GUIDED BY PRESENT FAILURES, DISASTROUS EVENTS, OR GRACED BY GOD’S INTERVENTION?
By: J.Farrell Fisher, Sept. 2-3, 2017
I was deeply moved, reminded of, and, yes, convinced of “life experiences’ being either closed doors to the desire of God to “Bless” us or convinced “I’m on my own, and I’ll try my best to overcome all that I’m facing without anybody’s help, including your God!”
Life apart from trouble, heartaches, disappointments, producing frustrations like an explosive volcano, are at times seemingly out of control. And, of course, one has to ask: “Well, in this present life situation, who IS in control?” Do you understand, sense, and become aware of those who are ‘shaken’, yes, even in every good or bad moments of their lives and circumstances, and they crumble right before your eyes because they’ve never looked in to the heart and mind or UP TO THE LOVING GOD AND FATHER WHO’D LIKE TO INTERVENE!
Guided by present failures or disastrous events, the independent mind senses no need of God’s help or His people’s help – “I can make it on my own!” One thing is sure for me in Texas today in this time period of ‘natural disasters’, most Texans are thankful for His people’s help AND HIS FAITHFUL INTERVENTION AND BLESSING OF THE TROUBLED MINDS, HEARTS, AND FAMILIES WHO STAND IN NEED! And God arises!
In His “Rising Up” in the time of trouble, He calls on His people, whether some know Him or not, to hear the call to duty, to receive the rallying cry of ‘community cooperation’, to pause, reflect, pray, saying, “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?” In every life there are those life-circumstances where one must stop, ask Him, evaluate under His Spirit’s control and oversight, of what is necessary, what is vital, what is valid, and what is of most importance to ME as a vessel of His Holy Presence, fighting the good fight of faith, understanding and resolving what my present responsibility is – but is it to MY world, MY flesh desires, or even a ‘vessel’ of invasion by the powers of darkness that limits God’s Compassion, ignoring God’s eternal purposes, OR what is most important to Him and His ministry in, to, AND through me?!? Isn’t there historically present from our world’s foundation and creation the activity of God seeking to BE the difference in the betterment of human lives and human affairs? Yet many ignore or even buy in to Satan’s lies! “Has God really said…?” Isn’t that what Satan asked or spoke to Eve and Adam? And doesn’t Satan still continue to degrade, deny, or denounce His eternal Truth in the Word or in the Living Word of Christ’s Presence?
But in 2 Peter 1:1-4 Peter wrote and testified, yes, to “the Grace of God’s Intervention” for our blessing, multitudinous benefits, and as a barricade against Satanic, worldly, or fleshly interference! Peter said: “To those who have obtained like precious faith with us BY the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. 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.”
And remember! It is His glory and His virtue that you by repentance and faith receive! They are “gifts” of His grace, His mercy, His love, poured out upon YOU in extending His Kingdom ministry, extending His Kingdom calling, and Extending His Kingdom care through You to others around you!
And did Peter say He “called us” BY HIS GLORY AND HIS VIRTUE? It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his writing, The Children of the Lord’s Supper”, (l.177), who said: “The glory of Him who Hung His masonry on naught, when the world He created.” And, no doubt, it was why Isaiah was inspired to write: (Isaiah 6:3), “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.”
And, I pray, you understand that it’s His desire to have your redeemed life by the blood of the Lamb through repentance and faith to become the Holy Temple, YOUR LIFE FILLED WITH HIS GLORY as His Resurrection Life in you unveils, shines, and releases His glory in your walk! This is why in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that Paul also wrote: “Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, you are to do all to the glory of God!”
But remember! We’re looking in the Word first about lives guided by present failures, disastrous events, or beyond that, the foolish ‘decisions, omissions, and intended affronts’, an affront being disrespectful of others, trying to intentionally shame, intentionally abuse, or unnecessarily even defame one of honorable and proven reputation! And when the abuses are occurring, Holy God may or will call on you to step in where at times even angels fear to tread! And that can happen, yes, for the decency and concern of human care from unbelievers, whether they learned to bow before King Jesus or not! Jesus said, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for the many.” And, at times, unbelievers are, yes, used by Christ Himself to help , myself as a young, little boy of eight to twelve years of age even considering or remembering family members, unredeemed, yet voluntarily putting on the soldiers armor and going to war! What some do in life’s journeys is not for the glory of God but, at times, the release of fleshly, human decency!
And that does help in the midst of human catastrophes because few godless or Godly people will go through their life without trouble, without heartaches and disappointments, needing, at times, the care of the human family, whether it’s extending God’s love or a release of human decency. But ‘human decency’ is no evidence of “reconciled to God” or “re-born by the Spirit of God in Christ” to “new creations.” Sadly, across my 81 years of life, I’ve seen unredeemed men used by Holy God to care for others while the ‘church’ sat in their pews satisfied in their ‘religious devotion’ – and, at times, true disciples want to throw up, sickened by the neglect of a supposed ‘caring community’!
Are you aware of Holy God rallying unbelieving armies in Old Testament days, used as His “war weapons” of leaders, nations, or people who shamed human decency, and HE inspired them to be His judgment tool, His weapon, and His arm of, yes, annihilation?
In John L. Bray’s book entitled “Matthew 24 Fulfilled”, he unveiled the destruction of Jerusalem AND the “Holy Temple” (?), so loved by the ‘religious Jews’! Bray said, (p.84), “The Romans once again urged the Zealots to surrender so that their religious laws and sacrifices could continue, and once again were ignored. Josephus himself, acting as translator for Titus, said, “It is God therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of pollutions.” (Josephus, 432).
And in the very next paragraph John Bray wrote this: “One woman who had lost everything but her baby to these bloodthirsty Jews, then killed her baby son, “and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.” When the seditious men smelled “the horrible scent of this food, they threatened her, that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied, that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them; and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight; when she said to them, ‘This is mine own son; and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat this food; for I have eaten of it myself!’ The men left, trembling and frightened. The whole city was overcome by distress when they heard of such a thing.” (Josephus, 443-444).
What have you heard of lately that distresses you concerning lives, families, cities, businesses, nations, where even the worst of human indecencies, though sorrowful, doesn’t turn a needy soul, family, business, city, state, or nation to the Throne of merciful God? Indecencies are often overshadowed by indecisive “do-nothingness”!
Are you aware of and alerted to the reality that in many communities disastrous events, futile failures, ARE NOT “WAKE-UP CALLS”, but fretting, fussing, and fighting for one’s own way without “resting IN the Lord Himself”? But in Psalm 91 we learn of the reality of opportunity of “abiding under the shadow of the Almighty”! Receive the Word:
He who dwells in the secret places of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”
Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;
For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways (Yes! Praise the Lord! Angelic Oversight!). In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread (metaphorically!) upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot.
Because (Farrell Fisher) has set his love upon Me, therefore I WILL DELIVER HIM; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation.” Glory! Praise the Lord! Bow before Him in full repentance and faithful worship, surrender, and service to the glory of His Name by being daily dead to yourself, but “Yes”, ALIVE IN CHRIST! Do you know what 2 Chronicles 16:9 says?
“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” In your journey of life, YOU WILL FIND superior, fleshly forces out to take you down, BUT GOD IS ABLE TO DO EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY ABOVE AND BEYOND IN ALL WE NEED AND MUST HAVE FROM HIM!
Often times God sovereignly chooses to allow open doors of opposition to Him to come against YOU! (Don’t miss this!), Because He wants YOU LEARNING IN FAITH to “lean not to your own understanding, but in all the ways and places and circumstances you choose, He wants you “trusting Him with all your heart, leaning not to your own understanding; desiring YOU choosing to acknowledge Him, giving Him His rightful place as Lord, Savior, Master, Director, Liberator, and Conqueror”!!
In Romans 8:35-39 Paul wrote: “Who (Or what?) shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” YET, IN ALL THESE THINGS, WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED 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.”
You do understand that Sovereign God, at times, in and through the burdens He allows, like Spurgeon wrote, “The burden God places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only;” and there’s a reason for that! We want no part of ‘trouble’ that turns us outside ourselves, no part of ‘testing’ that reveals our ‘faith-trust’ as poor as we lean to our own determination to have, face, win or lose, but especially to “my glory”, because “I believe, I’m able”! Really?
Commonplace lives, confident in ‘self’, are not “high-noon” lives living in the brightness of their own glory, but deceived lives trying to live in incarnate laziness and indifference to the necessary Help of God Almighty! The “best” of flesh, of self-will, self-determination, with self-assured brilliance and a marvelous, fleshly, carnal mind, (even ‘hanging around’ in some believers!), is the call of God, by His Spirit of conviction, appealing to you to “shake off your incarnate, spiritual laziness, and, yes, “Fight the good fight of faith”, until in you and through you, you see the Victory of the Resurrected Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and His inspired Word overcoming any and every worldly, fleshly, or demonic intrusion YOU ALLOW! Stand UP! Fight the Good Fight of Faith!
Do you understand, comprehend, claim, “rest in” what the Holy Word declares? What Christ Jesus declared? John 8:31-32, “IF you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” But what happens in the journeys of many professing disciples?
For some, there comes a time of a mixture of motives between ‘flesh’ and the Spirit of Jesus. At times some believers wander from their calling of honoring and glorifying God in their daily walk, and what becomes for them, a mundane journey, not being fully instilled in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ; and, yes, some ‘adult, having matured some, slips back into childhood carelessness, forgetting, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God!”
I was amazed reading Spurgeon tonight when he said: (“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.238), “It takes God’s Spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that WE ARE UNNOTICEABLE.” Is it God’s purpose, His intention, His eternal plan, even before the foundation of the world, that men would, under His Spirit-conviction, come to the end of themselves and allow “Christ Jesus to be their All in All?” Yes! That’s God’s desire, His “high calling” for you to BE THROUGH WITH YOURSELF, and let Christ Jesus reign in and through you by the power of His Holy Spirit!
OH, THAT YOU BE GRACED BY GOD’S INTERVENTION!! Charlotte Homer and Charles Gabriel wrote an old hymn published in the 1933 The American Hymnal. It’s entitled, “Draw Near Immanuel”. It says: “Draw nigh to us, O God of hosts, And fill us to the uttermost With zeal to work for You today, In Your all-wise appointed way; Reveal Your will in us, and show Your hand divine, That we may know We are Your children, You our Guide and hiding-place, what-e’er betide.
Draw nigh to us, O Mighty One! Our shelter be from sun to sun; Our Alpha and Omega YOU Before whom every knee shall bow; Deliver us from every sin; In us a mighty work begin; Increase our faith, our strength renew, Fit us a mighty work to do.
Draw night to us, Immanuel, You Mighty God of Israel! Once more from Sinai’s flaming height Speak, that we may be led aright; Almighty, everlasting King of kings, with contrite hearts we sing, The righteous majesty and love of Him who built the heavens above.” And do you see yourself as the special work of God Almighty, “crucified with Christ”, and raised up to walk in the “newness of life” which is only our Lord’s “Resurrection Life”!
You “draw near” daily to take the sentence of death to yourself that Christ’s Resurrection Presence is manifested through your mortal body! “Jesus, be Jesus in me, No longer me but thee, “Resurrection Power” fill me this hour, Jesus, be Jesus in me!” AMEN?