How to Handle “The Rabble”

I don’t know about you, but over the last couple of months, it seems that the attacks from the enemy have been more frequent, and often more severe.  And, unfortunately, if you’ve stood for the Lord very long, you are far too aware that most of the devil’s attacks don’t come from enemies without, but from enemies within.  The fact is, if you are standing for the truth, with a mission to take down the gates of Hell, your biggest enemies will certainly come from within the church.  This is nothing new though.  Moses, Jesus, Paul, and many others, give us warnings about these wolves in sheeps’ clothing.  And it would behoove us all to better understand our enemies from within.  Not so we can dialog with them, but so we can mark them and avoid them.

Our first stop will be in Numbers 11, where you see Moses having to deal with these enemies from within the camp.  The Bible refers to them as “the mixed multitude” and in Numbers 11, they are referred to as “rabble.”  That name fit them well in Numbers, and I think it fits them quite well today.

4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4-6)

Here, we see that it was the rabble who began to crave other food before the Israelites started wailing.  This was something that constantly plagued Moses and the Israelites.  These “rabble” were the mixed multitude who were always causing trouble for Moses.  You see this in the preceding three verses.

1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD and the fire died down. 3 So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the LORD had burned among them. (Numbers 11:1-3)

Verse one says that “the people complained” and that this aroused the anger of the Lord.  But the location that God sent the fire gives a good indication that this uprising of complaining started with the mixed multitude.  The fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.  That is where the mixed multitude stayed.  In God’s order, the Levites camped in the middle with the Tabernacle, and the children of Israel camped around the Levites.  The mixed multitude camped on the outskirts of the camp.  Over and over, when the Israelites complained, God let them slide.  But not this time.  He had had enough of these mixed multitude turning the hearts of the Israelites away from Him, so He dealt with them.

The rabble were the mixed multitude that accompanied the children of Israel when they left Egypt (Ex. 12:38).  It’s only speculation as to why they left Egypt.  I would imagine that some left because they had truly turned their hearts toward the God of the Israelites and wanted to follow Him, no matter the cost.  However, I would also imagine that this was a rarity among them.  Some were probably afraid that more judgments would be coming and wanted to “get out of Dodge.”  And many were probably servants and slaves that wanted to get out of the bondage of Pharaoh.  But my guess is that most of them were simply after the blessing.  They saw the miracles of God and wanted to inherit the blessings of the land flowing with milk and honey.  So, when they were faced with hardships, their first instinct was to complain.

Whatever their motives for leaving Egypt, the rabble were constantly causing trouble with Moses and the Israelites….and, unfortunately, they are still around today.  The true followers of Christ are constantly having to deal with problems created by those in the church, who profess Christ with their mouths, yet deny Him with their actions.  Matthew thirteen is a good place to go if you want to see where Jesus addressed these types of false brethren.  He explained in the Parable of the Weeds that wherever the Lord “plants” His true children, Satan plants fake children.

Not only did Jesus warn us of these rabble, but so did Paul in Acts 20.

25 “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. 26 Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27 For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. (Acts 20:25-31)

I’ve yet to meet a seasoned veteran of the faith, who would disagree with me that the enemies who cause the most trouble with the church don’t come from outside the local church, but come from the counterfeiters who fake their way inside the church fellowship.  Paul warned us of this.  He even called them savage wolves.  And savage they are.  The moment you let them know that you are onto them, they will snarl at you and bite your head off.  That’s why the path of Christianity is not for the faint at heart.  It will take courage and boldness to follow this path.  Scripture tells us, over and over, to be on our guard.  And if we are on our guard, that means we have to keep an eye out for these savage wolves.  And when we see one, we need to know how to deal with him.

So, how do we deal with them?  In the last chapter of the book of Romans, Paul gives many exhortations.  One of them was to “watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned.” The King James Version says to “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned.” I think that is a more accurate translation of what Paul was saying.  Or, better yet, both versions hit the mark, but reading them together further explain what Paul was saying.  Here is this verse in context.

17 I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. (Romans 16:17-19)

Smooth-talking wolf in sheeps' clothing—Rob Bell. Image via religiousintelligence.org

Paul’s exhortation to watch out for, or mark, those who cause divisions is one that, more times than not, gets ignored by the church today.  Instead of marking them, we just ignore their behavior and pray for them.  Brothers and sisters, that is not the way we should handle these rabble.  Of course we should pray for them, but we need to be ruthless in our protection of the fellowship to which we belong.  We need to mark them and avoid them.  We can’t just pray about it.  Scripture commands us to take action.  That means we need to let everyone know that what they are teaching is contrary to the teachings of Christ, and to avoid them.  This might seem harsh, but when a venomous snake comes into your house, you’re not going to dialog with it and pray for it.  You are going to cut it’s head off to protect your family.  That’s how we need to deal with the rabble.

Paul explained what these rabble will do to the church and he also gave us insight on the type of character they have.  The are self-serving and use smooth talk and flattery to draw people from the truth.  The savage wolves Paul warned of were the same as the rabble that Moses dealt with and they were the same as the rabble many of us deal with today.  The rabble despised the “bread of heaven” in Numbers 11.  So, today, there are savage wolves in sheep’s clothing that despise the spiritual food of the Word of God.  And with their loaded questions and liberal theology, they will do all they can to turn others from their allegiance to Christ and His Word.  When you confront them as the wolves that they are, they will swear up and down that they don’t know what on earth you are talking about.  And, of course, they will let you know that you are being a judgmental Pharisee.  Beloved, we had better know how do deal with these savage wolves.

Unfortunately, in much of the church today, instead of marking and avoiding these rabble, we build our churches with the desire to attract rabble, instead of feeding the true believers.  How tragic that we turn our sanctuaries into theaters, our altars into stages, our ministries into performances, and our worship into entertainment.  Instead of unashamedly being the light of the world and the salt of the earth, we put up billboards, describing our church as “A Church for People Who Don’t Like Church.” How foolish.

So, in closing, let us all keep watch.  Let us all be on guard for these savage wolves who desire to devour the flock.  Let us mark those savage wolves, such as Rob Bell and the Emergent Church leaders, and avoid them.  Let us not bow to the altar of tolerance, but let us stand for truth.  Will this bold stand cost us?!  You better believe it.  But let us not forget that we are bought with a price.  Let us boldly and fearlessly stand on His Word and stand up for Him who purchased us with His blood.

For His Glory,

Adam Tennant

How the Church Today Shuts the Door to the Kingdom of God

“Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.  “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”  (Matthew 21:12-13)

I have read this scripture many times, but this year, for the first time, I realized that Jesus was not just dealing with the money changers in the temple.  And when he said that His house will be called a house of prayer, He wasn’t just stating that we should pray more in church.  No.  He was talking to the Pharisees in this passage, and He was saying much more than what is written in verse thirteen.

In verse thirteen, Jesus was quoting from two Old Testament passages: Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.  So if Jesus was not just dealing with the money changers and lack of prayer in His house, then what was he really saying?  What He was saying was that the leaders of His church had become hypocrites and they were “shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.” He was saying, “Look.  You’re just like a fig tree with all leaves and no fruit!  John the Baptist came preaching repentance, and you rejected him.  You claim to be God’s children and you claim that you are obeying the commands of God, but you are nothing but hypocrites; whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones.  Even tax collectors and prostitutes will get in before you!  That’s right, because you have rejected me, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will actually produce its fruit.”

That, in a nutshell, is what Jesus was really saying.  How do I know that?  Well, when you get a chance, just keep reading in Matthew, and you’ll see where I got that.  For an even deeper explanation of what Jesus was saying, we need to go and look at the Old Testament verses He quoted, in their contexts.

So, first of all, Jesus quoted Isaiah 56:7.  You’ll need to read verses four through eight to get a grasp on what He was saying.  Let me summarize it.  In this passage, God was saying that even the eunuchs—those who were prohibited from entering His covenant nation—were now going to be able to come.  Not only that, but He would give them a “Yad Vashem”—a memorial and a name.  This, of course, was great news for the eunuchs.  God said He would make them “better than sons and daughters”—better than those who were the actual bloodline of Israel.  God is saying, “Look, my salvation is for the entire world.  All who call on me shall be saved.” That’s what He meant when He said, “my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

He was not saying that we have to turn all of our churches into round the clock prayer centers (though that might not be a bad idea).  And he certainly was not saying, as many “Christian” leaders are saying today: that we should open our pulpits to muslims and homosexuals so we can dialog with them.  (Tell that to the wolves in sheep’s clothing, like Richard Land and Rick Warren.)  Not at all.  He was simply saying that His salvation was for the whole world.  For all that would turn to Him in repentance and faith.

But this was not the way the Pharisees saw it.  They thought everyone had to become like them if they were to enter the kingdom.  They had become just like the dumb dogs that Isaiah went on to confront in verses nine through twelve of the same chapter.  They were dumb dogs, who couldn’t bark; they were lazy gluttons and could never have enough; they lacked understanding and believed that their way was the only way.  They were a disgrace.

As it was in Isaiah’s day….so it was in Jesus’ day….so it is today.  We are inundated with wolves in the pulpit.  To explain what Jesus meant by saying that His house was to be called a house of prayer for all nations, men like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Robert Schuller and Brian McLaren sign on to documents like “A Common Word Between Us and Them”—a document made up of a mixture of Koran and Bible verses saying that we should stop faltering between two opinions and come together in agreement.  God help us.  Then you have Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, joining with the Council on Foreign Relations to raise funds to help Muslims build mosques.  Unfortunately, I could go on and on.

Well, Isaiah did a good job contrasting the truth with falsehood, and so did Jesus.  He contrasted the verse He quoted from Isaiah 56 with a verse from Jeremiah 7.  In Isaiah 56, a beautiful picture is painted of God’s offer of salvation to the entire world—even the outcast—and in Jeremiah 7:1-11, He is sternly rebuking those who professed to be His children.  He sent Jeremiah to the very gates of the Temple.  With what was He confronting them?

At the gates of the Temple, Jeremiah accused them of blaspheming the Holy Spirit by believing that as long as they go to the temple and offer sacrifices, they could continue in their sin and God would forgive them!  But he said, “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” He called them to truly repent of their injustice, their oppression of foreigners, and the innocent bloodshed that they were all taking part in.  Whether they, themselves, were going to the high places and offering their children as sacrifices to Baal or they were just turning a blind eye to this abominable practice, they were all guilty! Their hands were full of blood, yet they were trusting in deceptive words.  Kind of like the words we so often hear from the women walking into an abortion mill saying, “My God will forgive me.”

Look at verses 9-11 and we will see, very clearly, what Jesus was saying in Matthew 21:13.  “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.”

Bam!  He busted them good.  They were living lives full of wickedness, yet they thought they were safe because they came to the temple.  But Jeremiah made it very clear.  He was saying, “You’re not getting away with this as you think.  God is watching you and He’s going to deal with you.” And Jesus was saying the exact same thing.  He was telling the Pharisees that His plan was to offer salvation to all who would come to Him in His way, yet they had shut the door on them.  Though they looked righteous on the outside, they were full of wickedness and hypocrisy.  And this is what was shutting the door to the kingdom on others.  God hates that!  He said it in Isaiah’s day, he said it in Jesus’ day, and He is certainly saying it today.  The door to salvation is still open to all that would come, but the wickedness and compromise we exude, has slammed the door in their face.  They see our hypocritical lives and our greedy schemes to make money, and they want nothing to do with it.  God help us.

The kingdom of God was not at all as they thought.  The same is true today.  God is not looking for what we sometimes think He’s looking for.  He is looking to make first, those who are willing to be last.  He is looking to exalt those who will humble themselves.  You see, until we come to the point that we are willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him, we will never be able to understand that the kingdom of God is not at all what it seems.  He is looking for those who are willing to give up everything for the sake of Christ; to lose their lives so that they will find true life in Jesus Christ.

He is not looking for those who build successful churches.  He is looking for some Jeremiahs who will go the the gates of the temple and proclaim the truth.  He is looking for some Daniels who will not defile themselves with the things of this world.  He is looking for some Ezekiels to speak to the bones.  But, there is one thing God is searching for more than any of these.  The one thing that pleased him about all the prophets of old, was not their great preaching, nor their fervent prayer life.  No.  God is not looking for greatness.  God is looking for faith.  We cannot overcome the world without it.  And, of course, the faith He is looking for will always be coupled with obedience.  So, the question is, “Are we going to trust and obey?  Or, are we going to build our own kingdoms?”

For His Glory,

Adam Tennant