PART 2 (by J.Farrell Fisher) Nov.14-15, 2016

It’s so vitally interesting and important to me to read what Leo Tolstoy, in his writing, “The Kingdom of God is Within You,” had to say: First statement? “The Christian cannot promise to do or not do a given thing at a given time, for he cannot know what the law of love, which is the commanding principle of his life, will demand of him at that time.” But one thing is certain: Holy God, King Jesus, the Holy Spirit will not ask you to say or do anything that would violate His Word, His Will, His character, His eternal truths!

The second statement of Leo Tolstoy? “Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishments, its wars.” But it’s for certain, as followers of Christ Jesus, as He warned, we warn; as He confronted “religious pretense” or “political inconsistencies with Divine Truth” or “flesh at its worst or best”, so true disciples are silent when He’s silent or vocal as He was vocal; as followers of Christ Jesus, we don’t lean on fleshly instincts of one’s own mind apart from Christ or one’s fleshly instincts of fallen mankind’s mind, will, or emotion but rests upon the Christ within guiding, yes, even one’s investment of his/her life in the midst of a lost, needy, separated-from-God world!

And, I certainly don’t stress ‘religion’s pride’ or the ‘pomp’ and ‘showiness’ of self-indulgent performance, or ‘worldly’, or Hollywood’s interpretations of the ‘good life’ or ‘evil life’ or ‘religious activity’ at its best, when “Christ IN YOU IS the hope of eternal glory” and Him alone! Don’t you think this just might be why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:9, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead…”? In fact, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I DIE DAILY.” Later, in 2 Corinthians 4:11, Paul stated, “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 SO VITAL that every “professing believer”, not only acknowledge, receive and act upon what the Word of God says about every single person convicted and convinced by the Holy Spirit, but affirming the Truth about Holy God’s justification of taking the sin and sin nature of all mankind on the Cross in and through His Son and our Savior and nailing it to the Cross!

Paul acknowledged and affirmed this truth when in Colossians 3:3 he wrote: “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” then challenging us in Colossians 3:5-7, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is IDOLATRY. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which YOU YOURSELVES ONCE WALKED when you lived in them.” But you don’t “live” there any longer if YOU ARE IN CHRIST!

I don’t know if YOU are fully aware of what Holy God declares about the “new creation” family of faith, but it is so important that You receive, understand, appropriate, and stand upon 2 Corinthians 13:5-8! “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. Now I pray that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”

So the Apostle unveils the “true path”, the “new identity”, and the “everlasting unveiling of the Biblical Truth of God’s redeemed, blood-bought sons and daughters of saving grace, mercy, and love in and through Christ alone”!

FIRST, NEW CREATION SONS AND DAUGHTERS HAVE ACCEPTED THEIR CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST AND HIS RESURRECTION TO, IN, AND THROUGH THE ETERNAL LIFE OF HOLY GOD! What did Paul tell us in Galatians 2:20-21a? “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. I do not set aside the grace of God…!”

Even King David learned the vital, eternal necessity of “new life” in and through the “Promised Messiah” when in Psalm 87: 5-7 he wrote: “And of Zion it will be said, ‘This one and that one were born in her; and the Most High Himself shall establish her.” The Lord will record, when He registers the peoples: ‘This one was born there.’ Both the singers and the players on instruments say, “All my springs (fresh springs!) are in you.”

Oswald Chambers wrote, in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.271), “Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He re-makes the whole man on the inside. ‘Put on the new man…’”! That’s “new creations”, “the new man,” accepting, resting in, relying upon the “new covenant,” and rejoicing daily in the celebration of Kingdom living in the “new heaven and the new earth”!

Yes, even in Old Testament times there were those, like Abraham, about whom Jesus said, John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad,” Jeremiah even hearing the Lord say in his day, Jeremiah 29:11-14, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity!” [For instance, ‘are you still a slave to your old sin nature, maintaining allegiance, even appreciation, of the ‘old man’ nature and character’?].

What does Romans 8:13-14 says: “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.”

As YOU read the Holy Word, do you find it so illuminating in learning to be “through with the old man of sin” and LEANING ON CHRIST’S DEATH, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION? In Hebrews 3:12-19 there is a dramatic unveiling of “professors of faith” who fell short of entering “God’s Promised Land Through Christ”! It says: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. FOR WE HAVE BECOME PARTAKERS OF CHRIST “IF” we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, BUT TO THOSE WHO DID NOT OBEY? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Do you see it? “Followers? But limited by their unbiblical ‘faith’, dying in their ‘obedience’(which was so limited!) BEFORE entering the Promised Land”? SO YOU discern that’s “salvation by works”, or truly is it not THE EVIDENCE THAT TRUE SALVATION HAS BEEN BIRTHED? I’ve said it often, I’ll say it again: “Obedience is not an option in the age of grace, but the evidence grace is honoring Christ by doing what He says!” Dare I ask you again? “Have YOU “mortified the deeds of your flesh and “rested” in Christ alone?”

SECOND, NEW CREATION SONS AND DAUGHTERS, ARE, YES, LEGITIMATE FAMILY OF GOD OFF-SPRING BY THE BORN-AGAIN REALITY IN AND THROUGH HIS HOLY SPIRIT! In John 3:5-6 the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus and us; ‘MOST assuredly, I say to you’, “unless one is born of water (the ‘water of the Word’!) and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

In Romans 8:16 Paul tells us: “The Spirit 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 be also glorified together.”

In 2 Corinthians 5:17-18a 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, not imputing their trespasses to them…”; and, as “new creations IN CHRIST”, we don’t ‘rest’, rely upon what we think, or ‘try’ to be better – we “TRUST” God’s testimony about us “in Him”!

“In Christ” Holy God “reconciled us to Himself through Christ Only”! “In Christ” divine forgiveness rules and restoration to God’s eternal intent begins – we are the “tent,” the “tabernacle”, the “temple” of Christ’s Resurrection Presence! “Christ IN YOU the hope of glory”!

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul added, “For He (God the Father) made Him (God the Son, Emmanuel) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God In Him (in Christ Jesus).” Worldly religions promote personal redemption by determined, best efforts, believing it “rests” in one’s confidence in himself/herself to overcome, faithfulness to an ‘assembly’, whether Christ is there or not! Worldly religions, agnostics, atheists, even, sad to say, some ‘church folk’, believe Christ Jesus went too far saying, “Come to Me, and I will give you rest,” when often the “worldly” discern ‘salvation’ in themselves!

Again, “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin FOR US, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In Romans 6:10-14 Paul illumines one’s lack of salvation knowledge, laying out our true journey! He said: “For the death that Christ Jesus died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. LIKEWISE you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

THEREFORE do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

Only through the “Blood Atonement” of Christ in and through His sacrificial death on the Cross is there liberty and freedom and eternal blessing in a life re-born by the grace of God to His honor alone! And that miracle of redemption, reconciliation with God, through Christ alone, is the “open door” of eternal opportunity to unveil His Son through the “redeemed”! Galatians 1:15-16 says, “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…”, but you’re unsure if that’s God’s purpose through you? [You might need to “be born again”!].

THIRD, REDEEMED CHILDREN OF FAITH ARE CALLED BY THE LORD TO BE HIS WITNESSES, HIS AMBASSADORS, HIS MESSENGERS TO A NEEDY WORLD! And, of course, WHO determines what a needy world is? Fallen men or Holy God? Also, when it comes to an individual’s determination what his ‘religious profession’ is all about, is it ‘self-determination’ or Sovereign Calling and ordination and equipping for His eternal plan?

It’s true that the unbelieving world has no awareness of or commitment to being ‘reconciled to God’ because they’ve chosen to be “at peace” with their godlessness and unbelief. But for the “church,” for individual believers, there is the reality, for some, that their ‘intellectual superiority’ sets them apart from a disciple’s or church’s mandate and commissioning of “being His witnesses” – that to them is impractical, unadvisable, degrading to their “biblical brilliance”! Really? Yes, really!

Or, like the Dallas pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, “The Gospel is opened to all and closed to none,” welcoming homosexuals as ‘true disciples’! Where do you find that in the Word of God! The True Gospel of Christ and the Word liberates from, not opens the door to continue in sin, in debauchery, in rebellion and disobedience to the Holy Word!

I believe the Holy Word when it says in Revelation 21:5-8, Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things NEW.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the 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 believe ‘sexually immoral’ doesn’t include homosexuality or lesbianism, I’d go into the Word, before the Throne of God, before the community of true “born-again believers” asking them: “Is a homosexual lifestyle acceptable here, in you, and in your church?” And if they said, “Yes”, I’d run as fast as I could AWAY from a compromising, godless, collectively-deceived-mind-set unredeemed by the “Blood of the Lamb”!

In Matthew 28:16 the new disciples went to the mountain where Jesus told them to go. This is after His resurrection and before His ascension. In Verses 18-20 Jesus issued His “Great Commission”! He said: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen (or “So be it!”).

IF: “I am not my own, but I was bought with a price, the blood of the Lamb of God, and I am under His authority”, and He then tells me, “You shall be My witnesses, My messengers, My earthly representatives to a lost and perishing world of unbelievers,” do I, do we, just turn deaf ears and blinded eyes to a perishing people, or do I share the “Life-Raft” to ‘drowning people’ with no sense at all of personal accountability for my indifference to their eternal need?

I tell you, I truly understand why the ‘modern church’ and ‘modern music leaders’ avoid old hymns that convict, convince, and open uncaring ‘church members’ to a lost world around them – they want no reminders of spiritual responsibility to touch their world with grace, mercy, and love – they are so enamored with their own spiritual concerns that ‘witnessing, evangelizing, touching my world with mercy and grace is just too heavy a responsibility to bear’!

Fanny J. Crosby and William H. Doane, in the old “The American Hymnal,” (compiled and edited by Robert H. Coleman, in cooperation with The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, copyright, 1933), wrote the hymn “Rescue the Perishing.” It says:

“Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, Lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.

Tho’ they are slighting Him, Still He is waiting, Waiting the penitent child to receive; Plead with them earnestly, Plead with them gently, He will forgive if they only believe.

Down in the human heart, Crushed by the tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore; Touched by a loving heart, Wakened by kindness, Chords that are broken will vibrate once more.

Rescue the perishing, Duty demands it; Strength for your labor the Lord will provide; Back to the narrow way Patiently win them; Tell the poor wanderer a Savior has died. Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying; Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.”

FOURTH, TRUE CHILDREN OF SAVING FAITH ARE NOT ONLY WITNESSES, MESSENGERS, AND AMBASSADORS, THEY ARE ‘FOOT-WASHERS’ AND “TRUE SERVANTS”! In John 13:1-17 there is an amazing revelation of true, heavenly, God-interpreting living, ministry, and service of the true disciples of Christ Jesus! It says: Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.

After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”

So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, FOR SO I AM. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. FOR I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, that you should do as I have done to you.

Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, BLESSED ARE YOU IF YOU DO THEM.”

Dare I give you a hint to successful, Christ-honoring servants? In Philippians 3:10-11 Paul wrote: “…that I MAY KNOW HIM and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” THE DEAD WITHOUT CHRIST ARE NOT ABOUT TO BOW BEFORE OTHERS TO WASH THEIR FEET! They’d SAY, “How disgraceful, how demeaning, how foolish,” yet Christ directs His disciples to be “foot-washers”!

“Foot-washers” ARE “true servants” of the Lord Jesus Christ! They understand humbling one’s self to be exalted in and with Christ Jesus, the “Eternal, God-given foot-washer”! Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 10:31 tell us, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”? Whatever YOU do – do YOU sense the Christ in you saying, “Live with the ‘foot-washing’ spirit and attitude of the Christ in you! You’re the “vessel” – I’m the content”! And the Christ in you desires to wash fallen mankind’s feet AND the saved, and as you humble yourself before Him and allow Him to be the foot-washer through you, He’ll humble more and more souls before His Father, Holy God!

Are YOU aware, even as pastors and teachers, of “the calling, the instruction, the EXAMPLE of Christ Himself” as He said in John 12:23-27,But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

IF anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor. Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for THIS PURPOSE I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name,” (through you and me?)!

I close this message with John’s challenging illumination for true disciples in 1 John 3:16-19! “By this we know love (agape love), because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.”

“Identifying True Disciples of Christ?” I don’t know who wrote it, but his/her challenge is so on target! “My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.” THAT’S “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY”!!!

In John 17:1-5 Christ Jesus prayed to the Father, lifting up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

The hour that came in the life of the Son of God, on earth, birthed in the Virgin Mary, cared for by Mary and Joseph for many years, watched over by Father-God and the army of angels appointed and anointed by Holy God, did “the appointed hour” come, having been established before the world had even been created, that God, through the “Son”, would invade this world to reconcile a rebellious world unto Himself? Of course He did!

Not only, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” but before its beginning, Holy God saw the “Fall” and determined “The Fall’s” reconciliation to Holy God through the sacrifice of God’s only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ!

And IF God did it for Adam and Eve, if God did it for a Moses or a prophet, if God did it for all of fallen humanity, was it just simply for them alone in the past, or is there “a finished Work”, an “It is done” for every birthed individual past, present, or future?

In Acts 10:34-43 Peter declared: “In truth I perceive THAT GOD SHOWS NO PARTIALITY. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel, PREACHING PEACE THROUGH CHRIST JESUS – HE IS LORD OF ALL – that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging Him on a tree. Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be the Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness, that through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”

But a “fallen world”, without an awareness of the need of “reconciliation” to Holy God, will manufacture, invent, substitute, all kinds of human inventions to seek to appease their guilty, alienated from, blinded, sinful hearts by multitudinous, impotent, self-assertive ways of improving, over-looking, or excusing their sinful state!

And in spite of many of fallen mankind’s ‘fleshly innovations’ of ‘spiritual disciples’(?), even man-made religious systems, God overlooked, God intervened, God proved His love for fallen mankind, through the blood sacrifice of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, on Calvary’s Cross!

Do you remember God “testing” Abraham in Genesis? Follow the Word! [Genesis 22:1-18], Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”

Then God said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off.

And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” [“We will come back to you”? “WE”? Abraham and Isaac? You mean he understood, even before the sacrifice of his son on the altar, that , though willingly offered as the sacrifice, Holy God was able to raise his son from the dead?!?].

So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.”

Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.

Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, ‘The-Lord-Will-Provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’

Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son – blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, BECAUSE YOU HAVE OBEYED MY VOICE. “

What was God’s intent in His testing of Abraham? If there is a willingness to obey, God sees the heart through which He can reveal Himself! In fact, In Matthew 4:19, Jesus said to Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”, but that was after He had said in Matthew 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Matthew 4:23 then tells us that Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom…”. Do you know what Isaiah 52:7 says? “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaim peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

And Abraham, and Jesus, or you as His disciple and follower and servant? Do you know about “beautiful feet”, about “proclaimers of good news and peace” and about those “who proclaim salvation”, saying, “God reigns” – will you allow Him to reign over your life, your home, your family, your business, your community, your nation? Jesus said what? “It is finished – It is done!”

FIRST, NOTICE, NO MORE UNAWARENESS OF GOD’S CONCERN FOR HIS CREATED WORLD! I remind you of what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 because it relates to every follower of Christ in the time period of his/her present existence in whatever nation, state, or circumstance: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; (So) that the man of god may be adequate, equipped for, (or thoroughly furnished) for every good work.”

And if that is true, and it is, then are you and I to be alerted to what Jesus has to say, not only to the Israelites in Jerusalem or the nation of Israel, but to every disciple, regardless of his present residence – the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa? What did our Lord say in Luke 21:10-28?

Then He [Christ Jesus] continued by saying to them (but not to you?), “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake.

It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; for I will give you utterance (or a mouth) and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.

But you will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all on account of My name. Yet not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives (or souls).

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city;

Because these are days of vengeance (for the blood covenant), in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled. Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babes in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people,

And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (That’s the “Present Age” to the Advent!!).

And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dismay among the nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, (or a flood of words), men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

And THEN they will see The Son of Man Coming In a Cloud with power and great glory. “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

LOOK UP! YOUR REDEMPTION DRAWS NEAR! LOOK UP! JESUS CHRIST IS ON THE THRONE, RULING AND REIGNING, AND HIS KINGDOM HAS COME AND HIS RULE ASSURES YOU OF YOUR VICTORY IN YOUR WORLD OF TODAY! God cares about YOU, and has never taken His eyes off of you or your circumstances in your world!

SECOND, NO MORE UNAWARENESS OF GOD’S CARE FOR THE LOWLIEST OF MANKIND, FOR THE WORLD’S INSIGNIFICANT, FOR THE ONE NO ONE CARES ABOUT BUT GOD HIMSELF!

I think Daniel 4 was eternally sealed by the Spirit for this very point: “No unawareness of God’s Care for the most insignificant of mankind, but His care for the ‘least’, or the most well-known of all mankind?”

Daniel 4:1-17 is an amazing declaration and illuminating Word from Holy God: Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth: “May your peace abound!

It has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me. How great are His signs, and how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation.

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace. I saw a dream and it made me fearful; and these fantasies as I lay on my bed and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.

So I gave orders to bring into my presence all the wise men of Babylon, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. Then the magicians, the conjurers, the Chaldeans, and the diviners came in, and I related the dream to them; but they could not make its interpretation known to me.

But finally Daniel came in before me, whose name is Belteshazzar according to the name of my god, and in whom is a spirit of the holy gods; and I related my dream to him, saying, ‘O Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, since I know that a spirit of the holy gods is in you and no mystery baffles you, tell me the visions of my dream which I have seen, along with its interpretations.

Now these were the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed: I was looking, and behold, there was a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree became large and became strong, and its height reached to the sky, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.

Its foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches, and all living creatures fed themselves from it.

I was looking in the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed, and behold, an angelic watcher, a holy one, descended from heaven. He shouted out and spoke as follows: ‘Chop down the tree and cut off its branches, strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit; let the beasts flee from under it, and the birds from its branches.

Yet leave the stump with its roots in the ground, but with a band of iron and bronze around it in the new grass of the field; and let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him share with the beasts in the grass of the earth.

Let his mind be changed from that of a man, and let a beast’s mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him. This sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers, and the decision is a command of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom He wishes, and sets it over the lowliest of men.”

King Nebuchadnezzar knew of the sovereignty of Holy God and God’s concern for the “lowliest of men”, yet a humble spirit was unknown to him, and God removed his sovereignty from His life, even though he ‘professed’.

But in Ezekial 34:31 Holy God declared that days were coming when He would establish a “new covenant” – and we know that “new covenant” was the blood covenant through the sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son, Emmanuel, which means “God with us”, not like the old covenant which the Israelites willingly broke, even though they’d entered ‘marriage’ with Him.

Jeremiah gave us even a clearer picture of this “new covenant”. Jeremiah 31:31-34 says: “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know Me, FROM THE LEAST OF THEM to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and THEIR SIN I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”

How is that? BECAUSE YOU AND YOUR OLD SIN NATURE WERE “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, PUT TO DEATH, AND YOU THROUGH REPENTANCE AND FAITH BECAME THE RECIPIENT OF RESURRECTION LIFE, RESURRECTION POWER, AND RESURRECTION HOPE! Through the blood of the Lamb, from the “least” to the greatest, new life has come!

THIRD, NO MORE UNAWARENESS OF GOD’S COMPASSION FOR THE LONELIEST OF THE ALONE! Ecclesiastes 4:7-12 is a powerful, piercing, heart-wrenching explanation of individuals who, yes, more than not, CHOOSE to walk through life alone, unaware of the Greatest Friend the lonely have ever known! It says:

Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun: There is one alone, without companion: he has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But he never asks, ‘For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?’ This also is vanity and a grave misfortune.

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 him warm; but how can one be warm alone? [Insert! How many ‘alone’ people have crossed your path and you’ve witnessed their ‘cold’ nature?]. Verse 12, Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Who is the third cord in the two-fold relationship of friend to friend or husband to wife or wife to husband or parent to child or child to parent? Consider that two-fold union plus the presence of the Resurrected, Reigning Christ Jesus!

Consider even Jesus Himself! Even his intimate disciples left Him & He stood alone often, yet He said in John 8: 16b, “…for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me,” and in Verse 18 The Lord Jesus said, “I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.”

You do not have to walk through life alone! God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit has “knocked on your heart’s door before and still does now”! Revelation 3:18-22 says, Jesus speaking, “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

There’s an interesting verse in Jeremiah 49:31 where the Lord says, “Arise, go up to the wealthy nation that dwells securely,” says the Lord, which has neither gates no bars, dwelling alone.” Dare I tell you that the man rich in himself with his personal determination of wealth in himself without God, living in a false security state of mind, dwelling alone, and God says, “That’s the man I love, that’s the man I want to be One with, The loneliest of the alone – I love him, I seek him, I find him, and I say to that lonely man, – Matthew 11:28-30 –Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

FOURTH, NO MORE UNAWARENESS OF GOD’S COMPASSION FOR THE ‘LEAST-SENSING ‘ INDIVIDUAL! To say, like some, “Your God doesn’t care”, is without a doubt a senseless assertion, but in a time of great stress, even men like David, could complain, (Psalm 142:3-5), “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.”

But then, at least King David, had the saneness and senseness of “I cried out to You, O Lord”; I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” But there are ‘senseless’ individuals whose hearts, minds, and brains are totally dead to the compassion and care of Holy God!

There are times in life’s pilgrimage when affliction deadens some’s ‘faith’, troubles and temptations harden their hearts, disappointments, rejections, betrayals, a serious sickness, a horrific betrayal of wedding vows or betrayal of what seemed to be ‘a true friendship’, hardens some hearts and lives, and they never consider “God’s compassion” for the sin-bound, the troubled, the lonely, or the fearful – they just stiffen in their dumb-foundedness of His love, grace, and mercy. Perplexity becomes their ‘cry’ rather than redemptive faith in the Lord’s ability to transform trouble into triumph!

It was Peter who was given a wise word in 1 Peter 5:5-11, “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves UNDER the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.”

Holy God, Mighty God, Omnipotent God, is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or even think! And though YOU may sense, “NO ONE CARES FOR MY SOUL,” GOD DOES! LOOK AT THE CROSS AND THE EMPTY TOMB! The ‘least-sensing servant’ Jesus cares for and proves His love!

LASTLY, NO MORE UNAWARENESS OF GOD’S COMPASSION FOR THE CITIZENS OF EVEN REBELLIOUS NATIONS! Do you ever reflect upon, study, search out Psalm 2? The psalmist wrote about “the realness of rebellion”, but then amplified the Coming Messiah’s victory and triumph and Kingdom rule over sin and death! It says:

“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 [The PROMISED MESSIAH!], saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” He (Holy God) 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 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 (Jesus) 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 to 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 (THE PROMISED MESSIAH!).”

Rebellious nations may rage, unbelieving leaders plot ‘vain things’, senseless rulers and self-centered individuals pool their foolish thoughts against God, but the Father begot the Son, and the Son lived and died in our place, and still reigns in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! And 2 Corinthians 7:10 declares, “For godly sorrow produces repentance LEADING TO SALVATION, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.254-255), “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 that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself. The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, 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.”

Repentance is not the license to continue sinning, but the freedom to walk in holiness and purity! Hebrews 10:14 the author superbly declares: “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Are YOU?

Holy God, through the offering of Jesus on the Cross, offers the rebellious life through the sacrifice of Christ, a new life, a new hope, an eternal future with Him around the Throne forever and ever, but if one sins willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries”! Are you an “adversary” or true friend of the Christ of the Cross and the Christ of the Empty Tomb? “Blessed are all those who put their trust in “The Promised Messiah”!

By J. Farrell Fisher, June 12-14, 2018

Years ago Thomas Carlyle, in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” (Vol.5, Pt.10), wrote, “Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.” When I read his statement, I wondered how much cruel opposition did he face asserting one “lives in the Lord” when most of the church hundreds of years ago and even today “profess” ‘living FOR the Lord’! And there is an eternal difference in “attempting to live for the Lord” and, yes, “living in the Lord”! “Living in the Lord” requires “resting in His death, burial, and resurrection”, while “living for the Lord” is “flesh”, “best effort”, “trying” rather than trusting in what Jesus has done for us!

In “Macbeth”, William Shakespeare wrote: “I had most need of blessing, and ‘AMEN’ stuck in my throat.” Yes, he seemed to realize that the Savior and Lord, did His marvelous work and ministry of “saving grace” through His shed blood, death on the Cross, burial, and resurrection, AND “IT IS FINISHED!” I Repent and Thank Him for His mercy and grace, granting to “trusting hearts” His mercy, His grace, His forgiveness, His abiding Presence, making the repentant heart His eternal home and reigning and ruling through that available residence of ALL HE IS IN HIS RESURRECTED PRESENCE!

Do YOU find it amazing that in Job 19:23-26 that Job wrote these verses? “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! FOR I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh (Resurrected?) I shall see God.” Glory!

Oh, but there are ‘Pharaohs’ throughout human history! In Exodus 5:1-2 we read: Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ And Pharaoh said, “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.”

Come to John 8:48-59! It’s shocking and amazing to read of the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish ‘natural’ community who had nothing to do with King Jesus, but to see Him rejected by them, crucified, and buried! It’s like ‘modern-day’ citizens of darkness who “still want Jesus crucified and in a grave” – “Nothing about Him for us!” Does that sound familiar around you of voices denying The Lordship of Christ? “Nothing about Him for us!” The Word says:

Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (INCORRECT!!). Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges. Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”

Then the Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, “If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?”

Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, “I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Do YOU understand that just as with the unbelieving, religious Jews, that all around the world, yes, even in ‘religious’ communities, there are those ‘professing’ Christ who’ve never been claimed by Him to truly be His children of the true, eternal FAITH that saves, transforms, indwells, and, yes, gives eternal glory to the God of Calvary’s Cross and the empty tomb?

Hear Christ Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23!! “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, BUT he who does the will of My Father 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!”

I hate to be the one to tell you if you’ve never truly “heard Truth”, but, yes, have ‘practiced Christ’, even reaching out to needy people enslaved to the powers of darkness, and, yes, casting out demons, but Jesus said that THAT is no true defining of His disciples! It’s not what “they (“professing disciples” or what “true disciples do” but true Biblical ministry of “WHO HE IS” in defined residence of the repentant heart because of their choice of “death to self” that the Resurrected manifestation of Divine Presence has entered the true tabernacle of a repentant man’s heart and JESUS is free TO BE HIMSELF in a life possessed of His Presence, fully surrendered to, yes, simply being the earthly dwelling of the awesome Christ Jesus – true biblical spiritual ministry is daily taking the sentence of death to yourself, so Christ Jesus may be manifested, unveiled, being Himself in you!

In Colossians 1:24-29 Paul says illuminatingly (!), “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which IS Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present EVERY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS.” “Every man perfect in Christ Jesus” is not because of what men choose to do in trying to honor Him by the best of flesh effort, but willfully allowing one’s life in bodily presence where Jesus “knocked”, your door was opened through repentance and faith, and the Resurrected Christ found the repentant, new-born life, the residence where He could be Himself through you, not you trying to be “Christ-like”! America and the world has witnessed enough of ‘cheap imitation’ – they must see Christ Himself in you, allowed to express Himself in and through an available vessel!

Forgiven lives, repentant hearts, truly redeemed minds, men “finished” with themselves, men accepting the eternal Truth of “crucified with Christ”, ‘old man gone’, “new man” birthed by the Holy Spirit with the re-born life willing to be, yes, the structural housing where the Prince of Peace births a ‘Holy Temple’, enabling Him to reach out to a lost world, to spiritually ‘dead’ individuals, and through YOU to exercise His miraculous power to speak Life into the ‘dead’!

But, as in Old Testament times and in New Testament actual historical times and through the ages of human existence up into our ‘modern-world’, what Jeremiah in his prophetic time period saw, one can update it even to today across America and any corner of the world globe. The ‘history’ of modern-men as ‘pretenders’ to revealed Truth is astounding!

Examine Jeremiah 6:10, Verse 13-15, Verses 16-19, Verses 27-30!! Get Ready!! It’s as relevant today as when Jeremiah bravely proclaimed the “Word of the Lord” in his day! 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 GOD’S WORD.” [Are you aware that there are multitudes of Holy Bibles in ‘professing’ Christians’ homes that are seldom opened, but are only used as a table-decoration? Yet the Lord and His Holy Word says it is “the bread of life”, it is spiritual sustaining milk, and it IS the “spiritual meat” from the mind and heart of God for Christ to use as He works with much in you or little Word in you!]. Why is that?

Jeremiah 6:13-15, “And their houses shall be turned over to others; For I will stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of ‘church property’,” says the Lord. 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 will punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 6:16-19, Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.” Also, I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ (Joel 2), But they said, ‘We will not listen.’

Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth! Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people – the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words nor My law, but rejected it.

Jeremiah 6:27-30, “I have set you as an assayer and a fortress among My people, that you may know and test their way. They are all stubborn rebels, walking as slanderers. They are bronze and iron, they are all corrupters; (or an unholy mixture!). The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; the smelter refines in vain, for the wicked are drawn off. People will call them rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them.”

How many modern, Sunday preachers, or week-day “professors of faith” have you witnessed – and your heart is broken, because even the “compromisers”, in their frustration and anger with the Truth-tellers is so gross that they’d just as soon also see the sold-out citizens of the kingdom ‘crucified’!

I’m sure that, at least, you understand what Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15! He said: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great things if his ministers (‘servants’) also transform themselves into ministers (servants’) of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.” (Is that imitation works, pretense works, similar but not the same, as Christ Himself through them!!).

“KNOWING”? In John 14:6-7 Jesus said: “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Did Job 19:25 jump at your mind and lay hold of your heart? “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and HE SHALL STAND AT LAST ON THE EARTH…”; Crucified, died, buried on the earth, but after 3 days the Father raised Him up from the grave, standing Victorious over sin and death!

Come with me to 1 John 5:9-15! “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He testified of His Son. He who believes in (“trusts in, relies upon, adheres to”) in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life (IN THE HERE AND NOW – NOT IN THE ‘SOMEDAY-PIE-IN_THE_SKY MENTALITY”!!), and that you may continue to believe in (trust in, rely upon, adhere to!) the name of the Son of God.

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” THAT’S “KNOWING”!! But, yes, beyond “knowing” is:

“RECEIVING”: In Proverbs 1:2-5 we read: “To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, TO RECEIVE THE INSTRUCTION OF WISDOM, justice, judgment, and equity; To give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion – a wise man will hear AND increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel.”

Dare I tell you that the man of understanding who attains wise counsel is the true believer “guided and taught” by the Holy Spirit? In John 14:15-18 we read first about receiving scriptural, eternal Truth! Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give Me another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you AND WILL BE IN YOU. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

Notice Verses 25-26 where Jesus also said, “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” True for disciples then – true for disciples NOW! “KNOWING”, “RECEIVING”, but what about “RESTING” in the Lord?

“RESTING”? In Matthew 11:28-30 we read: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will GIVE YOU REST. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” HAVE YOU TRULY “RESTED IN CHRIST” or still heavily involved in “trying your best”, which He crucified?

The burden of separation from God is gone, even if you’ve ever gotten to that awareness in your heart and mind! The burden of the ‘sinful mind and heart’ is erased by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the awareness and appropriation of the shed blood of the Lamb of God, the certainty of understanding that it was because of YOUR sin and sin nature that Jesus died on the Cross, and because of the gift of repentance and the grace of mind-understanding of what He did for you at Calvary, and activating the “gift of repentance”, you learn to lean on “Jesus Only”!

I close this message with Hebrews 3:7-15! It says: Therefore, AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS: (Do YOU allow the Holy Spirit to teach you God’s Word?), “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today”, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Oh, what does the Word then say in Hebrews 3:18-19? “And to whom did God swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? SO WE SEE that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” At the same time, dare I tell you? Believe I will! “True, redemptive, saving faith is the act, practice, and walk in submissive obedience to the words of King Jesus, yes, His every command!

And, I believe that’s why Paul said: “I take the sentence of death daily that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in my mortal flesh.” (1 Corinthians 15:31b) Amen? DO YOU “CHOOSE DEATH DAILY” THAT CHRIST BE REVEALED IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU?

‘Educated’ or ‘uneducated’ unbelievers from anywhere across our God-given world are, yes, enslaved to their ‘godless’ enmity of God’s holiness and enormously arrogant concerning their ‘godless identity’, even bragadocios in their historical assertions – and, there are many, while at the same time there are numerous individuals who acknowledge the reality of the “one True God” or assert, “Yes, there are many gods,” while confidently asserting that they are able to be ‘god’ in and through themselves!

I don’t know who said it, but it is a solid understanding! “God may well be taken as a substitute for ‘everything’; but “nothing” can be taken as a substitute for God.” But, do you understand and sense that much of our modern world today has measured God’s reality of Holy Presence in their heads and not their hearts? Even in their ‘heart of hearts’, ranking high as the greatest of unbelievers, Holy God can still be at work being Himself extending His life, expressing His love, and even proving His power, even though the unbelieving individual doesn’t acknowledge His eternal work and will through His “giftings” and “ministries” with Him seemingly absent from their minds and hearts!

Can there be ‘religious individuals’, even ‘religious intellectuals’, or ‘religious devotees’, like Mohammed’s devotees who have rationalized “God” with ninety-nine names, but know nothing about “Father-God” whose great love sent His Son to be Savior and Lord , yes, of their ‘religious world’?

It was Sarah Flower Adams who many years ago wrote the words of the hymn, “Nearer, my God, to Thee!” Examine her words AND your mind and heart if YOU “lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him”!

“Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee! Even though it be a cross That raises me; Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

Though like a wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God to Thee!

There let the way appear, Steps unto heaven; All that You send to me, In mercy given; Angels to beckon me, Nearer, my God to Thee!

Then, with my waking thoughts Bright with Your praise, Out on my stony griefs Bethel I’ll raise; So by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to Thee!

Or if on joyful wing, Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upwards I’ll fly, Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!”

And, if ‘God is near’ to YOU, and He is, has there been in YOU a total indifference to His ‘knock’ on your heart’s door, or did you receive Augustine’s “Confessions”? “You, Holy God, made me for Yourself, and the heart of man is restless until it finds its rest in You!”

What did Jesus say in Matthew 11:28-30? “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.”

You should be amazed that even in the early days of man’s creation Noah, in Genesis 8:20, “built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” OH, and then the Holy Word tells us in Verses 21-22, And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. ‘While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” Holy God found a repentant heart, and through that heart extended His life and expressed His love for ALL of fallen humanity! SO… “God so loved the (fallen) world THAT He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him ( trusts Him, relies upon Him, adheres to Him!) should not perish but have everlasting life.” Soothing aroma? The Eternal Christ Jesus!

BUT! “NO SHAME – NO GAIN OF TRUE LIFE!” John 3:18-21 we read, “He who believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 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. 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.” Could this be why Paul said: “I die daily”?

Did Jesus say that after ‘coming TO Him’ that the repentant, trusting, obedient heart and life is to “Take My yoke upon you…and you will find rest for your souls (because) My yoke is easy and My burden is light”? And yet are you aware of Paul’s, yes, warning and word of wisdom in Galatians 5:1? “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled AGAIN in a YOKE OF BONDAGE”?

Simon Peter, a beloved disciple of Jesus, said in 1 Peter 4:17-19, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God (unrepentant Judaism in Jesus’ day that crucified Him?); and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those (in the 21^st Century in modern-day American ‘religiosity’?) who do not obey (but just ‘believe’?) the gospel of God? Now, ‘If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?’ Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.” Dare I ask? WHAT IS THE FAITHFUL CREATOR CREATING IN AND THROUGH YOU?

Several truths I believe that are vitally important in “gaining the True Life in Christ”! FIRST IS THE LIFE UNDER THE DIVINE CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT! Right before the Lord Jesus’ journey of rejection, suffering, pain and death, followed by His Resurrection and Ascension, He said to His disciples in John 16:5-14, “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, HE WILL CONVICT THE WORLD OF SIN, AND OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND OF JUDGMENT; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. (That’s the devil who deceives!).

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 of what is Mine, and declare it to you”

If we were created by God with eternal intent, but we understand God was not interested in ‘human robots’ but children of faith willfully choosing to know Him, serve Him, and love Him, then we begin to understand why “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” fully committed to ‘fallen flesh’ or the ‘old sin nature’ until the Blessed Holy Spirit comes or came to convict of sin and of righteousness and judgment to come! Fallen mankind, universally alienated and separated from God by, yes, their love of sin and their sin nature, Holy God didn’t, doesn’t just wipe fallen men away, but sends His Spirit with the intent of not only exposing one’s sin nature but highlighting God’s holy desire to bring us into union with Father-God through His Son and our Savior, Christ Jesus!

And the Spirit has one never-changing message! It’s “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Sin’s penalty was washed away through the blood of the Lamb! Sin’s separation from God has been removed – Now, the question is: “Do I want to be a ‘vessel’ in which Christ tabernacles in me, expressing Himself through me as a ‘chosen vessel’?”

SECOND, CHOSEN VESSELS, CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, NOW MUST STEP UP TO THE AWARENESS OF AND NEED OF AND DESIRE TO BE A TABERNACLE OF HOLY PRESENCE! In John 3, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night, and in John 3:3 Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (that’s ‘the water of the Word’!) AND the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Of course, you realize there is a dramatic difference between satisfied with the world ‘spirit’ and the worldly ways, fitting in to a world spirit of defiance and rejection of Holy Truth, because in the ‘fleshly hearts of boys and girls, men and women’, there is that passionate desire to be filled with the ‘darkness’ rather than be illuminated by the Light, the True Light, which lightens and enlightens repentant hearts and minds to the glory of God! When Jesus said: “You must be born again,” it isn’t a religious option that one can hold to or reject – it is the eternal necessity of being reconciled to God for “the gift of eternal, resurrection, Spirit-controlled living” or choosing to be a fellow citizen devoted to the world, the flesh, and the devil’s realm of the kingdom of darkness! When a teenager chooses to participate in ‘ungodly ways’, it’s the natural result, decision, participation in the lower nature, not the “new-born” nature of a true child of God!

“Flesh IS flesh”, and its fruit is affirmed in its liking and tendency and desire to satisfy one’s lower sin nature rather than honoring and glorifying the King of kings and Lord of lords! Without the ‘Spirit-nature’ of the “new-born in Christ”, there is no fleshly desire, no passionate longing to be one with the Savior and Lord, but the pull, persuasion, and participation in satisfying the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the world, and the lusts of the devil himself! And there are truly many devotees who willingly “let go” to satisfy their sin natures!

But, “new-born disciples”? I find Matthew 11:25-27 an astounding revelation – it says: Jesus speaking, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him ( reveal God the Father!).”

Unborn lives, yes, husband or wife or both, children and youth, young adult, or the uninformed- aged, devotees of the minds of unbelief, educated or uneducated, worldly wise or university-trained, none ever have their minds opened to “saving grace” except by the sovereign foreknowledge and sacred choice and the Savior’s election, “This is My son, she’s My daughter,” and they know it by the Holy Spirit!

Dare I say it? Yes, I will! It’s the Holy Spirit of God that spoils the “sin-trail” of ‘the fallen away from God’ crowd! Again, John 3:5-6, Jesus speaks: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of the water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Natural being or spiritual being? Fallen sin-nature devotee or spiritually-birthed sons and daughters of the ‘blood redemption’? Strangers to saving grace or recipients of the mercy of God? Gripped in the mind of unbelief, rebellion, and deceit, or Graced, (Justified freely by His grace – accepted, just as if I’d never sinned!)?

There is an extremely interesting word in Revelation 15:5 that I willfully choose to ‘spiritualize’ for this present moment – it says: “After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.” When I read that, I was really challenged: Past, present, or future? And, then, as I arrived at Revelation 21:3-8, I was awe-struck by, yes, present Truth! It says: “And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’ Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” 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, 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.”

Question! Has the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven been opened? Get ready! 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 instructs us who ARE “in Christ”! “Do you not know that YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple YOU ARE.”

THIRD, CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, CONVERTED TO NEW LIFE IN CHRIST, TRUE DISCIPLES MUST BE WILLING RECIPIENTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN “GUIDING THEM” INTO GOD’S REVELATION-TRUTHS! In John 14:25-26 Jesus speaks to every new son or daughter of redemptive faith: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.”

What an awesome Word that should encourage every new “babe in Christ” or maturing disciple – YOU HAVE A RESIDENT TRAINER AND EQUIPPER IN ETERNAL TRUTH, THE HOLY SPIRIT! Later, in John 16:7-15, Jesus declared, yes, to us in the 21^st Century, “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 (in the flesh!); 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 (the Holy Spirit – not your ‘best effort’!), for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said (to you) that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

What a promise to every new “child of the King”! The Holy Spirit IS your faithful guide into Biblical Truth and Divine Will , an eternal and never-ceasing forceful empowerment, and the True, full-unveiling of Christ’s Resurrection Presence, which is why, in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Paul instructs us, “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.”

FOURTH, AS A “NEWLY-PLANTED TREE OF LIFE”, ARE WE, IN OURSELVES, THE “FRUIT-OF-GOD PRODUCERS”? I don’t believe that that is what God’s Word trains us in! But then I read in John 15:1-6 where the Lord Jesus Himself said, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.” Jesus then said in Verse 8, “By this is My Father glorified, that YOU bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

Oh, but hear me! It is not the best of ‘flesh-effort’ that produces abundant fruit (the nature and character of Christ!), but Galatians 5:22-25 equips us in Holy, Spirit-Inspired, manifestations of Christ! Paul wrote: “But the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. AND those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Did Paul talk about taking the sentence of death daily to himself that the Spirit of Christ might honor Jesus in yieldedness to the Holy Spirit’s ministry?). If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

No wonder B.B. McKinney was inspired to write the chorus: “Fall Fresh On Me’! It says: “Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me, Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me. Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me. Spirit of the living God, Fall fresh on me!”

We’re not called to follow Christ by the ‘central citadel’ of “self-will at its best”, but vessels of honor, birthed by the Spirit, taught by the Spirit, guided by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, or even planting Holy Seed is to be “by the Spirit”! In Galatians 6:7-9 Paul wrote: “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. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” Doing good? Don’t you think that might mean believers do good as they are led by the Spirit, giving the Spirit His rightful place on the grounds of our earthly bodies, redeemed by the Blood, declared by God Himself to be a Holy Temple of Presence of the Holy Spirit to glorify Christ on earth as He is in heaven?

“In Christ”, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, re-born, called to be His witnesses – but does that mean by our sincere, well-intended best efforts or by choosing to be “vessels” in and through which the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in us and through us? I believe Romans 8:14 tells us: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

No wonder the great hymn entitled “Come, Thou Almighty King” is still true for today when its third verse says: “Come, Holy Comforter, Your sacred witness bear In this glad hour: You who almighty art, Now rule in every heart, And never from us depart, Spirit of power.” Amen?

By: J.Farrell Fisher, August 15-17, 2017

Let me just put it out plainly: “Racists’ Assertions” are the most absurd, asinine, asphyxiating, asylum-leaning attitudes that unveil arrogance and racial stupidity as dangerous as anything I know that can isolate, separate, divide, and destroy human relations whether locally, statewide, nationally, or world-wide! And beyond that, it is saying to Holy God, “Though You intended cooperation, affirmation, and loyalty to one another, You, God, opened the Pandora box of troubles, pain, and hostility in the hearts of men and women who have no appreciation for anyone different from what they see themselves as being, and You made a mistake.” How stupid does that sound?

Racial intolerance exposes hardened hearts filled with ‘self-pride’, ‘selfish attitudes’, and ‘sickened hearts and minds’ with Satanically controlled wills, deformed, defiant, and departing ideas further and further away from the God of amazing love and awesome grace. Racists reveal within a nation the central attitude of the hearts and minds of people who live under Satan’s control in obstinacy, rebellion against others who aren’t their skin color, clouded minds to the truth of God’s desire of His world of the whites, the blacks, the browns, and even the combination of all colors! God’s desire is for men of every race and color to extend His love, express His grace, and edify one another in the Spirit of His heart, mind, intent, and eternal will and pleasure!

Racists are enraged with anything or anyone who doesn’t see ‘hatred’ of other colors than theirs as being “stupid folks” who ought to be hurt, harmed, and even annihilated if they refuse to bow down to “forced separation of the races”!

Highly interesting truth in 1 John 5:1-2 when the beloved one wrote: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also LOVES HIM WHO IS BEGOTTEN OF HIM. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.” But YOU are rebellious enough, unbelieving enough, defiant enough, that if you’re told by Christ to love all in His name, you’ll just join “satan’s band” and play his tune of disrupting, alienating, separating, and fighting against “unity among, yes, God’s people”!

Of course, there is a huge difference between the ‘kingdoms of fallen men’ and THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The ‘kingdoms of fallen men’ are, yes, under the direct influence and administration of Satan himself! Satan loves “race riots” and the people who promote them! He’s a ‘master of deception’ and thrives on keeping people alienated, separated, hating one another, mistreating one another, disrupting any attempts by “Peace of God” people, missionaries, disciples, churches, and governments in bringing people together under God’s Sovereign Administration!

And, of course, fallen men re-born through the blood of the Lamb, in their immaturity, in their lack of understanding of the nature and character of God, are often bound by their ‘vicissitudes’ or ‘changing phases’ until they, yes, mature “in Christ” – so, let patience, love, grace, and mercy abound when you witness spiritual stupidity! Be bold with God’s love for all, including immature believers who don’t as yet know the “BIGNESS” of God’s heart!

Racial bias is antagonism with God Himself and all He has created! Racists live shackled in an evil conscience and seek to pervert the minds of any that they can with their horrific, ungodly, bitter resentment of ALL who are not just like them! In my 81 years of life I have witnessed men of various colors who honored the King of kings and Lord of lords. Some of the greatest preachers I ever heard were black preachers with brilliant, Word-based, Spirit-anointed, heart-warming truths that “touched” Heaven’s Throne and shut Hell’s gates! But…,

racists are the “dark clouds” of some cities, some churches, even some pulpits! “Dark clouds” are blinding and binding! “Dark clouds” are ‘self-willed’ “stallions” that want to toss you as a lover of men’s souls, any color, and stomp you to the ground! God’s world was never intended by Him to be the location of ‘racism’ but the “Community of love and grace”! Racism is a triumph of evil, and for it to remain is for individuals, families, cities, schools, churches, governments, and leaders to be silent!

Do you understand and grasp that WE live in a God-birthed world and, I have no doubts, God didn’t intend evil but a world of His blessing and blessings, but He also knew He had no desire for “robots” but fully surrendered lives to His love and Lordship – and that has to be chosen!

The ‘darkness’ of “racists assertions” is overshadowed by God’s rays of light, of hope, of help, of courage, of commitment to be His followers who want “Light” over every city, state, and nation in the world – and those ‘rays of light’ are to be His children of redeemed faith, washed in the blood of the Lamb, and declared to be sons and daughters of His eternal family, regardless of the color of a man’s skin!

Where there is EVIL, and racism IS EVIL, there must be the weapons of God’s warfare against it – and His weapons are His own children of faith made strong in the “fruit” of His Spirit! Has it ever dawned on you that as a follower of Christ that you have been commissioned in the midst of a “racist’s time” to stand as a “tool” in His hand to speak Truth to one bound by racial resentment?

All racism, white against black, black against white, is evil deception that needs the renewal of Faith in the Fatherhood of Holy God! Your life, your witness, your relationships WITH ALL people-groups is to BE God’s disc of His infinite, all-inclusive light and love of all men! “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and, redeeming YOU was to extend His life, express His love, and prove His power!

But some are indifferent to God’s great concern of bringing all people groups together under His Lordship! The nature of fallen men, by choice, is beastly, devilish, self-centered, indifferent to anybody of any color but his/her own. Charles Caleb Colton once wrote: “There are three modes of bearing the ills of life: by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.” (Sadly, in this 21^st Century, ‘effectual religions’ isolate rather than inspire “togetherness under Christ’s Lordship”!). When it comes to “racism”, it endures in many hearts because of, yes, indifference about any of another color than his own; or ostentatious ‘white pride’ or ‘black pride’; or, sad to say, “Religious orientation”, and some who’ve just determined that it’s best just to take care of your own! Really?

Even if the Word in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 instructs to “Abstain from every form of evil”? Sorry! But I believe to be indifferent to those of another color other than your own is the height of religious bigotry, spiritual stubbornness, and ‘piggish prejudice’, with one indulging in another form of evil!

If one promotes separation of the races, how does he/she relate to the “Fatherhood of God”? Ignore His compassion for every life, regardless of race, or ‘self-determine’ that “Holy God understands my prejudices, and He forgives me”? Really? What may be ‘truth’ to you may be criminal in the eyes of God! Just as there are ‘scarecrows’ flying around your sky, it doesn’t mean “God allows Scare-Crows, black or white, to keep the ‘religious’ scared of unveiling God’s heart in the ‘true church’, which I grew up singing about: “red, yellow, black or white, all are precious in His sight”!

I was a pastor for about 22 years before God called me to preach, teach, and evangelize across India mostly, but other nations in Asia and Africa as well. It was never in my “spiritual genes” to choose for myself what nations, cities, or races I was willing to serve – I wanted to be available to every race, because it was for them, as well as me, that Christ Jesus shed His blood on the Cross! We’re not called to tolerate ‘racism’ but to see it transformed into ‘citizens’ of the eternal Kingdom of God, regardless of race, color, or even men’s creeds – we’re captives of the very heart, mind, and will of God! And, MY GOD “SO LOVED THE WORLD”!

Do you understand that whether black or white, red or tan, the imagination of human hearts is evil continually unless there is by God’s grace and love a heart, mind, and will change, fully surrendered to His Sovereignty? I’m sure this is why David wrote in Psalm 37:1-3, “Do not fret because of evildoers (Dare I tell you that “racists” regardless of skin color ARE evildoers?), nor be envious of the workers of iniquity (of vocal racists!). For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good (Yes, it’s time to “do good” in the U.S.A. concerning race relations); dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

We’re called to “The Redeemer’s Atonement” in personal salvation and “new life” ministry and representation and proclamation! An old hymn entitled “Jesus Calls Us”, written in the early 1930’s by Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander and William H. Jude says: “Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult Of our life’s wild, restless sea, Day by day His sweet voice sounds, Saying, “Christian, follow Me.”

Jesus calls us from the worship Of the vain world’s golden store, From each idol that would keep us, Saying, “Christian, love Me more.”

In our joys and in our sorrows, Days of toil and hours of ease, Still He calls, in cares and pleasures, “Christian, love Me more than these.”

Jesus calls us: by God’s mercies, Savior, may we hear Your call, Give our hearts to Your obedience, Serve and love You best of all.”

Jesus calls us, yes! But Jesus also knocks on the doors of mens’ hearts! In Revelation 3:20-22 we read, Jesus speaking, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

And you don’t think sitting with Christ on His throne and listening to His voice would include, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel”? In Matthew 20:27-28 Jesus said: “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.”

When the call to follow Jesus comes and the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, it’s vital to understand, yes, what He is leading you into after your “New Life” birthing in Christ! Going back to the prophetic Word in Isaiah 53, we hear that “Holy Calling” of ministry service in Jesus’ Name! It says: Isaiah53:11-12, “He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My Righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

It’s so interesting to me to hear Christ Jesus say in John 12:26, “If anyone serves Me, let Him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” And, in following Jesus through the Four Gospels, where and what do you find Him doing? Watching, witnessing, ministering, comforting, challenging, confronting, caring, touching His needy world with redemptive ,heart-changing, Life-giving care?

In Acts 1:8 we read, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Local ministry, area ministry, statewide ministry, national ministry, and, yes, world-wide ministry! All disciples are not called and set aside for world-wide ministries, but they are called to support those who are and express His love to every “race” where they are!

Discipleship “in Christ”, yes, DEMANDS availability for Him to be Himself in you and through you for God’s honor, His praise, and the fulfillment of His heart’s desire – “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

In his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.198), Oswald Chambers wrote: “The summing up of our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even expressed in the heart of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left – I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.”

Yet, how many believers, even pastors and their churches, live in a “fogged relationship with no concern for those outside the confines of their local (?) assembly”? ‘Local’ SHOULD highlight for disciples touching one’s needy world around them with the amazing grace of loving, caring God – but it’s so easy and so demonic to be proud of one’s ‘religious self’ without an ounce of concern about the perishing world around them!

Fanny Crosby and William H. Doane published the old hymn “Rescue the Perishing” in “The American Hymnal”, copyrighted in 1933!! Of course, modern-day churches aren’t moved by “classic hymns of Truth”! It says:

“Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, Lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.

Tho’ they are slighting Him, Still He is waiting, Waiting the penitent child to receive; Plead with them earnestly, Plead with them gently, He will forgive if they only believe.

Down in the human heart, Crushed by the tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore; Touched by a loving heart, Wakened by kindness, Chords that are broken can vibrate once more.

Rescue the perishing, Duty demands it; Strength for your labor the Lord will provide; Back to the narrow way, Patiently win them; Tell the poor wanderer a Savior has died.

Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying; Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.” Amen?

With all my heart, I believe it’s time for churches, pastors, and all disciples in every corner of God’s globe to examine their hearts and ministries as to whether or not they are committed to and fulfilling His command to “Go into every corner, nook, location, “in His Name”, as His representatives, ambassadors, messengers, “sent ones”, missionaries, faithfully sharing His love, grace, and mercy! ARE YOU?

BY J.FARRELL FISHER, September 1, 2014

I really don’t know for sure the public’s response to the Scripture I’m about to share, but I sense in my inner man an awful rejection of the Scripture. It comes from John 3:36 when John said: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

I’d personally say that what we’ve just read is a frightening and future event that you’d think most people would like to avoid! “The wrath of God abides on him!”

In Jeremiah 45:5 our Lord 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.”

The last part of that verse reminds me of “I must decrease – He must increase.” But the first part is about those who have not believed, will not believe, and, as a result, the wrath of God abides on him.”

“Abounding Misery and Chaos or Advocacy Peace and Blessing?” Jeremiah 32:38-40 speaks of those who enter an everlasting covenant with Holy God. It says: “They shall be My people, and I will be their God; then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.”

But I want you to know that much or most of what Jeremiah wrote, he did from behind prison bars! His devotion to Truth and its Author cost him dearly! At the very same time as he was writing from behind bars God was at work establishing the door to Advocacy Peace and Blessing! In fact, Jeremiah 33:30, tells us, God speaking to Jeremiah, and us, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”

Jeremiah didn’t know and never would know if Almighty God had not opened his door of understanding to “Advocacy Peace and Blessing” – he would have, as most men, only known “Abounding Misery and Chains.”

Godless, the majority of men know only “abounding misery and chaos,” while the few, broken by Holy God, discover “advocacy peace and blessing.” Show me a man of peace and blessing and I’ll show you a man who’s been to the Cross of Christ!

It’s not a reason to rejoice at all, but in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul wrote: “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.”

A ‘veiled gospel’ that has erupted in “abounding misery and chaos” and they don’t even know they’re enveloped by it? Death is already at work in them!

Do you understand someone speaking of “a soul so base as mine”? That’s a picture of one “abounding in misery and chaos” who know nothing about amazing grace and eternal peace through Christ alone! They know and understand the paralysis of sin and the pulverizing power of a dead conscience, basically powerless to believe in Christ’s shed blood of the Atonement shed fully at Calvary’s Cross! Their own sin overpowers divine grace and fills them only with despair. It’s as if the powers of darkness instill within unbelievers a deadly disease called ‘sin’ that breeds despondency, discouragement, doubt and fear, and cements their minds with lies that God Himself couldn’t help them, and all of a sudden they seem to be emotionally and mentally paralyzed with hopelessness.

But if Jesus says, and He does, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,” what He did 2000 years ago, He still does today! But people who are ‘heavy laden’ are acutely anguished body, soul, and spirit, and add more ‘weights’ trying to overcome on their own with their burden of sin growing stronger with despair and discouragement intensifying.

Have you heard the defiant to ‘saving faith’? “If I try harder, I’ll find the peace I’m looking for.” “If I earn my place on an athletic team, I’ll quiet my demons.” “If I earn a lot of money, everything will be OK.” “If I make a name for myself, I’ll adjust the mental, moral, and spiritual problems.” “If I stay busy, busy, I won’t have time to worry, worry, doubt, doubt, or be afraid, afraid.” Above all, they want to ignore God’s knock at the door of their heart. They want to totally shut out any references to the Cross and Christ’s shed blood. They want to refute the necessity of repentance and faith because that speaks of accountability before Holy God!

Opposite of self-effort and fleshly intent to be an overcomer of sin and death in and through one’s self is Jesus as He faced the judgment of unbelievers and the Cross praying to the Father in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” So true, because every willful sin represents the nails in our Lord’s body!

In Fact, in Matthew 24:12 Jesus said, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” But ‘cold-hearted’ people need to know that the Holy Word of God tells us, in Romans 5:20, “…But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,” Verse 21, “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And I believe that our Lord is telling us that the person who is the furtherest throw away from God is His target with the arrow of grace, mercy, and love – and though they’ve abounded in misery and chaos, our God is ABLE through advocacy peace and blessing, to birth new life, new hope, new purpose, with God glorifying Himself through a transformed sinner to a Heavenly saint!

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 speaks so clearly, hopefully, and powerfully about those who had abounded in misery and chaos, sinners separated, bound, hopeless – but they meet the Resurrected Christ and are ‘comforted’ by God! It says:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God…

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation…

And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.”

Abounding misery or Advocacy Peace? Abounding chaos or Advocacy Blessing? Tribulation or consolation? Trouble or comfort? Hopeless or steadfast? Sufferings or eternal salvation? Bondage or liberty and freedom? A sin-bound life of death and separation or sainthood by the Life and oneness with Christ? A paralysis of sin and guilt or the pleasure of forgiveness and freedom through our bondage-breaker, Jesus?

And the amazing, life-changing Truth? Romans 8:28 tells us, “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.” Do you long for the Lord’s nearness to you? In Psalm 34:18 David said: “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite (or crushed) spirit.” David didn’t stop there but went on to say in verse 19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Advocacy peace and blessing reigns supreme! Years ago Andrae Crouch wrote and sang the song entitled “Through It All.” It’s a spiritual classic! It says:

“I’ve had many tears and sorrows, I’ve had questions for tomorrow, there’s been times I didn’t know right from wrong…But in every situation, God gave me blessed consolation, that my trials come to only make me strong…

I’ve been to lots of places, I’ve seen a lot of faces, there’s been times I felt so all alone. But in my lonely hours, yes, those precious lonely hours, Jesus lets me know that I was His own…

I thank God for the mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys, I thank Him for the storms He brought me through. For if I’d never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them, I’d never know what faith in God could do…

Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God… Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.”

No doubt this is why David wrote in Psalm 32:7, “You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.” Do you believe – have you experienced the reality of the God who “gives songs in the night”?

Reading through Acts recently I came across Acts 16:25. “But at midnight Paul and Silas [imprisoned] were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”

I’m telling you: Dark nights are our opportunities for “songs of light”! A night of sorrow may be your hallowed moment of Holy Presence like you’ve never known before! It may be in “the dark” when your enemies come to arouse and threaten you, but then Holy God steps in in the Light of His Glorious Presence! It may be a dark night of fear and doubt but Holy Truth raises you above it! It may be a dark night of worrisome anxiety but Holy Peace stands up in Holy Promises! And the dark night becomes your “song of light”!

Out of “The Mourning Bride,” William Congreve wrote: “What do the damned endure, but to despair?” Despair or to delight, sorrow or to celebrate, assaulted by the powers of darkness and the enemies of God or to be affirmed by our Advocate of peace and blessing?

It was John Calvin, in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” who wrote: “God foreordained for His own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.” Are you the “called” or the “cursed”?

Can you believe it? Jesus dared to say, [Matthew 23:33], “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” I love what Thomas Scott once wrote when he said: “No affliction nor temptation, no guilt nor power of sin, no wounded spirit nor terrified conscience, should induce us to despair of help and comfort from God.”

Why? How? Who? Because His Word says: “Whosoever will may come.” That tells me of God’s pardon and forgiveness, not of His penalty and unforgiveness! What does Revelation 22:17 tell us? And the Spirit and the Bride say “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”

Acts 2:21 tells us, “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And how could even one resist the words of Jesus in John 11:25-26? “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” “Believe”? That means “trust in,” “rely upon,” “adhere to!!” Is that YOUR testimony of belief and trust? Do you really have a mind and heart “trust” in God?

It was Horace Bushnell who said, “Trust God for great things: with your five loaves and two fishes, He will show you a way to feed thousands.”

ABOUNDING MISERY AND CHAOS OR ADVOCACY PEACE AND BLESSING? I’m sure you understand that a Christ-less life is a life of continual, addictive sin but when we come to Christ as Lord we hear Him say, “Go and sin no more.”

But the beloved John tells us in I John 2:1, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” John then said in Verse 6, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked,” and He never walked in sin but He went to the Cross to die for your sin and mine!

And before Father-God we see Jesus, our advocate, representing us before Him because of our faith and trust in our Lord and Savior’s atoning work in our behalf as our “legal attorney”!

I don’t know who wrote it but the words are so encouraging: “We have listened to the preacher – Truth by him has now been shown; But we want a Greater Teacher, from the everlasting throne: APPLICATION is the work of God alone.”

In I Thessalonians 5:5-11 there’s powerful statements of encouragement by Paul. It says: “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor the darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober…

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.”

Both the above Scripture and words by Spurgeon really challenge all true believers of their ministry! Spurgeon said: “As the spiritual guide of the flock of God along the intricate mazes of experience, it is the duty of the gospel minister to point out every turning of the road to heaven, to speak concerning its dangers or its privileges, and to warn any whom he may suspect to be in a position peculiarly perilous. Now, there is a portion of the road which leads from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, which has in it, perhaps, more dangers than any other portion of the way. It does not abound with lions; there are no dragons in it; it has no dark woods, and no deep pitfalls; yet more seeming pilgrims have been destroyed in that portion of the road than anywhere else, and not even Doubting Castle, with all its hosts of bones, can show so many who have been slain there. It is a part of the road called the Enchanted Ground. The great geographer, John Bunyan, well pictured it when he said:

‘I then saw in my dream that they went on till they came into a certain country, whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy, if he came a stranger into it…

‘And here Hopeful began to be very dull, and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, I do now begin to grow so drowsy that I can scarcely hold up my eyes; let us lie down here, and take one nap…

‘Christian: By no means, said the other, lest sleeping, we never awake more. ‘Hope: Why, my brother? Sleep is sweet to the laboring man; we may be refreshed if we take a nap…

‘Christian: Do you not remember that one of the shepherds bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground? He meant by that, that we should beware of sleeping; wherefore, ‘let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.’”

And Spurgeon went on to speak “concerning the condition of the majority of churches in the present day.” He said, “they are lying down on the settles of LUKEWARMNESS, in the Arbors of the Enchanted Ground. There is not that activity and zeal we could wish to see among them; they are not, perhaps, notably heterodox; they may not be invaded by the lion of persecution, but they are somewhat worse than that, – they are lying down to slumber, like HEEDLESS and TOO-BOLD in the Arbor of Sloth. May God grant that His servants may be the means of arousing the church from its lethargy, and stirring it up from its slumbers, lest haply professors should sleep the sleep of death.”

What was the verse that inspired that? I Thessalonians 5:6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober [self-controlled].”

Advocacy peace and blessing does not breed abounding misery and chaos – but sin and self-abandonment to sin does just that! Sin and self-abandonment to sin breeds a person so insensitive to the things of God, making a person so subject to satanic deception, breeding spiritual paralysis concerning the things of God, and depriving one of true security but basically spiritually producing one so insecure of who he is and what he’s about! But I pray, not YOU, as you read this writing!

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER,MAY 5-6,2019

I HAVE A BOOK I’VE HAD FOR YEARS PUBLISHED IN 1972 ENTITLED “SIDE-SADDLE on the GOLDEN CALF” WHICH I READ & WAS CHALLENGED BY. BUT TODAY, AS THE LORD MOVED ON MY HEART & MIND RELATED TO A NEW TEACHING, I WONDERED IF, MAYBE, THE MESSAGE HE WAS BIRTHING IN ME SHOULD BE ENTITLED, “SIDE-SADDLE on the golden goat”!

BUT THEN HE CLEARLY SAID: ‘ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP’,AND ,“IS” A CLEAR DESCRIPTION OF FALLEN, SIN-INFESTED, UNBELIEVING,REBELS IN HEART, WHO MAY BE ‘RELIGIOUS’ BUT NOT RE-BORN THROUGH REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S “FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS” & THE REALITY OF HIS EMPTY TOMB, AS HE MINISTERED FOR FORTY DAYS BEFORE HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN ENTHRONED NEXT TO GOD HIS FATHER! “ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?”

THERE ARE (!) “IMPOSSIBILITIES” IN ‘RELIGIOUS TRYING’, BECAUSE TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH IS TRUSTING, ALLOWING GOD TO BE HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOU! OF COURSE, THERE ‘IS’ THE FATALITY OF A RELIGIOUS MAN ATTEMPTING BUT NOT “ATONED FOR”,BECAUSE HE/SHE IS SO INDIFFERENT TO THE REVELATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE!

YOU’LL HEAR MANY ‘RELIGIOUS ,OPINIONATED’, EVEN ‘SORELY CONCEITED INDIVIDUALS’ ‘VERY MUCH IN LOVE WITH THEIR RELIGIOUS SELVES’, THAT THEY ‘STRUT’ IN CHURCHES & THEIR NEIGHBORLY ACTIVITY OF TRYING TO “SAVE OTHERS” WHEN IN THE MIND & HEART & SPIRIT KNOW NOTHING ABOUT “BLOOD ATONEMENT”, OR “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, OR THE OLD SINFUL SELF GONE, WITHOUT EVER TAKING “THE SENTENCE OF DEATH TO SELF DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED IN & THROUGH THEIR MORTAL FLESH”!!!

“ACTIVE RELIGION?” ARE YOU AWARE THAT IN ALL NATURAL MEN & WOMEN, CHILDREN OR YOUTH, THERE IS AN INWARD STRONG URGE TO BE ACCEPTED, TO BE ‘SOMETHING’ SOMEBODY LIKES; OR, LIKE ‘RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE’IMPERSONATING BUT NOT RELEASING CHRIST JESUS TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH THEM, BECAUSE ITS THEIR PRETENSE NOT HIS PRESENCE THROUGH THEM!

“ACTIVE RELIGION?” “FEELING RELIGIOUSLY ACCEPTABLE”,BUT NOT KNOWING: “CHRIST IN ME MY HOPE OF GLORY”! SUNDAY APPEARANCES APART FROM EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY WATCHING CHRIST BE HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOU, EXTENDING HIS LIFE, EXPRESSING HIS LOVE, & PROVING HIS POWER? MAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ‘RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES’ IS NOT AN EXTENSION OF CHRIST’S LIFE, AN EXPRESSION OF HIS LOVE, OR THE PROOF OF HIS POWER – THAT ONLY OCCURS IN “BORN-AGAIN BELIEVERS WHO ARE ,TRULY,MENTALLY, SPIRITUALLY & HISTORICALLY PRESENTABLE, AS THOSE WHO WERE “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, & IN HIS RESURRECTION-PRESENCE, HE COMES IN TO “ABIDE, BEING HIMSELF”, AS “YOU” AS A NEW CHILD OF GOD, “TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH!”

“ACTIVE RELIGION? ‘TRYING’ OR “TRUSTING”? SELF-DETERMINED OR SAVIOR-GRACED? ‘ATTEMPTING’ OR “ATONED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”, NEW-BORN, & SOVEREIGNLY,WILLINGLY,LIVING IN YOUR HEART AS HEAVEN’S KINGDOM-RULER IN REPENTANT, OBEDIENT HEARTS, GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO GLORIFIES CHRIST IN YOU AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN!! IN WATCHMAN NEE’S BOOK, “THE SPIRITUAL MAN”, (PUBLISHED BY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP PUBLISHERS,INC., NEW YORK,1968) ON PAGE 43 NEE WROTE: “THE MAN GOD FASHIONED WAS NOTABLY DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER CREATED BEINGS. MAN POSSESSED A SPIRIT SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE ANGELS & AT THE SAME TIME HAD A SOUL RESEMBLING THAT OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. WHEN GOD CREATED MAN HE GAVE HIM A PERFECT FREEDOM. HE DID NOT MAKE MAN AN AUTOMATON, CONTROLLED AUTOMATICALLY BY GOD’S WILL. THIS IS EVIDENT IN GENESIS 2 AT THE TIME GOD INSTRUCTED THE ORIGINAL MAN WHAT FRUIT HE COULD EAT &WHAT NOT. THE MAN GOD CREATED ‘WAS NOT’ A MACHINE RUN BY GOD:INSTEAD HE HAD PERFECT FREEDOM OF CHOICE. IF HE CHOSE TO OBEY GOD, HE COULD; IF HE DECIDED TO REBEL AGAINST GOD, HE COULD DO THAT TOO. MAN HAD IN HIS POSSESSION A SOVEREIGNTY BY WHICH HE COULD EXERCISE HIS VOLITION IN CHOOSING TO OBEY OR DISOBEY. THIS IS A MOST IMPORTANT POINT, FOR WE MUST REALIZE THAT IN OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE GOD NEVER DEPRIVES US OF OUR FREEDOM. UNLESS WE ACTIVELY COOPERATE, GOD WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANYTHING FOR US. NEITHER GOD NOR THE DEVIL CAN DO ANY WORK WITHOUT FIRST OBTAINING OUR CONSENT, FOR MAN’S WILL IS FREE.” WOW! DOUBLE-WOW!” AND, “FREE TO CHOOSE”, HISTORIC MAN CHOSE ‘HIS WORLD, HIS FLESH-SIN-NATURE, HIS DECEIVED MIND, “THANKS TO SATAN”, AND FELL AWAY FROM HOLY GOD, THEN IN NEED OF RECONCILIATION THROUGH THE “LAMB’S BLOOD ATONEMENT”, BIRTHED UPON REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS,&, HE/SHE IS THEN BORN-AGAIN, INFILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, & LED ON THE PATH OF TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS TO HONOR THE SAVIOR & LORD!!

“ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?” SADLY IN MANY ‘RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES’ THERE IS THE FATALITY OF ‘FAITHLESS MEN’S INDIFFERENT ATTITUDE & MIND-SET’ TOWARD HOLY GOD &ALSO TOWARD THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, BELIEVING WITH THEIR MINDS, BUT VOID OF “CALVARY,BLOOD -BOUGHT-HEARTS”! ‘RELIGIOUS MIND-SETS’,AWARE OF THEIR ‘WEAKNESSES’, TRY TO IMPROVE WHAT HOLY GOD CRUCIFIED AS CHRIST JESUS, ON THE CROSS, SUFFERING & DYING, CARRIED MAN’S SIN-NATURE, TO WASH IT AWAY BY HIS OWN BLOOD, DYING, BUT BEING RESURRECTED BY HOLY FATHER TO GIVE REPENTANT SONS & DAUGHTERS NEW IDENTITIES!!

‘ANTSY RELIGIOUS PARTICIPANTS BIRTH ITCHY MINDS & FLESHLY WILLS IN THEIR STRONGEST DECEPTIVE,BLINDING, EMBARASSING IDEAS’ OF “DOING MY BEST FOR GOD”, AS THEY YIELD COLD, ICY, DEAD MINDS & HEARTS, WILLFULLY ‘PERFORMING’ BUT NOT IN “GRACED LIVING OF LIVES” THAT ARE “TEMPLES” WHERE THE LORD HIMSELF RESIDES TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH ONE’S AVAILABILITY FOR HIM, NOT THEM, WHO THEN WILLFULLY WATCH AS THE LORD MANIFESTS HIS PRESENCE AS THE “LIGHT” THAT OPENS ‘DARKENED HEARTS, MINDS, LIVING SOULISHLY’!!

CHARLES CALEB COLTON, IN HIS WRITING “LACON”,(Vol.1,25),WROTE: “MEN WILL WRANGLE FOR RELIGION; WRITE FOR IT; FIGHT FOR IT; DIE FOR IT; ANYTHING BUT – LIVE FOR IT.” TRUE FAITH IS NOT ‘RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION’, BUT “REDEMPTIVE FAITH” IS WHAT ONE IS ASSURED OF BY THE “RESIDENT JESUS”, PRESENT,PRESIDING, PRESENTING, & PERFECTING THE TRULY REPENTANT, TRUSTING SOUL THAT LONGS FOR THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN THEM, FOR THEM, & BEING HIMSELF THROUGH THEM! (ARE YOU “RESTING” IN REDEMPTIVE FAITH IN THE “BLESSED ASSURANCE OF CHRIST”?

IN MY OLD “AMERICAN HYMNAL”( PUBLISHED IN 1933 BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE,TENN.) IS A HYMN ENTITLED “BLESSED ASSURANCE”. IT SAYS:

“BLESSED ASSURANCE, JESUS IS MINE!OH,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 &BLEST; WATCHING & WAITING, LOOKING (WITHIN), 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.”

MEN WITH ‘RELIGION’ DO SO IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD THAT UNVEILS THEIR ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENSE’, WHILE MEN WITH A HOLY SPIRIT-BIRTHED RELATIONSHIP LIVE AVOWING & AFFIRMING “THANKSGIVING” FOR THE CHRIST “IN THEM” THAT ETERALLY ABIDES, THANKING HIM FOR BEING HIMSELF THROUGH THEM DAILY,YES, EVEN MOMENT BY MOMENT!

AGAIN,SAME “THE AMERICAN HYMNAL”,(P.43),IS A HYMN BY MAY WHITTLE MOODY ENTITLED “MOMENT BY MOMENT”. IT SAYS: “DYING WITH JESUS, BY DEATH RECKONED MINE; LIVING WITH JESUS, A NEW LIFE DIVINE; LOOKING TO JESUS TILL GLORY SHINES, MOMENT BY MOMENT, O LORD, I AM THINE.

NEVER A TRIAL THAT HE IS NOT THERE, NEVER A BURDEN THAT HE DOES NOT BEAR; NEVER A SORROW THAT HE DOES NOT SHARE, MOMENT BY MOMENT, I’M UNDER HIS CARE.

NEVER A HEARTACHE, & NEVER A GROAN, NEVER A TEAR-DROP & NEVER A MOAN; NEVER A DANGER, BUT THERE ON THE THRONE, MOMENT BY MOMENT HE THINKS OF HIS OWN.

NEVER A WEAKNESS THAT HE DOES NOT FEEL, NEVER A SICKNESS THAT HE CANNOT HEAL; MOMENT BY MOMENT, IN WOE OR IN WEAL, JESUS, MY SAVIOR,ABIDES WITH ME STILL.

MOMENT BY MOMENT I’M KEPT IN HIS LOVE; MOMENT BY MOMENT I’VE LIFE FROM ABOVE; LOOKING TO JESUS TILL GLORY DOES SHINE; MOMENT BY MOMENT, O LORD, I AM THINE.”

AND YOU “LOOK WITHIN” – NOT OUT & UP, HOPING YOU CAN BREAK THROUGH CLOUDS & DARKNESS & OPPOSITION TO FINALLY “SEE HIM”- “NO!” “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY!” “CHRIST THROUGH YOU CONFRONTING ANY ENEMY OF HIS THAT WOULD WANT TO BRING YOU & HIM DOWN!” JESUS IS “VICTOR” OVER THE LAWS OF SIN & DEATH! JESUS IS “VICTOR” OVER SATAN & HIS DEMON ARMIES!

IN ROMANS 8:29-39,THERE IS TEACHING WITH A REVELATION SO ENRICHING & INSPIRING TRUE SERVANTS OF CHRIST. PAUL SAYS:

“FOR WHOM GOD FOREKNEW, HE ALSO PREDESTINED OR PREDETERMINED TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE (EXACT LIKENESS!) OF HIS SON, THAT HE MIGHT BE THE FIRSTBORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.

MOREOVER WHOM HE PREDESTINED, THEM HE ALSO CALLED:& WHOM HE CALLED,THEM HE ALSO JUSTIFIED (“JUST-AS-IF-THEY’D-NEVER-SINNED”!):& WHOM HE JUSTIFIED, THEM HE ALSO GLORIFIED.

WHAT SHALL WE SAY THEN TO THESE THINGS? IF GOD BE FOR US, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US? HE THAT SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON, BUT DELIVERED HIM UP FOR US ALL, HOW SHALL HE NOT WITH HIM ALSO FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?

WHO SHALL LAY ANY THING TO THE CHARGE OF GOD’S ELECT? IT IS GOD THAT JUSTIFIES. WHO IS HE THAT C ONDEMNS?IT IS CHRIST THAT DIED,YEA RATHER, THAT IS RISEN AGAIN, WHO IS EVEN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, WHO ALSO MAKES INTERCESSION FOR US.

WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALL TRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS , OR PERSECUTION, OR FAMINE OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD? NO, IN ALL THESE THINGS WE “ARE” MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUG H HIM THAT 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 HEIG HT, NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CRE ATURE, SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” I CLOSE WITH ANOTHER HYMN THAT SAYS:

HAIL TO THE BRIGHTNESS OF ZION’S GLAD MORNING! JOY TO THE LANDS THAT IN DARKNESS HAVE LAIN! HUSHED BE THE ACCENTS OF SORROW & MOURNING; ZION IN TRIUMPH BEGINS HER GLAD REIGN.

HAIL TO THE BRIGHTNESS OF ZION’S GLAD MORNING! LONG BY THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL FORETOLD! HAIL TO THE MILLIONS FROM BONDAGE RETURNING, GENTILES & JEWS THE BLEST VISION BEHOLD!

LO! IN THE DESERT RICH FLOWERS ARE SPRINGING, STREAMS EVER COPIOUS ARE GLIDING ALONG; LOUD FROM THE MOUNTAIN-TOPS ECHOES ARE RINGING, WASTES RISE IN VERD UE & MINGLE IN SONG.

SEE, FROM ALL LANDS – FROM THE ISLES OF THE OCEAN,-PRAISE TO JEHOVAH ASCENDING ON HIGH; FALLEN ARE THE ENGINES OF WAR &COMMOTION, SHOUTS OF SALVATION ARE RENDING THE SKY.”

IN “THE ‘SKY’ OF YOUR LIFE-ARE THERE GLORIES TO GOD”? IS IT FOR YOU: “ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP”? OR, IN YOU, IS IT: “ATONING FAITH THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST BIRTHING HIS ETERNAL LIFE IN YOU, & GIFTED BY GOD WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, IS THE HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFYING CHRIST THROUGH YOU”?

DON’T YOU WONDER AT TIMES ? “IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUE FAITH, ARE MEN STILL ESTABLISHING ‘RELIGIONS’, & AFTER A PERIOD OF TIME REALIZE: “THIS ISN’T ‘GOD’S GARDEN OF TRUE FAITH! I’M IN A ‘GORILLA CAGE’?” AND THAT’S NOT GOOD!” WHY NOT FORSAKE YOUR ‘GORILLA CAGE’ & THROUGH TRUE REPENTANCE & FAITH ALLOW JESUS HIS ESTABLISHMENT OF YOUR LIFE AS HIS HOLY TEMPLE WHERE HE ABIDES, REACHING OUT THROUGH YOU TO TOUCH YOUR WORLD WITH HIS “AMAZING GRACE”?

By J.Farrell Fisher, August 13-15, 2017

“Best efforts” are the personal noose around one’s neck if he/she thinks that is a good substitute of being “born again” by the Spirit of God through true repentance and inheriting the “True Life” in Christ alone!

“Best efforts” relate to self-determination in proving one “worthy” of God’s blessing on his/her life when man at his worst AND his best was crucified with Christ on the Cross. Most men walk in the best of their natural affinities because Satan still deceives men as he did Eve and Adam when he said to them, “Has God really said, “If you sin, you will die? You shall not die if you sin!” So, deceived men and women are still living in their ‘self-deception’ having bought “the Lie”, and are living ‘performing’ without any consideration of God’s promises, still “falling short of the glory of God”!

“Best efforts” means walking through life apart from God’s “promised blessings”! “Best efforts” means walking with determination of one’s “lesser things” rather than Holy God’s “better things”! “Best efforts” means fleshly repudiation of the “revelation of God” and a “manly determination to do the best I can”, for some even a shaking of the fists to God’s face in defiance, while for others it’s intentional deafness to the voice of God saying, “Forsake all, and come, follow Me!” In Hebrews 6:13-20 we read about the Father’s infallible promise to all mankind about an “anchor to his/her soul”: It says,

“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.”

In the Sovereign administration of Holy God He chose Melchizedek, a man who “chose” to be made “in the likeness of the Son of God”, though it would be thousands of years ahead before the Son of God would appear on earth, but he knew Him! Amazing revelation! Even before Christ had been born on earth, this man, Melchizedek, knew Him to be “the anchor of his soul”, and that he, in his faith in the Savior’s work to come, could enter, live in, be blessed by His Holy Presence behind the veil!

“Atoned for” is not a philosophy of “try your best”, “attempting the best I can” is not “Life in Christ through Christ’s blood atonement,” even “head belief” in all Christian doctrine is not “self-transformation into ministers of righteousness” but the false deception that “my effort counts” in the place of the shed blood of the Lamb of God!

All through biblical history, even up to this present hour, there ARE “self-ordained” speakers who proclaim themselves ‘ministers of righteousness’, ‘angels of light’, ‘messengers of truth’, when in reality they are Satan-deceived, Satan-inspired, Satan-ordained, and even fool, ‘in the church’, many believers who are not grounded in the true foundation of the Word of God.

“Best efforts” are much like Hollywood’s “imitation” of life persons and events, but as the film actors and actresses, many “professing believers” are nothing more than “cheap imitations” of the divine Life in Christ! It’s like the truth of Proverbs 14:9, “Fools mock at sin…!”, after saying in Verse 8, “…the foolishness of fools is deceit!” Didn’t John say in 2 John 7-11, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.”

“Best efforts” are “shouted” by premier, all-star, self-determining individuals, getting high acclaims from the fleshly-motivated-‘super-stars’ in all arenas of life, because “pumping their flesh” rebounds in excuse of one’s unbelief of the need to be reconciled to God! In 2 Peter 2:10-15a Peter wrote about “those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.

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…”.

Do YOU see “best efforts” as God’s Holy Word and His penetrating eye sees the attempt of a life living apart from Him with no need of Him since they “are able to live a satisfying life without being reconciled to your Holy God”? But Paul defines them in 2 Timothy 3:13 saying truthfully and convincingly, “But evil men and impostors (“pretenders”) will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

“Best efforts”? That’s one’s ‘common sense commitment’ to “do the best I can”’ without any consideration of what Holy God requires! Do you remember Jesus saying to some of His ‘followers’ in Luke 6:46, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do the things which I say?” Oswald Chambers wrote in his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.105), “Many of us do not go on spiritually because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on God to choose for us.” In Mark 4:18-19 Christ Jesus spoke about those “planted” on stony ground, receiving the word with gladness, but are “rootless”! He said: “Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word; AND THE CARES OF THE WORLD, THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES, AND THE DESIRES FOR OTHER THINGS ENTERING IN CHOKE THE WORD, and it becomes unfruitful”! “Best efforts” are guided by “the cares of this world”, not the Kingdom-Rule of Holy God through Christ Jesus the Lord!

“Best efforts” are ‘pressure-filled’ without any release, and the demands on “best efforts” multiply exponentially and are, yes, ‘self-explosive’ in difficult moments, and especially when called before the Judgment Throne of Holy God to explain one’s spiritual stupidity and heartless and ‘held-back grasp’ of the proven love of God! What or who are you devoted to? When there is a “self-world” in one’s life, motivated by Satan himself, the foundation of that life is ‘crumbling sand’, not the Solid Rock; that “self-world” is personal promotion, personal interest, personal ambition, personal motivation, overshadowing any word or directive from Christ, the True Master; that “self-world” becomes, yes, a “den of a thief” because it ignores, denies, and robs God of His eternal purpose written for that life and formed before even the foundation of the world! But “best-effort folks” say: “That’s not my cup of tea – I don’t have to drink it, don’t even desire it!”

But Christ Jesus still comes, Christ Jesus still knocks on the doors, hearts, and minds of men, Christ Jesus the Lord inspires the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to Come – and the Spirit WILL upon your repentance and faith birth you into “new, resurrection life in Christ”!

You do understand! Walking in the “best effort of flesh” does not reconcile one to Holy God! In Romans 8:5 Paul said: “For those who live according to the flesh (or old sin-nature) set their minds on the things of the flesh…” saying in Verse 6, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,” continuing in Verses 7-8, “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.”

“Flesh living” is void of the Spirit of God, and especially as the Spirit convicts, but those who want the “best of flesh” deny the Spirit’s presence because they live in the “perverted frame of reference that ‘sin’ is OK, and I don’t need the Spirit guiding me to Truth”! In 1 Corinthians 2:14 we read, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.” Thank God for His inspiration of Paul who wrote also in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6,”But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded (Satan), who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image (exact likeness) of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded the 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”,

With Christ Jesus explaining for us the ministry of the Holy Spirit in John 16:7-15, “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. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said to you that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Question! “Day by day are YOU being taught by the Spirit as a man of true faith who, yes, lives on the Word of God day by day, since Jesus said that ‘man does not live by physical bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’?”

“BEST EFFORTS OR BORN AGAIN?”

In 2 Timothy 2:11-26 Paul moves folks of a “seeking faith” from self-determination to “Sovereign grace, love, mercy, and hope”! He wrote: This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him (that’s “crucified WITH Christ”), we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. (Does that suggest that there is the reality of ‘reigning temporarily over the world, the flesh, and Satan, but one “falls away”?). If we deny Him, He also will deny us. (Does this line up with Matthew 7:21-23?). If we remain faithless, He remains faithless. He cannot deny Himself. (“The wages of sin is death”? Still is, even if you’ve claimed allegiance to Him but hold on to the world, the sin nature, and Satan’s temptations?).

REMIND THEM OF THESE THINGS, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words that have no profit, (“I tried”), to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly 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. Hymenaeus and Philetis are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some.

Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “THE LORD KNOWS THOSE WHO ARE HIS”, and, “LET EVERYONE WHO NAMES THE NAME OF CHRIST DEPART FROM INIQUITY.” But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. Flee also from youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peaxce with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.”

Paul once said: “Examine yourself whether you are in the true faith” because the Holy Word can be twisted by individuals who want the Word to confirm to their chosen lifestyle rather than them converted, transformed, born again by the Spirit of Truth!

I would ask: Are YOU living in and by and for personal glory through your “best efforts” OR have you been “born again” through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, standing on His Word, not the words of deceived men and snaring demons, and living for the honor of Christ alone? Hattie E.Buell and Rev. John B.Sumner had the hymn, “A Child of the King”, published in the “American Hymnal” in 1933. It says: “My Father is rich in houses and lands, He holds the wealth of the world in His hands! Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, His coffers are full, He has riches untold.

My Father’s own Son, the Savior of men, Once wandered on earth as the poorest of them; But now He is pleading our pardon on high, That we may be His when He comes by and by.

I once was an outcast stranger on earth, A sinner by choice, and an alien by birth; But I’ve been adopted, my name’s written down, An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown.

A tent or a cottage, why should I care? They’re building a palace for me over there; Tho’ exiled from home, yet, still I may sing: All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.

I’m a child of the King, A child of the King; With Jesus my Savior, I’m a child of the King.”

Is that YOUR daily song of eternal thanksgiving? And do YOU yield to His glory, His honor, and His praise every day, as you lean not unto your old fleshly self, but gladly, daily, moment by moment, give Him His “blood-bought” place in You?

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, AUGUST 27-28, 2018

Have you ever heard it from a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a casual acquaintance, or an “all-out enemy of even the Name of God, Son, or His Holy Spirit”?: “Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong, I’ve got to BE me”?

And through the merciful, caring, love and grace of Holy God, some truly are “sickened” by their ‘spirit’ of trust in themselves, overwhelmed by, yes, “Holy-Spirit-Conviction”, will turn and surrender, and THEN, WILL turn from allegiance to ‘self’ to devotion and dependence upon the Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, “resting” in the Love of God, which IS proven, and become convinced, persuaded, fully aware, that it was their sin and rebellion that led Satan and ‘religious freaks’ to CRUCIFY KING JESUS, THE “BLOOD-ATONER” flowing from the heart, the will, and the grace of MERCIFUL, CARING, LOVING GOD, though not wanting Him EVER to be crucified again, will ‘deny’ Him His rightful place as Savior and Lord, but consider, though converted, that I “since I’m still living in a ‘fleshly body’, though committed to Christ, He’ll ‘excuse’ my ‘fleshly indulgence at times”. Really?!!!

In Romans 5:1-11 and Verses 17-21, Holy God inspires us with His Truth of abiding, proven, and eternally demonstrated love and grace through, yes, the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, His only Son! HEED! AND, BE MADE WISE IN THE WORD TO BE ABLE TO DISCERN BETWEEN ‘SOUL-DETERMINATION OR SPIRIT-DEPENDENCY”!

Paul wrote: Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, THROUGH our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we HAVE ACCESS BY FAITH INTO THIS GRACE WHEREIN WE STAND, and (as a result!) REJOICE IN HOPE OF THE GLORY OF GOD.

And not only so, (But maturing ‘in Faith’!), we glory also in tribulations : knowing that tribulation works patience (or steadfastness); patience, experience; and experience, hope; And hope makes one not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which IS GIVEN to us.

For when we were yet without strength (spiritually immature?), in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. BUT God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, CHRIST DIED FOR US!!!! Much more then, being now JUSTIFIED BY HIS BLOOD (that’s ‘just as if we’d never sinned!!!), we shall be (being saved continuously) from wrath through Him.

FOR if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, MUCH MORE, being reconciled, WE SHALL BE BEING SAVED BY HIS (RESURRECTION, RESIDING, REIGNING LIFE) IN OUR INNER MAN!!!!.

And not only so, (what you’ve just read and received!), BUT we also JOY IN GOD THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, by whom we have now received the ATONEMENT (or “washed in the blood of the Lamb”!!).

Verses 17-21, For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one (Adam); MUCH MORE, they which receive abundance of grace AND the GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, (they) shall reign in life by one, JESUS CHRIST.”

Soul Determination? At least for some, atheists, agnostics, or unbelievers, or ‘partial, temporary believers’, or, as I see them to be, by me, “MERCURIAL MIDGETS”, that are volatile, erratic, ‘fickle’, changeable, ‘flighty’… sometimes seemingly ‘normal’ as a ‘professing disciple’, but THEN, explosively, instantaneously, ready to ‘erupt’ or ‘explode’ in abnormal, ‘devil-like’ anger, falling away as an indulger in the ‘likeness’ of ‘flesh’, ‘sinners’, or the ‘devil’ himself!

“Soul-Determination?” Have you ever been, as a faithful disciple of the Master, trying to discern if one you care about as a ‘professing believer’ or ‘fellow church member’ is a ‘pretender’ through ‘ludicrous loyalty’, or is he/she truly one who lives ‘in the life-blessed love of God but momentarily lead astray, momentarily deceived, or momentarily ‘walking with ‘dark glasses’ rather than’ “the eyes, heart, mind, will of Christ in them their only hope of glory”?

Soul-Determination? Have you ever seen unassured believers, even unequipped, untrained attenders to some of the “Truth” but are susceptible to doubts, a ‘blow-viator’ as a ‘wayfaring child’ of the truth or a ‘led-astray-traveler, easily making a wrong turn’, spiritually ‘childish’ as a ‘stranger or uninformed ‘child’ to Truth’, immature in ‘true-disciple-identity’, and are, yes, “disciples” but often never “discipled” by assigned ‘mentors’ who “major on minors, not the Mission of the Master”??!!!

Soul-Determination? Many, in spiritual paralysis, as ‘modern Christians’, have been, yes, BLINDED, after being ‘birthed’, but allowed, or encouraged to “make it on your own” without any of the ministry of “nurturing the children of Faith into spiritually mature sons and daughters, unveiling Father-God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit Mentor, who so wants to see them “guided into all the Truth”!” Unlearned Biblical Truth can fast-become a ‘deadly enemy’ to an uninformed, untrained, ill-equipped child of God! Sadly, untrained ‘disciples’, fending by themselves in a harsh world-battleground, end up “unarmed”, “fleshly defenseless”, and “ill-informed” that there’s no one to help against the powers of darkness, WHEN…

Almighty God has said, still says, and will say, if YOU listen, Jeremiah 33:3 telling us of Jeremiah, shut up in prison by God’s enemies, and the Lord God Almighty spoke to him, saying, “Call on Me, and I WILL ANSWER YOU, and show you great and mighty things you don’t know about!”

The prophet Isaiah heard God also when, in Isaiah 41:10, concerned about the enemies of God angry with him, God spoke: “Fear not, Isaiah; for I AM with you; be not dismayed; for I AM your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I WILL UPHOLD YOU WITH THE RIGHT HAND OF MY RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Soul-Determination? Have you ever witnessed, ever heard, about ‘true children’ who, too often, turn ‘deaf ears’ to parental authority? Of course, many never consider “ears to hear” what Father God has clearly spoken, even unconcerned, after “praying the sinner’s prayer and surrendering”, then decide, “it’s OK if I walk on my own!” Really?

In Psalm 81:10-14, we read: God Himself speaking, “I AM your Lord, the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, (out of the world around you and its strong influence!); OPEN YOUR MOUTH WIDE, and I (your loving, merciful, caring Father!) WILL FILL IT!” (He says, “I’m not leaving you!”). He continued:

But My people would not hearken (they didn’t listen and obey!) to My voice, My Holy Word, My divine, eternal Truth; they WOULD NONE OF ME! SO…

I gave them up UNTO THEIR own hearts’ lust; and they walked in their own counsels. (It BROKE God’s heart again!). Oh, that My people had hearkened unto Me, and Israel, My people, had walked IN MY WAYS! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned My hand against their adversaries!”

Soul-Determination through the Word of God IS clearly seen as, yes, even ‘believers’, day in day out, often choosing the “self-motivated life” rather than daily denying ‘self’, surrendering willfully to God’s Sovereign control, optioning in worldly influences to honor and submit to Christ’s abiding Presence, His power, discarding ‘pretenses’ and willfully obeying, submitting, and daily yielding to the awesome power of the Holy Spirit’s control, manifestations, and “fruit”!!

How inspiring, how encouraging, how empowering do you find God speaking in Isaiah 40:17-31 saying, (Thank God!!!): “All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare unto Him?

The workman (‘flesh devotees’!) melt a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks for himself a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you FROM THE BEGINNING? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

It is He that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in: that brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth as vanity.

Yes, ‘their vanity’ shall not be planted; yes, it will not be sown to deceive My people; yes, their roots will come to nothing, He’ll ‘blow’ upon them, they’ll wither, and His whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken Me, or shall I be just your equal? Says the Lord. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: God calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, in that I AM strong in power and authority; not one fails.

Why do speak like yourself, O Jacob, and say, O Israel, ‘Our way is hid from the Lord, and our ‘judgment’ is passed over, yes, even from God Himself.’ So… Have YOU not known? Have YOU not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, never faints nor ever grows weary? There is no searching of His understanding. (It’s as clear as, yes, both ‘night’ AND ‘day’.) He gives power to the faint-hearted; and to them that have no might He increases His strength graciously. Even the youths shall faint and be weary; and the young men shall utterly fall:

BUT they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Soul- Determination? What about “HOLY SPIRIT DEPENDENCY”? Do YOU not understand? Kingdom of God citizens were AND ARE “birthed in and by the Spirit” for ANY man to “enter His Kingdom reign and Kingdom rule! A disciple’s life is ‘convicted by the Spirit, convinced in the Spirit, converted by the Spirit, consecrated by the Spirit on God’s Holy Altar, and sent by the Spirit in full anointing to share Christ, preach the Word, testify to Truth, and to call all around you to accountability before Holy God, sharing His “gift of repentance”, His “gift of understanding”, His “gift of anointed authority as His witness”, and His faithful “gift” of interpreting for you God’s Divine Truth!

I close with a blessed hymn of praise and thanksgiving entitled “Holy Ghost, With Light Divine”, out of “The American Hymnal”, published in 1933 by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee. It says:

“Holy Ghost, with Light divine, Shine upon this heart of mine; Chase the shades of night away, Turn my darkness into day.

Holy Ghost, with power divine, Cleanse this guilty heart of mine; Long has sin without control, Held dominion over my soul.

Holy Ghost, with joy divine, Cheer this saddened heart of mine; Bid my many woes depart, Heal my wounded, bleeding heart.

Holy Spirit, ALL DIVINE, Dwell within this heart of mine; Cast down every idol throne, Reign supreme – and reign alone.”

THERE IS NO “FLESHLY CO-REIGN WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT”, but, “TRUE DISCIPLES, DAILY, TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY THAT, BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, CHRIST IS EXALTED, MAGNIFIED, YES, GLORIFIED IN A BLOOD-REDEEMED, REDEEMED, REIGNING, VICTORIOUS LIFE THROUGH THE RESIDING HOLY SPIRIT!!!