The gifts in lawlessness?

As we continue discussing those left outside at the end, this is even more radical. Jesus not only condemns them because He does not know them—He also states that they are working lawlessness, doing evil. Who has ever heard that healings, prophecy, deliverance, and mighty spiritual wonders are part of doing evil? How can this be?

Missing the mark

Sin in the Greek is hamartia and literally means missing the mark. We put sin on the evil side of things opposed to obedience and righteousness which are good.

To be doing good, they must be manifested as a direct result of the leading and direction of the Holy Spirit. Here we open another can of worms ignored by the church. We cannot do good. We don’t even know what good is. Jesus covers this in Matthew 17:19

“Why do you ask what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good.”

We cannot do good on our own. History is littered with things done by man that were thought to be good, but Man had no idea of the consequences of his Deeds. The Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, the Technological Explosion, the Information Age have all caused real problems in the hands of people who thought they were doing good.

It gets much more personal than that, of course. For example, many times we have ministered to parents who needed to allow their child to be arrested and thrown in jail. We’d hear laments about how horrible that would be, how bad, how evil. But several times the Lord has told us in these situations that the best thing would be for the child to be arrested and incarcerated for a bit to get his or her attention. Often the parents will not allow it.

We have also learned that giving help to people who do not ask for it is often not a good thing to do. Charities who are non-discerning dispensaries of good often miss the mark because of this simple fact. We have a hard time seeing that as evil, but it is lawlessness. Doing what you think is good based on your own understanding of things is not always a good thing and good is not the result that comes about.

Doing good can only come through obedience to the leading of the Lord and following His guidance. Only then can we be assured that all the consequences are covered by the wisdom of God. He is wise enough to cover all the unintended results also.

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