Sermon: Whose Side Are We On?

Advocates or Accusers?
#1769A

Given 22-Jun-24; 35 minutes

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The term "Devil's Advocate" was a title given by the Roman Catholic Church to a person to challenge a proposed beatification or miracle, and to challenge or test the strength of the evidence. It has generalized to a contentious opinion that debates or evaluates the strength of the opposing argument. The Devil's Advocate could be compared to the prosecuting attorney in a court of law, while Jesus Christ could be compared to the defense attorney. When we step into the role of the accuser, especially when we dare to accuse our spiritual siblings, we are acting on behalf of Satan the devil. As the scribes and Pharisees were accusing the woman 'caught' in adultery, Jesus, by inscribing messages on the ground, reminded all of them that no one is free from hideous sin. Consequently, Christ did not condemn the woman, but required repentance and urged her to lead a righteous life from then on. The same thing is required of all of God's chosen saints today. Satan does not need any help from us to besmirch the reputation of our spiritual siblings. If we want to be first fruits, we must become advocates for our brethren, as Christ is for us.


transcript:

There is an old saying, it comes from a war strategy, "divide and conquer." And today, everywhere we look, we see a level of division that is unsurpassed from politics, religion, race to issues like global warming. We are living in an increasingly divided world. The level of division today is more visible due to social media, which gives everyone the opportunity to plant seeds of division.

As Herbert Armstrong once said (I heard he said this, by the way, I did not hear him say it. I never saw him speak live.), "If it's in the world, it's in the church." And no matter what side of an issue we might be on, we can always find someone willing to be the Devil's advocate, ready to argue the other side.

Now, by definition, an advocate is a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause, idea, or a person. Synonyms for advocate include a champion, an upholder, a supporter, a backer, a promoter, a proponent, a protector. Advocate is actually a legal term suggesting a courtroom scene as the advocate puts a positive case forward on behalf of someone else.

Please turn to Psalm 109 where we will start here in a minute. Now, the history of the Devil's advocate (I found this very interesting), dates back to the 16th century Catholic Church which established the role of the advocatus diaboli. The advocatus diaboli's job was to question the validity of a candidate for sainthood. They did this by accusing the candidate and presenting counter evidence to refute their worthiness. And this practice actually lasted up until 1983, not too long ago.

Now, the Devil's advocate is the opposite of an advocate, otherwise known as an accuser or a critic. An accuser is someone who claims and openly exposes something someone else has done wrong. The accusation could be true or it could be false. If it is true it is almost always taken out of context to make it appear even worse. Synonyms of an accuser include a troublemaker, a harasser, a persecutor, an instigator, a scorner, a scoffer, a backbiter, a divider, or simply put, Satan.

So the question I want us to ask ourselves today, and I think we all need to ask this because we can all be guilty from time to time of being an accuser (as we will see here today) is: Whose side are we on? Are we an advocate or do we fall victim sometimes to Satan's whispering in our ear to become an accuser?

Psalm 109:6 Set a wicked man over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand.

The psalmist is asking for the wicked man to have a taste of his own medicine. The requested punishment is for the evil man to have a bad and evil advisor, to have Satan stand at his right hand. And we can actually tie this into the modern day court system where the accuser or prosecutor sits on the right hand side facing the judge and the defendant and their lawyer, or advocate, sits on the left.

Let us go over to Zechariah 3. And as you are turning, let us remember Zechariah was written right when Judah returned from captivity in Babylon. So we would really expect here that they were going to be on their best behavior. But we are going to see here that these people are still very sinful. We see this because it is very evident in the filthy garments that their high priest, Joshua, is wearing.

Zechariah 3:1-2 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, "The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?"

Let us pause here for a second. We see Satan standing on the right and the Lord is advocating for His people whom He has chosen and literally plucked from the fire of certain death because of their sins. Let us read on here verse 3.

Zechariah 3:3-8 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes." And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by. Then the Angel of the Lord admonished Joshua saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'If you will walk in My ways, if you will keep My command, then you shall also judge My house, and likewise have charge of My courts; I will give you places to walk among these who stand here. Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign; for behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.'"

So Zechariah receives a vision of the high priest Joshua. The high priest has filthy clothes and receives rich robes, symbolic of a future imputed righteousness from God Himself. Note Joshua and the people he represents are acquitted, not because the accusation of Satan was false, but out of a free love and mercy and grace of God for His people. (We can tie this back to Ryan's message.)

In verse 7, God points to a future when they will be cleansed and walking in His presence among those who stand in the very presence of God. Then, and only then, will they be able to properly judge His house in His courtroom. God tells us how He will deliver us and bring us to that place to be a righteous judge in verse 8, pointing to the future Messiah, the Branch who is the righteous Judge is going to deliver us, as prophesized here.

Please turn to the book of John chapter 8. We are going to skip over the book of Job. But if we went there, we would actually see Satan, the accuser of the brethren, in action again, suggesting Job's faith and obedience would literally crumble if God allowed Satan to take away his possessions and his health. Of course, Job resisted Satan's temptation.

John 8:2-5 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?"

Let us pause here. John is telling us that Jesus was in the Temple when all the people came to Him. He sat down and He was teaching them. So He was teaching the people in the Temple; and it said all the people. That is a lot of people. He is in the middle of teaching them when a group of scribes and Pharisees literally just burst in with a woman caught in adultery. They bring her in front of all these people in front of Him and they accuse her before Jesus in the very Temple of God.

I have a vision here where perhaps they did not even let her get dressed. Maybe they just had her put a sheet around herself to make her feel even more embarrassed, brought before all these people, in front of everybody in the Temple, to accuse her before Jesus.

John 8:6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.

Jesus was sitting, He is teaching, and now He stoops down, maybe on his knees or he stoops down to the ground, and He starts writing something with His finger on the ground; and it is as if He does not even hear them. John says they keep on accusing her. So now He stands up in verse 7 and He says,

John 8:7 "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

Then He stoops back down. He continues writing something on the ground with His finger. Let us pick back up in verses 9 through 11.

John 8:9-11 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."

There is a lot to unpack here. That Greek word translated "accusers," used for the first time here in John 8, is Strong's #2725 kategoros. It means against one in the assembly, that is, a complainant at law, specifically Satan, an accuser. And again, we have an image of a courtroom here, standing before God with the accusers on the right and the defendant on the left. Remember, Jesus is at the right hand of God. So if we are facing God, He is actually over here, on the right, so that actually fits.

Note verses 10 and 11. He asked the woman, "Where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She says, "No one, Lord." And He says, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."

Jesus is teaching as this whole event comes to play, right? And I believe He is teaching the end time church right here too, right now. When we open our mouth and we accuse a brother or sister, we are doing Satan's work for him. We are actually condemning them with our words of accusation. We take on the role of the judge. We cast a rock of accusation and we murder the reputation. We speak their sentence.

Notice Jesus says He, the righteous Judge, did not accuse or condemn her. He makes these accusers see how hypocritical they are before the righteous Judge who clearly sees inside their hearts and minds. Jesus could see inside the adulterous woman's mind and heart. He could see she was repentant and sorrowful. And so He tells her, go, sin no more.

Now, we do not know what Jesus writes on the ground. There is a lot of different hypotheses out there on what He writes, but it is pretty clear He is writing something on the ground with His finger to let them all see just how hypocritical they must be to accuse someone else when they are all so sinful—when we are all so sinful, I should add.

Some argue He is writing their names on the earth which will be erased (referencing Jeremiah 17:13), as opposed to names that are written permanently in stone. Could be. Some suggest He is writing their unique sins and surprising them because they are like, "how could He know this? Like, nobody knows this. Nobody knows that's what I'm thinking in my mind." But Jesus knows right now. He knows the sin in our mind. He knows the evil thoughts that are going through our mind, if we have ill will towards someone else.

Imagine for a minute here—and this is for all of us brethren, first and foremost, to the empty seat there that I should be sitting in, to me—the next time we go to open our mouth and say something negative about a brother, the next time we want to make an accusation, whether it is true or not, imagine for a second, Jesus sitting right there, stooping down right next to us and writing in the dirt all of our sins. We would bow our head, we would shut our mouth, and we would leave the room, would we not? That is the level of humility that we must build as firstfruits, brethren.

And I will never forget the words of our late pastor. I will never forget it. I try to use these; actually, I should use them more, you know. When I was telling him my mistakes, he said, "Just be glad you don't have my sins." And I was like, oh. When we have this attitude of humility, we do not dare become an accuser. We do not dare do Satan's work of accusing against anyone else. When we have this attitude, we focus solely on ourselves and our role to follow Him, Jesus Christ, as Richard pointed out recently.

Please turn to Revelation 12. We are going to look at one more here on the accuser, probably one of the most famous ones. We [the Onisick family] were just, incidentally, there on Patmos, in the cave where they suspect that John wrote this book or had the revelation of the book, I should say. I am not sure if that is true or not. But it was interesting nonetheless.

Revelation 12:9-10 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down."

Satan, the accuser, deceives us all at times into doing his dirty work by accusing and condemning our brethren with our words. He uses our pride to elevate ourselves up, just like he elevated himself up to be equal with God. He uses that pride in us to elevate ourselves up, usurp the authority of Jesus Christ, the only righteous Judge. He actually makes us believe that we can be a righteous judge that, "Yeah, we're right. They are a sinner. They're wrong!" We actually start believing our accusations are okay. We are duped into thinking that God is actually pleased with the accusations and the division that we are planting in His church. God is not pleased, brethren.

Many of us have come about it through training. Many of us have been trained to be accusers. We have grown up in homes where parents openly talk negatively about other people and their problems. And with this upbringing, we create in ourselves an elevated view of ourselves because all these other people had all these problems, but we do not have those problems, so we are better. It actually builds a level of pride in us when we hear about other people's problems because we are like, "Oh, we're better. We're ok." It causes us to become judgmental, brethren, when we grow up like that and critical of others.

There used to be a level of respect given to authority in this world. There used to be a level of respect. But today, we see everyone openly criticizing even the highest administrators in the world, criticizing presidents and leaders alike. And if it is in the world, inevitably it is in the church. And I wonder how often our words of accusation are spoken against God's ordained ministers. Have we forgotten the rebellion of Korah? God's judgment may be delayed, but it will come, brethren. This is not something that we can mess with, and we need to be very careful with the level of respect that we give to our ministers.

We can jot down II Peter 2 and Jude 8 and 11. They provide a stern warning against despising authority and speaking evil of those in charge. Think about it. Why would we ever do it? Because Satan gets in our mind thinking, "Oh, they're not very good. They're imperfect people. They shouldn't be ruling over you." Yes, our ministers are not perfect, but they are ordained by God—chosen by God. And we have to respect their decisions. Evil speaking and accusatory speaking of our leaders is something God takes very seriously, brethren.

Now, a lot of times we sit in the audience and we see a speaker, maybe they have a style that we do not like. I have been accused of being too emotional and several other things. And so we sometimes want to go and share that with somebody else. Or they made a mistake. They said hyperbole. (That was me many years ago. I mispronounced that word. I will never forget it. You will not ever let me forget it either.) But my point is if somebody makes a mistake, our job is to take it to them and them alone, if we feel we have to.

But if we are always focused on trying to be nitpicky and critical, we will always find a reason why somebody made a mistake and why we do not need to listen to them. But if we focus on the positive, there is always something that we can take out from every single message, every single speaker that has ever gotten up here. It is all in how we approach it. Are we going to let Satan be in our ear whispering, "They got this wrong. They're not quite right on this." Or are we going to be coming at it with a humble mind? God is inspiring these people. He is inspiring the message. He is in control. He could strike me down right now if He did not want me to speak. That is something I take real serious, real serious.

We have to learn how to control our mind. We have to learn right to control what we think about, how we feel and think about other people. And we can tie this right into the CGG Weekly. (Thank you, brother Clyde.) We are what we think. We must learn to control our thoughts because if we have evil thoughts about someone, we are thinking like an accuser and inevitably we are going to act like an accuser. We can accuse with our words, but we can also accuse with our actions, and actions sometimes are louder than words. If we have ill will in our mind, it becomes evident in actions. We avoid that person. We do not talk to them. We give them a dirty look and we inevitably do Satan's dirty work of planting seeds of division for all to see.

Let us turn back to John, this time in chapter 5. We are going to pick up right after Jesus' healing the lame man on the Sabbath.

John 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

John 5:45-47 [Jesus is responding here] "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believe Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"

Jesus tells them He was not going to return evil for evil. He was not going to accuse them like they had been accusing Him, and everyone else. He was not going to be like Satan, the accuser. He tells them effectively, they accused themselves for they are so focused on the nitpicky things written by the law of Moses and the laws they added to it, that they missed the point. They missed the plot; they missed the weightier matters of love and mercy; they missed the fact that pointing out others' mistakes and elevating themselves was not going to make them righteous. It was not going to get them into the Kingdom. They missed the overall purpose and plan of God, which included the Messiah, as prophesized by Moses in Genesis and Deuteronomy. They totally missed the point. And we can tie this back to Zechariah as well.

So Jesus is not the accuser. What is Jesus? Turn with me to I John, I think you already have the answer. But let us go there and look at it together.

I John 2:1-2 My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

Jesus Christ is our Advocate. He is working relentlessly to bring us to repentance, to bring us back into our relationship with Him and God the Father so that He can intercede on the judgment against us.

Let us tie this to Romans 8 now.

Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Brethren, we have the absolute best defense attorney that money cannot buy. It is a gift (we can tie right into Ryan's message), the greatest gift of all time. We do nothing to earn Jesus Christ's advocacy. He has freely given it to us. As long as we do what? We humble ourselves, we admit our guilt, we repent, and do our part to change, to follow Him, and to stop sinning.

Verse 27 now. This one should really shake us, brethren. Let us read this together. Come on.

Romans 8:27 Now He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

God is the righteous Judge, actively searching our minds to see how we are actually responding to the indwelling of His Spirit. He evaluates each of us in our mind to see how His powerful Spirit of love is influencing our thoughts and our behavior. He evaluates our thoughts and our attitudes to see if we are working to overcome that pride in our mind.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

This is so encouraging. We have absolute surety here in our salvation if we do our part to love Him, to obey His commandments, and to choose in faith to draw on His endless power in us. It is our relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ that gives us, fills us, with the power of the Advocate to overcome.

Romans 8:31-34 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is He who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Brethren, as God's elect, our Advocate loves us despite our many mistakes. He died for us! He is at the right hand of God making intercession for us constantly, and with God on our side, no one, not even Satan, can condemn us or even bring a charge against us. He tells us, Paul continues in verses 35 to 39 reminding us that nothing, nothing can separate us from God's love and advocacy for us. Nothing except ourselves, if we turn our back on it. He tells us we are "more than conquerors through Him who loves us." We could tie these scriptures to Hebrews 7 where we are told He, Jesus Christ, is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Let us go back to John 14. We will pick up just a couple of scriptures.

John 14:15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments."

It cannot be any simpler than that. We cannot love God if we do not keep His commandments, and if we do this,

John 14:16-18 "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you can know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you [Jesus tells us]."

Now, when Jesus spoke these words to His disciples, He was right there with them in the flesh. He was teaching and guiding them in the flesh. But He was speaking of the future, of Pentecost, when God's very Spirit would be available to all of us. God's Spirit, which the world cannot receive, is freely available to those that love Him and keep His commandments. The two must go together in order for us to have His Spirit.

Jesus understands how difficult it is for us to be human, brethren, and He advocates on our behalf before the Father constantly. He has a perfect record in the courtroom and He will not let us down. For when we repent and ask for His help, He makes intercession on our behalf. And while we are still found guilty of sin—get this—while we are still going to be found guilty of sin because we are guilty of sin, He will intercede and through His mercy and His sacrifice, He will remove our eternal punishment of death.

Brethren, as we start to conclude here, I ask again: Whose side are we on? Are we an accuser like Satan or are we an advocate like Jesus Christ for our brothers and sisters? Paul tells us in I Corinthians 3:3, "Where there is envy, strife, and divisions among you," it is a sure sign of your carnality. In Ephesians 4:31 he admonishes, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you." Peter piles on in I Peter 2:1, "Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking. . ."

We must work harder, all of us first (and foremost myself and everyone within the sound of my voice), we must work harder to resist Satan's whispering and his evil spirit that wants to elevate us into speaking evil and accusations against our brethren.

Please turn to James 4 as we are starting to wind down. Now, let us remember, James is not written to a Gentile church here. It is actually written to His church and when you hear these words, these words are pretty harsh, right? These are not the Corinthians. This is James writing to the dispersed brethren. If we are part of conflict in the church, if we have seen lots of conflict in the church, and we are always thinking it is someone else's fault, it is our fault. We are always guilty. We can always do things better, brethren. And so let us listen to what brother James is telling us here.

James 4:5-11 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously." But He gives more grace. Therefore He says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and He will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

Brethren, when we see someone sin, we should take on the role of the advocate to pray for them and to ask God to help them see their mistake, help them to learn, and to overcome. And in that same humble prayer, we should ask God to help us see and overcome the many, many, many, many sins that we cannot yet see in ourselves. When someone accuses us or says something bad about us, regardless of how horrible it might be, we just forgive them and we pray for them and we move on. When someone accuses someone else before us, we should say, "Well, just be glad you do not have my sins!"

Over to I Peter 3 now. Just one more scripture after this.

I Peter 3:8-12 Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing [And oh, what a blessing the firstfruits will inherit if we can do this, brethren.], for "He who would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

We could reword that verse 12 to say "His ears are closed to people who do evil." We need to think about that. When we speak evil and accuse others, God's eye, God's ears are actually closed to us. And if we remember back there in John 8 when the scribes and the Pharisees are sitting there and they are accusing the woman caught in adultery, He stoops down and He writes on the ground with His finger. And John records it "as though He did not hear."

Please turn with me to Matthew 5, and this is the final one. We will end here. As you are turning, you could jot down I Timothy 2:1-3, where Paul exhorts, "First of all [get this] that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior."

Matthew 5:43-45 "You have heard it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute you [Why? Well, so that we can be firstfruits], that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."

Brethren, the bar is super high for firstfruits. We must even love our enemies and that is not easy. He tells us what we have to do here. How do we love? We must bless those who curse us. How do we bless? We bless with our words. We advocate the positive on their behalf. We must do good to those who hate us. How do we do good? Through our actions. We must pray for those that spitefully use us and persecute us. Where do we pray? It is in our thoughts, in our minds.

Our thoughts, our words, our actions must always be positive to others. This is the high bar of the firstfruits. It requires the highest quality of good, peaceable fruits. And if we want to be firstfruits, if we want to be sheep on the right, we must stand before Jesus Christ, who is our Advocate, who is on the right side of God. We must become advocates for our brethren just like He is an advocate for us—advocates for our brethren with all our thoughts, attitudes, actions, and words.

WJO/aws/drm





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