Answering a Fool According to his Folly

Answering a fool according to his folly never works.

I heard a woman say she was going to fight fire with fire by putting up the real rainbow flag with the proper number of godly colors as described in the Bible to combat the rainbow flag of the wicked.

While that sounds good to some, remember the world doesn't know the difference and will think anyone with that flag is supporting the wicked agenda.

"God never told us to fight fire with fire, it is not the rainbow symbol that gets people saved, it is the gospel, please put that up instead" was my answer.

Some prominent church preachers are jousting at windmills, attempting to answer every foolish comment by the unsaved when they should be preaching the gospel.

Since God never told us to put up a symbol of anything to reach the unsaved we can confidently ignore the flag of the wicked and answer the wicked with the gospel message of salvation.

When the wicked become saved they will understand these things, but before that, it becomes a war of foolishness that believers should not be engaging in with unsaved people.

Proverbs 26:3-5 "…3 A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools! 4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him. 5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he becomes wise in his own eyes.…"

When we answer a fool it ought only to be according to the Bible, the gospel, not arguing over things they cannot understand because they have an unregenerate mind.

1 Corinthians 2:13-15 "…13 And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment."

Since God never commanded us to put up a flag to do a flag war with the unsaved, then we ought to use only the tools of the Bible and not human wisdom that just likes to act superior.

Many prideful Christians are fighting over political matters, flags and symbols and never speaking the gospel, the very thing every unsaved person needs to hear. They end up throwing gasoline on the fire rather than the pure water of the Word into a soul.

How We Phrase Things Matters

We need to be careful how we phrase things. I will never place my trust in hope or in prayer, I do have hope and I do pray but my hope is in Christ Jesus alone.

An unbeliever can have faith, yes faith in the wrong things. It matters Who we place our trust, hope, and faith in, and only Jesus Christ will do. Anything else is just mental idol imaginings that mean nothing.

The devil loves it when we "dumb down" the work of Christ by using the concepts to replace our trust in something other than Jesus Christ.

Confusion and good-sounding ideas are the most dangerous to the born-again believer.

Yes hope, yes pray but place your trust not in these ideas but in Jesus Christ Himself. Hope in Christ, pray to God in The name of Jesus Christ.

Hoping in hope, and trusting in prayer is nothing but mental gymnastics without substance.

You understand that the pagan world loves to throw around terms like "I'll pray for you", as though the speaking all by itself unleashes the power of their own to cause things to happen.

The pagan world has all kinds of hope in their own abilities and their own words, its the "name it and claim it" of the pagan world that has infiltrated the church. The only way this can enter the church is for the pew people sitting there every week without a clue what God said in His Word.

All these "name it and claim it" phrases, "hope in hope", "trust in prayer" came out of the paganistic idea that we trust in our own abilities and the power within us to make things happen, this is demonic and so subtle that many Christians are being destroyed by the use of them.

Let us stop repeating things we hear that are popular and begin asking the Holy Spirit for wisdom as we pour over His word to find the truth, refraining from snatching passages out of context to make them say what we want them to say.

Stop asking questions like; "what does that passage mean to you"?

The question to always be asking is "what did God mean by that passage and how does it fit with the rest of the Bible.?"

And lastly, challenge those who use these meaningless and paganistic phrases, explaining where they come from and their lies against the Word of God.

He is our Choice and He Does all the Work!

We make the choice and He does all the work in us!

We have a choice, what we choose is on us without any excuses.

My state of mind does not depend on whether an offender is sorry or not. I remain a forgiving person when they are ready I am already ready.

Those who are ready for God's forgiveness will be repentant. They will be "contrite" as God puts it in His Word.

The word contrite means to be completely crushed, the condition that we must be in before God can transform us into a new creation.

Many "Christians" have never been transformed because they decided they wanted to be good enough in their own power according to their image to the world around them, having nothing to do with being changed on the inside.

A person can clean up their act on the outside while remaining dirty and unregenerate on the inside. Those who are led by the Spirit of God often can recognize those who are pretending.

Matthew 23:24-26 "…24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. 25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well."

Pretenders pay close attention to the outer man hoping to do the right things without attention to the inner man which desires to obey God's every Word. These pretenders are heavily dedicated to the traditions of men and resistant to the ways of God.

Mark 7:13 "13 Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”

God said of the Pharisees and to the pretenders of our day the following;

Matthew 15:7-9 "…7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you: 8‘ These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. 9 They worship Me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.’ ”

If we are to be authentic born-again believers we must be completely broken inside over our sinfulness while desiring to be transformed by Christ. If the brokenness has not happened then there is no transformation and not salvation.

Romans 12:1-3 "1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. 3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you.…"

When we have become born again we desire above all else to be cleansed by Christ and for that cleansing to continue to the end of our lives.

Too many people understand these principles and can even repeat them but have never been transformed, they have never been broken and are resistant to any correction according to the Bible.

Believers, pray for those who are caught up in cultural Christianity thinking they are good people who deserve to be saved, but have never been transformed. God said we will know them by their fruit.

Matthew 7:15-20

You Will Know Them by Their Fruits

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them."

What is the fruit of the Spirit? It is the character qualities of Christ.

Galatians 5:22-23

"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."

The acts of goodness are not the fruit, they can be done to glorify self, it is the character qualities that produce acts that are genuine and led by Christ within the heart of the transformed believer.

Colossians 1:12-14 "…12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.…"

The gist of this message is that Christ is the One Who does all the work in us. He saves us when we want Him to, He changes us when we desire to be changed, He seals us with the Holy Spirit of Promise as a guarantee of our salvation, He continually cleanses us until we leave this earth and He takes us home when it is His timing. It's all Him all the time in everything.

We cannot take credit for anything in and of ourselves, all the glory and credit goes to God. Hallelujah!!!!

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Ever Learning and Never Coming to the Knowledge of the Truth

A person does not become a Christian by learning a lot about the Bible. The devil knows the Bible better than anyone and he will go to hell along with all the Bible scholars who thought they would gain heaven by their knowledge or their good works.

Ephesians 2:8-9

"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Matthew 7:21-23

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’

23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’"

Those who are born again, having been changed by Christ after having faith in Him, will do good works but they are not saved by the works, they are saved by Christ because of their faith in Him.

Many people who are highly educated in the Bible and have attended Bible schools and seminaries securing a degree to be able to be a hireling by church gatherings, will go to hell for their trust in their education and degrees.

Never at any time did God say we must get a formal education by the hand of human beings, He told us to trust in Christ, read His Word, and obey what it says after we are born again, to be able to become wise. This wisdom does not come from human institutions but from Christ Himself.

Ephesians 2:9

"Not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Romans 12:1-21

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. "

Nowhere in the Bible do we see a command to build a college to teach men for the ministry, what we do see is commands to seek the Holy Spirit for all wisdom.

John 16:13-14 "13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"

Next time someone says to you; "we need human teachers" just ask them if they believe the Holy Spirit is a better teacher than a man. Then ask them if they believe the Holy Spirit speaks to everyone who is born again. Then ask them if they believe the Holy Spirit comes to live in each believer with all His gifts and fruit.

Believe me, we have teachers every one of whom is fallible, yes we enjoy some of them, but we fully trust no one. Only Christ can be fully trusted to show us the truth.

Many preachers would tell us to never place our trust in Gold while intimidating us to trust in them instead of Christ. They live their lives acting as though we ought to trust in them first and then Christ. In other words, we are to interpret the Bible their way rather than interpreting the Bible the way God meant it to say.

God clearly said; "Psalm 118:8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man."

Jeremiah 17:5

"Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord."

Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

Mark 7:13 "13Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”"

The modern church is so full of human traditions it is hardly recognizable when comparing it with the first Century church begun by Christ and the Apostles. The takeaway from this article is that we can listen to godly men while evaluating all they say by the Scriptures. Never place a man on equal footing with Christ, He is the only one we ought to elevate.