“EVANGELISM – THE CALL OF
EVERY DISCIPLE”
BY J. FARRELL FISHER
Acts 1:8, Jesus speaking, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Oswald Chambers: “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.179], “Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a center for Jesus Christ to pour living water through.”
INTRODUCTION
Nearing 78 years of age on June 12, 2014, I’ve had a lot of time lately to reflect upon my life’s journey. It’s been amazing to me to see the hand of God and the Spirit of the Lord Jesus on my life, my marriage, my family, and my ministry mission.
After pastoring churches from 1963 to about 1985, our Lord graciously directed and led me into world-wide ministry, from Brazil in the mid-1970’s to a new door of ministry primarily in India from about 1983 to about 2008 – 25 years of traveling 3-5 times a year from 3 weeks to 3 months, ministering the Word to pastors, outdoor crusades, and weekend Youth –evangelism outreach.
It was November, 1998, when I had an accident at our home in Belton, Texas, as I had decided to trim a tree over our driveway, spreading over and onto our garage roof. Using the power saw I had cut through a very large limb and was about to get off the ladder and pull the limb down – but the limb snapped, fell quickly to the concrete driveway, bounced against the ladder, and I fell hard and fast onto my driveway breaking my left arm and driving it up through my shoulder, destroying the joint. Sue thought I was dead!
That began a long journey that’s not over with yet. Three or four years ago I had to have four left shoulder replacements in five weeks, attempting to get the new “French reverse joint” to work in me and relieve the pain of collapsing ligaments, tendons, and nerves. It’s now the end of April, 2014, and I’m ‘OK’ with my new left shoulder. Beginning in September, 2012, I started another ‘journey’ – double-knee replacements. December 3, 2012, I had double-hip replacements – [some have asked if it’s all from my high school and collegiate football days at Baylor]. I think my “outward man is perishing,” but my inner man is renewed day by day – and there are, at least for me, no sorrows in my inner man, but I guarantee you I’ve lived with a lot of pain in the outer man! And then, April 28, 2013, I had the “widow-maker” – a massive heart-attack with the emergency room physician saying, “Get him out of here to surgery – he’s got 45 minutes to an hour to live.” My major artery was 100% closed with a large blood clot behind the blockage ready to go to my heart and kill me instantly. It was 8:30pm that Saturday night and my heart surgeon was there, I’m sure on the orders from God Almighty, if he understood or not. It was a miracle of grace. I was dismissed on Tuesday morning to go home!!
In my first few months after the heart-event, I wrote two new books in about a three-month period! Now, it’s the end of April, 2014, and Holy God has stirred my heart dramatically! The new book is being birthed – “Evangelism – The Call of Every Disciple.” I pray it blesses you, convicts you, enlightens you, informs you, and instills within you a passion to share your faith in Christ with those around you who live without Him. Be brave, be bold, be caring, be prepared – BE A WITNESS OF OUR LORD’S SAVING GRACE!
Again, it was Oswald Chambers who said: “Whenever you obey God, His seal is always that of peace, the witness of an unfathomable peace, which is not natural, but the peace of Jesus.” Are you at peace concerning your witness? Is it an unfathomable peace for you?
OUTLINE
CHAPTER ONE: “EVANGELISM – GOOD NEWS PROCLAMATION”
CHAPTER TWO: “EVANGELISM – BY OVERFLOWING COMPASSION”
CHAPTER THREE: “EVANGELISM – THE RESPONSIBILITY OF RELEASE”
CHAPTER FOUR: “EVANGELISM – BLIND FAITH”
CHAPTER FIVE: “EVANGELISM – THE CHURCH’S MAJOR MINISTRY”
CHAPTER SIX: “EVANGELISM – GOD’S ETERNAL INTENTION”
CHAPTER SEVEN: “EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OF A NEEDY WORLD”
CHAPTER EIGHT: “EVANGELISM- BECAUSE OF THE CALL FROM HURTING PEOPLE”
CHAPTER NINE: “EVANGELISM – UNVEILING OUR LORD AND SAVIOR”
CHAPTER TEN: “EVANGELISM – THE GIFT OF PEACE FOR A TROUBLED WORLD “
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “EVANGELISM: ANGELIC REJOICING”
CHAPTER TWELVE: “EVANGELISM – HOLY SPIRIT ANOINTING”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OF A WORLD CULTURE CAPTURED BY SATAN”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: “EVANGELISM – BECAUSE DRY BONES ARE LIFELESS”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OUR GOD IS MILITANT!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “EVANGELISM – BECAUSE EYES ARE BLIND, EARS ARE DEAF, AND MINDS COLD!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: “EVANGELISM – BECAUSE THE KING OF GLORY COMES SOON!”
CONCLUSION:
CHAPTER ONE
EVANGELISM – “GOOD NEWS PROCLAMATION”
I often wonder if modern-day “church members” have the slightest understanding of what “good news proclamation” is all about! It’s as if for them modern day evangelism is a myth apart from any meaning or relevance to their supposed “walk with Christ.”
Is identity with Christ a private matter that has no public relevance? Is oneness with the Lord and Savior void of inner activity with a “lost” and “dying” world around them? As long as “I” am saved and assured of an eternal relationship and heavenly home forever in the “family” of God, what difference does it make to those outside the family? Are they really my responsibility?
I am baffled by a group of believers that senses no obligation to “reach the lost” with saving grace. I am confused when “pastors” have no sense of urgency about community, state, national, or world evangelism. I am so disturbed when bodies of professing believers all across our nation have never implemented, supplemented, prayed for, activated, instituted, day by day, week by week, “touching our world with grace, mercy, and love.”
Are true New Testament church relationships to be void of impacting the world around them as long as they’re “faithful to one another”? Is a valid member of the Body of Christ excused from sharing the faith with unbelievers as long as he/she is faithful with his/her tithes and offerings to the local church of which he/she is a part? Is “salt” in one’s profession of faith to be preserved for one’s self or poured out where “salt” is truly needed?
“Good news” – but never told or shared with another? “Good news” – but never announced to a needy friend or family member? “Good news” – but mute to an empty, Godless, perishing world around one’s circle of influence? “Good news” – but void of any sense of personal responsibility to even those one loves the most? “Good news” – but blind to those who are blind themselves to the love, grace, and mercy of God? “Good news” – but content that the “lost” are on their own, “not MY responsibility”? “Good news” – but unaffected by one’s awareness that those without Christ will be eternally separated from the God of love because His love couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t flow through you?
“Evangelism – Good News Proclamation”! “Evangelism – Good News Reconciliation to Holy God”! “Evangelism – Good News Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Oneness with the God who made us, lost us, reconciled us to Himself by His own sacrifice”! “Evangelism – Good News participation in His Eternal Plan”! “Evangelism – Good News Discovery of who we are in Him through His shed blood”! “Evangelism – Good News Understanding that God loves us, wants us, and needs us to share with Him in His love for our world”!
Do you see yourself as an extension of His Life, as an expression of His love, and as the proof of His power, to touch the world around you and see God signing His name on others through you? Or is your opinion about yourself such that God sponsors a losing cause if He chooses to “save” the world around you through your witness? If you haven’t learned it yet, man, woman, boy or girl, if you were the only one who had ever lived up until now, what Jesus did 2000 years ago, He did it just for you! God wants you to be His “Master-piece”! God wants you, in and through Christ Jesus, to be His true “symphony of praise” and “thanksgiving” because of what He is able to do through a surrendered vessel in His hands!
I don’t know how you view Genesis, but I see it as “The Beginning of Unveiled Purposes” out of the very heart of God Himself. Abram and Sarai had been in “Haran”, the place of the dead – a charred, parched, burned up, barren, dry land. [That’s where the most of humanity is housed today in our modern day of human expectation!]
But in Genesis 12:2 the Lord said to Abram [just as He does personally to you in this very moment!], “I will make YOU a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing…Verse 3, …and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Verse 4, So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him…”
Has the Lord spoken to you? Of course He has! Our God is no respecter of persons! What He said to Abram He has said to you! Galatians 3:29 says, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” The promise? “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” But the question is, will you depart and do as the Lord has spoken to you?
I don’t know how you view the Book of Acts but I see it as the New Testament introduction to true discipleship! I call it: “The Master’s Mandate of Meaningful Ministry,” or “The Father’s Faith, Following, and Future,” or “The Final Chapter of a Disciple’s Calling”, or “The Family of Faith and Their Fulfilling Fight.”
But you? Me? Us? How can God Himself accomplish through us what He did through them? And Acts 1:8 tells us, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Please notice: It’s not our abilities but our availability to God’s Holy Spirit who anoints us and empowers us to be our Lord’s witnesses!
But then Peter carries us a step further when in I Peter 3:15 he wrote: “But sanctify [or set apart] the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…”
Holy Spirit anointing, personal availability, a sensitivity of opportunity, intentional evangelism, a willingness to speak up, speak out, speak to, trusting our angels to lead us, led by the Holy Spirit! Isn’t that Acts 8:29 when the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” And the Word says, “So Philip ran to him.” [Who have you been running to lately because the Holy Spirit prompted you?]
Philip obeyed, and Acts 8:35 tells us, Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
Acts 9 really unveils for us divine potential for any man. Look with me at Acts 9:10-20, “Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” So the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.”… Then Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.”…But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”…Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized. So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some time with the disciples at Damascus…Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues that He is the Son of God.”
And as a result of the act of obedience, what is to happen? In Acts 2:47 we read, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” Are people “being saved” “daily” our true spiritual heartbeat?
“Evangelism – Good News Proclamation”!! I’m always amazed that some are so blind and deaf to the reality of amazing grace that God, YES, God Himself, can heal the lame, open blind eyes, blot out the blackness of a sinful heart, and make someone a new person – and they refuse to believe! The sad truth is: THEY DON”T WANT TO BE TURNED AWAY FROM THEIR SIN AND INIQUITY!
It was Peter who said in Acts 3:16-23, “And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, [“Good News Proclamation”!!] that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” “Good news” – but they settle for sad news because they are so in love with their sin and their iniquity!
In verse 26 of Acts 3 Peter said, “To you, first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” But that’s not ‘glad news’ but “sad news” when one loves his iniquities more than he loves the God of “Good News”!
I have no hesitation in saying to you that naked truth shared to a darkened heart and soul can cut one in pieces and turn him to saving grace and mercy! Listen to Acts 2:36-39!! “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, THEY WERE CUT TO THE HEART, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, [and because you truly repent], let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” You do understand that it was YOUR SIN that nailed Jesus to the Cross! And it’s your heart-felt repentance that births ‘remission of sins’, not water baptism! Water baptism is testimony of one’s death, burial, and resurrection in Christ to eternal life.
“Evangelism – Good News Proclamation!” Do you see repentant men receiving “the gift of the Holy Spirit”? Right before Jesus’ bodily ascension into Heaven Luke 24: 45-49 says: “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses to these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
God “opened their minds,” He “opened their hearts,” He “opened their eyes” to sense eternal things concerning world redemption, He “opened their very beings” to sense and receive the capacity of fullness in The Spirit realm – “endued with power from on high.”
“Evangelism – Good News Proclamation!” Do you see YOUR calling? 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” Do you remember in Genesis 24:27 where the man said to Rebecca, “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken God’s mercy and God’s truth toward my master. As for me, being in the way… the Lord led me..”
And as our Lord’s ambassador, His earthly, appointed, anointed, empowered representative, we are to be “in the way, led by our Lord,” discovering the divine opportunities of sharing our faith in Him with others! I love Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.236], speaking of “the intuitive jar” as the inner admonitions of the abiding Holy Spirit guiding us to those He is concerned about. If according to Romans 8:16 the Spirit “bears witness with our Spirit,” then, as true disciples, we must learn to whom the Holy Spirit leads us. Listen to Chambers:
“The Spirit of God witnesses to the Redemption of our Lord, He does not witness to anything else; He cannot witness to our reason. The simplicity that comes from our natural common-sense decisions is apt to be mistaken for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of Redemption, never to our reason. If we try to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder we are in darkness and perplexity. Fling it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give the witness.”
In Ephesian 6 Paul tells us about putting on the whole armor of God even praying ‘always’ ‘in the Spirit’, and especially, verse 19, “for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, verse 20, FOR WHICH I AM AN AMBASSADOR IN CHAINS; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Certainly it was literal for Paul – he was behind prison bars – but you and I are an ambassador “chained to Christ” – and all around us is a world of people in bondage to themselves and their sin who need to be set free.
“Evangelism – Good News Proclamation!” But do you understand, do you realize, do you comprehend, that one can so shroud or cover his professing faith that no one around him has discovered his ‘devotion’ to Christ Jesus? Is faith in God to be hidden in dark shadows so no one appears responsible in sharing his ‘faith’? Is redemptive faith so strange to you that to share it with others would mark you as a “looney-tunie”?!?
In John 17:1-4 Jesus speaks: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.”
Do you see it, sense it, celebrate it, appropriate it? “I, number one common disciple, have finished the work you assigned me to carry out”! Jesus said on one occasion that He came into our world to “bear witness to the truth” – but you have a different purpose?
I love Acts 4:33, “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.” Do you long for great grace on all of your church family? Do you passionately long for great power on all of your church believers? If you’re not aware of it, I’ll tell you: Spiritual battles for the souls of men are lost or won on the “plains” of divine will, never in the pews of spiritual satisfaction void of eternal intent. “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”
Is there a travailing spirit in you for the salvation of lost souls around you? Or is there a cloud of illusion covering your mind, heart, and spirit, creating within you an aching abyss of absence of the love of the Lord Jesus for lost souls for whom He died? Are we gripped by a worldly independent oneness or have we, because we are now “in Christ,” become spiritually governed by His sacrificial spirit in laying down His life to touch others with His grace through us? Peter wrote in I Peter 4:13 that we should “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” Is there gladness in your heart because, governed by the Spirit of Christ within you, lives are touched for Christ and you are eternally blessed?
Oh, I know there is a “war”! Revelation 17:14 tells us: “These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are CALLED, CHOSEN, and FAITHFUL.” But far too often the “war” is an inward war concerning will: Will I witness or will I not witness? In I Corinthians 9:16 Paul wrote: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”
I don’t know how you look upon Paul’s letter to the Galatians, but I call it “The Gospel of Faith, Freedom, Fullness, and Fruit.” In Galatians 1:15-16a, Paul said, “But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…” Biblical fruit is a life you touch in God’s faith, giving freedom, fullness, and the very fruit of the Indwelling Christ! Do people around you glorify God because of the redemptive faith they witness and hear from you?
I would ask you: Does the love of Christ compel or constrain you to touch others with His love, grace, and mercy? Are you a “poured out drink offering”? Have you willingly, day by day, gone to the altar as a willing sacrifice for Jesus?
In Matthew 10:27 hear Jesus!! “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on housetops.”
Let me close with words again from Oswald Chambers: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.33], “You shall be My witnesses.” How many of us are willing to spend every ounce of nervous energy, of mental, moral, and spiritual energy we have for Jesus Christ? That is the meaning of a “witness” in God’s sense of the word. It takes time, be patient with yourself. God has left us on earth – what for? To be saved and sanctified? No, to be at it for Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured out wine for Him? To be spoiled for this age, for this life, to be spoiled from every standpoint but one – saving as I can disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life as a worker is the way I say “thank you” to God for His unspeakable salvation. Remember it is quite possible for any one of us to be flung out as reprobate silver – “…lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
Are you a spiritual sluggard or a strong saint sharing the Way of salvation? Is it self-realization for you or self-abandonment to the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God for your life and walk and witness as a disciple of Christ? Do you live your church life in the spirit of self-vindication or yielded to the Lord of your life in full surrender or as Moffatt interpreted James 1:4, “Let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect.”
Are we ‘victims’ or witnesses? Are we aimless disciples or ambassadors of Christ? Are we silent ‘sinning’ believers or sounding-off singers of saving faith? Are we ‘self-controlled’ or Spirit-prodded?
Are we to adapt to fleshly nations and peoples or announce the remedy to misguided leadership and follow-ship? Are we deaf to the heart-cries of the aimless or alert to the voice of the Holy Spirit to reach out and touch our lost and dying world?
Has God ‘reasoned’ with you about your walk or REVEALED YOUR HOLY CALLING AS A BIBLICAL EVANGELIST?
It was Benjamin Franklin who once said: “If passion drives you let reason hold the reins.” Is it ‘reason’ or revelation that holds the reins for your walk and witness?
Remember, our Lord said, “Follow Me, and I will make you to become ‘fishers of men’!” How about examining your fishing string of late!?!
CHAPTER TWO
EVANGELISM – OVERFLOWING COMPASSION
IT’S THE DIVINE DESIGN
It’s an amazing, shocking, awakening word when you read Jesus’ response to some who “believed” in Him as you read John 2:23-25! It says: “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; for He knew what was in man.”
Belief in a miracle, a miracle even by Jesus Himself, is not a sign of “saving grace and mercy.” Oh, our Lord and Savior is so merciful, so kind, and so able to save by His amazing grace, but evangelism occurs by an awareness in one’s mind and heart of His overflowing compassion, seen in His sacrificial death on the Cross in our place – not because He heals, not because they “observed His signs,” but because of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone at Calvary as He bled and died in our place!
Jesus said, “Come unto Me” in Matthew 11:28 – and that’s our beginning point. Some think they came unto Jesus because they’re in a church every single Sunday. He said, “Come unto Me,” and every disciple, every church, every denomination should be coming unto, into, through Christ’s compassionate HEART and His compassionate being, and His compassionate ways.
Difficult words from the lips of Jesus are exactly what most need to hear because some have determined their ‘rightness’ with God by what they’ve done, not by what He did once for all AT CALVARY!
Do you remember the rich young ruler in Luke 18:18? He asked Jesus, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, [Verses 19-20], “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”
The rich young ruler responded in verse 21, “All these have I kept from my youth up.” Then in verse 22 Jesus spoke these words: “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
The rich young ruler was very sorrowful because he was a very rich, wealthy young man, and his riches owned his heart and mind! Jesus responded in verses 24-25, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
The crowd around Jesus and the rich young ruler then responded, in verse 26, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus answered, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” What an illuminating word for us! With us it is impossible – but with God, all things are possible, even our salvation, our redemption, our restoration to God’s eternal intent.
How many have you known who heard the word of truth, the way of salvation, the wisdom of God Himself, yet turned and walked away – content that their way of life should be acceptable to God? In the rich young ruler, Jesus’ words brought him to discouragement – and he defiantly walked away because God’s overflowing compassion was a poor substitute to his fleshly devotion.
There are several truths I encourage you to deal with as you consider “Evangelism – By Overflowing Compassion” knowing it IS THE DIVINE DESIGN!
Do you remember Jesus telling us of the prodigal son who left the father’s blessing for a life of self-rule? But he came to his spiritual senses and decided to return home. In Luke 15:20 the Word says, “But when he was a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of compassion, “A suffering with another; painful sympathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration…”
And compassionate God has a merciful, forgiving, tender heart – so committed to restoring you to Himself. It’s why in Psalm 23:6 David said, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Do you remember Charles Wesley’s “Christmas Hymn”? “Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the new-born King; Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!” WOW!!
It was Thomas Watson who once wrote these words: “Mercy is not for them that sin and fear not, but for them that fear and sin not.” On one hand, God willingly shines forth His compassion and His mercy and His love, while on the other hand divine justice will be meted out to those ignoring His compassionate heart! Evangelism by overflowing compassion?
First, please notice: Evangelism by overflowing compassion through a predetermined explanation. In Romans 9:14-15 Paul wrote wisely: “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
And Holy God, yes, even before our world had been formed, knew within His mind and heart what created MAN with a free will would do. Revelation 13:7-8 speaks of “the beast” who makes “war with the saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.” And then verse 9 says, “If any man have an ear, let him hear.”
Do you see it? Have you grasped it? Are you understanding that God, before the world was formed, knew of man’s fall, and He knew He had to “make a way,” for our rescue, our redemption, and our restoration to His divine plan for us! It was Jesus Christ! He’s the Way, the Truth, and the Life, sovereignly destined to take our sins on to Himself and shed His blood, suffer, and die, that we through repentance and faith should be, could be, would be, reconciled to Holy God.
And in John 6:44 Jesus said, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which sent Me draws him.” Every man is drawn, but not every man responds to God’s reach, to His knock on the heart’s door, to His, yes, mental and moral and merciful message of full surrender to Holy God! But a Paul can say, and, yes, you and me, “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!”
His predetermined plan was the Lamb, Christ Jesus, slain in God’s mind, heart, and will, before the world was ever formed. Didn’t Jesus even say of Abraham that he “rejoiced to see My day, and he was glad”?
There is a religious world around you in which many “profess but never possess” the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Is it really evident? Yes! There are those who begin a walk and turn away and walk no more with Jesus. There are those who possess illumined minds to some divine truths but have hearts that are blinded. “New man” is a strange term, “new life” is a fiction to them, “new heart” is a false impression, and “new Light” remains darkness because there is no repentance, there is no “travailing in birth…until Christ is formed in you.”
But we have an eternal promise: I John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
That’s God’s PREDETERMINED EXPLANATION! But also it’s His wisdom to see Evangelism By Overflowing Compassion THROUGH PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS!
There are two verses of Scripture in Romans 9 that are of such high spiritual understanding. Those two verses are Romans 9:7 and Romans 9:29. They say: Romans 9:7, “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham (that’s FLESH!), are they all children (or children of Faith and Spirit!).” Then verse 29 says, “And as Isaiah said before, ‘Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah.”
Flesh is flesh! Flesh is man in his old fallen sin nature! Flesh is the absence of God. Flesh is void of the Eternal. Flesh is self in full debased form. Flesh is human nature seeking to fill the void of spiritual emptiness.
This is why in 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul wrote of “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge…”
But, please hear me! Evangelism by overflowing compassion comes through the Holy Spirit’s knocking on the door of your mind and your heart, through a church’s Godly intentional witness, through a caring, faithful friend who touches you with God’s grace, mercy, and love. And, yes, a bold man, on his own, doing HIS thing: “casting down [HIS] imaginations,” and gladly receiving the divine initiative, ripping out of his worldly mind and worldly heart, all that is opposite of God and allowing God to fill him with Holy Resurrection Life and Presence!
But also it’s so vital, so important, that having experienced what you’ve read in this chapter so far, that you go beyond yourself to a needy world around you. Evangelism by Overflowing Compassion because you become aware of it through powerful personal experiences with others in your mind and on your heart – yes, even casual encounters when you never expected it!
Are you familiar with the woman drawing water at the well in John 4? River water, well water, or living water? And around you, every single day, are people like her, trained in simply river or well water, having never heard of “living water”!
It was “a casual encounter” – a man filled with leprosy saw Jesus! [Luke 5:12], “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” “I am willing; be cleansed.” “Living water”!
Are you familiar at all with “casual encounters” of “a dead man being carried out”? Sadly, most believers are never aware of the “dead men” around them, but Jesus saw the grief of a mother over the death of her son, and He had “compassion” for her! “Young man, I say to you: Arise!” And he who was dead sat up and began to speak.” [Luke 7:14]. The crowds viewing this miracle of grace witnessed the event and great fear came upon them all, and they glorified God! “Living water”!
A “casual encounter”? In Matthew 12: 8 Jesus had just declared, “For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath,” and Jesus went into “their synagogue.” [I find that so interesting! I wonder at times if He speaks of “their church”!] But there was a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath with a withered hand. Of course, [ you do understand it, don’t you?], the Pharisees asked Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”, so that they might accuse Him. Jesus told the man, “Stretch out your hand,” and He healed it!
A “casual encounter”? Mark 1:40 tells us of a leper who came to Jesus, imploring Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean,” and Jesus, moved with compassion, said, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Verse 42 says, “As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.”
But also are you fully aware of Evangelism by Overflowing Compassion because, “in Him,” you sense “people envelopment”! In Romans 9: 25-26 Paul wrote: As He says also in Hosea: [Hosea 2:23], “I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.” And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God.”
How conscious are you of the Spirit of God in you using your residence as His launching pad in touching others through you with God’s grace and mercy? Don’t you find it so interesting and encouraging that Romans 8:26 tells us, “Likewise the Spirit also helps 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.”
Our own bodies are so far more than residence of our conveniences, but the personal throne-room of the Holy Spirit, yes, a “holy place” where the Spirit of God lives, operates, instructs, and uses us as His jumping off place – to touch lonely, lost, languishing souls so impoverished but about to be filled, by the Holy Spirit, with the fullness of God Himself!
How I pray that you sense in yourself the absolute need of the Holy Spirit in you to touch your world around you with God’s love! In I Corinthians 2:1-5 Paul wrote: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech, or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
In John 16:13-14 Jesus spoke vital words for our understanding He said: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will TELL YOU THINGS TO COME. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”
I love Oswald Chambers’ words in “My Utmost For His Highest,” when he wrote: [p.248], “Jesus said, ‘When He the Spirit of truth is come…He shall glorify Me.’ When I commit myself to the revelation made in the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit Who begins to interpret to me what Jesus did; and does in me subjectively all that Jesus Christ did for me objectively.” What is happening ‘in you’ objectively because of the Spirit in you guiding YOU to “people envelopment”?
Evangelism by Overflowing Compassion through the presence of Him who is able! I so love the words of Paul when he wrote in I Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
Isn’t “Christ in you” the very hope of glory? Isn’t it “the Spirit of truth” who comes to glorify Christ? Spiritual hunger, spiritual vision, true spiritual ambition, spiritual power, spiritual insight – by our abilities? God, help us! Expose our ineptness, our weakness, our blindness, our inabilities – and show us, give us, anoint us in the very fullness and power of Your Holy Spirit!
In I John 5:6b we read, “And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.” The Spirit is ABLE!
I also pray you are gripped, grasped, held onto tightly by the reality of Evangelism by Overcoming Compassion because there is within you, [or about to come upon you!!], a true Spirit of travailing for souls! In Isaiah 66:8c we read: “For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.”
Do you understand a travailing spirit for the lost souls of people around you? Isaiah was a man moved upon by God and instilled with that travailing Spirit. In fact he had an amazing promise from the very throne of God. Isaiah 66:22 says, “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the Lord, “so shall your descendants and your name remain.”
Almighty God asked Isaiah in Isaiah 66:8, “..shall a nation be born at once?”, God giving His chosen servant the eternal dream and surety of a new-born spiritual people and spiritual nation! A personal witness can birth one new child of God but has the God-given potential to birth a whole nation of new believers! Through YOU!!
Do you remember that “before the day of Pentecost had fully come” Peter preached and three thousand souls were birthed into God’s spiritual Kingdom? And you doubt that God Himself could do the same through you?
Evangelism by Overcoming Compassion? How? By yielding to the presence of Him who is able! Ephesians 3:20-21 says, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Yes, Amen to the glory of God! Amen to His able-ness! Amen to His faithfulness to His Word!
Paul said in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” He added in verses 12-13, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Oh, God’s able-ness! Rejoice in it, rely upon it, rest in it!
This is why in 2 Corinthians 2:14 Paul wrote: “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” Have you spiritually trained yourself in the triumph of Christ – in His able-ness?
CHAPTER THREE
EVANGELISM – THE RESPONSIBILITY OF RELEASE
There is such an interesting word from Jesus that can and does find itself easily passed over. It’s Matthew 24:12 where Jesus said, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” He was speaking about signs of the ‘end times and the end of last days’!
I have no doubt the He spoke about those who live lawlessly, body, soul, and spirit – their love of the Godly life and spiritual things as a lost cause in their evaluation of things that have meaning for them.
If you read the Matthew 24 passage carefully you’ll see great deception in the last days, great conflicts in the end times, great suffering of all – believers as well as unbelievers – great open sin, an attitude of shamelessness, and the time of great open sin bringing to the true believers a time of great opportunity!
“The responsibility of release,” true evangelism, an open door for enslaved people bound in their chains of self-will, self-pleasure, and self-destruction, but Jesus telling us in John 20:23, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
What an awesome revelation that our Lord unveils to every disciple! Our Lord exposed not only a “love grown cold” but tells us of divine love released through a caring people who witness bound up men and women who need His release – and caring disciples take on those who need “the forgiveness”! A caring people live with reckless abandonment and have a goal of touching others with God’s love, grace, and mercy – they know release and want to see others walking in the light of His freedom – not in the darkness of Satanic bondage or self-imposed slavery to sin.
One of the guiding passions of Paul’s ministry was the fact that he saw himself as debtor. He wrote in Romans 1:13-17, “Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you, just as among the other Gentiles. I AM A DEBTOR, both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”
Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest”, [p.143], “Do I feel that sense of indebtedness to Christ in regard to every unsaved soul? The spiritual honor of my life as a saint is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to them. Every bit of my life that is of value I owe to the Redemption of Jesus Christ; am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His Redemption into actual manifestation in other lives? I can only do it as the Spirit of God works in me this sense of indebtedness.”
Paul said in Romans 1 three things that you as a believer must resolve: 1) “I am a debtor”, 2) “I am ready”, 3) “I am not ashamed”
And this became reality in him because of the release of the Holy Spirit through him! In Romans 8:12-14 he said, “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh [or one’s old sin nature], to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
There are three separate passages in Acts I want to strongly impress upon you: 1) Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 2) Acts 4:31, “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” 3) Acts 4:33, “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.”
“Evangelism – The Responsibility of Release”? And you think you are able? I don’t think so! But ‘Christ in you IS the hope of glory,’ and Spirit-anointing is your guarantee of a daily supply of boldness to touch your world with grace!
Redemptive relationships are to be such, yes, a normal part of every believer’s life. There is a powerful, uplifting, encouraging, and motivating story in Luke 5:17-26. The Word says, “Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst of Jesus. WHEN HE SAW THEIR FAITH, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” [If you read John 20:23 over and over, you begin to wonder how many “Pharisees and teachers of the law” sit by and “forgive” no one!!]
I’m sure there are those who need more healing grace than the physical paralytic because, though ‘professing believers’, they are bound with the paralysis of dreaded personal fears overcome by destructive, deathly sin that they’re not free from, or bound with the paralysis of despondency, the paralysis of disillusionments, the paralysis of self-confidence – and they don’t even know, though spiritually paralyzed, that through Christ Jesus THEY can rise up and walk a victorious life in and through our Lord and Savior!
The Luke 5 passage is so birthed with a holy, sacred, yes, divine way of touching men’s lives who are so in need of saving grace and mercy. Four banded together, four carried the needy man, four placed him at the very feet of Jesus. But whether one or four, God’s people are to creatively find ways to bring the needy man to Jesus! And isn’t it amazing to you that they never said a word to Jesus but simply set the needy man at Jesus’ feet? Who is it that you’ve lately carried to the feet of Jesus and laid him, them, at His precious Presence?
Oh, and notice! A paralyzed man placed at the very feet of Jesus – and having seen “their faith,” the faith of these four men, Jesus said what? “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” [Verse 20, Luke 5]. This didn’t shake the four men who brought the paralytic, but it sure shocked the scribes and Pharisees! Luke 5:21 says, “And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, ‘Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Follow carefully and prayerfully and reflectively Luke 5:22-26, But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins” – He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today.”
Understand ! It is not strange! Redemptive relationships call for the responsibility of release! What did Jesus say? John 20:23, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them..”
In Matthew 16:13-19 Jesus, with His disciples traveling with Him, asked them the following: “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
A revelation from heaven! Redemptive relationships call for the responsibility of release! And you in Christ are commissioned, having been made free in Him, to “set the captives free!!” Judges 5:12 speaks of “leading captivity captive” – and, praise God, there is spiritual binding and loosing on this earth, to the glory of God! There is even “bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” [2 Corinthians 10:5b].
Yet how many do you know who interpret their freedom in Christ as the right to be “spiritually unemployed,” never sensing the meaning of “take up your cross and follow Me”!
“Evangelism – The Responsibility of Release”? I have no doubt that its fruition and fulfillment is born out of a burden much like Nehemiah who looked upon the broken down walls of Jerusalem, the Holy City. Some, far too many, have never seen their lives as broken down walls subject to the powers of darkness or their lives as possibly, potentially, city-grounds of a holy dwelling place. Nehemiah asked the king for permission to return to the torn-down city in order to restore it to God’s intent!
And, today, the new Nehemiahs are accepting the responsibility of release and moving out to restore in others God’s eternal intent. No doubt this is why Paul wrote in Galatians 5:13, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
It was Phillips Brooks who once preached, “Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God’s Paradise.”
But rather than lives on earth being God’s Paradise, far too many men, and I say probably the majority of earthly men, are not truly free in the scriptural sense because they are slaves to their flesh, their old sin natures, that ‘fallen man’ spirit – and someone must be God’s tool to touch their lives with His grace and mercy. We know, John 8:36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed,” free on God’s terms and blessed with His eternal intent!
In I Peter 2:15-16 Peter wrote so wisely under the Spirit’s anointing, “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men – as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.”
Peter had said earlier in I Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
But there are those sincerely or ignorantly seeing themselves called out of darkness into His marvelous light with little or no concern for those in bondage to their sin, their old sin natures, or in bondage to Satan Himself! And you have no concern for unbelievers around you? The miracle of divine Redemption is meaningless to too many “professors of faith”, and they live silently in enslaved states to flesh, sin, and the devil, totally unconcerned about the reach of the Redemption of others through them.
I really, really believe that it’s time for professing Christians everywhere to stand with Jesus crying out to Holy God, “What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Your name,” and that’s through us in the 21st century!
Frederic D. Huntington once said: “Sorrow is our John the Baptist, clad in grim garments, with rough arms, a son of the wilderness, baptizing us with bitter tears, preaching repentance; and behind him comes the gracious, affectionate, healing Lord, speaking peace and joy to the soul.”
You do know that Isaiah 53:3 tells us of our Lord and Savior who was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” How’s your ‘grief’ quotient concerning lost mankind surrounding you? Jesus ! A man of sorrows because He cared so passionately for the lost and dying spiritually so much so that He took their sin unto Himself and carried it to the cruel Cross!
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the following: “Sorrow is divine. Sorrow is reigning on all the thrones of the universe, and the crown of all crowns has been one of thorns. There have been many books that treat of the sympathy of sorrow, but only one that bids us glory in tribulation, and count it all joy when we fall into divers afflictions, that so we may be associated with that great fellowship of suffering of which the incarnate Son of God is the head, and through which He is carrying a redemptive conflict to a glorious victory over evil. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.” Glory!
“Evangelism – The Responsibility of Release”! It was Henri Frederic Amiel who said: “The distinguishing mark of religion [Dare I say relationship with God?] is not so much liberty as obedience, and its value is measured by the sacrifices which it can extract from the individual.” What has God Himself extracted from you concerning the sacrifice of a laid-down life in a personal witness to others?
How do you measure your spiritual devotion to Christ in His call to you to be a witness of saving grace? Devotion to His holy calling is not that which comes and goes – it doesn’t or shouldn’t fade away from us in silence! Devotion is one captured by obedience to His calling – “Tell the world you’re a Christian and how it happened!”
A witness of saving grace to others? Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest”, [p.264], has written: “The calling of a New Testament worker is to uncover sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Savior, consequently he cannot be poetical, he must be sternly surgical. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful discourses. We have to probe straight down as deeply as God has probed us, to be keen in sensing the Scriptures which bring the truth straight home and to apply them fearlessly.”
“Evangelism – The Responsibility of Release”! Years ago my wife and I attended a convention of pastors where we met one of my former Baylor University classmates, a pastor in the Marietta, Georgia area. He introduced us to a man by the name of Harry Dent who used to be a presidential aide in Washington, DC. He had retired and returned to his home, I believe, in South Carolina. He was not a disciple of Jesus, but his daughter, a born-again believer, encouraged her father to read carefully the Gospel of John, and then they would talk. Harry met Christ through his daughter’s reaching out to one she cared for and loved deeply. Harry Dent was born-again and even attended a Bible College and seminary to deepen his understanding and prepare him to be a faithful witness.
Lee Strobel was a newsman from Chicago, an unbeliever. But his wife was born again and he was sure he could research the Bible and refute everything she said. Through his born-again wife Lee Strobel met Jesus even writing a book entitled “The Case For Christ.”
I’m a former pastor who after twelve years of pastoring came to the reality of the new birth after a pastor-friend, Peter Lord, said to me: “Farrell, I sense you are a man who has never truly repented of his sin and made Jesus Lord of your life.” He was right, and in February, 1974, I was born again and God pointed my life, my heart to international missions. It’s good for preachers to be born-again!
I Peter 1:22-23 says, “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever…”
CHAPTER FOUR
EVANGELISM – BLIND FAITH?
Hebrews 11:1 is certainly clear to anyone who wants to hear it and receive it: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
A man’s relationship with Holy God is not a matter of one’s ‘common sense,’ or one being totally ‘rational,’ or a life of ‘emotional sentimentality,’ or of such natural tendencies of ‘a brilliant mind,’ that one on his own figures it out and enjoys God just reaching down from His throne and bestowing on him blessing after blessing!
No, I believe I heard Jesus say something about YOU taking up your own cross and following Him. I believe I heard Him say, “In the world, you as a believer, a disciple, a follower of Christ, will have tribulation.” That makes sense to You? Common sense?
In “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.226], Oswald Chambers wrote: “Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character has to be cleared in our own minds. Faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him – I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do. ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him’ – this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.”
In Jude 3-4 there is a holy summons given because “blind faith” always excites for spiritual warfare. It says: “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I so love what God’s Word says in John 20:29, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” It was Augustine who said, “For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?” And the one truth you personally may need to grasp for yourself is that biblical faith is so far beyond human reasoning or human intellect!
I’m sure it’s why William Newton Clarke once said, “Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.” Sir Thomas Browne opened a huge door of understanding when he wrote: “To believe only possibilities is not Faith, but mere Philosophy.” And philosophical minds ponder – they do not rest in faith!
Skeptics are multitudinous in number but ‘zero’ in heavenly harmony, ‘zero’ in the higher faculties beyond human reasoning, ‘zero’ in the transformation of spiritually dead men into classic reputations of men touched and taken over by God Himself!
Peter Taylor Forsyth said: “Unless there is within us that which is above us, we shall soon yield to that which is about us.” And this is no doubt why we witness a nation birthed by God Himself, yes, the United States of America, that is fast moving toward a godless society as a whole!
“Evangelism – Blind Faith”? Yes, there is Hope, biblical hope of eternal significance! I’m thankful my ministry years were influenced by the Englishman, Leonard Ravenhill, who wrote the book “Why Revival Tarries”. In it [p.115] he wrote: “Had Saul met only a preacher and heard only a sermon on the Damascus road, he might never have been heard of again. But he met Christ!…Right there that day Saul’s philosophy of life was met with LIFE HIMSELF.”
Didn’t Paul tell us in 2 Corinthians 5:7 that “we walk by faith, not by sight”? I love what Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word – faith.” That is so very, very true! Why? Because true, saving, life-changing faith is looking up, looking in, and looking around – then offering one’s life to Living God as a sacrifice of praise!
I say to you, faith is not a probability but a blind certainty, touched by the God we do not see! Reason may give to a man of intellectual prowess a sense of superiority but faith gives a man the certainty of a heart of reconciliation with Holy God!
It was John Greenleaf Whittier in “My Soul and I” who wrote: “Nothing before, nothing behind; the steps of faith fall on the seeming void, and find the rock beneath.” That’s, yes, “The Rock of Ages”! Augustus Toplady and Thomas Hastings wrote that precious old hymn. It says:
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee; Let the water and the blood, From Your wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure…
Not the labor of my hands, Can fulfill Your law’s demands; Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow, These for sin could not atone, You must save, and You alone…
Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Your cross I cling; Naked, come to You for dress; Helpless, look to You for grace; Vile, I to the fountain fly, Wash me, Savior, or I die…
While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold You on Your throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.” Glory be to God alone!”
It was Alfred Lord Tennyson, in “Idyllys of the King: Merlin and Vivien,” who said: “Faith and unfaith can never be equal powers; Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.” Faith or unfaith? Faith is God’s saving provision – it is saving faith, appropriating faith, wise, intelligent, mind-filled faith, and certainly assimilating faith that forever builds us up IN HIM!
That tells me that God’s saving faith is a supplying faith! I challenge you to read through the Psalms daily over the next 3 months reading at least 10 chapters a day! But hear Psalm 1:1-3, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.”
In Psalm 32:1-2 David said: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”
Yes, “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.” Yes, “Blessed is he who leans not unto his own understanding but in all his ways acknowledges, bows before, surrenders to the King of kings and the Lord of lords!” Yes, “Blessed is the man not in bondage to worldly education but the man ‘faith-filled’ in the revelation of God’s Word and His liberating power!” Yes, “Blessed is the man whose ‘blind faith’ has opened heavenly understanding of who he now is ‘in Christ’!”
But how many do you know who are like one of Doestoevski’s characters. Harold A. Bosley wrote about him in his “Religion in Life.” Dostoevski had one of his ‘stars’ saying: “I am an X in an indeterminate equation. I am sort of a phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, who has forgotten his own name.” Bosley wrote: “The affirmation that we find in the Gospel causes us to confront every man with the word, ‘I know your real name. You are not an X in an indeterminate equation or a phantom in life, you [by faith!] are a child of God, you are a brother of mine in Christ.’” Oh, how rich and revealing and restorative is that!
“Evangelism – Blind Faith?” Don’t you find it amazing that so many men around you try to live apart from heavenly vision which has as its support “blind faith”?
You’ll remember that the wise man of Proverbs 29:18 wrote: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It was James Russell Lowell, who wrote: “The wicked and the weak, by some dark law, have a strange power to shut and rivet down their own horizons round us, to unwing our heaven-aspiring visions.” And that no doubt is true of some, as disciples, who try to live apart from ‘heaven-aspiring visions.”
But in acts 26:19 Paul said to King Agrippa, “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.”
How do we deal, modern-day church, with God’s Word in Joel 2:28? “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”
“Blind faith”? And evangelism as a result of it? It was Raphael who said: “I simply dream dreams and see visions, and then I paint around those dreams and visions.
For me? After my conversion in February of 1974, and after my Lord’s leading into Brazilian missions for about six years, that amazing door was opened to India by a friend who said, “Farrell, you must go to India!” I consented! And God said, “The rest of your ministry life is to be committed to the pastors, churches, and youth of India.” I painted for 25 years – and God produced a masterpiece!!
I love what E. Paul Hovey said: “A blind man’s world is bounded by the limits of his touch; an ignorant man’s world by the limits of his knowledge; a great man’s world by the limits of his vision.” Tell me about YOUR Christ-given vision!
No wonder Peter Marshall wrote in “Mr. Jones, Meet The Master,” “Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.”
“Evangelism – Blind Faith”? Have you ever heard news editors, professors, teachers, even preachers speak about ‘virtuous men’? I have no doubt that godless men can act at times in a virtuous manner. But, for me, virtue can be the finest of ‘flesh’ while righteousness is the finest of the Spirit-controlled, Spirit-led, Spirit-blessed life.
Virtuousness is a calming nature in place of one’s viciousness, but righteousness is God’s gift. Psalm 85:10 says, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Evangelism as ‘blind faith’ is the unveiling by God Himself of a full, free, fulfilling life – Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” Not maybe, not simply a possibility – but hungering and thirsting after the fullness of God brings a “filling” that never has to be depleted!
Psalm 87:7 is so enlightening and encouraging! It simply says, “All my fresh springs are in You.” Not the best of a fallen and restored Adam but the best of ALL Jesus is and ALL He promises! In “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.271], Oswald Chambers wrote: “We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity [or what they learned in a fleshly manner by repetition!]”
Hear me! It’s in and through Jesus Christ alone that fallen mankind inherits the heavenly Life of Christ alone!
“Evangelism – Blind Faith!” In Galatians 3:26 Paul very clearly says: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” And faith in Christ Jesus is not an inactive activity unless one wills it and walks away!
In the very next chapter, Galatians 4:19, the apostle wrote, “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.”
The birthing process in flesh is an extremely painful event – but the birthing process in the spirit-realm is ‘just a piece of cake’? I don’t think so! God’s Holy Word speaks of a warfare – not only with the powers of darkness but warfare in the putting to death daily of the natural man and putting on Christ!
In Galatians 5:24 Paul said, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” I hate to tell you, but Paul said: “I DIE DAILY!” Chambers again said: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” What a challenge! A daily challenge!
Spiritual royalty is never a reality because false prophets set crowns on your head. Spiritual crowns come to be placed on the heads of God’s holy people because willingly a disciple of Jesus dies to his/her independence and self-will, resting himself/herself in the strong arms of Jesus only. Didn’t our Lord say, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself”?
And “blind faith” is blindness chosen to the old man and eternal eyesight to the new man redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and invaded by His resurrection Holy Presence! As we lift Him up in our lives day by day we are being changed into His likeness as He molds us into His eternal image.
Grant Colfax Tullar wrote this hymn: “Face to face with Christ my Savior, Face to face, how can it be, When with rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ, who died for me…
Only faintly now I see Him, With the darkling veil between; But a blessed day is coming, When His glory shall be seen…
What rejoicing in His presence, When are banished grief and pain! When the crooked ways are straightened, And the dark things shall be plain!…
Face to face – O blissful moment! Face to face, to see and know; Face to face with my Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who loves me so.”
And He does love YOU so much!! Just look at the Cross! There’s an old, old hymn by B.B. McKinney that says:
“I am mourning o’er my follies; I am weeping o’er my sin; For my guilt’s become oppressive, And a burden long has been; Will the Lord be gracious to me, If I tell Him all my woe, Will He leave me in my anguish?
“No!” Crimson Calvary answers, “No!” Crimson Calvary answers, “No!” On the cross the blessed Savior paid the sin-price long ago; All who will on Him believe, Full redemption shall receive, For the blood of Jesus cleanses Whiter than driven snow.” Amen?
CHAPTER FIVE
EVANGELISM – THE CHURCH’S MAJOR MINISTRY
When one thinks of “church” today are one’s thoughts turned to the buildings one has built, or to the crossroads of whether it is truly a spiritual society that honors the heart, the name, the reputation of Jesus, or that its initiative is self-church-promotion in place of Christ-realization?
The “church” is not to have as its goal being such an exhibitionist that its reputation sadly brings shame on the name of Jesus Himself!
The “church” at times has prospered phenomenally financially but been bankrupt as an extension of His Life, as an expression of His love, or as the very living proof of our Lord’s power!
Can a “church” be strong in the eyes of the world around it yet far too weak from God’s intent? Can a “church” be so concerned about itself that protective walls are so stout it hinders the ‘lost’ from finding a way in?
The “church” – is it possible some settle into a mind-set that sinners are trespassers who don’t have a right to enter? The “church” – has its emphasis become so strong about its ‘sacredness’ that strangers to the faith feel unwanted?
The “church” at times has become so respectful about itself that the world outside, lost and separated from God, doesn’t sense an ‘open door’.
Isaac K. Beckes made a very profound statement when he said: “We must stop giving the impression that the church is surrounded by a wall, fighting for its existence against a world that is trying to destroy it; instead, we must realize that the church is a force pushing out into the world.”
The “church”? I firmly agree with Paul the apostle that the church of our Lord and Savior is on a journey that includes every disciple being built up “unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” but not at the expense of sharing the faith with others outside becoming a lost cause!
“The church” must, yes, it must realize that too often it has set itself as opposite from the very lost world in which it exists and is there (in the world) as the connector between God and lost men! And there are some who even feel or they sense that to be lost in ‘church life’ is to willingly separate one’s self from God Himself, yes, denying the very reason Jesus came into the darkness!
It was Albert Rasmussen, in “Christian Social Ethics,” [1956, Prentice-Hall], who wrote: “The great sin of the church is to be so interested in serving those within it that it cannot serve the needs of those without.”
I’m sure you’ve seen on TV people in Jerusalem gathering at the “wailing wall.” Would to God every “church” had a “wailing wall” spirit for the lost, the dying, the separated from God multitudes out their doors!
Didn’t Jesus say, “I have come to seek and to save that which is lost,” [Luke 19:10]? In I John 2:2 John said, “And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” The “church’s” calling is announcing to the world through its messengers, John 1:29, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
In and through every local church, through every member-disciple, is there a calling for ALL to be a part of God’s missionary heart, His missionary spirit, and His missionary sacrifice, touching our world around us with His love, grace, and mercy? Again, Oswald Chambers has written, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.214], “A missionary is one who is wedded to the charter of his Lord and Master, he has not to proclaim his own point of view, but to proclaim the Lamb of God. It is easier to belong to a coterie [ ‘a group of people who associate closely because of common social purposes, interests, etc.’ Random House Collegiate Dictionary.] which tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, easier to become a devotee to Divine healing, or to a special type of sanctification, or to the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Paul did not say – ‘Woe is unto me, if I do not preach what Christ has done for me, “ but – “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.” This is the Gospel – “The Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world!”
The “church”? Tell me about YOUR church’s prayer ministry that majors on God Himself sending out “laborers”! Doesn’t Matthew 9:37-38 tell us, Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Most churches are doubled-down on readiness for Sundays and Wednesday nights, maybe – but what about super intense training on, yes, winning people to faith in Christ alone?
I was just reading recently John 14:12 where Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” I have no hesitation in saying to you that prayer is necessary, intense, life-altering warfare! And prayer with witness is the key to eternal victory. James Montgomery wrote an old hymn entitled “Prayer Is The Soul’s Sincere Desire.” It says:
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed; The motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh, The falling of a tear, The upward glance of an eye, When none but God is near.
Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice, Returning from his ways; While angels in their songs rejoice And cry, ‘Behold, he prays!’
Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, The Christian’s native air, His watchword at the gates of death; He enters heaven with prayer.
O Jesus, by whom we come to God, The Life, the Truth, the Way, The path of prayer Yourself has trod; Lord, teach us how to pray!” Amen?
The “church”? Isn’t it to be a pillar of fire that captures a dark world’s attention, that alerts a lost pilgrim to the right pathway home, that touches hurting humanity with healing grace, that, yes, picks up the fallen and shows him healing grace, that breaks the chains of Satanic bondage gripping every lost, separated from God, unbelieving man, woman, or child, shouting out their only hope?
The “church”? The gathering place of the forgiven and the forgiving, the assembly of atoned men and women by the blood of the Lamb overflowing with the joy of the Lord and cannot be silent or selfish or just satisfied they’ve been reconciled when there is a “world” that God so loved and loves even now! 3 John 7 says, “..they went forth for His name’s sake..”
In Revelation 7:9-10 we read: “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Who is this great number? Revelation 7:14 says, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
The “church”? Seed planters, harvest workers, disciple-makers, trainers equipping the trainees, travail-ers in prayer for the lost, spiritual soldiers trained to win the battles for the souls of men, evangelists proclaiming the “Good News,” the appointed and anointed sent out to share saving faith and the marvelous grace and the unlimited love of our Lord and Savior!
The “church”? Yes, a suffering church because of its evangelistic witness and mission! In Hebrews 10:32-36 we read: “But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated [enlightened], you endured a great struggle with sufferings: partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise…”
Tell me: Because of your faithful witnessing as a church Body to the lost, are YOU ready to suffer, are you ready for imprisonment as a believer, and, yes, are you willing to face martyrdom because of your witnessing ministry?
Tell me: Because you ‘evangelize’ are you willing to be made a ‘spectacle’ to your world around you? In I Corinthians 4:10-13 Paul talked about being a ‘fool’ in Christ! He talked about being dishonored by the world around him. He then said in verses 12-13, “And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.”
The “church”? Do you realize how much time ‘church officials’ spend in evaluating, planning, implanting strategies for a healthier local body of believers with no strategies, training, or equipping their churches to witness and evangelize?
Life in Christ through the local Body of believers is to be the biblical learning of laying down one’s life for others, coming into the sovereign wisdom and revelation of a witnessing community, and even strategizing how the local church can share the Gospel world-wide!
But the church does have an enemy – it’s the Devil! And he’s more than a ‘shop-lifter’ – he’s a destroyer! It was Henry George Bohn in “Handbook of Proverbs” who wrote: “The Devil entangles youth with beauty, the miser with gold, the ambitious with power, the learned with false doctrine.”
And he’s sure ‘good’ at deceiving churches and pastors and believers that evangelism is not their true cup of tea! What’s your church’s banner that flies over it? “Come in – we’re comfortable!” or, “We go and we tell!”
The “church”? I don’t know who wrote it, but I came across these words that truly say so much that needs to be said and read and received and reduplicated! Receive it:
“Faith is not merely praying upon our knees at night; Faith is not merely straying through darkness into light; Faith is not merely waiting for glory that may be. Faith is the brave endeavor, the splendid enterprise, the strength to serve, whatever conditions may arise.”
Biblical faith, redemptive faith, saving faith, serving faith as one “makes disciples”! Didn’t Paul say in Galatians 2:20 that, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” And Christ lives in you so that you may be a faithful member of your local church? He lives in you to extend His Life, express His love through you, and prove through your witness His power to save!
The “church”? Does the Word of God talk about Saul who became Paul to give us simply a historical view of what Christ can do for one man or what He can do through all men?
You know Saul’s encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road and how he was touched by grace and mercy. Is that an isolated incident or do we read in it every repentant man’s future ministry? Follow Acts 9:10-16!
“Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ And he said, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ So the Lord said to him, ‘Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying.’ And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.’ Then Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.”
Hear me! In Christ, you are not a showroom exhibit, but the Savior’s expression of eternal love and grace! To the church at Rome, Paul wrote: [Romans 1:1-6], “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, among whom YOU ALSO ARE THE CALLED OF JESUS CHRIST.”
Do you see it? YOU are the called of Jesus Christ, YOU have been separated to the gospel of God, You have been called to obedience to the faith, YOU have a mandate from the Master to bear His name to unsaved men and women!
In the old “Pure Oil News” a black minister was asked about his secret as a powerful preacher. He responded: “It’s simple. I read myself full. I think myself clear. I pray myself hot. And then I let go.” Amen?
Do you remember Jesus going into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and reading from the prophet Isaiah where Isaiah recorded these words:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Was that just for Jesus or is it an all-inclusive word? What does Acts 1:8 tell US as a reminder? “But YOU shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
I’m sure you’ll remember Acts 3:37-38 when men said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And don’t dare forget Acts 2:39! “For the promise is to you and to your children, AND TO ALL WHO ARE AFAR OFF, [Even in the 21st Century!], as many as the Lord our God will call.”
I close this chapter with words from the old hymn, “Jesus Calls Us”. It says: “Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea, Day by day His sweet voice sounds, saying, ‘Christian, follow Me.’
Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world’s golden store, From each idol that would keep us, Saying, ‘Christian, love Me more.’
In our joys and in our sorrows, Days of toil and hours of ease, Still He calls, in cares and pleasures, ‘Christian, love Me more than these.’
Jesus calls us: by Your mercies, Savior, may we hear Your call, Give our hearts to Your obedience, Serve and love You best of all.”
Has Jesus called YOU? Have YOU responded to His call? Are YOU His witness weaved into His church family by His grace, mercy, and love? Are you reaching out around you to touch others with His saving grace? Are you the voice in the wilderness saying to the lost: “Come Home! Come to Jesus! Come to His salvation and an eternal relationship with the King of kings and Lord of lords!”
CHAPTER SIX
EVANGELISM – GOD’S ETERNAL INTENTION
Romans 8:28-30 says: “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. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
God’s eternal intention? And evangelism through us as believers is His way of turning the tide of godlessness to a calm sea of eternal bliss? All around us are “natural” men blinded by the god of this world, consumed by hopelessness, driven by a strong storm of sinfulness, swayed by a self-centered morality, and most have no need of God and deny the Gospel as their ‘good news,’ glad for you but no sense in them of interest in reconciliation with Holy God!
But the Lord Jesus gives to every born again believer a promise that we must learn to stand on: [John 12:32], “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
Romans 5:17-18 is so uplifting when you see “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness” and that we share in the reign of Christ! It says: “For if by the one man’s offense [Adam in the fall] [resulting in] death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”
But is it possible that needy men will reject a free gift? Of course! There IS rejection, even denial, of God’s mercy and grace! Oh, but for some the denial comes in a cloud of what one has called, “amiable religiosity.” And that has nothing to do with the “new birth”! But ‘religious’ men can perform in an acting career of similarity void of our Lord’s indwelling presence.
This chapter is Evangelism – God’s Eternal Intention! There are “the called according to His purpose.” But who are the called? Is that the gifted one? Is that the diligent, disciplined, determined one who decides in himself he’s capable of pleasing God? How phony is that and so opposite of what our Lord Jesus did and does though us! Romans 5:10 tells us: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled we shall be [being] saved by His life.”
It is “Christ in us [who is] the hope of glory!” It is Christ through us that touches our world with saving grace! It is not our efforts but Christ’s sacrificial death that brings us into a right standing with God. It is the shed blood of Christ that washes our sin away. It is His cruel death that God accepts in behalf of our penalty – and through that death alone wipes your slate clean and instills Christ in you as God’s testimony of mercy and grace.
We do not ‘reason’ ourselves into an acceptance by God – we receive His revelation and find acceptance through the sacrificial death of Christ Jesus alone. Atonement, blood atonement, Jesus’ willing sacrifice on the Cross brings an open door of opportunity of reconciliation with Holy God – and that alone!
The “called” are “new creation” miracles wrought by the heart of God alone! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The “called”, who are “new creations”, discover, not only miraculous saving grace of the heart of God, but a new unveiling of identity! 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [in Christ]!” I love Oswald Chambers’ statement when he said: “It is not Christ “for” me unless I am determined to have Christ formed “in” me.” [“My Utmost…”, p.224].
The righteousness of God “in Him”? In Galatians 1:15-16 Paul said, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…”!! What an awesome revelation! Romans 5:12 explains: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men.” The righteousness of God is not in fleshly, sinning men but in Christ alone! The righteousness of God is not a man’s good deeds, but God’s glorified Son because of His sacrificial death on the Cross in our behalf – and that alone! God’s righteousness in us is because of Christ’s sacrificial death for us and His resurrection Presence in us!
We don’t ‘save’ ourselves! We don’t earn a right standing with Holy God! We’re not privileged because of our degrees or our good deeds or our self-determination! It’s the “shed blood” of Christ alone that puts in us a right standing with the Living God who loved us, lost us, and then bought us off the marketplace of sinfulness through the “SAVIOR”! The only ‘doing’ by a sinner separated from Holy God is in the finished work of Christ on the Cross by repentance toward God and faith in what Jesus did on the Cross in shedding His innocent blood for our guilt!
Evangelism – God’s eternal intention! “…predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son…!”
If Holy God had only one Son who was well-pleasing, and it’s true – if He births “new sons” through the shed blood of Christ, is it because God accepts First Adams because He is so gracious or new Second Adams because He is so merciful and loving? In 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 we read of God’s awesome intent!!
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a ‘new creation’; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, THAT IS, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the ‘word of reconciliation.’ Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Tell me about your likeness to Christ! Tell me about your journey of being conformed to His image. Describe to me your holy ‘pressure cookers’ that daily brought you to total dependence on CHRIST IN YOU! Tell me about His seal of Holy Presence that you lean upon! Oh, hear Paul’s words in I Corinthians 2:12! “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”
Blood Redemption through the Cross of Christ is the door of your life being opened to His resurrection life, resurrection hope, and resurrection power – and the journey of being “conformed to His image” has begun! If you are without Christ, it’s a sad journey with only darkness ahead, but ‘in Christ’ it is a new identity, a new dawning of eternal morning light, and a new warmth of holy presence uplifting one to eternal significance in and through Christ alone!
It was Alfred Lord Tennyson who wrote the following words: “Ring in the valiant man and free, the larger heart, the kindlier hand! Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be!” And that’s Christ being Himself in you and through you which is why you take the sentence of death unto yourself daily that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested through you.
Paul the apostle wrote confidently to the church at Rome, and us, when in Romans 15:29 he said: “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” He said, “I come with Christ, I come with the gospel of Christ, I come with the blessing of the gospel of Christ, AND, “I come with the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Where are you on God’s thermometer?
Have you been sidetracked? How easy for some to become intellectually sidetracked with a professor’s philosophy of life and miss our Lord’s Living Presence in them! No doubt this is why Josiah Strong said years ago: “There are many in the Church as well as out of it who need to learn that Christianity is neither a creed nor a ceremonial, but a life vitally connected with a loving Christ.” So true!
Blood Redemption! Divine Reconciliation! Holy Invasion! Oneness in and with Christ! Christ – your Hope of Glory! In Christ – drawn by Father God and the Holy Spirit! Glory in the Cross of Christ! Hidden with Christ in God! Emmanuel! God with us! God in us! God through us! Walking in the light as He is in the light, His blood cleanses us from all sin! Jesus – our Fresh Spring in us that never runs dry! Jesus – our Living Water! Jesus Christ! Loyal in death! Loyal in Resurrection Life! Loyal in Heavenly Power and Provision and Presence! Jesus! Our faithful intercessor!
Do you truly believe Jesus Christ is God’s only provider of all you need to live a victorious, conquering, overcoming life of faith that honors Him? Listen to Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest”! [p.256], “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh’ [that’s your old sin nature!] – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something.”
Isn’t that why Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 that, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.” Deny himself? That is willful death, a full denial of the virtue of the old man separated from God, a complete personal sacrifice of the natural man in order to witness the new birth of the spiritual man, a glad substituting of the pampered self for the new life in the Spirit of Jesus, the painful process of faithful repentance and full surrender until Christ Jesus is fully formed in each of our hearts and the old man is fully obliterated!
Whoever said becoming a true Christian is “a piece of cake” has totally avoided the Word of God in their deliberations! I’m thinking I remember Paul writing, 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”
Before His Ascension, Jesus told His disciples in John 16:7-12, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It I to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
Do YOU understand? God’s Eternal Intention is to bring you forgiveness, Presence, a living Word, an available Power, an eternal purpose – that is, that your available life in Christ becomes a mirror to others reflecting His Holy Life in and through YOU! In the previous verses we just read in John 16:7-12 we’ve learned: 1) The Awareness of Christ of our need, 2) The Advantage of His Absence – “THE HOLY SPIRIT IS COMING!” 26 times, at least, He tells us of His coming! 3) The appointment of His Spirit – the Spirit’s assistance in honoring and glorifying Christ through us!
In I Corinthians 2: 4-5 Paul said: “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” Is that clear to you?
We are not to be as some to which Paul referred to in I Corinthians 3:3 that there were some in the Corinthian church “behaving like mere men”! You are not a “mere man”! God’s eternal intention?
YOU have the mind of Christ! You have been indwelt by His resurrection life! You are a recipient of the Holy Spirit! You are “more than a conqueror”! You are Christ’s “ambassador”! You are “wise in Christ”! You are ‘the temple’ of His Holy Presence! You are a life saved by grace to show forth the glory of God! You ARE “gifted by the Spirit”! You are an “epistle of Christ” written by the Holy Spirit and read by all men! You are “being transformed into Christ’s image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord!” God has “shined in your heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” who shines through you! You live no longer for yourself but for Him who died and rose again that through His presence in you men around you “see Jesus!”
YOU have been crucified with Christ, you no longer live – but Christ lives in you; and the life which you now live in the flesh you live by faith in the Son of God, yes, the One who loved you and gave Himself for you! You glory only in the Cross of your Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified to you, and you to the world! God’s Eternal Intention! You were far off from God but Christ Jesus has brought you near to God by His own blood! You are now a dwelling place of God in and through His Holy Spirit! You are now a bondservant of Christ doing the will of God from your own heart! You know you’re in the process [you haven’t finished the journey quite yet] but fully assured that what God started, He’ll finish in you and through you!
You count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord, for whom you have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that you may gain Christ! YOU ARE COMPLETE IN CHRIST, LACKING NOTHING! Live like it! Fulfill God’s eternal intention! Glorify your Savior on earth as He’s glorified in Heaven!
Sing His praises! Shout forth the worthiness of the Worthy Lamb! Celebrate His “birth” in you! Fight the good fight of faith! Put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him…!!
You receive the Word of God! You welcome the Word of God! You devour the Word of God! You proclaim the Word of God! You stand on the Word of God! You know God’s eternal intent!
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it!!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OF A NEEDY WORLD
Isn’t it amazing to you as you open John’s epistles and he’s addressing ‘my little children,’ [and that’s his young children in the faith], that in I John 2:15-17 John challenges them about not loving the world! He said: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
I don’t know who said it but I read it: “The ship’s place is in the sea, but God pity the ship when the sea gets into it. The Christian’s place is in the world, but God pity the Christian if the world gets the best of him.”
As God’s handiwork, the world around us is a beautiful and majestic place, but the people in it have taken the ‘divine dream’ and perverted it. It was Herrick Johnson who once wrote: “Buying, possessing, accumulating, this is not worldliness. – But doing this in the love of it, with no love to God paramount – doing it so that thoughts of God and eternity are an intrusion – doing it so that one’s spirit is secularized in doing it – this is worldliness.”
It was Robert E. Lee who wrote a truthful letter to his wife. In it he wrote: “What a glorious world Almighty God has given us! How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labor to mar His gifts.”
When Jesus said for us all to come unto Him and we’d find rest, the sad truth is that a sinful world is restless, a defiant world is tired and weary, and a rebellious world fails to sense its “unvoiced cry after God,”[Theodor Munger]. What did we read from I John? “..The lust of the flesh [old sin nature], the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life..” And we know fleshly pride is a disease of “the falling away” from God Himself!
The world! The world created and formed by the hand of God Himself through His creative genius has been marred by sinful men, yes, and needs its own Redeeming! The Kingdom and the Power and the Glory God intended have witnessed a sad commentary of failure, of deep misery, of false hope, of dark shadows rather than heavenly light, of a heaviness that holds down even one’s attempted reach after Him, of a blindness to the beauty of a God-ordained world and a God-ordained life, because ‘fallen mankind’ fails to grasp that the world he has marred is a visible picture of a marred heart within!
One of the saddest words for parents concerning a son or a pastor concerning a parishioner or a godly teacher concerning a pupil or a Christian doctor concerning a patient is seen in 2 Timothy 4:10 when Paul said to Timothy “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.”
I think one of the saddest words I’ve read recently came when I was reading Spurgeon in “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol.6, p.ps 128-129], when he preached: “Another point in which the sinner often excuses himself is the manifest ‘worldliness’ of many Christians. You will see Christian men and women as fond of dress, and as pleased with the frivolities of the age, as any other persons possibly could be; just as anxious to adorn their outward person, so as to be seen of men, just as ambitious to win the praise which fools accord to fine dressing, as the most silly fop or the most gaudy among worldly women. What does the world say, when we turn round to it, and accuse it of being a mere butterfly, and finding all its pleasures in gaudy toys? ‘Oh! yes,’ it says, ‘we know your cant, but it is just the same with you. Do you not stand up and sing, Jewels to me are gaudy toys, and gold but sordid dust? And yet you are just as fond of glittering as we are; your doctors of divinity pride themselves just as much in their D.D. as any of us with other titles. You are just as punctilious about terms of honor as any of us can be. You talk about carrying the cross; but we do not see it anywhere, except it be a golden cross sometimes hanging on your bosom. You say you are crucified to the world, and the world to you: it is a very merry sort of crucifixion. You say that you mortify your members and deny yourselves: your mortification must be suffered in secret, for it is but very little that we can see of it!’ Thus the worldling casts back to us our challenge, declaring that we are not sincere, and thus he comforts himself in his sin, and justifies himself in his iniquity.” How sad is that evaluation!?!
Evangelism – Because of a Needy World! But if the church in the world, the disciples in the world, the ministries in the world, reflect through themselves what they’ve seen in the worldly, what good does that do? Or maybe, better said: What damage does that do? The integrity of the Cross, the integrity of the name of Jesus, the integrity of a church’s ministry IS AT STAKE! What if the world looked on you, and all they saw was inconsistency? What if the world looked on you, and all they saw in you was vain pretense? What if the world around you looked upon your ‘profession’ and said: “It’s child’s play with him – nothing really sincere!”
We’re called to minister to a lost and dying world, not mingle and mix in with the world’s godless ways! We’re not called to feel at home where Satan dwells but to invade for the purpose of conquering not acquiescing, proclaiming not participating in aimless activity, witnessing not wilting in worldly partying that defames Jesus!
In Acts 17 Paul faithfully went into the cities, not to participate in their godly deceptions, but to “reason – to explain- to demonstrate That the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, (saying), “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ [Messiah]. The Jews WERE UPSET! In verse 6 they went to Jason’s home dragging him and other believers to the council of rulers saying, These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.” That’s our calling in going into the world but not of it!
I’m telling you: true believers cannot view a godless world around them with an unconcerned countenance! The godless world is a needy world – and only Christ can meet its need! Deuteronomy 32:28-29 says, “For [the nations] are void of counsel, nor is there understanding in them. Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” Have you considered your latter end, your last days, or your scheduled appointment before the Holy Bar of God’s judgment?
Evangelism – Because of a Needy World! I want you to see the needy world in light of “Death”!
I’m not sorry about it but utterly sincere – you must hear the Truth! Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Sin IS death – and sin reigns in an unsaved world!
YOU are no stranger to “death” whether an unbeliever or a believer! Death does reign – and no person is exempt from death whether a believer or an unbeliever!
I don’t think ‘fallen man’ is aware of the very pains of death and its surroundings. Suffering, silence, strains, stings, dark shades, shame, strife, shakings, songs of grief, Satan happy, spiritual strokes without a solution for the sinner, stained with Satan’s marking: “MINE”!! Thomas Adams said, “The devil is no idle spirit, but a vagrant, runagate walker, that never rests in one place. – The motive, cause, and main intention of his walking is to ruin man. “He walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”
It’s an old Welsh proverb that is so on target: “The Devil has three children – pride, falsehood, and envy.” No doubt this is why God inspired I Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” by sight, by smell, and by spiritual sense you CAN discern to whom one belongs!
It was William Shakespeare in “Henry VIII,” who said, [Acts IV, sc.2, I, 68], “And, to add greater honors to his age than man could give him, he died fearing God.” In you, is there a holy fear of God or has the Devil deceived you?
I love what William Penn wrote in “Fruits of Solitude.” He said: “They that love ‘beyond the world,’ cannot be separated. Death cannot “kill” what “never” dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the “same” Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their “friendship” [or kinship]. Death is but ‘crossing’ the ‘world’, as Friends do the Seas, they live in one another still.”
In Ezekial 18:23 God asks: “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” And the evangelist, the disciple, the witness, the ambassador representing God? He/she is announcing: “The soul who sins shall die!” Front row, back row, pulpit or pew! Mayor of the city or the famous “street-walker” of the city! Top teacher of the school or top student of the school! Bank president or cashier! Leading candidate or runner-up! “To be carnally minded is death!” [Romans 8”6].
Evangelism – Because Of A Needy World! I want you to see the needy world in light of DISTRACTION!
How easy for some on the journey of life that should be a journey of hope finding themselves in a hopeless state because they are distracted!
Yes, and that is because of our mutual sin nature! Human nature is in a fallen state away from God and is at variance with the Almighty! Human nature is not an effect of God’s creative genius but the effect of life based on a man’s selfish determination!
Human nature, because of the fall, has become an enemy of God, not His friend! Human nature, because of Adam’s sin and rebellion, has seen nation after nation birthing people wandering further and further away from Holy God. Human nature, fallen, alien to, and separated from God, has become a darkened sphere of a man’s self-rule, self- government, self-discernment, and self-pleasure that has left God out and written Him off, just as the nation called America is doing today!
Human nature is an inner voice of a fallen sin nature that opens the door to violating every law of God because the heart and mind is lawless! Human nature is the illicit fleshly handmaiden of one whose very being has rejected God – to this point! It doesn’t mean one has to remain in that Satanic bondage, ordered by the demon powers of Hell itself!
2 Peter 1:2-5 gives us hope! It says, “Grace to you and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that THROUGH THESE you may be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” AMEN AND AMEN! GLORY BE TO GOD ALONE WHO IS EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US!
Evangelism – Because of a Needy World! I want you to see the needy world in light of its DOUBT!
Doubt is a grave-digger! Oh, I know it can be the stepping stone to faith and trust, but more often than not it is the friend of rebellion and tyranny.
Enoch Fitch Burr wrote a long time ago: “In the hands of unbelief half-truths are made to do the work of whole falsehoods. – The sowing of doubts is the sowing of dragon’s teeth, which ere long will sprout up into armed and hostile men.”
But TRUTH IS the conqueror of doubt! One looks at Jesus and sees, not doubt, but the Divine, anointed, appointed, Son of God, Immanuel – God in the flesh! Doubts may surface but Truth reigns supreme! Doubts may be announced but Truth arises to conquer! Doubts may shout out but Truth sings the song of salvation and deliverance!
In Matthew 14:31 Jesus said to Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And I believe that’s what our Lord asks all of us in the Body of Christ today, “Why did you doubt?”
I think William Robert Rodgers was on target in his writing called “Words.” He said: “Your doubts are the private detectives employed by your dislike, to make a case against change or choice.” You see, the Gospel gives you a choice for eternal change, but you doubt?
Evangelism – Because of a needy world! I want you to see the needy world in light of DENIAL!
2 Pater 2:1-3 tells us: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.”
Denial will breed doubt! Doubt will produce denial! Both lead to a destructive state and will remain hopeless if they do not turn to Jesus in repentance and rest in His finished work AT CALVARY!
Earlier in 2 Peter 1:19 Peter talked about a light that shines in a dark place. That dark place is a place of denial of saving grace and mercy, but hope arises when “the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
Do you remember the day our Lord and Savior was crucified? Matthew 27:45 says, “Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.” Denial produces total darkness in one’s mind and heart!
Oh my! What joy! What delight! What amazing grace! In John 8 Jesus saw a ‘woman caught in adultery.’ The scribes and Pharisees had brought the woman to Jesus. He told her, “Go and sin no more – you’re not condemned!” Then Jesus said to all those who were around: Verse 12, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
Denial! Darkness! Despair! Then Jesus comes, Jesus knocks! “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
Evangelism – Because of a Needy World! I want you to see the needy world in light of its demands!
If you’re unsure of a needy world and its demands, just give one moment of thought to the serpent saying to Eve: “You will not surely die.”
Do you remember Moses and Aaron before Pharoah, ruler of Egypt? They told that the God of Israel said to let His people go. But Pharoah said in Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.”
How does this happen? Modern times have not brought change to human hearts! In Romans 1:18-32 we read, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie [That’s, ‘you can sin and not die because of it’], and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”
So that’s it? We give up, slow down, count our losses, pat ourselves on the back and give up on meeting the needs of a needy world! Right? WRONG! Though God gave them over He didn’t give up – He gave His Son! Yes, the wages of sin IS death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord! And we lift up our Redeemer, the world’s Savior and Lord, God’s gift to fallen humanity!
Has it changed? John 3:16! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Glory be to God! There’s hope for our needy world – TELL THEM!
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OF THE CALL FROM HURTING PEOPLE
As I was reading Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.252], I came across an interesting paragraph that spurred this chapter on hurting, sick, wounded people. He said: “Health is the balance between physical life and external nature, and it is maintained only by sufficient vitality on the inside against things on the outside. Everything outside my physical life is designed to put me to death. Things which keep me going when I am alive, disintegrate me when I am dead. If I have enough fighting power, I produce the balance of health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a vigorous mental life, I have to fight, and in that way the mental balance called thought is produced.”
Did he say, “mental balance called thought is produced”? And when YOU think about those with unbalanced mental thoughts, or thoughts about ‘I’m sick and I’m going to die,’ or ‘my wounds that are beyond physical but are mental, emotional, spiritual, are going to kill me or drive me crazy,’ or, ‘I’m a hopeless case, and there’s no one who can help me,’ do YOU step in? Do you have an answer? Do you know the remedy? Do you care?
As you examine yourself or evaluate the wounded, the ‘unbalanced,’ the sick, the lonely, the disturbed, the distressed, the alienated from God which is “MAJOR” in all physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual sickness, Jesus gives us vital words for our consideration: Luke 21:19, says, Jesus speaking, “By your patience [steadfastness] possess your souls.” He expanded our understanding of this when in verses 34-36 He said:
“But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing [or dissipation], drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape ALL THINGS that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” What a challenge!
In Job 5:18 we learn about the Living God being a “tester” of all peoples! It says, “For He bruises, but He binds up; He wounds, but His hands make whole.” Job even said in chapter 9, verse 17, “For He crushes me with a tempest, and multiplies my wounds without cause.” Is the Living God up to something so huge beyond our immature understanding?
It was the wise man of Proverbs who wrote: [Proverbs 27:6], “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” There is something huge in the wind as God allows, yes, “wounds without cause,” or “the wounds of a friend.”
One thing is for sure: God is with us all to “save us, heal us, redeem us, complete us, fulfill us!” In Jeremiah 30:17 God says: “For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds.” What a promise!
There are times when we wonder: Is God around in all this? In Proverbs 13:12 we read, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when desire comes, it is a tree of life.” There are times of “heart sickness” when one has avoided, even denied, the tree of life!
In Deuteronomy 28:58-63 God spoke specifically to Israel but in reality He speaks to all peoples. He said: “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues – great and prolonged plagues – and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing [one of no value, meaning, or purpose]; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.”
Ezekial 34 speaks to “irresponsible shepherds” – that’s men appointed to feed God’s people, but their intent was on indulging themselves! Verse 4 says, “The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them.” That’s a sad commentary on the false pastors in the world today who see themselves as “rulers” over God’s people!
As Jesus sent out the twelve, He said, [Matthew 10:7-8], “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Would that describe your church’s ministry today or the description of your pastoral care?
In Matthew 14:14 we read: “And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.”
I was a pastor for about 22 years before “missions” captured my heart and I began living on airplanes to India mostly, but also Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Kenya. I also ministered in the Philippines, Cambodia, and other Asian nations, plus Hong Cong and excursions into China. India had about 25 years of my life for which I am eternally thankful. I see there several billion people who will be touched by the Gospel through men I was privileged to challenge with His Word and Spirit!
Thoughts of India reminded me of John 5:5 where there was the man “who had an infirmity 38 years!” Listen: Verses 6-9, “When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed and walked. And that day was the Sabbath.” He learned of “Sabbath rest”! Have you?
Around you is a world filled with people who are wounded, warped, sick, demonized, plagued, wounded by friends, family, foes, forces of darkness, bruised, bound by the powers of darkness, lost, alienated from God and hope and blessing, mentally and morally and meaninglessly handicapped, slaves to that old sin nature and the one called the Devil, hopeless, sinfully sad, diseased in thought and void of Truth, giving the picture from themselves that they are helpless!
Do you remember Lazarus being sick? This was the brother of Martha and Mary. John 11:3 tells us the sisters sent to Jesus a message, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.” John 11:4, When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Lazarus was raised from the dead!
All around you are the walking, spiritually dead people! All around you are the walking, crippled in motion and meaning, millions who have no hope but in Christ – and you are the messenger, you are the minister of healing grace, you are the bearer of the spiritual medicine that lifts up the fallen, brings healing to the sick, and prays him/her through, yes, at times, even the very valley of the shadow of death!
Do you understand, sense, are aware of, many, many people who are overcome by “a spirit of infirmity”? In Luke 13:10-17 we read, “Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, ‘Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.’ And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.’ The Lord then answered him and said, ‘Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound – think of it – for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?’ And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.”
I don’t know her exact illness – I know she had been bound by Satan for eighteen years! I know people who live, yes, willingly live with a willful binding spirit of despondency; others living with a disturbing recall and weight from true failures they can’t seem to get over; others I’ve seen sick with resentment, bitterness, and a hardness to the Spirit because they know unforgiveness and are not about to let go of it; others wouldn’t acknowledge it but they are crippled by that strong spirit of self, self-righteousness, a sickening self-confidence, self-reliance depending on no one or nobody; others are so corrupted in their minds that they’ve become bodily, mentally, emotionally, and, certainly, spiritually ill – odorous oaths, evil thoughts, irrational logic, blasphemous ideas – and they contemplate, rationalize, think: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver ME from this body of death?” I KNOW THE LORD AND SAVIOR WHO CAN REMOVE THE VILE AND MAKE IT PRECIOUS, GODLY, CHRIST-HONORING IN THOUGHT, WORD, AND DEED!
Oh hear me! Jeremiah 29:11 the Lord speaks: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give YOU a future and a hope.” And then in Jeremiah 30:17 God gives every man a holy promise: “For I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds,’ says the Lord, ‘Because they called you an outcast saying: ‘This is Zion; no one seeks her.’” OH, but I say my Lord and Savior seeks out those who aren’t even looking! He wants to heal you, restore you, redeem you, empower you, raise you personally up to the cloud of His heavenly glory!
Do you understand the sickness of spiritual diseases called guilty consciences, self-inflicted wounds of a dismal outlook on life because of what one has engaged in, or embittered by situational circumstances, or wounded, stricken, afflicted in a godless conscience?
Have you witnessed around you a life shattered by vain hopes, the bankruptcy of life when one’s ‘faith’ was in their carnal security and it vanishes, a sense of hopelessness because of the falseness of self-love that brings despair, an absolute state of ,yes, fear, because one recklessly indulged their depraved appetites, lusts, and passions – and they’re ‘sick’? Thomas Carlyle once said: “The deadliest sins were the consciousness of no sin.” And the consciousness of no sin is awareness of the greatest sinner! That is deathly “sickness”!
Spiritual sickness and spiritual disease are the products of the ‘natural’ rebelling against the Divine and self-control, self-assertiveness, and self-promotion demoting God and elevating ‘self’ and a sinful nature as one’s joint ruler, producing ‘sickness’ only healed by repentance toward God and true faith in the shed blood of the Lamb of God!
“Shock treatment”? Have you heard of it? The Cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has announced clearly that man’s goodness and his sin are worthy only of being nailed to His Cross, covered and washed away by His blood! What did Paul say? “I am crucified with Christ”! That’s my rebellious self, my religious self, my sinful self, my ‘good’ self, my evil self, my personally ambitious self, concerned only about me, my, or mine! The “Rock of Ages” classic hymn truly says, “Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Your cross I cling.”
It was William Cowper, in “The Progress of Error, [L.613], who wrote: “The Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, And atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave); There and there only, is the power to save.” Yes, there and there only is the eternal answer to the heart-cry of hurting, sick, lonely people!
Sin is sickness! Sin brings hurts, pains, diseases, and self-destruction! Sin is death – but through Jesus God gives us the power to raise the dead and witness the indwelling of resurrection life, resurrection hope, and resurrection power!
Oswald Chambers said, “The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me.” But the blood of Jesus is God’s eternal transfusion of life evermore in Christ! David wrote in Psalm 103:1-5 marvelous words:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
I remember my dear friend, Bob Phillips, telling us a story years ago. Bob had been co-founder, co-pastor with David Wilkerson at Times Square Church in New York City. He resigned, I believe, after about ten years serving with David, and moved, I think, to Wyoming, where he owned some land. He loved walking in the hilly, mountainous areas around his home, but one day he was out and heard this horrible, terrible, squeaking, alarming sound. He didn’t know what it was, but he asked a neighbor who’d been there a long time. The man shared that it was the cries of an eagle. When they’re older their wings become very heavy to the point that they can’t fly. Then the eagle begins one by one to painfully pull out every weighty feather to allow new growth. Bob went out the next day to find where that eagle had landed in order to soar again – and he found it, not the eagle, but the bloody mess with dried feathers covering the ground where, painfully, it went through its transformation! Have you pulled out yet all in you that keeps you from soaring in the heavenly places?
In Psalm 90:8-10 we read: “You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” Tell me: Have you pulled any feathers lately?
CHAPTER NINE
EVANGELISM – UNVEILING OUR LORD AND SAVIOR
In John 12, as Jesus was contemplating His coming crucifixion, He told the people around Him in John 12:25-26, “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”
Then He began to pray! Verses 27-28 says: “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
In verse 32 Jesus then said: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all ‘peoples’ to Myself.” The basis of eternal Redemption and Reconciliation with Holy God does not come through good deeds, good religions, or good efforts by men, but only an encounter with and experiencing of the crucified and resurrected Christ “in us, the hope of glory”!
Oh, I know that there are multitudes who are satisfied with their lives without God but Jesus came to put a sword in the heart of man’s speculations about his life without Him. When it comes to life, when it comes to eternal purpose, when it comes to fleshly determinations about how to be “happy” in this world, understand that Jesus came, not to make you ‘happy’, but to usher you in to a state of eternal rightness with God through “the Blood” of the Lamb of God shed on Calvary’s Cross and to “bless” you!
As Paul was closing his epistle to the Galatians, he wrote in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Then in verse 17 he said, “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” So what did Paul do? Go to a “tattoo” artist? I don’t think so!
In I John 5:4-5 the beloved disciple wrote: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
In verses 11-14 of I John 5 we have before us eternal words inspired by God’s Holy Spirit! The Word says, “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Then in verse 20 John is closing out his letter and he writes: “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.”
I am sure there are those you rub shoulders with every day who have absolutely no interest in who Jesus is and what He did for them at the Cross! But Jesus knows their need, knows their bondage, knows how they were so deceived, knows the depths of their spiritual poverty, knows their ‘testy’ temperaments, knows their defiance of spiritual Truth, knows their substitutions for Him that lead only to eternal emptiness, eternal slavery, and eternal domination over them by Satan and the powers of darkness!
So Jesus says anyway: Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
The displacement of God’s rule from one’s life produces disintegration not wholeness nor peace nor eternal purpose; disintegration, yes, even a spiritual death, providing one with a dark cloud of self-importance, self-goals, that only instigates even more self-pity that delights the devil and his armies!
When Jesus is allowed into one’s mind, heart, spirit, and body, He releases a perfect ‘tidal wave’ of heavenly peace, an overwhelming awareness of eternal, Godly love, a practical, understandable vision of what it means to be ONE with Him, in Him, through Him!
You and I are no different than the early disciples who walked with Jesus on troubled streets or with Him on stormy seas in life. In Matthew 8:23-27 we read, Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”
Do you understand the full meaning of Jesus Christ as the “storm-stopper”? Do you experience, not on the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, but those restless, stormy, tumultuous times in your journey – and you wonder what they are all about? Could it be, not what the stormy seas are all about, but what Jesus Christ is all about, yes, in YOU? No faith, ‘little faith’, some faith, doubtful faith, a troubled faith? Is that what you are all about or, because of the winds and storms and violent currents of your life, have you ever called out to the “Calmer of storms” whose name is Jesus Christ?
What a delight to the Lord Jesus when a troubled soul looks out of itself and in to the very eyes of Jesus! What a delight to Him when He senses that another soul is turning in confidence and assurance to Him! I’ll tell you: You don’t have to get to your wit’s end to seek out Jesus, but if that is what it takes for you, so be it, if YOU are brought, not to the brink, but willfully plunging into that sea of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone! Jesus said it several times, “I must be about My Father’s business.” Whose business are you after? Self or the Savior?
There is a promise in I John 1:7 that should excite you. It says: “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Did you receive that? Do you believe that? Will you rest in that eternal Truth? Oh, I know that a lot of men admit to casual sin in their lives at times, but confronted by the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the Cross, broken-hearted men begin to repent because they see what their sin cost Jesus in His suffering and death on the Cross!
Have you failed to understand that Jesus Himself is the only propitiation or satisfaction for our sin-debt as He shed His blood on the cruel Cross? John 1:29 says: The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
In verses 32-34 we read that John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
I really am amazed as I read words from Paul the Apostle when he said in Philippians 3:10, “that I may KNOW Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” The call upon lost humanity, alienated and separated from God is “that I may know Him;” the call upon every pastor, believer, disciple, missionary, servant, member of the Holy Family of God is “that [we] may know Him.”
But far too many men are on a journey to know themselves and how they can enjoy and profit from their lost state of faith! Far too many have never considered, “Christ in [them], the hope of glory.” If a man’s slightest thought is on how he conquers his world and not how he’s to be conquered by the Lamb of God, he becomes a man destined for fleshly, sin-nature loyalty, loyal to himself, denying Christ as Lord and Savior and Master of his life, and he lives standing on a thin thread over the pit of Hell, soon to be admitted there!
There’s another choice, another option, another Way! Look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith! You may be a transgressor, but Jesus is reaching out to you! You may be the sinner, but He’s YOUR Savior! You may be bound by your iniquity, but Jesus shed His blood to break the chains! It’s amazing to me that at times the world itself will cast out or imprison the great offender of human decency, but Jesus comes to say, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” Outcasts by human societies are our Lord’s opportunities to express His love, His grace, and His mercy! If Christ Jesus is our only hope, and we receive the Truth, then the outcome is the death of doubt and our reception of the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Hasn’t God said: “This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” but you’re not sure?
In Isaiah 42 we read a prophetic Word about the coming Christ! It says: “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles [that’s you and me!]. He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands shall wait for His law.” Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it; I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, To open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
The Lord God has done what? He tells us 700 years before He comes that the Suffering Servant will win the battle over the powers of darkness and set the captives free!
In Lamentations 3:19-26 Jeremiah prophetically tells us of “the salvation of the Lord” as he personally walked through personal anguish and even loss. He said: “Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; ‘Great is Your faithfulness.’ The Lord is my portion says my soul. Therefore I hope in Him!”
If Jesus was sovereignly sent by Holy God to bring about our Redemption and Reconciliation, and He did, [It’s prophecy fulfilled, it’s historical reality, and it’s personally verified!], but you are unsure? Hear me! Spurgeon said: “If the Lord Jesus Christ be no common person, but nothing less than God Himself, who shall doubt His power to save?” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 14, p.279].
Ephesians 1:7 is so powerful and informative! Paul wrote: “In Him [in Christ Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, according to the riches of His grace.” But you believe God must have suffered ‘heavenly bankruptcy’ because His riches of grace are not available to you? I tell you, the angels sing daily about His amazing grace; disciples, like Paul, stand in a constant graced stature because of His amazing grace; and pastors, missionaries, disciples world-wide still ring out His amazing grace!
Have you witnessed troubled souls who encounter the compassionate Lord and Savior and experience constantly, yes, peace in the inner man? Didn’t He say, “My peace I give to you?” Didn’t He say He opens the very door to the Holy Presence of God? Isn’t there the promise of a defeated Devil and the powers of darkness? Aren’t we assured of abiding presence of the resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords in us, and we need not fear? What did Paul say to young Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:12? “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that HE IS ABLE to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”
There were no doubts in Paul concerning assurance that Jesus was able to keep him. There were no hesitations about the Blood of the Lamb to wash him white as snow. There were no roadblocks in Paul’s mind concerning Jesus raising him out of that grave of spiritual death. There was no hesitation in Paul but full assurance that His Savior and Lord interceded in Paul’s behalf before the very throne of God! He was awed by Christ’s undying love for him, by His Savior’s unceasing, fully available, omnipotent power! “I KNOW whom I have believed…!” Do you?
In Colossians 2:8-10 Paul wrote: “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; AND YOU ARE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of all principality and power.”
It was William E. Biederwolf who said: “A man who can read the New Testament and not see that Christ claims to be more than a man, can look all over the sky at high noon on a cloudless day and not see the sun.” So very, very true!
I didn’t write it and don’t know who did but they wrote: “Matthew presents Jesus as the Royal Savior; Mark, as the Servant of man; Luke, as the Son of man; John, as Son of God.”
And it is so true: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, grant new life, give eternal hope, and hold us in His holy hands forever!
Jesus IS “the Light of the world” that is in such terrible darkness! Jesus is the crucified, buried, and raised from the dead Lord and Savior! Jesus is the exact image of the one true and living God – God’s perfect representation! Jesus is mankind’s only hope! He IS the righteousness of God! Jesus is God’s unspeakable gift to a fallen world with the grace in Him to raise us out of our spiritual death!
Jesus IS the King of love who is my Shepherd. Jesus is the wisdom of God and very power of God. Jesus is the joy of our salvation, the true fountain of living water, our “bliss-Blesser”, the tree of eternal life, our very Resurrection from the dead! Jesus IS “the Man of sorrows” so acquainted with our grief! Jesus is the guiltless Blood shed for all guilty men like us!
Jesus IS the Name above all names! It was J. Wilbur Chapman who wrote: “I know of a world that is sunk in shame, Where hearts oft faint and tire; But I know of a Name, a precious Name, That can set that world on fire: Its sound is sweet, its letters flame. I know of a Name, a precious Name, ‘Tis Jesus.” Holy is His Name! Miraculous is His Name! Powerful is His Name! Eternal Hope and Sovereign Help is His Name!
E.E. Hewitt wrote: “More about Jesus I would know, More of His graces to others show; More of His saving fullness see, More of His love who died for me.”
Jesus IS the Great Physician, the Healer of broken, bound, bruised hearts! Jesus IS the Son of God! Jesus IS the eternal Soldier of the Cross where He waged the battle for our forgiveness and won! Jesus is the One who dispels darkness even in the human heart! Jesus is, becomes, and continues to “shine” as the Sunlight of our souls! Though His head was crowned with thorns for the Cross, He won our victory over sin and death, and now wears that incorruptible crown!
Jesus IS the sovereign Seer knowing your end from your beginning! He’s the Savior of souls, He’s their Bread of life and eternal hope, He’s their Strength to overcome, He’s our unspeakable Gift that we treasure, He’s our ALL IN ALL, He’s our healing grace of our sorrows, our wounds, our fears, and our doubts!
“All hail the power of Jesus’ name! Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, To crown Him Lord of all!”
There is no understanding for human history without the knowledge and saving grace of Jesus Christ! The absence of Christ in a human heart, family, present or future, is the acknowledgement one prefers darkness over light, sin and eternal death over forgiveness and eternal life, and one’s ‘fleshly’ best over God’s countless blessings!
It was Lew Wallace who wrote: “After six years given to the impartial investigation of Christianity, as to its truth or falsity, I have come to the deliberate conclusion that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of the Jews, the Savior of the world, and my personal Savior.” AMEN?
Jesus Christ is the Truth that never wavers or changes or is covered over or hidden. HE IS THE TRUTH!
Isaac Watts, in his “The Psalms of David,” wrote: “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun, Does His successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore Till moons shall wax and wane no more.”
I love what John Wesley wrote in his “Christian Perfection.” He said: “The holiest of men still need Christ as their Prophet, as “the light of the world.” For He does not give them light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness. They still need Christ as their King, for God does give them a stock of holiness. But unless they receive a supply every moment, nothing but unholiness would remain. They still need Christ as their Priest, to make atonement for their holy things. Even perfect holiness is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ.”
How wise was Henry Benjamin Whipple who long ago wrote wisely: “All we want in Christ, we shall find in Christ. If we want little, we shall find little. If we want much, we shall find much; but if, in utter helplessness, we cast our all on Christ, He will be to us the whole treasury of God.” AMEN?
CHAPTER TEN
EVANGELISM – THE GIFT OF PEACE FOR A TROUBLED WORLD
In a “natural” world where the Supernatural is frowned upon, trouble is the name of the game! Even in a small community of, say, two hundred people you’ll find “wars” are seemingly a part of life! Pain, heartache, fear, desperate circumstances, appalling relationships with ‘friends’ or even family, marital nightmares, rebellious teen-agers, mental anguish, business failure, character assassination without cause, pettiness, and, yes, scandalous treatment, verbal abuse, distresses that appear so deadly, persecution for His name’s sake, sharp and painful reactions from the friend who sells you short, the mate that is constantly and unmercifully critical, battered by the bitter, surrounded by many who are so angry, so explosive in their natures, so impulsive in their actions, and, yes, so evil in their intents!
Has there ever been that moment when you knew you just had to cry out to God and keep on crying out because you were so surrounded by the troubles of fallen humanity or even by the troubles of ‘professing believers’ or an international crisis that would mean your sons and daughters may have to go to war, or that “the cares of this world” were multiplying exponentially, or that racial strife was becoming an unstable situation with even deadly results?
How deep does grief and sorrow have to be before we reach out of ourselves for help? I really think that we all must come to an understanding about whether our trouble is the handiwork of God to shape us in His likeness or is it trouble wrought by troubling men and women who are so unstable themselves that in their actions they don’t even know they are denying the sovereignty of God!
But then also we must consider if what we’re facing in our troubling moments is OUR habitual disregard of life in The Spirit or self-hatred that has really become God’s enemy in us!
Job knew what he was talking about when in Job 5:7 he said, “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” But the psalmist gives us hope as we read in Psalm 46:1-7, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help of trouble [or time of need]. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling. There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn. The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
God shall help her, just at the break of dawn? That sounds to me like a night of trouble, a night of spiritual darkness and conflict, a night when even a man of faith at times wonders if he will see the light of day.
The Christian faith knows no abiding truth greater than God’s promise: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” There are times one wants to ‘panic’ but He says, “Be not afraid.” There are times one wants to hide, but God says, “Come to Me.” There are times when trouble is so tumultuous one wonders if the safest place is in a grave, having been made foolish in thought by a non-blushing Devil!
Do you remember James Russell Lowell’s “The Present Crisis”? He wrote: “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.” Trouble is real! By God’s Spirit and His Word we must discern that it’s God’s open door for our good or the Devil for our bad. And what a promise Jesus gives us when in John 16:13 He said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.” Thank God for the Holy Spirit of Truth!
Are you sensitive at all to the ridiculous AND holy revelation? Are you aware of the difference between ‘handicapped by flesh’ and ‘enlightened by the Spirit’? Do you discern easily between that which is superstition and that which is Sacred? Do you contemplate at all the danger of idolatry compared with the safety of the blessing of the one true and living God? Are you able to easily identify ‘play actors’ with God’s true children of saving faith?
Harold Cooke Phillips wrote: “This coming to know Christ is what makes Christian truth redemptive truth, the truth that transforms, not just the truth that informs.”
Yes, our world is filled with informative languages and words and schemes, but is there the Truth that is “The Gift of Peace For A Troubled World”? Yes, we have “Good News,” we have “redemptive Truth,” we have the “Living Savior and Lord,” we have the offering of “the gift of peace” that comes from Jesus only!
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote in “Miriam” these words: “We search the world for truth. We cull the good, the pure, the beautiful, From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from the quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.” How true!
But there is a problem in our troubled world and some have no interest in the “gift of peace”! In Jeremiah 6:10 the prophet heard God speak: “To whom shall I speak and give warning,that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” As a result God said in verse 14, “They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace.”
You do understand that there are multitudes who believe they have peace because they’re free to do as they please, they think they have peace because they’re able to go from one sinful pleasure to the next, able to immerse themselves in lascivious madness, able to dance the dance of frivolity – no worth, no value, no eternal importance, just immersed in triflingness and silliness and sinfulness as a ‘part of the crowd’! “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace!” Yet the ‘play-actors’ of the modern day spiritually are those planted in the “hot-beds of hypocrisy”, meaning even some preachers who say, “Do as I say – not as I do”!
“THE GIFT OF PEACE FOR A TROUBLED WORLD”? Aroused to evangelize? In Romans 3:21-24 we read, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Troubled world? Because of sinful, Godless hearts! And the church has no mandate about that? Preachers of churches today have no biblical basis to raise up a church that evangelizes?
Troubled world? Because of Christ-less lives! But the eternal gospel of the grace of God is an ineffective ministry? The eternal gospel is now bankrupt and void of saving grace?
Troubled world? Because “justification” by many in the church is unimportant since they want the stain of sin remaining upon their religious cover with no real desire to live the victorious life over sin! Justification is what? Acceptance by God “just as if I’d never sinned”because of the power of the Blood Jesus shed on the Cross!
Troubled world? Hear Oswald Chambers! [“My Utmost For His Highest”, p.247], “The Gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a certain pride in man that will give and give, but to come and accept is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom, I will give myself in consecration, I will do anything, but do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ….As long as we are rich [in ourselves!] possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us.”
Troubled world? Aren’t you aware that there is across the broad border of humanity a total disinterest in any expression of respect for or even a little love and appreciation of Him? His holiness, His righteousness, His purity, seems to the worldly to call for an obligation they are not willing to accept.
Troubled world? Don’t you know divine demands spoil a man’s self-determining control? Surrender? Submit? Obey? Follow His lead? “I’m self-willed, self-motivated, self-controlled, and I’ll determine for myself what I am, what I wish to do, and what I know I’m capable of! Who needs God?”
Oh, but hear me! The heart of this chapter is: Evangelize – Because of the Gift of Peace For a Troubled World! The troubled world is not the heart of ministry but the heart of God is the Gift of Peace!
What does Jeremiah 29:11 tell us? God speaking, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Do you receive it? “Thoughts of peace and not of evil.”
In John 14:25-27 Jesus is speaking to us, to you, to our world: “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
What an awesome word from our Loving Lord whose passion is YOUR PEACE! Haven’t you noticed? He speaks to instill heavenly peace in every man! Nothing distracts Jesus – He grants peace! Nothing deters Jesus – He desires your perfect peace! Nothing disturbs Jesus – “Let not your heart be troubled”!
I don’t know who wrote it but it speaks a powerful word to me: “Oh how sweet to view the flowing of my Savior’s precious blood, With divine assurance knowing He has made my peace with God.”
In Philippians 4:6-7 Paul tells us: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
That’s peace on your life, on your brain, on your walk of faith, on your family, on your marriage relationship, on your friends and neighbors, on your nation, on your witnessing ministry, on your missionary activity, on your maturing growth in the fullness of Christ!
But I believe also that a soul-saver is a peacemaker! Extending His Life, expressing His love, proving His power to save is a great calling and great ministry! And I don’t believe God will keep in perfect peace voiceless witnesses!
It is so true that peace is not the absence of spiritual warfare, but because of peace in the inner man, that man wants to fight the good fight of faith and extend Jesus’ Kingdom in the hearts of others.
It was Henry van Dyke, in “What Peace Means,” who wrote: “The Bible teaches us that there is no foundation for enduring peace on earth, except in righteousness; that it is our duty to suffer for that cause if need be; that we are bound to fight for it if we have the power; and that if God gives us the victory we must use it for the perpetuation of righteous peace.” That’s peace in a life, peace in a marriage, peace in a ministry, peace in a church, peace in a home, peace in a city and state, peace in a nation border to border, peace across the world!
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote: “Drop Your still dews of quietness till all our striving cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of Your Peace.”
Yes, it is a peace that passes all understanding! Taste it! You’ll like it!
H.G.Spafford and P.P.Bliss teamed together on the glorious old hymn entitled “It Is Well With My Soul.” It says:
“When PEACE, like a river, attends my way, When sorrows like sea-billows roll; Whatever my lot, You have taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul..
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And has shed His own blood for my soul..
My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought – My sin – not in part, but the whole, Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul..
And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll, The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, ‘Even so’ – it is well with my soul..
It is well…with my soul…It is well, It is well with my soul.”
Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
“EVANGELISM – THE GIFT OF PEACE FOR A TROUBLED WORLD!!”
I pray this deepens your understanding of the heart of God through His gift of peace and deepen your reverence for His holy Name! I pray your devotion, commitment, and sharing of His mission will intensify, and that YOU “rest” in the confidence and assurance that His Word though you will find fertile ground in the hearts of troubled men that you touch!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EVANGELISM – ANGELIC REJOICING
I don’t exactly know the time, maybe 15-20 years ago, Dwayne Weehunt and his wife, Leslie, and I, had felt led to travel to the most central city of India to lead a pastors’ conference. It was held in a large English Episcopal church, and we were thrilled to see 600-700 pastors in the meeting.
There was a local India music group leading worship – and for our first time we heard them singing “Hill Song” music out of England – and we were thrilled! We’d never heard “Hill Song” music in America but here we were in Central India hearing glorious song! In the middle of worship I looked to my left toward a side door, and there appeared a shadow of a 10-12 foot “Angel” looking over the packed church! I quietly turned to Dwayne and Leslie to say, “Do you see what I see?” And they said, “Yes!” I told them that presence of an angel was God’s assurance to us that we were going to have an awesome week! I must say to you that this has been, in my 77 years, the only angel I have witnessed, but I know Hebrews 13:2 is TRUTH: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.”
I just want you to know that there is nothing commonplace about being in the presence of God, but when “Angels” appear you have truly stepped into the Holy Presence of God Almighty that the angels bow before and worship! Angelic presence is the assurance that Holy God is at work near you, in you, through you, for His glory and honor.
Angelic presence is not happen-chance but I believe a divine appointment! And I surely don’t believe “angelic presence” is just man’s ‘active energy’ trying to express itself in redemptive fashion! Through angelic presence God Almighty is stamping His name, His purpose, and His calling upon the ‘chosen’s’ life! And many a man has witnessed personal life change because an angel of God appeared!
Omnipresence, though it needs no re-enforcement, is “super-charged” by the presence of God’s angelic armies! Isn’t it written that “He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”? And, I tell you, I’m convinced that “shadow of the Almighty” is a strong angelic presence!
There is much rejoicing when a man knows he is in the omnipresence of holy God “super-charged” by that, yes, presence of divine angels! That’s not the commonplace but the very celestial, not a deceiving presence but divine presence. If “the pure in heart” shall see God, is it His divine will that men see and receive angelic ministry?
John Calvin, in “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” wrote: “The angels are the dispensers and administrators of the Divine beneficence toward us; they regard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us.” Amen?
Do you grasp one who is an “overseer”? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary defines an “overseer” as a ‘supervisor’ or like an ‘overseer of a plantation’ – and it’s sure God wants you super-productive in the “fruit of the Spirit” – so He assigns us an angel or two!
In Genesis 28:10-12 we read about Jacob: “Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Question! A dream or a divine visitation by holy angels? An assurance of God’s oversight through the angels or just fictitious imagination? Jacob named the place Bethel which means ‘house of God,’ but you’re unsure the ‘house of God’ houses angels?
If you haven’t learned it yet in your own life, you need to hear it now! God is intent in watching over you, protecting you, yes, even fighting for you at times in spiritual warfare that you, more than likely, were totally unaware! If man was made ‘a little lower than the angels,’ are they high enough over us and strong enough to protect, even if we don’t know they’re there in our time of trouble?
I love what John Milton wrote in “Paradise Lost,” [Book VII, L. 569]! He wrote: “For God will deign to visit oft the dwellings of just men Delighted, and with frequent intercourse Thither will send His winged messengers on errands of supernatural grace.”
In Isaiah 40:1 God says: “Comfort, yes, comfort My people!” says your God; and do you believe that included in the command of holy God is instruction for the ministry of angels? If a word of encouragement is needed on the spot, in the height of an anxious moment, as his people are being squeezed by the powers of darkness, or stress on the job or in the marriage, does God send an angel to you?
In Psalm 91:11 the Holy Word says, unbeliever, “For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” Interference just may be divine interference from God for the saving of your soul, your marriage, or even maybe your ministry!
Do you remember or recall Daniel in the lions’ den? Daniel was not a weak man but strong in his faith, and even though in that lions’ den, there was a calmness and a peace because of assurance that God was with him and stronger than any earthly lion he faced. But weak men are not confident but fearful, not troubled by shallow regrets but assured of holy presence, not at peace but living in an agitated state explained by the absence of God in their lives, and, certainly no angels to help! But Daniel 6:22 says, “My God has sent His angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me…” That’s why Hebrews 11:33 tells us: “Through faith…shut or stopped the mouths of lions.”
In Maclaren’s “Exposition of Holy Scriptures,” including Daniel, [pps. 82-83], Maclaren writes: “Faith may or may not bring external deliverances, such as it brought to Daniel; but the good cheer which this story brings us does not depend on these. When Paul lay in Rome, shortly before his martyrdom, the experience of Daniel was in his mind, as he thankfully wrote to Timothy, ‘I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.’ He adds a hope which contrasts strangely, at first sight, with the clear expectation of a speedy and violent death, expressed a moment or two before (‘I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come’) when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver me from every evil work’; but he had learned that it was possible to pass through the evil and yet to be delivered from it, and that a man might be thrown to the lions and devoured by them, and yet be truly shielded from all harm from them. So he adds, ‘And will save me unto His heavenly kingdom,’ thereby teaching us that the true deliverance which carries us into, or something nearer towards, the eternal home. Thus understood, the miracle of Daniel’s deliverance is continually repeated to all who partake of Daniel’s faith, ‘Thou hast made the Most High your habitation…you shall tread upon the lion and adder.’”
This isn’t ‘personal wisdom,’ but a partial insight that he stood upon, and, as a result birthed full faith to face in peace even the wild beasts! But I know you are aware that many men will not allow themselves to be: “Touched By An Angel”!
I was reading Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, “The Two Voices,” in his “Tennyson’s Works,” [p.31]; “I said, ‘When first the world began, Young Nature thro’ five cycles ran, and in the sixth she moulded man.
‘She gave him mind, the lordliest proportion, and, above the rest, dominion in the head and breast.’
Thereto the silent voice replied: ‘Self-blinded are you by your pride; Look up thro’ night: the world is wide.
‘This truth within your mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.
‘Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers in yonder hundred million spheres?’
It spake, moreover, in my mind: ‘Tho’ you were scattered to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind.’
Then did my response clearer fall: ‘No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all.’
To which he answered scoffingly: ‘Good soul! Suppose I grant it to you, Who’ll weep for your deficiency?
‘Or will one beam be less intense, When your peculiar difference is canceled in the world of sense?’
I would have said, ‘You cannot know,’ But my full heart, that worked below, Rained through my sight its overflow.
Again the voice spoke unto me: ‘You are so steeped in misery, Surely t’were better not to be.
‘Your anguish will not let you sleep, Nor any train of reason keep; You cannot think, but you will weep.’”
And as I read this ‘poem’ of Tennyson, I wondered, “how many men ‘cannot know,’ ‘will not know’, because one becomes cemented in fleshly reason rather than divine revelation?” “How many worldly men will entertain “demons” but deny angelic presence around them?” How many men, yes, worldly men, will shun angels and entertain the demons of Hell? Sadly, even in the ‘church’, supposedly ‘godly men’ will welcome the devil and in a pretense and sham and false profession deny the Savior and close the door on Him! Didn’t Jesus say to some churches, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”? Why? Because some prefer the demons over the Divine Jesus – their profession is a sham and a pretense and counterfeit acknowledgement!
But not the angels! In Revelation 5:11-12 we read, “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”
And the Worthy Lamb makes available to you multitudinous blessings as an overflow of His mind and heart for you! And if it’s true of Jesus and us, is it true of the angels and is it their desire, their mission, their ministry, to pour out on YOUR LIFE power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing out of the very overflow of God’s heart?
Revelation 7:9 tells us of the heavenly host – and I have no doubt it is the enormous number of born-again believers through the blood of Christ, but also a host of angels who celebrate Christ Jesus! “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands..” And they’re blessing Jesus!
Do you even sense or believe that Almighty God is concerned about you after you die? “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.” But listen to Jude 9! “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.” Yes! Angels even contending and protecting our dead bodies – they’ll not be defiled by even a touch of the devil or one of his demons! Spurgeon said that “the guardianship of the bodies of the saints by angels proves that they shall rise again from the dead,” and raising our bodies from the dead to receive glorified bodies puts true believers in the praise and worship mode! Without Christ as Lord and Savior unbelievers receive the cruelty of the devil and his demon powers! That is not a good thing!
Why? Matthew 25:41 is Jesus telling us why one should not desire death as an unbeliever but a true believer washed in the blood of the Lamb. Jesus describes what is ahead for one who denies Saving Faith, Divine Grace, and Amazing Mercy: “Then he says to them on his left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The devil and his angels? Remember! They rebelled and appointed themselves to be the head and the fallen angels controlling eternal hell! They reign in eternal pain, eternal darkness, eternal fire…and not a word of protest is allowed! A fallen angel and an unbelieving evil spirit share an eternity in a forever suffering mode!
In 2 Peter 2:4-14 the anointed disciple has shared a strong word for fallen angels and unbelievers! He wrote: “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those afterward who would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) – then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.”
Have you come to a full understanding of what it means, even if you were angel-like, to hear those painful words? “Depart you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?” How scary to me, how frightening – yes, a divine ‘wake-up’ call! But many ignore Holy Scripture, ignore the words of Jesus, and ignore the evangelists’ powerful voices and words!
I close this chapter with words from the great English preacher of the past, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, from “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [pps. 274-275],
“Many of you will go away and laugh, and call me, as I remember once being called before, “a hell-fire parson.” Well, go; but you will see the hell-fire preacher one day in heaven, perhaps, and you yourselves will be cast out; and looking down thence, with reproving glance, it may be that I shall remind you that you heard the Word, and listened not to it. Ah! Men, it is a light thing to hear it; it will be hard enough to bear it. You listen to me now unmoved; it will be harder work when death gets hold of you, and you lie roasting in the fire [and cannot, will not die, forever!!]. Now you despise Christ; you won’t despise Him then. Now you can waste your Sabbaths; then you would give a thousand worlds for a Sabbath if you could but have it in heaven. Now you can scoff and jeer; there will be no scoffing or jeering then; you will be shrieking, howling, wailing for mercy; but: ‘There are no acts of pardon passed in the cold grave to which we haste; But darkness, death, and long despair, Reign in eternal silence there.”
Where? There! With Satan and his demon-angels! With Satan in eternal darkness in the death that will not die!
But in Christ Jesus, as one is translated into His eternal Presence, there is the hosts of heaven filled with born-again believers and ten thousand times ten thousands of thousands of angels – and you, in Christ, celebrate with them!
Shakespeare, in “Hamlet,” [Act V, sc.2, I. 371] wrote: “And flights of angels sing you to your rest!” Yes! In “Hymn to the Beautiful” Richard Henry Stoddard wrote:
“Around our pillows golden ladders rise, And up and down the skies, With winged sandals shod, The angels come, and go, the Messengers of God.” Amen?
What did Hebrews 13:2 tell us? “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”!!**
CHAPTER TWELVE
EVANGELISM – HOLY SPIRIT ANOINTING
There are two quotes that I want to begin this chapter with because wiser men than me have witnessed the awesomeness and compassion of the Holy Spirit in mighty ways. The first quote is Henry Ward Beecher who once wrote: “I should as soon attempt to raise flowers if there were no atmosphere, or produce fruits if there were neither light nor heat, as to regenerate men if I did not believe there was a Holy Ghost.”
The second quote is E. Paul Hovey’s writing: “The word “comforter” as applied to the Holy Spirit needs to be translated by some vigorous term. Literally, it means “with strength.” Jesus promised His followers that “The Strengthener” would be with them forever. This promise is no lullaby for the faint-hearted. It is a blood transfusion for courageous living.”
My heart literally breaks because I sense in the Church in America an almost complete abandonment of evangelism through, yes, a refusal to accept and be led by the Holy Spirit! Many believe the “Spirit-filled, Spirit-controlled life” is something freakish that they want no part of!
In Acts 19:1-6 we learn about religious men who were void of a Spirit-filled life! It says: “And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ So they said to him, ‘We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’ And he said to them, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ So they said, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ Then Paul said, ‘John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.’ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with other tongues and prophesied.”
The Holy Spirit? We serve a Triune God! God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! Same God but expressed in three powerful ways: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit? J.B. Phillips, in “Plain Christianity,” [p.104, Epworth Press, 1957], wrote: “Every time we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.”
But one of the early tragic words about the Holy Spirit is found in Genesis 6:3 where God speaks: And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh [or fallen sin nature!].” And I wonder now, in the 21st Century, what God is presently saying as He looks down on a world of rebellion and disobedience, multitudinous lives void of Saving Grace and the in-filling and anointing of the Spirit of God! Will He still strive with humanity?
Also one wonders about even the ‘Church’ in these last days. Are the spiritual movements of today really the signature of the Holy Spirit or simply the best efforts of religious activity? Please, please, tell me of the supernatural, the heavenly anointing, the miraculous activity of the Holy Spirit who is truly welcomed!
In John 16:13-15, Jesus is speaking: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
I WANT YOU TO SEE FIRST THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES TO CONVICT US OF SIN FOR WHICH CHRIST DIED! Earlier in John 16 Jesus said the following: Verses 5-11, “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
Do you understand that when Jesus spoke these words He was fully aware of the sin nature in us all that weakens, destroys eternal intent in us, and causes that sin nature to put the sentence of death upon us all? And around you is a world filled with the walking dead – spiritually – who desperately need re-birth into Christ’s Kingdom! Romans 6:23, “..For the wages of sin is death..” Front row of a church, platform, hospital, university, high school, grammar school, busy business, the athletic fields of endeavor – “the wages of sin is death!”
In Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.248], he wrote the following: “The pietistic movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them; there is nothing about them that needs the Death of Jesus Christ; all that is required is a pious atmosphere, and prayer and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural or miraculous, it did not cost the passion of God, it is not dyed in the blood of the Lamb, not stamped with the hall-mark of the Holy Ghost; it has not that mark on it which makes men say, as they look with awe and wonder – ‘That is the work of God Almighty.’ That and nothing else is what the New Testament talks about.”
Have you come to an understanding of “the blood Atonement”? In I John 1:6-7 we read: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Oh, and then verse 8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Are you walking in darkness or have you chosen to walk in the Light? Darkness hides – Light reveals! Darkness deceives – Light unveils the Truth! Darkness binds – Light releases! Darkness enslaves – Light opens the prison door! Darkness binds – Light frees! Darkness declares fleshly perfection, no need of a Savior – Light declares ‘You shall know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free!’
THE “OIL” OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS OURS FOR HEALING GRACE! In James 5:14-16 we read: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
I do not know how one who has been healed body, soul, and spirit, has nothing to rejoice about. Healing grace is the handiwork of God through His Holy Spirit! In Psalm 45:7b, the psalmist said: “Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than your companions.”
Our bodies are not for selfish purposes, but for saintly praise! Our bodies are not for our fleshly conveniences but for Godly glory and honor! Our bodies are not for the housing of selfish ambition but for the Savior’s exaltation! Our bodies are called in the Word as “the temples of the Holy Spirit”! And He doesn’t abide there for our convenience but for Christ’s glory, honor, and praise!
In Romans 8:26 God’s Holy Word says, “We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.”
And His purpose through us is “Healing Grace”! Are you “God’s House”? But Jesus said to some, “My house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”
The body of Jesus was bruised, broken, beaten, and bled – and the Spirit of God comes to anoint us with that oil of gladness for healing grace for all those around us. We’re not freed by His blood to live in self-determination, self-will, or self-initiative, but redeemed to spread the oil of gladness and healing to a sick society! God’s intent through the death of Christ on the Cross, through His Resurrection, and through the coming of the Holy Spirit, was to take us, transform us, and shape us in the perfect Image of Christ as ‘Healers” through the power of His Holy Spirit!
THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES TO ANOINT US AND UNVEIL FOR US THE VERY WISDOM OF GOD IN THE MIDST OF A CLUELESS WORLD!
In I John 2:20 we read, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” We know ‘all things’? I’m afraid I haven’t arrived there yet, but I am on a journey, and day by day the Father unveils for me His good, acceptable, and perfect will.
Sometimes we don’t know because we never ask! I was a football player in high school and college – and I’m telling you, if a player didn’t know but he asked the coach, he got the good answer!
In John 14:25-26 we read, “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
Have you felt in your seeking, in your walk toward Christ, a sensitiveness concerning your witness to others, and then all of a sudden there is a prompting of the Holy Spirit, and you know what to say and what to do in touching others with God’s grace and mercy? Your walk as a witness in a clueless world is not through self-effort but Spirit-anointing!
You do understand – a “witness” to the lost that is fruitful is a witness empowered by the Holy Spirit like a rushing mighty wind! It is Holy Presence, Holy Power, and Holy Purpose! The wisdom of God leads one to a life of witnessing grace and mercy.
THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES TO ANOINT US AND EMPOIWER US AND TO LEAD US IN BIBLICAL EVANGELISM AND GRACED WITNESSING!
In Acts 1:8 we read: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
We read in Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses.” And biblical witnesses of His saving grace are not well-trained actors but truly “rivers of living water” that flow through them to the thirsty, the dry, the spiritually lifeless, the alienated and separated from God, who need a “saving witness”!
True disciples are not those who live unto themselves but understand “living sacrifice,” “living witness,” “living representative” of the Resurrected Christ! Hear me! I know that many, many churches never train their followers to be witnesses, to evangelize, to share their redemptive faith with others. If so, seek help! If so, reach out! If so, pray through! Whatever it takes for you, be the witness of reconciliation power!
Will you be ‘broken bread’ for the unsaved? Will you be the poured-out wine of redemptive grace and mercy to others? What did Jesus say in Matthew 10:27? “What I tell you in darkness, that speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach that upon the housetops.”
In I Corinthians 1:17 Paul tells us, “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” That’s to announce the good news. That’s to proclaim redemptive Truth. That’s the commission as His ambassador to represent Him in hostile nations. That’s to reach out to the one lost in total rebellion to God, hostile to Christ, resisting the church – that’s the ones disillusioned by religious activity, the ones unmoved by one’s devotion to Christ and His Word, yes, even totally untouched by the Gospel because they’ve never heard it!
Do you understand those “outside the camp”? I want to remind you that the way to Calvary’s Cross was by way of Gethsemane, by way of hostile city streets, by way of denouncers, by way of individuals whose aim was to resist Christ Jesus, not rest in Him – but some did!
But you as a “believer”? You, we, all disciples – “We are laborers together with God!” We’ve put our hands to His plow, and we won’t look back, stand aside, or refuse to do His bidding! We are His servants, we are His people, we are His family, and we are His earthly representatives, yes, extensions of His Life, expressions of His love, and the very proof of His power! We are His!
We’ll not deny our ministry, we’ll not refuse His command, we’ll not evade our field of work, we’ll not be AWOL from the field of battle, we’ll not divorce our Lord’s will for our lives as living witnesses!
If I said to you that it is not easy being a witness in and of yourself – and I don’t believe that’s our Lord’s plan anyway, but it’s Christ in us who is the hope of glory – not us! But we make ourselves available to Him as empty vessels and we ask Him to fill us up with all we need to be that faithful witness! And it’s true as Seneca said: “Gold is tried in fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.” The furnace of adversity is an unbelieving world into which our Lord leads us to be His witness!
THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES TO SO FILL REPENTANT BELIEVERS WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT THEY BECOME INTERPRETIVE EXAMPLES TO ALL UNBELIEVERS THEY COME IN CONTACT WITH!
Paul lays it out so clearly for us in Ephesians 5:15-21 when he wrote, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; BUT BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”
Interpretive examples are not believers acting impulsively but believers who are inspired, infused, and in-flamed by the Holy Spirit to touch unbelievers they are sovereignly led to witness to about “Amazing Grace”. It is not one being ‘heroic’ to witness to unbelievers but one being ‘obedient’ to Him because of our Lord’s compassion being expressed through us!
The supreme privilege of discipleship is that God has chosen to express through redeemed believers His great love for the unredeemed! “God so loved the world” that in and through His Son and the Savior’s disciples the Holy Spirit would bear witness of one being delivered from the guilt of sin, delivered from meaninglessness, delivered from darkness and overflowing with Light, bringing them to that holy place of glorying only in the Cross of Christ!
What did Paul write in Romans 8:16-17? “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
Do you understand it? Do you receive it? “The Spirit bears witness…”! If we determine to ‘witness’ apart from the Spirit our witness bounces off deaf ears, but if the Spirit witnesses through us, unbelievers have their ears and eyes opened to the Eternal Truth. We are not to be highly educated witnesses in the flesh or witnesses through our common sense or just natural abilities of well-trained flesh, but truly Spirit of God anointing with the Spirit Himself bearing witness through our spirit to unbelievers! “New creations,” anointed by the Spirit, become announcers of God’s great love, and share with alienated people how to be reconciled to God through Christ’s shed blood, and the witness of the Holy Spirit convicting them of sin, righteousness and judgment to come.
In I Corinthians 9:22 Paul said, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” He then said, “Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.”
This is why in John 20:21 Jesus said: “As My Father has sent Me, even so send I you.” Here’s how Oswald Chambers interpreted this verse in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.222], “When looking back on the lives of men and women of God the tendency is to say – ‘What wonderfully astute wisdom they had! How perfectly they understood all God wanted!’ The astute mind behind is the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the Divine guidance of God through childlike people who were foolish enough to trust God’s wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God.” Amen?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OF A WORLD CULTURE CAPTURED BY SATAN
In Acts 26:12-19, Paul the Apostle shared his testimony with King Agrippa after his accusers had told him that Paul was not fit to live any longer, basically because he had turned from Judaism to salvation in and through Christ Jesus. He said:
“While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. ‘I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, AND FROM THE POWER OF SATAN TO GOD, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’ Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision..”
I know you didn’t miss it! The world, fleshly men, unbelievers, who have chosen independence from God are under full control of Satan and the powers of darkness, and if you didn’t know who these powers are, you need to know their Satan’s army called ‘demons’!
Evangelism – Because Of A World Culture Captured By Satan! And that’s a meaningless, unimportant statement to you, just one of those ‘religious lies’ you refute and deny? Remember, the day is coming when you will stand before Holy God, before the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, to give an account of your denial of His saving grace and an account of your disbelief in Satan’s power, yes, to deceive even you!
You don’t believe that the world around you, the world you are a part of, is a battle-field of devilish, demonic activity? In John 10:10 our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, said: “The thief comes only TO STEAL, TO KILL, AND TO DESTROY!” The thief is Satan and his demon powers!
In Mark 5:1-16 there is one of the most sobering sections of Scripture you’ll ever read! The translation I’m using is Peterson’s “The Message.” He wrote: “They arrived on the other side of the sea in the country of the Gerasenes. As Jesus got out of the boat, a madman from the cemetery came up to Him. He lived there among the tombs and graves. No one could restrain him – he couldn’t be chained, couldn’t be tied down. He had been tied up many times with chains and ropes, but he broke the chains, snapped the ropes. No one was strong enough to tame him. Night and day he roamed through the graves and the hills, screaming out and slashing himself with sharp stones. When he saw Jesus a long way off, he ran and bowed in worship before Him – then bellowed in protest, ‘What business do you have, Jesus, Son of the High God, messing with me? I swear to God, don’t give me a hard time!’ (Jesus had just commanded the tormenting evil spirit, ‘Out! Get out of the man!’) Jesus asked him, “Tell Me your name.” He replied, ‘My name is Mob. I’m a rioting mob.” Then he desperately begged Jesus not to banish them from the country. A large herd of pigs was browsing and rooting on a nearby hill. The demons begged him, “Send us to the pigs so we can live in them.” Jesus gave the order. But it was even worse for the pigs than for the man. Crazed, they stampeded over a cliff into the sea and drowned. Those tending the pigs, scared to death, bolted and told their story in the town and country. Everyone wanted to see what had happened. They came up to Jesus and saw the madman sitting there wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man.” Madness through Satan! Mercy through Jesus!
Do you remember Jesus saying to Simon Peter in Luke 22:31, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat?” And there’s been a whole lot of “sifting” going on! The thief (Satan) comes to kill, steal, and destroy! It happened to Jesus Himself. In Luke 4:1-2 the Word says, “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being TEMPTED BY THE DEVIL.” And you think you don’t have to be concerned about devilish influences coming against you?
Paul told the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 11:3), “But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” If there is no devotion to Christ in YOUR earthly walk, be assured you’re under the control of Satan himself! Have you ever witnessed one led astray by the powers of darkness? Then in verse 4 Paul laid it out how some, through the craftiness of the devil’s deception, embrace “another Jesus…a different spirit… or a different gospel.”
John described this battle-front like this, (Revelation 12:15-17), “And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman (Bride of Christ!), so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood (a flood of words, speculations, doubts, lies). And the earth helped the woman and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”
That flood out of the devil’s mouth is the perverting of the holy truths of God’s Word. It’s a flood of denials about the need of blood redemption: “You’re not ‘lost’; you’re not ‘separated from God’ in your sin; you’re not depraved in your nature; you don’t need the Lamb of God – you’re a winner, you’re smart, you’re an elite rendition of perfect manhood; you don’t have to look to Jesus – look inward to yourself!”
This is why Paul wrote the Corinthian church (2Corinthians 4:3-4), “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world (the devil) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” In fact, the beloved John wrote (I John 5:19), that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” THAT’S THE DEVIL HIMSELF, THE DECEIVER, THE DESTROYER – YOUR ENEMY! And he rules over “the domain of darkness.”
It was Cotton Mather in “A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World” who wrote: “That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from an ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.”
I often feel or sense in my spirit that far too many Christians ignore the spiritual warfare of faith. I believe it’s why Paul warned the church at Ephesus, (Ephesians 4:27), “and do not give the devil an opportunity, or area of occupation, or ‘toe-hold.’” And in the context of that verse, before and after, Paul talked about lying, anger, stealing, rotten words out of the mouth, unforgiveness, slander, grieving the Holy Spirit! And we don’t see how “the Thief” operates?
Hear me! Hear me with all your heart, soul, and mind! There is “Victory In Jesus”, victory over your arch-enemy, the devil and his demons! You ‘in Christ’ are more than conqueror through Christ! In Hebrews 2:14-15 we read, “Since then the children share in flesh and blood [covenant], He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”
Did it say that Jesus rendered powerless the one who had the power of death? Did it say that Jesus delivered men and women of faith from spiritual slavery to Satan? In Christ Jesus you have Victory over the Devil!
There is that ‘invisible war’ going on right now! The ‘hellish’ forces wage war against the Lamb of God and His faithful ones. But the Lamb of God, the blood of the Lamb of God, overcomes His enemies because “He is Lord of lords and King of kings.” The eternal battle is finished – Christ is Victor over the Devil!
In Revelation 12:9-11 we read, “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. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”
Yes, you may be concerned about your own welfare concerning your warfare with the Devil, but understand he is a defeated foe – there is NOTHING Almighty about the Devil! He may possess an infectious, sick spirit, but our Healer, the Lord Jesus, possesses the divine prescription, His own precious blood! God has given us the victory over the Devil through the person of Christ Jesus – He is more than conqueror!
Oh, the Devil will accuse you, but the accusations about you from the Devil were washed clean by the blood the Lamb. Satanic accusation is unceasing but we walk in a new and living way, boldly entering the presence of the Almighty, brought near by Jesus’ shed blood. Our foundation of faith has provided a divine fountain of fire-power over devilish activity and a saving shield of security over any devilish accusation. Again, what is our victory over the Devil? “The blood of the Lamb and by word of their testimony, and they don’t love their lives even to the death!”
It was C.S. Lewis who once said: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because of it I see everything else.” And certainly the Devil comes to us in distressing disguises but the Spirit of Christ exposes him instantly for us to view his defeated status!
Satan will cast doubt on the Word of God but God’s Word is eternal! Satan is, yes, even a stickler for legalism apart from grace, mercy, and love! Satan promotes your hopelessness but Romans 5:5 says, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Satan denies your ‘election’, accusing you of falling short, defining you as chief of sinners, yes, even when you’ve been washed clean in the blood of the Lamb! Satan confesses “lies” not eternal truths, Satan twists the Truth and misuses Holy Scripture; Satan fights for what he “thinks” is his, he induces embittered souls to embrace sadness before they find joy, he’s the master of anxiety, worry, fear, and discouragement; Satan majors on shifts of spiritual eye-contact from Christ Jesus to one’s self; Satan promotes meriting – and you don’t measure up; Satan majors on thorns, briars, unplowed, unseeded fields; Satan is so filled with such displeasure when one begins to speak about the love of God, BUT…
Romans 5:8 declares for you and me, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
I John3:8b says, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
In Luke 10:17-20 we read, Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
Hear me! It’s not big words of big talkers that ought to impress you, but big deeds of denying Satan’s influence in your life and daily being one who lifts high the precious Name of Jesus, the name above all names!
In I Corinthians 1:4-9 we find such important words of encouragement for every true believer! It says: “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, EVEN AS THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST WAS CONFIRMED IN YOU, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It is unceasing from an unbelieving world, from intellectual arrogance, and, yes, from Satanic attacks, that men and demons devise all sorts of treacherous lies to assault your faith, even calling believers, true believers, who’ve bound the Gospel of Christ to their minds and hearts, men who are filled with vanity and pride to their own detriment! Not so! But in Christ, day by day, even though attacked, assaulted, and abused by Satan and the powers of darkness, you can honor the Lord and Savior by fresh power and anointing in and through the abiding presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
When the writer wrote, “God plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm,” I’ve often wondered if he was writing about having his own footsteps planted in that stormy sea of Satanic opposition, assured of victory through the finished work of Christ at the Cross, and so blessed that God is able to see him through Satanic storms!
Demonic assaults can alter one’s outer countenance because it is a life or death war that one is waging. Someone wrote, I do not know who, the following words: “If on my face for His dear name, Shame and reproach shall be, I’ll hail reproach and welcome shame, For He’ll remember me.”
In Christ, you are a child of the King! In Christ, you are a son or daughter of the Holy Family of God Himself! In Christ, willingly you’ve become His servant to serve, His soldier to fight, his soloist to sing the high praises of God!
And if the Devil himself were to decide to oppose you personally, be assured in Christ you are the Winner of any battle you have to wage against Satan and his un-royal family of hellish deviates!
If you’ve been sorely wounded because you crossed into enemy territory and suffered serious consequences, Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [or sorrows].” And many a man has been broken because of sin, rebellion, and giving himself over to that Satanic attack – and it is not the Devil that heals your wounds, but Jesus only who is truly the Great Physician of the hurts, wounds, sickness of a sin-filled life! Jesus is your Healer, your Deliverer, your Savior, and the Lord who loves you!
On down in Psalm 147 we read verses 10-11, “He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, In those who hope in His mercy.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE DRY BONES ARE LIFELESS
In Ezekial 37:1-10 there is such an anointed, enlightened, uplifting word from the Living God! It says: The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.” Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Surely I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”’” So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.”
The Spirit of the Lord asked Ezekial, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekial wasn’t sure! But God told Ezekial, as He does each one of us reading this book, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves…!”
Spiritual death is real! Alienation from God is real! Not life but ‘living death’ is real in every unbeliever! Human nature lives constantly under the cloud of death and separation from God! In fact, in Romans 7:13-24, Paul shares his life story before Christ raised him from spiritual death! He said:
“Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. FOR I KNOW THAT IN ME (IN MY FLESH – one’s old sin nature!) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And he said in verse 25, “I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” AMEN?
The ‘grave’ of my dead spirit-life has been revealed! But God tells us, “I will open your graves…!” And all around you are “the walking dead,” dead to God, dead to the Savior, dead to the Holy Spirit, dead to eternal purpose, dead to honoring God through a surrendered life, dead to the high praises of God, dead to rejoicing in Him but so alive in serving the ‘flesh’ and the old sin nature, so pleased to live independently of Him but living so selfishly and, yes, fully for the dark sides of life!
In 2 Kings 7:3-9 is the story of four leprous men which I personally think represents fallen humanity, those alienated and separated from God, those diseased in spiritual death, hungry with no certainty of physical life in their tomorrow! They decided to go into the Syrian camp with the attitude, if they let us live, we live, but if they kill us, we die. But the Syrians were not there and they found food aplenty, silver and gold, treasures they couldn’t ever imagine having in their possession. Then something, yes, eternal began to work in them: “We are not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we remain silent.” They left their self-centered lifestyles for a selfless expression of concern for others other than themselves! That’s “the walking examples” of Christ-like compassion!
The 2 Kings passage so illumines for us our understanding of leprous men in the spiritual realms of life who ‘come to life’ concerned about others. These were ‘weak’ men who came to a life of concern and compassion for others because they were confronted with the truth: “This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent.” It could have been lives perpetuating the spirit of self-preservation, but for them they wanted to help others. It could have been lives overcome by the me, my, mine philosophy, but they realized the death in selfishness.
It would have been so easy for the four leprous men to continue their “leprous ways,” of total unconcern for others – “we’ve got enough trouble on our own without caring for others!”
And how many do you know who live under a dark cloud of ‘self-worship,’ ‘self-fulfillment,’ ‘self-pleasure,’ that thinking and caring about others is the furthest thing from their minds? We may have been redeemed from among men and called out to follow Christ alone, but our Lord certainly never meant that His people were to remain aloof from that world of sinners or as the elect family of God in Christ to be so led out of the dark world they couldn’t take the Light or so concerned about the contamination of evil people and evil surrounding them that compassion, ministry, and witnessing, was excusable! No, a thousand times, “NO!”
God’s people in and through Christ are called to be ‘salt in the earth’ and lights on the hills of the city! In Luke 7:19-23 we read: And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”
What have you seen and heard? What is the message you’ve responded to? What is “the right” that YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD BE A PART OF? Is there such a ministry of “opening the graves” in that walking dead man’s life? Can we truly see “dead men’s bones” coming to Life in Christ? Or do modern-day ‘believers’ compromise biblical truth and ignore “raising the dead”?
Compromising for ‘believers’ is partial obedience that avoids responsibility for a caring ministry like Jesus! Compromising is decaying obedience that brings on even moral deterioration and ministry denial! To compromise is to invite on one’s ‘life of faith’ an absence of blessing, anointing, dreams and visions, and the very voice of Him who says, “Follow Me.” Compromising is ‘death to life,’ steps to rebellion and disobedience, doubts that what Jesus did back then He doesn’t do anymore and “especially through us or me,” and even sure of the cross of Jesus but unsure of me taking up my cross, denying myself, and doing what Jesus did!
Do you remember Jesus’ prayer to His Father in John 17? A portion of it in verses 15-19 tells us: “I do not pray that You, Father-God, should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify [or set apart] them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.”
The very prayer of Jesus for believing witnesses is to be “in the world” as a witness but not of it. His prayer for believers is “a setting apart” of every believer’s life as His ambassador, His witness, yes, His earthly soul-winner! We have a call on our lives as believers to touch our world with His grace, His mercy, and His love, preaching Christ as a lost man’s only hope!
We’re not religious people – we’re disciples of Christ Jesus! The false religion of even much of what is called “Christianity” is what Spurgeon said: “..religion.. based upon self-will, pride of intellect, and worldly conformity. The world’s religion is as evil as the world’s irreligion.”
But the Christian faith birthed by Christ, by the Holy Word, and by the Holy Spirit, is a spiritual wedding of the Bridegroom, Jesus, and His Bride, the born-again, new creations, sons and daughters, of the Most High God, re-born, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, enveloped in the fullness of Resurrection life, resurrection power, and resurrection hope! To be wedded to Christ is to be married to the very conqueror of death, to be united in the fullness of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! To be wedded to Christ is, having been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, to be filled to overflowing in the very cloud of heavenly glory!
When the four lepers looked to themselves they saw the “marred,” the unkept, the hungry, the thirsty, the deprived and the depraved, unfit, unworthy, unwilling to be ‘religious,’ but in God’s faithful provision they found hope, they found purpose, they found an ample supply – and they reached out to their city!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” Have you looked around you intently to see if those you see can live in Christ? Have you examined your apartment complex, your own up-scale neighborhood, your university campus, your city leaders, your famous athletes, your medical community, your ‘street-walkers,’ your pimps, your drug addicts, your alcoholics?
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” Have you witnessed to the ‘compromising’ preacher or worship leader? Have you challenged the careless seminary professor? Have you reached out to touch with a word of grace the state national leader who has so miserably missed Christ in his walk to prominence?
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” Do you grasp it? Upon you reaching out to someone, death and hell itself hangs in the balance! Have YOU understood? The eternal future and destiny of your closest friend hangs in the balance between heaven or hell!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” It’s absolutely distressing to me to contemplate believers who never reach out to unbelievers, or never prays for their salvation, or never gives a dime to world missions, the local church, or the prison-jail ministry!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” We’re not, in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, weird beings and strangers to eternal truths: “Born-again life,” resurrection from the dead, joint-heirs with Christ, ambassadors, witnesses and missionaries and soul-winners – that’s not some off-the-wall idle tale of a twisted mind, but words from God Himself!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” I believe a very significant question is in order! Are you personally free from responsibility concerning the souls of men, women, boys, and girls that surround you? In Acts 8:4-5 we read, “Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.”
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” “I’ve been born-again – and others around me need to be born-again! I’ve been washed in the blood, freed from the penalty of my sin, indwelt by the resurrected Christ,” but those around you don’t need the message of redemption?
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” The ship of their very life, their marriage, their family, their business, their health – it’s all failing! And for them there is no hope? YOU KNOW BETTER! I’m telling you, their very spirits can be renewed and their suffering souls made glad in the Lord!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” Luke 8:43-44 is such a powerful word for those whose lives hang between Life or death! It says: “Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of Jesus’ garment. And immediately her flood of blood stopped.” Imagine this situation! She’s been dying for twelve years! But she’s healed!
What about the hopeless one today – not sick of a sickness but sick of an incurable disease called sin that ravages the human life! “Might as well check out – no spiritual hope for me!” But they hear of Jesus! They hear of sins forgiven because of His shed blood! They hear of release from behind spiritual prison bars – chains of enslavement can and will be broken because of His sacrifice at the Cross! Glory!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” A despairing soul finds hope, a discouraged wife finds help, an addict finds the spiritual power of liberation from addiction, the leprous finds the Great Physician, the enslaved, unregenerate, poisoned adulterer or homosexual or prolific liar or drunkard believes it’s the nature of a soul-disease that has no cure but then hears of God’s mercy through Jesus Christ and is liberated! If you haven’t heard it, you’ll hear it now!! God’s Holy Word holds no hope for hopelessness if one turns and has no desire to burn!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” The sullen, silent, self-condemned suffers in wave after wave of the stormy sea of guilt fighting valiantly to keep his head above water, struggling, resisting as best he knows how, not knowing God is saying, “Let go! Let Me have My way in your life!” He’s been living under the dark cloud of a destructive delusion that there is no hope for him. But in Matthew 12:31 we read, Jesus speaking, “Therefore I say to you, EVERY SIN AND BLASPHEMY WILL BE FORGIVEN MEN, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.”
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” In Revelation 2:12-13 we read: “And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, ‘These things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword: ‘I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.” Do you believe you are exempt from living “where Satan dwells”? He’s still around seeking whom he may devour! But “bones live” because we hold fast to the Name above every name; we have not, will not, deny the Savior’s gift of faith, and we will not hide when faithful martyrs are killed!
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE?” Isaiah 33:14-16 is a sacred word of such hopefulness! Yes, these bones will live! It says: “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites; Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, He who despises the gain of oppressions, Who gestures with his hands refusing bribes, Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil. He will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks [starting with the Rock of Ages!]; bread will be given him [the Bread of Life?], his water will be sure [the Living Water?].”
Let me close this chapter with a few words from Spurgeon: “A life in which we have shunned the cross of Christ will lead to a state in which we shall miss the crown of glory.” I pray that’s not YOU! I pray you’re one who knows dead bones can live the divine life in Christ fully, victoriously, sweetly, and in a way that gives honor to Him alone!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE OUR GOD IS MILITANT!
Do you believe God is militant? Is He a true warrior in the battle for the souls of men? Is Holy God truly aware that men are captives of the powers of darkness and He wants them free, willing to pay the Ultimate Price for their freedom – the Blood of Christ shed at the Cross?
You know it’s true, but maybe at this time or stage of your life you’d rather be a ‘captive’ than “fight the good fight of faith”, and certainly not be a soldier in God’s army to seek to set fleshly captives free from devilish and demonic control!
In I Corinthians 9:7 Paul asked, “Who ever goes to war at his own expense?” And it’s certain in the spiritual war of the ages it cost the Lord Jesus, not us initially, but because He is militant Himself, and He comes to live in YOU, we become “soldiers of the cross”!
Isaac Watts composed the hymn, “Am I A Soldier Of The Cross?” It says: “Am I a soldier of the cross – A follower of the Lamb – And shall I fear to own His cause, Or blush to speak His Name? Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease; While others fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas?…
Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend to grace, To help me on to God? Since I must fight if I would reign, Increase my courage, Lord; I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by Your word….
Your saints, in all this glorious war, Shall conquer though they die; They view the triumph from afar, And seize it with their eye. When that illustrious day shall rise, And all Your armies shine, In robes of victory through the skies, The glory shall be Thine.”
I know that fallen humanity does not accept the ‘eternal warfare’ for their souls, but from the very moment of the first breath until they’re about to take their last breath, the war for their souls goes on! And, sadly, they’ve not learned that “The Lord God omnipotent reigns!”
In the midst of His omnipotent reigning, a “WAR” is going on! In I Peter 5:8 Peter wrote: “Be sober, be vigilant; because YOUR adversary THE DEVIL walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Then in verse 9 Peter tells us, “Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”
But you are totally unaware that God Himself is militant and has been at war with Satan since he rebelled in Heaven before the world was ever created? You are blind to what goes on before your eyes and you have no discernment about spiritual warfare? Yet there are others around you so alert in their minds, so brave in their spiritual constitutions, that you sense in them “boiling blood” concerning the on-going warfare with the powers of darkness!
Do you understand the valiant in spiritual warfare? Do you sense God giving “medals of spiritual honor” because there are those who display constant deeds of true heroism? We’re not to be disciples of Christ with a chameleon heart and mind easily swayed, changing colors for our moments of self-indulgence!
It was Spurgeon who wrote: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.13, p.207], “Unless we deny ourselves, and lay violent hands upon the impulses of our nature, we shall never come to the place where the crowns are distributed to the conquerors.”
To arise with “new life” in Christ is to declare that one is the true “soldier of the Cross,” willing to fight the spiritual powers of darkness until you’re translated into heaven itself! But at the same time there does occur the reality of POW’s, at least for a period of time, and I wonder how many you know who are willing to be chained because of their allegiance to the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
I have no hesitation in saying to you that one of the strangest things of a believer’s fleshly sins is a dislike of witnessing or evangelism. At the same time, I’m sure, that the beginning of true spiritual life is not only trusting what Christ has done for us but standing upon what Christ desires to do through us: “Touch our world with saving grace!”
Colossians 2:15 is so very clear: “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He [Jesus] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it [the Cross!].” That means: “It is finished!” Or, Satan and his demons are to have no power, influence, or disturbance of any true believer’s life! It’s why we hear the inspirational word: “O death! Where is your sting; O grave! Where is your victory?”
I love what David wrote in Psalm 18:28-30, “For You will light my lamp; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” When David speaks about a ‘troop’, he’s referring to well-trained, experienced personnel, who know how to war, yes, against men of faith who are surrendered to the Lordship of Christ! In Christ, you’re marked! In Christ, you’re well-known! And as a result you’ve become the devil’s enemy!
Do you remember the Word telling us, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson”? And just as surely it’s true, “Satan is after you, disciple; the demons are on the move against you, disciple!” Have you ever doubted that Paul was at times sorely troubled because he was a target, and at times, greatly distressed, greatly oppressed?
In Romans 15:30-32 Paul sent a request to the church in Rome: “Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you.”
If you’re unaware of stress in a true disciple’s walk, I’d question whose ‘gospel’ you signed on for! If ‘trouble’ is a strange word to your walk of faith, I’d examine what I’d been told by that false witness! If heartache because of rejection of your testimony comes your way, be assured – you are on the right path!
If you have a heavy, heavy heart because your witness is resented by a religious establishment around you, if anger is expressed toward you because you exalt saving grace through Christ alone, if you’re taunted by the “spiritually elite” in your community, yes, even denominational hierarchies, take your “rest” and lean on Jesus!
Give consideration to Paul and his passion for the salvation of Israel’s Jewish community who pushed hard for our Lord’s crucifixion! In Romans 10:1-3 read him carefully!
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”
Israel’s “zeal” crucified the Lord of glory! Israel’s “zeal” was blind allegiance to untruths rather than allegiance to “THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE,” even our Lord and Savior! But Paul’s prayer was intense! He prayed with all his heart for people who were zealous in their thinking but void in their hearts of true grace and mercy. Though they were zealous for God, He knew they’d taken a wrong turn and missed “The Promised Messiah”!
“Established their own righteousness?” “Ignorant of God’s righteousness”? Spurgeon said: “Self-righteousness is bound up in the heart of man as folly or foolishness in the heart of a child.” He later said: “The death of Christ upon the tree was an extravagance – a needless extravagance, if men can be saved without it..”
I pray you’re not one who is out to prove himself to man and God – your militant spirit, without Christ, will get you a ticket not to heaven but Hell itself! I don’t hear too many popular songs being sung about “My Way To Heaven – Me, My, and Mine” – but if you do, those ‘singers’ bust Hell wide open!
God is certainly militant concerning redemption in Christ, but the Devil and his followers are militant in their ‘dominions of death,’ determined to sidetrack anyone hungering after God through Christ! In the same way, worldly people ruled by their old sin natures, are front-line soldiers in the armies of our Lord’s enemies. And many of them surely resent Christ Jesus, targeting Him and His followers, because they’re angry, resentful, deceived, even determined to do as much harm against Christ and His church as they can. But guess WHO comes out the “Winner”! The very Prince of Life, the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords, yes, the Eternal Ruler of the ages – His name is Jesus!
In Revelation 12:7-12 we read, “And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 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 the brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
Notice out of this Revelation passage you just read God’s militancy! Now salvation and strength have come, the Kingdom of God IS established, the power of His Christ has come, the accuser of the brethren has been cast down, and “WE” overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by our “new born” testimony, not even loving our lives unto death if called for by Holy God!
“In Christ” the repentant, true, re-born, Spirit-anointed, son or daughter of God has prevailed against the very power of Hell himself, the Devil! Do you remember or have you forgotten that the devil couldn’t come against Job without asking permission of God Himself?
James 4:7-10 tells us, “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.”
“Big sinners”, encountering and turning to and relying upon “Big God”, find grace and mercy and love stronger than Satan’s accusations and words about you as a hopeless case! What did Isaiah the prophet of God tell us in Isaiah 61:1-3? “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness [or depression]; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
That’s “trees of His righteousness,” not ‘self-righteousness,’ but that which is imparted, implanted, imputed, because of the shed blood of the Lamb of God! That’s God’s war weapon – the blood of Jesus!
The prophet told us in Isaiah 1:18 the words of the Lord Himself, “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Fanny Crosby wrote these famous words, [words copyrighted by Fannie T. Doane ], “Jesus, keep me near the cross, There a precious fountain, Free to all, a healing stream, Flows from Calvary’s mountain..
Near the cross, a trembling soul, Love and Mercy found me; There the Bright and Morning Star Shed His beams around me..
Near the cross! O Lamb of God, Bring its scenes before me; Help me walk from day to day, With its shadows o’er me. Near the cross I’ll watch and wait, Hoping, trusting ever, Till I reach the golden strand, Just beyond the river..
In the cross, in the cross, Be my glory ever, Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river.”
The militancy that some folks walk in is that style of ‘faith’ that they hold to that isn’t worth preaching about, dying for, and certainly not worth paying for in total allegiance and surrender!
But God’s militancy? The very death, burial, and resurrection of Christ! It was Raymond MacKendree in “Queens’ Gardens” who wrote: “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is our hope today. It is our assurance that we have a living Savior to help us live as we should now, and that when, in the end, we set forth on that last journey, we shall not travel an uncharted course, but rather we shall go on a planned voyage – life to death to eternal living.” Amen?
This is why we in faith and trust lay hold of that eternal hope set before us which is our true anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast!
I’m sure if you are a student of the Word that you are dramatically and powerfully moved by John 17:20-26! Jesus said:
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in you; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one; I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
God the Father evangelizes because He is militant! Jesus the Son evangelizes because He is militant! The Holy Spirit evangelizes because He is militant! And His people are to evangelize because, yes, they are militant! “Fight the good fight of faith!” “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…”
War may be considered by some to be “the devil’s madness,” but in the journey of life in Christ in the midst of alien people to God and hordes of demons behind them spiritual warfare is essential – it’s not an option! And it is sure the Devil and his demons are ‘foreign’ to God and His people. Be as militant as God!
I close this chapter with brilliant words from Charles Spurgeon, [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 17, pps.87-88], “How came all this which we now see and hear? Why this creation? This fall of Adam? THIS REDEMPTION? This church? This heaven? How came it all about? It needed not to have been, but the Father’s love made him resolve to show forth the glory of his Son. The mysterious volume which has been gradually unfolded before us has only this one design – the Father would make known His love to the Son, and make the Son’s glories to appear before the eyes of those whom the Father gave Him. This Fall and this Redemption, and the story as a whole, so far as the divine purpose is concerned, are the fruit of the Father’s love to the Son, and His delight in glorifying the Son. Those myriads, those white-robed myriads, harping to music infinitely deep, what do they all mean? They are the Father’s delight to the Son. That He might be glorified for ever, He permitted that He should bear a human body, and should suffer, bleed and die, so that there might come out of Him, as a harvest comes from a dying and buried corn of wheat, all the countless hosts of elect souls ordained for ever to a felicity exceeding bounds. These are the bride of the Lamb, the body of Christ, the fullness of Him that fills all in all. Their destiny is so high that no language can fully describe it. God only knows the love of God; and all that it has prepared for those who are the objects of it.”
Do you begin to sense fully why God is so militant? And this is why in I Corinthians 9:22 Paul said, “I am made all things to all men, that thereby I might by all means save some.” And we can be assured, “Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and diffuses through us the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” AMEN?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE EYES ARE BLIND, EARS DEAF, MINDS COLD!
What is it that so exalts flesh against the Spirit, the temporal against the Eternal, and “every high thing” that lifts fallen humanity against the Living God? There are those things in a man’s sin nature separated from God that so easily erupts in him in opposition to Holy God. He is easily identified as “fallen away” FROM God by an undisciplined human nature. There are deep, deep ditches in the human experience of his natural life that keep him from climbing up and out of his antagonistic entrenchments against the very name of God.
Romans 5:12 defines fallen man’s dilemma. It says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned..” And at the heart of a man’s sin is the determination that he is his own god with “me, my, and mine” as his true boss, doing as he pleases, but of course alienated and separated from Holy God. Idol worship may be a good definition but the idols fallen man worships are self-centered independence, willful rebellion, and an unholy obstinacy.
In Luke 12:15 Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” And He then defined “the rich man” who said in verse 18, “So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and goods.” But in Verse 20 God spoke: “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” Then our Lord said, “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Fallen humanity is “married” to its flesh [or old sin nature!] with all of its affections and lusts – and married to that old sin nature, too many men are not willing to die to, forfeit, or separate from their independence from God because they love self-rule!
Self-rule births self-righteousness, so why do fallen men hold onto that which is not of God? Because in Jesus only “God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” And men in sin more often than not have no desire to be free from their sin to become earthly representatives of Holy God! It’s true! Men in the flesh have eyes that are blind, ears that cannot hear, and minds that are cold to biblical Truth!
I want you to look carefully with me concerning EYES THAT ARE SPIRITUALLY BLIND! I’m sure that when you read God’s Word and He mentions ‘blind Israel’ that that spiritual state of mind and heart related not only to physical Israel but to every man, woman, boy, or girl who “will not see” spiritually because they were ‘spiritually’ BORN BLIND! Romans 11:8 says: Just as it is written: “God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see..”
In I John 2:16 we read: “For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, THE LUST OF THE EYES, and the boastful pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world.”
In Mark 8 Jesus had given His disciples a serious charge in verse 15 when He said: “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they began to try to reason in their childish minds to the point that Jesus said in verse 18, “Having eyes, do you not see?”
I’m sure that you are aware that most men around you have perfect natural eyesight in the 20 – 20 range, but spiritually are totally blind! What is perfect natural eyesight if spiritually you are blind because of spiritual feebleness and tragic unbelief in Holy God and His eternal Word?
In Luke 14:11-14 there is a serious contrast between friends of the world and a friend of God. It says: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the BLIND. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
This is what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 1:18 as he instructed true believers in praying for spiritual wisdom: “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened..”
And what about John’s writings in I John 1:1-4! “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of Life – the life was manifested, AND WE HAVE SEEN, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us – THAT WHICH WE HAVE SEEN and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.”
I can say to you without hesitation that I have personally witnessed a man and a woman in India who were both physically blind yet they possessed perfect spiritual vision! Spiritual eyesight is true Christ-consciousness! Perfect physical eyesight, 20-20 physical vision? Yet one is “blind” about Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Christ, the Savior of the world?
In Luke 2:25-35 is an amazing testimony of one who “waited for the consolation of Israel..” It says: “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; FOR MY EYES HAVE SEEN YOUR SALVATION Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Your people Israel.” And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Have YOUR eyes witnessed Holy God’s SALVATION? But tell me about YOUR EARS! Is evangelism critical because of fallen humanity’s spiritual deafness?
In Psalm 115:4 the psalmist is talking about the futility of idolatry as opposed to one’s trust in Holy God. He says their idols “have ears, but they do not hear,” and then in verse 8 the psalmist speaks heavenly truth about the fallen, “Those who make them [idols] are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.”
This no doubt is why the wise man of Proverbs wrote in Proverbs 23:9, “Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.” That’s a tough call when one realizes that all men determined to live without God are fools! I think we’ll understand this better when we read I Peter 3:12! “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,” and they keep on doing it! Why? Because they are deaf to God’s voice!
But God is so amazing and merciful! I read an anonymous statement today that was so on target: “Every day God makes silk purses out of sows’ ears,” and I don’t know any more ‘piggish’ people than those who shut their ears to our Lord and Savior!
It was Thomas Arnold who said years ago: “The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others, men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men.” Systems of world religions are men with deaf ears who cannot, have not, will not, listen to the Voice of God! But possessing some religious feelings, they will, independently from God, close their ears to Him and listen to self-ordained thoughts about “my religion”!
Religions of the world are men pampering and adapting fallen flesh to a little higher ground of self-centered morality while the disciples of Christ are “hearing” Jesus say: “You must be born again!” Religions of the world ‘inform’ their collection of ‘believers’ while Christ Jesus transforms the old man to a “new creation,” and lifts that old man out of his deathly spiritual state into the “newness of life” in Christ granting him a “new spirit” in the body of a “new man.”
There is a prophetic word from the Coming Messiah 700 years before His birth! He said in Isaiah 55:3, “Incline your ear, and come to Me. HEAR, AND YOUR SOUL SHALL LIVE; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you – the sure mercies of David.” Are you a “HEARER” of the Good News in Christ? Are you a “listener” to the Voice of the Almighty? Are you convicted because you “hear” your sin cost Jesus His sacrificial death on the Cross?
In Luke 22:53 we see or hear Jesus exposing hypocrisy because He loves us: “When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not try to seize Me. BUT THIS IS YOUR HOUR, AND THE POWER OF DARKNESS.” Your hour? The hour of the power of darkness in you? Do you hear that convicting word?
In Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps. 127-128], he wrote: “If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is vice and self-seeking, something downright spiteful and wrong in human beings, instead of reconciling yourself to it, when it strikes your life, you will compromise with it and say it is of no use to battle against it. Have you made allowance for this hour and the power of darkness, or do you take a recognition of yourself that misses out on sin?”
If one does not listen to God’s Word, if one does not hear Truth about his true identity apart from God, if one refuses to hear, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he/she will find himself/ herself trapped by closed ears to heavenly truth and heavenly help! Are your ears closed to the reality that it was YOU and YOUR SIN that nailed Jesus to the Cross! Hear this!!
Hebrews 12:5-11 says: And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Question! Are your ears trained to “hear” the voice of Sovereign God in an explanation of what He is up to in your life? If there is no inquiry by you, I would assume you could care less whether He is up to disciplining you or not!
I give you a word of warning from Hebrews 12:17! “For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he [Esau] was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”
There is a third examination for us. We’ve seen blind eyes, deaf ears, but what about COLD MINDS TO DIVINE TRUTH AND THE LOVING VOICE OF JESUS CHRIST, THE PROMISED MESSIAH, EMMANUEL?
In Isaiah 26:3 we read, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because He trusts in You.” I do believe that God’s Holy Word is challenging all of us about a mind open to divine truth or closed because of that sinful nature and sorry ungodly professors! Is YOUR MIND stayed on Him?
In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 Paul writes, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ..”
Have you ever given any thought at all to things of the Spirit-realm related to “spiritual starvation” because you’ve never considered the vibrancy or vacating of one’s mind? Spiritual mental aspiration is one of God’s greatest gifts, but sadly many never open the gift!
That gift is not opened by some because they have no desire to bring their thought life into obedience to Christ! Your thought life often is battered by crippling thoughts that come from the powers of darkness not the Lord. Often the thought life is governed by selfish dreams not divine revelation.
What did Paul say in Philippians 3:12-16? “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.”
I want you to know that the mind of our Lord and Savior is a mind unafraid, undisturbed, at perfect peace – even as He went to the Cross and died in your place and mine!
Paul challenged us to “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus..”! Spurgeon said of some believers, “They have been almost powerless for usefulness because they have not taken care of their brains.” Tell me, how is your “brain” as you consider your usefulness to the honor and glory of Christ Jesus? Tell me, do you bring every thought to the obedience of Christ? Is it, “I know” or “I just can’t remember”?
It hasn’t changed. God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVANGELISM – BECAUSE THE KING OF GLORY COMES SOON!
When you contemplate “man’s ultimate destiny,” it would be wise to ask every man you know, “What then did YOU do with the Man called Jesus Christ?” David Livingston was a very wise man, and before his death he stated: “I will place no value on anything I have or may possess except in relation to the Kingdom of Christ.”
It was Philip Schaff who said: “Without Christ life is as the twilight with the dark night ahead; with Christ it is the dawn of morning with the light and warmth of full day ahead.” The ‘dawn of morning with the light and warmth of full day ahead’ is our Lord’s precious promise that He is returning to earth the second time!
In Revelation 1:4-8 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, wrote: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He IS COMING with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and WHO IS TO COME, THE ALMIGHTY.”
If you seriously paused and reflected upon “end times” and began to consider the eternal fate of all men, one MUST settle in his own mind and heart his own readiness or not, but also evaluate whether he cares about others’ ultimate circumstance concerning their relationship to Christ and what their eternal destiny will be!
As I contemplated this chapter of the book you’re reading, I was moved by the Spirit to write these words:
“Glory to our bleeding Lord crowned with a crown of thorns, Beaten, bruised, and stricken brutally, struck with a reed of cruel misery…
Face and back torn, mercilessly shattered, spat upon filthily scattered; Glory to the Lamb so tender and comely, sacrificed faithfully by God so royally;
Raised to the brightness of Eternal Heaven, giving new life in divine leaven; Translated to the throne to represent His own, full-blown in glory, with Light and Life and Love the eternal story.”
In Romans 5:10 Paul was inspired to write this eternal truth: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” And my excitement over this word, (?), “..having been reconciled, we shall be being saved by His life!”, SHALL BE BEING SAVED through all of life here in bodily form and then in eternity continually shaped into His exact likeness and image!
In Romans 5:21 Paul wrote: “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Peter was no dunce when it came to grasping eternal Truth and Hope. In I Peter 1:13 he wrote: “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober [serious minded], and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation [or unveiling] of Jesus Christ.” Is your hope firmly set upon the unveiling of Christ through you?
In I Peter 1:3-5 he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Did you catch that last statement in your heart as well as your head? “Through faith ‘for salvation’ ready to be revealed in the last time.” I believe our Lord is preparing us for phenomenal spiritual events to be revealed when Jesus COMES THE SECOND TIME!
Yes! In Christ the children of true faith are KEPT! Yes! In Christ the children of faith, though troubled often, prepare to meet Him! Again, in I Peter 1:6-9 Peter said, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved [distressed] by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls.”
I love what Charles Spurgeon wrote: [“Spurgeon’s Sermons,” Vol. 17, p.235], “Until omnipotence can be vanquished, until immutability can be changed, until the immortal God can die, not one of His chosen people shall be destroyed.”
Our Lord, through Paul, gives us undying hope through our personal relationship to Jesus Christ! In Galatians 2:20 he wrote: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” What a revelation about why YOU should be so hopeful in Christ’s return! YOU died with Him on the Cross, but you live, and that life living in you now is the very Life of the resurrected Christ! And He says: “I’m coming back!”
I think more often than not many believers miss what the Lord was saying about partaking of the “Lord’s Supper.” In I Corinthians 11:26 we read: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” He is coming again! Do you proclaim the Lord’s death TILL HE COMES? AND HE IS COMING AGAIN!
Jesus told us in John 14:3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” What an unveiling of eternal joy!
But didn’t we read earlier that “all the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of Him”? What is this mourning all about? You do understand that there is the reality of a godly sorrow for even true believers, but the “mourning”, I believe, is about one’s un-readiness for Him to come the second time! God’s Word tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength, but if the reality is, “His coming is not for me,” then ungodly sorrow rides in one’s saddle, and it irritates and introduces an unceasing pain as the result of one’s unbelief.
But in the ‘eternal saddle’ of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross, one is prepared, ready, anxious to meet the Lord face to face, while riding in the saddle of unbelief, one mourns the coming of Christ! The saddle of unbelief is the shell of one’s independence from God, willing to pay the eternal price of forever separation from the lover of one’s soul – and the world is filled with them!
Do you understand ‘world dominance’? In I John 2:15-17 the beloved disciple wrote: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
Follow carefully I Corinthians 15:20-25! “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order; Christ the firstfruits, afterward THOSE WHO ARE CHRIST’S AT HIS COMING. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.”
The Kingdom rule of God has always been, and now is even in an earthly domain, and is forever established in Heaven, plus will be easily recognizable when Jesus comes to earth the second time! This is why Jesus said, “Except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Are you aware of Kingdom-rule around you, but more importantly in you?
How does one really know that Christ is King of one’s heart now and that he/she will reign with Him forever in His eternal Kingdom as He comes back to this earth? Paul put it like this in Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” How clear is that? A crucified life in preparing for our Lord’s earthly return and preparing to reign with Him is the daily sentence of death to the flesh with its affections and lusts!
Listen to Oswald Chambers! [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p. 256], “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh’ – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something.”
In Hebrews 10:12-14 we read, “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified [or set apart].” And YOU are, in Christ, being set apart for His honor! YOU, in Christ, are being prepared, equipped, trained, informed that your Master, your Lord, your Savior, your King is coming soon!
Examine and evaluate your response to Revelation 3:11-14! “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. ‘And I will write on him My new name.’ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
In Matthew 24:29-31 Jesus tells us of His Second Coming: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Jesus then said in Matthew 25:13, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”
I pray you’re brave enough, spiritually stout enough, determined in true heart hunger to know the Truth, and willing to seriously reflect upon Matthew 25:31-46!! Jesus again is speaking:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. [I guess you ought to consider right here: Am I a sheep or a goat?]. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’”
In James 5:8 the brother of Jesus wrote: “You also be steadfast [patient]. Establish [make to stand] your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
I know that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, IS “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” That’s what Peter tells us in I Peter 2:8! But the last part of that verse says, “They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were also appointed,” and I was brought to a crossroads in understanding and questioning! “…to which they were also appointed”? Is ‘free will’ out the door? Is ‘personal choice’ down the drain? Has the ‘will’ of lost men been savaged? Has that ‘will’ been overruled and men do not choose, but God does?
I Peter 2:7 has interpreted for us Verse 8 when Peter stated a word about “such as disobedience” – All who basically reject God’s Word, all who deny His promises, ‘smash against the Word by being disobedient.’ Yes, individuals stumble against, reject, deny Christ’s word that He brought, and THEY ‘disbelieve’ and appoint themselves in the disobedient state which has a result.
It’s their rejection of Jesus that brings on an eternal result! Luke 2:34 says that Christ Himself is “set for the fall of many, a sign which shall be spoken against” in total unbelief. Unbelief brings on condemnation and one assigns HIMSELF a place in Hell with unbelievers and demons!
But if Jesus is “set for the fall of many,” He is also truly “set for the rising of many” in the fullness of His Resurrection Life, Power, and Hope! Are you steadfast? Have you set yourself to LOOK for His Coming? Will YOU be ready?
And what about those that you know God has assigned to your care? I ask you, right now, remind yourself of Isaac Watts’ words in the hymn “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?” It says:
Alas! And did my Savior bleed? And did my sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?
Was it for crimes that I have done He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity! Grace unknown! And love beyond degree!
Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut His glories in, When Christ, the Mighty Maker, died, For man, the creature’s sin.
But drops of grief can ne’er repay The debt of love I owe; Here, Lord, I give myself to You, – It’s all that I can do.”
Just a passing thought! How does the fullness of Christ-realization occur in one’s life of faith if they never consider Christ’s return? Do you even consider “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”? Do you build up “Christ in you the hope of glory”?
From Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.140], read it prayerfully: “The initiative of the saint is not self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is a reckless abandonment about him.” Tell me about your “reckless abandonment” in preparation of meeting Christ face to face in His bodily return!
CONCLUSION
This has been quite a journey over the last month or so as this book was being birthed within me. [Ask my wife, Sue!]. When the Living Lord moves on a person with a weighty responsibility, it’s not taken lightly!
Prayer is a heavy part, an attitude of listening to His Voice is Big, watching for His leading is major, hearing Him speak through others, even casually, is masterful revelation and unveiling of His leading!
And when you know that Jesus said the following in John 17:3, your heart beats a rapid beat because you know He’s appointing YOU to take this eternal Truth into a lost and dying world! “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You sent!”
Remember, as Luke closed out His Gospel, He quoted Jesus in Luke 24:48-49 saying, “And you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
I’m so struck with awe as I read Acts 2:1 where the Word says, “When the Day of Pentecost had come [and it has!], they were all with one accord in one place.” To every pastor and every disciple, I tell you, one-accordance births divine opportunity in any local church. And that one-accordance is: “It’s our responsibility to touch our world with the message of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ!”
Are there still those who say: “Here am I! Send me!” Oh, I truly believe it will happen; I truly believe pastors will once again disciple believers to be “soul-winners”, sharing the love of God in a needy world.
It’s my heart-felt prayer that in these “last days” we’ll see a resurgence of equipping and training and penetration of our needy world!
Doesn’t Acts 2: 47 challenge you personally as a believer and follower of Christ? “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”
“You SHALL BE witnesses unto Me…” Is your life fully surrendered as a believer to be His witness? No compromise, no doubt, no fear – just unbridled devotion to the King of kings and Lord of lords!
Dr. E.T. Cassel and his wife Flora wrote an old hymn entitled “Loyalty To Christ.” It says:
“From over hill and plain There comes the signal strain, ‘Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ; Its music rolls along, The hills take up the song, Of loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ.
O hear, you brave, the sound That moves the earth around, ‘Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ; Arise to dare and do, Ring out the watchword true, Of loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ.
Come, join our loyal throng, We’ll rout the giant wrong, ‘Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ; Where Satan’s banners float We’ll send the bugle note, Of loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ.
The strength of youth we lay At Jesus’ feet today, ‘Tis loyalty, loyalty, loyalty to Christ; His gospel we’ll proclaim Throughout the world’s domain, Of loyalty, loyalty, Yes, loyalty to Christ.” AMEN?