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Accusations, Exposing Sin, & That Serpent of Old


"The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: 'Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down'” (Revelation 12:9-10).

The name of the ancient serpent is the Accuser. I am aware of churches whose elders are accusing or being accused. Some of the accusation is within a church, and some of it is between churches. The saints in these churches may have believed a lie that a fellow believer is the enemy. The fellow believer may have believed a lie and passed it on as truth. That puts him in the wrong camp. It makes him an accuser and a gossiper, but he is never the enemy, even if he is in great sin.

There seems to be a misreading or misapplication of Ephesians 5:8-14a: "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible."

• What we are: “Light in the Lord”
• What we are commanded: “Live as children of light.”
• What light is: “All goodness, righteousness and truth.”
• Additional comment: “Find out what pleases the Lord.”
• Negative comment: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.”
• Positive comment: “Expose them.”
• How not to expose them: “For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”
• How to expose them: “Light exposes.”

The misapplication is that people think that the way to expose the fruitless deeds of darkness is to talk about them. When we expose deeds of darkness this way, we mention “what the disobedient do in secret.” But this passage says that is shameful. It is our life of light that should expose things, not our talk of darkness. The accuser should confess the accusations he has made. The accused should not defend against the accuser or accusations, but if he has sinned, he should confess it to the Lord.

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