6.28.23
Hey, Calvary Fremont –
A stronghold is anything that has a strong hold on you. This last year I listened to a multi-episode podcast on the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and watched a three- or four-part video series exploring Hillsong, and a four-part video series digging into the Duggars (featured on the TLC series: “19 and Counting”). What they all had in common was the narrative of crash-and-burn. What led to the unravelling of these men and ministries and families was not the presence of false teaching, but the absence of enduring character. Character is the foundation of ministry and life-giving relationships. Where there is a crisis of character there will eventually be a collapse of ministry and relationships. This has become painfully true, not just in the case of the churches and ministries featured in the various series I watched, but in so many other high-profile crash-and-burn scenarios in the Evangelical world over the last years.
In the various series mentioned above, the crisis of character was different in each case, yet what led to the crash-and-burn followed a similar five-fold path. Sin was committed, and then sin was covered-up, and then sin was tolerated, and then sin was justified. Sin committed, covered-up, tolerated, and justified, becomes sin that is normalized. By the time sin is normalized, like an acid, it has eaten through the foundation of the ministry and the ministry collapses. The very thing you don’t want to happen is the very thing that happens. By running away from the collapse you think might happen if sin is acknowledged, you hasten the collapse that does happen when sin is committed, covered-up, tolerated, justified, and normalized. This is the pathway of addiction – whether it is alcohol or pornography or fill-in-the-blank. Pornography is pursued, covered-up, tolerated, justified, normalized. Addiction becomes lifestyle.
And at each stage of this five-fold process, recovery becomes a remoter possibility because the obedience necessary for rescue becomes a fainter and fainter prospect. Christlike character is nourished and developed in the rich soil of obedience to God. Committing, covering up, and tolerating sin is a spiritual wasteland. The soil here is dry and sandy and nothing godly grows. Do you want to strangle your soul, kill your testimony, and murder your ministry – begin to cover up your sin and normalize it. The enemy won’t need to take you out, you’ve pulled the pin on the hand grenade that is lodged within your soul.
The Biblical pattern is that sin committed is sin that is to be confessed and forsaken. When sin is confessed and forsaken, its corrosive power dies. Where there is confession of sin there is no cover-up, toleration, justification, or normalization of sin. Here’s what King Solomon said –
HE WHO CONCEALS HIS TRANSGRESSIONS WILL NOT PROSPER, BUT HE WHO CONFESSES AND FORSAKES THEM WILL FIND COMPASSION. PROVERBS 28:13
King David committed adultery and was complicit in murder. He didn’t confess these sins, instead he sought to cover them up. For a year he tolerated the desert that was developing in his heart. He justified the murder of Uriah to cover up his adultery with Bathsheba. No, he never normalized the practice of adultery and murder, but his soul was a wasteland, and he was neck-deep in misery. Here’s what he said about this season in his life in PSALM 32:3-5…
WHEN I KEPT SILENT ABOUT MY SIN, MY BODY WASTED AWAY THROUGH MY GROANING ALL DAY LONG. FOR DAY AND NIGHT YOUR HAND WAS HEAVY UPON ME; MY VITALITY WAS DRAINED AWAY AS WITH THE FEVER HEAT OF SUMMER. SELAH. I ACKNOWLEDGED MY SIN TO YOU, AND MY INIQUITY I DID NOT HIDE; I SAID, “I WILL CONFESS MY TRANSGRESSIONS TO THE LORD”; AND YOU FORGAVE THE GUILT OF MY SIN.
Basically, what David was saying is: “I will no longer cover-up and tolerate my sin. I cannot justify it and will not normalize it.” David preferred the strong hand of God to the strong hold of sin. David had a breakthrough. May you have a breakthrough and begin to break-out of your strongholds. A stronghold is anything that has a strong hold on you. Don’t tolerate, justify, and normalize your strongholds.
Be blessed and stay healthy and follow Jesus – Pastor Tim
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