A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?
JUNE 2013
Job 17:14-15
“If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’ where then is my hope? As for my hope, who can see it?”
INTRODUCTION BY FARRELL FISHER
OUTLINE
CHAPTER ONE: RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?
CHAPTER TWO: RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL?
CHAPTER THREE: A TEMPORARY HIATUS OR ETERNAL HELPS AND HEALTHINESS?
CHAPTER FOUR: NATURAL EFFORTS OR SUPERNATURALLY BLESSED?
CHAPTER FIVE: MIND OF THE FLESH OR MIND OF THE SPIRIT?
CHAPTER SIX: EARTHLY EDUCATIONS OR OMNIPOTENT EXPRESSIONS?
CHAPTER SEVEN: TRYING OR TRUSTING?
CHAPTER EIGHT: MARRED MARRIAGES OR MASTERED IN THE MASTER?
CHAPTER NINE: YOUR WEAKNESS OR GOD’S ABLENESS?
CHAPTER TEN: ACCEPTABLE BONDAGE OR ATONING LIBERTY?
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE DEATH OF GRACE OR SOLD OUT TO GRACE?
CHAPTER TWELVE: PARTIAL OBEDIENCE OR FULL SURRENDER?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: LIMITED ATONEMENT OR A FINISHED WORK FOR ALL?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: APOSTASY OR REPENTANT REST AND REACH?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: GAME PLAYERS OR TRUE DISCIPLES?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DRAINED BY THE TROUBLE OR STRONGER BY THE STRUGGLES?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE HOPELESSNESS OF GODLESS GOVERNMENTS OR THE HOPE OF GOVERNMENTS BEING IN GOD’S WAY?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: AN ABANDONMENT OF HOPE OR A CONSTANT CONFESSION OF HOPE?
INTRODUCTION
It is so very, very interesting that I recently came across a brief prayer I had written to the Lord. It said: “Because Your love for me is discerned, discovered, and relied upon, I so desire to “love” as You love, Lord – no profession but possession and demonstration, no wordy declaration but a fully laid-down life, no premise but a promise, no lie but the Truth…I need Your help, Dear Lord, for that to be a real event in my life – without You words are lost in that reality of profession without possession – come in fully, Lord Jesus – take over – BE YOURSELF IN ME AND THROUGH ME!”
That’s ‘rest’ in Another apart from a ‘resignation to hopelessness.’ But in my life-long journey of 77 years I have witnessed those who began, but then never ‘pressed in’ but resigned to a hopeless journey. They neared, but fell short. They neared, but allowed deceit, diversion, and distresses in the journey to steal their devotion, discipline, and declaration of allegiance to the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Noah Webster’s 1826 Dictionary says of “resignation”: “The act of resigning or giving up, as a claim or possession; as the ‘resignation’ of a crown or commission…” Hopelessness? That’s forfeiting the crown, abandoning the faith-family heritage, walking away from the True Lover of one’s soul!
For many hope is not a treasure but a trifling blur in their imagination. In “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, Oscar Wilde wrote: “We did not dare to breathe a prayer or to give our anguish scope! Something was dead in each of us, and what was dead was Hope!”
I assume Oscar Wilde placed no hope in the revelation of God’s Holy Word. But Paul the apostle was so on target when in Romans 15:13 he wrote: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Hopelessness is deadly! What is a farmer without hope? What is a new investment businessman without hope? What is a surgeon without hope in his medical training? And what is a traveler in our world birthed by God Himself who tries to live apart from our Lord’s eternal hope?
Small souls block great hope signatured by God! Small souls breathe long gasps of expectations without the Author of eternal expectation! The void of hopelessness is nothing more than a silent soul who has no word for ‘God’ or ‘Savior’ or ‘Lord’ in their vocabulary.
I pray that is not YOUR testimony. I pray that even a small seed of ‘hope’ in you has germinated into the eternal fruit of faith and your life flourishes in the things of the Eternal Savior and Lord!
N.T.Wright in his book, “Surprised By Hope,” wrote in the preface: “Most people, in my experience – including many Christians – don’t know what the ultimate Christian hope really is. Most people – again, sadly, including many Christians – don’t expect Christians to have much to say about hope within the present world. Most people don’t imagine that these two could have anything to do with each other.”
But don’t we read, “Christ in you the hope of glory”, and that doesn’t relate to the here and now? God’s Kingdom is to come ‘on earth as it is in heaven,’ or was Jesus just ‘playing’ with us and ‘teasing’ us? I don’t think so!
I pray as you read “A Resignation To Hopelessness” that you are truly led away from hopelessness to our eternal hope in Christ Jesus.
CHAPTER ONE
A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS
It was recently, April, 2013, that my son, Scott, preached a message entitled “Gone Fishing” from John 21:3 when Simon Peter said to the other disciples, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, ‘We will also come with you.’ They went out and got nothing into the boat; and that night they caught nothing.”
And I couldn’t get away from “A Resignation To Hopelessness”! The disciples had been with Jesus for three years and witnessed the mighty manifestations of Holy God through “Emmanuel”, ‘God with us.’ According to John 20:30, “truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book…,” yet, in John 21:3 Peter said, “I am going fishing.”
If you’ve been a part of the Christian community as I have for the 77 years of my life, you have witnessed the faithful and the faithless, the devoted and the disenchanted, the “laid-down-life of loyalty” and the one who preserves and holds onto all that he is without Christ.
It’s like ‘discipleship’ is a double loyalty: flesh and Spirit; it’s like ‘discipleship’ is a take-it or leave-it proposition and whatever you ultimately choose, ‘God is OK with me;’ it’s like temporary devotion is as good or Godly as ‘all-out-sacrifice’ to His precious name.
A temporary ‘faint’ is not the same as abandonment of the true faith. Adversity in the journey is not a key that opens one’s mind and heart to, “I might as well abandon my faith,” but truly a stepping stone to submission and obedience because Jesus told us all, “In the world you will have tribulation.”
I don’t even know who wrote the following, but I came across it in one of my readings: “Come then, affliction, if my Father wills, and be my frowning friend. A friend that frowns is better than a smiling enemy.” You do understand that afflictions and fiery furnaces go hand in hand on the walk of true discipleship.
Wouldn’t you think ‘follow-ship’ and the Cross are necessary steps in a faithful journey? What is, “take up your Cross and follow Me,” if it weren’t so? It’s as if for some ‘professors’ of faith, “if trouble comes, if opposition arises, if doubts and fears emerge – this ‘trip’ must be the wrong path for me.”
It was Jonathan Edwards who grasped a true understanding of our journey: “There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table-land of a true character and of undying hope both for this world and the next.”
But if there’s been a battle, if there’s been a border-line before you of ‘hopelessness,’ if you’ve RESIGNED yourself to failure, falling short, and spiritual feebleness – what brings one to that stage in life?
THERE ARE THOSE WHO COME TO A PLACE LIKE SIMON PETER WHERE “I AM GOING FISHING” IS A RETURN TO ONE’S OLD LIFE-STYLE APART FROM CHRIST.
As Paul was maturing the young Ephesian ‘Christians’ as well as us, in Ephesians 2:1-3, he describes what some choose to go back to: “dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
What a dark yet revealing style of life that some choose to go back to: “I am going back!! Back to trespass and sin, back to Satanic control, back to a rebellious, disobedient life-style, back to the unbridled ‘lusts of our flesh,’ choosing to be, once again, by my old nature, a child of wrath!!” How sad is that?
Are you at all familiar with John 6:66? “From that time many of His disciples went back (turned away) and walked no more with Jesus.”
In Oswald Chambers’ book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.270], Chambers wrote: “When God gives a vision by His Spirit through His Word of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view which our Lord never had.”
Have you ever read a sadder verse than Acts 7:39? “whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt.” Egypt over the promised land! Egypt over a walk with God! Pyramids over the Prince of Peace! The Nile over rivers of living water! A pharaoh over the King of kings and Lord of lords! A sinking into servitude rather than servants of the Most High God!
What does Psalm 95:7b-11 tell us? “…Today, if you will hear His voice: ‘Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
If you have a problem with Old Testament verse like we just read, what about Luke 9:57-62?
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him [Jesus], “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to Him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
I BELIEVE ALSO THERE IS A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS IN SOME “PROFESSORS” BECAUSE OF THEIR DOUBTS JESUS CAN DO IN THEM WHAT HE DID IN THE EARLY DISCIPLES: A HOPELESSNESS OF RESPONSIBILITY!!
I personally am still astounded as I read John 14:12-14! “Most assuredly, I [Jesus] 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. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”
Somehow we’ve been deceived in many church circles into believing that “greater works” than Jesus did were only for the early New Testament disciples that were used in establishing early church ministry but today we just discuss them apart from demonstration of their validity – truly a resignation to hopelessness of the miracle-working power of God for today!
Somehow some lose sight of ‘sons and daughters’ anointing and gifts and close the door on our Lord’s ministry through us! In Luke 10:17-20 Jesus still speaks: 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.”
And I want you to notice – it was not His initial twelve disciples, but Luke 10:1 says: “after these things the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place WHERE HE HIMSELF WAS ABOUT TO GO.”
“Working out your own salvation” is manifested by the Indwelling Christ working in us and through us to touch our world with His grace, mercy, and love. Manifesting the body of Christ ‘in me’ is allowing Jesus to be the same – yesterday, today, and forever – not in some mysterious fashion, but in reality, through you, touching others.
Have you considered 2 Corinthians 10:5 lately about “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”? Our touching our world is not to be impulses of self-will and self-motivation, but our availability to Him as a vessel through which He flows! Just as Jesus chose “to do nothing of Himself” but fully available to all God is and wants to do through Him, so true disciples daily take the sentence of death unto themselves that the resurrection LIFE OF CHRIST may flow through them to the needy!
RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS OCCURS TOO OFTEN WHEN JESUS ASKS US: “Do you AGAPE ME”?, and we respond with a brotherly love (phileo)?
Look at John 21:15! Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love (agape) Me more than these?” Agape – God’s kind of love, God’s sacrificial love, God’s laid-down Life for others! But Peter responded: “Yes, Lord, You know that I love (phileo) You.”
Friendship love but void at this time of the eternal heart of God kind of love. Friendship love but vacant at this moment of the Calvary Cross kind of love. Chambers said: “The love of God means Calvary and nothing less; the love of God is spelled on the Cross and nowhere else; the only ground on which God can forgive me is through the Cross of My Lord. There, His conscience is satisfied.”
I often wonder, “Lord, is the church-at-large filled with ‘agape’ lovers or are they just ‘friendly’ to You? Lord, does the church-at-large today truly know and understand Your Blood Atonement?
Hebrews 2:9-10 is so important and so vital because of the challenge it gives to all ‘Christians’ today of being brought into glory! “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
Then in Hebrews 3:1-6 we read: Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are IF we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm to the end.” OH, WHAT A REVELATION!!
True discipleship is not less than God’s love but His fullness in our laid-down lives for Him and for those He gave Himself for!
ALSO, RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS RESULTS WHEN ONE WILLFULLY CHOOSES TO LIVE “THE FAITH” WITH AN ABSENCE OF THE WILLINGNESS TO DIE TO SELF, THE OLD MAN, THE FLESH – A “CONVERSION” WITHOUT IMMERSION INTO OUR LORD’S LIFE AND PURPOSE.
Follow carefully Jesus’ words to Peter in John 21:18-19! “Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. This He spoke signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me.”
Isn’t it amazing to you, surprising, that as Jesus was arrested and programmed for the Cross that His disciples ran away and hid?!! Contrast Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 with, not the words of Paul, but the attitudes and actions and avenues of many ‘professors’ WHO NEVER DIE DAILY!! “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live [in Christ] are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
It’s also amazing to me that as I look to God’s Word for guidance and help in restoring the ‘hopeless’ to a righteous walk that I see God holding “false shepherds” responsible for much of the faithless walk though in church every time the church door is open! Look at Ezekial 34:1-10!
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. 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. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill; yes, My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, says the Lord God, surely because My flock became a prey, and My flock became food for every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, nor did My shepherds search for My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock” – “therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God, BEHOLD, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand; I will cause them to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves no more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no longer be food for them.”
THE RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS CAN OCCUR WHEN SOME CHOOSE TO LIVE WITH A DISCIPLESHIP OF COMPARISON AND QUESTIONING OTHERS’ FAITH WHILE ONE WALKS FAITHLESS HIMSELF.
In John 21:20-22 I sense Jesus saying to Peter and to us, “Examine your own faith walk, look deep into your own soul and your own heart, don’t walk with faulty comparisons of yourselves and others.” Yet many use it to validate their complacent or indifferent journey of what they call ‘faith.’
Oswald Chambers so enriches our understanding of this passage when in his book “My Utmost For His Highest” he discusses the previous verses: [p.237], “One of our severest lessons comes from the stubborn refusal to see that we must not interfere in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s order for others. You see a certain person suffering, and you say – he shall not suffer, and I will see that he does not. You put your hand straight in front of God’s permissive will to prevent it, and God says – ‘What is that to you?’ If there is stagnation spiritually, never allow it to go on, but get into God’s presence and find out the reason for it. Possibly you will find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another; proposing things you had no right to propose; advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit; your part is to be so rightly related to God that His discernment comes through you all the time for the blessing of another soul.”
RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS WILL OCCUR, YES, WILL HAPPEN WHEN ONE PERFORMS SPIRITUALLY APART FROM SUBMISSION TO THE WILL OF GOD.
Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23 are so shattering to one who “works” but has never WILLED to rest in Christ’s finished work at the Cross, then resting in His resurrection life in and through you. The Word says, Jesus’ words: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he WHO DOES the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
Are you aware that many ‘religious’ people are what they are because of self-will, self-performance, self-promotion, never recognizing the true foundation of saving faith is not self-willed determination but dependence upon the finished work of Christ at the Cross?
Relational salvation or relational Christianity is never dissected as separation to one’s best effort but according to Romans 1:1, “separated to the gospel of God.”
We’re not spiritual “conquerors” because “We did good” but because Christ died and rose again!
Spiritual performance by one’s best efforts always leads to a hopeless ending! It’s not ‘grit’ but divine grace. It’s not performance but our eternal position ‘in Christ.’ It’s not determination but dependence upon our Lord’s “free gift”!!
CHAPTER TWO
“RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL?
The Christian disciple, the Christian church, Christian families, are on a journey, a pilgrimage of faith, obedience, service and ministry. We haven’t arrived yet but we’re ON THE WAY, IN THE WAY, FOR GLORY TO HIM who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
In Romans 4:13-25 Paul, so anointed by the Spirit, unveils our journey in comparison to Abraham. He wrote: For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath, for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”
Are you fully convinced these holy words are God’s Personal promises to you for the fulfillment of His desire for your walk of faith? In Romans 5:17 Paul added: “For if by one man’s offense 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.”
And reigning in life through Christ means that “we are more than conquerors,” we are winners not losers, being shaped and molded into the likeness of our Lord and Savior. Have we fully arrived, are we fully formed, are we finally a ‘finished product’? From God’s point of view: YES! From our point of view we’re babes, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, maturing adults, senior citizens someday – but we’re “in the game” of discipleship and our Lord is up to something good in each true believer.
Have you grasped it yet? ‘In Christ’ you are a significant part of our Lord’s transformational army. You are NOW a soldier of the Cross! NOW, you are, in Him, salt, light, witnesses, servants, ministers, proclaimers, evangelists, preachers, teachers, His disciples, His deliverers, His warriors, His statesmen of faith!
When the journey begins as ‘a babe in Christ,’ nurturing must occur! In Hebrews 5:12-14 the author so clearly opens our understanding of this walk and maturing of our faith: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
Do you remember Gethsemane as Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 26:36, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And in verse 46 He so clearly and convinced says: “Rise, let us be going.” How many ‘sleeping disciples’ do you know who haven’t ARISEN? It’s time to ARISE! It’s time to step up to the plate because you are a batter on His team. It’s time to report in to our commanding officer. It’s time to know He’s overlooked your ‘sleep’ and forgiven it. Get up! Leave failure behind and step in to His Land of Blessed Fulfillment!
There are a number of things I want to call to your attention, I want to remind you, or if necessary, that your spiritual eyes are truly opened to this marvelous journey with Christ.
RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL MEANS HE TAKES THE OLD MAN, AND HAVING CRUCIFIED IT IN HIS PASSION AT THE CROSS, OUR LORD AND SAVIOR BEGINS TO REWIRE US, RECALIBRATE US, RENEW US AS A NEW CREATION, AND RESTORE US TO THE PATH OF HIS WORD, HIS WILL, HIS WAYS, YES, TO HIS LIKENESS.
In Psalm 37:39 we read, “But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble.” You do understand that apart from Christ our Lord we lived IN unrighteousness, but coming to Him in repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross we receive imputed, implanted righteousness!
I know this is why “the singers,” the sons of Korah, sand Psalm 84:5-7! “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Lord, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, [“weeping”], they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.”
Is your heart “set on pilgrimage”? Are you going from Christ’s strength to even more of Christ’s strength? Is it “Leaning On and In The Everlasting Arms of Christ” or are you determined to make it on your own?
I pray you’ll print out Philippians 3:7-10 and tape it to your bathroom mirror or pin it to your auto sun-visor! It says: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”
I also pray you weep with Paul for Israel as we read in Romans 10:1-3, “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.”
To Titus Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit, vital words for our understanding. Titus 3:5-7 says: “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
And this ‘washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit’? Titus 2:11-14 tells us: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” But also…
RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL MEANS THAT YOUR REJOICING IS NOT WHAT YOU PRESENTLY ARE BUT WHAT YOU’RE BECOMING!
In 2 Peter 3:17-18 Peter wrote: “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen.”
You’ll remember that in Ephesians Paul talked about ‘purpose’ in the lives of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor-teachers. He said in Ephesians 4:12-15, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ –“
Do you sense a problem with some believers? What’s that, you ask? It’s “professors” of Christ who are more concerned about their own identity in religious circles, their own ‘self-realization,’ their ‘pat-on-the-back’ because of their ‘attainments,’ that their reflection of Christ Jesus has become a secondary issue, yet Paul said in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Fleshly promotion in religious circles about one’s spiritual identity has, is, or becomes a stumbling block in others to “saving grace.” We’re not called to be self-promoters, self-pumpers, self-realizers, but Christ promoters alone!
But, again, Oswald Chambers nailed it! He said: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.140], “The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never considers 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. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in His work.” Amen?
RESTORED TO GOD’S WILL AND WORK IS ONE’S COMMITMENT TO THE GREATER RELEASE OF HIS LIGHT AND LIFE BEAMING BRIGHTER AND BRIGHTER TO HIS PERFECT LIKENESS.
In Proverbs 4:18 we read, “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” ‘The just,’ justified, ‘just as if I’d never sinned.’ What a path to walk on, travel on, settle in to! God shines on you, He beckons you, He purposefully directs the bright rays of His Son to shine on you! And day by day gracious God intensifies “The Light” – and what have you done with it? Hidden from it or reflecting it?
For you, is it dark clouds or the blazing Light of God’s glory? Have you weaned from your walk of faith those clouds of unbelief? Have you blocked His Light in you and upon you, defacing His glowing love by compromised submission? Is the Light of God’s glory crowded out by a ‘thankful spirit’ that’s been undermined by doubt, distrust, distraction, or disobedience? Has your walk of faith been sadly mingled with an indifferent attitude?
Faults before your conversion too often open the doors to the fruits of presumption, and our guard is down and His Light is blurred in us. But infinite mercy abounds and abounds and abounds. And from our darkness He compassionately reaches out to touch us with His grace and mercy, and rekindles within us the Holy Light of His manifested Presence!
Listen to Paul and reflect personally upon his words if you’ve carelessly tried to put out the Light of your Lord! I Timothy 1:15-17, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone Who is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
George Gordon, Lord Byron, in “The Giaour,” wrote: “Devotion wafts the mind above, But Heaven itself descends in love; a feeling from the Godhead caught, To wean from self each sordid thought; A Ray of Him who formed the whole; A Glory circling round the soul!” Amen?
Don’t you thrill within when you read David’s declaration of faith? In Psalm 27:1 we read, “The Lord is my LIGHT and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
You’ll remember as Jesus began His public ministry of preaching Matthew 4:17 says, “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” It was a fulfillment of prophecy from Isaiah 9:2 when the prophet recorded, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwell or walk in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.”
At this given moment, where are you dwelling, where are you living, what are you experiencing? Fleshly, worldly, satanic darkness, or the forever Light of His Holy Presence in you and through you?
Listen to Jesus!! Luke 11:33-36, “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part with darkness, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
I can’t help but close this portion of this chapter in Colossians 1:9-14! “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
Do you grasp what division can do to one who is to be walking in the Light? It produces darkness! Disintegration is like holding a baby lamb in one hand and a rattlesnake in the other – you’ve pushed Christ Jesus away and compromised. And the ‘snake-bites’ will come!
RESTORED TO GOD”S WILL AND WORD IS THE GREATER RELEASE OF HIS ETERNAL PROMISES OF POWER, STRENGTH, AND SOARING ABILITY INTO HIGH PLACES – NOT THE LOWLAND OF WEAKNESS, POWERLESSNESS, AND A WALK IN THE LOW PLACES.
Oh, take Isaiah 40:29-31 as your secured treasure of the day! “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
I have no doubt Isaiah’s words were great inspiration for Paul, so he built on it and wrote to us in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
What did John write in John 1:16? “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” So Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians and us in Ephesians 1:15-23! “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
You are not a ‘low-land’ follower – you are an upper-room disciple living in the high places!
RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL BECAUSE OF HIS PROMISE THAT THE VEIL IS REMOVED, HIS VISION FOR US IS RECEIVED, AND HIS GLORY IS RELEASED TO LEAD AND INSPIRE US! WHY SETTLE FOR ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR WALK AS A DISCIPLE?
2 Corinthians 3:12-18 tells us: “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
“SUCH HOPE”? Is that true of you or have you settled in and resigned yourself as a ‘hopeless case’? A ‘hopeless case’ is evidence of one who looks to himself alone and has failed to “look unto Jesus, the author AND finisher of our faith.”
“SUCH HOPE”? That’s one who has learned to fix his face and faith on Jesus only “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.” Has the veil over your spiritual eyes been removed, has your vision of Jesus been sealed in your heart, and has His glory manifested upon you, in you, and through you?
“SUCH HOPE”? Encountering the Living Christ, Paul said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” The veil was removed, the vision appeared, and our Lord’s glory was upon his life! Yet, have you, encountering the vision, chosen to turn away because you think less of yourself than God does?
“SUCH HOPE”? To the church at Corinth Paul wrote, I Corinthians 2:1-5, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellency 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.”
RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL IS ONE BEING TURNED FROM SELF-WILL TO DIVINE INTENT, TURNED FROM FLESHLY DETERMINATION TO ‘MADE ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT,’ AND CHOOSING TO LIVE AS A LITTLE EWE LAMB UNDER THE MASTERY OF THE GREAT SHEPHERD.
Examine I Peter 3:18! “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”
That eternal walk of faith is never to be attempted by “best effort” but a yieldedness to The Blessed Holy Spirit. It is not by one’s mastery of fallen flesh but mastered by the Indwelling Holy Spirit. This is why Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:15-21, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but wise, redeeming the times, 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.”
In your ‘resignation to hopelessness’ have you ever truly looked to “The Great Shepherd”? In John 10:1-5 Jesus is speaking about this very thing. He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Have you heard “The Shepherd’s” call? Are you truly being led and directed by The Shepherd of The Sheep? Have you heard Him call you by name?
RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL IS BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND NO ONE CAN RESPOND FOR ME – I ACCEPT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO RESPOND IN OBEDIENCE TO THE LORD AND SAVIOR WHO HAS CALLED ME BY NAME, TAPPED ME ON THE SHOULDER, AND SHOWED ME MY PATH TO WALK ON.
In I Peter 3:15 Peter says: “Get up before Him, rise up, soar, and share what Amazing Grace has done for you!” “But sanctify 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.”
And in that journey of obedience we learn of God’s Sovereignty birthing artisans with LIFE PURPOSE, A LIFE PLAN, and DIVINE LIFE WITH POWER IN THE SPIRIT TO OVERCOME WHATEVER WE FACE! Exodus 36:1 says: “And Bezalel and Aholiab, AND EVERY GIFTED ARTISAN in whom the Lord has put wisdom and understanding, to know how to do all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary [holy place], shall do according to all that the Lord has commanded.”
Tell me about your ‘gifting’ – or have you misused it for selfish purposes and find yourself at the door of resignation?
CHAPTER THREE
A TEMPORARY HIATUS OR ETERNAL HELPS AND HEALTHINESS?
Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says a ‘hiatus’ is: “an opening…a gap, a chasm…a defect…”; and of ‘temporary’ he says: “For a time only…not perpetually.” Are you aware of ‘temporary hiatuses’ because of “the resignation to hopelessness”?
In Romans 15:13 Paul wrote: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The author of Hebrews gives us a thrilling perspective. He wrote: Hebrews 6:17-19, For He testifies: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”
An anonymous writer wrote: “Life with Christ is an endless hope, without Him a hopeless end.” It is so very, very true!
It was D.R. Davies who once wrote these words: “If the Cross is the measure of God’s respect for man’s freedom, then we can take new hope that freedom will survive all man’s attempts to destroy it.”
And, sadly, there are enemies to our eternal hope. There truly are those who laugh at hope, deny hope, refuse hope, because they relish themselves wallowing in self-pity or self-pride, wallowing in despair not dependence upon Another, wallowing in self-trust with no looking beyond their own noses and minds!
Let me give you up front in this chapter an overview of the temporary and a revelation of the eternal. Follow carefully and thoughtfully 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17!! Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now may the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.”
Do you understand “Born Free”? Have you come to an understanding that you or anyone around you is free to trust God or free to deny Him? Isaiah the prophet was given a picture not only of the freedom of choice but the awareness of an eternal enemy out to capture, allure, deceive, and cripple anyone who looks toward God. He wrote in Isaiah 14:12-14, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.”
Don’t you find it interesting that in Luke 22:31 that the Lord said: “Simon! Simon! INDEED Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.”
Temporary hiatuses are multiple in our fallen natures, but INDEED Satan has you in his target range and fires shots at you on a constant basis! In fact, he is regularly planting seeds that germinate into ‘the deceivableness of unrighteousness.’
But, how many do you know who have been blinded to the subtleties of Satanic activity and deny he even exists or have deluded themselves into thinking ‘abuse by Satan’ is not in their vocabulary or mental thoughts? “NOT ME!”
It was after Jesus’ baptism when the Voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Mark 1:12-13 then reads: “Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.”
Do you remember “seed by the wayside”, and when one hears it, “Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.” Wayside living is not living ‘in the Way’!! But even ‘in the way’ disciples can be and are, at times, troubled by the enemy of Christ! It’s why Paul said in I Thessalonians 2:18, “Therefore we wanted to come to you – even I, Paul, time and again – but Satan HINDERED US.”
Peter knew and experienced what Paul did in relation to the power and powers of darkness. He said in I Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.”
It was Cotton Mather in his “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 ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.” How true! But isn’t it sad that Christ-less professors and teachers target children and youth to ignore teachings about “a devil” and say to them, “Do whatever comes naturally that YOU want to do” – and they fall into the Devil’s trap!
In I Timothy 5:14-15 Paul wrote young Timothy and us: “Therefore I desire that younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary (the devil, the enemy, Satan) to speak reproachfully. For some have already turned aside after Satan.”
I was shocked again recently as I was reading in Revelation 2 about Smyrna, the persecuted church, when the angelic messenger came and said in verses 8-9, “These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life: ‘I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue (a congregation) of Satan.” Oh, Oh, my God! Awaken, shake, arise, save, birth synagogues of Satan into true temples, buildings, lives of redeemed, regenerated faith!!
It was Caedmon in “Creation. The Fall of Rebel Angels,” who wrote: “And them all the Lord transformed to devils, because they His deed and word would not revere.”
I’ve known women who were so much like depraved witches! I know there are mean men, but a Satanic woman is a tough, tough foe! In “Monsieur Thomas” John Fletcher wrote: “O woman, perfect woman! What distraction was meant to mankind when you were made a devil!” [Act111, sc 1].
If there is no resistance to Satanic activity, then capture, chains, spiritual cell-bars, bring the ‘lock-up’ and ‘breakdowns’ – morally, physically, mentally, practically – basket-cases though outwardly they appear just like the rest of our fallen world of unbelieving mankind! They just adjust, programmed by demon forces!
There is no doubt that we all face a powerful enemy who is intent on the demise of saving faith in any of us. His description is witnessed in the Word as powerful in great evil and diabolical intent. In Revelation 12:10 we’re assured that he (Satan) is the “accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night,” but he’s been cast down! If so, then why do some allow him to constantly cast them down?
Satan tempts, he entices, he lures, he entraps, he deludes, he deceives, he strikes like a coiled rattler attacking, he lies, he puffs up the fallen, he infects with deadly, godless poisons, he implants in the minds of men deadly errors, trash thoughts, promising strength he gives weakness, promising health he ‘blesses’ with spiritual sicknesses and diseases, promising victory he can’t tell you he’s already a defeated enemy of God!
When it comes to Satan and us, we are not “resigned to hopelessness” – WE ARE OVERCOMERS IN CHRIST JESUS! Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death!”
It was Spurgeon who preached: “Satan makes sin seem pleasurable, but the cross reveals its bitterness.” Resignation to hopelessness concerning the devil or Satan and your entrapment may blind you temporarily, but Calvary reveals the sweetness of deliverance and healing. We will not be false or foreign to the shed blood of the Lamb of God at Calvary!
Temporary hiatuses? It’s not only Satanic influences and impulses, but I believe also it’s when one has been allured, deceived, captured by a devotion to, yes, a worldly spirit foreign to the nature and character of God Himself.
The question? Are you seated at the table of worldliness?
When you consider worldly men, what do you see and sense? How do you compare or contrast them with men of true redemptive faith? When Jesus shared the Beatitudes He said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Not the proud in spirit but the poor in spirit, not the haughty but the humble, not the polished but the positioned ‘in Christ,’ not the degreed void of the divine, not the superior but the servant heart, not mean-spirited, arrogant, independent, better than everybody around kind of men but those men who’ve rested themselves before the world as an extension of Christ’s Life, as an expression of His love, and the very proof of Christ’s power dwelling within them!
Oh, I tell you, it’s not the man consumed by and indulging in a wild stallion kind of lifestyle, dancing with anything that crosses his bred-of-life debauchery, determined to drink with that which intoxicates him and satisfies every lust, one who is like a wild Texas stallion who roams with no harnesses, no guidance of God, no Spirit restraint- -and the world around him calls him free and happy and independent when in reality he’s bound, sad, alone, and apart from “saving grace and mercy” literally has no hope in himself.
But, Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” How blinded are the impure in heart! How disabled are godless men though they believe they are “on top of the world”! How empty the man who has chosen to do what he wishes rather than what God wills for that man’s life! How sightless for eternity’s sake and for present blessing are those who choose the world now over God forever!
In Luke 12:13-21 it so clearly defines the man of the world AND the man rich toward God: Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” And He said to him, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consists in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Then He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought to himself, “What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?” 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 my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’”
What did Jesus say in verse 15? “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for ONE’S LIFE DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS HE POSSESSES.” And the worldly says, “Oh, yes it is,” and brazenly they go after earthly treasures rather than heavenly wealth.
Where does YOUR ‘hope’ lie or rest? And you know it – there are those who say, ‘my hope lies in this world and all I can squeeze out of it;” “if I could be acknowledged by the President in the White House, I would be truly a blessed man;” “ah, just let me sit every day at my favorite bar and I’ll be happy”; “yes, sexy music, a lewd and licentious book, lots of money, riches, or wealth, and I’ll be a happy camper.” NO, YOU WON’T!! Look around you – you’re not blessed by the vile of a sinful society – sickness comes, body, soul, mind, and spirit – and you’re not blessed but cursed, not honored but honed in on by Satan himself, your ‘friends’ are the cursers, the liars, the pretentious, the Pharisees, a company of the vilest of this modern, maddened, missed-God society!
In speaking to the religious Pharisees in John 8, verses 21-24, Jesus said: Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself, because He says, ‘Where I go you cannot come?’ And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
Do you remember Demas? I Timothy 4:9-10 says, “Be diligent to come to me quickly; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.” Why is that?
I John 2:15-17 explains: “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.”
There is the Devil opposing redemptive faith, the world opposed to saving faith – but most ‘temporary hiatuses’ are because of ‘fallen flesh’ or one’s old, Adamic sin nature! What did I John 2:16 tell us? THERE IS “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.” And that lust so consumes, so debilitates – it is destructive and deadly!
In “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol. 18, p.371], he wrote after quoting Isaiah 2:22, “Cease you from man (fallen man), whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?” Then Spurgeon preached: “Man, especially since the fall, is a very unscriptural creature. His animus is animal. He is made up, as the old writers used to say, of soul and soil. Alas, the soil terribly soils the soul! “My soul cleaves to the dust” might be the confession of every man in one sense or another. We bear the image of the first Adam, who was of the earth earthy; earthy enough are we… [Spurgeon continued],
One consequence of the prevailing materialism of our corrupt nature is our craving for something tangible, audible, visible, as the object of our confidence. We want something which can be touched, heard, seen, or felt; we cannot be content with that which appeals only to the soul or the spirit. It seems as if man is so unspiritual that he cannot believe in a spiritual God; and yet any other than a spiritual God is an absurdity. Man cannot see God; therefore he will not trust in Him. He cannot hear His voice; therefore he will not attend to the movement of the Holy Spirit upon his soul. Humanity is carnal, sold under sin, infected with idolatry; and this fact remains true in a measure even of the regenerate.”
Infected with idolatry? Are you ready for truth? Colossians 3:5 says, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” GOD, HELP US ALL TO BE FREE OF THAT WHICH WOULD BIND US, ENSLAVE US, KILL US!!
How many do you know who are ‘chained’ rather than free in the Spirit of Christ? Do you witness the enslaved to their old sin natures rather than men and women whose chains have been broken by Christ Jesus? John 8:34-36 says, Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
Enough of the Devil, the world, and the flesh – what about our “Eternal Helps and Healthiness”?
Here’s an overview of the Divine strategy in the Word against the world, the flesh, and the devil. John was inspired to write in Revelation 12:9-12 the following: 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 has 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. 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.”
The world, the flesh, the Devil – they are not ‘sovereign’ over Holy God, but Holy God is Sovereign over your world, your flesh, and, yes, even your devotion to the Devil and the powers of darkness at times!
I have no hesitation in saying that every living being troubled by his enemies MUST CLAIM “Eternal Helps and Eternal Healthiness” – yes, it belongs to one who repents to God and puts his faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross!
Do you remember the “Lord’s Prayer”? You’ll find it in Matthew 6:9-13, “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or the evil one]. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Who is without need of Holy Help? Who is it who faces the enemy in his own strength and stands victorious? Who is it that is accused by the Enemy who stands against him conquering except that man who knows he’s “HEDGED”? We read in Job 1:6-12, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “Form where do you come?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”
And, not only Job, but every God-fearing man, woman, youth, or child, who puts his/her faith in a trustworthy Savior and Lord, faces the Enemy hedged about by the glory of God! His glory, His eternal Help, His eternal healthiness in any man who “rests” himself in our Lord!
It’s “the blood of the Lamb of God”!! Always has been, always will be! It’s not religion! It’s not religious practices – it’s the blood of the Lamb of God!
The Lamb of God is the Son of God. The Lamb of God is Emmanuel! The Lamb of God is the crucified King of kings and Lord of lords! The Lamb of God is the Suffering Servant! The Lamb of God IS THE SUBSTITUTIONARY SACRIFICE AT THE CROSS! And men are reconciled to God, not by religious devotion to an institution, but “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross.”
What does the great old hymn say? “My hope is built on NOTHING LESS THAN JESUS’ BLOOD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”
But you’ve been taught self-effort rather than Divine Intervention? You’ve been programmed with religion rather than Relationship? It was John Bunyan who wrote simply in “A Book For Boys and Girls”: “The egg’s no chick by falling from the hen, Nor man a Christian till he’s born again.” Were you truly ‘born again’ or have you just ‘joined’ a ‘church’?
Jesus died that you might LIVE in Him. Jesus shed His blood as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. You do know that Isaiah 53 was written 700 years before the death of Jesus! Verses 4-6 astounds us all!! “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
True people of faith LEAN upon Jesus’ shed blood and overcome through Him alone! Didn’t we read in Revelation 12:11, “overcame…by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death”?
Oh, listen with a thankful heart for a way of deliverance from self and religious slavery! Elisha Hoffman and Anthony Schowalter wrote it over a hundred years ago:
“What a fellowship, what a joy divine, Leaning on the everlasting arms; What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, Leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh how bright the path grows from day to day, Leaning on the everlasting arms.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear, Leaning on the everlasting arms, I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning, Safe and secure from all alarms; Leaning, leaning, Leaning on the everlasting arms.”
I’m saddened by a hollow, faithless world, when men turn a deaf ear to “the blood of the Lamb of God,” but I rejoice, exult, celebrate, when a small child (yes, physically and spiritually) begins to rejoice in Jesus! Will you be one?
Spurgeon wrote: “Spiritual power of a holy kind rests upon us to overcome the spiritual power of an evil kind which is exerted by Satan, the world, and the flesh. [But] the Lord scatters the power of the enemy, and breaks the spell which holds men captive.” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.19, p.316]. AMEN?
What does 2 Corinthians 5:17 tell us? “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Do you receive 1) A new person 2) A new presence 3) a new participation with our Lord in world redemption 4) A new people 5) A new purpose and plan 6) A new power 7) A new non-perishing promise 8) A new path and pilgrimage of pressing in to Him?
2 Timothy 1:12 says, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.” Amen?
CHAPTER FOUR
NATURAL EFFORTS OR SUPERNATURALLY BLESSED?
In I Corinthians 3:1-3 Paul wrote: And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal [‘fleshly’]. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”
Again I read to you from Isaiah 2 where in verses 19-22 we find the prophet challenging the ‘natural ‘ world as it faces the Supernatural glory of God. It says: They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily. In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the crags of the rugged rocks, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily. Sever yourselves from such a man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?”
The prophet mentioned idolatry which we saw in Colossians 3:5, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth (those natural affections that are deadly!!); fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” And, as a result of failure in living by natural efforts rather than Supernaturally Blessed, “the terror of the Lord…arises to shake the earth mightily;” and to you, you don’t care, you don’t fear, you don’t re-evaluate who you are before Him and where you stand? You don’t even ask, “Is there any hope for me or am I just totally hopeless?”
Man in the first century, man in the mid-centuries, and man in these last days, has been and is by his own fallen sin nature an idolater! Read human history if you dare, and nothing has changed. Fallen man became “god” unto himself, and bowed to worship! Still does.
The natural possesses ‘religious possibilities’ producing the curse while the Spiritual is Divine in presence bestowing blessing after blessing. The natural has temporary healing qualities while the Spiritual is Eternal Health. The natural has “pride” while the Spiritual possesses Holy humility. The natural has fleshly, temporal potential while the Spiritual is “Christ in you the hope of glory.”
The natural has historic crowds while the Spiritual is “few there be that find it.” The natural is limited ability while the Spiritual is “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think.” The natural trusts big armies while the Spiritual thanks God for Jesus and His angels.
Jeremiah 17:5-6 says, Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength who departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. [BUT] Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.”
Where have you rested your life, right now? Natural efforts or Supernaturally blessed? Do you understand shadows or substance, or have you blinded yourself to indifference? Is your life-walk faith in your feebleness or have you chosen faith in the faithfulness of God Himself? Is your ‘existence’ the best of human frailty or is your devotedness in the fullness of the Godhead bodily? Is your life stopped on human potential or is your life resting on Divine promises?
Have you encountered, yes, fleshly uncertainties or do you rest in Divine assurances? Is it really soulish confidence of what you believe you can do or the spiritual reality of saving, sovereign grace and what God Himself can do through you as you make yourself available to Him alone?
I was amused yet awakened anew when I read Spurgeon saying that man apart from God is nothing more than “worm’s meat.” How is it that when you’ve prided yourself in independence from God, you determine to be master of your own destiny? Then, all of a sudden, fleshly fear floods your soul? God said through Isaiah, [Isaiah 51:12], “I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of man who will be made like grass?”
Oh, how sad, how troubling! Have you forgotten your Maker, the Lord your God and Savior? I’m awed every time I read Hebrews 12:3-8!! For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. 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 with 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.”
Flesh exaggerates – Faith chastens. Natural men will pump your flesh – the Supernatural Blessing will ‘break’ you in holy moments of rescue and reward and rebuilding your identity in Him. Flesh is fully self-centered – Spirit is selfless, as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”
The world so promotes in its people likeness to the fallen flesh that is all around – look alike, talk alike, act alike, sin alike, rebel alike, destroy alike, adulterate alike, curse God alike, deny Him alike – yes, “join the crowd of the Christ-less and discover what you really are!” Oh, really? But in the Spirit-realm, Romans 8:29-30 tells us: 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.”
Fleshly will is wanton – lewd, lascivious, a rover, a reveler, a rebel. Spiritual will is submission to God, a passion for honoring Him, a consuming desire to be more like the Master!
Natural efforts are primed to promote the ‘flesh’ – Supernaturally Blessed is a heart overflowing with desire to honor Christ in all things. Natural efforts emerge as contradictory – bless, then curse; love, then hate; establish your promises, then forget every promise you ever made! Natural efforts come from arms of flesh, and when we exert confidence in that, we usually end up confused. But Supernaturally led, we unveil the Godhead.
Natural efforts birth hindrances to one gaining a true view of God, but Supernaturally Blessed reveals His character in us. And all disciples are on a journey! Hebrews 12:1 says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Natural efforts are so like an undisciplined athlete who can’t play four quarters! But the Supernaturally Blessed live in Eternity and are prepared by God Himself for the “forever”! Hebrews 12:2 says, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Where are you seated?
Natural efforts? “No one tells me what to do or how to do it – I’m master of my own destiny.” The true disciple says, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” Jesus said in John 15:14, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.”
Natural efforts? No painful trials, no hardship undertaking, no pain, no loss, no suffering, no rejection – but the Supernaturally Blessed? John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Natural? A loser! Spiritual? A victor! Natural? Death! Spiritual? Everlasting life!
Natural efforts? Grief is the end result because the created are there to honor God – without faith, sorrow and pain is the end result of a Christless life. Supernaturally Blessed? One with God!
In the natural vein earthly men are ‘guided’ by the so-called ‘wisdom’ of men that leads to sinking sands, bottomless pits, broken hearts, endless questioning with no answers, while the Supernaturally Blessed are led by “Your word [God] is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”
Men in their fallen sin natures, even the ‘leaders of the bands,’ the presiding officers over nations, the bank presidents overseeing vast wealth, have no real answers as to “Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the purpose of my existence?” But a Job, in the midst of Spiritual Blessing as well as testing can say (Job 23:12), “I have treasured the words of God’s mouth more than my necessary, daily bread.”
How many do you know in this vast world population of ours who are so bound in the natural effort to the point when crisis comes they don’t know where to turn or who to turn to or if there is even a sand-grain of hope for their dilemma? But the blessed disciple, John, wrote: I John 5:14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Natural effort? Answer-less surroundings! But the Spiritual, Supernatural Blessing? (Psalm 55:22), “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.”
Natural effort? Humanity on its own is a “trip” one really has to travel alone when surrounded by millions of like-minded people with no answers to your dilemma. But to the Spiritually Blessed, Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered TOGETHER IN MY NAME, I am there in the midst of them.” I am a man so blessed by ‘the family of God.’ I’ve traveled this world – and whether Brazil, Haiti, the Philippines, Africa, Asia, or India, I’ve never been a ‘lone wolf’ or a ‘lone ranger.’ God’s people have surrounded me, upheld me, blessed me, encouraged me, and enlightened me. Then I see the ‘lonesome traveler’ who walks alone. It’s why Proverbs 27:17 tells us: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. “ Do you at all understand mutual encouragement in the fear of God?
It was George Eliot who said: “It is vain thought to flee from the work God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found – in loving obedience.” No doubt because we’re told in the Holy Word (Hebrews 10:25), “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Natural efforts or Supernaturally Blessed? Human effort, human initiative, human determination, can make a name for one’s self! Only the Holy Spirit superintending a man’s life honors God!
Billy Graham, in his book “The Journey,” (pps. 136-137), told the story of a clergyman in a very poor part of London who became so burdened for the dockworkers in his parish. He wrote:
“Their work was hard, thankless, and poorly paid, and he decided that if ever he was to reach them with the Gospel of Christ he must become one of them. Day after day he dressed like them and stood in line waiting for a job, never telling who he really was. Finally one winter’s day he was hired to help unload a freighter, moving goods in a wheelbarrow from boat to dock along a narrow plank. On one trip he felt the plank rock violently, and he lost his footing and fell into the cold river. Laughter rang out, and he realized one of the men had deliberately jiggled the plank to make him fall…His first impulse was to react in anger (for he had often struggled with his temper) – but almost instantly he sensed the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming his anger and giving him peace. He grinned and joined the laughter, and to his surprise the culprit dropped his load and helped him out of the muck. His tormentor-turned-rescuer, taken aback by his calm reaction, began talking with him. Later the man shamefully revealed that he had once been a highly respected physician, but alcohol had robbed him of both his profession and his family. The clergyman led him to Christ, and in time the man was reunited with his family and restored to his position (physician). But here is the point: It would never have happened if the Spirit of God hadn’t conquered the clergyman’s temper and replaced it with the gentleness and love of Christ. The Holy Spirit made the difference.”
How clear the difference between natural efforts or one Supernaturally Blessed when in Ephesians 4:22-24 Paul tells us: “that you put off, concerning your former conduct [natural effort, flesh, fallen sin nature], the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
Oh, my!! “Natural efforts”? “Former conduct [apart from God’s nature],” “old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, a worldly mind influencing still,” but rejoicing in the Supernaturally Blessed ‘new-man’ created (Birthed) according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” No longer what you were, but who you are now “in Christ”! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
There certainly are pitfalls, problems, spiritual pimples that pop out on the “new man’s” young face, but grace, mercy, and love abound to the one who rests in Jesus. It’s why David the King cried out, Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” AND HE WILL!
Natural effort, undiagnosed and recognized as dangerous, can bring one to a place where refusing God, one begins to blame Him: a failure – ‘God’s fault’; loss of a child – ‘where was God?’ A repeated riot in the mind – ‘I blame God!’; A disappointment by a friend or business partner – ‘God is to blame.’ Natural effort with bad seed planted, and the harvest disappoints.
Natural effort or fruit? Unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, grudges, get-even-intent, broken relationships – what will this day bring forth in you? And the Supernaturally Blessed in bad moments? Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never let the righteous be moved [or shaken].” Amen?
Natural efforts? But natural hindrances also. Natural efforts? But hard falls, perilous rivers to cross, unexpected feuds, fires, and fights – “And I’m mad!” But the Supernaturally Blessed? Hebrews 12:1, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
Without God, to whom do natural-effort men turn to? Even if they have godless friends, they’re still void of divine grace and mercy, but Supernaturally Blessed? Isaiah 46:4 says: “Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry you, and deliver you.”
And the Supernaturally Blessed are not exempt from times of trouble, heart-aches, pain and suffering. But there is a promise in God’s Word – Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Charles A. Tindley wrote the hymn “Nothing Between.” It says:
“Nothing between my soul and the Savior, Naught of this world’s delusive dream’ I have renounced all sinful pleasure, Jesus is mine; there’s nothing between…
Nothing between like worldly pleasure; Habits of life, though harmless they seem, Must not my heart from Him ever sever, He is my all, there’s nothing between…
Nothing between, like pride and station; self or friend shall not intervene; Tho’ it may cost me much tribulation, I am resolved, there’s nothing between…
Nothing between, even many hard trials, Tho’ the whole world against me convene; Watching with prayer and much self-denial, I’ll triumph at last, with nothing between…
Nothing between my soul and the Savior, So that His blessed face may be seen, Nothing preventing the least of His favor, Keep the way clear! Let nothing between.” Amen?
CHAPTER FIVE
MIND OF THE FLESH OR MIND OF THE SPIRIT?
The mind? A mental capacity of understanding with wisdom or without it? The mind? That which breeds spiritual indifference or that blessed of God with eternal concerns about one’s well-being? The mind? Callousness about life as it is or care about what God wants it to be? The mind? Is it ‘bare-headed’ in spiritual sensitivity or ‘blessed-headed’ with Spirit illumination? The mind? Is it “what I want” or is it, “I receive in my mind what God knows I need – it’s open to His revealing graces”? What is it that is ‘on my mind’ or is it truly, ‘my mind God’s alone”?
Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.56], “Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I insubordinate in intellect? Am I forming the mind of Christ, Who never spoke from His right to Himself, but maintained an inner watchfulness whereby He continually submitted His spirit to His Father?” Was Jesus’ mind a mind of the flesh or the mind of the Spirit?
Can you imagine a ‘new life in Christ’ with an old mind controlled by ‘flesh’ and not the Holy Spirit? You are aware of a world that thinks and acts on its own thoughts and ignores the mind of God in Christ!
In Numbers 23 and 24 Balaam met Balak who encouraged Balaam to curse the Israelites but Balaam responded that “All that the Lord speaks, that I must do.” In Numbers 24:2, “and the Spirit of God came upon Balaam.” He said to Balak in verse 13, “If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word [or mind of the Spirit of God!] of the Lord, to do good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, that I must speak.” Verse 25 says, “So Balaam rose and departed and returned to his place; Balak also went his way.”
What a distinction, yes, and an unveiling of a mind of flesh and the mind of the Spirit! In Psalm 31:12 David said, “I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind…” Out of the mind of God’s enemies but not out of the mind of God!
In fact Isaiah 26:3 tells us, “You [God] will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” For you, is it a stayed mind or a starved mind? Do you think on the basis of fleshly impulses or on the basis of a divine revelation? In Jeremiah 3:19-21 God speaks: But I said, “How can I put you among the children and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful heritage of the hosts of nations?’ And I said: ‘You shall call Me, “My Father,” and not turn away from me.’ Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,” says the Lord. A voice was heard on the desolate heights, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel. For they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the Lord their God.”
Was Israel’s mind in rebellion to God a mind of the flesh or the mind of the Spirit? In Lamentations Jeremiah wrote of his “laments” over Israel and how the roads to Zion mourn. Then he wrote words of great hope: Lamentations 3:19-26, as if he alone was Israel! 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! The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
Oh, how I want you to receive the words of Jesus right now as in Matthew 22:37, responding to the Pharisees’ question in verse 36, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”, and Jesus responded: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with ALL YOUR MIND.”
How have you personally responded to Acts 17:11? “These were more fair-minded (noble-minded) than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”
How important is the word of God in a mind of flesh if it has any hope at all in being a mind of the Spirit? I Thessalonians 2:13 says: “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.”
Of course, because of a mind of the flesh, many respond to the ‘unimportance’ of the Word of God in their lives even when in Matthew 4:4 Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Paul told the church at Colossae, [Colossians 1:19-23], “For it pleased the Father that in Him [Christ] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
The mind of the flesh? “You, who once were alienated and enemies IN YOUR MIND by wicked works, yet now has He [God] reconciled.” The mind of the flesh is alienated from God, is an enemy of God IN THE MIND, and is evidenced by wicked works! It might be good to evaluate what God calls “wicked works”!
Who did God give up and why? Romans 1:24-32 says: “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 ?[you can sin and not die!], 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 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.”
I know that every word you’ve just read from Romans are passionately opposed by the godless and even some who ‘profess’ allegiance to Him, but they believe they can walk with God and oppose His truth. I DON’T THINK SO!
In Romans 7 Paul has been sharing his life apart from Christ. He said in verses 21-25, “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 inner 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? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Paul, convicted by the Holy Spirit of his fleshly religious mind, had unveiled, not only in his mind but his heart also, the ‘truth’ – Verse 23, “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.” SHAZAM! This religious rabbi was nailed by the Spirit of God and sees himself as he truly is apart from Christ! He wrote in Romans 7:13, “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.”
Oh, how difficult it is for fallen men to see their sinfulness! One of the major roadblocks is the blindness because of a man’s “self-esteem,” his programmed conscience that’s been so dulled he can’t recognize sin as sin, his “perverseness of misconception,” [Spurgeon], his attitude that black is white and there is no ‘blackness’ in him, his spiritual nakedness denied, his mind programmed as to absence [in him] of any exceeding blindness to sin, to the blackness of an alienated, separated heart from God, not knowing his heart is deceitful AND his mind desperately wicked! “No God” – wicked mind! “No need of God” – deceived mind! “No want of God” – a defiled, sick heart and mind!
Through the prophet Jeremiah, God spoke: Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” And, yes, even phony preachers and false prophets poison their minds! Jeremiah 6:13-15 says: “Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not ashamed at all; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.
Do you grasp at all “the peril of deception” concerning the mind? To the church at Colossae Paul wrote: [Colossians 2:8], “Beware lest anyone cheat (plunder, or take captive) 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.”
I’m telling you with all the passion I can muster on paper – it’s not just the “godless” that concern me but the “professors” without evidence of the Indwelling Christ and Holy Spirit at all! It’s why in James 1:4-8 the brother of Jesus wrote: “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; for he is a DOUBLE-MINDED MAN, unstable in all his ways.” [Later, in James 4:8, James said: “…and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”]
You do know that there are those who have been blinded to the truth of God’s Word! In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, WHOSE MINDS the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” Divided minds, veiled minds, delusional minds, diseased minds, blinded minds, evil minds, proud minds, self-righteous minds! And apart from the manifestation of the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ shining on them and in them, they are hopeless!
Spurgeon said, [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 10, p. 135], “Human nature has become so perverted that if men know that they have broken human laws they are ashamed, but the breach of command which affects only the Lord Himself causes them very small concern. If we were to steal, or lie, or knock another down, we should be ashamed of ourselves, and so we ought to be; but, for all that, such shame would be no work of grace. Sin must appear to be “sin” against God – that is the point; we must say with David, “Against You, Lord, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.”
With the prodigal we must cry, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You, and am no more worthy to be called Your son.” That is the true view…the Lord brings us to confess our transgressions after that sort.”
Mind of the ‘flesh’? Religious mind of the ‘flesh’? Devoted mind of the ‘flesh’? In Acts 9:1-7 we read of the religious Saul, mind of the flesh, who became converted Saul to Paul, and received the mind of the Spirit! It says: Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.
Also, in Acts 9, we read about Ananias, instructed by the Lord Himself to seek out Saul of Tarsus. God told him, “Behold, he is praying.” Ananias went to find Saul and Acts 9:17 says, “And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying 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.” Then verse 18 says: “Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.”
You do understand that baptism in water is the picture of death, burial, and resurrection to the new life in Christ. But baptism in the Spirit is every born-again believer’s blessing as he comes with repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross. In fact, in Romans 8, three times in the first five verses Paul says, “according to the Spirit,” and then in verse 9 adds: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
Look at Romans 8:11! “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead DWELLS IN YOU, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” And what is the Holy Spirit up to in a new believer’s life?
Romans 8:13-14 tells us!! “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.”
Mind of the flesh or mind of the Spirit? Vital, victorious, overcoming, God-honoring living is in and of the Holy Spirit! Jesus said in John 16:7-14, “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. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 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.”
THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS OF SIN.
THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVINCES OF NEW LIFE, ETERNAL LIFE, IN CHRIST.
THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDES US INTO ALL TRUTH.
THE HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFIES CHRIST IN YOU.
THE HOLY SPIRIT TESTIFIES IN YOU OF JESUS. (JOHN 15:26)
THE HOLY SPIRIT BEARS THE FRUIT OF THE DIVINE. NATURE IN US.(Galatians 5:22-25).
THE HOLY SPIRIT EMPOWERS, ANOINTS, FILLS, BAPTIZES US. Acts 1:8
THE HOLY SPIRIT BREATHES JOY IN US. Romans 14:17.
THE HOLY SPIRIT SEALS US IN CHRIST. Ephesians 1:13.
THE HOLY SPIRIT MOVES UPON US TO SPEAK. 2 Peter 1:21.
Oh, please look at Romans 8:16 prayerfully!! “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” and then adds appropriately in verse 17, “and if children [of faith], then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, IF indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Me, God’s Family of the Faith, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit “GLORIFIED TOGETHER”!
Did we read that the Holy Spirit breathes “JOY” into the Lord’s children of faith? As long as ‘professing Christians’ are in control of their own spiritual destiny, ‘joy’ is not only forgotten, it is totally absent from the ‘professor of faith.’ Does it ever occur to us that ‘our choices’ cripple our joy in Jesus? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Happiness is an emotion of feelings that has nothing to do with saving faith, but joy is the very fruit of the Holy Spirit filling, directing, empowering, and blessing your life!
Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.255], wrote the following, and is so appropriate here: “The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Spirit, Who produces these agonies begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.”
It was Marcus M. Wells who, in the 1800’s, wrote the following hymn: “Holy Spirit, Faithful Guide.”
“Holy Spirit, faithful Guide, Ever near the Christian’s side, Gently lead us by the hand, Pilgrims in a desert land;
Weary souls for-e’er rejoice, While they hear that sweetest voice Whispering softly, ‘Wanderer come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.”
Ever-present, truest Friend, Ever near His aid to lend, Leave us not to doubt and fear, Groping in darkness drear;
When the storms are raging sore, Hearts grow faint, and hopes give o’er, Whisper softly, ‘Wanderer come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.’”
When our days of toil shall cease, Waiting still for sweet release, Nothing left but heaven and prayer, Knowing that our names are there,
Wading deep the dismal flood, Pleading naught but Jesus’ blood, Whisper softly, ‘Wanderer come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.”
CHAPTER SIX
EARTHLY EDUCATIONS OR OMNIPOTENT EXPRESSIONS?
After the flood in Genesis, God gave a promise: [Genesis 8:22], “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” So…does that mean, with the earth remaining for a time, that we all can do as we please without any desire concerning God’s eternal purposes being fulfilled in our lives?
Oh, there are multitudes, millions, billions, who do as they please without any consideration of the divine or eternal plan of God Almighty. Who knows how many drowned in “The Great Flood,” and who knows the billions who died in their sin as they lived to satisfy their own expectations and educations without any consideration or commitment to Holy God and His omnipotent expressions?
But God is so merciful! He spares and He spares and He spares – hopeful for that change of heart that because they become so aware of the futility of earthly education if there is no ‘omnipotent expression’ through that available life to Him – and some turn.
In Jeremiah 3, at least four times, God said: “Return to Me, O backsliding children!” And I don’t believe God’s merciful heart has died out or grown silent, choosing to disengage Himself from fallen humanity’s dilemma – NO! There is the Cross of Christ ever waving through all ages! The earth remains – for now! The ages seem so endless – yet we know there is coming the close of the temporary, regardless of its endurance so far, and a day when the Eternal One says to earth, “Gentlemen, it’s closing time!” And the door to the Eternal is shut!
2 Peter 3:9-13 tells us: The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
Disciples of Jesus are not the ‘hopeless’ but the “hope-filled” to eternal capacity! The ‘least’ of the saints, if there is such a one as that, far exceeds the world’s premier intellect who probably voided God out of his life, immersing that life into a treacherous sea of impersonalisation, false hope, paper degrees, windless, empty rhetoric with no healing graces, believing himself smarter than God and comes up empty and void of any saving grace or mercy.
Most modern-day educational institutions are built dumbing down the public to their need of God. What a heartless institution!
C.S. Lewis 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 modern education, earthly education, IS A DISTRESSING DISGUISE, A POOR SUBSTITUTE, for omnipotent expression and experience.
When God spoke through Moses to Pharoah, Pharoah said, [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.” Oh, but he has a ‘pyramid’, he had great wealth, he had multiple wives, beautiful horses and chariots, and slaves to serve his every whim, to serve him and fight his wars!! Really, really a big man – but he was swept away by one wave of God’s little finger!
The pharaohs, the worldly professional, the highly educated (most, not all!), rule to rout out any spiritual truth or devotion or God-likeness. They cast doubt on the Word of God, they’re a stickler for their ‘thinking’, and an agitator against Christian spirituality in any form!
I Peter 1:2 says, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus…” Elect? Sanctified by the Spirit? Walking in obedience having been washed in the blood of the Lamb of God? And the worldly class, the devil’s crowd, the white-washed rather than the blood-bought, cry out, deny, oppose, feeding lies and half-truths and untruths to their impressionable students or, yes, even their children and yours!
It’s amazing to me, astounding to me, that high-ranking national government leaders can blatantly lie, spew terrible falsehoods, use unscrupulous rhetoric – then, get re-elected! There are earthly educators who, yes, twist truth and misuse Scripture. The earthly educator fights for his turf – your young children and youth. It will be interesting in eternity with God to find out how godless ‘educators’ induced bitter, young souls to end their sadness before they found true joy!
It’s not ‘your college degree is your merit’ – no, your merit is leaning on God’s mercy! It’s not ‘your accomplishments are your merit’ – no, your merit is leaning on Jesus only! Don’t you know it? Most highly educated men major on the thorns, the briars, the unplowed, unseeded fields, without any eternal harvest at all – and usually their unplowed, unseeded fields in the lives of their students become “dust bowls”!!
Harold R. Eberle wrote the book, “Christianity Unshackled,” sub-titled, “ARE YOU A TRUTH SEEKER?” And in it he highlighted how most modern seminary or university PH D’s have rationalized ‘faith’ rather than received it as it truly is: “REVELATION”! He said: [p.105}, “In modern universities that have classes focusing on, “The historical Jesus,” students are taught that the man Jesus who lived in the first century was a mythological figure. He truly lived, but He was just a man. When students enroll in a class entitled “Bible as Literature,” They may expect to get an opportunity to read the Bible, but if the course is taught by a liberal professor, they will not even need a Bible. Instead, they will learn and then be tested on their ability to understand the Bible as literature – in the same sense as Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey” are literature, filled with mythology. When students sit in a religion class taught by a liberal professor, their minds are being formed to see Jesus and the Bible through the lens of rationalism. The supernatural is explained away, and the spiritual side of reality is denied… Thousands of adults have entered liberal seminaries (not all seminaries are liberal) with hopes of serving God in ministerial positions, only to come out of those seminaries doubting even the existence of God…A seminary I attended over 30 years ago was especially hard on me, and it took me several years to rebuild a solid biblical worldview.”
Oh, please listen, lean, and rest on the truth of Acts 17:29-31! “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
That’s the true governance and grace of God! Revelation 5:11-12 tells us: Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, 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 who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
In 2 Kings 6 we learn of Syria coming against Samaria and how, as the Samaritans were besieged, a great famine occurred. [Are there spiritual famines because of ungodly men, leaders, kings, or armies?]
The king of Israel was passing by on the wall, and a woman asked him, “Help, my lord, O king!” And in verse 27 the king said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” He was saying: ‘No grain, no wine – how can I help you?” And, man can’t remedy spiritual malnutrition!
Then there’s a messenger from God Himself! Oh, I pray you have spiritual eyes to see God’s faithfulness in the midst of humanity’s spiritual starvation! In 2 Kings 7:1 Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ‘Tomorrow about this time gallons of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and barley, at the gate of Samaria.” Can you even imagine or comprehend that word to hungry multitudes? “Yes, yes, yes – our needs are met by God Himself! It’s SUPERNATURAL!!” But there are the doubters, the unbelievers, the spiritually blind, who want no help from God! 2 Kings 7:2 says, “Look, if God would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” Elisha said, because of the spirit of unbelief, (Verse 2b), “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” Question! Is there ever that serious moment of eternal consequence when God closes the door on unbelief? “The king” and his unbelief? 2 Kings 7:20, “And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.”
Earthly education is so far too often fraught (loaded, filled, overflowing) with unbelief! But omnipotent expression is “Christ in me the hope of glory.” Earthly education is sadly far too often based on fleshly ideals acting on impulses – self-esteem, self-determination, without any trust or dependence upon the God who made us all, lost us through our sin and unbelief, and then bought us with a price – the shed blood of the Lamb of God, and that alone!
What does I Corinthians 2:14 tell us? “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are [only] spiritually discerned,[And that’s by “the New Birth”!!]
Earthly education is far too often “pumping flesh” to achieve when omnipotent expression is God’s arms of grace, mercy, and love, opened to receive and to give!
Earthly education is far too often that which trains or train-wrecks people to determine morality or character on their own terms with no sense of the Eternal! Earthly education is far too often training the masses to turn deaf ears to God and His Word. Earthly education magnifies loyalty to what one sees as his true self – not views from a ‘narrow-minded’ God as to ‘my potential’! How false and foreign to the Lamb of God and the Cross!
Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest”, p. 263], “Never be sympathetic with the soul whose case makes you come to the conclusion that God is hard. God is more tender than we can conceive, and every now and again He gives us the chance of being the rugged one that He may be the tender One. If a man cannot get through to God it is because there is a secret thing he does not intend on giving up – I will admit I have done wrong, but I no more intend to give up that thing than fly. It is impossible to deal sympathetically with a case like that; we have to get right deep down to the root until there is antagonism and resentment against the message. People want the blessing of God, but they will not stand the thing that goes straight to the quick.”
Earthly education? “Your sense of need is met because you become better qualified – not ‘God meeting your need.’” “Your natural virtues are such you have no need of a higher spiritual power.” When there is no conviction of your false values about yourself, it’s evident thick walls to protect your ‘old man’ have been erected, but I tell you, day by day, loving God will take down one stone at a time until you’re void of a virtuous life fully exposed, and you cry out to Him for “mercy,” having determined according to Psalm 87”7, “All my fresh springs are in You.”
Earthly education? That is so often natural devotion to the highest level of fallen man’s expectations for themselves absent of divine truth. But when we hear Jesus say, John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the ‘flesh’ profits NOTHING. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” then, confronted by the compassionate Christ, one makes an eternal decision for either the blessing or the curse.
Earthly education? It is criminal when creative genius is called capitalistic greed; it is blindness when “social justice” becomes the substitute for “saving, redemptive Jesus;” it is, yes, intellectual stupidity when men’s words and opinions are placed above the Word of God.
Earthly education? I remind you that Paul reminded them in Colossians 3:5, “Therefore put to death your MEMBERS WHICH ARE ON THE EARTH (earth-bound): fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, WHICH IS IDOLATRY.” FLESH-BOUND MEN ARE IDOLATERS! Haven’t you ever come across those who are “idol worshippers” because the most important thing in their lives is their ‘work’? They truly are consumed by it 24 hours a day, even 7 days a week – NO ROOM FOR GOD!
When one is ‘consumed’ by his work, there is no time at all for concentration on or the centering of life on God alone…no freedom in the Spirit but bondage and chains or cells with heavy bars shutting them in only to their pathetic, godless selves.
Earthly education or omnipotent expression? In Jeremiah 45:5 God spoke, “And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all FLESH,” says the Lord. “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.” Do you believe John really meant it when in John 3:30 he said, “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease?”
You are aware that “the world,” “fallen men,” the aliens to God and the covenant of promise are involved in the soulish increase of their own fleshly lives – they’re not on the path after God Himself – they’re feasting on a fleshly diet that starves their souls, not feed them God’s spiritual menu. Amateurish paths of ‘flesh’ always lead to amateurish outcomes, spiritual bankruptcy, and decisive alienation from Holy God. It’s not a pretty picture of a ‘blessed outcome’ but ‘THE CURSE’!!
Paul wrote in Galatians 3:10-14, and verses 19-24, then Galatians 4:1-7,
Galatians 3:10-14, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, ‘for the just shall live by faith.’ Yet the law is not of faith, but ‘the man who does them shall live by them.’ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Galatians 3:19-24, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined ALL UNDER SIN that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”
Galatians 4:1-7, “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
Earthly education opposing God and His Word IS A CURSE! Omnipotent expression through an available life to God is a BLESSING! Fanny Crosby, in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, wrote the following hymn entitled “Blessed Assurance.” It says:
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels descending, bring from above, Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest; Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”
“Blessed” is not a word for earthly educators or earthly education if God is omitted and His Word is denied, and Thomas Carlyle nailed it when in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” (Vol V, Pt.10), he said:
“Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.” WOW! How true is that!!
Don’t ever forget Psalm 103:1, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.”Earthly education apart from omnipotent expression? Spurgeon said it: “Once make a giant unbelieving, and he becomes a dwarf.” This came from Spurgeon’s message on ‘unbelief’ found in Spurgeon’s Sermons, Volume 2. But later, [p.63], he was closing his sermon with the following words about the unconverted. He said: “They often see great works of God done with their eyes, but they do not eat thereof. A crowd of people have come here this morning to see with their eyes, but I doubt whether all of them eat. Men cannot eat with their eyes, for if they could, most would be well fed. And, spiritually, persons cannot feed simply with their ears, nor simply with looking at the preacher; and so we find the majority of our congregations come just to see: ‘Ah, let us hear what this babbler would say, this reed shaken in the wind.’ But they have no faith; they come, and they see, and see, and see, and never eat. There is someone in the font there, who gets converted; and someone down below, who is called by sovereign grace; some poor sinner is weeping under a sense of his blood-guiltiness; another is crying for mercy to God; and another is saying, ‘Have mercy upon me, a sinner.’ A great work is going on in this chapel, but some of you do not know anything about it; you have no work going on in your hearts, and why? Because you think it is impossible; you think God is not at work. He has not promised to work for you who do not honor Him. Unbelief makes you sit here in times of revival, and of the outpouring of God’s grace, unmoved, uncalled, unsaved.”
I just want to remind you who are so wrapped up in this robe of earthly education – “Hallelujah, the Lord God Almighty still reigns!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRYING OR TRUSTING?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”?
In John 2:23-25 we read: “Now when He [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”
Would you yourself discern ‘what was in man’ – trying or trusting? The word ‘trying’ in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary is defined as “exerting strength, attempting…” It, at least, is making an effort – but where does one find that in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? “I tried…!” Give me a break! “Straining”? “Attempting”? “Flirting with, apart from surrender and yieldedness”?
I’m not even sure that “the fallen, the alienated, the separated from God” know anything about “trusting” much less ‘trying.’ In Luke 9:57-62 we read of several “attempts” that fell so far short of Indwelling Life! It says: Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
It was Oswald Chambers who said: “We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.” In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate;’ for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, AND THERE ARE FEW WHO FIND IT.”
‘Trying’ is that broad way while ‘trusting’ is that narrow way! ‘Trying’ is self-centered obedience because most want to improve their own life standards, but ‘trusting’ is submitting and fully surrendered to God only because of one’s desire to bless and honor Him alone.
‘Trying’ is that natural life turned inward to make a better name for one’s self, while ‘trusting’ is the manifestation of ultimate purpose in me and through me for the Glory of God.
‘Trying’ or ‘trusting’? Listen to Oswald Chambers, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” pps. 164-165), “There are stages in life when there is no storm, no crisis, when we do our human best; it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to trust Him, the crisis will reveal that we will go to the breaking point and not break our confidence in Him.” You’re trying? I ask, “Where is your trust and confidence in God and His Word?”
What did Paul say in Philippians 1:6? “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” how awesome is that when one has no confidence in himself but fully trusts in and hopes in Jesus Only? Paul said in Philippians 3:3, “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH…” Amen? Is that true of you?
‘Trying or trusting?’ The prophet Jeremiah was so heart-broken who looked upon his own people to witness ‘self-effort’ among the chosen people of God. He said in Jeremiah 2:12-13, quoting God Himself, “Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be very desolate,’ says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
‘Trying’ or ‘trusting’? That’s hewing for one’s self ‘cisterns’ that are broken and can hold ‘no water’! Would that be ‘no water of the Word’? It’s not simply that some in the so-called faith have only ‘broken buckets’ – most have no bucket at all in their mind-set for any ‘water of the Word’; at all!
‘Trying’ or ‘trusting?’ In Jeremiah 14:10 the Lord said to this people: “Thus they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them; He will remember their iniquity now, and punish their sins.” There’s an old hymn that says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love…” And I say to you that that is a strong pull from;’trying’, not ‘trusting’! That’s what some have called ‘the tyranny of individuality’ apart from fully trusting in the finished work of Christ Jesus at the Cross!
‘Trying’ is not ‘I am crucified with Christ’ – that’s an attempt at being ‘religious’ without being RE-BORN! ‘Trying’? It is an attempt of overcoming our old sins and sin natures apart, yes, from Christ and Calvary, and ignoring the miracle of redemptive grace, mercy, and love. We ‘try’ the religious angle apart from repentance!
‘Trying’? Dare I say ‘sinful pride’ in one’s self? Have you never read how “Lucifer” fell from heaven? Isaiah 14:12-15 says: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’”
And you must not overlook Luke 18:9-14 where Jesus so eloquently and in convincing passion exposed “trying” rather than “trusting”! It says: Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous, and despised others; “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
‘Trying?’ “I believe!” But the question is, “What do you really believe and how does that affect your relationship to Holy God?” In his book, “Beyond Belief To Convictions,” Josh MacDowell spoke of youth today and their religious faith, quoting George Barna from his “Third Millenium Teens,” that teens, 80% believe in God, but 63% also believe that Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews, and all other people pray to the same God, even though they use different names for god! “Lord, help us! Where’s the trust in Your abiding Word? Where is the trust in the One who says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” (John 14:6). Is Jesus a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord God? And do you ‘trust’ Him alone for your salvation and return to Holy God?
What, under heaven, is it that captures a people’s loyalty and allegiance? Is it that sense, “I’ll try,” or, “I trust in the grace of God”? Someone “trying” usually produces a little ‘happiness,’ but “trusting” results in abiding joy that is “the joy of the Lord.” It’s why David erupted in “restore unto me the joy of Your salvation.”
“Trying” is evidence of spiritual bankruptcy, but “trusting” is evidence as Lloyd Ogilvie wrote: [“A Life Full of Surprises,” p.15], “We experience true mourning when we allow our hearts to be broken by the things which break the heart of God.” WOW!! Ogilvie said later in the same book, [p.23], “The traditional church is filled with retired Christians and dropout disciples.”
“Trying” in the religious world is the absence of eternal meaning in an earthly life when “trusting” is the earth life with eternal expectation and eternal hope in our Lord and Savior only. In Proverbs 3:5-6 we read, “TRUST in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”
“Trying” is the author of despair and discouragement while “trusting” breeds hope, enlightment, inheritance, freedom, fulfillment, rest, the fruit of the Spirit, the joy of the Lord, and all-out acceptance of caring God! You really want to know “trusting”? Look at Romans 4:19-25!! “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”
“Trying or trusting”? Dr. James Dobson, in his book, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense,” he wrote about disillusionment and mentioned W. Somerset Maughn’s classic, “Of Human Bondage.” He said: “the principal character was a young man with a club foot who had hated his deformity from earliest childhood. When he discovered Christianity, he thought he had found a quick way to get rid of it. He began praying that God would heal his foot and make him normal. As it became apparent that his repeated requests would not be granted, he felt his faith had been invalidated, and he lost interest in God. I wonder how many times that unfortunate drama has been reenacted through the centuries.” [Check out Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in Daniel!!]
Was his commitment based on the temporal or the eternal, upon ‘trying’ or ‘trusting’, upon fleshly benefit or eternal blessing, upon bodily, earthly – me, my, mine benefit or celebration of new life in Christ to the forever blessing of God through him?
“Trying” or “trusting”? In Luke 18:18-23 we read: Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “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.’” And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “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.” But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.”
Have you ever been around “a sanctimonius gaze of hypocrisy”? Pharisees pump flesh – the broken die to it. The personally proud dwell in their normal darkness and are comfortable with it, but the humble “stand afar off”. An awareness of one’s sinfulness is the only open door to the mercy and grace of the Cross!
I’m telling you, the mercy of Calvary’s Cross was never poured out on a proud and bitter soul, but only upon that one whose very countenance has been arrayed on the head with a crown of thorns!
“Trying” is the pronouncement to God of all one’s personal attributes and strong points while “trusting is a shattered heart of a David who has seen the TRUTH about his fallen nature – Psalm 51:1-5, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight – that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”
The proud Pharisee felt so at ease in his worldly mind as he reviewed his life: Luke 18:9-12, “Jesus spoke this parable to SOME WHO TRUSTED IN THEMSELVES THAT THEY WERE RIGHTEOUS, and despised others: Verse 11, The Pharisee stood and prayed THUS WITH HIMSELF, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men…,” and YOU KNOW JESUS’ RESPONSE!
IS “God, be merciful to me the sinner” in your modern vocabulary?
Have you contemplated the end result of “trying”? In John 8:34 Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Verse 35, And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Verse 36, Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” “Trying”? That’s bondage. “Trusting”? That’s freedom. “Trying”? Slavery to sin and Satan, but “trusting” Jesus breaks the power of canceled sin. Romans 8:21 says, “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
“Trying” is an insincere attempt at being reconciled to God while “trusting” is resting in our Lord’s finished work. 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
“Trying” sadly is self-trust with the door closed to divine help. But in Isaiah 46:3-10 there are words of hope for the “trusting”: “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb; even to old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and I will deliver you. To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal, and compare Me, that we should be alike? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; they prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it and set it in its place, and it stands; from its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer nor save him out of trouble. Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.
I recently experienced a ‘hair-raising’ event in my life when on a Saturday evening, April 27, 2013, I suffered a heart-attack. Scott and I and his two church staff members had been at a conference in Houston, Texas, Thursday through Saturday.
On our return Saturday afternoon late, within five minutes of Scott’s church, I knew I had a serious heart problem. Scott let out David and Adam – as soon as they were gone I told Scott I had chest pain and he said, “We’re only minutes away from Harris Methodist in Bedford – I’m taking you there.”
We went straight to the Emergency Room. In two minutes they did an EKG and within another two minutes the Emergency Room doctor was reading it. He said, “Get him out of here and to surgery – he’s got less than an hour to live!” Seven or eight attendants were working on me as they ran me down the hall, up the elevator – to the surgical wing. In less than twenty minutes I was in surgery with my own heart surgeon in the hospital at 8:30pm on a Saturday night!
My major artery was 100% blocked and I had a huge blood clot but it was stopped by the artery blockage from rushing to my heart!! I went home Tuesday afternoon!
As I was on the table, all I did or wanted to do was to say, and I did, “Lord Jesus, I’m yours. Your will be done,” and I rested in Him with no worry, no fear, no anxiety. I “trusted” Him, the One who is MY GREAT PHYSICIAN.
Have you forgotten or misplaced Psalm 23 from your walk of discipleship? I challenge you – take out your Bible and read Psalm 23 and meditate on it!
The old hymn “Trust and Obey” says it so much better than me: “When we walk with the Lord in the Light of His Word What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.
Not a shadow can rise, Not a cloud in the skies, But His smile quickly drives it away! Not a doubt or a fear, Not a sigh nor a tear, can abide while we trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear, Not a sorrow we share, But our toil He does richly repay! Not a grief nor a loss, Not a frown nor a cross, But is blest if we trust and obey.” That’s just 3 of 5 verses, but it reveals the blessedness of trusting and obeying!
CHAPTER EIGHT
MARRED MARRIAGES OR MASTERED IN THE MASTER?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
You know that in the infancy of God’s Creation Adam, first Adam, was placed in the Garden, and in Genesis 2:18 the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable (suitable, adapted, completing) to him.”
In Genesis 2:23 Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called WOMAN because she was taken out of Man.”
I have no doubt that Adam rejoiced, celebrated, and thanked God continually for his “Bride.” They were JOINED in a holy bond, God laying the foundation for future generations to know the heavenly blessing and rich reward and beautiful benefit of ‘husband and wife and family’ to come.
The Holy Word says in Genesis 2:24-25, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
I love Spurgeon’s words [Vol. 10, Spurgeon’s Sermons, p.17-18], “We cannot but bless God every time we repeat the dear names of those who are now parts of ourselves. Marriage creates a relationship which ends only when death shall part us. It may be dissolved. Sin enters even here! A dark crime may be committed, but, with the exception of that, it is for life – for better, for worse; only the mortal stroke can part.”
“Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” And Paul says in Ephesians 5:29, “For no one ever hated his own life, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.” If marriage seems to be failing for some, it’s certainly because some are warped, not by love, but hate for themselves which they should be cherishing!
It’s so interesting, at least to me, that in 2009, John and Stasi Eldredge published a book entitled “Love and War.” The sub-title is “Finding The Marriage You’ve Dreamed Of.” In the introduction Megan quoted John’s words: “Daniel and Megan, you are about to abandon yourselves to each other, throw caution to the wind, forsake independence, isolation, and all others. You will vow to each other your undying love. Before you do, we must call this what it is – this is perfect madness.” And Stasi wrote, “That got the crowd’s attention.”
She then wrote the following words from John’s ceremony intro: “You don’t believe me. But that’s because we don’t understand fairy tales and we don’t understand the Gospel which they are trying to remind us of. They are stories of danger; they are stories where evil is very, very real. They are stories which require immense courage and sacrifice. A boy and a girl thrown together in some desperate journey. If we believed it, if we actually saw what was taking place right here, right now, we would cross ourselves. We would say desperate, earnest prayers. We would salute them both and we would hold our breath for what happens next. Daniel and Megan, it is time to make your vows. After this, there is no turning back.”
I say to you that I understand Eldredge’s comment about “perfect madness” at times in the journey of “love and war,” but at the same time I am awed by Jesus’ words in John 17:22 which I believe relate to not only our relationship to Him but the relationship of husband and wife! “And the glory which You gave Me, Father, I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one.” There is an eternal blessing on “holy matrimony.”
Dare we apply Isaiah 4:4-6 to ‘marriage’ today? I think so: When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.”
And I believe the holy word about holy matrimony also includes providing, yes, God’s protective covering if the married folks receive it and claim it and rest themselves under it. I love what Jack Hayford wrote in his book, “Glory On Your House,” [p.32}, “that spiritual life power may be transmitted through your family as surely as hair color.” Visible, recognizable, explainable: “that marriage is blessed of the Lord. It has His mark!” But because of no mark of God too many marriages today end up marred.
Marred marriages, I believe, are the very undermining of the true foundation of healthy nations, healthy societies, and even healthy children. June 12, 2013, I will celebrate my 77th birthday, and I have been a witness to a marring of modern marriage, marring of lonely children from broken homes, and a marring of school and community participants.
I have no hesitation in saying that I believe marred marriages are clearly an open door to promiscuity, sexual immorality, out-of- wedlock births, and the disintegration of family structure and blessing.
Recently, in the Augusta Chronicle, May 14, 2013, U.S. Judge J. Randal Hall wrote: “In America today, 53 per cent of all children born to women under 30 are being born outside of what has been historically considered the most stable family structure. We are deep into a crisis that is critically burdening our schools, neighborhoods, law enforcement agencies, economy and, if not abated, will produce dire consequences for our society.” The Judge stated later in his article, “Over 90% of the defendants that I have sentenced over the last five years have been reared outside of a normal two-part family…I have also noticed that practically all of the defendants that appeared before me that were part of a street gang prior to their arrest were products of single-parent households or households where they were abandoned by both parents to be cared for by other family members, many of which are ill equipped to assume this responsibility.”
There was another article I read stating that marriage peaked in the 1940’s and has been on a serious decline ever since. My parents were divorced in the mid-to-late 1930’s. For nine years after their divorce I was cared for by my mother’s parents. Only the grace and mercy of God stabilized my life through Christ Jesus and His gracious church body and spiritual family.
It’s as if in our day a new disease has emerged called marriage infidelity. It’s like a ‘leprous’ disease attacking marriages and families leaving so many, many scarred, damaged, and sick. ‘Leprosy’? “A foul cutaneous disease…covering the whole body…with violent itches.” Have you seen marriages ‘scratching’ lately?
“Marred marriages”? There is no doubt spiritual diseases affect and effect a work in too many homes. I know that in 2 Corinthians 6:11-16 Paul stressed that the Body of Christ IS the house of faith – and believers are not to be yoked to unbelievers in our Lord’s spiritual home! Verse 14 says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
Without a doubt unequal ‘yoking’ opens the door to a spiritual strangulation! Oh, I know, some have survived – and some see their mates ‘saved’, but not that often.
Joshua said confidently in Joshua 25:15, “…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” But if it’s a ‘divided’ house, how is it dedicated to the Lord? In I Peter 3:7 Peter shared, “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, GIVING HONOR TO THE WIFE, as to the weaker vessel, and AS BEING HEIRS TOGETHER OF THE GRACE OF LIFE, that your prayers may not be hindered.”
How many marred marriages have you witnessed that existed for the purpose of honoring God and interpreting saving grace to the world around them? How many marred marriages were created by ‘fleshly’ determinations absent of divine intent?
Marriage, family, church – God’s possession for God’s eternal purposes. And unless God girds, guides, graces, and governs, it’s all on a faulty foundation. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”
“Marred marriages”? Usually there is a void, an absence, in one or even both partners, of unconditional love and acceptance. Marriage becomes a ‘proving ground’ where one or the other has to ‘measure up’ to the partner’s estimation – and how many marriage partners are there who never fell short?
In Billy Graham’s book, “The Journey,” [p.259], Dr. Graham wrote: “Divorce has become so common today that we often lose sight of its painful consequences. Some of you know what I’m talking about, because your own life has been scarred by divorce, either that of your parents or your own. Even now you may be struggling with feelings of rejection, bitterness, anger, or failure – all of which often follow in the wake of a divorce. Let me assure you that God understands what you are going through, and He still loves you and wants to comfort and guide you. May you find new hope in Christ as you turn to Him, and may God also bring across your path people who can help and encourage you.”
“Marred marriages”? Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Jesus spoke in Mark 8:38 about an “adulterous and sinful generation…” Most Americans have had their spiritual senses dulled to the sin of sexual immorality to the degree that most have lost the ability to blush! It was shocking to me as I recently read 2 Peter again and again and came to 2 Peter 2:13-14 again and again where Peter wrote: “…They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.”
“Marred marriages”? If the present marriage rate is about a 50/50 ration, would unforgiveness dare to be the darkness for at least a portion of shattered marriages? Again, the Eldridges wrote: [“Love and War,” p.196], “To be unloving (unforgiving) is to fail at the very thing we were created for. It is a rejection of the essence of our existence, a rejection of the Love that made us. As George MacDonald confessed, ‘I am a beast until I love as God doth love.’”
What does Ephesians 4:32 tell us? “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER EVEN AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU.” In our marriage world of today have we erased even more of God’s Holy Word? Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”
But “marred marriages” are not ‘sweet-smelling aromas,’ but far too often emitting the “stench” of devotion to ‘flesh’ – not the Spirit. It was William Wordsworth in his “Excursion” writing, [Bk. VI], that wrote:
“Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge, And nature that is kind in woman’s breast, And reason that in man is wise and good, And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge –
Why do not these prevail for human life, To keep two hearts together, that begun Their spring-time with one love.”
‘Why’ is a huge, huge word when applied to either marriage or divorce! “…words, and kiss, and solemn pledge…!” I would surmise that a ‘solemn pledge’ takes a back-seat to fleshly desires. Donald T. Kauffman, in “Gist of the Lesson” wrote: “A good marriage is not a contract between two persons but a sacred covenant between three. Too often Christ is never invited to the wedding and finds no room in the home. Why? Is it because we have misrepresented Him and forgotten His joyful outlook on life?” Is it?
Let me shift gears from “Marred Marriages” to marriage that is “The Master’s Mastery”! I love what Geoffrey Francis Fisher, at the time Archbishop of Canterbury, at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, had to say: “The ever-living Christ is here to bless you. The nearer you keep to Him, the nearer you will be to one another.”
Youth, young adults, ‘mature’ adults: Make sure your marriage to be is on the sure foundation of the Resurrected Christ! Matthew 19:6 is so very, very clear: “…Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Did I share, “A good marriage is not a contract between two persons but a sacred covenant between three”? You, your mate, and Christ Jesus! I love Ecclesiastes 4:9-12!! “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
And I know you didn’t miss it: “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken!” Oh, please, read carefully Ephesians 5:22-31! “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’”
Yet, sadly, marriage in America has fallen, almost, into a cannibalistic state of mind and heart! And probably because Christ is omitted by one or both parties.
I pray, if only…if only, marriage partners stood and kept standing on the Rock of faith and obedience in Christ Jesus! Didn’t He say, “Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?”
Again, John and Stasi Eldridge wrote in “Love and War,” [p.32], ‘If two lie down together, they will keep warm’ – the picture is one of soldiers, who from time immemorial have lain down back-to-back at night in order to keep warm in the field. God gave us to each other because we need someone to watch our back. We need someone to pick us up when we fall. How different would it be if we went to bed each night with the vision of two comrades lying down together in the midst of a glorious campaign? This is the reality, whether we see it or not.” And then there’s Jesus, our sure foundation in marriage!
Often I’ve talked to struggling, young marriage partners, and asked them, “Tell me about your mutual conversations with Jesus about your marriage problems.” And the answer? Usually ‘zip’ or ‘zero’ conversations with the King of kings and Lord of lords!
“Mastered marriages” are the Master’s realm and domain of heavenly blessing on earth for the world around to take note of. Marriage is to be a Holy Place where God Himself feels so at home as He reigns with joy!
At the same time the Master’s mastery includes “iron sharpens iron” – and somehow too many of us fell into the deep hole of, ‘who needs sharpening – not me!” True togetherness in marriage is so often genuine ‘plank removal’ when love is real! Not bitterness, not anger, not resentment, but true spiritual surgical care! That’s because “the two become one”!
Matthew 7:3-5 tells us: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Sue and I have a plaque in our bedroom on a chest that says: “A happy marriage is the union of two great forgivers,” a statement by Ruth Bell Graham before her death.
Marriage counseling from a Christian perspective will always come usually to the place where you ask one or both counselees, “Have you forgiven him/her?”
I’ll never forget an event in the Philippines where, in an open-air crusade, the invitation had been extended. Many flooded the aisles with seven or eight of the pastors including my son, Scott, and myself, ministering. A young mother came to me – bitterness, hardness, coldness, was all over her. There was a frowning scowl covering her face. She said, “Would you pray for me – I’m sick?” And instantly our Lord spoke to me, “Ask her about her husband.” I did – and this mother of three children exploded! “My husband left me for another woman and left his children. I hate him!” I then said to her, “Mam, you are sick with unforgiveness – and I can’t pray for you until you are willing to go and forgive him.” Her countenance changed, she began to weep, and then said, “I will go and forgive my husband.” I saw her healed instantly!!
“Mastered marriages”? Yes, WHEN THERE’S PRAYER FOR ONE ANOTHER. If Jesus says in Luke 18:1 that, “Men ought always to pray, and not faint,” do you believe that includes your wife and children or your husband and children?
It was G. Ashton Oldham who wrote the following: “Prayer is the chief agency and activity whereby men align themselves with God’s purposes. Prayer does not consist in battering the walls of heaven for personal benefits or the success of our plans. Rather it is the committing of ourselves for the carrying out of His purposes. It is a telephone call to headquarters for orders. It is not bending God’s will to ours, but our will to God’s. In prayer, we tap vast reservoirs of spiritual power whereby God can find fuller entrance into the hearts of men.” Are you praying for one another in your marriage? Daily?
“Mastered marriages”? That’s the Spirit of care and caring for one another, body, soul, and spirit! One of those sad verses in God’s Word is Psalm 142:4 where David said: “…No one cares for my soul.” How heart-breaking and earth-shattering when there is, sadly, no one in the marriage-partnership caring for one another! Chambers spoke of “careless carefulness” – and for non-Christians I’m sure that’s true in far too many marriages, but in ‘union’ with Christ one walks in marriage with ‘careless carefulness’? Give me a break!
My wife, Sue, and I have been married 57 years as of June 10, 2013! We are blessed with four children, 3 sons and a daughter, and they all walk with the Lord. Sue and I are supernaturally blessed, but that does not omit care and caring for one another. My wife has been a spiritual giant in child-nurturing, husband-caring, and family health physically and spiritually!
In my case alone, I’ve had lower back surgery, eight left shoulder replacements, one right shoulder rotator-cuff surgery, double-knee replacements, double-hip replacements, and those within three months of each other, and in late April, 2013, I suffered a major heart attack, major artery 100% blocked with a blood clot ready to kill me, told I had 45 minutes to live; I was in surgery within 22 minutes of my diagnosis, and on a Saturday night at 8:30, my heart surgeon was in the hospital! Besides my Lord and my doctor, who has cared for me? My wife and 3 sons and my daughter!
And Sue had to delay her right shoulder surgery after a fall because of my heart attack, but just two weeks after, she had her badly damaged right shoulder operated on. And guess who cares for her and ministers to her? You guessed it right – her husband and children!
Some people fail to see, understand, or comprehend that ‘saving faith’ is practically lived out in caring for one another! [I challenge you to take out your concordance and do a study on caring for “one another”!]. There is absolutely the solid truth that God-honoring marriages are authored in heaven itself but are lived out on earth between caring partners touched by Christ’s sacrificial love.
William Shakespeare wrote in “Henry V” the following: “God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts in one.” Isn’t that Ephesians 5:31? “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And you ‘hate’ yourself and refuse to care for yourself?
Care and caring lead us to, I firmly believe, what the Bible has to say about ‘husbands’ who are the heads of households and wives who ‘submit’. And how tragically many have so misinterpreted or twisted headship in marriage. “The husband is the head of his wife.” That means he is ‘lord over,’ that means ‘he’s the boss,’ that means he is commander in chief? Where does that come from? And I say to you, not from God’s Holy Word at all! When, in Ephesians 5:22-23 Paul said: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, [doesn’t stop there, but goes on to say:], as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.” Verse 25 explains: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.”
Christ’s true Lordship is “servant-hood”! He said: “I didn’t come to be served but to serve and give My life as a ransom for many.”
Marriage? Mutual servant-hood to the glory, honor, and love of Christ! Marriage? Voluntarily laying lives down for one another! Marriage? A journey of blessing and honoring and pouring out on one another unconditional love!!
There’s a hymn entitled “A Christian Home” written and scored by Jean Sibelius and Barbara B. Hart. The words are so challenging, no doubt by two wives and mothers. It says:
“O give us homes built upon the Savior, Where Christ is Head and Counselor and Guide; Where every child is taught His love and favor And gives his heart to Christ, the crucified; How sweet to know that though his footsteps waver His faithful Lord is walking by His side!
O give us homes with godly fathers, mothers, Who always place their hope and trust in Him; Whose tender patience turmoil never bothers, Whose calm and courage trouble cannot dim; A home where each finds joy in serving others, And love still shines, though days be dark and grim.
O give us homes where Christ is Lord and Master, The Bible read, the precious hymns still sung; Where prayer comes first in peace or in disaster, And praise is natural speech to every tongue; Where mountains move before a faith that’s vaster, And Christ sufficient is for old and young.
O Lord, our God, our homes are Yours and forever! We trust to You their problems, toil and care; Their bonds of love no enemy can ever sever If You are always Lord and Master there; Be You the center of our least endeavor Be You our Guest, our hearts and homes to share.” AMEN?
CHAPTER NINE
YOUR WEAKNESS OR GOD’S ABLENESS?
You’ll remember and remind yourself that our motivation for this book has been the sad reality that many across our world have stepped in to the stifling spiritual atmosphere of “A Resignation To Hopelessness” without examining at all the eternal hope our gracious and merciful Lord offers to each of us. Many choose ‘blindness’ rather than spiritual sight and seeing. In creation God established all men, all women, with the will to choose evil or rest themselves in the provisions and care of God Almighty. And the Bible clearly says: Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The very next verse, Romans 3:24, says: “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Spurgeon wrote: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.16, p.64], “The best of that which looks like goodness must be used as the raw material with which to make a traitor who will sell his Master.” Human ‘flesh’ in fallen men is not only that producing ‘acknowledged sinners,’ but the potential of creating “fig-leaf religions” like the two in the Garden. Yes, religions manufactured by fallen men are just that – religions of man’s creations, “not what has been done by God Himself,” but what one believes he must do to find acceptance with God. Men do invent and determine for themselves what they believe should be accepted by God – that’s like the young terrorists who kill themselves and others believing they have 70 virgins awaiting them in God’s presence. Sorry, that’s ‘phony baloney’!!
In Romans 7:14 Paul gives all a ‘wake-up call’: “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” All fallen men and women are “slaves to their old sin natures.” Conviction comes through the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit convicts – not because I’ve determined my desire to keep God’s Law declares me acceptable! No! My attempt to “be saved” by ‘law-keeping’ clearly reveals I’m a law-breaker because in James 2:10 the brother of Jesus, anointed by the Spirit, tells us: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” Why? Because law-keeping is not God’s declaration of the way a man is saved – it’s ‘saved by grace through faith in and through the finished work of Christ at the Cross’!
“Enticing words of men’s wisdom” is declared by many to be what God should accept, and even if He doesn’t, they judge themselves [in weakness] to be stronger than what God says!
“RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”? That’s a man’s mental declaration or determination that he doesn’t need God through believing because he’s ‘hope-filled’ in himself. That’s a man’s spiritual evaluation that he has and never will have ‘guilt of sin’ because there is no such thing in his fleshly journey.
That’s a defiant man’s opposition to God and Truth in which a man’s guilty conscience is never admitted to Holy God. That’s a rebellious man’s open declaration of no need of God’s saving grace because he has no sorrow over sin – he just made a fleshly mistake, and he’s more mad at himself than even God!
A hopeless man in his natural state has determined that there is no help for his spiritual dilemma. Though Paul tells us in Galatians 5:24 that, “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts,” hopeless men have determined their quirks or quaintness of behavior has nothing to do with a church’s or Christians’ determination of a way of salvation and deliverance and healing – they just “try harder” in their weaknesses to be strong!
Can’t you hear them? “Deny myself”? “Why, I am my greatest hope!” “I have a right to myself. I determine what is best for me!” “I’m able!”
Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.256], “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keeps 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.” So very, very true!!
If you’re not aware of Old Testament truths about Sodom and Gomorrah, I would challenge you to research what brought about destruction of two cities – and you’ll find the bitter seeds of Sodom and the poisonous grapes of Gomorrah!
If you’re not aware of the destiny of “tares” and “fruitless trees,” how will you ever find ‘hope’ outside yourself? If you’re not aware of the difference between ‘judgment fires’ and ‘purifying fires’, how will you ever know about calling on Christ to ‘save you’?
“Garden presence”, because of ‘sin’, is now “Garden absence.” In Genesis 3:24, after the fall of Adam and Eve, God’s Holy Word says: “So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubims at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Can you even begin to imagine why “your weakness” is blocked to God’s “Garden” presence? Well, Satan cast doubt on the Word of God. Satan twisted eternal Truth and still distorts it. Satan confuses those who try to enter. Satan lies – “you can sin and not die.” And he promotes unbelief and entices to live independent of God. As a result of listening to the distaste of Satan for God men take the “fig-leaf” approach to God covering themselves as they see fit and hiding from His presence in many ways!
Don’t forget the “flaming sword” at the entrance to the Garden of Holy Presence! Isaiah 34:5-6 says, God speaking, “For My sword shall be bathed in heaven; indeed it shall come down on Edom, and on the people of My curse, for judgment. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood…” Do you see, do you sense, the blood of Jesus at the door of your salvation?
I pray TRUTH grips and grabs your hearts as you read this chapter! In Isaiah 66:15-16 we read: “For behold, the Lord will come with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword the Lord will judge all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many.”
“Your weakness”? “Your resignation to hopelessness”? In Jeremiah 2:25 we read, “Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘There is no hope. No! I have loved aliens [to God] and after them I will go.”
In Jeremiah 18 our Lord revealed the Potter and the clay. The Holy Word tells us of marred vessels, but the potter “made it again into another vessel.” My God can make any man into a “new vessel,” but in Isaiah 18:12 they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his [own] evil heart.” Oh, how sad, how heart-breaking is that!?!
When it comes to wrestling with “Your weakness or God’s Ableness,” how could one overlook, shun, try to deny or refute, God’s own words in Jeremiah 23:16-22? Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said, ‘You shall have peace’; And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’ For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and has perceived and heard His word? Who has marked His word and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury – a violent whirlwind! It will fall violently on the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.”
I will not hesitate, procrastinate, seek to refute or deny, the truth of God’s Holy Word! I stand on it: “GOD IS ABLE”! But as someone wrote: “Two men sat in prison bars – one saw mud; the other saw stars.”
I wonder what goes on in some lives in their self-imposed prison of hopelessness or for some even in their ‘prison of hope.’ In Truth, we are to confess and forsake our sin and sins – not just confess and keep on sinning! In Truth, we are to be conformed to His image. Really? In Truth, we are to be renewed to a true knowledge of the One who created us, made us, lost us, then bought us with a price. In Truth, we are to be being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. In Truth I John 2:6 tells us, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked.”
In Zechariah 9:11-12 we read, “As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit…Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope.”
I Corinthians 9:10 tells us, “Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be a partaker of his hope.”
And we in Christ DO HAVE HOPE! It’s God’s ABLENESS! In Hebrews 6:13-20 we learn of laying hold of the hope set before us: “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’ And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Does it say our hope is an anchor of the soul? Is it sure, steadfast, and one which enters the veil of His glorious presence? Then, why, in the midst of multitudinous truth do some prisoners of hope see only “mud”? Do you know what I’m talking about? You may have heard it or you may have said it yourself:
“There’s no hope for me, I’ve tried. Be like Jesus? No one could be further from that truth than me. I look to my spirit, to His nature and character, my walk, my attitudes at times – at the goal set before us, “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” – and the high calling seems so out of my reach…I’ve forsaken the world – I have no hope for the ‘flesh’, I know it profits me nothing – gold and silver is no god for me. And I’ve loved His Word, loved the fellowship and communion of the saints, loved the ministry to the crippled, lame, blind, and deaf…but when I look to myself, all I see is “mud”. I’ve strived to enter, sought to lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset me, been diligent to make my calling and election sure, sought to do all things for the sake of the gospel so that I may be a fellow partaker of it – buffeted my body and sought to make it my slave so I wouldn’t be disqualified…I’ve sought to continually fight the good fight of faith, keeping faith and a good conscience, disciplining myself for the purpose of godliness. But I feel as if I’ve been losing the battle, falling short of the grace and glory of God. It seems to have been in vain for me. It’s mud, miry clay, the depths of despair and disappointment and discouragement for me.”
NOW…I hope you’ve caught the “drift” of these statements because something is radically omitted by the very words and spirit of it! And that’s the LIVING GOD, the power of HIS GOSPEL UNTO SALVATION, the promises of HIS LIVING WORD, and the NATURE AND CHARACTER OF GOD WHO DOES JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE AN AWFULLY SIGNIFICANT PART IN OUR WALK OF FAITH AND HOPE!
Did you hear it with your spiritual ears? “I’ve tried, I’ve looked, I’ve forsaken, I’ve strived, I’ve sought, I’ve disciplined, but I’ve been losing out, falling short, climbing less, and…” So I ask you, “WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THAT?”
Here’s how Paul put it in I Timothy 4:10, “For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” That is the message of illumination and realization, the message of affirmation, the message of transformation, and the message of celebration.
Without God as the author of hope, it’s always mud, always a blind alley, always short-changing in life’s best efforts at the window of exchange. And I don’t want you to be surprised by this, but…GOD DOES HAVE A PART!
And in ‘remnant preaching and teaching’ of true biblical repentance, of self-examination, of the gospel of purifying the heart and persevering to the end, which is absolutely necessary, some have so looked within they’ve forgotten to look up – so examined themselves that the gaze has been exchanged for self-effort rather than fixed on the Author and perfecter of our faith.
In Psalm 34:4-18 we find end results of one who fixes their eyes on the Right One: “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The righteous eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
Let your “eyes see the King in His beauty,” [Isaiah 33:17]; let your gaze be upon “the angel of His presence who saves…who lifts out of despair…who carries us as those in days of old,” [Isaiah 63:9], let your feet today settle in “at the table…where the Bread of His Presence…continually abides (Exodus 25:30) at all times;” turn your heart [right now] to “My Angel who will go before you and bring you in…” [Exodus 23:23].
Think of Him “Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us…so there will be glory in the Church again and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.”
Let the fire of HOLY CONFIDENCE burn in your heart “that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).”
Rejoice again that “it is God who is at work in you to will and to work for His good pleasure.” [Philippians 2:13].
Do you see it? You may be alive today in the midst of your mud, still alive by the grace and mercy of God, so you could come to the very place where you are in order to see that HE IS –I AM, and I AM ALL YOU NEED!
David said in Psalm 40:10, 16, “I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation…Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; let those who love Your salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified.”
How did Isaiah magnify God’s “able-ness”? In Isaiah 38:19 he said: “It is the living who gives thanks to You, as I do today; and a father tells his son about God’s faithfulness.” Godly fathers amplify for earthly sons God’s “able-ness”!
Do you know how Paul sought to remedy the ill of the problem Church called Corinth? How he sought to raise them out of the ‘pablum’ messy diaper stage? How he called the church to accountability concerning their corruption, division, and state of confusion? I Corinthians 1:9 says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It doesn’t have to be “mud” but walking under the Light of God’s “Bright and Morning Star” if you can grasp in your heart and mind, not your weakness, but God’s faithfulness and His “able-ness”! OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL AND ABLE AS OUR PRIEST IN THE SATISFACTION OF OUR SINS!
In Hebrews 2:17 we read, “Therefore, in all things He [Jesus] had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” What an awesome revelation and unveiling of the very heart of God for you and me!
Oh, listen, lean on, love Hebrews 7:24-28! “But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.”
We’ve just read about God’s “better covenant”! An unchangeable priesthood, able to save to the uttermost, always making intercession for you, a High Priest fitting for us, once for all offered Himself, the Son and Savior, as the perfect sacrifice of God forever!! And you have a better plan?
Who is it that would overlook or seek to blot out I John 1:7? “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.” I John 2:2 builds reinforcement to God’s ability and able-ness to save, bless, fulfill, and complete: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
To the Ephesians Paul said, Ephesians 1:7, “…we have redemption through His blood…”
If you’ve been reading with your heart and head, you know our beginning with Holy God is only on the basis of the blood of Christ and its able-ness. You also know that our continuation of that walk in victory and in power is not because of our exceptional abilities but the power of the blood of Christ to make new and renew continually. Our continuation of that walk is not because of our dazzling faith but the blood of Jesus. We’re not overcomers and super-achievers because of our efforts but the blood of the Lamb of God alone empowering us. Our nearness to God is only through His blood – look at Ephesians 2:13! “But now in Christ Jesus you who were formally far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ!!”
And you know when it’s all over, last of all, final statement of our faith as we enter the presence of Holy God – it’s the FAITHFULNESS OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS!! I Peter 1:17-21 says: “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manife4st in these last times for you, who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL AND ABLE IN HIS GOVERNMENTAL RULE AND REIGN!! Oh, please examine carefully Hebrews 3:1-6! “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.”
Do you see it? Faithful to the God who appointed Him! Faithful to the calling, purpose, blueprint drawn before the foundation of the world! Faithful in His words – “I never say anything I don’t hear the Father say!” Faithful in His deeds – “I never do anything I don’t see the Father doing!” Faithful in the Spirit of His life – it was the prophetic fulfillment of every word said about Him in Isaiah 9:6-7, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
Jesus has REIGNED IN OTHERS – AND HE CAN REIGN IN YOUR HEART AND LIFE AND BRING IT TO COMPLETION! Psalm 89:36-37 tells us: “His seed shall endure forever, and His throne as the sun before Me; It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.”
This is why Paul said in I Corinthians 15:25, “For He MUST REIGN until He has put down all His enemies under His feet.” HE, THE LORD JESUS, MUST REIGN! Absolute necessity, divine imperative, a Sovereign Word from God!! JESUS MUST REIGN, RULE OVER US. Why? BECAUSE HE IS ABLE!!
How many have you known who have refused to bow down before “golden images” of this world, man’s own makings, and instead face fiery furnaces – because they refuse to bow and are willing for the fires. Why? Daniel 3:16-18 says: Shadrach, Meshach, and AbedNego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
How many have you known who looked within and saw only stony, hardened hearts, but heard the truth? Luke 3:8 says, “…for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham…,” and they became living stones!
How many have you known who faced the “contrary winds,” “demon powers,” forces of Hell itself to turn them aside, who felt the mighty torrent and surges of the floods of enemy oppression, but stayed the course. Why? Romans 8:38-39 tells us: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
How many have you known or seen who came within a hair’s breadth of standing or falling, but they chose to stand firm? Why? Romans 14:4 says, “…to his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
Romans 16:25-26 says: “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith -.”
Have you witnessed them? It’s not for them to receive the grace of God in vain and go on making today the Day of Salvation. Why? 2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”
“ALL GRACE…IN ALL THINGS…AT ALL TIMES…FOR ALL RECIPIENTS OF GRACE!”
Paul is still stretching us to the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ so that we can be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:20 says, “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think, ACCORDING to the power that works within us.” Paul wants us all as believers being convinced, (2 Timothy 1:12), that “He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day…”
Hebrews 2:18 says, “He’s able to come to our aid…” Hebrews 7:25 says, “able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He ever lives to make intercession for us.”
The look at Jude 24-25! “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.”
OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL IN HIS FAITHFUL WORD TO EACH AND EVERY BELIEVER. In Titus 1:9 Paul wrote: “holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”
What about your personal walk? Is it one contradicting God’s Word for yourself or resting in its converting, cleansing truths? I don’t know of anything more vital than this very word today to translate you out of “mud” into the heavenly places than this: THE FAITHFUL WORD OF ALMIGHTY GOD!
When in John 17:4 Jesus said to the Father, “I have finished the work which You gave Me to do,” the angels rejoiced and Father-God smiled! The heart and mind of God had been fully blessed as the Son finished God’s work at the Cross.
Read carefully what Oswald Chambers wrote about God’s faithful Word concerning man’s redemption. [“My Utmost For His Highest, “ p. 242]: “Never build your preaching of forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation of God; it makes the Cross unnecessary, and the Redemption “much ado about nothing.” If God does forgive sin, it is because of the DEATH of Christ. God could forgive men in no other way than the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted to be Savior because of His death.” We see Jesus…because of suffering and death, crowned with glory and honor.” The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ – “It is finished.” That is the last word in the Redemption of man.” AMEN?
CHAPTER TEN
ACCEPTABLE BONDAGE OR ATONING LIBERTY?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
There is a powerful, convicting, awakening passage of Scripture in Jeremiah 17:5-10 which lays the foundation for “acceptable bondage or atoning liberty.” It says: Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
The paralysis of response to a closed or open door leaves one where he’s always been – in bondage, a slave to his flesh and old sin nature, unresponsive to the love and grace of God. In fact, after hearing God’s message about the Potter and the clay in Jeremiah 18, their response (fallen man), then and now, is found in verse 12, and they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates (or stubbornness) of his evil heart.” At least they knew they WERE EVIL!
Acceptable bondage is in a man who has no “trust” at all in God. “Fallen men” bound by their old sin natures do not have even the slightest confidence at all in God or His Word. The god they bow to is the ‘god of self’ – and in that they have great confidence!
Paul gives us all an informative view of ‘acceptable bondage’ for the majority of our world population even now, but also an inspirational view of “atoning liberty.” He wrote in Ephesians 2:1-3, and, verses 11-13, the following: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Verses 11-13, Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
The psalmist had spiritual understanding and awareness of what was going on in the minds and hearts of his day when he wrote in Psalm 2:1-3, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS ANOINTED, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”
And they don’t even know about worldly, fleshly, demonic or Satanic bonds and cords binding their hands, heads, hopes, and dashing into pieces words of hope, words of liberty, and freedom, or words that say, “There IS atoning liberty”! They’ll stuff your ears and minds both to shut out God’s message.
Oh, there are those who “flourish” for a season – but then they must stand before Holy God! Some of the hardest hearts in this world today are men who are billionaires and don’t know where the gifts to accumulate it came from. Just because God seeks to exalt certain men who are not men of faith doesn’t mean that it has become a ‘blessing’ to them – they don’t know it, but it has become their worst ‘curse’! They may feel they ‘live’ without a rebuke from God, but Revelation 3:19 says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”
In God’s creation of man He created us all as unbridled men and women, free to choose for ourselves, even as His dove of peace called us all to Himself. We’re not horses that He puts reins on like a Kentucky Derby winner! God isn’t interested in the men He created being ‘robots’ that allows Him to punch any button He wants to get His way – we’re free to fall but also free to repent and rest ourselves in His eternal care.
This is why Paul wrote to Timothy, I Timothy 5:6, “But she who lives in pleasure [indulgence] is dead while she lives.” I love what Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” as he quoted I John 1:7, “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.” Chambers then wrote: “To make conscious freedom from sin for deliverance from sin by the Atonement is a great error. No man knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced on Calvary. The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me…This does not refer to conscious sin only, but to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Ghost in me realizes.”
In Romans 2:4-11 Paul enlightens us more about “acceptable bondage,” “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds’; eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness – indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”
And you do understand, you grasp, with the reality that there are those who “despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.” And repentance THERE MUST BE!
But, for those who accept “acceptable bondage,” Paul says, that, “in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds.’”
“Acceptable bondage”! I Timothy 1:8-11 says, “But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.”
So God who is a Holy, Righteous, Pure God, if He is that at all, must obliterate what He sees as Holy, Righteous, and Pure, in order to accept the unacceptable? Is that how YOU see it? God must change, alter His Word, re-define His terms, broaden His own understanding of holiness, righteousness, and purity as fallen sinners see it? Right? Wrong! And nothing could be further from Holy Truth!!
Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable [that which is between a man and a woman] among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers GOD WILL JUDGE!!”
In Revelation 21:6-8 we read, And He said to me, “It is done! I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” [And if you don’t know, it is a fire that is never extinguished, and one “burns” throughout eternity!!]. As they face the “second death,” it never dies, the fire is never quenched from burning on them with horrible pain and suffering; it’s forever and ever because of their choice!
I can only explain it as hardness of heart, a stubborn, sin-bound mind, an unholy flesh nature that binds one ever so strongly, every day, and building up huge, thick walls to the grace and mercy of God! Spurgeon called it “Inordinate affection.” Fisher calls it incomprehensible stupidity even with their PHD’s!!
James 5:1-6 so clearly speaks about “acceptable bondage”! “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.”
“Acceptable bondage”? I don’t know of a more moth-eaten, ravaged style of life, that those who have been so prime-pumped and live so proud of themselves and what they’ve accomplished for themselves.
Do you remember Belshazzar in Daniel 5? Verse 20 says, “But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.” How sad is that? But you don’t deal with your own pride and arrogance?
Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” In fact, the wise man of Proverbs had said earlier in Proverbs 13:10, “By pride comes nothing, but strife, [“My way or the highway”?], but with the well-advised is wisdom.”
Listen to Oswald Chambers! [“My Utmost For His Highest”, Vol.4,p.340], “There never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart, but he lost his wings, and fell into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges in self-conceit, and pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories, and trample his honors in the mire, and make him cry out again, ‘Lord, have mercy on my, less than the least of all saints, and the ‘very chief of sinners.’”
“Acceptable bondage”? For some, it is the reality of being a ‘law-breaker’, but since God is the God of grace and mercy, one feels he can ‘profess’ and continue on as a law-breaker. But I read in Galatians 3:10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”
It may be a shock even to some ‘Christians,’ but I John 3:4 tells us, “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”
James 2:10 says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” Why? Because Godly righteousness doesn’t come because one attempts to keep the law as his own saving grace – Galatians 2:21 says, “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
This is why in I Corinthians 15:34 Paul said, “Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame.”
Oh, my! Far too many willfully put themselves into acceptable bondage because they possess delusional thinking that if they ‘try’, then acceptance by God will come. But I read in Hebrews 2:14-15, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Did you see it? Do you receive it? It’s the death of Jesus on the Cross that has the blood-saving power to release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime SUBJECT TO BONDAGE!
With all my heart, I pray you receive, not acceptable bondage, but “ATONING LIBERTY!” In Galatians 5:1 Paul said, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” He told the Galatians and us in verse 13, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh [your old sin nature], but through love serve one another.”
This is why the author of Hebrews wrote Hebrews 10:25, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
It may be that you’ve found yourself hidden away in a ‘cave’ like David from the opposition to the saving grace and faith you stand on. He wrote Psalm 142, “I cry out to the Lord with my voice; with my voice to the Lord I make supplication. I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare before Him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Then You knew my path. In the way in which I walk they have secretly set a snare for me. Look on my right hand and see, for there is no one who acknowledges me; refuge has failed me; no one cares for my soul. I cried out to You, O Lord; I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low; deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Your name; the righteous shall surround me, for You shall deal bountifully with me.”
I so encourage you to see, not only Christ Jesus, in Isaiah 42, but yourself as an extension of God’s Life, as an expression of His love, and the very proof of His power, THROUGH YOU! Isaiah 42:1-10 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. 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. Sing to the Lord a new song…!”
Doctor Luke, in Luke 4:18-19, has the prescription of Atoning Liberty! He wrote: “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.” And elsewhere He says: “Today is the day of your salvation!”
What you’re getting ready to read is still on God’s agenda, on His time-table, and completely in His plans – Romans 8:18-19, 27-30! “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God…Verses 27-30, Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. 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 [pre-determined] 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.”
You do understand that apart from Christ’s work providing atoning liberty we all possess darkened minds that by His grace can become enlightened minds, and blinded minds that can become unveiled minds, and the minds of fallen men becoming the mind of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 Paul tells us: “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
ATONING LIBERTY! ATONING FREEDOM! ATONING BROKEN BONDS AND CHAINS! In Proverbs 16:7 we read, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He [God Himself] makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Is there peace surrounding your life?
Atoning Liberty? In James 5:7-8 we read: “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
Atoning Liberty? The evidence of eternal glory resting on the redeemed because of our Redeemer? Revelation 21:22-27 tells us who they are and who Jesus really is! “But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor to it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
Atoning Liberty? It’s freedom! The slavish chains and bondages have been broken because you’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb! John 8:36 says, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Do you grasp ‘freedom’ from sin’s penalty and freedom from sin’s power and even the promise of freedom from sin’s presence?
Atoning Liberty? Have you grasped “freedom to reign in this life”? Don’t miss this! It’s for this present hour in YOUR life! Romans 5:15-17! “But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more, the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came for one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by one man’s offense 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.”
Will reign when? IN THIS LIFE, IN THE HERE AND NOW, IN THIS PRESENT MOMENT EVEN AMIDST TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS!
Atoning Liberty? Romans 6:17-18, 22, gloriously tells us: “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Verse 22, But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.”
Atoning Liberty? Have you died? Galatians 2:20 says: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
And, as a result of Christ’s crucifixion and our death with Him, Romans 6:5-7 tells us: “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.”
Atoning Liberty? Praise God! We have the Indwelling Presence of God’s Holy Spirit, and I Corinthians 2:12 tells us: “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.” THE HOLY SPIRIT TELLS US AND SHOWS US AND VALIDATES GOD’S WORD IN US!
I pray you’re not still partially bound because you’re scared of the Holy Spirit! Oh, No! He‘s your Friend, your Guide, your Teacher, the One who empowers you to live the victorious, overcoming Life in Christ daily in the present here and now! “Receive the Holy Spirit! Yield to the Holy Spirit! Accept the leadership of the “dominant dancer” of Heaven in your heart and mind! Even skip on your feet like a champion dancer! With Joy in the Spirit!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DEATH OF GRACE OR SOLD OUT TO GRACE?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
Shakespeare, in “Richard III,” made a very sobering statement when he wrote: “O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God.” Are you even aware of the momentary grace of mortal men? And if you’ve been on a pilgrimage to discover ‘true grace,’ where has your journey brought you?
Have you personally discovered “the God of all grace”? And, if you have, you know within you, by His grace, that you have a deep awareness of sin’s guilt, and also you have an amazing awareness of Holy God, plus you know He wants your freedom from sin, not your awareness only of bondage to sin!
Have you personally overlooked John’s anointed words in John 3:17? “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” But then John added that “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,” strangling and putting to death “Amazing Grace”!
It’s not only that ignoring God’s grace puts grace to death in one’s own life, but Jude 4 speaks of a war to produce its death, yes, grace’s death. It says, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness [or license] and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Yes, there are men, pastors, who are in our modern world and even modern churches who are out to “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality.”
In late April, 2013, with my son, Scott, and his church staff, I attended a conference in Houston, Texas, for portions of 3 days listening some of the time to a well-known “Christian” teacher who basically massacred ‘grace’ every time he spoke. To say the least, I was shocked, horrified, that this man finds platforms in churches to belittle “the grace of God.” And, I now assume it goes on in many pulpits across America. I was reminded by this experience of Bonhoeffer’s terming some preachers’ definition of grace as nothing more than “cheap grace”!
Philip Yancey has written a book entitled “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” [Zondervan Publ., 1997, p.185]. He was commenting on Paul in Romans 6:1-14. “He [Paul] poses the question, If grace increases as sin increases, then why not sin as much as possible in order to give God more opportunity to extend grace? Although such reasoning may sound perverse, at various times Christians have followed exactly that loopy logic. A third-century bishop was shocked to see devout martyrs of the Christian faith devote their last nights in prison to drunkenness, revelry, and promiscuity. Since martyrs’ death would make them perfect, they reasoned, what would matter if they spent their last hours sinning?”
Francois Mauriac has written: “The Man you submit yourself to DOES NOT WANT YOU TO BE FREE TO BE A SLAVE [of sin]; HE BREAKS THE CIRCLE OF YOUR FETTERS, AND, AGAINST YOUR HALF-EXTINGUISHED AND STILL-SMOLDERING DESIRES, HE KINDLES AND RE-KINDLES THE FIRE OF GRACE.”
But some have been spiritually programmed that ‘grace’ really doesn’t change you into Christ’s likeness – it just builds in you a toleration and acceptance of your depravity that ‘grace’ only covers! In “Of Continence” St. Augustine so nailed it: “The law detects, grace alone conquers sin.” Modern-day false prophets proclaim sin is not conquered in a believer, only covered over!
It was Thomas Benton Brooks who long ago wrote: “As heat is opposed to cold, and light to darkness, so grace is opposed to sin. – Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart.”
The absence of grace, God’s grace, in a human life, means one is void of divine forgiveness, void of divine presence and purpose, and void of the ‘grace-power’ to be all He intends for me to be, fully available to His Indwelling Presence. Rather than “wrong chords”, grace produces inner harmony. Rather than a fleshly desire to be something I know I’m not, the graced believer is empowered by God’s Spirit to fulfill the Redeemer’s sovereignty over and in and through my life, with His strength made perfect in my weakness. [2 Corinthians 12:9].
But you do know that many preachers and followers have changed “Amazing Grace” into “amazing grit” which promotes the flesh! You’ve seen it and heard it: “amazing grit”! how sour the notes, that promotes a man such as me; I was never lost – only newly discovered – they were blind about me, but now they see!!…It was ‘grit’ that graced my determined will to do as I well pleased, and ‘grit’ my fleshly fears relieved. It’s been many dangers, toils and snares, but I BY MY STRENGTH HAVE OVERCOME. It’s grit that brought me safe this far, and grit will make me acceptable in God’s home.”
Really? Again, Shakespeare, in “Richard II”, wrote: “That word ‘grace’ in an ungracious mouth is but profane.” How true! But then in 2 Peter 3:18 Peter tells us: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” The grace of our Lord and Savior or the ‘grit’ of the worldly wise? You do remember that in that 2 Peter 3 passage, verse 17, “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, BEWARE lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked.”
The error of the wicked? “My ‘grit’ is preferable over “God’s grace” – “and don’t ever forget it. I’m my own man!” Oh, really?
Do you understand “oneness in Christ”? Once I’ve become a partaker of the Lamb of God sacrifice, I become One with Him in His fullness – apart from Him the unbeliever is empty! But I do grow in the understanding of my inherited blessings and mature from a new-born spiritual baby to ‘kid-stuff,’ adolescence spiritually, young adulthood, mature adult, to an aged saint of grace!
The ‘death of grace’ is so cleverly dealt with by many of the ‘fallen’ because they wear masks to hide their true identity even finding acceptance among the “found”, but hidden away in the inner man of an unbeliever, in the man’s fleshly mind of death to grace, there are those ‘black holes’ to nothingness, the “scars” of guilt and shame, and usually a better determination to present a more acceptable bondage. And, of course, they would deny that the Ten Commandments hasn’t exposed their hearts and the need of forgiveness, restoration, and the New Birth but only affirmed they tried to do better and not be a law-breaker. Law-breaking, even one broken law, reveals the cancer, but God’s “Amazing Grace” releases the healing cure of a sinful heart.
Karl Barth, former German theologian, wrote: “The beginning of good is perceived in the midst of the bad…The simplicity and comprehensiveness of grace – who can measure it?” I say to you as best I know how in this given moment: “Grace is the greatness and gift of God for our lives to forgive sinners and establish saints to touch His world with released grace through us.”
In Psalm 32”1-2 we read: “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.”
It’s a brave man who acknowledges God’s Law and that he is a breaker of that Law, but it’s a blessed man, convicted of the Holy Spirit who cries out to God, “God, be merciful to me THE SINNER.”
The ‘death of grace’? In Isaiah 8:13-15 the prophet wrote: The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. He will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken.”
The ‘death of grace’? Sir Francis Bacon, in “Essays: Of Atheism” wrote: ‘They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”
You do understand! A man wills himself as an unbeliever and bathes himself regularly in dirty water. But not all men are unbelievers – there are those the grace of God has turned around through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the exaltation of Christ in their lives – they’re “new creations,” while old men of unbelief remain old men of unbelief!!
The ‘death of grace’? Fredrich Wilhelm Krummacher wrote: “Unbelief does nothing but darken and destroy. It makes the world a moral desert, where no divine footsteps are heard, where no angels ascend or descend, where no living hand adorns the fields, feeds the birds of heaven, or regulates events.” That is so true – so the question now is, “Is God being allowed to ‘regulate the events’ in your life for His glory, honor, and praise? Or, do you still call the shots? Did you miss it earlier? Psalm 32:2, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” That’s a man sold out to the grace of God!
“Death of grace or Sold Out To Grace”? Slain by God or safety in Him? Separated from God or the Surety of His Presence in you? Sunken in the miry clay of your sin nature or standing on the Rock of His Salvation? The “death of grace”? NO ETERNAL PEACE! Sold out to grace? Perfect peace that passes all understanding! “The death of grace” IN Your Life? Guilty before Holy God! “Sold out to grace”? Abundantly pardoned, transgressions forgiven, sin is covered, blotted out, by the Lamb’s blood!
“The death of grace”? Where is that man’s name written? In the ledger of Satan himself! “Sold out to grace”? Where is his name written? In the Lamb’s Book of Life! Heaven? Revelation 21:27 says, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination, or a lie, BUT ONLY THOSE WHO ARE WRITTEN IN THE LAMB’S BOOK of LIFE.”
“The death of grace”? ‘Jesus is not my Lord nor my Savior’! Therefore they’ll always ‘want’ and never have eternal needs met! Do you see it? When a man assumes he can manage his own life and interests without God’s help, he cancels an eternal relationship and wallows in his guilt of a Godless life voiding grace in himself!
“The death of grace”? In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul wrote: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Worldly sorrow is only disappointment in one’s self and has nothing to do with the broken heart of God over man’s rebellion. Man controls his conscience and resists the Holy Spirit who “convicts of sin” – and he stays in his deathly state before Holy God when God would give him “the blood of the Lamb”!!
Listen to Oswald Chambers, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.254], “The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says it and means it.”
I haven’t given the following poem a name, but it might be “Sold Out To Grace”! It says:
“Through the price of suffering and death, Through the love and blood of the Lamb,
I have come to the Light of the Life of God’s Way, I’ve come to God’s Eternal Day.
For the Dayspring on high has come to me; And the Dayspring on high has died for me;
Through the Dayspring’s death I am set free; God’s Eternal Light shines in me.
Through the cost of the Cross and the pain of His death, Through the sacrifice made for my sins,
I have been redeemed, washed clean of my sin, I’ve come to God’s Eternal Day.
Through the richness of Calvary’s love, Through the nails in the prints of His hands,
I have been forgiven, made one with Christ, I’ve come to God’s Eternal Day.”
It’s why God spoke through Isaiah in Isaiah 43:21! “This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.” Does that sound like the “death of grace” or one who is “Sold Out To Grace?”
Resignation To Hopelessness? I don’t think so – at least for the “few” who find eternal hope in Christ alone!
The “death of grace”? Isaiah 40:29-31 says: “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
“Death”? When God gives LIFE and that EVERLASTING? In Isaiah 41:17-20 we read: “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry lands springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box tree together. That they may see and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.”
Have you ever seen “royalty” dressed in dirty street clothes of the poverty stricken variety? And “death to grace” is not the attire of the true repentant people of God!
I don’t know who wrote the following words, but I believe them to be truly anointed of God:
“You trembling souls! Dismiss your fears; Be mercy all your theme; Mercy, which, like a river, flows in one continued stream.
Fear not the powers of earth and hell; God will these powers restrain; His mighty arm their rage repel and make their efforts vain.
Fear not the want of outward good; He will for His provide, Grant them supplies of daily food, and all they need beside.
Fear not that He will e’er forsake, Or leave His work undone; He’s faithful to His promises – and faithful to His Son.
Fear not the terrors of the grave, or death’s tremendous sting; He will from endless wrath preserve – To endless glory bring.” AMEN?
Are you familiar with the hymn, “Grace Greater Than Our Sin”? Daniel B. Towner and Julia Johnston wrote it sometime in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. It says:
“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt, Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, There where the blood the Lamb was spilt.
Sin and despair like the sea-waves cold, Threaten the soul with infinite loss; Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold, Points to the Refuge, the Mighty Cross.
Dark is the stain that we cannot hide, What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is flowing a crimson tide; Whiter than snow you may be today.
Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, Freely bestowed on all who believe; You that are longing to see His face, Will you this moment His grace receive?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
PARTIAL OBEDIENCE OR FULL SURRENDER?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
Why is it that some begin a ‘journey of faith’ and then ‘fall away’? Why do well-grounded young people, taught faithfully by God-fearing parents, arrive at a university and are swept away from devotion and surrender by some of the godless professors or ‘strong-willed, independent, unbelieving classmates’? How is it that some so easily, who’ve walked devotedly, begin a pilgrimage, at least on the surface, of ‘full surrender,’ then fall away to ‘partial obedience,’ and then, as some disciples of Jesus did, walk no more with Him?
Some, like the astronomer, Carl Sagan, have been warped and deceived into thinking, “The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be.” But then the Apostle Paul, in Romans 1:20, wrote: “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
Oswald Chambers wrote, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.270], “When God gives a vision by His Spirit through His word of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view our Lord never had. Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ.” So true!
Partial obedience or full surrender? In Exodus 16 we find why some are so consumed by partial obedience. Oh, they’re following Moses, but verses 2-3 tells us: Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
They were on the journey of promise to the “promised land,” to see the manifestation of the glory of the Lord, to the reality, not of slavery, but total freedom – and verse 4 of Exodus 16 says, God speaking, “that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law [God’s Word] or not.” Are you being tested?
Partial obedience or full surrender? In I Timothy 6:10 Paul warned his young spiritual son, “for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which SOME HAVE STRAYED FROM THE FAITH IN THEIR GREEDINESS, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
I don’t know the hidden hearts of many who profess faith then end up walking faithlessly but 2 Timothy 4:10 speaks of Demas who forsook Paul on his missionary journeys “having loved this present world.” How heart-breaking is that for modern-day Pauls who see spiritual sons captured by the winds of worldliness and blown away?
Paul gave to Timothy a much broader explanation when in 2 Timothy 3:1-7 which I truly believe are descriptions of people in the church during the last days – LIKE NOW! “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captive of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Partial obedience? You’ll remember Jesus saying in Matthew 7:13-14 that we “enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult [word meaning ‘pressed’ or ‘crushing’] is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Jesus said in the same chapter of Matthew 7, verses 21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES the will of My Father. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
Have you read recently Genesis 11:31 where the Word says: “And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; [that’s God’s “Promised Land”!!]; and they came to Haran and dwelt there.” And verse 32 says, “and Terah died in Haran.” That was a place meaning “parched, burned up, or dried up”!
On the spiritual journey have you witnessed, some at least, with partial obedience starting their trip to the “Promise Land of God,” but settle into a dry, parched, burned-up place and life?
Abram was there – and could have ‘settled’ for less than God’s best, but Genesis 12:1-5 says: Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.”
Whenever you find a person or people who start a journey with God and then pause in “strange places and falling-away behavior,” you’ll find an abandonment of the one True and Living God, and people, then, bowing to the ‘gods’ of their own making including the idol worship of ‘self’!
In Isaiah 1:2-4 we see an ancient people so descriptive of modern-day America! It says: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me; the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.’ Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.”
But in spite of a rebellious people, God raised up others who bowed before Him, broken before Him, and built by Him into even a nation of faith and obedience! Terah “served other gods,” but Abram became a true follower and God blessed him – he became “the father of many nations” of faith. He became a man and a witness of full surrender!
And what does Almighty God do today? As He said to Abram, He will say to us: “I’m calling YOU out of your strange lifestyle to one of divine intent – Follow Me, and I’ll make you fishers of men!”
“Partial obedience or Full Surrender?” In Revelation 17 we read about the ‘woman’ and the ‘beast’ who John says, Verse 6, “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with amazement.” Verse 14 then says: “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.”
Jesus says: “You are leaving ‘the old’ and traveling in ‘the new and the eternal;’ your life will never be the same! Don’t settle for Haran, don’t dwell where pagan influences corrupt you, don’t stop short of the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Come out so you can go in where God wants you.”
There is such a powerful word in John 6:44 when Jesus said: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus ‘draws us,’ He ‘calls us,’ yes, He spiritually, magnetically, pulls us! Didn’t “the God of glory appear to our father Abraham”? Of course He did – and our loving God is ‘no respecter of persons’ – what He did for Abram, He does for you!
I have known numerous men and women across my 25 years of ministry in India who’ve said: “Jesus Christ came to me. Who is He and what is He about?” Repent! And believe! Repent! And trust His beckoning call! Repent! And surrender your will for His good, acceptable, and personal, perfect will! “Your will be done [in me] on earth as Your will is being done in Heaven!”
What He did for Abram He’ll do for me? Again and again and again, remember Abram! And put your name there! “Now the Lord said to Farrell Fisher…” “Now the Lord said to [put YOUR name there!!]…”
Oh, but please, please notice here: God’s Blessing To Abram Came After Terah Had Died In Haran – Haran: ‘the place of the dead” – and ABRAM, yes, had to get out of there! Spurgeon said about Abram in Haran: “He was conquered, not only by foes, but by compromising friends.” I pray you know nothing about that! I pray you walk and talk with those friends who walk and talk with God!
Hear me, I pray! “Partial obedience is to compromise the Lord’s command and to acknowledge my disobedience and, as a result, to stand under God’s judgment.” Why? Because partial obedience is making one’s self lord unto one’s self thus closing the door to the divine obedience He requires! Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ but you don’t do what I say.”
In James 1:22 we read: “But be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Again, Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest,” pps. 270-271], has written so wisely confirming the previous verse I’ve just listed when he said: “We are apt to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we have had. If there is one standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God and you do not come up to it, and do not feel inclined to come up to it, that is the beginning of backsliding, because it means your conscience does not answer to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ or for going back as a deserter.”
And I’m sad to say that most churches have an awful lot of “deserters” who don’t even know it! “Partial obedience”? “Partial obedience is to compromise our partial understanding and to increase our responsibility!” Yes, part-time disciples (?) face a stricter judgment than those who’ve never heard the Truth!
Was there divine intent in Abram, at least, getting to Haran? But was Haran his final destination? Had Almighty God told Abram, “Haran” or “Canaan”? “Well, Lord, at least I’ve followed You part of that way? Isn’t that enough? Have you really directed me to go all the Way with You?
“Partial Obedience”? “To compromise is to decay obedience and to bring on a deterioration of morals.” You’ll remember Genesis 11 and ‘the beginning of confusion.’ God never told His people to build the tower of Babel! Genesis 11:4 says, “Come, LET US build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us MAKE A NAME FOR OURSELVES…”
Confusion came, a scattering came, and all their efforts for themselves, did nothing but deteriorate their holy calling!
“Partial obedience”? “To compromise is to invite the absence of anointing and blessing.” The Holy Spirit of God does not pour out His anointing on idolaters and their idols. And I challenge you, again, to carefully read Colossians 3:5! “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which IS IDOLATRY.”
The Holy Spirit will not anoint and bless one who has decided for himself that the “Harans” are a pleasurable place to be at least for a time when God never said, “Reside in Haran and I’ll anoint you and bless you!” No! A thousand times, No!
Acts 2:1,4 tells us: “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Verse 4, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
And, I say to you, that far too often heavenly sons know no anointing because they so reside under an earthly father’s domination that they can’t hear God the Father! If you’re not where God wants you spiritually in your life, there will be absences of God’s grace and mercy. A divided allegiance shuts the door and builds a high dam holding back the Sea and flow of God’s Spirit and anointing!
“Partial obedience”? One does not ‘reside’ where he feels comfortable if God has assigned him a personal ministry zone. One does not ‘settle’ in a place which is not God’s “promised land.” Comfortable maybe, but not consecrated! Away from Ur, but not in God’s promised land! Religious mediocrity but not the Master’s residence for a true man of faith and obedience. It’s the pall of spiritual lifelessness when there should be the power of resurrection life in its fullness. It’s that acceptance in the mind of Jesus’ death on the Cross, but in the Spirit-realm they’re void of resurrection hope instilled within them.
“Partial obedience”? There is no doubt we are called to be “in the world” but not of it! Didn’t I mention Demas who was consumed by a “love for the world”? This is why Paul 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.”
Has your ‘world’ been crucified to you and you to the world? Your ‘world’ apart from Him is nothing more than mortal flesh, fleshly designs, personal interests excluding God and His will and purpose for your life, and fleshly energizing that does nothing but short-circuit divine power and supernatural blessing. And that’s because it’s so uncomfortable to ‘die daily’ that the resurrection life of Christ can be manifested in your mortal flesh. Some find that ‘freakish’!!
But what does James 4:4 tell us? “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
It was Herrick Johnson who 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.”
And, I would add, ‘worldliness of the flesh blessing quickly becomes the curse, becoming a trap, a snare to your soul and spirit!’ Theodore Munger really nailed it when he wrote: “The unrest of this weary world is its unvoiced cry after God.”
Oh, I’m telling you, look at the Tower of Babel and you will be greatly distressed by men constantly figuring out a way to substitute God and the Savior for something ‘man-made.’ It doesn’t work! What is this present evil world all about? It’s ‘at it’ to disclaim God and one’s need of Him! It’s ‘at it’ to substitute religion for relationship. It’s ‘at it’ to substitute man’s perverse philosophies for the Prince of Peace. It’s ‘at it’ to hide its sinful self from Holy God. It’s ‘at it’ to suppress Christ’s reproach at the Cross to celebrate self-will, self-pleasure, and self-perverseness!
“Towers” of self-expression are still being built while “Holy Spirit” experience and expression are fully denied. “Towers”? “Obedience to God is an option, yes, even salvation by works;” “Towers”? Obliteration of the need of a Savior! “Towers”? Religious doctors of theology spouting their interpretations of the Word of God rather than submission and obedience to ‘Thus says the Lord;’ “Towers? Where true religious extremists reside without any message of repentance toward God and faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! “Towers”? ‘No trouble for Christians in this world – we’ve been saved from that,’ even when Jesus says: “In the world you will have tribulation!”
Our holy world? It’s not ‘towers’ we build but standing on the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Our holy world? Called to be His witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth! Our holy world? Bathed in Eternal Light that exposes the darkness, not embrace it! Our holy world? Kept by the mighty power of God, not killed by the powers of darkness!
“Partial obedience or full surrender”? When a true believer is “justified”, he/she knows the reality of sanctification or “set apart to the glory of God alone,” and he/she knows final glorification is coming soon. Full surrender? “Get out of your country, and from your kin, and your father’s house, unto a land that I will show you.” That’s the “land of promises,” that’s the land “flowing with milk and honey,” that’s the land of blessed fulfillment, that’s our Lord’s heavenly city, that’s Immanuel’s abiding place and forever abode.
“Partial obedience or full surrender”? You see the blood of Jesus shed on the Cross but you know a better way? You’re told of the imputed, implanted righteousness and nature of God’s Messiah but you know your way speaks better to you? You’re told: ‘sincere religious effort should satisfy God,’ while Jesus says, “Come unto 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.” [Matthew 11:28-30].
“Full surrender”? In Joel 2:28-29 God tells us: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”
In John 17:4 Jesus said: “I have glorified You on earth, Father. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” Tell me: how is your divine, eternal, Christ-honoring work going? Didn’t Jesus say, “If you love Me, you’ll keep My commandments?” Faulty preaching and faulty teaching calls that ‘foreign’ to saving grace! Really?
Without hesitation, I say to you, partial obedience is pious fraud, imitation living, and so foreign to “I have been crucified with Christ” – and in His resurrection life, hope, and power, I now abide and rest in His fullness!! Again, Oswald Chambers said: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.229], “The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become the bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.” A saint? One truly set apart for the full purpose of honoring Christ through my daily walk!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LIMITED ATONEMENT OR A FINISHED WORK FOR ALL?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
There is such an awe-inspiring verse in Romans 5:6 where Paul wrote: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Do you see that? “Christ died for the ungodly.” Has that ever born even one person who was Godly from inception, birth, life, and then death? I don’t think so – I know so because God’s Word declares in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
How, under God’s Heaven, do the “limited atoners” read John 3:16-17 and determine in their lame brains, “Jesus died for the few – not the whole sinful world. He died for the few, not a world filled with unbelievers.”
That to me is the most heart-wrenching, mind-boggling attempt in diluting the very heart of God saying Jesus died only for the redeemed. Why aren’t ALL SAVED if He died for all? Because John 3:19 says, “And this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Did Jesus DIE for “the evil”?
Limited atonement? Christ died for the man who hates Him most. Christ died for the most ungodly sinner who has ever lived. Christ died for the adulterous woman whose whole life had been and still was a total disaster of bondage to immorality. Christ died for the strongest, most well-known agnostic or atheist. Christ died for the intellectual who has determined he is smarter than God. Christ died for the pimp and his army of immoral men and women. Christ died for the homosexual and the lesbian. Christ died for the crooked banker and immoral lawyer. Christ died for the cheaters in marriage, in classes, in business deals so phony they make the Devil blush. Christ died for that one who is the furthest away from Him!
Christ died for the philosophers who deny God’s absolutes and settle in to their relativism, and as James Montgomery Boice wrote: [“Gospel of Grace?” p.29], modern philosophy majoring on “the substitution of pragmatism for truth.” That’s human reasoning substituted for divine revelation. Boice spoke about our world today that has rejected ‘what do you think’ for ‘how do you feel about this.’ That is that philosophy that rejects divine truth for a human person’s reasoning power.
A ‘limited atoner’ has so limited the heart of God, denied the Word of God, and basically rejected those for whom Christ died – and they unite to pump each other’s ‘flesh’ because ‘we are THE CHOSEN OF GOD.’
And if Romans 12:2 says: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,” I believe we must never conform to the pattern of limited atoners, patting ourselves on the back, and them, because we’re so much wiser than those who miss out on God’s grace!
Limited atoners and their worldview of redemptive grace, mercy, and love, seeks to bind and limit the very heart of God Himself. Do you realize the limitations “limited atoners” have put upon themselves? “Limited atoners” limit their decisions, their lives, their actions, their deeds, their ministries, because “we’re not responsible for all the world. All the world is not who Jesus died for. He died just for us.” That is sickening and heart-breaking!
“Limited atoners” who teach and preach ‘limited atonement’ by Jesus, are so in the same vein of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who according to Daniel 4:30 saw everything around him strictly for himself – “of me,” “by me,” and “for me.” God looked upon that king as mentally and morally deranged!
“Limited atoners”? It’s that which exalts ‘me, my, mine’ and builds a disregard for the ‘world’ for which Christ died!
“Limited atoners”? Do they really believe the anointed word of Romans 12:2 where Paul said,”Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world [the world you live in, the world of limited atonement], but be being transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Michael Horton, in his book, “Made In America,” [p.61], has written, “we have made our sovereign Lord about as cheap as the hairbrush that has his name stamped on it.” That’s what limited atonement does – it cheapens the gospel and tells many that the gospel “is not for you.”
“Limited atonement”? It’s a limitation on the powerful Word of God! In I Peter 1:23 we read, “you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God.” Which is why Paul told Timothy to “preach the Word” – not to the few but to the many!
In Mark 1:35-39 we find our Lord’s strategy because He came to reach the multitudes! Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” But He said to them, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach to them also, BECAUSE FOR THIS PURPOSE I HAVE COME FORTH” And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.”
In “Whatever Happened To The Gospel of Christ?” [p.77] Boice wrote: “Isn’t that striking? Jesus was refusing to carry on a healing ministry. Why? Had He lost His power? Didn’t He care anymore? Of course not. Besides, He does other healings later on in the Gospel. Why did He refuse the disciple’s challenge then? It is because He knew that if He allowed the miracles to eclipse the teaching, the countryside might soon be filled with thousands of fit and healthy people, but in spite of their good health they would all die eventually and perish in hell. If, on the other hand, He focused on teaching them the Bible, though many would have less than perfect health and there would still be many physical diseases, many of these people would also believe and those who did believe would go to heaven. Jesus saw things God’s way, and He would not allow anything to deter Him from His Father’s business.”
I am convinced beyond any doubt that the “limited atonement” teaching has suffocated Christ’s cause dramatically. It’s why “The Cambridge Declaration” declared, “Christ and His Cross have moved from the center of our vision.” For whom did Christ die? The few or all the world?
If I were you as a ‘limited atoner,’ I would examine carefully Romans 3:21-26! 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 Christ Jesus, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and THE JUSTIFIER OF THE ONE WHO HAS FAITH IN JESUS.” Did the Word say: “to all and on all who believe”?
Oh, yes! There are those who deny Jesus’ work at the Cross to clear them, pardon them, free them, from the stranglehold of the Devil and themselves – but His shed blood was by God’s grace to “justify freely”, passing over the sins previously committed, and that “He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. But the redemption in Christ Jesus, intended for ALL, can and is refused by many!
In Romans 10:1-3 Paul shared his unceasing prayer for the Jews, and I believe, for all unbelievers. He said: “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.”
Then, Romans 10:12-13 says clearly: “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.” Amen? But, the stark reality? There are those who are a ‘disobedient and contrary people’ for whom Christ died! And some willfully reject Him – not Him rejecting them!
Dr. Boice’s research on John Newton [1725-1807] who wrote “Amazing Grace” is such a powerful story. I want to share every word from Boice’s book. [Copyright c) 2001 by Linda McNamara Boice, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Ill. 60187]. Dr. Boice wrote:
“Newton was raised in a Christian home in which he was taught verses of the Bible, but his mother died when he was only six years old and he was sent to live with a relative who hated the Bible and mocked Christianity. Newton ran away to sea. He was wild in those years and was known for being able to swear for two hours without repeating himself. He was forced to enlist in the British navy, but he deserted, was captured, and was beaten publicly as a punishment. Eventually Newton got into the merchant marines and went to Africa. In his memoirs he wrote that he went to Africa for one reason only, ‘that I might sin to the fill…’
Newton fell in with a Portuguese slave trader, in whose home he was cruelly treated. This man often went away on slaving expeditions, and when he was gone his power passed to his African wife, the chief woman of his harem. She hated all white men and vented her hatred on Newton. He says that for months he was forced to grovel in the dirt, eating his food from the ground like a dog. He was beaten mercilessly if he touched it. In time, thin and emaciated, Newton made his way to sea, where he was picked up by a British ship making its way up the coast to England…
When the captain of the ship learned that the young man knew something about navigation as a result of being in the British navy, he made him a ship’s mate. But even then Newton fell into trouble. One day, when the captain was ashore, Newton broke out the ship’s supply of rum and got the crew drunk. He was so drunk himself that when the captain returned and struck him on the head, Newton fell overboard and would have drowned if one of the sailors had not quickly hauled him back on board…
Near the end of one voyage, as they were approaching Scotland, the ship ran into bad weather and was blown off course. Water poured in, and the ship began to sink. The young profligate was sent down into the hold to pump water. The storm lasted for days. Newton was terrified. He was sure the ship would sink and he would drown. But in the hold of the ship, as he desperately pumped water, the God of all grace, whom he had tried to forget but who had never forgotten him, brought to his mind Bible verses he had learned in his home as a child. The way of salvation opened up to him. He was born again and deeply transformed. Much later, when he was again in England, Newton began to study theology and eventually became a preacher, first in a little town called Olney and later in London…”
Dr. Boice closed this story by writing: “Newton was a preacher of grace, for he had learned that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more (Romans 5:20). He is proof that the grace of God is sufficient to save anybody, and that He saves by grace alone.” WOW!
“Amazing Grace” is for all – not a ‘limited atonement’! Are there those who miss out on God’s amazing grace? OF COURSE! And why? In Romans 8:5-9 Paul wrote: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
When in Romans 12:1 Paul spoke of “the mercies of God,” I don’t believe, will never believe, have no evidence scripturally that God’s mercy is for a select few! In fact, in Ephesians 2:11-13, Paul tells us WHO CAN BE BROUGHT NEAR! “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
The beloved John so amplifies our opportunity, our open door, and our explanation of eternal change from lost to found, dead but made alive, hopeless but find hope, separated but are reconciled, of the worldly class but made Heaven’s family on earth! I John 1:7 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.”
What does “limited atonement” say? ‘Jesus didn’t die on the Cross and shed His own blood for the many – He died for the few!’ “IF” is one of the biggest words in God’s revelation – and the “IF” relates to anyone. IF ANYONE, LOST, ALIENATED, SEPARATED FROM GOD, CALLS OUT FOR MERCY, HE/SHE CAN’T BE SAVED? And that’s because of “LIMITED ATONEMENT”? I pray you’ll personally search and read every recorded verse to follow!!
Matthew 10:32-33, Matthew 12:52, Matthew 16:25
Mark 3:35, Mark 8:34-39
Luke 12:8-9
John 3:36, John 4:13-14, John 11:25-27
Acts 2:21, Acts 10:43
Romans 10:9-10
I John 4:15-16, I John 5:4-5, I John 5:11-13
Revelation 20:15, Revelation 22:16-17
And you, as a limited atoner, have a problem with “whosoever will may come”?
Woodrow A. Geier, in “Religion In Life,” wrote: “In the Cross God descends to bear in His own heart the sins of the world. In Jesus, He atones at unimaginable cost to Himself.”
It was Charles Wesley, in his “Free Grace,” who wrote: “He left His Father’s throne above, (So free, so infinite in His grace!), Emptied Himself of all but love, And bled for Adam’s helpless race.”
And “all are helpless” but Jesus died for the few only?
Here’s Oswald Chambers’ statement that I want to close with. It’s in “My Utmost…”, p.255! He said: “God is justified in saving bad men only as He makes them good. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The Atonement is a propitiation whereby God through the death of Jesus makes an unholy man holy.” “Whosoever will may come,” Signed: Jesus Christ!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
APOSTASY OR REPENTANT REST AND REACH?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of ‘apostasy’: “An abandonment of what one has professed; a total desertion, or departure from one’s faith or religion…an abscess.” An ‘’apostate’? One who is “false; traitorous.” Those are some strong, stinging, ‘take-your-breath-away’ definitions! And the question is, “Are they applicable in our modern day?” I think so!
When I came to Jeremiah 8, I found prophetic challenges for a people in a perilous condition. Verses 4-6 says: “Moreover you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into battle.” Then in verse 12 we read: ‘Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down,’ says the Lord.
But there IS ‘hope,’ not resigned to hopelessness, because in Hosea 14:4 God says, “I will heal their backsliding [or apostasy]. I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away.” There is also a very sad verse in Jeremiah 5:3 which says, “O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.” The end of verse 6 says, “Their backslidings have increased.” And this word ‘backslidings’ is the word meaning also ‘apostasies.’ And God’s Holy Word says, “their apostasies have increased.” Is that true of today?
Biblical TRUTH either challenges one or condemns one, bringing one to the light of our Lord’s freedom, or bringing one to the darkness of our Lord’s judgment.
Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.270], “Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ.” And, as a result of that, there is usually a ‘falling away’ – and some never return to intimacy with Christ.
It was Alexander MacLaren who said: “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” But, rather than altars erected to the glory of God, the apostates erect “tombstones”!
In Romans 12:1 Paul challenges everyone professing faith in Christ: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service [of worship].” In fact, in I Corinthians 15:31 Paul said, “…I die daily.”
And there is a revelational reason! No choice of ‘daily death’ and the door is open to that spirit of apostasy! In 2 Corinthians 4:10-11 he said: “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live [in Christ] are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
No daily death and the life of Jesus in you faces a closed door that can manifest eternal consequences rather than heavenly blessing! I don’t know how you keep yourself spiritually fit to honor Christ through your walk if you don’t “die” so He can have full release through you. Apostasy results because there are ‘professing’ Christians who become lovers of themselves rather than true lovers of Him. Jesus is not a “second-chair fiddler player”! Look at Romans 5:15! “For the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”
Apostasy results in some because “partakers of the divine nature” scares them, and, all of a sudden, self-examination takes the place of “as He is so am I.” Falling away is one identifying himself by his flesh and refusing to claim one’s new eternal identity in Christ Jesus! We’re called to be those “mortals swallowed up by Resurrection Life and Resurrection Hope” – not ‘hopelessness’! Don’t you know what God says about you ‘in Christ’? Hear me, please! All that the Almighty God of the Cross IS, IS YOUR INHERITANCE AND ETERNAL IDENTITY!
Look at 2 Peter 1:2-4! “Grace 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.”
Apostates apostatize because something or someone has crept in diluting salvation truths in their minds, hearts, and bodies. In Galatians 6:14 Paul said, “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 wrote: “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Have you been crucified to the world around you in its perverse passions and aims? Do you bear in your body the brand-marks of Christ? Rather than “marked,” an apostate is “marred” in miry clay and sinking fast!
Apostates don’t ‘squander’ themselves for the higher, holier, heavenly purpose – they ‘live’ to satisfy ‘fallen flesh’ still bound by the old sin nature chains. If you’ve truly walked with Christ Jesus, guided by His words, led by the Holy Spirit, isn’t it easy for you to pick up on that ‘professing person’ and his self-interest, his self-complacency, his self-righteousness, his self-love, or his arrogant self-sufficiency? But Jesus came to “rescue the perishing” – even the apostate!
Apostate? Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure.” Have you witnessed it or experienced it? The one who is ‘wealthy’ in fleshly pleasure is the one who is bankrupt in the poverty of spiritual truths. Do you remember Paul telling us in 2 Timothy 3:4 about those, I believe, in the last days’ church who are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God’?
Titus 3, in my New King James Bible, is entitled: “Graces of the Heirs of Grace”! Titus 3:1-11 says, “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various pleasures and lusts, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.”
There it is! A Magnificent contrast between apostasy and the repentant rest and reach! Hebrews 11:25 speaks of Moses when it says, Moses “choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin…”
“Apostasy or the repentant rest and reach?” In 2 Timothy 2:8-17 we read: Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This is a faithful saying: ‘For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.’ Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, tightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer…”
“Apostasy?” How many have been on that threshold, ready to fall away – but then there is miraculous favor from God! In Lamentations 3:11, this is Jeremiah writing, yes, and telling us of being hedged in, hedged by the hand of God, weights on one’s soul and spirit, and then says: [Verse 11], “He has turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces.” God’s heart is broken over apostasy in any child of His – double God’s heart for the one who senses that his strength and hope in the Lord is perishing or vanishing! And God steps in!
Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, in “Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?” [Grand Rapids, Mich., Zondervan, 1999, p.23], wrote: “We don’t have a shortage of leaders, but a shortage of followers of the one Leader who can transform lives and nations. We don’t need to enlarge our vision, but make it smaller and more focused. We don’t need more numbers, but more quality and consistency among the numbers we already have. We need more people who will do things God’s way and fewer people doing things man’s way.”
Is that a challenge for pastors and churches, leaders of splinter groups, youth and young adult disciplers, to preach and teach and reach, yes, those who are ‘falling away’? Is it a challenge to preach and teach and reach those, who according to George Barna or George Gallup Jr., 76% of evangelicals or church folk believing human beings, by nature, really are basically good, saying, “Church, just leave them alone,” or 86% saying, concerning salvation, “God helps those who help themselves.” Where under God’s Heaven or in His Word do you find that?
Apostasy or Repentant Rest and Reach”? Much ‘apostasy’ comes out of ‘cultural Christianity’ that ignores even Jesus’ own words. But ‘world religions’ are stumbling blocks also issuing their performance creeds far short of the Truth of the Cross of Christ. And have you examined ‘Christianity’ that majors on ‘churchianity’ finding repulsive that Jesus says: “You must be born again!”
Listen to our Lord’s words, and examine if this is what your ‘church’ has shared with you: John 3! “Nicodemus, YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN, born of the water [of the Word] and born of the Spirit! It’s not an option, Rabbi!” “Nicodemus, examine God’s love . God loved the world and gave His Son, Jesus, to be the sacrifice for your sin. He who believes in [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
This is why, in I Peter 1:23, Peter wrote: “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”
Oh, hear me! GOD HAS CHOSEN, PRE-DETERMINED, THAT IN CHRIST MEN ARE SAVED! APART FROM JESUS THEY ARE “LOST”, SEPARATED, ALIENATED! IT’S A MATTER OF GOD’S LOVE,GRACE, AND MERCY. It’s not even an option other religions hold up to Him – it’s Jesus ONLY! Ephesians 1:4-6 tells us: “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”
Also, God has said: IT’S THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD SLAIN BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD THAT REDEEMS, REGENERATES, RESTORES, AND RELEASES GOD’S LIFE IN YOU! Ephesians 1:7-8 says: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence…”
And, OH! THERE’S THE PRECIOUS MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT! Ephesians 1:11-14 says, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
“Repentant rest and reach” is because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in one’s life! You really don’t believe there is that vital step of repentance apart from the Spirit, do you? In John 16:7-8 Jesus said: “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…”
Then in Acts 2:32-39 Peter preached the Truth about God’s Holy Spirit and our relationship to Him. He said: “This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ 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 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.”
Oh, but then in John 16:13-14 Jesus magnified the Holy Spirit’s continuing ministry as you press in to Jesus: “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.”
Look at John 15:26 where Jesus also said: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” Also examine carefully I John 5:6 where John wrote: “This is He who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And IT IS THE SPIRIT WHO BEARS WITNESS, BECAUSE THE SPIRIT IS TRUTH.” WOW!
When in John 16:14 Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would “glorify Me,” He opened the door to every believer’s reception, dependence, and release of the Spirit through him/her! Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.248], “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 attitude or atmosphere, and prayer and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous, it did not cost the passion of God, it is not dyed in the blood of the Lamb, nor 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 Almighty God.’ That and nothing else is what the New Testament talks about.”
Does the Holy Spirit see in you “the welcome sign” for His reception in your heart, mind, and life?
“Apostasy or repentant rest and reach”? Without a doubt, I am thoroughly convinced that most ‘apostasy’ is because of a starvation diet coming from neglect, and, yes, denial of the need of the Word of God in one’s daily life, even when Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
Our Lord spoke to “many of His disciples” who heard His words and said to each other, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?’ Apart from the Holy Spirit, no one will truly understand or receive God’s Holy Word! Then He said in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” You’ll remember in I Corinthians 3:1-3 that Paul had to ‘scold’ the Corinthians!
Have you examined lately Exodus 16? Israel had been delivered from Egypt and were on their way to “the promised land” – and all of a sudden they are “hungry”. [Oh, I pray you read this with spiritual understanding and receive it on your journey to your ‘promised land’!]. Look at Exodus 16 again:
- God rains ‘bread’ from Heaven for His children of faith, His Holy Word!
- “Gather a certain quota every day.”
- “In the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord.”
- Verse 12, “And you shall know that I AM the Lord your God.”
- Verse 16, “Let every man take for those who are in his tent.”
- Verse 17, “Let no one leave any of it till morning” – apply it!
- Verse 31, “and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Oh, how “sweet” God’s Word is to one’s taste!!
The prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 15:16, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”
I close this chapter on “apostasy or repentant rest and reach” by Looking at Luke 10:38-42 asking you: Have you disciplined your walk with Christ on “the necessary part”? Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
That good, needful, necessary part? Sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His WORD!!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GAME PLAYERS OR TRUE DISCIPLES?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”?
You are aware that Jesus so easily identified the “game players” and the true disciples. “Game players” are the imitators of true discipleship – and I have no doubt the “game players” today in the ‘last days’ church out-number the true disciples! A born-again believer doesn’t dress like the world, talk like the world, or live for the world and its pleasures. A born-again believer cannot, will not, must not be identified as one who is consumed by the sinful passions and sinful pleasures of the age in which he’s called out to express the Indwelling Christ in his daily walk.
In Psalm 24:3-6 David’s psalm says: “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face.”
That doesn’t sound to me like a ‘game player’ in whose mind and heart and will there is not one inch of surrender to a fleshly, sinful, pleasurable life-style! ‘Game players’ open wide the doors of their hearts to destructive, devilish diseases that impair and hinder their supposed walk of faith.
As we begin this message together, I want you to come to Isaiah 33:10-22! “Now I will rise,” says the Lord, “Now I will be exalted, Now I will lift Myself up. You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be like the burnings of lime; like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire. Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might.” 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; bread will be given him, his water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; they will see the land that is very far off. Your heart will meditate on terror; “Where is the scribe? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?” You will not see a fierce people, a people of obscure speech, beyond perception, of a stammering tongue that you cannot understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts; your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home, a tabernacle that will not be taken down; not one of its stakes will ever be removed, nor will any of its cords be broken. But there the majestic Lord will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, in which no galley with oars will sail, nor majestic ships pass by (For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us).”
Did you catch the “game players” and their journey? “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites (‘play-actors’); who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” Oh, but then in Verses 15-16 we see true disciples! “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; bread will be given him, his water is sure.”
Almighty God is the God of the free-will eternal decision about ‘blessing’ or ‘the curse’! In Deuteronomy 30:11-20 God issues His decree about ‘the choice’ of ‘game players’ or ‘true disciples’: “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ‘Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life, and the length of your days; and that you may dwell IN THE LAND…” What land? “The land of His promises!”
The game players are those who desire to be religious but shun the truth of re-birth. The game players desire ‘blessing’ without any commitment to please God. The game players are the promoters of many gods and pat themselves on the back for their devotion to the ‘god’ they’ve determined to be ‘god’ for themselves. True disciples have been “born again” by the Word and the Spirit, they’ve been taught and live in the pathway of Holy Living, they’ve locked the truths of God’s Word in their hearts, blessed as obedient sons and daughters, fully anointed and presided over by the Indwelling Holy Spirit, and overflowing, uncontained love for their King!
Oh, they “dwell in the High Places,” in the “Upper Room” of holy presence seated at the feet of Jesus, at peace with whatever door the Lord opens for them to walk through!
“Game players”? More devotion to marred religious leaders than devotion to the Master and His revelation. “Game players”? They’ll sleep while Jesus says pray, sit while Jesus says to go, harbor resentments and bitterness while Jesus says forgive, bless others while they’ll hoard selfishly for themselves, love the fleshly while Jesus tells us to die to the flesh and be one with the saints, and they love themselves and hold on to it for dear life while Jesus commands us to lay our lives down!!
“True disciples”? Isaiah 33:2 says of them, “O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in time of trouble.” But “game players” have no trouble, expect no trouble, see no trouble, because their eyes are fixed inward, not upward, because the true Savior says to His true people, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world!”
“Game players”? ‘Why wait upon the Lord? We are able to discern for ourselves what our lives are to be about – and God should be proud of our independent, fleshly, determined ways.” But “true Disciples”? “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?”
“Game players”? They determine where they walk, why they walk that way, and will settle for themselves what they want to do when they get where they are going! But “true disciples” have heard the voice of their Lord and Savior, “This is the Way – walk in it.” So Deuteronomy 33:15 speaks of those who “walk righteously and uprightly,” unashamed of their convictions and consecration of lives to the honor of Christ, to His will and to His Word!
“Game players”? In Jeremiah 17:9-10 the Lord said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to every man according to his ways, according to the ‘fruit’ of his doings.” But the true disciple? They truly understand why Jesus died, have truly identified with Him in His death, and have been raised up as new creations! 2 Corinthians 5:15-21 so clearly defines ‘true disciples’: “And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for Him who died and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 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 [in Christ Jesus!]
There’s an encouraging word in Jeremiah 45:5. It says: God speaking, “I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.” Why? Because a true disciple knows that Jesus alone is resurrection life and hope – and when the vision of an exchanged life occurs, true believers are, according to 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who LIVE are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
Can you really conceive of a “game player” taking the yoke of Christ upon himself and learning of Jesus? If you’ve ever been around farming in the early days when tractors and plows were so different – farming was a farmer with usually a two-part yoke in one beam where the “master bull” led the way and the young protégé struggled and fought and after thorough discipline from the master bull and farmer would then get in step!
Being broken and trained is what ‘game players’ want no part of because they are the masters of their own destinies, and are always resistant to the squeeze of Holy God. Oswald Chambers said, “If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly.” But ‘game players’ don’t kick – they do whine, complain, and even curse God and His true disciples.
“Game players”? You’ve heard them: “God better show Himself strong for me or I won’t believe.” But Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance (or realization) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Question! Did you “see” Creation being made or do you know by faith, you KNOW, God spoke and the worlds were framed? ‘Game players’ can’t handle it when heaven is shut up, God is silent, and no answer comes for their delicate, selfish question. But the true disciple?
Come with me to Galatians 3 and be ready to rejoice with all true disciples and then intercede for the “game players”. Verses 1-9 are so very revealing of what it is that builds true disciples! “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain – if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? – just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”
I believe in Galatians 4 Paul is dealing with “game players” who had to be confronted. In verse 4-7 he describes the true disciples but then says in verse 9, “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?”
“Game players”? In Matthew 16:24 Jesus said: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. Verse 25 says, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Verse 26, For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Again, Oswald Chambers said: “Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love.” Do you understand the ‘war’ some fight and lose because there is a stronghold called ‘the old life,’ ‘the flesh,’ the sin nature that some are unwilling to die to?
But the true disciple understands and fights that ‘war’ but also understands the available power of God’s saving grace. In Boice’s “Gospel of Grace,” he shared these words: [p.129], “Since grace is the source of the life that is mine – And faith is a gift from on high – I’ll boast in My savior, all merit decline, And glorify God ‘til I die.”
In A.W. Tozer’s, “The Knowledge of the Holy,” [New York: Harper & Row, 1961, p.7] he wrote: “With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, “Be still and know that I am God,” mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshipper in this middle period of the twentieth century.”
Well, what about the early 21st century? Do you believe there is a multitude who have time to ‘be still’ and know God? What has happened in our modern world? “Game players” have forgotten God!! And, sadly, even some true disciples have been confronted with alternatives to all-out devotion! Isaiah 2:32 says, God speaking, “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.”
This is why Simon Peter was so challenged by the Holy Spirit to record these words in 2 Peter 1:2-15! “Grace 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. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”
Resignation to hopelessness? Oh, yes, some have resigned themselves to that pattern of life, but in Hebrews 6:18b-19 the author says: “…lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil…” Isn’t this why Peter said in I Peter 1:13, “…hope to the end…yes, until the revelation of Jesus Christ on the earth the second time”?
All, both “game players” and “true disciple” are going to face on this earth horrendous, horrifying, ‘hard’ and difficult times, and some are so miserable they blame our Lord rather than lean on Him. It’s like Shakespeare wrote in “Romeo and Juliet,” “Past hope, past cure, past help!” Under God’s Heaven, let the distressed know that YOU have a living hope!
In “Sonnet, On the Sacred Monte,” John Addington Symonds wrote: “gods fade, but God abides and in man’s heart Speaks with the clear unconquerable cry Of energies and hopes that cannot die.” Amen?
“Game players”? In Psalm 81:11-12 God records His sadness for those who do not heed His voice. He said: “But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels.” And then in verses 15-16 He said: “The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever. He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.”
I don’t know how you read the Psalms and interpret them, but I want you to know I personally entitled the Psalms “The Story of Authenticity,” or “Being Real Before God!!” Then Psalm 1 lays out “the Way of the Righteous and the End of the Ungodly.” “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 he shall prosper. The ungodly are bot so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
The “game player”? The “play actor”? The “part-timer” of allegiance or faithfulness? The wind blows and they’re driven away, and there is no “standing” in the overcoming provision of our Lord. But the true disciple? He’s a “son of the Most High!”
I want to close this chapter with Spurgeon’s words from “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol. 15, p.43], “It is a matter of fact that the man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and lives as a Christian should live, dwells on the heights. [I say, “Game players live in low-lands”!!] His mind is lifted up above the common cares and worries and vexations of life. The Holy Spirit has begotten him again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and therefore his conversation is in heaven; from whence he looks for his Savior the Lord Jesus. I am sure that many of you know what it is to ride on the high places of the earth and to look down upon the world as a poor paltry thing. You have walked with God in light, even as He is in the light, and then you have been filled with a joy no man takes from you, and you have trodden the world beneath your feet, and all that earth calls good or great. Thus has it been true of you, ‘he shall dwell on high.” Amen?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“DRAINED BY TROUBLE OR STRONGER BY THE STRUGGLE?”
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
In Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary he defines “trouble” as: ‘a disturbance of mind; agitation; commotion of spirits; perplexity; affliction; calamity; uneasiness; vexation; [he quotes Milton, “Lest the fiend some new trouble raise.”
And the result in many lives is that they become “drained” of hope, “drained” of any fleshly peace or fleshly happiness they may have had, “drained”, for some, of even their ‘sanity’ – they crash! Far too many are drained by trouble and look for counterfeit remedies – even drugs or liquor or immoral sex, seeking to hide their own pain and disappointment.
Besides the absence of God in most troubled lives that have left them so empty, so hopeless, so drained, is that they never, ever, were aware that life on earth, life in the real world, is not without “war” or “wars” in the human psyche, and none are exempt! And they try to live without God, live without understanding life’s dilemmas, refusing to admit their need of a “higher power” outside themselves.
I don’t know, if you thoroughly search the Scriptures, that you’ll find anywhere God advocating, advising, men to “suck it up – you’re on your own.” No! God appeals to ALL to let Him be the load-lifter and the burden-bearer and the mighty Arm of a divine offense and defense! But, since there is ‘free-will,’ God waits and woos, seeking to win over even one soul who’ll admit his need of God!
“Drained by trouble” is an indication of an empty moral caliber that has no ‘fight’ – that’s because “stronger by the struggle” is because one has chosen to “lean not to his own understanding, but in all his ways to acknowledge God” and give Him His rightful place in one’s troubled soul.
“Drained by trouble” is because the man who thought he’d never face trouble, established his pathway of life without Divine Presence, and when trouble came, he had no understanding of God’s promise to be with us in our time of trouble. Ask any troubled person – their troubles are not an imagination of a sick soul life – their troubles are many! And they don’t know where to turn! The ingenuity of men, fallen men, has no remedy of staying power in their storms of ‘disturbance of mind,’ ‘agitation,’ ‘commotion of spirits,’ ‘paralyzing perplexity’ or ‘calamity.’ They try rather than trust.
I do want you to know that it is so very clear by the revelation of God’s Word that “the saints,” [those: “set apart” for God’s glory], are made “stronger by the struggle”! Paul shared his heart and his God-given wisdom in 2 Corinthians 6:1-10, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God; in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
And after spiritually instructing and educating God’s people in Corinth, in verses 11-12, he said: “O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” And that happens. Some who ought to be made strong by their struggles relate to worldly men apart from the wisdom of God, behaving like “mere men” when they are sons of God!
I came across an article that Bill Anderson wrote when he was pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida. He told that a biographer of the Russian monarch, Ivan the Great, says that when a wife was sought for the ruler, a very beautiful Greek woman, Sophia, was found and brought to him. [Webster’s Biographical Dictionary says that the marriage was politically motivated, and was designed to establish the claim of Russian rulers as protectors of Orthodox Christianity.] They were to be married in 1472 in the Greek Orthodox Church. Very elaborate plans for the ceremony were made. Three hundred personal attendants were enlisted as bodyguards for the ruler. The couple sought baptism into the Greek Orthodox Church in preparation for the marriage, but Ivan could not receive baptism because (at that time, at least) no professional soldier could receive baptism into the Greek Orthodox Church. As a solution to that apparently insurmountable problem, the ruler, along with his three hundred attendants, each attended by a priest, waded out into a large body of water and, at a given signal, all were immersed. However, at the moment of immersion, each of the men, along with Ivan, raised his sword out of the water, and so were immersed, except for their arms and swords.
Have you gotten the picture of “drained by the trouble”? Problems arise, conflicts emerge, compromise is birthed – and some, wanting to partially commit, baptizing a part of themselves, but holding on to their “war weapons” including the strong arm of the flesh or old sin nature!
“Drained by the trouble or stronger by the struggle”? In 2 Corinthians 7:3 there is such a moving, heart-stretching, mind-clearing verse for the “stronger by the struggle” when Paul said: “I do not say this to condemn; for I have said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.” Did you get that? Natural men live together so they can die together, but spiritual men ‘die together so they can live together.’ And that’s called “perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” but those who fear of being “drained by the trouble”, trying to be a follower of Christ, refuse or deny any step of death to self!
In James Boice’s book, “Whatever Happened To the Gospel of Grace?” [p.191], Boice wrote: “Surveys of contemporary beliefs and conduct tell us that most Christians do not act much differently from non-Christian people. This is not surprising, since little contemporary preaching teaches about or encourages a difference. But we should be very different, at least if we take the gospel seriously. Christians are to be the new humanity, a community of those who “love…God…even to the contempt of self” as opposed to those who “love…self, even to the contempt of God,” which is how the great church theologian St. Augustine expressed it centuries ago in his “The City of God.”
Dr. Glen Schultz, strong Christian educator, has said: “At the foundation of a person’s life, we find his beliefs. These beliefs shape his values, and his values drive his actions.” [“Kingdom Education,” Nashville, Life Way Press, p.39].
Josh McDowell’s “Beyond Belief To Conviction” does a fabulous job identifying why our modern-day youth, yes, even church youth, have been programmed to view their surroundings in church culture, school culture, a nation’s culture on the basis of “postmodernism.” Then, in his book, [pps. 12-13], he lists its “common beliefs.” He highlighted six things:
- Truth does not exist in any objective sense. [What a lie!]
- Instead of “discovering” truth in a ‘metanarrative’ – which is a story (such as the Bible) or ideology (such as Marxism) that presents a unified way of looking at philosophy, religion, art, and science – postmodernism rejects any overarching explanation of what constitutes truth and reality.
- Truth – whether in science, education, or religion – is created by a specific culture or community and is “true” only in and for that culture.
- Individual persons are the product of their culture. That is, we are not essentially unique individuals created in the image of God; our identities are defined by our culture (African-American, European, Eastern, Western, urban, rural etc.)
- All thinking is a “social construct.” In other words, what you and I regard as “truths” are simply arbitrary “beliefs we have been conditioned to accept by our society, just as others have been conditioned to accept a completely different set of beliefs.”
- Any system or statement that claims to be objectively true or unfavorably judges the values, beliefs, lifestyle, and truth claims of another culture is a power play, an effort by one culture to dominate other cultures.
And what you’ve just read is “trouble” and many, many people, youth included, have been “drained” by it, while others are “stronger by the struggle” in “fighting the good fight of faith.”
You do understand what Paul was talking about as he wrote to the Ephesians and us, [Ephesians 4:14], “that we should be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, Verse 15, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ -.”
Have you missed or even omitted John 1:14? “And the Word [Jesus Christ] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
There has always been a spiritual war of dramatic significance when ‘fallen flesh’ takes up weapons against “Truth” whose other names are the “Lord Jesus Christ”! The “drained by trouble” may even fight for awhile but eventually walk away from “Truth” but the “Stronger by the Struggle” are being molded more and more into the likeness of Christ! It’s why Paul said in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” WOW! And WOW again!
If there is no “beholding His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” it is because the “drained by the trouble” have been looking for their own glory, discovering only grit and untruths, and they tire out! But the “strengthened by the struggle” find “grace and truth”!
“Drained by the trouble”? That’s those around you, in your world, that every day put their ‘confidence in the flesh’! But the “strengthened by the struggle” have discovered the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus the Lord and walking with Him, in Him, and through Him – and with Paul, as he wrote in Philippians 3:7-10, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”
“Drained by the trouble”? It’s that endless search, unending attempt, powerless effort, of self-discovery, self-fulfillment, self-realization, that enthrones a ‘sick self’ as lord over one’s own life. But the “strengthened by the struggle”? 2 Corinthians 4:11 says, “For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
“Drained by the trouble”? Oh, they desire to be more than “mere men” but believe it’s really about discovering their ‘true identity’ in their own efforts apart from any consideration of God’s help, God’s plan, God’s power, or God’s grace, mercy, and love. It’s that strong fleshly determination – “I don’t need God. I am my own man. I’ll achieve what I dream for myself,” with no reaching out of self and up to God! Remember Pharoah’s assertion?
Blinded minds and hearts are the result, not only of their old sin natures, but the truth that the Gospel is veiled and hidden by “the god of this age,” and apart from “turning to Christ,” that veil remains! But for those who are the “strengthened by the struggle,” [that’s, yes, the struggle of admitting their need is met only outside themselves], 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
“Drained by the trouble”? That’s those whose journey has been void of God altogether, but they try and try and try to be better than they are, even knowing there must be a better way than they’ve found, but refuse to bow before Heaven’s Throne to admit they have needs they can’t meet on their own – so they slam the door of opportunity in the face of Christ! “One’s need of acceptance by God? That’s weakness which is not what or who I am! I’ll make it on my own!” But they fall short!
“Strengthened by the struggle”? James 1:18 says, “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.” That sounds to me as a parallel to a mother giving birth to her child. The “seed” was planted, the growing started, and the labor and birth brought forth the new born baby. God’s Word is planted in a believer’s mind and heart, the mind and heart is convicted by the Holy Spirit, birth takes place spiritually, and one becomes a “new creation in Christ Jesus” – and, yes, the struggle begins by choosing Jesus daily over your ‘old man’! In James 2:4 the brother of Jesus, anointed by the Holy Spirit, wrote:
“Listen, my beloved brethren: Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” Isn’t that so illuminating to you? Why is it ‘the poor’ and not ‘the rich’? The wise man of Proverbs wrote in Proverbs 10:15, “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city..”, and you might even say, ‘his strong suit’ because it’s his wealth that dresses him up – not God! In Psalm 52 David had just described the “mighty man” who boasts in his evil, and then says in verse 7, “Here is the man who did not make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness (or ‘desire’ in an evil sense).”
But then I don’t see David as a ‘poor man’ in this world’s wealth, yet he says in Psalm 34:6, “This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” The richest man in the world truly can be redeemed when in his life he recognizes his own “poverty of spirit”!
“God, bless the man who knows the “poverty of spirit” and looks to You to redeem him.” “Yes, Lord, let the rich man know that it truly is Your blessing that makes one wealthy, physically, spiritually, or financially.” “Yes, Lord, let the rich man know that true honor comes out of the overflow of Your heart to pour out on him who leans not to his own understanding but in all his ways acknowledges You!”
In Psalm 49:6-20 what we read is so powerful! I pray God’s Spirit convicts you as you read!! “Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him – for the redemption of their souls is costly, and it shall cease forever – that he should continue to live eternally and not see the Pit. For he sees wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses will last forever, their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man, though in honor, does not remain; he is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish, and of their posterity who approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall be consumed in the grace, far from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me. Do not be afraid when one becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dies he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lives he blesses himself (For men will praise you when you do well for yourself), he shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, is like the beasts that perish.”
But the “strengthened by the struggle”? Please examine with your heart as well as your head Psalm 66:8-12! “Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praises heard, who keeps our soul among the living, and does not allow our feet to be moved. For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; but You brought us out to rich fulfillment.”
Some say Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, but I’m not sure. But in Ecclesiastes 5:10-19 there are wise words and warnings for both the “drained by the trouble” and “the strengthened by the struggle.” It says: “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them; so what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep. There is a severe evil which I have seen under the sun; riches kept for their owner to his hurt. But those riches perish through misfortune; when he begets a son, there is nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother’s womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came; and he shall take nothing from his labor which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a severe evil – just exactly as he came, so shall he go. And what profit has he who has labored for the wind? All his days he also eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and sickness and anger. Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor – this is the gift of God.”
“Drained by the trouble”? Peter spoke of those who “secretly bring in destructive heresies [false teachings opposed to God and His Holy Word!], even denying the Lord who bought them [bought with a price! Jesus’ shed blood! Yet still they deny Him!], and bring on themselves swift destruction.” [2 Peter 2:1].
In 2 Peter 2:9-10 Peter wrote: “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.”
He then shows the depravity of all false teachers who spew unbelief, lies, distorted teachings: [2 Peter 2:12-17]. “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity; a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”
Are you familiar with “wells without water”? Their words are verses 18-19 of 2 Peter 2! “For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.”
Are you familiar with words or beliefs or teachings that turn you from Truth to a state of more and more self-indulgence? Yes, even to deeper darkness than you’ve already experienced! John 12:35-36 says, Jesus speaking: Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.
Luke 11:34-36 says: “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
But “drained by trouble” folk walk with darkness as a way of life – no radiant light of the Light of the world – Jesus; but “strengthened by the struggle” folk at times find themselves experiencing darkness because our Lord is up to something good and godly for our edification. He said in Matthew 10:27, “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear, preach on the housetops.”
I can tell you, man/woman of faith, you are destined for times of walking in dark places where gracious God plans on building, strengthening, revealing, eternal truths you’d find in no other way. Did He say, “What I tell you in darkness…”?
In “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.13], Oswald Chambers was writing about Genesis 15:12, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.” Chambers said: “Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, He puts him, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint’s duty is to be still and to listen. There is a darkness which comes from excess of light, and then is the time to listen. Genesis 16 is an illustration of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting on God to send the light. When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time. Never try and help God fulfill His word, Abraham went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all self-sufficiency was destroyed; there was no possibility left of relying on common-sense ways. Those years of silence [like darkness] were a time of discipline, not of displeasure.”
And, I say, maybe darkness for you, dark, dark darkness, is to drain the “drained by troubles’ blues, so you may become those “strengthened by the struggle”!!
I’ve changed the word ‘death’ for the word ‘darkness’ in an old hymn that says: “Darkness has no terrors for the blood-bought one, O glory hallelujah to the Lamb! The boasted victory of the grave is gone, O glory hallelujah to the Lamb!…
Jesus rose from the dead, Rose triumphant as He said, Snatched the victory from the grave, Rose again our souls to save, O glory hallelujah to the Lamb!”
That’s the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world in the mind and heart of God on your behalf!! NO “RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”!!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE HOPELESSNESS OF GODLESS GOVERNMENTS OR THE HOPE OF GOVERNMENTS BEING IN GOD’S WAY?
As I was reading from Genesis recently, I came across Genesis 24:27, where verse 26 had said the man bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord. Then in verse 27 he said, “As for me, being on [or in] the way, the Lord led me…” And I asked myself: “If it’s true of a man, [and it is], is it also true of governments?” I have no doubts at all that God desires every nation on the face of the earth to be “in His way”, establishing all things national under the Sovereignty of God.
In Genesis 6:5 it says, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
“Kingdom living” is for the “new-born” while governments became so necessary because of fallen man’s evil ways continually! Of course, men didn’t see themselves as “evil” so God put His Ten Commandments into stone to expose their ‘lawlessness’! Governments were birthed by God to maintain some semblance of sanity in the midst of brainless, heartless men who opposed God.
You’ll remember there was a world-wide flood and most died, but some were placed in “the ark of safety” – and a new beginning occurred. In Genesis 9:11-13, 15b, God said to Noah, “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. Verse 15b, the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.”
From Noah and the beginning of ‘covenant’, we see families and then nations birthed! That’s chapter 10 of Genesis! In Genesis 11 we see the “beginning of confusion”, and then in Genesis 12 we see “the beginning of unveiled purpose” through Abram – God said to him in Genesis 12:1-4, Now the Lord had said to Abram, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him…Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.”
Abram, at 75 years of age, said “yes” to God!! Understand, you are never too old to apprehend the vision of God for yourself, your family, or your nation! [June 12, 2013, I celebrated my 77th birthday, and I’m about to finish this new book!] Look at “covenant blessing” in Genesis 17:1-8! When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: “As for Me, behold My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God for you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
But if there is a “blessing” for a nation, can there be a “curse”? In Psalm 9:17 David said, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” What a sad word! In Job 8:11-18 there are words of warning for individuals and governments or nations. It says: “Can the papyrus grow up without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God; and the hope of the hypocrite [play-actor] shall perish, whose confidence shall be cut off, and whose trust is a spider’s web. He leans on his house, but it does not stand. He holds it fast, but it does not endure. He grows green in the sun, and his branches spread out in his garden. His roots wrap around the rock heap, and look for a place in the stones. If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’”
And the sad truth is, it’s not only governments and nations that forget God, because Jeremiah 2:32 says: “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.” I truly believe that “nations” drift away from God-given covenants because God’s people “forget” Him “days without number” and their “salty” influence is troddened under the feet of godless men and leaders who step in without any desire in their minds or hearts to please or obey God!
When “the world” suffers from ungodly leadership in pulpit and pew in the “church,” the “church” will suffer when the world is being strangled by ungodly leadership there also – and a black darkness falls on both. As I was reading I Thessalonians, I came across chapter 5, verse 15, which says: “See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and all.” And I had to ask myself and the Lord: “Is this a call for citizens in a government AND governmental leaders looking out for what is best, what is God-like for all?” “Are the decisions they make honoring God and truly blessing His people that have been entrusted to their care?”
In II Thessalonians 2:3-12 we find words of warning again that I believe should be shared in every nation, because every nation has subversive influences from “the man of sin” or the “son of perdition.” He’s also called “the lawless one”! Read the following prayerfully:
“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
If this is true – and it is!!! – what should we be doing? In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus shared “The Great Commission” – and apart from that becoming a living reality in our “world,” I don’t see a lot of hope.
We saw earlier in Genesis 12:1-3 some vitally important and significant verses to challenge us in the 21st Century that relates to “world-changers” like Abram! Will you be one? Did God say of Abram that He would make of Him “a great nation”? And that through Abram “all the families of the earth [would] be blessed”?
In Exodus 19 Holy God reached out to the world of that day through Moses and the Israelites. He said in verses 3-6, And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” And nations were multiplied and established.
But then you see how leaders and nations can betray God’s holy trust when in Psalm 2:1-12 we see God’s response: “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure; “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.” I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.”
If God responds concerning nations, what about His people? In Psalm 110:1-3 there is God’s call for His people to rule in the midst of God’s enemies! The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion, Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power…”
How does that occur? In Isaiah 9:6-7 God tells us! “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
Sadly, most men of governmental rule are out for gain, not to the glory of God. In Matthew 20:25-28 Jesus said: But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Political gain for ‘self’ was not His intent but sharing His life in community. Worldly influence was so far from His walk in the world, but, as King of kings and Lord of lords, He came to serve and lay His life down.
Isn’t it absolutely awe-inspiring to you, that as Jesus came, He came to wash the disciples’ feet saying to them, John 13:14, “If I then your Lord and Teacher, have WASHED YOUR FEET, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” True governmental service? The spiritual rule of servanthood?
I’ll never forget an awesome day ministering in India in one of the pastors’ conferences that I led for over 25 years. I was moved that particular day to wash the feet of those gathered in that conference! It was a shock to India pastors and their wives that I would get on my knees and wash their feet! It was and is the ‘ruling heart of Heavenly governmental service!
My question now is: “Can your government, our government in the United States, ever become a ‘foot-washing leadership base’? If there is no governmental reign of God in the leadership of a nation, or the legislators, or the general public of a state, they’ve shut the door on a governmental, godly reign over all the people!
In local, state, or national governments do you see them as holy appointments of Almighty God? I personally, through the Word of God and the personal experiences of living in a nation, that our government bases were intended to portray God’s eternal reign in people and nations. But rebellion has been man’s response far more often than submission to Holy God In fact, in I Samuel 8:7 God said, “…for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”
So God gives up? Right? God disowns loyal men? God turns His back on fallen humanity? In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 we read, “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.”
Did you see that? “reconciling THE WORLD to Himself”? Yes, “God so loved the world” including godless governments built by ungodly men! In Matthew 4:17, 23 we see Jesus at work, doing what? From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Verse 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.”
That’s God’s reign! His divine intent is to so transform men that not only their hearts and homes are transformed but their businesses, bank accounts, relationships, and governments are touched by Him! That’s God’s reign! That’s the Kingdom of God in Heaven transforming earthly representatives, yes, in governments, to servants of the Most High God!
There is a never-ending principle in God’s Word that relates to an individual life, a family, a community, a state, and a nation. It has never changed! Galatians 6:7-8 says: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”
Whatever a man sows, that he will reap! Whatever a family sows, that it will reap! Whatever a community or state sows, that it will reap! And whatever a nation’s government sows, yes, in Washington, DC, or your nation’s capital, THAT IT WILL REAP!
And, collectively, there is the ‘citizens’ role’ in a godly government! In Matthew 5:14-16 Jesus said: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
“Light of the world”? “Light in a government”? “Light in a state and community locally?” How many times have you witnessed governmental actions and had to say, “That is so foreign to the nature and character of God Almighty – what are our representatives doing?” When did true ‘salt’ and true ‘light’ become so offensive?
Of course, you have a choice – you are free to ignore your government or engage your government when you know it needs to be engaged! In fact, in Romans 1:14 Paul said: “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.” Has that changed concerning our ‘influence’ in the world of which we are a part?
When Barack Obama’s “health care law” was passed, those who voted had never really studiously read what they made as ‘national law’! And it WILL have a horrific effect upon the nation as a whole – probably help to bankrupt us and, yes, the medical community.
I have no doubt this is why Cowper, in “Expostulation,” wrote: “Sworn on every slight pretense, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book’s outside, who ne’er looked within.”
Nation building? In Matthew 7:26-27 Jesus said: “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Can you imagine a ‘home-builder’ who is sure he doesn’t need architecturally-designed plans? “Measurements are out – I can eye-ball it!” Really? What about a ‘nation-builder’ who is sure ‘sand’ will do when solid rock is called for? Isn’t this what Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 1:26-29? For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”
Oh, but then you come to Matthew 21:33-44 and you hear Jesus Himself speak!! And you shake – because you wonder: “What is going to happen to OUR nation? Will it be given to another?” Will it be forfeited by a leader opposed to constitutional government?”
But we serve a gracious, merciful God – and to every nation God has and God WILL send a prophet and call incompetent leaders to His judgment bar! In 2 Kings 20:1 the Holy Word says, “In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER, for you shall die and not live.”
If there is “disorder” in a national ‘house,’ where are the prophets? If there is “confusion” in a national house, where is the prophet speaking the clarity of divine truth and divine hope for that nation? Oh, how frail are nations that try to live apart from God so faithlessly?
Follow carefully Spurgeon’s words in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol. 15, pps. 51-52]. Consider it as a ‘nation’ – not a life only! “A sudden death is a specially impressive warning. If men of old age die we regard it as coming in the common course of things; but when a young man (or young nation) is suddenly snatched away, then we understand that though the old must die, the young may die; and that no one among us may reckon upon any long day of life, since in a moment our sun may go down ere it is yet noon. So falls the grass beneath the mower’s scythe, so fades the leaf from the tree. In a moment our strength is turned to weakness, and our comeliness into corruption. Then, in accents as plain as they are terrible, the Lord says, ‘Because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O nations!’”
Do you understand? Nations have survived because men of Truth stand up to warn, to challenge, to pray, for, yes, true biblical revival in the hearts of its leaders and people. What does II Chronicles 7:14 tell us? “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Psalm 82 is such a powerful psalm that relates to what John Piper called “Putting the gods in their place”, out of his book “A Godward Life.” [p.103]. He wrote: “God asserts the truth we must hold to through all the cosmic conflict of this age: ALL NTIONS BELONG TO GOD! Satan is a deceiver (speaking a half-truth) when he says to Jesus in Luke 4:6 that the earth is his and he gives it to whomever he wills. The ultimate truth is: “Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is You who does possess all the nations.” Psalm 82:8. “Our God owns the nations. The gods are permitted [Satan? Demons?] for a season to wreak havoc. We are called to see beyond their suicidal schemes of sin. We are called to stand with God and bear witness to His truth against the darkness. In due time He will defeat all His enemies and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” [Habakkuk 2:14].
What do you do when you see a house burning? In the early 1960’s when Sue and I lived in Hewitt, Texas, pastoring First Baptist Church there, we were returning late, late one night from, I believe, a Baylor University drama. We saw smoke coming from a home by the access road. I stopped the car, backed up, got out, and ran to bang on the front door and yell, “Fire, fire!” A young man in his 30’s came running out – thankful Sue and I had stopped to warn him! Who are you warning with a nation “on fire” and “ready to burn to the ground”?
Do you see and sense “destructive fires” in nations, the demonic influences of awful desolations, even the sad state of total indifference to fatalistic paths many nations are taking? Haven’t you read and wept for nations who have “no vision [and] the people perish”?
I remember reading Leonard Ravenhill in his book, “Why Revival Tarries”! [p.39]. “The preacher may go ‘with’ the crowd; the prophet goes ‘against’ it. A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic because HE SPEAKS AGAINST A NATION’S SINS; unkind because his tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of preaching opinion is against him. The preacher will be heralded; the prophet hounded.”
Don’t you find it sad and heart-breaking that a national society can sink to a gutter-level of sin and degradation – and smile about it? There was a 19th century poet named Philip Bailey who wrote: “The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one’s self. All sin is easy after that.” And nations ‘cheat’ themselves because they refuse, deny, suppress, or corral all prophetic, biblical warnings!
It was Charles Swindoll in his book “Come Before Winter,” [p.101], who wrote: “The direct discussion of forgiveness of sins through Christ’s blood at the cross and His miraculous resurrection is about as welcome in a sophisticated rap session on religion as a life-sized bust of Martin Luther would be in the Vatican.”
Paul Scherer, in “The Word God Sent,” [New York: Harper & Row, 1965, p.11], really nailed it as he wrote about the downward trend of most nations. He said: “One by one the generation that refused to be bound by the Pope, and refused to be bound by the Church, decided in an ecstasy of freedom that they would not be bound by anything – not the Bible, not by conscience, not by God Himself. From believing too much that never did have to be believed, they took to believing so little that for countless thousands human existence and the world itself no longer seemed to make any sense. Poets began talking about the ‘wastelands,’ with ‘ghostly lives,’ as Stephen Spender put it, ‘moving among fragmentary ruins which have lost their significance.’ Nothingness became a subject of conversation, nihilism a motive, frustration and despair a theme for novels and dramatists, and ‘the edge of abyss’ as much of a nautical term among the intelligentsia as it was for explorers in the day of Columbus!”
My, my – how far have we fallen? Fallen away from God as a people and as nations!
Hebrews 1:10-12 comes out of Psalm 102:25-28! After reading it, I wondered about a nation’s children as “a cloak You [God] will fold them up, they will be changed. But You are the same, and Yours will not fail.” Examine these verses with your head and heart! “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.”
Let me ask you: “What is your history related to God in YOUR nation? In Acts 17:26 Paul said: “And He [God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings…” Why?
Verse 27, “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us,…Verse 28, for in Him we live and move and have our being…” Yes, as nations of our world – WE BELONG TO GOD! Don’t you think it’s time we act and live like it, honoring Him in all we are and all we do?
It was Daniel C. Roberts and George W. Warren, in the late 1800’s who wrote the following hymn. I believe it ought to be revived in all churches worldwide. It says:
“God of our fathers, whose almighty hand Leads forth in beauty all the starry band – Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies, Our grateful songs before Your throne arise… Your love divine has led us in the past, In this free land by You our lot is cast; Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay, Your Word our law, Your paths our chosen way…
From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence, Be Your strong arm our ever sure defense; Your true religion in our hearts increase, Your bounteous goodness nourish us in peace…
Refresh Your people on their toilsome way, Lead us from night to never-ending-day; Fill all our lives with love and grace divine, And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine.”
Do you remember the story of Esther? Esther sent word to Mordecai in Esther 4:11 that she had “not been called to go into the king these thirty days.” In verses 13-14 Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Esther’s response? “If I perish, I perish!”
In my lifetime of 77 years, one of the greatest preachers I ever heard was Dr. R.G. Lee, former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a superb, Spirit-anointed, Bible-centered proclaimer of God’s Truth. Before Adrian Rogers’ death, then pastor at Bellevue, Adrian put together in book form a collection of “RG LEE, Payday Someday”, the name of his most famous message. In that book I came across such wisdom about nations, governments, and God, I felt it had to be shared here. [pps.213-214]. Hear Dr. Lee with your mind and heart!
“In this critical hour there is the tendency to idolize science so that thousands of people undertake to interpret everything in terms of natural phenomenon – reducing the supernatural to ignorance. There is the notion that ethics, religion, soul, and God are only concepts – having their origin in man’s experience with shadows, dreams, trances, storms, seasons, and other natural forces…There is intellectual recoil against emotional expression, and the obvious inadequacy of rationalism as a substitute. There is widespread agnosticism toward religion and religious organizations, and their consequent loss of wholesome authority are abroad. There is increasing disregard for the Sabbath, and the growing tendency of society, business, and government to secularize the Sabbath, as well as the tendency to omit Christian standards from business, from professions, from education…Amid the endless struggle for military supremacy, there is the reduction of Christianity to the status of humanism, social service, and national or individual therapy, with the resulting tendency to undermine faith and destroy the passion for souls…But our consideration should not be to look long and pessimistically at such dark things, but to look to ourselves that we may be men and women doing God’s will – weighing sixteen ounces to the pound and measuring thirty-six inches to the yard for God. While black snow is falling, the fever of life’s fierce heat burning divine dew off the grass, and with so many epicures in philosophies, with so many feeders of inflamed appetite for amusements, with so many dealers in fine-spun metaphysical disquisitions, with so many experts in speculative cleverness dealing in the airy abstractions of an “up-to-date” gospel, God still asks: “Who will rise up for Me against the evildoers? Or who will stand up for Me against the workers of iniquity?” [Psalm 94:16]. May it be ours to say, “I will rise up for You against evildoers. I will stand up for You against the workers of iniquity.” WILL YOU?
Have you grasped it? When Israel asked Samuel to give them a king, [I Samuel 8:5], “Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations,” God Almighty was very clear, [I Samuel 8:7], And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”
God-government or Godless government? We do have a choice!!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AN ABANDONMENT OF HOPE OR A CONSTANT CONFESSION OF HOPE?
“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”
Someone has anonymously written: “Age is a quality of mind; If you’ve left your dreams behind, If hope is cold, If you no longer look ahead, If your ambitious fires are dead, Then, you are old!”
If that is true for some, and no doubt it is, then what is the explanation for ‘youth’ suicides across America? That’s not age, but a mind, spirit, and heart burden of one’s hopelessness! It was Augustine who said: “What can be hoped for which is not believed?” That was in his writings called, “On Faith, Hope, and Charity.”
In Romans 4:13-22 Paul gives us a view on ‘the eternal hope’: For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham and his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Circle around his words, “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations…” He wasn’t ‘weak in faith,’ he didn’t waver at the promise through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, and was fully persuaded!
That’s why in Hebrews 6:18b-19 the writer said, “…lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil…”
Hopelessness is a ‘curse’ while hope is an eternal blessing. Hopelessness is a 10,000 pound weight that crushes while hope is an ‘eternal feather’ lifting one to God’s highest heaven. Hopelessness is a ‘worldly hope’ that is diseased while ‘heavenly hope’ is eternal health and wellness. Hopelessness is going to war with no armor, no ammunition, no purpose in the fights and struggles and battles while hope truly is fighting the good fight of faith and winning. Hopelessness is the freedom to perish while hope is the ‘prisoner’ that protects. Hopelessness is ashes and bankruptcy and soul sickness while biblical hope is the fire of Heaven and eternal prosperity and spiritual health. Hopelessness is the rotten fruit of worldly gods and false expectations while hope is the spiritual fruit of the Holy Spirit with a certain heavenly result.
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote: “Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loves all His works, Has left His hope for all.”
When it comes to the reality of “the eternal hope” and one’s constant confession of that hope, one realizing in divine freedom to choose that, “the natural man [unborn spiritually, unrepentant, unchanged] receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him.” [I Corinthians 2:14].
Foolishness? In I Corinthians 2:1-4 Paul opens up ‘the wisdom of men’ and its result and the testimony of God and His result: “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…”
“An abandonment of hope or The Constant Confession of Hope”? It’s certainly not the wisdom of men producing eternal results in the heart, but the very wisdom of God Himself! What did Paul say? “My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words”! He preached the Gospel of Christ alone! And he said, “in demonstration of the Spirit and power.”
Look at Isaiah 32:13-20! “On the land of My people will come up thorns and briers, Yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city; because the palaces will be forsaken, the bustling city will be deserted. The forts and towers will become lairs forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks – UNTIL THE SPIRIT IS POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places, though hail comes down on the forest, and the city is brought low in humiliation. Blessed are you who sow beside all waters…”
The Isaiah passage is why Jesus said in John 16:13-14, “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.”
This is also why Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.248], “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 nor 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 on it that mark 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.” “God, help us! Far, far too much ‘flesh’ is preaching and teaching today void of Truth and the Holy Ghost!”
Did Chambers speak of “the rugged reality of the New Testament”? Look at our calling in Hebrews 10:22-25! “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our evil hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
“Drawing near to God, new hearts, holding fast, no wavering, stirring up, not forsaking – but exhorting one another!” The constant confession of our hope! That’s through the laid-down life before God and those all around us!
But “an abandonment of hope” comes when encounters with God and His Word are disallowed, He’s denied, “I’m one doomed to die, no purpose for me, I’m a loser, I have no future,” and on and on the disillusioned spouts the Devil’s sick lies. Isn’t it true, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”? [Proverbs 23:7]. Look at Proverbs 17:22, “A merry heart does good, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” That’s spiritual death!
“An abandonment of hope” so often occurs because of spiritual bankruptcy or neglect! In 3 John 2 the beloved John wrote, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” If there is no ‘soul prosperity’ in and through the richness and treasures of God’s Word, then the wide door of destruction is opened, and James 1:13-14 tells us, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted with evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”
Do you understand evil enticement to lead you away from God and fill you with eternal emptiness of even a shred or thread of hope? Rather than that ‘soul prosperity’, there’s dried bones, a broken spirit, an empty heart, a disillusioned mind, the loss of morality and spirituality and one’s reputation, a denial of consequences and the cost, a high-lighting of wrongness rather than rightness, and one overcome and overwhelmed by “the devil’s fear,” the one abandoning hope is swept away like a turbulent wave on a stormy sea.
But the one who “lives” by the constant confession of his/her hope? Examine I Thessalonians 4:1-2, “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”
This is one who understands, submits to, and obeys the revelation of God’s Holy Word and God’s revealed will! I came across a ‘cartoon’ that so identified submission to the call of our constant confession of eternal hope! A young grandson asked his aged grandfather, “Granddad, your generation didn’t have all these social diseases. What did you wear to have safe sex?” The granddad didn’t hesitate at all but quickly responded, “A wedding ring.”
“The one who abandons hope”? I truly and sadly believe it’s because in far too many lives, families, and nations, Holy God is not honored! In Leviticus 10:3 And Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord spoke, saying: “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.” “Honor God? Does that mean ‘reverence Him, bow before Him, surrender to Him?” In James 4:8 the Holy Word tells us, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
But isn’t the lack of desire to honor Him that which Paul exposed in Romans 1:20-21? “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.”
“An abandonment of hope”? 2 Corinthians 6:16 says: “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? FOR YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD…” But you can hear “the hopeless”: “I’m not a temple of God – I’m a farm’s outhouse!” And they run from Him! Where they’ve been in that ‘flesh’ pilgrimage is where they want to be and to stay! But the constant confessing of hope people are those, with Paul, who say, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Don’t you see it? Low calling or high calling? The fleshly or the Spirit? The ‘pigs’ or the angels? The devil or Jesus?
“An abandonment of hope”? Moses didn’t! In Hebrews 11:24-26 we read: “By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.”
Hope-abandoning people? They love Pharoah and his lifestyle! They enjoy “the passing pleasures of sin”! They want no part of “the reproach of Christ”! They long for the treasures of Egypt!
But Moses? God’s true sons and daughters? They choose to suffer affliction with God’s people rather than poisoned by the passing pleasures of sin!
“An abandonment of hope”? Look at James 1:22-24 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.” Psalm 55:19b says: “Because they do not change, therefore they do not fear God.’
No doubt this is why in Philippians 2:15 Paul spoke of “a crooked and perverse generation”! And some are so in love with their depravity, they shake their fists at God Himself!
“Abandoned-hope people”? James 4:4 says, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
And this is why we read in Proverbs 22:11, “He who loves purity of heart and has grace on his lips, the king will be his friend.” This is why we read in Hebrews 12:14-15, “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord; looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble; and by this many become defiled.”
What did Paul write Titus that is so important at this point? Titus 1:15 says, “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.” What a sad, sick testimony!
“Abandoned-hope people”? What a heart-breaking experience when a family or a friend or a pastor has to deal with, minister to, pray for, one who is consumed by ‘ledges and leaps’ because they can’t see anything or anyone to keep living for!
Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote “One Ship Drives East.” It’s in “The Best Loved Poems of the American People, edited by Hazel Felleman, [New York: Garden City Publishers, p.364]. It says:
“One ship drives east and another drives west With the selfsame winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales Which tells us the way to go. Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, As we voyage along through life; ‘Tis the set of a soul That decides its goal, And not the calm or the strife.”
And that certainly is not taking the Lord’s name in vain, but taking and standing through whatever gale comes, standing in Him!
“Abandoned-hope people”? For them peace is whatever they determine gives them peace – certainly not peace with God – and as a result of that decision they become rebels to God and themselves doing whatever comes naturally to a fallen man before Holy God – and he does so unashamed! You know that modern man has ‘idolized’ beauty but when beauty or a beautiful woman or a handsome may stay divorced from God their beauty becomes a state of ugliness that is so deadly – and you don’t have to be around them very long before the stench pervades the atmosphere around you!
“Abandoned-hope people”? Don’t you see it embroidered on the fabric of a nation we call “America” or the “USA”? Abandoned-hope people exist without a divine plan – it’s fleshly restlessness without eternal purpose, it’s ego-centered, not God-centered, it’s artificiality substituted for divine reality, it is that destructive intent not divine initiation, it’s an awakened state to a rebel’s plan of no guilt, no conscience, no sensation, nothing really but a bored life that is like a blank sheet of paper!
But “the constant confession of our hope people”? It’s called by some ‘authentic Christianity’ which is repentance toward Gods, faith in the finished work of Christ at the cross, reconciling us, restoring us to the Divine Intent, releasing us in a real world to live redemptively, relying on the Word and the Spirit to shape our lives and then pour us out on a lost and needy world! That’s the triumph of very God in the shell of our lives that were crucified with Christ – nevertheless we live or better still, Christ lives in us! What was so shallow and empty became the residence of the depths of God and His fullness.
There are those modern-day rebels who so openly deny God and, yes, denounce His Son or our Savior, and defame anyone vocal about their faith. It would be easy to call that “the triumph of ignorance” but they are not ignorant, only void of eternal truth! Moral law becomes “what makes me feel good.” And those who abandon hope become practicing philistines who pervert romance into licentiousness! You do understand immoralists, thieves and robbers, outlaws, criminals, sex perverts, liars, part animals, brain-dead intellectuals who argue with God Himself. It was Bandelaire who said: “Life is a hospital in which we all are dying of a deadly disease.” And, at least some who love the world and become so decadent in it know the truth about themselves.
“An abandonment of hope”? It’s kids, youth, young adults, the middle-age crisis folk, mature adults (?), and seniors who face sicknesses they seem to know nothing about because a moral fungus crawls in their inner-most beings! “Beasts,” “wild beasts” are being loosed all around! There is a fast erosion of the common sense of decency, right becomes wrong, wrong becomes right – cultural diseases that have a deadly sting. Do you grasp, see, sense, innocence being poisoned every day? You do understand that fallen man [that’s all who ever lived who fell AWAY from God!!] has the freedom to choose good or to choose evil.
“An abandonment of hope”? Fleshly desires have no place in anyone’s definition of moral standards! Freedom is not license to do as one pleases – rape? Incest? Lying? Stealing? Cursing God? No! But for some, Sodom and Gomorrah they’ve determined to resurrect? “we’re free to do whatever feels good.” Oh, really? A man whose perversion sends him after little children is OK with you? GIVE ME A BREAK!
“An abandonment of hope”? “Don’t worry, he’s just lazy and indifferent;” “don’t worry, he’s just drifting [toward the falls], but he’ll be OK;” “he’s just uncertain about himself in this fleeting moment, but he’ll come around;” “they severed roots from a very Godly family, but they’ll come home after they’ve sown their wild oats;” “there’s no true meaning to life – don’t worry about me!” So they take “a loaded gun” and play Russian roulette with their lives?
You do understand – so many say today, “Since there is no truth, we’re establishing our own! Since there is no real truth, I’ll just share with you my real if not radical opinions!”
But then there are those who say, “My Lord and My God! To You I bow, to You I surrender, to You I offer my life, my gifts, my talents, my witness!” And Heaven rejoices!!
“The Constant Confession of Our Hope?” I urge you to check out Bill Gaither’s song, “He Touched Me.” What a precious testimony of saving grace and faith!