The ‘Love’ That Kills

This may be the most difficult thing I have ever tried to write.  It is difficult because the subject at hand is breaking my heart, but also because I have neither the writing skills nor the moral authority with which to write it. On a personal level, I feel a great dread for this world, and for all those preaching a message of ‘love’ without understanding that the ‘love’ they are preaching will lead to death.  I fear for these people.  It is a fear born of an agape love for each and every one of them.  At the same time, I fear the Lord even more.  Personally, I fear that, because I have such a horrible past, any attempt on my part to try to warn others about this ‘love that kills’ will only reveal me as the hypocrite I know myself to be — and who will listen to a hypocrite?  Still, I am compelled to write because I fear the fire within me more than I fear the wrath of men.  For there is a burning within me that cannot be quenched, and if I do not write, it will consume me.  So I surrender myself to the Lord’s will, knowing full well that I will have to pay a very real price for the words I am about to share.  I can only pray that those for whom this message is intended will see and understand that it is out of an agape love for the Lord, and for them — personally — that I do what the Lord has asked me to do.  All that is left for me now is to trust in the Lord that He will guide me in writing those words, and that they will then reach the person or persons for whom they are intended.  But still, even knowing I am doing what God has asked, I am troubled in my heart because I know how difficult this message is going to be, and how many will be lost because they chose to reject it in favor of their own wisdom instead of God’s.  I beg you, my dear reader, do not turn away from what God has told me to say to you.

If we will listen, we will hear many voices calling for and preaching a message of ‘love.’  Some of these voices are using ‘love’ to justify their lawlessness.  Others are urging us to respond to this lawlessness with ‘love.’  And on both sides of this divide, I hear people claiming the name of Christ and invoking His command to love one another.  Some of these voices know and understand what they are saying, and they teach correctly; some are confused, and though they mean well, because of their blindness or ignorance (or both), they teach an unsound doctrine to the believers.  But the majority of these voices preach a message of deceit.  These voices — the majority of those preaching ‘love’ — are preaching a message of ‘love that kills.’  They do not love others with an agape love. They only speak of ‘love’ so that they may lure as many as possible onto the path of Spiritual death which they are traveling.

Even though they speak in terms of ‘love,’ these people love themselves above all else.  They seek to satisfy their desires rather than to live the life they know is right.  And make no mistake, these people know in their hearts that the life they have chosen is wrong.  This is why they seek to convince as many as possible to join them.  You see, it is a human failing to believe that, if a majority of people believe something to be true, then that thing must be true.  But the truth is that, where matters of right and wrong are concerned,  the majority is most often wrong.  This is because the majority of us live in rebellion to God’s Law.  Rather than surrender to and obey God’s Law, we chose to deceive others and worse — ourselves — by trying to change the truth by convincing a majority of people to join us in the life we have chosen — even if it is a life that God says will lead to Spiritual death.   This is why they preach their message of deception: so that they can calm their conscience.  In that process, they have deceived even themselves.  They have come to a point where they actually believe that, if they can convince a majority of people to accept the life they have chosen,  if the majority of others see nothing wrong in their life, then it must not be wrong after all. And so they lead many away from the true Way with a message of ‘love.’

But this is all a lie, and I know it to be a lie from personal experience.  As hard as this is to admit, admit it I must.  For the majority of my life, I was the bringer of death — Spiritual death.  I told myself I believed in Jesus, and that He was my Lord and Savior.  I read the Bible and went to church.  I even prayed.  But it was all a deception.  I had fooled myself into thinking I belonged to God, but I was actually living a life in rebellion to God. Rather than surrendering myself to His Laws, I had embraced the things of this world.  Rather than walking in and with God, I was walking in and with the people of this world, and the lord of this world is Satan.  I just could not see this because I had so convinced myself that I was ‘saved.’

But I was far from saved — and far from happy, too.  I embraced everything this world told me I needed to do to be happy.  I was a liar, a cheat and a thief.  I coveted and committed all sorts of sexual immoralities.  I suffered from addictions.  I blasphemed and ignored God.  And, according to the Sermon on the Mount, I even murdered by harboring hate in my heart.  I violated all ten of God’s commandments, and I justified every violation.  But through it all, I never found the happiness this world promises.  In fact, the further away from God I got, the more I hungered and the more I needed to devour to appease that hunger.  Eventually, I found myself on the very edge of utter moral depravity, and that is when I truly met the one, True, Living God.  Another lost soul who was sharing in my moral corruption and who also knew I called myself a Christian asked me a question that slapped me back to reality.  All she said to me was:

“I thought you were supposed to be a Christian?”

That day I walked away from the corrupt life I had been living.  I asked God to come into my life and change me.  I surrendered to Him and to His Law.  I started to read His Word, and I begged Him with all the sincerity I knew how to muster to give me humility on top of His wisdom and His understanding.  And while it didn’t happen over night, God did change me.  But more than that, Christ removed all the pain and emptiness that had been in my heart.  Now, no matter what this world throws at me, I know a sense of peace, calm and joy that cannot be taken away.  Yes, the physical world can get tough, and it can hurt, but now — thanks to the agape love of Christ — I can experience joy through it all.  It is how the early Christians could find the strength to refuse to bow to Caesar and go willingly singing to the lions instead.  It is how, today, Christians can sit calmly while Satan’s disciples cut off their heads.  It is a joy that this world cannot take because it is the joy of the Living God within me.  This is the love we all need to seek, and once we find it, we can never lose it.

However, there are many who will speak with the same words we find in Scripture, but they have changed the meaning of those words.  It is not ‘love’ to seek to use government to persecute people in retaliation for some perceived wrong you believe they have done to you.  That is hate, not love.  If it was wrong when they did it to you, then it is wrong for you to do it to them.   It is not ‘love’ to call for the murder of a person because of the color of their skin over the notion that they share in some perceived guilt of their forefathers.  This is hate, too.  Just because you hold something against their forefathers, it does not mean they should pay the price.  They are not the ones who are guilty of the crime.  It is not ‘love’ to launch a crusade against history because you feel offended by it.  That is hate.  History is supposed to be preserved for future generations, so that they may learn from the mistakes of the past.  If you remove this so that they cannot learn those lessons — especially if those wrongs are repeated as a result — then you have not shown love, you have shown hate.  What’s more, it is hate to try to rationalize or defend any of these actions.

But worse than this, it is hate to teach an unsound doctrine to the believers.  Scripture is forceful in warning those who would hold themselves up to the believers and claim to be teachers.  God’s Word says, if you teach wrongly, you will be punished more severely.  And yet, we have people not only claiming to be teachers, but also pastors who are leading people from the right path to the path that leads to Spiritual death — and they claim to be doing it in the name of ‘love.’  I cannot understand this.  I am trembling in fear of the Lord with every word I write here, afraid that I will teach wrongly and cause another believer to stumble, or worse, lose their way.  Yet these people boldly proclaim that they can change the Word of God.  BLASPHEME!  They have assumed the Throne of God and announced that they are God by saying God did not mean what He said in His Word!  And worse still, they claim that you must accept their teaching or you are not showing the ‘love of Christ.’  Well, I tell you that these people are the very sheep in wolves clothing that Christ told you to watch for and beware: they are the thieves who come in to the sheep’s’ pen by going over the wall.  I beg you not to listen to their voice.  It is not the voice of The Good Sheppard!  It is the voice of Satan!

I have seen women wearing the robes of a Priest.  Where do they find the authority to do this in God’s Word?  I have heard people claim that God does not call the unrepentant practice of homosexuality a sin, and that anyone who says otherwise shows hate and not love to the homosexual.  Where in God’s Word does it say this?  I have heard people say that Jews, Christians and Muslims are all the same.  I know where God tells us the Jew and Christian are brothers, but where does the Bible tell me that the Spirit of antichrist (which is the embodiment of Islam) has any brotherhood with God or His people?  I have heard people say that we need to accept all denominations as equal, and show love to people of all beliefs.  Where does God’s Word teach us that all religion is equal?  I know where God says that His Son is the only path to Him, but I do not find this equality of religion in His Word.  And today, I heard someone say that we are to purify and perfect ourselves, and that Christ’s blood will cover the difference that we cannot cover through our works.  BLASPHEME!  With his words, this man makes Christ’s Sacrifice into a useless act!  Scripture says that nothing we do is good.  All our actions are filthy rags in the eyes of God.  Man cannot justify himself to God.    It is God’s Grace and Christ’s sacrifice which wash us clean, and only God’s Grace through Christ’s sacrifice can save us.  Either you let Christ pay your entire debt in full, or He pays none of it. It is that simple.   All of these teachings are claimed to be in or about ‘love,’ yet all of them — every one — lead people away from the True Way and toward the wide, flat and straight path that leads to Spiritual death.  How is there any love in that?

I close by begging you: if you do not already know Christ, seek Him.  Seek Him with a sincere and persistent heart.  God promises us, if we will do this, we will find Him.  If you already belong to Christ, then re-dedicate yourself to Him.  He tells us that there will be many who call themselves by His name, yet He will not receive them on judgment day.  He will send them away because He never knew them.  I was one of those people who was heading to eternal death, but now I have been saved.  I am saved because I finally surrendered to Christ’s Words.  Jesus said:

“If you love Me, you will keep my commands.”

If we change or ignore God’s Law, we break those commands.  Now, we are all sinners, so we will all break God’s Law.  But, if you try to change His Laws so you can live as you want; if you break His laws and do not care, or worse, you boast about it; if you do not feel remorse for and repent over your sins; then you are living in rebellion to God’s Law.  If this is the case, then any claim you make to preaching ‘love’ is not love, but hate.  Worse, if you preach ‘love’ to convince others to join you in your rebellion, then you preach a ‘love that kills.’  Now, what is it that would motivate someone to want to kill another person if it is not hate?

I beg you, dear reader: test the messages of ‘love’ you are hearing in our society against what God’s Word actually says.  If these messages lead you away from God’s Word, or from His Law, I  beg you to run from them.  There is no agape love in such words, there is only ‘the love that kills.’