The fall of a man of God

Building a strong character takes many years but it takes a moment to destroy it. So the statement, “think before you act” deserves our attention if maintaining a good character is our goal.
We attain good character by obeying God’s word. In fact, it is the goal of the Scripture to transform us into the likeness of Christ. When we begin to have a low opinion of God and His word we start to lose our worth until we become nobodies. 
The stories of men of God who fell from positions of honour and respect have two things in common: firstly they allowed the fear of God to depart from their hearts and secondly their fall was gradual and they could not perceive it.
A fine example of an anointed man who plummeted from prominence into obscurity was King Saul. Immediately he was anointed by Samuel to be Israel’s first king, he became honourable and ruled Israel in the fear of the Lord. He, in pursuit of the fear of God, expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land.
Surely, the zeal of the Lord consumed him. Samuel, the priest, was his closest advisor. But as time went on the king began to set aside God’s requirement recorded in Deuteronomy, “And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and to walk in his ways…” (10:12).
The fear of the Lord means showing great reverence and respect to God. It is standing in awe of God and sacred things.
It involves resisting or avo-iding things that cause you to lose your companionship with God, shunning things that grieve Him or cause you to incur His wrath and indignation.
Job’s CV included fearing God and eschewing evil. But  Saul’s included taking light of stipulated divine orders. Instead of fearing the Lord he began to defy the Lord’s commands.
His loss of the spirit of the fear of God manifested in three ways: He kept not the word of the Lord- failure to execute the divine sentence on Am-alek; he inquired not of the Lord as seen in his persecution of David, the heir apparent, and he asked the counsel of one that had a familiar spirit.
The Scripture says that what was written in the Bible is for our example. It is either we learn from the mistakes of others and please God or we repeat their errors and get the same punishment.
Unfortunately, we tend to fulfil the negative Scripture more than we do the positive one. We start by disobeying the written word of God.
Then we ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit until He is grieved and His voice quenched. We avoid those whom we are acc-ountable to. We then seek the advice and counsel of tho-se who are likely to rubber stamp our plans and thoughts.  We sometimes ask God for direction but due to lack of genuine repentance and wholehearted devotion
He ignores us. Then finally our conscience is seared and we can do anything even consulting a witch doctor for empowerment and counsel.
How shameful it was for Saul!
He had expelled mediums and spiritists at his installation, publicly declaring trust and confidence in God alone only to visit one of them for counsel during his fall. But Saul’s sin is being repeated today. We read and hear of men and women of God going back to the same sorcerers, witchdoctors and spiritists whom they denounced at their conversion.
Delivered from the powers of darkness into light, and then reverting to the powers of darkness for demonic power to do divine work is just an inexplicable contradiction.
Hypocrisy of this sort is an undoing to all our profession of Christ’s power.
But why do we stoop so low? Perhaps it is because of the lure of power. We want power to attract masses so we can be famous and rich. We want shortcuts; fasting, praying and obeying the Spirit of God are cumbersome and irksome. So we consult a god that demands nothing more than money and worship.
Satan offered Jesus this cheap way of getting glory but Jesus successfully resisted the adversary because the spirit of the fear of the Lord was strong in Him. Without the fear of the Lord, falling into sin and error is inevitable.
But how does one cultivate the fear of the Lord? Check in the next article.

– Contact Pastor Mairos on 0772889766 or email mairos78@yahoo.co.uk