The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Warrior's Prayer, #25

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me (verse twenty).

One of the greatest of the errors of current Christian theology is the teaching that we Christians do not reap what we sow. It always has been true and it always will be true that God rewards us according to our righteousness, according to the cleanness of our hands in His sight.

Speaking to the golden lampstand, the Christian church, of Thyatira, Jesus warns: And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give to every one of you according to your works (Revelation 2:23).

It is difficult to understand how the gross perversion of Paul's doctrine of grace has occurred, given the competence and devoutness of Christian scholarship. But it has occurred and the result has been havoc as far as the Christian testimony is concerned.

Where did we ever get the concept that being saved by grace means God overlooks our behavior? Was it from Paul's arguments against the Judaizers, in which Paul explained that men cannot save themselves by observing the Law of Moses but must receive God's redemption through Christ? Is it this reaction against the Judaizers that has been pulled and pushed until Paul has been made to say that Gentile Christians, unlike the saints of all other ages, can walk in sin without paying the penalty?—without dying spiritually?

The hastiest review of Paul's writings will reveal beyond doubt Paul taught that the believer who continues to sin after having received Christ brings himself under the judgment of God and cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.

The Christian warrior who has unclean hands will bring defeat to the entire army and judgment upon himself, as in the case of Achan. Our enemy lives in unrighteousness, uncleanness, and disobedience to God. When we behave in an unrighteous or unclean or disobedient and rebellious manner, we already have joined the enemy's side. We have surrendered. We have been defeated.

The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints performing God's will. The purpose of the Christian warfare is to bring about the doing of God's will in the earth as it is in Heaven. When the saint disobeys the laws of the Kingdom of God he comes under the judgment of God. The only prayer that God will hear in that case is the prayer of repentance.

The Lord heard David's prayer and delivered him because David had clean hands in God's sight.

To be continued.