A young man from our fellowship lived with my family for a number of years. He was well liked, had a gentle nature, was amiable, helpful and friendly and fitted in very well. His main attribute was the capacity to project “coolness”; nothing seemed to fluster him. One day my son returned to live with us and everything changed. I began to sense this young man’s envy towards my son. I challenged him about it and he agreed he was doing it but he couldn’t stop it. In talking with him, I began to realise that his belief was the same as his father’s; namely, that he was always right and that if he felt bad it was because some other person had made him feel that way so they were an ‘idiot’.

Did Adam sin or was it Eve’s fault?

I asked him about Adam and Eve. Did Adam sin or was it Eve’s fault that she had tempted him and therefore was Eve the sinner and totally responsible for Adam’s mistake? He could see that Adam had sinned, but he couldn’t see that he had sinned. As far as he was concerned, my son had made him feel bad and my son was therefore an idiot. Even though he said sorry, the reality was he couldn’t believe that he was the baddie. In fact, he used ‘sad’ as a manipulation to try and get me to back away from my correction. He unfortunately stubbornly held his position so obviously he was asked to leave my home.

Whilst ever Adam blamed Eve for making him eat the fruit instead of taking the responsibility for eating it himself he stays under the control of Eve and Satan, keeps the door open for sibling rivalry and is subjected to the curse of work. All he had to do was say he ate it, but he was too proud and thus too afraid, so he lied and he lost everything.

This generation has been given everything

The truth is, this young man’s position of value in my family was threatened by the return of my son, and he didn’t like it and he began to hate my son. If he found my son doing something that didn’t make sense to him then that confirmed that my son was an idiot. This is the height of arrogance. Instead of remaining appreciative of me opening my family to him, he became familiar with the care that my family shared and elevated himself in my low-income family by being generous with his money; but in time the money became leverage to manipulate his wants.

The prodigal’s brother

In Luke 15, the older brother appeared to serve his father faithfully but when it came to forgiving his younger brother he showed the real spirit that was lurking beneath his cooperative niceness. People can hide their real selves for a long time and everything can seem fine but eventually envy will rear its ugly head and the true spirit of the person will be exposed, and that will be the intersection of either repentance or resistance and rebellion.

It won’t be told it’s wrong

This generation is lost. It’s learnt the art of ‘nice’ behaviour but in its heart it believes that it is good and if anyone upsets their feelings then the offender is the culprit and totally responsible and therefore the one in the wrong. This generation has been given the right to disregard authority and the right to no one telling it it’s wrong. In other words it won’t be told it’s wrong.

“coolness” wins

In this generation, the art of “coolness” is a highly sought after quality and this young man had manufactured it to perfection. People envied his outward ‘coolness’. But the truth is; his coolness was a learned technique façade to freeze his heart from feeling any pain and to gain elevation over those who couldn’t perfect this technique. In other words, he looked down on anyone who wasn’t “cool”. Clearly he was drawn to my family because he was hurt in his own, but sadly he brought his technique with him and instead of lowering his walls of protection he continued using his coolness to elevate himself in my family and eventually it was exposed.

Jesus wasn’t ‘cool’

Jesus did not keep his family happy just so he could be popular (John 7:4,5); neither did He keep the Pharisees happy just so he would be liked. His only intent was to do the will of the Father, John 6:38, and for this He paid for it with His life. That’s the real reason why people are ‘cool’; they don’t want to be thought of as weird; they prefer the popularity of man or the accolades of their father than the pain of giving up everything for the Name of Christ. The average Christian is happy to walk with Christ provided there’s no cross; no embarrassment; no put-down.

Why couldn’t he take the correction?

To this young man, correction = humiliation. He agreed that I was right, but he couldn’t believe that I could be right. The mind of this modern generation is so wrapped up in its self-value, it’s confused and it’s too degrading to even contemplate that it is wrong. To this generation, everyone else is wrong, not them. But, when you stop and think about that, when two opposing self-right opinions clash one or both of them has to be wrong but no one will concede to that thought. To an arrogant person, the other person is automatically always wrong.

The real truth is … this generation is too proud to be embarrassed and too proud to be disliked

King David owned his sin and got free when Nathan the prophet confronted him; but King Saul blamed it away when Samuel confronted him and came under the control of an evil spirit. Saul was primarily concerned about looking good to the people; David was concerned about not losing his relationship with God.

“blame” is a sign of a demonic spirit

In the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, Satan deceived Eve into disobeying God’s instructions, and then Eve manipulated Adam to do the same. Satan sinned; Eve sinned and Adam sinned. They all sinned, because sin is not doing what God says. All they had to do was say they sinned and concede that they each had done the wrong; but, instead, they each chose the easy path of blaming the other for their own sin. Once they chose this path they were now under the influence of the devil and automatically lost their right thinking; preferring to hide from their Creator Friend instead of exposing their wrong. Why? They had now become what they wanted … to be their own god, and that elevated pride made them too afraid and embarrassed to back away and say sorry, genuinely. They couldn’t bring themselves to do it; it was easier to pass the responsibility onto the person that made me do it.

Blame is just a technique to retain your pride. Blame proves you’re proud. Blame confirms that you won’t take the responsibility for doing the wrong. Blame blocks repentance and blame keeps the will of Satan dictating over you, and blame makes you the ignorant opponent of yourself, 2 Timothy 2:24-26.

The Holy Spirit does not blame!

If you are under the influence of Satan, you’ll automatically blame, but if you are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, you may struggle with the injustice, but you’ll die to your natural will to blame. Jesus didn’t blame; He died and took the blame.

Under a lying spirit

Non-ownership of your sin puts you under the influence of a lying spirit. One woman in my fellowship got really angry with me for exposing a lie she was propagating. She had deliberately blocked her brain to the fact that she was lying and believed that she wasn’t culpable because she didn’t know that she was lying. Her evil belief was that she wasn’t responsible for her sin unless she herself saw it. How convenient!

Once I exposed it she now felt accountable and thus automatically blamed me for putting her in that position. Of course, the truth was she was embarrassed that she was caught out and was too proud to be wrong and to take responsibility for her sin, passing it off as minor and irrelevant and accusing me of making a fuss over nothing. The same woman lied about being a lesbian and reacted the same way to me when exposed. Blame just proves what spirit you are under. With her mouth she said she was wrong and sorry, but with time she continued to prove that in her heart she was just stubbornly holding her position of not being wrong, and of course, according to the instructions in the Word of God (1 Corinthians 5:11,13; 2 Timothy 3:5,8; Ephesians 5:11) she was eventually asked to leave our fellowship.

‘Rejection’ blame is just a mood

She then accused me of “rejecting” her. Rejection sadness is just a mood to get the corrector to soften their correction and change their mind to what YOU want. I call the issue ‘sin’, but because they can’t believe they’re bad, they call it ‘rejection’ and blame the corrector for making them feel bad. No wonder she was forever looking to find the quick answer to salvation; it was in front of her all the time, all she had to do was lower her pride, but she couldn’t do it; the price of giving-up being your own ‘god’ and dictating what she wanted was too much to sacrifice.

St Augustine said ‘everybody wants the truth but nobody wants the truth about themselves’.

May God strengthen His remnant to bear the cross of rejection for the sake of this lost generation.

Pastor Ray Pritchard