“BROKEN WALLS OR GOD’S PROTECTIVE WALLS?”
July 28-30, 2017
It’s interesting in reading the Word to come across a verse that catches your attention, and you begin to ask yourself, “Does this have relevance to a life, a family, a marriage, a business, a state or nation”? For instance, in Deuteronomy 3:5 the Word tells us: “All these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many rural towns.” Protection? Defense? A surrounding of safety and care?
My dictionary mentioned “walls for defensive purposes,” or “a wall of secrecy”, or “a wall of fire”, or “driving one ‘to the wall’ forcing a desperate situation.” That really hit home because one is confronted with death or Life situations, failure or blessed, flesh or Spirit, Satan or the Savior!
So there is the question: Is your world as you define for yourself your personal being of flesh or Spirit, or is it ruled over by the powers of darkness or the Conquering Savior and Lord, by the demon armies of Satan or by the King of kings and Lord of lords?
“Broken”? Can a life become like ‘broken city walls’ that were meant for protection under Holy God’s administration, but the ‘life’ determined independence, self-indulgence, temporary ‘satisfactions’ in the pleasures of the world, the flesh, and, yes, Satan himself who strongly moves on every life in keeping it on a downward path? “Broken” can be “ruptured, divided, pulled apart, torn”, like the man in the synagogue in Mark 1:23 who had an ‘unclean spirit.’ The unclean spirit cried out in Verse 24, “Let us alone! Did you come to destroy us? I know who You are – the Holy One of God,” and Verses 25-26 says, Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him.” [Do you think that Jesus Himself just may be your “protective wall” and able to cast out, cover over, or bind and blind unclean spirits in opposition to you?]
“Broken”? In Ezekiel 4 we read about Jerusalem, the “Holy City”, under a ‘siege’! The reason? Ezekiel 4:16-17 tells us, Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, surely I will cut off the supply of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and shall drink water by measure and with dread, that they may lack bread and water, and be dismayed with one another, and waste away because of their iniquity.” “Waste away?” “Waste away because of their sin?”
Have you ever witnessed a young life that YOU KNEW could be an awesome tool in God’s hands, but they chose to indulge the flesh and became inward and downward in satisfying their sin-natures, becoming tools of Satan, rather than instruments of blessing in and through God’s awesome creative skills naturally and spiritually as He always chooses to shape them in the image and likeness of His Son? But it’s not only ‘wayward youth’ deceived by ‘mortal flesh’ and Satan, but ‘mortal flesh walking according to the inherited sin natures’, loving the ‘wages of unrighteousness’, bathing and perishing in their own corruptions, carousing in and around their own deceptions, ‘eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls’, trained by the world around them by spiritually blind friends and partners in ‘flesh’ whore-doms, even unashamed that they are enslaved by but personally ‘enriched’ in the wages of unrighteousness.
“Broken”? Do you see and sense “broken walls” of serious, doubtful, questionable thoughts about God’s abilities in meeting human needs or instituting successful creations or practices of scientific, educational, medical, fleshly, or military usefulness, even ‘spiritual miracles’? It was Dallas Willard, in his book entitled “The Great Omissions”, who wrote: (p.19), “In our culture, and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of Him in conjunction with words such as “well informed,” “brilliant,” or “smart.” Sadly, we’re living in a darkening world where trust in God, in His Son, in His Holy Word, and in His passion for world redemption –“His traits don’t meet the modern-mind or societal needs – just leave us to our own brilliance and our own passions!”
“Broken walls”? If earthly kingdoms are godless, wouldn’t you consider that the God of eternity had a better design and plan for the kingdoms of men than what fallen men long for and fell for, or fall for even now? In fact, in the early days of the Messiah’s mission and ministry, what happened between Jesus and Satan? In Matthew 4:1-11 we read what went on then AND what is going in this very moment worldwide – Satan is busy! It says: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” (Lust of the flesh temptation). But Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He (God) shall give His angels charge over you,” (Boastful pride of life), and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’
Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You fall down and worship me.” (Lust of the Eyes).
How awakening do you find 1 Corinthians 3:18-21a? Paul wrote: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is WRITTEN: “He catches the wise in their own craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise , that they are futile.” Therefore let no one boast in men,” unless you’ve determined yourself wiser than God!
In William Cowper’s writing called “The Task,” (Bk.111,l.221), he wrote: “God never meant that man should scale the heavens by human wisdom,” but, since in our modern-day we’ve touched seemingly unfathomable heights, have we become so ‘high’ intellectual we can just write God off? How stupid can stupid men get to deny the awesomeness of God and His miraculous Creation? Is it possible that merciful God allowed ‘human wisdom’ to, at least, turn men toward Him, understanding their unredeemed minds, for many, does nothing but expose their ‘spiritual stupidity’?
“Broken walls”? Pilfered minds, selfish hearts, superficial thinkers, learned infidels, scorners of Truth, mercy, and grace, God-forsakers, or as Horatius Bonar once said: “In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God,” which introduces the need of truth about one’s self (“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”) and the essential truth about God! (“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him would not PERISH (in Hell with Satan and all unbelievers!) but have everlasting life!”
“Broken walls”? Because fallen men give in to temptation and are led into the unseen cloud of evil that would destroy any leaning toward Redemptive Faith! Do you sense around you the divinations or occult, or satanic, or hellish teachings, even many proud, intellectual professors that ‘biblical faith is insaneness’, and all that because of fleshly pride in fallen humanity? There IS “fleshly pride”, “self-glory”, and “hypocrisy” or ‘play-acting’ that says, “You are your own god – do as you please!”
“Broken walls” that become hermit-homes of hollowness? “Broken walls” around one’s life that invites one’s enemies in? “Broken walls” of disappointment, failure, short of my goal? “Broken walls”, intended for protection originally, but becoming open-doors to whatever the fallen world has to offer? “Broken walls” because “Paradise” has been lost, and one settles for less than God’s best?
Think of America’s major cities today, and consider living under the bondage of “street gangs” rather than blessed through the Savior’s grace, mercy, and watch-care, or hearing over and over and over “the intellectual superiors” who major on anything rather than God’s love, grace, and mercy, OR the bondage of the “religiously deceived” who know nothing about “Free at last, Praise God, I’m free at last!”
But, praise God, there are ‘true citizens’ of the Kingdom of God who ARE instruments of God in extending, expressing, continually ‘resting’ within, sharing in “God’s Protective Walls”! And one does not have to live in worldly, fleshly, or demonic ‘wisdom’ according to their leanings, likes, or dislikes of God’s unveiling of Eternal Truth! Didn’t Paul tell us, “Let no one deceive himself”, yes, even resting the major culprit as one’s own self-centered, self-justifying strategy of “successful living in my godless world of what gives ME meaning, pleasure, and satisfaction” – even if the end result is Hell, Satan and his demons, and the ‘world’ of the unredeemed by the Blood of the Lamb! Are YOU still deceived?
In Luke 19:41-44 the Lord Jesus “wept over Jerusalem the Holy City”, and sadly still weeps over those who choose blinded eyes, closed minds, and self-centered wills over His amazing love and grace! Luke wrote: Now as Jesus drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even YOU, especially in this your day, (July-August, 2017!), the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies (World, sinful nature, and Satan!) will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because YOU DID NOT KNOW THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION.”
But, “the tears of Jesus” over YOU can be the turning point of your life to God’s eternal longing, desire, plan, and provision of “rescued from darkness, rescued out of an unbelieving world, rescued out of the clutches of, yes, your enemy, Satan, and rescued from an ‘acceptable lifestyle opened by the powers of darkness’” – godlessness, sensual pleasures, counterfeit allegiance to ‘flesh’ void of the Spirit and the Word, even, at times, ‘family’ allegiance to the realm of one’s sin nature, world ‘pleasures’ void of eternal intent, and the ‘strange gods’ of devilish invention!
Oh, then the Lord Jesus exposed the Pharisees “blinded eyes” as He still does today across our world! And, today, The “present, resurrected, reigning, reaching, rescuing Savior” is still saying, “IF YOU HAD KNOWN, IN THIS YOUR DAY, WHAT BLESSES YOU WITH ETERNAL PEACE, BUT ALL YOU’VE DONE IS LIVE WITH BLINDED EYES TO MY GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE!” How about YOU and those around you? As Jesus entered Jerusalem, He did so with “weeping eyes”! Is that true as He knocks on the door of your heart, your family, your city, maybe even your church?
It was Charles H. Scott who wrote an old hymn entitled “Open My Eyes, That I May See”, published and copyrighted in 1923! It says: “Open my eyes, that I may see Glimpses of truth You have for me; Place in my hands the wonderful key That shall unclasp and set me free. Silently now I wait for Thee, Ready, my God, Your will to see; Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Open my ears, that I may hear Voices of truth You send so clear; And while the wave-notes fall on my ear, Everything false will disappear. Silently now I wait for Thee, Ready, my God, Your will to see; Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Open my mouth, and let me heard Gladly the warm truth everywhere; Open my heart, and let me prepare Love with Your children thus to share.
Silently now I wait for Thee, Ready my God, Your will to see; Open my heart, illumine me, Spirit divine!”
Do you remember the Lord Jesus’ Gethsemane experience in Matthew 26? He was in prayer in the Garden, and then on His third experience after sharing twice before with His disciples, He said in Matthew 26:45-46, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer Judas, Satan, even ‘disenchanted church folk’ are at hand” with Verse 56 explaining, “But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” THEN ALL THE DISCIPLES FORSOOK HIM AND FLED. (Have YOU fled with disciples of Christ who remain silent about “Amazing Grace”?).
We’re not called, ‘set apart’, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb to be silent followers, mute church-folk, unconcerned ‘disciples’ about the perishing world around us – we’re to be “more than conquerors”, more than “bench-warmers in uncaring churches” as related to local, national, and world redemption, but ‘trustees of Truth’, messengers of the “good News,” honorees as Christ’s ambassadors, touching our world with His Presence in us, His Word through us, and His witness by us as ‘miracles of His love’!
In Acts 1:8 the Resurrected Christ said to ALL disciples then and now: “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. BUT you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and YOU shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And don’t we read in Acts 2:32, “This Jesus God has raised up, OF WHICH WE ARE ALL WITNESSES.” And, dare I tell you, it’s more than your visible “new-born” character – it’s your faithful, verbal declaration to the needy world around you!
Messengers of Truth, ambassadors of Christ, ministers of mercy, affirmations of resurrection power, centers of Christ-consciousness, the spiritual ‘breath’ for suffocating sinners who don’t know they’re dead in the Spirit-realm, not ‘barterers but blessers’, not ‘silent witnesses but vocal proclaimers’, not our ‘best efforts’ but redeemed vessels through which the Holy Spirit bears witness to the work, the blessing, the fulfillment, the transformation from ‘flesh natures’ to anointed, Spirit-filled servants of their Master’s calling! Romans 8:16-17 declares: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that WE ARE children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
Do you realize how many ‘professing believers’ live with an unconscious conviction about ‘witnessing’? It’s certain! Yet, in Galatians 1:15-16, Paul said: “But when IT PLEASED GOD, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME, that I might preach Him”, reveal Him, unveil Him, share Him, tell your world, yes, ‘I’m a Christian, and here’s why’”!! Are YOU?
In John 15:11-17 Christ Jesus declared: “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (Did He love you enough to lay down His life for you, and do YOU love Him enough to lay down YOUR life in ministry to those, especially the lost, the blinded, the darkened, the Satanically misled, the worldly educated but spiritually bankrupt?). Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends IF YOU DO WHATEVER I COMMAND YOU. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME, but I CHOSE YOU and APPOINTED YOU that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.”
True disciples are not consumed by the love of the world – they burn like shining lights in the love, mercy, and grace of God! Yet, how many do you know who profess faith but live sidetracked from their ambassadorship as representatives to a lost and needy world? Did Jesus say, Matthew 13:22, “Now he who received seed, among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.”
Yet the joy of Jesus prospered richly as He cringed about what the world was about to do to Him! Oh, He was appointed to the Cross by merciful God, but Jesus, in human body form, knew and accepted and celebrated what was going to happen as He voluntarily laid down His life for their blood redemption! In Psalm 40:7-8 we read: Then I said, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.” ARE YOU “DELIGHTING IN THE WILL OF GOD, YES, TAKING CHRIST”S CROSS UNTO YOURSELF DAILY THAT HIS RESURRECTED LIFE WILL BE MANIFESTED IN AND THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH?
This old hymn needs to be ‘resurrected’, re-issued, and sung to honor Christ the modern church professes to honor! It says: “All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give; I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow; Worldly pleasures all forsaken, Take me, Jesus, take me now. All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee; Fill me with Your love and power, Let Your blessing fall on me.” Can you sing it, ring it, announce it, proclaim it? “Christ in you, through you, the hope of glory”?