want and then asking God to bless it.  He may do so, because he is a gracious God.  But the greatest fulfillment and the greatest productivity that will have an has eternal impact is found on the road he destined for us before the world was created.  Let me encourage you to seek that road and let him lead you there.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 1 John 2:15

In this text, John is not speaking of the people in the world for “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” but the systems of the world that are controlled by Satan. These are the systems of philosophy, power, politics, media, etc. that war against the kingdom of God and draw men away from the Father.

The nature of the Kingdom of God is countercultural to the world. Paul draws the line when he says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord” (2 Cor. 6:14-17). Paul asserts that there are ultimately only two kingdoms and only two people groups. You are either in the kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness. The presence of the Holy Spirit within a person or the absence of the Spirit defines who you belong to. There is no middle ground.

On several occasions, Jesus himself observed that the world hated him and the same world would hate those who follow him. Now, more clearly than ever, lines are being drawn between the systems of the world and the Kingdom of God. People are choosing sides…many without even knowing it and the sides are at war. What people fail to realize is that spiritual forces are at work behind everything we see and hear in the natural realm and whoever you align with places you in their camp. Paul said the dividing line is Jesus.

The opposing values of each camp are becoming increasingly clear. What God calls good, the world calls evil. What the world parades as good, God clearly identifies as evil. This is not a new conflict. Isaiah warned, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa.5:20).

American pop culture now celebrates abortion and condemns those who stand for life. Homosexuality has now hijacked the rainbow and is granted an entire month to parade and celebrate its perversions. Those who speak out against it are branded as haters and bigots. The world promotes premarital sex and cohabitation and views those who value virginity and sexual purity as strange and even deranged. The world tolerates religion as long as it is inclusive and compromising, To declare that Jesus is the only source of salvation is treated as offensive and ignorant. Accomplished scientists who would declare creationism to be true or, at least, a valid alternative to a godless universe are marginalized in their profession. University professors who would profess to be Christian will also be marginalized and discriminated against in most “leading universities” for their narrow-mindedness and bigotry.

The challenge for believers is to not be moved in their commitment to biblical truth and standards. When we hear the constant drum beat of tolerance for every lifestyle and are surrounded by so much sin that we are no longer shocked by it, incremental compromise is a very real temptation. However, To compromise on these and other important biblical truths and values out of a desire to fit in or be accepted by our culture is a form of denying Jesus. Just as Peter denied knowing Christ out of fear, we too can deny him out of our own fear of man, our own fear of rejection, or our desire to advance in the systems of the world. We may claim Jesus as Lord, but if we abandon his standards of righteousness and adopt out culture’s standards, then he is not truly our Lord.

We have quickly come to a time in which we must accept the fact that if we follow Jesus we will be rejected and even cursed by those who hate Jesus. I think we must decide ahead of time who we stand with without exception. We must accept that following Jesus may come with increasing costs.Some level of persecution is inevitable as our culture continues to reject Jesus and those who follow him. But Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt. 5:10-13). 

We must decide now that if we stand for Jesus and the word of God, we may well lose promotions, jobs, friends, positions, opportunities, and perhaps, even our freedom. We must count them as lost ahead of time but know that blessing will come to us as a promise of God. We may lose our reputation on earth, but our reputation in heaven is all that counts. We must be clear about where Jesus stands on the issues of the day and stand with him. By definition, the kingdom of God will always be countercultural until the Lord returns. Stand firm then and be blessed in these days of trouble.

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.  (Hebrews 6:4-6)

I believe in positive preaching that, like prophecy, is designed to strengthen, comfort and encourage.  But there is also a time to issue warnings to the body of Christ.  Hebrews is a letter both of encouragement and warning.  To set the context, 30-40 years have passed since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Persecutions had broken out throughout the Roman Empire.   Several decades had passed and Jesus had not yet returned. Pressure from Jewish friends and families who still kept the Law of Moses was probably applied daily to abandon this “Jesus sect” and return to the Law.  

In the context of those things, there were some believing Jews who were beginning to fall away from the church and drift back to the Law of Moses and the temple services in Jerusalem. Something in us tends to want something more tangible, more concrete, more about us than faith sometimes offer.  These believers were beginning to drift away from the truth that we are saved by grace though faith in Jesus and by no works of our own.  They liked a temple they could touch and smell, sacrifices and “good works” that seemed to put them in control of their relationship with God, and a priesthood that could be religious for them.  Although, the law enslaved men, they wanted to go back to the Law like some in the days of Moses had wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt.

In the face of that “falling away,” the writer of Hebrews penned the warning above. There are only a few things in the New Testament that are deemed impossible, but this letter lists one of those.  The writer says that when a person has been enlightened (when they have been taught the truth); when they have tasted the goodness of God and his salvation and experienced the Holy Spirit and his power…if they fall away…it is impossible for that person to be brought back to repentance.

I don’t believe that the writer is telling us that God won’t receive us again, if we repent.  I believe the warning is that our hearts can become so hardened and so indifferent to the prompting of the Spirit, that there is a point beyond which we will not and cannot repent under any condition.  This letter warns us that we can cross a point of no return in our faith.  It may not be a moment we are aware of.  We may not recognize hoe hardened or indifferent our heart has become after we have quenched and grieved the Spirit for so long.  Many will take up an offense toward God because something in their life did not go as they planned or because some prayer went unanswered.  That offense turns to bitterness and the bitterness to unbelief.  They write God out of their lives like an old boyfriend or girlfriend who was unfaithful. You write them out and then after a few years you simply don’t think about them anymore. 

The apostle Paul revealed a prophecy for the end times in his first letter to Timothy.   He said, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (I Tim. 4:1-2).

In these last days, we are seeing many believers fall away from the faith.  They are rejecting the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to heaven.  They are embracing compromise in the name of tolerance and calling things good that God calls an abomination (abortion, homosexuality, transsexuality, etc.). They are abandoning the local church to stay home and be Christians as if they can separate the head from the body without consequence.  How many of us live out a casual Christianity that shows up or serves only when it is very convenient?  How many of us trade on God’s grace by participating in sin year after year without repentance, believing that God will excuse our indifference to holiness? If we are honest, how many of us have slipped into a mindset that we will still get to heaven because we are better than most people?  How many of us can truly point to the evidence that Jesus is Lord of our lives as well as Savior?

The warning in Hebrews is that we can be drawn away by false prophets who preach a partial truth or even by prophets of culture.  We can forsake our spiritual family by becoming a faithful member of the “electronic church.” We can easily become casual about Jesus and his holiness.  And we can come to a place we don’t recognize, but at which point, our hearts will no longer respond to God again.  All the time, Satan will be whispering that we are in no danger.

The warning is intended to make us wise so that we keep guardrails up around our faith.  The guardrails are staying in the Word, staying connected to spiritual family, staying accountable to other faithful believers, putting ourselves in positions to hear the truth that most often will be counter-cultural, and practicing confession and repentance so that we maintain a concern about our holiness and invite the Spirit to constantly do his work in us.

We live in dangerous times…especially, in the spiritual realm.  The spiritual roads are slippery, dark, and tricky. Don’t be casual, don’t be a compromiser in the name of tolerance, and don’t disconnect from spiritual family.  When you find yourself being apathetic about Jesus, do something about it.  When you know you have sin in your life, acknowledge it, repent of it, confess it. Never allow yourself to even get close to crossing the point of no return.