“An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2).  “Deceiving and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:13).

I wrote something on an earlier blog calling for transparency and integrity from churches, using as a jumping off point the billboards up and down the Mississippi Gulf Coast which hawk the fun, the shows, the money, the jackpots, etc., they offer without once mentioning the addicted souls, broken lives and destroyed homes that accompany these enticements. In the piece, I was wondering what if the government enforced “truth in advertising” laws that would require them to tell the full story.

That article was directed to the churches. But someone who found it on the internet jumped all over it (and in ALL CAPITALS!) to accuse me of worse things when our churches ask people to give money.

When people cannot see the difference in a church and a casino, forget about trying to reason with them.

The mental capacities of some people have been so skewed by their calloused souls and hardened spirits that they look at black and see white, look at evil and see good, look at Jesus Christ and see darkness.

We should not let such people intimidate us. They have been around from the beginning and are instruments of the evil one, deceiving and being deceived. (In Second Timothy 3:13 Paul says, “Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” A profound observation.)

On the night before He went to the cross, the Lord Jesus, seeking to prepare His little flock for all that lay ahead, said, “An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2).

That’s as bad as it gets, yet we see it happening all the time.

Those terrorists who crashed the jetliners into the Pentagon and World Trade Centers on 9-11-2001 had been convinced that doing this would gain them immediate entrance into some kind of perverted heaven.

It’s the same lie that suicide bombers buy into to this day.  According to them, Christ-followers are infidels.

Saul of Tarsus, the embryonic Apostle Paul, was like that.  Later, on trial for his missionary work in the name of Jesus, he told his accusers, “I persecuted the Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify” (Acts 22:4-5).

Paul had known doctrine, tradition, and education.  In persecuting Christians, he was following orders, honoring his religious leaders, and being true to his convictions.  And he was dead wrong.

Jesus said, “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or me” (John 16:3).

That’s why Paul did it in his former life and why people have done this cruel business down through the centuries.  They do not know God.

They do not know Jesus.

We must not rush past this: “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or me.”

People do all manner of things because they do not know God (I’m going to say that knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ are synonymous)….

–They join churches and commandeer the leadership of the congregation because they love power. They do not know God.

–They run off pastors because the God-sent shepherds were trying to teach the membership to live by faith. They do not know God.

–They harass spiritual leaders who take stands against unrighteous living (racism, gambling, alcohol, sexual immorality in its many forms, greed, political corruption, and such). They do not know God.

–They value not Truth but political correctness or the party line of their favorite group. They do not know God.

–Their purpose in life is to advance themselves. They do not know God.

They may value their traditions, they may be educated, and they may know their doctrine.

But they do not know God. And that is the most tragic thing in the world.

It explains a thousand things about their behavior. And in particular it explains their misbehavior.

This is why Scripture makes so much of the knowledge of God.  (See Philippians 3:7-10 for one.)

Knowing God and being known by Him. Same difference.

The Lord Jesus said, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name?  And in Your name did we not cast out demons? And in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity” (Matthew 7:22-23).

Beware of religious people who do not know God.

Let us make sure you and I do.

And, if we do know Him, it follows that that Knowledge will be the supreme fact of our lives and will color and influence and guide every other aspect.  No matter what happens in life, you can stand steady and strong and say confidently, “I know the Lord. And He knows me.” (See I John 1:5-10 on this.)

Anyone who says they know God and still lives as they did before is both deceived and a deceiver.