March-April 2006

Word of

Prophecy

Fellowship

THE GOOD

NEWS - LETTER

PEER PRESSURE-Part 2

Abridged by Ray Pringle, Jr.

The prophet Jeremiah had a terrible time with this problem; listen to what he says here, beginning in Jeremiah 8:18: "Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words." The men of Judah knew that it was against the law for them to kill Jeremiah, so instead they decided to smite him with the tongue! In other words, Let's slander him, so no one will pay any attention to him! Let's tell tales, and whisper, and separate Jeremiah's chief friends from him, and those that have confidence in him. And in Jeremiah 20:10, you find out who it was that did this to him--it was his contemporaries--his peers! "For I heard the defaming of many," Jeremiah said. "All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him."

DEFAMING IS MURDER

Do you know what you are when you do that? A murderer! If you defame one of your peers, you have committed murder. You might as well go ahead and bury the guy. Sometimes, if an offence has been documented and exposed, and there are plenty of witnesses present, it is right to do it; but even in the Old Testament the Bible says, "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death." (Deuteronomy 17:6). Without at least two or three witnesses, you are not even supposed to raise an accusation. Paul talked about this in the New Testament, when he said: "Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses." (I Timothy 5:19).

WHISPERING

When you go home and whisper about someone to your children, or to your wife or husband, you are nothing but a messenger of Satan. Look at this grave warning, in Psalm 101:5-7: "Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour [that means you go around whispering something against your peer, someone you have been close to], him will I cut off…He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." It is of the devil when somebody says to you, "Oh, I heard something here--psst, psst!" Then if you entertain it, and listen to it, and go whisper it to somebody else and get them stirred up with something that had no truth or honesty behind it, that is of the devil too. I'm going to tell you something, folks: most Christians err by believing what ONE whisperer says. God condemns whispering--and so do I! It is ruining churches: it is divisive, it is destructive, and it conquers, and God said that if you hide your hatred with lying lips or you utter a slander, you are a fool. (Proverbs 10:18). Let that suffice for God's judgment.

A HEART OF MALICE

If somebody whispers something to you, tell them to shut up! I don't care if they are telling you the truth or not--it is out of a corrupt system. The Bible says, "A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter." (Proverbs 11:13). If you have a faithful spirit, you will not want to repeat what someone said or did that did not please you, or that may have offended you in some way. Whispering comes from a heart that is filled with malice, and John said that "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." (1 John 3:15). What a terrible ending we will have if we slander or lie about someone, or we try to straighten them out with our talebearing, because we have malice in our hearts. When you speak against your peer and your intentions are not good, God will get you. I say, God will get you!

GOD'S BOOMERANG

The only weapon of offense that nature and God both recognize is a boomerang. When you get a boomerang and throw it at somebody that used to be your friend, God will turn that boomerang back and hit you right between the eyes with it! It will probably hurt you worse than it would have hurt them. And no person in the world ever attempted to wrong or slander another without being severely injured in return: somehow, sometime, they are going to be hurt more than the one they were trying to injure. God's boomerang comes back and hits the owner right between the eyes!

Listen to what David said about this, in Psalm 7:14-16. "Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate." The same means that someone takes to kill the character of their peer, or to slander them or destroy them in some way, becomes a suicide of their own!

DON'T RETALIATE

Peer pressure comes from someone who is close to you--a  family member, or friend; and when that person whispers about you, or slanders you, and causes you injury in some way, what are you going to do--kill him? You have a responsibility to try to save that peer, that friend, that member of your family, or that Christian who is in the body of Christ with you. If you retaliate, your "getting even" does not settle the matter, and the revenge of the revenger only becomes more desperate and despotic than the malice of the one who originally intended to slander or hurt them. If you want the victory, and if you want the problem solved, then let God solve it. You cannot do it: you will only make matters worse. Instead of just having a little bit of malice, you are going to have strife, and strife is one of those things that never ends--it just goes on, and on, and on. Proverbs 17:14 says, "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with."

GOD THE AVENGER

God's angels keep His books admirably. He observes our record, and closes all accounts with finality. He does not always balance the books on us at the end of each month, like the company auditor--but He will do it, eventually. In Romans 12:19, Paul said, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." I will get even with him for you--leave it to me, God says. Why can't we believe what God said, that He will take care of things? If you cannot trust God to be your avenger, then how can you trust him to be your healer, or your savior, or your protector in times of peril to your life, or to make your business a source of livelihood, and a blessing? How can you trust God in all the other innumerable problems you are going to face, if you cannot trust him to take vengeance on your adversary?

LET GOD RETALIATE

We have to wait on the Lord to save us. Let God retaliate, and let Him take vengeance. Listen to this great man, David, describing how he let God take vengeance on his enemies, in Psalm 57:6. "They [his enemies, his peers] have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves."

Beloved, don't hunger for vengeance or retaliation--leave it to God. In Deuteronomy 32:35, God says, "To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste." It is creeping upon them faster than you think! God has already marked the place and the time when your enemy's foot is going to slide, and his calamity is going to suddenly come upon him. Therefore, to the Christian who is really trusting in God and leaving his problems to God's omniscience to solve, revenge is far beneath you.

YOUR RESPONSE

In Romans 12:17-18, Paul tells you what your response is supposed to be towards somebody who is lying about you, or accusing you, or threatening you. "Recompense to no man evil for evil...If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." If you can control the situation, make peace! Peter said something very similar to this, in I Peter 3:9. "Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." Don't start railing and screaming at somebody because they scream at you. And Paul concludes, in Romans 12:20, "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head."

Paul did not tell me to feed your enemy; you are responsible to straighten out your own enemy. Buy him a chicken dinner--or bake him a pie. I remember a lady who did just that: she had a neighbor who was mean and aggravating, and she baked a pretty lemon meringue pie, and stacked the meringue up high, and brought it to him, and that old fellow just wilted. She was doing good in return for evil! "Be not overcome of evil," Paul says in Romans 12:21, "but overcome evil with good." If your enemy hungers and you feed him, or if he thirsts and you give him drink--what are you doing? For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Go ahead and do what the Bible says, and God will put the fire on his head.

CULTIVATE CALMNESS

When injured by the tongue of malice, or slander, or jealousy, a real Christian that has put his trust in God does not retaliate. When the tongue of malice and slander is trying to stir him up to want revenge, he wraps around him his royal robes of Calmness and Trust (that he has gained over time, by his testing and proving God), and he goes quietly on his way. When the tongue of malice and slander, and the persecution of inferiority tempt you for just a moment to retaliate, and when for an instant you forget yourself just long enough so that you begin to hunger for revenge, be calm. And as that little chorus says, "Let Jesus fix it for you: He knows just what to do." Praise God!

As disciples of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, we must cultivate calmness. We must cultivate restfulness, poise, sweetness, doing our best at all times and bearing all things as bravely as we can--living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of our enemies or the malice of our friends, though they are envious or jealous of us. You have to overcome all those things.

NEVER BE IMPATIENT

We must never be impatient (even in dealing with an offending brother or sister), chafing at the delay of God's intervention, fretting over the failure that we ourselves have manifested in not being able to see all things clearly, worrying over what results from that weakening of our will, or fretting because of that slander or lie; and we must not weaken under that opposition, no matter what source it comes from.

We have to put up with those who do not understand us, and we must do our best in spite of their failure to realize or understand our good intentions. Sometimes, as the Bible says in Proverbs 10:18, we are dealing with a fool--one of our peers, a member of our family, a neighbor, a member of the body of Christ who is hiding hatred with lying lips or uttering a slander--but we still have to hold our peace, and not chafe under the delay of God taking vengeance or solving the problem that is so irritating to us.

IRRITATIONS

Usually, these problems amount to nothing more than irritations: and as those irritations rub us sore, we chafe like a dog in a tight collar! We run out of patience--and then our mouth and tongue go into action, and our imaginations begin to build all kinds of cases against our brother or sister, that we might bring them before the World Court and declare them an imbecile. God forbid! The Bible says to consider yourself, lest you also be tempted (Galatians 6:1).

The weak are not supposed to bear the infirmities of the strong. God tells us, in Romans 15:1, "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." If we are strong, we should be able to put up with the infirmities of our weak brother or sister. We can stand a little irritation! That is why God is not quick to do anything about it: He can put up with it, and He says, If I can put up with it, you can too! I am going to let it rub you, and rub you, and rub you--and I am going to make you put up with it until you learn to be calm, and trust me, and quit talking!

UNDERSTANDING

Many times, it is a lack of understanding that causes Christians to talk about one another, and judge one another severely. This is illustrated beautifully in a poem by Nixon Waterman:

"If I Knew You"

If I knew you, and you knew me;

If both of us could clearly see,

And with an inner sight divine

The meaning of your heart and mine,

I'm sure that we would differ less,

And clasp our hands in friendliness!

Our thoughts would pleasantly agree,

If I knew you, and you knew me.

What if you killed the influence of a Christian--a brother or sister in the Lord--because you judged them and whispered about them to others? Then that person's wife, or husband, or the group that they associate with, are always going to be suspicious of their activities and their responses, and even their best intentions. You didn't know them (you didn't

really know them), yet you judged them severely without understanding. Solomon observed, in Proverbs 11:12, "He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace."

GUARD YOUR TONGUE

Learn to guard that little tongue! Proverbs 21:23 says, "Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles." Keep your tongue: keep it in your mouth where it belongs, and keep your lips shut. If you have anything to say, talk it out. That is the reason why people in the Church of God did not like me for many years: if I had anything to say, I said it out loud. Other preachers would get in there and whisper--but you have never heard me do that. Brethren, if you have something to say, say it! If you do not have anything worth saying out loud, then don't say it. Praise God! God gave me this message, and I do not apologize for it. I hope God convicts you if you are guilty. Hallelujah!

Let us pray,

Our Father and our God, convict our hearts of any illicit use of the tongue--any unbridled use of that tongue that's the result of malice or jealousy or envy or any old spirit of lust. God, break it; and break the power of it in every life that hears or reads this message here this morning! We pray the Holy Ghost will break the power of peer pressure over each Christian man or woman, boy or girl--and they will not be controlled by a whisperer, for a whisperer separateth chief friends. I rebuke that old spirit in Jesus' name and I pray that you will give us peace by all means, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen and Amen.

Word of Prophecy Newsletter

Published by: Word of Prophecy Fellowship

P. O. Box 10200, Jacksonville, FL 32247

www.wordofprophecy.org

Editor: Bro. Ray Pringle, Jr.

an ordained minister of

Calvary Chapel Church of God, Inc.

Associate Editor: June Carpenter

Copyrighted - All rights reserved