By J.FARRELL FISHER, JUNE 13-15, 2017

1 Corinthians 15:33-34 reveals so much about folks who are deceived and, yes, true believers who have been enlightened. The Word says, “Do not be deceived: Evil company corrupts good habits. Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.” But SOME do!

It was in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 that the Apostle Paul highlighted the difference between ‘fleshly determinations or divine discernment” when he wrote: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…”! Have YOU been brought into a state of life of obedience to King Jesus our Lord and Savior and Master of our redeemed lives?

Did Paul mention ‘warfare’? I was just a small boy when the Second World War broke out. I was under the care of my grandparents from three years of age to about twelve. And I’ll never forget Papa Lemons glued to his radio in his main chair listening intently because he had two sons in Armed Services, one a “flight engineer” for a bomber and the other a “top turret gunner on a bomber”! My granddad was intent about learning all he could about warfare because he knew his sons could be killed – he did know about intercessory prayer!

But some around us are aware of national warfare more than they are the warfare between Heaven and hell, even unaware of the demonic warfare for the captivity of one’s soul under devilish domination – they’re blind and deaf about their separation from God as they give themselves fully to the natural, the fleshly, the worldly without a thought about why Christ took them to the Cross to be crucified with Him, then resurrected from the dead spiritually to a “new creation,” a “new life”, and an “eternal hope”!

Fleshly lives, living by fleshly determinations, yes, are enraptured with ‘fleshly imaginations and every fleshly thing that exalts itself or one’s self from the true knowledge of God’!

In Hebrews 2, having amplified ‘bringing many sons to glory’, the author unveils the intent of Christ, in His coming, AND His willful offering for our salvation though He knew the pain and trouble involved in crucifixion! Hebrews 2:14-18 tells us, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil (or Satan!), and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”

But, if the Lord Jesus “suffered” because of Satan’s temptations, modern believers even in the reality of Christ’s “suffering”, see no place for “modern Christians today ever believing they’ll be tempted by the same devil or having to suffer to overcome”! All I can say is, “They are not students of the Holy Word of God or they excuse Jesus not meaning what He said”! “In the world you’ll have great tribulation,” “In the world of a disciple’s walk there will be demonic opposition,” “In the world of ‘churchianity’ be careful of the false teachers who resent My Word,” “In the world of ‘Christian professionalism’ be alerted to the, yes, false teachers and preachers who deny the devil and his demons – they are foreign to the mind, heart, and spirit of the Living God and the Resurrected Christ and the Holy Word” especially of Revelation 12:7-17!! The Holy Words says:

And war broke out in heaven: Michael and the angels fought with the dragon (or Satan); and the dragon and his angels (demons) fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, WHO DECEIVES THE WHOLE WORLD; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the ‘accuser’ of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has COME DOWN TO YOU HAVING GREAT WRATH, because he knows that he has a short time.”

Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.

So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

But remember, and never forget or overlook, Hebrews 2:14-15, because it illumines ‘fallen mankind’ in need of the Deliverer! “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

Unbelievers without Christ are dominated, controlled, instructed by the devil who operates in and out of the power of death – and unbelievers don’t even know they are tools of Satan, from the highest intellectual PhD professor to the lowest slave of darkness, all under his subjection to bondage, godlessness, and faithlessness!

“Fleshly determinations”? Just how big do you see this problem in the church, in the minds of those who’ve never truly been disciples in the Spirit of Christ who faced ‘warfare’ with the devil and won?

Paul instructs us wisely in Colossians 2:18-20 & 2: 23-3:6 “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly PUFFED UP BY HIS FLESHLY MIND, and not holding fast to the Head (King Jesus), from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations –

Chapter 2:23-3:6 then says, These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. 3:1-6 then says: If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears (manifested or unveiled!), then you shall also appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry (and it’s also the very nature of the devil!). 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.” Be assured: A SELF-IMPOSED LIFESTYLE IS THE VERY RESIDENCE AND THRONE OF SATAN AND HIS DEMONS!

Let’s shift gears!! If the Holy Spirit of God “guides us into all Truth”, if Satan is out to “deceive us” who are in Christ, then what does Satan do to turn us away from a true walk in Christ?

FIRST, SATAN TWISTS BIBLICAL TRUTH, EVEN ENCOURAGING COOPERATION AND PARTICIPATION WITH GOOD AND EVIL, BUT HIGHLY OPPOSED TO HOLY TRUTH, PRODUCING COOPERATORS WITH THE DEVIL BUT NOT DEVOTED FOLLOWERS OF HOLY GOD! Look at Genesis 3:1-24, the whole chapter! It says:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’? [Casting doubt on the Word of God!]. And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” SO when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, AND THEY KNEW THAT THEY WERE NAKED; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. [A ‘covering’ does not convert, transform, or make new – it only promotes pretense, self-illusion, and clouds one’s vision of the need of the Savior and Lord!].

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves ( and unbelieving men and women are still “hiding themselves” from divine reality!) from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (I call this man-made “Fig-Leaf Religion”!).

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” [That’s the eternal clear calling to every man, woman, boy or girl – WHERE ARE YOU?]. So Adam said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” [Where are YOU hiding yourself right now as Holy God calls your name?].

And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” [Blaming behavior?]. And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than any beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

To the woman God said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” [If you didn’t know, husbands ‘ruling over their wives as well as wives ruling over their husbands’ is an anathema – if a husband is the ‘head of the wife’ it’s because he has chosen to walk as the servant of Christ! Jesus said, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to lay down my life as a ransom for the many!” True biblical marriage is “mutual submissiveness in the will of God”!].

Verse 17, Then God said to Adam, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it,” ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.’”

Verse 20, And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. [Tunics of skin? Why not the robes of righteousness? Because Adam and Eve were not righteous! Why not clothed with salvation? Because Adam and Eve fell away from Holy God! Why not clothed in blood redemption? Because Adam and Eve walked with closed ears to spiritual Truth! Why not clothed in blessed assurance? Because, remember, in Luke 8:2 Christ Jesus met a certain man from the city “who had demons for a long time. And he wore NO CLOTHES, nor did he live in a house but in tombs.” He didn’t know what to do about Jesus, but Jesus knew what to do with him!

In Verse 30 Jesus asked him, saying, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”, because many demons had entered him. And they (the demons) begged Jesus that He would not command them to go out into the abyss. (For them, a herd of swine would do! So they begged Jesus that He would permit them to enter the swine. He did!).

The scene changes dramatically! Verse 35, Then the city went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, AND FOUND THE MAN FROM WHOM THE DEMONS HAD DEPARTED, SITTING AT THE FEET OF JESUS, clothed and in his right mind. And his fellow citizens were afraid. They even asked Jesus to depart from them “for they were seized with great fear.” They departed further away from Christ Jesus as men still do today!

Jesus told the man set free from his demons: “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.” Are YOU telling what great things God has done for you through Christ?

SECOND, YOU MUST SEE HOW SOME MEN LIVE IN THEIR IMAGINARY ‘SELF-CLOTHING’ APART FROM THE GIFTS OF HOLY GOD – FLESHLY DETERMINATIONS APART FROM DIVINE DISCERNMENT AND HOLY INSPIRATION! It’s so awakening to discern what happened to, yes, religious Jews when the Apostle Paul “stripped” Judaism of its pretense and ‘play-acting’! In 2 Timothy 3:1-7 Paul wrote: “But know this, that in the last days (of Judaism! Not ‘end-times’ as some allege!) perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! [A form of godliness is not godliness!].

For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these men also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.”

Oh, but then there are “the few” as Jesus told us: “Few there be who find it, or find the only Way, the only Truth, the only Life in Christ Jesus alone!”

In 2 Timothy 3:14-17 we learn about “divine discernment and holy inspiration”! Paul wrote: “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

THIRD, ONE MUST COME TO “REST”, NOT IN WHAT HE OR HIS FALLEN WORLD AROUND HIM DETERMINES AS ACCEPTABLE, BUT “RESTING” IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS, LIFE BURIED, THEN RESURRECTED IN THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST!

In Galatians 5:24-25 Paul wrote: “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

I love Oswald Chambers’ wisdom and enlightment in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.256), “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. (But, Chambers then said:), “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something. Jesus said – “If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself…”. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” Amen?

FOURTH AND LAST, THERE MUST BE A WILLFUL, FULL SURRENDER OF WHAT THE “OLD MAN LOVES” AND WHAT ,YES, CHRIST JESUS DEMANDS! There’s an inspiring Verse in Psalm 138:8 when David, King David, wrote: “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me,” and we can rest assured, “In Christ, our Lord, Savior, and Master of our lives WILL PERFECT IN US THAT WHICH CONCERNS HIS NAME, HIS MISSION, HIS PURPOSE”!

Prior to Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, He prayed for His disciples then AND even NOW! John 17 unveils Christ’s intent for, yes, every single disciple: Verse 6, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world…”

Verse 8, “I have given them the words which You have given Me…”. Verse 9, “I pray for them…”. Verse 17, “Sanctify them by Your truth. You word is truth…” Verse 18, “I have sent them into the world…” to be salt and light! Verse 20, “I pray for those who will believe in Me through their word…”. Verse 22, “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them,” – Are YOU living in, under, through, around His glory-cloud? [A glory hidden in the privacy of one’s proud heart, or a glory shared to the needy world around you?]. Verse 23, “that the world may know that You sent Me, and have loved the world as You have loved Me.”

I believe it’s time for, yes, every disciple to begin praying, “Lord, what is Your eternal, perfect, Christ-honoring purpose for my life? It was George Eliot who once wrote: “It is vain thought to flee from the work God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found – in loving obedience?”

It’s so clear! In John 4:34 Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” Can you say, as Jesus did, before His crucifixion, John 17:4, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. Verse 5, AND NOW, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

Can you take yourself back before the world was and see God’s planned intent, ministry, and way of glorifying Himself through YOU? It’s time!!

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, SEPTEMBER 6-7, 2017

An anonymous writer many, many years ago wrote, “Many things in the Bible I cannot understand; many things in the Bible I only think I understand; but there are many things in the Bible I cannot misunderstand.” But, sadly, for some who clearly understand, they choose to live apart from the historic, personal blessing of the Word of God. It is not anything less than the “Holy Bible, the Holy Word of God, the Holy Scriptures”, anointed, appointed, applying to every soul in every corner of our world – and without it, men perish because of the chosen lack of the meat, the milk, and the bread of life!

I, at first, found it a little hilarious, then I calmed down and wanted to weep when I read somewhere at some time in the past, “Satan has no fear of one’s Bible who allows the dust to remain on it!” Can YOU, even a ‘believer’, sincerely believe you can live the “overcoming life in Christ” apart from His Word? Consider the nations of our world! Where would they be today if the Word of God did not have its rightful place as the constitution and declaration of nations that honor Holy God?

Would you think it is the true foundation of a God-honoring life? Would you dare think that in the ‘ship of your life’s journey on the calm or stormy seas of life’ that His compass of the Word is essential and not sinking in life’s storms? I tell you, whether America or India or England or Nairobi, Kenya, if a nation down-grades, ignores, or lessens the Word of God, the Bible, the Sacred Constitution, that nation begins to sink into the deep waters of fleshly stupidity!

It was Thomas Carlyle, in his writing years ago entitled “Heroes and Hero-Worship; The Hero as Man of letters”, who wrote: “What built St. Paul’s Cathedral? Look at the heart of the matter, it was that divine Hebrew Book, – the word partly of the man Moses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish herds, four thousand years ago, in the wilderness of Sinai! It is the strangest of things, yet nothing is truer.” Oh, how true!

I tell you, for humanity’s sake in the known world, just as our known world cannot exist without the sun or the moon, neither can it sustain itself apart from the Holy Word of God! Yet, how many do you personally know who only tacitly assent to just own a Bible but not be owned, fed, nurtured daily by its contents? At the same time, how many do you know who only talk about what the Bible has to say about ‘how do I go to heaven’ but not, “How does heaven come down to earth to me?” Didn’t Jesus teach us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” but far too many want a ‘pass’ on earth apart from Kingdom Living, and shred the divine will of Father-God for their earthly lives, yes, missing out on what Eternal Heaven has in store ON EARTH IN A YIELDED HEART AND MIND TO THE HOLY WORD OF GOD?!?

The Holy Word of God historically, from century to century, country to country, day to day, home to home, life to life has not died, cannot die, will not die, even if depraved minds try to deny it or twist it, even if Satanic influences deny it, even if deranged national leaders deny it, even if false prophets try to mix it with their imitation ‘salt and light’, even if compromising preachers want to tone it down, even if Hollywood wants to try and trash it – the Word of God never wavers, wilts, or wanders from the very mind and heart of Holy God, from the lips of King Jesus, or from the anointing of the Holy Spirit who still guides mankind into all Truth if they let Him!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said: “Good and holy men, and the best and wisest of mankind, and kingly spirits of history, enthroned in the hearts of mighty nations, have borne witness to the Bible’s influences, have declared it to be beyond compare the most perfect instrument of humanity.” So true! YOU MUST NEVER buy the lie that the Holy Word is not essential to your daily life!

I wrote a few words as I sought to bring this message to fruition! Simple, but I pray, spiritually profound, convicting, and instructing, yes, to the “saving of your soul”! By JFF: “The Word, the Word, the glorious sacred Word, spoken by God to men of earthly sod, to turn them in the path where Holy God treads!

The Word, the Word, the Word, so Spirit-anointed, intended for the life-change of men sovereignly appointed. Man doesn’t live by bread alone, he lives through the Savior whose blood does atone as the historical Word declares.

The Word, the Word, the Word for Divine intent, its glory shines with God’s hand-print; Inspired by the Spirit, spoken by the Lord, proclaimed by His saints, telling us “In Him” and His Word, it releases and restrains, as Holy God trains.

The Word, the Word, God’s Holy Word, unveils Light to every dark age, unveiling His heart on every page; God’s hand, God’s heart, God’s precious words of truth, inflamed, engraved, stamped on the open heart to the man who has no desire from God to depart.

The Word, the Spirit, and the man whom God has touched, opens his eyes, tunes his ears, and willfully turns him, never from God to depart. Trained by the Spirit, guided in all truth, the repentant man learns the “True Root”.

The Word, the Spirit, in heavenly anointing, freely wills the true heart’s appointing, not “me and my best”, but Jesus and His “rest” through which one lives eternally blest!

The Word, the Spirit, in God’s glad guidance, the Word, the Spirit in God’s illumination, is like the bright sun on a world’s dark side, telling mankind, “roll over and return by God’s Word-tide”, receiving Truth for your salvation!

Man’s word, his spirit, who departed from God, he’s sure his wit will carry him through on earth’s sod, but soon by “his flesh”, by the choices he makes, by the devil’s temptations, he denies revelation, and settles for less when before him was God’s best!

The world around us, like Adam and Eve, tempted by Satan, “You will not die!”, and death they chose rather than the Christ who would ‘arise’; “we choose life at its best”, but with no eternal “rest”, even of God’s Truth they then began to detest!

But then comes the Word, the Living Word, the Savior who willingly breaks “the bread of Life”, that man in his need may understand Seed, and sow his life in repentance and faith, recognizing Jesus as his only need!

“I come to Jesus, I’ll sit at His Table, I’ll follow my Master as long as He calls, I have no desire to be enslaved with those who from Him fall. He is my Savior, He is my Lord, His Word His plenteous provision is Heaven’s sharpened sword!

Jesus guards me, He guides me, and Him I will not betray, because Jesus my Lord is the Truth and the Way. I’ll follow His lead and live by His Word, so blessedly assured His Word is His sword! It guards me, it guides me, it will not betray me, I am assured it constantly will sway me and save me.

“Search the Scriptures, for in them you find life, ‘rest in His Word’, be relieved of all strife; it may come against you, but His Word never leaves you, for, yes, in them you DO find Life; Life eternal, Life daily blessed, Life in the Word, the gift of His love!”

Do you remember Christ Jesus responding to Satan AFTER “being led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan?” (Matthew 4:1-4). And Jesus responded in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

It was the ‘spiritual father’, the Apostle Paul, who said to his young ‘spiritual son in the faith’, Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable (Dare I say “essential”, “necessary”, your daily “must have” in spiritual sustenance?) for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Yet many, even most, ‘feed’ on flesh, feeding on worldly ‘wisdom’ most of which shuns the Eternal Word of God, feeding on the ‘temporary’ and not the eternal, feeding on ‘self-promotion’ rather than the Savior’s perfect and perfecting Word, feeding on mental philosophies void of transforming, life-changing, perfecting of the mind, will, and emotions of men in the true wisdom of Holy God, feeding on the ‘vainness’ of “fleshly best” and not the never-fading “Victory” in Jesus, the Living Word, ‘living’ (?) IN the ‘wisdoms’ of the “faithless and perverse generations” that ‘blinds’ even more, ‘deceives’ even more, and, sadly hinders the needy from even hearing the eternal, life-changing, mood-swinging, eternal-life-purpose-changing from flesh to Spirit, from temporary to Eternal, and from ‘me’, ‘us’, to Him, Jesus, our “All” that He desires to be in All!

When the truth of the Word of God is neglected in nations, families, schools, lives, even, yes, some churches, the morality of God-given Life, the meaning of a Christ-impacted Life, and the mission of His Presence in us and through us as a society falls away toward decay and, yes, the safety of a society becomes darkened, and leaves a society bankrupt of the awesome authority of the power of the Spirit through God’s real, revealed, and redemptive work!

Again, Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Are there those who will ‘surface-read’ the Word for the broadening of their ‘brilliance’ without a shred of evidence of “brokenness” about their separation from God? Of course! In fact, in John 5:39-40, Jesus spoke to the ‘proud Pharisees’, saying, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. BUT you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” HOLY SCRIPTURE UNVEILS THE ONLY ONE THROUGH WHOM ETERNAL, BLESSED, ABIDING, OVERCOMING LIFE COMES – AND THAT’S CHRIST JESUS – NOT YOUR CHURCH MEMBERSHIP, NOT YOUR BEST EFFORT, NOT YOUR FLESHLY, PHILOSOPHICAL INSIGHT, BUT HIS INDWELLING THROUGH TRUE REPENTANCE AND FAITH ONLY IN HIS FINISHED WORK OF BLOOD SHED AT THE CROSS, HIS DYING, AND HIS RESURRECTION PRESENCE KNOCKING AT YOUR HEART’S DOOR, DESIRING TO COME IN TO YOU AND ABIDE WITH YOU!

I was a missionary teacher, preacher, evangelist for twenty-five years across India mostly, but also other Asian and African nations, and that which made me want to be there, trip after trip, was the awesome hunger and passion for more and more of the Word in their lives! And the “blessed” ministries, pastors, churches there? Those whose foundation WAS and IS the Word of God and the Spirit of God who “guides into ALL truth”!

I challenge YOU, STUDY BIBLICAL HISTORY, STUDY “TO SHOW YOURSELVES APPROVED UNTO GOD, WORKMEN WHO NEED NOT BE ASHAMED,” STUDY TO LEARN TO BE THOROUGHLY FINISHED WITH YOURSELF, DAILY TAKING THE SENTENCE OF DEATH TO YOURSELF, THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED AND UNVEILED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH!’ Man does not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceeds out of the mind and heart of God.” He’s not willing that any should “perish”, but that all, exposed to and convicted by His Word, discover “new Life in Christ” that never dies – but around you, you’ll witness the ‘Wordless disciples’ who were never equipped to live by “the Life of Another”, or equipped to daily partake of the ‘bread’, the ‘honey’, the ‘meat’, yes, the “Life” that IS the Word of God!

Are you aware of ‘good’ homes of human society where “the daily bread” of spiritual-life sustenance is never on the table? Are you aware of ‘good’, fleshly efforts of parent daily rendered, but the Holy Word is a sacred book collecting “dust” on a wooden table when God intended it to be imparted in every heart and mind?

Paul became so frustrated with his people’s blind avoidance of the True, Life-Changing Word! He said, in Romans 11:2, “Do you not know what the Scripture says…?” And, sadly, many today DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORD SAYS, even though it is merciful God wooing them to, “Come home!”

Paul later said, in Romans 11, that even the ‘religious Jews and the pagan Gentiles could be “grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again”, “if they do not continue in unbelief”, or in neglect, or consider that it’s good to have a Bible around but “feed daily, three times a day, like I do for my body? I don’t have the time nor the interest to invest in Word-study – I’m saved!” Really?

David F. Nygren, in the old “Watchman Examiner”, wrote: “If all the neglected Bibles were dusted simultaneously, we would have a record dust storm and the sun would go into eclipse for a whole week.” Will the ‘history’ of your spiritual pilgrimage ‘celebrate’ your devotion to the Word of God, OR, will it ‘shame’ you?

Oh, and then, there’s Shakespeare, in “Richard 111”, (Act 1, sc.3,l.334), who wrote: “But the I sigh; and, with a piece of Scripture, Tell them that God bids us to do good for evil; And thus I clothe my naked villany With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, And seem a saint when most I play the devil.” (Of course, “WE DON’T HAVE TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT ATTITUDE TOWARD THE WORD OF GOD IN OUR MODERN-DAY, DO WE?”).

Is it your ‘devotion’ through the Word, OR is it God’s devotion and intent of His Word THROUGH YOU? Are you “born again by the Word of God” having its rightful place of being yielded to it in your mind, heart, and will, submitting yourself daily to, yes, its commands? Didn’t Peter tell us in 1 Peter 2:2, “as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word of God, that you MAY GROW THEREBY, IF INDEED you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” If there is no ‘divine sustenance’ daily in your life, it would be like a mother in the flesh birthing a child but ignoring the necessary milk the baby needs! How cruel! And, I say, to ignore the Word of God in your maturing process as a professing disciple is to promote pre-maturing and maturing processes as unnecessary in “growing up” or “maturing in the Faith” to spiritual manhood!

A man of the Word, a woman of the Word, a preacher of the Word, is evidence of the reality of being “born again by the written and Living Word of God” and evidence one understands the absolute need day by day to come to His Word that one may be matured, missioned, and becoming Mastered in obedience to Christ Jesus! In John 6:27 Jesus said, “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” It’s His call for all disciples to “trust the Word”, treat it faithfully as your necessary ‘food’ to remain strong in the faith, and to faithfully “Preach the Word, testify to the Word, share the Word, proclaim the Word,” because as Peter once said to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life”!

It was Voltaire who once said, “If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man’s belief in the Bible.” But the sad truth? If one wants to “destroy” his own ‘faith-walk’ through life, just ignore the Word! IS “THE WORD OF GOD” PERSONAL AND OF NECESSITY TO YOUR WALK OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE? How does one know what Christ would have him/her to be or to do, if the Word of God is willfully chosen to be ignored?

E.O.Sellers wrote the old hymn “Your Word Have I Hid In My Heart.” It says: “You Word is a lamp to my feet, A light to my path always; To guide and to save me from sin, And show me the heavenly way.

Forever, O Lord, is Your Word Established and fixed on high; Your faithfulness unto all men, Abideth forever nigh.

At morning, at noon, and at night I ever will give You praise; For You are My portion, O Lord, And shall be through all my days!

Through Him whom Your Word was foretold, The Savior and Morning Star, Salvation and peace have been brought To those who have strayed afar.

Your Word have I hid in my heart That I might not sin against Thee, That I might not sin against Thee, That I might not sin, Your Word have I hid in my heart.”

Really? Is that true of YOU? I challenge you: Five chapters from the Old Testament, Five chapters from the New Testament, every day, until you meet Him around the Throne with all true believers and steadfast disciples in hungering and thirsting for the Word of God, even still, in Heaven itself! AMEN?

HOSEA – HUMAN DESPERATION,

DIVINE DELIVERANCE!

By: James Farrell Fisher

December, 2015 – January, 2016

“Soft Words for Serious Bondage? Or Hard Words for Eternal Deliverance?”

INTRODUCTION

I don’t know how you will relate to “soft words for serious bondage” or “hard words for eternal deliverance,” but the eternal truth is, “God’s eternal desire is the deliverance, healing, salvation of His chosen people!”

In fact, in Hosea 6:1-3, Hosea was inspired to write, “Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.”

Oh, yes, thank God for the true remnant of holy faith who truly have been raised up from spiritual death and “pursue the knowledge of the Lord”! And the true pursuers, such as Hosea, longed for the restoration of God’s chosen people, just as he longed for the restoration of his own adulterous wife!

The prophetic word of Hosea is both an unveiling of the hideousness, horrible, repulsive, hellish rebellion of Israel, so untrue and defiant of Holy God! Like Hosea’s Gomer, Israel broke God’s heart! It’s so shocking, but the ‘chosen people’ chose spiritual adultery over devotion to Holy God, vile affections over the victorious atonement, idolatry over spiritual surrender to the true and only God of holiness and heavenly living on His earth, compromise in sin rather than forgiveness and victory over sin through Emmanuel’s shed blood, and even a denial of the very reality of God as they accept, choose, surrender to earthly vainness and fleshly bondage to sin’s powerful, destructive nature!

So God raises up His prophet, Hosea, whose wife chose adulterous paths, choosing her fleshly lovers, rejecting the husband as Israel’s ‘wives’ rejected Holy God! And God’s eternal mission is on! “Hosea, restore your wife, just as with the repentant nation Israel who can be restored to Me!” You didn’t miss Hosea 1:2 did you? It says, When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry. For the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.” Verse 3, So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Verse 4, Then the Lord said to him: “Call his name Jezreel, [or “God sows”] for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” [That’s the Northern Kingdom!].

God’s one desire was ‘restoration’, a return to His eternal will, but ‘whorish’ people, even religious in appearance, became so spiritually demented as to Holy God! But Holy God never gives up! So the Hoseas of the world, ancient or modern-day, reach out in love, grace, and mercy, yes, even sounding the alarm of God’s “wake-up call”!

Be assured: Holy God always gives the warning by the wooing of Calvary’s love, even by exposing the false veils of religious activities without any heart-change or devotion to His eternal Word! Holy God isn’t in the business of “white-washing” man’s dark nature, but offering “blood-bought atonement” and eternal reconciliation!

In Hosea 14 we read the prophet Hosea urging rebellious Israel to “return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity!” [Verse 1]. How do you view the message of Hosea to our needy ‘church-world’ and the ‘world-wide’ lost generations of ‘fallen’ humanity so enamored in its fleshliness and void of devotion to the God who made them, lost them, and then paid the supreme price of the Master’s “shed-blood” to restore us to Himself! I love the promise of Hebrews 14:4 when God said through Hosea, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely…”. Are YOU truly aware of God’s great love for YOU? Do you know that if YOU were the only created being to ever live, then fallen away, that what God did for the entire world of fallen humanity, He would have done what He did 2000 years ago JUST FOR YOU!!?? Join me in meeting, appropriating, and savoring the precious Book of Hosea!

OUTLINE

CHAPTER ONE: A TROUBLED WORLD – A MERCIFUL GOD

CHAPTER TWO:HOLY CONFRONTATION -HEAVENLY LOVE

CHAPTER THREE: ISRAEL’S ABANDONMENT – ISRAEL’S RETURN

CHAPTER FOUR: CONTROVERSY IN ISRAEL – CONVERSION IN CHRIST JESUS

CHAPTER FIVE: JUDGMENTS, SNARES, NETS, AND HARLOTRIES – AND GOD’S WITHDRAWAL!

CHAPTER SIX: REPENTANCE AND RETURN

CHAPTER SEVEN: RUTHLESS DECEPTION – RAMPANT WICKEDNESS

CHAPTER EIGHT:THE MESSAGE, THE MOANING, THE MADNESS

CHAPTER NINE: BANKRUPTCY BUT NOT BROKENNESS

CHAPTER TEN:FATAL FRUITLESSNESS – FULL CHASTENING

CHAPTER ELEVEN:THE AWESOMENESS OF GOD’S UNENDING MERCY

CHAPTER TWELVE: A RETURN TO DEVOTION OR A RETURN TO DECEITFUL WAYS?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: RELENTLESS SIN – RELENTLESS JUDGMENT

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FAITHLESS, FAILURES, OR FUTURE REWARDS?

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER ONE

Hosea 1

A TROUBLED WORLD – A MERCIFUL GOD!

If you personally become aware of what Paul said to the church at Corinth, and now seek to apply it to your life situation, does it encourage, enlighten, and enforce eternal hope in you and your life-circumstances? Are you aware of our “troubled world” just as Hosea viewed rebellious Israel in his day?

In 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 and Verse 13, Paul wrote: “Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, than that which is in part will be done away…Verse 13, And now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

Would you, yourself, call Hosea a “prophet of love”? [Read the entire Book of Hosea before continuing this study!]. Troubled worlds, troubled governments, troubled men, women, youth, and even children, troubled religions, troubled circumstances, troubled understandings of eternal purposes – and still, in the midst of dark days in human situations, God raises up a prophet of light, love, and liberty!

Don’t you find it so encouraging and enlightening to read in Hosea, Chapter One, Verse One, “The word of the Lord that came to Hosea the son of Beeri…,” and even identifies the very time period when both the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Israel needed God’s prophetic word?

Verse Two tells us, When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.” Is God still speaking to men today, and when He does, do those who hear Him respond in obedient fashion? Holy God is enlightening Hosea through his own heart-breaking ‘life-event’ in his relationship to his own wife who committed harlotry and birthed children of harlotry, with God revealing to Hosea the very sickness of Israel, His chosen people, who “committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord”.

Is ‘untruth’ about Holy God still relevant in explaining ‘spiritual divorces’ from God today with ‘ungodly’ life-styles? Have you turned on your television day after day to be confronted with a man’s-woman’s vile affections, immoral life-styles, even shameless demonstrations of godlessness, with even revulsion at the mention of God’s Name?

Sin ushers in dark clouds, terrifying winds of personal, even family destructions; sin was Gomer’s testimony of marriage disobedience, rebellion, and shamefulness; sin marred, sin heightened, sin exposed man’s and woman’s desire to live life as they pleased, not God’s holy desire and atoning will for fallen men and women to be reconciled to Him; sin introduced blackness, darkness, sickness, mental diseases, blackening God’s ‘masterpiece’ of human existence into man’s unknown bondage to Satan and the demon powers; sin enslaved and enslaves men and women today to ungodly life-styles, sin introduced life-disasters, godless lives of chaotic ruin, because to be without God and His redeeming grace, mercy, and love is to choose life’s imitation not the reality of God’s “new-birth blessing”!

You do understand that modern men and women without God in their vocabulary or mind-set are much like Hosea’s day with a faithless, rebellious, religious people, determined to practice life in their own terms, without regard of God’s eternal intent!

In his “Essays: Of Atheism”, Sir Francis Bacon once wrote: “They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.” But sadly, some accept the reality of God, the reality of Christ Jesus, the reality of the True Word of God, yet refuse repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! There are those who have self-determined that their ‘sin’ and rebellion and unbelief, even determining for themselves, that God made a mistake in sending His Son to die on the Cross!

Hosea unveils the sadness of man’s rebellion against God, exposes Israel’s state of sinfulness, reveals God’s broken heart over fallen men’s spiritual stupidity, and reveals the awful marring of God’s creation by unwise, fleshly choices of sinful men and women out to satisfy their lusts with an attitude and life-style revealing they believe sin is not serious!

But God has never avoided facing and dealing with man’s avoidance of the reality of sin, the sin nature in all men, and facing the need of divine remedy, supernaturally changing the hearts of fallen men and women by the shed blood of the Lamb of God! Holy God is not a “compromiser” who “condones” men’s sin and sin nature because He is so loving and understanding! No! Holy God chose to send Jesus, His holy Son, to be sin for us and give us victory over our sin natures by taking them to the Cross where He suffered, bled, and died as God’s “Lamb-sacrifice” for man’s forgiveness of his sin nature and sin’s ‘just recompense’ by the Lamb of God’s voluntary sacrifice on the cruel Cross though He knew NO sin but became sin for US that we might have the opportunity of becoming sons and daughters of the Most High God!

This is why Hosea had the blessed privilege and insight given to him, and us, that [Hosea 6:1], “Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.” What a promise from God’s Holy Word! Receive Dr. Ed Vallowe’s word in his book “Prophetic Preaching From Hosea,” pps.10-11, “God gives a strange command to Hosea, the prophet. He must take back to himself a wife who had forsaken him and who pursued other lovers. He must restore her to his heart and to his home again [So illustrative of God’s compassion for us as “fallen sinners”!!]. In so doing he will portray graphically and in a most melodramatic way God’s willingness to receive back to Himself the sinful nation [Israel] and restore her to His favor once more.”].

What did Hosea 1:2 tell Hosea and us? “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord.” Commissioned by Holy God! Unveiling the heart of Holy God! Holy God, through Hosea, amplifying His desire to see ‘the departed or defectors from the Lord’ restored to full blessing!

As you read Hosea, are you awed about God’s heart as you view His people in rebellion, in disobedience, in rejection of His call of Holy living in and through His holy people? But they played religious games without gaining heart transformation! They were ‘religious’ but spiritual award winners only in spiritual deception as they lived as a “sinful nation” – only a remnant were true to the faith!

The time period of Hosea’s prophetic ministry was during a ‘carry-over’ period of pagan idol worship, even Baal worship, as adulterous acts became common practice with no restraints on satisfying their lower, debased, godless sin natures, and that in the Holy Temple! One author I read spoke about their “morbid fears of guilt were erased by his offering;” and I wondered how many rebellious people in churches across America today believe “giving” financially heals the guilt of sinful rebellion!

The downward spiral of Israel was witnessed by Israel’s historians as men and women were unashamed of their lower sin natures, and when Hosea was called and appointed by God to prophetically challenge their compromised life styles, most of Israel ‘played’ the game of religious devotion before Holy God and a pagan god like Baal!

We’ll cover it more thoroughly when we arrive at Hosea 4:11-14, but for now look carefully at what God said about Israel’s idolatry, “Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart. My people ask counsel from their wooden idols, and their staff informs them. For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, and they have played the harlot against their God. They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters commit harlotry, and your brides commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot. Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled.” [Do you remember the New Testament Word: “If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness”?] People are “ruined” even if they ‘profess’ faith but walk unashamed!

In Chapter One of Hosea, Hosea married Gomer, and the Holy Word shows us three children birthed to the two: ‘Jezreel’ was the first, which means “God Sows”, and the question is, “What was Holy God ‘sowing’ in this historic time-period through Hosea and Gomer?”

Verse 4 tells us: “I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” [That was the Northern Kingdom that faced destruction first!]. Verse 5 says, God speaking, “It shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”

Verses 6-7 tells us, And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him: “Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, [which means “No Mercy”], for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, [the Northern Kingdom], but I will utterly take them away. Verse 7, Yet I will have mercy on the house of Judah, [the reason? They’ll usher in the birth of the Messiah, through them came the seed of the Savior and Lord!], and, will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword or battle, by horses or horsemen.”

Examine Verses 8-9! Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then God said: “Call his name Lo-Ammi, [which means “Not My People”], for you are not My people, and I will not be your God.” Just how sobering do you find these words?!?

And I find these words so absolutely amazing that the majority of Israel, past, present, and future, never found or find the True Messiah but became foreigners, hostile to Holy God, even crucifying the Messiah! But then Hosea 1:10 declares, “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons [‘and daughters’] of the living God.”

How did that happen? Because the true remnant remained faithful, even until New Testament times when men like Simeon and women like Anna held on to God’s eternal Promise!

Verse 11 then informs us, “Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered, and appoint for themselves one head; and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel! [Or Israel! There IS a true spiritual Israel devoted to Christ! Are you one of those chosen of God?]. It’s always been, yes, a true remnant that held onto and honored Holy God and His Holy Word and Eternal Promises!

I so appreciate what Fred M. Wood wrote in his book, “Hosea: Prophet of Reconciliation”, [ Copyright, 1975, CONVENTION PRESS, Church Services and Materials Division, Nashville, Tennessee]. On Page 14 Dr. Wood wrote: “People of every age need wise guidance. Sinful man and holy God meet in the statements of the Hebrew prophets, who realized the time was late in Israel’s history. The nation was rushing to chaos; someone had to call the people back. Although the prophet often seemed harsh, he had a good reason: his nation’s future depended upon his arousing his people. They had to know how serious things were. All the people were not equally guilty, but all had to be called to share in the task of helping the nation back. The prophet had to speak his message, even though it brought offense to those who heard. He was to do his duty as God laid it upon his heart. Whether the people heard or refused to hear, they would know a prophet had been in their midst.”

“Holy God, help us in America today! We need holy prophets challenging, convicting, and convincing God’s people, saved or lost, to repent and turn and surrender to the Lordship of Christ and to Your mercy and grace!”

CHAPTER TWO

Hosea Two

HOLY CONFRONTATION HEAVENLY LOVE

I don’t know where you are in your spiritual journey but one thing is sure: God wants YOU aware of whether you’re a part of the “devoted remnant of true faith” or a part of the religious who profess allegiance to God but are even also devotees of their “idols”! There are those who say, “we are God’s people” and “we care for one another”, and God says, “Contend for the true faith when you find even your mother to be an unfaithful deceiver” because in Hosea 2:2 God spoke, “Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; for she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband!”

Can you believe it? There’s been a “divorce” between God and His chosen, rebellious people! The second part of Verse 2? “Let her (Israel) put away her harlotries from her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts,” as His chosen people had instituted ‘worship’ and ‘devotion’ even to Baal, living in spiritual adultery!

Oh, and then in Verse 3, God said, “Lest I strip her naked and expose her, as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.” Do you understand that this is what will be the future of every unbeliever, every compromiser, every ‘professor’ who plays both sides of the streets of religious activity, saying, proclaiming they’ve been loyal servants when in reality they are ‘spiritual prostitutes’?

When Hosea proclaims the Word of Holy God, “bring charges against your mother,” it’s compassionate, merciful God who exposes sin and unfaithfulness so they might repent and put away their state of compromise, put away their continued sin, put away their brazen immodesty, because, maybe they hear: “God will strip you naked, Sinful Israel!” God will make Israel like a desert wilderness? Lives of rebellion will become as a deserted desert and a waste-filled wilderness, with Holy God “stripping her naked”?

Look at Verses 5-6 as God said and says even presently through Hosea, “For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your ways with thorns, and wall her in, so she cannot find her paths.”

Most people in the U.S.A. have no idea of what God means by “stripping her.” Most people have no understanding of a life of pitiful desolation without the presence, promises, or power of Holy God. And certainly most religious unbelievers can’t even fathom disciples confronting Jesus when the woman came with that flask of very expensive oil and poured it on the head of Jesus: “Why this waste?” Mixed-up understandings of biblical morality or heart-purity! No grasping of the cost of shameless idolatry or bowing before ‘foreign gods and idols’! “Thorns and briers” rather than the sheer blessing of “rich roses” and “heavenly fruit trees”, spiritual prostitutes even at God’s Holy Altar rather than engagement and marriage to the very Son of God, blind allegiance to the satisfying of their old sin natures, which, no doubt, was why Job 19:8-12 tells us, “He [Holy God] has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass; and He has set darkness in my paths. He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side; and I am gone; my hope He has uprooted like a tree. He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His enemies. His troops come together and build up their road against me; they encamp all around my tent.”

And do you know why? Because Holy God was out to turn Job around and put him on the true highway of holiness, but far too many are satisfied with the stained streets of sin and self-indulgence, rejecting Holy God’s compassion! And do you realize that rejecting God’s judgment, with no restraint at all, will lead to a final judgment, a deadly doom, a “DEAD-END” street of eternal death that will not die! Israel and idols? Israel and Egypt? Israel and no desire to travel on the King’s Highway? Israel and scribes and Pharisees who crucified Christ Jesus?

Do you remember what King Jesus said in Matthew 23:23-28, 31-38? GET READY! GEAR UP! GIVE HOLY GOD HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE AS SOVEREIGN SAVIOR AND LORD IN YOUR LIFE – not a religious ‘game-player’! Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! [“Play Actors!”], For you pay tithes of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!…

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also…

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness…

Verses 31-38, Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate!”

Israel a desert wilderness? Israel a people without a passion to pursue the Holy Path to the Living God? Israel a nation deafened to hear the very Voice of God? Israel a people stripped of God’s grace and glory? Israel void of the holy gifts of God in and through the Holy Spirit? Israel a people who became so thirsty because of their own drought of desire for what Holy God had to say to them? Israel a nation void of heart desire to know the Resurrected Christ? Israel a nation so unstable because they willfully rejected God’s holy foundation, faith, and eternal future of continuous blessing out of the overflow of God’s goodness?

Can you even begin to fathom or understand or comprehend the blindness of God’s chosen people Israel as to their desire for union with Baal’s temple priestesses who would make sure Israel was fertile? In Hosea 2:9-13 we read sad, sad words, and even a warning for the modern-day religious deceived! It says: “Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time and My new wine in its season, and will take back My wool and My linen, given to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall deliver her from My hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her New Moons, her Sabbaths – all her appointed feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’ So I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. I will punish her for the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers; But Me she forgot,” says the Lord.”

Isn’t it amazing and baffling to you that we read of God’s threatened judgment against ancient Israel, but modern-day America sees no threat from God toward us “because our nation is not sinfully sick like Israel was”? And over all of America today “dark clouds” are descending over us in, yes, the form of the idiocy of mental, moral, Messianic-deficiency, with even ‘kids,’ ‘teenagers,’ ‘young adults’, acting regularly with senseless, foolish, ungodly behavior, with no desire to trust in, believe in, be obedient to the Holy God who made them, lost them, then proved His love for them in the sacrificial death of the Holy Lamb of God!

I came across a statement by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his writing entitled “Faust, Prolog im Himmel,” [Der Herr,l.88], that says: “A good man, through obscurest aspirations, has till an instinct of the one true way,” and I couldn’t help but think, “That may have been true a hundred, two hundred years ago, but I’m not sure about that thought for today!”

Are you aware of how resentful modern-day minds are toward our Lord’s “blood atonement”? In the “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” [Edited and Compiled by Frank S. Mead, Fleming H. Revell Com., Westwood, New Jersey, p13], there is an insightful statement by Donald Harrington. He said:

“It is part of the Jewish High Holidays that you cannot face the new year without having something deep and important take place inside you, a psychological process that religion has called atonement. Too many people are seeking a sense of “at-one-ment” with God without paying the price of atonement for their thoughtless, selfish and often wicked deeds. They cry out in anguish for peace – peace of mind, peace of soul, world peace – without understanding that these are not goals to be sought in and for themselves, but rather the by-products of just and righteous living.”

What did Paul tell us in Romans 5:10-11? [Holman Study Bible, NKJV], “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Reconciled by good deeds? Reconciled by best efforts? Reconciled when ‘death’ reigns in us? Reconciled by hopeless, helpless attempts? Reconciled by monetary offerings? Is there still today fleshly attempts at reconciliation on man’s terms? What does Hosea 2:13 tell us, Holy God speaking? “I will punish her (Israel) for the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers; but Me she forgot,” says the Lord.

And then Holy God spoke, beginning in Hosea 2:14-23, and we begin to understand the reality and extent of God’s blessed mercy on His people through Messianic prophecy! God spoke about ‘the divine drawing through His everlasting love,’ speaking about ‘comforting a troubled people,’ opening ‘a door of hope,’ and putting heavenly music on her lips like the days of her youth!

By God’s love and grace and mercy, their devotion to Baal, Israel’s Master, is set aside and in Verse 16, God says they’ll call Him, “My Husband”! Do you understand ‘deliverance’? Israel was ‘married’ to death, or Baal worship – by God’s mercy, the door to His eternal Hope was opened wide! “In that day”? That’s a future promise God made and makes even today, and, though national Israel always has and still does, reject their eternally anointed and appointed and activated Messiah, “Spiritual Israel” IS bowing to the King of kings and Lord of lords that is in infinite, even immeasurable, enormous numbers in every nation across the entire world!

No longer does Baal have to be one’s ‘foreign god,’ but “the blessed” have entered God’s “New Covenant,” and through repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary’s Cross, mass numbers have been betrothed to Him forever! [Verse 19-20].

Follow Hosea 2:23! God spoke! “Then I will sow her for Myself [have YOU been planted by God for Himself?] in the earth, and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; then I will say to those who were not My people,” ‘You are My people!’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’”

Do you understand that Holy God has opened the door of mercy and repentant sons and daughters can be eternally “married” to Christ? In Verses 21-23 Holy God appeals to you in four ways: “I will hear [YOU!] says the Lord;” “I will bless [YOU!] beyond measure;” “I will pour out on YOU abundant mercies;” and, “I will open-wide the opportunity of YOU sharing a glorious testimony: God says, “I am His people,” and they say, “God, You are my God!” Glory!

CHAPTER THREE

HOSEA 3

ISRAEL’S ABANDONMENT – ISRAEL’S RETURN

Are you aware of the shortness of Hosea 3 and yet so valuable and important as to ‘non-Israelis’ becoming a significant part of God’s “chosen people”? Again and again you’ll find heavy abandonment of true faith and faithful service of most of Israel, but “the remnant,” the “faithful remnant” remains true to the Promised Messiah!

Hosea 3:1 explains the rebellion of the most of Israel, but the heart of Holy God as He said to Hosea, Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”

God’s intention is seeing ‘marriage’ of a man and a woman as the holy picture of the relationship between God and His chosen people as ‘the Godly Groom’ and ‘the chosen bride,’ Israel, but the marriage vows were broken by a wayward, rebellious people, and the holy ties were severed – with God challenging Hosea to go and graciously bestow his love on the rebellious, fleshly, faithless, godless wife, unveiling to her and through that relationship the very heart of God in loving, forgiving, reconciling, and renewing His love for all His wayward family! Does Hosea 3:1 tell us, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery…” with Hosea’s love being “just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods,”?

Consider carefully: The dramatic love of Hosea for his wayward wife, Gomer, is without a doubt the picture of God’s abiding love for wandering, wayward Israel! Gomer was an unfaithful wife as Israel, mostly, was an unfaithful nation to Holy God! But as Hosea never divorced Gomer, God had no desire to divorce Israel but held on, in His abiding love, if only for the “remnant”! Most of Israel had looked to other “gods”, but the “remnant” was devoted to the only True God!

If you didn’t know, God spoke of His wayward, betraying people as being ‘in love’ with Baal as He inspired Hosea to expose by sweet cakes and flagons of wine as objects directly used in Baal worship or giving their allegiance to the “gods”, as they were inspired by their devotion to the ‘flesh’ in the passions of an old, fallen sin nature and devotion to Baal stimulated by unashamed devotion to one’s carnal nature void on the divine nature – “anything goes!”

Gomer’s devotion was ‘faithlessness’ as many lives today are in chains of devotion to their fallen sinful, sexual debased natures! The opposite? Hosea was so inspired by God’s love for wayward Israel that he knew he must love and forgive his sinful wife! [I don’t believe Hosea lived without a broken heart just as he discerned God’s broken heart over Israel’s waywardness!].

Are you amazed when you read Hosea 3:2-3? “So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man – so too, will I be toward you.”

It’s amazing to me that there are some writers who’ve said that the price Hosea paid for Gomer was approximately thirty pieces of silver. If that’s true, and it more than likely is, the Lord Jesus Christ was ‘betrayed’ by thirty pieces of silver! Gomer, enslaved, but Christ Jesus frees! Gomer chose her sinful, reckless life – Christ Jesus offered His sinless life for our freedom from sin’s penalty that we, by His love, grace, and mercy, might become “the righteousness of God in Him”! (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Are you aware of Israel’s ‘law of the land’ that Gomer could have been stoned to death because of her violation of the law of Holy God, but Hosea chose to love and forgive her even though Gomer had rejected him?

Though Gomer was a ‘husband-rejecter’, a ‘God-rejecter’, a ‘decency rejecter,’ she showed her ‘true colors’ in her devotion to false gods, reckless drunkenness, and unfaithfulness to a Godly husband!

Hosea bought her out of sex-slavery? Hosea paid a small price? Redemption was necessary, but Hosea was willing? And what about our ‘spiritual redemption’ through the shed blood of Christ Jesus? In 1 Peter 2:21-25 we read: “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

“Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth”, who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.

For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

Disciples of Christ as spiritual marriage? In Isaiah 54:5-6 we read: “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused,” says your God.”

Disciples of Christ as devoted, faithful mates? Disciples of Christ, married to Christ, with absolute loyalty the hallmark of one’s devotion to the Loving Savior and Lord?

But then we read of the spirit of unfaithfulness in “the bride” to her husband? Why did, and why does betrayal of one’s spiritual marriage vows still occur today and become even rampant and unashamed, even treacherous toward the Lord and Savior?

Would you dare consider ‘financial gain’ as one’s idol rather than true devotion to the King of kings and Lord of lords? Hosea 2:5 says, “For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, “’I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’”

Does the ‘rejection’ of Biblical knowledge play a part because some are o0f the mind-set that they are smarter than God? Oh, what an awakening verse is Hosea 4:6! “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because you have forgotten the law of God, I also will forget your children.” [What an amazing revelation, a heart-stopper, eye-opener, an awakening truth from fleshly deception!].

Does ‘pretense’ leadership affect any who start out sincere but are led astray? What does Hosea 5:1 tell us? “Hear this, O priests! Take heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For yours is the judgment, because you have been a snare to Mizpah and a net spread on Tabor.”

Of course, we don’t have to be concerned in this modern-day of ‘mixing’ allegiance to Christ with fleshly idolatry! Right? Hosea 7:8 says, “Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples…Verse 9, Aliens have devoured his strength, but he does not know it!”

Does ‘self-righteousness’, ‘self-promotion,’ ‘self-sufficiency ‘ still dominate many in the ‘religious’ community?

As I read Hosea 7:11, I couldn’t help but think of those who are so empty and unwise, or as Hosea said in Hosea 7:11, “Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense – they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria,” rather than yielding, submitting to Holy God and the King of kings!

And, of course, all around you, you will find those, not in love with God, but as Hosea said in Hosea 7:2, “They do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own deeds have surrounded them; they are before My face.” GOD IS NOT BLIND!!

What did God tell Hosea 3:1? “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”

Holy God, the God of Calvary’s love, the Lord Jesus who is the Lord of forgiveness and amazing mercy and grace, has instilled in the hearts of men, like the psalmist, who wrote in Psalm 130:3-4 these words, “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared (or held in reverential awe!).”

There is no doubt in my mind that the promise of God to Hosea has seen a few of Israelites, true to the Truth, looking for the Promised Messiah, who have found Him in Christ Jesus as the True Savior and Lord of redeemed mankind! In fact, in Galatians 3:29, we read: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Thank God for Rabbi Marty who is of Jewish blood physically but Jesus’ blood spiritually who teaches seeking Jews two nights a week in our local church where my son, Scott Fisher, is pastor. Marty and his wife are a joy to be around as they reflect the Resurrection Life of the Lord Jesus and are committed to extending His Kingdom rule more and more – to Jews, unbelievers, strangers to the blood covenant of Christ! Amen?

Hosea 3:4 tells us, “Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.” That’s, I believe, the “latter days” of the Old Covenant as witnessed by Simeon, Saul of Tarsus, and Rabbi Marty! Amen?

CHAPTER FOUR

HOSEA FOUR

CONTROVERSY IN ISRAEL – CONVERSION IN CHRIST

It is absolutely amazing to me to read Hosea 4:1 when the prophet of God said, “Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge (a legal case) against the inhabitants of the land. THERE IS NO TRUTH OR MERCY OR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN THE LAND!” [This ‘charge’ was written probably about 700 BC.].

Hosea 4:2 then says, “By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed upon bloodshed. Verse 3a, Therefore the land will mourn.”

Could it be that what we read from Hosea in 2015-2016 is about “grease” and not the grace of God in the U.S.A. and other “professing” nations across our known world? Does God still bring charges against people who languish in their iniquities rather than inspired and loyal to His Holy Truth and eternal calling?

What we’re reading in Hosea 4 is without a doubt a court-scene where Israel is called to account before Holy God with a charge of iniquitous living in His name! Sadly Israel was on the “fast-track” of alienation from Holy God! Is every nation today held to an account before Holy God? Do you understand, realize, even sense, in your nation, the shutting down of ‘blessing’ and the open door of a frightening judgment of God because of hardened hearts toward Him, of moral depravity, of spiritual ineptness, of even open rebellion and moral depravity, of deathly defiance to Truth?

Several major truths we all must learn from Hosea: First, in Hosea 4:1-5, examine with me the controversy of Condescending Rebellion and Disobedience of Israel Then and Now! What does the Word tell us?

“Hear the word of the Lord, YOU CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land. There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraints, with bloodshed upon bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn; and everyone who dwells there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea will be taken away.

Therefore the land will mourn; and everyone who dwells there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea will be taken away.

Now let no man contend, or rebuke another; for your people are like those who contend with the priest. Therefore you shall stumble in the day, the prophet also shall stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.”

The word of the Lord concerning “pretender Israel”, the word of the Lord concerning the void in the land of Israel, the word of the Lord concerning “no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land”?

Israel, over centuries, became radicalized enemies of Divine Truth as they proclaimed their allegiance to Holy God, and at the same time prepared and executed through the scribes and Pharisees the very crucifixion of Christ Jesus! They became a nation of idol worshippers with the ‘fruit’ of “swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, breaking all restraints, with bloodshed upon bloodshed!”

Controversy in Israel? “God wouldn’t judge His holy People?” “God wouldn’t come against those He loved?” “God wouldn’t waste away His chosen?” “God wouldn’t allow His chosen people to so descend in their chosen life-styles to the point they can’t do anything but mourn – how contemptuous is that, how despicable is that, how contentious is that! You, Sir, are off your rocker!”

And then God spoke through Hosea in Hosea 4:6, about “national judgment,” saying, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”

Second, in Hosea 4:6-11, you’ll discover the Callous Ignorance That So Easily Multiplies In Self-Indulgent, Self-Induced, Self-Individualizing, Lack of God’s Saving Grace and Mercy! “Who needs God or His Law? We know what we want and we’ll pay a high price for what we want!” Sound familiar? You just read Hosea 4:6! Follow Hosea 4:7-11!

“The more they increased, the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame!!! They eat up the sin of My people; [The demons!], they set their heart on their [Israel’s] iniquity. And it shall be: like people, like priest. So I will punish them for their ways, and reward them for their deeds. For they shall eat, but not have enough; they shall commit harlotry, but not increase; because they have ceased obeying the Lord. Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart.” [Check Deuteronomy 28!!].

Though ‘harlotry’ was a physical reality, spiritual harlotry was worse as Israel sold themselves into bondage by devotion to their old sin nature rather than ‘true lovers’ of Holy God! ‘Wine and new wine’ was more than what came from grapes but what came from Israel’s cheapening of the Holy revelation of God!

Whether ‘Jew or Greek’, the grace and mercy of Holy God abounds as proven by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, but if deafened ears prevail, then Holy Judgment abounds! Romans 1:24-28,32, tells us, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason GOD GAVE THEM UP TO VILE PASSIONS. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;…Verse 32, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

What did Paul tell us in Colossians 1:16-20? “For by Him [by Christ Jesus] all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”

What is it that unrestrained ‘lust’ has and is producing in America today? What is it when men and women avoid Biblical knowledge and ‘play’ in the darkness of biblical ignorance? What was it Hosea 4:6 told us? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” Does ‘like father, like son’ ring a bell with you – and I pray an awakening ‘alarm-bell’!?!

Does ‘sin’ lie at your family’s door? Is ‘sin’ finding out the source of family commitment or lack of it? Are your ‘family’ sins ‘scarlet’ or ‘white as snow’? Is your family ‘saved from sin’ or covered in that old, devilish sin nature? Because ‘the wages of sin is death,’ what’s the aroma around your home? Is your ‘advocate’ active or has your ‘accuser’ prevailed? Is your family lifestyle ‘leading to death’ or are you dominated, inhabited, surrendered to resurrection life, hope, and power? Have you and your family been “washed from our sins” by the blood of Christ Jesus?

Third, What is Hosea 4:12-13 informing us about? What About The Insidious Idolatry Of Israel? “My people ask counsel from their wooden idols, and their staff [or rod] informs them. For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, and they have played the harlot against their God.”

It was James Luther Mays, in his Book, “Hosea: A Commentary,” [ U.S.A publication, The Westminister Press, 1969], who wrote: “Israel can no more be ‘my people’ and worship the Baals than a wife can be married and be a prostitute.”

In Ezekial 6:8-10 God informs us that there will be a “true remnant” within Israel, although the majority breaks God’s heart and His eternal tears flow! He said: “Yet I will leave a remnant so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.”

But remember, this “people”, Israel, was called “My people,” or God’s people in Hosea 4:12; but then it also says of “My people,” God speaking: “For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, and they have played the harlot against their God.”

They became of “street-walker” fame, both men and women, with the prophet even saying in verse 13, “…therefore your daughters shall commit whoredoms and your spouses shall commit adultery.”

Do you understand that there are those who “leave the Lord” and live in adulterous relationships physically and spiritually! Are you shocked when you read about those who choose “spiritual whoredoms”? What does Hosea 4:14 tell us?

“I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot. Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled [or ruined!].”

What did Jesus say in John 3:19? “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.” Didn’t Jesus tell us, “If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?”

And, according to Hosea 4:16-19, if Israel was stubborn like a stubborn calf, foraging like a lamb ‘in the wilds,’ where does that leave modern-day ‘professors of faith’ who live their lives unashamed of their rebellious spiritual natures? Verses 17-19 says, “Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. Their drink is rebellion. They commit harlotry continually. Her rulers dearly love dishonor. The wind has wrapped her up in its wings, and they shall be ashamed of their sacrifices.” Holy judgment comes! “And God, awaken your people! God, awaken them right in their places of shame, lead them out of spiritual apostasy, let the very blood of Christ wash them from the consequences of their rebellious, sinful, darkened paths, and lead them by the Eternal Light of Christ, raising them up to soar with Him on the wings of healing and deliverance and freedom from their bondage of sin and death! Holy God, expose the serious influence and effect of evil, expose the deathliness of sin, unveil the devices of the devil’s ways and the consequences of captivity under his shameful ways! Give a clear picture of the exposure of shame and guilt and bitter sadness and disappointment when one chooses the devil’s perilous, perverse, and painful paths. Amen?”

CHAPTER FIVE

HOSEA FIVE

JUDGMENTS, SNARES, NETS, AND HARLOTRIES – AND GOD’S

WITHDRAWAL!

Are you aware of a ‘day of exposure’ when Holy God reveals the rebellious nature of fallen men and brings forth an hour of holy judgment and condemnation with grace and mercy blown away by the very breath of God, and all men held personally accountable before Holy God for their rebellion and disobedience, each being held responsible for their shaming of their Creator and Savior and Lord?

In Hosea 5:1-2 we read, “Hear this, O priests! Take heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For yours is the judgment, because you have been a snare to Mizrah and a net spread on Tabor. The revolters are deeply involved in slaughter, though I rebuke them all.”

How do YOU respond when you read, “yours is the judgment,” because Holy God has a reason for it!?! Human existence is no excuse for feeding on the leaven of sin, being untrue to the Holy God who created them, or substituting divine reality for degenerate idolatry! Yet the religious, governmental, and personal leaders of Israel led the people down a path of hellish idolatry and personal pollution! And Holy God sent an anointed prophet called Hosea to announce to Israel, “Repent or else!”

Do you personally hear it, sense it, and have become aware that Holy God still gives a stern warning? In Hosea 5:1-2 we read, AGAIN, “Hear this, O priests! Take heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For yours is the judgment, because you have been a snare to Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.”

Translated to our modern day? “Hear, preachers; take heed, church at large; don’t close your eyes or ears, political leaders of every community! FOR YOURS IS THE JUDGMENT because YOU have been a snare in Fort Worth and Dallas, and a net spread over all of Texas!”

If you haven’t read “the signs” of late, there has been across Texas and all U.S.A. states a willing, and selfish, and voluntary denial of the consistency of God’s glory and honor and praise, and a yieldingness to the selfishness of fallen human nature, with a desire for “darkness”, not the True Light of Resurrected Presence! I’m sure it’s why Robert R. Brown, (Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Com. By Frank Mead. Westwood, NJ,p.398), who once wrote said: “It is part of our human nature but there is that within us which always wants to make self the center of its own universe and, in that selfish way, wants to tear God from His throne and deny his brother and advance his own ambition.”

But “deaf ears” have no desire to hear what God is saying! Hosea spoke loudly, personally, bravely, to religious priests, to royal princes, and to rebellious individuals, who really had no desire to hear what holy God had to say to them! Didn’t Hosea say, “Yours is the judgment, those of you who are a snare or a trap to others, and are like a ‘captive’ net over all the people around you?”

Did Hosea say, “God is ready to release His judgment upon you,” but many today say the same as Hosea’s very day, “It may be for some, but not for us”? And the sad reality is nations are defiled, nations are captured by the spirit of harlotry, and “they do not know the Lord”! Self-pride reigned then – self-pride reigns now! “They stumble in their iniquity”! And the sad end result for many peoples, even “professors of faith”? Hosea 5:6 says, “With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn Himself from them.”

In fact, in Jeremiah 5:18-19, Holy God spoke: “Nevertheless in those days,” says the Lord, “I will not make a complete end of you [YET!!]. And it will be when you say, ‘Why does the Lord our God do all these things to us?’ then you shall answer them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve aliens in a land that is not yours.’”

What did Hosea tell us in Hosea 5:7? “They have dealt treacherously with the Lord, for they have begotten pagan children. Now a New Moon shall devour them and their heritage.” Are you aware of “a day of reckoning” before Holy God when every man, woman, and child will stand before Holy God to give an account of their lives? What does Jeremiah 3:20 say to us all? “Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,” says the Lord. What does “a day of reckoning” say to you personally right now?

Pause and reflect upon Colossians 3:5-8! “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 now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.”

What you have just read are New Testament words but relevant to an Old Testament context! What was said to Hosea’s ‘holy people’ in his day can be repeated in most evangelical churches today – with consequences! But YOU are unsure violations of the Word today have the same consequences ? Have you witnessed the “decaying process” in one’s life, marriage, business , or even in ‘friend to friend’ relationships? I wrote following recently: “Sickness prevails, body, soul, and spirit, as ‘fallen men’ to hopelessness surrender; life’s choices, void of God, destined them for the sod, with the tombstone saying: ‘Absent from Holy God!’ No one seemed to care, as very few to the funeral attended, the many so aware of a life that pretended!”

In Hosea 5:8-15 we find words of warning for every man, family, or nation! It says: “Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah! Cry aloud at Beth Aven, ‘Look behind you, O Benjamin!’ Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke; among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure.

The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark [or boundary]; I will pour out My wrath on them like water. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked by human precept. Therefore I will be to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.

When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb; Yet he cannot cure you, nor heal you of your wound.

For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away; I will take them away, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

Deaf ears to the voice of Almighty God unleashes holy judgment! Refusing the Word of God in one’s life opens the door wide to the awful end of God’s wasting disease of judgment and a holy wrath! When a man closes the door to God’s guidance, Holy God opens the very windows of heaven and releases a wasting rottenness that will not die – it is an eternal sapping, snapping, sickening disease of judgment that never dies but instills a never-ending eternal doom and darkness and deathliness!

If God is “like a lion, a young lion” that tears and never goes away, with no one to rescue, in covenant, is His Word telling us, even in one’s falling away, that only in Him is there any hope? I sense that when His judgment falls that there are ‘some,’ ‘a few,’ who turn back to Him in repentance and faith!

But what frightens me and causes me to cry out to God more and more is the vain hopelessness and faithlessness of most men and women who waste their young then aged lives on “false gods”! Reading recently “The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning”, from 1826-1844, [published by J.E.Beale, Book Department, The Fancy Fair, Bournemouth], I want to end this chapter with a portion of her writing entitled “The Soul’s Travailing.” She wrote:

[A portion initially of pps.76-77], “I dwell amid the city. The great humanity which beats its life along the stony streets, Like a strong unsunned river In a self-made course, is ever Rolling on, rolling on! –

I sit and hear it as it rolls, That flow of souls! The infinite tendencies, In the finite, chafed and pent, – In the finite, turbulent! – The long, drear monotone, Made of many tones that rise Each to each as contraries! -…

The poor man’s abject needs – The feet that wearily, wearily roam, Unquickened by thoughts of the fire at home – The cry of the babe unheard of its mother, Though it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the other Laid yesterday in tomb!-

The whine of voices that have made Their own grief’s sacredness a trade – The curse that rings hollowly The crime against the misery -…

I dwell amid the city, and hear the flow of souls! I do not hear the several contraries – I do not hear the separate tone that rolls in act or speech, For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly – I hear the confluence and sum of each, [p.78-79], And that is melancholy! – The voice is a complaint, O crowned city, The blue sky covering you, like God’s great pity! –

You can hear them as they greet! You can hear that evermore Distance-softened noise, more old Then Nereid’s singing – the wave leant and joining soft up till the shore In harmony of discontent!…

]p.80-81], Always! Always! Must this be? Rapid Soul from city gone, Do you carry inwardly What does make the city’s moan? Must this deep sigh on your own haunt you with humanity?

Green visioned banks that are too steep To be over-browsed by the sheep, May all sad thoughts adown you creep Without a shepherd? – mighty sea, Can we dwarf your magnitude, and fit it to our straightest mood?

O fair, fair Nature! Are we this Impotent and querulous Among your workings glorious – Among your fullnesses that still leave us vacant and defiled, And wailing like a kissed child, Kissed soft against his will?

God, God! – With a child’s voice I cry, Weak, sad, confidingly – God, God! You know eyelids raised not always up Toward Your love (as none of ours are) droop, As ours, over many a tear!

You know, though Your universe is broad, Two little tears suffice to cover all! – You know – You who art so prodigal of beauty – we are oft but stricken deer, Expiring in the woods – that care for none Of those delightsome flowers they die upon!

O blissful mouth, which breathed the mournful breath, We name our souls! (self-spoiled!) by that strong passion Which paled You once with sighs – by that strong death Which made You once unbreathing – from the wrack, Themselves have called around them, call them back Toward You in continuous aspiring!

For here, O Lord, For here they travel vainly; vainly From city pavement to untrodden sward, Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass, Unswept of its last dew! – Yea, very vain The greatest speed of all these souls of men, Unless they travel upward to Your Throne!

There sits THOU, the satisfying ONE, with blood for sins, and holy perfectings For all requirements – while the archangel, raising Toward Your face his full ecstatic gazing, Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings!”

What an amazing piece of poetry so full of insight to “lost souls”, and yet, an unveiling of the true faithful who know “the rush and rapture of His wings”! Amen?

CHAPTER SIX

HOSEA SIX

REPENTANCE AND RETURN

If you are familiar with Ephesians 2:1-6, you’ll find there the Biblical context of sin and death in comparison with biblical grace and resurrection life and eternal hope! It says: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…”

As we come to Hosea 6, and especially the first few verses, do you sense the very broken heart of both God and Hosea as you see and read of the call to “return” to the Lord? And that would be individually and nationally! And, of course, you KNOW there is no ‘return’ to God apart from ‘repentance’ before God out of a convicted heart, mind, and soul!

Hosea 6:1-3 says: “Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.”

I’ve entitled Hosea 6 as “Repentance and Return,” but at the same time I sense it could be “The Pursuit of God’s Knowledge” or the pursuit of His biblical truth! “Come, and let us return to the Lord!” Why? Has there been a departure, a forsaking, even strong rebellion in His created people and nations?

Hosea 6:1-3 sounds very similar to Isaiah’s holy revelation in Isaiah 6:1-8! “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

“Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.” Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” And He said, “Go, and tell this people…”

The call to return to the Lord is as vital today as it was when Hosea called out: “Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.”

Later, in Isaiah 55:6-7, the Lord spoke so compassionately, so convincedly, and so convincingly, when Isaiah wrote: “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord.”

What did Hosea say? “Return to the Lord – and He will heal us! Return to the Lord – and He will bind us up! Return to the Lord – and He will revive us and raise us up”, to be seated with Christ in the heavenly places around God’s Holy Throne!” Are you alerted in your own life to the need of the miracle work of Christ in healing the daily ‘messiness’ of fallen mankind? Have you looked into His radiant face of redeeming grace or sensed the loving arms of His royal reach or the reaching hands from the eternal stand He made FOR YOU as He died on the Cross in your place?

“Return”! Though ‘torn by Him,’ He will heal you! Though ‘stricken’ by Him in holy conviction,’ He will bind you up by tender mercy! Didn’t John tell us, 3 John 2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers”?

It was James Thomson, in his “Castle of Indolence,” [Canto ii, st.57], who wrote: “But what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, when drooping health and spirits go amiss? How tasteless then whatever can be given! Health is the vital principle of bliss.” Sadly, many walk with ‘blinded minds’ rather than God-blessed “blissful minds”!

From Hosea 6:1-3, look with me at Hosea 6:4-6! “O Ephraim [Northern Kingdom], what shall I do to you? O Judah [Southern Kingdom}, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of My mouth; and your judgments are like light that goes forth. For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

I’m sure at some point or points in your life that you’ve been aware of “morning clouds” or “as the early dew [that] goes away”, and Holy God has spoken by the “appearances” of a religious faith that is so temporary but not governing the fullness of every-day life and devotion!

The fullness of God’s revelation is so broad, so deep, so wide, but Israel’s ‘follow-ship’ was so minute – outer devotions without inner heart change! And, no doubt, this is why Christ Jesus looked over Jerusalem and wept over it! [Does Christ Jesus weep today as He overviews the spirit of the professing church?]

One thing is for sure: The Lord Jesus Christ “is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance”! But today, are ‘prophets’ voiceless? Are the ‘messengers’ of judgment silent? Have the ‘good news proclaimers’ grown cold?

I think one of the saddest commentaries about modern church life today is when the prophet Jeremiah heard God say in 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; The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; the smelter refines in vain, for the wicked are not drawn off. People will call them rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them.”

Religion, devotion, surrender, ‘like a morning cloud’? If faithfulness is absent, be assured you are witnessing a quickly-disappearing life of devotion because they are only ‘the morning dew’ that appears and then is gone as the Son of God is lifted up and exalted! Sacrifices were numerous but devotion was like imitation silver and gold!

You are aware that ‘faith’ can simply be a matter of orthodoxy that one has programmed himself in but be totally void of the ‘living faith’ that transforms, births, and inhabits the true repentant heart, giving faithful glory and honor to one’s True Savior and Lord and Master of life! Do you understand “salt of the earth” or “light upon a hill”?

In Hosea 6:7-9 we see Hosea writing about men and a covenant-relationship with Holy God – are you unfamiliar with the New Testament “blood covenant” through the sacrificial offering of Christ Jesus at Calvary as He willingly took the Cross unto Himself that through His shed blood for our sins we might find forgiveness and resurrection life, hope, and power for an eternal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

But sadly Verse 7 tells us, “But like men [like Adam and Eve] they [Israel] transgressed the covenant.” “Pretense” is a horrible condition of many professing lives of ‘faith’ and ‘supposed surrender’, with God saying in Verse 7 also, “there they dealt treacherously with Me.” For many, it was ‘imitation’ rather than possession! Do you understand how sadly religious activity then and now cannot hide a depraved nature, sinful heart, or selfish mind?

Idolatry in Israel gained more attention than true devotion to Holy God! Idolatry defiled Israel more and more, deeper and deeper, even wider and wider, as that evil spirit captured more and more hearts and minds! Even the ‘priesthood’ became open defilement in sin, iniquity, and vile, superficial devotion to a man-made religion, with their ‘priests’ devoted to horrible lewdness with murder at altars becoming their main devotion!

Even Peter, in New Testament days, told us of the deceptions of false teachers when in 2 Peter 2:18-22 he wrote: “For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for then than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A DOG RETURNS TO HIS OWN VOMIT,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.” Just how sad do you sense that spiritual condition or the absence of it?

When in the end of Verse 7 Hosea recorded God Himself saying of Israel, “There they dealt treacherously with Me,” how do you respond to that? God Himself said Israel willingly violated covenant, sacred vows, and shamefully looked upon His blood covenant as nothing important to them or vital for their spiritual health!

I don’t know how you personally respond to Verse 10, but when God said, “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel,” I was personally shocked! The ‘Holy People of God’ involved in spiritual harlotry as well as physical harlotry in the Holy Place? Israel demonstrating defilement? Israel openly exhibiting wild lewdness before the Altar?

And I hate to disagree with a lot of ‘prophetic scholars’ (?), but I believe many have misinterpreted Hosea 6:11 when God said, “Also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed for you, when I return the captives of My people.” Oh, no doubt, there was the sacred remnant! Always has been – always will be! But the majority of Israel? The “harvest” was “a winnowing”, not a gathering in, like fruit off a tree that one gathered! Winnowing does mean, for some, “to subject to some process of critical analysis or separation.”

Dare I tell you? “Dead fruit has no value to Holy God!” Isaiah 5:16 says, “But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God who is holy shall be hallowed in righteousness,” but when unrighteousness becomes the majority testimony, only the few pass through God’s “storm clouds of holy judgment”!

What did John declare in Matthew 3:7-12? But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

You understand – there can be beautiful, luxuriant, abundant vines, but no fruit or rotten fruit, wilted, barren, sterile vines but unproductive as to what “the seed of God” produces!

“Trees without Good Fruit”? “Trees that are Godless”? You do remember what God said about Israel, His unfaithful people, in Hosea 2:8? “For she did not know that I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold – which they prepared for Baal.” God’s blessing on His chosen people became gifts to the idols of Satan himself! Hearts divided in loyalty always produce, from the root of an evil nature, gifts to “the Baals” or gifts to “the demons,” with some even believing they were giving to God!

Foolish, unbelieving, idolatrous worshippers, are sadly blinded and deceived concerning their sin and its inevitable judgment, and even riotous and resentful when they learn, finally, their false devotion has been to demons and idols! And Hell awaits their coming forever!

CHAPTER SEVEN

HOSEA SEVEN

RUTHLESS DECEPTION – RAMPANT WICKEDNESS

How did God begin Hosea 7? It is still an awesome, inspiring, and yet painful word because God’s plea, God’s offer, God’s remedy, was rejected! Hosea 7:1-2 says, “When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they have committed fraud; a thief comes in; a band of robbers takes spoil outside. They do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own deeds have surrounded them; they are before My face.”

Iniquity? Wickedness? Fraudulent faith? Fleshly theft, ruthless deception, rampant wickedness? Deceived hearts and minds? “But it’s OK because it’s all done in secret – nobody knows, not even God,” when God declares, “I remember all their wickedness,” “I’m not blind,” and, “Your sin is ever before My face”! And the reckless, rebellious, even ruthless sinners, who believe God IS blind to one’s inner, hidden sins, and He doesn’t know and never sees one’s ‘secret sins’, journey on thinking all is well because God couldn’t know the secrets of their hearts! But He does see and is fully aware of every step you take, good or bad, out of the flesh or through the Spirit, rejection of His Word or reception of His every command!

RUTHLESS DECEPTION AND RAMPANT WICKEDNESS continues to abound because fallen mankind, dark hearts, defiant wills, continue in unbelief that God couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t be concerned about what ‘sinners’ do – it’s their business, they assume, and why should God care? Hosea 7:2? “They do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own deeds have surrounded them; [and] they are before My face.”

Where does “surrounding one’s own deeds” come from? Could that be His holy presence “whose eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me”? Dare I tell you that God’s eyes are not dimmed, blind, or uncaring about where you are or are not in your spiritual journey ordained by Him?

But there are ‘thieves’ and there are ‘bands of robbers’ who desire to take the spoils of your life outside the rule of God’s Kingdom? Absolutely! Did Jesus tell us in John 10:10 that “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy;” and how many cross your paths daily unconcerned about demonic thievery? And do you perceive the ‘devilish robbers’ who are on your highway of life, faith or not, who are out to ‘strip you,’ ‘wound you,’ and then seek to ‘leave you, even half-dead’?

Hosea was mightily used by God to paint the horrid truth of ruthless deception, rampant wickedness, and the awfulness of Israel’s deception about their continuous sin, shameful disobedience, and a bizarre unwillingness to repent and rest in God’s promise of forgiveness and reconciliation. It seemed that Israel was blinded to the holiness of the God they claimed to serve – or a mutual willingness to color over the blackness of their ‘spiritual anarchy’ as they willingly violated the very spirit and nature of God’s holiness and the call by Him on their nation to portray to the whole world around them His righteousness! Israel and their spiritual leaders became major transgressors of God’s law and Spirit, delighting in their lawlessness!

Doesn’t Hosea 7:4 declare, “They are all adulterers”? And be assured, Israel as a nation were physical adulterers, prophets, priests, kings, and general public, without shame – but Baal ‘worship’ erupted all over the nation, like physical adultery, inflamed with the ‘fires’ of idol worship, as fleshly devotion to idols overcame any true devotedness to the One True God!

It’s interesting reading a number of commentators who speak of Hosea 7:5 as Hosea commented on “in the day of our king” that “princes made him sick, inflamed with wine”; “princes” or spiritual overseers of their immoral devotions; religious leaders making God sick? The Sovereign Lord’s reign across Israel had been perverted as people and prophets lived in lawlessness and moral anarchy! Is it possible for you that Verse 5’s “he stretched out His hand TO [not with!] scoffers”, was King Jesus, even then, so desirous to make the difference in the chosen people’s walk and faith? But at the same time tyrannical ‘kings’ led in perversions, even in the temple, that shamed the very name of Holy God as they exhibited wickedness, corruption, debauchery, deceit, fleshly amusements with no self-restraint, idol worship, and woeful unrighteousness ! Yes, Hosea witnessed a time period of “ruthless deception and rampant wickedness”!

Examine Hosea 7:6-7 carefully, considering the rebellious hearts and minds that were overwhelmed by a ‘deadly spiritual virus’ of constant avoidance of submission unto Holy God, their lives like an unwatched oven that erupted in a flaming fire of destructive rebellion in defiance of the will, Word, and ways of the watchful God of mercy, grace, and love, as Hosea was inspired to announce to the nation, “None among them calls upon Me!”, meaning that none were aware that they were covenant- cursed!!

But the “exposure” of Israel didn’t slow down as Hosea identified their “mixture” of compromise and indifference to the Holy Word, Holy will, and Holy ways of God Almighty! Hosea 7:8-10 tells us, “Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples; Ephraim is a cake unturned. Aliens have devoured his strength, but he does not know it; Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him, yet he does not know it. And the pride of Israel testifies to his face, but they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him for all this.”

Israel ‘mixing’ himself among peoples who were not ‘of God’, trusting themselves and others rather than the Divine Creator! Does it strike a ‘high note’ of awareness that most people, like Israel, look to surrounding peoples, nations, and rulers, rather than the reality of God’s Holy Presence, the One desirous of redeeming and blessing and fulfilling His creations through available lives that ‘lean not to their own understanding, but in all their ways acknowledge Him’? No doubt Paul saw the danger of ‘flesh’ introspection rather than divine revelation when in 2 Timothy 2:7 he wrote to young Timothy telling him, “Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.” Did Hosea mention that people can so mix themselves in human wisdom to the point that fleshly dependency is like, Verse 9, “Aliens have devoured his strength”, and he doesn’t even know what he lost!

Human mixture without God is not only a reckless, senseless recipe, but a spiritually, indigestible half-baked cake, suggesting what one writer described as ‘unbalanced development’ – or careless concentration or absence on matters of eternal significance that fulfill God’s everlasting plan, provision, and ministry that spells His blessing rather than one’s self-imposed curse because ‘moral, biblical, God-like instruction, limits one’s fleshly desires for freedom in self-indulgence, or one’s immoral desires to play with “fire”, even if one gets burned, or one not caring about immediate and long-term rotting and decay’!

Are you familiar with Judges 16:20 when Delilah had come to alert Samson after lulling him to ‘sleep’? And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.

It was Horatius Bonar who once said, “In all unbelief there are two things; a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God;” and, yes, even ancient Israel, in most corners, had a bad opinion of God as they majored on the rottenness of their own unbelief! In fact, I’m sure that most who read this would agree that most unbelief, found so clearly in the history of ancient and modern Israel, over-flowed in a stiffed-necked spirit resenting God’s Way! What did Hosea say in Hosea 7:10? “And the pride of Israel testifies to his face, but they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek Him for all this.”

And what did Israel do, and even most nations across the world today? My NKJV calls Hosea 7:11-16 “Futile Reliance on the Nations”! Verse 11 tells us, “Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without sense – they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.” And the end result of that? Verse 12 says, God speaking, “Wherever they go, I will spread My net on them; I will bring them down like birds of the air; I will chastise them according to what their congregation has heard,” and at least they had heard of God’s covenant whether they wanted to submit to it or not! And they didn’t!

There is a very strong reason and explanation of what God said. In Hosea 7:13-14 we read, “Woe to them, for they have fled from Me! Destruction to them, because they have transgressed against Me! Though I redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me. They did not cry out to Me with their heart when they wailed upon their beds.”

To choose your way rather than God’s Way is to release a deadly destruction upon one’s life! To choose self-will over divine will is like a flighty dove that never sought a shelter! To choose your way over God’s will is like a dove captured in a net rather than safe under God’s divine protection!

So, here it comes! Judgment! Alienation! Separation! Captured by the enemies of God! Destruction! Hosea 7:13-15 tells us, “Woe to them, for they have fled from Me! Destruction to them, because they have transgressed against Me! Though I redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me. They did not cry out to Me with their heart when they wailed upon their beds. They assemble together for grain and new wine, they rebel against Me; Though I disciplined and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against Me.”

What did God say about Israel in Hosea’s day before him, during, and after him? “They led from Me!” “They transgressed against Me!” “They have spoken lies against Me!” “They were heartless toward Me!” “They devised evil against Me!” “They disgraced God’s favor, brought shame on His Name, and rested in their lies not His blessing!”

God blessed them, but Israel rejected Him and robbed Him of His glory, honor, and praise! God blessed them, but Israel devised evil against His Holy Name as they bowed down before idols and worshipped them rather than Him! They placed Holy God in their ‘order of worship’ with devilish idols, thinking that should give Him praise enough!

Do you see that God brought judgment upon Israel because, through His blessings, Holy God expected submission, honor, and praise, as His blessed people bowed before Him in mutual, faithful admiration, because of His gift of righteousness, and His miraculous mercy – but they rebelled! Rather than the rain of righteousness, Israel received unfulfilled expectations, the exhaustive life of Holy absence, and a name without heavenly honor!

In Hosea 7:16 God said, “They return, but not to the Most High; they are like a treacherous bow. Their princes [spiritual priests] shall fall by the sword for the cursings of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.”

Was Israel an exemplary picture of a true view of Holy God? What you just read in Verse 16 of Hosea 7 was God Himself saying, “They return, but not to the Most High.” Religious doesn’t mean re-born, but a feigned devotion to religious activity in a public pretense that had no true foundation of eternal life or nation transformation.

In fact, in Verse 16, God went on to say, “They are like a treacherous bow. Their princes [spiritual priests or leaders] shall fall by the sword [and I can’t help but wonder again]: “Fall by the sword of the Lord, His Holy Word?”

And the reason God gave? “Fall by the sword” because they made it “the cursings of their tongue” because of the lies they promoted in their religious scams and idolatrous devotions, even their abominable betrayal of the Coming King of kings and Lord of lords! They were certainly a religious people, though false and foreign to Holy God, cheapened imitations of the True Messiah, but no allegiance to what was birthed through them, even the Messiah!

Disobedience was natural and why they crucified Jesus – He said to them, “Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, but you do not do what I say?” Their devotion was to sexual immorality, moral impurities, social sins shameful to even repeat! Israel was, yes, opposition to God’s moral laws! Moral bankruptcy was the dark testimony of human history through Israel’s rebellion and, at the same time, the faithfulness of God in bringing forth unfolding judgment upon Israel’s faithlessness!

God turned Israel over to the enemies they tried to imitate as Israel’s judge and jury and executioner! Ever wonder who it is God turns the imitators over to in the time of His modern-day judgments?

CHAPTER EIGHT

HOSEA EIGHT

THE MESSAGE, THE MOANING, THE MADNESS

Though only fourteen verses Hosea 8 is packed with warning bells concerning judgment on a deceived, disobedient, denying nation who professed allegiance to Holy God while His Holy Word exposed their apostasy! Aren’t you thankful that God looks upon you and me, and mercy abounds – warnings ARE merciful!

Do you believe “Turn or Burn” is merciful? Yet multitudes, even like ‘religious’ Israel, are deaf to a prophet’s warning, deaf to the clear sound of God’s voice through the prophet, deaf even to the destructive, downward, deadly events that spoke of, yes, immediate judgment and divine retribution!

I’ve been in Africa a few times in my life, and hearing the roar of a lion near-by was certainly a wake-up call that danger was near. And when Hosea is told, “Set the trumpet to your mouth!”, be assured the trumpet sound is the sound of warning and possible rescue, IF!

It’s the voice of God’s prophet, not the literal blowing of a beautiful trumpet, but the voice of one sounding God’s alarm: “Israel’s on a downward spiral away from God! Holy God grants the gift of repentance and faith! But most of Israel rejected God’s plea!”

In Romans 10:16-21 Paul wrote, [Remember, Paul was a Jewish rabbi before his conversion to Christ!], But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: “Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says:

“I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.” But Isaiah is very bold and says: “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.” But to Israel he says: “All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

FIRST, LET’S LOOK AT THE MESSAGE OF “EAGLE-DANGER”! Certainly, Americans have respect for the beautiful eagle that soars over the nation, but at the same time the eagle is seen as a vulture who devours! When the prophet Hosea spoke of a descending eagle of prey upon Israel, it was God’s message of impending doom upon His “chosen people” if they didn’t repent and return to Him!

The eagle represented God’s use of a warring people to execute judgment upon His disobedient people. What Israel saw as ‘special privilege’ became ‘specific punishment’ because of the distinct statements of ‘loyalty’ and ‘devotion’, though they spent more time with idols than surrender to the Sovereignty of Holy God! I love what Fred M. Wood said in his book, “Hosea: Prophet of Reconciliation,” [p.76], about Israel in Hosea 8:2, when “Israel will cry to Me, My God, we know You!”, Dr. Wood saying, “Wailing and taking part in excessive ritual, they would insist they were properly related to God. Their cry, “My God,” would be their way of claiming special privilege because of their heritage. Many people have this attitude. They ignore God until no other help is present, then fall back upon Him. They presume upon God’s grace.”

I don’t know how anyone can read what we’re seeing in Hosea 8 as Hosea was raised up by God to announce a release, like a consuming eagle, as God informs through the prophet, of a people He was sending upon a rebellious people to execute severe, swift, strong judgment, for Israel’s mistreatment of covenant grace and sacred mercy and holy will, similar to Jesus’ prediction of Jerusalem’s desolation, in Matthew 24:28, “For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered.”

Carcasses and hungry eagles? As Jeremiah wrote “Lamentations”, it was not a gloating, ‘I told you so,’ but a grieving, heart-broken declaration, under God’s anointing to, yes, turn Israel from death unto resurrection life! Lamentations 1:1-2 says, “How lonely sits the city (Jerusalem) that was full of people! How like a widow is she, who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces has become a slave! She weeps bitterly in the night, her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her, all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.”

And the sad declaration of Jeremiah’s words? Lamentations 1:8-9 tells us: “Jerusalem has sinned gravely, therefore she has become vile. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; yes, she sighs and turns away. Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not consider her destiny; therefore her collapse was awesome; she had no comforter. ‘O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy is exalted!’”

“My God, we know You!” But God said in Hosea 8:3, “Israel has rejected the good; the enemy will pursue him.” Why did Holy God declare this through Hosea? Hosea 8:4-6, God speaking: “They set up kings [on their own authority!], but not by Me; they made princes [rulers], but I did not acknowledge them. From their silver and gold they made idols for themselves – that they might be cut off. Your calf is rejected, O Samaria! My anger is aroused against them – how long until they attain innocence? For from Israel is even this: A workman made it (an idol), and it is not God; but the calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.”

But as we’re reading Hosea 8, and we see a people living under their own authority though professing allegiance to God, what did God say about their ‘religious program’? Hosea 8:7-10 says, “They sow the wind [of words, lies, falsehoods], and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; [similar to the difference between wheat and tares?]. It shall never produce meal. If it should produce, aliens would swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up; [that’s the Northern Kingdom! The Southern comes much later, like 70AD!]. Now they are among the Gentiles like a vessel in which is no pleasure. For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey alone by itself; Ephraim has hired lovers. [Hiring both physical and spiritual adulterers!]. Yes, though they have hired among the nations, now I will gather them; and they shall sorrow a little, because of the burden of the king of princes.” A temporary sorrow that did not lead Israel to true repentance!

Hosea 8:11 explains God’s judgment! “Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin, [“golden calves!”], they have become for him altars for sinning.” Are you aware of any “golden calves” you bow before? What did John say in 1 John 5:21? “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen?”

How convicting do you find Hosea 8:12 when God said of the famous religious people, Israel, “I have written for him the great things of My law, but they were considered a strange thing”? ‘A strange thing’? Verse 13 tells us, “For the sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it.” From Genesis through to the end of Revelation, Holy God unveiled one sacrifice for sin: the Holy Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ! But you are aware: some choose “pigs” instead of the Crucified Christ lovingly given by Holy God the Father and True Redeemer!

You understand that most men ignore sin sacrifice in their lives or establish ridiculous alternatives to God’s Eternal Way! Oh, Israel was religious! They even made ‘sacrifices’ but selfishly, angrily, sinfully, crucified Christ, and ate what they deemed to be acceptable in their sight, “and God should be satisfied in the way we choose!” I don’t think so! And if you ever read the Holy Word, neither will you!

What does Hosea 8:14 then tell us? “For Israel has forgotten his Maker, and has built temples. Judah also has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his palaces.” True believers today have a hard time understanding how a “chosen people” betray God’s calling? But simply and scripturally revealed, God says: “Israel CHOSE self-rule, self-will, the satisfying of their sexual, sensual desires in their way, even before My Holy Altar in and around My Holy Temple!” They even considered ‘foreign alliances’ more acceptable than the Throne of God!

It’s really interesting and informative when you read Deuteronomy 12:5-11! For those of us who are “in Christ”, it has illustrative meaning! It says: “But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, the first-born of your herds and flocks.

And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

You shall not at all do as we are doing here today – every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes – for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.

But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.”

Israel 8:14 said, “For Israel has forgotten His Maker,” while today Hosea might be asking our world around us, “Have you forgotten the Master? The Savior, the Redeemer, even called Emmanuel or “God With Us”! Is God with you?

In the old Broadman Hymnal dated 1940, published by the old Broadman Press, I came across an old hymn written by F. Whitfield from a Greek Melody. It says:

“I saw the cross of Jesus, When burdened with my sin; I sought the cross of Jesus, To give me peace within; I brought my soul to Jesus, He cleansed it in His blood; And in the cross of Jesus I found my peace with God.

I love the cross of Jesus, It tells me what I am – A vile and guilty creature, Saved only through the Lamb; No righteousness, nor merit, No beauty can I plead; Yet in the cross I glory, My title there I read.

I clasp the cross of Jesus In every trying hour, My sure and certain refuge, My never-failing tower; In every fear and conflict, I more than conqueror am; Living I’m safe, or dying, Thro’ Christ, the risen Lamb.

Sweet is the cross of Jesus! There let my weary heart Still rest in peace unshaken, Till with Him, never to part; And then in strains of glory, I’ll sing His wondrous power, Where sin can never enter, And death is known no more.” AMEN?

CHAPTER NINE

HOSEA NINE

BANKRUPTCY BUT NOT BROKENNESS

It’s amazing to me that the holy prophet of God came before His people Israel as they celebrated their identity, their harvest, their riches, but he came with God’s divine accusations of fleshly sins, spiritual betrayals, personal debauchery, blindness to His true Word, and bankruptcy without any brokenness!

The very first words of Hosea 9:1 were, “Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you [God’s ‘chosen people’!] have played the harlot against your God. You have made love for hire on every threshing floor.” Could it be that Hosea was saying, “You have no reason to rejoice, to dance, to celebrate, to party, to sing, because your choice of lifestyles brings no honor or glory to the Holy Name of God? Israel, why rejoice when your chosen lifestyles are a disgrace to Holy God? Why dance when you’re so crippled? Why sing when your lifestyles are so off-key? Why celebrate when God’s voice is calling for the closing of your entrance into His “promised land”?

It’s almost like every word out of the prophet’s mouth is a word of ‘wake up,’ ‘repent,’ ‘return or burn’, ‘bankruptcy is your record,’ ‘poverty will be your end result,’ ‘your merry-ment will become your misery, your supposed peace will become your peril, your party-life will become your peril,’ ‘and your future will be steps into eternal disappointment’! And that’s from the prophet of God!

I often wonder how a religious world responds to a prophetic indictment! All over the modern religious world will the death of prophets still remain as a “just course of our action” because those prophets “insult” us? Might as well be, “Prophets insult us, so we kill them,” because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and He still looks for the next prophet in the modern day like Hosea!

And one cannot help but wonder about the future of the church at Ephesus after John had a visitation from “the First and the Last,” from “Alpha and Omega,” saying to ‘the angel of the church of Ephesus write,’ Revelation 2:4-5, “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen [away]; repent, and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent.”

In my New King James Version of the Bible, as it begins Hebrews 6, it refers to “The Peril of Not Progressing.” Hebrews 6:4-8 says, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the power of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.”

And the author of Hebrews added in Verse 9, “But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.”

No doubt some heard from Hosea because they understood ‘bankruptcy’ and its consequences, and no doubt some heard the Hebrews’ author’s challenge and turned away from a falling away destiny to God’s gravitational pull by His Spirit! The question of this moment is, “If you have fallen away, is it forever ‘bankruptcy’ for you, or a ‘grace-return and blessing’?

Hosea heard Holy God, in His compassionate love, grace, and mercy, and confronted Israel where they were in their gross spiritual state of falling away from Holy God! Compassion is even confrontation and exposure when one’s eternal destiny is hanging by a thin thread! So God spells it out simply and truthfully!

Holy God said to Israel and every ‘falling-away nation today,’ “You have no reason to be rejoicing, O Israel, BECAUSE: “You have played the harlot against your God! You’ve been making love for hire on every threshing floor or ‘Bourbon Street’!” Verse 3 then says, “They shall not dwell [or be ‘at home’] in the Lord’s land.” Oh, Jerusalem was occupied but that doesn’t mean that ‘they (Israel) were at home with God’!

Does Verse 3 also say, ‘but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, eat unclean things in Assyria, offer things to Holy God that are totally unacceptable, sacrifice but in no way please God,’ “ living by pretense and not possessed by God, the Savior, or the Spirit”?

Verses 5-7 should be “days of being awakened rather than days of eternal execution”! The Word says, “What will you do in the appointed day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord? For indeed they are gone because of destruction. Egypt shall gather them up; Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their valuables of silver; thorns shall be in their tents. The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel knows! The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane (or demented), because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity.”

Follow Psalm 81! The chief musician sang, especially for this study, Verses 11-15! “But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels. Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever.”

The end of Psalm 83:2 identifies “the proud opponents” of God! “ “…And those who hate You, God, have lifted up their head.” Arrogant unbelievers are easily identifiable – and they usually form a small army of opponents to the Truth and celebrate together their spiritual dumbness!

Even in Revelation 2:4-5 the angel to the church at Ephesus wrote, “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent.” What would our Lord and Savior say in these days of, sadly, profession without possession, works apart from the fruit of the Spirit, labor that does not overflow out of the heart of the love of God, a few spasmodic efforts apart from the divine infilling and overflowing of God’s anointing and aim! Are you aware that there are those who can speak about their “happiness” in church attendance but know nothing about being “blessed beyond measure”?

It would be advisable for every ‘professing believer’ to re-examine what they professed in the early days of turning to Christ Jesus, testifying of His grace, mercy, and love, truly resting in His finished work, living by the fullness of His indwelling life, knowing the overflowing blessing of Holy Spirit anointing, rich beyond measure in confidence and assurance and desire to please, honor, and bless His Holy Name, but NOW? Cold, indifferent, isolated, walking alone, away from the calling, away from obedience, away from pressing in, away from the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, away from the sharing of life, from the need of receiving from others and giving to others, away from prayer, from hearing His voice, from sensing the very beating of His heart and knowing the will of His mind – remember: “I knocked but you didn’t answer or open your heart’s door to Me?”

What does Hosea 9:8-9 tell us? “The watchmen of Ephraim is with my God; but the prophet is a fowler’s snare in all his ways – enmity [or hostility] in the house of his God.” Does modern-day ‘Christianity’ and their houses of worship see or witness both true prophets and false prophets? And are you aware that true prophets have very little ‘welcome’ in the houses of God, while false prophets are usually warmly welcomed!

“Flattery will get you nowhere?” Oh, yes, it will! And false prophets were experts at pleasing the crowds of evil-doers while true prophets were despised! But false prophets were opponents to the holy prophetic words of God and loved, especially by evil kings or rulers, deeply corrupted, drastically depraved, promoters of deception, “all-stars” of the wicked rulers!

And what did God say through Hosea in Romans 9:10-13? “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season. But they [descendants of Israel’s initial spiritual giants] went to Baal Peor, and separated themselves to that shame; they became an abomination like the thing they loved.

As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird – no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them to the last man, yes, woe to them when I depart from them! Just as I saw Ephraim like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place, so Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.”

Are you aware of how serious sin is in the example of “fruit trees” corrupted in “foreign lands”? Do you see what we read in Hosea 9:10-13 as chosen people of God exchanging their holy position for the practice of flesh worship, demon bondage, and facing sad and serious recompense? God said: “Israel, GUILTY! Israel, morally insensitive! Israel, separating themselves to shame! Israel, yielding to indifference to Holy God!” And ‘the glory departed!’

Do you grasp how serious substituting God’s grace for self-pride becomes in a “professor of allegiance” who wanders from God’s pleasant places to the hall or state of “the curse”, the downfall, the separation, the hell of exposing themselves, their wives and children, their destiny for a moment’s fleshly pleasure? Did you pause and reflect at Verse 12 when God said through Hosea, “Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!”

One would think that the “woe of God’s departure” would be a serious turning of acceptance of His will, His Way, and His wonder, but does Hosea 9:14-17 awaken you more and more about YOUR total submission to Holy God? What did Hosea say?

“Give them, O Lord – what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts! [The curses of Deuteronomy 28?]. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them. Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them from My house; I will love them no more. All their princes [‘religious leaders’] are rebellious.

Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Yes, were they to bear children, I would kill the darlings of their womb.”

My God will cast them away, because they did not obey Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.”

Miscarrying wombs, dry breasts, open wickedness, evil deeds, driven from God’s house, rebellious religious leaders, stricken, dried up roots, no fruit, no children, cast away, wanderers among the nations, but YOU see them as “blessed of God”? The “blessed” are the holy remnant not the majority of Israel!

Always remember, “By their fruits you shall know them.” And that hasn’t changed! Spiritual barrenness is not a blessing! I believe I would thoroughly examine what Peter was talking about when in 2 Peter 1:5-10 he wrote: “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”

Dr. Ed Vallowe, in his book, “Prophetic Preaching From Hosea,” [p.65], wrote: He shall ‘Cast them away.’ To be cast out by human society is terrible: to be cut off and cast away by God is more terrible! She was set aside to become wanderers among the nations. Such has been her lot and her sorrows ever since. The poor, suffering, sorrowing, wandering Jew!…She was Rejoicing in Prosperity. She reaps Poverty.”

Tell me about your ‘journey’ with Holy God!

CHAPTER TEN

HOSEA TEN

FATAL FRUITLESSNESS – FULL CHASTENING

Can you imagine a time for a fruit farmer to do everything in his own power to produce a bountiful harvest of fruit, invites his family and friends to a “joyous” occasion, even fruit buyers arrived for the big day, but then the “Overseer” announced, “There are beautiful vines, adoringly beautiful, seemingly so healthy, but then the owner is humbled in having to announce to all, ‘There is no abiding fruit – the vines are all empty; they have failed concerning why they are fruit vines.’”

And the parallel truth is: “Look at the nation of Israel – she is an empty vine; though abounding in appearance with her beautiful vines, gorgeous in appearance as ‘fruit vines’, but non-productive in the growth and abundance of a fruitful harvest! Cut the vines down – they’ve failed in their eternal purpose!”

A “Chosen People” for an eternal purpose and plan, but her ‘spiritual leaders’ are blinded by their ‘fallen flesh’ and given over to corruption rather than given over to the honor and glory of God! There wasn’t the testimony of the high praises of God through them but the low, sinful nature of foolish purposes, selfish ideals, low-minded intents, as they were held captive to idol worship, held captive to corrupt satisfactions, and were held captive to demonic and devilish control!

Fatal fruitlessness was the stumbling stone and full chastening was the divine reality for a foolish, faithless, faulty, failing people who proclaimed allegiance to God but were deceived into idol worship and ‘fleshly playing’ with a fallen away desire to satisfy their lusts and sin natures! Let’s look together at these fifteen verses in Hosea Chapter 10 as Holy God exposed their inner manifestation of evil intent as He unveiled their spiritual state and fatal, faulty, foolish ‘religious game’ called “Deception Before God Who Is Not Blind”!

Hosea 10:1 says, “Israel empties his vine; he brings forth fruit for himself! According to the multitude of his fruit he has increased the altars; according to the bounty of his land they have embellished his sacred pillars.”

I don’t know how even an unbeliever could deny how Israel faced God’s judgment! The ‘emptying of Israel’s vine’ was self-imposed, self-centered paths they chose for themselves. And one thing should be learned by every Bible student if he/she doesn’t already know it: “Religious prosperity is not necessarily the blessing of Almighty God but the ‘best’ of a fallen sin nature and carnal expressions of pagan worship but not the true worship of Holy God!” Trees can produce beautiful leaves but be worthless for producing healthy fruits!

“Empty vines” are indicative of empty lives or nations, maybe churches or even marriages! I don’t know of a more convicting passage than God saying through Hosea, “Israel is an empty vine!” What a sad, heart-breaking analysis by God that should have brought Israel to brokenness, repentance, and true redemptive faith, but Israel worshipped more pagan gods, built more disgraceful altars, and plunged deeper into the depths of the sea of sinful satisfaction! The reason?

Hosea 10:2 clearly says, under God’s anointing, “Their (Israel) heart is divided; (that means ‘faithless’, ‘compromising’, or ‘trashing God’s Truth’!); now they are held guilty; He [Holy God] will break down their altars; He will ruin their sacred pillars.”

The New Testament parallel? Examine John 15:1-6 as Jesus spoke in His day: “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 [Disciples of Christ] 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.” [That’s unbelievers, compromisers, atheists, agnostics, folks with head knowledge of Truth but no surrender to the Truth!].

“Their heart [Israel’s heart] is divided,” faithless, compromising, trashing God’s Truth!” And when you read that, does it suggest to you warped opinions about life, about purpose, and about the God who made us, then lost us because of our ‘greater love’ for the sinful nature and fleshly lusts? Is a ‘divided heart’ the distinct picture of ‘unbelief’? Is that a heart, mind, and soul, overcome by his/her unbelief, that so clouds one’s existence that Truth becomes a lie and a lie becomes their guiding light of life, which is nothing more than total darkness and spiritual blindness?

It was Horatius Bonar who once said: “In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God.” [“The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey,p.456]. And, there is no doubt, Israel came to the place of a bad opinion of God because they were so in love with their degeneracy, overcome and enslaved to their ‘divided hearts’!

Hosea 10:3-4 unveils even more of a nation’s rebellious heart! Verse 3, “We have no king, no fear of God! What could a God or a king do for us?” In their walk of fleshly pride, false gods, foolish devotions, though they ‘made covenants,’ they ‘swore falsely’, even as they made covenants with God and idols, and their false seeds sprang up like poison in the fields of their individual lives and corporate allegiances!

And their sad confession? “We have no king”! And, at this point in Israel’s existence, I find this a cry of desperation, even with no intent to look to Holy God to make the difference in their nation’s identity! Does it literally “blow your mind” to see a people divinely created with eternal purpose who finds itself in deep, deep trouble, but has no intent in “turning” but just excusing who they are and what they’ve done? “We have no king, nor any fear of God!” Is 2016 AD any different for Israel?

Hosea 10:5-6 amplifies the guilt of Israel as they admitted in the two previous verses that they had no king, no true lord, no master, “because we did not fear the Lord,” and then they berated their rulers who only “spoke words, swearing falsely in making a covenant”! Oh, and then Verses 5-6 exposes their guilt!

“The inhabitants of Samaria fear because of the calf of Beth Aven. For its people mourn for it, and its priests shriek for it – because its glory has departed from it. The idol also shall be carried to Assyria as a present for King Jareb. Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.”

Do you understand ‘the calf of Beth Aven’? That’s an ‘idol’ and Beth Aven is ‘the wicked house’ – and Israel and her priests mourned over its emptiness and its priests cried out for it! And you wonder why God judged Israel? As their ‘idol’ was carried away, Verse 6b, “Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel”! Have you ever heard someone say to you, “What a fool I’ve been – how could I ever have fallen for that ‘garbage’?”

Remember: Hosea 10 relates to the sinfulness of God’s degenerate people bringing forth fruit for its self, and Verses 7-8 tells us, “As for Samaria, her king is cut off like a twig on the water. Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; they shall say to the mountains, ‘Cover us!’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us!’

Does Revelation 6:12-17 seem to be an exact re-occurring in New Testament days as it was in Old Testament days, and especially through the ministry time of Hosea? It’s identical in God’s holy judgment! Do you think in these modern days the same context and judgment occurs? Follow the Beloved John’s word!

I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

What did Hosea record in Hosea 10:8? The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; they shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!” So?

God addresses Israel’s sin and every nation and every man’s sin. THEY ARE AND WE ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE! In Hosea 10:9-11, There IS confrontation! “O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah; there they stood. The battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. When it is My desire, I will chasten them. Peoples shall be gathered against them when I bind them for their two transgressions. Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh grain; but I harnessed her fair neck, I will make Ephraim pull a plow. Judah shall plow; Jacob shall break his clods.”

Merciful God, though angry with Israel, opens His heart for ALL to see, especially those who are as reckless and defiant as Israel was and still is! My wife and I have a dear, dear friend who has ministered in Israel for years. The only problem she has is that Israelites have no desire to hear what she has to say about their Messiah! And her ministry, in Israel, is primarily to Muslim women that she disciples regularly!

What is God telling us today through Hosea? I’m sure you’ve already learned, even through His patience with you, but especially as He dealt with Israel, the “chosen people,” century after century, clearly hesitating to bring His judgment upon them. Even though disciplined by the Lord, they continued in their rebellious, defiant ways, and then Verse ten tells us, “God will roar like a lion. When He roars, then His sons shall come trembling from the west…”. I’m sure you understand that there was a “remnant” in Israel as, no doubt, there is today, but the majority of Israel does NOT tremble before the Lord!

Do you know what God said in Ezekial 18:30-32? “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord God. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? FOR I [GOD] HAVE NO PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF ONE WHO DIES,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!” You ARE AWARE of “the wages of sin”!

Israel joined themselves to “two calves” and they plowed “two furrows”. Simply, Israel “bound” themselves with whatever seemed reasonable for them in their fallen state! These “two” unions may be what Jeremiah referred to in Jeremiah 2:13! The prophet Jeremiah stated God’s ,yes, broken-heart when He looked upon Israel and said, “For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.” That was allegiance to idols! Not God!

But, do YOU desire the favor and blessing of Holy God on your life? Hosea 10:12 tells Israel and all seekers today: “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for IT IS TIME TO SEEK THE LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” Do you realize that’s God’s calling on every or any nation across our world today? Merciful God, compassionate God, seeking God has no desire for any to perish separated from Him! “God so loved the world” and still does!

What does Isaiah 55:6-7 tell us today? “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

But, I pray, don’t skip over or read lightly Hosea 10:13! “Israel, you have plowed wickedness; you have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, BECAUSE you trusted in your own way, in the multitude of your mighty men.” Plowing a field of iniquity, like a sinful life, always has the same result: a life of sin in bondage to the very nature and character of Satan himself! Sinners are blinded because they rest in themselves, their own abilities, their own strengths even in trusting their own weaknesses, and are assured, in themselves, that their abilities, their skills, their ambitions, will be all they’ll ever need! Self-will, self-power, self-ambition produces that demonic bondage, “fool’s gold,” and ‘fake’ pleasures! Without God is what John Greenleaf Whittier was writing about in one of his poems when he said: “Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess, as the long years of God unroll, To make thy dreary selfishness the prison of a soul!”

Without God man IS an imprisoned soul! What you sow in the soil of your life will have good harvests or failing fields – God-honoring lives or fallow, hard, unproductive results – plowed hearts sown with the good seed of God’s heart, will, and ways or unproductive fields sown with fleshly seeds of death and indifference to God’s will!

So what does Hosea wrap the tenth chapter up with? Hosea 10:14-15 says, “Therefore tumult shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses [YOUR strongholds] shall be plundered as Shalman plundered Beth Arbel in the day of battle – a mother dashed in pieces upon her children. Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel shall be cut off utterly.”

Hear me! If it’s your strength to fight your own battles, like Israel, defeat is sure, with your future as dark as Israel is even today! Dr. Fred M. Wood said in his book on Hosea, “Hosea: Prophet of Reconciliation”, “The power Israel trusted would be the power that brought her down. She thought her safety was through treaties with foreign powers – a contradiction of everything God had taught through His prophets. Foreign powers were God’s means of judgment.” That still holds true today! Any ‘God-fearing” nation that looks to someone other than Him faces sure judgment! Where is YOUR nation or to whom is your nation seeking?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE AWESOMENESS OF GOD’S UNENDING MERCY

Hosea 11

Would you ever consider that God’s love and mercy and grace is conditional? When His Word says “God so loved the world…”, does it impress upon us that His love is limited? I tell you, I personally have a hard, hard time even attempting to unveil the awesomeness of God’s unending mercy and His never-ending love for all men!

Righteous preachers (?) so insist on righteous repentance and righteous restoration and righteous purpose in life that the love, grace, and mercy of God for all men is avoided, even teaching by some, “How could God love sinful people and a sinful world?”, neglecting the revelation of God’s Truth that Christ died on the cruel Cross for all men!

Maybe the words of Jesus Himself will help you understand how much He desired Israel to trust Him, rely upon Him, and rest in Him! Matthew 23:37-38 tells us, Jesus speaking, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate…”

Hosea 11:1 says, God speaking, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. Hosea 11:2 then says, “As they called them [the prophets of God were calling Israel out!], so they went from them [that’s Israel running from the prophets and God to idols!]; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images.”

The compassionate and long-suffering Spirit of Holy God is seen so clearly as one reads through this eleventh chapter of Hosea. Though God’s controversy with Israel still remains to this day, one cannot, must not, dare not, overlook the unveiled heart of Holy God for the nation of Israel – they were the nation that birthed Christ through Mary, yes, the chosen mother of Emmanuel!! And God still longs for their salvation as He does all the world!

What did God say in Hosea 11:1? “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son,” but Israel refused to answer or respond repentantly to Holy God. God’s mercy was denied, God’s grace was belittled, and His Holy love was ignored! Amazing love, how can it be, that God so great and compassionate and merciful, should be rejected by His chosen people! But He was!

In Hosea 11:8-9 hear the broken heart of God as He opens His bruised and battered heart by Israel’s rejection! “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.”

Long before Hosea arrived on the scene the history of Judaism was a history related to Holy God that was so shameful! God blessed Israel, and blessed, and blessed, and kept on blessing, but the nation was intent on idolatry, the nation was intent on a ‘fleshly religion’ satisfying their sinful lusts, unmindful of God’s unveiling of His eternal intent, unappreciative of all the miraculous deliverances, unexcited about His faithful provisions!

Look again at Hosea 11:1-2! “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. As they [the prophets] called them, so they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images.”

But one must respect and honor and bless the Name that is above all names even if the majority of the known world is in opposition to Holy God, although many will acknowledge Him and include Him in their list of ‘respectable gods’! But William Shakespeare really nailed it strongly when in his writing entitled “Henry VI”, Part 11, [Act 1V, sc.1,L. 124], wrote: “Rather let my head stoop to the block than these knees bow to any Save to the God of Heaven.” To whom are you bowing today? Every day one, yes, bows to the God or gods he serves!

Oh, but then notice what God said in Hosea 11:3-4! “I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms;” But they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them.

Isn’t it amazing to you how loving, merciful, ruling God, stepped out of Heaven and taught the Abrahams, Isaacs, Jacobs, Moses, the prophets, King David, and entrusted them with His Holy Word, Holy Laws, Holy Invitations, and their people found only the few who truly submitted to Holy God and His eternal Word and will? How do you respond to what God said in Deuteronomy 1:30-32? The Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place. Yet, for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God…”

They didn’t know Holy God really knew them or cared about them; they didn’t know or understand or truly respond in submission and obedience to His every word; Holy God “set the captives free” and gave them a new destiny! He “broke the yoke of bondage, slavery, pain, and insignificance” – they were “children of God!” And that was all because of His great love, yes, for Israel, the world, and for you and me!

But even after the divine deliverance of being set free, rejection, rebellion, and resistance to God’s Holy leadership erupted! Examine Hosea 11:5-7 when, even after God’s marvelous, miraculous, merciful intervention, Israel turned away from Him, and “fell” into lust, lawlessness, no love for God, serving His enemies and their loathsome sin natures!

Hosea 11:5-7 says, “He shall not return to the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to repent. And the sword shall slash in his cities, devour his districts, and consume them, because of their own counsels.

My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, none at all exalt Him.”

Do you remember the Song of Moses in Exodus 15? Exodus 15:1-2 reads, Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and spoke, saying: “I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea! The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him.”

Question of the day! “Have YOU refused to return to Holy God, to Jesus our Lord and Savior, refusing to bow any longer to His Kingship, Lordship, even resenting the truth that He forgives you?” Is that because you’ve chosen ‘lordship’ in yourself and your own ‘sovereignty’ and fleshly rule over self? Your choice: “my rule” over myself or God’s rule over me?” “My fleshly intent or God’s eternal purpose?” “Alliances with men or loyalty to Holy God?” But Israel refused, and still does, to yield and submit to Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior and Master over all of life!

Hosea 11:8-9 unveils the beautiful, blessed heart of Holy God! “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, the Holy One in your midst; and I will not come with terror.” In Genesis 18:25 Abraham asked the Lord, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” And He does! Consider the Cross of Christ?

Though a world strays, He still seeks! Though a world rejects, He still sent His Son! Though the world spirit crucified Him, God resurrected Jesus, and He still says, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest!” And even as Israel and a sinful world was ready to nail Him to the Cross, He still could weep over the city, over the people, over a rejecting world, yes, dying of a broken heart because of man’s rejection of Emmanuel, “God in the flesh” dying for sin and all sinners!

In Hosea 11:10-11 Hosea opens the door of continuous hope for Israel, though most of Israel rejected God then and rejects God even now! The Word says, “They shall walk after the Lord. He will roar like a lion. When He roars, then His sons shall come trembling from the west; they shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria. And I will let them dwell in their houses,” says the Lord.

God never did and never does give up hope for the true salvation of Israel, and all the world! To say it’s only ‘future’ for Israel is to close the door on God’s past, present, and future for Israel! I’m telling you, Christ Jesus always has been, forever is, and forever will be Savior and Lord of Jewish people who repent and receive, and rest in His finished work! Doesn’t Revelation 7:5 call Christ Jesus “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”?

It’s not God’s desire for any Jew, any man, of any nation to live in captivity, but to know Christ Jesus, the Lord of true liberation! But…

Examine carefully Hosea 11:12 where the prophet Hosea declared, “Ephraim has encircled Me with lies, and the house of Judah with deceit; but Judah still walks with God, even with the Holy One who is faithful.”

Do you understand, comprehend that a people professing a semblance of faith can be a people, even a nation, that ‘encircles God Almighty with lies’, yes, even deceit, professing one thing but doing another? But, praise God, for Judah who for a long period walked in faith and loyalty, and “the house of praise let God rule”, and loyalty became their name of true dedication to Holy God! How will your name be identified when you stand before Holy God to give an account of your faith or lack of it?

CHAPTER TWELVE

A RETURN TO DEVOTION OR A RETURN TO DECEITFUL WAYS?

HOSEA 12

Don’t you find it interesting that a people like Israel can verbally declare allegiance and faithfulness to Holy God and at the same time open the doors of Hell wide for easy entrance to sinful pleasures? But still they profess, “We are the people of God!”

Pretense is such a sinful rebellion that many people rest in and truly believe they are alright with God! Pretense is falsehood, pretense is religious sham and shamefulness, pretense is the ultimate exploitation of a holy life God intended for Israel to walk in, pretense is corruption with one’s whole life, even as a religious nation like Israel, sadly corrupted!

Holy God, the Living Lord, the inviolate Holy Spirit stand up! The Godhead is offended, the throne is shamed, the will and trust had been transgressed – Israel decided turning from God was their best solution, independence was legitimate, self-reliance was permissible and rewarding, and ‘trust’ in flesh and blood rulers, fleshly alliances, idolatrous nations, would keep them in safety, security, and the satisfaction of fleshly pleasures! Deceitful ways was Israel’s earthly choice! So Holy God sends an anointed prophet!

BUT NEVER FORGET THE “REMNANT”! That’s why in the last verse of Hebrews 11, Verse 12, we read: “But Judah still walks with God, even with the Holy One who is faithful.” Yes, even in the midst of a sinful, religious world, and a religious world professing allegiance, but living lives alienated from God, there are those true disciples, faithful priests, devoted servants, who will follow God even to their deaths if necessary!

Returning to their deceitful ways? It was Ezekial who wrote in Ezekial 18:1-2, The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, “What do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Does “like father, like son” ring true for most of Israel? And what does Hosea 12:1-2 reemphasize again and again? “Ephraim feeds on the wind, and pursues the east wind; he daily increases lies and desolation. Also they make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried to Egypt. The Lord also brings a charge against Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his deeds He will recompense him.” Jacob? Or is it the descendants that God exposes? [Just check the years between Jacob in the flesh and his descendants many, many years later!]

I appreciate how Dr. Fred M. Wood discussed ‘Jacob’ in his book on Hosea entitled, “Hosea: Prophet of Reconciliation,” [p.113], using past history to highlight a present reality! He wrote: “The prophet did not mean to suggest Israel inherited the guilt of her forefathers. Hosea was no fatalist. The people made the choice themselves with their own free will. They were, however, following directly in the footsteps of the ambitious and tricky Jacob [or his later descendants!]. Although outward things had changed, Judah and ‘Jacob’s’ conduct were very much alike.”

There’s no doubt that in Jacob’s early days he was a shyster, a conniver, even trying to manipulate God, but Holy God saw eternal potential in Jacob, and just as spiritually visual for the early Jacob under God’s blessing, so the later line of Jacob was potential for the nation Israel! [Remember, it was Jacob, not Esau that God chose!]. As God waited on Jacob to mature, he’ll wait on you and me!

Hosea 12:6 says, “So you, by the help of your God, return; observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.” What an awesome word of hope for any man, any woman, any individual!

But repentance, turning from self, the world, and demonic control, and trusting God’s faithful Word, one finds healing, deliverance, salvation and Holy Presence! What did Christ Jesus say in Revelation 3:18-21? “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.”

Doesn’t that word in Hosea 12:6 encourage, uplift, and raise you up because of “God’s help”? “So you, by the help of your God, return!” Dare I tell you? I don’t believe a man “returns” apart from God’s “help”! And I don’t believe you’ll find true mercy and justice apart from the very nature and character and heart of God Almighty! Did Hosea then say, “and wait on your God continually”?

In Isaiah 40:28-31 the prophet gives us all a word of eternal hope and heavenly help! “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, But those WHO WAIT ON THE LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

“So you, by the help of your God, return;…wait on your God continually.” You WILL SEE HIM give power to the weak! You will see Him increase strength! You will see Him give you ‘wings’ like eagles to soar in the heavenly places! That’s “by the help of your God!”

Oh, but then “flesh” rises up, the “old sin nature” still seeks to control, manipulate, and dominate! Hosea 12:7-8 says, “A cunning Canaanite! Deceitful scales are in his hand; he loves to oppress. And Ephraim said, ‘Surely I have become rich, I have found wealth for myself; In all my labors they shall find in me no iniquity that is sin.’”

“I”, “I”, “I”, “I”, and “I” can do as I please; I am able; I am strong; I am wise, so who needs God’s help? You understand – Israel saw no need of “GOD” in fulfilling her fleshly or spiritual needs or desires! Like a lost, dying, perishing world today, God’s ‘holy help’ is unimportant!

The “blood redeemed” by Holy God were to be ‘point men and women’ (!), divinely appointed by Him to be “the holy priesthood”, “visible worshippers”, “instruments in God’s Hand” to touch their world with His love, grace, mercy, Holy Truth, heavenly mission through earthly presence, even heavenly examples of God’s eternal design for redeemed, restored, renewed, and divinely released spiritual sons and daughters of Holy God!

But Israel became examples of ‘business deception,’ ‘false scales,’ ‘costly apostasy,’ ‘unveiled, unashamed, fraudulent, God-dishonoring motives and intents,’ ‘examples of ill-gotten gains’ as if ordained by God Himself! “Nothing immoral about us! We’re God’s chosen! And we represent Him!” Really? So God continues to bless and honor the nation that crucified His Son? Or does He hold on to hope or to the few that became and becomes the “remnant” of His eternal desire for Israel and all nations and peoples of the world?

Alexander Maclaren, in his Expositions of Holy Scriptures that included Hosea in his Minor Prophets’ studies, shared a strong statement about Israel on Page 124, saying: “So obstinately unconscious are we of our ruin that even God’s voice, whether uttered in definite words, or speaking in sharp sorrows and punitive acts, but too often fails to pierce the thick layer of self-complacency in which we wrap ourselves, and to pierce the heart with the arrow of conviction. Indeed we may say that the whole process of divine education of a soul, conducted through many channels of providences, has for its end mainly this – to convince His wandering children that to be against Him, against their Help, is their destruction.”

That leads us to Hosea 12:9-11! God says, “But I am the Lord your God, ever since the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast. I have also spoken by the prophets, and have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.” Though Gilead has idols – surely they are vanity – though they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal, indeed their altars shall be heaps in the furrows of the field.”

God says, “YOU may have forgotten, but I am the Lord your God; ‘tent days’ are on the way because of your sin! Israel, you’ve turned deaf ears to My voice, to the voices of My prophets, and you’ve ignored visions and dreams, settling in to iniquity, false idols, false visions, vain worship of false gods, receiving demons thinking that they are My angels! Wake up! Your plowed fields are producing only poisonous crops!

Then chapter Twelve of Hosea is closed out, Verses 12-14! “Jacob fled to the country of Syria; Israel served for a spouse, and for a wife he tended sheep. By a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. Ephraim provoked Him to anger most bitterly; Therefore his Lord will leave the guilt of his bloodshed upon him, and return his reproach upon him.”

Israel was neither deaf nor blind concerning its history nor the history of Jacob and Moses. But through the years truth WAS compromised, true leaders were rejected, false religions and devotions to idols became the ‘main stream’ of radical Judaism, and willful transgressions erupted in severe retribution as the Eternal Judge issued His verdict and assured Israel of His recompense!

Are you aware of even teachings across the church world today that “God ignores the sins of believers”? I repeat Hosea 12:14 again in closing: “Ephraim provoked Him to anger most bitterly; therefore his Lord will leave the guilt of his bloodshed upon him, and return his reproach upon him.” Guilt and reproach are returned gifts that God bestows on every sinful man, unbeliever OR believer! God does not lie!

But one Holy Truth we find about the Author of Truth, Holy God: God is merciful and does not take delight in the spiritual death of any man! God warns, and yes, even threatens, hoping sinful men turn away from their fleshly lives, seeking Holy God’s mercy, grace, and Truth! That’s true of men AND nations! When His appeals to you are over, when His patience has appealed to the sinner, and when death comes, THEN there is no offer for the appeal – only the Judgment Seat of sentencing to Heaven or Hell!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

RELENTLESS SIN – RELENTLESS JUDGMENT

HOSEA 13

How did you respond as you heard Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, and especially the Verse that said, “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat, He is sifting out the hearts of men before His Judgment Seat”?

It was Orin Philip Gifford who once wrote, “You may juggle human laws, you may fool with human courts, but there is a judgment to come, and from it there is no appeal.”

There is a coming “weighing” day, and I have no desire to be weighed in the balances, and ‘found wanting’!

But as Hosea 13 opens, in God’s judgment on faithless, disobedient, reckless, and unreconciled Israel, God unveils what is coming for the “idol worshippers”: “When Ephraim spoke, trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended through Baal worship, he died. Now they sin more and more, and have made for themselves molded images, idols of their silver, according to their skill; all is the work of craftsmen. They say of them, ‘Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!’ [And the result of what you “kiss” or bow to?], Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes away, like chaff blown off from a threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.”

Are you aware of how merciful Holy God was to Israel in the early days of their history? But, over the years, a rising independence and a strong self-assertiveness began to control what Israel became, yes, even an enemy of Holy God! Do “ruptures” occur in spiritual living if one becomes careless of one’s devotion to Holy God and His will and His Word? Oh, and then, even ‘spiritual lives’ can deteriorate and mobilize a crowd of rebellious followers with nations, and churches, poisoned in disastrous choices! And the result? “Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes away, like the chaff blown off from a threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney – brief appearances and then vanished from the Holy Presence by sinful attitudes and sin-sick choices!

I personally find it so astonishing that people can be introduced to Truth, follow it for awhile, and then slowly or boldly walk away from King Jesus and all He asks of a true follower: “Why call Me Lord, Lord, but not do what I say?” And the result?

Let’s examine Hosea 13:4-8! “Yet I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but Me; for there is no savior besides Me. I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. When they had pasture, they were filled; they were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they forgot Me. So I will be to them like a lion; like a leopard by the road I will lurk; I will meet them like a bear deprived of her cubs; I will tear open their rib cage, and there I will devour them like a lion. The wild beast shall tear them.”

THERE IS NO GOD OUTSIDE THE REALITY OF THE GOD OF THE BIBLE, THE GOD CALLED EMMANUEL, THE GOD BIRTHED BY MARY WHO WAS NAMED JESUS, THE GOD WHO SAID, “I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE,” THE GOD WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT – THE THREE IN ONE: GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, AND GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE GOD CRUCIFIED, BURIED, AND RESURRECTED, THAT’S CHRIST JESUS, THE GOD WHO RULES AND REIGNS AND ALWAYS WILL!

And what did Hosea prophetically write about Jehovah, the Self-existing Ruler of the Ages? “I am..,” “I am the Lord your God,” “I’ve fed you day by day your whole existence,” “There’s no Deliverer but Me,” “I am your Protector, I am your Provider, I am your Defender,” “And you have no other God who hears and answers your prayers.” Did Hosea say that it is the Lord your God and “you shall know no God but Me”? No eternal needs are ever met by any person, any imagined ‘god’, any ‘self-determined’ individual , or a ‘self-ruling nation’ who senses only their “best”!

Are you familiar with Deuteronomy 8:11-20? Moses wrote: “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, lest – when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold are multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

Who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end – then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’

And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.”

What did God say through Hosea 13:8? ‘I will meet them like a bear deprived of her cubs; I will tear open their rib cage, and there I will devour them like a lion. The wild beast shall tear them.” Notice the “like a bear,” – symbolic wording but eternally true event for those who forget the Lord God!

In I Thessalonians 5:1-5 Paul wrote equipping a spiritual son in necessary wisdom. He said: “But concerning the times and the season, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly [Do YOU?] that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.”

Did you notice in Hosea 8:7-8 about a people unwilling to yield or surrender to God with the result of Holy God wooing His people, willing to make an eternal difference in them forever, but Israel disavowed His wooings, denied His warnings, and willfully went away, “We do it our way!”

I remind you of God’s Word in Hebrews 10:26-31! “For if we sin willfully after we have received 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. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. And again, ‘The Lord WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

And what is the further warning God laid down for Israel through Hosea in Hosea 13:9? “O Israel, you are destroyed, but your help is from Me.” How often did Holy God warn Israel about “acting presumptuously” without any consideration before Him of loyalty, love, obedience, and submission? Oh, there was a “remnant”, and still is, no doubt, who walk under His authority and Spirit, but the majority God has set aside! Disobedience is an eternal curse for nations, men, or families – and I believe even for some ‘churches’ (?)!

When you examine Hosea 13:10-11, you find God’s heart for Israel never changed in His desire to be their Lord and Savior, but Israel was unwilling! God said, “I will be your King; where is any other, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges to whom you said, Give me a king and princes? I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in My wrath.”

Whether it is Israel as a nation or a ‘man’ as lord unto himself, has that frame of reference changed at all? Are nations and men today determined to ‘walk alone’ without God as Lord, Savior, Master, and King over their hearts and homes? And the end result? Look at Hosea 13:12-13! “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up. The sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him. He is an unwise son, for he should not stay long where children are born.” You just read in 1 Thessalonians 5 about ‘sudden destruction’ coming upon the disobedient and independent like a woman in childbirth with severe pains! And that doesn’t change in a man’s journey apart from resting in the finished work of Christ Jesus and the promises of Holy God!

Hosea 13:14 says what? God speaking: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is hidden from My eyes.” Does Holy God still extend divine mercy as He did to Israel? “Mercy” is God’s middle name and eternal purpose, but, as Israel, so among most men, they turn deaf ears to His voice of “Mercy” and go on in self-destruction! And the end result?

Examine Hosea 13:15-16! “Though he (Israel) is fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come; the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness. Then his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up. He shall plunder the treasury of every desirable prize.” Fruitfulness among humanity is not the “fruit” of God’s nature, character, or Spirit! Humanity’s fallen fruit?

You understand: There is “the fruit of the righteous”, planted and cared for and watered by God Himself, but there is also the ‘fruit of the unrighteous’, coming out of one’s old sin nature, producing the ‘fruit of spiritual death’!

Do you remember what Jesus said in John 15:4-6? “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.”

[Don’t YOU find it shameful that modern ‘Christianity?’ finds the “fires of Hell” that Jesus tells us about to be a sad and disgraceful interpretation of the Bible as to the future of every unbeliever or deserter of His True Faith?].

Fruitfulness among humanity fallen away from God comes from “drained springs”, “dried up springs”, “plundered springs by the devil and his armies”, even by stolen thoughts of Truth, stolen treasures of true redemption, even stolen thoughts of the reality of the love and mercy of God! And nations, lives, homes, families, and even some ‘churches’, experience nothing but droughts, desolations, and death, plundered by the enemy!

All of this picture of “sad futures” is because of ‘rebellion’ against God, desertion from His merciful calling, and the sad ending because of one’s fleshly pride and, yes, opposition to God’s eternal will and pleasure. “The wages of sin is death,” always has been, always is, and always will be.

I would hope that your “fleeing from the wrath to come” is because you understand Jesus’ call to “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest”! Do you understand that “YOU” can be weighed in the balances and found wanting? And “fleeing from the wrath to come,” is running to Christ Jesus in true repentance and faith in His finished work at the Cross!

I’m convinced that every person should live every day as if it were the last day! I love what James S. Stewart once wrote: “God judges a man not by the point he has reached, but by the way he is facing; not by distance, but by direction.”

Jonathan Edwards, in his “God’s Chief End in Creation,” wrote: “God aims at satisfying justice in the eternal damnation of sinners.” And YOU? Redeemed or condemned?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

FAITHLESS, FAILURES, OR FUTURE REWARDS?

HOSEA 14

Confrontation by God through His prophets, churches, disciples, or missionaries is not an evil thing, but it is an awareness of His great love for every individual. Doesn’t His Word tell us that “God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance”? And when it comes to His pastors-teachers, it is the same spirit and voice that should be sounded out to a wayward society of fallen manhood, alienated and separated from Holy God!

Hadn’t God’s “chosen people” recklessly, carelessly, and unlovingly rejected His Word and His Spirit and His purpose for the nation except for the “few”? Didn’t Jesus tell us, after the villagers around Jerusalem asked Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?” [Jews or a world population?] I would say both in comparison to the enormous size of world population!]. And in Luke 13:24-27, Jesus responded, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’”

In Matthew 25:31-46 is the picture of the Lord Jesus “judging the nations, the peoples of the world,” and “separating the sheep from the goats.” I encourage you to pause, read carefully, and settle in YOUR hearts if YOU are a sheep or a goat!

But the strong emphasis of Hosea 14 for all today? That’s God’s compassionate, holy calling! Hosea 14:1 says, “O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity!” Stumbled, fallen, forsaken, missed His calling and compassionate Word for YOU to return?

God then said in Hosea 14:2-3, “Take words with you, and RETURN TO THE LORD. Say to Him, ‘Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride on horses, nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods.’ For in You [Holy God] the fatherless finds mercy.”

Is it possible that you, or those around you:[family, friends, employers, employees, governments, government leaders, schools, universities, teachers, professors, neighbors, fellow citizens of your community], have avoided, neglected, denied the reality of God’s exposure of their state of sinfulness and His appeal to them of reconciliation and the need of “blood redemption”?

Nothing takes place in anyone’s life of eternal blessing apart from “take words with you, and return to Him, saying with a broken heart, ‘take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we offer the sacrifices of our lips,’” believing in our hearts the faithfulness of Holy God when we come to Him in true confession.

But, in spite of faithlessness, failures, and no desire for future rewards, when the Holy Spirit of God moves on a person’s life, and divine conviction becomes so real and personal, Hosea is telling us that there is hope, eternal hope overflowing out of the very heart and mind of Holy God! Look at what Father-God said in Hosea 14:4-7, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread; his beauty shall be like an olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return, they shall be revived like grain, and grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.”

I don’t know how you feel about natural rainbows, but I tell you, when God spreads His spiritual ‘rainbow’ over one’s life, get ready! All of a sudden, supernatural light, a spiritual rainbow of hope, a glorious and gracious presence envelops one’s life, and holy hope begins to resurrect the dead out of their spiritual darkness!

The Lord says “return”, but you say, “I don’t think so!” Give me a break! Are you so unwise that you would reject His eternal appeal ? ‘Stumbling is OK with you? Hanging on to your iniquitous ways with their deathly and disastrous results is OK with you? Rebellion before God is not man’s healing grace for himself but deadly results with an eternal impact that is not good at all!’

I believe that the Lord through Hosea is telling Israel and us that, though many reject Him and His saving Grace, the supernatural work of God begun through Israel has and will emerge as the great missionary endeavor God intended. Multitudes will come to Christ!

Lives, nations, individuals will stumble and fall away from God because ‘iniquity’ is the major stumbling block! Unbelief in ‘saving grace’ is disastrous! Denial of Holy Mercy is spiritually sickening in need of the Great Physician! Deaf ears must be supernaturally unstopped when God calls His wayward children home to Him! Doesn’t the Word of God tell us, Romans 10:9, that “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”?

Romans 10:10-11 then says, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’”

One who opens his or her Bible to hear Christ Jesus will be awed by His words in John 5:28-29, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” Resurrection of life or resurrection of condemnation?

Do you remember how many of the Israelites brought gold and silver and laid it around their idols? And do you understand that ‘many’ would like to “buy” their way into the favor of God, unwilling to confess the true need of being washed in the blood of the Lamb? They want God’s favor without or apart from His “way of the Cross that leads home”! It’s not one’s contributions that buys one into an eternal relationship with Holy God, but his/her confession of sin that needs to be forgiven in God’s way alone, which is “blood redemption”!

Did God say in Hosea 14:4, “I WILL heal their backsliding, I will love them freely…For My anger has turned away from him”? Do you as a sinner or as a rebellious son find comfort in your stage of life that Holy God intervenes as His “anger is turned away” and you find hope of eternal reconciliation or do you just not care whether God cares for you or not?

But one thing is eternally certain: It’s God’s holy desire for willful reconciliation between Him and us! In the midst of darkness, God desires to usher in Light, in the midst of despair, God desires to infuse eternal hope, in place of fleshly ugliness God desires to impute eternal beauty, and in the places of sinful pleasures that end sorrowfully and shamefully, God desires to replace it with eternal joys and everlasting pleasures!

Oh, and then one sees the inconsistencies of his fleshly life and the unfulfilled potential of divine intent, encounters Holy Truth and Eternal Promises, and because of God’s intervention and gracious promises, he sees “the branches of his tree of life in faith spreading; transformed from fleshly ugliness to the beauty of a heavenly implanted tree, and the fragrance of his life exchanged from ‘sour tastes’ to “pure delights”, with one seeing, sensing, and celebrating, the divine transformation, evidenced by heavenly fragrances”!

What did Ephraim say in Hosea 14:8? “What have I to do anymore with idols? I have heard and observed him. I am like a green cypress tree; your fruit is found in Me.” He HEARD GOD SPEAK!

Some maintain deaf ears because they have no desire to hear God speaking to them, but Ephraim heard, received, and yielded to the God of eternal hope! Dwelling under God’s shadow opens the door to the reality of Holy Presence within the repentant heart!

Holy Presence then manifests Himself in gracious living, life-giving power, precious fruit, the purifying of the ‘blood of the Lamb,’ the path of life-giving Light, and the preciousness of oneness in constant communication, open doors, and eternal significance, as one dies daily to himself and lives through the eternal promise of resurrection life now and forever!

What does Hosea 14:9 say to us? “Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent (or discerning)? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.”

‘Transgressors “stumble” over the ways of the Lord’? Thank God, Ephraim came to that holy place of divine conviction, saying in Verse 8, “What have I to do anymore with idols?” Oh, and then God said in the end of Verse 8, “Your fruit, Ephraim, is found in Me.”

Question! “What is the source of your fruitfulness, and is it the very fruit of God’s “Tree of Life”, or are you of the ‘wild trees and rotten fruit’ of self-importance and self-determination and self-will? That’s what a ‘life of sin’ is all about – and sin or sinfulness separates one from Holy God – and it’s the blood of the Lamb of God that washes one’s sinfulness and declares one righteous because of Christ’s finished work “At The Cross”!

Human lives, all over the world, are bound in the guilt of sin and their sinful natures, but through the faith in the finished work of Christ alone, Holy God declares the repentant heart free from the bondage of sin and death, free from guilt, free from the devil’s deception, free from ‘marred and scarred and branded with Satan’s declaration of ownership’, and, yes, free from one’s own inability to overcome his/her ruptured relationship with Holy God – it’s not self-effort but divine intervention and merciful action At The Cross that resurrects us from the penalty of death to the pricelessness, pleasurableness, peace, and power of oneness with Holy God through Christ alone!

Holy God mercifully equipped, divinely informed, and miraculously enlightened Hosea as to the Lord’s eternal mission to be reconciled to fallen humanity, and men today who are set aside by God to touch their world with His grace, mercy, and Truth, clearly understand that it is the power of God’s spoken Word that redeems, reconciles, and resurrects them out of spiritual death to His gift of eternal life and God’s royal purpose.

What did Hosea say in Hosea 14:9 once more? “Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent [or discerning]? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.”

Tell me! A righteous walk for you or as a transgressor you “STUMBLE”? In Psalm 85:10-11 the psalm singers sang this: “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.” But ‘transgressors’ stumble through life, walking disobediently, usually erupting in repulsive attitudes, actions, and aims that please their fallen natures but dishonor the Holy Name of our True Lord and Savior!

Proverbs 22:1 tells us, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.” And “good names” that honor Holy God are those blessed in divine righteousness as God’s gracious gift, exemplified by Christ Jesus and His Indwelling Presence in us – not simply even avoiding the world’s vices as one majors on visual virtue before those around you, but the overwhelming, healthy, and blessed passion of submission and obedience to Holy God as He chooses you and me to honor, establish, and extend His Kingdom Rule worldwide!

“Mercy and Truth?” “Righteousness and peace?” Are you a partaker, a recipient, a true son or daughter of God? In 1 John 4:9-10 the beloved disciple wrote: “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” John then said in Verse 14, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.”

Oh, and then in Jude 1, wrote to those of Jesus’ “redemptive faith,” “To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.” What an amazing revelation!

Reading Oswald Chambers recently in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.255], for both the true, repentant, transformed believers and for the “stumblers”, he wrote:

“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. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.”

“Stumbling” or stepping up to the Throne of God in humility, in brokenness, in sorrow, over a life of rejected faith, tragic unbelief, and a life of fleshly pride! “Stumbling” or resting in the finished work of Christ at the Cross? “Stumbling” over the revealed Word of Holy God or “standing on His promises”? “Stumbling” is because fallen men see themselves as ‘superior’ of even God Himself – “we’re able without God’s help!” “Stumbling”? It was Charles Kingsley in his writing “The World’s Age” who said: “Fools! Who fancy Christ mistaken; Man a tool to buy and sell; Earth a failure, God-forsaken, Ante-room of Hell.”

As you’ve read Hosea’s prophetic message, even this book, would you see yourself as a “stumbler,” a “foolish man,” an “unbeliever,” or a man of true repentance, walking like Hosea, in the ‘ways,’ the ‘will,’ and ‘the revealed Word of Holy God’? I love what St. Augustine once said: “Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves.” There are some who come close to “new life in Christ” because they have a sense of remorse, but that’s not true faith! True faith is a repentant heart willing to give up his sin, sinful, non-sorrowing heart, falling before Christ Jesus and the Throne of God in abandoning one’s old life and ‘resting’ in Christ’s Resurrection Fullness! I believe that is Holy Spirit conviction, Holy Spirit conversion, and Holy Spirit consecration, with sins blotted out and God giving you by His grace, yes, the very nature of Christ, as your old sin-nature was “crucified with Christ” and YOU are raised up to be seated with Christ in heavenly places!

“Stumblers”? Or men and women in God’s ordained righteous walk in mercy, love, and faithfulness to His Holy intent, honoring Him through your “laid-down life”, just as Jesus the Son laid His life down “At The Cross”! Life-stories of redemptive faith are not stories of possibilities or probabilities but certainty as one leans not in his own understanding, but always yielding, acknowledging, and letting God be God in us and through us! It’s not pretense but divine certainty! John Dryden, in his writing, “The Hind and the Panther,” wrote: “To take up half on trust, and half to try, Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry.” And just how true do YOU find that statement?

Again, Psalm 85:10! “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.” Are you a “stumbler” or one “kissed by God”? A “stumbler” is one ‘self-possessed’ rather than a ‘life’ redeemed by the blood of the Lamb! A “stumbler”?

Years ago in one of our mission’s newsletters, or maybe a quote in one of the earlier books I wrote for India pastors, I wrote the following: “In the absence of a true faith, men established religions, [not an eternal relationship, personal between a man and the Risen Savior and Lord and His anointed, appointed leaders and spiritual family!], and all of a sudden realized, by their own efforts, they’ve established ‘gorilla cages’!”

Why would men choose a ‘religious faith’ that does not daily identify with the Savior of the world and His Lordship, but by best efforts and dull habits promote human egotism? A ‘religious man’ may have a number of ‘religious friends’, but void of the “Friendship of God”, because there’s no relationship daily with the King of kings and Lord of lords! Men with ‘religions’ do so in the absence of the very Sovereignty of God and the Servanthood Spirit of Jesus and the Fruit of the Holy Spirit leading their lives daily as they submit to the Eternal Will of Holy God! “We’ll just establish another religion.” Right? Wrong! Religious activities, yes, void of the Resident Spirit of Christ Jesus, will even seek to end the lives of true servants of Christ who deny themselves and daily take up their cross to follow Him!

How many do you know who were persuaded about ‘baptism’, but never taught to take up their crosses and follow Jesus, daily? How many do you know who week by week are religiously tossed by the waves of men’s religious inventions, but know nothing about the life of “standing on the Rock” daily to the Glory of God? Religion is “pretense” while the Cross, daily death, burial, and resurrection, is the supernatural presence and power of Christ Jesus in us!

But do you sense that indifference, infidelity, insignificance, wrap themselves around most men and women concerning their earthly journeys, totally unaware of the need, the significance, the blessing, and, yes, the eternal rewards of looking unto Jesus, daily, the Author and Finisher of our faith?

What are YOU about? Hosea 14:9, yes, again and again and again! “Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent [discerning]? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.” You? Walking in His ways or “stumbling”?

In closing this chapter, I want to share a quote by Leo Tolstoy from his writing, “The Kingdom of God”. He said: “The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgement and profession of the truth by each one of us.” The sad truth is that most “religious” folks have no understanding of the establishment of, yes, the earthly kingdom of God! Do you?

CONCLUSION

IF “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” how does one ever come to the place of biblical, eternal, and divine wisdom, if there is no fear of God? Bible-fear is standing in awe at the greatness, mercy, and love of God, yes, as one is confronted by an ordained, sent, inspired prophet like Hosea.

God’s heart is calling ALL out of death into eternal life, out of darkness into Light, out of bondage into liberty and freedom, out of fleshly ignorance into divine wisdom, out of earthly allegiances to heavenly loyalty, out of Satanic deception into the Savior’s ever-abiding, liberating, and loving purpose!

In Matthew 25:34-40 the Lord Jesus reveals the “fruit” of a blessed life, reconciled to the Lord, and willingly laid down as His servant daily in touching our world with His love, grace, and mercy. Jesus said: Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

Then the righteous [what have you seen through Hosea about righteousness?] will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’”

Tell me about your “righteous” walk as you heed, not only the words of the prophet Hosea, but the true words of the Eternal King of kings and Lord of lords, and the true words of His calling to us through faithful, prophetic voices today across our modern world so in need of reconciliation with Holy God, with the loving Lord Jesus, and with the empowering Holy Spirit enabling us to live an overcoming, victorious life in and through Him!

In the old “Broadman Hymnal” of 1940, published by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, [B.B. McKinney, Music Editor], I wanted to share the hymn written by Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander and William H. Jude that says:

“Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult Of our life’s wild, restless sea, Day by day His sweet voice soundeth, Saying, ‘Christian, follow Me.’

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

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

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

Have you heard God’s precious and powerful and convicting and loving voice through His prophet Hosea? I pray a moment will not pass without YOU yielded to His eternal intent for YOUR earthly walk and heavenly ministry of proclaiming even prophetically His wooing, wonderful, winning words of your life to eternal allegiance, devotion, and service! Amen?

BY:J.FARRELL FISHER, DEC. 2-4, 2017

In Proverbs 23:4-5, 12, and 17-19, are extremely wise, necessary words for all men, but especially to true believers! It says, Verses 4-5, “Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease! Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven.”

Verse 12 says, “Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to words of knowledge.” (Would you think that means ‘turn your hearts and minds TO God’s Word’ and ‘your ears to “Biblical Truth”?’).

Verses 17-19 says, “Do not let your heart envy sinners, but be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day; for surely there is a hereafter, and your hope (in Him and His Word!) will not be cut off. Hear, my son, and be wise; and guide your heart in the way.”

What ‘way’ do you choose to walk in? “Mindful indulgence or Mastered independence?” In Matthew 6:19-21 the Lord Jesus said: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Is there a reason for what Christ said? In Colossians 3:5 Paul wrote, “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.”

All unbelievers and ‘sons of disobedience’ WALK in “mindful indulgence” completely unaware of the consequences! In Romans 8:8 Paul wrote, “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God”, meaning that those who live ‘in the flesh’ dominated by their old sin-natures cannot please God, emphasizing even more in Romans 8:13 saying, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die…”, unveiling unregenerate people who are, yes, hostile to God, and in the ‘flesh’ cannot create, invent, manufacture, or idealize ‘holy living’ – that takes a miracle of the love, grace, and mercy of God!

‘Mindful indulgence’ is the result of the birthings of perverted generations as Romans 3:23 clearly announces, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!” Natural man “misses the mark” and needs “Blood Redemption” by the purely innocent shed blood of the Son of God who knew no sin yet willfully took our sin natures to the Cross with Him!

In Romans 3:10-18 Paul quoted Old Testament passages to open men’s eyes, minds, and hearts to the need of their “blood redemption through Christ” saying: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.

They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

“Mindful indulgence” is ‘self-effort’ denying the need of ‘sovereign provision’ in any form or any Person, seeking to ‘justify’ one’s life by ‘grit’, refusing the grace of God; and, of course, there are those who believe by ‘working at it’ their effort ought to be “passed” with flying colors, rather than “Resting” in the finished work of Christ at the Cross and the empty tomb, making available Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power!! Romans 3:24 clearly tells us, “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, WHOM GOD SET FORTH AS A PROPITIATION BY HIS BLOOD…!!!”

It’s so convicting and heart-breaking to become aware of, yes, multitudes who truly believe their ‘working at being a better person’, or for some, they just don’t care what God thinks about them – but…Romans 4:4 is clear: “Now to him who works (at making himself/herself acceptable before Holy God), the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” Is ‘true salvation’ “working at it” or “RESTING” in Christ’s “finished work at the Cross”?

In John 5:38-40 Christ Jesus exposed the “religious Pharisees” of His day, as He does today with ‘modern-day’, religious activists who, yes, major on “self-effort” rather than His “finished work”! John wrote: “But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to!). You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

In John 17:11b-19 the Lord Jesus prayed for His new disciples that He’d soon be departing from, saying, “…Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition (Judas), that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify (Set apart) them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.”

Question! “Have YOU been ‘set apart’ for the glory of God alone? Do YOU live to unveil the Indwelling Christ to the ‘lost world’ around you? Are YOU His messenger, His ambassador, His witness of saving grace, mercy, and love? Do YOU by “life example” reveal to your world your allegiance to King Jesus?

“Mindful Allegiance” is a life “too busy” with one’s natural surroundings to be concerned with, involved in, or a messenger of “King-dom Allegiance”! Some in church fellowships that, as disciples, the Lord Jesus said to them and us in Matthew 16: 17-19, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, (Farrell Fisher, David Clark, T.Roy Jones, anointed wife of a strong, trusting husband, medical doctor “So and so”, banker, car-washer, educator), for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, AND ON THIS ROCK (OF FAITH, TRUST, AND OBEDIENCE!) I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR “BINDING AND LOOSING MINISTRY!” Do YOU realize that YOU are either binding kingdom ministry on the earth around you OR you are loosing the Kingdom of Christ around you by, yes, your faithful ministry as an appointed, anointed servant of the Master or is it just an ‘imitator’, ‘do nothing’ church member?

Are YOU a “kingdom minister”? In Matthew 6:33 Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you”, with more enlightment for true believers and servants of the Master coming in John 18:36-38 when Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”

Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

Right before His ascension, in Acts 1:7-8, the Lord Jesus said to His new disciples, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. BUT YOU shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Witnesses, messengers, ambassadors, proclaimers, servants in the Name and for the honor and glory of Christ in us and through us, because in you the Word reveals a redeemed life filled with the Holy Spirit, being, yes, guided by the Holy Spirit in being a faithful witness to the unredeemed around you?

But, sadly, the Holy Word of God reveals the truth that there are those who, according to Romans 2:4-11, should have God’s holy judgment against them clearly revealed! Paul wrote: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? BUT in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, ‘who will render to each one according to his deeds’: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; BUT TO THOSE WHO ARE SELF-SEEKING AND DO NOT OBEY TRUTH, BUT OBEY UNRIGHTEOUSNESS – indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who seeks what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”

I’m sure that at least most ‘professing believers’ know what is commonly called the “Lord’s Prayer” as He taught His new disciples in Matthew 6 unveiling it with powerful instructions in Verses 5-8 followed by the “Lord’s Prayer” in Verses 9-13! Receive our Lord’s powerful ministry AND instruction through His teaching!

Matthew 6:5-8, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites (or “play actors”). For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

Verses 9-13 follows – Receive our Lord’s Prayer! It says: In this manner, therefore, pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

“Mastered Independence”? That’s a life conquered by the love of God, set free from the law of sin and death by the blood of the Lamb, governed by His Kingdom rule and revelation, freed from the “chains of Satanic bondage”, issued the “Master’s instruction of heavenly independence from the worldly aims of godlessness, from a world system of self-dependence, from the ‘flesh’ stronghold of sin and death, and from the darkness of demonic activity”, and discerning of what, yes, fallen mankind and, sadly, some believers are influenced by as John was inspired to write in 1 John 2:15-17,

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

And “Mastered Independence”? That’s pastors, churches, families, individuals, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, then loosed in a fallen world, yes, “mastered independently” to BE “salt and light” in one’s darkened world, not making sure the “salt and light” is protected by the four walls of a church building, but poured out faithfully in the streets of one’s city, state, nation, and its world!

I’ve often wondered if pastors and churches today “rest” in the Word of God, then find themselves “released” to touch the World God loves with the message of His Son. In Isaiah 54:1-3 merciful God is touching His ‘barren people’ who’ve failed to be “poured out drink offerings” to a thirsty, dry, unredeemed world! Receive His Word!! “Sing, O barren, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. For you shall EXPAND to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited.”

It’s time for “stained glass curtains” hiding too many disciples faith to be removed, maybe, allowing the “True Light” to shine in the streets where they walk, work, witness, worship, and willfully share their faith in Christ! Our Lord and Savior willfully left the “Throne Room of God” to pour out His life to our needy world, and I believe He wants us, yes, laying down our lives in the streets of the cities of our world! Great witnesses are mortal men and women touched and taken over by Jesus, tutored by the Holy Spirit, and commissioned by Christ to see transformed lives by faithful witnesses who share God’s eternal love, grace, and mercy for, yes, ALL of fallen mankind!

Grace E. Uhler once wrote: “For God so loved the world, not just a few, The wise and Great, the noble and the true, Or those of favored class or race or hue. God so loved the world. Do you?”

It’s time for modern-day churches, faithful pastors, families of faith and biblical mission to lose themselves in a flood of Calvary’s love, faithfully becoming “poured-out drink offerings” to this spiritually dehydrated world! Amen? Sadly, some ‘professing disciples’ are the result of a ‘dead faith’ that isn’t worth sharing, so they don’t, because their ‘faith’ isn’t of any value in them or around them because they’ve never comprehended the end result of Christ-less living! “God, help us, convict us, prepare us, and pour us out to our thirsty world!” Amen?

By J.Farrell Fisher, April 5, 2017

There’s an interesting Verse of the Holy Word found in Genesis 15:12 that says, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him;” but then Verse 13 says, “Then He (God) said to Abram…”!

It is “horror and great darkness” when a man decides “There is no God”, and lives in a state of life with no faith or trust in the “All-Loving and All-Caring God” who made them, lost them, and then bought them at a high price, even the shed blood of the Lamb of God at Calvary’s Cross! Yes, there are those who don’t even acknowledge the reality of Holy God, or if they do, there are those who assert He doesn’t see them, know them, or care for them, when in reality and the historical event of Christ’s birth, life, ministry, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, God declared, “I love the worst of sinners with an everlasting, unending, unconditional, powerful love!”

GOD IS NOT BLIND CONCERNING YOU BUT ALL-SEEING, ALL-KNOWING, ALL-LOVING, YES, EVEN OF THE GREATEST SINNER OR THE ONE THE FURTHEREST THROW AWAY FROM HIM! “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:16-17).

As the Lord spoke of Israel, His people, so that word for them speaks loudly today of those who are ‘blind themselves’, not God blind to them! In Isaiah 43:24b-28 God, our “All-Seeing Holy God”, said: “…But you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities. I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.” And if one’s sin and sin nature was crucified with Christ and one’s transgressions blotted out, what is their “now” problem of separation from God? It’s their unbelief, their continuous rebellion, their refusal to give Him His rightful place on the throne of their hearts – they “love” Him, but still live in their sins and fleshly pleasures! Like the religious priests of Isaiah’s day, they still ‘worship’ in the Temple as they, at the same time, celebrate and indulge their old sin-nature!

And, no doubt, this was what Samuel was inspired to write about as he called to the Lord in 1 Samuel 12:18-25, So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die; for we have added to all our sins the evil of asking a king for ourselves.”

Then Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, BUT serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it pleased the Lord to make you His people.[Insert? And it pleased the Lord to call you as a follower of Christ – and He sees YOUR every step!].

Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. But if you still do wickedly (people of God!), you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

How many “people of God” have you witnessed who “turn aside” and “go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver”? Yet we read Paul challenging the Galatians and us today when in Galatians 1:15-17 he wrote: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.”

Question! “Is it the purpose of God TO REVEAL HIS SON IN YOU”?? If so, has there been in you, or even around you, people who spend their days and hours being fully introduced to and empowered by the Spirit as to their ministry and calling as “ambassadors of Christ”? AND, are there those around you “glorifying God” because THEY SEE “CHRIST IN YOU”?

“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…?” ETERNAL LIFE PURPOSE “IN CHRIST”?

There is an awesome unveiling of God’s divine intent in and through Christ through repentant, re-born, reconciled sons and daughters of true redemptive faith in Colossians 1:16b-23a – Paul wrote: “…All things were created through Him and FOR HIM. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE.

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And YOU, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – IF indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard…”!

“Blind God OR All-Seeing God?” In my Holman “New King James Bible”, Acts 15 has a title: “Conflict Over Circumcision”. It reads: Verses 6-29, Now the apostle and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, WHO KNOWS THE HEART (of ALL men!), acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that THROUGH THE GRACE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST WE SHALL BE SAVED in the same manner as they.”

Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: ‘After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things.’

Known to God from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.’

Then it pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas who was also named Barsabas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren. They wrote this letter by them:

The apostles, the elders, and the brethren, To the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings.

Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law – to whom we gave no such commandment – it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you do well.”

“Blind God? OR All-Seeing God?” And Holy God is not blind concerning man’s heart and mind, not blind to the flesh’s chosen remedies of ‘religious shortcomings’ or ‘alternative measures of one’s desire to at least be god-like’ – or, and I believe I understand Trump’s earthly assessment about America, but only a temporary ‘help’ if Holy God is not the source of national ‘fixing’ – “The world is a mess, and we’re going to fix it.” But, sadly, personally and nationally and worldwide, most are blind to the “salvation of God”!

An affront to fallen humanity, to the alienated and separated from God, to sinners who live as if their style of life is normal and natural, is an affront to the God of love, mercy, and grace! Again, Paul nailed it when he wrote in Galatians 1: 15, “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 that doesn’t include you or me? Oswald Chambers wrote: “ God gets me into a relationship with Himself whereby I understand His call, then I do things out of sheer love for Him on my own account,” SO, I hear His calling, I understand His mission in me and through me, I’m aware of His presence in me – SO, I choose to daily serve Him to His glory, honor, and praise!

“Blind God? OR All-Seeing God?” It’s not that Holy God is blind, but the truth is, men without Christ are veiled to the reality and glory of God Himself, but through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross, then the ‘veil’ is removed, and we’re able to discern God’s intent for our lives in devotion to Him! 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 tells us, “Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, ARE BEING TRANSFORMED into the same image FROM GLORY TO GLORY, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

It’s not God who is blind but those who live with unbelieving, unrepentant, unreconciled testimonies of their godlessness! In 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 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 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!”

“Blind God? OR All-Seeing God?” Do you remember some asking Jesus in Acts 26:15, “Who are You, Lord?”, with Christ Jesus responding in Verses 15a-18, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.” Who is ‘blind’? God or unbelievers? God or the unrepentant? God or the worldly who do not see “the kingdom of God”? God or the “flesh’s perverted pleasures? God or those who count their lives dear to themselves – their desires, their wants, their dreams, with not a silly, minor meter of consideration of God’s eternal intent for their earthly presence?

Again, it was Paul who understood that God WAS NOT BLIND, but fully aware of His intent for every true believer’s life! In Acts 20:20-24 he alerts us to the All-Seeing God’s intent for born again believers! He said: “How I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD AND FAITH TOWARD OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

Did Paul say, “but none of these things move me,” chains and tribulations, with Paul saying, because, “I don’t count my life dear to myself”, fully yielded for the honor of Christ alone even if he was assassinated? Yes, he did! But, what about YOU?

It was Oswald Chambers, in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.46], who said: “It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.”

In 2 Corinthian 1:9 the Apostle said, as a living testimony for every true believer, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,” saying also in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I DIE DAILY.”

For you, is it the ‘daily drudgery’ of trying or the day by day discipline of death to yourself that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in your mortal flesh? Sad testimony of some in John 6:66 where John recorded, “From that time many of His (Jesus’) disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” How often have you witnessed it, when convinced you’ve seen others around you, serving a “Blind God”, and walking away as a ‘deserter’? But the ‘sons of Korah’, in Psalm 87, sang, Verse 7, Both the singers and the players on instruments say, “All my fresh springs are in you,” as the Holy City of Zion!

No doubt this is why God said, in Jeremiah 29:11, “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.” WOULD YOU TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FUTURE AND YOUR HOPE?

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, OCTOBER 1-2, 2017

Try to imagine among fallen humanity, alienated and separated from Holy God and His eternal purpose for them, choosing to live as if Holy God didn’t exist! How long could that state of ‘life’ exist before it totally disintegrated or fell apart or came to a meaningless existence? Not very long, if at all!

Lawless living is no substitute for the blessing of the presence of God in one’s life! Willful living for ‘self’ alone IS “No Law – No Order”! Willful living for one’s ‘fleshly’ purpose alone is “godless existence” with eternal tragedy as its reward! If there is no law, if there is no order, whether in the universe or a life, there is no meaning for the universe or for one’s life purpose – but there is meaning, there is purpose! It’s why Holy God promised the coming of His Son to, yes, bring “the law of eternal love and Holy Purpose and Presence out of “disorder”!”

Do you remember Isaiah called by God to be a prophet? In Isaiah 6:1-3 the prophet wrote: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” But because of Satanic deception and godless living, “No Law – No Order” became daily darkness across the world and in the hearts and minds of deceived lives!

But, having encountered the Lord, something happened in Isaiah and he responded: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Hear me! Because there is no law, because there is no order, unless Holy God manifests Himself to men, you and I would be in deep, deep trouble! In Isaiah 9:2 the prophet wrote: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.” Walkers in darkness? Dwellers in the land of the shadow of death? But, yes, the “hopeless in the shadow of death” have the grace and mercy of God “in Christ” unveiling to them “The True Light”!

Oh, and King Jesus revealed for Israel, for a needy, lost world the reality of “light” that exposes their existence and ours in a land of “no law and no order” which is spiritual darkness! In Matthew 5:16-17 Jesus first quoted Isaiah 9:2, then said, “upon them..light has dawned.” Christ Jesus is God’s Light to a dark and deceived world, with Matthew 5:17 telling us, From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

But what ‘kingdom’ have you chosen to be a part of? Do you ever sense a ‘kingdom’ of self-will or self-pleasure? Are you aware of the ‘kingdoms of darkness’? Are you aware of the end result of the ‘heathen raging’, manifesting, and unveiling’ their ‘kingdom idols’?’ Are YOU ever shamed, shocked, and, yes, sympathetically removed from a ‘love of the world around you’ to a passionate turning to the God who has exposed to you another “Kingdom-Rule” under the Lordship of Christ? What ‘kingdom’ does Satan unveil to you?

In Matthew 4:7 Jesus said to Satan, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ Verses 8-11 follows: Again, the devil took Him (Christ Jesus) up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if you fall down and worship me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.”

Question! “Has the kingdom of God been established in you through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, or are you still bound by the realm, the rule, the regulations in the ‘religious activity’ of the world, the old sin-nature, or the, yes, powerful influences of the devil himself?”

I hate to be the one to tell you, but apart from being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God, “new-born” in Spirit, and raised up to be a representative citizen of the Kingdom of Christ, you are bound, blinded, and belittled by Satan as one of his ‘captives in the “kingdom of darkness”, where there IS “no law and no order” because, ruled by your ‘flesh’, you’ve determined what you want to be ruled by, and your ‘law’ and your ‘order’ is all you desire! In 1 Timothy 3:7 Paul alerted us about “lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”

In 2 Timothy 2:24-26, as he was instructing young, new believers, he wrote: “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.”

“No law – no order”? Why is that? Because godless men and women are bound to the fleshly demands of, yes, the world, the flesh, and Satan himself, and not recipients of Holy God’s presence in them, His promises for them through Christ, and His power abounding in and through Christ’s Resurrection Life in them! “No law – no order”? Because Christ Jesus is not automatically born into every birthing across the world of fallen humanity but is birthed by ‘flesh’ with the nature of mankind that must willingly become “Spirit-birthed” as God the Father calls them to Himself through the loving service of Christ at the Cross!

“No law – no order”? Because the fallen world fell away from God willfully, sank into sinful shame, and, as the “Fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’”, there still is a world of indifference to the love of God for every man: “God so loved the world”, but the same cannot be said that “all men love God!” Sadly, fallen men are so bound to their conception about what earthly life is all about that they do make ‘common sense’ strides to laws of nature but remain, many, to be bound, blind, and indifferent to the eternal wisdom of the Creator and Savior of the world, yes, void of the spiritual wisdom the Lord Jesus unveils!

“No law – no order”? Oh, yes and no – there are ‘laws’ and there is ‘order’ because Almighty God set it all into motion, and fleshly men can learn to ‘fly to the moon’ and yet know nothing about being “reconciled to God”! In fact, in 1 Corinthians 3:19 Paul was inspired to write wisely: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” In the same letter, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul said: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and By the Spirit of our God.”

“No law – no order”? You are aware that there are ‘profound minds intellectually’ who are sadly void of any spiritual understanding. It was William Cowper, in his writing “Light Shining Out of Darkness” who said: “Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.” And He has! “God so loved the world!” God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). John 3:17 then enlightens us more as we read, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world THROUGH HIM MIGHT BE SAVED.” But ‘unbelieving men and women live contented in their spiritual blindness’!

“No law – no order”? In “The Cry of the Human”, written many, many years ago by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, she wrote: “There is no God,” the foolish saith, But none, “There is no sorrow”; And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow. Eyes, which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.”

Without a doubt, there are those who deny God for themselves literally as the one true and living God in their minds and hearts, but others will acknowledge His reality without any leaning toward Him because in themselves they sense all they need or want , for them, “I can live a good life without God’s help,” which may be true for their ‘flesh’ but live bankrupt, empty lives in His Spirit-realm – and that decision determines one’s eternal destiny, Heaven or Hell, even a “blessed life” or a life under the “curse” with its eternal consequences or a life blinded in Satanic deception, content to be satisfied in the kingdom of darkness, deception, and, yes, death apart from, even resentful of those who walk in “the Kingdom of the Light of the Lord Jesus”!

“No law – no order”? That choice of life introduces one early to the reality of eternal barrenness, to a life void of spiritual Fruit and fruitfulness, and to a life with a high, proud opinion of ‘self’ but unsympathetic to the need of the Savior! To live ‘godless’ or ‘faithless’ or ‘needless’ of the Redeemer, is to unveil a life, heart, and mind that, yes, exposes a criminal mind easily exposing the inner man: godless, in ‘love’ with one’s self and his/her destructive sin-nature, and certainly revealing a ‘superficial thinker’ who expresses no need of reconciliation with Holy God through Christ alone – he’s determined he’s able and doesn’t need God’s help! Listen to them! For what they say reveals a darkened heart or a “new life”, a blinded mind or a “new mind”, a fleshly intent of self-indulgence or the eternal intent of gladly being the “tabernacle” where the Resurrected Christ lives to be Himself in them and through them, or a successful-appearing lifestyle but absent of any True Faith and open to any lawless deed, like the Las Vegas murderer!

But if one, convicted by the Holy Spirit, convinced by the Holy Spirit, then confesses and surrenders and yields to Christ by the Spirit and opens their hearts’ doors to His presence, what HAPPENS? “CONVERSION”: “born again”, “raised to new life”, “commissioned by the Lord and Savior”, “releasing rivers of living water”, “birthing a true babe in Christ hungering for the milk and meat of the Eternal Word of God”, “understanding they are the vessel now – He’s the content”, not ‘my way’, but His Way, not ‘my desires’, but His eternal purpose and plan, His will, not our fleshly ways any longer!

Cecil Frances Alexander, in his writing “All Things Bright” wrote: “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, and ordered their estate.” And, it doesn’t matter – rich man or poor man; the man or woman who has yielded, trusted, and surrendered to Christ’s Lordship becomes the true wealthiest and most eternally significant man or woman on the face of the globe, and willfully lives to extend Christ’s “Kingdom-Rule” through them!

But around you, because they “choose” to live apart from His Kingdom-Rule, men and women, denying the need of God as their Lord and Savior, many enraged by a sense of injustice, “I deserve better than what I am and what I have,”, many gripped in the fleshly state of meaninglessness, others gripped in anger with the ‘right’ to make things ‘right’ for themselves, others suffering from loneliness and the motivation to be recognized, even if it’s criminal activity, will choose ‘dark paths’ rather than the “Highway of Holiness”!

Look at fallen humanity that surrounds you every day! Examine the ‘closed minds’ even to the reality of Holy God! Have you ever been astounded by those around you who treat the reality of God with a spirit of irreverence, living in those closed minds without a thought of His Calvary sacrifice to set them free from their bondage to sin and Satan, living captive to their sin-blinded minds rather than receiving the free gift of divine grace, mercy, and love in Christ that sets the captives free, breaks the chains that binds them, and floods the heart and mind with holy reverence of being graced as the tent, the tabernacle, the earthly abiding place and residence of the King of kings and Lord of lords?

You may have been living in “the cloud of conscious minds” that visualizes humanity as ‘god unto himself’, but the Holy Word unveils the awesome Holy God who created mankind in His likeness but with humanity having the, yes, ‘free will’ to choose His Lordship, His Will, His purpose, or to think, feel, and respond as they decide for themselves – Holy God has not, will not, does not force Himself on mankind apart from them “choosing for themselves whom they will serve”, ‘flesh or Spirit’, ‘wrong or righteousness’, serving ‘self’ or blessing others with the Redemptive Truth, maximizing ‘self-will’ or being “Master-ed by the only Savior and Lord”!

A very old hymn is entitled “Crown Him With Many Crowns”, speaking of course of Christ and His gracious, merciful crown. It Says: “Crown Him with many crowns, The Lamb upon His throne; Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns All music but its own! Awake, my soul, and sing Of Him who died for thee; And hail Him as your matchless King thro’ all eternity.

Crown Him the Lord of love! Behold His hands and side, – Rich wounds, yet visible above, In beauty glorified; No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight, But downward bends his wondering eye At mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of life! Who triumphed over the grave; Who rose victorious to the strife For those He came to save; His glories now we sing, Who died and rose on high; Who died eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of Heaven! One with the Father known, One with the Spirit through Him given From yonder glorious throne! To You be endless praise, For You, Christ, for us did die; Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days Adored and Magnified.”

Have YOU crowned Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life? Have YOU yielded to His Lordship as King of your heart? Have YOU crowned Him as Sovereign King over you, your family, your calling and ministry in life? Are YOU the “CHOSEN OF GOD” to be His tabernacle of the Holy Presence of His Son and our Savior? Do YOU receive Christ Jesus’ word about those of Redemptive Faith being “salt and light” in a deceived, self-centered, self-serving world, but you are contented blinded to His Kingdom of Light, Liberty, and unending love, grace, and mercy?

I’d say it’s time to look to the God who made you, lost you, but bought you with a price. Consider that the Resurrected Christ desires to make His personal home YOUR heart! He so desires to extend His Kingdom-Rule through the “new creations” bought by the blood of the Lamb of God and, yes, ready to be the “vessel” for His Resurrection-Life-pouring out through YOU! Why not now?

By: J.Farrell Fisher, September 16-17, 2017

Very, very interesting when reading 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 Paul said: “For though we (in the flesh physically, and, yes, spiritually) walk in the flesh (our physical bodies), we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts ITSELF against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”

Is ‘your obedience’ to Christ Jesus absolutely essential in overcoming disobedience in your walk as a disciple? Of course it is, but many scold themselves rather than daily taking the sentence of death to the old man that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in their mortal flesh.

Many “professing Christians” are thankful for their “justification” by God Himself “as if they’d never sinned”, but “sanctification”, or set apart for the glory of God in Christ alone, becomes a major hurdle that some never appropriate in and through Christ Jesus! Christ Jesus dealt with our “sin natures” in and through His “blood redemption” at Calvary’s Cross, but the battle between ‘flesh’ and spirit, between the old man and the new man, between the natural of the past and the Spirit-life of the present, faces an on-going struggle, battle, and warfare that has to be “fought” in and through Biblical Faith alone, not one’s “best effort”, but resting in Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the world of fallen mankind around Him!

In his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, (p.185-186), Oswald chambers wrote: “Deliverance from sin is not deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, which the saint has to destroy by neglect; and other things which have to be destroyed by violence, i.e., by the Divine strength imparted by God’s Spirit…It is only when God has altered our disposition and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin: Jesus Christ deals with sin in Redemption. The conflict is along the line of turning our natural life into a spiritual life, and this is never done easily, nor does God intend it to be done easily. It is done only by a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense of character; He makes us holy in the sense of innocence, and we have to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices. These choices are continually in antagonism to the entrenchments of our natural life, the things which erect themselves as ramparts against the knowledge of God. We can either go back and make ourselves of no account in the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things and let Jesus bring another son to glory.”

Again, what did Paul tell us in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5? “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ…”!!

The obedience of Christ? Captive to the obedience of Christ? Bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? Is it possible in a modern world that some ‘disciples’ have been ill-trained in some church communities that ‘obedience is an option in the age of grace’, even if Jesus said in Luke 6:46, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and do not do the things which I say?” Are you not aware that Christ Jesus calls us to a life of submission and obedience to, yes, King Jesus and to God as our Father and the Holy Spirit as our “Guide”?

“Christ Jesus is what?” “Christ Jesus – My Giver, Guide, and Guardian!” It’s as if some ‘believers’ (and I use that word hesitantly!) have never read the foundation-truth of Galatians 1:20-21a! Paul said: “I (we) 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 (or frustrate) the grace of God.”

Some fail to see that true discipleship IS “living by THE faith (that is in) in the Son of God!” Our faith or His faith? And that’s the problem: Many live or try to live by their ‘faith’, in themselves, and not the true faith in Christ’s work in and through the Cross and the empty tomb!

Our hearts “burn within us” when we live in and through His Resurrection Presence! The Holy Word teaches us three things which MUST BE the true foundation of our saving faith! It Says, FIRST:

“CHRIST JESUS IS MY GIVER!” Vitally important passage in Matthew 11:25-30 when Jesus said: “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent (IN THEIR OWN EYES) and have revealed them to babes. (That’s the “new-born” in Christ!). Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. (Do we today survey, examine, decide what’s best for us in what ‘we see’ or from “God’s sight, His eyes, His purpose for us in and through Christ?).

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. 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.”

Do you remember Paul’s anointed word in Galatians 5:1? “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Are you truly aware of, yes, the yoke of bondage and the yoke of liberty? A yoke of bondage is a yoke of personal imprisonment to your old sin nature! The yoke of liberty is Christ’s yoke of freedom from the law of sin and death – He CONQUERED BOTH SIN AND DEATH, and HE LIVES AS OUR VICTOR, the One who is more than conqueror over your old life of sin and transgression against the law and the death it always produces! We who are “in Christ” are not living by our “best effort” of imitating Christ – we ARE “more than conquerors through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us” – we live, we obey, we overcome, we live victoriously because He “paid it all, all to Him we owe, sin had left a crimson stain, but He washed it white as snow!”

Christ Jesus opened the closed door to God’s Presence and unveiled One living and dying for the will of God, and Galatians 6:24 tells us, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” But there can be, and too often is, in the lives of ‘professing believers’ a counterfeit of outward allegiance apart from the Christ-like desire of being one with God and His attitude of: “Lord, what would You have Me to do?” What did Paul later say in Galatians 6:14? “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Christ Jesus our eternal, blessed “Giver”? Matthew 10:1, “Jesus gave us power over unclean, demonic spirits!” In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus spoke about the gifts of the talents and how some honored Him while there were those who dishonored Him! OH, and He “broke the bread and gave them the juice to drink!” He gave some their ‘sight’ who had been blind! (Let that sink in!). How about John 1:12-13? John said, “But as many as received Him (gave Him His rightful place in their hearts as Savior and Lord!) to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born (regenerated), not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT BORN OF GOD!” Have YOU truly been “born again”?

“CHRIST JESUS IS ALSO YOUR GUIDE!” Genesis 24:27 says: “As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me…”. Again, what did Jesus say to the Father? “Lord, what would You have me to do?” Our Savior, the Lord Jesus, lived His earthly existence in complete and total obedience to the Father! And, it’s not our option whether we will or we won’t – if YOU won’t, you don’t know Christ Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Master over your life!

Hear Oswald chambers again! (“My Utmost…p.237-238): “Most of us live on the borders of consciousness – consciously serving, consciously devoted to God. All this is immature, it is not the real life yet. The mature stage is the life of a child which is never conscious; we become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters in. When we are consciously being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, there is another stage to be reached where all consciousness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is eliminated. A saint (one “set apart” to the glory of God only) is never consciously a saint; a saint is consciously dependent on God.”

Are you familiar with Psalm 25? Examine Verses 12-15 where David said: “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him shall God teach in the way God chooses. He himself shall live in prosperity, and his descendants shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.” To be without true, redemptive faith in God is to live trapped in the “net” of the world, the flesh or old sin nature, and to be under Satan’s domination!

But Christ Jesus takes us out of the “trap” and guides into the spiritual plains of eternal blessings and heavenly fulfillment!

William Williams and Thomas Hastings, in the old Broadman Hymnal of 1940, (published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn.), the blessed and scripturally founded hymn entitled, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”. It says: “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim thro’ this barren land; I am weak, but You are mighty, Hold me with Your powerful hand; Bread of Heaven, Feed me till I want no more; Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.

Open now Your crystal fountain Whence the healing waters flow; Let the fiery, cloudy pillar Lead me all my journey thro’; Strong Deliverer, Be Thou still my Strength and Shield; Strong Deliverer, Be Thou still my strength and shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan, Bid my anxious fears subside; Bear me thro’ the swelling current, Land me safe on Canaan’s side; Songs of praises I will ever giver to You, Songs of praises I will ever give to You.”

Christ Jesus my Giver, Christ Jesus my Guide, and, LAST, “CHRIST JESUS OUR GUARDIAN”! In Isaiah 60:1-3 you see a strong Word of Holy God for the “true remnant of trusting Israel” but even of the “gentiles”, like us today, who trust in God’s faithfulness through His Son and our Savior and Lord! Isaiah wrote:

“Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; BUT the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

Dare I ask YOU? Believe I will! “Have YOU been ‘raised up’ in the brightness of Resurrection Light, Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope?” In Matthew 4:16-17 Jesus came to the ‘regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying’: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death LIGHT HAS DAWNED.”

Oh, and then He disappointed those who like the “darkness” because in Verse 17 Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And through His life, His ministry, His death, His resurrection, THE KINGDOM OF GOD CAME ON EARTH AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN HEAVEN!!! If you are “in Christ”, you’re not looking for His Kingdom-Rule out there in the “sweet by and by” – YOU, IN CHRIST”, are reigning in the kingdom of your own heart and life to His glory, honor, and praise, extending His kingdom, expressing His love, and proving His power!

Another old hymn says: “THE KINGDOM IS COMING” specifically saying: “From all the dark places Of earth’s heathen races, O see how the thick shadows fly! The voice of salvation Awakes every nation, Come over and help us, they cry.

The sunlight is glancing over armies advancing To conquer the kingdoms of sin; Our Lord shall possess them, His presence shall bless them, His beauty shall enter them in.

With shouting and singing, And jubilant ringing, Their arms of rebellion cast down; At last every nation The Lord of salvation Their King and Redeemer shall crown!

The kingdom is coming, O tell you the story, God’s banner exalted shall be! The earth shall be full of His knowledge and glory, As waters that cover the sea.” And what did Jesus say as He began His earthly ministry? Matthew 6:33, “But seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” ARE YOU BEING “ADDED TO” BY THE CHRIST WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL?

In Luke 21:19 our Lord and Savior said: “By your steadfastness possess your souls,” understanding Christ Jesus IS the door and we enter kingdom living in and through Him, and when He says “possess your souls”, He was so aware of those who seldom accept discipleship responsibility, but many failing to “build” on the foundation He laid and is, ignoring His promises, provision, and power, choosing to ‘live out the faith’ with undisciplined, ‘fleshly’, or unaroused allegiance to the King of kings! They are blinded, clouded, or willfully neglectful of discipleship, yes, responsibility! They ‘joined the church’, got ‘baptized’, and for far too many that is the height of their spiritual assignment!

Oh, but beyond that, there is an ignoring willfully or ignoring spiritually the reality of the Holy Spirit in “guiding us into all truth”! You’ve heard it! “I got saved, baptized, and joined a church – nothing else is necessary.” Really? I believe Jesus said, “Forsake all, and follow Me,” and does that mean, having forsaken all, we’re willfully committed to extend His Kingdom, express His love, and prove His power?

I close with a very old hymn from the early 1900’s entitled “You Christian Heralds!” It says: “You Christian heralds! Go proclaim Salvation through Immanuel’s name; To distant climes the tidings bear, And plant the Rose of Sharon there.

He’ll shield you with a wall of fire, With flaming zeal your hearts inspire, Bid raging winds their fury cease, And hush the tempest into peace.

And when our labors all are o’er, Then shall we meet to part no more – Meet with the blood-bought throng to fall, And crown our Jesus – Lord of all.” AMEN?

By: J.Farrell Fisher, October 9-10, 2017

In Psalm 19:1 King David sang, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” But is there a “sense of awe” in most men around you about what Almighty God has done and still does in and through His “awesome”, never-ending power, or are most men around you content with themselves in their, yes, pride and arrogance of ‘self-achievement’, many living as if God doesn’t even exist, or if He does, “What does He matter to me”?

The author of Proverbs, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote in Proverbs 11:2, “When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.” Later, in Proverbs 13:18, we read, “Poverty and shame will come to him who disdains correction, but he who regards a rebuke will be honored.” There are men, even ‘leaders’ (?) in nations, who see themselves wiser than God Almighty and reject Biblical Truth, and ‘entertain’ denial of God’s fountain of life, and drink from the dirty, clouded waters of fleshly living rather than receiving, yes, His gift of forgiveness, new birth, reconciliation, and a life of ministry in the here and now with eternal intentions through His “Living Water”!

In Proverbs 16:18 we read: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Oh, and then receive Proverbs 19:3! It says, “The foolishness of a man twists his way, and his heart frets against the Lord.” Foolish men! Fretting Hearts! Fleshly spirits! And unbelieving men think they’ve arrived without any need of God?

There’s such an emotional, elevating, energizing word in Joshua 1 with the Lord speaking to Joshua telling him, Joshua 1:2-9, “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them – the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.

From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Do you think Joshua 1:2-9 relates to the ‘spirit’ of Ephesians 2:8-10? Paul’s writing says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” AMEN?

“NO PRIDE BUT AWE”? Some say, “Well, whether Joshua or Paul, we’re just ordinary, sin-controlled individuals, strongly influenced by the world around us, at times even enjoying the ‘fruits’ of our self-centered natures! How then can we be ‘religious’ without the best-efforts our flesh nature can get under control?” And, I say, to even try to control what you are without Christ will not make the difference even if you determine to try! Christ Jesus crucified what we all were without Him, in bondage to the sin-nature, strongly influenced by an unbelieving world around us, and, yes, even deceived by Satan himself!

In Romans 6:5-7 the Holy Word is eternally true and clear and relevant as you read about “No Pride But Awe”! It says: “For IF we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.” WERE YOU CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, or is your religious persuasion to be one who enjoys a little bit of both lives – the old and the new, not freed from sin but able to enjoy it temporarily, the best of the ‘kingdom of the world and its darkness’, AND, the best of the ‘kingdom of Christ as I sense a religious urge’?

Look at Romans 6:1-4 Paul wrote: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism (of the Cross! Not water-baptism!) into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

And if that “newness of life” is not Christ’s resurrected presence but your best effort, you’ve bought into a great religious lie that destroys understanding in many about the need to be reconciled to God through Christ! It may be a ‘strange crowd’ to the world around you, but those who deny ‘fleshly pride’ and live IN AWE of God’s love, grace, and mercy don’t live any longer under sin and Satan’s dominion over them but live under, through, and by the marvelous grace and mercy of their loving Lord and Savior!

In John 10:7-11, and Verse 14, the Lord Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep….Verse 14, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”

Have YOU ‘entered’ the Kingdom of God under the sponsorship of Christ alone? Have YOU “rested” IN Christ’s finished work at the Cross AND at the door of the ‘empty tomb’? Have YOU received God’s gift also of the Holy Spirit to enlighten you, mature you from a babe in Christ to a mature son or daughter of the faith? Are YOU led by the Spirit to be Christ’s “witness” to the lost and needy mankind around you day by day in the positive witness of His love and mercy for those you care about? Has the Holy Spirit illumined your mind and heart day by day to, yes, “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ”?

Are there true evidences unveiling true disciples of Christ? Oh, I certainly think so! And it goes beyond one’s ‘church membership’! Receive the word of Brother John who wrote in 1 John 3:4-9, “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He (Jesus) was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. (That’s ‘present tense, continuous action’!). Whoever sins (present tense continuous action) has neither seen Him nor known Him.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous just as He is righteous. He who sins (and keeps on sinning!) is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever HAS BEEN BORN OF GOD DOES NOT SIN (and keep on sinning!), for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” Praise the Lord!

But, be assured, the call of Christ to avoid sin, AND ‘sin not’, does not mean we will not be tempted by Satan and his evil armies to turn one away from following Christ! In Hebrews 4:14-16 the author of Hebrews wrote: “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us THEREFORE come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Very interesting word in 2 Corinthians 6:12 when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, some there compromising the Truth and willfully sinning, “You are not restricted by us (the apostles), but you are restricted by your own affections”, which means some ‘professing Christians’ there in Corinth find it so easy to ‘profess faith’ in Christ as they willfully yielded to the sin nature of their old man! (Of course, we don’t have to be concerned about that today! Right?) Times never change, neither the paths some “professing Christians” choose to walk in or, yes, the paths some ‘pastors’ tell them that their sin is OK since they were baptized and joined the church. Really? (Afraid so!). “No Pride But Awe?”

Is it humanly possible, void of the Holy Spirit’s presence to “guide us into all truth,” that some supposedly ‘in the faith’ today, living in fleshly, spiritual pride in themselves, choose to deny the Holy Word about what Jesus declared about ‘sin’ and what He declared about “true holiness”? In Hebrews 9:12 we read: “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but WITH HIS OWN BLOOD He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, HAVING OBTAINED ETERNAL REDEMPTION.” Notice also Verse 14! “…how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” That, my friend, IS awe!

HAVING OBTAINED ETERNAL REDEMPTION was that so you could continue ‘bowing to your sin nature’ as you professed faith in Christ, OR was it commitment to His Word, “Go and sin no more?” Hebrews 3:1-6 instructs true believers saying: “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house.

For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, WHOSE HOUSE WE ARE IF we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.”

“The rejoicing of hope firm to the end?” In Colossians 1 Paul heightened the awareness of the “true saints” of their spiritual inheritance “in Christ”, saying in Verse 27-28, “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.”

Oh, and in Colossians 2:6-10, Paul, again, was so inspired to see every true believer understanding what it means to be “one with Christ”! He said: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For IN HIM dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of all principality and power.” “NO PRIDE BUT AWE?”

Don’t you find it mind-boggling that Jesus Himself said in John 5:30, “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, BECAUSE I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” Does Jesus then say, “So send I YOU”? And whose will do you seek? Your will or the will of your Savior and Lord? “No Pride But AWE?”

Are YOU “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”? Have you been made complete, because of your repentance toward God and faith only In Christ’s finished work through His shed blood at Calvary’s Cross? Are YOU the receiver of the gift of eternal life in Christ? Are you complete in Him lacking nothing? Are you more than conqueror in Christ? Have you passed from spiritual death into the free gift of everlasting life? Is YOUR ‘Christian faith’ YOUR paths of spiritual achievements or “Christ in you the hope of glory”?

Christians are not ‘burden bearers’ like Christ Jesus, but they know before Whom to bow in intercession for others, encouraging Christ to intercede for their friends as He did for them! Christians are not those ‘assuming’ to be something they are not, but are men and women who know, yield to, and surrender to the only “Lord and Savior and Redeemer of the Blood Atonement”!

Christians ARE NOT individuals who live with past-determined creeds by ‘self-introspective scholars’ (?), but men and women who live by the “resurrection Presence, Promises, and Power of the Indwelling Christ”! It was Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his writing, “Aids to Reflection: Aphorisms”, who wrote: “He who loves Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.” Coleridge also wrote: “Christianity is not a theory or speculation, but a life; not a philosophy of life, but a living presence.”

Henry Blackaby, in “The Power of the Call,” (p.229), wrote: “The credentials of a spiritual leader (or true disciple) is the presence of God, AT ALL POINTS AUTHENTICATING HIS SERVANT (CHRIST JESUS who said, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give My life a ransom for many.”).” Don’t you find it so amazing?

A “zero” becomes a cup of LIFE overflowing with the presence of God! A “zero” becomes a VESSEL in which Holy God pours in blessing after blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive full understanding of all His blessings in and through His Son’s presence in YOU! A “zero” overcome by his emptiness becomes a container full of the joy of the Lord which is his strength. A “zero” void of the love of God becomes the vacuum in which the deep fullness of God’s love flows without measure. A “zero” drunk with the wines excessive in self-importance all of a sudden becomes “filled with the Holy Spirit of God and His fruit. A “zero” empty of faith all of a sudden comes to a “perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

John 1:16 tells us, “and of Christ’s fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.” Question in closing! “Do YOU live in, by, and for the God-anointed SURE AND ALL-SUFFICIENT SUPPLY OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION PRESENCE IN YOU?”

“CROWNED PRINCES,CROWNED PRINCESSES

SERVING THE KING OF KINGS”?

OUTSTANDING, MIND-ILLUMINATING, HEART-INSPIRING WORDS FROM PAUL IN HEBREWS 2:14-3:1-14 THAT ALL “CHURCH-FOLK”& “ALL OUTSIDE OF CHRIST” MUST HEAR!! PAUL SAID:

HEBREWS 2:14-18, “FORASMUCH THEN AS THE CHILDREN ARE PARTAKERS OF FLESH & BLOOD, CHRIST ALSO HIMSELF LIKEWISE TOOK PART OF THE SAME; THAT THROUGH DEATH HE MIGHT DESTROY HIM THAT HAD THE POWER OF DEATH,THAT IS,THE DEVIL; AND DELIVER THEM WHO THROUGH FEAR OF DEATH WERE ALL THEIR LIFETIME SUBJECT TO BONDAGE.

FOR VERILY HE TOOK PART NOT ON HIM THE NATURE OF ANGELS;BUT HE TOOK ON HIM THE SEED OF ABRAHAM. WHEREFORE IN ALL THINGS IT BEHOVED HIM TO BE MADE LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN, THAT HE MIGHT BE A MERCIFUL & FAITHFUL HIGH PRIEST IN THINGS PERTAINING TO GOD, TO MAKE RECONCILIATION FOR THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE. FOR IN THAT HE HIMSELF SUFFERED BEING TEMPTED, “HE IS ABLE” TO SUCCOUR THEM THAT ARE TEMPTED. (SUCCOUR?IT’S A WORD DEFINED AS, “HELP,RELIEF,AID,ASSISTANCE”; THAT’S HOLY GOD ‘RUNNING’ TO HELP RAISE YOU OUT OF DEATH INTO “LIFE”, OUT OF BONDAGE INTO “ETERNAL FREEDOM”, OUT OF DEVILISH CHAINS “TO THE PROMISES OF YOUR LORD & SAVIOR OF GOD’S OVERCOMING STRENGTH”, OUT OF DEVILISH ACCUSATIONS “TO OUR LORD’S ABIDING TRUTHS”, OUT OF CONSTANT ACCUSATIONS BY DEVILISH DEMONS TO THE “LORD’S PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING”!). OH, NOW TO HEBREWS 3:1-14! WHEREFORE, HOLY BRETHREN, PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING, CONSIDER THE APOSTLE & HIGH PRIEST OF OUR PROFESSION, CHRIST JESUS; WHO WAS FAITHFUL TO HIM THAT APPOINTED HIM, AS ALSO MOSES WAS FAITHFUL IN ALL HIS HOUSE.

FOR THIS MAN (JESUS) WAS COUNTED WORTHY OF MORE GLORY THAN MOSES, INASMUCH AS HE WHO HAS BUILT THE HOUSE HAS MORE HONOR THAN THE HOUSE, FOR EVERY ‘HOUSE’ IS BUILT BY SOME MAN; BUT HE THAT BUILDS ALL THINGS IS GOD.

AND MOSES VERILY WAS FAITHFUL IN ALL HIS HOUSE, AS A SERVANT,FOR A TESTIMONY OF THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE TO BE SPOKEN OF AFTER; BUT CHRIST AS A SON OVER HIS OWN HOUSE: WHOSE HOUSE ARE WE IF WE HOLD FAST THE CONFIDENCE & THE REJOICING OF THE HOPE FIRM UNTO THE END. WHEREFORE (AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS), TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS, AS IN THE PROVOCATION, IN THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS: WHEN YOUR FATHERS TEMPTED ME (GOD, THE SPIRIT, JESUS, THE THREE IN ONE!),PROVED ME, & SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS.

WHEREFORE I WAS GRIEVED WITH THAT GENERATION, & SAID, THEY DO ALWAYS ERR IN THEIR HEART; & THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN MY WAYS. SO I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY REST “TAKE HEED, 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 ARE MADE “PARTAKERS OF CHRIST” “””IF”””!! WE HOLD THE BEGINNNG OF OUR CONFIDENCE STEDFAST (OR FIRM) UNTO THE END.” WOW!!

CHRIST JESUS “IS” KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, & IF KING JESUS IS IN US, HE’S THERE NOT SIMPLY TO BE ‘PRESENT’ BUT TO ‘PRESIDE’; HE’S IN YOUR HEART NOT TO BE PROMINENT BUT PREEMINENT; “OBEDIENCE” IS NOT AN OPTION IN THE “AGE OF GRACE”!! GEORGE MACDONALD, IN HIS WRITING “MARQUIS OF LOSSIE” (CH.72) WROTE: “I FIND THE DOING OF THE WILL OF GOD,LEAVES ME NO TIME FOR DISPUTING ABOUT HIS PLANS.”

THERE’S AN OLD HYMN WRITTEN BY A LADY NAMED MARY BROWN THAT SAYS: “I’LL GO WHERE YOU WANT ME TO GO, DEAR LORD, O’ER MOUNTAIN OR PLAIN OR SEA; I’LL SAY WHAT YOU WANT ME TO SAY, DEAR LORD, I’LL BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE.”I ASK YOU!!!

ARE YOU (“IN CHRIST”) A “CROWNED PRINCE” OR A “CROWNED PRINCESS”? DO “YOU” LIVE IN OBEDIENCE TO KING JESUS?IN “ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(PUBLISHED BY FLEMING COM.,WESTWOOD,NJ),IS A COMMENT BY MICHAEL EYQUEM de MONTAIGNE: “THE FIRST LAW THAT EVER GOD GAVE TO MAN WAS A LAW OF OBEDIENCE; IT WAS A COMMANDMENT PURE & SIMPLE; WHEREIN MAN HAD NOTHING TO INQUIRE AFTER OR TO DISPUTE, FOR AS MUCH AS TO OBEY IS THE PROPER OFFICE OF A RATIONAL SOUL ACKNOWLEDGING A HEAVENLY SUPERIOR & BENEFACTOR. FROM OBEDIENCE & SUBMISSION SPRING ALL OTHER VIRTUES, AS ALL SIN DOES FROM SELF-OPINION & SELF-WILL.”

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, LIKE ADAM & EVE, MANY ‘PLAY’ BUT DON’T OBEY!! THEY STILL ‘SIN’ AS THEY ‘PLAY’ THE ‘RELIGIOUS GAME OF ‘PRETENSE’ HOPING OTHERS DON’T SEE THEIR SIN-NATURE IN OPEN DISPLAY AS THEY,YES, CHOOSE THEIR WAY RATHER THAN VICTORY OVER THEIR SIN & SIN-NATURE BY THE BLOOD SHED BY CHRIST ON THE CROSS, CARRYING HIMSELF &YOU TO CALVARY, TO THE GRAVE, BUT 3 DAYS LATER AROSE OUT OF PHYSICAL DEATH INTO SPIRITUAL VICTORY BECAUSE OF THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD! IT WAS JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER WHO WROTE YEARS AGO THESE WORDS: “IN SIMPLE TRUST LIKE THEIRS WHO HEARD BESIDE THE SYRIAN sea, LET US, LIKE THEM, WITHOUT A WORD, RISE UP & FOLLOW THEE.”

CHOSEN BY CHRIST! CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! CHRIST KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR – IF “YOU” INVITE HIM IN, HE OFFERS YOU THE FREE GIFT OF EVERLASTING LIFE, & IT’S YOURS BY REPENTANCE BEFORE GOD & FAITH IN “CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK”! & THE RESULT? HOW ABOUT CROWNDED PRINCES & CROWNDED PRINCESSES?

CROWNED PRINCES –CROWNED PRINCESSES?IF I REFER TO THEM, NOT AS SOME NATION’S KIDS UNDER A GOVERNOR’S RULE, BUT AS CHOSEN SERVANTS OF THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, DO YOU GET A CLEAR GLIMPSE AS TO WHERE I AM HEADED IN THIS PRECIOUS WORD & WILL OF GOD?

1 PETER 4:10-19 INFORMS US: “AS EVERY MAN HAS RECEIVED THE GIFT (A MAN, A WOMAN WHO HAS REPENTED & TRUSTED!),EVEN SO MINISTER THE SAME ONE TO ANOTHER, AS ‘GOOD STEWARDS’ OF THE MANIFOLD GRACE OF GOD. IF ANY MAN SPEAK, LET HIM SPEAK AS THE ORACLES OF GOD; IF ANY MAN MINISTER, LET HIM DO IT AS OF THE ABILITY WHICH “GOD GIVES”; THAT GOD IN ALL THINGS MAY BE GLORIFIED THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, TO WHOM BE PRAISE & DOMINION FOREVER & EVER. AMEN (OR SO BE IT!).

BELOVED, THINK IT NOT STRANGE CONCERNING THE FIERY TRIAL “WHICH IS TO TRY YOU”(OH, BUT IN THE 21^ST CENTURY, ‘WE WORRY ABOUT THAT? THESE ARE ‘SMOOTH’ DAYS; RIGHT?). WRONG? THE WORLD, THE OLD SIN NATURE, & SATAN & HIS DEMONS STILL STRUT IN PROUD ARROGANCE TO TAKE YOU AS A DISCIPLE OF JESUS DOWN – THEY WANT YOU MARRED,SCARRED, & HARDENED BY ‘DECEIT, PRIDE,& THE PULL OF THAT DECEITFUL NATURE OF SIN THAT STILL CAN DECEIVE!). PETER GOES ON,

VERSES 13-19 SAYS, “BUT REJOICE, INASMUCH AS YOU ARE PARTAKERS OF CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS; THAT, WHEN HIS GLORY SHALL BE REVEALED, YOU MAY BE GLAD ALSO WITH EXCEEDING JOY.

IF YOU BE REPROACHED FOR THE NAME OF CHRIST, HAPPY ARE YOU; FOR THE SPIRIT OF GLORY & OF GOD RESTS UPON YOU:ON THEIR PART JESUS IS EVIL SPOKEN OF, BUT ON YOUR PART JESUS IS GLORIFIED.BUT LET ONE OF YOU SUFFER AS A MURDERER, OR AS A THIEF, OR AS AN EVILDOER, OR AS A BUSYBODY IN OTHER MEN’S MATTERS.

BUT LET NONE OF YOU SUFFER AS A MURDERER, OR AS A THIEF, OR AS AN EVILDOER,OR AS A BUSYBODY IN OTHER MEN’S MATTERS. YET IF ANY MAN SUFFER AS A CHRISTIAN,LET HIM NOT BE ASHAMED; BUT LET HIM GLORIFY GOD ON THIS BEHALF. FOR THE TIME HAS COME (IS THAT TIME COMING AROUND OUR WORLD TODAY?) THAT JUDGMENT MUST BEGIN AT THE HOUSE OF GOD:AND IF IT FIRST BEGINS WITH US, WHAT SHALL THE END BE OF THEM THAT OBEY NOT THE GOSPEL OF GOD?

AND IF THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY BE SAVED, WHERE SHALL THE UNGODLY & THE SINNER APPEAR? WHEREFORE LET THEM THAT SUFFER ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD COMMIT THE KEEPING OF THEIR SOULS TO “HIM” IN WELL-DOING, AS UNTO A FAITHFUL CREATOR.”

CROWNED PRINCES – CROWNED PRINCESSES SERVING THE KING OF KINGS? I WANT TO CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH THE HYMN ENTITLED “CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS”. (THE AMERICAN HYMNAL, BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.1933).

“CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS, THE LAMB UPON HIS THRONE; HARK! HOW THE HEAVENLY ANTHEM DROWNS ALL MUSIC BUT ITS OWN! AWAKE, MY SOUL, & SING OF HIM WHO DIED FOR THEE; AND HAIL HIM AS YOUR MATCHLESS KING THRO’ ALL ETERNITY.

CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LOVE! BEHOLD HIS HANDS & SIDE,- RICH WOUNDS,YET VISIBLE ABOVE, IN BEAUTY GLORIFIED: NO ANGEL IN THE SKY CAN FULLY BEAR THAT SIGHT, BUT DOWNWARD BENDS HIS WOND’RING EYE AT MYSTERIES SO BRIGHT.

CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LIFE! WHO TRIUMPHED O’ER THE GRAVE; WHO ROSE VICTORIOUS TO THE STRIFE FOR THOSE HE CAME TO SAVE: HIS GLORIES NOW WE SING, WHO DIED & ROSE ON HIGH; WHO DIED ETERNAL LIFE TO BRING, & LIVES THAT DEATH MAY DIE.

CROWN HIM THE LORD OF HEAVEN! ONE WITH THE FATHER KNOWN, ONE WITH THE SPIRIT THRO’ HIM GIVEN FROM YONDER GLORIOUS THRONE! TO YOU,LORD,BE ENDLESS PRAISE, FOR “YOU” FOR US DID DIE; BE THOU, O LORD, THRO’ ENDLESS DAYS ADORED & MAGNIFIED.”

WOULD “YOU” DARE SHOUT: “GLORY BE TO GOD ALMIGHTY FOR HIS GRACE, MERCY, & LOVE, SO PROVEN BY THE SACRIFICE OF HIS OWN SON THAT WE MIGHT BE RESTORED TO “HIS KINGDOM LIVING FOREVER & EVER”??!!

CROWNED PRINCES-CROWNED PRINCESSES? IN 2 PETER 1, VERSES 1-7, IS PETER’S INSPIRED WORD ON GOD’S GRACIOUSNESS & POWER THAT IS AVAILABLE TO ALL TRUE REPENTANT & FAITHFUL BELIEVERS! FOLLOWED IN VERSES 8-11,& VERSE 16, THEN I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE.

2 PETER 1:1-7 SAYS, SIMON PETER, A SERVANT & AN APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST, TO THEM THAT HAVE OBTAINED LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH WITH US THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD & OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: GRACE & PEACE BE MULTIPLIED UNTO YOU THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, & OF JESUS OUR LORD,

ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE & GODLINESS,THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM THAT HAS CALLED US TO GLORY & VIRTUE: WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT & PRECIOUS: THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT BE PARTAKERS OF THE “DIVINE NATURE”, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST. AND BESIDE THIS,GIVING ALL DILIGENCE,ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE; & TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE; & TO KNOWLEDGE TEMPERANCE; & TO TEMPERANCE PATIENCE; & TO PATIENCE GODLINESS; AND TO GODLINESS BROTHERLY KINDNESS; & TO BROTHERLY KINDNESS CHARITY.

THEN EXAMINE VERSES 8-11! FOR IF THESE THINGS BE IN YOU, &ABOUND, THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN NOR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. “BUT” HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, & HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS. WHEREFORE THE RATHER,BRETHREN, “GIVE” DILIGENCE, TO MAKE YOUR CALLING & ELECTION SURE;FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF OUR LORD & SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.” THEN, VERSE 16!! “FOR WE HAVE NOT FOLLOWED CUNNINGLY DEVISED FABLES, WHEN WE MADE KNOWN UNTO YOU THE POWER & COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, BUT WERE EYEWITNESSES OF HIS MAJESTY.” GLORY!!

ARE “YOU” AN EYEWITNESS OF HIS MAJESTY? HE SAYS, AS HE KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR, “OPEN THE DOOR OF YOUR MIND, HEART, & WILL, & I WILL COME IN! BY MY LOVE, GRACE, & MERCY, I’LL CROWN YOU AS “CROWNED PRINCES & CROWNED PRINCESSES” IN MY KINGDOM LIVING OF HEAVENLY GLORY, DIVINE LOVE & POWER,SONS OF ETERNAL FAITH! AMEN? & WE’RE CALLED TO BARE FRUIT

By: J. Farrell Fisher, June 2, 2017

“Indefensible”? The Random House College Dictionary of 1975 defines ‘indefensible’ as “not justifiable, inexcusable, incapable of being defended against attack, incapable of being defended against criticism or denial.”

How aware are you concerning the, yes, strong movement in the U.S.A. of many who resent Biblical Truth and especially are devout enemies of the King of kings and Lord of lords, of truly the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, enemies of the Church that Jesus loved and gave Himself for, enemies of the unveiling of Holy Word truths, yes, the Holy Bible, and enemies of true disciples who desire to extend His Kingdom and express His love to the needy world of alienated lives from Loving God?

Sadly, men and women, boys and girls, are too numerous who basically are completely unhinged from the existence of God, from His amazing love to reconcile the world to Himself, and unhinged from His desire to prove His unchanging love for the lost, alienated, and separated from God by the eternal work of Messiah, Emmanuel or “God With Us”, by Christ Jesus the Son of God who came to be Savior and Lord of repentant hearts and lives who want to be reconciled to God! Some say, “Why be concerned about reconciliation to a God who doesn’t exist – just a figment in the minds of brain-dead people!”

It’s interesting that as Jesus came into the world in His Day under divine appointment, there were even those who acknowledged Him but still held onto the old life. In John 2:23-25 we read about His exposure of those who did acknowledge Him but Jesus wouldn’t commit Himself to many because He knew what was really in their hearts! John 2:23-25 says: Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, many believed in His Name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.” Jesus didn’t commit Himself to them?

I find it so amazing that in the last few days on nation-wide television Hillary Clinton spouted at least “24 different reasons for her election loss” without any consideration of Holy God on His Throne exposing and deposing her because of her “defense of the indefensible” – the nation didn’t want her because Holy God had had enough of her constant hypocrisy! [Consider that Hillary was schooled by Saul Olinsky in her ‘heart-dead education’ at her major university! Olinsky authored the book, “Rules For Radicals”, which indoctrinated her to Socialism and Communism!].

There is a world full of skeptic unbelievers who are convinced they are smarter than God Himself, overpowered by self-centered cynicism and self-centered spiritual illusions, ignoring the emptiness of a godless heart, blinded to the aching abyss of the absence of the divine life, needing greater and more deceptive, ‘innocent’ ignorance to try and overshadow their darkened, disillusioned spiritual thinking! The unbelieving world that builds its faulty foundations of godless living do so on ‘fleshly ideas and ideals’ not on revealed Biblical Truth!

“Defending the Indefensible” is the stubborn indifference of a mind-set, (nothing to do with the heart, because the heart was birthed void of the presence of God), and a man discerns in his mind, “Who needs a God or a Savior or the Lord?”, overcome and ruled by ‘natural independence’ and willful self-assertiveness, revealing many, many souls, who as Oswald Chambers once said, “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.” [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.256]. Many men live in a state of “my own independence”. And fleshly men discern for themselves that what they settle into in their own minds is their ‘religious faith’! From their death-beds many still oppose Holy God, some in their last dying breath to family and friends: “There is no God!” So they get introduced to Him at His “Judgment Throne”!

In Matthew 16:24-28 the Lord Jesus delivered the most powerful word any ‘wrestler’ with ‘defending the indefensible’, OR surrendering to the Sovereign Lord of redeemed salvation through His shed blood alone when He said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life (for himself!) will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the SON OF MAN (JESUS CHRIST) will come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” [Tell me about YOUR reward according to your works if they are not the works of Jesus!].

Did Jesus say of the one who desires to follow Jesus, that he/she is to “deny himself, take up his/her cross, and follow Jesus”? Does that refer to dying to the defense of the indefensible? But, you are aware, the majority of fallen humanity holds on to the ‘shell of fleshly individuality’, opposed to the truth of a redeemed life purchased by the blood of the Lamb of God! “No funeral for me and my fleshly independence, even if my ‘individuality’ shames what your God intended for me” – unaware their choice of individuality for themselves alone produces and debases one’s self-ordained sin nature for flesh’s goriness, not for God’s glory!

In 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 Paul wrote: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” He had written earlier in 1 Corinthians 1:18-19, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, BUT TO US who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I (God) will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” And I have no doubts about Paul’s biblical wisdom about ‘natural men of religious pretense’!

One wonders if Paul was thoroughly schooled in Old Testament prophecy! In Isaiah 29:13-16 the prophet Isaiah was clearly schooled in prophetic wisdom! He wrote, God speaking through the prophet, “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden. Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it, ‘He did not make me’? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?” A marvelous work? God’s eternal judgment upon unbelieving, self-sufficient men, women, boys and girls!

But in Isaiah 29:18-19 the Lord speaks of a greater, blessed day for true repentant hearts! He said: “In that day (the coming day of the Promised Messiah?) the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” Praise God for the humble, the repentant, the true child of faith that leans not to his own understanding but in all his/her ways they give Jesus His rightful place as Lord, Savior, and Ruling Master of their lives!

I cannot even begin to imagine what a horrible experience it must be and is to physically die yet have to live through all eternity under the domination of the devil and his demons and under the never-moving cloud of spiritual darkness and devilish, demonic activity in the place called Hell where the devil reigns, and his ‘family’ of captives living in bitterness, resentment, horrible pain, and without the Hope they so easily denied and debunked, cursing God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit they so easily rejected because they chose to live yielded to themselves and not to the Loving Savior and Lord!

To give you a present day update of the sad condition of, yes, multitudes, just a few days ago someone spoke out for their city, state, nation, and the world to hear: “Why would one invoke the Name of Jesus in a public prayer?” Because Christ Jesus IS Emmanuel or “God with us”! In Matthew 6: 9-13 Jesus said: In this manner, therefore, pray:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Kingdom rule, Kingdom power, Kingdom glory – but there has always been the choice of God’s sovereignty and man’s ‘fleshly imposition of self-will’ rather than submission to God’s sovereignty! In 2 Peter 2:9-11 Peter wrote: “then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.”

Have you surmised, even through ‘modern television shows today’, how debased and godless many people live, especially the ‘Hollywood crowd’, ignoring divine revelation through Holy Scripture? Yet, at the same time, the holy revelation of God’s precious Word still stands! In Revelation 21:3-8 John saw “All things made new!” He said: 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.’

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 did you know: THE SECOND DEATH NEVER DIES!! That’s the eternal torment godless men bring on themselves!].

Are you aware of ‘the fall’ of great cities worldwide? And Revelation 14:8 speaks of “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Later, in Revelation 18:1-8, is a ‘nation-awakening’ passage of Holy Scripture! I pray America welcomes it as a truly holy “wake-up call”! [Be assured, Babylon, in Revelation 18, is a word-picture for Jerusalem, the ‘Holy City’, and its “death announcement” that occurred in 70AD!]. [And be assured: “drinking the wine of the wrath of her fornication” is not a Chardonnay glass but the fiery force of divine wrath over one’s spiritual fornication!]

Revelation 18:1-8 says, After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.

And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her.

In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no more widow, and will not see sorrow.’ THEREFORE her plagues will come in one day – death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.”

No man under Heaven’s compassionate eye is hidden from Holy God but is read like an open book with every page of his/her life fully exposed, but as Oswald Chambers wrote in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.206), “The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Hebrews 9:26) – an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization – I am my own god. This disposition may work out in decorous morality or in indecorous immorality, but it has the one basis, my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced men with all the forces of evil in them, and men who were clean living and moral and upright, He did not pay any attention to the moral degradation of the one or to the moral attainment of the other; He looked at something we do not see, viz., the disposition.”

The beloved John shared this truth in John 3:18-21 when he wrote: “He who believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) in Him (Christ Jesus) 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.” [Do you just think that this may be why Paul said, “I die daily” that Christ’s Resurrected Life may be manifested in his mortal flesh, like all true disciples?].

Isn’t this why Galatians 5:1 becomes so valuable to the true believer? Paul said, “Stand fast therefore IN THE LIBERTY BY WHICH CHRIST HAS MADE US FREE, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” You’ve heard it: “I tried”, when God isn’t interested in your “trying” but in trusting in Christ’s finished work; God isn’t interested in you trying to defend the indefensible, but in “resting” through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s overcoming life! Isn’t this why also in Galatians 6:7-8 Paul told us, “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.”

Defending the indefensible or death to the old self that Resurrection Life may be manifested in your mortal body? Nanny J. Crosby and W.H.Doane shared in the writing of an old hymn entitled “Safe In The Arms of Jesus”. It says:

“Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest. Hark! It’s the voice of angels Borne in a song to me, Over the fields of glory, Over the jasper sea…

Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe from corroding care, Safe from the world’s temptations, Sin cannot harm me there. Free from the blight of sorrow, Free from my doubts and fears; Only a few more trials, only a few more tears!

Jesus, my heart’s dear refuge, Jesus has died for me; Firm on the Rock of Ages, Ever my trust shall be. Here let me wait with patience, Wait til’ the night is o’er; Wait till I see the morning Break on the golden shore.

Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, There by His love o’er shaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest.” AMEN?

JUNE 2013

Job 17:14-15

“If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’ where then is my hope? As for my hope, who can see it?”

INTRODUCTION BY FARRELL FISHER

OUTLINE

CHAPTER ONE: RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?

CHAPTER TWO: RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL?

CHAPTER THREE: A TEMPORARY HIATUS OR ETERNAL HELPS AND HEALTHINESS?

CHAPTER FOUR: NATURAL EFFORTS OR SUPERNATURALLY BLESSED?

CHAPTER FIVE: MIND OF THE FLESH OR MIND OF THE SPIRIT?

CHAPTER SIX: EARTHLY EDUCATIONS OR OMNIPOTENT EXPRESSIONS?

CHAPTER SEVEN: TRYING OR TRUSTING?

CHAPTER EIGHT: MARRED MARRIAGES OR MASTERED IN THE MASTER?

CHAPTER NINE: YOUR WEAKNESS OR GOD’S ABLENESS?

CHAPTER TEN: ACCEPTABLE BONDAGE OR ATONING LIBERTY?

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE DEATH OF GRACE OR SOLD OUT TO GRACE?

CHAPTER TWELVE: PARTIAL OBEDIENCE OR FULL SURRENDER?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: LIMITED ATONEMENT OR A FINISHED WORK FOR ALL?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: APOSTASY OR REPENTANT REST AND REACH?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: GAME PLAYERS OR TRUE DISCIPLES?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DRAINED BY THE TROUBLE OR STRONGER BY THE STRUGGLES?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE HOPELESSNESS OF GODLESS GOVERNMENTS OR THE HOPE OF GOVERNMENTS BEING IN GOD’S WAY?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: AN ABANDONMENT OF HOPE OR A CONSTANT CONFESSION OF HOPE?

INTRODUCTION

It is so very, very interesting that I recently came across a brief prayer I had written to the Lord. It said: “Because Your love for me is discerned, discovered, and relied upon, I so desire to “love” as You love, Lord – no profession but possession and demonstration, no wordy declaration but a fully laid-down life, no premise but a promise, no lie but the Truth…I need Your help, Dear Lord, for that to be a real event in my life – without You words are lost in that reality of profession without possession – come in fully, Lord Jesus – take over – BE YOURSELF IN ME AND THROUGH ME!”

That’s ‘rest’ in Another apart from a ‘resignation to hopelessness.’ But in my life-long journey of 77 years I have witnessed those who began, but then never ‘pressed in’ but resigned to a hopeless journey. They neared, but fell short. They neared, but allowed deceit, diversion, and distresses in the journey to steal their devotion, discipline, and declaration of allegiance to the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Noah Webster’s 1826 Dictionary says of “resignation”: “The act of resigning or giving up, as a claim or possession; as the ‘resignation’ of a crown or commission…” Hopelessness? That’s forfeiting the crown, abandoning the faith-family heritage, walking away from the True Lover of one’s soul!

For many hope is not a treasure but a trifling blur in their imagination. In “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, Oscar Wilde wrote: “We did not dare to breathe a prayer or to give our anguish scope! Something was dead in each of us, and what was dead was Hope!”

I assume Oscar Wilde placed no hope in the revelation of God’s Holy Word. But Paul the apostle was so on target when in Romans 15:13 he wrote: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

Hopelessness is deadly! What is a farmer without hope? What is a new investment businessman without hope? What is a surgeon without hope in his medical training? And what is a traveler in our world birthed by God Himself who tries to live apart from our Lord’s eternal hope?

Small souls block great hope signatured by God! Small souls breathe long gasps of expectations without the Author of eternal expectation! The void of hopelessness is nothing more than a silent soul who has no word for ‘God’ or ‘Savior’ or ‘Lord’ in their vocabulary.

I pray that is not YOUR testimony. I pray that even a small seed of ‘hope’ in you has germinated into the eternal fruit of faith and your life flourishes in the things of the Eternal Savior and Lord!

N.T.Wright in his book, “Surprised By Hope,” wrote in the preface: “Most people, in my experience – including many Christians – don’t know what the ultimate Christian hope really is. Most people – again, sadly, including many Christians – don’t expect Christians to have much to say about hope within the present world. Most people don’t imagine that these two could have anything to do with each other.”

But don’t we read, “Christ in you the hope of glory”, and that doesn’t relate to the here and now? God’s Kingdom is to come ‘on earth as it is in heaven,’ or was Jesus just ‘playing’ with us and ‘teasing’ us? I don’t think so!

I pray as you read “A Resignation To Hopelessness” that you are truly led away from hopelessness to our eternal hope in Christ Jesus.

CHAPTER ONE

A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS

It was recently, April, 2013, that my son, Scott, preached a message entitled “Gone Fishing” from John 21:3 when Simon Peter said to the other disciples, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, ‘We will also come with you.’ They went out and got nothing into the boat; and that night they caught nothing.”

And I couldn’t get away from “A Resignation To Hopelessness”! The disciples had been with Jesus for three years and witnessed the mighty manifestations of Holy God through “Emmanuel”, ‘God with us.’ According to John 20:30, “truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book…,” yet, in John 21:3 Peter said, “I am going fishing.”

If you’ve been a part of the Christian community as I have for the 77 years of my life, you have witnessed the faithful and the faithless, the devoted and the disenchanted, the “laid-down-life of loyalty” and the one who preserves and holds onto all that he is without Christ.

It’s like ‘discipleship’ is a double loyalty: flesh and Spirit; it’s like ‘discipleship’ is a take-it or leave-it proposition and whatever you ultimately choose, ‘God is OK with me;’ it’s like temporary devotion is as good or Godly as ‘all-out-sacrifice’ to His precious name.

A temporary ‘faint’ is not the same as abandonment of the true faith. Adversity in the journey is not a key that opens one’s mind and heart to, “I might as well abandon my faith,” but truly a stepping stone to submission and obedience because Jesus told us all, “In the world you will have tribulation.”

I don’t even know who wrote the following, but I came across it in one of my readings: “Come then, affliction, if my Father wills, and be my frowning friend. A friend that frowns is better than a smiling enemy.” You do understand that afflictions and fiery furnaces go hand in hand on the walk of true discipleship.

Wouldn’t you think ‘follow-ship’ and the Cross are necessary steps in a faithful journey? What is, “take up your Cross and follow Me,” if it weren’t so? It’s as if for some ‘professors’ of faith, “if trouble comes, if opposition arises, if doubts and fears emerge – this ‘trip’ must be the wrong path for me.”

It was Jonathan Edwards who grasped a true understanding of our journey: “There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table-land of a true character and of undying hope both for this world and the next.”

But if there’s been a battle, if there’s been a border-line before you of ‘hopelessness,’ if you’ve RESIGNED yourself to failure, falling short, and spiritual feebleness – what brings one to that stage in life?

THERE ARE THOSE WHO COME TO A PLACE LIKE SIMON PETER WHERE “I AM GOING FISHING” IS A RETURN TO ONE’S OLD LIFE-STYLE APART FROM CHRIST.

As Paul was maturing the young Ephesian ‘Christians’ as well as us, in Ephesians 2:1-3, he describes what some choose to go back to: “dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”

What a dark yet revealing style of life that some choose to go back to: “I am going back!! Back to trespass and sin, back to Satanic control, back to a rebellious, disobedient life-style, back to the unbridled ‘lusts of our flesh,’ choosing to be, once again, by my old nature, a child of wrath!!” How sad is that?

Are you at all familiar with John 6:66? “From that time many of His disciples went back (turned away) and walked no more with Jesus.”

In Oswald Chambers’ book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.270], Chambers wrote: “When God gives a vision by His Spirit through His Word of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view which our Lord never had.”

Have you ever read a sadder verse than Acts 7:39? “whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt.” Egypt over the promised land! Egypt over a walk with God! Pyramids over the Prince of Peace! The Nile over rivers of living water! A pharaoh over the King of kings and Lord of lords! A sinking into servitude rather than servants of the Most High God!

What does Psalm 95:7b-11 tell us? “…Today, if you will hear His voice: ‘Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”

If you have a problem with Old Testament verse like we just read, what about Luke 9:57-62?

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him [Jesus], “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to Him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I BELIEVE ALSO THERE IS A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS IN SOME “PROFESSORS” BECAUSE OF THEIR DOUBTS JESUS CAN DO IN THEM WHAT HE DID IN THE EARLY DISCIPLES: A HOPELESSNESS OF RESPONSIBILITY!!

I personally am still astounded as I read John 14:12-14! “Most assuredly, I [Jesus] say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

Somehow we’ve been deceived in many church circles into believing that “greater works” than Jesus did were only for the early New Testament disciples that were used in establishing early church ministry but today we just discuss them apart from demonstration of their validity – truly a resignation to hopelessness of the miracle-working power of God for today!

Somehow some lose sight of ‘sons and daughters’ anointing and gifts and close the door on our Lord’s ministry through us! In Luke 10:17-20 Jesus still speaks: Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

And I want you to notice – it was not His initial twelve disciples, but Luke 10:1 says: “after these things the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place WHERE HE HIMSELF WAS ABOUT TO GO.”

“Working out your own salvation” is manifested by the Indwelling Christ working in us and through us to touch our world with His grace, mercy, and love. Manifesting the body of Christ ‘in me’ is allowing Jesus to be the same – yesterday, today, and forever – not in some mysterious fashion, but in reality, through you, touching others.

Have you considered 2 Corinthians 10:5 lately about “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”? Our touching our world is not to be impulses of self-will and self-motivation, but our availability to Him as a vessel through which He flows! Just as Jesus chose “to do nothing of Himself” but fully available to all God is and wants to do through Him, so true disciples daily take the sentence of death unto themselves that the resurrection LIFE OF CHRIST may flow through them to the needy!

RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS OCCURS TOO OFTEN WHEN JESUS ASKS US: “Do you AGAPE ME”?, and we respond with a brotherly love (phileo)?

Look at John 21:15! Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love (agape) Me more than these?” Agape – God’s kind of love, God’s sacrificial love, God’s laid-down Life for others! But Peter responded: “Yes, Lord, You know that I love (phileo) You.”

Friendship love but void at this time of the eternal heart of God kind of love. Friendship love but vacant at this moment of the Calvary Cross kind of love. Chambers said: “The love of God means Calvary and nothing less; the love of God is spelled on the Cross and nowhere else; the only ground on which God can forgive me is through the Cross of My Lord. There, His conscience is satisfied.”

I often wonder, “Lord, is the church-at-large filled with ‘agape’ lovers or are they just ‘friendly’ to You? Lord, does the church-at-large today truly know and understand Your Blood Atonement?

Hebrews 2:9-10 is so important and so vital because of the challenge it gives to all ‘Christians’ today of being brought into glory! “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”

Then in Hebrews 3:1-6 we read: Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are IF we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm to the end.” OH, WHAT A REVELATION!!

True discipleship is not less than God’s love but His fullness in our laid-down lives for Him and for those He gave Himself for!

ALSO, RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS RESULTS WHEN ONE WILLFULLY CHOOSES TO LIVE “THE FAITH” WITH AN ABSENCE OF THE WILLINGNESS TO DIE TO SELF, THE OLD MAN, THE FLESH – A “CONVERSION” WITHOUT IMMERSION INTO OUR LORD’S LIFE AND PURPOSE.

Follow carefully Jesus’ words to Peter in John 21:18-19! “Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish. This He spoke signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me.”

Isn’t it amazing to you, surprising, that as Jesus was arrested and programmed for the Cross that His disciples ran away and hid?!! Contrast Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 with, not the words of Paul, but the attitudes and actions and avenues of many ‘professors’ WHO NEVER DIE DAILY!! “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live [in Christ] are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

It’s also amazing to me that as I look to God’s Word for guidance and help in restoring the ‘hopeless’ to a righteous walk that I see God holding “false shepherds” responsible for much of the faithless walk though in church every time the church door is open! Look at Ezekial 34:1-10!

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill; yes, My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, says the Lord God, surely because My flock became a prey, and My flock became food for every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, nor did My shepherds search for My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock” – “therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God, BEHOLD, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand; I will cause them to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves no more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no longer be food for them.”

THE RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS CAN OCCUR WHEN SOME CHOOSE TO LIVE WITH A DISCIPLESHIP OF COMPARISON AND QUESTIONING OTHERS’ FAITH WHILE ONE WALKS FAITHLESS HIMSELF.

In John 21:20-22 I sense Jesus saying to Peter and to us, “Examine your own faith walk, look deep into your own soul and your own heart, don’t walk with faulty comparisons of yourselves and others.” Yet many use it to validate their complacent or indifferent journey of what they call ‘faith.’

Oswald Chambers so enriches our understanding of this passage when in his book “My Utmost For His Highest” he discusses the previous verses: [p.237], “One of our severest lessons comes from the stubborn refusal to see that we must not interfere in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s order for others. You see a certain person suffering, and you say – he shall not suffer, and I will see that he does not. You put your hand straight in front of God’s permissive will to prevent it, and God says – ‘What is that to you?’ If there is stagnation spiritually, never allow it to go on, but get into God’s presence and find out the reason for it. Possibly you will find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another; proposing things you had no right to propose; advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit; your part is to be so rightly related to God that His discernment comes through you all the time for the blessing of another soul.”

RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS WILL OCCUR, YES, WILL HAPPEN WHEN ONE PERFORMS SPIRITUALLY APART FROM SUBMISSION TO THE WILL OF GOD.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23 are so shattering to one who “works” but has never WILLED to rest in Christ’s finished work at the Cross, then resting in His resurrection life in and through you. The Word says, Jesus’ words: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he WHO DOES the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Are you aware that many ‘religious’ people are what they are because of self-will, self-performance, self-promotion, never recognizing the true foundation of saving faith is not self-willed determination but dependence upon the finished work of Christ at the Cross?

Relational salvation or relational Christianity is never dissected as separation to one’s best effort but according to Romans 1:1, “separated to the gospel of God.”

We’re not spiritual “conquerors” because “We did good” but because Christ died and rose again!

Spiritual performance by one’s best efforts always leads to a hopeless ending! It’s not ‘grit’ but divine grace. It’s not performance but our eternal position ‘in Christ.’ It’s not determination but dependence upon our Lord’s “free gift”!!

CHAPTER TWO

“RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL?

The Christian disciple, the Christian church, Christian families, are on a journey, a pilgrimage of faith, obedience, service and ministry. We haven’t arrived yet but we’re ON THE WAY, IN THE WAY, FOR GLORY TO HIM who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

In Romans 4:13-25 Paul, so anointed by the Spirit, unveils our journey in comparison to Abraham. He wrote: For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath, for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

Are you fully convinced these holy words are God’s Personal promises to you for the fulfillment of His desire for your walk of faith? In Romans 5:17 Paul added: “For if by one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more, those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness WILL REIGN IN LIFE THROUGH THE ONE, JESUS CHRIST.”

And reigning in life through Christ means that “we are more than conquerors,” we are winners not losers, being shaped and molded into the likeness of our Lord and Savior. Have we fully arrived, are we fully formed, are we finally a ‘finished product’? From God’s point of view: YES! From our point of view we’re babes, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults, maturing adults, senior citizens someday – but we’re “in the game” of discipleship and our Lord is up to something good in each true believer.

Have you grasped it yet? ‘In Christ’ you are a significant part of our Lord’s transformational army. You are NOW a soldier of the Cross! NOW, you are, in Him, salt, light, witnesses, servants, ministers, proclaimers, evangelists, preachers, teachers, His disciples, His deliverers, His warriors, His statesmen of faith!

When the journey begins as ‘a babe in Christ,’ nurturing must occur! In Hebrews 5:12-14 the author so clearly opens our understanding of this walk and maturing of our faith: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

Do you remember Gethsemane as Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 26:36, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And in verse 46 He so clearly and convinced says: “Rise, let us be going.” How many ‘sleeping disciples’ do you know who haven’t ARISEN? It’s time to ARISE! It’s time to step up to the plate because you are a batter on His team. It’s time to report in to our commanding officer. It’s time to know He’s overlooked your ‘sleep’ and forgiven it. Get up! Leave failure behind and step in to His Land of Blessed Fulfillment!

There are a number of things I want to call to your attention, I want to remind you, or if necessary, that your spiritual eyes are truly opened to this marvelous journey with Christ.

RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL MEANS HE TAKES THE OLD MAN, AND HAVING CRUCIFIED IT IN HIS PASSION AT THE CROSS, OUR LORD AND SAVIOR BEGINS TO REWIRE US, RECALIBRATE US, RENEW US AS A NEW CREATION, AND RESTORE US TO THE PATH OF HIS WORD, HIS WILL, HIS WAYS, YES, TO HIS LIKENESS.

In Psalm 37:39 we read, “But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble.” You do understand that apart from Christ our Lord we lived IN unrighteousness, but coming to Him in repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross we receive imputed, implanted righteousness!

I know this is why “the singers,” the sons of Korah, sand Psalm 84:5-7! “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Lord, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, [“weeping”], they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.”

Is your heart “set on pilgrimage”? Are you going from Christ’s strength to even more of Christ’s strength? Is it “Leaning On and In The Everlasting Arms of Christ” or are you determined to make it on your own?

I pray you’ll print out Philippians 3:7-10 and tape it to your bathroom mirror or pin it to your auto sun-visor! It says: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

I also pray you weep with Paul for Israel as we read in Romans 10:1-3, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

To Titus Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit, vital words for our understanding. Titus 3:5-7 says: “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

And this ‘washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit’? Titus 2:11-14 tells us: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” But also…

RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL MEANS THAT YOUR REJOICING IS NOT WHAT YOU PRESENTLY ARE BUT WHAT YOU’RE BECOMING!

In 2 Peter 3:17-18 Peter wrote: “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen.”

You’ll remember that in Ephesians Paul talked about ‘purpose’ in the lives of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor-teachers. He said in Ephesians 4:12-15, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ –“

Do you sense a problem with some believers? What’s that, you ask? It’s “professors” of Christ who are more concerned about their own identity in religious circles, their own ‘self-realization,’ their ‘pat-on-the-back’ because of their ‘attainments,’ that their reflection of Christ Jesus has become a secondary issue, yet Paul said in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Fleshly promotion in religious circles about one’s spiritual identity has, is, or becomes a stumbling block in others to “saving grace.” We’re not called to be self-promoters, self-pumpers, self-realizers, but Christ promoters alone!

But, again, Oswald Chambers nailed it! He said: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.140], “The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never considers circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in His work.” Amen?

RESTORED TO GOD’S WILL AND WORK IS ONE’S COMMITMENT TO THE GREATER RELEASE OF HIS LIGHT AND LIFE BEAMING BRIGHTER AND BRIGHTER TO HIS PERFECT LIKENESS.

In Proverbs 4:18 we read, “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” ‘The just,’ justified, ‘just as if I’d never sinned.’ What a path to walk on, travel on, settle in to! God shines on you, He beckons you, He purposefully directs the bright rays of His Son to shine on you! And day by day gracious God intensifies “The Light” – and what have you done with it? Hidden from it or reflecting it?

For you, is it dark clouds or the blazing Light of God’s glory? Have you weaned from your walk of faith those clouds of unbelief? Have you blocked His Light in you and upon you, defacing His glowing love by compromised submission? Is the Light of God’s glory crowded out by a ‘thankful spirit’ that’s been undermined by doubt, distrust, distraction, or disobedience? Has your walk of faith been sadly mingled with an indifferent attitude?

Faults before your conversion too often open the doors to the fruits of presumption, and our guard is down and His Light is blurred in us. But infinite mercy abounds and abounds and abounds. And from our darkness He compassionately reaches out to touch us with His grace and mercy, and rekindles within us the Holy Light of His manifested Presence!

Listen to Paul and reflect personally upon his words if you’ve carelessly tried to put out the Light of your Lord! I Timothy 1:15-17, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone Who is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

George Gordon, Lord Byron, in “The Giaour,” wrote: “Devotion wafts the mind above, But Heaven itself descends in love; a feeling from the Godhead caught, To wean from self each sordid thought; A Ray of Him who formed the whole; A Glory circling round the soul!” Amen?

Don’t you thrill within when you read David’s declaration of faith? In Psalm 27:1 we read, “The Lord is my LIGHT and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

You’ll remember as Jesus began His public ministry of preaching Matthew 4:17 says, “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” It was a fulfillment of prophecy from Isaiah 9:2 when the prophet recorded, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwell or walk in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.”

At this given moment, where are you dwelling, where are you living, what are you experiencing? Fleshly, worldly, satanic darkness, or the forever Light of His Holy Presence in you and through you?

Listen to Jesus!! Luke 11:33-36, “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part with darkness, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”

I can’t help but close this portion of this chapter in Colossians 1:9-14! “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

Do you grasp what division can do to one who is to be walking in the Light? It produces darkness! Disintegration is like holding a baby lamb in one hand and a rattlesnake in the other – you’ve pushed Christ Jesus away and compromised. And the ‘snake-bites’ will come!

RESTORED TO GOD”S WILL AND WORD IS THE GREATER RELEASE OF HIS ETERNAL PROMISES OF POWER, STRENGTH, AND SOARING ABILITY INTO HIGH PLACES – NOT THE LOWLAND OF WEAKNESS, POWERLESSNESS, AND A WALK IN THE LOW PLACES.

Oh, take Isaiah 40:29-31 as your secured treasure of the day! “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

I have no doubt Isaiah’s words were great inspiration for Paul, so he built on it and wrote to us in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

What did John write in John 1:16? “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” So Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians and us in Ephesians 1:15-23! “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

You are not a ‘low-land’ follower – you are an upper-room disciple living in the high places!

RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL BECAUSE OF HIS PROMISE THAT THE VEIL IS REMOVED, HIS VISION FOR US IS RECEIVED, AND HIS GLORY IS RELEASED TO LEAD AND INSPIRE US! WHY SETTLE FOR ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR WALK AS A DISCIPLE?

2 Corinthians 3:12-18 tells us: “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

“SUCH HOPE”? Is that true of you or have you settled in and resigned yourself as a ‘hopeless case’? A ‘hopeless case’ is evidence of one who looks to himself alone and has failed to “look unto Jesus, the author AND finisher of our faith.”

“SUCH HOPE”? That’s one who has learned to fix his face and faith on Jesus only “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.” Has the veil over your spiritual eyes been removed, has your vision of Jesus been sealed in your heart, and has His glory manifested upon you, in you, and through you?

“SUCH HOPE”? Encountering the Living Christ, Paul said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” The veil was removed, the vision appeared, and our Lord’s glory was upon his life! Yet, have you, encountering the vision, chosen to turn away because you think less of yourself than God does?

“SUCH HOPE”? To the church at Corinth Paul wrote, I Corinthians 2:1-5, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL IS ONE BEING TURNED FROM SELF-WILL TO DIVINE INTENT, TURNED FROM FLESHLY DETERMINATION TO ‘MADE ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT,’ AND CHOOSING TO LIVE AS A LITTLE EWE LAMB UNDER THE MASTERY OF THE GREAT SHEPHERD.

Examine I Peter 3:18! “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”

That eternal walk of faith is never to be attempted by “best effort” but a yieldedness to The Blessed Holy Spirit. It is not by one’s mastery of fallen flesh but mastered by the Indwelling Holy Spirit. This is why Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:15-21, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but wise, redeeming the times, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.”

In your ‘resignation to hopelessness’ have you ever truly looked to “The Great Shepherd”? In John 10:1-5 Jesus is speaking about this very thing. He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

Have you heard “The Shepherd’s” call? Are you truly being led and directed by The Shepherd of The Sheep? Have you heard Him call you by name?

RESTORED TO GOD’S WORD AND WILL IS BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND NO ONE CAN RESPOND FOR ME – I ACCEPT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO RESPOND IN OBEDIENCE TO THE LORD AND SAVIOR WHO HAS CALLED ME BY NAME, TAPPED ME ON THE SHOULDER, AND SHOWED ME MY PATH TO WALK ON.

In I Peter 3:15 Peter says: “Get up before Him, rise up, soar, and share what Amazing Grace has done for you!” “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”

And in that journey of obedience we learn of God’s Sovereignty birthing artisans with LIFE PURPOSE, A LIFE PLAN, and DIVINE LIFE WITH POWER IN THE SPIRIT TO OVERCOME WHATEVER WE FACE! Exodus 36:1 says: “And Bezalel and Aholiab, AND EVERY GIFTED ARTISAN in whom the Lord has put wisdom and understanding, to know how to do all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary [holy place], shall do according to all that the Lord has commanded.”

Tell me about your ‘gifting’ – or have you misused it for selfish purposes and find yourself at the door of resignation?

CHAPTER THREE

A TEMPORARY HIATUS OR ETERNAL HELPS AND HEALTHINESS?

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says a ‘hiatus’ is: “an opening…a gap, a chasm…a defect…”; and of ‘temporary’ he says: “For a time only…not perpetually.” Are you aware of ‘temporary hiatuses’ because of “the resignation to hopelessness”?

In Romans 15:13 Paul wrote: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

The author of Hebrews gives us a thrilling perspective. He wrote: Hebrews 6:17-19, For He testifies: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

An anonymous writer wrote: “Life with Christ is an endless hope, without Him a hopeless end.” It is so very, very true!

It was D.R. Davies who once wrote these words: “If the Cross is the measure of God’s respect for man’s freedom, then we can take new hope that freedom will survive all man’s attempts to destroy it.”

And, sadly, there are enemies to our eternal hope. There truly are those who laugh at hope, deny hope, refuse hope, because they relish themselves wallowing in self-pity or self-pride, wallowing in despair not dependence upon Another, wallowing in self-trust with no looking beyond their own noses and minds!

Let me give you up front in this chapter an overview of the temporary and a revelation of the eternal. Follow carefully and thoughtfully 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17!! Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now may the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.”

Do you understand “Born Free”? Have you come to an understanding that you or anyone around you is free to trust God or free to deny Him? Isaiah the prophet was given a picture not only of the freedom of choice but the awareness of an eternal enemy out to capture, allure, deceive, and cripple anyone who looks toward God. He wrote in Isaiah 14:12-14, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.”

Don’t you find it interesting that in Luke 22:31 that the Lord said: “Simon! Simon! INDEED Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.”

Temporary hiatuses are multiple in our fallen natures, but INDEED Satan has you in his target range and fires shots at you on a constant basis! In fact, he is regularly planting seeds that germinate into ‘the deceivableness of unrighteousness.’

But, how many do you know who have been blinded to the subtleties of Satanic activity and deny he even exists or have deluded themselves into thinking ‘abuse by Satan’ is not in their vocabulary or mental thoughts? “NOT ME!”

It was after Jesus’ baptism when the Voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Mark 1:12-13 then reads: “Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.”

Do you remember “seed by the wayside”, and when one hears it, “Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.” Wayside living is not living ‘in the Way’!! But even ‘in the way’ disciples can be and are, at times, troubled by the enemy of Christ! It’s why Paul said in I Thessalonians 2:18, “Therefore we wanted to come to you – even I, Paul, time and again – but Satan HINDERED US.”

Peter knew and experienced what Paul did in relation to the power and powers of darkness. He said in I Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.”

It was Cotton Mather in his “A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World” who wrote: “That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a devil must be from ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.” How true! But isn’t it sad that Christ-less professors and teachers target children and youth to ignore teachings about “a devil” and say to them, “Do whatever comes naturally that YOU want to do” – and they fall into the Devil’s trap!

In I Timothy 5:14-15 Paul wrote young Timothy and us: “Therefore I desire that younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary (the devil, the enemy, Satan) to speak reproachfully. For some have already turned aside after Satan.”

I was shocked again recently as I was reading in Revelation 2 about Smyrna, the persecuted church, when the angelic messenger came and said in verses 8-9, “These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life: ‘I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue (a congregation) of Satan.” Oh, Oh, my God! Awaken, shake, arise, save, birth synagogues of Satan into true temples, buildings, lives of redeemed, regenerated faith!!

It was Caedmon in “Creation. The Fall of Rebel Angels,” who wrote: “And them all the Lord transformed to devils, because they His deed and word would not revere.”

I’ve known women who were so much like depraved witches! I know there are mean men, but a Satanic woman is a tough, tough foe! In “Monsieur Thomas” John Fletcher wrote: “O woman, perfect woman! What distraction was meant to mankind when you were made a devil!” [Act111, sc 1].

If there is no resistance to Satanic activity, then capture, chains, spiritual cell-bars, bring the ‘lock-up’ and ‘breakdowns’ – morally, physically, mentally, practically – basket-cases though outwardly they appear just like the rest of our fallen world of unbelieving mankind! They just adjust, programmed by demon forces!

There is no doubt that we all face a powerful enemy who is intent on the demise of saving faith in any of us. His description is witnessed in the Word as powerful in great evil and diabolical intent. In Revelation 12:10 we’re assured that he (Satan) is the “accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night,” but he’s been cast down! If so, then why do some allow him to constantly cast them down?

Satan tempts, he entices, he lures, he entraps, he deludes, he deceives, he strikes like a coiled rattler attacking, he lies, he puffs up the fallen, he infects with deadly, godless poisons, he implants in the minds of men deadly errors, trash thoughts, promising strength he gives weakness, promising health he ‘blesses’ with spiritual sicknesses and diseases, promising victory he can’t tell you he’s already a defeated enemy of God!

When it comes to Satan and us, we are not “resigned to hopelessness” – WE ARE OVERCOMERS IN CHRIST JESUS! Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death!”

It was Spurgeon who preached: “Satan makes sin seem pleasurable, but the cross reveals its bitterness.” Resignation to hopelessness concerning the devil or Satan and your entrapment may blind you temporarily, but Calvary reveals the sweetness of deliverance and healing. We will not be false or foreign to the shed blood of the Lamb of God at Calvary!

Temporary hiatuses? It’s not only Satanic influences and impulses, but I believe also it’s when one has been allured, deceived, captured by a devotion to, yes, a worldly spirit foreign to the nature and character of God Himself.

The question? Are you seated at the table of worldliness?

When you consider worldly men, what do you see and sense? How do you compare or contrast them with men of true redemptive faith? When Jesus shared the Beatitudes He said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Not the proud in spirit but the poor in spirit, not the haughty but the humble, not the polished but the positioned ‘in Christ,’ not the degreed void of the divine, not the superior but the servant heart, not mean-spirited, arrogant, independent, better than everybody around kind of men but those men who’ve rested themselves before the world as an extension of Christ’s Life, as an expression of His love, and the very proof of Christ’s power dwelling within them!

Oh, I tell you, it’s not the man consumed by and indulging in a wild stallion kind of lifestyle, dancing with anything that crosses his bred-of-life debauchery, determined to drink with that which intoxicates him and satisfies every lust, one who is like a wild Texas stallion who roams with no harnesses, no guidance of God, no Spirit restraint- -and the world around him calls him free and happy and independent when in reality he’s bound, sad, alone, and apart from “saving grace and mercy” literally has no hope in himself.

But, Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” How blinded are the impure in heart! How disabled are godless men though they believe they are “on top of the world”! How empty the man who has chosen to do what he wishes rather than what God wills for that man’s life! How sightless for eternity’s sake and for present blessing are those who choose the world now over God forever!

In Luke 12:13-21 it so clearly defines the man of the world AND the man rich toward God: Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” And He said to him, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consists in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Then He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought to himself, “What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?” So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.’” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’”

What did Jesus say in verse 15? “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for ONE’S LIFE DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS HE POSSESSES.” And the worldly says, “Oh, yes it is,” and brazenly they go after earthly treasures rather than heavenly wealth.

Where does YOUR ‘hope’ lie or rest? And you know it – there are those who say, ‘my hope lies in this world and all I can squeeze out of it;” “if I could be acknowledged by the President in the White House, I would be truly a blessed man;” “ah, just let me sit every day at my favorite bar and I’ll be happy”; “yes, sexy music, a lewd and licentious book, lots of money, riches, or wealth, and I’ll be a happy camper.” NO, YOU WON’T!! Look around you – you’re not blessed by the vile of a sinful society – sickness comes, body, soul, mind, and spirit – and you’re not blessed but cursed, not honored but honed in on by Satan himself, your ‘friends’ are the cursers, the liars, the pretentious, the Pharisees, a company of the vilest of this modern, maddened, missed-God society!

In speaking to the religious Pharisees in John 8, verses 21-24, Jesus said: Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself, because He says, ‘Where I go you cannot come?’ And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

Do you remember Demas? I Timothy 4:9-10 says, “Be diligent to come to me quickly; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.” Why is that?

I John 2:15-17 explains: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the [boastful] pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who DOES the will of God abides forever.”

There is the Devil opposing redemptive faith, the world opposed to saving faith – but most ‘temporary hiatuses’ are because of ‘fallen flesh’ or one’s old, Adamic sin nature! What did I John 2:16 tell us? THERE IS “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.” And that lust so consumes, so debilitates – it is destructive and deadly!

In “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol. 18, p.371], he wrote after quoting Isaiah 2:22, “Cease you from man (fallen man), whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?” Then Spurgeon preached: “Man, especially since the fall, is a very unscriptural creature. His animus is animal. He is made up, as the old writers used to say, of soul and soil. Alas, the soil terribly soils the soul! “My soul cleaves to the dust” might be the confession of every man in one sense or another. We bear the image of the first Adam, who was of the earth earthy; earthy enough are we… [Spurgeon continued],

One consequence of the prevailing materialism of our corrupt nature is our craving for something tangible, audible, visible, as the object of our confidence. We want something which can be touched, heard, seen, or felt; we cannot be content with that which appeals only to the soul or the spirit. It seems as if man is so unspiritual that he cannot believe in a spiritual God; and yet any other than a spiritual God is an absurdity. Man cannot see God; therefore he will not trust in Him. He cannot hear His voice; therefore he will not attend to the movement of the Holy Spirit upon his soul. Humanity is carnal, sold under sin, infected with idolatry; and this fact remains true in a measure even of the regenerate.”

Infected with idolatry? Are you ready for truth? Colossians 3:5 says, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” GOD, HELP US ALL TO BE FREE OF THAT WHICH WOULD BIND US, ENSLAVE US, KILL US!!

How many do you know who are ‘chained’ rather than free in the Spirit of Christ? Do you witness the enslaved to their old sin natures rather than men and women whose chains have been broken by Christ Jesus? John 8:34-36 says, Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

Enough of the Devil, the world, and the flesh – what about our “Eternal Helps and Healthiness”?

Here’s an overview of the Divine strategy in the Word against the world, the flesh, and the devil. John was inspired to write in Revelation 12:9-12 the following: So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ has come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

The world, the flesh, the Devil – they are not ‘sovereign’ over Holy God, but Holy God is Sovereign over your world, your flesh, and, yes, even your devotion to the Devil and the powers of darkness at times!

I have no hesitation in saying that every living being troubled by his enemies MUST CLAIM “Eternal Helps and Eternal Healthiness” – yes, it belongs to one who repents to God and puts his faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross!

Do you remember the “Lord’s Prayer”? You’ll find it in Matthew 6:9-13, “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or the evil one]. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Who is without need of Holy Help? Who is it who faces the enemy in his own strength and stands victorious? Who is it that is accused by the Enemy who stands against him conquering except that man who knows he’s “HEDGED”? We read in Job 1:6-12, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “Form where do you come?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”

And, not only Job, but every God-fearing man, woman, youth, or child, who puts his/her faith in a trustworthy Savior and Lord, faces the Enemy hedged about by the glory of God! His glory, His eternal Help, His eternal healthiness in any man who “rests” himself in our Lord!

It’s “the blood of the Lamb of God”!! Always has been, always will be! It’s not religion! It’s not religious practices – it’s the blood of the Lamb of God!

The Lamb of God is the Son of God. The Lamb of God is Emmanuel! The Lamb of God is the crucified King of kings and Lord of lords! The Lamb of God is the Suffering Servant! The Lamb of God IS THE SUBSTITUTIONARY SACRIFICE AT THE CROSS! And men are reconciled to God, not by religious devotion to an institution, but “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross.”

What does the great old hymn say? “My hope is built on NOTHING LESS THAN JESUS’ BLOOD AND RIGHTEOUSNESS; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”

But you’ve been taught self-effort rather than Divine Intervention? You’ve been programmed with religion rather than Relationship? It was John Bunyan who wrote simply in “A Book For Boys and Girls”: “The egg’s no chick by falling from the hen, Nor man a Christian till he’s born again.” Were you truly ‘born again’ or have you just ‘joined’ a ‘church’?

Jesus died that you might LIVE in Him. Jesus shed His blood as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. You do know that Isaiah 53 was written 700 years before the death of Jesus! Verses 4-6 astounds us all!! “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

True people of faith LEAN upon Jesus’ shed blood and overcome through Him alone! Didn’t we read in Revelation 12:11, “overcame…by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death”?

Oh, listen with a thankful heart for a way of deliverance from self and religious slavery! Elisha Hoffman and Anthony Schowalter wrote it over a hundred years ago:

“What a fellowship, what a joy divine, Leaning on the everlasting arms; What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, Leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh how bright the path grows from day to day, Leaning on the everlasting arms.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear, Leaning on the everlasting arms, I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, Safe and secure from all alarms; Leaning, leaning, Leaning on the everlasting arms.”

I’m saddened by a hollow, faithless world, when men turn a deaf ear to “the blood of the Lamb of God,” but I rejoice, exult, celebrate, when a small child (yes, physically and spiritually) begins to rejoice in Jesus! Will you be one?

Spurgeon wrote: “Spiritual power of a holy kind rests upon us to overcome the spiritual power of an evil kind which is exerted by Satan, the world, and the flesh. [But] the Lord scatters the power of the enemy, and breaks the spell which holds men captive.” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.19, p.316]. AMEN?

What does 2 Corinthians 5:17 tell us? “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Do you receive 1) A new person 2) A new presence 3) a new participation with our Lord in world redemption 4) A new people 5) A new purpose and plan 6) A new power 7) A new non-perishing promise 8) A new path and pilgrimage of pressing in to Him?

2 Timothy 1:12 says, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.” Amen?

CHAPTER FOUR

NATURAL EFFORTS OR SUPERNATURALLY BLESSED?

In I Corinthians 3:1-3 Paul wrote: And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal [‘fleshly’]. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?”

Again I read to you from Isaiah 2 where in verses 19-22 we find the prophet challenging the ‘natural ‘ world as it faces the Supernatural glory of God. It says: They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily. In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship, to the moles and bats, To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the crags of the rugged rocks, from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily. Sever yourselves from such a man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?”

The prophet mentioned idolatry which we saw in Colossians 3:5, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth (those natural affections that are deadly!!); fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” And, as a result of failure in living by natural efforts rather than Supernaturally Blessed, “the terror of the Lord…arises to shake the earth mightily;” and to you, you don’t care, you don’t fear, you don’t re-evaluate who you are before Him and where you stand? You don’t even ask, “Is there any hope for me or am I just totally hopeless?”

Man in the first century, man in the mid-centuries, and man in these last days, has been and is by his own fallen sin nature an idolater! Read human history if you dare, and nothing has changed. Fallen man became “god” unto himself, and bowed to worship! Still does.

The natural possesses ‘religious possibilities’ producing the curse while the Spiritual is Divine in presence bestowing blessing after blessing. The natural has temporary healing qualities while the Spiritual is Eternal Health. The natural has “pride” while the Spiritual possesses Holy humility. The natural has fleshly, temporal potential while the Spiritual is “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

The natural has historic crowds while the Spiritual is “few there be that find it.” The natural is limited ability while the Spiritual is “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think.” The natural trusts big armies while the Spiritual thanks God for Jesus and His angels.

Jeremiah 17:5-6 says, Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength who departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. [BUT] Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.”

Where have you rested your life, right now? Natural efforts or Supernaturally blessed? Do you understand shadows or substance, or have you blinded yourself to indifference? Is your life-walk faith in your feebleness or have you chosen faith in the faithfulness of God Himself? Is your ‘existence’ the best of human frailty or is your devotedness in the fullness of the Godhead bodily? Is your life stopped on human potential or is your life resting on Divine promises?

Have you encountered, yes, fleshly uncertainties or do you rest in Divine assurances? Is it really soulish confidence of what you believe you can do or the spiritual reality of saving, sovereign grace and what God Himself can do through you as you make yourself available to Him alone?

I was amused yet awakened anew when I read Spurgeon saying that man apart from God is nothing more than “worm’s meat.” How is it that when you’ve prided yourself in independence from God, you determine to be master of your own destiny? Then, all of a sudden, fleshly fear floods your soul? God said through Isaiah, [Isaiah 51:12], “I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of man who will be made like grass?”

Oh, how sad, how troubling! Have you forgotten your Maker, the Lord your God and Savior? I’m awed every time I read Hebrews 12:3-8!! For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.”

Flesh exaggerates – Faith chastens. Natural men will pump your flesh – the Supernatural Blessing will ‘break’ you in holy moments of rescue and reward and rebuilding your identity in Him. Flesh is fully self-centered – Spirit is selfless, as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”

The world so promotes in its people likeness to the fallen flesh that is all around – look alike, talk alike, act alike, sin alike, rebel alike, destroy alike, adulterate alike, curse God alike, deny Him alike – yes, “join the crowd of the Christ-less and discover what you really are!” Oh, really? But in the Spirit-realm, Romans 8:29-30 tells us: For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Fleshly will is wanton – lewd, lascivious, a rover, a reveler, a rebel. Spiritual will is submission to God, a passion for honoring Him, a consuming desire to be more like the Master!

Natural efforts are primed to promote the ‘flesh’ – Supernaturally Blessed is a heart overflowing with desire to honor Christ in all things. Natural efforts emerge as contradictory – bless, then curse; love, then hate; establish your promises, then forget every promise you ever made! Natural efforts come from arms of flesh, and when we exert confidence in that, we usually end up confused. But Supernaturally led, we unveil the Godhead.

Natural efforts birth hindrances to one gaining a true view of God, but Supernaturally Blessed reveals His character in us. And all disciples are on a journey! Hebrews 12:1 says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Natural efforts are so like an undisciplined athlete who can’t play four quarters! But the Supernaturally Blessed live in Eternity and are prepared by God Himself for the “forever”! Hebrews 12:2 says, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Where are you seated?

Natural efforts? “No one tells me what to do or how to do it – I’m master of my own destiny.” The true disciple says, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” Jesus said in John 15:14, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.”

Natural efforts? No painful trials, no hardship undertaking, no pain, no loss, no suffering, no rejection – but the Supernaturally Blessed? John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Natural? A loser! Spiritual? A victor! Natural? Death! Spiritual? Everlasting life!

Natural efforts? Grief is the end result because the created are there to honor God – without faith, sorrow and pain is the end result of a Christless life. Supernaturally Blessed? One with God!

In the natural vein earthly men are ‘guided’ by the so-called ‘wisdom’ of men that leads to sinking sands, bottomless pits, broken hearts, endless questioning with no answers, while the Supernaturally Blessed are led by “Your word [God] is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”

Men in their fallen sin natures, even the ‘leaders of the bands,’ the presiding officers over nations, the bank presidents overseeing vast wealth, have no real answers as to “Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the purpose of my existence?” But a Job, in the midst of Spiritual Blessing as well as testing can say (Job 23:12), “I have treasured the words of God’s mouth more than my necessary, daily bread.”

How many do you know in this vast world population of ours who are so bound in the natural effort to the point when crisis comes they don’t know where to turn or who to turn to or if there is even a sand-grain of hope for their dilemma? But the blessed disciple, John, wrote: I John 5:14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Natural effort? Answer-less surroundings! But the Spiritual, Supernatural Blessing? (Psalm 55:22), “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.”

Natural effort? Humanity on its own is a “trip” one really has to travel alone when surrounded by millions of like-minded people with no answers to your dilemma. But to the Spiritually Blessed, Matthew 18:20 says, “For where two or three are gathered TOGETHER IN MY NAME, I am there in the midst of them.” I am a man so blessed by ‘the family of God.’ I’ve traveled this world – and whether Brazil, Haiti, the Philippines, Africa, Asia, or India, I’ve never been a ‘lone wolf’ or a ‘lone ranger.’ God’s people have surrounded me, upheld me, blessed me, encouraged me, and enlightened me. Then I see the ‘lonesome traveler’ who walks alone. It’s why Proverbs 27:17 tells us: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. “ Do you at all understand mutual encouragement in the fear of God?

It was George Eliot who said: “It is vain thought to flee from the work God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found – in loving obedience.” No doubt because we’re told in the Holy Word (Hebrews 10:25), “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Natural efforts or Supernaturally Blessed? Human effort, human initiative, human determination, can make a name for one’s self! Only the Holy Spirit superintending a man’s life honors God!

Billy Graham, in his book “The Journey,” (pps. 136-137), told the story of a clergyman in a very poor part of London who became so burdened for the dockworkers in his parish. He wrote:

“Their work was hard, thankless, and poorly paid, and he decided that if ever he was to reach them with the Gospel of Christ he must become one of them. Day after day he dressed like them and stood in line waiting for a job, never telling who he really was. Finally one winter’s day he was hired to help unload a freighter, moving goods in a wheelbarrow from boat to dock along a narrow plank. On one trip he felt the plank rock violently, and he lost his footing and fell into the cold river. Laughter rang out, and he realized one of the men had deliberately jiggled the plank to make him fall…His first impulse was to react in anger (for he had often struggled with his temper) – but almost instantly he sensed the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming his anger and giving him peace. He grinned and joined the laughter, and to his surprise the culprit dropped his load and helped him out of the muck. His tormentor-turned-rescuer, taken aback by his calm reaction, began talking with him. Later the man shamefully revealed that he had once been a highly respected physician, but alcohol had robbed him of both his profession and his family. The clergyman led him to Christ, and in time the man was reunited with his family and restored to his position (physician). But here is the point: It would never have happened if the Spirit of God hadn’t conquered the clergyman’s temper and replaced it with the gentleness and love of Christ. The Holy Spirit made the difference.”

How clear the difference between natural efforts or one Supernaturally Blessed when in Ephesians 4:22-24 Paul tells us: “that you put off, concerning your former conduct [natural effort, flesh, fallen sin nature], the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Oh, my!! “Natural efforts”? “Former conduct [apart from God’s nature],” “old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, a worldly mind influencing still,” but rejoicing in the Supernaturally Blessed ‘new-man’ created (Birthed) according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” No longer what you were, but who you are now “in Christ”! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

There certainly are pitfalls, problems, spiritual pimples that pop out on the “new man’s” young face, but grace, mercy, and love abound to the one who rests in Jesus. It’s why David the King cried out, Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” AND HE WILL!

Natural effort, undiagnosed and recognized as dangerous, can bring one to a place where refusing God, one begins to blame Him: a failure – ‘God’s fault’; loss of a child – ‘where was God?’ A repeated riot in the mind – ‘I blame God!’; A disappointment by a friend or business partner – ‘God is to blame.’ Natural effort with bad seed planted, and the harvest disappoints.

Natural effort or fruit? Unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, grudges, get-even-intent, broken relationships – what will this day bring forth in you? And the Supernaturally Blessed in bad moments? Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never let the righteous be moved [or shaken].” Amen?

Natural efforts? But natural hindrances also. Natural efforts? But hard falls, perilous rivers to cross, unexpected feuds, fires, and fights – “And I’m mad!” But the Supernaturally Blessed? Hebrews 12:1, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

Without God, to whom do natural-effort men turn to? Even if they have godless friends, they’re still void of divine grace and mercy, but Supernaturally Blessed? Isaiah 46:4 says: “Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry you, and deliver you.”

And the Supernaturally Blessed are not exempt from times of trouble, heart-aches, pain and suffering. But there is a promise in God’s Word – Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Charles A. Tindley wrote the hymn “Nothing Between.” It says:

“Nothing between my soul and the Savior, Naught of this world’s delusive dream’ I have renounced all sinful pleasure, Jesus is mine; there’s nothing between…

Nothing between like worldly pleasure; Habits of life, though harmless they seem, Must not my heart from Him ever sever, He is my all, there’s nothing between…

Nothing between, like pride and station; self or friend shall not intervene; Tho’ it may cost me much tribulation, I am resolved, there’s nothing between…

Nothing between, even many hard trials, Tho’ the whole world against me convene; Watching with prayer and much self-denial, I’ll triumph at last, with nothing between…

Nothing between my soul and the Savior, So that His blessed face may be seen, Nothing preventing the least of His favor, Keep the way clear! Let nothing between.” Amen?

CHAPTER FIVE

MIND OF THE FLESH OR MIND OF THE SPIRIT?

The mind? A mental capacity of understanding with wisdom or without it? The mind? That which breeds spiritual indifference or that blessed of God with eternal concerns about one’s well-being? The mind? Callousness about life as it is or care about what God wants it to be? The mind? Is it ‘bare-headed’ in spiritual sensitivity or ‘blessed-headed’ with Spirit illumination? The mind? Is it “what I want” or is it, “I receive in my mind what God knows I need – it’s open to His revealing graces”? What is it that is ‘on my mind’ or is it truly, ‘my mind God’s alone”?

Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.56], “Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I insubordinate in intellect? Am I forming the mind of Christ, Who never spoke from His right to Himself, but maintained an inner watchfulness whereby He continually submitted His spirit to His Father?” Was Jesus’ mind a mind of the flesh or the mind of the Spirit?

Can you imagine a ‘new life in Christ’ with an old mind controlled by ‘flesh’ and not the Holy Spirit? You are aware of a world that thinks and acts on its own thoughts and ignores the mind of God in Christ!

In Numbers 23 and 24 Balaam met Balak who encouraged Balaam to curse the Israelites but Balaam responded that “All that the Lord speaks, that I must do.” In Numbers 24:2, “and the Spirit of God came upon Balaam.” He said to Balak in verse 13, “If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word [or mind of the Spirit of God!] of the Lord, to do good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, that I must speak.” Verse 25 says, “So Balaam rose and departed and returned to his place; Balak also went his way.”

What a distinction, yes, and an unveiling of a mind of flesh and the mind of the Spirit! In Psalm 31:12 David said, “I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind…” Out of the mind of God’s enemies but not out of the mind of God!

In fact Isaiah 26:3 tells us, “You [God] will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” For you, is it a stayed mind or a starved mind? Do you think on the basis of fleshly impulses or on the basis of a divine revelation? In Jeremiah 3:19-21 God speaks: But I said, “How can I put you among the children and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful heritage of the hosts of nations?’ And I said: ‘You shall call Me, “My Father,” and not turn away from me.’ Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,” says the Lord. A voice was heard on the desolate heights, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel. For they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the Lord their God.”

Was Israel’s mind in rebellion to God a mind of the flesh or the mind of the Spirit? In Lamentations Jeremiah wrote of his “laments” over Israel and how the roads to Zion mourn. Then he wrote words of great hope: Lamentations 3:19-26, as if he alone was Israel! He said:

“Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, Therefore I hope in Him! The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

Oh, how I want you to receive the words of Jesus right now as in Matthew 22:37, responding to the Pharisees’ question in verse 36, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”, and Jesus responded: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with ALL YOUR MIND.”

How have you personally responded to Acts 17:11? “These were more fair-minded (noble-minded) than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”

How important is the word of God in a mind of flesh if it has any hope at all in being a mind of the Spirit? I Thessalonians 2:13 says: “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.”

Of course, because of a mind of the flesh, many respond to the ‘unimportance’ of the Word of God in their lives even when in Matthew 4:4 Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Paul told the church at Colossae, [Colossians 1:19-23], “For it pleased the Father that in Him [Christ] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

The mind of the flesh? “You, who once were alienated and enemies IN YOUR MIND by wicked works, yet now has He [God] reconciled.” The mind of the flesh is alienated from God, is an enemy of God IN THE MIND, and is evidenced by wicked works! It might be good to evaluate what God calls “wicked works”!

Who did God give up and why? Romans 1:24-32 says: “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of god for THE LIE ?[you can sin and not die!], and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

I know that every word you’ve just read from Romans are passionately opposed by the godless and even some who ‘profess’ allegiance to Him, but they believe they can walk with God and oppose His truth. I DON’T THINK SO!

In Romans 7 Paul has been sharing his life apart from Christ. He said in verses 21-25, “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”

Paul, convicted by the Holy Spirit of his fleshly religious mind, had unveiled, not only in his mind but his heart also, the ‘truth’ – Verse 23, “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, AND BRINGING ME INTO CAPTIVITY to the law of sin which is in my members.” SHAZAM! This religious rabbi was nailed by the Spirit of God and sees himself as he truly is apart from Christ! He wrote in Romans 7:13, “Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, WAS PRODUCING DEATH IN ME THROUGH WHAT IS GOOD, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.”

Oh, how difficult it is for fallen men to see their sinfulness! One of the major roadblocks is the blindness because of a man’s “self-esteem,” his programmed conscience that’s been so dulled he can’t recognize sin as sin, his “perverseness of misconception,” [Spurgeon], his attitude that black is white and there is no ‘blackness’ in him, his spiritual nakedness denied, his mind programmed as to absence [in him] of any exceeding blindness to sin, to the blackness of an alienated, separated heart from God, not knowing his heart is deceitful AND his mind desperately wicked! “No God” – wicked mind! “No need of God” – deceived mind! “No want of God” – a defiled, sick heart and mind!

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God spoke: Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” And, yes, even phony preachers and false prophets poison their minds! Jeremiah 6:13-15 says: “Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not ashamed at all; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.

Do you grasp at all “the peril of deception” concerning the mind? To the church at Colossae Paul wrote: [Colossians 2:8], “Beware lest anyone cheat (plunder, or take captive) you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”

I’m telling you with all the passion I can muster on paper – it’s not just the “godless” that concern me but the “professors” without evidence of the Indwelling Christ and Holy Spirit at all! It’s why in James 1:4-8 the brother of Jesus wrote: “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; for he is a DOUBLE-MINDED MAN, unstable in all his ways.” [Later, in James 4:8, James said: “…and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”]

You do know that there are those who have been blinded to the truth of God’s Word! In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, WHOSE MINDS the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” Divided minds, veiled minds, delusional minds, diseased minds, blinded minds, evil minds, proud minds, self-righteous minds! And apart from the manifestation of the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ shining on them and in them, they are hopeless!

Spurgeon said, [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 10, p. 135], “Human nature has become so perverted that if men know that they have broken human laws they are ashamed, but the breach of command which affects only the Lord Himself causes them very small concern. If we were to steal, or lie, or knock another down, we should be ashamed of ourselves, and so we ought to be; but, for all that, such shame would be no work of grace. Sin must appear to be “sin” against God – that is the point; we must say with David, “Against You, Lord, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.”

With the prodigal we must cry, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You, and am no more worthy to be called Your son.” That is the true view…the Lord brings us to confess our transgressions after that sort.”

Mind of the ‘flesh’? Religious mind of the ‘flesh’? Devoted mind of the ‘flesh’? In Acts 9:1-7 we read of the religious Saul, mind of the flesh, who became converted Saul to Paul, and received the mind of the Spirit! It says: Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what would you have me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.

Also, in Acts 9, we read about Ananias, instructed by the Lord Himself to seek out Saul of Tarsus. God told him, “Behold, he is praying.” Ananias went to find Saul and Acts 9:17 says, “And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying hands on him he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Then verse 18 says: “Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.”

You do understand that baptism in water is the picture of death, burial, and resurrection to the new life in Christ. But baptism in the Spirit is every born-again believer’s blessing as he comes with repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross. In fact, in Romans 8, three times in the first five verses Paul says, “according to the Spirit,” and then in verse 9 adds: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”

Look at Romans 8:11! “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead DWELLS IN YOU, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” And what is the Holy Spirit up to in a new believer’s life?

Romans 8:13-14 tells us!! “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

Mind of the flesh or mind of the Spirit? Vital, victorious, overcoming, God-honoring living is in and of the Holy Spirit! Jesus said in John 16:7-14, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”

THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS OF SIN.

THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVINCES OF NEW LIFE, ETERNAL LIFE, IN CHRIST.

THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDES US INTO ALL TRUTH.

THE HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFIES CHRIST IN YOU.

THE HOLY SPIRIT TESTIFIES IN YOU OF JESUS. (JOHN 15:26)

THE HOLY SPIRIT BEARS THE FRUIT OF THE DIVINE. NATURE IN US.(Galatians 5:22-25).

THE HOLY SPIRIT EMPOWERS, ANOINTS, FILLS, BAPTIZES US. Acts 1:8

THE HOLY SPIRIT BREATHES JOY IN US. Romans 14:17.

THE HOLY SPIRIT SEALS US IN CHRIST. Ephesians 1:13.

THE HOLY SPIRIT MOVES UPON US TO SPEAK. 2 Peter 1:21.

Oh, please look at Romans 8:16 prayerfully!! “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” and then adds appropriately in verse 17, “and if children [of faith], then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, IF indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Me, God’s Family of the Faith, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit “GLORIFIED TOGETHER”!

Did we read that the Holy Spirit breathes “JOY” into the Lord’s children of faith? As long as ‘professing Christians’ are in control of their own spiritual destiny, ‘joy’ is not only forgotten, it is totally absent from the ‘professor of faith.’ Does it ever occur to us that ‘our choices’ cripple our joy in Jesus? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Happiness is an emotion of feelings that has nothing to do with saving faith, but joy is the very fruit of the Holy Spirit filling, directing, empowering, and blessing your life!

Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.255], wrote the following, and is so appropriate here: “The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Spirit, Who produces these agonies begins the formation of the Son of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If ever you cease to know the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you have forgotten how to be sorry.”

It was Marcus M. Wells who, in the 1800’s, wrote the following hymn: “Holy Spirit, Faithful Guide.”

“Holy Spirit, faithful Guide, Ever near the Christian’s side, Gently lead us by the hand, Pilgrims in a desert land;

Weary souls for-e’er rejoice, While they hear that sweetest voice Whispering softly, ‘Wanderer come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.”

Ever-present, truest Friend, Ever near His aid to lend, Leave us not to doubt and fear, Groping in darkness drear;

When the storms are raging sore, Hearts grow faint, and hopes give o’er, Whisper softly, ‘Wanderer come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.’”

When our days of toil shall cease, Waiting still for sweet release, Nothing left but heaven and prayer, Knowing that our names are there,

Wading deep the dismal flood, Pleading naught but Jesus’ blood, Whisper softly, ‘Wanderer come! Follow Me, I’ll guide you home.”

CHAPTER SIX

EARTHLY EDUCATIONS OR OMNIPOTENT EXPRESSIONS?

After the flood in Genesis, God gave a promise: [Genesis 8:22], “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” So…does that mean, with the earth remaining for a time, that we all can do as we please without any desire concerning God’s eternal purposes being fulfilled in our lives?

Oh, there are multitudes, millions, billions, who do as they please without any consideration of the divine or eternal plan of God Almighty. Who knows how many drowned in “The Great Flood,” and who knows the billions who died in their sin as they lived to satisfy their own expectations and educations without any consideration or commitment to Holy God and His omnipotent expressions?

But God is so merciful! He spares and He spares and He spares – hopeful for that change of heart that because they become so aware of the futility of earthly education if there is no ‘omnipotent expression’ through that available life to Him – and some turn.

In Jeremiah 3, at least four times, God said: “Return to Me, O backsliding children!” And I don’t believe God’s merciful heart has died out or grown silent, choosing to disengage Himself from fallen humanity’s dilemma – NO! There is the Cross of Christ ever waving through all ages! The earth remains – for now! The ages seem so endless – yet we know there is coming the close of the temporary, regardless of its endurance so far, and a day when the Eternal One says to earth, “Gentlemen, it’s closing time!” And the door to the Eternal is shut!

2 Peter 3:9-13 tells us: The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

Disciples of Jesus are not the ‘hopeless’ but the “hope-filled” to eternal capacity! The ‘least’ of the saints, if there is such a one as that, far exceeds the world’s premier intellect who probably voided God out of his life, immersing that life into a treacherous sea of impersonalisation, false hope, paper degrees, windless, empty rhetoric with no healing graces, believing himself smarter than God and comes up empty and void of any saving grace or mercy.

Most modern-day educational institutions are built dumbing down the public to their need of God. What a heartless institution!

C.S. Lewis once said: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because of it I see everything else.” And modern education, earthly education, IS A DISTRESSING DISGUISE, A POOR SUBSTITUTE, for omnipotent expression and experience.

When God spoke through Moses to Pharoah, Pharoah said, [Exodus 5:2], “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” Oh, but he has a ‘pyramid’, he had great wealth, he had multiple wives, beautiful horses and chariots, and slaves to serve his every whim, to serve him and fight his wars!! Really, really a big man – but he was swept away by one wave of God’s little finger!

The pharaohs, the worldly professional, the highly educated (most, not all!), rule to rout out any spiritual truth or devotion or God-likeness. They cast doubt on the Word of God, they’re a stickler for their ‘thinking’, and an agitator against Christian spirituality in any form!

I Peter 1:2 says, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus…” Elect? Sanctified by the Spirit? Walking in obedience having been washed in the blood of the Lamb of God? And the worldly class, the devil’s crowd, the white-washed rather than the blood-bought, cry out, deny, oppose, feeding lies and half-truths and untruths to their impressionable students or, yes, even their children and yours!

It’s amazing to me, astounding to me, that high-ranking national government leaders can blatantly lie, spew terrible falsehoods, use unscrupulous rhetoric – then, get re-elected! There are earthly educators who, yes, twist truth and misuse Scripture. The earthly educator fights for his turf – your young children and youth. It will be interesting in eternity with God to find out how godless ‘educators’ induced bitter, young souls to end their sadness before they found true joy!

It’s not ‘your college degree is your merit’ – no, your merit is leaning on God’s mercy! It’s not ‘your accomplishments are your merit’ – no, your merit is leaning on Jesus only! Don’t you know it? Most highly educated men major on the thorns, the briars, the unplowed, unseeded fields, without any eternal harvest at all – and usually their unplowed, unseeded fields in the lives of their students become “dust bowls”!!

Harold R. Eberle wrote the book, “Christianity Unshackled,” sub-titled, “ARE YOU A TRUTH SEEKER?” And in it he highlighted how most modern seminary or university PH D’s have rationalized ‘faith’ rather than received it as it truly is: “REVELATION”! He said: [p.105}, “In modern universities that have classes focusing on, “The historical Jesus,” students are taught that the man Jesus who lived in the first century was a mythological figure. He truly lived, but He was just a man. When students enroll in a class entitled “Bible as Literature,” They may expect to get an opportunity to read the Bible, but if the course is taught by a liberal professor, they will not even need a Bible. Instead, they will learn and then be tested on their ability to understand the Bible as literature – in the same sense as Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey” are literature, filled with mythology. When students sit in a religion class taught by a liberal professor, their minds are being formed to see Jesus and the Bible through the lens of rationalism. The supernatural is explained away, and the spiritual side of reality is denied… Thousands of adults have entered liberal seminaries (not all seminaries are liberal) with hopes of serving God in ministerial positions, only to come out of those seminaries doubting even the existence of God…A seminary I attended over 30 years ago was especially hard on me, and it took me several years to rebuild a solid biblical worldview.”

Oh, please listen, lean, and rest on the truth of Acts 17:29-31! “Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

That’s the true governance and grace of God! Revelation 5:11-12 tells us: Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

In 2 Kings 6 we learn of Syria coming against Samaria and how, as the Samaritans were besieged, a great famine occurred. [Are there spiritual famines because of ungodly men, leaders, kings, or armies?]

The king of Israel was passing by on the wall, and a woman asked him, “Help, my lord, O king!” And in verse 27 the king said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” He was saying: ‘No grain, no wine – how can I help you?” And, man can’t remedy spiritual malnutrition!

Then there’s a messenger from God Himself! Oh, I pray you have spiritual eyes to see God’s faithfulness in the midst of humanity’s spiritual starvation! In 2 Kings 7:1 Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ‘Tomorrow about this time gallons of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and barley, at the gate of Samaria.” Can you even imagine or comprehend that word to hungry multitudes? “Yes, yes, yes – our needs are met by God Himself! It’s SUPERNATURAL!!” But there are the doubters, the unbelievers, the spiritually blind, who want no help from God! 2 Kings 7:2 says, “Look, if God would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” Elisha said, because of the spirit of unbelief, (Verse 2b), “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” Question! Is there ever that serious moment of eternal consequence when God closes the door on unbelief? “The king” and his unbelief? 2 Kings 7:20, “And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.”

Earthly education is so far too often fraught (loaded, filled, overflowing) with unbelief! But omnipotent expression is “Christ in me the hope of glory.” Earthly education is sadly far too often based on fleshly ideals acting on impulses – self-esteem, self-determination, without any trust or dependence upon the God who made us all, lost us through our sin and unbelief, and then bought us with a price – the shed blood of the Lamb of God, and that alone!

What does I Corinthians 2:14 tell us? “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are [only] spiritually discerned,[And that’s by “the New Birth”!!]

Earthly education is far too often “pumping flesh” to achieve when omnipotent expression is God’s arms of grace, mercy, and love, opened to receive and to give!

Earthly education is far too often that which trains or train-wrecks people to determine morality or character on their own terms with no sense of the Eternal! Earthly education is far too often training the masses to turn deaf ears to God and His Word. Earthly education magnifies loyalty to what one sees as his true self – not views from a ‘narrow-minded’ God as to ‘my potential’! How false and foreign to the Lamb of God and the Cross!

Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest”, p. 263], “Never be sympathetic with the soul whose case makes you come to the conclusion that God is hard. God is more tender than we can conceive, and every now and again He gives us the chance of being the rugged one that He may be the tender One. If a man cannot get through to God it is because there is a secret thing he does not intend on giving up – I will admit I have done wrong, but I no more intend to give up that thing than fly. It is impossible to deal sympathetically with a case like that; we have to get right deep down to the root until there is antagonism and resentment against the message. People want the blessing of God, but they will not stand the thing that goes straight to the quick.”

Earthly education? “Your sense of need is met because you become better qualified – not ‘God meeting your need.’” “Your natural virtues are such you have no need of a higher spiritual power.” When there is no conviction of your false values about yourself, it’s evident thick walls to protect your ‘old man’ have been erected, but I tell you, day by day, loving God will take down one stone at a time until you’re void of a virtuous life fully exposed, and you cry out to Him for “mercy,” having determined according to Psalm 87”7, “All my fresh springs are in You.”

Earthly education? That is so often natural devotion to the highest level of fallen man’s expectations for themselves absent of divine truth. But when we hear Jesus say, John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the ‘flesh’ profits NOTHING. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” then, confronted by the compassionate Christ, one makes an eternal decision for either the blessing or the curse.

Earthly education? It is criminal when creative genius is called capitalistic greed; it is blindness when “social justice” becomes the substitute for “saving, redemptive Jesus;” it is, yes, intellectual stupidity when men’s words and opinions are placed above the Word of God.

Earthly education? I remind you that Paul reminded them in Colossians 3:5, “Therefore put to death your MEMBERS WHICH ARE ON THE EARTH (earth-bound): fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, WHICH IS IDOLATRY.” FLESH-BOUND MEN ARE IDOLATERS! Haven’t you ever come across those who are “idol worshippers” because the most important thing in their lives is their ‘work’? They truly are consumed by it 24 hours a day, even 7 days a week – NO ROOM FOR GOD!

When one is ‘consumed’ by his work, there is no time at all for concentration on or the centering of life on God alone…no freedom in the Spirit but bondage and chains or cells with heavy bars shutting them in only to their pathetic, godless selves.

Earthly education or omnipotent expression? In Jeremiah 45:5 God spoke, “And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all FLESH,” says the Lord. “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.” Do you believe John really meant it when in John 3:30 he said, “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease?”

You are aware that “the world,” “fallen men,” the aliens to God and the covenant of promise are involved in the soulish increase of their own fleshly lives – they’re not on the path after God Himself – they’re feasting on a fleshly diet that starves their souls, not feed them God’s spiritual menu. Amateurish paths of ‘flesh’ always lead to amateurish outcomes, spiritual bankruptcy, and decisive alienation from Holy God. It’s not a pretty picture of a ‘blessed outcome’ but ‘THE CURSE’!!

Paul wrote in Galatians 3:10-14, and verses 19-24, then Galatians 4:1-7,

Galatians 3:10-14, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, ‘for the just shall live by faith.’ Yet the law is not of faith, but ‘the man who does them shall live by them.’ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

Galatians 3:19-24, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined ALL UNDER SIN that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

Galatians 4:1-7, “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

Earthly education opposing God and His Word IS A CURSE! Omnipotent expression through an available life to God is a BLESSING! Fanny Crosby, in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, wrote the following hymn entitled “Blessed Assurance.” It says:

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels descending, bring from above, Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest; Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.”

“Blessed” is not a word for earthly educators or earthly education if God is omitted and His Word is denied, and Thomas Carlyle nailed it when in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” (Vol V, Pt.10), he said:

“Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.” WOW! How true is that!!

Don’t ever forget Psalm 103:1, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.”Earthly education apart from omnipotent expression? Spurgeon said it: “Once make a giant unbelieving, and he becomes a dwarf.” This came from Spurgeon’s message on ‘unbelief’ found in Spurgeon’s Sermons, Volume 2. But later, [p.63], he was closing his sermon with the following words about the unconverted. He said: “They often see great works of God done with their eyes, but they do not eat thereof. A crowd of people have come here this morning to see with their eyes, but I doubt whether all of them eat. Men cannot eat with their eyes, for if they could, most would be well fed. And, spiritually, persons cannot feed simply with their ears, nor simply with looking at the preacher; and so we find the majority of our congregations come just to see: ‘Ah, let us hear what this babbler would say, this reed shaken in the wind.’ But they have no faith; they come, and they see, and see, and see, and never eat. There is someone in the font there, who gets converted; and someone down below, who is called by sovereign grace; some poor sinner is weeping under a sense of his blood-guiltiness; another is crying for mercy to God; and another is saying, ‘Have mercy upon me, a sinner.’ A great work is going on in this chapel, but some of you do not know anything about it; you have no work going on in your hearts, and why? Because you think it is impossible; you think God is not at work. He has not promised to work for you who do not honor Him. Unbelief makes you sit here in times of revival, and of the outpouring of God’s grace, unmoved, uncalled, unsaved.”

I just want to remind you who are so wrapped up in this robe of earthly education – “Hallelujah, the Lord God Almighty still reigns!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

TRYING OR TRUSTING?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”?

In John 2:23-25 we read: “Now when He [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”

Would you yourself discern ‘what was in man’ – trying or trusting? The word ‘trying’ in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary is defined as “exerting strength, attempting…” It, at least, is making an effort – but where does one find that in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? “I tried…!” Give me a break! “Straining”? “Attempting”? “Flirting with, apart from surrender and yieldedness”?

I’m not even sure that “the fallen, the alienated, the separated from God” know anything about “trusting” much less ‘trying.’ In Luke 9:57-62 we read of several “attempts” that fell so far short of Indwelling Life! It says: Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

It was Oswald Chambers who said: “We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith in the character of God.” In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate;’ for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, AND THERE ARE FEW WHO FIND IT.”

‘Trying’ is that broad way while ‘trusting’ is that narrow way! ‘Trying’ is self-centered obedience because most want to improve their own life standards, but ‘trusting’ is submitting and fully surrendered to God only because of one’s desire to bless and honor Him alone.

‘Trying’ is that natural life turned inward to make a better name for one’s self, while ‘trusting’ is the manifestation of ultimate purpose in me and through me for the Glory of God.

‘Trying’ or ‘trusting’? Listen to Oswald Chambers, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” pps. 164-165), “There are stages in life when there is no storm, no crisis, when we do our human best; it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to trust Him, the crisis will reveal that we will go to the breaking point and not break our confidence in Him.” You’re trying? I ask, “Where is your trust and confidence in God and His Word?”

What did Paul say in Philippians 1:6? “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;” how awesome is that when one has no confidence in himself but fully trusts in and hopes in Jesus Only? Paul said in Philippians 3:3, “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH…” Amen? Is that true of you?

‘Trying or trusting?’ The prophet Jeremiah was so heart-broken who looked upon his own people to witness ‘self-effort’ among the chosen people of God. He said in Jeremiah 2:12-13, quoting God Himself, “Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be very desolate,’ says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

‘Trying’ or ‘trusting’? That’s hewing for one’s self ‘cisterns’ that are broken and can hold ‘no water’! Would that be ‘no water of the Word’? It’s not simply that some in the so-called faith have only ‘broken buckets’ – most have no bucket at all in their mind-set for any ‘water of the Word’; at all!

‘Trying’ or ‘trusting?’ In Jeremiah 14:10 the Lord said to this people: “Thus they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them; He will remember their iniquity now, and punish their sins.” There’s an old hymn that says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love…” And I say to you that that is a strong pull from;’trying’, not ‘trusting’! That’s what some have called ‘the tyranny of individuality’ apart from fully trusting in the finished work of Christ Jesus at the Cross!

‘Trying’ is not ‘I am crucified with Christ’ – that’s an attempt at being ‘religious’ without being RE-BORN! ‘Trying’? It is an attempt of overcoming our old sins and sin natures apart, yes, from Christ and Calvary, and ignoring the miracle of redemptive grace, mercy, and love. We ‘try’ the religious angle apart from repentance!

‘Trying’? Dare I say ‘sinful pride’ in one’s self? Have you never read how “Lucifer” fell from heaven? Isaiah 14:12-15 says: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’”

And you must not overlook Luke 18:9-14 where Jesus so eloquently and in convincing passion exposed “trying” rather than “trusting”! It says: Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous, and despised others; “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

‘Trying?’ “I believe!” But the question is, “What do you really believe and how does that affect your relationship to Holy God?” In his book, “Beyond Belief To Convictions,” Josh MacDowell spoke of youth today and their religious faith, quoting George Barna from his “Third Millenium Teens,” that teens, 80% believe in God, but 63% also believe that Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews, and all other people pray to the same God, even though they use different names for god! “Lord, help us! Where’s the trust in Your abiding Word? Where is the trust in the One who says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” (John 14:6). Is Jesus a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord God? And do you ‘trust’ Him alone for your salvation and return to Holy God?

What, under heaven, is it that captures a people’s loyalty and allegiance? Is it that sense, “I’ll try,” or, “I trust in the grace of God”? Someone “trying” usually produces a little ‘happiness,’ but “trusting” results in abiding joy that is “the joy of the Lord.” It’s why David erupted in “restore unto me the joy of Your salvation.”

“Trying” is evidence of spiritual bankruptcy, but “trusting” is evidence as Lloyd Ogilvie wrote: [“A Life Full of Surprises,” p.15], “We experience true mourning when we allow our hearts to be broken by the things which break the heart of God.” WOW!! Ogilvie said later in the same book, [p.23], “The traditional church is filled with retired Christians and dropout disciples.”

“Trying” in the religious world is the absence of eternal meaning in an earthly life when “trusting” is the earth life with eternal expectation and eternal hope in our Lord and Savior only. In Proverbs 3:5-6 we read, “TRUST in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

“Trying” is the author of despair and discouragement while “trusting” breeds hope, enlightment, inheritance, freedom, fulfillment, rest, the fruit of the Spirit, the joy of the Lord, and all-out acceptance of caring God! You really want to know “trusting”? Look at Romans 4:19-25!! “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

“Trying or trusting”? Dr. James Dobson, in his book, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense,” he wrote about disillusionment and mentioned W. Somerset Maughn’s classic, “Of Human Bondage.” He said: “the principal character was a young man with a club foot who had hated his deformity from earliest childhood. When he discovered Christianity, he thought he had found a quick way to get rid of it. He began praying that God would heal his foot and make him normal. As it became apparent that his repeated requests would not be granted, he felt his faith had been invalidated, and he lost interest in God. I wonder how many times that unfortunate drama has been reenacted through the centuries.” [Check out Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in Daniel!!]

Was his commitment based on the temporal or the eternal, upon ‘trying’ or ‘trusting’, upon fleshly benefit or eternal blessing, upon bodily, earthly – me, my, mine benefit or celebration of new life in Christ to the forever blessing of God through him?

“Trying” or “trusting”? In Luke 18:18-23 we read: Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’” And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.”

Have you ever been around “a sanctimonius gaze of hypocrisy”? Pharisees pump flesh – the broken die to it. The personally proud dwell in their normal darkness and are comfortable with it, but the humble “stand afar off”. An awareness of one’s sinfulness is the only open door to the mercy and grace of the Cross!

I’m telling you, the mercy of Calvary’s Cross was never poured out on a proud and bitter soul, but only upon that one whose very countenance has been arrayed on the head with a crown of thorns!

“Trying” is the pronouncement to God of all one’s personal attributes and strong points while “trusting is a shattered heart of a David who has seen the TRUTH about his fallen nature – Psalm 51:1-5, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight – that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”

The proud Pharisee felt so at ease in his worldly mind as he reviewed his life: Luke 18:9-12, “Jesus spoke this parable to SOME WHO TRUSTED IN THEMSELVES THAT THEY WERE RIGHTEOUS, and despised others: Verse 11, The Pharisee stood and prayed THUS WITH HIMSELF, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men…,” and YOU KNOW JESUS’ RESPONSE!

IS “God, be merciful to me the sinner” in your modern vocabulary?

Have you contemplated the end result of “trying”? In John 8:34 Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Verse 35, And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Verse 36, Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” “Trying”? That’s bondage. “Trusting”? That’s freedom. “Trying”? Slavery to sin and Satan, but “trusting” Jesus breaks the power of canceled sin. Romans 8:21 says, “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

“Trying” is an insincere attempt at being reconciled to God while “trusting” is resting in our Lord’s finished work. 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

“Trying” sadly is self-trust with the door closed to divine help. But in Isaiah 46:3-10 there are words of hope for the “trusting”: “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb; even to old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and I will deliver you. To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal, and compare Me, that we should be alike? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; they prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it and set it in its place, and it stands; from its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer nor save him out of trouble. Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.

I recently experienced a ‘hair-raising’ event in my life when on a Saturday evening, April 27, 2013, I suffered a heart-attack. Scott and I and his two church staff members had been at a conference in Houston, Texas, Thursday through Saturday.

On our return Saturday afternoon late, within five minutes of Scott’s church, I knew I had a serious heart problem. Scott let out David and Adam – as soon as they were gone I told Scott I had chest pain and he said, “We’re only minutes away from Harris Methodist in Bedford – I’m taking you there.”

We went straight to the Emergency Room. In two minutes they did an EKG and within another two minutes the Emergency Room doctor was reading it. He said, “Get him out of here and to surgery – he’s got less than an hour to live!” Seven or eight attendants were working on me as they ran me down the hall, up the elevator – to the surgical wing. In less than twenty minutes I was in surgery with my own heart surgeon in the hospital at 8:30pm on a Saturday night!

My major artery was 100% blocked and I had a huge blood clot but it was stopped by the artery blockage from rushing to my heart!! I went home Tuesday afternoon!

As I was on the table, all I did or wanted to do was to say, and I did, “Lord Jesus, I’m yours. Your will be done,” and I rested in Him with no worry, no fear, no anxiety. I “trusted” Him, the One who is MY GREAT PHYSICIAN.

Have you forgotten or misplaced Psalm 23 from your walk of discipleship? I challenge you – take out your Bible and read Psalm 23 and meditate on it!

The old hymn “Trust and Obey” says it so much better than me: “When we walk with the Lord in the Light of His Word What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.

Not a shadow can rise, Not a cloud in the skies, But His smile quickly drives it away! Not a doubt or a fear, Not a sigh nor a tear, can abide while we trust and obey.

Not a burden we bear, Not a sorrow we share, But our toil He does richly repay! Not a grief nor a loss, Not a frown nor a cross, But is blest if we trust and obey.” That’s just 3 of 5 verses, but it reveals the blessedness of trusting and obeying!

CHAPTER EIGHT

MARRED MARRIAGES OR MASTERED IN THE MASTER?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

You know that in the infancy of God’s Creation Adam, first Adam, was placed in the Garden, and in Genesis 2:18 the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable (suitable, adapted, completing) to him.”

In Genesis 2:23 Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called WOMAN because she was taken out of Man.”

I have no doubt that Adam rejoiced, celebrated, and thanked God continually for his “Bride.” They were JOINED in a holy bond, God laying the foundation for future generations to know the heavenly blessing and rich reward and beautiful benefit of ‘husband and wife and family’ to come.

The Holy Word says in Genesis 2:24-25, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

I love Spurgeon’s words [Vol. 10, Spurgeon’s Sermons, p.17-18], “We cannot but bless God every time we repeat the dear names of those who are now parts of ourselves. Marriage creates a relationship which ends only when death shall part us. It may be dissolved. Sin enters even here! A dark crime may be committed, but, with the exception of that, it is for life – for better, for worse; only the mortal stroke can part.”

“Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” And Paul says in Ephesians 5:29, “For no one ever hated his own life, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.” If marriage seems to be failing for some, it’s certainly because some are warped, not by love, but hate for themselves which they should be cherishing!

It’s so interesting, at least to me, that in 2009, John and Stasi Eldredge published a book entitled “Love and War.” The sub-title is “Finding The Marriage You’ve Dreamed Of.” In the introduction Megan quoted John’s words: “Daniel and Megan, you are about to abandon yourselves to each other, throw caution to the wind, forsake independence, isolation, and all others. You will vow to each other your undying love. Before you do, we must call this what it is – this is perfect madness.” And Stasi wrote, “That got the crowd’s attention.”

She then wrote the following words from John’s ceremony intro: “You don’t believe me. But that’s because we don’t understand fairy tales and we don’t understand the Gospel which they are trying to remind us of. They are stories of danger; they are stories where evil is very, very real. They are stories which require immense courage and sacrifice. A boy and a girl thrown together in some desperate journey. If we believed it, if we actually saw what was taking place right here, right now, we would cross ourselves. We would say desperate, earnest prayers. We would salute them both and we would hold our breath for what happens next. Daniel and Megan, it is time to make your vows. After this, there is no turning back.”

I say to you that I understand Eldredge’s comment about “perfect madness” at times in the journey of “love and war,” but at the same time I am awed by Jesus’ words in John 17:22 which I believe relate to not only our relationship to Him but the relationship of husband and wife! “And the glory which You gave Me, Father, I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one.” There is an eternal blessing on “holy matrimony.”

Dare we apply Isaiah 4:4-6 to ‘marriage’ today? I think so: When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.”

And I believe the holy word about holy matrimony also includes providing, yes, God’s protective covering if the married folks receive it and claim it and rest themselves under it. I love what Jack Hayford wrote in his book, “Glory On Your House,” [p.32}, “that spiritual life power may be transmitted through your family as surely as hair color.” Visible, recognizable, explainable: “that marriage is blessed of the Lord. It has His mark!” But because of no mark of God too many marriages today end up marred.

Marred marriages, I believe, are the very undermining of the true foundation of healthy nations, healthy societies, and even healthy children. June 12, 2013, I will celebrate my 77^th birthday, and I have been a witness to a marring of modern marriage, marring of lonely children from broken homes, and a marring of school and community participants.

I have no hesitation in saying that I believe marred marriages are clearly an open door to promiscuity, sexual immorality, out-of- wedlock births, and the disintegration of family structure and blessing.

Recently, in the Augusta Chronicle, May 14, 2013, U.S. Judge J. Randal Hall wrote: “In America today, 53 per cent of all children born to women under 30 are being born outside of what has been historically considered the most stable family structure. We are deep into a crisis that is critically burdening our schools, neighborhoods, law enforcement agencies, economy and, if not abated, will produce dire consequences for our society.” The Judge stated later in his article, “Over 90% of the defendants that I have sentenced over the last five years have been reared outside of a normal two-part family…I have also noticed that practically all of the defendants that appeared before me that were part of a street gang prior to their arrest were products of single-parent households or households where they were abandoned by both parents to be cared for by other family members, many of which are ill equipped to assume this responsibility.”

There was another article I read stating that marriage peaked in the 1940’s and has been on a serious decline ever since. My parents were divorced in the mid-to-late 1930’s. For nine years after their divorce I was cared for by my mother’s parents. Only the grace and mercy of God stabilized my life through Christ Jesus and His gracious church body and spiritual family.

It’s as if in our day a new disease has emerged called marriage infidelity. It’s like a ‘leprous’ disease attacking marriages and families leaving so many, many scarred, damaged, and sick. ‘Leprosy’? “A foul cutaneous disease…covering the whole body…with violent itches.” Have you seen marriages ‘scratching’ lately?

“Marred marriages”? There is no doubt spiritual diseases affect and effect a work in too many homes. I know that in 2 Corinthians 6:11-16 Paul stressed that the Body of Christ IS the house of faith – and believers are not to be yoked to unbelievers in our Lord’s spiritual home! Verse 14 says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”

Without a doubt unequal ‘yoking’ opens the door to a spiritual strangulation! Oh, I know, some have survived – and some see their mates ‘saved’, but not that often.

Joshua said confidently in Joshua 25:15, “…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” But if it’s a ‘divided’ house, how is it dedicated to the Lord? In I Peter 3:7 Peter shared, “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, GIVING HONOR TO THE WIFE, as to the weaker vessel, and AS BEING HEIRS TOGETHER OF THE GRACE OF LIFE, that your prayers may not be hindered.”

How many marred marriages have you witnessed that existed for the purpose of honoring God and interpreting saving grace to the world around them? How many marred marriages were created by ‘fleshly’ determinations absent of divine intent?

Marriage, family, church – God’s possession for God’s eternal purposes. And unless God girds, guides, graces, and governs, it’s all on a faulty foundation. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

“Marred marriages”? Usually there is a void, an absence, in one or even both partners, of unconditional love and acceptance. Marriage becomes a ‘proving ground’ where one or the other has to ‘measure up’ to the partner’s estimation – and how many marriage partners are there who never fell short?

In Billy Graham’s book, “The Journey,” [p.259], Dr. Graham wrote: “Divorce has become so common today that we often lose sight of its painful consequences. Some of you know what I’m talking about, because your own life has been scarred by divorce, either that of your parents or your own. Even now you may be struggling with feelings of rejection, bitterness, anger, or failure – all of which often follow in the wake of a divorce. Let me assure you that God understands what you are going through, and He still loves you and wants to comfort and guide you. May you find new hope in Christ as you turn to Him, and may God also bring across your path people who can help and encourage you.”

“Marred marriages”? Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Jesus spoke in Mark 8:38 about an “adulterous and sinful generation…” Most Americans have had their spiritual senses dulled to the sin of sexual immorality to the degree that most have lost the ability to blush! It was shocking to me as I recently read 2 Peter again and again and came to 2 Peter 2:13-14 again and again where Peter wrote: “…They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.”

“Marred marriages”? If the present marriage rate is about a 50/50 ration, would unforgiveness dare to be the darkness for at least a portion of shattered marriages? Again, the Eldridges wrote: [“Love and War,” p.196], “To be unloving (unforgiving) is to fail at the very thing we were created for. It is a rejection of the essence of our existence, a rejection of the Love that made us. As George MacDonald confessed, ‘I am a beast until I love as God doth love.’”

What does Ephesians 4:32 tell us? “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER EVEN AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU.” In our marriage world of today have we erased even more of God’s Holy Word? Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”

But “marred marriages” are not ‘sweet-smelling aromas,’ but far too often emitting the “stench” of devotion to ‘flesh’ – not the Spirit. It was William Wordsworth in his “Excursion” writing, [Bk. VI], that wrote:

“Why do not words, and kiss, and solemn pledge, And nature that is kind in woman’s breast, And reason that in man is wise and good, And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge –

Why do not these prevail for human life, To keep two hearts together, that begun Their spring-time with one love.”

‘Why’ is a huge, huge word when applied to either marriage or divorce! “…words, and kiss, and solemn pledge…!” I would surmise that a ‘solemn pledge’ takes a back-seat to fleshly desires. Donald T. Kauffman, in “Gist of the Lesson” wrote: “A good marriage is not a contract between two persons but a sacred covenant between three. Too often Christ is never invited to the wedding and finds no room in the home. Why? Is it because we have misrepresented Him and forgotten His joyful outlook on life?” Is it?

Let me shift gears from “Marred Marriages” to marriage that is “The Master’s Mastery”! I love what Geoffrey Francis Fisher, at the time Archbishop of Canterbury, at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, had to say: “The ever-living Christ is here to bless you. The nearer you keep to Him, the nearer you will be to one another.”

Youth, young adults, ‘mature’ adults: Make sure your marriage to be is on the sure foundation of the Resurrected Christ! Matthew 19:6 is so very, very clear: “…Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Did I share, “A good marriage is not a contract between two persons but a sacred covenant between three”? You, your mate, and Christ Jesus! I love Ecclesiastes 4:9-12!! “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

And I know you didn’t miss it: “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken!” Oh, please, read carefully Ephesians 5:22-31! “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’”

Yet, sadly, marriage in America has fallen, almost, into a cannibalistic state of mind and heart! And probably because Christ is omitted by one or both parties.

I pray, if only…if only, marriage partners stood and kept standing on the Rock of faith and obedience in Christ Jesus! Didn’t He say, “Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?”

Again, John and Stasi Eldridge wrote in “Love and War,” [p.32], ‘If two lie down together, they will keep warm’ – the picture is one of soldiers, who from time immemorial have lain down back-to-back at night in order to keep warm in the field. God gave us to each other because we need someone to watch our back. We need someone to pick us up when we fall. How different would it be if we went to bed each night with the vision of two comrades lying down together in the midst of a glorious campaign? This is the reality, whether we see it or not.” And then there’s Jesus, our sure foundation in marriage!

Often I’ve talked to struggling, young marriage partners, and asked them, “Tell me about your mutual conversations with Jesus about your marriage problems.” And the answer? Usually ‘zip’ or ‘zero’ conversations with the King of kings and Lord of lords!

“Mastered marriages” are the Master’s realm and domain of heavenly blessing on earth for the world around to take note of. Marriage is to be a Holy Place where God Himself feels so at home as He reigns with joy!

At the same time the Master’s mastery includes “iron sharpens iron” – and somehow too many of us fell into the deep hole of, ‘who needs sharpening – not me!” True togetherness in marriage is so often genuine ‘plank removal’ when love is real! Not bitterness, not anger, not resentment, but true spiritual surgical care! That’s because “the two become one”!

Matthew 7:3-5 tells us: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Sue and I have a plaque in our bedroom on a chest that says: “A happy marriage is the union of two great forgivers,” a statement by Ruth Bell Graham before her death.

Marriage counseling from a Christian perspective will always come usually to the place where you ask one or both counselees, “Have you forgiven him/her?”

I’ll never forget an event in the Philippines where, in an open-air crusade, the invitation had been extended. Many flooded the aisles with seven or eight of the pastors including my son, Scott, and myself, ministering. A young mother came to me – bitterness, hardness, coldness, was all over her. There was a frowning scowl covering her face. She said, “Would you pray for me – I’m sick?” And instantly our Lord spoke to me, “Ask her about her husband.” I did – and this mother of three children exploded! “My husband left me for another woman and left his children. I hate him!” I then said to her, “Mam, you are sick with unforgiveness – and I can’t pray for you until you are willing to go and forgive him.” Her countenance changed, she began to weep, and then said, “I will go and forgive my husband.” I saw her healed instantly!!

“Mastered marriages”? Yes, WHEN THERE’S PRAYER FOR ONE ANOTHER. If Jesus says in Luke 18:1 that, “Men ought always to pray, and not faint,” do you believe that includes your wife and children or your husband and children?

It was G. Ashton Oldham who wrote the following: “Prayer is the chief agency and activity whereby men align themselves with God’s purposes. Prayer does not consist in battering the walls of heaven for personal benefits or the success of our plans. Rather it is the committing of ourselves for the carrying out of His purposes. It is a telephone call to headquarters for orders. It is not bending God’s will to ours, but our will to God’s. In prayer, we tap vast reservoirs of spiritual power whereby God can find fuller entrance into the hearts of men.” Are you praying for one another in your marriage? Daily?

“Mastered marriages”? That’s the Spirit of care and caring for one another, body, soul, and spirit! One of those sad verses in God’s Word is Psalm 142:4 where David said: “…No one cares for my soul.” How heart-breaking and earth-shattering when there is, sadly, no one in the marriage-partnership caring for one another! Chambers spoke of “careless carefulness” – and for non-Christians I’m sure that’s true in far too many marriages, but in ‘union’ with Christ one walks in marriage with ‘careless carefulness’? Give me a break!

My wife, Sue, and I have been married 57 years as of June 10, 2013! We are blessed with four children, 3 sons and a daughter, and they all walk with the Lord. Sue and I are supernaturally blessed, but that does not omit care and caring for one another. My wife has been a spiritual giant in child-nurturing, husband-caring, and family health physically and spiritually!

In my case alone, I’ve had lower back surgery, eight left shoulder replacements, one right shoulder rotator-cuff surgery, double-knee replacements, double-hip replacements, and those within three months of each other, and in late April, 2013, I suffered a major heart attack, major artery 100% blocked with a blood clot ready to kill me, told I had 45 minutes to live; I was in surgery within 22 minutes of my diagnosis, and on a Saturday night at 8:30, my heart surgeon was in the hospital! Besides my Lord and my doctor, who has cared for me? My wife and 3 sons and my daughter!

And Sue had to delay her right shoulder surgery after a fall because of my heart attack, but just two weeks after, she had her badly damaged right shoulder operated on. And guess who cares for her and ministers to her? You guessed it right – her husband and children!

Some people fail to see, understand, or comprehend that ‘saving faith’ is practically lived out in caring for one another! [I challenge you to take out your concordance and do a study on caring for “one another”!]. There is absolutely the solid truth that God-honoring marriages are authored in heaven itself but are lived out on earth between caring partners touched by Christ’s sacrificial love.

William Shakespeare wrote in “Henry V” the following: “God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts in one.” Isn’t that Ephesians 5:31? “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And you ‘hate’ yourself and refuse to care for yourself?

Care and caring lead us to, I firmly believe, what the Bible has to say about ‘husbands’ who are the heads of households and wives who ‘submit’. And how tragically many have so misinterpreted or twisted headship in marriage. “The husband is the head of his wife.” That means he is ‘lord over,’ that means ‘he’s the boss,’ that means he is commander in chief? Where does that come from? And I say to you, not from God’s Holy Word at all! When, in Ephesians 5:22-23 Paul said: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, [doesn’t stop there, but goes on to say:], as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.” Verse 25 explains: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.”

Christ’s true Lordship is “servant-hood”! He said: “I didn’t come to be served but to serve and give My life as a ransom for many.”

Marriage? Mutual servant-hood to the glory, honor, and love of Christ! Marriage? Voluntarily laying lives down for one another! Marriage? A journey of blessing and honoring and pouring out on one another unconditional love!!

There’s a hymn entitled “A Christian Home” written and scored by Jean Sibelius and Barbara B. Hart. The words are so challenging, no doubt by two wives and mothers. It says:

“O give us homes built upon the Savior, Where Christ is Head and Counselor and Guide; Where every child is taught His love and favor And gives his heart to Christ, the crucified; How sweet to know that though his footsteps waver His faithful Lord is walking by His side!

O give us homes with godly fathers, mothers, Who always place their hope and trust in Him; Whose tender patience turmoil never bothers, Whose calm and courage trouble cannot dim; A home where each finds joy in serving others, And love still shines, though days be dark and grim.

O give us homes where Christ is Lord and Master, The Bible read, the precious hymns still sung; Where prayer comes first in peace or in disaster, And praise is natural speech to every tongue; Where mountains move before a faith that’s vaster, And Christ sufficient is for old and young.

O Lord, our God, our homes are Yours and forever! We trust to You their problems, toil and care; Their bonds of love no enemy can ever sever If You are always Lord and Master there; Be You the center of our least endeavor Be You our Guest, our hearts and homes to share.” AMEN?

CHAPTER NINE

YOUR WEAKNESS OR GOD’S ABLENESS?

You’ll remember and remind yourself that our motivation for this book has been the sad reality that many across our world have stepped in to the stifling spiritual atmosphere of “A Resignation To Hopelessness” without examining at all the eternal hope our gracious and merciful Lord offers to each of us. Many choose ‘blindness’ rather than spiritual sight and seeing. In creation God established all men, all women, with the will to choose evil or rest themselves in the provisions and care of God Almighty. And the Bible clearly says: Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The very next verse, Romans 3:24, says: “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Spurgeon wrote: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.16, p.64], “The best of that which looks like goodness must be used as the raw material with which to make a traitor who will sell his Master.” Human ‘flesh’ in fallen men is not only that producing ‘acknowledged sinners,’ but the potential of creating “fig-leaf religions” like the two in the Garden. Yes, religions manufactured by fallen men are just that – religions of man’s creations, “not what has been done by God Himself,” but what one believes he must do to find acceptance with God. Men do invent and determine for themselves what they believe should be accepted by God – that’s like the young terrorists who kill themselves and others believing they have 70 virgins awaiting them in God’s presence. Sorry, that’s ‘phony baloney’!!

In Romans 7:14 Paul gives all a ‘wake-up call’: “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” All fallen men and women are “slaves to their old sin natures.” Conviction comes through the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit convicts – not because I’ve determined my desire to keep God’s Law declares me acceptable! No! My attempt to “be saved” by ‘law-keeping’ clearly reveals I’m a law-breaker because in James 2:10 the brother of Jesus, anointed by the Spirit, tells us: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” Why? Because law-keeping is not God’s declaration of the way a man is saved – it’s ‘saved by grace through faith in and through the finished work of Christ at the Cross’!

“Enticing words of men’s wisdom” is declared by many to be what God should accept, and even if He doesn’t, they judge themselves [in weakness] to be stronger than what God says!

“RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”? That’s a man’s mental declaration or determination that he doesn’t need God through believing because he’s ‘hope-filled’ in himself. That’s a man’s spiritual evaluation that he has and never will have ‘guilt of sin’ because there is no such thing in his fleshly journey.

That’s a defiant man’s opposition to God and Truth in which a man’s guilty conscience is never admitted to Holy God. That’s a rebellious man’s open declaration of no need of God’s saving grace because he has no sorrow over sin – he just made a fleshly mistake, and he’s more mad at himself than even God!

A hopeless man in his natural state has determined that there is no help for his spiritual dilemma. Though Paul tells us in Galatians 5:24 that, “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts,” hopeless men have determined their quirks or quaintness of behavior has nothing to do with a church’s or Christians’ determination of a way of salvation and deliverance and healing – they just “try harder” in their weaknesses to be strong!

Can’t you hear them? “Deny myself”? “Why, I am my greatest hope!” “I have a right to myself. I determine what is best for me!” “I’m able!”

Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.256], “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keeps us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle.” So very, very true!!

If you’re not aware of Old Testament truths about Sodom and Gomorrah, I would challenge you to research what brought about destruction of two cities – and you’ll find the bitter seeds of Sodom and the poisonous grapes of Gomorrah!

If you’re not aware of the destiny of “tares” and “fruitless trees,” how will you ever find ‘hope’ outside yourself? If you’re not aware of the difference between ‘judgment fires’ and ‘purifying fires’, how will you ever know about calling on Christ to ‘save you’?

“Garden presence”, because of ‘sin’, is now “Garden absence.” In Genesis 3:24, after the fall of Adam and Eve, God’s Holy Word says: “So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubims at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Can you even begin to imagine why “your weakness” is blocked to God’s “Garden” presence? Well, Satan cast doubt on the Word of God. Satan twisted eternal Truth and still distorts it. Satan confuses those who try to enter. Satan lies – “you can sin and not die.” And he promotes unbelief and entices to live independent of God. As a result of listening to the distaste of Satan for God men take the “fig-leaf” approach to God covering themselves as they see fit and hiding from His presence in many ways!

Don’t forget the “flaming sword” at the entrance to the Garden of Holy Presence! Isaiah 34:5-6 says, God speaking, “For My sword shall be bathed in heaven; indeed it shall come down on Edom, and on the people of My curse, for judgment. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood…” Do you see, do you sense, the blood of Jesus at the door of your salvation?

I pray TRUTH grips and grabs your hearts as you read this chapter! In Isaiah 66:15-16 we read: “For behold, the Lord will come with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword the Lord will judge all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many.”

“Your weakness”? “Your resignation to hopelessness”? In Jeremiah 2:25 we read, “Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘There is no hope. No! I have loved aliens [to God] and after them I will go.”

In Jeremiah 18 our Lord revealed the Potter and the clay. The Holy Word tells us of marred vessels, but the potter “made it again into another vessel.” My God can make any man into a “new vessel,” but in Isaiah 18:12 they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his [own] evil heart.” Oh, how sad, how heart-breaking is that!?!

When it comes to wrestling with “Your weakness or God’s Ableness,” how could one overlook, shun, try to deny or refute, God’s own words in Jeremiah 23:16-22? Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said, ‘You shall have peace’; And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’ For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and has perceived and heard His word? Who has marked His word and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury – a violent whirlwind! It will fall violently on the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.”

I will not hesitate, procrastinate, seek to refute or deny, the truth of God’s Holy Word! I stand on it: “GOD IS ABLE”! But as someone wrote: “Two men sat in prison bars – one saw mud; the other saw stars.”

I wonder what goes on in some lives in their self-imposed prison of hopelessness or for some even in their ‘prison of hope.’ In Truth, we are to confess and forsake our sin and sins – not just confess and keep on sinning! In Truth, we are to be conformed to His image. Really? In Truth, we are to be renewed to a true knowledge of the One who created us, made us, lost us, then bought us with a price. In Truth, we are to be being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. In Truth I John 2:6 tells us, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked.”

In Zechariah 9:11-12 we read, “As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit…Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope.”

I Corinthians 9:10 tells us, “Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be a partaker of his hope.”

And we in Christ DO HAVE HOPE! It’s God’s ABLENESS! In Hebrews 6:13-20 we learn of laying hold of the hope set before us: “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’ And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Does it say our hope is an anchor of the soul? Is it sure, steadfast, and one which enters the veil of His glorious presence? Then, why, in the midst of multitudinous truth do some prisoners of hope see only “mud”? Do you know what I’m talking about? You may have heard it or you may have said it yourself:

“There’s no hope for me, I’ve tried. Be like Jesus? No one could be further from that truth than me. I look to my spirit, to His nature and character, my walk, my attitudes at times – at the goal set before us, “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” – and the high calling seems so out of my reach…I’ve forsaken the world – I have no hope for the ‘flesh’, I know it profits me nothing – gold and silver is no god for me. And I’ve loved His Word, loved the fellowship and communion of the saints, loved the ministry to the crippled, lame, blind, and deaf…but when I look to myself, all I see is “mud”. I’ve strived to enter, sought to lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset me, been diligent to make my calling and election sure, sought to do all things for the sake of the gospel so that I may be a fellow partaker of it – buffeted my body and sought to make it my slave so I wouldn’t be disqualified…I’ve sought to continually fight the good fight of faith, keeping faith and a good conscience, disciplining myself for the purpose of godliness. But I feel as if I’ve been losing the battle, falling short of the grace and glory of God. It seems to have been in vain for me. It’s mud, miry clay, the depths of despair and disappointment and discouragement for me.”

NOW…I hope you’ve caught the “drift” of these statements because something is radically omitted by the very words and spirit of it! And that’s the LIVING GOD, the power of HIS GOSPEL UNTO SALVATION, the promises of HIS LIVING WORD, and the NATURE AND CHARACTER OF GOD WHO DOES JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE AN AWFULLY SIGNIFICANT PART IN OUR WALK OF FAITH AND HOPE!

Did you hear it with your spiritual ears? “I’ve tried, I’ve looked, I’ve forsaken, I’ve strived, I’ve sought, I’ve disciplined, but I’ve been losing out, falling short, climbing less, and…” So I ask you, “WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THAT?”

Here’s how Paul put it in I Timothy 4:10, “For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” That is the message of illumination and realization, the message of affirmation, the message of transformation, and the message of celebration.

Without God as the author of hope, it’s always mud, always a blind alley, always short-changing in life’s best efforts at the window of exchange. And I don’t want you to be surprised by this, but…GOD DOES HAVE A PART!

And in ‘remnant preaching and teaching’ of true biblical repentance, of self-examination, of the gospel of purifying the heart and persevering to the end, which is absolutely necessary, some have so looked within they’ve forgotten to look up – so examined themselves that the gaze has been exchanged for self-effort rather than fixed on the Author and perfecter of our faith.

In Psalm 34:4-18 we find end results of one who fixes their eyes on the Right One: “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The righteous eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”

Let your “eyes see the King in His beauty,” [Isaiah 33:17]; let your gaze be upon “the angel of His presence who saves…who lifts out of despair…who carries us as those in days of old,” [Isaiah 63:9], let your feet today settle in “at the table…where the Bread of His Presence…continually abides (Exodus 25:30) at all times;” turn your heart [right now] to “My Angel who will go before you and bring you in…” [Exodus 23:23].

Think of Him “Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us…so there will be glory in the Church again and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.”

Let the fire of HOLY CONFIDENCE burn in your heart “that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).”

Rejoice again that “it is God who is at work in you to will and to work for His good pleasure.” [Philippians 2:13].

Do you see it? You may be alive today in the midst of your mud, still alive by the grace and mercy of God, so you could come to the very place where you are in order to see that HE IS –I AM, and I AM ALL YOU NEED!

David said in Psalm 40:10, 16, “I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation…Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; let those who love Your salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified.”

How did Isaiah magnify God’s “able-ness”? In Isaiah 38:19 he said: “It is the living who gives thanks to You, as I do today; and a father tells his son about God’s faithfulness.” Godly fathers amplify for earthly sons God’s “able-ness”!

Do you know how Paul sought to remedy the ill of the problem Church called Corinth? How he sought to raise them out of the ‘pablum’ messy diaper stage? How he called the church to accountability concerning their corruption, division, and state of confusion? I Corinthians 1:9 says, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

It doesn’t have to be “mud” but walking under the Light of God’s “Bright and Morning Star” if you can grasp in your heart and mind, not your weakness, but God’s faithfulness and His “able-ness”! OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL AND ABLE AS OUR PRIEST IN THE SATISFACTION OF OUR SINS!

In Hebrews 2:17 we read, “Therefore, in all things He [Jesus] had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” What an awesome revelation and unveiling of the very heart of God for you and me!

Oh, listen, lean on, love Hebrews 7:24-28! “But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.”

We’ve just read about God’s “better covenant”! An unchangeable priesthood, able to save to the uttermost, always making intercession for you, a High Priest fitting for us, once for all offered Himself, the Son and Savior, as the perfect sacrifice of God forever!! And you have a better plan?

Who is it that would overlook or seek to blot out I John 1:7? “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” I John 2:2 builds reinforcement to God’s ability and able-ness to save, bless, fulfill, and complete: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”

To the Ephesians Paul said, Ephesians 1:7, “…we have redemption through His blood…”

If you’ve been reading with your heart and head, you know our beginning with Holy God is only on the basis of the blood of Christ and its able-ness. You also know that our continuation of that walk in victory and in power is not because of our exceptional abilities but the power of the blood of Christ to make new and renew continually. Our continuation of that walk is not because of our dazzling faith but the blood of Jesus. We’re not overcomers and super-achievers because of our efforts but the blood of the Lamb of God alone empowering us. Our nearness to God is only through His blood – look at Ephesians 2:13! “But now in Christ Jesus you who were formally far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ!!”

And you know when it’s all over, last of all, final statement of our faith as we enter the presence of Holy God – it’s the FAITHFULNESS OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS!! I Peter 1:17-21 says: “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manife4st in these last times for you, who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”

OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL AND ABLE IN HIS GOVERNMENTAL RULE AND REIGN!! Oh, please examine carefully Hebrews 3:1-6! “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.”

Do you see it? Faithful to the God who appointed Him! Faithful to the calling, purpose, blueprint drawn before the foundation of the world! Faithful in His words – “I never say anything I don’t hear the Father say!” Faithful in His deeds – “I never do anything I don’t see the Father doing!” Faithful in the Spirit of His life – it was the prophetic fulfillment of every word said about Him in Isaiah 9:6-7, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

Jesus has REIGNED IN OTHERS – AND HE CAN REIGN IN YOUR HEART AND LIFE AND BRING IT TO COMPLETION! Psalm 89:36-37 tells us: “His seed shall endure forever, and His throne as the sun before Me; It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.”

This is why Paul said in I Corinthians 15:25, “For He MUST REIGN until He has put down all His enemies under His feet.” HE, THE LORD JESUS, MUST REIGN! Absolute necessity, divine imperative, a Sovereign Word from God!! JESUS MUST REIGN, RULE OVER US. Why? BECAUSE HE IS ABLE!!

How many have you known who have refused to bow down before “golden images” of this world, man’s own makings, and instead face fiery furnaces – because they refuse to bow and are willing for the fires. Why? Daniel 3:16-18 says: Shadrach, Meshach, and AbedNego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

How many have you known who looked within and saw only stony, hardened hearts, but heard the truth? Luke 3:8 says, “…for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham…,” and they became living stones!

How many have you known who faced the “contrary winds,” “demon powers,” forces of Hell itself to turn them aside, who felt the mighty torrent and surges of the floods of enemy oppression, but stayed the course. Why? Romans 8:38-39 tells us: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

How many have you known or seen who came within a hair’s breadth of standing or falling, but they chose to stand firm? Why? Romans 14:4 says, “…to his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

Romans 16:25-26 says: “Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith -.”

Have you witnessed them? It’s not for them to receive the grace of God in vain and go on making today the Day of Salvation. Why? 2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”

“ALL GRACE…IN ALL THINGS…AT ALL TIMES…FOR ALL RECIPIENTS OF GRACE!”

Paul is still stretching us to the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ so that we can be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:20 says, “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think, ACCORDING to the power that works within us.” Paul wants us all as believers being convinced, (2 Timothy 1:12), that “He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day…”

Hebrews 2:18 says, “He’s able to come to our aid…” Hebrews 7:25 says, “able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He ever lives to make intercession for us.”

The look at Jude 24-25! “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.”

OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL IN HIS FAITHFUL WORD TO EACH AND EVERY BELIEVER. In Titus 1:9 Paul wrote: “holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”

What about your personal walk? Is it one contradicting God’s Word for yourself or resting in its converting, cleansing truths? I don’t know of anything more vital than this very word today to translate you out of “mud” into the heavenly places than this: THE FAITHFUL WORD OF ALMIGHTY GOD!

When in John 17:4 Jesus said to the Father, “I have finished the work which You gave Me to do,” the angels rejoiced and Father-God smiled! The heart and mind of God had been fully blessed as the Son finished God’s work at the Cross.

Read carefully what Oswald Chambers wrote about God’s faithful Word concerning man’s redemption. [“My Utmost For His Highest, “ p. 242]: “Never build your preaching of forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation of God; it makes the Cross unnecessary, and the Redemption “much ado about nothing.” If God does forgive sin, it is because of the DEATH of Christ. God could forgive men in no other way than the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted to be Savior because of His death.” We see Jesus…because of suffering and death, crowned with glory and honor.” The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ – “It is finished.” That is the last word in the Redemption of man.” AMEN?

CHAPTER TEN

ACCEPTABLE BONDAGE OR ATONING LIBERTY?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

There is a powerful, convicting, awakening passage of Scripture in Jeremiah 17:5-10 which lays the foundation for “acceptable bondage or atoning liberty.” It says: Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”

The paralysis of response to a closed or open door leaves one where he’s always been – in bondage, a slave to his flesh and old sin nature, unresponsive to the love and grace of God. In fact, after hearing God’s message about the Potter and the clay in Jeremiah 18, their response (fallen man), then and now, is found in verse 12, and they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates (or stubbornness) of his evil heart.” At least they knew they WERE EVIL!

Acceptable bondage is in a man who has no “trust” at all in God. “Fallen men” bound by their old sin natures do not have even the slightest confidence at all in God or His Word. The god they bow to is the ‘god of self’ – and in that they have great confidence!

Paul gives us all an informative view of ‘acceptable bondage’ for the majority of our world population even now, but also an inspirational view of “atoning liberty.” He wrote in Ephesians 2:1-3, and, verses 11-13, the following: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Verses 11-13, Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

The psalmist had spiritual understanding and awareness of what was going on in the minds and hearts of his day when he wrote in Psalm 2:1-3, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS ANOINTED, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”

And they don’t even know about worldly, fleshly, demonic or Satanic bonds and cords binding their hands, heads, hopes, and dashing into pieces words of hope, words of liberty, and freedom, or words that say, “There IS atoning liberty”! They’ll stuff your ears and minds both to shut out God’s message.

Oh, there are those who “flourish” for a season – but then they must stand before Holy God! Some of the hardest hearts in this world today are men who are billionaires and don’t know where the gifts to accumulate it came from. Just because God seeks to exalt certain men who are not men of faith doesn’t mean that it has become a ‘blessing’ to them – they don’t know it, but it has become their worst ‘curse’! They may feel they ‘live’ without a rebuke from God, but Revelation 3:19 says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”

In God’s creation of man He created us all as unbridled men and women, free to choose for ourselves, even as His dove of peace called us all to Himself. We’re not horses that He puts reins on like a Kentucky Derby winner! God isn’t interested in the men He created being ‘robots’ that allows Him to punch any button He wants to get His way – we’re free to fall but also free to repent and rest ourselves in His eternal care.

This is why Paul wrote to Timothy, I Timothy 5:6, “But she who lives in pleasure [indulgence] is dead while she lives.” I love what Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” as he quoted I John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Chambers then wrote: “To make conscious freedom from sin for deliverance from sin by the Atonement is a great error. No man knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced on Calvary. The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me…This does not refer to conscious sin only, but to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Ghost in me realizes.”

In Romans 2:4-11 Paul enlightens us more about “acceptable bondage,” “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds’; eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness – indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”

And you do understand, you grasp, with the reality that there are those who “despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.” And repentance THERE MUST BE!

But, for those who accept “acceptable bondage,” Paul says, that, “in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds.’”

“Acceptable bondage”! I Timothy 1:8-11 says, “But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.”

So God who is a Holy, Righteous, Pure God, if He is that at all, must obliterate what He sees as Holy, Righteous, and Pure, in order to accept the unacceptable? Is that how YOU see it? God must change, alter His Word, re-define His terms, broaden His own understanding of holiness, righteousness, and purity as fallen sinners see it? Right? Wrong! And nothing could be further from Holy Truth!!

Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honorable [that which is between a man and a woman] among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers GOD WILL JUDGE!!”

In Revelation 21:6-8 we read, And He said to me, “It is done! I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” [And if you don’t know, it is a fire that is never extinguished, and one “burns” throughout eternity!!]. As they face the “second death,” it never dies, the fire is never quenched from burning on them with horrible pain and suffering; it’s forever and ever because of their choice!

I can only explain it as hardness of heart, a stubborn, sin-bound mind, an unholy flesh nature that binds one ever so strongly, every day, and building up huge, thick walls to the grace and mercy of God! Spurgeon called it “Inordinate affection.” Fisher calls it incomprehensible stupidity even with their PHD’s!!

James 5:1-6 so clearly speaks about “acceptable bondage”! “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.”

“Acceptable bondage”? I don’t know of a more moth-eaten, ravaged style of life, that those who have been so prime-pumped and live so proud of themselves and what they’ve accomplished for themselves.

Do you remember Belshazzar in Daniel 5? Verse 20 says, “But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.” How sad is that? But you don’t deal with your own pride and arrogance?

Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” In fact, the wise man of Proverbs had said earlier in Proverbs 13:10, “By pride comes nothing, but strife, [“My way or the highway”?], but with the well-advised is wisdom.”

Listen to Oswald Chambers! [“My Utmost For His Highest”, Vol.4,p.340], “There never yet was an angel that had pride in his heart, but he lost his wings, and fell into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges in self-conceit, and pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories, and trample his honors in the mire, and make him cry out again, ‘Lord, have mercy on my, less than the least of all saints, and the ‘very chief of sinners.’”

“Acceptable bondage”? For some, it is the reality of being a ‘law-breaker’, but since God is the God of grace and mercy, one feels he can ‘profess’ and continue on as a law-breaker. But I read in Galatians 3:10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

It may be a shock even to some ‘Christians,’ but I John 3:4 tells us, “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”

James 2:10 says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” Why? Because Godly righteousness doesn’t come because one attempts to keep the law as his own saving grace – Galatians 2:21 says, “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

This is why in I Corinthians 15:34 Paul said, “Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame.”

Oh, my! Far too many willfully put themselves into acceptable bondage because they possess delusional thinking that if they ‘try’, then acceptance by God will come. But I read in Hebrews 2:14-15, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

Did you see it? Do you receive it? It’s the death of Jesus on the Cross that has the blood-saving power to release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime SUBJECT TO BONDAGE!

With all my heart, I pray you receive, not acceptable bondage, but “ATONING LIBERTY!” In Galatians 5:1 Paul said, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” He told the Galatians and us in verse 13, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh [your old sin nature], but through love serve one another.”

This is why the author of Hebrews wrote Hebrews 10:25, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

It may be that you’ve found yourself hidden away in a ‘cave’ like David from the opposition to the saving grace and faith you stand on. He wrote Psalm 142, “I cry out to the Lord with my voice; with my voice to the Lord I make supplication. I pour out my complaint before Him; I declare before Him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, Then You knew my path. In the way in which I walk they have secretly set a snare for me. Look on my right hand and see, for there is no one who acknowledges me; refuge has failed me; no one cares for my soul. I cried out to You, O Lord; I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low; deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Your name; the righteous shall surround me, for You shall deal bountifully with me.”

I so encourage you to see, not only Christ Jesus, in Isaiah 42, but yourself as an extension of God’s Life, as an expression of His love, and the very proof of His power, THROUGH YOU! Isaiah 42:1-10 says:

“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands shall wait for His law.” Thus says God the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it; I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them. Sing to the Lord a new song…!”

Doctor Luke, in Luke 4:18-19, has the prescription of Atoning Liberty! He wrote: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, TO SET AT LIBERTY THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” And elsewhere He says: “Today is the day of your salvation!”

What you’re getting ready to read is still on God’s agenda, on His time-table, and completely in His plans – Romans 8:18-19, 27-30! “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God…Verses 27-30, Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined [pre-determined] to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

You do understand that apart from Christ’s work providing atoning liberty we all possess darkened minds that by His grace can become enlightened minds, and blinded minds that can become unveiled minds, and the minds of fallen men becoming the mind of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 Paul tells us: “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

ATONING LIBERTY! ATONING FREEDOM! ATONING BROKEN BONDS AND CHAINS! In Proverbs 16:7 we read, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He [God Himself] makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” Is there peace surrounding your life?

Atoning Liberty? In James 5:7-8 we read: “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

Atoning Liberty? The evidence of eternal glory resting on the redeemed because of our Redeemer? Revelation 21:22-27 tells us who they are and who Jesus really is! “But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor to it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

Atoning Liberty? It’s freedom! The slavish chains and bondages have been broken because you’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb! John 8:36 says, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Do you grasp ‘freedom’ from sin’s penalty and freedom from sin’s power and even the promise of freedom from sin’s presence?

Atoning Liberty? Have you grasped “freedom to reign in this life”? Don’t miss this! It’s for this present hour in YOUR life! Romans 5:15-17! “But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more, the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came for one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more, those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

Will reign when? IN THIS LIFE, IN THE HERE AND NOW, IN THIS PRESENT MOMENT EVEN AMIDST TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS!

Atoning Liberty? Romans 6:17-18, 22, gloriously tells us: “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Verse 22, But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.”

Atoning Liberty? Have you died? Galatians 2:20 says: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

And, as a result of Christ’s crucifixion and our death with Him, Romans 6:5-7 tells us: “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.”

Atoning Liberty? Praise God! We have the Indwelling Presence of God’s Holy Spirit, and I Corinthians 2:12 tells us: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” THE HOLY SPIRIT TELLS US AND SHOWS US AND VALIDATES GOD’S WORD IN US!

I pray you’re not still partially bound because you’re scared of the Holy Spirit! Oh, No! He‘s your Friend, your Guide, your Teacher, the One who empowers you to live the victorious, overcoming Life in Christ daily in the present here and now! “Receive the Holy Spirit! Yield to the Holy Spirit! Accept the leadership of the “dominant dancer” of Heaven in your heart and mind! Even skip on your feet like a champion dancer! With Joy in the Spirit!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE DEATH OF GRACE OR SOLD OUT TO GRACE?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

Shakespeare, in “Richard III,” made a very sobering statement when he wrote: “O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God.” Are you even aware of the momentary grace of mortal men? And if you’ve been on a pilgrimage to discover ‘true grace,’ where has your journey brought you?

Have you personally discovered “the God of all grace”? And, if you have, you know within you, by His grace, that you have a deep awareness of sin’s guilt, and also you have an amazing awareness of Holy God, plus you know He wants your freedom from sin, not your awareness only of bondage to sin!

Have you personally overlooked John’s anointed words in John 3:17? “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” But then John added that “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,” strangling and putting to death “Amazing Grace”!

It’s not only that ignoring God’s grace puts grace to death in one’s own life, but Jude 4 speaks of a war to produce its death, yes, grace’s death. It says, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness [or license] and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Yes, there are men, pastors, who are in our modern world and even modern churches who are out to “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality.”

In late April, 2013, with my son, Scott, and his church staff, I attended a conference in Houston, Texas, for portions of 3 days listening some of the time to a well-known “Christian” teacher who basically massacred ‘grace’ every time he spoke. To say the least, I was shocked, horrified, that this man finds platforms in churches to belittle “the grace of God.” And, I now assume it goes on in many pulpits across America. I was reminded by this experience of Bonhoeffer’s terming some preachers’ definition of grace as nothing more than “cheap grace”!

Philip Yancey has written a book entitled “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” [Zondervan Publ., 1997, p.185]. He was commenting on Paul in Romans 6:1-14. “He [Paul] poses the question, If grace increases as sin increases, then why not sin as much as possible in order to give God more opportunity to extend grace? Although such reasoning may sound perverse, at various times Christians have followed exactly that loopy logic. A third-century bishop was shocked to see devout martyrs of the Christian faith devote their last nights in prison to drunkenness, revelry, and promiscuity. Since martyrs’ death would make them perfect, they reasoned, what would matter if they spent their last hours sinning?”

Francois Mauriac has written: “The Man you submit yourself to DOES NOT WANT YOU TO BE FREE TO BE A SLAVE [of sin]; HE BREAKS THE CIRCLE OF YOUR FETTERS, AND, AGAINST YOUR HALF-EXTINGUISHED AND STILL-SMOLDERING DESIRES, HE KINDLES AND RE-KINDLES THE FIRE OF GRACE.”

But some have been spiritually programmed that ‘grace’ really doesn’t change you into Christ’s likeness – it just builds in you a toleration and acceptance of your depravity that ‘grace’ only covers! In “Of Continence” St. Augustine so nailed it: “The law detects, grace alone conquers sin.” Modern-day false prophets proclaim sin is not conquered in a believer, only covered over!

It was Thomas Benton Brooks who long ago wrote: “As heat is opposed to cold, and light to darkness, so grace is opposed to sin. – Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart.”

The absence of grace, God’s grace, in a human life, means one is void of divine forgiveness, void of divine presence and purpose, and void of the ‘grace-power’ to be all He intends for me to be, fully available to His Indwelling Presence. Rather than “wrong chords”, grace produces inner harmony. Rather than a fleshly desire to be something I know I’m not, the graced believer is empowered by God’s Spirit to fulfill the Redeemer’s sovereignty over and in and through my life, with His strength made perfect in my weakness. [2 Corinthians 12:9].

But you do know that many preachers and followers have changed “Amazing Grace” into “amazing grit” which promotes the flesh! You’ve seen it and heard it: “amazing grit”! how sour the notes, that promotes a man such as me; I was never lost – only newly discovered – they were blind about me, but now they see!!…It was ‘grit’ that graced my determined will to do as I well pleased, and ‘grit’ my fleshly fears relieved. It’s been many dangers, toils and snares, but I BY MY STRENGTH HAVE OVERCOME. It’s grit that brought me safe this far, and grit will make me acceptable in God’s home.”

Really? Again, Shakespeare, in “Richard II”, wrote: “That word ‘grace’ in an ungracious mouth is but profane.” How true! But then in 2 Peter 3:18 Peter tells us: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.” The grace of our Lord and Savior or the ‘grit’ of the worldly wise? You do remember that in that 2 Peter 3 passage, verse 17, “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, BEWARE lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked.”

The error of the wicked? “My ‘grit’ is preferable over “God’s grace” – “and don’t ever forget it. I’m my own man!” Oh, really?

Do you understand “oneness in Christ”? Once I’ve become a partaker of the Lamb of God sacrifice, I become One with Him in His fullness – apart from Him the unbeliever is empty! But I do grow in the understanding of my inherited blessings and mature from a new-born spiritual baby to ‘kid-stuff,’ adolescence spiritually, young adulthood, mature adult, to an aged saint of grace!

The ‘death of grace’ is so cleverly dealt with by many of the ‘fallen’ because they wear masks to hide their true identity even finding acceptance among the “found”, but hidden away in the inner man of an unbeliever, in the man’s fleshly mind of death to grace, there are those ‘black holes’ to nothingness, the “scars” of guilt and shame, and usually a better determination to present a more acceptable bondage. And, of course, they would deny that the Ten Commandments hasn’t exposed their hearts and the need of forgiveness, restoration, and the New Birth but only affirmed they tried to do better and not be a law-breaker. Law-breaking, even one broken law, reveals the cancer, but God’s “Amazing Grace” releases the healing cure of a sinful heart.

Karl Barth, former German theologian, wrote: “The beginning of good is perceived in the midst of the bad…The simplicity and comprehensiveness of grace – who can measure it?” I say to you as best I know how in this given moment: “Grace is the greatness and gift of God for our lives to forgive sinners and establish saints to touch His world with released grace through us.”

In Psalm 32”1-2 we read: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”

It’s a brave man who acknowledges God’s Law and that he is a breaker of that Law, but it’s a blessed man, convicted of the Holy Spirit who cries out to God, “God, be merciful to me THE SINNER.”

The ‘death of grace’? In Isaiah 8:13-15 the prophet wrote: The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. He will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken.”

The ‘death of grace’? Sir Francis Bacon, in “Essays: Of Atheism” wrote: ‘They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”

You do understand! A man wills himself as an unbeliever and bathes himself regularly in dirty water. But not all men are unbelievers – there are those the grace of God has turned around through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the exaltation of Christ in their lives – they’re “new creations,” while old men of unbelief remain old men of unbelief!!

The ‘death of grace’? Fredrich Wilhelm Krummacher wrote: “Unbelief does nothing but darken and destroy. It makes the world a moral desert, where no divine footsteps are heard, where no angels ascend or descend, where no living hand adorns the fields, feeds the birds of heaven, or regulates events.” That is so true – so the question now is, “Is God being allowed to ‘regulate the events’ in your life for His glory, honor, and praise? Or, do you still call the shots? Did you miss it earlier? Psalm 32:2, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” That’s a man sold out to the grace of God!

“Death of grace or Sold Out To Grace”? Slain by God or safety in Him? Separated from God or the Surety of His Presence in you? Sunken in the miry clay of your sin nature or standing on the Rock of His Salvation? The “death of grace”? NO ETERNAL PEACE! Sold out to grace? Perfect peace that passes all understanding! “The death of grace” IN Your Life? Guilty before Holy God! “Sold out to grace”? Abundantly pardoned, transgressions forgiven, sin is covered, blotted out, by the Lamb’s blood!

“The death of grace”? Where is that man’s name written? In the ledger of Satan himself! “Sold out to grace”? Where is his name written? In the Lamb’s Book of Life! Heaven? Revelation 21:27 says, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination, or a lie, BUT ONLY THOSE WHO ARE WRITTEN IN THE LAMB’S BOOK of LIFE.”

“The death of grace”? ‘Jesus is not my Lord nor my Savior’! Therefore they’ll always ‘want’ and never have eternal needs met! Do you see it? When a man assumes he can manage his own life and interests without God’s help, he cancels an eternal relationship and wallows in his guilt of a Godless life voiding grace in himself!

“The death of grace”? In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul wrote: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Worldly sorrow is only disappointment in one’s self and has nothing to do with the broken heart of God over man’s rebellion. Man controls his conscience and resists the Holy Spirit who “convicts of sin” – and he stays in his deathly state before Holy God when God would give him “the blood of the Lamb”!!

Listen to Oswald Chambers, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.254], “The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says it and means it.”

I haven’t given the following poem a name, but it might be “Sold Out To Grace”! It says:

“Through the price of suffering and death, Through the love and blood of the Lamb,

I have come to the Light of the Life of God’s Way, I’ve come to God’s Eternal Day.

For the Dayspring on high has come to me; And the Dayspring on high has died for me;

Through the Dayspring’s death I am set free; God’s Eternal Light shines in me.

Through the cost of the Cross and the pain of His death, Through the sacrifice made for my sins,

I have been redeemed, washed clean of my sin, I’ve come to God’s Eternal Day.

Through the richness of Calvary’s love, Through the nails in the prints of His hands,

I have been forgiven, made one with Christ, I’ve come to God’s Eternal Day.”

It’s why God spoke through Isaiah in Isaiah 43:21! “This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.” Does that sound like the “death of grace” or one who is “Sold Out To Grace?”

Resignation To Hopelessness? I don’t think so – at least for the “few” who find eternal hope in Christ alone!

The “death of grace”? Isaiah 40:29-31 says: “He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

“Death”? When God gives LIFE and that EVERLASTING? In Isaiah 41:17-20 we read: “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry lands springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box tree together. That they may see and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

Have you ever seen “royalty” dressed in dirty street clothes of the poverty stricken variety? And “death to grace” is not the attire of the true repentant people of God!

I don’t know who wrote the following words, but I believe them to be truly anointed of God:

“You trembling souls! Dismiss your fears; Be mercy all your theme; Mercy, which, like a river, flows in one continued stream.

Fear not the powers of earth and hell; God will these powers restrain; His mighty arm their rage repel and make their efforts vain.

Fear not the want of outward good; He will for His provide, Grant them supplies of daily food, and all they need beside.

Fear not that He will e’er forsake, Or leave His work undone; He’s faithful to His promises – and faithful to His Son.

Fear not the terrors of the grave, or death’s tremendous sting; He will from endless wrath preserve – To endless glory bring.” AMEN?

Are you familiar with the hymn, “Grace Greater Than Our Sin”? Daniel B. Towner and Julia Johnston wrote it sometime in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. It says:

“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt, Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, There where the blood the Lamb was spilt.

Sin and despair like the sea-waves cold, Threaten the soul with infinite loss; Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold, Points to the Refuge, the Mighty Cross.

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide, What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is flowing a crimson tide; Whiter than snow you may be today.

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, Freely bestowed on all who believe; You that are longing to see His face, Will you this moment His grace receive?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

PARTIAL OBEDIENCE OR FULL SURRENDER?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

Why is it that some begin a ‘journey of faith’ and then ‘fall away’? Why do well-grounded young people, taught faithfully by God-fearing parents, arrive at a university and are swept away from devotion and surrender by some of the godless professors or ‘strong-willed, independent, unbelieving classmates’? How is it that some so easily, who’ve walked devotedly, begin a pilgrimage, at least on the surface, of ‘full surrender,’ then fall away to ‘partial obedience,’ and then, as some disciples of Jesus did, walk no more with Him?

Some, like the astronomer, Carl Sagan, have been warped and deceived into thinking, “The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be.” But then the Apostle Paul, in Romans 1:20, wrote: “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Oswald Chambers wrote, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.270], “When God gives a vision by His Spirit through His word of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view our Lord never had. Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ.” So true!

Partial obedience or full surrender? In Exodus 16 we find why some are so consumed by partial obedience. Oh, they’re following Moses, but verses 2-3 tells us: Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

They were on the journey of promise to the “promised land,” to see the manifestation of the glory of the Lord, to the reality, not of slavery, but total freedom – and verse 4 of Exodus 16 says, God speaking, “that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law [God’s Word] or not.” Are you being tested?

Partial obedience or full surrender? In I Timothy 6:10 Paul warned his young spiritual son, “for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which SOME HAVE STRAYED FROM THE FAITH IN THEIR GREEDINESS, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

I don’t know the hidden hearts of many who profess faith then end up walking faithlessly but 2 Timothy 4:10 speaks of Demas who forsook Paul on his missionary journeys “having loved this present world.” How heart-breaking is that for modern-day Pauls who see spiritual sons captured by the winds of worldliness and blown away?

Paul gave to Timothy a much broader explanation when in 2 Timothy 3:1-7 which I truly believe are descriptions of people in the church during the last days – LIKE NOW! “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captive of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Partial obedience? You’ll remember Jesus saying in Matthew 7:13-14 that we “enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult [word meaning ‘pressed’ or ‘crushing’] is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Jesus said in the same chapter of Matthew 7, verses 21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES the will of My Father. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Have you read recently Genesis 11:31 where the Word says: “And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; [that’s God’s “Promised Land”!!]; and they came to Haran and dwelt there.” And verse 32 says, “and Terah died in Haran.” That was a place meaning “parched, burned up, or dried up”!

On the spiritual journey have you witnessed, some at least, with partial obedience starting their trip to the “Promise Land of God,” but settle into a dry, parched, burned-up place and life?

Abram was there – and could have ‘settled’ for less than God’s best, but Genesis 12:1-5 says: Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan.”

Whenever you find a person or people who start a journey with God and then pause in “strange places and falling-away behavior,” you’ll find an abandonment of the one True and Living God, and people, then, bowing to the ‘gods’ of their own making including the idol worship of ‘self’!

In Isaiah 1:2-4 we see an ancient people so descriptive of modern-day America! It says: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me; the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider.’ Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.”

But in spite of a rebellious people, God raised up others who bowed before Him, broken before Him, and built by Him into even a nation of faith and obedience! Terah “served other gods,” but Abram became a true follower and God blessed him – he became “the father of many nations” of faith. He became a man and a witness of full surrender!

And what does Almighty God do today? As He said to Abram, He will say to us: “I’m calling YOU out of your strange lifestyle to one of divine intent – Follow Me, and I’ll make you fishers of men!”

“Partial obedience or Full Surrender?” In Revelation 17 we read about the ‘woman’ and the ‘beast’ who John says, Verse 6, “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with amazement.” Verse 14 then says: “These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are CALLED, CHOSEN, AND FAITHFUL.”

Jesus says: “You are leaving ‘the old’ and traveling in ‘the new and the eternal;’ your life will never be the same! Don’t settle for Haran, don’t dwell where pagan influences corrupt you, don’t stop short of the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Come out so you can go in where God wants you.”

There is such a powerful word in John 6:44 when Jesus said: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus ‘draws us,’ He ‘calls us,’ yes, He spiritually, magnetically, pulls us! Didn’t “the God of glory appear to our father Abraham”? Of course He did – and our loving God is ‘no respecter of persons’ – what He did for Abram, He does for you!

I have known numerous men and women across my 25 years of ministry in India who’ve said: “Jesus Christ came to me. Who is He and what is He about?” Repent! And believe! Repent! And trust His beckoning call! Repent! And surrender your will for His good, acceptable, and personal, perfect will! “Your will be done [in me] on earth as Your will is being done in Heaven!”

What He did for Abram He’ll do for me? Again and again and again, remember Abram! And put your name there! “Now the Lord said to Farrell Fisher…” “Now the Lord said to [put YOUR name there!!]…”

Oh, but please, please notice here: God’s Blessing To Abram Came After Terah Had Died In Haran – Haran: ‘the place of the dead” – and ABRAM, yes, had to get out of there! Spurgeon said about Abram in Haran: “He was conquered, not only by foes, but by compromising friends.” I pray you know nothing about that! I pray you walk and talk with those friends who walk and talk with God!

Hear me, I pray! “Partial obedience is to compromise the Lord’s command and to acknowledge my disobedience and, as a result, to stand under God’s judgment.” Why? Because partial obedience is making one’s self lord unto one’s self thus closing the door to the divine obedience He requires! Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ but you don’t do what I say.”

In James 1:22 we read: “But be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Again, Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest,” pps. 270-271], has written so wisely confirming the previous verse I’ve just listed when he said: “We are apt to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we have had. If there is one standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God and you do not come up to it, and do not feel inclined to come up to it, that is the beginning of backsliding, because it means your conscience does not answer to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ or for going back as a deserter.”

And I’m sad to say that most churches have an awful lot of “deserters” who don’t even know it! “Partial obedience”? “Partial obedience is to compromise our partial understanding and to increase our responsibility!” Yes, part-time disciples (?) face a stricter judgment than those who’ve never heard the Truth!

Was there divine intent in Abram, at least, getting to Haran? But was Haran his final destination? Had Almighty God told Abram, “Haran” or “Canaan”? “Well, Lord, at least I’ve followed You part of that way? Isn’t that enough? Have you really directed me to go all the Way with You?

“Partial Obedience”? “To compromise is to decay obedience and to bring on a deterioration of morals.” You’ll remember Genesis 11 and ‘the beginning of confusion.’ God never told His people to build the tower of Babel! Genesis 11:4 says, “Come, LET US build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us MAKE A NAME FOR OURSELVES…”

Confusion came, a scattering came, and all their efforts for themselves, did nothing but deteriorate their holy calling!

“Partial obedience”? “To compromise is to invite the absence of anointing and blessing.” The Holy Spirit of God does not pour out His anointing on idolaters and their idols. And I challenge you, again, to carefully read Colossians 3:5! “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which IS IDOLATRY.”

The Holy Spirit will not anoint and bless one who has decided for himself that the “Harans” are a pleasurable place to be at least for a time when God never said, “Reside in Haran and I’ll anoint you and bless you!” No! A thousand times, No!

Acts 2:1,4 tells us: “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Verse 4, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

And, I say to you, that far too often heavenly sons know no anointing because they so reside under an earthly father’s domination that they can’t hear God the Father! If you’re not where God wants you spiritually in your life, there will be absences of God’s grace and mercy. A divided allegiance shuts the door and builds a high dam holding back the Sea and flow of God’s Spirit and anointing!

“Partial obedience”? One does not ‘reside’ where he feels comfortable if God has assigned him a personal ministry zone. One does not ‘settle’ in a place which is not God’s “promised land.” Comfortable maybe, but not consecrated! Away from Ur, but not in God’s promised land! Religious mediocrity but not the Master’s residence for a true man of faith and obedience. It’s the pall of spiritual lifelessness when there should be the power of resurrection life in its fullness. It’s that acceptance in the mind of Jesus’ death on the Cross, but in the Spirit-realm they’re void of resurrection hope instilled within them.

“Partial obedience”? There is no doubt we are called to be “in the world” but not of it! Didn’t I mention Demas who was consumed by a “love for the world”? This is why Paul wrote in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Has your ‘world’ been crucified to you and you to the world? Your ‘world’ apart from Him is nothing more than mortal flesh, fleshly designs, personal interests excluding God and His will and purpose for your life, and fleshly energizing that does nothing but short-circuit divine power and supernatural blessing. And that’s because it’s so uncomfortable to ‘die daily’ that the resurrection life of Christ can be manifested in your mortal flesh. Some find that ‘freakish’!!

But what does James 4:4 tell us? “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

It was Herrick Johnson who wrote: “Buying, possessing, accumulating, this is not worldliness. – But doing this in the love of it, with no love to God paramount – doing it so that thoughts of God and eternity are an intrusion – doing it so that one’s spirit is secularized in doing it – this is worldliness.”

And, I would add, ‘worldliness of the flesh blessing quickly becomes the curse, becoming a trap, a snare to your soul and spirit!’ Theodore Munger really nailed it when he wrote: “The unrest of this weary world is its unvoiced cry after God.”

Oh, I’m telling you, look at the Tower of Babel and you will be greatly distressed by men constantly figuring out a way to substitute God and the Savior for something ‘man-made.’ It doesn’t work! What is this present evil world all about? It’s ‘at it’ to disclaim God and one’s need of Him! It’s ‘at it’ to substitute religion for relationship. It’s ‘at it’ to substitute man’s perverse philosophies for the Prince of Peace. It’s ‘at it’ to hide its sinful self from Holy God. It’s ‘at it’ to suppress Christ’s reproach at the Cross to celebrate self-will, self-pleasure, and self-perverseness!

“Towers” of self-expression are still being built while “Holy Spirit” experience and expression are fully denied. “Towers”? “Obedience to God is an option, yes, even salvation by works;” “Towers”? Obliteration of the need of a Savior! “Towers”? Religious doctors of theology spouting their interpretations of the Word of God rather than submission and obedience to ‘Thus says the Lord;’ “Towers? Where true religious extremists reside without any message of repentance toward God and faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! “Towers”? ‘No trouble for Christians in this world – we’ve been saved from that,’ even when Jesus says: “In the world you will have tribulation!”

Our holy world? It’s not ‘towers’ we build but standing on the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Our holy world? Called to be His witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth! Our holy world? Bathed in Eternal Light that exposes the darkness, not embrace it! Our holy world? Kept by the mighty power of God, not killed by the powers of darkness!

“Partial obedience or full surrender”? When a true believer is “justified”, he/she knows the reality of sanctification or “set apart to the glory of God alone,” and he/she knows final glorification is coming soon. Full surrender? “Get out of your country, and from your kin, and your father’s house, unto a land that I will show you.” That’s the “land of promises,” that’s the land “flowing with milk and honey,” that’s the land of blessed fulfillment, that’s our Lord’s heavenly city, that’s Immanuel’s abiding place and forever abode.

“Partial obedience or full surrender”? You see the blood of Jesus shed on the Cross but you know a better way? You’re told of the imputed, implanted righteousness and nature of God’s Messiah but you know your way speaks better to you? You’re told: ‘sincere religious effort should satisfy God,’ while Jesus says, “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30].

“Full surrender”? In Joel 2:28-29 God tells us: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

In John 17:4 Jesus said: “I have glorified You on earth, Father. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” Tell me: how is your divine, eternal, Christ-honoring work going? Didn’t Jesus say, “If you love Me, you’ll keep My commandments?” Faulty preaching and faulty teaching calls that ‘foreign’ to saving grace! Really?

Without hesitation, I say to you, partial obedience is pious fraud, imitation living, and so foreign to “I have been crucified with Christ” – and in His resurrection life, hope, and power, I now abide and rest in His fullness!! Again, Oswald Chambers said: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.229], “The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become the bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.” A saint? One truly set apart for the full purpose of honoring Christ through my daily walk!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LIMITED ATONEMENT OR A FINISHED WORK FOR ALL?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

There is such an awe-inspiring verse in Romans 5:6 where Paul wrote: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Do you see that? “Christ died for the ungodly.” Has that ever born even one person who was Godly from inception, birth, life, and then death? I don’t think so – I know so because God’s Word declares in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

How, under God’s Heaven, do the “limited atoners” read John 3:16-17 and determine in their lame brains, “Jesus died for the few – not the whole sinful world. He died for the few, not a world filled with unbelievers.”

That to me is the most heart-wrenching, mind-boggling attempt in diluting the very heart of God saying Jesus died only for the redeemed. Why aren’t ALL SAVED if He died for all? Because John 3:19 says, “And this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Did Jesus DIE for “the evil”?

Limited atonement? Christ died for the man who hates Him most. Christ died for the most ungodly sinner who has ever lived. Christ died for the adulterous woman whose whole life had been and still was a total disaster of bondage to immorality. Christ died for the strongest, most well-known agnostic or atheist. Christ died for the intellectual who has determined he is smarter than God. Christ died for the pimp and his army of immoral men and women. Christ died for the homosexual and the lesbian. Christ died for the crooked banker and immoral lawyer. Christ died for the cheaters in marriage, in classes, in business deals so phony they make the Devil blush. Christ died for that one who is the furthest away from Him!

Christ died for the philosophers who deny God’s absolutes and settle in to their relativism, and as James Montgomery Boice wrote: [“Gospel of Grace?” p.29], modern philosophy majoring on “the substitution of pragmatism for truth.” That’s human reasoning substituted for divine revelation. Boice spoke about our world today that has rejected ‘what do you think’ for ‘how do you feel about this.’ That is that philosophy that rejects divine truth for a human person’s reasoning power.

A ‘limited atoner’ has so limited the heart of God, denied the Word of God, and basically rejected those for whom Christ died – and they unite to pump each other’s ‘flesh’ because ‘we are THE CHOSEN OF GOD.’

And if Romans 12:2 says: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,” I believe we must never conform to the pattern of limited atoners, patting ourselves on the back, and them, because we’re so much wiser than those who miss out on God’s grace!

Limited atoners and their worldview of redemptive grace, mercy, and love, seeks to bind and limit the very heart of God Himself. Do you realize the limitations “limited atoners” have put upon themselves? “Limited atoners” limit their decisions, their lives, their actions, their deeds, their ministries, because “we’re not responsible for all the world. All the world is not who Jesus died for. He died just for us.” That is sickening and heart-breaking!

“Limited atoners” who teach and preach ‘limited atonement’ by Jesus, are so in the same vein of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who according to Daniel 4:30 saw everything around him strictly for himself – “of me,” “by me,” and “for me.” God looked upon that king as mentally and morally deranged!

“Limited atoners”? It’s that which exalts ‘me, my, mine’ and builds a disregard for the ‘world’ for which Christ died!

“Limited atoners”? Do they really believe the anointed word of Romans 12:2 where Paul said,”Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world [the world you live in, the world of limited atonement], but be being transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Michael Horton, in his book, “Made In America,” [p.61], has written, “we have made our sovereign Lord about as cheap as the hairbrush that has his name stamped on it.” That’s what limited atonement does – it cheapens the gospel and tells many that the gospel “is not for you.”

“Limited atonement”? It’s a limitation on the powerful Word of God! In I Peter 1:23 we read, “you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God.” Which is why Paul told Timothy to “preach the Word” – not to the few but to the many!

In Mark 1:35-39 we find our Lord’s strategy because He came to reach the multitudes! Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” But He said to them, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach to them also, BECAUSE FOR THIS PURPOSE I HAVE COME FORTH” And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.”

In “Whatever Happened To The Gospel of Christ?” [p.77] Boice wrote: “Isn’t that striking? Jesus was refusing to carry on a healing ministry. Why? Had He lost His power? Didn’t He care anymore? Of course not. Besides, He does other healings later on in the Gospel. Why did He refuse the disciple’s challenge then? It is because He knew that if He allowed the miracles to eclipse the teaching, the countryside might soon be filled with thousands of fit and healthy people, but in spite of their good health they would all die eventually and perish in hell. If, on the other hand, He focused on teaching them the Bible, though many would have less than perfect health and there would still be many physical diseases, many of these people would also believe and those who did believe would go to heaven. Jesus saw things God’s way, and He would not allow anything to deter Him from His Father’s business.”

I am convinced beyond any doubt that the “limited atonement” teaching has suffocated Christ’s cause dramatically. It’s why “The Cambridge Declaration” declared, “Christ and His Cross have moved from the center of our vision.” For whom did Christ die? The few or all the world?

If I were you as a ‘limited atoner,’ I would examine carefully Romans 3:21-26! But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Christ Jesus, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and THE JUSTIFIER OF THE ONE WHO HAS FAITH IN JESUS.” Did the Word say: “to all and on all who believe”?

Oh, yes! There are those who deny Jesus’ work at the Cross to clear them, pardon them, free them, from the stranglehold of the Devil and themselves – but His shed blood was by God’s grace to “justify freely”, passing over the sins previously committed, and that “He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. But the redemption in Christ Jesus, intended for ALL, can and is refused by many!

In Romans 10:1-3 Paul shared his unceasing prayer for the Jews, and I believe, for all unbelievers. He said: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

Then, Romans 10:12-13 says clearly: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same LORD OVER ALL is rich TO ALL WHO CALL UPON HIM. For ‘WHOEVER CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.” Amen? But, the stark reality? There are those who are a ‘disobedient and contrary people’ for whom Christ died! And some willfully reject Him – not Him rejecting them!

Dr. Boice’s research on John Newton [1725-1807] who wrote “Amazing Grace” is such a powerful story. I want to share every word from Boice’s book. [Copyright c) 2001 by Linda McNamara Boice, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Ill. 60187]. Dr. Boice wrote:

“Newton was raised in a Christian home in which he was taught verses of the Bible, but his mother died when he was only six years old and he was sent to live with a relative who hated the Bible and mocked Christianity. Newton ran away to sea. He was wild in those years and was known for being able to swear for two hours without repeating himself. He was forced to enlist in the British navy, but he deserted, was captured, and was beaten publicly as a punishment. Eventually Newton got into the merchant marines and went to Africa. In his memoirs he wrote that he went to Africa for one reason only, ‘that I might sin to the fill…’

Newton fell in with a Portuguese slave trader, in whose home he was cruelly treated. This man often went away on slaving expeditions, and when he was gone his power passed to his African wife, the chief woman of his harem. She hated all white men and vented her hatred on Newton. He says that for months he was forced to grovel in the dirt, eating his food from the ground like a dog. He was beaten mercilessly if he touched it. In time, thin and emaciated, Newton made his way to sea, where he was picked up by a British ship making its way up the coast to England…

When the captain of the ship learned that the young man knew something about navigation as a result of being in the British navy, he made him a ship’s mate. But even then Newton fell into trouble. One day, when the captain was ashore, Newton broke out the ship’s supply of rum and got the crew drunk. He was so drunk himself that when the captain returned and struck him on the head, Newton fell overboard and would have drowned if one of the sailors had not quickly hauled him back on board…

Near the end of one voyage, as they were approaching Scotland, the ship ran into bad weather and was blown off course. Water poured in, and the ship began to sink. The young profligate was sent down into the hold to pump water. The storm lasted for days. Newton was terrified. He was sure the ship would sink and he would drown. But in the hold of the ship, as he desperately pumped water, the God of all grace, whom he had tried to forget but who had never forgotten him, brought to his mind Bible verses he had learned in his home as a child. The way of salvation opened up to him. He was born again and deeply transformed. Much later, when he was again in England, Newton began to study theology and eventually became a preacher, first in a little town called Olney and later in London…”

Dr. Boice closed this story by writing: “Newton was a preacher of grace, for he had learned that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more (Romans 5:20). He is proof that the grace of God is sufficient to save anybody, and that He saves by grace alone.” WOW!

“Amazing Grace” is for all – not a ‘limited atonement’! Are there those who miss out on God’s amazing grace? OF COURSE! And why? In Romans 8:5-9 Paul wrote: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”

When in Romans 12:1 Paul spoke of “the mercies of God,” I don’t believe, will never believe, have no evidence scripturally that God’s mercy is for a select few! In fact, in Ephesians 2:11-13, Paul tells us WHO CAN BE BROUGHT NEAR! “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

The beloved John so amplifies our opportunity, our open door, and our explanation of eternal change from lost to found, dead but made alive, hopeless but find hope, separated but are reconciled, of the worldly class but made Heaven’s family on earth! I John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another; and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

What does “limited atonement” say? ‘Jesus didn’t die on the Cross and shed His own blood for the many – He died for the few!’ “IF” is one of the biggest words in God’s revelation – and the “IF” relates to anyone. IF ANYONE, LOST, ALIENATED, SEPARATED FROM GOD, CALLS OUT FOR MERCY, HE/SHE CAN’T BE SAVED? And that’s because of “LIMITED ATONEMENT”? I pray you’ll personally search and read every recorded verse to follow!!

Matthew 10:32-33, Matthew 12:52, Matthew 16:25

Mark 3:35, Mark 8:34-39

Luke 12:8-9

John 3:36, John 4:13-14, John 11:25-27

Acts 2:21, Acts 10:43

Romans 10:9-10

I John 4:15-16, I John 5:4-5, I John 5:11-13

Revelation 20:15, Revelation 22:16-17

And you, as a limited atoner, have a problem with “whosoever will may come”?

Woodrow A. Geier, in “Religion In Life,” wrote: “In the Cross God descends to bear in His own heart the sins of the world. In Jesus, He atones at unimaginable cost to Himself.”

It was Charles Wesley, in his “Free Grace,” who wrote: “He left His Father’s throne above, (So free, so infinite in His grace!), Emptied Himself of all but love, And bled for Adam’s helpless race.”

And “all are helpless” but Jesus died for the few only?

Here’s Oswald Chambers’ statement that I want to close with. It’s in “My Utmost…”, p.255! He said: “God is justified in saving bad men only as He makes them good. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The Atonement is a propitiation whereby God through the death of Jesus makes an unholy man holy.” “Whosoever will may come,” Signed: Jesus Christ!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

APOSTASY OR REPENTANT REST AND REACH?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of ‘apostasy’: “An abandonment of what one has professed; a total desertion, or departure from one’s faith or religion…an abscess.” An ‘’apostate’? One who is “false; traitorous.” Those are some strong, stinging, ‘take-your-breath-away’ definitions! And the question is, “Are they applicable in our modern day?” I think so!

When I came to Jeremiah 8, I found prophetic challenges for a people in a perilous condition. Verses 4-6 says: “Moreover you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into battle.” Then in verse 12 we read: ‘Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down,’ says the Lord.

But there IS ‘hope,’ not resigned to hopelessness, because in Hosea 14:4 God says, “I will heal their backsliding [or apostasy]. I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away.” There is also a very sad verse in Jeremiah 5:3 which says, “O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.” The end of verse 6 says, “Their backslidings have increased.” And this word ‘backslidings’ is the word meaning also ‘apostasies.’ And God’s Holy Word says, “their apostasies have increased.” Is that true of today?

Biblical TRUTH either challenges one or condemns one, bringing one to the light of our Lord’s freedom, or bringing one to the darkness of our Lord’s judgment.

Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.270], “Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ.” And, as a result of that, there is usually a ‘falling away’ – and some never return to intimacy with Christ.

It was Alexander MacLaren who said: “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” But, rather than altars erected to the glory of God, the apostates erect “tombstones”!

In Romans 12:1 Paul challenges everyone professing faith in Christ: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service [of worship].” In fact, in I Corinthians 15:31 Paul said, “…I die daily.”

And there is a revelational reason! No choice of ‘daily death’ and the door is open to that spirit of apostasy! In 2 Corinthians 4:10-11 he said: “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live [in Christ] are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

No daily death and the life of Jesus in you faces a closed door that can manifest eternal consequences rather than heavenly blessing! I don’t know how you keep yourself spiritually fit to honor Christ through your walk if you don’t “die” so He can have full release through you. Apostasy results because there are ‘professing’ Christians who become lovers of themselves rather than true lovers of Him. Jesus is not a “second-chair fiddler player”! Look at Romans 5:15! “For the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”

Apostasy results in some because “partakers of the divine nature” scares them, and, all of a sudden, self-examination takes the place of “as He is so am I.” Falling away is one identifying himself by his flesh and refusing to claim one’s new eternal identity in Christ Jesus! We’re called to be those “mortals swallowed up by Resurrection Life and Resurrection Hope” – not ‘hopelessness’! Don’t you know what God says about you ‘in Christ’? Hear me, please! All that the Almighty God of the Cross IS, IS YOUR INHERITANCE AND ETERNAL IDENTITY!

Look at 2 Peter 1:2-4! “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Apostates apostatize because something or someone has crept in diluting salvation truths in their minds, hearts, and bodies. In Galatians 6:14 Paul said, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Then in verse 17 he wrote: “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Have you been crucified to the world around you in its perverse passions and aims? Do you bear in your body the brand-marks of Christ? Rather than “marked,” an apostate is “marred” in miry clay and sinking fast!

Apostates don’t ‘squander’ themselves for the higher, holier, heavenly purpose – they ‘live’ to satisfy ‘fallen flesh’ still bound by the old sin nature chains. If you’ve truly walked with Christ Jesus, guided by His words, led by the Holy Spirit, isn’t it easy for you to pick up on that ‘professing person’ and his self-interest, his self-complacency, his self-righteousness, his self-love, or his arrogant self-sufficiency? But Jesus came to “rescue the perishing” – even the apostate!

Apostate? Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure.” Have you witnessed it or experienced it? The one who is ‘wealthy’ in fleshly pleasure is the one who is bankrupt in the poverty of spiritual truths. Do you remember Paul telling us in 2 Timothy 3:4 about those, I believe, in the last days’ church who are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God’?

Titus 3, in my New King James Bible, is entitled: “Graces of the Heirs of Grace”! Titus 3:1-11 says, “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various pleasures and lusts, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.”

There it is! A Magnificent contrast between apostasy and the repentant rest and reach! Hebrews 11:25 speaks of Moses when it says, Moses “choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin…”

“Apostasy or the repentant rest and reach?” In 2 Timothy 2:8-17 we read: Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This is a faithful saying: ‘For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.’ Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, tightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer…”

“Apostasy?” How many have been on that threshold, ready to fall away – but then there is miraculous favor from God! In Lamentations 3:11, this is Jeremiah writing, yes, and telling us of being hedged in, hedged by the hand of God, weights on one’s soul and spirit, and then says: [Verse 11], “He has turned aside my ways and pulled me in pieces.” God’s heart is broken over apostasy in any child of His – double God’s heart for the one who senses that his strength and hope in the Lord is perishing or vanishing! And God steps in!

Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, in “Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?” [Grand Rapids, Mich., Zondervan, 1999, p.23], wrote: “We don’t have a shortage of leaders, but a shortage of followers of the one Leader who can transform lives and nations. We don’t need to enlarge our vision, but make it smaller and more focused. We don’t need more numbers, but more quality and consistency among the numbers we already have. We need more people who will do things God’s way and fewer people doing things man’s way.”

Is that a challenge for pastors and churches, leaders of splinter groups, youth and young adult disciplers, to preach and teach and reach, yes, those who are ‘falling away’? Is it a challenge to preach and teach and reach those, who according to George Barna or George Gallup Jr., 76% of evangelicals or church folk believing human beings, by nature, really are basically good, saying, “Church, just leave them alone,” or 86% saying, concerning salvation, “God helps those who help themselves.” Where under God’s Heaven or in His Word do you find that?

Apostasy or Repentant Rest and Reach”? Much ‘apostasy’ comes out of ‘cultural Christianity’ that ignores even Jesus’ own words. But ‘world religions’ are stumbling blocks also issuing their performance creeds far short of the Truth of the Cross of Christ. And have you examined ‘Christianity’ that majors on ‘churchianity’ finding repulsive that Jesus says: “You must be born again!”

Listen to our Lord’s words, and examine if this is what your ‘church’ has shared with you: John 3! “Nicodemus, YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN, born of the water [of the Word] and born of the Spirit! It’s not an option, Rabbi!” “Nicodemus, examine God’s love . God loved the world and gave His Son, Jesus, to be the sacrifice for your sin. He who believes in [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

This is why, in I Peter 1:23, Peter wrote: “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

Oh, hear me! GOD HAS CHOSEN, PRE-DETERMINED, THAT IN CHRIST MEN ARE SAVED! APART FROM JESUS THEY ARE “LOST”, SEPARATED, ALIENATED! IT’S A MATTER OF GOD’S LOVE,GRACE, AND MERCY. It’s not even an option other religions hold up to Him – it’s Jesus ONLY! Ephesians 1:4-6 tells us: “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

Also, God has said: IT’S THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD SLAIN BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD THAT REDEEMS, REGENERATES, RESTORES, AND RELEASES GOD’S LIFE IN YOU! Ephesians 1:7-8 says: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence…”

And, OH! THERE’S THE PRECIOUS MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT! Ephesians 1:11-14 says, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”

“Repentant rest and reach” is because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in one’s life! You really don’t believe there is that vital step of repentance apart from the Spirit, do you? In John 16:7-8 Jesus said: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…”

Then in Acts 2:32-39 Peter preached the Truth about God’s Holy Spirit and our relationship to Him. He said: “This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Oh, but then in John 16:13-14 Jesus magnified the Holy Spirit’s continuing ministry as you press in to Jesus: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”

Look at John 15:26 where Jesus also said: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” Also examine carefully I John 5:6 where John wrote: “This is He who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And IT IS THE SPIRIT WHO BEARS WITNESS, BECAUSE THE SPIRIT IS TRUTH.” WOW!

When in John 16:14 Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would “glorify Me,” He opened the door to every believer’s reception, dependence, and release of the Spirit through him/her! Oswald Chambers wrote: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.248], “The pietistic movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them; there is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ; all that is required is a pious attitude or atmosphere, and prayer and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous, it did not cost the passion of God, it is not dyed in the blood of the Lamb, nor stamped with the hall-mark of the Holy Ghost; it has not that mark on it which makes men say, as they look with awe and wonder – ‘That is the work of Almighty God.’ That and nothing else is what the New Testament talks about.”

Does the Holy Spirit see in you “the welcome sign” for His reception in your heart, mind, and life?

“Apostasy or repentant rest and reach”? Without a doubt, I am thoroughly convinced that most ‘apostasy’ is because of a starvation diet coming from neglect, and, yes, denial of the need of the Word of God in one’s daily life, even when Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

Our Lord spoke to “many of His disciples” who heard His words and said to each other, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?’ Apart from the Holy Spirit, no one will truly understand or receive God’s Holy Word! Then He said in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” You’ll remember in I Corinthians 3:1-3 that Paul had to ‘scold’ the Corinthians!

Have you examined lately Exodus 16? Israel had been delivered from Egypt and were on their way to “the promised land” – and all of a sudden they are “hungry”. [Oh, I pray you read this with spiritual understanding and receive it on your journey to your ‘promised land’!]. Look at Exodus 16 again:

• God rains ‘bread’ from Heaven for His children of faith, His Holy Word!
• “Gather a certain quota every day.”
• “In the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord.”
• Verse 12, “And you shall know that I AM the Lord your God.”
• Verse 16, “Let every man take for those who are in his tent.”
• Verse 17, “Let no one leave any of it till morning” – apply it!
• Verse 31, “and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Oh, how “sweet” God’s Word is to one’s taste!!

The prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 15:16, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”

I close this chapter on “apostasy or repentant rest and reach” by Looking at Luke 10:38-42 asking you: Have you disciplined your walk with Christ on “the necessary part”? Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

That good, needful, necessary part? Sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His WORD!!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

GAME PLAYERS OR TRUE DISCIPLES?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”?

You are aware that Jesus so easily identified the “game players” and the true disciples. “Game players” are the imitators of true discipleship – and I have no doubt the “game players” today in the ‘last days’ church out-number the true disciples! A born-again believer doesn’t dress like the world, talk like the world, or live for the world and its pleasures. A born-again believer cannot, will not, must not be identified as one who is consumed by the sinful passions and sinful pleasures of the age in which he’s called out to express the Indwelling Christ in his daily walk.

In Psalm 24:3-6 David’s psalm says: “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face.”

That doesn’t sound to me like a ‘game player’ in whose mind and heart and will there is not one inch of surrender to a fleshly, sinful, pleasurable life-style! ‘Game players’ open wide the doors of their hearts to destructive, devilish diseases that impair and hinder their supposed walk of faith.

As we begin this message together, I want you to come to Isaiah 33:10-22! “Now I will rise,” says the Lord, “Now I will be exalted, Now I will lift Myself up. You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be like the burnings of lime; like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire. Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might.” The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites; “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil; he will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; they will see the land that is very far off. Your heart will meditate on terror; “Where is the scribe? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?” You will not see a fierce people, a people of obscure speech, beyond perception, of a stammering tongue that you cannot understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts; your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home, a tabernacle that will not be taken down; not one of its stakes will ever be removed, nor will any of its cords be broken. But there the majestic Lord will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, in which no galley with oars will sail, nor majestic ships pass by (For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us).”

Did you catch the “game players” and their journey? “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites (‘play-actors’); who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” Oh, but then in Verses 15-16 we see true disciples! “He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil; he will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water is sure.”

Almighty God is the God of the free-will eternal decision about ‘blessing’ or ‘the curse’! In Deuteronomy 30:11-20 God issues His decree about ‘the choice’ of ‘game players’ or ‘true disciples’: “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ‘Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life, and the length of your days; and that you may dwell IN THE LAND…” What land? “The land of His promises!”

The game players are those who desire to be religious but shun the truth of re-birth. The game players desire ‘blessing’ without any commitment to please God. The game players are the promoters of many gods and pat themselves on the back for their devotion to the ‘god’ they’ve determined to be ‘god’ for themselves. True disciples have been “born again” by the Word and the Spirit, they’ve been taught and live in the pathway of Holy Living, they’ve locked the truths of God’s Word in their hearts, blessed as obedient sons and daughters, fully anointed and presided over by the Indwelling Holy Spirit, and overflowing, uncontained love for their King!

Oh, they “dwell in the High Places,” in the “Upper Room” of holy presence seated at the feet of Jesus, at peace with whatever door the Lord opens for them to walk through!

“Game players”? More devotion to marred religious leaders than devotion to the Master and His revelation. “Game players”? They’ll sleep while Jesus says pray, sit while Jesus says to go, harbor resentments and bitterness while Jesus says forgive, bless others while they’ll hoard selfishly for themselves, love the fleshly while Jesus tells us to die to the flesh and be one with the saints, and they love themselves and hold on to it for dear life while Jesus commands us to lay our lives down!!

“True disciples”? Isaiah 33:2 says of them, “O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in time of trouble.” But “game players” have no trouble, expect no trouble, see no trouble, because their eyes are fixed inward, not upward, because the true Savior says to His true people, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world!”

“Game players”? ‘Why wait upon the Lord? We are able to discern for ourselves what our lives are to be about – and God should be proud of our independent, fleshly, determined ways.” But “true Disciples”? “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?”

“Game players”? They determine where they walk, why they walk that way, and will settle for themselves what they want to do when they get where they are going! But “true disciples” have heard the voice of their Lord and Savior, “This is the Way – walk in it.” So Deuteronomy 33:15 speaks of those who “walk righteously and uprightly,” unashamed of their convictions and consecration of lives to the honor of Christ, to His will and to His Word!

“Game players”? In Jeremiah 17:9-10 the Lord said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to every man according to his ways, according to the ‘fruit’ of his doings.” But the true disciple? They truly understand why Jesus died, have truly identified with Him in His death, and have been raised up as new creations! 2 Corinthians 5:15-21 so clearly defines ‘true disciples’: “And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves but for Him who died and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us; we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [in Christ Jesus!]

There’s an encouraging word in Jeremiah 45:5. It says: God speaking, “I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.” Why? Because a true disciple knows that Jesus alone is resurrection life and hope – and when the vision of an exchanged life occurs, true believers are, according to 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who LIVE are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

Can you really conceive of a “game player” taking the yoke of Christ upon himself and learning of Jesus? If you’ve ever been around farming in the early days when tractors and plows were so different – farming was a farmer with usually a two-part yoke in one beam where the “master bull” led the way and the young protégé struggled and fought and after thorough discipline from the master bull and farmer would then get in step!

Being broken and trained is what ‘game players’ want no part of because they are the masters of their own destinies, and are always resistant to the squeeze of Holy God. Oswald Chambers said, “If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly.” But ‘game players’ don’t kick – they do whine, complain, and even curse God and His true disciples.

“Game players”? You’ve heard them: “God better show Himself strong for me or I won’t believe.” But Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance (or realization) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Question! Did you “see” Creation being made or do you know by faith, you KNOW, God spoke and the worlds were framed? ‘Game players’ can’t handle it when heaven is shut up, God is silent, and no answer comes for their delicate, selfish question. But the true disciple?

Come with me to Galatians 3 and be ready to rejoice with all true disciples and then intercede for the “game players”. Verses 1-9 are so very revealing of what it is that builds true disciples! “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain – if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? – just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

I believe in Galatians 4 Paul is dealing with “game players” who had to be confronted. In verse 4-7 he describes the true disciples but then says in verse 9, “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?”

“Game players”? In Matthew 16:24 Jesus said: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. Verse 25 says, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Verse 26, For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Again, Oswald Chambers said: “Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love.” Do you understand the ‘war’ some fight and lose because there is a stronghold called ‘the old life,’ ‘the flesh,’ the sin nature that some are unwilling to die to?

But the true disciple understands and fights that ‘war’ but also understands the available power of God’s saving grace. In Boice’s “Gospel of Grace,” he shared these words: [p.129], “Since grace is the source of the life that is mine – And faith is a gift from on high – I’ll boast in My savior, all merit decline, And glorify God ‘til I die.”

In A.W. Tozer’s, “The Knowledge of the Holy,” [New York: Harper & Row, 1961, p.7] he wrote: “With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, “Be still and know that I am God,” mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshipper in this middle period of the twentieth century.”

Well, what about the early 21^st century? Do you believe there is a multitude who have time to ‘be still’ and know God? What has happened in our modern world? “Game players” have forgotten God!! And, sadly, even some true disciples have been confronted with alternatives to all-out devotion! Isaiah 2:32 says, God speaking, “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.”

This is why Simon Peter was so challenged by the Holy Spirit to record these words in 2 Peter 1:2-15! “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”

Resignation to hopelessness? Oh, yes, some have resigned themselves to that pattern of life, but in Hebrews 6:18b-19 the author says: “…lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil…” Isn’t this why Peter said in I Peter 1:13, “…hope to the end…yes, until the revelation of Jesus Christ on the earth the second time”?

All, both “game players” and “true disciple” are going to face on this earth horrendous, horrifying, ‘hard’ and difficult times, and some are so miserable they blame our Lord rather than lean on Him. It’s like Shakespeare wrote in “Romeo and Juliet,” “Past hope, past cure, past help!” Under God’s Heaven, let the distressed know that YOU have a living hope!

In “Sonnet, On the Sacred Monte,” John Addington Symonds wrote: “gods fade, but God abides and in man’s heart Speaks with the clear unconquerable cry Of energies and hopes that cannot die.” Amen?

“Game players”? In Psalm 81:11-12 God records His sadness for those who do not heed His voice. He said: “But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels.” And then in verses 15-16 He said: “The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever. He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.”

I don’t know how you read the Psalms and interpret them, but I want you to know I personally entitled the Psalms “The Story of Authenticity,” or “Being Real Before God!!” Then Psalm 1 lays out “the Way of the Righteous and the End of the Ungodly.” “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does he shall prosper. The ungodly are bot so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

The “game player”? The “play actor”? The “part-timer” of allegiance or faithfulness? The wind blows and they’re driven away, and there is no “standing” in the overcoming provision of our Lord. But the true disciple? He’s a “son of the Most High!”

I want to close this chapter with Spurgeon’s words from “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol. 15, p.43], “It is a matter of fact that the man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and lives as a Christian should live, dwells on the heights. [I say, “Game players live in low-lands”!!] His mind is lifted up above the common cares and worries and vexations of life. The Holy Spirit has begotten him again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and therefore his conversation is in heaven; from whence he looks for his Savior the Lord Jesus. I am sure that many of you know what it is to ride on the high places of the earth and to look down upon the world as a poor paltry thing. You have walked with God in light, even as He is in the light, and then you have been filled with a joy no man takes from you, and you have trodden the world beneath your feet, and all that earth calls good or great. Thus has it been true of you, ‘he shall dwell on high.” Amen?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“DRAINED BY TROUBLE OR STRONGER BY THE STRUGGLE?”

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

In Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary he defines “trouble” as: ‘a disturbance of mind; agitation; commotion of spirits; perplexity; affliction; calamity; uneasiness; vexation; [he quotes Milton, “Lest the fiend some new trouble raise.”

And the result in many lives is that they become “drained” of hope, “drained” of any fleshly peace or fleshly happiness they may have had, “drained”, for some, of even their ‘sanity’ – they crash! Far too many are drained by trouble and look for counterfeit remedies – even drugs or liquor or immoral sex, seeking to hide their own pain and disappointment.

Besides the absence of God in most troubled lives that have left them so empty, so hopeless, so drained, is that they never, ever, were aware that life on earth, life in the real world, is not without “war” or “wars” in the human psyche, and none are exempt! And they try to live without God, live without understanding life’s dilemmas, refusing to admit their need of a “higher power” outside themselves.

I don’t know, if you thoroughly search the Scriptures, that you’ll find anywhere God advocating, advising, men to “suck it up – you’re on your own.” No! God appeals to ALL to let Him be the load-lifter and the burden-bearer and the mighty Arm of a divine offense and defense! But, since there is ‘free-will,’ God waits and woos, seeking to win over even one soul who’ll admit his need of God!

“Drained by trouble” is an indication of an empty moral caliber that has no ‘fight’ – that’s because “stronger by the struggle” is because one has chosen to “lean not to his own understanding, but in all his ways to acknowledge God” and give Him His rightful place in one’s troubled soul.

“Drained by trouble” is because the man who thought he’d never face trouble, established his pathway of life without Divine Presence, and when trouble came, he had no understanding of God’s promise to be with us in our time of trouble. Ask any troubled person – their troubles are not an imagination of a sick soul life – their troubles are many! And they don’t know where to turn! The ingenuity of men, fallen men, has no remedy of staying power in their storms of ‘disturbance of mind,’ ‘agitation,’ ‘commotion of spirits,’ ‘paralyzing perplexity’ or ‘calamity.’ They try rather than trust.

I do want you to know that it is so very clear by the revelation of God’s Word that “the saints,” [those: “set apart” for God’s glory], are made “stronger by the struggle”! Paul shared his heart and his God-given wisdom in 2 Corinthians 6:1-10, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God; in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

And after spiritually instructing and educating God’s people in Corinth, in verses 11-12, he said: “O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” And that happens. Some who ought to be made strong by their struggles relate to worldly men apart from the wisdom of God, behaving like “mere men” when they are sons of God!

I came across an article that Bill Anderson wrote when he was pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida. He told that a biographer of the Russian monarch, Ivan the Great, says that when a wife was sought for the ruler, a very beautiful Greek woman, Sophia, was found and brought to him. [Webster’s Biographical Dictionary says that the marriage was politically motivated, and was designed to establish the claim of Russian rulers as protectors of Orthodox Christianity.] They were to be married in 1472 in the Greek Orthodox Church. Very elaborate plans for the ceremony were made. Three hundred personal attendants were enlisted as bodyguards for the ruler. The couple sought baptism into the Greek Orthodox Church in preparation for the marriage, but Ivan could not receive baptism because (at that time, at least) no professional soldier could receive baptism into the Greek Orthodox Church. As a solution to that apparently insurmountable problem, the ruler, along with his three hundred attendants, each attended by a priest, waded out into a large body of water and, at a given signal, all were immersed. However, at the moment of immersion, each of the men, along with Ivan, raised his sword out of the water, and so were immersed, except for their arms and swords.

Have you gotten the picture of “drained by the trouble”? Problems arise, conflicts emerge, compromise is birthed – and some, wanting to partially commit, baptizing a part of themselves, but holding on to their “war weapons” including the strong arm of the flesh or old sin nature!

“Drained by the trouble or stronger by the struggle”? In 2 Corinthians 7:3 there is such a moving, heart-stretching, mind-clearing verse for the “stronger by the struggle” when Paul said: “I do not say this to condemn; for I have said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.” Did you get that? Natural men live together so they can die together, but spiritual men ‘die together so they can live together.’ And that’s called “perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” but those who fear of being “drained by the trouble”, trying to be a follower of Christ, refuse or deny any step of death to self!

In James Boice’s book, “Whatever Happened To the Gospel of Grace?” [p.191], Boice wrote: “Surveys of contemporary beliefs and conduct tell us that most Christians do not act much differently from non-Christian people. This is not surprising, since little contemporary preaching teaches about or encourages a difference. But we should be very different, at least if we take the gospel seriously. Christians are to be the new humanity, a community of those who “love…God…even to the contempt of self” as opposed to those who “love…self, even to the contempt of God,” which is how the great church theologian St. Augustine expressed it centuries ago in his “The City of God.”

Dr. Glen Schultz, strong Christian educator, has said: “At the foundation of a person’s life, we find his beliefs. These beliefs shape his values, and his values drive his actions.” [“Kingdom Education,” Nashville, Life Way Press, p.39].

Josh McDowell’s “Beyond Belief To Conviction” does a fabulous job identifying why our modern-day youth, yes, even church youth, have been programmed to view their surroundings in church culture, school culture, a nation’s culture on the basis of “postmodernism.” Then, in his book, [pps. 12-13], he lists its “common beliefs.” He highlighted six things:

• Truth does not exist in any objective sense. [What a lie!]
• Instead of “discovering” truth in a ‘metanarrative’ – which is a story (such as the Bible) or ideology (such as Marxism) that presents a unified way of looking at philosophy, religion, art, and science – postmodernism rejects any overarching explanation of what constitutes truth and reality.
• Truth – whether in science, education, or religion – is created by a specific culture or community and is “true” only in and for that culture.
• Individual persons are the product of their culture. That is, we are not essentially unique individuals created in the image of God; our identities are defined by our culture (African-American, European, Eastern, Western, urban, rural etc.)
• All thinking is a “social construct.” In other words, what you and I regard as “truths” are simply arbitrary “beliefs we have been conditioned to accept by our society, just as others have been conditioned to accept a completely different set of beliefs.”
• Any system or statement that claims to be objectively true or unfavorably judges the values, beliefs, lifestyle, and truth claims of another culture is a power play, an effort by one culture to dominate other cultures.

And what you’ve just read is “trouble” and many, many people, youth included, have been “drained” by it, while others are “stronger by the struggle” in “fighting the good fight of faith.”

You do understand what Paul was talking about as he wrote to the Ephesians and us, [Ephesians 4:14], “that we should be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, Verse 15, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ -.”

Have you missed or even omitted John 1:14? “And the Word [Jesus Christ] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

There has always been a spiritual war of dramatic significance when ‘fallen flesh’ takes up weapons against “Truth” whose other names are the “Lord Jesus Christ”! The “drained by trouble” may even fight for awhile but eventually walk away from “Truth” but the “Stronger by the Struggle” are being molded more and more into the likeness of Christ! It’s why Paul said in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” WOW! And WOW again!

If there is no “beholding His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” it is because the “drained by the trouble” have been looking for their own glory, discovering only grit and untruths, and they tire out! But the “strengthened by the struggle” find “grace and truth”!

“Drained by the trouble”? That’s those around you, in your world, that every day put their ‘confidence in the flesh’! But the “strengthened by the struggle” have discovered the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus the Lord and walking with Him, in Him, and through Him – and with Paul, as he wrote in Philippians 3:7-10, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

“Drained by the trouble”? It’s that endless search, unending attempt, powerless effort, of self-discovery, self-fulfillment, self-realization, that enthrones a ‘sick self’ as lord over one’s own life. But the “strengthened by the struggle”? 2 Corinthians 4:11 says, “For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

“Drained by the trouble”? Oh, they desire to be more than “mere men” but believe it’s really about discovering their ‘true identity’ in their own efforts apart from any consideration of God’s help, God’s plan, God’s power, or God’s grace, mercy, and love. It’s that strong fleshly determination – “I don’t need God. I am my own man. I’ll achieve what I dream for myself,” with no reaching out of self and up to God! Remember Pharoah’s assertion?

Blinded minds and hearts are the result, not only of their old sin natures, but the truth that the Gospel is veiled and hidden by “the god of this age,” and apart from “turning to Christ,” that veil remains! But for those who are the “strengthened by the struggle,” [that’s, yes, the struggle of admitting their need is met only outside themselves], 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

“Drained by the trouble”? That’s those whose journey has been void of God altogether, but they try and try and try to be better than they are, even knowing there must be a better way than they’ve found, but refuse to bow before Heaven’s Throne to admit they have needs they can’t meet on their own – so they slam the door of opportunity in the face of Christ! “One’s need of acceptance by God? That’s weakness which is not what or who I am! I’ll make it on my own!” But they fall short!

“Strengthened by the struggle”? James 1:18 says, “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.” That sounds to me as a parallel to a mother giving birth to her child. The “seed” was planted, the growing started, and the labor and birth brought forth the new born baby. God’s Word is planted in a believer’s mind and heart, the mind and heart is convicted by the Holy Spirit, birth takes place spiritually, and one becomes a “new creation in Christ Jesus” – and, yes, the struggle begins by choosing Jesus daily over your ‘old man’! In James 2:4 the brother of Jesus, anointed by the Holy Spirit, wrote:

“Listen, my beloved brethren: Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” Isn’t that so illuminating to you? Why is it ‘the poor’ and not ‘the rich’? The wise man of Proverbs wrote in Proverbs 10:15, “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city..”, and you might even say, ‘his strong suit’ because it’s his wealth that dresses him up – not God! In Psalm 52 David had just described the “mighty man” who boasts in his evil, and then says in verse 7, “Here is the man who did not make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in his wickedness (or ‘desire’ in an evil sense).”

But then I don’t see David as a ‘poor man’ in this world’s wealth, yet he says in Psalm 34:6, “This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” The richest man in the world truly can be redeemed when in his life he recognizes his own “poverty of spirit”!

“God, bless the man who knows the “poverty of spirit” and looks to You to redeem him.” “Yes, Lord, let the rich man know that it truly is Your blessing that makes one wealthy, physically, spiritually, or financially.” “Yes, Lord, let the rich man know that true honor comes out of the overflow of Your heart to pour out on him who leans not to his own understanding but in all his ways acknowledges You!”

In Psalm 49:6-20 what we read is so powerful! I pray God’s Spirit convicts you as you read!! “Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him – for the redemption of their souls is costly, and it shall cease forever – that he should continue to live eternally and not see the Pit. For he sees wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses will last forever, their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man, though in honor, does not remain; he is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish, and of their posterity who approve their sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall be consumed in the grace, far from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall receive me. Do not be afraid when one becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dies he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lives he blesses himself (For men will praise you when you do well for yourself), he shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, is like the beasts that perish.”

But the “strengthened by the struggle”? Please examine with your heart as well as your head Psalm 66:8-12! “Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praises heard, who keeps our soul among the living, and does not allow our feet to be moved. For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; but You brought us out to rich fulfillment.”

Some say Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, but I’m not sure. But in Ecclesiastes 5:10-19 there are wise words and warnings for both the “drained by the trouble” and “the strengthened by the struggle.” It says: “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, they increase who eat them; so what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not permit him to sleep. There is a severe evil which I have seen under the sun; riches kept for their owner to his hurt. But those riches perish through misfortune; when he begets a son, there is nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother’s womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came; and he shall take nothing from his labor which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a severe evil – just exactly as he came, so shall he go. And what profit has he who has labored for the wind? All his days he also eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and sickness and anger. Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor – this is the gift of God.”

“Drained by the trouble”? Peter spoke of those who “secretly bring in destructive heresies [false teachings opposed to God and His Holy Word!], even denying the Lord who bought them [bought with a price! Jesus’ shed blood! Yet still they deny Him!], and bring on themselves swift destruction.” [2 Peter 2:1].

In 2 Peter 2:9-10 Peter wrote: “then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries.”

He then shows the depravity of all false teachers who spew unbelief, lies, distorted teachings: [2 Peter 2:12-17]. “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity; a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”

Are you familiar with “wells without water”? Their words are verses 18-19 of 2 Peter 2! “For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.”

Are you familiar with words or beliefs or teachings that turn you from Truth to a state of more and more self-indulgence? Yes, even to deeper darkness than you’ve already experienced! John 12:35-36 says, Jesus speaking: Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.

Luke 11:34-36 says: “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”

But “drained by trouble” folk walk with darkness as a way of life – no radiant light of the Light of the world – Jesus; but “strengthened by the struggle” folk at times find themselves experiencing darkness because our Lord is up to something good and godly for our edification. He said in Matthew 10:27, “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear, preach on the housetops.”

I can tell you, man/woman of faith, you are destined for times of walking in dark places where gracious God plans on building, strengthening, revealing, eternal truths you’d find in no other way. Did He say, “What I tell you in darkness…”?

In “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.13], Oswald Chambers was writing about Genesis 15:12, “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.” Chambers said: “Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, He puts him, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint’s duty is to be still and to listen. There is a darkness which comes from excess of light, and then is the time to listen. Genesis 16 is an illustration of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting on God to send the light. When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time. Never try and help God fulfill His word, Abraham went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all self-sufficiency was destroyed; there was no possibility left of relying on common-sense ways. Those years of silence [like darkness] were a time of discipline, not of displeasure.”

And, I say, maybe darkness for you, dark, dark darkness, is to drain the “drained by troubles’ blues, so you may become those “strengthened by the struggle”!!

I’ve changed the word ‘death’ for the word ‘darkness’ in an old hymn that says: “Darkness has no terrors for the blood-bought one, O glory hallelujah to the Lamb! The boasted victory of the grave is gone, O glory hallelujah to the Lamb!…

Jesus rose from the dead, Rose triumphant as He said, Snatched the victory from the grave, Rose again our souls to save, O glory hallelujah to the Lamb!”

That’s the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world in the mind and heart of God on your behalf!! NO “RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS”!!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE HOPELESSNESS OF GODLESS GOVERNMENTS OR THE HOPE OF GOVERNMENTS BEING IN GOD’S WAY?

As I was reading from Genesis recently, I came across Genesis 24:27, where verse 26 had said the man bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord. Then in verse 27 he said, “As for me, being on [or in] the way, the Lord led me…” And I asked myself: “If it’s true of a man, [and it is], is it also true of governments?” I have no doubts at all that God desires every nation on the face of the earth to be “in His way”, establishing all things national under the Sovereignty of God.

In Genesis 6:5 it says, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

“Kingdom living” is for the “new-born” while governments became so necessary because of fallen man’s evil ways continually! Of course, men didn’t see themselves as “evil” so God put His Ten Commandments into stone to expose their ‘lawlessness’! Governments were birthed by God to maintain some semblance of sanity in the midst of brainless, heartless men who opposed God.

You’ll remember there was a world-wide flood and most died, but some were placed in “the ark of safety” – and a new beginning occurred. In Genesis 9:11-13, 15b, God said to Noah, “Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. Verse 15b, the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.”

From Noah and the beginning of ‘covenant’, we see families and then nations birthed! That’s chapter 10 of Genesis! In Genesis 11 we see the “beginning of confusion”, and then in Genesis 12 we see “the beginning of unveiled purpose” through Abram – God said to him in Genesis 12:1-4, Now the Lord had said to Abram, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him…Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.”

Abram, at 75 years of age, said “yes” to God!! Understand, you are never too old to apprehend the vision of God for yourself, your family, or your nation! [June 12, 2013, I celebrated my 77^th birthday, and I’m about to finish this new book!] Look at “covenant blessing” in Genesis 17:1-8! When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: “As for Me, behold My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God for you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

But if there is a “blessing” for a nation, can there be a “curse”? In Psalm 9:17 David said, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” What a sad word! In Job 8:11-18 there are words of warning for individuals and governments or nations. It says: “Can the papyrus grow up without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God; and the hope of the hypocrite [play-actor] shall perish, whose confidence shall be cut off, and whose trust is a spider’s web. He leans on his house, but it does not stand. He holds it fast, but it does not endure. He grows green in the sun, and his branches spread out in his garden. His roots wrap around the rock heap, and look for a place in the stones. If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’”

And the sad truth is, it’s not only governments and nations that forget God, because Jeremiah 2:32 says: “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.” I truly believe that “nations” drift away from God-given covenants because God’s people “forget” Him “days without number” and their “salty” influence is troddened under the feet of godless men and leaders who step in without any desire in their minds or hearts to please or obey God!

When “the world” suffers from ungodly leadership in pulpit and pew in the “church,” the “church” will suffer when the world is being strangled by ungodly leadership there also – and a black darkness falls on both. As I was reading I Thessalonians, I came across chapter 5, verse 15, which says: “See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and all.” And I had to ask myself and the Lord: “Is this a call for citizens in a government AND governmental leaders looking out for what is best, what is God-like for all?” “Are the decisions they make honoring God and truly blessing His people that have been entrusted to their care?”

In II Thessalonians 2:3-12 we find words of warning again that I believe should be shared in every nation, because every nation has subversive influences from “the man of sin” or the “son of perdition.” He’s also called “the lawless one”! Read the following prayerfully:

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

If this is true – and it is!!! – what should we be doing? In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus shared “The Great Commission” – and apart from that becoming a living reality in our “world,” I don’t see a lot of hope.

We saw earlier in Genesis 12:1-3 some vitally important and significant verses to challenge us in the 21^st Century that relates to “world-changers” like Abram! Will you be one? Did God say of Abram that He would make of Him “a great nation”? And that through Abram “all the families of the earth [would] be blessed”?

In Exodus 19 Holy God reached out to the world of that day through Moses and the Israelites. He said in verses 3-6, And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” And nations were multiplied and established.

But then you see how leaders and nations can betray God’s holy trust when in Psalm 2:1-12 we see God’s response: “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure; “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.” I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.”

If God responds concerning nations, what about His people? In Psalm 110:1-3 there is God’s call for His people to rule in the midst of God’s enemies! The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion, Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power…”

How does that occur? In Isaiah 9:6-7 God tells us! “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

Sadly, most men of governmental rule are out for gain, not to the glory of God. In Matthew 20:25-28 Jesus said: But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Political gain for ‘self’ was not His intent but sharing His life in community. Worldly influence was so far from His walk in the world, but, as King of kings and Lord of lords, He came to serve and lay His life down.

Isn’t it absolutely awe-inspiring to you, that as Jesus came, He came to wash the disciples’ feet saying to them, John 13:14, “If I then your Lord and Teacher, have WASHED YOUR FEET, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” True governmental service? The spiritual rule of servanthood?

I’ll never forget an awesome day ministering in India in one of the pastors’ conferences that I led for over 25 years. I was moved that particular day to wash the feet of those gathered in that conference! It was a shock to India pastors and their wives that I would get on my knees and wash their feet! It was and is the ‘ruling heart of Heavenly governmental service!

My question now is: “Can your government, our government in the United States, ever become a ‘foot-washing leadership base’? If there is no governmental reign of God in the leadership of a nation, or the legislators, or the general public of a state, they’ve shut the door on a governmental, godly reign over all the people!

In local, state, or national governments do you see them as holy appointments of Almighty God? I personally, through the Word of God and the personal experiences of living in a nation, that our government bases were intended to portray God’s eternal reign in people and nations. But rebellion has been man’s response far more often than submission to Holy God In fact, in I Samuel 8:7 God said, “…for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”

So God gives up? Right? God disowns loyal men? God turns His back on fallen humanity? In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 we read, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

Did you see that? “reconciling THE WORLD to Himself”? Yes, “God so loved the world” including godless governments built by ungodly men! In Matthew 4:17, 23 we see Jesus at work, doing what? From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Verse 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.”

That’s God’s reign! His divine intent is to so transform men that not only their hearts and homes are transformed but their businesses, bank accounts, relationships, and governments are touched by Him! That’s God’s reign! That’s the Kingdom of God in Heaven transforming earthly representatives, yes, in governments, to servants of the Most High God!

There is a never-ending principle in God’s Word that relates to an individual life, a family, a community, a state, and a nation. It has never changed! Galatians 6:7-8 says: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”

Whatever a man sows, that he will reap! Whatever a family sows, that it will reap! Whatever a community or state sows, that it will reap! And whatever a nation’s government sows, yes, in Washington, DC, or your nation’s capital, THAT IT WILL REAP!

And, collectively, there is the ‘citizens’ role’ in a godly government! In Matthew 5:14-16 Jesus said: “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

“Light of the world”? “Light in a government”? “Light in a state and community locally?” How many times have you witnessed governmental actions and had to say, “That is so foreign to the nature and character of God Almighty – what are our representatives doing?” When did true ‘salt’ and true ‘light’ become so offensive?

Of course, you have a choice – you are free to ignore your government or engage your government when you know it needs to be engaged! In fact, in Romans 1:14 Paul said: “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.” Has that changed concerning our ‘influence’ in the world of which we are a part?

When Barack Obama’s “health care law” was passed, those who voted had never really studiously read what they made as ‘national law’! And it WILL have a horrific effect upon the nation as a whole – probably help to bankrupt us and, yes, the medical community.

I have no doubt this is why Cowper, in “Expostulation,” wrote: “Sworn on every slight pretense, Till perjuries are common as bad pence, While thousands, careless of the damning sin, Kiss the book’s outside, who ne’er looked within.”

Nation building? In Matthew 7:26-27 Jesus said: “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

Can you imagine a ‘home-builder’ who is sure he doesn’t need architecturally-designed plans? “Measurements are out – I can eye-ball it!” Really? What about a ‘nation-builder’ who is sure ‘sand’ will do when solid rock is called for? Isn’t this what Paul was talking about in I Corinthians 1:26-29? For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

Oh, but then you come to Matthew 21:33-44 and you hear Jesus Himself speak!! And you shake – because you wonder: “What is going to happen to OUR nation? Will it be given to another?” Will it be forfeited by a leader opposed to constitutional government?”

But we serve a gracious, merciful God – and to every nation God has and God WILL send a prophet and call incompetent leaders to His judgment bar! In 2 Kings 20:1 the Holy Word says, “In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER, for you shall die and not live.”

If there is “disorder” in a national ‘house,’ where are the prophets? If there is “confusion” in a national house, where is the prophet speaking the clarity of divine truth and divine hope for that nation? Oh, how frail are nations that try to live apart from God so faithlessly?

Follow carefully Spurgeon’s words in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [Vol. 15, pps. 51-52]. Consider it as a ‘nation’ – not a life only! “A sudden death is a specially impressive warning. If men of old age die we regard it as coming in the common course of things; but when a young man (or young nation) is suddenly snatched away, then we understand that though the old must die, the young may die; and that no one among us may reckon upon any long day of life, since in a moment our sun may go down ere it is yet noon. So falls the grass beneath the mower’s scythe, so fades the leaf from the tree. In a moment our strength is turned to weakness, and our comeliness into corruption. Then, in accents as plain as they are terrible, the Lord says, ‘Because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O nations!’”

Do you understand? Nations have survived because men of Truth stand up to warn, to challenge, to pray, for, yes, true biblical revival in the hearts of its leaders and people. What does II Chronicles 7:14 tell us? “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Psalm 82 is such a powerful psalm that relates to what John Piper called “Putting the gods in their place”, out of his book “A Godward Life.” [p.103]. He wrote: “God asserts the truth we must hold to through all the cosmic conflict of this age: ALL NTIONS BELONG TO GOD! Satan is a deceiver (speaking a half-truth) when he says to Jesus in Luke 4:6 that the earth is his and he gives it to whomever he wills. The ultimate truth is: “Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is You who does possess all the nations.” Psalm 82:8. “Our God owns the nations. The gods are permitted [Satan? Demons?] for a season to wreak havoc. We are called to see beyond their suicidal schemes of sin. We are called to stand with God and bear witness to His truth against the darkness. In due time He will defeat all His enemies and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” [Habakkuk 2:14].

What do you do when you see a house burning? In the early 1960’s when Sue and I lived in Hewitt, Texas, pastoring First Baptist Church there, we were returning late, late one night from, I believe, a Baylor University drama. We saw smoke coming from a home by the access road. I stopped the car, backed up, got out, and ran to bang on the front door and yell, “Fire, fire!” A young man in his 30’s came running out – thankful Sue and I had stopped to warn him! Who are you warning with a nation “on fire” and “ready to burn to the ground”?

Do you see and sense “destructive fires” in nations, the demonic influences of awful desolations, even the sad state of total indifference to fatalistic paths many nations are taking? Haven’t you read and wept for nations who have “no vision [and] the people perish”?

I remember reading Leonard Ravenhill in his book, “Why Revival Tarries”! [p.39]. “The preacher may go ‘with’ the crowd; the prophet goes ‘against’ it. A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic because HE SPEAKS AGAINST A NATION’S SINS; unkind because his tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of preaching opinion is against him. The preacher will be heralded; the prophet hounded.”

Don’t you find it sad and heart-breaking that a national society can sink to a gutter-level of sin and degradation – and smile about it? There was a 19^th century poet named Philip Bailey who wrote: “The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one’s self. All sin is easy after that.” And nations ‘cheat’ themselves because they refuse, deny, suppress, or corral all prophetic, biblical warnings!

It was Charles Swindoll in his book “Come Before Winter,” [p.101], who wrote: “The direct discussion of forgiveness of sins through Christ’s blood at the cross and His miraculous resurrection is about as welcome in a sophisticated rap session on religion as a life-sized bust of Martin Luther would be in the Vatican.”

Paul Scherer, in “The Word God Sent,” [New York: Harper & Row, 1965, p.11], really nailed it as he wrote about the downward trend of most nations. He said: “One by one the generation that refused to be bound by the Pope, and refused to be bound by the Church, decided in an ecstasy of freedom that they would not be bound by anything – not the Bible, not by conscience, not by God Himself. From believing too much that never did have to be believed, they took to believing so little that for countless thousands human existence and the world itself no longer seemed to make any sense. Poets began talking about the ‘wastelands,’ with ‘ghostly lives,’ as Stephen Spender put it, ‘moving among fragmentary ruins which have lost their significance.’ Nothingness became a subject of conversation, nihilism a motive, frustration and despair a theme for novels and dramatists, and ‘the edge of abyss’ as much of a nautical term among the intelligentsia as it was for explorers in the day of Columbus!”

My, my – how far have we fallen? Fallen away from God as a people and as nations!

Hebrews 1:10-12 comes out of Psalm 102:25-28! After reading it, I wondered about a nation’s children as “a cloak You [God] will fold them up, they will be changed. But You are the same, and Yours will not fail.” Examine these verses with your head and heart! “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.”

Let me ask you: “What is your history related to God in YOUR nation? In Acts 17:26 Paul said: “And He [God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings…” Why?

Verse 27, “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us,…Verse 28, for in Him we live and move and have our being…” Yes, as nations of our world – WE BELONG TO GOD! Don’t you think it’s time we act and live like it, honoring Him in all we are and all we do?

It was Daniel C. Roberts and George W. Warren, in the late 1800’s who wrote the following hymn. I believe it ought to be revived in all churches worldwide. It says:

“God of our fathers, whose almighty hand Leads forth in beauty all the starry band – Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies, Our grateful songs before Your throne arise… Your love divine has led us in the past, In this free land by You our lot is cast; Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay, Your Word our law, Your paths our chosen way…

From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence, Be Your strong arm our ever sure defense; Your true religion in our hearts increase, Your bounteous goodness nourish us in peace…

Refresh Your people on their toilsome way, Lead us from night to never-ending-day; Fill all our lives with love and grace divine, And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine.”

Do you remember the story of Esther? Esther sent word to Mordecai in Esther 4:11 that she had “not been called to go into the king these thirty days.” In verses 13-14 Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Esther’s response? “If I perish, I perish!”

In my lifetime of 77 years, one of the greatest preachers I ever heard was Dr. R.G. Lee, former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a superb, Spirit-anointed, Bible-centered proclaimer of God’s Truth. Before Adrian Rogers’ death, then pastor at Bellevue, Adrian put together in book form a collection of “RG LEE, Payday Someday”, the name of his most famous message. In that book I came across such wisdom about nations, governments, and God, I felt it had to be shared here. [pps.213-214]. Hear Dr. Lee with your mind and heart!

“In this critical hour there is the tendency to idolize science so that thousands of people undertake to interpret everything in terms of natural phenomenon – reducing the supernatural to ignorance. There is the notion that ethics, religion, soul, and God are only concepts – having their origin in man’s experience with shadows, dreams, trances, storms, seasons, and other natural forces…There is intellectual recoil against emotional expression, and the obvious inadequacy of rationalism as a substitute. There is widespread agnosticism toward religion and religious organizations, and their consequent loss of wholesome authority are abroad. There is increasing disregard for the Sabbath, and the growing tendency of society, business, and government to secularize the Sabbath, as well as the tendency to omit Christian standards from business, from professions, from education…Amid the endless struggle for military supremacy, there is the reduction of Christianity to the status of humanism, social service, and national or individual therapy, with the resulting tendency to undermine faith and destroy the passion for souls…But our consideration should not be to look long and pessimistically at such dark things, but to look to ourselves that we may be men and women doing God’s will – weighing sixteen ounces to the pound and measuring thirty-six inches to the yard for God. While black snow is falling, the fever of life’s fierce heat burning divine dew off the grass, and with so many epicures in philosophies, with so many feeders of inflamed appetite for amusements, with so many dealers in fine-spun metaphysical disquisitions, with so many experts in speculative cleverness dealing in the airy abstractions of an “up-to-date” gospel, God still asks: “Who will rise up for Me against the evildoers? Or who will stand up for Me against the workers of iniquity?” [Psalm 94:16]. May it be ours to say, “I will rise up for You against evildoers. I will stand up for You against the workers of iniquity.” WILL YOU?

Have you grasped it? When Israel asked Samuel to give them a king, [I Samuel 8:5], “Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations,” God Almighty was very clear, [I Samuel 8:7], And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”

God-government or Godless government? We do have a choice!!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

AN ABANDONMENT OF HOPE OR A CONSTANT CONFESSION OF HOPE?

“A RESIGNATION TO HOPELESSNESS?”

Someone has anonymously written: “Age is a quality of mind; If you’ve left your dreams behind, If hope is cold, If you no longer look ahead, If your ambitious fires are dead, Then, you are old!”

If that is true for some, and no doubt it is, then what is the explanation for ‘youth’ suicides across America? That’s not age, but a mind, spirit, and heart burden of one’s hopelessness! It was Augustine who said: “What can be hoped for which is not believed?” That was in his writings called, “On Faith, Hope, and Charity.”

In Romans 4:13-22 Paul gives us a view on ‘the eternal hope’: For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham and his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Circle around his words, “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations…” He wasn’t ‘weak in faith,’ he didn’t waver at the promise through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, and was fully persuaded!

That’s why in Hebrews 6:18b-19 the writer said, “…lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil…”

Hopelessness is a ‘curse’ while hope is an eternal blessing. Hopelessness is a 10,000 pound weight that crushes while hope is an ‘eternal feather’ lifting one to God’s highest heaven. Hopelessness is a ‘worldly hope’ that is diseased while ‘heavenly hope’ is eternal health and wellness. Hopelessness is going to war with no armor, no ammunition, no purpose in the fights and struggles and battles while hope truly is fighting the good fight of faith and winning. Hopelessness is the freedom to perish while hope is the ‘prisoner’ that protects. Hopelessness is ashes and bankruptcy and soul sickness while biblical hope is the fire of Heaven and eternal prosperity and spiritual health. Hopelessness is the rotten fruit of worldly gods and false expectations while hope is the spiritual fruit of the Holy Spirit with a certain heavenly result.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote: “Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loves all His works, Has left His hope for all.”

When it comes to the reality of “the eternal hope” and one’s constant confession of that hope, one realizing in divine freedom to choose that, “the natural man [unborn spiritually, unrepentant, unchanged] receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him.” [I Corinthians 2:14].

Foolishness? In I Corinthians 2:1-4 Paul opens up ‘the wisdom of men’ and its result and the testimony of God and His result: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power…”

“An abandonment of hope or The Constant Confession of Hope”? It’s certainly not the wisdom of men producing eternal results in the heart, but the very wisdom of God Himself! What did Paul say? “My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words”! He preached the Gospel of Christ alone! And he said, “in demonstration of the Spirit and power.”

Look at Isaiah 32:13-20! “On the land of My people will come up thorns and briers, Yes, on all the happy homes in the joyous city; because the palaces will be forsaken, the bustling city will be deserted. The forts and towers will become lairs forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks – UNTIL THE SPIRIT IS POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places, though hail comes down on the forest, and the city is brought low in humiliation. Blessed are you who sow beside all waters…”

The Isaiah passage is why Jesus said in John 16:13-14, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”

This is also why Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.248], “The pietistic movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them; there is nothing about them that needs the Death of Jesus Christ; all that is required is a pious atmosphere, and prayer and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous; it did not cost the passion of God, it is not dyed in the blood of the Lamb, not stamped with the hall-mark of the Holy Ghost; it has not on it that mark which makes men say, as they look with awe and wonder – ‘That is the work of God Almighty.’ That and nothing else is what the New Testament talks about.” “God, help us! Far, far too much ‘flesh’ is preaching and teaching today void of Truth and the Holy Ghost!”

Did Chambers speak of “the rugged reality of the New Testament”? Look at our calling in Hebrews 10:22-25! “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our evil hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

“Drawing near to God, new hearts, holding fast, no wavering, stirring up, not forsaking – but exhorting one another!” The constant confession of our hope! That’s through the laid-down life before God and those all around us!

But “an abandonment of hope” comes when encounters with God and His Word are disallowed, He’s denied, “I’m one doomed to die, no purpose for me, I’m a loser, I have no future,” and on and on the disillusioned spouts the Devil’s sick lies. Isn’t it true, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”? [Proverbs 23:7]. Look at Proverbs 17:22, “A merry heart does good, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” That’s spiritual death!

“An abandonment of hope” so often occurs because of spiritual bankruptcy or neglect! In 3 John 2 the beloved John wrote, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” If there is no ‘soul prosperity’ in and through the richness and treasures of God’s Word, then the wide door of destruction is opened, and James 1:13-14 tells us, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted with evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

Do you understand evil enticement to lead you away from God and fill you with eternal emptiness of even a shred or thread of hope? Rather than that ‘soul prosperity’, there’s dried bones, a broken spirit, an empty heart, a disillusioned mind, the loss of morality and spirituality and one’s reputation, a denial of consequences and the cost, a high-lighting of wrongness rather than rightness, and one overcome and overwhelmed by “the devil’s fear,” the one abandoning hope is swept away like a turbulent wave on a stormy sea.

But the one who “lives” by the constant confession of his/her hope? Examine I Thessalonians 4:1-2, “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

This is one who understands, submits to, and obeys the revelation of God’s Holy Word and God’s revealed will! I came across a ‘cartoon’ that so identified submission to the call of our constant confession of eternal hope! A young grandson asked his aged grandfather, “Granddad, your generation didn’t have all these social diseases. What did you wear to have safe sex?” The granddad didn’t hesitate at all but quickly responded, “A wedding ring.”

“The one who abandons hope”? I truly and sadly believe it’s because in far too many lives, families, and nations, Holy God is not honored! In Leviticus 10:3 And Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord spoke, saying: “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.” “Honor God? Does that mean ‘reverence Him, bow before Him, surrender to Him?” In James 4:8 the Holy Word tells us, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

But isn’t the lack of desire to honor Him that which Paul exposed in Romans 1:20-21? “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

“An abandonment of hope”? 2 Corinthians 6:16 says: “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? FOR YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD…” But you can hear “the hopeless”: “I’m not a temple of God – I’m a farm’s outhouse!” And they run from Him! Where they’ve been in that ‘flesh’ pilgrimage is where they want to be and to stay! But the constant confessing of hope people are those, with Paul, who say, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Don’t you see it? Low calling or high calling? The fleshly or the Spirit? The ‘pigs’ or the angels? The devil or Jesus?

“An abandonment of hope”? Moses didn’t! In Hebrews 11:24-26 we read: “By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.”

Hope-abandoning people? They love Pharoah and his lifestyle! They enjoy “the passing pleasures of sin”! They want no part of “the reproach of Christ”! They long for the treasures of Egypt!

But Moses? God’s true sons and daughters? They choose to suffer affliction with God’s people rather than poisoned by the passing pleasures of sin!

“An abandonment of hope”? Look at James 1:22-24 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.” Psalm 55:19b says: “Because they do not change, therefore they do not fear God.’

No doubt this is why in Philippians 2:15 Paul spoke of “a crooked and perverse generation”! And some are so in love with their depravity, they shake their fists at God Himself!

“Abandoned-hope people”? James 4:4 says, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

And this is why we read in Proverbs 22:11, “He who loves purity of heart and has grace on his lips, the king will be his friend.” This is why we read in Hebrews 12:14-15, “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord; looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble; and by this many become defiled.”

What did Paul write Titus that is so important at this point? Titus 1:15 says, “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.” What a sad, sick testimony!

“Abandoned-hope people”? What a heart-breaking experience when a family or a friend or a pastor has to deal with, minister to, pray for, one who is consumed by ‘ledges and leaps’ because they can’t see anything or anyone to keep living for!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote “One Ship Drives East.” It’s in “The Best Loved Poems of the American People, edited by Hazel Felleman, [New York: Garden City Publishers, p.364]. It says:

“One ship drives east and another drives west With the selfsame winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales Which tells us the way to go. Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, As we voyage along through life; ‘Tis the set of a soul That decides its goal, And not the calm or the strife.”

And that certainly is not taking the Lord’s name in vain, but taking and standing through whatever gale comes, standing in Him!

“Abandoned-hope people”? For them peace is whatever they determine gives them peace – certainly not peace with God – and as a result of that decision they become rebels to God and themselves doing whatever comes naturally to a fallen man before Holy God – and he does so unashamed! You know that modern man has ‘idolized’ beauty but when beauty or a beautiful woman or a handsome may stay divorced from God their beauty becomes a state of ugliness that is so deadly – and you don’t have to be around them very long before the stench pervades the atmosphere around you!

“Abandoned-hope people”? Don’t you see it embroidered on the fabric of a nation we call “America” or the “USA”? Abandoned-hope people exist without a divine plan – it’s fleshly restlessness without eternal purpose, it’s ego-centered, not God-centered, it’s artificiality substituted for divine reality, it is that destructive intent not divine initiation, it’s an awakened state to a rebel’s plan of no guilt, no conscience, no sensation, nothing really but a bored life that is like a blank sheet of paper!

But “the constant confession of our hope people”? It’s called by some ‘authentic Christianity’ which is repentance toward Gods, faith in the finished work of Christ at the cross, reconciling us, restoring us to the Divine Intent, releasing us in a real world to live redemptively, relying on the Word and the Spirit to shape our lives and then pour us out on a lost and needy world! That’s the triumph of very God in the shell of our lives that were crucified with Christ – nevertheless we live or better still, Christ lives in us! What was so shallow and empty became the residence of the depths of God and His fullness.

There are those modern-day rebels who so openly deny God and, yes, denounce His Son or our Savior, and defame anyone vocal about their faith. It would be easy to call that “the triumph of ignorance” but they are not ignorant, only void of eternal truth! Moral law becomes “what makes me feel good.” And those who abandon hope become practicing philistines who pervert romance into licentiousness! You do understand immoralists, thieves and robbers, outlaws, criminals, sex perverts, liars, part animals, brain-dead intellectuals who argue with God Himself. It was Bandelaire who said: “Life is a hospital in which we all are dying of a deadly disease.” And, at least some who love the world and become so decadent in it know the truth about themselves.

“An abandonment of hope”? It’s kids, youth, young adults, the middle-age crisis folk, mature adults (?), and seniors who face sicknesses they seem to know nothing about because a moral fungus crawls in their inner-most beings! “Beasts,” “wild beasts” are being loosed all around! There is a fast erosion of the common sense of decency, right becomes wrong, wrong becomes right – cultural diseases that have a deadly sting. Do you grasp, see, sense, innocence being poisoned every day? You do understand that fallen man [that’s all who ever lived who fell AWAY from God!!] has the freedom to choose good or to choose evil.

“An abandonment of hope”? Fleshly desires have no place in anyone’s definition of moral standards! Freedom is not license to do as one pleases – rape? Incest? Lying? Stealing? Cursing God? No! But for some, Sodom and Gomorrah they’ve determined to resurrect? “we’re free to do whatever feels good.” Oh, really? A man whose perversion sends him after little children is OK with you? GIVE ME A BREAK!

“An abandonment of hope”? “Don’t worry, he’s just lazy and indifferent;” “don’t worry, he’s just drifting [toward the falls], but he’ll be OK;” “he’s just uncertain about himself in this fleeting moment, but he’ll come around;” “they severed roots from a very Godly family, but they’ll come home after they’ve sown their wild oats;” “there’s no true meaning to life – don’t worry about me!” So they take “a loaded gun” and play Russian roulette with their lives?

You do understand – so many say today, “Since there is no truth, we’re establishing our own! Since there is no real truth, I’ll just share with you my real if not radical opinions!”

But then there are those who say, “My Lord and My God! To You I bow, to You I surrender, to You I offer my life, my gifts, my talents, my witness!” And Heaven rejoices!!

“The Constant Confession of Our Hope?” I urge you to check out Bill Gaither’s song, “He Touched Me.” What a precious testimony of saving grace and faith!

BY:

JAMES FARRELL FISHER

INTRODUCTION

ON JUNE 12,2019, I WILL CELEBRATE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY! AMAZING TO ME SINCE BOTH MY GRAND-FATHER & MY FATHER DIED AT AGE 78! THE LORD HAS EXTENDED MY LIFE FOR AN ETERNAL PURPOSE.AFTER COLLEGE AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY IN WACO, TEXAS, ENROLLING THERE WITH A FOOTBALL SCHOLARSHIP AS A ‘RUNNING BACK’ FOR THE “BEARS”, GRADUATING, THEN SEMINARY AT SOUTHWESTERN SEMINARY, THEN PASTORING FOR ABOUT 22 YEARS, THEN THE LORD LED ME INTO MISSION WORK OVERSEAS EVANGELIZING THROUGH LARGE CRUSADES ACROSS INDIA MOSTLY, BUT IN ABOUT FIVE NATIONS IN AFRICA AT TIMES, & BRAZIL, PLUS THE ‘MAJOR RESPONSIBILITY’ OF TEACHING CHURCHES & PASTORS IN “WORD OF GOD MINISTRY” FOR ABOUT THIRTY YEARS, TRIPS ABOUT 5-6 TIMES A YEAR, FOR PERIODS OF 3 WEEKS TO 3 MONTHS, BACK & FORTH ON AIRLINES!AFTER THOSE STRENUOUS TRAVELS FOR YEARS & YEARS, WHEN I CAME HOME, ALL I’D DO WAS REST, READ THE BIBLE, & REFRESH MY SOUL & SPIRIT, BUT ALSO OVER THE YEARS WRITING ABOUT 25 BOOKS FOR PUBLICATION AND CIRCULATION. THIS NEW BOOK WILL BE THE FIRST IN A NUMBER OF YEARS! I PRAY THAT IT BLESSES YOU, ENCOURAGES YOU,INSPIRES YOU,CHALLENGES YOU TO GET OUT IN THE “TRENCHES” ON YOUR STREET, CITIES, STATES, YOUR NATION, &,YES, EVEN NATIONS ACROSS THE WORLD THAT NEED YOUR “WITNESS”! AMEN?

COPYRIGHT, 2019

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FOR:JAMES FARRELL FISHER & WIFE, SUSAN M.FISHER!

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER ONE: A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE!

CHAPTER TWO: THE DECEPTION OF FALLEN WORLD-CULTURES OR THE TRUTH: “GOD LOVES ME”?

CHAPTER THREE: REMAINING FLAWED OR ‘FAITHING’ THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST?

CHAPTER FOUR: ILLOGICAL DEBATE OR CONVINCED, CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, & CONFIRMED ‘LIFE IN CHRIST’?

CHAPTER FIVE: BRINGING FALSE RELIGIONS TO GOD’S TRUE FAITH!

CHAPTER SIX: STRANGERS IN A ‘GOD-BLESSED LAND’ OR “CITIZENS OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM?”

CHAPTER SEVEN: “PUMPING SELFISH FLESH OR PRAISING THE SUPREME FATHER?”

CHAPTER EIGHT: MENTAL MISTAKES OF MISGUIDED MEN

CHAPTER NINE: VICTIMIZED LIVING OR A VICTORIUS LIFE?

CHAPTER TEN: SPIRITUAL INSANITY OR SPIRITUAL REALITY?

CHAPTER ELEVEN: LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE?

CHAPTER TWELVE:FALLEN HUMANITY OR THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD’S COMPASSION?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DEATH? THE DOOR TO HELL’S WORST OR THE DOOR TO GOD’S ETERNAL COMPASSION?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SMALL SEED –GREAT FRUIT!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION LIFE!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SURE TESTS FOR BLOOD-REDEEMED LIVES “IN Christ”!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A CHURCH’S,A PASTOR’S,A DISCIPLE’S MINISTRY TO A LOST, NEEDY, SINFUL WORLD!

CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE JOY OF A HOLY HOPE!

CHAPTER TWENTY: CARE OF THE CARNAL MIND OR CARE OF THE SPIRITUAL SOUL?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: A CRAVING,FLESHLY HEART OR A NEW-CREATION MIRACLE?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: RAISING SPIRITUAL SONS

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: ABANDONING HOPE OR ABIDING IN HOPE?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BLANDSOME, HANDSOME,OR AWESOMELY TRANSFORMED?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: BRINK-LIVING OR BREAK-THROUGH LIBERTY?

TWENTY-SIX: ASININE CHOICES OR FLESHLY DEVOTION TO CHRIST?

TWENTY-SEVEN: BRINGING FALSE RELIGIONS TO GOD’S TRUE FAITH!

TWENTY-EIGHT: CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH!

TWENTY-NINE: GOD DWELLS WHERE THE THRONE IS!

THIRTY: ‘AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY!

THIRTY-ONE: ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?

THIRTY-TWO:AUTHENTIC SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

THIRTY-THREE: CAPTURING THE VISION

THIRTY-FOUR: MARVELOUS MERCY & MATCHLESS GRACE!

THIRTY-FIVE: KINGDOM LIVING – KINGDOM BLESSINGS!

THIRTY-SIX: FACING NEW DAYS CONFIDENTLY!

CHAPTER ONE

A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE

THE GREAT HISTORICAL FIGURE OF THE PAST, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, ONCE SAID, “SO GREAT IS MY VENERATION FOR THE BIBLE THAT THE EARLIER MY CHILDREN BEGIN TO READ IT, THE MORE CONFIDENT WILL BE MY HOPE THAT THEY WILL PROVE USEFUL CITIZENS TO THEIR COUNTRY, AND RESPECTABLE MEMBERS OF SOCIETY.”

I OFTEN WONDER HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE PARENTS MAKE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WORD OF GOD THEMSELVES AND FOR “THEIR CHILDREN”! ARE PARENTS SERIOUS ABOUT THE HOLY WORD OF GOD? ARE PARENTS COMMITTED TO INSTILLING WITHIN THE CHILDREN THEY RAISE, YES, A LOVE FOR AND FAITHFULNESS TO DAILY STUDY OF THE WORD OF GOD AS USUALLY AS THEY FAITHFULLY PREPARE THREE PHYSICAL MEALS A DAY FOR THEM?

IN 2 CORINTHIANS 12:14-15 PAUL WROTE: “BEHOLD, THE THIRD TIME I AM COME TO YOU; AND I WILL NOT BE BURDENSOME TO YOU: FOR I SEEK NOT YOUR’S, BUT YOU; FOR THE CHILDREN OUGHT NOT TO LAY UP FOR THE PARENTS, BUT THE PARENTS FOR THE CHILDREN. AND I WILL VERY GLADLY SPEND AND BE SPENT FOR YOU; THOUGH THE MORE ABUNDANTLY I LOVE YOU, THE LESS I BE LOVED.” WHAT A STRANGE ‘TWIST’! PAUL WAS SEEING HIS INTERST IN MINISTERING TO THEM WAS NOT TO TAKE WHAT THEY HAD BUT TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY NEEDED, THE GIFT OF FAITH AND TRUST IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST; BUT THEN HE SAW, THAT THOUGH HE GAVE FREELY THE RICHNESS OF GOD’S GRACE & MERCY, FROM THEM HE RECEIVED NO BLESSING, AFFIRMATION, OR ENCOURAGEMENT AT ALL-HE SENSED AND WAS MADE AWARE OF “LESS LOVE” FROM “BLESSED OF GOD SOULS HE BROUGHT TO SAVING FAITH IN CHRIST”! WELL, SINCE REDEEMED BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, BORN AGAIN, BREATHED UPON BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, COMMISSIONED BY CHRIST, COMMITTED TO A LOST, UNBELIEVING WORLD AROUND YOU, BECAUSE OF “YOUR” “SERIOUS INSPECTION OF THE WORD OF GOD”, HOW MOTIVATED ARE YOU IN SHARING YOUR LIFE, YOUR TESTIMONY, YOUR WITNESS TO A SPIRITUALLY NEEDY, HUNGRY, DARKENED LIFE AROUND YOU WHO ALSO NEED TO KNOW “HOW” TO BE BORN AGAIN, RECONCILED TO GOD BY YOUR WITNESS?

IN EZEKIAL 34:18 WE READ, “DOES IT SEEM A SMALL THING UNTO YOU TO HAVE EATEN UP THE GOOD PASTURE, BUT YOU MUST TREAD DOWN WITH YOUR FEET THE RESIDUE OF YOUR PASTURES? AND TO HAVE DRUNK OF THE DEEP WATERS, BUT YOU MUST FOUL THE RESIDUE WITH YOUR FEET?” SPIRITUALIZE THAT FOR ME, PLEASE! AND, I PRAY, FOR A GREAT AWAKENING IN YOU CONCERNING YOUR ‘OMISSION’ OF A DISCIPLE’S MISSION, OR THE COMMISSION OF IT, LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO “INSPIRES US” TO SHARE CHRIST!IS THIS WHY KING JESUS SPOKE THESE WORDS IN MATTHEW 16:25? “FOR WHOSOEVER WILL SAVE HIS LIFE (FOR HIMSELF WITHOUT ANY CONSIDERATION OF OTHERS?) SHALL LOSE IT, AND WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE “HIS” LIFE FOR MY SAKE SHALL FIND IT.” BEFORE HOLY GOD’S THRONE RIGHT NOW: “WILL HOLY GOD SEE YOU AS ‘SAVING YOUR LIFE FOR YOURSELF’ OR, YES, SACRIFING YOUR LIFE, LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE, TESTIFYING TO BIBLICAL TRUTH, EVEN IF IT COSTS YOU YOUR PHYSICAL LIFE, BUT YOUR “SPIRIT-LIFE” THO’ MARTYRED, (MAYBE), IS RAISED UP TO “GLORY-LAND” TO BOW AT THE THRONE OF JESUS AS HIS “FOOT-WASHER”?”

A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE? ST.THOMAS AQUINAS, IN HIS WRITING “SUMMA THEOLOGICA 1”, WROTE: “THERE CAN BE NO FALSEHOOD ANYWHERE IN THE LITERAL SENSE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.” THE HOLY WORD OF GOD, IN THE BIBLE YOU OWN OR OUGHT TO OWN, HAS WORDS FROM THE APOSTLE PAUL THAT SAYS IN ROMANS 15:4, “FOR WHATSOEVER THINGS WERE WRITTEN AFORETIME WERE WRITTEN FOR OUR “LEARNING” THAT WE THROUGH PATIENCE,AND COMFORT OF THE SCRIPTURES, MIGHT HAVE HOPE.”

IN 1 JOHN 5:13 THE BELOVED JOHN WROTE: “THESE THINGS I HAVE WRITTEN UNTO YOU THAT BELIEVE ON THE NAME OF THE SON OF GOD; THAT YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, AND THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE (OR “TRUST) ON OR IN THE NAME OF THE SON OF GOD.” SERIOUSLY, IS JESUS THE SAVIOR & LORD & MASTER & RECONCILER & REDEEMER, YOUR “BREAD OF LIFE”, “YOUR HEAVENLY MEAT”, “YOUR GRACED ‘HONEY’”, THE “ANOINTED ONE” WHO WILLFULLY SHED HIS OWN BLOOD FOR REGENERATING YOU, ASSIGNING YOU AS HIS MESSENGER? ARE “YOU” AN “AMBASSADOR OF CHRIST” WILLFULLY REPRESENTING HIM, INTRODUCING HIM & HIS DESIRES TO “RECONCILE OTHERS THROUGH YOU TO HIMSELF”?

IN HEBREWS 10:35-36 WE READ, “CAST NOT AWAY THEREFORE YOUR CONFIDENCE, WHICH HAS GREAT RECOMPENCE OF REWARD. FOR YOU HAVE NEED OF STEADFASTNESS,THAT,AFTER YOU HAVE DONE THE WILL OF GOD, YOU MIGHT RECEIVE HIS PROMISE.” INTERESTING VERSES IN EPHESIANS 3:1-12!! PAUL TELLS US: “FOR THIS CAUSE I PAUL, THE PRISONER OF JESUS CHRIST FOR YOU GENTILES, IF YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE DISPENSATION OF THE GRACE OF GOD WHICH IS GIVEN ME TO YOU-WARD: HOW THAT BY REVELATION (OR UNVEILING) GOD MADE KNOWN UNTO ME THE MYSTERY; (AS I WROTE AFORE IN FEW WORDS,WHEREBY, WHEN YOU READ, YOU MAY UNDERSTAND MY KNOWLEDGE IN THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST), WHICH IN OTHER AGES WAS NOT MADE KNOWN UNTO THE SONS OF MEN, AS IT IS NOW REVEALED UNTO HIS HOLY APOSTLES AND PROPHETS BY THE SPIRIT;

THAT THE GENTILES SHOULD BE FELLOWHEIRS, AND OF THE SAME BODY, AND PARTAKERS OF HIS PROMISE IN CHRIST BY THE GOSPEL:WHEREOF I WAS MADE A MINISTER,ACCORDING TO THE GIFT OF THE GRACE OF GOD GIVEN UNTO ME BY THE EFFECTUAL WORKING OF HIS POWER. UNTO ME, WHO AM LESS THAN THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS, IS THIS GRACE GIVEN, THAT I SHOULD PREACH AMONG THE GENTILES THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST;

AND TO MAKE ALL MEN SEE WHAT IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE MYSTERY, WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD HAS BEEN HID IN GOD, WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST:

TO THE INTENT THAT NOW UNTO THE PRINCIPALITIES, AND POWERS, IN HEAVENLY PLACES MIGHT BE KNOWN BY THE CHURCH THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD, ACCORDING TO THE ETERNAL GOSPEL WHICH HE PURPOSED IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” AS A RESULT?

HAVING BEEN REDEEMED, WASHED IN CHRIST’S BLOOD, FILLED WITH RESURRECTION LIFE, POWER, AND HOPE, VERSES 16-21 DECLARES:

JESUS “IS” THE “BRANCH” OF GOD’S TREE OF LIFE THAT WAVES HIS “branches” (you&me!)AROUND US! JESUS IS THE “BELOVED SON”, HE’S THE “CORNERSTONE” OF OUR HOUSE OF FAITH, HE’S THE “MASTER” OVER THE WINDS AND THE WAVES OF YOUR LIFE AS YOUR ‘SHIP OF FAITH’ LAUNCHES, & OH, HE’S THE “BRIGHT AND MORNING STAR”, WHILE YOUR WORLD, YOUR SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN TRIES TO ‘DIM’ HIS “ETERNAL LIGHTING”!

CHRIST JESUS IS THE “TRUE VINE”, COMING, CALLING, KNOCKING ON MEN’S HEARTS’ DOORS, ENTERING, ASSUMING HIS MASTERFUL LEADERSHIP ROLE LIKE THE “CAPTAIN” ON A SHIP SAILING A STORMY SEA!

“A SERIOUS INSPECTION OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE?” WHAT ABOUT EPHESIANS 3:21? “UNTO HIM BE GLORY IN THE CHURCH BY CHRIST JESUS THROUGHOUT ALL AGES WORLD WITHOUT END.AMEN.” “UNTO HIM”? IS THERE IN YOU THE “EXTENSION” OF HIS GLORY TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU THAT CANNOT, WILL NOT BE EXTINGUISHED BECAUSE THE “FIRE” OF THE SPIRIT, THE “FIERY FURNACE OF HIS LIVING WORD & MISSION NEVER DIES”, JESUS SAYING, “WORLD WITHOUT END”?

I MOVE ON WITH SECOND PETER,FOLLOWED BY A CHALLENGING HYMN, 2 PETER 1:19-21, “WE HAVE ALSO A MORE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY; WHEREUNTO YOU DO WELL THAT YOU TAKE HEED, AS UNTO A LIGHT THAT SHINES IN A DARK PLACE, UNTIL THE DAY DAWN, AND THE DAY STAR ARISE IN YOUR HEARTS:

KNOWING THIS FIRST, THAT NO PROPHECY IS OF ANY PRIVATE INTERPRETATION. FOR THE PROPHECY CAME NOT IN OLD TIME BY THE WILL OF MAN; BUT HOLY MEN OF GOD SPOKE AS THEY WERE MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.”

ARE “YOU” BEING MOVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT? ARE “YOU” CONVICTED & CONVINCED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT HE DESIRES TO FRESHLY ANOINT YOU TO WITNESS TO “LOST MEN” AROUND YOU? ARE YOU AWARE, THAT IN, UNDER, AND THROUGH HIS ANOINTING, YOU HAVE NO NEED TO FEAR, BUT BE BOLD TO HONOR CHRIST IN YOUR WITNESS TO THE UNSAVED AROUND YOU?

AS “YOU” OPEN YOUR MIND, YOUR HEART, AND YOUR WILL TO BE A “WITNESSING DISCIPLE”, DIDN’T JESUS SAY, “CALL- AND I WILL COME,PRAY-AND I’LL ANSWER, REST- AND I WILL CONVICT, CONVERT, AND CONSECRATE YOU AS A TEMPLE IN WHICH I DWELL & MINISTER THROUGH YOU”? DO YOU PRAY? IN THE AMERICAN HYMNAL,1933, PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN,P.510, IS A HYMN BY CHARLOTTE G.HOMER & CHARLES H.GABRIEL ENTITLED, “DRAW NIGH, IMMANUEL”: (I CLOSE WITH WORDS FROM THIS HYMN.):

“DRAW NIGH TO US, O GOD OF HOSTS, AND FILL US TO THE UTTERMOST WITH ZEAL TO WORK FOR YOU TODAY, IN YOUR ALL-WISE APPOINTED WAY; REVEAL YOUR WILL IN US, AND SHOW YOUR HAND DIVINE, THAT WE MAY KNOW WE ARE YOUR CHILDREN, & YOU ARE OUR GUIDE AND HIDING PLACE, WHATE’ER BETIDE.

“DRAW NIGH TO US, O MIGHTY ONE! OUR SHELTER BE FROM SUN TO SUN; OUR ALPHA AND OMEGA THOU BEFORE WHOM EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW; DELIVER US FROM EVERY SIN;IN US A MIGHTY WORK BEGIN; INCREASE OUR FAITH, OUR STRENGTH RENEW, FIT US “IN YOU” A MIGHTY WORK TO DO.

“DRAW NIGH TO US,IMMANUEL, MIGHTY GOD OF ISRAEL! ONCE MORE FROM SINAI’S FLAMING HEIGHT SPEAK, THAT WE MAY BE LED ARIGHT; ALMIGHTY, EVERLASTING KING OF KINGS! WITH CONTRITE HEARTS WE SING, THE RIGHTEOUS MAJESTY AND LOVE OF HIM WHO BUILT THE HEAVENS ABOVE.

DRAW NIGH, DRAW NIGH,IMMANUEL, IN GRANDEUR AND MAJESTY REVEAL YOURSELF TODAY; REJOICE, REJOICE, O ISRAEL, YOUR GOD OMNIPOTENT SHALL REIGN WITH UNIVERSAL SWAY; IN GRANDEUR AND IN MAJESTY REVEAL YOURSELF TODAY, YES, GOD OMNIPOTENT SHALL REIGN WITH UNIVERSAL SWAY!” AMEN?

CHAPTER TWO

THE DECEPTION OF FALLEN WORLD-CULTURES OR THE TRUTH: ‘GOD LOVES ME’?

IN THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE FOR AN APPOINTMENT TODAY, AS I WAITED I BEGAN TO READ A CURRENT “SPORTS ILLUSTRATED” MAGAZINE. THERE WAS AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “DONTE’S EPIC” WITH AN EARLY MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT CALLED “WRANGLER” WITH A STATEMENT: “STAY IN YOUR ELEMENT: EVERYDAY VERSATILITY, OUTDOOR CREDIBILITY”.

I WAS STARTLED,DISTURBED,AGITATED, ‘BECAUSE’, I WONDERED,WHAT DOES ‘EVERYDAY VERSATILITY OR OUTDOOR CREDIBILITY’ HAVE TO DO WITH “RECONCILED TO GOD”,BY BIBLICAL REPENTANCE AND TRUE FAITH, WHERE ONE FINDS “RECONCILED” TO GOD BY THE CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDING US INTO ALL TRUTH, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT SEEING TO IT THAT OUR HEARTS HAVE BECOME FERTILE GROUND OF THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE RESURRECTED CHRIST, AND THE THRONE OF GOD ERECTED IN THE TRUE DISCIPLE’S HEART!

HOW EASY, YET STRONGLY POISONOUS IN THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND IT IS TO LIVE WITHOUT GOD’S LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY, OR THE TREE OF DIVINE LIFE SURELY PLANTED, THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT NOT BEING PRODUCED IN THE CONVICTED HEART, PLUS FAILING TO ALLOW THE INDWELLING GUIDANCE OF GOD HIMSELF TEACHING US BECAUSE, THERE IS NO FERTILE SPIRITUAL SOIL FOR THE SCHEDULED ERUPTION OF THE SEED PLANTED!?! “FLESH”, ONE’S OLD SIN NATURE IS UTTERLY UNABLE TO ‘PRODUCE’ THE LIFE OF GOD WITHIN APART FROM BIRTHED,MATURED, &GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT!

I’M SURE IT’S EASY IN DECEIVED MINDS AND HEARTS TO RELY UPON ONE’S ‘INNER SOCIAL AGENDA’ – TRYING TO BE THE FRIEND OF GOD WITHOUT “TRUSTING”, RELYING UPON A SOCIAL INNER SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE WITHOUT GOD ENLIGHTENING A TRUE REPENTANT, TRUSTING HEART! “BEST EFFORT” IS MAN’S ‘SICK THEOLOGY’ WHILE GOD’S DIVINE CONVICTION, GRACIOUS “GIFT”, AND, HAVING TRULY REPENTED, TO THEN KNOW THAT HE,GOD,OPENED THE DOOR OF ONE’S HEART, AND THEN THEY HEAR JESUS SAY: “I’LL COME IN!”

I’M NOT OPPOSED TO ‘OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES’, BUT ‘EPIC’ LIVING APART FROM “RECONCILED TO GOD”? NO DOUBT MILLIONS AND MILLIONS ACROSS THE WORLD, INCLUDING AMERICA,ARE FLOUNDERING, DROWNING, IN SOCIAL,PHYSICAL,& SELFISH SATISFACTION, WITHOUT BEING CONVICTED,CONVERTED,COMPOSED, FULLY AWARE OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE WITHIN THE HEART AS HIS NEW TABERNACLE OF “PRESENCE” AFTER OPENLY REPENTING& TRUSTING IN A HEART, MIND, & SOUL,

WHO WANTS “RECONCILED TO GOD” BY HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTION, “RE-BORN” BIRTHED BY THE SPIRIT, NURTURED, MATURED, & REVEALING CHRIST IN THE “NEW-BORN LIFE”, & IN EVERY “NEW-BORN LIFE”,REVEALING WHAT THEIR CALLING, MISSION, & MINISTRY IS IN HONORING THE “RESURRECTED CHRIST” WITHIN THEM!

IN HEBEWS 12:28 WE READ: “WHEREFORE WE RECEIVING A KINGDOM WHICH CANNOT BE MOVED, LET US HAVE GRACE, WHEREBY WE MAY SERVE GOD ACCEPTABLY WITH REVERENCE & GODLY FEAR!” THIS REMINDS ME OF SOLOMON, IN 1 KINGS 3:5-15! IT SAYS: “IN GIBEON THE LORD APPEARED TO SOLOMON IN A DREAM BY NIGHT: & GOD SAID, ‘ASK WHAT I SHALL GIVE YOU.’ AND SOLOMON SAID, “YOU HAVE SHOWN UNTO YOUR SERVANT DAVID,MY FATHER, GREAT MERCY,

ACCORDING AS HE WALKED BEFORE YOU IN TRUTH,&IN RIGHTEOUSNESS,&IN UPRIGHTNESS OF HEART WITH YOU; &YOU HAVE KEPT FOR HIM THIS GREAT KINDNESS,

THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN HIM A SON TO SIT ON HIS THRONE,AS IT IS THIS DAY.AND NOW,O LORD MY GOD,YOU HAVE MADE YOUR SERVANT KING INSTEAD OF DAVID MY FATHER;& I AM BUT A LITTLE CHILD:I KNOW NOT HOW TO GO OUT OR COME IN. AND YOUR SERVANT IS IN THE MIDST OF YOUR PEOPLE WHICH YOU HAVE CHOSEN, A GREAT PEOPLE,THAT CANNOT BE NUMBERED NOR COUNTED FOR MULTITUDE.

GIVE THEREFORE YOUR SERVANT AN UNDERSTANDING HEART TO JUDGE YOUR PEOPLE, THAT I MAY DISCERN BETWEEN GOOD & BAD: FOR WHO IS ABLE TO JUDGE THIS YOUR SO GREAT A PEOPLE? AND THE SPEECH PLEASED THE LORD, THAT SOLOMON HAD ASKED THIS THING. AND GOD SAID UNTO HIM, BECAUSE YOU HAVE ASKED THIS THING, & YOU HAVE NOT ASKED FOR YOURSELF LONG LIFE;NEITHER HAVE ASKED RICHES FOR YOURSELF, NOR HAVE ASKED THE LIFE OF YOUR ENEMIES;BUT HAVE ASKED FOR YOURSELF UNDERSTANDING TO DISCERN JUDGMENT; BEHOLD,I HAVE DONE ACCORDING TO YOUR WORDS; &LO, I HAVE GIVEN YOU A WISE AND AN UNDERSTANDING HEART; SO THAT THERE WAS NONE LIKE YOU BEFORE YOU, NEITHER AFTER YOU SHALL ANY ARISE LIKE UNTO YOU.

AND I HAVE ALSO GIVEN YOU THAT WHICH YOU HAVE NOT ASKED, BOTH RICHES & HONOR:SO THAT THERE SHALL NOT BE ANY AMONG THE KINGS LIKE UNTO YOU ALL YOUR DAYS. AND IF YOU WILL WALK IN MY WAYS, TO KEEP MY STATUTES & MY COMMANDMENTS, AS YOUR FATHER DAVID DID WALK, THEN I WILL LENGTHEN YOUR DAYS!” OH,! WHAT A WORD OF CONVICTION, CONVERSION, CONSECRATION, COMFORT&CHALLENGE! AND “YOU” MUST REMEMBER 2 TIMOTHY 3:15-17 AS PAUL CHALLENGED A YOUNG SPIRITUAL SON & US!! HE SAID: “AND THAT FROM A CHILD YOU HAVE KNOWN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES,WHICH ARE ABLE TO MAKE YOU WISE UNTO SALVATION THROUGH FAITH “WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS”.ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF GOD, & IS PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE, FOR REPROOF, FOR CORRECTION, FOR INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS: THAT THE MAN OF GOD MAY BE PERFECT, THOROUGHLY FURNISHED UNTO ALL GOOD WORKS.”

ARE “YOU” LIVING IN THE DECEPTION OF A FALLEN WORLD?” OR DO YOU KNOW THAT HOLY GOD “KNOCKS” ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR & MIND &WILL, TO SAY TO YOU, “OPEN THE DOOR & I WILL COME IN & I WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL BIBLICAL TRUTH!”?? I WROTE WORDS OF POETRY RECENTLY THAT SAYS: “STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND,SELFISHLY LIVE AS ‘SLAVES’ TO A WORLD, A DEVIL, & A ‘FLESHLY’ BAND;IGNORING GOD & SINGING THEIR OWN SONG, ‘OFF-KEY’, THEY’RE LOUD & SINFULLY STRONG.

STRANGERS TO “TRUTH” & ALL THINGS “RIGHT”, THEY WANDER ON EARTH IN THEIR ‘SOULISH NIGHT’ IGNORING THE GOD OF LOVE & LIGHT, DANCING &PRANCING & JUMPING IN THEIR SIN, THEY EASILY TURN AWAY FROM “GOD’S MIGHT HAVE BEEN”.

“NEW LIFE IN CHRIST” IS TO THEM A ‘BORE’, BECAUSE LIFE ON THEIR OWN IN SINFUL PLEASURE, VOID OF GOD IS THE SIN-NATURE’S ‘LEISURE’:SO DAY BY DAY IN THEIR SELFISH WAY, THEY WILLFULLY LIVE BLINDED TO GOD’S “BEST DAY”; THE DAY OF REDEMPTION FOR SOULS IN SIN, BUT MANY WILLFULLY CHOOSE WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!”

ARE “YOU” LIVING IN “THE DECEPTION OF A FALLEN WORLD-CULTURE OR “LIVING IN” THE TRUTH: “GOD LOVES ME & SO WANTS TO REDEEM ME,RECONCILE ME,& RE-TRAIN ME ABOUT “TRUE DISCIPLESHIP”, SO THAT I,YOU, THE “BODY OF CHRIST” IN EVERY CONTINENT & NATION, STATE & CITY, MAY TRULY BE HIS “ROYAL AMBASSADORS” EXTENDING THE KING’S MINISTRY!!!

“GOD LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO; LITTLE ONES TO HIM BELONG, THEY ARE WEAK, BUT HE IS STRONG! YES, JESUS LOVES ME,YES, JESUS LOVES ME; YES, JESUS LOVES ME – THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO!” IN THE OLD “THE AMERICAN HYMNAL”PUBLISHED IN 1933 BY ‘THE BROADMAN PRESS’, NASHVILLE,TENN.,IS A HYMN ENTITLED, “O COULD I SPEAK”,(P.11), THAT SAYS: “O COULD I SPEAK THE MATCHLESS WORTH, O COULD I SOUND THE GLORIES FORTH WHICH IN MY SAVIOR SHINE, I’D SOAR, &TOUCH THE HEAVENLY STRINGS, AND VIE WITH GABRIEL AS HE SINGS IN NOTES ALMOST DIVINE, IN NOTES ALMOST DIVINE.

I’D SING THE PRECIOUS BLOOD JESUS SPILT, MY RANSOM FROM THE DREADFUL GUILT OF SIN, & WRATH DIVINE: I’D SING HIS GLORIOUS RIGHTEOUSNESS, IN WHICH ALL-PERFECT, HEAVENLY DRESS MY SOUL SHALL EVER SHINE, MY SOUL SHALL EVER SHINE.

I’D SING THE CHARACTERS HE BEARS, & ALL THE FORMS OF LOVE HE WEARS, EXALTED ON HIS THRONE:IN LOFTIEST SONGS OF SWEETEST PRAISE, I WOULD TO EVERLASTING DAYS MAKE ALL HIS GLORIES KNOWN, MAKE ALL HIS GLORIES KNOWN.

WELL,THE DELIGHTFUL DAY WILL COME WHEN MY DEAR LORD WILL BRING ME HOME, AND I SHALL SEE HIS FACE; THEN WITH MY SAVIOR, BROTHER, FRIEND, A BLEST ETERNITY I’LL SPEND, TRIUMPHANT IN HIS GRACE, TRIUMPHANT IN HIS GRACE.”

FOR YOU,YOUR CHOICE! SELF OR THE SAVIOR,LUST OR HIS LOVE, MY WORLD OR HIS KINGDOM, MY FLESHLY PLEASURES OR HIS ETERNAL PEACE, MY DARKNESS OR HIS LIGHT, MY ‘TRYING’ OR HIS WORD OF “TRUST”, MY SELF-EFFORT OR HIS SAVIOR’S LOVE EXCELLING, MY NATURAL BREATH OR HIS BREATH OF THE LOVING SPIRIT, MY ‘SPOTS’ AS SATAN’S MARKING OF SIN-CAPTURED LIVING OR GOD’S “SPECIAL GRACE” OF ‘NEVER-FAILING’ PRESENCE & POWER TO LIVE AS “MORE THAN CONQUERORS, BUT ETERNAL VICTORS” BECAUSE OF HIS BLOOD, HIS DEATH, HIS RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, & HIS ETERNAL EYE ON YOU TO MAKE SURE YOU WALK IN HIS VICTORIOUS CONQUEST OVER SATAN, OVER SIN, & OVER PHYSICAL DEATH! CAN “YOU SAY, ‘HALLELUJAH! GLORY TO THE NAME OF KING JESUS!”

CHAPTER THREE

“REMAINING FLAWED OR “FAITHING”

THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST”

• Sinners, willing to remain as they are, but pleased to ‘acknowledge’ Jesus Christ, profess ‘faith’, and join a ‘church’ ARE ‘flawed professing disciples’ asserting their ‘completion’ "in Christ", when HE, the Resurrected, Reigning King of kings and Lord of lords, ‘knocked’, but wasn’t allowed to enter with the gifts of a "new heart" and "new Spirit" with the ‘professors of faith’ continuing on deceiving and being deceived! "Christ (alone) in you IS the.hope of glory", but, IN truly "Repentant minds and hearts", willing to indeed be dead to themselves daily, IS His Resurrection Life manifested in mortal flesh!!

I’m sure you’ve heard it said: "Oh, I ‘believe’ in Jesus, as long as He allows ME to be myself. I want to be with Jesus, but if I must die to myself, to my old sin nature, and to my devotion to my world philosophies, and even enjoy it at times, and yes, my devotion to Satan’s false assertions, and to the desires of fleshly demons in me to remain themselves, I guess I’ll just have to pay the price for a stubborn heart, mind, will, and life, and say: ‘good-by, Jesus’!"

Sinners, willing to be believers remaining as they are, but pleased to acknowledge Jesus, ‘profess faith’, and join a ‘church’, ARE ‘flawed disciples’ asserting their ‘completion in Christ’ when He is not around to "bless and claim as His own the ‘pretenders111 !

Are you aware that there are ‘pretenders’ who are not "servants in and through and by Christ Jesus"? Are you aware of many who ‘join a church’ yet never died to the old ‘self­ nature’ that His Resurrection Life might find a ‘temple’ or ‘tabernacle’, but live ‘professing’ apart from being possessed by Christ Himself through His "blood purchase" at the Cross?

There is such a vast difference between ‘world-followers’, deceived by the powers of darkness and, yet "religious believers", who’ve declared allegiance to a ‘pretending savior’ but know nothing of the "Prince of Peace who, yes, sacrificed His divine life that fallen men could be reconciled to Holy God through His shed blood, merciless death, then burial, but resurrected on the third day as reigning Lord over sin and death and separation from Holy God, ascending to Heaven’s Throne where He still reigns!" But ‘pretenders’ know nothing about "taking the sentence of death daily to themselves (knowing crucified with Christ)", that Jesus’ Resurrection Life could, would, was, is, after true repentance and "rest-filled faith", reconciling them to Him with, in, and through His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power, and His Life then expressed daily in the life now ‘dead to self, dead to their old sin-nature, dead to the unbelieving world around them, and dead to Satan’s impotent armies of fleshly deceit, fleshly expression, and fleshly control, living only to, yes, please the Lord in a daily ‘laid-down-life’ to LET HIM BE JESUS IN THEM AND THROUGH THEM!’

In Matthew 10:1, Verses 7-8, 16-20, 22-26, 28-34, 36-40, we read about "sent ones loyal to the Savior and Lord"! Matthew 10:1 says, "And when He had called unto Himself His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Verses 7-8 says, And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give.

Verses 16-20 follows, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;

And you shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them, and the (unbelieving Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak, For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you.

Verses 22-26, "And you shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake; but he that endures to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee you into another: for verily I say unto you, You shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. (His Resurrection Presence!!

Glory!!).

Verses 28-34 then says, "And fear them not them, which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without the Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear you not therefore; you are of more Value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Verses 36-40 then says, And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that finds his life shall lose it; and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it.

He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me."

What an awesome, challenging, enriching ‘Life-changing Word’ for every repentant heart and soul, but, yes, a scary, ‘fear-full Word’ for every unbeliever, every pretender, and, yes, every ‘kingdom’ of man’s building that wants no part of Holy God and His merciful Savior and Lord!!

‘World-followers’, ‘imitating, pretending, church followers’, possessors of ‘fervent lips but divided hearts’, willing to ‘hear the Word of God without obeying’, even making long prayers, but according to 2 Timothy 3:5 have ‘a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof; from such turn away’, because You will be in danger of ‘getting scorched’!

"Remaining ‘flawed’ though ‘professing faith"? How ‘strange’ that some disciples are seen as ‘professing faith in Christ’ yet holding on to a past life of the world, the flesh, and Satan himself, sadly, with no desire to be ‘sanctified ‘wholly’ rather than fully freed in Christ’s Indwelling Life’ victorious over the powers of darkness!

I was so impressed recently when reading Oswald Chambers’ book entitled "My Utmost For His Highest " :, (which I read regularly with the Word, yes, over and over again and again – a ‘wise, Spirit-anointed preacher!’ from England a long time ago’!),majoring on a disciple’s ‘fleshly exhaustion’ by quoting Isaiah 40:28, "The everlasting God…faints not, nor ever grows weary," saying, (p.29), "Has the way in which you have been serving God betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then rally your affections. Where did you start the service from? From your own sympathy OR from the basis of the Redemption of Jesus Christ? CONTINUALLY go back to the foundation of your affections and recollect where the source of power is. You have no right to say’ "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you in order to EXHAUST YOUR JOY IN YOURSELF. Be exhausted ‘for God’, but remember that your supply comes from (and "in Him"!), "All my fresh springs shall be in You." Amen?

The continuing, disappointing, ‘falling-short’ philosophy, of many ‘trying-disciples’ is, "Do your best"! NO!! Ten thousand times, NO!!" True disciples DAILY "take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in them and through them as they yield to the Holy Spirit to continually guide and express "Jesus Only"" through them!!"

Self-assertiveness in a ‘professing disciple’ is a big nail that gets stronger and stronger in place of their "hope of glory"! One "in Christ" doesn’t need the ‘nails of devotion to his/her old flesh-

nature’, but the "new-life" only in and through His Resurrection Presence, being Himself eternally the same, even in opposition to the demons and Satan himself who hang around!

Tell me! "Why do some ‘professing believers’, crucified WITH Christ, still ‘think’ that they are ‘the ones able’ WHEN He nailed their ‘sinfulness and able-ness to His Cross’ thousands of years ago?

‘Self-consciousness’ and ‘self-awareness’, living as ‘professing disciples as servants of Christ but in, of, and for themselves, ignoring His Resurrection Presence if truly ‘born-again’, ‘think’ that their ‘self-absorbed- life’ that they hold onto can adequately unveiled Christ’s presence, when all it does is ‘shame’ Christ’s completed work through the Cross and His empty tomb!

‘Self-consciousness’ professing Christ is a curse, not a blessing! ‘Self-consciousness’ is a ‘noose around the neck’; not the "new creation reality of His indwelling Presence"! ‘Self­ consciousness’ of ‘professing believers’ never gives ‘confidence’ in a compromised believer’s walk, but only a ‘leaking life of limited expression’ of the True Christ! Again, "Christ IN YOU IS the Hope of Glory!"

If Christ Jesus "gives ‘rest’", why do so many "try-ers" live unfulfilling lives as ‘professing disciples’, yes, unaware ‘possessed disciples’ ARE viewers of God’s amazing grace as Jesus is Himself in them and through them even conscious that it’s Him, not them that honors God the Father?

Again, Isaiah 40:31 says: "But they that wait upon the Lord, (letting Him be Himself in them and through them!), shall renew their strength (which IS their faith in His bodily presence and bodily participation THROUGH THEM, not by them at all!); they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

WHAT AN AMAZING TRANSITION FROM ‘SELF­ CONSCIOUSNESS’ INTO "CHRIST-AWARENESS, AVAILABILITY, AND HEAVENLY ACTION" THROUGH "CHRIST-RELEASE OF HIS RESURRECTION -PRESENCE THROUGH YOU"! I Are YOU the

"poor in spirit" who know HOW to let, "Jesus, BE Jesus in me, no longer me but Thee, Resurrection Power fill me this hour, Jesus, be Jesus in me"?

The promised ‘life in Christ’ was never intended to be the new believer trying and trying! No! Every day, as your days begin "in Christ", must be days when the "It is finished" proclamation includes "finished with myself so Christ Jesus can be, is, and forever will be, "my ALL IN ALL"!!

"REMAINING FLAWED" OR, "FAITHING THE FINISHED WORK"

BY CHRIST JESUS ALONE! Are YOU "crucified with Christ", and the life in Him you now live is the daily dedication of ‘death to self’ that His Resurrection Presence might be expressed through you?

It was P.P. Bliss, in the old "Broadman Hymnal", that wrote the words to the hymn, "That Will Be Glory For Me". It says:

"I know not the hour when my Lord will come To take me away to His own dear home; But I know that His presence lightens my gloom, And that will be glory for me.

I know not the song that the angels sing, I know not the sound of the harp’s glad ring; But I know there’ll be praises to Jesus our King, And that will be glory for me.

I know not the form of my mansion fair, I know not the name that I then shall bear; But I know that my Savior will welcome me there, And that will be glory for me.

And that will be glory for me, Oh, that will be glory for me; When I stand in His presence, and like Him shall be, Oh, that will be glory for me." In Luke 24:32, as the true disciples had been with Jesus, and then He was gone, say: "Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?"

Question! Do YOU live with a "burning heart" in you because of His Abiding Presence that never leaves you? Are YOU ‘professing Him’ but living without expressing His promise, "I’ll never leave you nor forsake you?" "Burning hearts"? Is that the testimony of your earthly existence as a redeemed disciple of King Jesus? Sadly, many live countless lives of unawareness, not "shining lights" rejoicing in His abiding presence! Again, Oswald Chambers, in his book "My Utmost For His Highest" wrote: (pps. 58-59), "Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own (spiritual) nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something God would condemn, allow it no more way. But if it be an emotion kindled by the Spirit of God and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it will react on a lower level.

That is the way sentimentalists are made. The higher the emotion, the deeper the degradation will be, if it is not worked out on its proper level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many things inevitable as possible, let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay on the mount of transfiguration, but we must obey the light we received there; we must act it out."

SO…. When the temptation, the ‘testing’, the ‘trial’, comes by the demons, LET THE KINDLING SPIRIT OF THE HOLY GHOST be

loosed in you to ward off any satanic, worldly, OR fleshly desire! CHOOSE DAILY TO HONOR KING JESUS!! AMEN?

CHAPTER FOUR

“ILLOGICAL DEBATE OR CONVINCED, CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, AND CONFIRMED LIFE IN CHRIST”

THE PSALMIST, IN PSALM 111, WAS,(YES), INSPIRED TO WRITE, VERSE 5, "GOD HAS GIVEN MEAT UNTO THEM THAT FEAR HIM: HE WILL EVER BE MINDFUL OF HIS COVENANT." BUT ‘ILLOGICAL DEBATERS’, STRONGLY ‘POISONED’ BY ‘GOD-RESENTERS’ ACCEPT ‘LESSONS’ (?) FROM THE ‘FLESH OR SIN-NATURED’ MEN OR WOMEN, WHO RATHER THAN "TRUST GOD" WHO BIRTHED MANKIND WITH THE CHOICE FOR THEIR LIFE’S JOURNEY TURN INWARD & AROUND BUT NOT TO GOD, WHO,YES,EVEN THOUGH HE "KNOCKS", AND THEY REFUSE TO OPEN THE HEART’S DOOR BECAUSE THEY

‘LOVE’ "FLESH" NOT SPIRIT I LOVING A "LOST

WORLD’S RESENTMENT OF DEVOTION TO GOD",SO, "GUIDED BY ‘HEART-DEAD, MIND BLINDED’, AND WARPED WILLS DECEIVED BY SATAN HIMSELF", THERE WILL BE THOSE WHO FOOLISHLY CHOOSE TO REMAIN SEPARATED FROM GOD, UNDER SATAN’S DOMINATION, BLINDED BY·’ A FOOLISH LOST-WORLD MENTALITY’, UNAWARE THEY’VE CHOSEN ‘ILLOGICAL, NATURAL,DEMONIC,AND ‘HELLISH’ INSIGHT THAT LEAVES MERCIFUL, LOVING, GRACIOUS, CARING GOD & HIS WILL, WORD, & WAYS OUT OF THEIR LIVES, SO THEY "CHOOSE" THE WORLD’S GODLESS SPIRIT, THE SIN NATURE’S DEPRAVITY, AND SATAN’S BLINDNESS II

"ILLOGICAL DEBATERS" ARE OFTEN BLINDED BY AN INNER ‘ATTITUDE’, STRONG BUT WEAK AND DEFENSELESS, THAT, "UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING BUT SIN", THEY LIVE HOLDING ONTO, ‘IN SOME’, A "WILDER-LESS", "WONDER-LESS", "WISDOM-LESS", "WITNESS LESS" ATTITUDE THAT EVEN ‘BELIEVERS’ (?)

WHO CALL THEMSELVES ‘DISCIPLES OF CHRIST’, CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT SIN SINCE ‘BEING SAVED'(?), THOUGH JESUS TOLD HIS THE MAN IN THE TEMPLE THAT HE HEALED, JOHN 5:14, "BEHOLD, YOU ARE MADE WHOLE:SIN NO MORE, LEST A WORSE THING COME UPON YOU."

"ILLOGICAL DEBATERS"? IN TITUS 3:2-11 PAUL STOUTLY AND WISELY WROTE: "TO SPEAK EVIL OF NO MAN, TO BE NO BRAWLERS, BUT GENT.LE, SHOWING ALL MEEKNESS UNTO ALL MEN.

FOR WE OURSELVES ALSO WERE SOMETIMES FOOLISH, DISOBEDIENT,DECEIVED,SERVING DIVERS LUSTS AND PLEASURES, LIVING IN MALICE AND ENW, HATEFUL, AND HATING ONE ANOTHER. BUT AFTER THAT THE KINDNESS AND LOVE OF GOD OUR SAVIOR TOWARD MAN APPEARED, NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH WE HAVE DONE, BUT ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY HE SAVED US, BY THE WASHING OF REGENERATION, AND RENEWING OF THE HOLY GHOST;

WHICH HE SHED ON US ABUNDANTLY THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOR; THAT BEING JUSTIFIED BY HIS GRACE (JUSTIFIED? "JUST-AS-IF-WE’D-NEVER-SINNED!"), WE SHOULD BE MADE HEIRS ACCORDING TO THE HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE.

THICH IS A FAITHFUL SAYING, AND THESE THINGS I WILL THAT YOU AFFIRM CONSTANTLY, THAT THEY WHICH HAVE BELIEVED IN GOD MIGHT BE CAREFUL TO MAINTAIN GOOD WORKS, THESE THINGS ARE GOOD AND PROFITABLEUNTO MEN. BUT AVOID FOOLISH QUESTIONS, AND GENEALOGIES, AND CONTENTIONS, AND STRIVINGS ABOUT THE LAW; FOR THEY ARE UNPROFITABLE AND VAIN.

A MAN THAT IS A HERETIC AFTER THE FIRST AND SECOND ADMONITION REJECT; KNOWING THAT HE THAT IS SUCH SUBVERTED, AND SINS, BEING CONDEMNED OF HIMSELF." WHAT A POWERFUL, ENLIGHTENING, CONVICTING REVELATION OF THE HOLY WORDI!

"ILLOGICAL DEBATERS" ARE DESCRIBED IN PSALM 2:1-41 THE PSALMIST ASKS, "WHY DO THE HEATHEN RAGE, AND THE PEOPLE IMAGINE A VAIN THING? THE KINGS OF THE EARTH SET THEMSELVES, AND THE RULERS TAKE COUNSEL TOGETHER, AGAINST THE LORD, AND AGAINST HIS ANOINTED, SAYING ‘LET US BREAK THEIR BANDS ASUNDER, AND CAST AWAY THEIR CORDS FROM US. HE THAT SITS IN THE HEAVENS SHALL LAUGH; THE LORD SHALL HAVE THEM IN DERISION. ( THAT WORD ‘DERISION’ MEANS, ‘RIDICULE’ OR ‘MOCKERY’!)

PLUS, IT’S SATAN HIMSELF & HIS DEMONIC WARRIORS THAT "PUT CORDS & BANDS" ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF ALL BIRTHED MANKIND WHO MUST RECEIVE CHRIST’S BLOOD REDEMPTION FOR THEM TO BE FREE FROM SATANIC BONDAGE!

BUT, IN THIS MOMENT, THIS TIME PERIOD OF YOUR LIFE, ARE YOU AN "ILLOGICAL DEBATER" OR ARE "YOU" A "CONVINCED,CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, CONFIRMED TRUE DISCIPLE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST"? A VERY ENLIGHTENING VERSE IS FOUND IN HEBREWS 11:4! "BY FAITH ABEL OFFERED UNTO GOD A

EXCELLENT SACRIFICE THAN CAIN, BY WHICH HE OBTAINED WITNESS THAT HE WAS RIGHTEOUS, GOD TESTIFYING OF HIS GIFTS; AND BY IT BEING DEAD YET SPEAKS." (A WITNESS THAT ‘CONTINUES’, EVEN AFTER ‘YOU’ DIED? "AMAZING GRACE"!I).

ARE "YOU" CONVINCED? AND "CONVINCED", DO "YOU" ALLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT TO "CONVINCE" OTHERS THROUGH YOU? IN MATTHEW 10:19-20, JESUS TELLS US: "BUT WHEN THEY DELIVER YOU UP, TAKE NO THOUGHT HOW OR WHAT YOU SHALL SPEAK: FOR IT SHALL BE GIVING YOU IN THAT SAME HOUR WHAT YOU SHALL SPEAK. FOR IT IS NOT YOU THAT SPEAKS, BUT THE SPIRIT OF YOUR FATHER WHICH SPEAKS IN YOU (AND "THROUGH YOU"I)."

"CONVINCED" BECAUSE YOU "WERE CONVERTED"? IS THAT "BORN AGAIN", GRACE FILLED, SPIRIT-BIRTHED, SPIRIT-ENLIGHTENED, SPIRIT-CONFIRMED,SPIRIT-ANOINTED, SPIRIT GUIDED, TO TOUCH YOUR WORLD WITH THE ETERNAL GOSPEL STORY OF GOD’S POWER TO SAVE OTHERS THROUGH YOU AS YOU LIFT UP THE MESSAGE OF "BLOOD REDEMPTION, RECONCILIATION, AND REACHING OUT THROUGH YOU WITH HIS AMAZING GRACE TO OTHERS?"

"CONVINCED", "CONVERTED", BUT ARE YOU "CONSECRATED"? IS THAT "SET APART", AS ONE DISTINCTIVELY DIFFERENT BY THE GRACE AND MERCY OF GOD, "BORN AGAIN", A "NEW CREATION" NO LONGER ONLY UNTO ONE’S SELF, BUT "CAPTURED, CONVERTED, CONSECRATED, ONE BECOMES CHRIST’S "ROYAL AMBASSADOR", COMMISSIONED BY CHRIST TO BE HIS WITNESS TO A WORLD THAT NEEDS TO BE RECONCILED TO GOD, REPENTING OF SIN AND SEPARATION FROM HIM, BUT THEN "SET APART" FOR THE UNVEILING OF THE GLORY, GRACE, AND MERCY OF GOD THROUGH YOU BECAUE OF THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING CHRIST WITHIN YOU!!

"CONVINCED,CONVERTED, CONSECRATED" – GOOD, EXCELLENT, GRACE-GIVEN -AND – "CONFIRMED" BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, EVIDENCED BY THE "FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT" MULTIPLYING IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU!

MARCUS M.WELLS, IN "THE AMERICAN HYMNAL", PUBLISHED IN 1933, BY THE BROADMAN PRESS OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, (P.188),WROTE THE HYMN, "HOLY SPIRIT, FAITHFUL GUIDE". IT SAYS: "HOLY SPIRIT, FAITHFUL GUIDE, EVER NEAR THE CHRISTIAN’S

SIDE; GENTLY LEAD US BY THE HAND, PILGRIMS IN A DESERT LAND;

EVER PRESENT, TRUEST FRIEND, EVER NEAR YOUR AID TO LEND, LEAVE US NOT TO DOUBT AND FEAR, GROPING ON IN DARKNESS DREAR.

WHEN OUR DAYS OF TOILSHALL CEASE, WAITING STILL FOR SWEET RELEASE, NOTHING LEFT BUT HEAVEN AND PRAYER, WONDERING IF OUR NAMES WERE THERE.

THEN JESUS SPEAKS! WHISPERING SOFTLY, ‘WANDERER, COMEI FOLLOW ME, I’ll GUIDE YOU HOME!

WEARY SOULS FOREVER REJOICE, WHILE THEY HEAR THAT SWEETEST VOICE, WHEN THE STORMS ARE RAGING SORE, HEARTS GROW FAINT, AND HOPES GIVE O’ER,WADING DEEP THE DISMAL FLOOD, PLEADING NAUGHT BUT JESUS’ BLOOD, THE SPIRIT SPEAKS, WHISPERING SOFTLY, "WAN DERER, COME! FOLLOW ME, I’llGUIDE YOU HOME!"IS THE WORD, THE "TRUTH", THE HOLY SPIRIT, YOUR GUIDE TO VICTORY OR IN "BEST EFFORT",

"FLESH-SPIRIT"I "SATAN-DECEIVED" ATTEMPTS

TO BE ‘CHRIST-LIKE’, HAVE YOU "FALLEN AWAY" FROM THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST?

HE IS THE "FULLNESS", BUT YOU "TRIED" RATHER THAN "TRUSTED"? "ATTEMPTED" RATHER THAN "ATONED"? "SELF-EFFORT" RATHER THAN "BOUGHT WITH A PRICE", ‘PAID FOR’ REDEMPTION BY THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD BECAUSE "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD"? IN WHOM WILL "YOU" STAND WITH BEFORE HOLY GOD AT HIS ETERNAL JUDGMENT SEAT WHEN YOUR DAY OF DEATH COMES?!?

CHAPTER FIVE

“FEAR-FILLED OR FEARLESS IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST JESUS?”

Highly, highly interesting Scriptures in Philippians 2:12-13 where Paul the Apostle said: “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION IN FEAR AND TREMBLING; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

“His good pleasure”, to “work in you”, “BOTH to will AND to do for His good pleasure”? And as He “works in you” according to His good pleasure”, you think any ‘believer’ professing Christ has the ‘right’ and the ‘privilege’ to ‘work out his/her salvation on his/her terms without any consideration to what pleases God Himself who, yes, laid down the life of His Son in your place’?

BUT!!!… If we understand God “worked out” His terms of our salvation, “both to will and to do (in us!) what IS His good pleasure”, being “set free from the law of sin and death, thus, that gives us the right to live our lives, then, on our terms”? Give me a break! From ‘fleshly’ but ‘still retaining a ‘right’ to do as one pleases’? How easily is it to be warped concerning “revelation-Truth”!! Jesus Himself clearly said in Luke 6:46 that one doesn’t obey in order to be saved, but because he/she has been saved, therefore, they thus, yield to Christ’s Lordship in their “walk of faith”, which IS obedience TO the Master! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do the things which I say?”

Jesus had just spoken on good men AND evil men when in Luke 6:44-45, He said: “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For EVERY tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.”

Is it possible that ‘pretenders to obedience’, professing Christ, ARE, as Jesus described them in Luke 6:41-42?, “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! (“Play-actor!”). First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your own eye.” Is that clear to you? Or are YOU determined to ‘gather grapes from the bramble bush of a sin-infested, worldly programmed, devilish influence’?

Many religious pretenders are BOUND in the strong bonds of spiritual pretense without even one fruit of God’s Spirit produced only by His Presence within them, yet still seek to see themselves as ‘Jesus-disciples’, though void of true repentance and, yes, Biblical Faith, that IS “trust and obedience”! Faith or obedience in the one that at least ‘professes it’ but doesn’t ‘stand on the sure foundation’ is certain to falter into more spiritual frailty, more spiritual feebleness, and losing any crippled confidence he or she had been able to muster in, yes, their ‘counterfeit state of allegiance’ rather than having been “second-born by the Holy Spirit”!

When the Lord Jesus said, “Come unto Me”, it was not for a spiritual badge to wear on one’s everyday outer clothing, but coming to Him, willfully dying daily to one’s old sin-nature-identity, and “resting” in His abiding, Resurrection Presence in the true heart of the now “born-again believer”!

In Luke 18:1-30 we read a solemn, serious, saving Word from King Jesus! He spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint: Saying (That’s Jesus speaking!), There was in a city a judge, who had no fear of God, neither regarded any man; And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary.

And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, Yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she wearies me. And the Lord said,

Hear what the unjust judge said. ‘And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bears long with them’? And He spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, yet despised others: “Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

The Pharisee stood up and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess’. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me the sinner’. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one that exalts himself shall be abased; he that humbles himself (before God) shall be exalted”..

And they brought unto Him also infants, that He would touch them: but when His disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them unto Himself, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein to God’s Kingdom!”

And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? None is good, save one, that is, God. You know the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not Kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and your mother." And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. When Jesus heard these things, He said unto him,

“Yet you lack one thing: sell all that you have, and distribute unto the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.” When the ruler heard this, he was very sorrowful; for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, He said: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God? For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

And they that heard it said, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Then Peter said, “Lo, we have left all, and followed You.” And Jesus said unto them, “Verily I say unto you, There is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, Who shall not but receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.”

What an awesome chapter in the Word of God! And yet many are not even moved one inch toward Holy God in their ‘self-determined’, mind-analyzed, ‘world-system’ allegiance, or the ‘deceived-by-Satan-mentality’, doing ‘religious allegiance’ “My way”!! All around you are individuals who are personally, morally, spiritually,‘bankrupt-souls’, blinded to the love, mercy, and grace of God, fully content to live a ‘religious’ but godless life, indulging their ‘flesh-nature’, corrupted by an army of deceitful devils, and a ‘Satan-inspired lifestyle of even ‘religious indifference’ to the good, acceptable, and perfect Will of Holy God’!

I’m thoroughly convinced that, beside the inspired Word of Holy God, IS the “faith-walk of a regenerated, re-born, Spirit-led Life, obedient to every Word of God, and IS the still-revealed- Resurrection-Presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords”! In Oswald Chambers’ book, “My Utmost For His Highest”, Chambers wrote a convicting, powerful, Truth-filled word! He said: (p.242), building on John 17:4, Jesus saying, “I have finished the work which You, Father-God, gave Me to do.” He wrote:

“The Death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God. There IS NO ROOM FOR LOOKING ON JESUS CHRIST AS A MARTYR; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented: His death was the very reason why He came…

Never build your preaching on forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation (or unveiling) of God; it makes the Cross unnecessary, and the Redemption “much ado about nothing.” If God does forgive sin, it is because of the Death of Christ. God could forgive men in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted to be Savior because of His death. “We see Jesus…because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ – “IT IS FINISHED.” That is the last word in the redemption of man…

Anything that belittles or obliterates the holiness of God by a false view of the love of God, is untrue to the revelation given by Jesus Christ. Never allow the thought that Jesus Christ stands with us against God out of pity and compassion; that He became a curse for us out of sympathy with us. Jesus Christ BECAME A CURSE FOR US BY DIVINE DECREE. Our portion of realizing the terrific meaning of the curse is conviction of sin, the gift of shame and penitence is given us – this is the mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the wrong in man, and Calvary is the estimate (or unveiling) of His hatred.” So powerfully convicting, liberating, and life-changing eternally by, yes, the grace, the love, and the mercy for us in “the crucified, dead, buried, but resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords”!!

And, when that sinks in to your mind, heart, and will, with Paul, (1 Corinthians 10:31), “Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do ALL to the glory of God.” Is THAT Scriptural awe and shock, or not?

In Malachi 3:10b the prophet heard Holy, merciful, loving God, saying: “…prove Me now herewith, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour YOU out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Do YOU “live” IN “the open windows of heaven” with the overflow from you being, yes, the extension of Christ’s Life through you, the expression of His faithful, loving nature through you, and the living proof of His still awesome power to resurrect the dead, yes, Him through YOU?).

“Fear-filled OR Fearless in the Faith of Christ Jesus”? In Matthew 5:1-16 we read: And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain; and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him. AND He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying, “Blessed are the poor (the poverty-stricken in themselves!) in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek (the teachable!), for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they WHICH DO HUNGER AND THIRST after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for their’s IS the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” HEAR ME!

You (”In Christ”) are the salt of the earth; but, if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under the foot of men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.(Are you SET on Calvary’s hill and Christ’s empty tomb?) Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a basket (a church building?), but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house (of human civilization?). Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Dare I tell you? Believe I will!! “The ‘Eternal Morning Light” never has a day it doesn’t dawn – bright or cloudy or stormy or rainy – Jesus, the Eternal Morning Light still shines – Are YOU in the ‘darkness’ or do you and yours ‘Radiate’ the Eternal Light WHO IS CHRIST JESUS?

Are YOU “Fear-filled OR Fearless in the Faith?”

CHAPTER SIX

“STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND OR CITIZENS OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM”

IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS, IT’S BEEN AMAZING TO ME AT GOD’S INSPIRATION IN ME IN WRITING, I PRAY, BLESSED TEACHINGS THAT WILL TEACH & REACH MANY FOR TRUE SALVATION IN THE SAVIOR’S NAME BY CONVICTION, CONVERSION, CONSECRATION, AND THEN,COMMISSIONING OF CHILDREN OF FAITH AS HIS MESSENGERS, AMBASSADORS, SERVANTS, PASTORS & TEACHERS & EVEN AS MISSIONARIES! AS WELL AS TEACHINGS, OUR LORD HAS EVEN INSPIRED POETRY IN ME EVERY NOW & THEN! HERE’S A SAMPLE: "STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND, SELFISHLY LIVING AS ‘SLAVES’ TO A WORLD, A DEVIL, & A ‘FLESHLY’ BAND; IGNORING GOD & SINGING THEIR OWN SONG, ‘OFF-KEY", THEY’RE LOUD & SINFULLY STRONG.

STRANGERS TO "TRUTH" & ALL THINGS RIGHT, THEY WANDER ON EARTH IN THEIR ‘SOULISH NIGHT’, IGNORING THE GOD OF LOVE & LIGHT, DANCING & PRANCING & JUMPING IN THEIR SIN, THEY EASILY TURN AWAY FROM "GOD’S: MIGHT HAVE BEENI"

"NEW LIFE IN CHRIST" IS TO THEM A ‘BORE’, BECAUSE LIFE ON THEIR OWN IS IN INDULGENT & SINFUL TREASURE, BUT VOID OF GOD, IT’S SIN-NATURE’S ‘PLEASURE'(?).

SO DAY BY DAY IN THEIR SELFISH WAY, THEY WILLFULLY LIVE BLINDED TO GOD’S "BEST & BETTER DAY"; THAT’S THE DAY OF REDEMPTION FOR SOULS IN SIN, BUT THEY WILLFULLY IGNORE WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.”

"STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND"? IN THE LAST PART OF HEBREWS 11:13,THERE IS A PHRASE DESCRIBING HEBREW BELIEVERS BEFORE THEY FOUND, YES, BY GOD’S MERCY & GRACE, THE TRUE PATH OF BLOOD REDEMPTION: PAUL WROTE, THAT MANY WERE: "STRANGERS & PILGRIMS ON THE EARTH", AT LEAST FOR AWHILE, THEN’HEARING GOD’S PROMISE’, WERE PERSUADED TO HOLD ON FROM THAT DAY FORWARD TO THEIR COMING CROWNING IN THE BLESSING OF SPIRITUAL FREEDOM THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST’S GOSPEL FOREVER & EVER EVEN AFTER THEIR EARTHLY PHYSICAL DEATH TO LIVE ETERNALLY WITH CHRIST IN HEAVEN, NOT HELL, STILL FAITHFULLY READY TO "WASH THE MASTER’S FEET THERE AS THEY DID HERE!"

IN "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS", WILLIAM COWPER AUTHORED WORDS HE ENTITLED "LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS", SAYING: "BLIND UNBELIEF IS SURE TO ERR, AND SCAN GOD’S WORK IN VAIN; GOD IS HIS OWN INTERPRETER, AND HE WILL MAKE IT PLAIN."

BUT, STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED LAND? STRANGERS TO GOD HIMSELF? STRANGERS TO HIS SON, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST? STRANGERS TO HIS HOLY SPIRIT? STRANGERS TO HIS ETERNAL WORD, HIS "MILK", HIS "BREAD", HIS "FRUIT", HIS "PATHWAY", HIS "GUIDING LIGHT" & STRANGERS TO HIS"GRACIOUS MAP OF BLOOD REDEMPTION & RECONCILIATION WITH THE HOLY FATHER FOR ALL MANKIND", THRU TRUST IN CHRIST’S SHED BLOOD, HIS DEATH, HIS RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, CROWNED IN GLORY, SEATED ON GOD’S THRONE & INTERCEDING FOR YOU IN PARTICULAR AS IF YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE THE LORD JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED FOR?

HE TOOK WITH HIM TO THE CROSS YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE & MINE. WHEN JESUS ALLOWED HIS CRUCIFIXION, HE KNEW "YOU" HAD TO BE "CRUCIFIED WITH HIM", YOUR ‘OLD MAN’ YOUR ‘OLD SIN-NATURE, YOUR ‘OLD LIFE DECEIVED BY SATAN HIMSELF’! HOW CAN I SHARE THIS TRUTH WITHOUT ITS FOUNDATION IN GENESIS 2:1-14?

THUS THE HEAVENS & THE EARTH WERE FINISHED, AND ALL THE HOST OF THEM. AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY GOD ENDED HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE; AND GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY, & SANCTIFIED IT (OR "SET IT APART"); AND HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE.

THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVENS & THE EARTH WHEN THEY WERE CREATED, IN THE DAY THAT THE LORD GOD MADE THE EARTH & THE HEAVENS. AND EVERY PLANT OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT WAS IN THE EARTH, AND EVERY HERB OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT GREW; FOR THE LORD GOD HAD NOT CAUSED ITTO RAIN UPON THE EARTH, AND THERE WAS NOT A MAN TO TILL THE GROUND.

BUT THERE WENT UP A MIST FROM THE EARTH, & WATERED THE WHOLE FACE OF THE GROUND. AND THE LORD FORMED MAN OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND, & BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE; AND MAN BECAME A LIVING SOUL. {BUT ONLY A LIVING SOUL, BECAUSE, AS YET, NOT "NEW-BORN" CITIZENS OF GOD’S ETERNAL KINGDOM & HIS SPIRITUAL FAMILY!).

VERSE 8 &FOLLOWING: AND THE LORD GOD PLANTED A GARDEN EASTWARD IN EDEN; AND THERE HE PUT THE MAN WHOM HE HAD FORMED. AND OUT OF THE GROUND MADE THE LORD GOD TO GROW EVERY TREE THAT IS PLEASANT TO YOUR SIGHT, AND GOOD FOR FOOD; THE TREE OF LIFE ALSO IN THE MIDST OF THE GARDEN, & THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL.

AND A RIVER WENT OUT OF EDEN TO WATER THE GARDEN; AND FROM THERE IT WAS PARTED, & BECAME INTO FOUR HEADS. THE NAME OF THE FIRST IS PISON; THAT IS IT WHICH COMPASSES THE WHOLE LAND OF HAVILAH, WHERE THERE IS GOLD; [INTERESTING WORD,HAVILAH; EXODUS 15:22 SPEAKS OF THOSE WHO "WENT OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS OF SHUR…". IT WAS SW OF PALESTINE I OH, "WHERE THERE IS GOLD"I]

LITERALLY,PHYSICAL GOLD CAN CAPTURE A MAN TO THE POINT HE’S SO ENRAPTURED WITH FINDING "GOLD" THAT HE/SHE MISSES GOD!

VERSE 12 SAYS," AND THE GOLD OF THAT LAND IS GOOD; THERE IS BDELLIUM & THE ONXY STONE." BUT YOU UNDERSTAND, MANY ARE ‘ENSLAVED’ TOWARD, LITERALLY, ‘GOLD’ BUT RESISTANT TO THE GIFT OF GOD OF ‘SPIRITUAL GOLD’, TO THE POINT, MANY ‘PROFESSORS OF FAITH’ LIVE BANKRUPT, PENNILESS LIVES OF FAITH, IGNORING WHAT THE TRUE INHERITANCE OF "BORN-AGAIN SAINTS ARE",& LIVING A SPIRITUALLY ‘POVERTY-WALK’, LIKE A ‘BEGGAR’ ON A STREET CORNER, ‘SIN-NATURE RICH,BUT SPIRITUALLY IMPOVERISHED’, POOR & BABKRUPT AS "HELL" IS ITSELF UNDER SATAN’S FOREVER IMPRISONMENT!!!

BUT IN 1 PETER 2:9 THE APOSTLE SAID, "BUT YOU, (DISCIPLE OF CHRIST!), ARE A CHOSEN GENERATION, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PECULIAR PEOPLE, THAT "YOU" SHOULD SHOW FORTH THE PRAISES OF HIM WHO HAS CALLED YOU OUT OF (YOUR) DARKNESS INTO "HIS" MARVELOUS LIGHT"!

REALLY? "STRANGERS IN A GOD-BLESSED

LAND?" OR: "BORN-AGAIN CITIZENS OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM?"

ARE "YOU" A BORN-AGAIN CITIZEN OF HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM?" ARE "YOU" LIVING FOR THE "LEAST" THE WORLD AROUND YOU OFFERS, OR DO YOU PASSIONATELY PURSUE ALL GOD SAYS YOU ARE "IN CHRIST"?

I AFFIRM THIS TEACHING WITH THE WORDS OF PAUL IN EPHESIANS 2:13-22! "BUT NOW ‘IN CHRIST JESUS’ YOU WHO SOMETIMES WERE

FAR OFF ARE MADE NIGH BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. FOR HE IS OUR PEACE, WHO HAS MADE BOTH ONE (THE HOLY SAVIOR & THE SANCTIFIED " SAI NT11 !), AND HAD BROKEN DOWN THE MIDDLE WALL OF PARTITION BETWEEN US;

HAVING ABOLISHED IN HIS ‘FLESHLY BODY’ THE ENMITY, EVEN THE LAW OF COMMANDMENTS CONTAINED IN ORDINANCES; FOR TO MAKE IN HIMSELF OF TWAIN ONE NEW MAN, SO MAKING PEACE; AND THAT HE MIGHT RECONCILE BOTH UNTO GOD IN ONE BODY BY THE CROSS, HAVING SLAIN THE ENMITY THEREBY:

AND CAME & PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHICH WERE AFAR OFF, & TO THEM THAT ARE NEAR.

(IS THAT ‘NEAR’ BUT NOT " RE-B ORN11,‘NEAR’ BUT NOT "SPIRIT-BIRTHED & SPIRI T-FILLED11 ?).

FOR THROUGH CHRIST JESUS, WE BOTH HAVE ACCESS BY ONE SPIRIT UNTO THE FATHER. "NOW" THEREFORE YOU ARE NO MORE STRANGERS & FOREIGNERS, BUT FELLOW CITIZENS WITH THE SAINTS, & OF THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD.

AND ARE BUILT UPON THE FOUNDATION OF THE APOSTLES & PROPHETS, JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF BEING THE CHIEF CORNER STONE; IN WHOM ALL THE BUILDING FITLY FRAMED TOGETHER GROWS UNTO AN HOLY TEMPLE IN THE LAND: IN WHOM YOU ALSO ARE BUILT TOGETHER FOR AN HABITATION OF GOD THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT." (CAN YOU SAY, "AMEN"?).

THERE IS A HYMN OF GREAT IMPORTANCE, A HYMN FROM THE "BROADMAN HYMNAL",(PUBLISHED BY THE BROADMAN

PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE,IN THE YEAR, 19401}. THE TITLE? "THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT"(P.216)1( WHERE HAVE YOU CHOSEN, OR, BEEN CHOSEN, TO DWELL?}

"THERE IS A LAND OF PURE DELIGHT, WHERE SAINTS IMMORTAL REIGN; ETERNAL DAY EXCLUDES THE NIGHT, & PLEASURES BANISH PAIN.THERE EVERLASTING SPRING ABIDES, & NEVER WITHERING FLOWERS; DEATH, LIKE A NARROW SEA, DIVIDES THIS HEAVENLY LAND FROM OURS.

SWEET FIELDS BEYOND THE SWELLING FLOOD STAND DRESSED IN LIVING GREEN; SO TO THE JEWS OLD CANAAN STOOD, WHILE JORDAN ROLLED BETWEEN. BUT TIMOROUS MORTALS START & SHRINK TO CROSS THE NARROW SEA, AND LINGER,SHIVERING, ON THE BRINK, & FEAR TO LAUNCH AWAY.

OH, COULD WE MAKE OUR DOUBTS REMOVE, THOSE GLOOMY DOUBTS THAT RISE, AND SEE THE CANAAN THAT WE LOVE WITH UNBECLOUDED EYES! COULD WE BUT CLIMB WHERE MOSES STOOD, AND VIEW THE LANDSCAPE O’ER, NOT JORDAN’S STREAM NOR DEATH’S COLD FLOOD SHOULD FRIGHT US FROM THE SHORE."

ARE "YOU" IN THE "LAND OF PURE DELIGHT" OR ARE YOU STILL WALKING IN "THE LAND OF SELF, FLESH, FALLEN WORLD WITH SATAN’S DELIGHT & YOUR DECEPTIVE REWARD?" IN OUR CHURCH WORSHIP THIS MORNING AT "NORTHWOODS CHURCH" IN KELLER, TEXAS, I HEARD A SONG l’D NEVER HEARD BEFORE –IT’S FAIRLY NEW, ENTITLED, "JESUS CHRIST, MY LIVING HOPE", (BETHEL MUSIC; ADORANDO PUBLISHING HOUSE) I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH THE WORDS

"HOW GREAT THE CHASM THAT LAY BETWEEN US, HOW HIGH THE MOUNTAIN I COULD NOT CLIMB. IN DESPERATION I TURNED TO HEAVEN AND SPOKE "YOUR NAME" INTO THE NIGHT.

THEN THRU’ THE DARKNESS YOUR LOVING KINDNESS {GOD’S!) TORE THRU’ THE SHADOWS OF MY SOUL.

THE WORK IS FINISHED THE END IS WRITTEN, JESUS CHRIST MY LIVING HOPE.

WHO COULD IMAGINE SO GREAT A MERCY, WHAT COULD FATHOM SUCH BOUNDLESS GRACE? THE GOD OF AGES STEPPED DOWN FROM GLORY TO WEAR MY SIN AND BEAR MY SHAME.

THE CROSS HAS SPOKEN –I AM FORGIVEN – THE KING OF KINGS CALLS ME HIS OWN. BEAUTIFUL SAVIOR, l’MYOURS FOREVER, JESUS CHRIST MY LIVING HOPE.

HALLELUJAH! PRAISE THE ONE WHO SET ME FREE, HALLELUJAH! DEATH HAS LOST ITS GRIP ON ME! YOU HAVE BROKEN EVERY CHAIN, THERE’S SALVATION IN YOUR NAME, JESUS CHRIST, MY LIVING HOPE

THEN CAME THE MORNING THAT SEALED THE PROMISE YOUR BURIED BODY BEGAN TO BREATHE; OUT OF THE SILENCE THE ROARING LION DECLARED THE GRACE HAS NO CLAIM ON ME. "JESUS YOURS IS THE VICTORY."

HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE ONE WHO SET ME FREE, HALLELUJAH, DEATH HAS LOST ITS GRIP ON ME. YOU HAVE BROKEN EVERY CHAIN THERE’S SALVATION IN YOUR NAME-JESUS CHRIST MY LIVING HOPE SHOW LESS OF ME AND MORE OF THEE." CAN YOU SAY: "HALLELUJAH! GLORY!TO HIS NAME"? WITH OPEN-ARMS-JESUS SAYS, "COME TO ME!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

“PUMPING SELFISH FLESH OR PRAISING THE SUPREME FATHER?”

“FALLEN-AWAY MANKIND FROM GOD’S BIRTHING OF THEM WITH A RIGHT TO CHOOSE”, NATURAL MEN CHOSE & STILL CHOOSE ‘FLESHLY FATE’ & IGNORES GOD’S GRACIOUS GIFT OF SAVING FAITH! FLESHLY FATE IS THE ‘SELFISH RULING’ IN A MAN’S HEART & MIND INDEPENDENT OF GOD & HIS LOVE, GRACE, & MERCY! SPIRITUAL NOBILITY IS IGNORED & RADICAL SPIRITUAL NUMBNESS REIGNS! UNBELIEF IGNORES EVERY MIRACLE OF GOD THAT ABOUNDS AROUND MANKIND LIKE THE OCEANS OF THE WORLD SURROUND ‘DRY LAND’!

IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(P.457), I READ A STATEMENT BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IN HIS WRITING ENTITLED “BIBLIOLATRIES”. HE SAID: “GOD IS NOT DUMB, THAT HE SHOULD SPEAK NO MORE; IF YOU HAVE WANDERINGS IN THE WILDERNESS AND DON’T FIND SINAI, IT’S YOUR SOUL& YOUR HEART (& YOUR SELF-CENTERED WILL) THAT IS POOR.” TODAY AS I READ THAT WISE STATEMENT I THOUGHT, “THE SELFISH PUMPERS OF FLESH”, IN LOVE WITH THEIR OLD SIN-NATURES, IGNORE ‘SINAI’ BUT ALSO “THE SAVIOR”, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!- IS TODAY,2019, DIFFERENT FROM ALL ‘HUMAN HISTORY’ THAT IGNORED OR IGNORES GOD’S “KNOCK” ON THEIR HEARTS’ DOORS?

IN JOHN 12 I WANT YOU TO SEE THE LORD JESUS’S CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF “PUMPING FLESH” OR “PRAISING THE SUPREME FATHER”! JOHN 12:23-28a, tells us, Jesus speaking, “The hour is come, that the ‘Son of Man’ should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of fall into the ground and die, it abides alone:but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.

He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?But for this cause came I unto this hour. Verse 28a, “Father, glorify Your name.”

There was no spirit in Christ Jesus of “Pumping Flesh”,but living His life fully and faithfully to honor the Father’s will and purpose for His life as the Son of God – and if it meant the Cross, “So be it”!,,, without a doubt or fear!!

In the world around you are, sadly, lives lived unaware of the will of God – and for many, even though they know the will of God, they will not say “Yes” to Him! Sadly, many live, countless lives, of unawareness of their becoming and being,through saving faith in His beloved Son, Christ Jesus,“shining lights”, who are to live lives rejoicing in His abiding presence within them, and the “Light” in them shining through them to enlighten the unsaved, unredeemed, ‘away from God people living for self’!

Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest” wrote: (pps.58-59), “Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin,but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own spiritual nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something God would condemn, allow it no more way. But if it be an emotion kindled by the Spirit of God and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it will react on a lower level.”

Where have your “life choices” left you? The “low level” of self-choice, self-will, self-pleasure, self-satisfaction, even if it means continual, eternal separation from the God who made you, lost you, but paid a price through the shed blood of His Son on the Cross to redeem you & reconcile you to Holy God?

Or has it been, will it be, the “Eternal Life Choice” by repentance to God and faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross, His precious blood to bring you forgiveness from the very heart of God, elevated out of spiritual death into “Eternal Life”, and by God’s grace and mercy then commissioning you as “disciples of Christ” and “faithful witnesses” of His blood redemption to labor to needy souls surrounding you that they might find Christ Jesus?

Again, in John 12,following the Father’s voice, after Jesus had said, “Father, glorify Your Name,” in Verses 28-29, we read:then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore,that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said,An angel spoke to Him.

Verses 30-32, Jesus answered & said, “This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” OH; THEN,IN VERSES 35&36,JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, “YET A LITTLE WHILE IS THE LIGHT WITH YOU. WALK YOU WHILE YOU HAVE THE LIGHT, LEST DARKNESS COMES UPON YOU; FOR HE THAT WALKS IN DARKNESS DOESN’T KNOW WHERE HE GOES.” OH, SO, WHERE IS YOUR ‘LIFE PATH’? IS IT ‘SPIRITUAL DARKNESS’ OR DO YOU “WALK IN THE LIGHT OF THE ‘ETERNAL SONSHINE’ OF CHRIST JESUS”?

AGAIN, JOHN 12, VERSES 42-50! NEVERTHELESS AMONG THE CHIEF RULERS (EVEN A MODERN-DAY PRESIDENT & SENATE OR HOUSE CONGRESSMEN?),ALSO BELIEVED ON “CHRIST”; BUT BECAUSE OF THE PHARISEES THEY DID NOT (‘PUBLICLY’) CONFESS HIM. LEST THEY SHOULD BE PUT OUT OF THE SYNAGOGUE: FOR THEY LOVED THE PRAISE OF MEN MORE THAN THE PRAISE OF GOD.

JESUS CRIED AND SAID, “HE THAT BELIEVES ON (TRUSTS IN, RELIES UPON, ADHERES TO!) ME, BELIEVES NOT ON ME, BUT ON HIM THAT SENT ME. AND HE THAT SEES ME SEES HIM THAT SENT ME.I AM COME A LIGHT INTO THE WORLD, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES ON ME (TRUSTS, RELIES UPON,YIELDS TO, ABANDONS THE OLD ‘CRUCIFIED LIFE’, TO BE BLESSED WITH THE “NEW LIFE” OF THE TRUE SAVIOR & LORD & MASTER & RULER OVER ALL – OVER ALL?THIS WORLD INFILTRATED BY SATAN & HIS KINGDOM, SATAN’S DOMAIN- OR THE SAVIOR’S SOVEREIGN RULE OVER HIM & HIS, YOU & YOUR LIFE OF UNBELIEF & DISOBEDIENCE OR HIS MASTER-FULL RULE OVER YOU & YOURS?), AGAIN, BUT TRUSTING CHRIST,, RELYING UPON, YIELDED TO, HAVING ACCEPTED JESUS’ ATONEMENT & ‘THE END’ OF YOUR FLESHLY, SINFUL, WORLDLY, DEVIL-DOMINATED EXISTENCE, YOU COME TO LIVE,BREATHE,& SHARE WITH OTHERS THE “VERY LIFE, BREATH, FULLNESS, & POWER & PURPOSE OF ‘CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY’!!

BACK TO JOHN 12:47-50! “AND IF ANY HEARS MY WORDS, & BELIEVES NOT, I JUDGE HIM NOT: FOR I CAME NOT TO JUDGE THE WORLD, BUT TO SAVE THE WORLD. HE THAT REJECTS ME, AND RECEIVES NOT MY WORDS, HAS ONE THAT JUDGES HIM: THE WORD THAT I HAVE SPOKEN, THE SAME SHALL JUDGE HIM IN THE LAST DAY.(THAT’S THE MAN OR WOMAN,OLD OR YOUNG!).

FOR I HAVE NOT SPOKEN OF MYSELF; BUT THE FATHER WHICH SENT ME, HE GAVE ME A COMMANDMENT, WHAT I SHOULD SAY, AND WHAT I SHOULD SPEAK. AND I KNOW THAT HIS COMMANDMENT IS LIFE EVERLASTING; WHATSOEVER I SPEAK THEREFORE, EVEN AS THE FATHER SAID TO ME, SO I SPEAK.”

BUT “HEAR ME!” IN THE WORLDWIDE CULTURES, EVEN ‘RELIGIOUS CULTURES’, LIKE THE ‘RELIGIOUS JEWS (?)’ OF JESUS’S DAY WHO WANTED NO PART OF HIM SINCE THEY WERE ‘SO RELIGIOUS ALREADY’, THEY THEN BELIEVED, ‘WHO NEEDS A SAVIOR IF YOU’RE RELIGIOUS?’ AND IN ACTS 4:18-20, THE ‘RELIGIOUS JEWS’,IN JERUSALEM, CONFRONTED BY “EVANGELISTIC CRUSADERS”, HAD NO PATIENCE AT ALL WITH HEAVEN’S “BORN-AGAIN SONS OF SAVING FAITH”, WITH THE “BELOVED LUKE’S WORDS”,

“AND THEY (JEWISH RELIGIOUS LEADERS) CALLED THEM (JESUS’S “BORN-AGAIN DISCIPLES”!), AND COMMANDED THEM NOT TO SPEAK AT ALL NOR TEACH IN THE NAME OF JESUS. (ANOTHER PAUSE! ARE YOU FULLY AWARE OF 21^ST CENTURY AMERICA WHERE, YES, PUBLIC PROCLAMATION OF THE WORD OF GOD IS BECOMING INTOLERANT TO “STUPID POLITICAL LEADERS, BRAIN-DEAD PROFESSORS, & DECEIVED MASS-GATHERINGS OF OPPOSERS TO GOD, HIS SON, HIS SPIRIT, & HIS WORD”?). ACTS 4:19-20, BUT PETER & JOHN ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO THEM, “WHETHER IT BE RIGHT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD TO HEARKEN UNTO YOU MORE THAN UNTO GOD, JUDGE YOU. FOR WE CANNOT BUT SPEAK THE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE SEEN & HEARD.”

ALWAYS REMEMBER, AS A TRUE FOLLOWER OF KING JESUS, YOUR SAVIOR & LORD, & APPOINTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT TO BE “CHRIST’S WITNESSES”, THAT LIKE PETER & JOHN IN ACTS 4:29-31, YOU’LL FIND “GREAT ASSURANCES” AS YOU CHOOSE TO BE HIS WITNESS IN THE MIDST OF CULTURAL OPPOSITION! THE WORD SAYS: “AND NOW, LORD, BEHOLD THEIR THREATENINGS: AND GRANT UNTO YOUR SERVANTS, THAT WITH ALL BOLDNESS THEY MAY SPEAK YOUR WORD,

BY STRETCHING FORTH YOUR HAND TO HEAL; AND THAT SIGNS & WONDERS MAY BE DONE BY THE NAME OF YOUR HOLY CHILD JESUS. BUT WHEN THEY HAD PRAYED THE PLACE WAS SHAKEN WHERE THEY WERE ASSEMBLED TOGETHER; AND THEY WERE ALL FILLED WITH THE HOLY GHOST, AND THEY SPOKE THE WORD OF GOD WITH BOLDNESS.”

HOW MANY ARE YOU AWARE OF IN CHURCHES ACROSS AMERICA WHO LIVE SERVING CHRIST, SUPPOSEDLY, BUT HAVE NEVER “CROSSED THE LINE” TO UNSAVED SOULS TO SHARE “REDEMPTIONS’ STORY OF “NEW-BORN IN CHRIST ALONE”? ‘BEST EFFORT’ DOESN’T BIRTH DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, ‘BOGUS APPEARANCE’ DOESN’T SEE MIRACLES OF GRACE, ‘PHONY-BOLOGNA’ DOESN’T FEED THE SICK IN SIN EXCEPT BY “THE TOUCH OF THE MASTER’S HANDS ON THE MIND, HEART, & SOUL OF UNBELIEVERS”!

ROMANS 1:20-28 IS GOD’S EXPOSURE THROUGH PAUL OF UNBELIEVERS & PRETENDERS! “FOR THE INVISIBLE THINGS (OF GOD) FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ARE CLEARLY SEEN, BEING UNDERSTOOD BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE, EVEN HIS ETERNAL POWER & GODHEAD; SO THAT THEY ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE: BECAUSE THAT, WHEN THEY KNEW GOD, THEY GLORIFIED HIM NOT AS GOD, NEITHER WERE THANKFUL; BUT BECAME VAIN IN THEIR IMAGINATIONS, AND THEIR FOOLISH HEART WAS DARKENED.

PROFESSING THEMSELVES TO BE WISE, THEY BECAME FOOLS,AND CHANGED THE GLORY OF THE INCORRUPTIBLE GOD INTO AN IMAGE MADE LIKE TO CORRUPTIBLRE MAN, & TO BIRDS,&FOUR-FOOTED BEASTS, AND CREEPING THINGS. WHEREFORE GOD ALSO GAVE THEM UP TO UNCLEANNESS THROUGH THE LUSTS OF THEIR OWN HEARTS, TO DISHONOR THEIR OWN BODIES BETWEEN THEMSELVES:

WHO CHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD INTO A LIE, & WORSHIPPED & SERVED THE CREATURE MORE THAN THE “CREATOR” WHO IS BLESSED FOREVER. AMEN. FOR THIS CAUSE GOD GAVE THEM UP UNTO VILE AFFECTIONS: FOR EVEN THEIR WOMEN DID CHANGE THE NATURAL USE INTO THAT WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE: & LIKEWISE ALSO THE MEN, LEAVING THE NATURAL USE OF THE WOMAN ( AND THAT’S IN MARRIAGE ONLY!!!), BURNED IN THEIR LUST ONE TOWARD ANOTHER; MEN WITH MEN WORKING THAT WHICH IS UNSEEMLY, & RECEIVING IN THEMSELVES THAT RECOMPENCE OF THEIR ERROR WHICH WAS MEET. (OR MET IN ONE’S LOST ESTATE OF SIN & DEATH,SEPARATED FROM HOLY GOD UNTIL THEY OPEN THE HEART’S DOOR & A WILLFUL MIND TO CONFESS THEIR SIN & THEIR NEED OF “THE SAVIOR & LORD” TO BE IN, OVER, & AROUND THEIR EVERY STEP THROUGH THE REMAINING EARTHLY TIME!). VERSE 28,

AND EVEN AS THEY DID NOT LIKE TO RETAIN GOD IN THEIR KNOWLEDGE, GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO A REPROBATE MIND, TO DO THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT CONVENIENT!’

ARE “YOU” ‘OK’ WITH YOUR REPROBATE MIND? OR WOULD YOU HEAR, ACCEPT, & RECEIVE GOD’S “GIFT” OF A “NEW HEART, NEW MIND, & NEW WILL” OUT TO PLEASE THE LORD OF GLORY & MERCY & LOVE? I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH AN OLD HYMN IN THE BROADMAN HYMNAL PUBLISHED IN 1940 BY THE BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, WRITTEN BY FANNY J.CROSBY & W.H.DOANE. IT SAYS: “PASS ME NOT, O GENTLE SAVIOR, HEAR MY HUMBLE CRY; WHILE ON OTHERS YOU ARE CALLING, DO NOT PASS ME BY.

LET ME AT A THRONE OF MERCY FIND A SWEET RELIEF; KNEELING THERE IN DEEP CONTRITION, HELP MY UNBELIEF.

TRUSTING ONLY IN YOUR MERIT, WOULD I SEEK YOUR FACE; HEAL MY WOUNDED, BROKEN SPIRIT, SAVE ME BY YOUR GRACE.

YOU THE “SPRING” OF ALL MY COMFORT, MORE THAN LIFE TO ME, WHOM HAVE I ON EARTH BESIE YOU? WHOM IN HEAVEN BUT YOU?

SAVIOR, SAVIOR, HEAR MY HUMBLE CRY; WHILE ON OTHERS YOU ARE CALLING, (PLEASE) DO NOT PASS ME BY.” COULD THESE WORDS OF A GREAT OLD HYMN STIR YOUR HEART ENOUGH FOR “YOU” TO CRY OUT: “LORD, JESUS, PLEASE, DON’T PASS BY ME! NO MAN ON EARTH NEEDS YOU MORE THAN ME.”

WHY NOT, RIGHT NOW, “RUSH” TO THE THRONE OF CHRIST WHERE HE SITS IN THE SEAT OF MERCY, GRACE, & LOVE, LONG-WAITING ON YOU TO CALL ON HIM!

AMEN?

CHAPTER EIGHT

“MENTAL MISTAKES OF MISGUIDED MEN”

I don’t know how anyone can read Paul’s message in Romans 1 and not understand the “mental mistakes of misguided men”! Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote in Verses 16-26, and Verse 28, the following:

Romans 1:16-26,28 says: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every who believes (or trusts in!); to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (or the African, the Arminian, the European, the American, the South American, the Asian, any man on any continent of the entire world!!);

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith (or “trust”)’. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Because that which may be known of God IS MANIFEST IN THEM; for God shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they (all mankind then and now!) are without excuse: BECAUSE THAT, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations (or ‘speculations’), and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore GOD ALSO GAVE THEM UP to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause GOD GAVE THEM UP unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

Verse 28, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO A REPROBATE MIND, to do those things which are not convenient..”! AND THEY GOT FILLED UP! LOOK AT VERSES 28b-32!

“…and God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

OH!! Then in Romans 2:4-16 Paul tells us about the “captured by Christ” or the “contentious ones opposed to repentance and faith in Christ alone”, saying, “Or do you despise the riches of God’s goodness and forbearance or longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you TO REPENTANCE? But after your hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life:

BUT unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also the Gentile; BUT glory, honor, and peace, to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; BUT glory, honor, and peace to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles; (Every man working good? Honoring, yielded to, surrendered to the King of kings and Lord of lords, being the “temple” in which the eternal Christ dwells to extend His Kingdom, express His love, and prove His power, THROUGH YOU?).

For there is no respect of persons with God. (Although many feel God ought to respect them concerning their “best effort”, even when it has nothing to do with “True Faith”?). For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the DOERS of the law shall be justified.

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

The mental, yes, and the ‘blinded, darkened, unbelieving heart’ explain, expose, and uncover the personal, religious, and, for many, the national indifference to Divine Revelation and Unveiling of the One and Only Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus! BUT, the “captured by Christ” no longer live under the bondage of unbelief, religious pretense, or religious ‘best-effort’ mentality! They accept “crucified with Christ” and “raised up in the newness of His resurrected, reigning ministry”, daily taking the sentence of death to the “old man”, yielding daily to His Indwelling Presence in the “new man”, again, extending His Kingdom, proving His power, and expressing His love, THROUGH THE TRUE, REPENTANT, YIELDED BELIEVER TO HIS EVER ABIDING PRESENCE IN YOU, HIS “NEW TEMPLE”, having repented, and willfully choosing to allow Jesus, yes, to be Himself through you!!!

MERCY is the measure of the very heart of God told to all of fallen humanity, but not all of fallen humanity even know, care, or are out to find God’s mercy – they say,“In our best effort we’re OK”! REALLY? But this is why the Holy Word says, in Hebrews 4:15-16, “For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let US therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, THAT WE MAY OBTAIN MERCY, AND FIND GRACE TO HELP IN TIME OF NEED.”

To be without Christ Jesus, abiding within, ruling and reigning, expressing Himself as “the Light of the world” in you and around you and through you, is willfully choosing to be your own lord, striving to overcome only what is overcome through the blood of the Lamb of God, infecting your world more and more with the radical consequences of a ‘sin-loving’ but ‘religious, empty, self-serving life’, convinced by deceived religious thinkers that “best effort” is all Holy God is concerned about, never considering His “Temple Presence” in true repentant, yielded choice of “Christ in me, for me, through me”, extending His eternal Presence, in the avenue and street of the “born-again believers”, those believers willing to choose death daily to their old self , that His Resurrected Life in you might be, not simply prominent for a world to witness but preeminent in HIS SELF EXPRESSION IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU DAILY!!!

Do YOU really know the “cost of true faith”, the “cost of true religion”, the “cost of true abandonment of the best of fleshly effort”? In Luke 14:25-27 we read, And there went great multitudes with Him: and He turned, and said unto them, “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father; and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whosoever does not bear His cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple.” How clear is that for you?

Christ Jesus comes! Receive Revelation 3:19-22!! “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and him with Me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.”

Christ Jesus comes! And as He comes, through the witness of the Holy Spirit and His awesome Word, He exposes the unrestrained sinfulness of men AND unveils the unrestrained love of God!

Christ Jesus still abides in the repentant heart and trusting mind that says “No” to the world, one’s old sin nature, and even to Satan himself, but true believers say “Yes” to the resurrected, reigning Christ! In 2 Corinthians 1:19-24 Paul enlightens us even more, saying, “For all the promises of God in Christ are ‘yes’, and in Him ‘Amen’, unto the glory of God through repentant, trusting believers;

Who Now He which establishes us with you in Christ, (establish means “makes to stand”), AND ‘anointed’ us is God Himself; who has also ‘sealed us’ and given the earnest of the Spirit (the guarantee, the abiding treasure, the never-ending pledge) of the Spirit in our hearts.

Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith you stand.”

Dare I ask you? Do you believe? Are you trusting in Him, His Word, His ever abiding Presence? Is it by Faith in Him you stand, walk, live, unveiling His Resurrected Presence in your daily journey through life wherever it carries you?

In the old “Broadman Hymnal”, published in 1940 by The Broadman Press of Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “O come, all you faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come you, O come to Bethlehem; Come and behold Him born the King of angels;

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, O sing, all you bright hosts of heaven above; Glory to God, all glory in the highest;

Yes, Lord, we greet You, born this happy morning, Jesus, to You be all glory given; Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;

O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.”

This Easter Sunday! Is it your declaration of submission to His earthly reign through His abiding presence in you? Or do you need to open the door of your heart, maybe for the first time, saying, “Christ, be Jesus in me; No longer me but Thee; Resurrection Power, fill me this hour; Jesus, be Jesus in me”? Can you say right now: “Make ME this day another earthly residence where you reign as King of my heart and life”?

CHAPTER NINE

“VICTIMIZED LIVING OR A VICTORIOUS LIFE?”

The Random House Collegiate Dictionary, Revised Edition, 1975, by Random House, Inc., says ‘victimized’ means, “to make a victim of, to dupe, swindle, or cheat; to slay as or like a sacrificial victim.”

And “victimized living by the masses of unbelievers in Christ’s Blood Atonement” live, yes, like many ‘church folk’, deceived, demeaned, distressed, yes, led astray from the victorious Truth of “crucified with Christ”, and following repentance toward God and a vibrant faith and trust in the Blood Atonement, those of true repentant, trusting minds and hearts are “New Born” by the Holy Spirit into Heaven’s gracious gifting of “everlasting life”!

BUT “Victimized living” is deception accepted from the world around you that easily blinded even Adam and Eve from the ‘flesh’ that deceives you and keeps the door of one’s heart and mind opened to the world, the flesh, and Demonic, Devil-constant temptation, so wanting to keep those doors opened, so one loses sight of the fullness of the blessing of Christ as their deceit, the gift of Satan himself, leading them on in yielding to devilish deceit while professing allegiance to Christ’s revealed Truth! It was John Wesley who once said: “All the works of our evil nature are the work of the devil,” but some ‘professing believers’ live their ‘faith-walk’ consenting, yielding, and for a time enjoying their satanic deception!

It was William Shakespeare, in his writing “Twelfth Night”, (Act 111, sc.4,l.108), who wrote: “What, man! Defy the devil: consider he’s an enemy to mankind.” But far too many keep their doors open to Satanic invitations blinded by his hellish ways!

What was it Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:10-13? “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Yet, many ‘believers’(?) professing Christ have no mature, scriptural understanding that Satan’s aim is to deceive true disciples, seeking, yes, daily, to ruin your witness, your testimony, and your surrender faithfully to Christ’s Lordship, leading YOU down the pathway of his “darkness”!! If you’ve ever read St. Augustine’s “The City of God”, XV, remember, he said: “The Devil often transforms himself into an angel to tempt men, some for their instruction and some for their ruin.” He IS a “master deceiver” out to hold captivity captive under “the wiles of the devil”!

Oh, have you ever read Alexander Brome’s writing called “New Montebank”? Brome wrote: “The devil’s ever kind to his own.” So, there are multitudes of worldly folk who “know the kindness (?) of Satan” as he leads them, deceives them, distracts them from the “true salvation in and through Christ only”, even substituting ‘fleshly best’ for the fullness and fruit of the Holy Spirit! And, dare I say it? Believe I will! “Every temptation of Satan to citizens of God’s world of divine opportunity are temptations DOWNWARD, not to turn you TO God, but away from Him!”

Satan IS “the birther of lies, the author of deception, and the Hollywood-imitator of a sincere ‘religious’ soul”, as he leads you down the pathways of self-indulgence rather than knowing you were crucified with Christ, that your old man, yes, deserved death but Christ Jesus took your old man to Calvary so that no longer he (or YOU) could be manipulated by Satan’s powers of darkness, disbelief, and distraction away from God’s gracious pull on your heart, mind, and spirit. Satan loves, adores, appreciates “falling stars” who were birthed “in Christ”!!

Are YOU aware how Satan so easily sways people, serving them devilish consequences rather than divine rewards? It’s a sad, sad day when one is blinded to his, yes, gentle, calm, but corruptive ways! An old Dutch Proverb said: “Never was hood so holy but the Devil could get his head in it;” and, sadly, far too many ‘religious folk’ are blinded to his occupation in them and around them through their wide-open acceptance of all Christ Jesus died for, Satan wanting to maintain his deceitful and misleading occupation around them, even for some ‘in them’ with his dark presence trying to dim the Light of Christ and His Word!

“Victimized living”? Satan BINDS, Satan BLINDS, he BRUISES, he BELITTLES, he ‘BLESSES’ with his ‘happy, self-satisfying bits and tastes of diseased honey,’ he BETRAYS promising one thing that seems so ‘blissful’ but is BEDABBLED with the ‘paint’ of his satanic artistry, he BEFOULS, he BITTERS every word and every promise of God assuring his enchained that it was God who BOUND them over to Satanic care! Really?

It was Cotton Mather, in his “A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World”, who wrote: “That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from an ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.” WOW!

What about what Shakespeare wrote in “Troilus and Cressida”, (Act 111, sc.4,l.108)? “Sometimes we are devils to ourselves When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency,” no doubt understanding that, yes, true believers can “play-act”, willfully betraying the Christ within to indulge the old crucified life in fleshly, demonic, worldly desires and unfulfilling fantasies that cannot, will not honor the divine within!! Satan’s portrait of a life professing both faith in Christ and a consistency with hell’s intentions is a life that loves being blessed by God, but quietly, privately, indulges darkness not knowing their ‘dance partner’ is Satan himself or one of his assigned demons to ultimately take you down again to his dark domain!

“Victimized living”? Can true believers, at times, be overtaken by spiritual carelessness, even being unconcerned about demonic activity? In 2 Peter 5:6-11, the beloved disciple of Christ wrote: “Humble yourselves therefore 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, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

But the God of all grace, who has called us unto eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. OR “SO BE IT, LORD”, as you daily take the sentence of death daily to your old self that Christ in you, for you, and through you, wages war against Satan for Christ’s honor through you as Christ’s servant, not Satan’s slave!!!

Jessie Brown Pounds wrote a hymn entitled “A Place in the Ranks for Me”, in the old “American Hymnal” of 1933! It says: “Listen! The trumpet of God is sounding, Is sounding from sea to sea; On the field where the brave are falling, There’s a place in the ranks for me.

See, the army of God advances, In strength of His holy might; See the flash of the moving lances, And the glitter of helmets bright.

Like the trumpet of God is sounding, Is sounding for victory; I must go, for the brave are falling, And the Captain has need of me.

There’s a place in the ranks for me! A place in the ranks for me! On the field where the brave are falling, There’s a place in the ranks for me.”

Whether YOU are aware of it or not, Satan is alive, he is active, and he so longs to reinstate demonic bondage! He comes as a thief in the night to steal every rich blessing Christ has promised, given, and will protect if we give Him His rightful place as Lord, Savior, Master, Conqueror over every evil we face including Satan and his demon forces that are just as active today as they were in the days of our Lord and Savior thousands of years ago!

In Luke 22:31-32 the Lord Jesus said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for you that your faith fail not; and when you are converted, strengthen your brothers.”

There is a “strong-arm commander-in-chief” of the forces of darkness, desirous that God’s created world should be a kingdom of darkness, even challenging Jesus as he does us, so desirous of leading us astray from loyalty to our Lord and Savior to a supposedly sanctified life of good AND evil, of the Savior and Satan, and of Heaven’s best and Hell’s imitations! Luke 4:1-13 is an insightful Word of preparation for all believers! It says:

“And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost (Do YOU understand for Christ to be in You is also for YOU to live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit?) returned from Jordan, AND was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto Him, If You be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

And Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And Satan said unto Him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

And the devil, taking Him up into a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, All this power will I give to you and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me (by every birthed man, woman, or child? It doesn’t take long for every birthed baby to instantly ‘cry’ for what they want!); and to whomsoever I will I give it. If You (Jesus) therefore will worship me, all shall be Yours.

And Jesus answered and said unto Satan, Get behind Me, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord God, and Him only shall you serve. [What about YOU? Are YOU still “serving” the world, the old sin-nature, AND Satan? OR are YOU fully submitted to the King of kings and Lord of lords?].

And he brought Jesus to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him, “If You be the Son of God, cast yourself down from here. For it is written, He shall give His angels charge over You, to keep You. And in their hands they shall bear You up, lest at any time You dash Your foot against a stone.” And Jesus answering said, “It is said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” And when the devil had ended all temptations, he departed from Him for a season.

How illumined are you in your mind, your spirit, and your walk, as YOU LEARN that YOU are a prime target of Satan, understanding he’s out to turn YOU away from ALL JESUS IS for you, in you, through you, substituting fleshly failure for full obedience, or momentary pleasures for eternal obedience, or “ONLY ONE LITTLE FALLING AWAY”, when the demonic activity can be fatal to faith, obedience, and love of the Savior, because obedience to Satan introduces again that fatal darkness?

Again, receive Peter’s incisive, illumining, liberating words! 1 Peter 5:6-11 we read: “Humble yourselves therefore 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, (serious minded!), be vigilant; because YOUR adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brothers (of faith) that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”

I have to share Shakespeare’s words in “Comedy of Errors”, (Act IV, sc.3,l.65), “He must have a long spoon that shall eat with the devil.” Oh, and Martin Luther’s words in “Table Talk”? Satan has two manner of shapes, as he disguises himself: the shape of a serpent, to affright and kill; or else in the form of a silly sheep, to lie and deceive; these are his two court colors.”

Satan IS the world’s principle author and boastful egotist as he lies about himself, lays traps for all, ‘hires’ the brain-dead, the self-fulfillers, and the ‘flesh –world’, bound by his chains of darkness, immorality, and self-pleasure in sensual fulfillment that ‘smells’, self-idolatry that ‘binds’ and ‘ruins’ even some ‘professors’ of religious faith! In his writing, “Handbook of Proverbs”, Henry George Bohn wrote: “The Devil entangles youth with beauty, the miser with gold, the ambitious with power, the learned with false doctrine.” Is it possible that you, a ‘professor of faith in Christ’, having been blinded to victory over Satan because, for you, his ‘poisonous delights, worldly pleasures, and self-indulging, was just too delightful to turn from, that you refused “Christ’s knock”, and kept on being deceived in “Satan’s lock” though broken by Christ Jesus on the Cross, through the Cross, for the glory of His Name, not Satan’s fame?

What was it Elizabeth Barrett Browning said in “Aurora Leigh”? “The devil’s most devilish when respectable.” Are you still “respecting” Satan as he leads you joyfully in his deceits and lies and imitation-spiritual-skills? There IS a hell to gain and a heaven to lose if you choose to play with him on his terms, willfully choosing to shut God’s door to His never-ending, freeing, yes, emancipating, liberating, disengaging ministry of, yes, His victory and conquest over Satan’s devilish, demeaning, destructive, disuniting activity, but you ‘think’ it’s OK to ‘play’ around with Satan and his army, like children with their birthday play-toys, but Satan is not a ‘play-toy’ – he’s an enemy of God, of the Holy Spirit, of Christ Jesus, including the ‘church’ Christ Jesus births and keeps on birthing! Satan ‘loves’ to disguise himself and his hellish co-laborers called ‘demons’ because he’s out to literally crucify Christ but to nail His ‘children of faith’ to the same cross of cruel suffering!

But Jesus Christ IS our “more than conqueror” – He’s our Victorious Liberator over sin, over Satan, over death itself! William F. Sherwin wrote the song, “Sound the Battle Cry” found in The American Hymnal of 1933! It says:

Sound the battle cry! See, the foe is nigh; Raise the standard high For the Lord; Gird your armor on, Stand firm, every one; Rest your cause upon His holy word.

Strong to meet the foe, Marching on we go, While our cause we know, must prevail; Shield and banner bright, Gleaming in the light; Battling for the right We never can fail.

O! You God of all, Hear us when we call, help us one and all by Your grace; When the battle’s done, And the victory’s won, May we wear the crown Before Your face.

Rouse, then soldiers, rally round the banner, Ready, steady, pass the word along: Onward, forward, shout a loud Hosanna! Christ is Captain of the mighty throng.”

Are YOU strong in the grace of God? AND – Are YOU “a soldier of the Cross of Christ, yes, His spiritual army fighting the good fight of faith, and knowing your field of spiritual warfare,ready to daily show up warring against Christ’s enemies in the spiritual realm with the armor of the Word and the lead of the Holy Spirit ? Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:3-15 the following words of encouragement saying,

“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier. And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer must be first to partake of the crops. Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This IS a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. (So, Paul warns “the wages of sin IS death”, even if you’re a consenting disciple in sinful participation!).

Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Were YOU crucified with Christ? Have YOU repented and turned from your sin nature and its practices? Were you “enlisted” by the Spirit as a soldier in the Lord’s spiritual army? Tell me: Just how faithful does your heavenly report card reveal about your honorable walk as representative of the King of kings and Lord of lords? Are YOU “duty-ready”, having died with Christ, raised by the Holy Spirit, equipped by the Word and the Spirit, and, yes, daily fighting the good fight of faith in uplifting Him, honoring Him and His Word, His purpose for your life, and His desire to use YOU to free “the prisoners of sin, of Satan, of a dark world”, igniting in YOU the Light of His Glory?

CHAPTER TEN

“SPIRITUAL INSANITY OR SPIRITUAL REALITY?”

In Proverbs 16:9 we find man’s deceptive insanity and God’s eternal Truth. It says: “A man’s heart devises his way; but the Lord directs his steps.”

You do understand that there is eternal difference between self-educated men and men who “rest” in the revelation of the Word of God!?!

In Jeremiah 9:23-24 we read, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord.” Is Holy God “delighted” in your ‘self-allegiance’ over “trusting and resting in the finished work of Christ at Calvary’s Cross and the Empty Tomb”, more delighted in self-determination than the Savior’s declaration and Heaven’s determination of Christ’s “blood sacrifice” over fallen humanity’s “best effort”??

Are you aware of how deep, wide, and broad spiritual insanity is in a large number of mankind’s deceived minds and hearts as to Biblical Truth? The wise man, again in Proverbs 9:10, wrote, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Really? ‘The fear of the Lord?’ Many say without embarrassment, “I don’t fear God – I adore Him”, while they live in spiritual insanity doing as they ‘fleshly please’, unaware of spiritual consequences for their ‘religious, fleshly, worldly indulgences with no guilt, embarrassment, or conviction’ about the “holy life within” as they profess to follow while recklessly hold on to their ‘spiritual profession’, with no “fear of the Lord in hating evil”! (Proverbs 8:13).

I absolutely love the words of Proverbs 10:30 where the “wise man” wrote, “The righteous shall never be removed; but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.” Are you truly aware that God has an eternal plan of His Kingdom on earth being eternally established? I grew up in a church who sang regularly, faithfully, and in full conviction, “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen, Amen!” Righteous never removed, but the wicked not inhabiting? The righteous never removed from the earth, (because Christ’s Kingdom is established in their hearts, while unbelievers ‘choose’ the world’s, the flesh’s, the devil’s eternal kingdom of separation from God and His chosen people?).

Joseph Parker once wrote (The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Company, p.183), “Have no fear for the unsettlement or the disturbance of the Kingdom of heaven. It began in eternity, it will go on through everlasting; there is no panic in the divine personality. God IS peace, God gives peace, God gives rest.”

You do understand that there are kingdoms of self-centered men and self-centered, worldly establishments, that want a “fleshly paradise”, but only God’s Kingdom on earth becomes faithfully His “Paradise”!

I don’t know who wrote it, but I remember growing up singing in my “home church” the hymn that says: “His kingdom is coming: Oh, tell me the story! God’s banner exalted shall be; The earth shall be filled with His wonder and glory, As waters that cover the sea.”

The heart, mind, will, purpose of God is that your earthly life would become, by repentance and by redemptive faith, God’s eternal Paradise on earth, yes, eternally! Your eternal life “in Christ” is His eternal Kingdom being established on, in earth, as it is in Heaven? “In Christ” one is through Him bringing Heaven to earth with His ever, abiding Presence??!!

It was Phillips Brooks who once wrote: “Be such a man, and live such a life, That if every man were such as you, And every man a life like yours, This earth would be God’s Paradise.” Is your life an extension, expression, an interpretation of God’s Paradise?

Do you remember the Lord teaching His new disciples to pray in Matthew 6:7-13? Christ Jesus said: “But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not you therefore like unto them: for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.

After this manner therefore pray: ‘Our Father Who Is In Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil; for Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” The kingdom, the power, the glory forever? On earth? Several Truths You Must “Rest in”!!

FIRST, CHRIST ONLY IS YOUR EVERLASTING PROMISE OF A BLESSED LIFE! How necessary is the prophetic Word to your life in Christ?!? In Jeremiah 17:5-7 we read, “Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.”

In the old “Broadman Hymnal” of 1940, is a hymn written by Edward Mote and William Bradbury that says: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the vale. His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, Oh, may I then in Him be found; Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before His throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.” Your life on the Solid Rock of Christ or is it on ‘sinking sand’?

SECOND, CHRIST ONLY IS YOUR SOVEREIGN HEAD! In Colossians 2:9-10 the Holy Word tells us: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are COMPLETE IN HIM, which is the head of all principality and power…”!.

But YOU are simply satisfied with God’s forgiveness through Christ, but unavailable to prove His love, express His power, and extend HIS KINGDOM, because, forgiven, you’re now thankful you can continue in the life of yours that He carried with Him to the Cross, so you hold onto ‘self’ as your sovereign ruler? Where is that in the Word of God?

Is your spiritual walk paths you interpret for yourself or do you “live” by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God? In Matthew 4:4 we read, “But Jesus answered and said, ‘It is written, Man shall not LIVE by physical bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

THIRD, CHRIST ONLY IS YOUR ETERNAL HEART! In Proverbs 28:26 we read, “He that trusts in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walks wisely, he shall be delivered.” We know the Word is so clear and convicting and convincing when we read in Verse 13, “He that covers his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.”

Merit-minded men, intent on doing their own thing, even religiously, while still thinking they can’t do anything but sin even as a disciple of Christ, are men void of understanding of “Christ in you your only hope of glory.” In Romans 5 and 6 we learn that the grace of God is not fleshly grease allowing men to slide into heaven in their earthly, fleshly, demonic and satanic leanings, but the grace of God birthing “new lives” in and through the eternal heart of the crucified but resurrected Christ reigning NOW in His eternal spiritual Kingdom! Romans 5:1 2 tells us, “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 REJOICE IN HOPE OF THE GLORY OF GOD.” And Romans 5:10? “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be (being) saved by His (resurrected, reigning) life.” GLORY!!

Oh, but glory in God even more because in Romans 6:17-18 we also are trained, informed, inspired, and, yes, amazed at our calling! “But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was (and presently IS) delivered to you. Being then MADE FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME THE SERVANTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

And understanding that “Christ only IS your eternal heart”, you daily take the sentence of death to the “old self” that the resurrection life of Christ may literally, daily, be yielded to His Indwelling Presence!

FOURTH, CHRIST ONLY IS OUR STRONG HELP! I don’t know how any ‘believer’ can read Psalm 42 and not rejoice in continual Hallelujahs! David wrote, Psalm 42:5, 8, and 11, the following words: Psalm 42:5, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

Verse 8, Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

Verse 11, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” Dare I ask? “How is the health of your countenance?” “IS CHRIST ONLY YOUR STRONG HELP?”

FIFTH, CHRIST ONLY IS THE HERALD OF LIFE’S BLESSING! Christ-less-ness is a curse, but “in Christ” is eternal blessing. Didn’t Jesus say, John 10:10, “I am come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly”?

How about “the river of God’s abundant pleasures”, Psalm 36:8? Or, beyond abundant life and pleasure, how about “the bank of God’s abundant grace”, 2 Corinthians 2:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that YOU, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work,” OR, “the reservoir of God’s abundant power, His ample supply, and His amazing entrance into His eternal Kingdom?

Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us”? OR,

The open door to amazing supplies that never run dry? Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply all you need according to His riches in glory by or in Christ Jesus”?

OR, His abundant entrance? 2 Peter 1:11, “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

SIXTH, CHRIST ONLY IS OUR PERPETUAL HAPPINESS AND JOY! Oh, how clear is Nehemiah 8:10? “The joy of the Lord is your strength”? Or Psalm 16:11? “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures for evermore.”

Do YOU walk in perpetual happiness and joy? Do YOU walk in a state of ‘fleshly bliss’ or “Sovereign Blessing”? Is it ‘happiness attained in the best of human effort’ or is it the “Holy Estate of Heavenly Presence in the repentant rest of true Biblical Faith” that reveals Christ in you as your hope of glory?

Examine carefully Romans 4:1-5! “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh has found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he has whereof to glory: BUT NOT BEFORE GOD. For what does the Holy Scriptures tell us?

Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto Him for righteousness. Now to him that works at it is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt? But to him that works not, but believes in, trusts in, relies upon, Him that JUSTIFIES the ungodly, that one’s faith is counted for righteousness.” That, my friend, is “Amazing Grace”!!

SEVENTH, CHRIST IN YOU IS THE ONLY DOOR INTO LIVING IN, BY, FOR THE GLORY OF GOD’S ABIDING PRESENCE! Follow carefully Colossians 2:6-10 and then Colossians 1:19-29!

Colossians 2:6-10 says, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.: Rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are COMPLETE IN CHRIST.” What IS that “completeness in Christ”? Colossians 1:19-29 is so inspired, so informative, so liberating. It says:

“For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell; And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

And you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight:

If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not removed from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God;

Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; WHICH IS ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labor, striving according to His working, which works in me mightily.” IS JESUS AT WORK IN YOU MIGHTILY?

EIGHTH, BECAUSE OF THE BIBLICAL FOUNDATION OF YOUR ONENESS IN CHRIST, IS THE HISTORY OF YOUR ONENESS IN CHRIST THE RECOGNITION OF HISTORICALLY, PERSONALLY, INSPIRATIONALLY, DAILY CHOOSING DEATH TO YOUR OLD SELF SO THAT CHRIST IN YOUR NEW-BORN HEART IS ABLE TO EXTEND HIS LIFE, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, AND THROUGH YOU PROVE HIS POWER, TOUCHING THE WORLD THROUGH YOU WITH HIS NEVER-ENDING PRESENCE?

This walk in redemptive faith is not ‘trying’ but “trusting”, not ‘attempting’ but “allowing Him to be Himself in you and through you”, not ‘determining’ rationally what you choose to do as a disciple of Christ, but “depending upon Christ in you, Christ through you, Christ for you touching your world around you with His atoning power and amazing purpose!

For YOU, what is it? Spiritual insanity in “the best of human effort”, or is it the “spiritual reality of the new-born Life in Christ”? You do have a choice! “Choose you this day whom you will serve”, making yourself available to His Resurrected Presence! Amen?

I’ve paraphrased the old hymn “Saviour, Again” found in the old hymnal of Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, (1940). It says: “Savior, again to Your dear name we raise With one accord our parting hymn of praise; Once more we bless You ere our worship cease, Then, lowly kneeling, wait Your word of peace. (Is that “welcome to the Throne of Christ as your, truly, Lord and Savior”?).

A cloud of witnesses around Hold you in full survey; Forget the steps already trod, And onward urge God’s way, And onward urge God’s way.

It’s God’s all animating voice That calls you from on high; It’s His own hand presents the prize To your aspiring eye, To your aspiring eye.

Blest Savior, introduced by God, Have I my race begun; And, crowned with victory, (eternally!), at Your feet I’ll lay my honors down, I’ll lay my honors down.”

Examine Matthew 25:31-46! The day is coming when the King of glory, the Son of man, shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He shall sit upon the throne of His glory:

And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, (That’s the King of Heaven AND Earth!!): Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was hungered, and you gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me.

Then shall the righteous (the sheep but not the goats!) answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you hungry, and fed you? Or thirsty, and gave you drink? When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came unto you? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these me brethren, you have done it unto me.

Then shall he say unto them on the left hand (the goats), Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; For I was hungry, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto you? Then Jesus answered them, saying, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”

Dare I ask? “Where are YOU headed? In whom or what have YOU “rested”? Finished with your old sin nature or finalized forever through repentance and faith in Him alone, “complete in Christ lacking nothing”?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE?”

ARE YOU AWARE OF THE ‘LESS AND LESS’ OF FALLEN HUMANITY WITHOUT FULL, SERIOUS, COMPLETE EXAMINATION OF GOD’S “MORE AND MORE”? THE ONE THING THE WORD OF GOD DECLARES WITHOUT WAVERING IS FOUND IN JOSHUA 24:15 WHEN JOSHUA SAID: “And if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you shall serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorities, in whose land you dwell; BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.”

In Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, Moses declared, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; choose life, that both you and your seed may live (and that’s in the Abiding Presence of Christ, before the Throne of God, filled with the Holy Spirit who birthed your life through true repentance and faith!), that both you and your seed may live; That you (and yours!) may love the Lord your God, AND that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto Him (Is that “holding fast?), for He is your life, and the length of your earthly days…!” But! Look at the “Christ-less life” as it chooses ‘self’ over the “Savior”, ‘sin’ over the “Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”, ‘worldly pleasure, wandering from God pursuits’ over the Lord’s freedom-gift of “His Eternal Life & Presence”!

“LESS & LESS?” IN JOB 2:7-10 WE READ, “SO WENT SATAN FORTH FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD, SMOTE JOB WITH SORE BOILS FROM THE SOLE OF HIS FOOT UNTO THE CROWN. AND HE TOOK WITH HIM A POTSHARD TO SCRAPE HIMSELF ALL OVER; AND HE SAT DOWN WITH THE ASHES.

THEN SAID HIS WIFE UNTO HIM, “DO YOU STILL RETAIN YOUR INTEGRITY? CURSE GOD AND DIE.” BUT JOB SAID TO HIS WIFE, “YOU SPEAK AS ONE OF THE FOOLISH WOMEN SPEAKS. WHAT? SHALL WE RECEIVE GOOD AT THE HAND OF THE GOD, AND SHALL WE NOT RECEIVE EVIL? IN ALL THIS JOB DID NOT SIN WITH HIS LIPS.

“LESS &LESS OR MORE &MORE?” IN JOB 19:23-27 ARE FOUND MORE INSPIRING WORDS ABOUT THE “LESS & LESS OR THE MORE & MORE”: JOB SAID, “OH THAT MY WORDS WERE NOW WRITTEN! OH THAT THEY WERE PRINTED IN A BOOK! THAT THEY WERE GRAVEN WITH AN IRON PEN AND LEAD IN THE ROCK FOR EVER!

FOR I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES, AND THAT HE SHALL STAND AT THE LATTER DAY UPON THE EARTH; (AND KEEP ON STANDING THERE?): AND THOUGH AFTER MY SKIN WORMS DESTROY MY BODY, YET IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD.”

“LESS & LESS?” MANKIND WAS BIRTHED BY GOD IN HUMAN FORM, YES, WITH THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE! ADAM’S NATURE OR GOD’S NATURE? FLESH OR SPIRIT? WRONG OR RIGHT OR WRONG MINGLED IN WITH A TASTE OF RIGHT? SELF-EMPTINESS OR SOVEREIGN FULLNESS? A HELLISH, DEVILISH, DEMONIC WORLD’S BEST OR: “HEAVEN CAME DOWN AND GLORY FILLED YOUR SOUL”?

A GREAT OLD HYMN OF THE 1940’S IN THE OLD BROADMAN HYMNAL (P.357) SAYS: “ARE YOU TIRED OF THE LIFE YOU’RE NOW LIVING? ARE YOU WEARY OF SIN AND ITS SNARES? ARE YOU SEEKING FOR THAT WHICH IS LASTING? LOOK TO JESUS; YOU’LL FIND THAT HE CARES.

ARE YOU LONGING TO KNOW HIS FORGIVENESS? DO YOU YEARN TO BE FREE FROM ALL SIN? DOES YOUR LONELY HEART LEAP WHEN YOU WITNESS GOD’S WONDERFUL LOVE FOR ALL MEN?

LOOK TO JESUS THE BLESSED REDEEMER, GIVE YOUR HEART, AND YOUR ALL TO THE LORD; TO HIS OPEN ARMS RUN FOR SALVATION, HE HAS PROMISED IT ALL IN HIS WORD.

HE IS WATCHING, HE IS WAITING, HE IS LONGING YOUR SOUL TO SET FREE; WEARY ONE, GIVE YOUR HEART TO THE SAVIOR, LIVE WITH HIM THROUGH ALL ETERNITY.”

DO YOU KNOW, DO YOU UNDERSTAND, DO YOU COMPREHEND, THAT LIFE AFTER DEATH IS EITHER HELL OR HEAVEN, CONTINUING ‘FLESH-BONDAGE UNDER SATAN’S CONTROL’ OR “ETERNAL FREEDOM FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH”, BECAUSE YOU ARE, WERE, WILL NOW FOREVER BE FREE FROM THAT LAW OF SIN AND DEATH BECAUSE OF THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD? LIFE NOW & LIFE AFTER DEATH IS EITHER ‘FLESH’ OR SPIRIT, HUMAN NATURE OR DIVINE NATURE FOREVER FLOWING THROUGH YOUR VEINS, MIND, AND HEART, WRONG NATURE OR RIGHT NATURE, SELF-EMPTINESS OR SOVEREIGN FULLNESS. AND YOU? YOUR ALL IN ALL OR CHRIST IN YOU YOUR ONLY HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE, ETERNAL BLESSING, ETERNAL PRESENCE, YES, ETERNAL BEFORE THE THRONE OF CHRIST JESUS WILLING TO DAILY BE HIS “FOOT-WASHER”?!!!?

AGAIN, IN JOSHUA 24:25-28, WE FIND POWERFULLY CONVICTING WORDS: “SO JOSHUA MADE A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE THAT DAY, AND SET THEM A STATUTE AND AN ORDINANCE IN SHECHEM. AND JOSHUA WROTE THESE WORDS IN “THE BOOK OF THE LAW OF GOD”, AND TOOK A GREAT STONE, AND SET IT UP THERE UNDER AN OAK, THAT WAS BY THE SANCTUARY OF THE LORD. SO JOSHUA SAID UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, BEHOLD, THIS STONE SHALL BE A WITNESS UNTO US; FOR IT HAS HEARD ALL THE WORDS OF THE LORD WHICH HE SPOKE UNTO US; IT SHALL BE THEREFORE A WITNESS UNTO YOU, UNLESS YOU DENY YOUR GOD. SO JOSHUA LET THE PEOPLE DEPART, EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE.”

“EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE”?“THIS STONE A WITNESS UNTO YOU”? GOD’S WORD CUT INTO A LARGE NATURAL STONE WRITTEN FOR MEN TO READ? AND YOUR INHERITANCE? SOME READ, SOME TRUSTED, SOME OBEYED, AND EXTENDED THE KINGDOM OF GOD THEN! BUT DO YOU KNOW GOD DECLARES IN HIS WORDS THE “NEW STONE” FOR MEN TO READ? IN LUKE 20:9-13 JESUS TELLS US ABOUT A MAN PLANTING A VINEYARD:

THEN BEGAN JESUS TO SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE THIS PARABLE: “A CERTAIN MAN PLANTED A VINEYARD, AND LET IT FORTH TO HUSBAND-MEN, AND WENT FORTH INTO A FAR COUNTRY FOR A LONG TIME. AND AT THE SEASON HE SENT A SERVANT TO HIS HUSBANDMEN, AND WENT INTO A FAR COUNTRY FOR A LONG TIME.

AND AT THE SEASON HE SENT A SERVANT TO THE HUSBANDMEN, THAT THEY SHOULD GIVE HIM OF THE FRUIT OF THE VINEYARD; BUT THE HUSBANDMEN BEAT HIM, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY. AND AGAIN HE SENT ANOTHER SERVANT; AND THEY BEAT HIM ALSO, AND ENTREATED HIM SHAMEFULLY, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY.

AND AGAIN HE SENT ANOTHER SERVANT; AND THEY BEAT HIM ALSO, AND ENTREATED HIM SHAMEFULLY, AND SENT HIM AWAY EMPTY. AND AGAIN HE SENT A THIRD; AND THEY WOUNDED HIM ALSO, AND CAST HIM OUT. THEN SAID THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD, WHAT SHALL I DO? I WILL SEND MY BELOVED SON; IT MAY BE THEY WILL REVERENCE HIM WHEN THEY SEE HIM.” DARE I ASK? WHO IS THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD? THAT’S ALMIGHTY, HOLY, PASSIONATE GOD OVERSEEING HIS WORLD OF LOST MANKIND, DEAD-FRUIT, WILLFUL SINNERS – AND BECAUSE HE’S THE GOD OF LOVE, MERCY, AND GRACE, WITH A FORGIVING HEART, HE SENDS HIS OWN SON TO BE THE SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN, THE SAVIOR FROM YOUR MISGUIDED, DECEIVED, SIN-BOUND, SATANIC-CONTROLLED MIND, BLACKENED HEART, AND A WORLDLY PERCEPTION AND DETERMINATION TO DO AS “FLESH, THE WORLD AROUND YOU, AND SATAN PROGRAMS YOU INTO!!!”

SATAN’S INTENT? SATAN’S INITIATIVE? DESTROY THE HEIRS OF FAITH! DESTROY THEIR SAVIOR AND LORD! DESTROY THE HOPE OF ETERNAL PURPOSE, OF HEAVENLY PLEASURE, OF THE PEACE OF GOD WHICH PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING, BUT OVERFLOWS YOUR MIND AND HEART WITH THE REALITY OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION-PRESENCE!! DESTROY ANY HOPE OF AN OVERCOMING LIFE OF THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, OR SATAN AND DEMONIC PRESENCE AND ACTIVITY! SATAN SAYS, “YOU’RE MINE TO DO IN YOUR FLESH WHAT HELL INTENDS, NOT HEAVEN OR WHAT A SO-CALLED ‘LORD AND SAVIOR’ SAYS!”

DARE I SAY IT? I BELIEVE I WILL! “YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE UNDER THE CLOUD OF SATANIC DECEPTION ANY LONGER!!” THERE IS THE REALITY, THE ETERNAL TRUTH, THE BLESSED ASSURANCE, THAT IN CHRIST JESUS YOU CAN BE “MORE THAN A CONQUEROR” OVER THE WORLD-SPIRIT, OVER THE SIN-NATURE DISEASE, AND THE ‘DIS-EASE’ OF WORLDLINESS, OF A SIN-BOUND MIND AND HEART, AND SATANIC-PRETENSE!

IN ROMANS 8:8-14 WE READ, “SO THEN THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD. BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD, BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. (IF THE SPIRIT IS LIFE IN YOU BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, DOES THAT MEAN AS A NEW, TRUE BELIEVER IT’S “OK!” IF I SIN NOW AND THEN AS I PLEASE?).

BUT IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM THAT RAISED UP JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELL IN YOU, HE THAT RAISED UP CHRIST FROM THE DEAD SHALL ALSO QUICKEN (MAKE ALIVE HIMSELF IN YOU!) YOUR MORTAL BODIES BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU. THEREFORE, BRETHREN, WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH (YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!), TO LIVE AFTER THE FLESH.

FOR IF YOU LIVE AFTER THE FLESH, YOU SHALL DIE; BUT IF YOU THROUGH THE SPIRIT DO MORTIFY THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU SHALL LIVE. FOR AS MANY AS ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD.”

LESS & LESS OR MORE & MORE? IT IS A CHOICE YOU MAKE! “BEST EFFORT OR SOVEREIGN BLESSING?” THE INTELLECTUAL MIND-SET OF SELF-DETERMINATION OR THE HEART AND MIND WASHED CLEAN THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD BY THE CONVICTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE BIRTH IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN GUIDING YOU INTO THE REALITY OF THE GIFT OF ABIDING TRUTH, EVEN CHRIST JESUS EXPRESSING HIMSELF IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE AGAINST SATAN AND HIS DEMON FORCES THROUGH YOU AS YOU REJOICE WITNESSING JESUS BEING JESUS, SAVIOR AND LORD, AND KING AND SOVEREIGN OVER SATAN, YOUR OLD WORLD ALLEGIANCE, AND YOUR WARPED, GODLESS ALLEGIANCE TO YOUR “CHURCH” THAT MOSTLY ‘PRETENDS’, EVEN UPSET IF YOU ASSERT LOYALTY TO THE INDWELLING CHRIST BUT NOT LOYALTY TO THEIR ‘CHURCH OF IMITATION’!

IN REVELATION 7:9-17 WE READ ABOUT THE “SEALED SERVANTS OF GOD’’! “AFTER THIS I BEHELD, AND, LO, A GREAT MULTITUDE, WHICH NO MAN COULD NUMBER, OF ALL NATIONS, AND KINDREDS, AND PEOPLE, AND TONGUES, STOOD BEFORE THE THRONE, AND BEFORE THE LAMB, CLOTHED WITH WHITE ROBES, AND PALMS IN THEIR HANDS;

AND CRIED WITH A LOUD VOICE, SAYING, SALVATION TO OUR GOD WHO SITS UPON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB. AND ALL THE ANGELS STOOD ROUND ABOUT THE THRONE, AND ABOUT THE ELDERS AND THE FOUR BEASTS, AND FELL BEFORE THE THRONE ON THEIR FACES, AND WORSHIPPED GOD. SAYING, AMEN: BLESSING, AND GLORY, AND WISDOM, AND THANKSGIVING, AND HONOR, AND POWER, AND MIGHT, BE UNTO OUR GOD FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN. AND ONE OF THE ELDERS ANSWERED, SAYING UNTO ME, WHAT ARE THESE WHICH ARE ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES? AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

AND I SAID UNTO HIM, SIR, YOU KNOW. AND HE SAID TO ME, THESE ARE THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION, AND HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES, AND MADE THEM WHITE IN & THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB. THEREFORE ARE THEY BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD, AND SERVE HIM DAY AND NIGHT IN HIS TEMPLE: AND HE THAT SITS ON THE THRONE SHALL DWELL AMONG THEM.

THEY SHALL HUNGER NO MORE, NEITHER THIRST ANY MORE; NEITHER SHALL THE SUN LIGHT ON THEM, NOR ANY HEAT. FOR THE LAMB WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OF THE THRONE SHALL FEED THEM, AND SHALL LEAD THEM UNTO LIVING FOUNTAINS OF WATERS; AND GOD SHALL WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM THEIR LIVES.”

“LESS AND LESS OR MORE AND MORE?” DO YOU WALK ‘LESS AND LESS’ IN WILLFUL CONDEMNATION AND SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS BECAUSE YOU’VE ASSURED YOURSELF THAT HOLY GOD WILL BE PLEASED WITH YOUR “BEST EFFORT” OR THAT YOU “JOINED A CHURCH” OR THAT YOU ‘TRY HARD TO DO THE RIGHT THING’?

PLEASE COME WITH ME TO ROMANS 8 EXAMINING CAREFULLY VERSES 1-10! “THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THEM WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH (THAT MEANS “STILL IN LOVE WITH YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!”), BUT YOU WALK IN AND AFTER THE HOLY SPIRIT. FOR THE LAW OF “THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS” HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH. FOR WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO, IN THAT IT WAS WEAK THROUGH THE FLESH, GOD SENDING HIS OWN SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH, AND FOR SIN, CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH ( THE FLESH? IS THAT THE OLD MAN BIRTHED INTO PHYSICAL LIFE WITH THE CHOICE OF SELF-ALLEGIANCE OR THE CHOICE OF THE NEED OF GOD IN THEM?);

THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE ‘FLESH’ (OR ALLEGIANCE AND DEVOTION IN SATISFYING THE CONDEMNED ‘SIN NATURE’!), BUT THEY WALK AFTER, IN, BY, GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE FLESH DO MIND (ATTEND TO) THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. FOR TO BE CARNALLY MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE. BECAUSE THE CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD; FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE. SO THEN THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD. BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS CHILDREN. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD, BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

FROM THE “BREAKFRONT DAILY” FROM THE COLSON CENTER, THERE WAS A WRITING ON “ACADEMIC AND CORPORATE ‘WOKENESS’: THE REAL THREAT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.” (IT WAS RECORDED BY JOHN STONESTREET WITH ROBERTA RIVERA.) IN IT THEY WROTE THE FOLLOWING: (A PORTION ONLY!) “THE SOUND YOU HEAR IS DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS SLAMMING SHUT EVERYWHERE. BASICALLY, ANY ORGANIZATION THAT RUNS AFOUL OF THE NEW SEXUAL ORTHODOXY THAT’S DRIVING THIS NEW POLICY WILL FIND IT MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO RECRUIT YALE LAW SCHOOL GRADS; AND THOSE GRADS WHOSE MOTIVATIONS RUN TOWARD NON-PROFIT OR PUBLIC SERVICE WILL FIND THEIR CHOICES SIGNIFICANTLY NARROWED.

YALES’ BLATANT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE WITH TRADITIONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IS AN IMPORTANT REMINDER OF WHERE THE GREATEST CHALLENGE TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CURRENTLY LIES IN OUR CULTURE. AS DAVID FRENCH WROTE AT NATIONAL REVIEW, ONE OF ‘THE PRIME SOURCES OF [CULTURE WAR] CONFLICT IS THE INCREASING TENDENCY TO USE THE FINANCIAL AND CULTURAL POWER OF PROGRESSIVE INSTITUTIONS TO FORCE SOCIAL CHANGE REGARDLESS OF THE UNDERLYING MISSION OF THE INSTITUTION.”

AND I SAY TO YOU, “UNLESS THERE IS A SECOND, A THIRD, A FORTH, A FIFTH, “GREAT AWAKENING”, MAYBE EVEN MORE, OUR NATION WILL BECOME MORE AND MORE, MAYBE, FINANCIALLY RICHER, BUT PROBABLY BARREN OF THE LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY OF HOLY GOD! SHUT THE DOOR ON GOD? AND HE’LL SHUT THE DOOR ON YOU!!” BUT, IN JOHN 7:37, JESUS SAID, “IF ANYONE THIRSTS (FOR GOD?), LET HIM COME TO ME AND DRINK.”(NKJV EDITION).

LET ME SHARE THIS MESSAGE FROM PSALM 97 EXALTING THE MAJESTY OF GOD’S REIGN IN THE HUMAN HEART ADVANCING HIS KINGDOM THROUGH THEM: “THE LORD REIGNS: LET THE MULTITUDE OF ISLES BE GLAD THEREOF (BECAUSE OF IT!). CLOUDS AND DARKNESS ARE ROUND ABOUT HIM: RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUDGMENT ARE THE HABITATION OF HIS THRONE.

A FIRE GOES BEFORE HIM, AND BURNS UP HIS ENEMIES ROUND ABOUT. HIS LIGHTNINGS ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD: THE EARTH SAW, AND TREMBLED. THE HILLS MELTED LIKE WAX AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD OF THE WHOLE EARTH. THE HEAVENS DECLARE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ALL THE PEOPLE SEE HIS GLORY. CONFOUNDED BE ALL THEY THAT SERVE GRAVEN IMAGES, THAT BOAST THEMSELVES OF IDOLS: WORSHIP HIM, ALL YOU GODS.

ZION HEARD, AND WAS GLAD; AND THE DAUGHTERS OF JUDAH REJOICED BECAUSE OF YOUR JUDGMENTS, O LORD. FOR YOU, LORD, ARE HIGH ABOVE ALL THE EARTH: YOU ARE EXALTED FAR ABOVE ALL GODS. YOU THAT LOVE THE LORD, HATE EVIL; HE PRESERVES THE SOULS OF HIS SAINTS (THE “SET-APART ONES”?); HE DELIVERS THEM OUT OF THE HAND OF THE WICKED. LIGHT IS SOWN FOR THE RIGHTEOUS, AND GLADNESS FOR THE UPRIGHT IN HEART. REJOICE IN THE LORD, YOU RIGHTEOUS ONES; AND GIVE THANKS AT THE REMEMBRANCE OF HIS HOLINESS.” WHEN I COME TO HEBREWS 9:14, I REJOICE IN THE “HALLELUJAH TRUTH”! “HOW MUCH MORE SHALL THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, WHO THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT OFFERED HIMSELF WITHOUT SPOT TO GOD (JESUS WAS YOUR SIN OFFERING!!), PURGING YOUR CONSCIENCE FROM ‘DEAD WORKS’ TO SERVE THE LIVING GOD.”

ARE “YOU” RE-BORN? HAVE YOU BEEN TRANSFORMED FROM A CHILD OF DARKNESS TO THE CHILD OF ETERNAL LIGHT BECAUSE OF YOUR REPENTANCE, YOUR SAVING FAITH, AND YOUR DESIRE TO DAILY HONOR HIM WHEREVER YOU GO AND IN WHATEVER YOU DO? HEAR ME! CHRIST JESUS “IS” RESURRECTION PRESENCE, RESURRECTION POWER, RESURRECTION PRIVILEGE, ARRIVING, ABIDING, ASKING, EVEN PLEADING: “OPEN YOUR HEART’S DOOR, AND I WILL COME IN.”

CHRIST BLED – SO HE PLEADS, HE KNOCKS ON YOUR HEARTS’ DOORS, COMPASSIONATELY SAYING, “SIN NO LONGER IS TO BE YOUR MASTER ANYMORE. MY BLOOD I’VE SHED, YOUR BOOK OF LIFE I’VE READ – AND MY SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN?” FOR CHRIST JESUS, IT’S AS IF YOUR SIN HAD NEVER BEEN!! (ARE YOU A REJOICING, THANKFUL, CELEBRATING SON AND DAUGHTER OF GOD, OR ARE YOU “TUNED IN” TO ALL THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN HIMSELF HAS TO DECEIVE YOU? WHY NOT, RIGHT NOW, ACCEPT YOUR CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST TO DO AWAY WITH YOUR OLD SELF, BEING “RAISED UP IN THE NEWNESS OF HIS EVERLASTING LIFE AND PRESENCE” TO LEAD YOU THROUGH THE DARK SHADOWS OF EARTHLY EXISTENCE INTO THE PRESENT FULLNESS OF HIS FOREVER REIGN? YOUR DAY – GOD’S TIME?

CHAPTER TWELVE

“FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE OR THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

THE AMAZING “CREATION OF GOD” OF BOTH THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD,PLANETS,STARS,PLUS BIRTHING OF FLESHLY HUMANITY WITH “FREE WILL” TO CHOOSE WHETHER TO SERVE GOD OR NOT, IS TRULY, BOTH SAD AND GLAD – SAD, BECAUSE SOME “FREE-WILL MEN AND WOMEN” CHOSE THE PATH OF “ME, MY, AND MIND” RATHER THAN THE PERFECT, PERFECTING, PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE OF THE WINSOMENESS, THE WILL, THE “WORD”, AND THE WAYS OF HOLY GOD!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE, IN CHOOSING SELF-WILL FOR SELF-PLEASURE, (FROM A NATURAL MIND AND NATURAL HEART!), WERE “BIRTHED”- ‘BRAIN-DEAD’, ‘FLESH-DEFILED’,‘HEART-DARKENED’,AND WILLFULLY ‘DELIRIOUS’, WITH THE ENEMY OF MANKIND, SATAN, ‘DEMONSTRABLY ACTIVE’ IN ‘DECEIVING MANKIND’, SAYING, “IF YOU SIN, DISOBEY, OR DEFY GOD, YOU WON’T DIE”, WHILE THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GOD SPEAKS TO YOU, CONVICTS YOU, SAYING, IN JOSHUA 24:15,“AND IF IT SEEMS EVIL UNTO YOU TO SERVE THE LORD,CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE; WHETHER THE ‘gods’ WHICH YOUR FATHERS SERVED,OR THE ‘gods of self-willed peoples’, IN WHOSE LAND YOU DWELL;BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.” (AND THE REWARD ‘of self-willed peoples’? ROMANS 6:23, “FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH” –NATURALLY & ETERNALLY, IF THERE’S NO REPENTANCE, BELIEF, TRUST, & YIELDEDNESS TO THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS!).

NATURAL MANKIND BIRTHS NATURAL CHILDREN, AND WHETHER NATURAL MANKIND OR NATURAL CHILDREN, BOTH MUST KNOW TRUE REPENTANCE BEFORE HOLY GOD, AND FULLY AWARE THAT REPENTANCE WITH TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH, GIVES BIRTH WITHIN TO PURE HEARTS WASHED CLEAN BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB, AND THEN THE ETERNAL BLESSING OF HIS PRESENCE, (CHRIST JESUS!), ENTERING THEIR HEARTS, MAKING THE HEART THE TABERNACLE OF HIS ETERNAL DWELLING, HIS ABIDING,EARTHLY RESIDENCE,AND,YES,THE “THRONE” BEING YOUR HEART AND LIFE THROUGH WHICH YOU ALLOW KING JESUS TO AGAIN GRANT EARTHLY PRESENCE, SOVEREIGN RULE, AND MERCIFUL OUTREACH TO YOU & THROUGH YOU TO OTHERS WHO NEED “BLOOD REDEMPTION” & “RECONCILIATION” WITH HOLY GOD, THEIR, YES, LOVING FATHER! AND UPON CONVERSION, FROM THAT DEATH FORWARD, ALL BELIEVERS ARE TO BE HIS “WITNESSING ARMY” TO SHARE “HIS TRUTH OF THE REALITY OF NEW BIRTH” TO ANY EARTHLY RESIDENT AROUND YOU!

(BUT THE SAD TRUTH? MOST CHURCHES AND PREACHERS AROUND YOU ARE ‘DEVOTED TO GOOD SUNDAY MORNING CLASSES & MESSAGES’ WITHOUT A PENNY’S WORTH OF CONCERN OR COMPASSION FOR THE LOST CITIZENS LOCALLY OR NATIONALLY OR NATIONS THAT SURROUND THEIR BORDERS, OR NATIONS OVERSEAS!)

MY GREATEST CONCERN TODAY, JUST A FEW WEEKS BEFORE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY ON JUNE 12, 2019? THAT TOO MANY CHURCHES, TOO MANY PASTORS, TOO MANY MEMBERS, TOO MANY DENOMINATIONAL LEADERS, ARE GROWING “SO FAT” ON CHRISTIAN NEWS OF SATISFIED ‘TO BE CHURCH MEMBERS’, THAT THEY WILLFULLY BLIND THEMSELVES OF BEING TOOLS IN GOD’S HANDS TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, OR PROVE HIS POWER!

THE PSALMIST,KING DAVID, IN PSALM 8:4-9, WROTE: “WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU, GOD, ARE MINDFUL OF HIM?AND THE SON OF MAN,(KING JESUS), THAT YOU VISIT HIM? BUT YOU BIRTHED “HIM” A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, AND HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR.YOU,GOD, MADE HIM (CHRIST JESUS!) TO HAVE DOMINION OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; YOU PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET:ALL SHEEP AND OXEN,YES,AND THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD; THE FOWL OF THE AIR, AND THE FISH OF THE SEA, AND WHATSOEVER PASSES THROUGH THE PATHS OF THE SEAS. O LORD OUR LORD, HOW EXCELLENT IS YOUR NAME IN ALL THE EARTH.”

‘FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE?’ ‘FALLEN HUMANITY’S SIRITUAL BLINDNESS? FALLEN HUMANITY’S SHAME OF SELF-WILL OR SELF-GOVERNMENT? FALLEN HUMANITY’S HARDNESS OF HEART BECAUSE OF THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN?FALLEN HUMANITY’S STUPIDITY IN BOWING TO THE FOREFATHERS WHO SOUGHT ONLY TO BE SELF-RELIANT AS THEIR OWN SELF-INSTITUED ‘master’, ‘ruler,’ and ‘savior’ lifestyle and explanation of ‘good living’ rather than “GOD-BIRTHED, GOD-BLESSED, GOD-ANOINTED LIFE-IN-CHRIST JESUS”?

ACROSS THE ‘CHRISTIAN WORLD’,YES, WORLDWIDE, MY GREATEST CONCERN TODAY FOR THE DAYS BEFORE US? DAYS THAT SHOULD BE DAYS THROUGH US WHICH GOD THE FATHER USES TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, AND PROVE HIS POWER, BUT,”SADLY” MUCH OF ‘PROFESSING CHRISTIANITY, PROFESSING CHURCHES, PROFESSING LEADERS’, LIVE UNDER, SERVE UNDER, PLAN UNDER, PROVIDE UNDER, PERFORM UNDER, ‘RELIGIOUS PLANS’ RATHER THAN “HOLY-SPIRIT-POWER AND ANOINTING AND INSPIRING” THE, YES, SPIRITUAL PLANTING, TENDING, AND HARVESTING OF THE FRUIT OF MEN’S LOST, SEPARATED SOULS, TO BECOME SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF TRUE FAITH EXPERIENCING DIVINE, DRAMATIC CONVERSIONS THAT SIT TO EAT AROUND HIS TABLE (HIS HOLY WORD!), AND SERVE IN HIS FIELDS FOR NEEDY, SIN-SICK, SATAN-DELUDED SOULS”!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? LOOKING IN, THEY ONLY SEE THE NATURAL, THE EARTHLY, THE FLESHLY, THE ‘LESS OF WHAT THEY ‘WANT’ AND NOT WHAT LOVING GOD PLANNED’, THE SHALLOWNESS OF WHAT ‘SIN-NATURE’ WANTS AND NOT THE “DEEP WATERS” OF GOD’S GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE, THE ‘SOULISH’ SATISFACTION OF ‘SELF-INDULGENCE’ THAT DROWNS THEM IN THE SHALLOW WATERS OF FLESHLY INDULGENCES, WORLDLY,WILD PLEASURES, AND SATANIC & DEMONIC, HELL-BOUND SCHEMES AND ‘WILD DREAMS’!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? “CROWN ‘YOU’ (ME,US- THE ONLY ONES WHO NEED TO REIGN!” “BE ‘FALLEN WORLD’S PARTNER’ UNITING WITH WHATEVER BLINDS YOU SPIRITUALLY WHEN YOU WALK ‘HERE’! BE ‘NOBLE’ IN THE WORLD “YOU” CHOOSE; AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNEEL BEFORE A ‘god’ TO SUCCEED–you’re your own man!”

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? “SATISFIED WITH SOULISH LIVING, SATISFIED WITH SELF-WILL, SATISFIED WITH EARTHLY,MAN-INSPIRED EDUCATION APART FROM HOLY GOD’S INSPIRATION,SATISFIED IN THIS FLESH-LIFE AND MY SELF-INDEPENDENT-DETERMINATION TO MAKE IT HERE WITHOUT ‘YOUR GOD’S HELP’; ‘I, MY PERSONAL, MY ‘GLORIFED’,STOIC SELF, DO NOT NEED YOUR SAVIOR!”THAT’S LIKE A STATEMENT I READ SIMILAR OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(P.396, PUBLISHED BY FLEMING H.REVELL COMPANY, WESTWOOD,NJ),THAT SAID: “GOD HELPS THOSE THAT HELP THEMSELVES.” A THOUSAND TIMES, “NO!” GOD HELPS THOSE FINISHED WITH THEMSELVES, BECAUSE THE “OLD MAN” CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST ON THE CROSS, IS NOT TO HAVE EVEN A FRACTION OF AN INCH IN THEM OF “TRYING” TO BE SAVED, BUT, YES, “RESTING IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK ON THE TOMB OF THE HISTORIC CROSS, AND THOUGH DEAD IN A TOMB THREE DAYS, GOD RAISED HIM!”

AND GOD “RAISES YOU” IF YOU REPENT! GOD “RAISES YOU” IF YOU ‘REST’! GOD “RAISES” YOU WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED WITH YOUR OLD MAN AND OLD NATURE AND SATANIC DECEPTION! FINISHED IF YOU’RE “FINISHED” WITH MAN-INSPIRED DREAMS AND VISIONS, AND “READY” FOR THE CHRIST IN YOU TO CONTINUE HIS ETERNAL EARTH-JOURNEY TO TOUCH OTHERS WITH HIS PROMISES AND HIS ETERNAL WORK BY HIS PRESENCE IN YOUR HEART & LIFE LITERALLY!! “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY”!!!!****

HAVE “YOU” CLOSED THE DOOR ON FALLEN HUMANITY’S FLESHLY DREAMS AND “RESTED” IN “THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

I CHALLENGE YOU THIS VERY MOMENT AS YOU READ: “REST IN”, “WILLFULLY RELAX”, “WISELY REPENT”, AND IN “HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTED HEART, MIND, AND WILL OF GOD”, WHY NOT, YES, SIMPLY “TRUST AND OBEY”? IN JAMES 1 THE BROTHER OF JESUS WAS INSPIRED TO WRITE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, VERSE 18, (GET READY! DON’T BE DECEIVED!!), “OF HIS OWN WILL GOD BIRTHED US WITH THE WORD OF TRUTH…”, WITH SIMON PETER TELLING US IN 1 PETER 1:2-5, “ELECT ACCORDING TO THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, ( PAUSE! DID IT SAY: “FOREKNOWLEDGE”? YOU MEAN BEFORE HUMANITY EVER EXISTED, GOD KNEW WHO, HOW MANY, HE THEN “YES”, SOVEREIGNLY CHOSE THEM TO BE HIS HEAVENLY FAMILY OF SONS AND DAUGHTERS THROUGH THEIR GIFT OF FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT CALVARY AND THROUGH HIS EMPTY-TOMB RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, AND HIS HEAVENLY REIGN! BEFORE CREATION GOD THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT CHOSE THE “FAMILY OF FAITH” AND SAW TO IT THAT THEY WERE, ARE, AND WILL BE “BORN AGAIN”, ADOPTED INTO THE HOLY FAMILY, HAVING BEEN “RECONCILED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS AND HIS RESURRECTION, ASCENDING TO THE RIGHT HAND THRONE OF GOD TO WATCH AFTER GOD’S PRE-ORDAINED, ETERNALLY PROGRAMED SPIRITUAL BIRTHS, AND AFTER A LIFE OF EARTHLY SERVICE, UPON THEIR SPIRITUAL DEATHS, HE “CALLS THEM HOME” TO THE THRONE-ROOM, WHERE AT THE THRONE THEY’RE WELCOMED BY KING JESUS, AND, YES, GIVES ALL SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF “BORN-AGAIN FAITH” TO BE HIS FOOTWASHERS, SERVANTS, TABERNACLE-TENDERS, CHOIR SINGERS – A BLESSED, ETERNAL, THRILLED FAMILY OF NEVER-DYING, NEVER-ENDING MINISTRY TO THE “LORD OF GLORY”!

OH, BACK TO 1 PETER 1, VERSE 2A, “ELECT…”, BUT NOTICE ALSO 2B, THERE’S “SANCTIFICATION OF THE SPIRIT (THE HOLY SPIRIT) UNTO OBEDIENCE, AND SPRINKLING OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST”..FOR GRACE THROUGH YOU TO BE MULTIPLIED!!”

Verse 3 EXPLAINS: “BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHICH ACCORDING TO HIS ABUNDANT MERCY HAS BEGOTTEN US AGAIN UNTO A LIVING HOPE BY THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD, VERSE 4, TO AN INHERITANCE, INCORRUPTIBLE, AND UNDEFILED, AND THAT FADES NOT AWAY, RESERVED IN HEAVEN FOR YOU, VERSE 5,‘WHO ARE KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD THROUGH FAITH (OR TRUST) UNTO SALVATION, READY TO BE REVEALED IN THE LAST DAYS.”

IF CHRIST JESUS SAID ON THE CROSS RIGHT BEFORE HE DIED: “IT IS FINISHED!”, I TELL YOU, SUMMED UP IN THE STATEMENT OF JESUS IS THE DETERMINATION OF THE ‘WHO’ WILL BE SAVED, AND THE GUARANTEE THAT HIS WORK “FOR THEM” IS OVER! ON THE CROSS, BEFORE, IN HIS EARTHLY MINISTRY, BEFORE MANKIND WAS EVER CREATED, JESUS KNEW WHO, WHERE, AND WHEN THEY’D BE BORN, THEN RE-BIRTHED SPIRITUALLY THROUGH HIS MERCY AND LOVE, SERVED HIM FAITHFULLY, AND THEN, UPON EARTHLY DEATH, READY TO BE RAISED CELEBRATING HIM AND HIS ETERNAL “KINGDOM OF GOD REIGN” IN HEAVEN AS HE DID ON EARTH!

“THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?” THAT’S WHO GOD IS;THAT’S WHAT FLOWS IN YOU AND AROUND YOU; IT’S WHAT “HE DOES” IN CHOOSING YOU, AND IN CALLING YOU, AND IN CONVERTING YOU, AND COMPASSIONATELY INDWELLING YOU; AND BECAUSE YOU RESPOND TO HIS PRESENCE, YOU CHOOSE DAILY TO YOUR ‘OLD MAN’, YOUR ‘OLD SIN-NATURE’, DEATH TO IT & YOURSELF, THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE AND SPIRIT OF CHRIST MAY HIMSELF FLOW FREELY, FULLY, AND FAITHFULLY THROUGH YOU DAILY! & YOU LIVE SINGING:

“EVERY DAY I LIVE IN HIS GLORY, EVERY DAY I SHARE HIS STORY: ‘GOD REDEEMS BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB’, NEW CREATIONS REJOICE AS A CHOIR, LOUDLY SINGING: ‘IT’S IN ME CHRIST JESUS’ HOUR; PURCHASED BY HIS BLOOD, RE-BORN IN HIS FLOOD, A REPENTANT MEN NOW SHARES HIS LIFE & HIS MISSION, FULLY FORGIVEN, AMAZINGLY ASSURED: CHRIST MY SAVIOR IS NOW MY LORD”.

WALK IN OBEDIENCE YOUR LORD TO PLEASE, KNOWING LIFE IN HIM IS NO LONGER YOUR DISEASE, BUT A LIFE OF PEACE FREED FROM DISTRESS, BECAUSE IN JESUS YOU SHARE IN HIS ETERNAL REST; NO LONGER SHAMED IN SIN AND UNBELIEF, BY FAITH IN CHRIST’S SACRIFICE, I’VE BECOME HIS DELIGHT! “CHRIST IN ME MY HOPE OF GLORY, CHRIST THROUGH ME MY WORLD’S REDEMPTION STORY. POWERED BY THE SPIRIT AND AWAKENED TO MEN’S “LOST”, I GLADLY SHARE JESUS AT ANY COST.

IN CHRIST OUR “NEW LIFE” GLOWS, AND FREED IN THE SPIRIT GOD’S WORD NOW FLOWS! IT’S THE SEED OF HIS WORD PRODUCING FRUIT, EVEN “NEW-BORN LIVES” AS HIS GREAT DELIGHT! FROM THE GRAVE OF SIN AND DEATH, FROM THE LIES OF RICHES IN ‘FLESH’S WEALTH’, THE TRUTH OF GOD’S MERCY AND GRACE FULLY ABIDE, AS A REPENTANT HEART FAITHS ONLY: “I WANT TO BE ON GOD’S SIDE!”

SO I DIE TO MY SIN, I REST IN HIS GRACE, AND AMAZINGLY SEE, “I’M NOW PART OF HEAVEN’S RACE, EXTENDING HIS LIFE, EXPRESSING HIS LOVE, UNVEILING HIS PRESENCE, I’M LIKE A HEAVENLY DOVE!” I REJOICE IN MY SAVIOR, I REST IN HIS LOVE; I’VE BEEN RAISED UP, SEATED ABOVE! ABOVE SIN AND DEATH, I GLOW IN HIS GLORY, AS LOVINGLY I SHARE REDEMPTION’S STORY; “I AM HIS, AND HE IS MINE, AND IN HIS ABIDING I SHINE.”

IN MATTHEW 16:24 JESUS SAID: “IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME, LET HIM TAKE UP HIS CROSS, AND FOLLOW ME!” ARE “YOU” FOLLOWING? ARE “YOU” SHARING REDEMPTION’S STORY? DOES YOUR LIFE “GLOW” WITH HEAVEN’S GLORY? I TELL YOU: “SELF-DENIAL” TO SHARE GOD’S GLORY IS NOT AN INCLINATION BUT THE “REVELATION” AND INSPIRATION OF DISCIPLESHIP DUTY, OVERFLOWING FROM THE REALITY OF CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST TO THE REVELATION OF RESURRECTION LIFE IN CHRIST, RAISED UP, IN-FILLED, AND OVERFLOWING WITH HIS HOLY PRESENCE TO BE HIMSELF, TOUCHING MEN AROUND YOU WITH HIS “GREATER LOVE”, HIS “HEAVENLY GLORY”, AND A “NEW LIFE” WILLING TO SHARE HIS STORY! ARE YOU “NEW IN CHRIST WITH THE GREATER LOVE WHICH SHARES HIS STORY”? THAT’S HEAVEN’S LOVE FOR LOST MEN’S EARTHLY NOTHINGNESS THAT HONORS GOD IN THEM, EXCEPT “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, BURIED IN HIS TOMB, BUT RAISED IN 3 DAYS IN ETERNAL GLORY”! IS THAT “YOUR STORY”?

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE OR “THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“DEATH? THE DOOR TO HELL’S WORST OR THE DOOR TO GOD’S ETERNAL GOODNESS?”

IT WAS AN ANONYMOUS WRITER THAT YEARS AND YEARS AGO WROTE THE FOLLOWING: “SOME DAY THE BELL WILL SOUND, SOME DAY MY HEART WILL BOUND, AS WITH A SHOUT THAT SCHOOL IS OUT AND LESSONS DONE, I HOMEWARD RUN.” WHEN I READ THAT COMMENT, I HAD TO ASK, “HOMEWARD BOUND TO WHERE? TO ‘NO-MAN’S LAND’?” TO SOME FLESHLY DREAM-WORLD, AFTER LIFE IS OVER THAT ONE ENVISIONS FOR HIMSELF, OR TO AN UNCERTAIN DESTINATION, OR THE CERTAIN DESTINATION OF A GRAVE-SIGHT, AND THERE IS NO MORE”?

ANOTHER STATEMENT I READ ONCE SOMEWHERE, WRITING DOWN ONLY THE WORDS, BUT WHAT I READ STIRRED SOMETHING IN MY HEART AND MIND TO TRULY EXAMINE ‘DEATH’S REALITY’! THOSE WORDS? “SOME DIE WITHOUT HAVING REALLY LIVED, WHILE OTHERS CONTINUE TO LIVE, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE DIED.”

GODLESS LIVING,WHETHER THE DECEPTION OF AN ATHEISTIC MIND OR THE DESIRE AND MIND AND HEART OF SELF-WILL, SELF-PLEASURE, AND SELF-GOVERNING,LIKE PSALM 14 THAT DAVID SANG ABOUT: “THE FOOL HAS SAID IN HIS HEART, ‘THERE IS NO GOD’. THEY ARE CORRUPT, THEY HAVE DONE ABOMINABLE WORKS, THERE IS NONE THAT DOES GOOD, (WHICH I’M SURE IS GOD’S ANOINTING OF DAVID IN EXPOSING THE FUTILITY OF ‘SELF-DETERMINATION’, ASSERTING, “WHO NEEDS GOD?”) CONTINUING DAVID SANG:

THE LORD LOOKED DOWN FROM HEAVEN UPON THE CHILDREN OF MEN, TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY THAT DID UNDERSTAND, AND SEEK GOD. (BUT),VERSE 3, “THEY ARE ALL GONE ASIDE, THEY ARE ALL TOGETHER BECOME FILTHY: THERE IS NONE THAT DOES GOOD, NO, NOT ONE. VERSE 4, HAVE ALL THE WORKERS OF INIQUITY NO KNOWLEDGE? WHO EAT UP MY PEOPLE AS THEY EAT BREAD, AND CALL NOT UPON THE LORD?”

NOTICE THAT DAVID SANG PUBLICLY, ANOINTED OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, SAYING, “WORKERS OF INIQUITY WITH NO KNOWLEDGE”? WHAT DOES PAUL DECLARE, ALSO ANOINTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHEN IN ROMANS 3:23, HE SAID, “FOR ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD.” SIN, THE SIN-NATURE, SIN, THE DEVILISH DECEIT OF SATAN HIMSELF, SIN, THE BIRTHING IN GODLESS HEARTS OF ALIENATION AND SEPARATION FROM HOLY GOD, SIN, THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF SELF-WILL, SELF-PLEASURE, SELF-DETERMINATION “WITHOUT GOD’S INTERFERENCE IN MY SELF-SERVING LIFE”, HUMANITY’S ‘DEATH-NAIL’; AND THOUGH HUMANITY LIVES ON PHYSICALLY ALIVE BUT SPIRITUALLY DEAD, “GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD”, HE DESIGNED ONE’S DELIVERANCE FROM SPIRITUAL DEATH THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF JESUS, THE SACRIFICIAL “LAMB OF GOD”!

AND DEATH, SPIRITUAL DEATH,HOW DID PAUL EXPLAIN THIS IN 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-21? “FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINS US; BECAUSE WE THUS JUDGE, THAT IF ONE DIED FOR ALL, THEN WERE ALL DEAD: AND THAT HE DIED FOR ALL, THAT THEY WHICH LIVE “SHOULD NOT HENCEFORTH LIVE UNTO THEMSELVES, BUT UNTO “HIM” WHICH DIED FOR THEM, AND ROSE AGAIN”.

WHETHER HENCEFORTH KNOW WE NO MAN AFTER THE FLESH: YES, THOUGH WE HAVE KNOWN CHRIST AFTER THE FLESH, YET NOW HENCEFORTH KNOW WE HIM NO MORE. THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATION; AND THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD, ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW. AND ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, WHO HAS RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST, AND HAS GIVEN TO US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION;

TO WIT, THAT GOD WAS IN CHRIST, RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF, NOT IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM; AND HAS COMMITTED UNTO US THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION. NOW THEN WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST, AS THOUGH GOD DID BESEECH YOU BY US: WE PRAY YOU IN CHRIST’S STEAD, BE YOU RECONCILED TO GOD. FOR HE HAS MADE HIM TO BE SIN FOR US, WHO KNEW NO SIN, THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS IN HIM.”

ARE YOU AWARE OF THAT? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? EXAMINE CAREFULLY 1 JOHN 3:7-10! HOLY GOD’S WORD SAYS, (THOUGH ‘MODERN-DAY’, ‘ILL-INFORMED’ DISCIPLES FOOLISHLY SAY:”WE CANNOT DO ANYTHING BUT SIN UNTIL WE GET TO HEAVEN?” PHONY-BOLOGNA!), “LITTLE CHILDREN, LET NO MAN DECEIVE YOU: HE THAT DOES RIGHTEOUSNESS IS RIGHTEOUS, EVEN AS CHRIST IS RIGHTEOUS. HE THAT COMMITS (PRESENT TENSE) SIN IS OF THE DEVIL; FOR THE DEVIL SINNED FROM THE BEGINNING. FOR THIS PURPOSE THE SON OF GOD WAS MANIFESTED THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL.

WHOSOEVER IS BORN OF GOD DOES NOT COMMIT SIN (PRESENT TENSE GREEK, “COMMITS-AND-KEEPS-ON-COMMITTING SIN” AS A ‘WAY OF LIFE’!”); FOR GOD’S SEED REMAINS IN HIM: AND HE CANNOT SIN, BECAUSE HE/SHE IS BORN OF GOD. IN THIS THE CHILDREN OF GOD ARE MANIFEST (UNVEILED), AND THE CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL; WHOSOEVER DOES NOT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NOT OF GOD, NEITHER HE THAT LOVES NOT HIS BROTHER.”

“DEATH? THE DOOR TO HELL’S WORST AS ONE LIVES IN SELF-SATISFACTION THAT THE SIN-NATURE REMAINS, EVEN AS A BELIEVER,(“ENJOY IT”!), “OR”, AS PAUL EDUCATES US IN 2 CORINTHIANS 1:8-12, “FOR WE WOULD NOT, BRETHREN, HAVE YOU IGNORANT OF OUR TROUBLE WHICH CAME TO US IN ASIA, THAT WE WERE PRESSED OUT OF MEASURE, ABOVE STRENGTH, INSOMUCH THAT WE DESPAIRED EVEN OF LIFE: “BUT” WE HAD ‘THE SENTENCE OF DEATH IN OURSELVES (DAILY)’, THAT WE SHOULD NOT TRUST IN OURSELVES, BUT IN GOD, WHO RAISES THE DEAD: WHO DELIVERED US FROM SO GREAT A DEATH, AND STILL DELIVERS; IN WHOM WE TRUST THAT HE WILL YET DELIVER US; YOU ALSO HELPING TOGETHER BY PRAYER FOR US, THAT FOR THE GIFT BESTOWED UPON US BY THE MEANS OF MANY PERSONS THANKS MAY BE GIVEN BY MANY ON OUR BEHALF.

FOR OUR REJOICING IS THIS, THE TESTIMONY OF OUR CONSCIENCE, THAT IN SIMPLICITY AND GODLY SINCERITY, NOT WITH FLESHLY WISDOM, BUT BY THE GRACE OF GOD, WE HAVE HAD OUR CONVERSATION IN THE WORLD, AND MORE ABUNDANTLY TO YOU.”

‘DEATH’ IN YOUR PRESENT LIFE NOW AS A BELIEVER? 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21 DECLARES, “FOR GOD HAS MADE JESUS TO BE SIN FOR US, CHRIST WHO KNEW NO SIN (IN HIMSELF), THAT WE MIGHT (THROUGH HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND REIGNING PRESENCE WITHIN YOU) BE (BEING) MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM!”

DO YOU REMEMBER THAT “THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH”? IN 2 PETER 3:9-11, SAYS, “THE LORD IS NOT SLACK CONCERNING HIS PROMISE, AS SOME MEN COUNT SLACKNESS; BUT IS LONGSUFFERING TOWARD US, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, BUT THAT ALL SHOULD COME TO REPENTANCE.

BUT THE DAY OF THE LORD WILL COME AS A THIEF IN THE NIGHT; IN THE WHICH THE HEAVENS SHALL PASS AWAY WITH A GREAT NOISE, AND THE ELEMENTS SHALL MELT WITH FERVENT HEAT, THE EARTH ALSO AND THE WORKS THAT ARE THEREIN SHALL BE BURNED UP. SEEING THEN THAT ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE DISSOLVED, WHAT MANNER OF PERSONS OUGHT YOU TO BE IN ALL HOLY CONVERSATION AND GODLINESS”

OH! DON’T FORGET 2 PETER 2 VERSES 19 & 22!. “WHILE THEY PROMISE THEM LIBERTY, THEY THEMSELVES ARE THE SERVANTS OF CORRUPTION; FOR OF WHOM A MAN IS OVERCOME, OF THE SAME IS HE BROUGHT INTO BONDAGE. VERSE 22,BUT IT IS HAPPENED UNTO THEM ACCORDING TO THE TRUE PROVERB, ‘THE DOG IS TURNED TO HIS OWN VOMIT AGAIN; AND THE SOW THAT WAS WASHED TO HER WALLOWING IN THE MIRE.”

ARE THERE ‘DISCIPLES’ TODAY WHO,AT TIMES, BETRAY THE LORD WITHIN, AND WILLFULLY CHOOSE TO PLAY AGAIN IN THEIR ‘POOLS OF SIN-VOMIT’? THERE ARE SOME WHO ARE TOTALLY UNAWARE OF SPIRITUAL DILIGENCE, AND IN THEIR CHILDISH STATE OF FAITH STILL, AT TIMES, WILL INDULGE IN THE ‘DIRT’ OF GODLESSNESS, YES, DECEIVED BY THE DEMONS, THE WORLD, AND THEIR OLD SIN-NATURE!

DO YOU AS A BELIEVER NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THE DIVINE, HOLY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU IS THERE, NOT TO EXTINGUISH YOUR “NEW LIFE IN CHRIST”, BUT TO INTERCEDE IN YOU TO “TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, YOUR OLD LIFE THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE CONTINUALLY MANIFESTED IN YOUR MORTAL FLESH?

IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”, (BY EDITOR, FRANK S. MEAD, PUBLISHED BY FLEMING H. REVELL COM., WESTWOOD, NEW JERSEY),ARE WORDS WRITTEN BY EDMUND VANCE COOKE ENTITLED “HOW DID YOU DIE?”, SAYING, “DEATH COMES WITH A CRAWL, OR COMES WITH A POUNCE. AND WHETHER HE’S SLOW OR SPRY, IT ISN’T THE FACT THAT YOU’RE DEAD COUNTS, BUT ONLY, HOW DID YOU DIE?”

“HOW WILL YOU DIE?”UNAWARE OF ETERNAL REALITIES-FLESH OR SPIRIT, HELL OR HEAVEN, SATAN’S WELCOME OR KING JESUS WITH OPEN ARMS?

I MUST SHARE THIS MESSAGE FROM ROMANS 8:1-14!! PAUL SAID: “THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION TO THEM WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, ‘WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH (OR OLD SIN-NATURE!)’, BUT AFTER THE HOLY SPIRIT. FOR THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE ‘IN CHRIST JESUS’ HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH.

FOR WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO, IN THAT IT WAS WEAK THROUGH THE FLESH, GOD SENDING HIS OWN SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH, AND FOR SIN, CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH: THAT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH, BUT AFTER THE SPIRIT.

FOR THEY THAT ARE AFTER FLESH (CELEBRATING THEIR OLD SIN-NATURES!) DO MIND THE THINGS OF THE FLESH; BUT THEY THAT ARE AFTER THE SPIRIT THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. FOR TO BE CARNALLY (FLESHLY) MINDED IS DEATH; BUT TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE. BECAUSE THE CARNAL MIND IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD: FOR IT IS NOT SUBJECT TO THE LAW OF GOD, NEITHER INDEED CAN BE. SO THAT THEY THAT ARE IN THE FLESH CANNOT PLEASE GOD.

BUT YOU ARE NOT IN THE FLESH, BUT IN THE SPIRIT, IF SO BE IT THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. NOW IF ANY MAN DOES NOT HAVE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, HE IS NONE OF HIS. AND IF CHRIST BE IN YOU, THE BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN; BUT THE SPIRIT IS LIFE BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. VERSES 11-15 FOLLOW, HEAR IT!!

BUT IF THE SPIRIT OF HIM THAT RAISED UP JESUS FROM THE DEAD DWELLS IN YOU, HE THAT RAISED UP CHRICT FROM THE DEAD SHALL ALSO QUICKEN YOUR MORTAL BODIES BY HIS SPIRIT THAT DWELLS IN YOU. THEREFORE, BRETHREN,WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH (OR YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE!), TO LIVE FOR IT.

FOR IF YOU LIVE AFTER THE FLESH, YOU SHALL DIE; BUT IF YOU THROUGH THE SPIRIT DO MORTIFY THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU SHALL LIVE. FOR AS MANY AS ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, THEY ARE THE SONS OF GOD. FOR YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE AGAIN TO FEAR; BUT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION, WHEREBY WE CRY, ‘ABBA,FATHER’.”

I CLOSE WITH HYMN WORDS WRITTEN BY ISAAC WATTS THAT SAYS: “ALAS! AND DID MY SAVIOR BLEED? AND DID MY SOVEREIGN DIE? WOULD HE DEVOTE THAT SACRED HEAD FOR SUCH A WORM AS I?

WAS IT FOR CRIMES THAT I HAD DONE THAT HE GROANED UPON THE TREE? AMAZING PITY! GRACE UNKNOWN! AND LOVE BEYOND DEGREE!

WELL MIGHT THE SUN IN DARKNESS HIDE, AND SHUT HIS GLORIES IN, WHEN CHRIST, THE MIGHTY MAKER DIED FOR MAN THE CREATURE’S SIN.

BUT DROPS OF GRIEF CAN NEVER REPAY THE DEBT OF LOVE I OWE; HERE, LORD, I GIVE MYSELF AWAY, IT’S ALL THAT I CAN DO.”

DO YOU ACCEPT, LIVE IN, AND SHARE WITH OTHERS OUR LORD’S VICTORY OVER THEIR SIN AND DEATH IN ORDER TO “SET THE CAPTIVES FREE”? IN ISAIAH 12:2-3 THE PROPHET SAID: “BEHOLD, GOD IS MY SALVATION; I WILL TRUST HIM, AND NOT BE AFRAID; FOR THE LORD JEHOVAH IS MY STRENGTH AND MY SONG; HE HAS BECOME MY SALVATION. THEREFORE WITH JOY SHALL YOU DRAW WATER OUT OF THE WELLS OF SALVATION”. HAVE YOU “TRUSTED THE LORD”?

VERSES 4-6 FOLLOW SAYING, “AND IN THAT DAY SHALL YOU SAY, (IS THAT SAYING TO OTHERS AROUND YOU?), PRAISE THE LORD, CALL UPON HIS NAME, DECLARE HIS DOINGS AMONG THE PEOPLE, MAKE MENTION THAT HIS NAME IS EXALTED.SING UNTO THE LORD; FOR HE HAS DONE EXCELLENT THINGS; THIS IS KNOWN IN ALL THE EARTH. CRY OUT AND SHOUT, YOU INHABITANTS OF ZION; FOR GREAT IS THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL THAT IS IN YOUR MIDST.” – CAN YOU SAY,RIGHT NOW: “I AM NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST: FOR IT IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION TO EVERY ONE WHO BELIEVES.” BUT HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE IF THEY NEVER HEARD, AND IF YOU AS CHRIST’S SERVANT AND ASSIGNED MESSENGER NEVER SHARE THE GOOD NEWS? DO YOU SEE THAT YOU “IN CHRIST” ARE A DEBTOR TO THE LOST WORLD AROUND YOU AND THAT WHAT YOU HOLD AND POSSESS OUT OF GOD’S LOVE, WAS GIVEN FREELY TO YOU TO JOYFULLY SHARE WITH OTHERS? “RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD!BE DONE WITH THE FOOLISH”!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?

I HAVE A BOOK l’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 I "ACTIVE RELIGION –INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?"

THERE ARE (I} "IMPOSSIBILITIES" IN ‘RELIGIOUS TRYING’, BECAUSE TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH IS TRUSTING, ALLOWING GOD TO BE HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOUI 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 I

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 T-HROUGH 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 II 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"I ‘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’!I

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 I (ARE YOU "RESTING" IN REDEMPTIVE FAITH IN THE "BLESSED ASSURANCE OF CHRIST"?

IN MY OLD "AMERICAN HYMNAL"( PUBLISHED IN 1933 BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE,TEN-N.) 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 TH-E 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 MOMENTI

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, 0 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’MUNDER 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, 0 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 I 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 CONDEMNS ?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, ORFAMINE 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 CREATURE, 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"?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“SMALL SEED – GREAT FRUIT”

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW WHO SEE THEIR LIFE AS NOTHING MORE THAN A “RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE”? THEY REALLY DON’T KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND WHY THEY’RE HERE IN THIS AWESOME WORLD? A MEANINGLESS EXISTENCE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE “BIRTHED OR IMAGINED” BECAUSE DOUBT ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING, AT LEAST FOR THEM, HAS DUG THE GRAVE ON BIBLICAL FAITH,MERCY,AND THE LOVE OF GOD,WITH A SIN-NATURE,A SATANIC BLINDING,AND A “LOST WORLD’S DISPOSITION” OF OPPOSING GOD IF THEY AT LEAST ADMIT HE IS AROUND AND ‘MAY’ HAVE CREATED THE WORLD!

AND IF ‘YOU’ HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET,AT LEAST, BE ASSURED THAT YOU’RE NOT ALONE IN YOUR DOUBTS AND FEARS, BECAUSE NATURAL MEN WHO BAR THE DOOR TO SPIRITUAL TRUTH AND ITS REALITY ARE ACCOMPLICES OF TYRANNY IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOD THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW! THEY ARE “SEED” WITHOUT ANY “SUBSTANCE” OR UNDERSTANDING ABOUT EVEN WHY GOD WOULD BIRTH A FALLEN PEOPLE!THE TRUTH IS THAT HIS DESIRE FOR HIS SPIRITUAL KINGDOM WAS THAT, AS HE CREATED NATURAL KINGDOMS AND MASSES OF PEOPLE, HE WANTED “ALL” TO HAVE A CHOICE OF A GOD-RELATIONSHIP OR NOT! HE DIDN’T WANT ‘PUPPETS’ ON A STRING MEETING HIS EVERY DESIRE! HE WANTED PEOPLE WHOM HE CALLED TO HIMSELF WHO WOULD BE PEOPLE ALIGNING WITH HIM ON HIS TERMS! IN FACT, HOLY GOD PLANTED IN ALL OF FALLEN MAN’S EXISTENCE THE REALITY OF LIFESTYLE CHOICES: “FLESH OR SPIRITUAL”, “NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL”, “EARTHLY OR HEAVENLY”, “BEST EFFORT” OR “BLESSED REST” IN A SAVIOR’S FINISHED WORK ON THE CROSS”, ‘WILLFUL MINDFULNESS’ OR “SOVEREIGN MERCY”, ‘MAN’S MAN-MADE BROAD HIGHWAYS’ OR “GOD’S NARROW WAY OF LIFE IN CHRIST ALONE”, ‘ACCEPTABLE RELIGIONS’ OR “SPIRITUAL FREEDOM IN THE TABERNACLE OF GOD’S MERCY & GRACE”!

IT WAS BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER BUT I LOVED IT. IT WAS IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,P.107, THAT SAYS: “GOD MADE BEES, AND BEES MADE HONEY; GOD MADE MAN, AND MAN MADE MONEY, PRIDE MADE THE DEVIL, AND THE DEVIL MADE SIN; SO GOD MADE A COAL-PIT TO PUT THE DEVIL IN.” LIFE’S CHOICES? A BLACKENED COAL PIT WITH SATAN, OR HEAVEN ON EARTH IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST?

“SMALL SEED –GREAT FRUIT!” IN HEBREWS 11:17-19 we read, “BY FAITH ABRAHAM, WHEN HE WAS TRIED (TESTED), OFFERED UP ISAAC: AND HE THAT HAD RECEIVED THE PROMISES OFFERED UP HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, OF WHOM IT WAS SAID, ‘THAT IN ISAAC SHALL YOUR SEED BE BLESSED; ACCOUNTING THAT GOD WAS ABLE TO RAISE HIM UP,EVEN FROM THE DEAD;FROM WHENCE ALSO HE RECEIVED HIM IN A FIGURE.” YOU UNDERSTAND –‘TESTING’ TO PLEASE GOD IS NOT MAN OFFERING THEIR SIN-NATURED SONS TO DIE, ‘THINKING’ SURELY GOD CAN RAISE THEM, BUT SONS WITH A ‘SIGN’ OF AN OPEN, YIELDING TO ‘SIN’, EVEN IF THEY DID GRASP ‘REPENTANCE’, ARE NOT, WERE NOT, WILL NOT BE BIRTHED IN THE ‘FLESH’ WITH A ‘SINLESS NATURE’ BUT ‘FLESHLY BIRTHED’ TO CARRY ON ‘SIN-NATIONALITY’, UNLESS CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, GUIDED INTO “TRUTH”, BIRTHED AGAIN THROUGH THE “SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST ON CALVARY’S CROSS”,

THE GUILTY THO’ RELIGIOUS’LIKE MOST OF THE JEWS OF JESUS’S “DAY” ARE NOT “BORN AGAIN” EXCEPT THROUGH CALVARY’S STORY, CHRIST’S RESURRECTION, CHRIST’S KNOCKING ON THEIR HEART’S DOOR TO TRULY AWAKEN THEM! WHEN HE CAUGHT THEIR ATTENTION, JESUS SAID, “REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!”

FOLLOW ME IN 2 PETER 1:1-12!! SIMON PETER, A SERVANT AND AN APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST, TO THEM THAT HAVE OBTAINED ‘LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH’ WITH US “THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: (SAVED FROM WHAT? UNRIGHTEOUSNESS? DISOBEDIENCE TO HOLY TRUTH? WORLD DEVOTION BLINDED TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD WITH FEEBLE ATTEMPTS & FAILING ATTEMPTS THROUGH ‘RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES’ RATHER THAN JESUS TELLING THEM & US, “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN”, DYING TO YOUR WORLD, YOUR SIN-NATURE, AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS OF SATAN HIMSELF?)

VERSE 2 & FOLLOWING: “GRACE AND PEACE BE MULTIPLIED UNTO YOU THROUGH “THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF “HIM” THAT HAS CALLED US TO GLORY & VIRTUE; WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT & PRECIOUS PROMISES:THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST.

VERSE 5 & FOLLOWING: AND BESIDE THIS, GIVING ALL DILIGENCE, ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE; AND TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE; AND TO KNOWLEDGE TEMPERANCE; AND TO TEMPERANCE PATIENCE; AND TO PATIENCE GODLINESS; AND TO GODLINESS BROTHERLY KINDNESS; AND TO BROTHERLY KINDNESS CHARITY.

VERSE 8 &FOLLOWING: FOR IF THESE THINHS BE IN YOU, AND ABOUND,THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN OR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. BUT HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, AND CANNOT SEE AFAR OFF, AND HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS. WHEREFORE THE RATHER, BRETHREN, GIVE DILIGENCE TO “MAKE YOUR CALLING AND ELECTION SURE”; FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGHDOM OF OUR LORD & SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

WHEREFORE I WILL NOT BE NEGLIGENT TO PUT YOU ALWAYS IN REMEMBRANCE OF THESE THINGS, THOUGH YOU KNOW THEM, AND BE “ESTABLISHED” (OR “MADE TO STAND”!) IN THE PRESENT TRUTH.”

THE PRESENT TRUTH? THAT “YOU” WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, &THE OLD LIFE THAT DIED ON THE CROSS WAS BURIED IN THE ‘SEA OF GOD’S FORGETFULNESS’, THAT HOLY GOD THEN “RAISED YOU UP IN THE “NEWNESS OF LIFE”, COMMISSIONED YOU AS A SERVANT WHO ALLOWS ONE’S SELF TO BE THE “TABERNACLE” WHERE CHRIST DWELLS, AND CHOOSES TO DO “THROUGH YOU” ALL THE FATHER TELLS YOU TO DO – YOU THEN EXTEND HIS LIFE, EXPRESS LOVE TO HIM MOMENT BY MOMENT, AND HE PROVES HIS RESURRECTION POWER THROUGH YOU AS YOU “REST IN HIM” & ALLOW HIM TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU!!

“SMALL SEED”? BUT GREAT POTENTIAL WHEN “SEED PLANTED BY GOD, WATERED & FERTILIZED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WITH THE ‘SONSHINE’ OF GOD’S MERCY BLAZING ON IT, PRODUCES CONTINUING, GREAT “FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT” REVEALING THE MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE OF GOD THROUGH HEAVEN-BORN “TREES OF FAITH & TRUST” IN GOD’S ABILITY TO RAISE THE “DEAD” TO “NEW-LIFE IN & THROUGH THE BLOOD REDEMPTION OF CHRIST’S CROSS, HIS DEATH, & HIS RESURRECTION”!!

I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH WORDS OF JAMES, THE BROTHER OF JESUS, IN JAMES 5:10-20, AS HE WROTE INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT: VERSE 10-20, “TAKE, MY BRETHREN, THE PROPHETS, WHO HAVE SPOKEN IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, FOR AN EXAMPLE OF SUFFERING AFFLICTION, AND OF PATIENCE (OR STEDFASTNESS). BEHOLD, WE COUNT THEM HAPPY WHICH ENDURE. YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE PATIENCE OF JOB, AND HAVE SEEN THE END OF THE LORD; THAT THE LORD IS VERY PITIFUL, & OF TENDER MERCY.

BUT ABOVE ALL THINGS, MY BRETHREN,SWEAR NOT,NEITHER BY HEAVEN,NEITHER BY THE EARTH,NEITHER BY ANY OTHER OATH:BUT LET YOUR YES BE YES; AND YOUR NO,NO; LEST YOU FALL INTO CONDEMNATION. IS ANY AMONG YOU AFFLICTED?LET HIM PRAY.ISANY MERRY?LET HIM SING PSALMS. IS ANY SICK AMONG YOU?LET HIM CALL FOR THE ELDERS OF THE CHURCH; AND LET THEM PRAY OVER HIM,ANOINTING HIM WITH OIL IN THE NAME OF THE LORTD: AND THE PRAYER OF FAITH SHALL SAVE THE SICK, AND THE LORD SHALL RAISE HIM UP; AND IF HE HAS COMMITTED SINS, THEY SHALL BE FORGIVEN HIM.

CONFESS YOUR FAULTS ONE TO ANOTHER, AND PRAY ONE FOR ANOTHER, THAT YOU MAY BE HEALED. THE EFFECTUAL FERVENT PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILS MUCH. ELIAS (OR ELIJAH) WAS A MAN SUBJECT TO LIKE PASSIONS AS WE ARE, AND HE PRAYED EARNESTLY THAT IT MIGHT NOT RAIN:

AND IT RAINED NOT ON THE EARTH BY THE SPACE OF 3 YEARS & 6 MONTHS. AND HE PRAYED AGAIN, & THE HEAVEN GAVE RAIN, & THE EARTH BROUGHT FORTH HER FRUIT. BRETHREN,IF ANY OF YOU DO ERR FROM THE TRUTH, AND ONE CONVERT HIM; LET HIM KNOW, THAT HE WHICH CONVERTS THE SINNER FROM THE ERROR OF HIS WAY SHALL SAVE A SOUL FROM DEATH, & SHALL HIDE A MULTITUDE OF SINS.”

“SMALL SEED-GREAT FRUIT”? WHAT IS HOLY GOD DOING THRU’ YOUR LIFE? ‘NO SEED-NO FRUIT’? OR “SMALL SEED-GREAT FRUIT”? IT IS AN ETERNAL LIFE CHOICE!!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION-LIFE!”

RESURRECTION POWER, RESURRECTION PRESENCE, RESURRECTION PRIVILEGE, ARRIVING, ABIDING, ASKING, EVEN PLEADING,CHRIST JESUS, RESURRECTED AND REIGNING, SAYS: “OPEN YOUR HEART’S DOOR, AND I, JESUS, WILL COME IN.” CHRIST BLED, CHRIST PLEADS, CHRIST KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR”, COMPASSIONATELY SAYING, “SIN NO LONGER YOUR MASTER ANYMORE. MY BLOOD I’VE SHED, YOUR BOOK OF LIFE I’VE READ – AND MY SACRIFICE FOR YOUR SIN? IT’S FOR ME AS IF YOUR SIN NEVER HAD BEEN!”

THOUGH SIN IS ONE’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD, PRODUCING THE “GRAVE OF LIFE” IN WHICH ONE DWELLS, THE SAVIOR COMES SAYING, “THE GLOOM IS GONE, YOUR TOMB IS NOW EMPTY; MY RESURRECTION IS YOUR LIFE OF PLENTY!

MY PLENTY IS YOUR GIFT OF GRACE, MY INTERCESSION IS YOUR GIFT OF A NEW PLACE! MY PLAN IS ‘IMMORTAL HOPE THAT DISPELS THE GLOOM, WITH MANY ANGELS MAKING SURE OF YOUR ROOM’!

EARTH MAY STILL REMAIN EARTH, ASHES WILL HOLD ON AS ASHES, DUST WILL BE DUST – BUT IN RESURRECTION LIFE, WE LIVE OVERCOMING STRIFE, THE GRAVE, AND THE DUST HAS LOST ITS STING – WE ONLY HEAR THE ANGELS SING!

CHRIST IS WELCOMED AS DEPARTED SAINTS SING, AND WE WHO FOLLOW WILL MAKE THE HEAVENS RING! YES, JOY TO OUR WORLD NEVER TO SUBSIDE, BECAUSE JESUS OUR LORD FOREVER ABIDES!

NEVER TO LEAVE US, NEVER TO FORSAKE US, NEVER TO SAY TO US, “THIS IS NOT YOUR PLACE! THOUGH EARTHLY TIME IS REAL, ETERNAL LIFE REMAINS, AND HEAVEN ON EARTH WILL NEVER BE RESTRAINED!

ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU –MARRIED IN MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THOUGH I DIED ON A CROSS, BURIED IN A TOMB, THREE DAYS LATER I ROSE AGAIN, SO YOU WILL TASTE DEATH BUT CELEBRATE MORE IN RESURRECTION LIFE ETERNALLY; THAT’S HEAVENLY PRESENCE IN SHARED IMMORTALITY.

THE ‘SON-DIAL’ IS SET, THE SON AND MOON NEVER FALL, BECAUSE CHRIST JESUS IS LORD OVER ALL! REJOICE YOU SAINTS; IN YOUR SAVIOR ABIDE, BECAUSE JESUS OUR LORD NEVER HIDES! HE’S EVER-PRESENT YOUR LIFE TO WATCH OVER, WHEN SATAN IN DARKNESS SEEKS YOU TO CLOSE, JESUS SINGS, BECAUSE HE AROSE!

AND OVER YOUR LIFE OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE AND SERVICE IN THE KING’S NAME, KING JESUS REJOICES AND REVEALS YOUR FAME – MADE FAMOUS IN CHRIST BECAUSE OF THE BLOOD THAT HE SHED, CONTINUALLY PRAISING BECAUSE OF THE FAITH YOU HAVE READ.

TRUSTING HIS WORD, PROVIDENTIALLY IN FAITH WE’RE FULLY BLESSED, CONFIDING IN ‘PROVIDENCE’, WE SURELY “REST”! THOUGH TESTED AND PRESSED AND HEMMED IN ON EVERY SIDE, CHRIST JESUS IS LORD AND SAVIOR REIGNING OVER YOU UNTIL HIS ETERNAL LIGHT SHINES THROUGH.

IN CHRIST YOU’RE VICTORIOUS, THOUGH IT SEEMS YOU OUGHT TO FROWN, BUT BECAUSE OF HIS RESURRECTION PRESENSE IN YOU, ALL SATAN CAN DO IS ACT LIKE A CLOWN. YOU ARE THE WINNER BECAUSE “IN CHRIST” YOU ABIDE, KNOWING JESUS STANDS WITH YOU, BEHIND YOU, AND BY YOUR SIDE.TOUGH, ROUGH, FIERCE TIMES MAY COME YOUR WAY, LIKE A SPARROW THAT SUDDENLY FALLS TO THE GROUND, BUT THE RESURRECTED SAVIOR WILL SURELY BE FOUND, KEEPING WATCH OVER HIS CHILDREN AS THE FATHER OF THEIR FAITH; STRONG IN HIS WORD, SOUND IN HIS WILL – WHEN HIS CHILDREN ARE TESTED, HE DOESN’T REMAIN STILL!

THE “PURE IN HEART” ARE THOSE WHO SEE GOD, WHILE THE SPIRITUALLY BLIND ARE THOSE WITHOUT HOPE WHO SPEAK IN FLESHLY ELOQUENCE WHILE THEIR CHAINS GROW TIGHTER, BUT THE CHILDREN OF FAITH AND OBEDIENCE ARE TRUE SAINTS WITH NO DESIRE OF ANY TAINTS! KNOWING GOD LOVES THE “PURE IN HEART”, A MAN OF TRUE FAITH NEVER LETS ‘RUST’ REMAIN, BUT EVERY DAY HE TAKES THE SENTENCE OF DEATH THAT HE MIGHT CONTINUALLY REJOICE IN HEAVEN’S DOMAIN! THE “PURE IN HEART” NEVER CONSIDER FORSAKING THE WORD’S BIBLICAL STANDARDS, BUT DAILY TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH TO THE OLD MAN THAT THE NEW MAN “IN CHRIST” MAY UNCEASINGLY REJOICE, SECURELY RESTING ON HIS FAITHFUL PROMISES, MIRRORS OF HIS ABIDING PRESENCE!

“IN CHRIST” ONE’S HEART IS TO BE TRANSPARENT AS PURE CRYSTAL; “IN CHRIST” ONE’S MIND IS THE SOUL’S NEW IMAGE, EVEN FIGHTING TO BE BOLD TO KEEP IT PURE! “CHRIST IN YOU IS YOUR HOPE OF GLORY”, HIM FAITHFULLY STANDING TO FIGHT YOUR FIGHT OF FAITH WHEN THE ‘STORM CLOUDS’ RISE, SATAN SURE THAT HE AND HIS DEMONS CAN TAKE YOU DOWN HOPING YOU NEVER RISE TO RESIST THEIR FLOOD; SO IN FAITH PLEAD THE BLOOD!!“THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTED LIFE HAS NEVER LOST ITS POWER”! SO IN JESUS, IN THIS HOUR OF EARTHLY TESTINGS, RELAX IN THE WORD, THE SPIRIT, AND THE PROMISES, WATCHING JESUS FIGHT FOR YOU AS GOD’S VICTOR! HE’S MORE THAN CONQUEROR – HE’S ETERNAL VICTOR, OVER THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND SATAN!”

THAT’S THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A VESSEL (ME,YOU!),THAT SO DESIRES HOLY GOD TO RELEASE,UNVEIL, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST’S PRESENCE, SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, HAVING HIS WAY “IN ME,IN YOU AS WE HEAR OR READ HIS MESSAGE”! ARE YOU FAMILIAR AT ALL WITH THE POWERFUL UNVEILING OF CHRIST JESUS IN JOHN ONE? THAT’S WHERE THE APOSTLE JOHN WAS INSPIRED TO WRITE THE FOLLOWING:

JOHN 1:1-5,”IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.(IS THAT JESUS, “THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING, ‘RICH IN LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY’, THE SOVEREIGN MERCIFUL SAVIOR AND LORD?”)

THE SAME WAS IN THE BEGINNING WITH GOD. ALL THINGS WERE MADE BY HIM; AND WITHOUT HIM WAS NOT ANY THING MADE THAT WAS MADE. IN HIM WAS LIFE,(LITERALLY, “IN THE HOLY SPIRIT’S BIRTHING, AND WITH THE “CREATOR’S ETERNAL BLESSING”,JESUS PROMISING “I’LL NEVER LEAVE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU!”); AND THE LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF MEN. (BUT) THE “LIGHT” SHINES IN DARKNESS; AND THE DARKNESS COMPREHENDED IT NOT.”

UNBELIEVERS, IN THEIR DARKNESS, HAVE TO HAVE A WITNESS THAT, YES, THERE IS “THE LIGHT OF CHRIST” THAT CAN TAKE ONE OUT OF THE EMPTINESS OF A SPIRITUALLY DARKENED, SIN-FILLED,SATANICALLY DEVISED,SELF-RULING EXISTENCE TO BRING ONE INTO “THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!”

LET THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDE “YOU” OUT OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS INTO HIS MARVELOUS LIGHT UNVEILING FOR YOU THE HEAVENLY,ETERNALLY, LIFE-GIVING SAVIOR AND LORD WHO FOREVER REIGNS VICTORIOUSLY THROUGH REPENTANT, “TRUSTING” HEARTS AND SOULS, WHO “TAKE UP THE CROSS, CHOOSING TO FOLLOW JESUS”!

NOTICE,JOHN 1:6-7, “THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROMGOD, WHOSE NAMES WAS JOHN. THE SAME CAME FOR A WITNESS, TO BEAR WITNESS OF THE LIGHT, THAT ALL MEN MIGHT BELIEVE (OR TRUST, SURRENDER, YIELD!).” WHY? BECAUSE RELYING UPON ONE’S INNER,SOCIAL,SELF-ACCEPTED RIGHT TO RULE WITHOUT THE HEAVENLY FATHER’S, YES, INNER SPIRIT AGENDA IN A REPENTANT, TRUSTING HEART, THAT, YES, CHOOSES “DYING DAILY TO ‘THAT’ SELF SO THAT RESURRECTED JESUS IS GIVEN HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE TO LIVE IN YOU AND REIGN THROUGH YOU, TOUCHING YOUR WORLD WITH HIS LOVE, GRACE, AND MERCY, WITH YOU AS HIS “WISE, REPENTING, TRUSTING, YIELDED SERVANT,OBEYING TO ‘GO INTO ALL YOUR WORLD PREACHING THE GOSPEL, WITNESSING OF HIS ETERNAL ‘MASTER-WORK’ IN BIRTHING DEAD SPIRITUAL LIVES INTO TEMPLES OF THE INDWELLING LORD AND SAVIOR, HIS HOLY SPIRIT, AND HIS ETERNAL VISION OF WORLD REDEMPTION, THROUGH “YOU” IN FAITHFUL MINISTRY OF INTRODUCING THOSE AROUND YOU WITH THE “GOOD NEWS” OF CHRIST JESUS’S BLOOD SACRIFICE, RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, AND REIGNING ETERNALLY IN REPENTANT MINDS AND HEARTS, ALLOWING, “JESUS, BE JESUS, IN ME – NO LONGER ME, BUT THEE; RESURRECTION POWER, FILL ME THIS HOUR, JESUS, BE JESUS IN ME!”

ALSO, IN JOHN 1, NOTICE VERSES 8-16! “JOHN WAS NOT THAT LIGHT, BUT WAS SENT TO “BEAR WITNESS” OF THAT LIGHT. THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, JESUS, WHICH LIGHTS EVERY MAN THAT COMES INTO THE WORLD. (THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS AN AMAZING UNVEILING OF EVERY MAN IN ANY NATION – HOLY GOD HAS BORNER ‘WITNESS’ UNTO THEM WHETHER THEY RECEIVE IT OR NOT!!!). JOHN CONTINUES, VERSES 10-16,

JESUS WAS IN THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD WAS MADE BY HIM, AND THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT. HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN (HIS JEWISH HERITAGE, HIS EARTHLY RELATIVES!), HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT. “BUT” AS MANY AS RECEIVED HIM, TO THEM HE GAVE POWER TO BECOME SONS OF GOD, EVEN TO THEM THAT BELIEVE (OR “TRUST”) ON HIS NAME:

WHICH WERE BORN, NOT OF BLOOD, NOR OF THE WILL OF THE ‘FLESH’ (OR OLD SIN-NATURE’), NOR OF THE WILL OF MAN, BUT OF GOD. AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH, AND DWELT AMONG US, (AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY, THE GLORY AS OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN OF FATHER-GOD!DID “YOU”?), FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.JOHN BORE (&BARES) WITNESS OF HIM, CRYING OUT, SAYING, THIS WAS “HE” OF WHOM I SPOKE, ‘HE THAT COMES AFTER ME IS PREFERRED BEFORE ME; FOR HE WAS BEFORE ME. AND OF HIS FULLNESS HAVE ALL WE RECEIVED, AND GRACE FOR GRACE.”

GRACE FOR GRACE? GRACE GIVEN-GRACE SHARED! GRACE WORKING IN ME – GRACE WORKING THROUGH ME! GRACE FOR THE LOST – GRACE FOR THE FOUND! GRACE TO EXPOUND-GRACE TO ENLIGHTEN OTHERS! GRACE TO GROUND ONE ON THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF VICTORIOUS LIVING – GRACE TO TRANSPORT US THROUGH THE GRAVE UNTO OUR EARTHLY MINISTRIES THEN UNTO OUR ETERNAL HOME AROUND CHRIST’S THRONE, GOD GRACIOUSLY ALLOWING US TO ETERNALLY BE CHRIST’S “FOOT-WASHERS” AS SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE KING OF GLORY!

DEATH IS AND HAS NO “STING” –IT’S THE OPENING OF THE DOOR TO UNENDING SERVICE TO THE RESURRECTED SAVIOR AND LORD ON HIS THRONE! RESURRECTION LIFE! RESURRECTION POWER! RESURRECTION GLORY AND GRACE AND GLOW!

IN THE OLD BROADMAN HYMNAL PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, COPYRIGHTED IN 1940, IS THE OLD HYMN “PEACE!BE STILL!”, WRITTEN BY MARY BAKER AND H.R.PALMER. IT SAYS:

“MASTER, THE TEMPEST IS RAGING! THE BILLOWS ARE TOSSING HIGH! THE SKY IS O’ER-SHADOWED WITH BLACKNESS, NO SHELTER OR HELP IS NIGH: “CAREST YOU NOT THAT WE PERISH?” HOW CAN YOU LIE ASLEEP? WHEN EACH MOMENT SO MADLY IS THREATENING A GRACE IN THE ANGRY DEEP?

MASTER, WITH ANGUISH OF SPIRIT I BOW IN MY GRIEF TODAY; THE DEPTHS OF MY SAD HEART ARE TROUBLED; O WAKEN AND SAVE, I PRAY! TORRENTS OF SIN AND OF ANGUISH SWEEP O’ER MY SINKING SOUL! AND I PERISH! I PERISH, DEAR MASTER; O HASTEN, AND TAKE CONTROL!

MASTER, THE TERROR IS OVER, THE ELEMENTS SWEETLY REST; EARTH’S SUN IN THE CALM LAKE IS MIRRORED, AND HEAVEN’S WITHIN MY BREAST. LINGER, O BLESSED REDEEMER, LEAVE ME ALONE NO MORE; AND WITH JOY I SHALL MAKE THE BLEST HARBOR, AND REST ON THE BLISSFUL SHORE.

“THE WINDS AND THE WAVES SHALL OBEY GOD’S WILL, PEACE, BE STILL!” WHETHER THE WRATH OF A STORM-TOSSED SEA, OR DEMONS, OR MEN, OR WHATEVER IT BE, NO WATER CAN SWALLOW THE SHIP WHERE LIES “THE MASTER” OF OCEAN AND EARTH AND SKIES; THEY ALL SHALL SWEETLY OBEY MY WILL; PEACE, BE STILL!” ARE “YOU”AT PEACE WITH HOLY GOD, BY CHRIST JESUS, CONVICTED, CONVINCED, CONSECRATED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT?

IN EXODUS 14:8, PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT, LIKE SATAN OVER HELL, HAD HIS HEART HARDENED, AND HE CONTINUED PURSUING THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, LIKE SATAN TODAY STILL PURSUES THE SONS OF FAITH, THE CHILDREN OF GOD, THE JOINT-HEIRS AND ANOINTED AMBASSADORS OF CHRIST JESUS,BUT IN VERSES 13-14 WE READ: AND MOSES SAID UNTO THE PEOPLE, “FEAR YOU NOT, STAND STILL, AND SEE THE SALVATION OF THE LORD, WHICH HE SHALL SHEW TO YOU TODAY; FOR THE EGYPTIANS (THEN, BUT THE WORLD, YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN NOW!) WHOM YOU HAVE SEEN TODAY, YOU SHALL SEE THEM AGAIN NO MORE FOR EVER. THE LORD SHALL FIGHT FOR YOU, AND YOU SHALL HOLD YOUR PEACE.”

“THE HOLY TRUTH OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION LIFE?” THAT’S INHERITING THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST IN YOU AS YOU DAILY DIE TO YOUR OLD SELF THAT THE “NEW MAN” IN CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH! AND YOU KNOW IT’S REALITY BY THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT OF CHRIST WHO ESTABLISHES THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHIN AND BEARS FRUIT! GALATIANS 5:22-25 SAYS, “BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONGSUFFERING, GENTLENESS, GOODNESS, FAITH, MEEKNESS (TEMPERANCE OR SELF CONTROL!); AGAINST SUCH THERE IS NO LAW. (AS A RESULT) VERSE 24 SAYS, AND THEY THAT “ARE CHRIST’S” HAVE CRUCIFIED THE FLESH (DAILY!?!) WITH ITS AFFECTIONS AND LUSTS. VERSE 25! “IF WE LIVE ‘IN THE SPIRIT’, LET US ALSO “WALK IN THE SPIRIT”!

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY OF FAITH IN THE CHURCH, YOUR COMMUNITY, YOUR NATION, AND THE WORLD! ARE YOU THE “FAITHFUL AMBASSADOR OF CHRIST THE LORD”? IN A BOOK I HAD PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER, 2006, ENTITLED “OUR GRACIOUS GOD”, ON PPS.90-91, I WROTE: “I CAME ACROSS A STORY THAT SO EASILY COULD HAVE BEEN MY LIFE. LOCATION –BELLE CHASE, LOUISIANA. A COUPLE WAS OUT ON A ROMANTIC DRIVE THROUGH A WOODED SECTION. ONE OF THEM GLANCED ASIDE TO SEE A SHIMMERING, WHITE GLOW THAT CAUGHT THE EYES. THEY DECIDED TO INVESTIGATE AND FOUND A DEAD TEENAGER HANGING FROM A TREE LIMB WITH A BED-SHEET WRAPPED AROUND HIS NECK. HE LEFT A NOTE ADDRESSED TO “MOM AND DAD.” IT SAID:

“I NEVER DID DEVELOP INTO A REAL PERSON AND I CANNOT TOLERATE THE FALSE AND EMPTY EXISTENCE I HAD CREATED. WHAT FRUSTRATED ME MOST IN THE LAST YEAR WAS THAT I HAD BUILT NO TIES TO FAMILY OR FRIENDS. THERE WAS NOTHING OF LASTING WORTH AND VALUE. I LED A DETACHED EXISTENCE. I AM A BOMB OF FRUSTRATION AND SHOULD NEVER MARRY OR HAVE CHILDREN. IT IS SAFEST TO DEFUSE THE BOMB HARMLESSLY NOW, SIMPLY CREMATE ME AS JOHN DOE.” I WENT ON CLOSING OUT THAT CHAPTER, WRITING: “NO ONE EVER CLAIMED HIM OR TO HAVE KNOWN HIM. HE TRULY DIED ‘alone’,(a lonely, godless, unbelieving ‘child’!).THAT SO EASILY COULD HAVE BEEN THE STORY OF MY LIFE. COMING OUT OF A FAMILY OF A BROKEN MARRIAGE, I WAS THREE YEARS OF AGE, TAKEN TO LIVE WITH MY GRANDPARENTS –AND EVEN THOUGH THEY LOVED ME, THERE WAS THAT GNAWING EMPTINESS OF UNIMPORTANCE TO ANYBODY. ALL THROUGH THE YEARS OF MY LIFE (EVEN COLLEGE & SEMINARY!!!) UNTIL MY LATE THIRTIES SUICIDE WAS A POSSIBILITY – BUT SOMETHING HELD ME BACK UNTIL I WAS BORN AGAIN IN FEBRUARY, 1974!! IT WAS THE LOVE OF MY WIFE, SUE, MY CHILDREN, THE LOVE OF FAMILY, AND YES THE LOVE OF THE BODY OF CHRIST, THEIR LOVE FOR HIM SHINING THE LIGHT THAT GOD HIMSELF ALWAYS LOVED ME AND WANTED TO BE MY SAVIOR, MY SHIELD, AND MY PROTECTOR AND PROVIDER AND PROVISION OF “CHRIST IN ME, MY HOPE OF GLORY”, YES, MY GUARANTEE OF “MORE THAN A CONQUEROR THROUGH CHRIST WHO LOVED ME AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.

TELL ME! WHAT ABOUT YOU NOW, THROUGH DEATH’S DOOR, ENTERING AN EVERLASTING HOME: “IN CHRIST”, HEAVEN! APART FROM HIM, “AN ETERNAL HELL WITH SATAN, THE WORLD, AND UNREDEEMED LIVES”! CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY!!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“SURE TESTS FOR BLOOD-REDEEMED LIVES ‘IN CHRIST’!

SEVERAL VERSES TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR THIS MESSAGE ARE FOUND, FIRST, IN LUKE 10:38, WHERE THE CONVERTED PHYSICIAN SAID, “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.”

THEN WE READ IN ACTS 19:11, “NOW GOD WORKED UNUSUAL (OR “EXTRAORDINARY”) MIRACLES BY THE HANDS OF PAUL.” BUT ARE YOU AWARE THAT OVER THE CENTURIES THE “GOOD NEWS” WAS SO ‘WATERED’ DOWN THAT ‘BELIEVERS’ COULDN’T SEE CHRIST WANTED TO BE HIMSELF “IN THEM” SO THAT THROUGH THEM HE COULD EXTEND & EXPRESS & UNVEIL “THE GOD OF SIGNS AND WONDERS”?

ARE THE “PROMISES” AND MULTIPLE “ASSURANCES” IGNORED, OR WILLFULLY BLINDED TO, OR WIPED OUT THROUGH ONE’S ‘SELF-ASSURANCE THAT I’M FORGIVEN, AND THAT’S ALL THAT I’M CONCERNED ABOUT?’, WHEN ONE, A MAN OR WOMAN, BOY OR GIRL, IS,YES,(ROMANS 3:24) “BEING JUSTIFIED FREELY BY GOD’S GRACE THROUGH THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS,” WE, THEN, ARE FREE TO ENJOY OUR ETERNAL BLESSINGS WITH NO CONCERN FOR THOSE AROUND US WHO DON’T KNOW ABOUT “GOD’S SAVING GRACE & MERCY THROUGH CHRIST JESUS”?

RECONCILIATION TO HOLY GOD, BUT NO REACHING OUT TO THOSE WHO NEED HIS RECONCILIATION PROMISE? “RE-BIRTH” THROUGH REPENTANCE AND FAITH, BUT NO CONCERN OF EXTENDING THE FAMILY OF FAITH? THE DOOR OPENED BY CHRIST TO HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM YOU WERE WELCOMED INTO, BUT BLINDED TO OTHERS WHO NEED THE SAME GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE? YOU, “CLOTHED IN HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS”, BUT “you”HAVE NO DESIRE TO CLOTHE OTHERS IN “CHRIST’S MINISTRY” TO BIRTHED, NATURAL SEEDED BABIES, DESPERATELY NEEDING TO BE RAISED OUT OF SPIRITUAL DEATH INTO THE EVERLASTING REALMS OF ETERNAL LIFE & CLOTHED, YES, AS THE HOLY WORD SAYS IN REVELATION 16:15b, “BLESSED IS HE THAT WATCHES, AND KEEPS HIS GARMENTS, LEST YOU WALK NAKED, AND THEY SEE YOUR SHAME??” EXAMINE CAREFULLY 2 CORINTHIANS 5:4 WHERE PAUL SAID: “FOR WE THAT ARE IN THIS (PHYSICAL) TABERNACLE DO GROAN, BEING BURDENED; NOT FOR THAT WE WOULD BE UNCLOTHED (ANY LONGER!), BUT CLOTHED UPON, THAT MORTALITY WOULD BE SWALLOWED UP OF LIFE”, WHICH MEANS MORTAL BEINGS WHO REPENT AND FAITH CHRIST WILL BE CLOTHED IN THE “GARMENTS OF HIS SALVATION” PLUS THE FRUITS OF HIS HOLY SPIRIT ‘JUICING US UP’ TO THE GLORY OF GOD!!

“IN CHRIST” ARE YOU “A VESSEL UNTO HONOR, SANCTIFIED, AND MEET (OR PREPARED, EQUIPPED, DRESSED) FOR THE MASTER’S USE?” ARE YOU “CLOTHED IN CHRIST’S GARMENTS” OF HIS “GRACED PRESENCE WITHIN”,“GRACE GIFTS”, “GRACE CALLINGS & ORDERS”, PLUS, “GRACE EXPOSURES WHEN THE REDEEMED DISCIPLES THINK THEIR ‘EFFORTS ARE SURELY ACCEPTABLE WHEN’, (IF THEY WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST), EVEN THEIR BEST EFFORTS BECOME POOR SUBSTITUTIONS FOR JESUS’ RESURRECTED, REIGNING, RULING,AND JESUS WILL REACH THROUGH THE STUNNED PRETENSE OF ‘THE GIVE-IT-YOUR-BEST ATTITUDE’, ‘OR DOES A DISCIPLE’S GRIT, HIS BEST EFFORT, AND HIS MENTAL ABILITIES’ CARRY HIM/HER ON LIFE’S HIGHWAY, BUT SHAMING CHRIST BECAUSE HE/SHE WALKS NAKED, NOT CLOTHED IN THE FULLNESS OF HIS HOLY PRESENCE IN SPIRIT-ABIDING WITHIN, AND CERTAINLY NOT IN “HIS ARMOR” TO PROTECT ONE WHO GOES OUT INTO DARKNESS TO SHARE THE “LIGHT”, UNVEILING THE ‘SINNERS’ DARKNESS’ AND HOPING “CHRIST IN YOU & THROUGH YOU” IS ALIVE AND WELL & THAT HE WILL BE IN YOU, YES, “AS YOU TRIED SHINING HIS “LIGHT” BUT THOSE BEFORE YOU WHO “MUST BE BORN AGAIN” NEED THE RESURRECTED CHRIST, NOT A ‘BEST-EFFORT DISCIPLE’ WITH ‘NATURAL LIGHT’ BUT NOT “SPIRIT-ANOINTING” TESTIFYING THROUGH TRUE VESSELS, THAT ARE “VESSELS”,BUT HIS PRESENSE WITHIN YOU, YES, ISN’T SPEAKING TO THE NEEDY THROUGH YOU BECAUSE ‘YOU’ “TRY” BUT AREN’T “TRUSTING” TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU?

“SURE TESTS FOR THE BLOOD-REDEEMED ‘IN CHRIST’?” IN MATTHEW 9:31 JESUS SPOKE TO HIS DISCIPLES, [LET ME PAUSE BEFORE I READ]: (IF “YOU” ARE A TRUE DISCIPLE OF CHRIST, DO “YOU” HEAR HIM SPEAK TO “YOU” THROUGH HIS WORD, HIS HOLY SPIRIT WHO “GUIDES YOU INTO ALL TRUTH”, AND THROUGH “YOUR” SCRIPTURAL AND “YOUR” MIND AND HEART-UNDERSTANDING THAT, HAVING REDEEMED YOU BY HIS OWN BLOOD, BOUGHT & FREED YOU FROM SATANIC BONDAGE, POURED INTO YOU HIS HOLY SPIRIT, AND COMMISSIONED YOU TO BE HIS WITNESSES, HIS MESSENGERS TO THE ‘UNSAVED’, YOU ONLY SEE THAT, AS A ‘CHURCH MEMBER’, IT’S THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PREACHERS, EVANGELISTS, AND MISSIONARIES, BUT NOT “YOU”?)

MATTHEW 9:31? “BUT THEY, WHEN THEY WERE DEPARTED, SPREAD ABROAD HIS FAME IN ALL THAT COUNTRY.” OH, BUT THEN LOOK AT MATTHEW 9:35-38, “AND JESUS WENT ABOUT ALL THE CITIES AND VILLAGES, TEACHING IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES, AND PREACHING THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM, AND HEALING EVERY SICKNESS AND EVERY DISEASE AMONG THE PEOPLE. (PAUSE! QUESTION: “DO YOU THINK ‘DISEASE’ INCLUDES “DIS-EASE”, OR TROUBLED, BLINDED, DARKENED BY SIN, CAPTURED BY THE LOVE OF THE WORLD, THE ‘FLESH’, OR DEVILISH, DEMONIC ACTIVITIES?”).VERSES36-38,”BUT WHEN HE SAW THE MULTITUDES, ‘HE’ (JESUS) WAS MOVED WITH COMPASSION ON THEM, BECAUSE THEY FAINTED, AND WERE SCATTERED ABROAD, AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD.

THEN SAID JESUS UNTO HIS DISCIPLES, “THE HARVEST IS TRULY PLENTEOUS, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW; PRAY YOU THEREFORE THE LORD OF THE HARVEST THAT HE WILL SEND LABOURERS INTO HIS HARVEST.”

“SURE TESTS FOR THE BLOOD-REDEEMED IN CHRIST?”

1! “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED IN CHRIST FAITHUL WITNESSES COMMISSIONED BY CHRIST?” IN MATTHEW 28:18-20, JESUS CAME (AND HE STILL COMES!!), SAYING, “ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH. GO YOU THEREFORE, AND TEACH ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, & OF THE SON, & OF THE HOLY GHOST: TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THINGS, WHATSOEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU; AND, LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD.”

2! “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED ‘OBEDIENT’ SONS AND DAUGHTERS, FOLLOWING THE LORD’S GREAT COMMISSION?” IN ACTS 22, UPON SAUL’S CONVERSION BY CHRIST “SEEING (THE “LIGHT”!), WHO BECAME PAUL, WROTE: VERSES 10-15, SAYING, AND SAUL SAID,”WHAT SHALL I DO, LORD?” AND THE LORD SAID, “I AM JESUS OF NAZARETH, WHOM YOU JEWS PERSECUTE.” AND THEY THAT WERE WITH ME SAW INDEED THE LIGHT, AND WERE AFRAID; BUT THEY HEARD NOT THE VOICE OF HIM THAT SPOKE TO ME.

AND I SAID, “WHAT SHALL I DO, LORD?” AND THE LORD SAID TO ME, “ARISE, AND GO INTO DAMASCUS; AND THERE IS SHALL BE TOLD YOU OF ALL THINGS WHICH ARE APPOINTED FOR YOU TO DO.”- (HAVE “YOU” RECEIVED “YOUR DIVINE APPOINTMENT”?). AND WHEN I COULD NOT SEE FOR THE GLORY OF THAT LIGHT, BEING LED BY THE HAND OF THEM THAT WERE WITH ME, I CAME INTO DAMASCUS.

AND ONE, ANANIAS, A DEVOUT MAN ACCORDING TO THE LAW, HAVING A GOOD REPORT OF ALL THE JEWS WHICH DWELT THERE, CAME UNTO ME, AND STOOD, AND SAID UNTO ME, BROTHER SAUL, RECEIVE YOUR SIGHT. AND THE SAME HOUR I LOOKED UP UPON HIM. AND HE SAID, “THE GOD OF OUR FATHERS HAS CHOSEN YOU, THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW HIS WILL, AND SEE THAT “JUST ONE”, AND SHOULD HEAR THE VOICE OF HIS MOUTH. FOR “YOU” SHALL BE “HIS” WITNESS UNTO ALL MEN OF WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN & HEARD.”

ARE “YOU”, HAVING BEEN SAVED, A “PROCLAIMER OF TRUTH”? WERE “YOU” COMMISSONED BY CHRIST? ARE “YOU”, ACCORDING TO 2 TIMOTHY 2:15, “STUDYING TO SHOW YOURSELF APPROVED UNTO GOD, A WORKMAN THAT NEEDS NOT TO BE ASHAMED, BUT RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH”?

“SURE TESTS FOR THE BLOOD-REDEEMED ‘IN CHRIST’?”

3! “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED “IN CHRIST” THOSE WHO FAITHFULLY ‘PROTECT & PERFECT’ THEIR TESTIMONY OF ‘FAITH IN CHRIST’?” HEAR 2 PETER 3:13-14!! “NEVERTHELESS WE, ACCORDING TO “HIS” PROMISE, LOOK FOR NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH WHEREIN DWELLS RIGHTEOUSNESS. WHEREFORE, BELOVED, BRETHREN, SEEING THAT YOU LOOK FOR SUCH THINGS, BE DILIGENT THAT YOU MAY BE FOUND OF HIM IN PEACE, WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH.”

DO “YOU” WALK IN PARTIAL PURITY SINCE CONVERSION, OR IN THE PURITY OF CHRIST? DO “YOU” WALK IN PARTIAL OBEDIENCE SOME OF THE TIME, OR SOLD OUT TO BE AN OBEDIENT SERVANT OF THE KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS?

4) “ARE THE BLOOD-REDEEMED “IN CHRIST” THOSE WHO,YES, WALK IN CONFIDENCE & BLESSED ASSURANCE”? IN HEBREWS 3:1 & 6-14 WE FIND CHALLENGING WORDS: 3:1 “WHEREFORE, HOLY BRETHREN, PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING, CONSIDER THE “APOSTLE AND HIGH PRIEST” OF OUR ‘PROFESSION’, CHRIST JESUS.”, FOLLOWED BY VERSES 6-14! “CHRIST AS A SON OVER “HIS” OWN HOUSE;WHOSE HOUSE ARE WE “IF” WE HOLD FAST THE CONFIDENCE AND THE REJOICING OF THE HOPE FIRM TO THE END. WHEREFOR (AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS, ‘TODAY IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE,

HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS, AS IN THE PROVOCATION, IN THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS: WHEN YOUR FATHERS TEMPTED ME, AND SAW MY WORKS FORTY YEARS. WHEREFORE I WAS GRIEVED WITH THAT GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY DO ALWAYS ERR IN THEIR HEART; AND THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN “MY”WAYS. SO I SWORE IN MY WRATH, “THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY REST.)

TAKE HEED,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 (BELIEVERS) BE HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. FOR WE ARE MADE PARTAKERS OF CHRIST, IF WE HOLD THE BEGINNING OF OUR CONFIDENCE STEDFAST UNTO THE END.”

IN THE OLD “AMERICAN HYMNAL”, PUBLISHED IN 1933, (BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.),P.21, IS A HYMN ENTITLED, “HAIL, JESUS ONCE DESPISED”,SAYING, “HAIL, YOU ONCE DESPISED JESUS! HAIL, YOU GALILEAN KING! YOU SUFFERED TO RELEASE US; YOU DID FREE SALVATION BRING.

HAIL, YOU AGONIZING SAVIOR, BEARER OF OUR SIN AND SHAME! BY YOUR MERITS WE FIND FAVOR; LIFE IS GIVEN THRO’ YOUR NAME.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“A CHURCH’S, A PASTOR’S, A DISCIPLE’S MINISTRY TO A LOST, NEEDY, SINFUL WORLD”

VERY ‘WEIGHTY,CONVICTING VERSES’ RESIDES IN JAMES I:26-27 WHERE THE BROTHER OF JESUS, JAMES, WROTE: “IF ANY MAN AMONG YOU,SEEM TO BE RELIGIOUS, AND BRIDLES NOT HIS TONGUE, BUT DECEIVES HIS OWN HEART, THIS MAN’S RELIGION IS VAIN. PURE RELIGION AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE FATHER IS THIS,..

TO VISIT THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION, AND TO KEEP HIMSELF UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.” THE BROTHER OF JESUS SAW A GREAT NEED, ‘THE FATHERLESS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION.’ THANK GOD FOR JAMES BECAUSE “HE SAW” A GREAT NEED AND INSTRUCTED DISCIPLES AROUND HIM TO MEET THAT NEED! BUT IS THAT ALL THAT A CHURCH, A PASTOR, OR A DISCIPLE IS CALLED TO DO? “I DON’T THINK SO! I KNOW IT’S NOT ALL! DID JAMES REALLY SAY: “TRUE DISCIPLES ARE TO KEEP THEMSELVES UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD”?

BUT MULTITUDES ACROSS AMERICA AND THE REST OF THE WORLD WILL IGNORE “BLOOD ATONEMENT THRU’ CHRIST’S CRUCIFIXION, IGNORE HIS RESURRECTION, DENY HIS PROMISE, “OPEN THE DOOR OF YOUR HEART AND I WILL COME IN!” BUT RATHER THAN REPENTING, INVITING JESUS IN, LETTING THE “HISTORIC CHRIST” BE HIMSELF IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU, MOST PROFESSORS OF FAITH IN CHRIST ‘PROFESS’ BUT THEY WANT ‘CHURCH MEMBERSHIP’ APART FROM “NEW BIRTH”!

IN 2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17 PAUL WROTE: “ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF GOD, AND IS PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE, FOR REPROOF, FOR CORRECTION, FOR INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS: THAT THE MAN OF GOD MAY BE MADE PERFECT, THOROUGHLY FURNISHED IN ALL GOOD WORKS.” WHAT POWERFUL, CONVICTING, INSTRUCTIVE WORDS OF GOD TO EVERY DISCIPLE!

THE CONVERTED, POWERFUL, NATURAL FISHERMAN AND SPIRITUAL FISHERMAN,SIMON PETER, WROTE IN 2 PETER 1,FIRST,VERSES 3-4, “ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, “THROUGH” THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST WHO HAS CALLED US TO GLORY AND VIRTUE: AND, WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES: THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT “BE” PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST”!

READ IN YOUR OWN BIBLE VERSES 5-7 BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING THE FOLLOWING, VERSES 8-11, WHEN PETER,YES, ALSO INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WROTE: “FOR IF THESE THINGS BE IN YOU, AND ABOUND,THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN NOR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. BUT HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, AND CANNOT SEE AFAR OFF, AND HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS.

WHEREFORE THE RATHER,BRETHREN,GIVE DILIGENCE,TO MAKE YOUR CALLING AND ELECTION SURE; FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.”

I’M SORRY IF IT ‘BOTHERS’ YOU THAT I SHARE SO MUCH SCRIPTURE WITH YOU, BUT I’M FULLY CONVINCED THAT YOU NEED GOD’S TRUTH MORE THAN MY THOUGHTS!

WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO READ IS GOD’S HOLY CALLING TO FAITHFUL DISCIPLES TO, YES, BE MISSION-MINDED MEN AND WOMEN IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD LITERALLY AND FAITHFULLY LAYING DOWN YOUR LIFE IF NECESSARY TO SHARE THE EVANGELISTIC TRUTH OF GOD’S LOVE FOR THE WORLD THROUGH HIS SACRIFICE OF HIS SON! AND YOU?

SO…IN 1 CORINTHIANS 1:17-31 WE READ EVERY TRUE DISCIPLE’S CALLING AND LIFE-IN-CHRIST’S MISSION AND MINISTRY!! IT SAYS: “FOR CHRIST SENT ME NOT TO BAPTIZE, BUT TO PREACH THE GOSPEL: NOT WITH WISDOM OF WORDS, LEST THE CROSS OF CHRIST SHOULD BE MADE OF NO EFFECT. FOR THE PREACHING OF THE CROSS IS TO THEM THAT PERISH FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO US WHO ARE ‘BEING’ SAVED IT IS THE POWER OF GOD.

FOR IT IS WRITTEN, I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND WILL BRING TO NOTHING THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRUDENT. WHERE IS THE WISE?WHERE IS THE SCRIBE?WHERE IS THE DISPUTER OF THIS WORLD?HAS NOT GOD MADE FOOLISH THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD?” (‘THE DISPUTER OF THIS WORLD’? THAT’S MEN WHO BELIEVE THE WORLD WAS MADE ‘FOR THEM’, NOT FOR THE GLORY OF GOD ALONE!).

VERSES 21-31 FOLLOWS: “FOR AFTER THAT IN THE WISDOM OF GOD THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD, IT PLEASED GOD BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING TO SAVE THEM THAT BELIEVE. FOR THE JEWS REQUIRE A SIGN, AND THE GREEKS SEEK AFTER WISDOM:(LET ME PAUSE &SAY,“FOOLISH AMERICANS, ASIANS,AFRICANS,EUROPEANS”?),VERSES 23-31!BUT WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED, UNTO THE JEWS A STUMBLING BLOCK, AND UNTO THE GREEKS FOOLISHNESS; BUT UNTO THEM WHICH ‘ARE CALLED’, BOTH JEWS AND GREEKS, CHRIST,THE POWER OF GOD,AND THE WISDOM OF GOD.

BECAUSE THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD IS WISER THAN MEN; AND THE WEAKNESS OF GOD IS STRONGER THAN MEN. FOR YOU SEE YOUR CALLING,BRETHREN,HOW THAT NOT MANY WISE MEN AFTER THE FLESH, NOT MANY MIGHTY, NOT MANY NOBLE, ARE CALLED;

BUT GOD HAS CHOSEN THE FOOLISH THINGS OF THE WORLD TO CONFOUND THE WISE; AND GOD HAS CHOSEN THE WEAK THINGS OF THE WORLD TO CONFOUND THE THINGS WHICH ARE MIGHTY; AND BASE THINGS OF THE WORLD, AND THINGS WHICH ARE DESPISED, HAS GOD CHOSEN,YES, AND THINGS WHICH ARE NOT, TO BRING TO NOTHING THINGS THAT ARE:THAT NO FLESH (OR OLD ‘SIN NATURE’) SHOULD GLORY IN HIS PRESENCE. (YOU’RE AWARE,MAYBE,THAT EVERY BELIEVING MAN OR WOMAN,AND EVERY UNBELIEVING MAN OR WOMAN, WILL STAND BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF HOLY GOD TO EXPLAIN TO HIM ONE’S LACK OF FAITH OR ONE’S FULL TRUST IN THE BLOOD REDEMPTION SACRIFICE OF KING JESUS!!).

VERSES 30-31, “BUT OF HIM ARE “YOU” IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO OF GOD (GET READY FOR THE FOLLOWING!!), “YOU IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO OF GOD IS MADE UNTO US (HIS) WISDOM, AND (HIS) RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND (HIS)SANCTIFICATION, AND (HIS) REDEMPTION: THAT, ACCORDING AS IT IS WRITTEN, “HE THAT GLORIES (IN LIFE’S JOURNEY), LET HIM/HER GLORY IN THE LORD”!!!

B.B.MCKINNEY,IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” OF 1940 (COPYRIGHTED BY BROADMAN PRESS IN NASHVILLE,TENN.)WROTE THE HYMN “HE LIVES ON HIGH”(P.336) THAT SAYS: “CHRIST THE SAVIOR CAME FROM HEAVEN’S GLORY,TO REDEEM THE LOST FROM SIN AND SHAME; ON HIS BROW HE WORE THE THORN-CROWN GORY, AND UPON CALVARY HE TOOK MY BLAME.

HE AROSE FROM DEATH AND ALL ITS SORROW, TO DWELL IN THAT ‘LAND OF JOY AND LOVE’; HE IS COMING BACK SOME GLAD TOMORROW, AND HE’LL TAKE ALL HIS CHILDREN HOME ABOVE.

WEARY SOUL, TO JESUS COME CONFESSING, REDEMPTION FROM SIN HE OFFERS THEE; LOOK TO JESUS AND (SURRENDER?) AND RECEIVE A BLESSING, THERE IS LIFE, THERE IS JOY AND VICTORY .”

DO “YOU” UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS “VICTORY IN JESUS” OVER THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH, A GOD-ORDAINED LAW? DOESN’T ROMANS 3:23 TELL US:”FOR ALL HAVE SINNED, AND FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD”? DARE I SAY IT? BELIEVE I WILL! “ARE YOU AWARE THAT SOME ‘PROFESSING BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, CHURCH MEMBERS’, SINCERELY BELIEVE THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT SIN UNTIL JESUS COMES THE SECOND TIME?” JESUS “CAME” AND HE STAYS IN THE HEARTS OF TRUE BELIEVERS, EXPRESSING HIMSELF,EXTENDING HIS LOVE, & PROVING HIS POWER – AND HE DOES IT, BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO IS, CONVICTING, CONVERTING, TRANSFORMING,ESTABLISHING ANOTHER “TEMPLE” IN WHICH HE RESIDES, REMAINS, AND REACHES OUT THROUGH THEM TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM RULE IN MANY MORE HEARTS AND LIVES!

OH, THEN IN ROMANS 5:5 PAUL WROTE: “HOPE MAKES YOU NOT ASHAMED (ANY LONGER!MY TWO WORDS!); BECAUSE THE LOVE OF GOD IS SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO IS GOD’S GIFT TO ALL TRUE BELIEVERS!!”

BUT YOU ARE AWARE OUR KNOWN WORLD IS ALSO FILLED WITH “RELIGIOUS SUBSTITUTIONS”, ‘THAT’ IN AND THROUGH WHICH RELIGIOUSLY DECEIVED MINDS WILL EXERCISE THEIR ‘REIGIOUS FEELINGS’ APART FROM CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, APART FROM CONVERTED TO “NEW LIFE IN CHRIST” AND UPON CONVERSION, IN-FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND COMMISSIONED AS HIS “ROYAL AMBASSADORS”!

SO MANY CHOOSE NOTHING BUT “ME, MY, AND MINE”,OR SOME WILL ‘UNITE’ WITH, ‘LIAR-OLOGY’, ‘MYTH-OLOGY’, ‘FLESH-OLOGY’, ‘WORLD-RELIGIONS’ THEOLOGIES, ‘SELF-ORDAINED THEOLOGY’ – CHOOSING ‘MY CHOICE IS BETTER THAN GOD’S CHOICE, YOUR CHURCH’S CHOICE, OR THE FALSE CHOICES OF OTHER WORLD RELIGIONS’! “AS FOR ME? I’LL TRY TO BE THE BEST RELIGION-PARTICIPANT I CAN BE!” REALLY?

BUT IN 2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-12 PAUL ENLIGHTENS US EVEN MORE AS HE WROTE: “AND LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED ABOVE MEASURE, THROUGH THE ABUNDANCE OF “REVELATIONS GIVEN TO ME”, THERE WAS GIVEN TO ME A THORN IN THE FLESH, THE MESSENGER OF SATAN TO BUFFET ME, LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED ABOVE MEASURE. FOR THIS THING, I BESOUGHT THE LORD THRICE, THAT IT MIGHT DEPART FROM ME. AND HE SAID UNTO ME, “MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU: FOR MY STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS.

MOST GLADLY THEREFORE WILL I RATHER GLORY IN MY INFIRMITIES, THAT THE POWER OF CHRIST MAY REST UPON ME. THEREFORE I TAKE PLEASURE IN INFIRMITIES, IN REPROACHES, IN NECESSITIES, IN PERSECUTIONS, IN DISTRESSES FOR CHRIST’S SAKE: FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN AM I STRONG.” WHY? BECAUSE HE DOESN’T PROFESS THROUGH “BEST EFFORT” BUT “RESTS” IN JESUS’S BEST, & BECAUSE YOU “DIE DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH.”

IT’S TIME FOR YOU AS A ‘PROFESSING DISCIPLE’ TO ALLOW JESUS TO POSSESS YOUR BODY, HEART, AND MIND THROUGH WHICH HE LIVES OUT HIMSELF THROUGH YOU TO TOUCH THE WORLD AROUND YOU WITH HIS MERCY, GRACE, AND LOVE.

I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE FROM ANOTHER HYMN OUT OF THE BROADMAN HYMNAL, THE HYMNAL I QUOTED FROM EARLIER, BUT HERE IT’S A HYMN (P340)BY P.P.BLISS THAT SAYS:

“FREE FROM THE LAW (THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH?),O HAPPY CONDITION, JESUS HAS BLED, AND THERE IS REMISSION; CURSED BY THE LAW AND BRUISED BY THE FLL, GRACE HAS REDEEMED US ONCE FOR ALL.

NOW ARE WE FREE – THERE’S NO CONDEMNATION, JESUS PROVIDES A PERFECT SALVATION; “COME UNTO ME”, O HEAR HIS SWEET CALL, COME, AND HE SAVES US ONCE FOR ALL.

“CHILDREN OF GOD”, O glorious calling, surely his grace will keep us from Falling; passing from death to life at his call, blessed salvation once for all.

Once for all, O sinner, receive it; once for all,O brother, believe it; cling to the cross, the burden will fall, Christ has redeemed us once for all.”

AT THE ETERNAL THRONE OF JUDGMENT AS GOD EXAMINES “YOU”, WILL IT BE, “I TRIED MY BEST”, OR: “I TRULY, WHOLE-HEARTEDILY, ONCE FOR HIM ONLY DO I “REST” THROUGH CHRIST’S DEATH, RESURRECTION, ASCENSION, HIS REIGN IN ME, REJOICING DAILY IN HOPE!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“THE JOY OF A HOLY HOPE!”

It’s so interesting, convicting, and illuminating to read the Book of Job, seeing the extremes of serious doubts and unbeliefs, but then to see a man coming into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There was a time period of doubts, fears, and unbelief, but by the grace and mercy and love of God Job became an overcomer, victorious through God’s faithful pursuit of his soul! In Job 42:5 we read Job saying to the Lord, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You!” Verse 10 says, “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

In Job 31 Job highlighted the fatal, false steps of unbelievers who choose the ‘flesh walk’ totally void of the Spirit’s blessing, hearts ‘deceived’ and ending up experiencing ‘the consuming fire’, inheriting a consuming destruction, and rewarding one with spiritual bankruptcy eternally! I don’t know who said it, but I read in the “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, (p.231), the following statement: “Life with Christ is an endless hope, without Him a hopeless end.” So very, very true! But there are many who refuse to answer God’s knock at their hearts’ doors, willfully, ignorantly slamming the heart’s doors when the Savior knocks!

“The Joy of The Holy Hope” but you choose a ‘faithless life’ that without Christ dissipates into a coveted state of eternal captivity under the control of the demons of Hell and Satan accepting you as their and his forever slave in darkness forever, separated from King Jesus and the Holy Father and the Holy Spirit who so desired to “guide you in all eternal Truth”? One never comes into the blessed state of life who never truly trusts in the eternal redemptive hope found in Christ’s crucifixion, His resurrection, and His ascension to the eternal throne of God patiently waiting for the full increase of redeeming grace manifested in the minds and hearts of all born-again-‘faithers’!!

As I write this truth I do so just a few weeks AFTER!! I’m sure if you’ve attended any churches you found some singing, “O Little Town of Bethlehem, The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” – And that’s about the celebration of the birth of Christ who came to “set the captives free” through His sacrificial death, His Resurrection, His present reign at the right-hand throne of God, and ‘His resting men and women’ who, yes, let Christ in them BE their hope of eternal glory!

Dare I say it? Believe I will! “Lost eternal hope is the fainting, falling, faithless life that “play-acts” life’s purpose as he, she refuses to answer Christ’s “knock” at their heart’s door!”

Are you aware that there are, sadly, multitudes world-wide who, yes, choose to live in a darkened, gray, indeterminate world of spiritual unbelief, no mindful consideration of revealed truth, no “fix” on eternal spiritual Truth, and, for them, absolutely no consideration of anything the Holy Spirit, God the Father, or Christ Jesus has to say, and certainly, for many, no consideration of anything Christians or churches have to say?!?

“Christ in you the hope of glory”? Yet multitudes live their lives independent of Holy God and His “Holy Hope”, living lives in “false hopes”, not lives established on the eternal Truths spoken by God! Multitudes ignore God’s holy knock on their hearts’ doors, certain in themselves but uncertain about heavenly help! Are YOU living your life on uncertain foundations? Consider several uncertainties!

One, consider the uncertainty of one’s trust in his/her conception of true beauty! Psalm 39:11 says, “When you with rebukes correct a man for iniquity, you make his beauty to consume away like a moth; surely every man (without God in Christ as his/her Savior and Lord) IS VANITY!”

Two, consider the shallowness of fleshly trust in men! Psalm 146:3 clearly says, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help,” but put your trust only in God’s promises! How clear to you is 2 Corinthians 1:20? “All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are ‘yes’, and in Him “AMEN”, unto the glory of God.”

Three, consider the ‘fleshly pride’ in one’s self-allegiance that has no room for “trust in the finished work of Christ alone at Calvary”! In 2 Corinthians 1:9 Paul the Apostle said, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.” Men who are ‘fleshly alive’ and ‘preeminently alive’ in themselves exchange a false identity God never desired for them to be deceived in, and even for the ‘fool’, he says, “There is no God”, when forever and ever the Resurrected Lord and Savior reigns and keeps on reigning to the Father’s glory, honor, and praise!

Four, examine the reality of the troubling tombs of godless lives, yes, men/women, boys and girls, with “darkened hearts, warped wits, and worldly wills”, because there is eternal difference between ‘fleshly darkness’ and Christ Jesus God’s “Eternal Spiritual Light”!

Fifth, in 1 Thessalonians 2, Verses 4-13 we learn about our “calling” by Christ into His eternal Kingdom! Paul wrote: “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which tries our hearts. Foe neither at any time used we flattering words, as you know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, whom we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ.

But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear to us.

For you remember, brethren, our labor and travail; for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:

As you know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father does his children, That you would walk worthy of God, who has called you unto His kingdom and His glory. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when you received the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually works also in you that believe.”

Dare I say it? Simply mental belief apart from full surrender to the Lordship of Christ with His “gift” of resurrection presence, eternal forgiveness, and new life, new purpose, new power, and new privilege, IS ‘head knowledge’ absent of a “new heart”! And that end result? Religious activities with open doors to Satan’s realm of deception rather than “kingdom allegiance” under the Banner of the Resurrected, Reigning, Royal King of kings and Lord of lords!

But because of grace that leads one to faith, as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:13-15, we “gird up the loins of our minds, being sober (eternally seriously minded!!), and hoping to the end for the grace that is to be brought to us as Christ is revealed in us, As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in our ignorance; But as He which called us IS HOLY, so you be holy in all manner of conversation or your walk through the journey of your earthly pilgrimage with Christ as your Lord, your Savior, and your guardian presence with Christ in you!!

Do YOU truly have the spiritual understanding of reconciliation to Holy God in and through the blood sacrifice of Christ and His victorious resurrection, now continuing to reign at the right hand Throne of Holy God, yet telling us He also makes the redeemed heart His place of earthly residence? Do you daily take the sentence of death to your old man in order for the Resurrected, Reigning Christ to be Himself in you and through you?

Hear me! Living without “Christ in you” as Savior and Lord is to be a life residing in abiding, hellish darkness, not freed into the “Light” of Resurrection Presence!

I truly love what John Wesley wrote in his writing entitled “Christian Perfection”! Wesley said, “The holiest of men still need Christ as their Prophet, as “the light of the world.” For He does not give them light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness. They still need Christ as their King, for God does not give them a stock of holiness. But unless they receive a supply every moment, nothing but unholiness would remain. They still need Christ as their Priest, to make atonement for their holy things. Even perfect holiness is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ.”

Much of modern-day ‘Christianity’ is based upon misdirected curiosity but with limited inquiry totally short of, yes, the divine revelation! Reject the mystery of Christ’s existence, or look upon Him as only a historic person and riddle of a past life short-lived for only about 33 years, and the mixed mess of examining Christ Jesus sadly surfaces for some as only an “inexplicable riddle”!

SO…what does one do with John 3:16? “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes (or Trusts) in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Blaise Pascal once said, “Jesus Christ is God to whom we can approach without pride, and before whom we may abase ourselves without despair.” Why? How? Because we understand through the revelation of God’s Holy Word that “all sinners were crucified with Christ on His Cross, buried with Him in His grave, but raised with Him through God’s power, released in us by, yes, our God-given faith and heart-led repentance, new-born, then filled with the Holy Spirit, and commissioned as His royal ambassadors! YES! We willfully crown Him in our hearts as “Lord of all”, you and me included because He called us, convicted us, converted us, anointed us, and declared us as His chosen, adoptive children in the Holy Family of God!!

Is it any wonder to you that “in Christ”, through the gifts of repentance and faith, that guided by the Holy Spirit you live royally blessed with the whole treasury that flows out of God’s heart, through His throne, through His Son, and, yes, through His born-again, new-birthed sons and daughters as the richness of His grace abounds, His graciousness embraces the true child of faith, and continues from one’s spiritual birth, to enrich their lives of faith with Heaven’s treasures??

Hear me! The Christian faith is not an intellectual theory or a self-centered speculation – it IS Christ’s Resurrection Presence living in the repentant heart and life resting in His promises! I grew up from early childhood of my home church in Cleveland, Tennessee, singing from the very old “American Hymnal” the hymn by R. Kelso Carter entitled “Standing On the Promises”, but you do know that far too many ‘professing Christians’ just “Sit On The Premises”, mindless of Christ’s intent of a repentant heart and faith-captured life becoming the Temple of His Holy Presence, yes, Christ in you, through you, as you daily take the sentence of death to yourself so that He might reign through you, extending His life, expressing His love, and proving His power! The Hymn?

“Standing on the promises of Christ my King, Thro’ eternal ages let His praises ring; Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, Bound to Him eternally by love’s strong cord, Overcoming daily with the Spirit’s sword, Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I cannot fall, Listening every moment to the Spirit’s call, Resting in my Savior, as my all in all, standing on the promises of God.”

ARE YOU STANDING ON THE PROMISES OF GOD? The “Promises” are Merciful God’s “Creative Providence” in action, in you, for all around you to discover the Christ in you which can be their hope of eternal life, eternal rest, and eternal “Victory In Jesus”!! AMEN?

Once an outcast – but in Christ NOW a son or daughter in His redeemed, blood-bought family! Once living in darkness – but NOW living in the “Light” of His abiding Presence!

Once separated from God – but Christ’s coming, Christ’s Cross, Christ’s empty tomb, Christ’s “faithful knocking” at the hearts doors of all redeemed sons and daughters, Christ’s abiding presence and His constant, personal persuasion, blessedly favors us not to rest in “best effort, human trying” but trusting His Word: “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”!!

In the old “American Hymnal” published in 1933 by the editor, Robert H. Colman, written by Fanny J. Crosby and W.H. Doane, is the hymn “Safe In The Arms of Jesus.” It says: “Safe in the arms of Jesus, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest. Hark! It’s the voice of angels, Borne in a song to me, Over the fields of glory, Over the jasper sea…Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast, There by His love overshadowed, Sweetly my soul shall rest.” Amen? Are YOU “Safe In The Arms of Jesus”? Proverbs 29:25 states, “The fear of man brings a snare; but whoso puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe,” followed by Verse 26 which says, “Many seek the ruler’s favor; but every man’s judgment comes from the Lord.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“CARE OF THE CARNAL MIND OR CARE OF THE SPIRITUAL SOUL?”

Is a ‘carnal mind’ the merely human effort of one’s ‘best’ at discerning for himself/herself what one is looking for in life because there is in ‘fallen flesh’ no desire to know what Holy God is up to concerning one’s earthly purpose? I don’t think there is any doubt about that!

Many of the lives birthed in our modern world are strictly ‘fleshly’ in orientation without any consideration of God’s eternal purpose of men willfully choosing their lives as “vessels” of His divine Presence and extensions through them to amazingly touch the world around them with His mercy, grace, and love! They’re “busy” about the “care of the carnal mind” and all it supposes or proposes or imposes!

If there are great, spiritual events in one’s ‘carnal mind’, “it’s all ‘circumstantial’, not providential”, they think! And if anything “great” occurs, it’s from the ‘heart-spring’ of personal initiative not Holy intent! If “dark doors” are before them, carnal minded men ‘might’ say, “Well, that must come from lower powers out of hell”, never sensing ‘godlessness’ is fertile ground for demonic activity without God’s protection against the powers of darkness because they have no intent of being dependent upon Holy God for anything in their fleshly nature since they’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves!

Natural-minded men are blinded concerning “the lusts of the flesh, the lies of Satan, or the blinded deceits of a world population”! How many ‘natural men’ do you know who discern Holy God as the Author, Creator, and Celebrator of His world, its purpose ordained in Him, and His power and love seeing it come to full fruition in His timing? “God’s on His throne, and all is right in His world?” How many do you know who discern THAT for themselves?

How much of the comprehension of, at least, the care of the carnal mind relates to ‘fleshly comfort’, ‘earthly success’, or a ‘worldly dream or ambition’, imprinted by only ‘self-relevance’ independent of Holy God? Do you even think the masses of earthly-minded men controlled by ‘self-intent’ even care about what Holy God thinks? Personal pride “in my potential” is the ‘self-strutting peacock’ more proud of his ‘feathers’ than his Creator!

Oh, but then, there are the ‘religiously proud’ through the ages, like William Warburton, Bishop of Glouchester, that Charles Churchill wrote about in his article entitled “Independence”: “He was so proud that should he meet the Twelve Apostles in the street he’d turn his nose up at them all and shove his Savior from the wall.” I’d call that “The pride that captured Satan and shamed the ‘fallen angels’!

The cultivation of the mind void of the desire and intent of Holy God is like an automobile without an engine, or birds without wings, or, yes, human populations void of the awareness that the Creator-God came, birthed by the Virgin Mary, sacrificed His own Life on the Cross in “Blood Redemption”, but they continue ignoring Biblical History, just blindly trying to find their way without any consideration why Holy God sent His Son or why, under the Sovereign Administration of Holy God, “Why am I here?”!!

Is it possible that “the care of the carnal mind” rules over many because its finiteness has its own self-imposed limits, and one in that phase of existence only has no interest in God’s boundless, limitless, exceedingly great and unending infinite mercy and grace, especially if it costs them their independence, “if your God expects ME to obey Him”? And, is it possible, that to the extreme, there are those human beings, to the extreme point of pain, troubles, heartaches, despair, troubles, unhappiness, loneliness in the ‘inner man’, strongly twisted together to the point they come to the place to say to themselves, “Not even God cares about me”?

“Care of the carnal mind”? Could such devotion to ‘flesh’, to the ‘temporary’, to the ‘world scene’, to ‘human achievement’ without any need or even a ‘thought’ about God, or a ‘thought’ about the Savior, or a ‘thought’ about ETERNITY and one’s role in it, become so dominate one ends up ‘poverty stricken’ rather than “rich” in the Savior’s love? It’s not an accountant’s ‘ledger’ that will reveal what has the human heart, mind, and soul, because the “kingdom of God’ is not based on men’s bank accounts, investments, stock dividends, royalties, but the eternal reality of ONENESS with the Savior, Master, and True Lord of life that blesses and blesses and blesses, and keeps on blessing ! The richest man in the whole world, past, present, and future, is not the man with huge stocks, bonds, or bank accounts, but the man rich in redemptive faith, the recipient of a transformed life and new heart, and the man entrusted with Heaven’s Good News”, the Gospel, gain, and grip of King Jesus on his heart and mind, and HE’S NOT ASHAMED OF IT!

Will Carleton, in “The Ancient Miner’s Story”, wrote: “But I have learned a thing or two; I know as sure as fate, When we lock up our lives for wealth, the gold key comes too late.” One wonders if the ‘ancient miner’ ever knew or had any inkling at all about “true wealth” that only comes, lastingly, in one’s oneness in Christ alone as Lord, Savior, and the Master of, yes, Eternal Life!

Paul wrote challenging, enlightening words in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5, so ‘eternal-life-instructing’! He said: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

“Temporary”? Does that mean not permanent to you or those around you? Does temporary mean I don’t have to be serious about my ‘present’, though my ‘present’ may be the key to what Door or door I walk through as ‘eternity’ calls my name? Some have never even considered that the ‘temporary’ IS only a stepping stone toward the ‘eternal’, blessed or unblessed, good or bad, fleshly or spiritual, Satanic or Master-Jesus oriented – it seldom enters some minds, though they see themselves as a very ‘profound person’. “I operate on ‘common sense’, not like those Christians who talk about ‘spiritual sensitivity’ to the things of God and obedience to what He reveals – not me!”

“Temporary”? “The sower sows the word.” That’s Christ Jesus speaking in Mark 4:13-20, and He’s explaining “cares of the carnal minds” AND “the care of the Spiritually-Re-born Soul in oneness with Christ”! Jesus said: “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear Satan COMES IMMEDIATELY and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.

These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have NO ROOT IN THEMSELVES, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.

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. BUT these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit; some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

Is the word of God being sown by the wayside of the earthly population on any and every continent of our world? It’s happening! But is it received by every citizen of all nations? Of course not! “Few there be who find it,” Jesus said, but, yes, there are those who hear, receive, repent, and obey, yielding themselves to the Lordship of Christ!

And, receiving Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior of some lives in some countries has cost them their lives – having traveled to India and other countries in Asia, I knew those who became ‘martyrs for the faith’! But, with Paul, (Acts 20:21), they were willing “to testify…repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”, even if persecuted or killed!

There was a particular time when in Madras, India, I was preaching on the streets before my conference there started, when two young men confronted me, threatening me that if I came back tomorrow, they would come and kill me. I told them of the time and place where I would be preaching the next day. When the time came, our church musicians were singing, but my translator, Pastor Anand, came and said, “If you’re going to preach, you better do it now, because there are ten to twelve men close by headed this way, each one carrying a machete. I preached, prayed, extended an invitation to trust Christ, and when I finished my prayer, I saw the two ‘mob leaders’ on their knees before me. They prayed to receive Christ, and were baptized by Pastor Anand and became a part of his local church!

Yes, there are those who hear the word, accept it, repent, are baptized, and begin to bear the fruit of the Indwelling Christ! And there MUST BE “the care of spiritual souls”! In Matthew 18:2-5 Jesus said: Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.”

And, in the care of spiritual souls, I’m sure there are those who endorse ‘sinning’ as THE option every believer has, even if Christ Jesus Himself said: “Go and sin no more”! What does Matthew 18:6 tell us, again, Jesus speaking? “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea!”

The evidence that a man or woman, boy or girl, has been delivered FROM SIN is their sorrowful heart over what their sin nature cost Christ on the cruel Cross! And they have no desire to shame the “Blood Atonement” but to live only the overcoming life in and through Christ’s Resurrected Presence within them – they die daily to themselves and the old sin nature that Christ may be honored through them! In 1 John 1:7 the beloved John wrote: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”

In his book “My Utmost For His Highest,” Oswald chambers wrote: “If I walk in the light as God is in the light, not in the light of my conscience, but in the light of God – if I walk there, with nothing folded up, then there comes the amazing revelation, the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin so that God Almighty can see nothing to censure in me. In my consciousness it works with a keen poignant knowledge of what sin is. The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Ghost all that is not in keeping with God’s holiness. To walk in the light means that everything that is of the darkness drives me closer into the center of the light.”

Do you believe Jesus when He said, “And, lo, I am with you always…”, and because of His promise one can sin if he/she chooses? Walking with Him in one’s spiritual pilgrimage day by day, feeding daily on His Word, relying upon the Holy Spirit to guide us only in the way that honors Christ, does not open a door of ‘fleshly choices’ to do as I please, even sinning if I can’t help it. Where does that come from? What “strange gospel” is it that grants “do as you please if you since a desire to sin – Jesus understands.” No! He doesn’t understand ‘flesh’ ever choosing consenting to sin if He’s Captain of one’s Ship of Faith and Obedience! He’s given you the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all truth”, not to concur with your desire to do as you please!

In “The Pastor’s Guide to Effective Ministry”, (Edited by William H. Willimon, Beacon Hill Press, 2002), there’s a powerful word from the Puritan Thomas Watson. He said: “The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. “When I awake, I am still with Thee” (Psalm 139:18). The thoughts are as travelers in the mind. David’s thoughts kept heaven-road. “I am still with Thee.” God is the treasure, and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this way we may test our love of God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think upon God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are they fled aloft? Do we contemplate Christ and glory?…A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God, unless with horror, as the prisoner (guilty prisoner) thinks of the judge.”

Revelation 5 speaks of “The Worthy Lamb of God”, with Revelation 5:12 and Verse 13 saying: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing” with Verse 13 following: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”

Would YOU dare say that’s your hymn of praise to the Reigning Christ in your life because your “Life-Walk” IS testimony He has inspired to “the caring of your redeemed soul” honoring Him daily?

Rev.E.A.Hoffman and Rev.J.H.Stockton, in the “American Hymnal” of the early 1930’s wrote a hymn entitled “Glory To His Name.” It says: “Down at the cross where my Savior died, Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, There to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His Name.

I am so wondrously saved from sin, Jesus so sweetly abides within, There at the cross where He took me in; Glory to His name.

Oh, precious fountain that saves from sin, I am so glad I have entered in; There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean; Glory to His name.

Come to this fountain so rich and sweet; Cast your poor soul at the Savior’s feet; Plunge in today, and be made complete; Glory to His name.

Glory to His name, Glory to His name; There to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to His name.”

Do YOU sing the “Glory Song” to Jesus because He applied His shed Calvary blood to redeem you from your bondage in sin? It’s time – there is no promise of ‘tomorrow’! Romans 15:13 declares: “NOW may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” ARE YOU A SPIRIT-FILLED DISCIPLE ABOUNDING IN ETERNAL HOPE IN JESUS?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘PLAYED FOR THE FOOL’ OR “PURCHASED BY GOD”?

Beyond the shadow of any fleshly doubt is the reality that there is not a man or woman who has ever lived without an awareness of the presence of God, even if it’s only the acknowledgement He HAS KNOCKED ON THEIR HEART’S DOOR! AND, IF HOLY GOD BIRTHED MANKIND WITH AN AWARENESS OF HIM, what is it that blinds one to what he/she already knows? Would you be bold enough, truthful enough, to admit, though now you deny Him, that you have been possessed and over-run by a strong spirit of “natural individuality” that says, “For me, NO NEED OF GOD”? Could it be ‘deceived by Satan’?

“No need of God?” Psalm 14:1 clearly declares, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” But, at least for true believers, understanding spiritual identity as ‘new-born sons and daughters of God’, one is aware of the warfare that does exist in the unbeliever’s heart as one truly ‘deceived by the powers of darkness’! Most unbelievers being ‘played by the powers of darkness’ as “fools” are blinded to, yes, the grace and mercy and love of God as “new-born sons and daughters by the Holy Spirit”, having been “crucified with Christ”, old sin-natures done away with, with Satan and his demons telling folks, “That’s just impossible – natural sin-natures done away with and Resurrection Life manifested in you? Impossible! Be satisfied with your sin-nature; God will still love you.” Really?

In Galatians 2:17-21 Paul illumines the “crucified life” that has now been “justified” by Christ’s death on the Cross. He wrote: But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 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 (the old man!) 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; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” WHAT AN AWESOME, LIBERATING, CHRIST-HONORING WORD!

Yet the fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ Really? In Exodus 5:1-2 the Word tells us, Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh (of Egypt), “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.” He bought his personal ticket to the eternal Hell, choosing separation from Him as his personal choice.

Yet how many unbelievers do you know who live casually, comfortably, supposedly convinced “life without your God and His Son is a life I choose that is superior and more satisfying than your walk as a disciple of Christ”! There is a spiritual war related to the true saving of souls in and through Christ only, but the spirit of a darkened world, the independence of a self-sufficient soul, and the vainness of a proud ‘self-made man’ pumped up by Satan and his demons deceives the minds of many of “no need of faith in your ‘saving’ God – we’re sufficient in ourselves”!

But in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 the Apostle Paul wrote: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” Know anyone exalting himself/herself against the knowledge of God?

Yes, many are “played for the fool” by Satan, demonic forces, the world spirit, and a strong, self-independent, soul existing life, they think, with no need of merciful God! Yes, though many are “played for the fool” by Satan, at the same time there ARE multitudes who understand that “in Christ” one no longer has to be enslaved to the old sin nature because, by His “blood-purchase” Jesus set us free from the law of sin and death, freed us from the world’s deceitful bondage and slavery, and, yes, freed us from the chains of fleshly death into the ‘Kingdom-Crown of liberty, freedom, and the peace that passes all understanding – through the “Lamb’s Blood” we were washed, birthed, and indwelt with the fullness of the blessing of His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power!

Through His “blood purchase” we were delivered from bondage to WALK IN THE NEWNESS OF LIFE, to WALK IN OUR NEW IDENTITY, and to WALK EMPOWERED BY THE MIGHTY HOLY SPIRIT AND OUR TRUST AND OBEDIENCE TO HIS ETERNAL WORD! YES, “IN CHRIST” WE “BRING EVERY THOUGHT INTO CAPTIVITY TO THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST”! WE “quit trying” and learned “to trust His ever faithful Word and His abiding Presence in us being Himself through us to honor, glorify, and BE the LIFE” THAT HONORS MERCIFUL, LOVING, COMPASSIONATE, ENABLING GOD!!

Yet, still, many ‘believers’, many ‘followers of Christ’, many ‘disciples’, have those ‘lapse moments’, having, yes, sinned then doubted whether they can ever again see themselves as sons or daughters of Holy God, living in immense frustration with the ‘old self’ blinding, clouding out, or thinking they’ve lost their identity as a true servant of Christ Jesus! Dare I tell you? Believe I will!

IF GOD BIRTHED YOU INTO HIS KINGDOM, IF ONE ‘STEPS AWAY’ IN A MOMENT OF SELF-INDULGENCE, DOES “FATHER-GOD” DISOWN A CHILD OF FAITH, BECAUSE IN A MOMENT OF IMMATURE, CHILDISH ABANDONMENT, HOLY GOD WRITES THEM OFF AS UNWORTHY, NOT TRUST-WORTHY ENOUGH TO BE CALLED HIS SON OR DAUGHTER ANY LONGER? SATAN WILL TELL YOU THAT – BUT NOT YOUR LOVING FATHER!

There was a time in Paul the Apostle’s life when in the ‘present tense’ he called himself ‘a miserable man’, and that was a time period in his life as merciful God was pouring the Word through him, yet he KNEW those ‘moments’ he’d strayed away – but he learned, “God wouldn’t let me go where I foolishly had chosen to walk for a time, but held on to me, and wouldn’t let me go”!

Holy God uses ‘life-walk-failures-as-disciples’ TO BE MOMENTS OF ETERNAL EDUCATION IN THE MERCY, LOVE, AND GRACE OF GOD! Receive Paul’s inspired testimony in Romans 7:21-8:14!! “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, THE ONE WHO WILLS TO DO GOOD. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I THANK GOD – THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Romans 8:1-14 follows: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (New Covenant!) has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors –not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” How SPIRITUALLY CLEAR IS THAT TO YOU?

“Led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God?” Sons of God, birthed by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, guided by the Spirit, gifted by the Spirit, are blessed with “the glorious liberty of the children of God”, no longer pawns of the powers of darkness! It’s so interesting to read in Jeremiah 17:10, God speaking, “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS WAYS, according to the fruit of his doings.” A difference between ‘the fruit of a man’s doings’ OR is there an opportunistic way of things that please and honor Holy God blessed by the Holy Spirit in a yielded vessel’s life?

In Galatians 5:22-25 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 (DAILY!) WITH ITS PASSIONS AND DESIRES. (SO…) IF we live in the Spirit, LET US ALSO WALK IN THE SPIRIT.”

‘Best effort’? OR “SPIRIT-BLESSED”? ‘Trying’ OR “TRUSTING THE SPIRIT TO HONOR CHRIST THROUGH YOU AS YOU DAILY CHOOSE TO LIVE THE LIFE HONORING CHRIST JESUS BY THE BLESSED FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ALLOWED TO BE HIMSELF IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU?

The third verse of the old hymn published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1940, says: “Come, Holy Comforter, Your sacred witness bear In this glad hour: You who Almighty ART, NOW RULE IN EVERY HEART, and ne’er from us depart, Spirit of power.”

I.H.Meredith in the same hymnal wrote “Seal Us, O Holy Spirit.”

“Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Grant us Your impress, we pray; We would be more like the Savior, Stamped with His image today.

Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Help us Your likeness to show; Then from our lives unto others Streams of rich blessings shall flow.

Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Make Us Your own this hour; Let us be useful, dear Master, Seal us with witnessing power.

Seal us, seal us, Seal us just now, we pray; Seal us, O Holy Spirit, Seal us for service today.”

Concerning YOU in your present path of ‘faith’, as if misguided, diluted, or truthfully a lack of faith, choosing for yourself again the mortal sphere of misguided men, OR have you willfully stepped over into the immortal sphere of the redeemed, the “blood-bought”, the “new-born”, indwelt by the Spirit of the Resurrection Life of Christ, anointed by the Holy Spirit sensing more and more every day of, yes, the “fruit of the Spirit” as God’s Holy Word verifies it? Does “the tree of your life of saving faith” flourish with the “Fresh Fruit of the Holy Spirit”?

Chapter 22RAISING SPIRITUAL SONS

Nowhere in my earthly dreams or spiritual visions did I ever consider myself a “spiritual father.” I’ve looked UP to many men in my forty-two years of ministry as strong spiritual guides and encouragers – and even at 68 years of age I still look for them and warmly receive them.

But my November, 2004, trip to India confirmed some things in me that I genuinely had not realized. Though a lot of the India pastors call me “Papa,” I’m definitely appreciative of their love – but when they say, “Papa Farrell, you are to me my spiritual father and I love you for the example you’ve been to me,” IT IS VERY HUMBLING!!

There is an awesome responsibility that is so real, so needy in mentoring, training, and equipping young men TO WALK WITH CHRIST AS A MATURING DISCIPLE AND A WINNING WITNESS.

It is filled with heartaches and disappointments as well as great joys and distinct pleasures. There are days and weeks and months that oftentimes it is so dark and cloudy because of choices some of your spiritual sons make – decisions that blot their witness but crush your heart! Then the sun shines brightly because one son begins to look like Jesus more and more, and you rejoice.

Physically I’m the father of three sons and a daughter and I look upon them as spiritual sons and a spiritual daughter. How I pray and long that they’ve picked up the best from Sue and me – not our worst! I came into physical and spiritual parenting with a lot of baggage; a lot of unresolved conflicts; and even more basic, a lack of my true identity in Christ. And in all four, Scott, Susan, Stan, and Steve, no father could be as proud as I am of all of them. THEY DO LOVE JESUS!

Spiritually God has blessed me beyond measure. He has put into my sphere of influence even guys I didn’t know I was influencing! But then there are those that I’ve walked with, worked with, wept with – blessed a hundred-fold!

November, 2004, Coimbatore. Young university students and graduates who were thankful for the ministry of the Word then commented, “We look to you as our spiritual father.” Mumbai, engineer-pastor, bi-vocational, “Since the first time I heard you teach eight years ago, I’ve looked to you as my spiritual father. The anointing, the Word, your spirit in Christ captured me heart.” Mumbai, a New Life senior pastor – “

Papa Farrell, I’ll always look to you as my spiritual father; a lot of India pastors feel the same way.”

I want no glory, no honor, no praise – if there is any, “Let It Go To Calvary.” But it has awakened some new and wonderful things in me. I sense a weighty, weighty responsibility on me the the “sentence of death” on me is a daily reality so “The RESURRECTION LIFE OF JESUS IS MANIFESTED IN MY MORTAL FLESH>“ I sense that passion for Christ to be all He wants to be through me. I sense a call to greater humility, greater dependance, greater hunger, more wisdom, more power than a lowly disciple could ever try to muster up on his own. I love what Paul said to the Philippians about himself – “apprehended of God” – and for God’s purposes; “apprehended of God” – and for His people; “apprehended of Go” – and for His pleasure.

It was certainly the intent of Christ Jesus in spiritual fathering. There’s the twelve He drew to Himself. There was that inner circle with such quality time with their teacher. And I do know it is WHAT He taught, but also what they “CAUGHT” from Him in those years together, and what He “WROUGHT” into their lives by Word, deed, and Holy Presence.

I remember those two disciples on the road to Emmaeus as their “hearts burned within them” as Jesus opened the Word and Spirit.

That deep bond between Paul and the Ephesian elders speaks so loud to us as we see that history of time, teaching etc., “holding back nothing that was necessary” for their spiritual health.

Does early Acts speak to you? They were together, had all things common – and they CONTINUED STEDFASTLY IN THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE AND FELLOWSHIP. Does that say anything about fathering “spiritual sons and daughters?”

From the Old Testament I’m reminded of the prophets and…”the sons of the prophets.” I see a Naomi and a Ruth. What about Elijah and tha “mantle of Elijah” that Elisha “picked up?” I look at an Eli encouraging a young Samuel, “When you hear the voice again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ “ And Samuel is raised up, prepared to serve God in a powerful way.

What was the role of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in equipping “wise men” to look for the “Star?” And hundreds of years later the “teaching” is still going on and “wise men” from the East show up at Jesus’ birthplace to bless the newborn King!

Zacharias’ son John gets a prophetic word through his father that he’ll PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD and even be a servant of God turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

In 2 Timothy 2:1-2, Paul speaks: “You therefore, MY SON, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus…AND THE THINGS YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM ME AMONG MANY WITNESSES, COMMIT THESE TO FAITHFUL MEN WHO WILL BE ABLE TO TEACH OTHERS ALSO.” What a revelation and inspiration to training, mentoring, discipline!!

I saw in MalachI I as I was flying back from India verse 6 when God said, “a son honors his father,” yet today in far too many corners of our globe ‘sons’ (and I use that reservedly) use their fathers, accuse and abuse, ignore, circumvent his leadership, blessing and birthright, and with the Korahs, Dathans and Abirims go out on their own insisting “all are holy” and they don’t need, don’t want, and could care less about a “father’s blessing.”

I believe Jesus was very clear when in Luke 16:12, He said: “And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, WHO WILL GIVE YOU WHAT IS YOUR OWN?” There are those ‘sons’ who KNOW NOTHING ABOUT FAITHFULNESS TO THAT WHICH IS ‘ANOTHER MAN’S…and they really never know the blessing that COULD HAVE BEEN THEIR OWN. Oh…they believe they have it!

I remember a young evangelist about twenty-five years ago who used to preach on “You may get what YOU WANT, but not want what you get!” That is so on target! Even Jesus Himself said, “You are of your father the Devil, for his works you do.” And how disappointed Jesus must have been with the eloquent professors who never possessed one ounce of earnestness of faith and obedience to the “SPIRIT of OUR FATHER!”

You may not know the name Frederick Faber, but he was a discouraged Anglican minister who had left that church to become a part of Roman Catholism.And there he found an emptiness of strong hymns of faith and the joy of singing, so he began to write “new songs.” He was so fearful of “new religious movements” and new attitudes of ‘discipleship’ that looked only at the experience of the moment, immediacy of the moment, that left a void of devotion to relationships. One of his hymns says:

“Faith of our fathers! Living still In spite of dungeon, fire and sword; O how our hearts beat high with joy When’er we hear that glorious word!….Faith of our fathers, HOLY FAITH! We will be true to You till death.”

And I wondered if Faber had been in the role of “spiritual fatherhood” and had his heart broken over ‘immediacy,’ ‘all are holy,’ ‘I do it my way,’ ‘I have things I want to accomplish’ – leaving a father in despair as wayward sons manufacture self-appointed ‘ministries’ and begin to build their own little kingdoms.

In the matter of “spiritual fathers” and sons in training there are certain principles of RELATIONSHIP, RIGORS IN TRAINING, AND, YES, RELEASE – but far too many ‘sons’ want relationship without the rigors of training and certainly not ‘RELEASE’ because that interferes with the ‘me, my, mine’ philosophy. It’s why Steve Farrar wrote in “Finishing Strong,” (p39), “…the qualification for having a public ministry is not ‘giftedness.’ The qualification for ministry is PROVEN CHARACTER.” And Jesus told some that they ought to make friends for yourself who have ‘deep pockets,’ because when you fail they can take care of you, inferring He’s not going to. Why? No faithfulness in little things, no faithfulness in handling money in a godly fashion, and no faithfulness to the nurturing father!! That’s Luke 16 if you need it!! And sometimes you wonder, “Who will be true till death” in relationships?

I want us to examine as thoroughly as possible “RAISING SPIRITUAL SONS” from a biblical perspective:

Let’s look FIRST at THE FATHERS AND THE PRODIGALS: And what God’s Word is telling us is that some sons are intent on leaving the father’s presence and living a self-centered, self-willed, self-indulgent life. And try as the father may some are ‘hell-bent’ on ‘me, my, my way, my choices, my decisions,’ and they end up wasting so much of their lives, potential, and possessions with prodigal living. Life choices like that brings one to a “spent all” style of living with a loss of not only any possessions but any small degree of ‘family heritage’ he may have possessed.

It always leaves these sons of personal choice beginning to be in want! He stoops to swine-slop and no one seems to care. But in Luke 15:17 God’s Word tells us, “when he came to himself.” That is so very good. And we all rejoice because finally he decides, “I will arise and go to my father’s house.”

But in the midst of all this I’m wondering, “What’s going on with the Father?” And I begin to say, “Father, as you’ve given us roles and ministries to fulfill as earthly fathers and spiritual fathers, how do we relate to WAYWARD SONS?” And I learn several things:

One, God has built into us all the will of self-determination. He has not, will not, violate the free will of man in choosing his destiny over the will of the Father. The loving Father is not interested in ‘puppets on a string’ or electronic robots, but sons desperate for the father’s love, the father’s blessing, and the father’s intent.

Secondly, even the son who stayed, ‘the elder brother,’ missed the ‘spirit’ of the father. Close proximity is no guarantee of the spirit of a father’s heart. Sometimes the need is never sensed until one FINDS himself at the end of the road.

Third, the father’s heart never changes. He’s “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Sorrowful, but wise as to the need of one discovering who he is and what he needs. Able, but unwilling to force the issue. Loving, whether the son stays or oes into the “wild, black yonder.” Forgiving because He understand illumined sons have greater potential than blinded sons.

Fourth, a loving father’s eyes are never off “the road of return and restoration.” Compassionately he waits, energetically he prays, with vision he plans, with anticipation he prepares for “the party.”

Fifth, He did not run after the son – he patiently waited because “the ball is in the court” of the son, not in the court of the father!!

Secondly, look at the spiritual fathers and the ‘John Marks’ as the ‘fathers’ relate to the sons’ fears, frustrations, failures and fallabilities.

And the one thing I want you to grasp is, that whether it’s sons or disciples, our walk RELATES TO THE CROSS – our Lord’s cross and our own. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

In Mark 14:51-52 I believe our Lord is giving us insight into the pattern a lot of sons set for their lives. We see this picture of John Mark’s early steps, however fault-ridden, into the beginning of his ‘becoming.’ And I believe later in life John Mark is telling about himself!!

“Now a certain young man followed Him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him…and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.” When the ‘cross’ is omitted in a son’s life it always leaves him in a state of ‘spiritual nakedness.’

But something is going on in John Mark’s life. Don’t know about his natural father, but we learn in Acts 12 that Peter came to a certain house after the iron gate of the prison was opened and Peter was freed. What house did he come to?

Acts 12:12, “…he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying.” John Mark had a powerful witness from a praying mother and a grandmother!

Verse 25 of that same chapter says, “Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark.”

A spirirtual father, Paul the apostle, is now in the strong circle of influence of John Mark. Acts 13:5 says that as Barnabas and Saul are sent out on a new mission that they have a “helper” named John Mark! Then verse 13 of Acts 13, please see it, “John left them and returned to Jerusalem.” Is fear a reason? Is faithlessness a guiding factor? Is human fallability rather than divine identity a controlling influence? Does frustration capture a son because he wants a greater role and believes he has a better vision?

It was so very, very serious that the spiritual father, Paul, does not want John Mark on another ministry with him – the mission is too vital! In Acts 15:37-38, “And Barnabas was desirous of taking John, called Mark, along with them…But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.”

In fact, verse 39, says: “there arose such a sharp disagreement that Barnabas and Paul separated from one another…” And Barnabas took John Mark with him.

How wrong was Paul? He wasn’t wrong at all! The mission was too vital, the call was too clear, the danger too imminent to have to be consumed with one who could walk away again! But, thank God, for “sons of encouragement” who are willing to “diaper-rize” spiritually infant sons who ought to be spiritual, vibrant sons already.

But then look at 2 Timothy 4:11!! He’s writing Timothy and says, “Only Luke is with me. Get MARK and bring him with you, FOR HE IS USEFUL TO ME FOR MINISTRY.”

The ministry was and always is uppermost in a spiritual father’s life and plans. And sometimes someone else has the role of spiritual encourager to bring a ‘son’ along.

And get this – the day came when John Mark ‘probably’ penned the first Gospel. Thank God, for team effort that brings us all along where the Father truly wants us to be!!

Third, look at the spiritual fathers and their relationship to ‘sons’ who struggle with opposition, persecution, and doubts. Who might that be? Do you think maybe Paul and Timothy?

My New King James Bible opens 2 Timothy with a statement: “Prison is the last place from which to expect a letter of encouragement,” but that’s what it is because Paul somehow has learned the plight or position his young spiritual son finds himself in. Paul’s in prison, the opposition is very intense, persecution abounds all around him, and Timothy is wondering, “Is this walk of faith worth it?” He’s even been weeping about it!

Without a doubt I believe Timothy was on the verge of walking away! Remember Peter? “I’m going back to fishing.” I don’t know what Timothy might have done if Paul, his spiritual father, had not sent him that letter of encouragement. [ I remember calling the home of a “fallen son” and he never returned my call. And I don’t know his spiritual health to this day. Heartbreaking. I did hear he trashed me all over his area for ‘interfering.’]

I was flabbergasted when I read Farrar’s book “Finishing Strong” and he told about John Bisagno’s future father-in-law telling him that it had been his observation “that just one out of ten who start in full-time service for the Lord at 21 are still on track by the age of 65.” He said, “they’re shot down morally, they’re shot down with discouragement, they’re shot down with liberal theology, they get obscessed with making money….but for one reason or another NINE OUT OF TEN FALL OUT.” (p6)

No wonder Paul wrote to the Ephesians (4:1-2), :I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called…with all lowliness and gentlness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.”

When you read 2 Timothy 1:8 you realize the battle that Timothy was in as he must have been wrestling as to whether or not devotion to Christ was really worth it. Paul said, “..do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God.”

And then Paul hit’s a homerun when in verse 9 he reminds Timothy that God “has SAVED US and CALLED US WITH A HOLY CASLLING, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was GIVEN TO US IN CHRIST JESUS BEFORE TIME BEGAN!!!”

That is so awesome! And how it needs to be spoken by spiritual fathers to struggling, unsure sons – “You’re SAVED, Washed In The Blood Of The Lamb, Called Of God to a distinct ministry and gifting, GIVEN TO US Before Time Had Even Begun, THE CHOSEN AND ELECT OF GOD, …AND YOU CAN’T WALK AWAY!!!”

Encouragement from spiritual fathers? Paul reminds Timothy he’s “a good soldier” of Jesus Christ; he reminds him he’s “a strong athlete” with a gold medal awaiting him; and he reminds him as a “profitable farmer” he gets to enjoy the abundance of the harvest!

Encouragement from spiritual fathers? “Defeat, Timothy, is not a stumbling block – it’s a stepping stone. Doubt, Timothy? It’s the door to certainty and confidence; Fear, Timothy? It’s a step away from the greatness and ableness of God!!”

Henry Ward Beecher put it like this: “It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes people invincible, and forms those heroic natures that are now in ascendancy in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.”

Fourthly, look at spiritual fathers who give their sons lofty and significant goals for their lives and not a sense of shortsightedness. Come to Colossians 4:17 where Paul challenges Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.”

Two things to note here: One, ministry received “in the Lord.” I have no doubts that some men are shoved into places they should never be by thoughtless and unspiritual men. But true ministry is ‘in the Lord.’ It’s not an option I have – it’s a conviction God holds for one’s life.

And, two, ministry is to be fulfilled! What did Paul say in 2 Timothy 4:7-8? “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

What greater example than Christ Himself? In John 17:4, He said to the Father, “…I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” Pressing in, laying hold, finishing the work is a Call we cannot run from! Break the tape, cross the line, then….rest in the arms of Jesus! Not now will I stop short; not now will I slow down in the race; not now will I R & R in the time of the battle of the ages. Not now – WE’RE GOING ON, WE’RE GOING IN!!

Fifth, consider Jesus and Judas! There is BETRAYAL; there is DENIAL; and there is REFUSAL TO TAKE A BIBLICAL PATH TO RESTORATION. In spiritual parenting there is always the path of brokenness, deep sorrow, and fearfulness over one you relate to who turns on you, betrays your trust, out for what the ‘son’ can get on his own. He’ll even publicly kiss you and then put a knife right into your heart. Because his consideration is, “What can I gain?’ rather than “What can I give?”

Judas’ want to hold the purse strings. Judas’ want the majority vote. Judas’ have “legitimate” explanations for betrayal and denial – and even if it dawns on them they’ve been wrong, a noose is better than the Good News of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ. They go it alone and abandon even their fellow disciples and choose Pharisees. Judas’ are down on spiritual extranagance like the woman with the expensive perfume pouring it all over Jesus, washing His feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. Judas’ are guided by, “That doesn’t sell,” as if discipleship and ministry are marketable products. “God, help us. Where have we come to in the American church?”

No wonder James Boren said, “It’s hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground.” Judas’ are political poll watchers who put their finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing rather than “Follow Me.” Judas’ measure their devotion by the visible not the invisible and they never become a part of seeing the impossible accomplished. They are “nickles and dimes” folk and not ministry or servant hood focused.

Remember Judas’ approach to Jesus? He’s going to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver by way of a ‘kiss.’ But Jesus said to him, “Friend, why have you come here?” HOW AWESOME! Do you doubt Jesus knew what was about to happen? But He still called him, “Friend…”

I’m ith Peter – ‘let’s cut off some ears,” but thank God that Jesus says, “Put your sword in its place!” Yes, Lord; but I sure would like to tanny some fanny! Yes, Lord; but will those faithless sons pay? Yes, Lord; but can I call down a little fire and brimstone? And ‘In His Time’ there is an accounting of one’s stewardship of trust in the “purse strings” of responsibility and relationship – and the FATHER will work it out.

The only problem I see in spiritual fathers and “sons” relationship is what is going on in a son’s heart? It was John Ruskin who said: “When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.” Big God Himself has a major problem getting even into “small packages.”

It’s why Josiah Gilbert Holland cried out: God give us men. A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands.

Men whom the lust of office does not kill, men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, men who possess opinions and a will, men who love honor, men who will not lie.”

Whether a spiritual father or a growing, maturing spiritual son, Paul has inspired advice when truthfully he said in Philippians 3:12-14, (TLB),

“I don’t mean to say I am perfect. I haven’t learned all I should even yet, but I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ saved me for and wants me to be…..

No, dear brothers, I am still not at all I should be but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us.”

That is my passionate heart-cry for myself and for anyone our Lord has put in my path to influence, inspire, encourage – whatever; so that we all might come into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rise up, fathers! Rise up, sons! BE ALL CHRIST SAVED YOU TO BE! Hold on, fathers, to that high and holy calling of nurturing, mentoring, and training! Hold on, sons, until the ‘father’s release!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“ABANDONING HOPE OR ABIDING IN HOPE?”

In the Random House Collegiate Dictionary the word “hope” is described as follows: “The feeling that what is desired is also possible, or that events may turn out for the best..; to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence..; that something desired may happen..; trust, rely.” And no doubt, redeemed or not, there are people gripped in their minds with a “hope” that what they put their faith in may happen or it may not happen. But ‘fleshly hope’ is nowhere near Biblical hope! Some, both out of or in the church “hope things turn out for the ‘best’,” or like others they live, they strive, they ‘try’, but live in a state of mind AND heart : “I hope against hope,” which IS a sad state of mental, physical, and spiritual levels of living! Why not ABIDE IN BIBLICAL HOPE without being swayed by the world, the flesh, or the devil?

In John 15:4-11 the Lord Jesus tells us: Jesus says, “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. If you abide in Me, AND My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Would you say that Jesus was extremely clear when He said that if you and I as believers “abide in Him” that we will be strongly held in the arms of Him whose arms cannot be broken? Did He also say that only in and through Him does Sovereign fruitfulness become a reality? And in that “rest” in Him only, did He also say that abiding in Him supernaturally allows divine fruitfulness, to bud and produce, yes, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of Christ, the fruit of God?

But, notice John 15:2! “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit the Father takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” And in the branch should one, yes, be concerned about minimum or maximum ‘fruit-production’? Is the “fruit” that the Word declares the evidence of one’s “new birth experience” or an unredeemed life that just “hopes for the best”, but hoping for the best is not the same as “resting in the hope Christ has promised” which is “His best” revealed in His full surrender to God the Father’s “Before Creation, but settled in His Mind, His Heart, and His Will: “My Son will be the “hope of all repentant, trusting hearts, in reconciliation to My eternal purpose for created, sin-bound men who are only set free from godlessness and led by Christ into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Do you remember Jesus saying thousands of years after Abraham’s birth, life, and death that “Abraham rejoiced to see My day and he was glad?” Father-God knew that in the reality of men’s birthing on earth He didn’t want “spiritual zombies” as sons and daughters but people free to choose whether they wanted to be independent of God or dependent upon Him for mercy and grace! And, yes, Abraham and many Old Testament citizens learned of the Coming Messiah who would be the “blood sacrifice” in behalf of repentant hearts and souls.

But, sadly, multitudes abandoned hope from God holding on to “best effort” human genius! That’s like Pharaoh of Egypt, confronted in Exodus 5 by Moses and Aaron on a mission from God, telling Pharaoh that Holy God said to “Let My people go” from their Egyptian bondage and slavery with Pharaoh saying in Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.”

Even though Sovereign God determined the Savior of the world would come as “Emmanuel” or “God in flesh”, and that He would come being born of the Virgin Mary, only true, God-trusting Old Testament believers of Israel put their faith in the Savior their physical eyes would never see, indicating certainly “spiritual vision” far outweighs being able to see with only physical eyes! Yes, “Abraham (having never seen) rejoiced to see My day, and he was glad!”

Most of Israel abandoned hope although they were devoted to religious observances! Most of the world today doesn’t even look back to the Cross of Christ as most of Israel in the Old Testament didn’t look forward to His coming! They were satisfied with their religious observances even as they practiced, yes, a godless lifestyle, heavily reinforced with religious activities, never sensing the Voice of Christ or the Holy Spirit’s unveiling of Christ to them. Why? “Who needs a Savior when we’re capable of doing whatever our natural or religious minds determine! We’re able to be religiously devoted!”

And there are still those even today who “take up stones to throw at Christ”! To them it was justified because they didn’t see the great “I AM” Jesus as worthy of anything but stoning! But, I urge you, reflect upon Saul’s attitude toward the prophet Samuel who had just learned from God, “Saul doesn’t follow Me”, and Holy God instructed Samuel to tell Saul, as well as all unbelievers today, 1 Samuel 15:22-23, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.”

Of course, we don’t have to be concerned in the church today about being called ‘kings’, or do we? In Revelation 5:9-10, “the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. And they sang a new song, saying: (Speaking to the Lamb of God, King Jesus!), “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and nation, (GET READY!!!), and have MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS TO OUR GOD; AND WE SHALL REIGN ON THE EARTH.”

That’s not when you die and go to heaven, but when on earth you choose the sentence of death unto yourself that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in you as He anoints YOU IN HIM to reign upon the earth!

But around you daily you cross paths with people who “abandon hope” and refuse to even consider “abiding in hope” because some tell them, “If you even rang God’s heavenly doorbell, He wouldn’t answer you because even God can’t help the hopeless,” which is so foreign to the mind, heart, and will of God. I tell you, God is able to save, heal, deliver the worst sinner on the face of the earth if he/she, in true repentance and faith calls out for God’s mercy and grace!

But I tell you also, there is a huge difference between a ‘religious hope fabricated by men’ and redemptive hope written forever by the shed blood of the Lamb of God who still says: “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” I don’t know who wrote it, but I came across an anonymous statement: “There is more hope for a self-convicted sinner than there is for a self-conceited saint,” and to that I say, “Amen!”

I wrote a few words I pray will enlighten you, bless you, and encourage you – no title yet, just a few, I hope, challenging words!!

“Lord Jesus, Son of God, Savior of repentant, faith-believing minds and hearts, Open our understanding of all Your gracious deeds as, by Your Spirit, we examine our heart-felt needs!

That’s the need to abandon hopelessness and be swept up in the sea of Your abiding hope! Our wanderings without you birthed a life of a world of grief because, we as your children, rested in ourselves as thieves.

In ourselves, no hope; in ourselves, no cure; in ourselves, no help; becoming hopeless and helpless, blinded by ‘flesh’, deceived by Satan, fooled by the world, we dance the death that will not die, even blinding ourselves to God’s open eye!

There are dark clouds for men without God, but gracious God, in amazing love, placed His Son on our very sod; hope is His gift, mercy His song, His invitation to Him belong!

“Come to Me and I’ll give you rest, find your place in Heaven’s nest – no longer the sad song of life’s frustration, but washed in His blood, indwelt in your body, you see your heart as My destination.”

There is for your life, though clouds may come, the starlight of heaven shining on your home. Circumstances may arise with Satan’s intent to discourage your walk, but never give in to his empty talk.

Christ Jesus has spoken, and His received Word need never be broken! He ever abides to stand by your side, that you in His glory may continue to abide. His sunset of hope, like an anchor to hold, is never swept away but continually abides to stand by your side, His promise that cannot be denied!” Amen?

“Abandoning Hope Or Abiding in Hope?” I pray you’ll join me in “Abiding in Hope”! Let’s look first at “God’s Amazing Promise”! In Hebrews 6:9-20 we read: “But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. 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. [A forty year wait!].

For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, DETERMINED 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. [Did Abraham ‘lay hold of the hope’ AFTER HE HAD PATIENTLY ENDURED? Again, there is ‘birth’, ‘infancy’, ‘youth’, ‘young adult’, and the ‘senior fully matured in the faith’!].

Hebrews 6:19-20 continues: “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.” Are YOU “standing on our Lord’s promises and resting in the sure Word of God that never fades away or changes?

SECOND, ABIDING IN HOPE IS BEING ENRICHED BY THE ANOINTED WORD OF GOD! Don’t ever forget or overlook in ‘discipleship training’ the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:4 as Jesus responded to Satan’s temptations! He said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Tell me, first, about your physical dieting! Do you at least try to eat three square meals a day? BUT, is there the necessity of ‘spiritual feeding’ of the redeemed soul? If you eat three square meals a day to maintain your physical body, what about maintaining the ‘spiritual life’ that MUST BE NOURISHED IN THE BREAD, MEAT, AND VEGETABLES AND HONEY OF GOD’S SPIRIT-WORD?

In John 6:63-64 Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” How many ‘believers’ and ‘church folk’ have crossed your path who insist there is no need of discipline in the Word “after” one had been born again?

Very interesting Verse in Psalm 49:20! “A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, is like the beasts that perish.” And, I thought: How many honorable men in the church or outside the church are esteemed but couldn’t give you one word about himself as a student of God’s Holy Word feeding on it daily? Are you “being enriched” by the living and abiding Word of God?

THIRD, ABIDING IN HOPE IS BEING SUSTAINED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! In Romans 8: 1-2 Paul wrote: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh (one’s old sin nature), but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Abandoning hope is the determination to choose to live by one’s best effort without any need of “God’s interference” with one proving he/she can do it on one’s own determination! But Holy God just happens to be smarter than fallen mankind’s assessment of himself, God fully aware ‘in the flesh’ fallen mankind cannot, does not, will not live the overcoming life against the world, one’s old sin nature, or Satan’s interference; therefore merciful God sustains us by the Holy Spirit in divine conviction, divine conversion, and divine consecration – the Holy Spirit sustains true believers!

In Romans 8:8-11 Paul continued laying the foundation for a true believer “abiding in hope”! He wrote: “So then those who are in the flesh (living under the control of their old sin nature) cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And IF Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Holy Spirit who dwells in you.”

But there are those ‘professing believers’, ‘active church members’, even ‘preachers’, who say, “Oh, someday, in the sweet by and by, we’ll finally experiencing what it means to live in Christ’s fullness!” Yet Paul wrote in Romans 15:29, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” Really? In the here and now? That’s the true gospel! And “in Christ” you can “live with joy by the will of God,” “daily refreshed in His resurrection life, resurrection power, and resurrection hope”! I say to you: NEVER FORGET Martin Luther’s words in his famous hymn that says: “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe Does seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, And, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choosing. Do you ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth is His name, From age to age the same, And He must win the battle.

And tho’ this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, For God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim – We tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure: One little world shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers – No thanks to them – abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also; The body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.” Can YOU say AMEN to the grace, mercy, and love of God as YOUR ABIDING HOPE, or do you presently walk on “the sinking sands” of fleshly suffocation?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“BLAND-SOME, HANDSOME, OR AWESOMELY TRANSFORMED?”

It was really interesting when I read casually a statement written anonymously but included in a major book called “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations.” The encyclopedia was a Fleming H. Revell Company publication. The statement? “Beware of no man more than yourself.” And I’m sure without hesitation that there ought to be at times the necessity of looking to ourselves, examining ourselves, and determining if we’re responsible and accountable to God about our ‘present state’, mentally, emotionally, health-wise, and certainly spiritual evaluation about ourselves, whether under our own control or moving daily through life under God’s agenda and not our fleshly anticipation!

It was Alexander Maclaren who once said, “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” So true!

When there is no inward analysis about where we presently are in the inner man, it is so easy in making turns more and more away from God but centering and surrendering and classifying ourselves as our own ‘man’ able to determine one’s own spiritual destiny or as an ‘asserting believer sure of one’s ‘salvation’ because they attend ‘church’ regularly yet bear “no fruit” of a redeemed, Spirit-led walk of true discipleship!

Shockingly I read where Benjamin Franklin once said, “God helps those who help themselves.” NO! A THOUSAND TIMES, NO! God helps those who empty themselves of self-control, choosing death daily to our ‘old man’ and being filled with and controlled by the Holy Presence of Christ and His “guiding” Holy Spirit, by the reality of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

A paraphrased statement of Charles Caleb Colton says: “Heroism, magnanimity, and self-denial, in which they do not spring from the foundational truth of “death to self and pure life only in Christ’s Resurrection Presence within”, may be religious in their tendencies, but are only on the ‘personal altar’ of sacrifice of one kind of self-love to another kind of self-love,’ with no glory to God and no honor to the pretender,” but just promotes attention to ‘self-gratification”!”

Have you ever heard people in religious circles encouraging those in their circles having a hard time adjusting to their ‘profession of faith’, “You must TRY HARDER”! And the true disciple understands that it’s not a matter of ‘trying harder’ but “trusting more and more”, like we read through Paul’s teaching, led by the Holy Spirit, “Take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in your mortal flesh”!

Daily denial of the “old self” willfully explodes”(!*) in the reality of the heart’s open door to the “Master-ing” of Christ Himself through you! Holy God longs and looks for those who willfully deny themselves and are filled and over-flowing with the Holy Presence of the Resurrected Christ, yes, Him reigning as the Victorious King in one’s humble heart, daily dead to self and the old man but living in “the fullness of the blessing” of His moment by moment “reign in victory” over your life, even over all your trials, temptations, and troubles! Sadly, in much of modern-day Christianity, many know nothing of “the joy of the Lord”!

Modern-day ‘humanity’, the general public, the national or international make-up of men, includes often rulers with no allegiance to “King Jesus”, business owners and some of their employees, State leaders with some having NO allegiance to the will of God, even universities or local school employees or state governments who’ve decided the “Sacred Scriptures” have no place in their communities, even doctors, nurses, and hospitals who have no desire or place for the ministry of the Great Physician! And even more sad is when some churches are ‘ruled’ by some pastors and elders who major more on their personal philosophies than they do “Preaching and Teaching the Word of God”, yes, excellent in its history but void and empty of its message to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel”, or validating His Presence in them by witnessing, evangelizing, loving and caring for the lost community that surrounds the local gathering and ‘smart’ preacher (?)!

Let’s examine “The Bland-some”! In “The Random House Collegiate Dictionary”, Revised Edition of 1975 by Random House Inc., the word “bland” is described as follows: “pleasantly gentle or agreeable, (and I have to ask, “With anything and everything”?), non-irritating,lacking in interest (of what doesn’t fit their mind or heart-set?,lacking liveliness, lacking loveliness in what miraculously blesses it?),unemotional, indifferent, casual, possessing either a softness, or harshness, or irritating.”

The bland-some? That’s individuals being consumed in their self-awareness that they do not like, but indifferent to the “knock” at their hearts’ doors to a caring, merciful, able God, Savior, and Lord, able to do exceedingly above All that one might consider or think, even miraculously producing a “new man”!

The bland-some, un-governed, have no desire to be governed by Another who IS the Master of an individual’s destiny! The bland-some, though within their minds and hearts are often encouraged by even a human touch or a fleshly encouragement, are strongly minded against anything Holy God has to say about them! That’s why Jesus said about the rulers over the religious Pharisees, in John 12:43, fearful of being put out of the synagogue, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God”!

Even from the time of beginning, by God, of man’s earthly residency, many of natural mankind had an aversion to God! And because of, and even being created “in the image or likeness of God”, and really for His glory only(!), some of natural mankind had and has no desire to be birthed again (in the Spirit!) and see their ‘seed’ becoming “servants of God”! And buried in the recesses of their minds and darkened hearts was and is, by some, was and is, resistance to obedience to God’s will or purpose for their lives! That attitude is still paramount across our known world! (That’s why true believers are called by Christ to be “witnesses to their world” of saving grace, love, power, and purpose!).

The bland-some? Have you ever read through early Exodus about Moses’ encounter with the Pharaoh of Egypt? Holy God sent faithful Moses as a witness, but Pharaoh’s heart was “hardened by God” because of his resistance to divine truth, the divine Way, and the divine purpose, exactly the ‘spiritual disease’ of the bland-some!

In 1 Samuel 8 we find the historical record of ‘bland-some’ folk who have no desire to even know what God thinks about the purpose of their existence! Follow carefully the historical record, beginning at Verse 4 through Verse 9! It says: “Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” [Please consider!! What would happen worldwide if nations declared allegiance to Jesus’ saving grace and Jesus’ eternal purpose for lives, homes, cities, states, and nations?].

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day – with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods – so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed there voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” [Tell me of the present result in your life of the results of the “bland-some king of flesh” ruling in you, through you, for his hellish ‘academy award’ of deceit reigning over you presently!].

OH, BUT THEN, BEYOND THE BLAND-SOME, LET’S EXAMINE THE HANDSOME, THE ‘HOLLYWOOD’ PRODUCTION OF SELF-BEAUTIFIED, SELF-GLORIFIED, SELF- CELEBRATING!!

In, yes, the context of human existence, beyond the ‘bland-some’, there are the ‘handsome’ who truly are ‘successful’ in what most consider to be “successes, academy award winners of the best efforts of ‘flesh’, best efforts of godless men, best efforts of human achievements.” And the world around them celebrate, rejoice, and are giddy about their achievements – but GOD LAUGHS and opens the door to Hell’s celebration of their self-centered, godless existence!

Are you familiar with Pharoah of Egypt’s handsomeness, his impressiveness in ascending to national leadership, and his allegiance to his ‘handsome way’ of leadership(?)? He had ‘the peacock-pride’ of self-will, self-rule, self-preeminence! He was ruler, he was ‘master’ over slaves, he owned Egypt (he thought), and lived a self-centered, wealthy, prosperous life-style while his citizens hungered! Some consider ‘pride’ as the beginning of sin, when in reality it is only the bad fruit of what is already there, thus reigning ‘in sin’ as he ruled over his people! What are You ‘reigning’ in as you live, yes, independently of the Indwelling Christ as He makes a man’s redeemed life the center of His Earthly Throne and His Heavenly Presence?

The ‘handsome back-slappers’ have no awareness of the sin of pride, of hypocrisy, and of, yes, their vain-glory! The ‘fallen’ are spiritually blind and need the miracle of God’s saving grace to “open their eyes” to see eternal opportunity!! I was reading somewhere, not sure where or even by whom, but I wrote down a reference to the words of Charles Churchill in his writing “Independence” about William Warburton, Bishop of Glouchester, in England, many, many years ago. The statement? Speaking about the Bishop:

“He was so proud that should he meet the Twelve Apostles in the street he’d turn his nose up at them all and shove his Savior from the wall.” Wow! What an illuminating statement! Can YOU believe that even some national church leaders have been ‘pretenders’, imitators, comical ‘showboats’, shaming their profession of Christ without an ounce of possession of “the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”? Was it pride that shamed some angels even before human creation?

Do you even grasp the absurdity of ‘fallen’, ‘professing’, ‘religious’, ‘pretending’, supposedly ‘righteous men’, celebrating their ‘religious faith’ (?), but they hold out, yield to a ‘heaven-inspired’ (?) of their ‘salvation’ when the historical, living testimony, is a Christless life never yielding to the Christ who desires to indwell them, but they profess that on their terms! YOUR “BEST” IS NOT HIS BLESSED PRESENCE!!!

You don’t seek to understand so that you may believe, you TRUST what Jesus says He’s already accomplished through His death, His Resurrection, and His Throne-Reigning in Heaven, graciously granting His Holy Spirit’s residence in you to “guide you into all truth” in “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ”!

Valiant, blessed, fulfilled, rejoicing individuals, though having “embraced the darkness of their old sin natures” COME TO THE LIGHT OF CHRIST IN AND THROUGH And BY HIS GRACE AND MERCY THEY ARE ETERNALLY CHANGED INTO SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF A TRUE, LIVING, TRANSFORMING FAITH – It’s “JESUS ONLY”! THIS BRINGS US TO:

THE DIVINE REALITY, THE HEAVENLY MIRACLE OF GRACE OF AWESOME TRANSFORMED LIVES THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST!! In John 1:14, 16 we read: “And the Word (that’s Jesus!) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”, with Verse 16 telling us, “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” Are you trying to live the Christian walk by ‘grit’ or by God’s grace?

Patiently read and follow with me Ephesians 1:15-2:10!! It says: “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God (and Father!) of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, they eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, ACCORDING TO THE WORKING OF HIS MIGHTY POWER WHICH HE WORKED IN CHRIST WHEN HE RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD AND SEATED HIM AT HIS RIGHT HAND IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And God put all things under Christ Jesus’ feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 2:1-10, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Can you say, “Glory, Hallelujah”?

Do you know and understand what Paul was saying in Ephesians 3:19? He was praying for Ephesian believers and us in the 21^st Century in America and the world over that we should “know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Oh, and then in Ephesians 5:17-21 we read:

“Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.” Is there a continuous song of praise in your heart, spirit, and mind, even when it may be the darkest moment of your life, walk, and journey of faith and trust?

I AM TRULY ALWAYS AWED WHEN I READ PAUL’S ANOINTED ASSETMENT OF THE “PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST JESUS” IN COLOSSIANS 1:9-18! It says: For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, FULLY PLEASING HIM, being fruitful in every good work and INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who HAS QUALIFIED US TO BE PARTAKERS OF THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS IN THE LIGHT.

He has “delivered us from the power of darkness” and “conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love”, in whom “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins”. He (Christ Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have preeminence.”

Question! “If Christ Jesus is meant to have preeminence IN ALL THINGS, in your life and walk, does He have preeminence in who you are and what you do? Does He have ‘preeminence’ in determining the streets upon which you walk? Your education, your training, who you date, who you marry, your evaluation and commitment of your ‘best effort’ to what you consider your spiritual, eternal calling?” What did the Word just say? “that in all things He may have the preeminence”! DOES JESUS HOLD PREEMINENCE IN YOUR LIFE’S JOURNEY? Fanny Crosby and Robert Lowry wrote the following hymn words: “All the way my Savior leads me; What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who thro’ life has been my Guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus does all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me, Cheers each winding path I tread, Gives me grace for every trial, Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter, and my soul athirst may be, Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see.

All the way my Savior leads me; Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect Rest to me is promised in my Father’s house of love. (Now, not someday, ABOVE in the after-life!).When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day (Actual Heaven’s abode!), This my song thro’ endless ages: JESUS LED (IN ME) ALL THE WAY; (EVERY DAY IN THE STILL ETERNAL DAY, IN THE ENDLESS AGES OF NO DEATH, NO SORROW, NO PAIN, NO SEPARATION)!” And His “Eternal Light” in us never dims, never fades, never darkens! AMEN?

ARE YOU ENJOYING AND CELEBRATING AND CONTINUALLY REJOICING AND PRAISING HIM THAT BY HIS GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE, THROUGH REPENTANCE AND FAITH, YIELDEDNESS AND SURRENDER, YOUR “NEW-BORN” LIFE IN CHRIST BECOMES HIS HOLY TEMPLE OF ABIDING PRESENCE, YES, HEAVEN ON EARTH!??!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“CROWNED PRINCES,CROWNED PRINCESSES SERVING THE KING OF KINGS”?

OUTSTANDING, MIND-ILLUMINATING, HEART-INSPIRING WORDS FROM PAUL IN HEBREWS 2:14-3:1-14 THAT ALL “CHURCH-FOLK”& “ALL OUTSIDE OF CHRIST” MUST HEAR!! PAUL SAID:

HEBREWS 2:14-18, “FORASMUCH THEN AS THE CHILDREN ARE PARTAKERS OF FLESH & BLOOD, CHRIST ALSO HIMSELF LIKEWISE TOOK PART OF THE SAME; THAT THROUGH DEATH HE MIGHT DESTROY HIM THAT HAD THE POWER OF DEATH,THAT IS,THE DEVIL; AND DELIVER THEM WHO THROUGH FEAR OF DEATH WERE ALL THEIR LIFETIME SUBJECT TO BONDAGE.

FOR VERILY HE TOOK PART NOT ON HIM THE NATURE OF ANGELS;BUT HE TOOK ON HIM THE SEED OF ABRAHAM. WHEREFORE IN ALL THINGS IT BEHOVED HIM TO BE MADE LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN, THAT HE MIGHT BE A MERCIFUL & FAITHFUL HIGH PRIEST IN THINGS PERTAINING TO GOD, TO MAKE RECONCILIATION FOR THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE. FOR IN THAT HE HIMSELF SUFFERED BEING TEMPTED, “HE IS ABLE” TO SUCCOUR THEM THAT ARE TEMPTED. (SUCCOUR?IT’S A WORD DEFINED AS, “HELP,RELIEF,AID,ASSISTANCE”; THAT’S HOLY GOD ‘RUNNING’ TO HELP RAISE YOU OUT OF DEATH INTO “LIFE”, OUT OF BONDAGE INTO “ETERNAL FREEDOM”, OUT OF DEVILISH CHAINS “TO THE PROMISES OF YOUR LORD & SAVIOR OF GOD’S OVERCOMING STRENGTH”, OUT OF DEVILISH ACCUSATIONS “TO OUR LORD’S ABIDING TRUTHS”, OUT OF CONSTANT ACCUSATIONS BY DEVILISH DEMONS TO THE “LORD’S PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING”!). OH, NOW TO HEBREWS 3:1-14! WHEREFORE, HOLY BRETHREN, PARTAKERS OF THE HEAVENLY CALLING, CONSIDER THE APOSTLE & HIGH PRIEST OF OUR PROFESSION, CHRIST JESUS; WHO WAS FAITHFUL TO HIM THAT APPOINTED HIM, AS ALSO MOSES WAS FAITHFUL IN ALL HIS HOUSE.

FOR THIS MAN (JESUS) WAS COUNTED WORTHY OF MORE GLORY THAN MOSES, INASMUCH AS HE WHO HAS BUILT THE HOUSE HAS MORE HONOR THAN THE HOUSE, FOR EVERY ‘HOUSE’ IS BUILT BY SOME MAN; BUT HE THAT BUILDS ALL THINGS IS GOD.

AND MOSES VERILY WAS FAITHFUL IN ALL HIS HOUSE, AS A SERVANT,FOR A TESTIMONY OF THOSE THINGS WHICH WERE TO BE SPOKEN OF AFTER; BUT CHRIST AS A SON OVER HIS OWN HOUSE: WHOSE HOUSE ARE WE IF WE HOLD FAST THE CONFIDENCE & THE REJOICING OF THE HOPE FIRM UNTO THE END. WHEREFORE (AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS), TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS, AS IN THE PROVOCATION, IN THE DAY OF TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS: WHEN YOUR FATHERS TEMPTED ME (GOD, THE SPIRIT, JESUS, THE THREE IN ONE!),PROVED ME, & SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS.

WHEREFORE I WAS GRIEVED WITH THAT GENERATION, & SAID, THEY DO ALWAYS ERR IN THEIR HEART; & THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN MY WAYS. SO I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY REST “TAKE HEED, 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 ARE MADE “PARTAKERS OF CHRIST” “””IF”””!! WE HOLD THE BEGINNNG OF OUR CONFIDENCE STEDFAST (OR FIRM) UNTO THE END.” WOW!!

CHRIST JESUS “IS” KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, & IF KING JESUS IS IN US, HE’S THERE NOT SIMPLY TO BE ‘PRESENT’ BUT TO ‘PRESIDE’; HE’S IN YOUR HEART NOT TO BE PROMINENT BUT PREEMINENT; “OBEDIENCE” IS NOT AN OPTION IN THE “AGE OF GRACE”!! GEORGE MACDONALD, IN HIS WRITING “MARQUIS OF LOSSIE” (CH.72) WROTE: “I FIND THE DOING OF THE WILL OF GOD,LEAVES ME NO TIME FOR DISPUTING ABOUT HIS PLANS.”

THERE’S AN OLD HYMN WRITTEN BY A LADY NAMED MARY BROWN THAT SAYS: “I’LL GO WHERE YOU WANT ME TO GO, DEAR LORD, O’ER MOUNTAIN OR PLAIN OR SEA; I’LL SAY WHAT YOU WANT ME TO SAY, DEAR LORD, I’LL BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE.”I ASK YOU!!!

ARE YOU (“IN CHRIST”) A “CROWNED PRINCE” OR A “CROWNED PRINCESS”? DO “YOU” LIVE IN OBEDIENCE TO KING JESUS?IN “ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(PUBLISHED BY FLEMING COM.,WESTWOOD,NJ),IS A COMMENT BY MICHAEL EYQUEM de MONTAIGNE: “THE FIRST LAW THAT EVER GOD GAVE TO MAN WAS A LAW OF OBEDIENCE; IT WAS A COMMANDMENT PURE & SIMPLE; WHEREIN MAN HAD NOTHING TO INQUIRE AFTER OR TO DISPUTE, FOR AS MUCH AS TO OBEY IS THE PROPER OFFICE OF A RATIONAL SOUL ACKNOWLEDGING A HEAVENLY SUPERIOR & BENEFACTOR. FROM OBEDIENCE & SUBMISSION SPRING ALL OTHER VIRTUES, AS ALL SIN DOES FROM SELF-OPINION & SELF-WILL.”

WHEN GOD SPEAKS, LIKE ADAM & EVE, MANY ‘PLAY’ BUT DON’T OBEY!! THEY STILL ‘SIN’ AS THEY ‘PLAY’ THE ‘RELIGIOUS GAME OF ‘PRETENSE’ HOPING OTHERS DON’T SEE THEIR SIN-NATURE IN OPEN DISPLAY AS THEY,YES, CHOOSE THEIR WAY RATHER THAN VICTORY OVER THEIR SIN & SIN-NATURE BY THE BLOOD SHED BY CHRIST ON THE CROSS, CARRYING HIMSELF &YOU TO CALVARY, TO THE GRAVE, BUT 3 DAYS LATER AROSE OUT OF PHYSICAL DEATH INTO SPIRITUAL VICTORY BECAUSE OF THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD! IT WAS JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER WHO WROTE YEARS AGO THESE WORDS: “IN SIMPLE TRUST LIKE THEIRS WHO HEARD BESIDE THE SYRIAN sea, LET US, LIKE THEM, WITHOUT A WORD, RISE UP & FOLLOW THEE.”

CHOSEN BY CHRIST! CONVICTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! CHRIST KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR – IF “YOU” INVITE HIM IN, HE OFFERS YOU THE FREE GIFT OF EVERLASTING LIFE, & IT’S YOURS BY REPENTANCE BEFORE GOD & FAITH IN “CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK”! & THE RESULT? HOW ABOUT CROWNDED PRINCES & CROWNDED PRINCESSES?

CROWNED PRINCES –CROWNED PRINCESSES?IF I REFER TO THEM, NOT AS SOME NATION’S KIDS UNDER A GOVERNOR’S RULE, BUT AS CHOSEN SERVANTS OF THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, DO YOU GET A CLEAR GLIMPSE AS TO WHERE I AM HEADED IN THIS PRECIOUS WORD & WILL OF GOD?

1 PETER 4:10-19 INFORMS US: “AS EVERY MAN HAS RECEIVED THE GIFT (A MAN, A WOMAN WHO HAS REPENTED & TRUSTED!),EVEN SO MINISTER THE SAME ONE TO ANOTHER, AS ‘GOOD STEWARDS’ OF THE MANIFOLD GRACE OF GOD. IF ANY MAN SPEAK, LET HIM SPEAK AS THE ORACLES OF GOD; IF ANY MAN MINISTER, LET HIM DO IT AS OF THE ABILITY WHICH “GOD GIVES”; THAT GOD IN ALL THINGS MAY BE GLORIFIED THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, TO WHOM BE PRAISE & DOMINION FOREVER & EVER. AMEN (OR SO BE IT!).

BELOVED, THINK IT NOT STRANGE CONCERNING THE FIERY TRIAL “WHICH IS TO TRY YOU”(OH, BUT IN THE 21^ST CENTURY, ‘WE WORRY ABOUT THAT? THESE ARE ‘SMOOTH’ DAYS; RIGHT?). WRONG? THE WORLD, THE OLD SIN NATURE, & SATAN & HIS DEMONS STILL STRUT IN PROUD ARROGANCE TO TAKE YOU AS A DISCIPLE OF JESUS DOWN – THEY WANT YOU MARRED,SCARRED, & HARDENED BY ‘DECEIT, PRIDE,& THE PULL OF THAT DECEITFUL NATURE OF SIN THAT STILL CAN DECEIVE!). PETER GOES ON,

VERSES 13-19 SAYS, “BUT REJOICE, INASMUCH AS YOU ARE PARTAKERS OF CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS; THAT, WHEN HIS GLORY SHALL BE REVEALED, YOU MAY BE GLAD ALSO WITH EXCEEDING JOY.

IF YOU BE REPROACHED FOR THE NAME OF CHRIST, HAPPY ARE YOU; FOR THE SPIRIT OF GLORY & OF GOD RESTS UPON YOU:ON THEIR PART JESUS IS EVIL SPOKEN OF, BUT ON YOUR PART JESUS IS GLORIFIED.BUT LET ONE OF YOU SUFFER AS A MURDERER, OR AS A THIEF, OR AS AN EVILDOER, OR AS A BUSYBODY IN OTHER MEN’S MATTERS.

BUT LET NONE OF YOU SUFFER AS A MURDERER, OR AS A THIEF, OR AS AN EVILDOER,OR AS A BUSYBODY IN OTHER MEN’S MATTERS. YET IF ANY MAN SUFFER AS A CHRISTIAN,LET HIM NOT BE ASHAMED; BUT LET HIM GLORIFY GOD ON THIS BEHALF. FOR THE TIME HAS COME (IS THAT TIME COMING AROUND OUR WORLD TODAY?) THAT JUDGMENT MUST BEGIN AT THE HOUSE OF GOD:AND IF IT FIRST BEGINS WITH US, WHAT SHALL THE END BE OF THEM THAT OBEY NOT THE GOSPEL OF GOD?

AND IF THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY BE SAVED, WHERE SHALL THE UNGODLY & THE SINNER APPEAR? WHEREFORE LET THEM THAT SUFFER ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD COMMIT THE KEEPING OF THEIR SOULS TO “HIM” IN WELL-DOING, AS UNTO A FAITHFUL CREATOR.”

CROWNED PRINCES – CROWNED PRINCESSES SERVING THE KING OF KINGS? I WANT TO CLOSE THIS MESSAGE WITH THE HYMN ENTITLED “CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS”. (THE AMERICAN HYMNAL, BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.1933).

“CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS, THE LAMB UPON HIS THRONE; HARK! HOW THE HEAVENLY ANTHEM DROWNS ALL MUSIC BUT ITS OWN! AWAKE, MY SOUL, & SING OF HIM WHO DIED FOR THEE; AND HAIL HIM AS YOUR MATCHLESS KING THRO’ ALL ETERNITY.

CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LOVE! BEHOLD HIS HANDS & SIDE,- RICH WOUNDS,YET VISIBLE ABOVE, IN BEAUTY GLORIFIED: NO ANGEL IN THE SKY CAN FULLY BEAR THAT SIGHT, BUT DOWNWARD BENDS HIS WOND’RING EYE AT MYSTERIES SO BRIGHT.

CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LIFE! WHO TRIUMPHED O’ER THE GRAVE; WHO ROSE VICTORIOUS TO THE STRIFE FOR THOSE HE CAME TO SAVE: HIS GLORIES NOW WE SING, WHO DIED & ROSE ON HIGH; WHO DIED ETERNAL LIFE TO BRING, & LIVES THAT DEATH MAY DIE.

CROWN HIM THE LORD OF HEAVEN! ONE WITH THE FATHER KNOWN, ONE WITH THE SPIRIT THRO’ HIM GIVEN FROM YONDER GLORIOUS THRONE! TO YOU,LORD,BE ENDLESS PRAISE, FOR “YOU” FOR US DID DIE; BE THOU, O LORD, THRO’ ENDLESS DAYS ADORED & MAGNIFIED.”

WOULD “YOU” DARE SHOUT: “GLORY BE TO GOD ALMIGHTY FOR HIS GRACE, MERCY, & LOVE, SO PROVEN BY THE SACRIFICE OF HIS OWN SON THAT WE MIGHT BE RESTORED TO “HIS KINGDOM LIVING FOREVER & EVER”??!!

CROWNED PRINCES-CROWNED PRINCESSES? IN 2 PETER 1, VERSES 1-7, IS PETER’S INSPIRED WORD ON GOD’S GRACIOUSNESS & POWER THAT IS AVAILABLE TO ALL TRUE REPENTANT & FAITHFUL BELIEVERS! FOLLOWED IN VERSES 8-11,& VERSE 16, THEN I CLOSE THIS MESSAGE.

2 PETER 1:1-7 SAYS, SIMON PETER, A SERVANT & AN APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST, TO THEM THAT HAVE OBTAINED LIKE PRECIOUS FAITH WITH US THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD & OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST: GRACE & PEACE BE MULTIPLIED UNTO YOU THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, & OF JESUS OUR LORD,

ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HAS GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE & GODLINESS,THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM THAT HAS CALLED US TO GLORY & VIRTUE: WHEREBY ARE GIVEN UNTO US EXCEEDING GREAT & PRECIOUS: THAT BY THESE YOU MIGHT BE PARTAKERS OF THE “DIVINE NATURE”, HAVING ESCAPED THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD THROUGH LUST. AND BESIDE THIS,GIVING ALL DILIGENCE,ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE; & TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE; & TO KNOWLEDGE TEMPERANCE; & TO TEMPERANCE PATIENCE; & TO PATIENCE GODLINESS; AND TO GODLINESS BROTHERLY KINDNESS; & TO BROTHERLY KINDNESS CHARITY.

THEN EXAMINE VERSES 8-11! FOR IF THESE THINGS BE IN YOU, &ABOUND, THEY MAKE YOU THAT YOU SHALL NEITHER BE BARREN NOR UNFRUITFUL IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. “BUT” HE THAT LACKS THESE THINGS IS BLIND, & HAS FORGOTTEN THAT HE WAS PURGED FROM HIS OLD SINS. WHEREFORE THE RATHER,BRETHREN, “GIVE” DILIGENCE, TO MAKE YOUR CALLING & ELECTION SURE;FOR IF YOU DO THESE THINGS, YOU SHALL NEVER FALL; FOR SO AN ENTRANCE SHALL BE MINISTERED UNTO YOU ABUNDANTLY INTO THE EVERLASTING KINGDOM OF OUR LORD & SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.” THEN, VERSE 16!! “FOR WE HAVE NOT FOLLOWED CUNNINGLY DEVISED FABLES, WHEN WE MADE KNOWN UNTO YOU THE POWER & COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, BUT WERE EYEWITNESSES OF HIS MAJESTY.” GLORY!!

ARE “YOU” AN EYEWITNESS OF HIS MAJESTY? HE SAYS, AS HE KNOCKS ON YOUR HEART’S DOOR, “OPEN THE DOOR OF YOUR MIND, HEART, & WILL, & I WILL COME IN! BY MY LOVE, GRACE, & MERCY, I’LL CROWN YOU AS “CROWNED PRINCES & CROWNED PRINCESSES” IN MY KINGDOM LIVING OF HEAVENLY GLORY, DIVINE LOVE & POWER,SONS OF ETERNAL FAITH! AMEN? & WE’RE CALLED TO BARE FRUIT

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES!”

Troubling Tombs? Troubling Tombs of Godless lives, like self-centered lives striving in a Godless existence, even striving to find meaning to life without God but assured in self, worldly, demonic deception that your life will work it out and find meaning, a sense of peace and purpose without Him, though for most with godless minds, they never consider what or who or why life has to be a struggle finding any sense of blessing or peace or satisfaction as they see it, doing so without eternal identity and eternal purpose!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? When in James 1:8 the brother of Jesus said, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,” you get a true picture of a godless life that has a hint of a God-filled life as a possibility, but has no desire to die to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, or devotion to a world of unbelief – he, she desires, though troubled, because their greater allegiance is satisfying the ‘fullness of the flesh’ rather than experiencing “New Birth” in and through the Holy Spirit!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How clear do you find the words of Christ Jesus in Luke 11:34 when He said: “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when your eye is single (Settled in on God alone in His love, grace, and mercy!), your whole body is full of light; but when your eye is evil, your body also is full of darkness.” Some say Jesus was “too strong” in His words about lives that choose to accept, visit, remember, hold on to, indulge in a false confession of faith with one foot stepping forward in Him and the other foot yielding to the world, the old sin-nature, and, yes, to Satanic, demonic deception! Haven’t you crossed paths with, yes, many ‘religious’ (?) people who want the best of both worlds?

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? Is that a “downcast life”, a life that seldom, if ever, looks UP toward the King of kings and Lord of lords, as He sits on His throne ready to respond to the needy, empty, sin-sick soul, though they mentally, at times, at least ‘wanting’ to be religious without being ‘dead to the old sin-nature’, but they never ever consider being made ‘alive’ in the Resurrection Presence of the Reigning Lord and Savior?

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How easy is it for Godless lives, even some modern-day ‘religious profess-ors’, to ‘profess’ but never “POSSESS” the fullness of the blessing of the Resurrected Christ? There are ‘religious-cave-dwellers’ that are not just prehistoric men but modern-day-religious pretenders dwelling in the cave of self-determination, “saying” one thing about their ‘faith’ (?) but “living” still in their ‘godless life’, though they sing about “blessed assurance” as they practice their “cursed existence”!!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How aware are you of the disease of “the reverence of a man’s self-nature”, so in love with his/her ‘fleshly passions’, that he/she never looks to the eternal Truth of, yes, “crucified with Christ”; or, as some, they profess allegiance to the false expression: “God helps those who help themselves, saying “I try”, rather than truly trusting in Christ’s finished work at the Cross”, or, “Do your best”, as religiously they bow at the altar of ‘self-control’ rather than “resting” in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope IN “Christ Only, One’s Only Hope of the Glorified Life”!!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? Oh, how easy it is for far too many people to live in a false pretense of faith rather than the “blessed assurance” in and through Christ alone! Alexander MacLaren once said, “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” This is why in Galatians 2:20 Paul said, “I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in this fleshly body I live by The Faith of The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me,” adding in Verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God!”

In the short but sensational word of Jude you find him writing about “pretenders”, though they ‘dressed’ daily in imitation garbs! In Verses 3-5 and Verses 8-15 Jude exposes not only those in his day but also those in modern centuries and in our current century who live the “victimized life of religious pretense” filling some church pews!!

Jude said, Verses 3-5, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

For THERE ARE CERTAIN MEN CREPT IN UNAWARES, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God INTO LASCIVIOUSNESS, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I will therefore put YOU in remembrance, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Verses 8-15 then says: Likewise also these filthy dreamers (who) DEFILE THE FLESH, DESPISE (CHRIST’S) DOMINION, AND SPEAK EVIL OF DIGNITIES. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.

But, these speak evil of those things which they know not; but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear; clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints,

To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

It was Sir Francis Bacon in his writing, “New Atlantis”, who said: “The reverence of a man’s self is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.” Have you ever crossed paths, in a local church, with ‘active’ church members who are ‘brain and heart dead’ to “taking the sentence of death daily to the mortal sin-nature that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in and through their mortal flesh?”

Oh, and reflect upon the startling, shocking, awakening words of Charles Caleb Colton, (The Enclypodia of Religious Quotations, p.397, Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey)!! “Heroism, magnanimity, and self-denial, in all instances in which they do not spring from a principle of religion (and, I say, “Biblical Faith”!), are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.”

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS SADLY DENYING RESURRECTION LIFE IN AND THROUGH CHRIST ONLY!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS DOMINATED BY FLESHLY “WARPED WITS”!!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS STILL SATISFIED WITH HIGHLY EDUCATED WORLDLY WILLS, YES, CELEBRATED BY SATAN AND HIS DEMONIC DECEIVERS!!!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE INDIVIDUALS VICTIMIZED BY THE POWERS OF DARKNESS RADIATING THE “FLESHLY LIGHTS OF SEIF-IMPORTANCE AND SELF-INDULGENCE” WITH NO NEED OF BEING RESCUED BY GOD!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE LIVES JOHN MILTON ONCE DESCRIBED AS: “HE WHO REIGNS HIMSELF AND RULES HIS PASSIONS, DESIRES, AND FEARS IS MORE THAN A KING,” and, I say,- “HE, SHE IS A DECEIVED SINNER WITHOUT ANY NEED OF A SAVIOR SINCE “SELF-RULE” STUPIDLY REIGNS!!”

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE LIVES RADIATING THE ‘DARKNESS’ OF CAGED SELFISHNESS THOUGH ‘PROFESSING’ A RELIGIOUS FAITH!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? OH, THERE IS FOR MANY A TROUBLING AWARENESS OF THEIR ‘SIN-NATURE’ BUT IN THEIR DARKENED HEARTS AND BONDAGED-SELF-WILL NO AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF GOD’S INTERVENTION – THEY CAN HANDLE THEIR ‘MENTAL MISTAKES”! REALLY?

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? HAVE YOU EVER CROSSED PATHS WITH,YES, CROWDS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE APPRECIATIVELY INFORMED ABOUT CHRIST’S “BLOOD SACRIFICE” IN THEIR BEHALF BUT SEE AT AS AN UNNECESSARY EVENT BY GOD SINCE THEY SEE THEMSELVES AS RELIGIOUSLY “OK”?

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? “BELIEF” THAT IS DARKENED UNBELIEF THAT DESTROYS BECAUSE, THOUGH “CONFESSING CHRIST”, ONE’S WALK- HIS PATH, HER PILGRIMAGE-IS AN IMMORAL DESERT WHERE ONE CONTINUES TO WALK DEAFENED TO THE PRECIOUS VOICE OF GOD AND BLINDED TO HIS FOOTSTEPS TO CALVERY, OUT OF THE TOMB, BUT HIS CONTIUNUING WALK WORLD-WIDE TO KNOCK ON THE DOORS OF MEN’S HEARTS! HAVE YOU OPENED THE DOOR TO THE SAVIOR’S LORDSHIP AND SOVEREIGN REIGN OVER YOUR WALK, YOUR PATH, YOUR PILGRIMAGE TO HONOR HIM DAILY? It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her writing “The Cry of the Human”, who wrote:“There is no God,” the foolish says, But none, “There is no sorrow”; And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow. Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.”

Sadly, yes, across many ‘Christian paths’, people walk and talk and pretend but are blinded in unbelief by the mind of religious human reasoning, superficial in religious thoughts and pretense, but void of Resurrection Presence – Christ knocked, but they didn’t answer because their pretense was sufficient rather than His Presence!

How clear and convicting was Paul when in 1 Corinthians 13:11 he wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Are You ruled by ‘self-love’ or fully embraced and overflowing with your love for Christ Jesus who suffered, bled, and died on the Cross of Calvary as He, yes, carried YOU with Him to be “crucified with Christ”? In Mark 8:34 Jesus said: “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS (DYING DAILY!), AND FOLLOW ME.” For YOU? A TROUBLED TOMB OR TRIUMPHANT IN JESUS?

In the old “American Hymnal” of 1938, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, is a hymn entitled, “O For A Faith That Will Not Shrink.” It says:

“O for a faith that will not shrink Tho’ pressed by many a foe, That will not tremble on the brink Of poverty or woe.

That will not murmur nor complain Beneath the chastening rod, But in the hour of grief or pain Can lean upon its God.

A faith that shimes more bright and clear When tempests rage without, That, when in danger, knows no fear, In darkness feels no doubt.

Lord, give me such a faith as this, And then, whatever may come, I taste even now my hallowed bliss Of my eternal home.”

Can YOU say Amen to that Truth? Are YOU settled and cemented in Christ alone, or do you ‘rest’ in your fleshly self?

Are YOU a TROUBLED TOMB OR HIS TRIUMPHANT TEMPLE OF ETERNAL PRESENCE REIGNING VICTORIOUSLY THROUGH YOU?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH”!

At a “National Hispanic Leadership Conference” in Houston, Texas, April 29, 2015, former Florida governor and presidential candidate, at the time, Jeb Bush, said: “There is no more powerful and liberating influence on this earth than the Christian conscience in action and today in America it is important to respect and to protect Christians acting on their faith…not just talking about their faith, but there is a constitutional right and more importantly for a loving society Christians need to have the space to be able to act on their conscience.” My only problem with his statement is, that often, the ‘Christian conscience’ is willful determination of ‘flesh’ opinions rather than Holy Word of God revelation!

It wasn’t long ago, maybe same day as Jeb Bush, that former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, said, maybe same conference, “We are living in perilous times where people who are Christian are on the brink of being criminalized for their convictions.”

And both men, stressing their beliefs, are easily, in this day and time, set aside and considered ‘radical’ by ‘godless’ or even ‘misinformed’ professing believers who don’t stand on the Word of God! It’s difficult to “stand for Truth” when one’s foundation is built on “self-evaluation” rather than “God-revealed-Holy Truth”!

We can go all the way back to Joshua’s day when in Joshua 24:14-15 we read, Joshua speaking, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We live in days as a nation that are not foreign to any nation, any people, or even to one, and can visualize what goes on anywhere, anytime, with any persons, just like the historical history of Christ’s crucifixion on the Cross several thousand years ago! Come with me to Luke 23, beginning with Verse 32! “There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” {“If”? Are you aware of the reality of literally millions and millions, more likely billions, who understand, ‘There IS the King of the Jews, the King of all Americans, the King of every European, African, or Asian’ but who selfishly decide for themselves as to whether or not they will choose to serve the Lord?!?}.

In Luke 23:34 then tells us that Christ Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do,” {Which is so true of literally millions and millions who do not know what they do when they trivialize Christ, join those who divide His garments and “roll the dice” hoping what He says is not true – BUT IT IS!}. Even the rulers of Israel SNEERED, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

Don’t you find that so interesting? They had an inkling about ‘the Christ, the chosen of God,’ but couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t receive the prophetic word from many of their prophets hundreds and hundreds of years before His actual coming! Do you remember Jesus saying in John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad”? Verse 57 follows, Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” In Verse 58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” And their response? 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 (the “stone-throwers”), and SO PASSED (THEM) by.” {Will Jesus have to “pass you by” when all are brought before His Throne of Judgment, whether you like it or not?}.

In Luke 23:36-38 we read: The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.” And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrews: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Didn’t we just read in Luke 23:33, “And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.” At least Luke KNEW Jesus was not a criminal, but, as God in the flesh, Who willingly offered Himself as THE sacrifice for the sins of all humanity! Even John, early in his writing of the Gospel of John, John 1:14, wrote: “And the Word (the Living Word of God!!) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” proclaiming in Verse 29, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Examine John 1:32-35! And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ AND I HAVE SEEN AND TESTIFIED THAT THIS IS THE SON OF GOD.” Again, the next day, John stood with two of His disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

Dare I tell you that Christ Jesus IS “the Way of Life” that leads to the “way of death”? In Matthew 10:16-18,21-22 Jesus challenged the original ‘twelve disciples’, saying to them, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

Verses 21-22 then says, “Now brother will deliver up brother TO DEATH, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”

It is so evidently true that to “follow Christ Jesus” is to follow Him in every step He had to take, including the way of ‘suffering’, the way of ‘rejection’, the way of ‘obedience’, willing to fulfill the Father’s eternal will: death to Himself that resurrection life and hope could, would, and was manifested! Oh, and then in John 20, after His crucifixion and burial and resurrection, in Verses 19-21, we read:

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:30-31 then says: And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

And do you understand that “life in His name” does not come in full fruition apart from the awareness of and willingness to die daily to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, and self-will, plus, a readiness of physical death by persecution if it comes your way, BECAUSE you will not deny Him?

In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Apostle Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death (“the wages of sin is death”!), and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”! Did Holy God, the Father, allow Jesus’ death and then manifest His Holy Power to raise the dead after Jesus’ three days in the grave?

And, how pleased is God the Father for the willingness of 21^st Century disciples to offer their lives daily as a “willing sacrifice” taking that sentence daily to themselves that His Resurrection Life may be manifested in their mortal flesh?

Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned, Acts 16:20-24? It says: And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” ( Ever heard it yourself? “We’re free Americans and not interested in anything you ‘Christians’ have to say! Keep on, and we’ll have you imprisoned, or kill you ourselves!”}. [I actually heard that threat in India as I preached openly on the streets!].

Continuing in Acts 16:22-24, Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”

That was a literal event for faithful believers, and it does still happen today that some believers are physically jailed for faithful testimonies in certain locations. BUT there IS a ‘symbolism’ which extends to many today who are vocal for the faith but ostracized by ‘friends’ and ‘family’, opponents shutting the door on them for their outspoken challenge to receive Christ!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? Are you aware of Christian Institutional and openly, strong, faithful disciples of Christ witnessing a rapidly growing opposition and threats because of many enemies of God who are becoming openly hostile to the Word and Will of God and against those who uphold “All Scripture is divinely inspired…”?

Prayer is rapidly being removed from classrooms with kids being told “School is not a place to pray!” Really? Yes, really! Ten Commandments are being removed from lots of places across the Nation where the banners of Truth used to fly! In Sweden pastors have been jailed for opposing homosexuality – and that threat is not far away in the U.S.A.!

There’s an active homosexual- sick man named Mitchell Gold whose diatribe against the Word of God and churches, pastors, and faithful disciples who stand on that Word of God, who has said, “They must be made to take homosexuality off the sin list,” and a New York Time’s writer, Frank Bruni, affirmed Gold’s obscene opposition to Holy God and His Word, saying, “His commandment (that’s Mitchell Gold’s commandment) is worthy – and warranted.”

And what sickens me is when I hear some say of their pastors, “They’ll not expose or speak the Truth because they don’t want to offend ANYBODY!” God, help us! It’s as if our formerly great nation, “one nation under God”, is fast becoming a nation under opposition to God!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? I want to urge you right now to commit yourself to reading faithfully, over and over, the Book of Daniel for at least a week! In Daniel you’ll find, not trivializing Truth, but many who want Biblical Truth obliterated from the national scene or stage! Follow Daniel 6:1-16!

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.

So the governors and satraps SOUGHT TO FIND SOME CHARGE AGAINST DANIEL concerning the kingdom; BUT THEY COULD FIND NO CHARGE OR FAULT, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him, “King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows opened toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.

And they went before the king, and spoke concerning the king’s decree: “Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any god or man within thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.”

So they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, O king, or for the decree you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”

And the king, when he heard these words was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.”

SO the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.”

In Verses 21-22 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”

AND the accusers, on the king’s command, were all cast into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den!!!

What was King Darius’ response? He wrote a proclamation! Verses 25-28 says: “To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel For He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end.

He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, Who has delivered Daniel from the power of lions.” So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Glory!

“CRIMINALIZED FOR STANDING FOR THE TRUTH OF GOD’S HOLY WORD”? John 8 is a strong chapter defining Christ’s strong “Personal Witness” against the ‘religious’ Pharisees who determined He deserved to die because He opposed their religious pretense and no true eternal foundation upon which they walked and talked “the game” yet they never faced their guilt, sin, and separation from Holy God, and certainly had no ears to hear both prophetic utterances from hundreds and hundreds of years before or His declaration of Messianic identity!

Jesus told them in John 8:19, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” Oh, and then in John 8:23-24 Jesus released the eternal arrow of Truth about the scribes and Pharisees and the ‘religious but unredeemed’ Jews: “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.”

In John 8:37-47 Jesus then said: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I

heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.

Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

So…Christ Jesus Himself was ‘criminalized’ by the religious, unbelieving, unrepentant crowd and CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS for all men because of God’s great love for the world!

What went on then still goes on today! The unbelieving world still condemns the holy and congratulates the hollow; the unbelieving world sentences the sincere and celebrates the sinner; the unbelieving world imprisons the faithful and frees the ‘foul’ from any and every offense; the unbelieving world still maligns the merciful and merits the ‘molded’ in mind and heart!

It was Harriet Beecher Stowe who once said: “No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.” And, in most cases, it’s the godless man criminalizing those who stand for, in, and through the truth, resulting, for them, a Hell forever with the devil, his demons, and all rejecters of Biblical Truth, and all sin-infected ‘profound minds’, and all ‘superficial thinkers’ who know nothing about standing on Eternal Truth!

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

GOD DWELLS WHERE THE THRONE IS!!

Revelation 4:1-5:14

It’s not seen with the visible eye, but every life has a throne – and WHO sits on that throne defines that life.

Life is not defined by outward appearances but is defined by the authority on the throne of that life.

It is not explained by educational degrees, bank accounts, or even meritorious accomplishments – it’s explained by WHO gets the glory.

Life is not explained by beauty, talent, genes, abilities or the lack of them, religious inclinations or the lack of them, ancestral heritage or the lack of it, hall of fame awards or the lack of them – LIFE is defined by either a temporal throne or the Eternal Throne.

It’s either a throne of religious devotion or The THRONE OF REDEMPTIVE MERCY.

It’s either a throne of self-declaration as ‘god’ unto myself or submission in the heart at the Throne of Sovereign, Mighty God.

It’s either a throne of self-reflection or the Throne of God where repentance is the welcome Door-Opener to an Eternal relationship with Him.

It’s either a throne of self-satisfaction consumed by constant introspection or the Throne of a life bent toward God because His drawing power of us was not in vain.

Do you remember the godless saying to the Psalmist, Psalm 42:3. “Where is your God?” Can I tell you?

“God dwells where the Throne is” – not your throne but His Throne. He’s at home where His Throne has been established. He’s honored where He feels welcomed and received.

As John Piper so ably expressed, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Jesus put it even clearer when in John 14:23 He said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our home with him.”

Do you see it? A God-loving heart, a welcoming home, and a Royal Throne.

In Revelation 4 and 5, 14 times the word, ‘throne’ is used. Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says of the word ‘throne’, “The place where God peculiarly manifests his power and glory…sovereign power and dignity…”

Psalm 99:1-3 declares: “The Lord reigns; Let the peoples tremble! He dwells between the cherubim; Let the earth be moved!…The Lord is great in Zion. And He is high above all the peoples…Let them praise Your great and awesome name – He is holy.”

“Where is your God?” He’s seated on His throne, He reigns on His throne, He dwells on His throne, and He feels at home on His throne.

And my one driving ambition of life should be to be raised up and seated with Him in heavenly places. Where is that? Let’s see what God’s Word is telling us – I want you to see 9 truths:

GOD DWELLS WHERE THE THRONE IS? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

First, God dwells on THE THRONE OF SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY. Revelation 4:1, “After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ‘Come up here, and I WILL SHOW YOU THINGS WHICH MUST TAKE PLACE AFTER THIS.”

How do you read that? Are you side-tracked onto a path of prophetic utterances or is God revealing Himself? “I will show you…I will explain what’s to take place…I, as absolute Monarch, I as Sovereign Ruler, will tell you what is about to happen.”

We think life is ‘chance;’ we believe life is just ‘a roll of the dice;’ we’re convinced ‘whatever will be will be’ and WHOMEVER (God) has nothing to do with it; we believe ‘free will’ trumps divine influence and God is left out in the cold; we believe man is something in himself and God is an option he can take or omit when the truth is God Sovereignly rules and He will have mercy on whom He wills to have mercy!

Listen to me, we ought to rush the Throne of Sovereign Authority. We ought to take hold of the horns of the altar and, with Jacob, cry out, “I’ll not let go until YOU bless me.” We ought to be caught up in the Sovereign wind currents of Holy Grace resting our lives at the foot of His Throne.

Listen to Paul instructing Timothy in I Timothy 6:15-16, “… He who is the blessed and only [Sovereign], the King of kings and Lord of lords… who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, TO WHOM BE HONOR AND EVERLASTING POWER.

AMEN.”

Psalm 103:19 says, “The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.”

The question is, ARE YOU SUBMITTED TO HIS SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY?

Second, God’s Word tells us A THRONE OF MERCY IS AVAILABLE! Look at Revelation 4:3, “And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a RAINBOW around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.”

In Ezekial chapter one, verse 26, God’s Word speaks about “a throne,” and then, in verse 28, it says: “Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it.” And I hear a Word from the heart of God:

“Your life has been dark clouds, it’s been rainy days, the storms have been so intense upon you, but look up – there’s a rainbow, which means behind your darkest clouds the Sun still shines, behind your darkest days, God reigns with mercy-drops; to this point the testimony of your pilgrimage has been hollow and meaningless with blackness in your heart – but look up because your redemption draws nigh! Look up, open wide, and let those mercy-drops of God settle within your life!!

Listen to Psalm 147:11, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those WHO HOPE IN HIS MERCY.”

You probably know Psalm 23 by memory, but let me share it: “The Lord id my shepherd, I shall not want..He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters…He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; For Thou art with me.; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me…Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows… Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

What did Paul say to the Ephesian church? “But God who is rich in mercy…” That’s it! That’s where God dwells!!

Where do you dwell? Where have you settled on your residence? And I’m not talking about the country you are from! What do you call your permanent home? What is your address?

Write it down! My address is “Hope in God’s Mercy Alone.” My permanent residence is not personal merit but Providential Mercy. It’s not my attainment but appropriation of His ATONEMENT. My dwelling place is not on the avenue or street of disciplined ‘doing’ but the DIVINE “DONE” – “It is finished” – and I rest in God’s mercy alone!

“O the love that drew salvation’s plan! O the grace that brought it down to man! O the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary…

Mercy there was GREAT, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty AT CALVARY.”

Where does God dwell? On the THRONE! And third, we see that throne IS A THRONE OF AWESOME SPIRIT-ANOINTING!! Revelation 4:5, “And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, WHICH ARE THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD.”

I so love what Reinhard Bonnke had to say in his book, “Mighty Manifestations.” (p9), “A powerless gospel preacher is like an unwashed soap salesman.”.

How many disciples do you know who’ve crossed over into the realm of the supernatural because of the “New Birth” but continue to live as if they are only ‘natural’ beings?

It’s why Paul, in I Corinthians 3:3, spoke of those Corinthian disciples “behaving like mere men!!”

In Acts 2, Peter quotes the prophet Joel, in verses 17 and 18, God speaking, “I will pour out My Spirit…I will pour out My Spirit in those days,” and then Peter says, in verse 39, “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Later, (p35), Bonnke said, “Without that vitality we have a secularized, nominalized, anglicized, rationalized, and harmless religion.” I don’t want a harmless religion – I want where God Himself feels at home in supernatural anointings, enduements with power from on high, and where God’s people walk in Spirit-baptisms!!

Listen to Chuck Swindoll in “Flying Closer To The Flame,” (p.75), “What fuel is to a car, the Holy Spirit is to the believer. He ENERGIZES us to stay the course. He motivates us in spit of the obstacles. He keeps us going when the road gets rough. It is the Spirit who comforts us in our distress, who calms us in times of calamity, who becomes our companion in loneliness and grief, who spurs our “intuition” into action, who fills our minds with discernment when we are uneasy about a certain decision. In short, He is our spiritual fuel. When we attempt to operate without Him or to use some substitute fuel, all systems grind to a halt.”

Fourth, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF UNENDING ADORATION! Revelation 4:8, “and they do not rest day or night, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”

Adoration, worship, praise is not simply a bodily position (although we do bow down) but an attitude of the heart. Adoration is not simply acknowledgement of God but selfless surrender and constant commitment to Who He Is and What He Desires! Adoration is more than “respectful and formal recognition of God” – Jesus put it like this to Satan in Matthew 4:10, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.”

Did you see it? “…worship…and…serve.” Worship and the walk. Worship and the witness. Worship and the waiting. Worship and willful yielding to the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Psalm 22:3 says, “But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel.” Psalm 84:4 says, “Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever and ever praising You.” You want to know where God dwells?

Look at Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable spiritual service of worship.”

Fifth, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF THE ETERNAL! Revelation 4:9-10, “Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, WHO LIVES FOREVER AND EVER…the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever…”

And the one thing I want you to grasp is resolving where you center your life and your walk – on that which is so temporal or upon Him Who Is Eternal?

In Exodus 3:14, God said to Moses, “I Am Who I AM;” “I Am Who I Always Was;” “I Am Always The Present I Am,” and…”I Am Is He Who Will Always Be!!”

In Genesis 21:33 He’s called “The Everlasting God.” In Psalms 90:2, Moses said, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” And the one thing you must lay hold of here is that mankind either centers its life upon what is so temporary or centers its life upon that which is Eternal! You have a choice.

And this is our Gospel message and is to be our Gospel preaching – I John 5:20-21, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true: and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God AND eternal life.” That’s where I want to dwell!!

Sixth, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF SUBMISSION AND SURRENDER! Revelation 4:10, end of the verse, these worshippers “cast their crowns before the throne…”

They lay everything down at the feet of Jesus. They take “hands off” of the governing of their lives. They, with Saul of Tarsus, say, “Lord, what would You have me to do?’

If “As Jesus Is, So Am I” is true, and it is, then I must find my holy place of Gethsemane, and I must say deliberately, willingly, passionately as Jesus, (Matthew 26:39), “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; NEVERTHELESS, not as I will, but as You WILL.”

God dwells where the Throne is where men are casting their crowns at His feet. God dwells where self-will dies and Divine Will is uppermost. God dwells where men hear His voice and go out not even knowing where they’re going – but God has spoken and we must follow. God dwells where human will is swallowed up by Divine Life.

“I am resolved no longer to linger, Charmed by the world’s delight; Things that are higher, things that are nobler, These have allured my sight…

I am resolved to follow the Savior, Faithful and true each day; Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth, He is the living way…

I am resolved to enter the kingdom, Leaving the paths of sin; Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me, Still I will enter in…” [Palmer Hartsougfh]

Seventh, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF UNVEILING OF THE PRESENCE OF THE WORTHY LAMB! Revelation 5:1-6

God dwells where Jesus is honored. God dwells where the Son of God is lifted up. God dwells where the Savior is magnified. God dwells where the Worthy Lamb is unveiled.

He’s the Lion of the House of Praise, He’s the Root of King David, He’s the sacrificial Lamb, He’s the Friend of Sinners, He’s the Loving Savior, He’s the Merciful Master…And He says, (John 12:32), “And I, if I am lifted from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”

I want to be drawn to Jesus more and more. I want to lift Him up more and more. I want to exalt the name that is above every name. I want to pray more and more, “Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus.”

I want to “Preach Christ and Him crucified!” I want to preach “The Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords.” I want to create expectancy that “The King Is Coming,” Prepare to meet Him.

Preach it, pastors, REDEEMED, “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (I Peter 1:19)

Eighth, God Dwells Where The Throne IS, A THRONE OF SYMPHONIC PRAISE AND WORSHIP! Revelation 5:9-13

How many do you know who sing old songs, dead songs, man-inspired songs, but they have nothing to do with what matters most. Redemption is absent. Reconciliation is a foreign language. Regeneration is not simply a mystery – it’s a lost language.

But when the Lamb is lifted up – there’s a “new song,” there’s a new symphony, there’s a new orchestra, there are new singers, and with loud voices they make much of the Worthy Lamb.

Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to Him – and they major on that. Spurgeon wrote: “A heart full of praise is heaven in the bud. Perfect praise is heaven full-blown.” Why? Because of our redemption through the blood of Christ, “Heaven came down and Glory filled our souls!!”

We sing of the mercies of our Lord forever and ever. We sing of the marvelous, wondrous grace f God forever and ever. We sing of the love of God forever and ever.

Luke 19:37-40, “And as He was now approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, saying…”Blessed Is The King Who Comes In The Name Of The Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”…And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”…And Jesus answered and said, “I tell you, if these become silent, THE STONES WILL CRY OUT!”

I don’t want to be a hardened rock that someday acknowledges Christ ashamedly – I want to be “a living stone” that worships Him so appreciatively!! (Revelation 5:12)

Lastly, God Dwells Where The Throne Is, A THRONE OF A COMPLETED WORK BECAUSE OF OUR PRAYER OF AGREEMENT! Revelation 5:14, “Then the four living creatures said, “AMEN!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.”

“AMEN?” “It is done – It is finished – So be it, Lord. We stand upon Calvary’s completed work. We rest in the resurrection out of our empty tombs. We claim only the finished work of Christ. Our merit is Your mercy. Our hope is Your help. Our salvation is Your sacrifice. Our life is Your death, burial, and Resurrection. Our past and present has a future – His Name Is Jesus Only!! “AMEN!!”

Nehemiah 8:6, “And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Then all the people answered, ‘Amen! Amen!’”

Psalm 41:13, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen.”

Psalm 72:19, “And let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen.”

Psalm 106:48, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’”

Jeremiah 28:6, Jeremiah, “Amen! The Lord do so; the Lord perform your words which you have prophesied, to bring back the vessels of the Lord’s house…”

Mark 16:20, “And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. AMEN.”

Ephesians 3:21, “to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. AMEN.”

2 Peter 3:18, “To Him be the glory both now and forever. AMEN.”

I John 5:21, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. AMEN.”

Revelation 22:20, He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” AMEN. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Verse 21, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. AMEN.”

Will you put an AMEN into your life? Will you put an AMEN into your prayers? Will you put an AMEN into your home, your church, your business, your ministry? AMEN – it’s finished! AMEN – SO BE IT, LORD, only according to Your signature.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY!”

EPHESIANS 5:14

God says: “Awake, you who ‘SLEEP’, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light!”

Isn’t it amazing to you that the Holy Word of God is so filled with biblical Truth about those “choosing” to “live in the dark,” “sleepy-time lives”, totally unaware of their ‘fleshly destinies’? In Proverbs 6:4-5 the wise man wrote: “Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from THE hand of the hunter, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler (or ‘hunter’ who seeks to slay you!).” And then in Verses 6-11 the wise man continued, desiring to “wake us all up” from the “sleep” of spiritual death, alienation from God, incapable of personal deliverance from its powerful sentence of spiritual death – a ‘sluggard’ of spiritual inactivity, a ‘sluggard’ of perpetual spiritual sleep, a ‘sluggard’ of slothfulness and indifference to the “Holy Truths” of God, and, yes, even indifferent to His amazing love and grace and mercy, just satisfied to live in “the darkness of a deep spiritual sleep,” unconcerned about his void of spiritual life and faith and purpose, or its penalty!

So, Proverbs 6:6-15, declares so wisely, so convicted, “Wake up, go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, Which, having no captain, ( no Savior, no Redeemer, no Lord, no loving spiritual caretaker), overseer or ruler, Provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard? WHEN WILL YOU ARISE FROM YOUR SLEEP? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep – SO SHALL POVERTY (that’s spiritual poverty and spiritual bankruptcy!) COME ON YOU LIKE A PROWLER (one who comes to steal, like the devil!), AND ON YOUR NEED LIKE AN ARMED MAN (or robber or thief, yes, “the powers of darkness”!).”

Verses 12-15 then solemnly, seriously, and in convicting fashion, describes the end of a sleeping, spiritually negligent, self-serving individual, who resists his need of “spiritual awakening”: “A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth (“that Bible may be what YOUR God says, but I don’t care!”); He winks with his eyes, he shuffles his feet, he points his fingers; Perversity is in his heart, he devises evil continually (that’s ANYTHING THAT LEAVES GOD OUT OF ONE’S ‘MIXED-BAG-OF-LIFE CHOICES’!), he sows discord, (Opposition to eternal Truths). THEREFORE his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.”

Oh, but there is “hope that is eternal”! There can be, must be, if you let Him, an “awakening” from spiritual sleep and slumber, spiritual death, spiritual hopelessness, to the reality of the true, merciful, spiritual awakening in and through “Christ Jesus” alone!

In Joel 1:5 the word of the Lord had come to Joel: “Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.” Is this ‘literal’ speech or ‘metaphorical’? The ‘drunkards’ are ‘sinners separated from Holy God ‘intoxicated’ in unholy, unbiblical, un-redeeming truths! The ‘drunkards’ are ‘willful sinners’ intoxicated with the ‘devil’s brew’ of unbelief, rebellion, disobedience, self-centeredness, and purposely, willfully, so intoxicated with self, one has ‘no sense’ or ‘will’ or ‘desire’ to live for God! “IS IT EVIDENT IN SOME ‘MODERN-CHURCHES’? WITHOUT ANY DOUBT! But loving, merciful, caring, compassionate God takes on the mission to awake those who sleep, resurrect those who are spiritually dead, and by repentance toward Him and faith in Christ Jesus’ “finished work” at the Cross, the ‘dead’ can be, will be, have been “raised from spiritual death’ from the ‘slumber of the devil’ INTO THE REALITY OF THE SAVIOR’S MERCY,LOVE,&GRACE!!

Get ready! It’s going to be an interesting, awe-inspiring ‘journey’ from spiritual sleep to “awakened by the love, mercy, and grace of GoD”!! FIRST! LET’S LOOK AT THE REALITY OF GODLESS MEN/WOMEN,TEENS/CHILDREN, WHO “ARE” CAPTURED IN BIRTH BY THE REALITY OF A COVETED SIN-NATURE, ‘STRIVING’ TO “LIVE”, BUT WITHOUT HOLY GOD! GOD HAD NO DESIRE IN BIRTHING MEN WITH NO “FREE WILL” because He knew it’s consequences, “BUT THE ‘FREE WILL” OF ‘FLESH’ had to be because Holy God was not interested in seeing men & women as automatic robots”, and certainly, natural birth WAS & IS NOT “LIFE IN THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GOD”! THIS IS WHY JESUS CONFRONTED ‘REALITY’ OF THOSE SEPARATED FROM GOD WHEN HE ‘MENTIONED’ IN JOHN 1:13 ABOUT THOSE ‘BORN NOT OF SPIRITUAL BLOOD BUT OF THE WILL OF THE FLESH’, THE WILL OF FALLEN MANKIND!

IN ACTS 7:51 STEPHEN HAD BEEN CALLED BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN TO ANSWER QUESTIONS THEY HAD ABOUT HIS “OPEN CHRISTIAN WITNESS” – THEY WERE READY TO KILL HIM! HAVING BEEN THREATENED, HE SAID TO THE PUBLIC OFFICIALS & ISRAELI LEADERS, “YOU STIFFNECKED & UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART & EARS, YOU DO ALWAYS RESIST THE HOLY SPIRIT: AS YOUR FATHERS DID, SO DO YOU.”+ (DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT “RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS” WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE SAVIOR AS LORD, BIRTHS A GREATER ‘BONDAGE’, A STRONGER ‘RELIGIOUS PRIDE’ THAT CRUCIFIED KING JESUS, & MULTIPLIES DEEPER DECEPTION & RESENTMENT OF TRUTH ABOUT “TRUSTING” WHEN THEY’RE SO DEVOTED TO THEIR ‘RELIGIOUS TRYING’, TO THE POINT THAT WHEN KING JESUS SAID, “FORSAKE ALL & FOLLOW ME”, THE UNBELIEVERS & RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS UNITED TO SEE THAT HE, JESUS, WAS CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS, FAILING TO UNDERSTAND ‘THE CROSS’ WAS GOD’S PLAN, BUT THEIR EMBITTERED ‘RELIGIOUS HEARTS’ & SPIRITUALLY ‘BRAIN-DEAD MINDS’ ACTUALLY WAS “USED” BY HOLY GOD TO CARRY OUT HIS ETERNAL PLAN OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION” THROUGH THE SACRIFICE OF HIS OWN SON ON CALVARY’S CROSS!

THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH ! THE NATURAL MAN, UNREDEEMED CAN SIN, UNAWARE IT EXPOSES THEIR ‘SPIRITUAL DEATH’! SIN-NATURES “DO NOT NATURALLY BIRTH ‘SAINTS’, BUT BIRTHS SINNERS UNDER SATAN’S MANAGEMENT CONTROL, A LOST WORLD’S DEFENCELESS DECEIT, &, YES, THE SINNER’S ‘OPINION’ THAT ‘SIN DOESN’T PRODUCE DEATH –IT’S FUN’, BUT HOLY GOD OVERSEES & SETTLES THE ETERNAL DESTINY OF THE UNRESPONSE TO HIS LOVE & GRACE AS BEFORE HIS JUDGMENT SEAT THEY DID, DO, & WILL STAND BEFORE HIM AS HOLY GOD ISSUES FOR ALL, SINFUL OR SINLESS, WORLDLY OR HEAVENLY, PERSONAL PERSUASION OR PRINCE OF PEACE’S PRESENCE IN THE REPENTANT, REDEEMED, RECONCILED, REWARDED, & RELEASED “TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD” WHO “GO OUT TO SHARE HIS GOOD NEWS OF ETERNAL SALVATION IN & THROUGH CHRIST’S BLOOD SACRIFICE & THE FREE GIFT OF RECONCILIATION IS GRANTED”!

SECOND, LET’S EXAMINE THAT “FREE GIFT” & HOW “HE” SHOULD INSPIRE OUR DAILY WALK OF “CHRIST IN US OUR HOPE OF GLORY”! IN THE “ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS” (P183) IS A QUOTE BY ST. PATRICK (SIGERSON,tr.), THAT SAYS: “GOD’S MIGHT TO DIRECT ME, GOD’S POWER TO PROTECT ME, GOD’S WISDOM FOR LEARNING, GOD’S EYE FOR DISCERNING, GOD’S EAR FOR HEARING, GOD’S WORD FOR MY CLEARING.”

IN MICAH 7:1-7,&18-19! THE PROPHET SAID: “WOE IS ME! FOR I AM AS WHEN THEY HAVE GATHERED THE SUMMER FRUITS,AS THE GRAPE-GLEANINGS OF THE VINTAGE:THERE IS NO CLUSTER TO EAT:MY SOUL DESIRED THE FIRSTRIPE FRUIT. THE GOOD MAN IS PERISHED OUT OF THE EARTH (“THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH”!); & THERE IS NONE UPRIGHT AMONG MEN:THEY ALL LIE IN WAIT FOR BLOOD;THEY HUNT EVERY MAN HIS BROTHER WITH A NET.

THAT THEY MAY DO EVIL WITH BOTH HANDS EARNESTLY, THE PRINCE ASKS, & THE JUDGE ASKS FOR A REWARD; & THE GREAT MAN, HE UTTERS HIS MISCHIEVOUS DESIRE:SO THEY WRAP IT UP. THE BEST OF THEM IS AS A BRIER:THE MOST UPRIGHT IS SHARPER THAN A THORN HEDGE: THE DAY OF THEIR WATCHMEN & THEIR VISITATION COMES;NOW SHALL BE THEIR PERPLEXITY. TRUST YOU NOT IN A FRIEND,PUT YOU NOT CONFIDENCE IN A GUIDE:KEEP THE DOORS OF YOUR MOUTH FROM HER THAT LIES IN YOUR BOSOM.

FOR THE SON DISHONORS THE FATHER, THE DAUGHTER RISES UP AGAINST HER MOTHER, THE DAUGHTER IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER IN LAW; A MAN’S ENEMIES ARE THE MEN OF HIS OWN HOUSE. THEREFORE I WILL LOOK UNTO THE LORD; I WILL WAIT FOR THE GOD OF MY SALVATION:MY GOD WILL HEAR ME.”

THEN IN VERSES 18-19 THE PROPHET EXPLAINS! “WHO IS A GOD LIKE UNTO ‘YOU’, “HE” PARDONS INIQUITY, & PASSES BY THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE REMNANT OF “HIS” HERITAGE? HE RETAINS NOT HIS ANGER FOREVER, BECAUSE “HE” DELIGHTS IN MERCY. HE WILL TURN AGAIN, HE WILL HAVE COMPASSION UPON US;HE WILL SUBDUE OUR INIQUITIES; & HE WILL CAST ALL THEIR SINS INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.” THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA? THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA OF GOD’S FORGETFULNESS? THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS REALITY FOR SINNERS WHO REPENT & “TURN”, FULLY SURRENDERING TO CHRIST’S BLOOD ATONEMENT, HIS FORGIVENESS, & BECAUSE YOU TRULY REPENTED, HE MAKES YOUR BODY ,HEART, & SPIRIT, INTO A “NEW HABITATION” THAT BECOMES HIS TEMPLE OF EARTHLY RESIDENCE, NEVER TO LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US! GLORY!

“AWAKE YOU WHO SLEEP! ARISE FROM THE DEAD,& CHRIST JESUS WILL GIVE YOU LIGHT!” THERE MUST BE IN THE 21^ST CENTURY ANOTHER GREAT “SPIRITUAL AWAKENING” WHERE THE “LIGHT OF CHRIST JESUS IN REPENTANT, BORN-AGAIN HEARTS & MINDS” REVEALS HIS MISSION THROUGH THEM AS “WITNESSES FAITHFULLY TO NEEDY, UNSAVED, SEPARATED-FROM-GOD PEOPLE, UNREDEEMED, WHO MUST BE RECONCILED TO HIM FOR HEAVENLY GLORY TO “REST” IN THEM & THROUGH THEM, BEING HIS “HOLY TEMPLES” OF ETERNALLY ABIDING PRESENCE”!

THIRD, KNOWING CHRIST JESUS GIVES ‘LIGHT’, DOES THAT INCLUDE THE NECESSITY OF GRASPING THE UNDERSTANDING OF TRUE SPIRITUAL GROWTH & MATURITY IN HONORING CHRIST, OBEYING CHRIST, & YES SHARING CHRIST BEYOND THE FOUR WALLS OF ONE’S CHURCH? JESUS SAID IN MATTHEW 4:4 THAT, “IT IS WRITTEN, MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY (PHYSICAL) BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” SO “EATING BREAD ALONE, FOR MY ENJOYMENT & SATISFACTION”, BUT IGNORING THE STARVING, EMPTY HEARTS & MINDS OF THE “LOST”, ALIENATED FROM GOD, IN NEED OF CHRIST’S “BLOOD REDEMPTION”, BUT YOU LOCK IT & THE NEEDY IN THE SEA OF FORGETFULNESS & “LET THE WORLD AROUND YOU “GO TO HELL”?

FOURTH, AS A “FOLLOWER OF CHRIST”, ARE YOU COMMITTED, NOT ONLY TO “FAITH”, BUT ALSO “OBEDIENCE”? IF YOU’RE A “TRUE FOLLOWER” OF CHRIST, IF HE SAID & SAYS, MATTHEW 4:19, “FOLLOW ME & I WILL MAKE YOU ‘FISHERS OF MEN.’ IN PROVERBS 11:30 WE READ, “THE FRUIT OF THE RIGHTEOUS IS A TREE OF LIFE; & HE THAT WINS SOULS IS WISE.” EVEN THE PROPHET DANIEL HAD A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE MINISTRY OF MEN & WOMEN ‘RECONCILED TO GOD’! HE SAID, IN DANIEL 12:3, “AND THEY THAT BE WISE SHALL SHINE AS THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE FIRMAMENT; & THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, AS THE STARS FOR EVER & EVER!” TELL ME! “HOW’S YOUR TESTIMONY TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU WHO LIVE APART FROM RECONCILED TO GOD, RE-BORN, & ‘SHINING’ ON OTHERS THE PATH OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION”?

I CLOSE THIS PARTICULAR TEACHING WITH THE WORDS OF AN OLD HYMN ENTITLED “RISE UP,O MEN OF GOD”, (FOUND IN THE 1940 PUBLICATION OF “THE BROADMAN HYMNAL,” BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.). IT SAYS: “RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! HAVE DONE WITH LESSER THINGS; GIVE HEART & MIND & SOUL & STRENGTH TO SERVE THE KING OF KINGS.

RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! HIS KINGDOM TARRIES LONG; BRING IN THE DAY OF BROTHERHOOD AND END THE NIGHT OF WRONG.

RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! THE CHURCH FOR YOU DOTH WAIT, HER STRENGTH UNEQUAL TO HER TASK; RISE UP, & MAKE HER GREAT!

LIFT HIGH THE CROSS OF CHRIST! TREAD WHERE HIS FEET HAVE TROD; AS BROTHERS OF “THE SON OF MAN”, RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD!”

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY”? IS IT ‘REAL’ FOR “YOU”? IF ‘YOU’ ARE YIELDED TO THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, ARE “YOU” OBEDIENT OR COMPLACENT? COMPLACENT? “SATISFIED IN ONE’S SELF, UNCONCERNED ABOUT WHAT HOLY GOD HAS TO SAY,INDIFFERENT, & EVEN UNCONCERNED ABOUT GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOU AS A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST IN BEING “HIS WITNESSES” TO UNREDEEMED, INDIFFERENT, UNCONCERNED ‘FOLKS’ ABOUT THEM BEING RECONCILED TO GOD? ARE “YOU” OBEDIENT TO THE “CALL”, “GO & SHARE THE GOSPEL!”

ONE MORE HYMN OF “CHALLENGE” FROM THE SAME OLD HYMNAL,P.187! IT’S ENTITLED, “O JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED”! IT SAYS: “O JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED TO SERVE YOU TO THE END; BE THOU FOREVER NEAR ME, MY MASTER & MY FRIEND; I SHALL NOT FEAR THE BATTLE IF YOU ARE BY MY SIDE, NOR WANDER FROM THE PATHWAY IF YOU WILL BE MY GUIDE.

O LET ME FEEL YOU NEAR ME, THE WORLD IS EVER NEAR; I SEE THE SIGHTS THAT DAZZLE, THE TEMPTING SOUNDS I HEAR:MY FOES ARE EVER NEAR ME, AROUND ME & WITHIN; BUT, JESUS, DRAW YOU NEARER, & SHIELD MY SOUL FROM SIN.

O JESUS, YOU HAVE PROMISED TO ALL WHO FOLLOW THEE THAT WHERE YOU ARE IN GLORY THERE SHALL YOUR SERVANT BE; AND, JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED TO SERVE YOU TO THE END; O GIVE ME GRACE TO FOLLOW MY MASTER & MY FRIEND.” ARE YOU A TRUE FOLLOWER OF CHRIST, AVAILABLE TO SHARE HIS LIFE, EXTEND HIS LIFE, & EXPRESS HIS LOVE TO OTHERS?

CHAPTER THIRTY

“ADAPTABLE CHURCHES OR

APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES?”

In Exodus 19:5-6 we find an illuminating statement from God about His “chosen people.” And you have to ask, “Did the people God intended His word for become the “special treasure to Him above all people”? Sadly, some didn’t, but with thankful hearts some did! What did Holy God say?

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

What an awesome calling yet easily ‘adaptable’ by many churches today! Today it’s ‘one priest’ without the equipping of all saints to touch the darkened world with the True Light, the Lord Jesus Christ, with many, many churches maintaining their survivability without directions, examples, or equipping of the church’s calling to be “witnesses” to the needy world – evangelism is a lost ministry in many churches, even discipleship training is absent in many churches, and to think that a pastor has the role of equipping saints to “do” the work of the ministry is an ‘archaic, religious tradition’ – not the ‘way of a super-saint’ calling!

In fact, if one truly devoted himself/herself to the inspired words of Simon Peter, one might come to a different conclusion and a more sound foundation to ‘church building’! In 1 Peter 2:7-9 Peter wrote: “Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were also appointed. BUT YOU (in Christ) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…”

How much preparation is given in far too many churches nation-wide to being “witnesses”, equipping ‘saints’ to touch their needy world with Redemptive Truth? Sadly, it’s near or about ‘zero’!

Come to Acts 13:1-5a where we find an obedient witness to the Promise of the Holy Spirit to every disciple to fulfill our calling as a follower of Christ! It says: Now to the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manean who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away. SO, being sent out by the Holy Spirit…” How awesome do you find that commissioning upon every disciple of Christ!?

You can be assured that I for one do not distinguish between ‘leadership’ responsibility and the role and ministry of every true born-again believer. Are there different callings and ministries under the same tent of faith? Of course, but not in excluding or excusing some from being “witnesses”!

I pray you’ll follow with me through John 17 as I look at the prayer of Jesus to His Father in heaven. Don’t miss this! John 17:1-3, “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…”

John 17:6 says, Jesus speaking, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given me out of the world.” Oh, and then look at what the Lord Jesus said in John 17:17-18! “Sanctify (or “set apart”) them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You (God the Father!) sent me INTO THE WORLD, I ALSO HAVE SENT THEM INTO THE WORLD.”

And then in John 17:25-26 Jesus thanks the Father and reflects upon His eternal ministry and ours! “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

And are you familiar with the rest of John’s gospel? Jesus’ betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, even disciples’ denial, the choosing of Barabbas’ freedom over Christ’s, the soldiers scourging of the Lord Jesus, Pilate’s deliverance of Christ to be crucified, His piercing, His burial, and then, praise God, “the empty tomb”! Oh, and then, before His ascension, He said to His disciples, “Follow Me!” And that following is a willful surrender of self-will to the divine will of Father-God! Oh, and then Acts 1 unfolds the eternal purpose, the sovereign grace, and the all sufficient supply to fulfill divine intent through our re-born lives!

In Acts 1:7-8 Jesus spoke to the “gathered assembly of true believers”, saying: “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And, praise God, Acts 2:32 declares, “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all WITNESSES!”

You are aware that there is a worldwide battle for the souls of men by the world, the flesh, and the devil himself with his demonic forces opposed to anyone or anything that relates to the “blood redemption” of our world – why? Because “God so loved the world” that He desired to rescue as many as received His message and the Master of true life, the Lord Jesus Christ – salvation of the “lost” and alienated from God reduces his kingdom numbers who’ve been the devil’s enslaved!

Notice Paul’s emphasis in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5! “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” [Hear me! I know that much of what we just read relates to the warfare between the old man and the new man, between flesh and spirit – but, at the same time I see our weapons in Him fighting against those spirits that have men and women, boys and girls, enslaved in the demonic kingdom of alienation from Holy God and the Eternal Word!

Apart from Christ fallen mankind ‘drinks’ of worldly streams, devilish rivers, and lakes of unredeemed curses and ‘snake-like’ strangle-holds with its released poisons of godlessness! When Jesus said you’ll know people by their ‘fruits’, it’s either the “Fruit of the Spirit” or the “Foul Fruit of Satanic indifference” to the things of Holy God and His Kingdom rule and reign. I believe the Lord Jesus “celebrates” the child-like obedience of children of the faith to allow their bodies to be the kingdom of His holy presence and through which He bears witness Himself!

It’s really, really interesting that in Revelation 1:5-6 the Holy Spirit unveils the beauty and blessing “from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,” but continuing, “the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, AND HAS MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” That’s ‘kings’ and ‘priests’ in His heavenly kingdom, sovereignly appointed to be the vessel to a world of self-rule, self-worship, and self-gratification, and the change comes in that world when disciples of Christ allow Him to be Himself through them!

No wonder Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

But my concern in this modern day is that, sadly, “Apostolic Assemblies” are set aside for “Adaptable Churches” that want to be so accepted by the world that they tone down biblical truth to make it acceptable, ignore specifically “Preach the Word”, fearing to say what God has said would limit their attendance, and, certainly feel justified to do their best at Bible teaching without encouraging pure devotion to His commissioning to be His witnesses in our lost, needy, alienated from God world!

According to Paul in Ephesians, 3:10-12, there is a divine design by God in maturing the ‘saints’ one has and the mobilizing of the body of Christ in reaching out to a needy world even if it costs us our lives! Paul said, “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.” That’s confidence in boldly approaching the very throne of Holy God AND boldness in touching our needy world; and that has, can even today, cost you your physical existence!

I’m convinced that much of the problem of churches that do not have mission support worldwide, evangelism outreach locally, or even discipleship training and equipping of the saints to do evangelism ministry, is that “heavenly joy” in Jesus has been ignored, denied, or never understood. In John 15:11-17 Jesus said:

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends IF you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.” Yes, rather than an “Adaptable Church,” what about making sure your fellowship of believers is an “Apostolic Assembly”!!

I guess one of the huge questions one must deal with initially is: Do I have a teachable spirit anxious to know what Christ Jesus has to say to me? It was David’s heart when he said in Psalm 27:11, “Teach me Your way, O Lord..” Is that the attitude of YOUR heart?

FIRST, PLEASE NOTE THAT GOD PERSONALLY LOVED YOU ENOUGH THAT EVEN IF YOU WERE THE ONLY HUMAN BEING TO EVER LIVE, BECAUSE OF GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU CHRIST WOULD HAVE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOU ALONE, BUT HE DIED TO SAVE ALL MEN, BUT SOME DO NOT BELIEVE IN, RELY UPON, TRUST IN, OR ADHERE TO HIM!

In Romans 8:35-39 Paul gives us a powerful word of hope that should strengthen your ‘faith journey’! He said, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor death, nor any created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And our Savior, the Lord Jesus, said in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Rev. J.M. Driver wrote an old hymn entitled “Wonderful Story of Love. [Broadman Hymnal, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1940]. The first verse says:

“Wonderful story of love; Tell it to me again; Wonderful story of love; Wake the immortal strain! Angels with rapture announce it, Shepherds with wonder receive it; Sinner, O won’t you believe it? Wonderful story of love.”

SECOND, AWARE OF HIS GREAT LOVE, THE SINNER WHO IS DESIROUS OF FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION, IS LED TO THE ALTAR OF REPENTANCE. In Romans 2:4 wise Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance?”

When you look upon an ungodly world, one is saddened that a man in his sin and sin nature is not aware of his separation from God and from Holy God’s divine design for his life, so “messengers” are sent praying initially for the truth of the burden of sin and death, then the crucifixion of Christ in his stead! This is why in 2 Corinthians 7:10 the Holy Word instructs us, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

I so admire Oswald Chambers and his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.254). In it Chambers wrote: “The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite to what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I HAVE SINNED. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says it and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.”

Examine John 16:5-11 Jesus explains: “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.” And apart from repentance, there is no reconciliation with Holy God!

THIRD, HAVING BEEN CONVERTED THROUGH FAITH AND REPENTANCE, THE WORD TELLS US THAT THE “APOSTOLIC ASSEMBLIES” LIVE VICTORIOUS, OVERCOMING LIVES BY HOLY SPIRIT GUIDANCE INTO BIBLE TRUTH! In John 16:12-15 Christ Jesus’ holy instruction for new disciples says: “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 that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Christ Jesus emphasized the ministry role of Spirit-assistance, the ministry as faithful guide, the “Joy-Giver” of the full unveiling of Christ in you, and grants each disciple a forceful empowerment!

In Romans 8:26-27 Paul unveils this ‘representative ministry’ of the Holy Spirit before the Throne of God in our behalf. Receive the Word with joy and gladness! “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

And there is no Spirit-anointed victories in “Apostolic Assembles” or ‘professing lives of allegiance to Christ’ if there is no allegiance to, awareness of, and willfully “yielding” daily to the Holy Spirit’s ministry! Paul asked a penetrating, challenging word in Romans 6:16: “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” Are YOU yielded to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, whose God-inspired role is to glorify Christ through your daily walk?

As Jesus was profoundly concerned about “false prophets” early in His ministry, he warned in Matthew 7:15-16a, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruit.”

I want to close out this teaching with the solid scriptural challenge of Galatians 5:16-25! It says: Paul speaking, I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

Has that changed somewhere along the line or path of discipleship? Is it that some in the 21^st Century feel we’re so intellectually superior that “Christians” shouldn’t be concerned whether they need to walk in the Spirit or Not? The “Abnormal Christian Life” is avoidance of Spirit-ministry in an available vessel! The challenge to be filled with all the fullness of God does not become a reality apart from the Spirit’s abiding and anointing! The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in us and through us, and only as we willfully yield to the Spirit’s control is Christ’s presence in us fully revealed! Walking in the Spirit is not an option believers hold but an eternal necessity!

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUALLEADERSHIP

In I Timothy 3:1, Paul said to Timothy, “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of bishop, he desires a good work.” The New English Bible interprets this verse, “To aspire to leadership is an honorable ambition.”

One translation says “desires” and the other says “aspires.” And I am convinced God’s Word is ever true, and desiring and aspiring is not evil.

At the same time, not many of our biblical heroes desired or aspired to leadership – they were drafted by God into service. That’s true of Abraham, Moses, reluctant prophets, and questioning young disciples: “Are You sure, Lord?”

But James and John were bold. In Mark 10:37, they said to Jesus, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.”

Then Jesus responded, “But are you able to drink the cup I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

J. Oswald Sanders, in his book, “Spiritual Leadership,” (p10), talked about “mere place seekers and charlatans.” Then he added, (p12), “They coveted a crown of glory but were not ready for a crown of thorns. Coronation interested them, but not crucifixion.”

Following Christ Jesus in leadership is not a call to supremacy but servanthood; it was not a call to ascendancy but humility; it was not a call to personal ruling but a pouring out of life as a drink offering!

But Nehemiah was confronted with serious problems in his day just as we confront serious problems today concerning leadership. In Psalm 48:2 God describes “the holy city of Jerusalem” as “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King.”

And what did Nehemiah find? Nehemiah 2:17 says, “You see the distress we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.”

Are you familiar with Raphael who was commissioned to paint the frescoes of the Vatican walls in Rome?

When several cardinals walked by one day they had to come against Raphael. One cardinal said, “The face of the apostle Paul is too red,” to which Raphael responded: “He blushes to see into whose hands the church has fallen!”

It was Warren Weirsbe, in his book, “The Integrity Crisis,” who wrote (p56), “In recent years, the church has had too many celebrities and not enough servants, too many people with plenty of medals and no scars.”

If Jesus is Prophet, Priest, and King, and, “As He is so are we in this world,” (I John 4:17), do ministers today minister in the prophetic role calling men to account, the priestly role of intercession, and the kingly role of true biblical authority and anointing?

We’re not to be as Ron DeArmand said, “High Gloss – Cheap Merchandise,” but a reflector of, an imitation of, an interpretation of Jesus Himself!

Yet, often, leaders today stand behind the sacred desk, and minister, as someone has said, “imperiled by familiarity and [lost] our sense of awe and reverence.”

The Book of Joshua is the text for this teaching, but I want Psalm 78:70–72 to capture your heart first! Listen:

“He also chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the ewes that had young He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.”

And you want to cry out, “God, do it again and again, over and over; give us leaders with the integrity of a holy heart, and skills engrafted by Your Own Holy Hands!”

Come to Joshua 1. Notice, First:

LEADERSHIP IS BECAUSE OF THE ETERNAL DETERMINATION OF GOD TO USE MEN AS AN EXTENSION AND EXPRESSION OF HIS OWN SOVEREIGN LEADERSHIP.

Joshua 1:1–2 says, “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them – the children of Israel.”

Do you remember Exodus 3:10? “Come now, therefore, [Moses], and I will send you to Pharoah that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” Moses was divinely chosen of God. Abraham was sovereignly chosen by God.

David was supernaturally chosen by God. Prophets were appointed and anointed by God. Joshua, an assistant, is chosen by God to replace Moses as the leader of Israel.

Jesus chose twelve disciples. The apostle Paul was chosen by Jesus being confronted on the Damascus Road.

What did Jesus tell those early disciples in John 15:16? “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit…”

And here is the amazing, heart–shaking truth: Ephesians 1:4, “just as He [God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Do you remember the 180,000 warriors, men chosen by God?

How humbling is I Corinthians 1:26–29? “For consider your calling, brothers, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the FOOLISH things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the WEAK things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the BASE [insignificant, lowly] things of the world and the things which are DESPISED God has chosen, and the things WHICH ARE NOT [nothings, zeroes], to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

A true leader is a man touched by the scepter of God’s grace. A true leader is a man who knows he’s a nothing, but by God’s mercy is enabled to see God’s hand on his life, validating he’s “the chosen of God.” A true leader is not of “elite” status but of the ELECTED, and empowered by God’s presence and His holy purpose, can literally shake continents! A true leader is always and forever confounded by God’s choice of him as a chosen leader for such a time as this! Second,

GOD’S AUTHENTIC LEADERS ARE THOSE BLESSED BY GOD WITH THE PROMISE TO BE WITH US. Look at Joshua 1:5! “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so will I be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.”

In Joshua 6:27 the Word says, “So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout all the country.”

And your “fame” in pastoral ministry is not because of any educational degrees you’ve earned – but because GOD IS WITH YOU.

Your “fame” is not because of your best efforts – but because of Holy Presence. Your “fame” is not because you’re blessed with keen insights and wise words – but because you’re a habitation of God in the Spirit!

It’s why David sang in Psalm 40:10, “I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart.” What is your hope of glory, pastors? What are the riches of glory you are a part of? Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

You may find yourself on the backside of a desert pouting about your pastoral problems – then all of a sudden there’s a “burning bush.”

You may find yourself with your head on a stone as your pillow, the darkest night of your ministry because of an offended brother – and you find out your darkest night is the very house of God.

You may run like a David from one of your spiritual sons and hide in a cave – and God shows up with 400 brothers to stand, walk, and fight with you.

You may deny your calling and you sulk by the seashore – then the Savior appears.

In 2 Timothy 4:16–18, Paul says: “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be fully preached through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the lion’s mouth…AND THE LORD WILL DELIVER ME FROM EVERY EVIL WORK, and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you!”

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS VICTORIOUS OUT OF DIVINE STRENGTH AND HOLY COURAGE. Four times in Joshua 1 God said to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage.”

Come to Joshua 14:6–11! This passage relates to Caleb getting his promised mountain after 45 years of

“Standing On The Promises!”

Verse 6, Caleb had a word from God. Verse 7, it was in his heart. Verse 8, he wholly followed the Lord his God. Verse 9, he knew his inheritance and that of his children which was a forever promise. Verse 10, 45 years later he still stands on the promise. Verse 11, “As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in.”

In 2 Corinthians 2:1,4, Paul wrote: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. Verse 4, My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”

Are you getting the picture? What does 2 Chronicles 16:9 tell us? “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.”

The great South African preacher and author, A.W. Tozer, wrote: “Before we follow any man we should look for the oil on his forehead. We are under no spiritual obligation to aid any man in any activity that has not upon it the marks of the cross.”

Don’t ever forget Paul’s testimony to the Corinthians! 2 Corinthians 3:5–6, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also MADE US SUFFICIENT as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but OF THE SPIRIT; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

Do you understand divine ministry of holy strength and a holy courage? Where does it come from? In 2 Corinthians 3:10–11, Paul said he carried in his body “the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body.” And the result? “the resurrection life of Jesus manifested in our body.” That’s power; that’s courage; that’s the divine strength of the indwelling Christ! Not of you, but of Christ Jesus Himself!

In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul said, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” Did you hear it with your heart? “that the excellence of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

John Piper wrote the book, “Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.” In chapter one he wrote, “We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake.”

Then Piper quoted E.M. Bounds: “The preacher…is not a professional man; his ministry is not a profession; it is a divine institution, a divine devotion.” And let me add, it is the overflow of the indwelling of the power of our Lord and Savior – and He gives us courage!

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP PROSPERS OUT OF REMEMBRANCE. In Joshua 4:3, the Lord spoke to Joshua about taking twelve stones out of the middle of the Jordan River, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm.

And then he told Joshua that the children would be asking what the stones are all about, “What do these stones mean?”; then the children would learn anew, the parents and leaders would remember, from where they came, what they’re about, to whom they belong, and where they’re going!

Again, it was Tozer who wrote: “The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.”

And the first step down for a leader is when he not only surrenders his high opinion of God, but fails to remember from where he came, what he’s to be about, who he represents, and where he’s going!

The people under Ezra’s leadership had failed to “remember,” and in Ezra 9:6, Ezra cries out: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens.”

Here’s how John Piper challenges us about “remembrance,” (“Brothers, We Are Not Professionals,” p113), “The keener the memory of our awful rescue, the more naturally we pity those in a similar plight. The more deeply we feel how undeserved and free was the grace that plucked us from the flames, the freer will be our benevolence to sinners.”

But the question is, “Have you forgotten or do you remember?” When it comes to an authentic, spiritual ministry, if remembrance is set aside it breeds forgetfulness, it lights a destructive fire of indifference evidenced by what one calls “lazy bones and limp minds,” with the end result of divided hearts and misplaced allegiance!

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS EVIDENCED BY THE CONTINUAL PREPARATION FOR BATTLE AND SPIRITUAL WARFARE. In Joshua 4:13–14, God’s Word says, “About 40,000 prepared for war crossed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel…”

Do you remember God’s Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11? Let me amplify verses 33–34! “who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle [or war], turned to flight the armies of aliens…”

There is a War against the Lamb of God and His followers. There is a fight concerning the Faith. There are battles to crush you, disillusion you, destroy you.

There are wars within ourselves concerning flesh or Spirit. There are wars in the streets over Truth and The Lie. There are wars about the Bible, God’s Word, inerrant, infallible – that Word which is Living, Powerful, and Sharper than any two–edged sword!

There is a war against Satan and his demon powers of Hell, the foul spirits, the unclean spirits of an unholy army. And we must be those who “Fight the good fight of Faith.”

It was Amy Carmichael, from England, who went to India in her early twenties (1890’s) after “bombing out” in Japan. She devoted almost 60 years of her life to the dusty trails and needy people of southern India.

I’ve visited her Donavour Fellowship several times. She wrote:

“Have you no scars? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear you sung as mighty in the land, I hear them hail you the bright ascendant star: Have you no scar?

Have you no wound? Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent, Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent by ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned: Have you no wound?

No wound? no scar? Yes, as the Master shall the servant be. And pierced are the feet that follow Me; But yours are whole. Can he have followed far who has no wound? No scar?”

I so love what J.Oswald Sanders wrote in his book, “Spiritual Leadership,” (p108), “The loneliest preacher today is the man who has been entrusted with a prophetic message that is ahead of his times, a message that cuts across the prevailing temper of the age.”

In 2 Timothy 2:3–4, Paul challenges his spiritual son, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

Pastor, were you enlisted as a “please all” kind of pastor, or a soldier of truth that may cost you friends or even your life?

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS A LEADER WHO PROSPERS BECAUSE HE GETS A PROMISE AND STANDS ON IT. We saw this earlier in Joshua 14 when Caleb got a promise and waited 45 years for its fulfillment. In Joshua 14:6–7, Caleb speaks, “You know the word which the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was 40 years old when Moses sent me.”

Caleb says in verse 9 that he was given a promise about an inheritance. In verse 10, he’s now 45 years older, and he says in verse 12, “give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke.”

Caleb stood on a promise of God for 45 years and was blessed. An authenticated, true, spiritual leader is a man who thrives on the promises of God, even if the fulfillment comes 45 years later!

S.D. Gordon put it like this: “Let it once be fixed that a man’s ambition is to fit into God’s plan for him, and he has a North Star ever in sight to guide him steadily over any sea, however shoreless it seems.”

That North Star of an authentic, spiritual leader is the reality of God’s faithful promises! That leader knows, “All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are “Yes” and “Amen” to the glory of God!

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS WITNESSED AS PRECIOUS BECAUSE THAT PECULIAR LEADER HAS A HEART FOR A LEGACY OF MINISTRY TO THE GLORY OF GOD.

Joshua 24:15 says, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

It was Andrew Murray of South Africa who wrote many years ago, “God has no more precious gift to a church or an age than a man who lives as the embodiment of [God’s] will, and inspires those around him with the faith of what grace can do.”

Is that in your heart as a pastor? Is your heart an “embodiment of God’s will?” And do you keep your heart with all diligence because you know the heart reveals your true motive of ministry?

In John 17:6, Jesus speaks, “I have manifested [revealed, unveiled] Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”

AUTHENTIC, SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IS NOT ONLY THAT WHICH IS “CAUGHT” BUT ALSO TAUGHT. In 2 Timothy 2:2, (the Williams translation), Paul writes, “The things you learned from me before many witnesses, you must commit to trustworthy men who will be competent to teach others too.”

Caught and Taught are both foundational to a fulfilling, Christ–honoring ministry.

In Mark 10:42–44, “Jesus called the disciples to Himself and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.”

What an illuminating, exposing, revealing passage of authentic ministry!

In Galatians 6:17, Paul wrote: “From henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

Do you bear in your body and pastoral ministry the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Is it earthly riches that define your ministry or the riches of grace?

Is it “jargon” you speak or preaching the talk of divine truth?

Is it “junk” you speak or the testimony of the treasures of God’s Word?

Is it “high gloss – cheap merchandise” or the spiritual tiaras of eternal truth and eternal values?

Praising Christ in ministry is prizing Christ in the practical ministry of Who He Is, What He Said, and How He Walked!

Let me close: Do you understand our Lord’s divine pathway to true happiness and blessing and an authentic, spiritual ministry?

Hebrews 11:26, “the reproach of Christ [is] greater wealth than [all] the treasures of Egypt.”

What is your testimony of ministry? Who gets the glory?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“CAPTURING THE VISION”

Carl Henry wrote a book entitled “Twilight of a Great Civilization.” This theologian knew who the real heroes of a given age are – those who know divine visitation and have been captured by heavenly vision! Examine what he wrote: “The real heroes of our time are those who in a faithless age hold, live, and share their faith in God. Genuine revolutionary courage belongs to those who remain true even if atheistic rulers force them underground or punish citizens simply for being Christians…The true immortals will be those who seek to apply the principles of the Bible concretely to the complicated realities of modern life, who preserve a devout and virtuous family life, who are faithful to the abiding values of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

Modern life, both politically, socially, and spiritually is being pounded by waves of indifference, shoals of apathy spiritually, rocks of opposition to God and His Truth, even endless tidal waves of the visionless and a lack of virtuous, victorious living. We are a people being programmed for failure, governed for godlessness, educated for imbecility, and silenced to hear and trust God alone for ourselves.

Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.46), wrote: “It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.”

No…it’s not a common-sense basis but the uncommon Spirit of visions and dreams. It’s not human compassion but divine appointment. It’s not fleshly reasoning but Faithful Revelation. Paul said in Galatians 1:15-16, “BUT WHEN IT PLEASED GOD…TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…” Dynamic, dynamite, distinctive service unto God is that which is unveiled by God! George McDonald wrote, “The one principle of hell is, ‘I am my own.’” Cal Thomas put it in a little different way when he commented in his book, “The Things That Matter Most” (Harper-Collins Publishers, 1994, New York, NY, p.145): “The fact is, burden-less lives create superficial people whose only interest is themselves.” And visionless lives also create sham people and preachers whose only concern is themselves, and they never listen to the God who gives visions and dreams!

The poet said it well when he wrote: “There is a secret in his breast that will never let him rest.” What I want to say is: There is a “Vision” in the true disciple’s heart that will never let him rest!

Jeremiah 29:11-14 is such a powerful, personal, and practical Word. Three truths are amplified there: 1) God’s thoughts and purposes toward us are good. 2) God has a living hope and an abiding future for us. 3) God hears our cries and is ever-present to lead us and enable us to His highest calling for our lives.

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” I think it is very important for you to consider what your vision is, what God has revealed to you about yourself and your future, about your family, about your nation and about your church. WE NEED VISION FROM GOD!!

In Acts 26:16-19, Paul is relating his testimony of his encounter with the Lord on the Damascus Road. Look at what the Lord said to him: “But arise, and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; delivering you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’ Consequently, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision…”

So, this encounter with the Lord, Paul calls it a “heavenly vision.” He met the Lord on the road to Damascus, God revealed to him that he was to be a minister and a witness to the things he’d already seen, and to the things in which the Lord would appear to him and reveal to him. And Paul states, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision…”

Look at Revelation 1:1-2: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.” Now, look at verses 9-11: “I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. “I WAS IN THE SPIRIT” on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, ‘Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches…” John was IN THE SPIRIT on the Lord’s day. I am firmly convinced that our yieldedness to the Holy Spirit is vitally imperative if we’re going to receive this vision from the Lord. I am fully convinced Saul of Tarsus was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or he would not have said, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” I think he came to the realization that His encounter with the Lord was through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. WE NEED TO BE YIELDED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT.

I don’t believe there is any man or church that advances without a sense of need, awareness, conviction or direction; aware that God has something to say to each one of us; that He has a purpose and a plan for every one of our lives. The greatest need of our day is God’s vision!

George Moore is an English novelist. In one of his novels was an illustration of Irish peasants during a period of great depression. The government put them to work building roads. At first the peasants were joyous. They worked appreciatively; they were glad to have a job. Over a period of time, however, they learned the truth – they were building roads to nowhere! They were roads that went out to the wilderness area and just stopped there. As they became aware that they worked for no purpose, only to provide them employment and as an excuse to feed them, the laborers grew listless, stopped singing, and the work building roads came to a halt. Here is George Moore’s comment in this novel: “The roads to nowhere are difficult to make. For a man to work well and sing, there must be an end in view.” I’m convinced the “end in view” is VISION FROM GOD! “WHERE THERE IS NO VISION, THE PEOPLE PERISH!”

Beth Moore, from her book, “Things Pondered,” has written these words entitled “The Mountain”:

“I hear You call ‘Come meet with Me, See that which eyes are veiled to see And ears in vain will please to hear Except your heart should draw you here!…Abandon deeds down at My feet, No crowns as yet, no Judgment Seat, Surrender here all noble plans, Just lift to Me your empty hands…I’ll fill them with the richest fare And circumcise your heart to dare To reach beyond all earthliness For on this mount you’re Mine to bless…With gentle hands ‘til heart is stretched I’ll have MY Word upon it etched ‘Til only knees can catch the fall Of one who cries ‘You are my all!’”

What is this vision? We can say that it’s something seen, something that has been heard, something that has been revealed, maybe in a dream; it may be at the height of spiritual ecstasy under the anointing of the Spirit of God or it may be a supernatural appearance that conveys a revelation, a will, a purpose, a plan to your life; but God comes and speaks to the hearts of men.

Rudyard Kipling has a poem called “The Explorer.” He wrote: “There’s no sense of going further, it’s the edge of cultivation, so they said and I believed it, broke my land, sowed my crop, built my barn, strung my fences in the little border station, tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop, ‘til a voice as bad as conscience rang interminable changes on one everlasting whisper day and night repeated, ‘Something hidden; go and find it; go and look beyond the ranges. Something lost behind the ranges, lost and waiting for you, go.”

There is the vision beyond the ranges of the common place to man. There is a vision behind the hills that are hidden away for the life of a man who will listen, for the life of a man who will look, for the life of a man who will stop and hesitate and wait upon God because God is no respecter of persons. What are visions and dreams all about?

FIRST, LET’S EXAMINE THE BLESSER OF VISIONS:

The Blesser of Visions is God Himself! Look again at Revelation 1:1, “The revelation of Jesus Christ WHICH GOD GAVE HIM TO SHOW TO HIS BOND-SERVANTS.” So God Himself gives to you His vision! Joel 2:26 says, “And you shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you…”God is the giver of a vision. God authors spiritual dreams. And we need to recognize that since God is no respecter of persons, God wants to give YOU a vision for your life.

This needs to be a matter of prayer, of laying hold of the horns of His altar and hold on!! “God, do You have something for me individually? God, are You speaking to my family, my church, our nation?” Unless we have that attitude prevailing in our hearts, we’re going to miss what God has to say to our lives. We ALL need to bow before the Blesser of Visions and say, “God, since You are no respecter of persons, what is Your vision for me, for my family, for my church, for my nation?” I believe the Word of God reveals our need of bowing before the Blesser of Visions and saying, “Lord, here we are; what do You want to say to us today?”

SECOND, LET’S EXAMINE THE BIRTH OF VISIONS!

• Here is an Abraham, who is given a vision that he is going to be the father of a great nation. So he leaves Ur of the Chaldeas, not knowing where he was going, but only that God had sent him and said to him, “You’re going to be a blessing to all the nations of the world.” [Didn’t Jesus say that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’ Day, and he was glad?]
• Here is a young Joseph. He is given a vision. Just a young farm boy, yet God says in Joseph’s childhood, “You’re going to be a great leader, and there are going to be many in the world who are going to bow down to you; they will acknowledge the leadership that is in your life.”
• Here’s a Moses, given a vision of the God of fire who cannot be consumed. This vision is of God taking Moses’ life and making him a leader of his people out of bondage.
• Here’s a Nehemiah, given a vision of a restored city. He’s given a vision of a mighty work of God, which compels him and thrusts him out on the edge of a new adventure for his life. He goes into the city of Jerusalem. He cannot come down off of the wall because of the significance of the work. He cannot compromise with the Arabs (that’s very, very interesting) because of the vision God has given him.
• Here’s a Joel, given a vision of a land that is prosperous, of people that are filled with plenty, of a band of followers of a Holy God; people who’ll find satisfaction in their lives and will not be disappointed regardless of what comes against them. They’re going to be a people blessed of Almighty God.
• Here’s a band of disciples who are so very few, about 12 in number, given a vision of ushering in and establishing the kingdom of God on earth. What a vision! Twelve men – ushering in the kingdom of God!
• Here’s that grain of wheat, given a vision of dying to itself, of reproducing many more grains of wheat and being fruitful in its life.
• Here’s a Paul, given a vision of touching his world with the gospel of which he was not ashamed!
• Here’s a John, whose friends are dying for the faith, given a vision of hope and victory, a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, and of celebration in the wedding of the Lord Jesus Christ with all His followers. With that vision in his heart not even death could discourage John or the Body of Christ, and they walked on victoriously because of the vision that God had given to them!

My co-laborer in India for ten years was Dwayne Weehunt, now founder and director of “Sower of the Seeds International,” who commented in one of his meetings: “When the church has vision, it changes society around it. But when there is no vision, society changes the church!”

Then you come and you think about where Satan’s seat is (I’m not sure that there is any church on the face of the earth today that’s not where Satan’s seat is – Bedford, Texas, Dallas, Texas, Nigeria, India or some place in Europe, Satan’s seat is prominent in the land). But “Here Is A Church That’s Given a Vision!” It’s going to be a faithful, caring, giving, telling, and healing community with a vision of hope, health, helpfulness, growth and prosperity, and spiritual plenty. It has a vision of joy and blessedness abounding, true salvation, the healing of the hurting and the broken-hearted, marriages restored, deliverance of captives, godly families putting their hands to the plow and not looking back, people who hunger and thirst after righteousness, a loving and caring family, a cooperative body of a rejoicing people that praise God for their present and for their future, a praying people that loose and bind, that release and restrain, that uplift and cast out.

There’s an old hymn that says:

“Once to every man and nation [or church?] Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, For the good or evil side; Some great cause, some great decision, Offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ‘Twixt that darkness and that light.”

The birth of a vision! All these men of God had a vision, and it was birthed within their hearts. And if there is the birth of a vision , what’s yours? What is it that God has revealed to you that He wants to accomplish in and through your life? We need to see and hear that vision. We need to know that God has spoken to our hearts. We need to be thankful that God is the God of visions and dreams, and that He is no respecter of persons. He has a vision for each one of our lives!

W. Graham Scroggie has written: “If one would be Christ-minded he must be missionary-minded, and one who is not this has no justification for calling himself a disciple of Christ. Are you missionary-minded?” Have YOU seen this vision?

Henry T. Blackaby, in “The Power of the Call” (Broadman & Holman, Nashville, TN. P.35) wrote: “God Himself chose us, called us in His time, and separated us out for Himself. As clearly as God separated from all other days and sanctified the seventh day (set it apart for Himself, Gen. 3:3) and commanded it to be ‘the Sabbath of the Lord your God’ (Exodus 20:10), so God set you apart from all others – for Himself!” And I would add – for His purposes, His visions, and His dreams!

THIRD, LET’S EXAMINE THE BATTLE OF THE VISIONS!

You need to be aware that whenever a vision is given and birthed within a person’s life, there is always going to be a battle about that vision. God ALWAYS gives a vision that places men at the point of their extremity where God begins to have an opportunity in their lives. GOD ALWAYS GIVES YOU A VISION THAT IS BEYOND YOURSELF! God gives a vision that puts people on the edge of impossibility where God becomes known as the God with whom all things are possible. That’s what our lives are all about: the God with whom all things are possible! So…He gives you a vision. I don’t know what that vision is going to be for you, but I’ll tell you this, it’s going to place you at the point where God has the opportunity to bring the impossible into reality as a demonstration of the greatness of our God. In fact, the vision God gives always brings His people to the point of “death” where they discover God as the power and authority and the Author of Life over death! Let me explain:

Let’s think about Abraham: “Abraham, you’re going to be the father of a great nation. Through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” (By the way, how old was Abraham at this particular time when he gets this vision? I believe he’s about 100 years old and that the Bible says Sarah was past the age of childbearing.) So God gives them a vision, and says, “You’re going to have a son.” What did Sarah do? She began to laugh – but God had brought them to a place of impossibility in the natural, so that through the supernatural work of Almighty God, the vision He gave them can be fulfilled by Him!!

Think about Joseph. He’s the farm-boy, the little child to whom God had given a vision that this little shepherd boy would shepherd nations! God saw him as a world-leader. So what happened to Joseph? He was sold into slavery, falsely accused, and imprisoned; yet God raised him up as a world leader.

Consider Moses. “Moses, you’re going to lead My people out of bondage!” You cannot read the life of Moses, even before the burning bush experience, and not know that it was already in the heart of Moses that God had told him he was going to be the deliverer. So he goes out, acts impulsively, kills the Egyptian, and then out of fear of Pharoah runs for his life and spends 40 years on the backside of a desert with his rod as a shepherd. But even in spite of that, God raised Moses up!

And here are the disciples. They’re going to usher in and establish the kingdom of God on earth! Then their King is killed. They in their despair said, “We may as well go back to the old way of life; let’s just go back and be fishermen again,” yet the Resurrected Christ re-appointed them!

Here’s John – a new heaven, a new earth; you’re going to have life and victory – yet, the world around him was crumbling, his friends were dying about him every day. BUT GOD SAYS, “There’s going to be a new heaven and a new earth.”

What about “the wheat”? The one grain of wheat was going to be fruitful and bring forth a great harvest. Yet, it was placed into the ground, it rotted, it died. Then here came the mighty harvest!

What about the church? Victorious, mighty army, strong, dynamic force penetrating society, changing society, for the glory of God! When you read the Book of Acts, all of a sudden they were scattered abroad, everywhere, alone, weak, feeble, struggling. Yet the Bible says they turned their world upside down!

The battle of the vision! I don’t know what all that means. I have heard many people say to me, “God gave me a vision of what He was going to accomplish in my life. It was totally beyond the realm of human possibility, but God honored Himself and brought the fulfillment of that vision and dream into my heart.” Whatever He shows you is going to bring you to the edge of your own impossibility, where whatever He shows you will be possible for your life because “HE IS ABLE…!!”

God may say to you, “You’re going to be a doctor someday.” You reply, “A doctor? How could I be a doctor? I don’t even enjoy Biology or Chemistry!” God will bring it to pass. Whatever He says to you, He’s able to do! He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or think!

FOURTH, EXAMINE THE BLESSINGS OF A VISION! What are the blessings?

THERE’S THE BLESSING OF DIRECTION. Just because we haven’t arrived as yet to the fulfillment of the vision that God may give to us does not make the vision unreal. So many times God gives a vision, it is ‘out there’ to be fulfilled, totally beyond us, it seems. Just because we haven’t stepped the soles of our feet on every inch of ground in that land of promises doesn’t mean the vision and the promises and the purpose of God has been defeated for us! But the sense of direction that we KNOW we heard from God, we know that He revealed His purpose, we know that He gave us the Divine blueprint, and it gives a sense of direction to us.

Dr. Paul Tillet made this statement: “God is present in the unknown forces that make us restless.” AND IF YOU’RE NOT RESTLESS, YOU’RE NOT LIVING ON THE EDGE OF GROWTH! If you’re not restless, you’re not on the edge of maturity, not on the edge of hunger and thirst for what God wants to do in and through your life. But if you’re there, and God has said, “This is what I’m going to accomplish through your life,” then there is a striving toward that sense of direction. It’s called the “Sabbath Rest”! Our striving is being finished with ourselves and found us in His faithfulness.

Oswald Chambers said in his “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.51) that we don’t “attain to a vision, we must live in the inspiration of it until it accomplishes itself.” Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

There is nothing more beautiful than to see one who has heard from God and knows what God’s purpose and God’s plan is for that life. They commit themselves to that, they hold on to it, and they see the fulfillment of that vision. It may take years. Think about Caleb. It was forty years before Caleb saw the fulfillment of his vision. God said to Caleb, “I’m going to give you a mountain.” After he came into the land of promise, he went to his mountain, and said, “Give me my mountain.” It was 40 years from the time God gave him that vision of what his inheritance was going to be. He held onto it. It gave a sense of direction to his life, it gave a sense of purpose to his life. He would not be detoured away from what God had revealed to him. It gave him the blessing of direction!

THERE’S THE BLESSING OF DEPENDENCY. What did we say about the birth of a vision? About the battle of a vision? God is always going to bring you, with whatever He asks of you, to the place of impossibility. Why? So that whatever God is revealing, it takes Him to fulfill it. So there is the blessing of dependency. When I know that God has brought me there and given me a vision that is beyond me, then every day of my life I find myself dependent upon God for that fulfillment of the vision – and that’s a good place to be!

The Lord said when you pray, pray like this: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Give us this day our fulfillment of the vision, give us this day whatever is necessary to meet the physical, emotional, mental, material, spiritual needs of our lives – absolutely dependent!

Georgia Harkness is an outstanding Methodist theologian. The author wrote: “Christianity’s major world in the western world is secularism. Secularism defined? “The organization of human life as if God did not exist.” I thought about that as I read that statement. How many people organize their daily life as if God did not exist? And that’s true of some businesses, some families, yes, even some pastors and churches.

Acts 26:16 says: “I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you.” Verse 17 says, “…I am sending you.” Here is one who has a vision. As a result of that vision, he is sent out. Read verse 18. Whatever the vision is, there is purpose behind it: “To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God in order that they also may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.” Look at verse 22: “And so, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets said was going to take place.” Notice the first part of that 22^nd verse: “And so having obtained help from God…” That’s the blessing of dependency. God gives Paul such a vision that he understands that vision cannot be fulfilled in and of Paul himself. Paul understood that, and he obtained help from God! We ALL need that kind of vision – every one of us! We need the kind of vision that will cause us to be shipwrecked on the isle of God’s sovereignty and stranded on the island of His omnipotence, where, if the vision that God gives us is going to be fulfilled, He has to be the provider of everything that is necessary to fulfill that vision.

THERE IS ALSO THE BLESSING OF DELIVERANCE. Joel 2:32 says: “And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape…” Deliverance from what?

Deliverance from the bondage of criticism of what we’re about with our lives. There is deliverance for the man who has a vision from God. Here’s the man who has this vision from God: He begins to “live” that vision, he begins to “die” for that vision, he begins to invest everything in himself to that vision…and opposition arises! Here comes a family member; along come close friends; business associates arise and begin to say, “You’re being so foolish; do you know what you’re doing? Do you realize what price you’re paying? How foolish can a man be?” Yet, what happens? Well, here’s a Paul who says, “It’s good to be a fool for Christ’s sake.” He was delivered from criticism of what he was about!

One of the biggest hindrances to the fulfillment of a vision in a person’s life is the opposition that comes from those who have no spiritual understanding of hearing the voice of God, of seeing a vision from God or a dream from God, and then pouring out their lives to see that vision come to be a reality within them. But if there is that vision burned within your heart, it doesn’t matter what family or friends may say. When you know that you’ve heard from God, you’re willing to lose everything, lay down your life and die, so that vision can be fulfilled through you!

There is deliverance from aimlessness. What is life all about with the people you come in contact with every day? Think about it – the people in your neighborhood, the people in your business office, the people where you work at that factory, the people you rub elbows with every day – what is their life all about? Can I tell you? Can I tell you that probably 80-90% of the people you come in contact with, their whole reason of existence is simply survival. They’re just doing the best they know how to survive. They have no purpose to life, no meaning to life, no aim to life, no goal to life except that they’re just trying to get by every day and survive life as it is. What a sad state of life! But when you have met Christ, when you have heard the voice of God, when you know He has spoken to you about your life purpose, you have an aim. You have direction. You have a goal. You have a purpose for living. And your life will never be the same! You are all business for the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Let’s come back to Joel 2:26. “You shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied [Are you satisfied? REALLY satisfied? Is there contentment to your life?] and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame.” YOU shall praise the name of the Lord your God! Prayer and praise are how you maintain a vision. God inhabits the praises of His people! Prayer and praise maintain the vision! God inhabits the praises of His people! And when you arise in the morning, in that inner man, there ought to be that thankful spirit. When you walk through the day, there ought to be that thankful spirit that God has a purpose for your life; He’s given you a vision and a dream and you are fulfilling that vision and that dream. Praise the name of the Lord!

Not only is there praise to maintain the vision, but there is participation in the vision. Paul said: (Acts 26:19), “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” That is so practical to our lives. If we’re not participating with God in the fulfillment of what He reveals to us, we’re not maintaining the vision, and the vision will die! Paul was obedient to the vision God gave to him for his life and as a result of that he was maintaining the vision, there was fire in the vision, there was warmth to the vision, and it carried him through even to the point that he died for it because he knew God had spoken to his heart and life.

WHAT ABOUT BOUNDARIES TO THE VISION. Joel 2:28-29, “And it will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.” Boundaries?

GOD HAS A VISION FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL. (Philippians 1:21), “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” What is your purpose to life? What is your reason for living? What is the purpose in what you do with your daily life? Paul said, “For to me, to live is CHRIST” – to honor the Lord through all he is and all he does.

GOD HAS A VISION FOR YOUR OCCUPATION. (Exodus 31:1-6), “Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, and in cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship. And behold, I Myself have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are skillful I HAVE PUT SKILL that they may make all that I have commanded you.” God gives severally as He wills. He gives gifts unto men. That is a vision God will reveal to you, as clear as a ringing bell! It may take a while for that bell to ring clearly in your mind and heart and spirit, but God has a purpose for your life!

GOD HAS A VISION FOR YOUR FAMILY. (Genesis 12:1-3) “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” God is no respecter of persons. If God had a vision for Abram and his family, through which all the families of the earth shall be blessed, then God has a vision for your family. Begin to thank Him!

GOD HAS A VISION FOR INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES. Acts 1:7-8, He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs [seasons] which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” God revealed His purpose to individuals, and to the body of believers. He gives a vision, a dream, a direct order, yes, to fellowships.

What did we begin with? “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” What is YOUR vision before God? What has God revealed to you? I believe we ought to pray for that vision or dream. We ought to have a vision for our nation! Whenever we lose sight of the vision of God for a nation, the people perish. Whenever a fellowship loses sight of its vision, the people perish. Even in marriages – when they have no vision of what their purpose is before Holy God in marriage, marriages drop like dying flies! It’s so true, yes, of individuals. That’s why it’s so important to be committed to that one, to the many, whose hearts are going after God. For what fellowship does light have with darkness? There is none. We need a vision!

Barbara Reynolds, a liberal columnist for USA Today, wrote an enlightening column for June 25, 1993. She was addressing the clouds and thunderclaps of lawlessness and lack of social order that hangs over far too many country’s major cities. She wrote: “Those murderous habits aren’t based solely on financial poverty, but on a bankrupt human spirit caused by an absence of the Spirit of God. If it weren’t for the religious faithful [in cities and schools], life would be utterly hopeless.” She was so right! But even more, if we lose the religious faithful who’ve been captured by Vision, Vision from God, all segments of human life will be utterly hopeless! But we are not “hopeless” people; we are hope-filled servants of the Most High God who unveils for us the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God!

Let me close this truth of vision with several tremendous statements penned by Gloria Gaither in “An Old Friend Not Forgotten.” Bill Gaither included this in his “Homecoming Collectors’ Edition (Gaither Music Company, 1993): “The world is oblivious for there are too few visionaries. Too blind to subtleties and too imprisoned by carnivals. Too numb to gentleness and too overwhelmed by power. Too deaf to music and too stimulated by noise. Too dull to recognize the permanent – too focused to the transient. Too tuned out to the prophets, too attuned to the hucksters. The world is oblivious for there are too few visionaries…The world is losing heart for there are too few dreamers. Too much cynicism and not enough faith. Too much hype and not enough hope. Too much savvy and not enough wisdom. Too much money and not enough treasure. Too much form and not enough substance. Too many takers and not enough givers. Too many dissenters and not enough inspirers. The world is losing heart, for there are too few dreamers…Into such a world God sends His poets, prophets, troubadours who see what we have missed, who warn us lest we self-destruct, and who fill the songless night with music. They surround our alienation with love’s embrace; they burn through the fog of our oblivion with the piercing light of truth, and they sing the dream back into our hearts.” AMEN?

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

MARVELOUS MERCY & MATCHLESS GRACE

Micah 7:18–20

I don’t know where your faith rests, but I want to let you know my faith is not in my natural abilities, my fleshly instincts, my educational degrees, my personal disciplines or lack of them; it’s not in my personal goals, visions or dreams; it’s not in self, dogged determinism, my best efforts, my untiring discipline.

Here’s how Paul put it in I Corinthians 15:10, “and His grace toward me was not in vain.” And the one thing I want you to discern today is that His marvelous mercy and matchless grace will never fall short of your point of need!

Remember Jesus speaking in Luke 11: 11–12? “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer a scorpion?” YOU KNOW THE ANSWER!

He sits on the throne of mercy. He governs by the spirit of grace. He’s the Father looking down the road for the prodigal’s return – and He awaits, not with scolding and condemnation, but a celebration spirit that it’s Heaven’s “party–time”!

Have you ever felt hopeless in your spiritual pilgrimage – and then you hear there is a haven of rest? Have you ever sensed a lack of confidence on your spiritual journey – and then you become aware of “holy presence” revealing the Way?

Have you ever found yourself on the canvas of life, on your back, trying to comprehend the knock–out blow to your chin, ever so helpless – then Jesus says, “Get up – this bout is not over, it’s just begun?”

Have you ever been in the throes of spiritual darkness, not discerning the next step to take in what direction – but you hear a voice: “This is the Way, walk you in it?”

Have you ever been “down” – “I’ve fallen & I can’t get up!” But then Jesus says , “Rise & Walk” – and you arise & walk!

It’s been a self–indulgent, spiraling downward, careless, corrupt life–style – and you wonder, “Is there any hope?’ “Is there a recovery possibility?” “Am I too far gone?”

That’s what the powers of darkness would like you to think. That’s what the faithless want you to believe. That’s what the hopeless hope you hold to so there’ll be miserable feelings in you as well as them, the misery loves company crowd!

A cloud of confusion colors the true picture of the nature and character of God – “I’ve fallen beyond the reach of God and, really, He could care less about me.” Is that true?

“I’m too far gone – and His reach is shortened by my degree and depth of sinfulness.” Is that true?

Can’t you hear it? “I’ve gone too far, I’ve fallen too hard, I’m too deep in bondage for even God Himself to help me.” Is that true?

Fallen sin–nature theories, immature conceptions and ideas, even vain imaginations control even the minds of saints who have fallen when they ignore biblical revelation and, yes, the very heart of God!

I want to smash the mental entrenchments that ignore revealed truth. I want to smother the poisonous gases of fleshly determinations about the heart of God. I want to suffocate the breaths of spiritual ignorance that paint a false picture of God’s activity in behalf of fallen humanity and reveal the true knowledge of God that brings salvation, healing, deliverance, restoration, and renewal.

I believe Paul told the church at Corinth [2 Corinthians 10:5], that we’re to “bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

How many of us have walked in our faith for a long time on the sea of smooth waters, and then, all of a sudden we find ourselves under dark clouds, stormy waters, and the horrendous winds of a walk contrary to God’s will? Have you ever been there?

How many of us have forgotten where we once were with Christ, and now we’re filled with fear as to whether or not we can recover what we once had and move on into His fullness?

There is the ministry of the interior but I’ve majored on the exterior. There is the ministry of the Spirit But I’ve focused on the flesh. There is the ministry of the eternal but I’ve settled on the temporal. And there is no joy, no peace, no contentment, no spiritual satisfaction of blessing in my relationship to Him – Is there a word?

In Hebrews 13, two phrases in verses 5 & 6 I want you to see:

Hebrews 13:5, “For He Himself has said…” Hebrews 13:6, “So we may boldly say…”

Can you rest your life on that? Can you settle your hope for eternity on those two phrases? Can you say what God says?

Faithlessness, futility, feebleness, frailty, frustrations are not to be words, spirits, seasons, or points in our walk that describe our eternal relationship with Holy God. “For He Himself has said…,” so now “we may boldly say!”

I love I Corinthians 10:13! Let me paraphrase: “No test has overcome or overtaken you except such as is common to man; but GOD IS FAITHFUL who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the testing will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

There is something that must be indelibly printed on your mind and your heart: THE MEASURE OF YOUR FAILURE, YOUR FALL, YOUR PAIN, YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT WITH YOURSELF, IS NOT GREATER THAN GOD’S MARVELOUS MERCY AND MATCHLESS GRACE!!

Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost [the furtherest throw away from Him] those who come to God through Christ, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

Three things of vital importance for you to rest in today from Micah 7:18–20:

FIRST, “ONCE AGAIN…” Can you rest your faith on those two words? “Once again…!”

I don’t believe the spirit of those two words is carte blanche for open sin and rebellion. I don’t believe it’s saying, “Do as you please – God doesn’t care as long as you believe.” I don’t believe it’s a call to acceptance of His grace without any accountability. I don’t believe it is a liberating license to licentiousness and the low road to lesser than Christ’s best.

That’s how some fall into the trap of “God’s obligation to accept me regardless of what I do because I believe.”

“Once again” is the description of the heart of God. “Once again” is the hymn of God’s faithfulness. “Once again” is the clarion call to turn to Him, not the acceptance of our self–indulgence with our hollowness and emptiness.

“Once again” is God’s demonstration of His great love for us “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8]. ‘Demonstrates’ is the “once again” of present tense, continuous action, out of the overflow of God’s heart.

“Once again” is God’s covenant of grace with Himself & us – the rainbow that reminds Him the world will never again be destroyed by a flood of water.

“Once again is God’s cry of victory over the battles you felt you’d horribly lost.

“Once again” true sheep have wandered but the True Shepherd seeks them out, even though wandering on the dark mountains of sin, selfishness, and shame.

“Once again” is the unveiling of the authenticity of God’s mercy and grace and the awareness and amplification of our great need of Him.

“Once again” is the authority of God over the “god of this age” bringing victory in your life over the powers of darkness even when “the whole world is in the power of the evil one.”

“Once again” is the unconditional love of the Father for His children who fell short of the Family heritage and loyalty.

“Once again” is the proof of God’s unfailing love for us when we’ve been seared by the paralyzing torture of falling short and He picks us up when we stumble and sings over us the hymn of His acceptance.

“Once again” is His knock at our heart’s door when we thought it best to shut Him out – “I’m not worthy of Him!” – communion was absent but the hound dog of heaven was hot at our heels!

“Once again” is the symphony of praise that cannot be drowned out even when you wonder, “How do you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

It was Samuel Rutherford, Scottish minister in the 1600’s, imprisoned for his ‘non–conformity’ by Episcopalians who did not welcome his Presbyterian persuasions. He spent two years in prison. In prison he gave us a strong look at the true “once again,” enduring peace, pleasure, and blessing.

[E.M. Bounds wrote about it in “Heaven: A Place, A City, A Home.” Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1975, p13.]: “If God had told me some time ago that He was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that He should begin by crippling me in all my limbs, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing His purpose. And yet, how is His wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a close room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.”

You are in darkness – but the light of heaven once again shines upon you!

You have sunk to a depraved state – but the light of heaven once again radiates upon you!

You were ready to denounce your faith because of your disappointment in yourself – but the light of heaven has broken through!

You’ve heard it from the atheists and liberal, faithless professors: “Born again” is not possible – but “once again” there is a new creation.

“Born again” is a figment of one’s imagination – but “once again” imagination is replaced by redemptive reality.

“Born again” is natural man’s ascendancy to human potential – but “once again” God signs His name in the blood of Christ on the heart of that man saying, “He’s Mine!!”

“Born again” is religious foolishness that blinds the uneducated, an “opiate” of the people dulling their senses – but “once again” we fled for refuge, found strong encouragement, and laid hold of heavenly hope, an anchor of the soul!

Hear me, church! THE THEREFORE OF GOD’S WHEREFORE OF OUR “ONCE AGAIN” VIBRANT FAITH WITH A VIEW OF ETERNAL REALITY WILL CAPTURE US AND WE’LL SAY: GOD LOVES US AND HAS “ONCE AGAIN” MADE A WAY FOR US!

SECOND, “ONCE AGAIN – GOD WILL!” How powerful is that! Is it “you will” or “God will”? – and every man has that choice in himself as to what foundation he rests his life upon.

It’s God’s will that birthed salvation by grace through faith. It’s God’s will that this is accomplished through the shed blood of the Lamb of God alone. It’s God’s will that fallen man experiences that salvation through repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at Calvary. It’s God’s will that that salvation process is perseverance unto perfection, “conformed to the image of Christ.” [Romans 8:29]

Listen to John 6:39–40! “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

You will or God will?

Hear Jesus! Matthew 4:19, “and I WILL make you fishers of men.” Matthew 11:28, “and I WILL give you rest.”

Matthew 16:19, “I WILL give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, But My words WILL BY NO MEANS pass away.”

Romans 5:17, “…much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness WILL REIGN IN LIFE THROUGH THE ONE, JESUS CHRIST.”

Do you remember Paul saying that we should “understand what the will of the Lord is?” [Ephesians 5:17]

What did we read in Micah 7:18–20? “Who is a God like You?” What a profound, penetrating, perfecting statement in the heart of a man who wants to know God! What did Micah say?

“He will again have compassion on us…He will subdue our iniquities…He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea…He will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham…”

There is something marvelous that is about to happen if you haven’t sensed it as yet. In Acts 9:16 God promises His “return” – and when He does, He says: “I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, And I will set it up, verse 17, So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord…”

2 Peter 3:9 says, “God is NOT WILLING that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Jesus says, “I’m WILLING – be cleansed.”

What did we see in John 6:40? “And this IS THE WILL OF HIM WHO SENT ME, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I WILL raise him up at the last day.”

What’s the old saying? “None are so blind as those who will not see!” Did you hear it? “This is the will of Him who sent Jesus!” God’s heart, God’s design, God’s desire, God’s pleasure, God’s passion, God’s intent, God’s strategy, God’s Way, Truth, and Life – “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] may have everlasting life; and [Jesus] will raise him up at the last day.”

THIRD TRUTH: “ONCE AGAIN – GOD WILL – REMIND US OF EVERLASTING COVENANTS.” Look at Micah 7:20, “You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from days of old.”

Is that written into the fabric of your faith? “You have sworn, You swore to our fathers, and You swore from days of old until now, and You’ll still be swearing in the days to come!”

Are you familiar with Isaiah 55:11? HEAR IT! [God speaking], “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me VOID [or empty without fruit], but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall proper in the thing for which I sent it.”

You heard earlier Jesus speaking in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

“Lord, I was so foolish in that fall; but I remind You, You’ve said: “You’ll have compassion on me, You’ll subdue my iniquities, You’ll cast all my sins into the sea of Your forgetfulness, and You’ll give me truth to stand on, because You swore to my spiritual fathers, even from the foundation of the earth until now.”

“Lord, I was so stupid to give a ‘toe–hold’ to the devil; I opened the door of temptation; I let sin reign in that moment rather than righteousness. I was so wrong – but You say there’s a throne of mercy and the gift of grace. I need it today – right now.”

“Lord, we both were so selfishly insane in our marriage, choosing self–will over divine will, flesh over Spirit, my way or the highway. But You say, ‘Marred marriages are My specialty. Right now take the sentence of death unto yourselves and the resurrected Life of Jesus will be manifested.”

Come to Psalm 121 and follow and see from where your true Help comes: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul… The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.”

Daniel B. Towner understood this when he wrote this hymn: “Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary.

By God’s Word at last my sin I learned; Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned, Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary.

Now I’ve given to Jesus everything, Now I gladly own Him as my King, Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary.

O the love that drew salvation’s plan! O the grace that brought it down to man! O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary!

Mercy there was great, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty…At Calvary!”

In “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p266], Oswald Chambers has a powerful word for us about Galatians 6:14 which says, “But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hear it:

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ always forces an issue of will. Do I accept God’s verdict on sin in the cross of Christ? Have I the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death, to be killed right out to all interest in sin, in worldliness, in self – to be so identified with Jesus that I am spoilt for everything else but Him? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can sign on under His cross, and that means death .”

And from Micah 7:18–20 you’re reminded: IT’S HIS DEATH THAT LIBERATES ME! IT’S HIS SACRIFICE THAT SETS ME FREE! Hear me wanderer; no, hear me wandering child of faith – God has a word for you: Isaiah 54:4–8! “Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.”

His compassion is real; His strength to subdue our iniquities is real, His grace to cast all our sins into the depths of the sea is real, and His covenant truth reigns forever!

Accept His Marvelous Mercy and His Matchless Grace!

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“KINGDOM LIVING – KINGDOM BLESSINGS!”

It’s a day in “Christian circles”, whether schools, universities, churches, businesses, or homes, when the revelation truth of “Kingdom Living” needs to be resurrected ! I’m really not sure if even ‘seminaries’ have taught at all about this subject but rather majored on ‘church life’ void of what is called by most the “Lord’s Prayer”! I want you to read it carefully at least a dozen times in one sitting, and for a period daily of at least one month! I want you immersed in the Lord’s Prayer! It says in Matthew 6:9-13 the following words of Jesus as He trained His disciples, yet, it was months, even years before it sank in to their minds and hearts and wills – Hear His Prayer!

“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

But I wonder! How many prayers are engaged in the pure desire to see Christ’s Kingdom-Rule on earth, in their hearts and homes, overseeing and ruling in a redemptive Way in all they do, to His honor, His glory, and passionately praying to be equipped “in Him” in touching our world with His Kingdom mission and Kingdom blessings”?

Oh, and here’s the real “kicker”! In Matthew 6:33 the Lord Jesus said, “But seek FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” And, in seeking First “the kingdom of God”, is that willful submission and faithful obedience in all He tells you to do? “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”! Does that shock you or surprise you that the heart of Jesus’ prayer and your praying is to usher in heavenly living on earth?

And how interesting and awakening do you find it when in Matthew 6:25-27 the Lord Jesus says, “Therefore I say to you, take no thought for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on? Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”

Your heavenly Father KNOWS your birthing, He knows how to bless you, He knows how to “bear with you” in life’s struggles, their turmoils, their ups and their downs, He knows how to bid and abide peaceably and confidently in your every step, and His heart and mind overflows in benevolence for your sovereign care! And, again, in Matthew 6:32b Jesus said, “…For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things…”, so why ‘worry’ when you can worship the One who cares for you more than you care about yourself?

Do you grasp that Father-God, the Lord Jesus, and the convicting and convincing Holy Spirit wants YOU living day by day in the CONFIDENCE of God’s faithfulness? “Kingdom Living”? In Matthew 13:18-23 Jesus shared the parable of the sower. He said: “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone HEARS THE WORD OF THE KINGDOM, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.

But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Are you aware that in this 21-first-century that there are not many, if any, places where the Word of God has not gone? I traveled our ‘known’ world for twenty-five years, and I seldom found nations or countries without a church, but I soon learned that a local church does not necessarily mean their location had been saturated with the Word of “blood Redemption” through Christ Jesus! I saw people on the streets of foreign cities who had never heard the name of Christ Jesus or heard that He shed His own blood for their salvation, reconciling them to God’s eternal earthly, worldly purpose for their lives and families!

“Seek first the kingdom of God”, “Take no thought for your life (in the flesh)”, “Hear the word of the kingdom”, yet masses of people locally or worldwide have no understanding about “steadfastly in Christ possessing their souls” with the deed of their bodies, minds, spirits, and souls transferred to the ownership of Christ Himself!

Pause to reflect upon what it is that consumes most people in their everyday lives: “I know I was ‘birthed’ – and I’ll ‘try my best’ to make the most I can out of it, with others possessing not even a penny’s worth of concern about why they are here other than ‘self-indulgence’, trying to find something or someone to satisfy the vast emptiness of the mind, soul, and body!

“I’m here, and eternal purpose for me is not a consideration – I live motivated by what satisfies ME!” “I’m here, and it takes a job of some kind to supply what I want!” “I’m here – and I don’t want to live a ‘naked existence – I’ve got to clothe myself and my family!” “I’m here – and breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks in between requires I labor!”

Do you sense at all that many Americans are more concerned about their “outward dressing” more than they are how they are “heart-dressed” before Holy God? Is it “physical bread” without any consideration of “the manna from Heaven”?

In Matthew 4:1-11 there are “soul-awakening, spirit-shocking” Verses! It says: Then Jesus WAS LED UP BY THE SPIRIT (THAT’S THE HOLY SPIRIT!) into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him (Is it possible that the “tempter” has come to you many times nut you didn’t recognize him?), he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

But Jesus answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Is there a hunger in you for the “bread of Truth” and for the “meat of His Word”, or is it just three square meals a day physically that satisfies you?

In Deuteronomy 8:1 Holy God spoke: “Every commandment which I command you today you MUST BE CAREFUL TO OBSERVE, that you may live and multiply, AND GO IN AND POSSESS THE LAND OF WHICH THE Lord swore to your fathers.” Dare I tell you that “the land” you are to possess wisely is the land of your own mind, heart, soul, and spirit, possessed wisely by yielding daily to the True Owner who “bought you with a price”, yes, the shed blood of the Lamb of God!

Jesus said in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” And later, in John 16:7-15, we learn of one of the most important of “Kingdom Blessings”! Jesus said to young disciples, “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.” ARE YOU KEEPING THE SOVEREIGNLY, ORDAINED APPOINTMENTS OF SPIRIT-ASSISTANCE IN GUIDING YOU IN ALL BIBLICAL TRUTH?

I find it extremely interesting and convicting to hear the Lord Jesus speak to me and you when He said in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you AND appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”

And “Kingdom Living” through the grace, mercy, and love of God leads to the true remnant of faith involved in “Kingdom Blessings”! “Kingdom Living” comes about because of the “grafted in” “Kingdom Character” which abounds in “Kingdom Blessings”!!

And do you remember the First of the “kingdom Blessings” found in Matthew 5:3 where Jesus spoke the following: “BLESSED are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s “heaven on earth in the life of a ‘poor in spirit’ person who repents”, who turns from ‘self’ to the Savior and Lord, who abandons and exchanges the old sin nature for the “new Life in Christ”, who tires of his fleshly best, even seeing no ushering in of Kingdom allegiance by his endeavor to, at least, live acceptably by the world around! But ‘the world around’ is not going to lead one to True Kingdom allegiance apart from devotion to the King of kings and Lord of lords!

So, Matthew 5:4 declares: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” What did the prophet Isaiah hear about the Spirit on Christ Jesus and His ministry to and through our Savior and Lord, even extended to us? Isaiah 61: 1-3 says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach glad tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

In Matthew 5:5 we read, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The meek? They’re the “teachable”, not the stiff-necked, cold-hearted, or minds dominated by stubbornness and indifference when it comes to trusting Holy God! The ‘earth’ is the new invisible ‘kingdom of righteousness’ being built by the Master-Contractor who takes you and me as ‘stones’ in the building of His Holy Temple only seen by spiritual, re-born eyes in tune to His eternal will and purpose!

And the ‘teachable’ inheriting ‘the earth’? Because we achieve or we receive? Because we merit it or we’re mercied? Earned or credited? Pumped up or poured out on us by God’s grace and mercy? Bought personally or paid for by the Lamb’s blood? Self-genius or Sovereign grace? Talented or “touched by the Master’s hands and taken over in our minds and hearts? Entering Man-made doors or embraced by His amazing love? Personal initiative or the Prince of Peace’s intervention? Perplexed or persuaded?

What does Matthew 5:6 tell us? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.” We hunger and thirst, but the filling of us in righteousness is God’s doing! “Shall be filled” is in the “passive” voice – Someone else does the filling as we hunger and thirst before Him for His righteousness!

In Matthew 5:7 we read, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” It’s not in the human anatomy apart from God to be merciful – it’s much easier for lost men to be “revenge-filled”, but when Christ enters our hearts, He’s able to be Himself in us, and He extends mercy through us!

Oh, in Matthew 5:8, Jesus really gets “testy”! He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Get ready! Christ Jesus really stirred the waters among the “religious Jews” – and He can do the same in some ‘religious communities’! In Matthew 23:23-28 Jesus exposed ‘outward loyalty’ apart from true devotion to the Righteous One, the Lord Jesus. He said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them nay be clean also.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Would you say that modern-day Pharisaism is “pretense” at attempting to live ‘religiously’ apart from “re-birth” and “true transformation by the grace of God and the blood of the Lamb”? Are you a “pretender” or, yes, a “partaker of Christ’s Sufferings”? (1 Peter 4:13).

“Kingdom Living and Kingdom Blessings” come about by being finished with one’s own abilities and “resting” in the Resurrection Life of Christ! Personal ambitions and personal drives block “Christ in you the hope of glory”! Individual evaluation and individual determination that doesn’t begin at the Cross of Christ and His empty Tomb and His heavenly reign in you is fraudulent, deceived, and totally misleading! Your way is not God’s Way – never has been and never will be! Accept YOUR death with Christ on the Cross, and live in, through, and by His Resurrection Presence in you! What did Paul say in 2 Corinthians 5:17?

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things become new.” For you, is it “newness living in Christ” or the “gut-it-up mentality” of the “pretenders”?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

FACING NEW DAYS CONFIDENTLY

Time. What is it? The seconds, minutes or hours on your wrist watch? For the ancients was time just the shadow on their sun dial? Is time the gauging of the midnight hour on your old grandfather clock? Is it the grains of sand seeping through the hour glass?

Tolstoy, in “War and Peace,” said: “Time is infinite movement without one moment of rest.” Sometimes I say YES to that! J.A. Van Horn, in “Physics Today,” said: “To the philosopher, time is one of the fundamental quantities. To the average man, time has something to do with dinner.” Longfellow wrote in “Hyperion,” “Time is the life of the soul.” That definition gets a little closer to the truth! Plato put it like this: “Time is the image of eternity.”

Considering all of the prior attempts at defining time, I believe a better explanation would be, “Time is the moment for a life, with the brush of faith, to stroke on the canvas of one’s being the masterpiece of the presence of God, the reflection of the eternal, through repentance, reconciliation, and redemption.”

Look with me at Ecclesiastes 3:1-9. “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven – a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A Time to search, and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?”

And verse 9 brings us to the moment of divine confrontation, “What eternal profit is there in the daily investment of my life?”

In “A Psalm of Life,” Longfellow wrote: “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sand of time.” Leah Richmond said, “There is a time to be born and a time to die, says Solomon, and it is the momento of a truly wise man; but there is an interval between these two times of infinite importance.”

In Galatians 4:10,11, Paul is talking to a church who saw only the “surface” and had not yet majored on the “substance.” “You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.”

Jesus spoke to the multitude in Luke 12:54-56, “And He was also saying to the multitude, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way. You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?”

The Psalmist had a discerning of the days when in Psalm 39:4-7 he said, “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the extent of my days, let me know how transient I am. Behold, You have made my days as handbreaths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight, surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Surely every man walks about as a phantom; surely they make an uproar for nothing; he amasses riches, and does not know who will gather them. And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.”

I want us to study what we must possess in order to face new days confidently. FIRST, WE MUST KNOW THE DAYS ARE DIVINELY ORDAINED.

Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in God’s hand…” Do you believe that, or is each day just an accident of the ages? Ecclesiastes 8:15 speaks of “the days of [a man’s] life which God gives him under the sun.” Are the days of my life gifts of His grace? Is He in control of those seconds, minutes, hours, days on the clock of my life?

Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” How awesome when we see it!

I believe without a doubt that multitudes never come into confident living in their hour because they’ve never seen themselves as a piece of the puzzle that God is putting together. I believe that many never come into confident living in their marriages because they have never really seen their marriages as an interpretation to the world of what Christ and His bride are like. I believe that far too many businessmen have missed eternal blessings because they’ve built, they think, businesses as a reward of their own diligence and not a tool to honor God and expand His kingdom.

Frederick William Faber: “The surest method of arriving at a knowledge of God’s eternal purposes about us is to be found in the right use of the present moment. Each hour comes with some little fagot of God’s will fastened upon its back.” I would only add, “…not some little fagot of God’s will, but the full assurance of divine intent fastened to your heart!”

Paul, in Acts 17:26-28, said to the aimless Athenians, “And He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist…”

Isaiah 49:5 says, “And now the Lord says, Who formed ME from the womb to be His servant…” And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, according to Psalm 62:8, I will “Trust in Him at all times…” In verse 5 the Psalmist said, “My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation (or hope) is from Him.”

And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, according to Psalm 34:1, “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth…” And because I know my days and times are ordained of God, I’ll not see change as a disaster, but as a blessing! Daniel 2:20-22 says, “Daniel answered and said, let the name of the Lord be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. And it is He who changes the times and epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men, and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.”

In Robert Wise’s book, “When The Night Is Too Long,” he quotes a poem written by Ruth Harms Calkin entitled “Once For All.” The poem was found in the belongings of a friend, Jan Wolfard, who had helped him with typing over the years. Jan had suffered from a serious mental illness, he says, “triggered by the failure of her marriage.” But with God’s help and Robert Wise’s, she’d climbed back. At the age of 38, she died. In her belongings they came across Ruth Calkin’s poem: “Lord, may I settle it once and for all that I am dealing directly with You. You need never apologize for any plan You ordain for me since nothing but good can come from Your hand. You are sufficient for every changing circumstance in my God-planned life, for every unchanging circumstance as well.”

Do you sense divine ordination over your life? In Jeremiah 1:9,10, Jeremiah says, “Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Is God’s divine ordination written on your mind and heart yet? Look with me at Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your Book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.”

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF DIVINE OPPORTUNITY. In Ephesians 1:5,6, Paul said, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will – to the praise of the glory of His grace.” Verse 12 goes on to say, “that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.” And verse 14 reiterates, “to the praise of His glory.”

Days of divine opportunity are to be days of magnifying Him! 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

To the Galatians, Paul put it like this: “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!”

Robert Wise, in “When The Night Is Too Long,” tells an awesome story of Christ-like ministry and response as we walk life’s paths of opportunity:

“Kitty Hart is an amazingly energetic woman with great drive. An x-ray technician, she has also raised two out-standing sons. Perhaps the most remarkable quality one discovers as Kitty talks is her energetic buoyancy and zest for living. Considering the extraordinary pain that has filled her life, her optimism is confounding. The fact that she is alive is itself something of a miracle.

As a teenage Jewish girl, Kitty and her family were torn apart by the Nazi assault that ripped her world to pieces. As her family struggled to survive annihilation, they were separated. She and her mother were shipped to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Her father and her brother disappeared.

Kitty discovered quickly that survival depended on doing daily jobs too nauseating to describe. Such tasks as carrying out buckets of human waste from latrines provided minimal shelter to keep winter ice storms from devouring her. Removing jewelry and other items from bodies being prepared for crematoriums gave her precious trinkets with which to bargain for bits of food. Being on a detail that spent the days throwing bodies onto wagons kept her out of the endless flow of human traffic toward the crematoriums. Kitty’s adolescence was spent in pursuit of an existence that seems worse than death.

The horror of the murder of six million Jews is so overwhelming that statistics have persuaded many that people are essentially only animals. The Hitlers, Himmlers, Eichmanns, and Mengelas seem to prove the hypothesis that humanity is no more than the most cunning and dangerous of all species. The death camps suggest that survival of the fittest is a fact and the only measure of right in this universe. So the experience of Kitty Hart poses an unavoidable question for us. Can people really be a reflection of a God of love?

As the years dragged on, Kitty was subjected to horrors that only increased with time. During one period she worked in the infirmary. As the sick poured in, Kitty found old friends and relatives among the multitude. Reunions were a singular source of joy when she was able to smuggle in a crumb of bread or an article of clothing to help someone survive. On one of those bleak winter mornings, the commandant appeared, demanding that the entire infirmary be emptied into waiting trucks. Instantly everyone knew that must mean death.

The influx of more and more Jews had produced an overload of sick people. The Nazi solution for the crowding was to exterminate the present population. Since none would survive anyway, recovering patients were only marking time until they disappeared.

Kitty knew there was no alternative but to comply with the orders, which soldiers stood ready to enforce with club and bayonet. One by one she helped her friends out of the cold, shabby sick bay on their way to death. At such moments the terror and horror that mingled with overwhelming anger created a single desire. Should she survive, the day would come when she would avenge the butchery. Hate kept Kitty alive.

Even though the end of the war was at hand and the defeat of the Nazis had become imminent, Kitty and her mother were sent on a death march to another camp. All that kept her bleeding feet moving was the burning intention to get her hands on her German captors. Germans of any shape or size. Germans who would bleed and die as her people had. Germans who could be strangled.

On the final day of their imprisonment, Kitty and her mother noticed that men in strange uniforms were walking outside the barbed wire. Then an SS guard appeared and announced surrender to the Allies. Immediately the prisoners turned on him, tearing his uniform from his body. As the other inmates beat him, Kitty saw his dagger fall to the ground. Instantly she grabbed the knife and ran for the gate out of the camp. Surging together, the prisoners rampaged into the town seeking food. Kitty clutched at the dagger with one thought in mind. Somewhere she would find a German to try to even a score that had never been settled.

Breaking down the door to one of the village houses they poured in seeking food. The house appeared empty until a prisoner noticed a door that went down to the basement. Quickly Kitty descended the stairs with the knife in the air, poised for attack. From out of the shadows the forms of people began to emerge. There they were. Germans who were trapped just as Kitty and her friends had been for all those years.

“Throw it!” someone yelled in her ear. “Stick them!” As one man stepped from the group, Kitty drew her arm over her head ready to plunge the knife into his chest.

“Throw it!” the man behind her screamed. With the blade overhead, a most contrary impulse surged up from her soul. An almost lost emotion touched her intention. Deep within the recesses of her mind, compassion arose. Unexpected goodness froze the knife in the air. Her obsession with revenge gave way to thoughts of forgiveness. To Kitty’s amazement, her own hand turned, hurling the knife against a wall where it fell harmlessly to the floor.

“I realized that if I killed the man, the Nazis would have succeeded in making me like them,” she now reflects. By bearing humiliation and degradation with forgiveness, Kitty demonstrated that the inhumanity of the Nazis was only a momentary perversion of true humanity. Kitty is living proof that the image of God can be obscured, but not destroyed. The worst life offers produced in her a transcendent quality of character.

Kitty found that she was changed by her decision. By exchanging benevolence for bestiality, she profited the most.

How can the effect of years filled with hate be revised in a few moments of forgiveness? Nothing compares with the power of love. No cleansing agent, no scouring powder, no catharsis can accomplish what a few moments of absolution will do for the soul. The darkest depths of hate reveal most fully the highest possibilities of love.” WOW! DAYS OF OPPORTUNITY – days of ministry to reveal Christ!

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF OCCUPATION! Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 says, “I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

Luke 10:13 makes a similar point: “So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Occupy (or do business) till I come.” Do you remember young Jesus’ response to His parents when they came back to Jerusalem to find him? Luke 2:49, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

George Macdonald, in the “Marquis of Losaie”, wrote, “I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.”

** DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DECISIONS – Ephesians 1:1 says, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God…” What is the will of God for your life? I Corinthians 2:2 says, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Ephesians 6:6 says, “servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart…”

**DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DETERMINATION – Look with me at 2 Samuel 23:10-12, “He arose and struck the Philistines until his hand was weary and clung to the sword, and the Lord brought about a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to strip the slain. Now after him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hazarite. And the Philistines were gathered into a troop, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the people fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the midst of the plot, defended it and struck the Philistines; and the Lord brought about a great victory.”

Henry Parry Liddon says, “Nothing is really lost by sacrifice; everything is lost by failure to obey God’s call.” John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, “In simple trust like theirs who heard beside the Syrian Sea the gracious calling of the Lord, let us, like them, without a word rise up and follow God.”

Hebrews 12:2-3 says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”

** DAYS OF OCCUPATION ARE DAYS OF DISCIPLINE – Look carefully at I Corinthians 9:23-27 and ask yourself, “Is my walk with Christ disciplined?” “And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body, and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”

As Paul came near the end of his life, he wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

WE MUST SEE THE DAYS AS DAYS OF ORDER: Do you remember “good King Hezekiah?” In 2 Kings 20:1-2 Hezekiah was sick and near death and Isaiah the prophet went to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.” In Amos 4:2 God said, “Prepare to meet your God!!” Set your house in order! Days of order are days of preparation, examination, devotedness and readiness.

In Luke 16:2 Jesus speaks of the rich man’s steward when he called him to himself and said, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship…”

To the church at Corinth Paul said, “It is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” Set your house in order.

Matthew 25:10 speaks of those five foolish virgins: “And while the five foolish virgins went to buy, the bridegroom, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding. And the door was shut.” Set your house in order!

Revelation 19:7 also speaks of a wedding. “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and HIS WIFE HAS MADE HERSELF READY.” Set your house in order!

Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest” wrote, “The great need for the Christian worker is to be ready to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin or difficulties or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face Jesus Christ at every turn. That is the one great need, not the facing of our belief, or our creed, the question whether we are of any use, but to face Him…Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical connections. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. It is not service that matters, but intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn…If you are ‘looking off unto Jesus’ avoiding the call of the religious age you live in, and setting your heart on what He wants, on thinking on His line, you will be the only one who is ready. Trust no one, not even the finest saint who ever walked this earth, ignore him, if he hinders your sight of Jesus Christ.” SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER!

WE MUST LIVE THE DAYS WITH THE PROMISE OF OVERCOMING! I John 5:4 says, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world – our faith!”

In I Corinthians 15:57 we read, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Is it so? Then…”These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace; In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

We are not called to Christ to be men and women filled with pessimistic fear, but men and women empowered by a powerful faith of “Victory In Jesus.” We are not called to Christ to be disciples clouded by doubts, but disciples who are gloriously certain of our conquest because of the unconquerable majesty of Christ. We are not called to Christ to be His servants bathed in the foul smell of failure and short coming, but servants flooded with the heavenly perfume of Christ’s joy, His triumphant victory, and His overcoming life.

We don’t walk despondently toward heaven’s gates, we ride the chariot of faith radiant in the triumphant procession of oneness with Christ. We don’t walk toward heaven’s gates hoping that at least some of our time we are triumphant in Christ, the Word says God “always” leads us in triumph in Christ! We walk toward heaven’s gates because we willfully chained ourselves to Christ, responding to the unfathomable love of the Victor!

George Matheson wrote the text to the hymn, “O Love That Will Not Let Me God.” Those four verses say: “O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.

O Light that follows all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee; my heart restores its borrowed ray, that in Thy sunshine’s blaze, its day may brighter, fairer be.

O joy that seeks me through pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee; I trace this rainbow through the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that many shall tearless be.

O grace that lifts up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be.”

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!

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY!”

EPHESIANS 5:14

God says: “Awake, you who ‘SLEEP’, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light!”

Isn’t it amazing to you that the Holy Word of God is so filled with biblical Truth about those “choosing” to “live in the dark,” “sleepy-time lives”, totally unaware of their ‘fleshly destinies’? In Proverbs 6:4-5 the wise man wrote: “Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from THE hand of the hunter, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler (or ‘hunter’ who seeks to slay you!).” And then in Verses 6-11 the wise man continued, desiring to “wake us all up” from the “sleep” of spiritual death, alienation from God, incapable of personal deliverance from its powerful sentence of spiritual death – a ‘sluggard’ of spiritual inactivity, a ‘sluggard’ of perpetual spiritual sleep, a ‘sluggard’ of slothfulness and indifference to the “Holy Truths” of God, and, yes, even indifferent to His amazing love and grace and mercy, just satisfied to live in “the darkness of a deep spiritual sleep,” unconcerned about his void of spiritual life and faith and purpose, or its penalty!

So, Proverbs 6:6-15, declares so wisely, so convicted, “Wake up, go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, Which, having no captain, ( no Savior, no Redeemer, no Lord, no loving spiritual caretaker), overseer or ruler, Provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard? WHEN WILL YOU ARISE FROM YOUR SLEEP? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep – SO SHALL POVERTY (that’s spiritual poverty and spiritual bankruptcy!) COME ON YOU LIKE A PROWLER (one who comes to steal, like the devil!), AND ON YOUR NEED LIKE AN ARMED MAN (or robber or thief, yes, “the powers of darkness”!).”

Verses 12-15 then solemnly, seriously, and in convicting fashion, describes the end of a sleeping, spiritually negligent, self-serving individual, who resists his need of “spiritual awakening”: “A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth (“that Bible may be what YOUR God says, but I don’t care!”); He winks with his eyes, he shuffles his feet, he points his fingers; Perversity is in his heart, he devises evil continually (that’s ANYTHING THAT LEAVES GOD OUT OF ONE’S ‘MIXED-BAG-OF-LIFE CHOICES’!), he sows discord, (Opposition to eternal Truths). THEREFORE his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.”

Oh, but there is “hope that is eternal”! There can be, must be, if you let Him, an “awakening” from spiritual sleep and slumber, spiritual death, spiritual hopelessness, to the reality of the true, merciful, spiritual awakening in and through “Christ Jesus” alone!

In Joel 1:5 the word of the Lord had come to Joel: “Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.” Is this ‘literal’ speech or ‘metaphorical’? The ‘drunkards’ are ‘sinners separated from Holy God ‘intoxicated’ in unholy, unbiblical, un-redeeming truths! The ‘drunkards’ are ‘willful sinners’ intoxicated with the ‘devil’s brew’ of unbelief, rebellion, disobedience, self-centeredness, and purposely, willfully, so intoxicated with self, one has ‘no sense’ or ‘will’ or ‘desire’ to live for God! “IS IT EVIDENT IN SOME ‘MODERN-CHURCHES’? WITHOUT ANY DOUBT! But loving, merciful, caring, compassionate God takes on the mission to awake those who sleep, resurrect those who are spiritually dead, and by repentance toward Him and faith in Christ Jesus’ “finished work” at the Cross, the ‘dead’ can be, will be, have been “raised from spiritual death’ from the ‘slumber of the devil’ INTO THE REALITY OF THE SAVIOR’S MERCY,LOVE,&GRACE!!

Get ready! It’s going to be an interesting, awe-inspiring ‘journey’ from spiritual sleep to “awakened by the love, mercy, and grace of GoD”!! FIRST! LET’S LOOK AT THE REALITY OF GODLESS MEN/WOMEN,TEENS/CHILDREN, WHO “ARE” CAPTURED IN BIRTH BY THE REALITY OF A COVETED SIN-NATURE, ‘STRIVING’ TO “LIVE”, BUT WITHOUT HOLY GOD! GOD HAD NO DESIRE IN BIRTHING MEN WITH NO “FREE WILL” because He knew it’s consequences, “BUT THE ‘FREE WILL” OF ‘FLESH’ had to be because Holy God was not interested in seeing men & women as automatic robots”, and certainly, natural birth WAS & IS NOT “LIFE IN THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GOD”! THIS IS WHY JESUS CONFRONTED ‘REALITY’ OF THOSE SEPARATED FROM GOD WHEN HE ‘MENTIONED’ IN JOHN 1:13 ABOUT THOSE ‘BORN NOT OF SPIRITUAL BLOOD BUT OF THE WILL OF THE FLESH’, THE WILL OF FALLEN MANKIND!

IN ACTS 7:51 STEPHEN HAD BEEN CALLED BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN TO ANSWER QUESTIONS THEY HAD ABOUT HIS “OPEN CHRISTIAN WITNESS” – THEY WERE READY TO KILL HIM! HAVING BEEN THREATENED, HE SAID TO THE PUBLIC OFFICIALS & ISRAELI LEADERS, “YOU STIFFNECKED & UNCIRCUMCISED IN HEART & EARS, YOU DO ALWAYS RESIST THE HOLY SPIRIT: AS YOUR FATHERS DID, SO DO YOU.”+ (DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT “RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS” WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE SAVIOR AS LORD, BIRTHS A GREATER ‘BONDAGE’, A STRONGER ‘RELIGIOUS PRIDE’ THAT CRUCIFIED KING JESUS, & MULTIPLIES DEEPER DECEPTION & RESENTMENT OF TRUTH ABOUT “TRUSTING” WHEN THEY’RE SO DEVOTED TO THEIR ‘RELIGIOUS TRYING’, TO THE POINT THAT WHEN KING JESUS SAID, “FORSAKE ALL & FOLLOW ME”, THE UNBELIEVERS & RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS UNITED TO SEE THAT HE, JESUS, WAS CRUCIFIED ON THE CROSS, FAILING TO UNDERSTAND ‘THE CROSS’ WAS GOD’S PLAN, BUT THEIR EMBITTERED ‘RELIGIOUS HEARTS’ & SPIRITUALLY ‘BRAIN-DEAD MINDS’ ACTUALLY WAS “USED” BY HOLY GOD TO CARRY OUT HIS ETERNAL PLAN OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION” THROUGH THE SACRIFICE OF HIS OWN SON ON CALVARY’S CROSS!

THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH ! THE NATURAL MAN, UNREDEEMED CAN SIN, UNAWARE IT EXPOSES THEIR ‘SPIRITUAL DEATH’! SIN-NATURES “DO NOT NATURALLY BIRTH ‘SAINTS’, BUT BIRTHS SINNERS UNDER SATAN’S MANAGEMENT CONTROL, A LOST WORLD’S DEFENCELESS DECEIT, &, YES, THE SINNER’S ‘OPINION’ THAT ‘SIN DOESN’T PRODUCE DEATH –IT’S FUN’, BUT HOLY GOD OVERSEES & SETTLES THE ETERNAL DESTINY OF THE UNRESPONSE TO HIS LOVE & GRACE AS BEFORE HIS JUDGMENT SEAT THEY DID, DO, & WILL STAND BEFORE HIM AS HOLY GOD ISSUES FOR ALL, SINFUL OR SINLESS, WORLDLY OR HEAVENLY, PERSONAL PERSUASION OR PRINCE OF PEACE’S PRESENCE IN THE REPENTANT, REDEEMED, RECONCILED, REWARDED, & RELEASED “TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD” WHO “GO OUT TO SHARE HIS GOOD NEWS OF ETERNAL SALVATION IN & THROUGH CHRIST’S BLOOD SACRIFICE & THE FREE GIFT OF RECONCILIATION IS GRANTED”!

SECOND, LET’S EXAMINE THAT “FREE GIFT” & HOW “HE” SHOULD INSPIRE OUR DAILY WALK OF “CHRIST IN US OUR HOPE OF GLORY”! IN THE “ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS” (P183) IS A QUOTE BY ST. PATRICK (SIGERSON,tr.), THAT SAYS: “GOD’S MIGHT TO DIRECT ME, GOD’S POWER TO PROTECT ME, GOD’S WISDOM FOR LEARNING, GOD’S EYE FOR DISCERNING, GOD’S EAR FOR HEARING, GOD’S WORD FOR MY CLEARING.”

IN MICAH 7:1-7,&18-19! THE PROPHET SAID: “WOE IS ME! FOR I AM AS WHEN THEY HAVE GATHERED THE SUMMER FRUITS,AS THE GRAPE-GLEANINGS OF THE VINTAGE:THERE IS NO CLUSTER TO EAT:MY SOUL DESIRED THE FIRSTRIPE FRUIT. THE GOOD MAN IS PERISHED OUT OF THE EARTH (“THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH”!); & THERE IS NONE UPRIGHT AMONG MEN:THEY ALL LIE IN WAIT FOR BLOOD;THEY HUNT EVERY MAN HIS BROTHER WITH A NET.

THAT THEY MAY DO EVIL WITH BOTH HANDS EARNESTLY, THE PRINCE ASKS, & THE JUDGE ASKS FOR A REWARD; & THE GREAT MAN, HE UTTERS HIS MISCHIEVOUS DESIRE:SO THEY WRAP IT UP. THE BEST OF THEM IS AS A BRIER:THE MOST UPRIGHT IS SHARPER THAN A THORN HEDGE: THE DAY OF THEIR WATCHMEN & THEIR VISITATION COMES;NOW SHALL BE THEIR PERPLEXITY. TRUST YOU NOT IN A FRIEND,PUT YOU NOT CONFIDENCE IN A GUIDE:KEEP THE DOORS OF YOUR MOUTH FROM HER THAT LIES IN YOUR BOSOM.

FOR THE SON DISHONORS THE FATHER, THE DAUGHTER RISES UP AGAINST HER MOTHER, THE DAUGHTER IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER IN LAW; A MAN’S ENEMIES ARE THE MEN OF HIS OWN HOUSE. THEREFORE I WILL LOOK UNTO THE LORD; I WILL WAIT FOR THE GOD OF MY SALVATION:MY GOD WILL HEAR ME.”

THEN IN VERSES 18-19 THE PROPHET EXPLAINS! “WHO IS A GOD LIKE UNTO ‘YOU’, “HE” PARDONS INIQUITY, & PASSES BY THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE REMNANT OF “HIS” HERITAGE? HE RETAINS NOT HIS ANGER FOREVER, BECAUSE “HE” DELIGHTS IN MERCY. HE WILL TURN AGAIN, HE WILL HAVE COMPASSION UPON US;HE WILL SUBDUE OUR INIQUITIES; & HE WILL CAST ALL THEIR SINS INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.” THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA? THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA OF GOD’S FORGETFULNESS? THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS REALITY FOR SINNERS WHO REPENT & “TURN”, FULLY SURRENDERING TO CHRIST’S BLOOD ATONEMENT, HIS FORGIVENESS, & BECAUSE YOU TRULY REPENTED, HE MAKES YOUR BODY ,HEART, & SPIRIT, INTO A “NEW HABITATION” THAT BECOMES HIS TEMPLE OF EARTHLY RESIDENCE, NEVER TO LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US! GLORY!

“AWAKE YOU WHO SLEEP! ARISE FROM THE DEAD,& CHRIST JESUS WILL GIVE YOU LIGHT!” THERE MUST BE IN THE 21^ST CENTURY ANOTHER GREAT “SPIRITUAL AWAKENING” WHERE THE “LIGHT OF CHRIST JESUS IN REPENTANT, BORN-AGAIN HEARTS & MINDS” REVEALS HIS MISSION THROUGH THEM AS “WITNESSES FAITHFULLY TO NEEDY, UNSAVED, SEPARATED-FROM-GOD PEOPLE, UNREDEEMED, WHO MUST BE RECONCILED TO HIM FOR HEAVENLY GLORY TO “REST” IN THEM & THROUGH THEM, BEING HIS “HOLY TEMPLES” OF ETERNALLY ABIDING PRESENCE”!

THIRD, KNOWING CHRIST JESUS GIVES ‘LIGHT’, DOES THAT INCLUDE THE NECESSITY OF GRASPING THE UNDERSTANDING OF TRUE SPIRITUAL GROWTH & MATURITY IN HONORING CHRIST, OBEYING CHRIST, & YES SHARING CHRIST BEYOND THE FOUR WALLS OF ONE’S CHURCH? JESUS SAID IN MATTHEW 4:4 THAT, “IT IS WRITTEN, MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY (PHYSICAL) BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” SO “EATING BREAD ALONE, FOR MY ENJOYMENT & SATISFACTION”, BUT IGNORING THE STARVING, EMPTY HEARTS & MINDS OF THE “LOST”, ALIENATED FROM GOD, IN NEED OF CHRIST’S “BLOOD REDEMPTION”, BUT YOU LOCK IT & THE NEEDY IN THE SEA OF FORGETFULNESS & “LET THE WORLD AROUND YOU “GO TO HELL”?

FOURTH, AS A “FOLLOWER OF CHRIST”, ARE YOU COMMITTED, NOT ONLY TO “FAITH”, BUT ALSO “OBEDIENCE”? IF YOU’RE A “TRUE FOLLOWER” OF CHRIST, IF HE SAID & SAYS, MATTHEW 4:19, “FOLLOW ME & I WILL MAKE YOU ‘FISHERS OF MEN.’ IN PROVERBS 11:30 WE READ, “THE FRUIT OF THE RIGHTEOUS IS A TREE OF LIFE; & HE THAT WINS SOULS IS WISE.” EVEN THE PROPHET DANIEL HAD A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF THE MINISTRY OF MEN & WOMEN ‘RECONCILED TO GOD’! HE SAID, IN DANIEL 12:3, “AND THEY THAT BE WISE SHALL SHINE AS THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE FIRMAMENT; & THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, AS THE STARS FOR EVER & EVER!” TELL ME! “HOW’S YOUR TESTIMONY TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU WHO LIVE APART FROM RECONCILED TO GOD, RE-BORN, & ‘SHINING’ ON OTHERS THE PATH OF “BLOOD REDEMPTION”?

I CLOSE THIS PARTICULAR TEACHING WITH THE WORDS OF AN OLD HYMN ENTITLED “RISE UP,O MEN OF GOD”, (FOUND IN THE 1940 PUBLICATION OF “THE BROADMAN HYMNAL,” BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.). IT SAYS: “RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! HAVE DONE WITH LESSER THINGS; GIVE HEART & MIND & SOUL & STRENGTH TO SERVE THE KING OF KINGS.

RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! HIS KINGDOM TARRIES LONG; BRING IN THE DAY OF BROTHERHOOD AND END THE NIGHT OF WRONG.

RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD! THE CHURCH FOR YOU DOTH WAIT, HER STRENGTH UNEQUAL TO HER TASK; RISE UP, & MAKE HER GREAT!

LIFT HIGH THE CROSS OF CHRIST! TREAD WHERE HIS FEET HAVE TROD; AS BROTHERS OF “THE SON OF MAN”, RISE UP, O MEN OF GOD!”

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY”? IS IT ‘REAL’ FOR “YOU”? IF ‘YOU’ ARE YIELDED TO THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS, ARE “YOU” OBEDIENT OR COMPLACENT? COMPLACENT? “SATISFIED IN ONE’S SELF, UNCONCERNED ABOUT WHAT HOLY GOD HAS TO SAY,INDIFFERENT, & EVEN UNCONCERNED ABOUT GOD’S MISSION THROUGH YOU AS A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST IN BEING “HIS WITNESSES” TO UNREDEEMED, INDIFFERENT, UNCONCERNED ‘FOLKS’ ABOUT THEM BEING RECONCILED TO GOD? ARE “YOU” OBEDIENT TO THE “CALL”, “GO & SHARE THE GOSPEL!”

ONE MORE HYMN OF “CHALLENGE” FROM THE SAME OLD HYMNAL,P.187! IT’S ENTITLED, “O JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED”! IT SAYS: “O JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED TO SERVE YOU TO THE END; BE THOU FOREVER NEAR ME, MY MASTER & MY FRIEND; I SHALL NOT FEAR THE BATTLE IF YOU ARE BY MY SIDE, NOR WANDER FROM THE PATHWAY IF YOU WILL BE MY GUIDE.

O LET ME FEEL YOU NEAR ME, THE WORLD IS EVER NEAR; I SEE THE SIGHTS THAT DAZZLE, THE TEMPTING SOUNDS I HEAR:MY FOES ARE EVER NEAR ME, AROUND ME & WITHIN; BUT, JESUS, DRAW YOU NEARER, & SHIELD MY SOUL FROM SIN.

O JESUS, YOU HAVE PROMISED TO ALL WHO FOLLOW THEE THAT WHERE YOU ARE IN GLORY THERE SHALL YOUR SERVANT BE; AND, JESUS, I HAVE PROMISED TO SERVE YOU TO THE END; O GIVE ME GRACE TO FOLLOW MY MASTER & MY FRIEND.” ARE YOU A TRUE FOLLOWER OF CHRIST, AVAILABLE TO SHARE HIS LIFE, EXTEND HIS LIFE, & EXPRESS HIS LOVE TO OTHERS?

BOOK OUTLINE OR CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: “WAGES OF SIN OR GIFTS OF GOD?”

CHAPTER TWO: “FAITHLESS ASSAULTS OR FAITHFUL ASPIRATIONS?”

CHAPTER THREE: “OPTIONAL EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE, HUMAN OR DIVINE, FLESHLY OR SPIRITUAL, TEMPORARY OR ETERNAL?”

CHAPTER FOUR: “MOUNTAIN PRAYERS OR MOUNTAINOUS PRTIVILEGES?”

CHAPTER FIVE: “IT IS DONE – “IT IS FINISHED”

CHAPTER SIX: “THE ANGELIC SONGS OF THE REDEEMED”

CHAPTER SEVEN: “THE DIVINE MIRACLE OF A TRANSFORMED MIND”

CHAPTER EIGHT: “CONSIDERING A WORLD OF ABSURDITIES”

CHAPTER NINE: “FAITHFULNESS OR DISTRESSING DISGUISES?”

CHAPTER TEN: “WHEN MERCY IS MERCILESS BIRTHING FATAL FORGETFULNESS”

CHAPTER ELEVEN: “GOD AND GOVERNMENT”

CHAPTER TWELVE: “WORLD PHILOSOPHERS OR WILLFUL PROMOTION BY GOD?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “SUICIDE A SIGN OF HOPELESSNESS IN CHRIST – A SIGN OF HELPLESSNESS IN ONE’S SELF”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: “NATIONAL DAY OF REASONING OR NATIONAL AGELESS RECEPTION OF GOD’S REVELATION, REACHING OUT TO HIM, AND RESTING IN HIS BLOOD REDEMPTION”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “PRAYER BANKRUPTCY OR PRAYER BLESSINGS?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “PIERCING THE DRAGON – PIERCINGS BY HIM OR PIERCING HIM?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: “THE PRICELESS PURPOSE – A DIVINE AWAKENING NECESSITY!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: “THE CALL OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP – THE CALL TO DEATH!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN: “CHAINED” – A SUPERNATURAL AWARENESS AND BLESSING!”

CHAPTER TWENTY: “AWARENESS AND APPROPRIATION OF DIVINE CONTENTMENT!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: “FLESHLY DESIRES AND FLESHLY INTERPRETATIONS OR THE FULL COUNSEL OF GOD?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: “AMIABLE REBELS OR ANOINTED RULERS?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: “AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE MOMENT OF TRUTH?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: “AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE SHOCK OF THE DESTINY OF DECEPTION AND DELUSION!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: “AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? ENDURING THROUGH OUR FAILURES, FIRES, AND FIGHTS!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: “AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: “AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE KINGLY REIGN OF CHRIST!”

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER ONE

“WAGES OF SIN OR GIFTS OF GOD?”

The Apostle Paul was inspired by the Spirit of Holy God to write an awe-inspiring word from Him in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 when he said: “For though we walk in the flesh (As “redeemed” human beings by “the blood of the Lamb”), we do not war (in the spiritual warfare of ‘flesh’ against Spirit, deceit against Truth, or sinful nature against the divine nature) according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience (in ourselves!) when your obedience (to Jesus) is fulfilled.” What an awesome Word and serious choices the merciful God gives to us: “Our ways or His Way?”, “the ‘flesh’, or the devil’s lies, or the ‘sin-nature’s deceit’, OR Christ Jesus declaring, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but through Me”?

Are you unaware or oblivious to the eternal truth that (Romans 6:23), “the wages of sin IS DEATH, but the GIFT OF GOD is eternal life IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD”? The Apostle Paul sent a powerful, convicting word to the Ephesians when in his Ephesian epistle he wrote: [Ephesians 4:17-24],

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, (unbelievers!), in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the BLINDNESS of their heart; who, being past feeling (of anything or anyone that relates to redemption!), having given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, IF indeed you have heard of Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth IS IN JESUS (only): that you (must) put off, concerning your former conduct, ‘the old man’ (the old ‘Adam,” the old sin-nature), which GROWS corrupt because of the ‘deceitful lusts’, and BE RENEWED IN THE SPIRIT OF YOUR MIND (and heart), and that YOU PUT ON THE NEW MAN WHICH WAS CREATED ACCORDING TO GOD, in true righteousness and holiness.”

“The wages of sin”? Sin is sorrow without relief or release, but the love, grace, and mercy of God “in Christ” IS freedom from sin, with the eternal result of the fullness of His Indwelling Presence!

Sin is ‘separation from God, not an open door to Him; the ‘sin-nature’ is NOT ‘remind-full’ of divine pleasure and eternal intent, but ‘satisfying that old sin-nature’, ‘satisfying that rabid-dog nature’ of sin and death birthed by Satan himself!

Sin? It’s one’s declaration of independence from God and an insane declaration of allegiance to one’s old sin nature and separation from God without an ounce of remorse, guilt, or even awareness of separation from Him!

Sin? It’s like William Allingham’s explanation in his “Blackberries” writing: “Sin we have explained away; unluckily, the sinners stay,” because an unredeemed, ‘separated from God’ sin nature has no awareness of the gulf, the grip, the devastation of separation from Him!

Did Thomas Carlyle nail it when he said: “The deadliest sins were the consciousness of no sin.” Most unbelievers are completely unaware that their sin-nature and constant sins have separated them from God and from His love, grace, mercy, Truth, and Redemption’s plan, provision, and present ‘offering’: “The Lamb’s shed blood at Calvary in their place!”

Sin and the old sin-nature? Didn’t we read from Paul in 2 Corinthians 10 about “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God”? And be assured: Flesh effort against one’s sin nature IS nothing more than vain imagination and mind-full deception! Only Christ Jesus, through His sacrificial death in our place, delivers from one’s sin stronghold, the human heart, yes, alienated and separated from Holy God!

Your life without Christ is like an old, ancient city with high, thick, strong walls of self-sufficiency, protected by strong, self-shaped bricks, stones, and ramparts that are firmly rooted in opposition to the will, the purposes, the plan of God, and the ‘door’ to reconciliation- the ‘one door’-, determined with Sinatra, “It’s my way!”

Sin? Does the Holy Word of God declare “all unrighteousness is sin”, meaning ‘only’ the righteousness of Christ, in us, gains approval from Holy God? The prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 64:5-7, declared wisely, “You (God) meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways. You are indeed angry, for we have sinned – in these ways we continue; and we need to be saved. But we all are like an unclean thing, and all our (fleshly) righteousnesses are like filthy rags (or ‘menstrual’ cycles!); we ALL fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is no one who calls on Your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our iniquities.” So true! But only half the story!

The other half of the story? 2 Corinthians 5:21 announces: “For He (Holy God the Father) made Him (Christ Jesus the Son) who knew no sin to BE SIN FOR US, that we might become THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.”

Do you “see” the biblical significance of 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, and verses 9-10? “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 tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort WITH WHICH 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 (even if it is ‘your’ sufferings in temptations or, yes, willful sins?), because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also YOU WILL PARTAKE OF THE CONSOLATION (The Savior’s forgiveness through His shed blood for your sins?). Verses 9-10, Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and (still will, desires &) does deliver us…”!

I was reading Gil Strickland’s “Marketplace” Chaplain’s Edition, (Summer 2016). Gil is the founder of “Marketplace Ministries”, and about 60 years ago was a cheer-leader or Yell Leader at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where I was a running back and defensive safety when he “cheered” us on to some great seasons, especially when we went to the Sugar Bowl, January, 1957. One of his associates, Jason Brown, had an article entitled “Chaplain Covering”, introducing me to Martin of Tours.

His article says: “Martin of Tours was born about 316 A.D. to a pagan family in Pannonia, a Roman Province. He became a Roman soldier and one day was passing by the gates of Amiens in Gaul, today’s France, on a very bitter, winter’s day.

Martin came across a beggar who was freezing by the side of the road. Several others on horseback simply passed by without rendering assistance. Martin was MOVED WITH COMPASSION and decided to help. He took the one valuable possession he owned, his cape (his cloak ‘covering’), cut it in half with his sword and gave it to the man in need.

Later that night Martin had a dream in which he came to realize the beggar was Christ Himself. That experience impacted Martin so much he decided to follow the Christian faith and was later baptized by Bishop St.Hillary. Martin left the army to devote himself to the church and later became Bishop of Tours and even founded a monastery in Eastern Europe.”

How dramatic! Yet, many have spiritual encounters but fail in the reception of and commitment to “relationship”, yes, union with the Redeemer through repentance toward God and full faith in Christ Jesus’ “Blood Atonement” at the Cross!

I was awed when I read from Gil’s magazine “The Chaplains’ Prayer”, out of “Devotional Prayers” by Henry Thornton [Edited and Introduced by James S. Bell, Moody Press – Chicago, Ill.]. It says: “Make us patient and contented, kind and loving, humble and spiritually minded. We pray you also to make us diligent and useful in the world in which you have placed us. May we not misspend our time, nor neglect any opportunity of doing good, but be willing daily to deny ourselves, that we may more abundantly minister to the various wants of others. We ask you O Lord, to give unto each of us grace to know the several duties to which we are called, and to be both faithful and zealous in the performance of them.”

Sin and its awareness in the sinners’ hearts? Oh, sometimes there are those who have no adverse, angry reactions to the truth of their sinfulness – they’ll acknowledge it but without any concern of “rescue” from the bondage of their sinful state. Others are shocked: “I’m a sinner, I’m under the judgment of God? If I don’t repent, I’m bound for Hell?” And they begin to cry out for mercy! Still others will willfully acknowledge their sinful state, deciding, “Maybe later I’ll call for “The Great Physician” to heal my sin-sickness’, BUT, not now!”

In Matthew 18:1-11 we find “HOPE” through ‘child-like faith’, not brainless and heartless souls and sin-bound supporters of spiritual darkness! It says: At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted (‘born-again’?) and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.” Oh!

But Jesus went on: Verses 6-11, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense[denials, rejections, accusations against “blood redemption”] comes!

If your ‘hand’ or ‘foot’ causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter life lame or maimed, rather than two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.” [Wrestle with that!].

Sin? The sin-nature is death? Sin-consequence is eternal separation from God, and the eternal result of allegiance to one’s sin-nature, ‘a residence in Hell and ‘hell-fire’ forever’? I love Edwin Hubbell Chapin’s statement: [From Frank Mead’s “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, [Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey, Copyright MCMLXV],

“The worst effect of sin is within, and is manifest in poverty {spiritual poverty], and pain, and bodily defacement, but in the discrowned faculties, the unworthy love, the low ideal, the brutalized and enslaved spirit”. – And that ‘enslaved spirit’ is constantly brutalized by Satan himself, deepening, darkening, and distancing the “sinner” further and further away from Holy, Loving, Merciful, Caring God – the “sinners” only hope!

“Sin? AND ITS CONSEQUENCES”? Sin separates one from the love and mercy of God! The ‘sinner’s life’ is eternal separation from Holy God apart from “blood redemption” in Christ, eternal separation from “forgiveness” and “reconciliation”, eternal separation from His divine intent – “vessels of Holy Presence” and “vessels of Holy Purpose” and “Vessels of Holy Ghost Power” honoring, revealing, blessing through them the “Name above All Names – the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ”!

Proverbs 14:9-19 IS a powerful ‘warning’! “Fools mock at sin, but among the upright there is favor. [The ‘upright’? “Those who ‘LOOK UP’ to God with repentant hearts and faithful trust?”]. The heart knows its own bitterness, and a stranger does not share its joy (because he knows its fleeting, false joys, with no lasting fulfillment?). The house of the wicked will be overthrown, but the tent of the upright will flourish.

There is a way that “seems” right to a man (of ‘faithlessness’) but its end is the way of death. Even in laughter the heart may sorrow, and the end of mirth may be grief. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, but a good man will be satisfied from above (‘himself’).

The simple believes (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) every (revealed) word (of the ‘fallen’, even the devil himself!), but the prudent (the wise) considers well his steps (or, are they in “the footsteps of Christ alone”?). A wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, and a man of wicked intentions is hated.

The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. The evil will bow before the good, and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.”

Where do you “stand” RIGHT NOW? In the “ways” of sinners or “THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE, THAT IS IN CHRIST ALONE”? Let’s examine, research, and “rest” in “The Gifts of God”! In Luke 11:9-13 Jesus declared: “So I SAY TO YOU, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who ASKS receives, and he who SEEKS finds, and to him who KNOCKS it will be opened.

If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

In Acts 26:12-18 Paul recounted his encounter with the Resurrected Christ and Jesus’ explanation and invitation to His eternal presence, provisions, and plans for every true ‘born-again’ disciple “in Christ”! Paul said, While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, along the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me.

And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So I said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I AM Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you FOR THIS PURPOSE, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the ‘Jewish” people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins AND an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”

WHAT AN AWESOME DECLARATION! But, of course, even many “professing believers” think and state: “Well, that was for Paul, but it’s just not true of ‘all believers’!” And I say, “phony bologna”!! “In Christ”, YOU receive “forgiveness” of sins and YOU receive His “divine commission” – “I DELIVER YOU, and I SEND YOU as a minister and a witness both of the things you’ve seen and “of the things, through My Word, that I will yet reveal TO YOU!” Yes, YOU, disciple of Christ!

Do you think this is why Jesus said what He did in John 3:20-21? “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”! Is that what Paul spoke about when in Ephesians 2:10 he declared: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus FOR GOOD WORKS, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Before Christ’s ascension, in Luke 24:46-49, the Resurrected Christ said to His disciples then and now: “Thus it is written, and thus it was NECESSARY for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day, AND THAT repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And YOU are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

Forgiveness of sins! Resurrection Life NOW “in Christ”! THE divine commission! “You shall be My witnesses!” Really? How many “church-sitters” see themselves as ‘holy witnesses’ anointed by the Spirit to willfully, purposefully, faithfully, regularly, share their testimonies with others?

Do you remember “the song of the redeemed” out of Revelation 9b-10? “..For You (“LAMB OF GOD”) were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth,” – that’s where we are: on the earth, with His divine commission! “My witnesses, extending My kingdom, expressing My love, and proving My power!”

Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, reconciled to God, birthed as “new creations”, empowered by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, examining, unveiling His eternal intent through us, and, more and more, ‘leaning not to our own understanding, but in all our ways, giving Him His rightful place’ as sovereign and sure in us and through us!

Anybody who has read any of my writings the last twenty-thirty years knows that I am a ‘fan’ of Oswald Chambers and his writings in “My Utmost For His Highest”, SO, [pps. 93-94], he wrote about Proverbs 29:18, (R.V.), “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint,” or, Holman’s Study Bible, the NKJV Edition, of the same Verse, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint”, and indulge in disobedience rather than obedience to be His witnesses!

In seeking to close this first chapter, this initial chapter, I was reminded, impressed, and urged by the Holy Spirit to include 2 Peter 3:11-18 where Peter challenged disciples then and now: “Therefore, since all these things (earthly, fleshly, manly indulgences, rules, and regulations) will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, (maybe “the high, unholy thoughts of godless men”?), and the elements (of sinful intent?) WILL MELT WITH FERVENT HEAT? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, and I had to ask, “Lord, is this ‘future’, like some think, or, presently,, even in the 21^st Century, are You “dissolving what needs to be dissolved”, are You ‘melting’ what needs to be melted, and are You, with greater intensity and determination, making ‘waves’, causing ‘storms’, or simply being Yourself as the “storm-stopper”, the “Great Awakener”, the “Unceasing Redeemer”, intent on “BEING YOURSELF”?!?

That’s the Savior still being the Savior! That’s the Redeemer still being the Redeemer! That’s the Promised Messiah still coming, still witnessing, still laying down His life ‘through us’, and willfully birthing new disciples who become available ‘vessels’, and He keeps on doing what He came to do, just leaping forward to the 21^st Century, being Himself, and calling out new instruments, new players, new choruses, new “born-agains”, and anointing them in the heavenly Spirit, the Holy Word, and the eternal mission!

Yes, men of “new-birth” reality, men of residence in the Living Word, men anointed in the Spirit, many consumed with His holiness, His greatness, His majestic wonderment, with minds and hearts and wills one with the message of God’s grace, mercy, and love, dead to self but alive in Him, dead to fleshly ambitions but consumed with passion in loving and saving and delivering a ‘Hell-bent’ rebellious world, and ushering in the Kingdom of God on earth!

“GOD, HELP US IN THE 21^st CENTURY! WE NEED YOUR NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH, HERE, NOW, WHERE CHRIST REIGNS, TO YOUR HONOR, YOUR GLORY, AND YOUR PRAISE!”

CHAPTER TWO

“FAITHLESS ASSAULTS OR FAITHFUL ASPIRATIONS?”

An assault is defined as a violent attack with the intent of doing ultimate harm or serious damage, and certainly the opposition against Christ Jesus was intended to end His “assertions”, but three days after His crucifixion there was “The Resurrection”, eternally cementing the “Faithful Aspirations” of reconciliation, restoration, re-birth, and eternal recovery!

In the midst of hyperbolic exaggerations relating to “Redemptive Faith”, there are the true “soldiers of the Cross” who stand firm and faithful in the midst of humanity’s assaults against “Holy Truth”! In fact, across America today, whether in institutionalized universities or in the streets of illegal intruders or in the hearts and minds of truly ‘faithless’ people, you find a strong, vocal, demonic opposition to Eternal Truth.

Certainly you see and sense those clouds of terror, clouds of triviality, clouds of fleshly treason against the One True Living God, with God’s calling to the servants of “Faithful Aspirations” to stand firm, faithful, and fully clothed in His garments of true salvation, healing, and deliverance!

It’s the day and time and opportunity of remaining faithful in the very center of ‘faithless opposition’, living in submission and obedience to the King of kings and Lord of lords, or choosing, much like a majority of religious pretenders today, to live as consumers or confessors of religious fabrications, rather than converted and re-born in the “dress” of Eternal Truth in Christ!

Are you familiar with the word ‘pretense’? The Random House College Dictionary of 1975, by Random House,Inc., describes ‘pretense’ as “feigning, make-believe, a false show of something, insincere or false profession”, as one who professes but never possesses the reality of “new birth, born-again,” or truly “redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,” or biblical “At-One-Ment” with God Himself!

It was so interesting that my wife, Sue, shared with me, I believe, a “Facebook” post from a Dave Brat, dated February 20, 2016, about Judge Antonin Scalia, former Supreme Court justice who died sometime during the past six months to a year ago (?) – unsure. Brat said of Scalia, “He was a profound thinker with a simple faith, who urged Christians to live fearlessly.” His quote by Judge Scalia, “God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools… and He has not been disappointed…If I have brought any message today, it is this: ‘Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.’” [That’s Justice Antonin Scalia, 1936-2016.].

“Faithless Assaults” are unmerciful, untruthful, unfounded, and sadly reveal how far and to what extent unbelief blinds, corrupts, and poisons many minds and hearts. “Faithless Assaults” are the “bad fruits” of godless lives, insulated through demonic activity, and though godless lives are normal, natural, and necessary, for them, in firmly establishing godless foundations to lives, families, the ‘fellowship of the fallen’, and their futures, they live and promote boisterously, “Who needs God?”, as their declaration of independence!

A “sophisticated world” today? But my question is, ‘has it ever changed’? I hate to be the one to tell you, but it’s been a “sophisticated world” from Adam and Eve to our senseless world today in most nations and peoples with both perilous times and perilous people who firmly believe they don’t need a “savior”! Paul described fallen humanity in his day and ours when in 2 Timothy 3:1-7 he wrote:

“But know this, that in the last days [of historic Judaism] perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Just how descriptive do you find those words of ‘yesterday’ for Today? Are there “Faithless Assaults” that are operative today across this modern world? Sadly, some believers see the “gift of salvation” as the “road of deliverance” from any trouble, torment, or even testing, when our Lord clearly said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” And, in Psalm 50:15, wise David wrote of Holy God testifying to His own people, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”

“Faithless Assaults” are troubles that can lead to torments that become testings as to whether or not we live in biblical trust or simply “try your best to overcome.” I’m sure this is why Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:11-12, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.”

“Faithless Assaults”? I find Paul’s writings in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 so illuminating as to a believer’s wrestling with “thorns in the flesh.” He said, “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

But, as in Jesus’ day, so even today, He still says: Matthew 17:17, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” And you’ll remember the context: “And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour.”

Sadly, a modern-day culture thrives on faithlessness, perversity, and satisfaction with the deplorable, the darkened, the demonic, and the devil himself! What was true in Timothy’s day is just as true today when we hear Paul instructing Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:1-2, “Now the Spirit [the Holy Spirit] expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron…”

But it’s not only a modern-day culture in the world that experiences “faithless assaults” – it includes the “church-world”! In Acts 20:25-30 Paul said, “And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I KNOW THIS, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.”

And “many savage wolves” are still devouring, deceiving, and destroying human lives, both in the natural realm and the spiritual realm! Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her writing entitled “The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” [J.E.Beale, Book Department, The Fancy Fair, Bournemouthe], wrote “The Soul’s Travailling. And as I read Browning, I wondered if her heart truly broke over “the mournful breath we name our souls! (Self-spoilt!), ‘traveling vainly’ to the grave”!

Psalm 2 begins with what I personally entitled “The Realness of Rebellion.” Verses 1-3 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 His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” And the next verse 4, speaks of “The Rareness of Laughter,”, “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision;” oh, but then Verses 5-6, God speaks of “His Revelation of Compassion”, “Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion,” with Verses 7-9 upholding “The Richness of Relationship and The Declaration of Sonship” with His ‘birthed followers’! “I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.” And Holy God closed out His commissioning in Verses 10-12!

“Now therefore, be wise (“rest in His Light, His Word, His instructions”), 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 those who put their trust in Him.”

Are you aware that Christless, faithless, rebellious lives, though vocal in “faithless assaults,” will one day stand before Holy God at the Judgment Seat of Christ to give an account of their “faithless assaults”? In Romans 14:9-12 Paul wrote: “For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all attend before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us shall give account of himself to God."

In fact, in Matthew 7:21-23 the Lord Jesus declared, “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!’”

Let your world know it, let your family and friends know it, let your neighbors know it: “Accounting Day before the Lord Jesus for every human being is clearly announced: Judgment Day has come – were you one of faithless assaults or the faithful aspiration of “complete in Christ alone”?”

No more faithless assaults, but now, commitment, surrender, repentance and faith in Christ’s finished work, and our lives now offered as lives of faithful aspiration in what He did for us, in our place, suffering, bleeding, dying, then resurrected to the glory of Holy God, because death could not defeat Him, death could not destroy Him, death could not separate Him from Holy God, which, no doubt, is why Paul asked: “Death where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?”

I hate to be the one to tell you, but B.B. McKinney’s hymn, back in the 1920’s about “The Wayfaring Pilgrim” was intended for “good”, but overlooked the “Lord’s finished work” in all true, born-again, Spirit-filled, divinely-commissioned witnesses!

I’m not “poor” – I’ve been ‘enriched’ with “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ”! I’m not a “way-faring pilgrim” – I’m a “blood-bought, heavenly birthed son or daughter of the eternal family of God – now, not ‘someday’, now,” not in ‘the sweet by and by’! I’ve been ‘crowned’ and sovereignly ‘commissioned’ NOW – not when I get to heaven! It’s not ‘when I die, I drop the cross of self-denial’ – when I repent, I have already accepted ‘crucified with Christ’, finished with the “old man of sin in me” NOW, not “in the sweet by and by”!

I’ve “read my title clear” and ‘already, in Christ’, I’ve “bid farewell to every fear”, and Now, I rejoice in His “finished work”! I have been “re-born”, I have been “in-dwelt by His Resurrection Life”, I have been ‘indwelt by His Holy Spirit’, I have been anointed in His fruit, His gifting, His promises, and I live in “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ” NOW!

What did Jude write in Jude 24-25? So interesting, so illuminating, so inspiring! “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.” But especially Verse 1 where Jude said: “Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, brother of James, To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Christ Jesus.”

And I want you to know that I personally was inspired and enriched by the Holman Study Bible editors who defined in their introduction to the Book of Jude the “Circumstances of Writing”: They said, “Jude called himself ‘a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James” (v.1). The James to whom Jude referred is not the son of Zebedee. He can be ruled out of consideration because he was martyred at an early date. (Acts 12:1-2). The James to whom Jude refers to is surely the well-known leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13-21; Gal. 2:9). THIS IS SIGNIFICANT, for this James was the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3). If Jude was a brother of James, then he was also a brother of Jesus. Rather than call himself Jesus’ brother out-right, Jude chose humbly to designate himself as Christ’s servant.” What a lesson to learn, what an attitude of mind and heart to be inspired by!

Do you think it might be that, by his life choices which often may be seen as “pride”, that Jude humbled himself, desiring to be known as Jesus’ “servant” – not a human, fleshly brother?

This may be why 1 Corinthians 10:31 gets the “high-level mark” of true disciples: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” AMEN?

CHAPTER THREE

OPTIONAL EXPRESSIONS OF LIFE – HUMAN OR DIVINE, FLESHLY OR SPIRITUAL, TEMPORARY OR ETERNAL?”

A life bleak or blessed, a life scarred with sin and the old sin nature, or a life conceived by the Holy Spirit, a life trying or trusting, a life programmed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, or a life purposed, promised, and spiritually prosperous in God’s Kingdom because of “new births”, or a life experiencing, exposed to, exasperated by, encapsulated by fears, anxieties, worries, doubts or a life enraptured with, enduring, exciting, and exhilarating in the joy of Jesus’ indwelling, overcoming, victorious Resurrection Presence?

What is your life? Is it the life in Christ Jesus with a peace that passes all understanding or is it a life of spiritual death of the guilty, a life of sinful flesh to offer as best one can, or the “Life in Christ” graciously granted in victorious, overcoming, rejoicing- in- Jesus hearts with symphonic Hallelujahs and glorious praise and thanksgiving from a new-born heart?

A ‘worldly life’ sustained by physical bread alone and the best ‘fallen flesh’ has to nibble on without an ounce of true repentance or pure sustenance or purified heart and mind, void of the Holy Spirit, void of the “fruit” of heavenly love, eternal peace, and life-changing joy that never subsides, wanes, or falters, is a life, though mentally religious but never “born again”, that tries to imitate, even pretend, and attempts with all flesh has to offer, but falls short of the reality of truly transformed hearts and lives by the miracle of the “new birth”!

Do you ever consider, think about, evaluate ‘God-less –living’ as empty, self-centered, mindless, purposeless, unfulfilling, unrewarding in its long haul, or a life filled with the manifestations of Holy Presence in Christ?

Do you remember Jesus saying, “Come to Me, learn of Me, rest in Me, and you’ll find “rest” that is eternal and blessing for your soul” that truly is indescribable?

Is your life based on fleshly ‘fairy’ tales or a life blessed on the divine, eternal, revelation of the Christ of Resurrection Life, Resurrection power, and Resurrection Hope?

The enemy of the “God-Life”, the devil, deceives, entraps, blinds men to the “Christ-in-you-Life” of Holy presence, Holy purpose, and Holy power, with ‘imitation’, ‘non-redemptive,’ ‘fleshly intents alone,’ without any consideration of the miracle of “new birth,” the blessing of “Christ-in-you,” or the fulfillment of divinely-ordained, eternal intent, or sovereignly, ordained, and graciously given “Oneness” with the divine nature in and through Christ!

It was Philip James Bailey, in his “Festus, A Country Town,” who once wrote: “We live in deeds, not years; in thought (or Truth) not breath: In feelings, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Life’s but a means unto an end; that end Beginning, mean, and end of all things – God.”

What is YOUR life? “Hell’s bells” or “the Joy-Juice of Jesus’ Presence”? A fleshly flame revealing failing, futile living or the pure flame of the Eternal Son and Sun of Life within us, the Crucified, Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords?

Life is not a ladder finitely stepped – never has been, never will be – Life was extraordinarily given to give men personal choice of ‘flesh-life’ or the “Divine Life” – life without God or life in Him – not fleshly dreams, finite feelings of sensual pleasures, or faltering feelings of human successes, but a life, not of temporary thoughts of pleasure and satisfactions, but one of eternal peace, resurrection presence, and heavenly joys!

Is your life the “bondage” of your ‘old- as- ADAM’ SIN NATURE OR THE “BLESSING” of LIVING IN, BY, and FOR THE LIFE OF ANOTHER, EVEN CHRIST ALONE THE HOPE OF GLORY?

A man who lives only to satisfy his Adam’s original nature, his flesh, his old, ancient sin nature, his selfish ambitions, is a man who never discovers perfect peace in Christ, selfless surrender to the sovereignty of God, or complete liberty and freedom and desire to honor, bless, exalt, and please the Savior, the Blessed Redeemer only!?!

A life that is satisfied with ‘flesh’ (the old sin nature), that knows no ‘self-denial’, that accepts the devil’s ‘slant’ that ‘You Can Sin And Not Die, That Thinks “devotion to God” is unnecessary, that’s been deceived by the powers of darkness, that loving the world and its lust of the flesh is not evil, never submitting to the reality that THAT world of idiotic, fleshly foolishness, is fading, failing, unfulfilling, and that the lust of it is death constantly just warmed over, and is passing away into a dark abode of demon presence, insisting it’s ‘OK’ – and that’s a life ‘OVERCOMING’ ?– just not overcoming by the blood of the Lamb?

You’ve heard it: “Live while you live – satisfy the passions of your old sin nature, realize you are your own, do as you please, never silencing the demons, and you “just go to Hell” – “it’s OK” – “everybody does it”; while that’s true for the most – it’s not true for God’s redeemed, blood-bought remnant – they find the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life!

How sad that many never come to know the Life that is “in Christ”, never know the true pleasures that never fade that Jesus brings, that never experience the peace that passes all understanding, that never knows “death to self” and “Life in the Savior”, or “death to the fallen nature” and Life in the fullness of the divine nature, or the “death of bad fruit” and not the Life of “the fruit of the Spirit”!

Are you aware of the man-made philosophy that ‘best effort here’ is worthy of life in the “here-after”, that “fleshly best ensures life forever”, that “trusting is good for humanity,” even if God says trusting in Him alone is your only hope?

“Live while you live as your ‘flesh’ dictates” or “Live in Me alone” as Jesus declared? “Live while you live for the pleasures that satisfy your fleshly tendencies” or is it “Live for the purpose of honoring the God who made you, lost you, but bought you with a price, even the blood, innocent blood, of the precious Lamb of God?”

How many do you know who see “life is living it to the fullest for yourself as YOU see it for yourself,” or is it “Life is living as God desires, defines, declares, and delivers me to through a repentant heart, fully trusting and receiving forgiveness, and the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Have you ever heard it? “A man’s ingress into his own world is knowing, satisfying, and promoting himself with all due diligence”, without any consideration of the eternal purpose of God of ordination as a vessel or container of divine life and holy presence? It’s not ingress in ‘self’ but INDWELT by Resurrection Life in Christ alone!

Facts of human existence are not as Fosdick once spoke of as ‘loose types with many meanings,” but human existence was intended before time began to be habitations of Holy Presence as “temples” of a loving Lord and Savior, but many have fallen victims desiring the “Las Vegas’ residences of self-indulgence, unbelief, and fleshly rebellion”!

Can you even ‘see’ in fallen humanity the reality of “chaotic disarrangement” and “self-centered”, self-serving, cynical or godless arrangements, fleshly affirmations and loyalties, and descents into hellish, hollow, and ‘holey’ attempts at life in the flesh alone ,but wanting spiritual existence on their own terms? That’s nothing more than fragments of existence offered as one’s best but never aligning or becoming one with God’s intent! But in 2 Corinthians 4:7-15, (Is this the testimony, not simply of your existence but God’s Indwelling?),

“But we have this treasure in earthern vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed (at times), but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.”

Do you see it? Do you sense it? Have you settled it? Are you aware of it? There is the reality of one’s “best”, the “fleshly unfulfilled”, or God’s “best”, the spiritually re-born, indwelt, regenerated, Spirit-anointed, and “blessed” with the Resurrection Presence of the Living Lord, OR there is the unending evidences of the godless OR the eternal workings of Christ in the “Spirit-Man”.

Yes, there is “the sufferings of the saints” who ARE SUSTAINED BY THE SAVIOR, and who know both toughness in determination to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and at the same time are tender followers who show others the way of Redeeming grace, purpose, and power! And though most saints are “forgotten by the world”, they live “fulfilled, blessed, contented, peaceful lives in and through Christ alone”! They are prayers, prepared, and equipped by the Word and the Spirit!

Do you comprehend “fleshly lives as containers of man’s best” or “spiritual lives birthed by the Spirit as recipients and containers and vessels of God’s best, the Living Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended, reigning, and available to any repentant heart willing to be the temple of the Eternal Christ”?

In ‘fallen flesh” the “best” of human existence is only ‘variations’ and ‘shadows of the True’, but only ‘IN CHRIST’ is there the ‘victory over sin and death and emptiness and meaninglessness’, when only in the flesh is there the rewards of God’s enemy; but ‘IN CHRIST’ is the reaping and receiving of everlasting Life in Him! Christ-less lives are “oil-less lamps” with no ‘Light” that shines forth God’s glory.

Christ-less lives are ‘fragmented’ left-overs of ‘what could have been’ rather than Christ-Indwelt lives, fully revealing a God-ordained, and God-birthed Resurrection Presence!

Fleshly lives at the human-level “best” is only a cheap imitation of illumined, divine, resurrection presence of eternal life, eternal hope, and eternal fruit.

Free men? That’s not ‘freedom’ to do as one “damn well pleases”, but spiritual freedom in the Spirit to honor Christ alone! Only “in Christ” are men truly liberated to honor Holy God!

Most men, apart from God, arise each morning thinking, “What will really make ‘my day’ and ‘pump my flesh’ to historic levels?”, rather than, “What will honor God and exalt Christ through me to the world around me?”

A mortal man is only committed and satisfied in his self-complacency, his self-promotion, and his self- indulgence , but the “Christ-man” desires, longs for, driven by, and holds onto “honoring Christ alone, the hope of glory through me, as a vessel!”

Everything that promotes ‘flesh’, even ‘flesh at its best’, gives honor to the ‘old sin-nature’, turns a blind eye to the will, the Word, and purposes of Holy God, and is a clear exposure of one’s spiritual nakedness and his ‘egression’ willfully further away from God, and not his willful ‘ingression’ in Him by “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone.”

Misspent lives apart from the presence of Christ are like ‘empty glasses or vessels’ rather than residences of Christ in them as His Holy Temple!

Useless living is ‘born in sin’ with no desire to be reconciled to God, just indifferent to His Word and will, with no desire or longing or fleshly impulse to reconciliation or understanding of His Word or anything different from ‘fleshly satisfaction’ or even a thought about ‘birthed in Christ’ through repentance and faith! Yes, millions live without any desire to be “citizens of the Kingdom of God”, living consumed in promoting ‘self’ , not understanding the rebellious attitude that is the ‘death-nail’ to eternal purpose. Personal imagination and personal intent is not divine life nor divine presence nor divine power, but simply “best of the flesh” honoring “self-made men” of temporary existence, fading fame, tainted rewards, and terrible, eternal residences apart from the God who loved them, wanted them, but lost them by their lusts, their stubbornness, indifference, and mindlessness and heartlessness to His good, acceptable, and perfect will –“best effort” or “fallen flesh” is acceptable to them, and not even the Crucified and Resurrected Christ matters to them!

It’s not even ‘how long you lived’, but “in Whom you lived”, not the “best of self-effort existence in the sands of life” but “the solid foundation” of the True Rock who is Christ alone.

Do YOU fathom, do you understand, do you comprehend lives that are nothing more than ‘helpless pieces’ on “Life’s Game-board” with no submission or open door in them to the True Author of Everlasting Life, Purpose, or Divine Moves on their ‘play-boards’ of one’s earthly existence? Apart from Jesus it’s emptiness, vainness, personal game-playing – not the unveiling and revealing and revelation of Eternal Intent!

Life ‘found’ for one’s self apart from the Savior and Lord is a life guaranteed of eternal loss and one of serious desperation and consequences, but life “FOUND” in Christ for His honor, His glory, His praise, will stand eternally before Holy God, constantly reflecting, radiating, revealing Jesus’ everlasting Presence! It was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his “A Psalm of Life,” who wrote: “Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal,” but I’m not sure if he even grasped, “Life is eternal” – and it’s either ‘in your best’ or Jesus’ “Resurrection Life and Holy, Resurrected Presence”; yes, there is life that continues beyond the grave and Hell with all its demons, devil, and unbelievers, but with the “graced saints” graciously living in God’s gift of eternal life in and through Christ’s “finished work”, there IS Heaven! Yes, Jesus Only!

Any definition of ‘life’ that has no foundation under it of honoring and glorifying Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior is ‘fruitless’, even ‘hollow religions’, ‘unregenerate church members’, or ‘temples steeped with ‘hypocrites’! But Jesus IS “the Light”, and “Jesus Only” is the ONLY UNVEILING OF LIGHT within men!

Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, Promised Messiah, IS the “Life”, the “Bread of Life”, is the “Author of LIFE” and that more abundantly, IS the “gift of God” and the only door to “eternal life”, and Paul says, “To live ‘in Christ’ is to flourish, and to die ‘in Christ’ is to gain eternal Presence and an eternal home in Heaven; life apart from Christ is a ‘vapor’ that only ‘exists’, and that ‘forever’ with flesh’s author and finisher who is the devil, but ‘in Christ’ there is victorious presence that never dies, falters or fades away in insignificance, but constantly joins Heaven’s Angels in the “Hallelujah Chorus”!

Unhappy lives or even ‘happy lives’ are not “God-blessed” or “Spirit-birthed” but just Adam-seeded, sin-natured attempts at “doing one’s best” with even totally unconcerned, misinformed, or blinded allegiance to God’s purpose in their ‘creation’. Have you ever heard someone say, “The purpose of life is just be yourself to your fullest and be happy?” when God’s intent is one being through with himself, accepting God’s judgment of his/her death with Christ as his/her only hope, and rejoicing daily in His Resurrection Presence in their repentant, redeemed, reconciled to God hearts!

It was Shakespeare, in his “Macbeth”, [Act V, sc.5.1,26], who wrote: “Life…is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Did the prophet mention the one who says, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace?”

You do understand, you do comprehend, you have evaluated the consequences of “Godless-men, nations, individuals” who ‘try’ to live with “no need of God”! Leo Tolstoy was right on target when in his writing “The Kingdom of God,” (Chapter 12), he said: “The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgement and profession [and I, JFF, would add ‘confession’ and ‘acceptance’] of the Truth by each one of us.”

I like what Augustine said when he spoke, “Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves”! “The wages of (“my”) sin is death, but the ‘gift of God’ IS eternal life in and through Christ ONLY!” And as a result of receiving the “finished work of Christ AT THE CROSS,” resurrected to the King’s Presence, His Kingdom, and His witness in us and through us, He gives us graciously the “gift of the Holy Spirit,” and Romans 8:16 declares: “The Spirit (the Holy Spirit!) Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”

As a result of the amazing miracle of grace and the habitation of the Risen Christ within repentant hearts, and the recipients of the Holy Spirit “bearing witness in us and through us,” do you doubt, or just never informed and discipled to be led by the Holy Spirit? “The Spirit bears witness!” Is He “bearing witness” in you and through you?

I love Oswald Chambers’ explanation of “The Witness of the Spirit” in his amazing writings entitled, “My Utmost For His Highest.” (p.218). “We are in danger of getting the barter spirit when we come to God, wanting the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. “Why does not God reveal Himself to me?” He cannot, it is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the road as you won’t abandon absolutely to Him. Immediately you do, God witnesses to Himself. He cannot witness to you, but He witnesses instantly to His own nature in you. If you had the witness before the reality, it would end in sentimental emotion. Immediately you transact on the Redemption, and stop the impertinence of debate, God gives the witness. As soon as you abandon reasoning and argument, God witnesses to what He has done, and we are amazed at our impertinence in having kept Him waiting. If you are in debate as to whether God can deliver from sin, either let Him do it, or tell Him He cannot. Do not quote this and that person, try Matthew 11:28, – “Come unto Me.” “COME”, if you are weary and heavy laden; “ask”, if you know you are evil. (Luke 11:13).

Chambers went on to say: (p.219), “The Spirit of God witnesses to the Redemption of our Lord, He does not witness to anything else; He cannot witness to our reason. The simplicity that comes from our common-sense decisions is apt to be mistaken for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of Redemption, never to our reason. If we try to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder we are in darkness and perplexity. Fling it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give the witness.”

That’s so true “IF”! “If any man be in Christ, If any man is finished with his old life, old sin-nature, and his ‘fleshly ambitions’, willing ALL old things “are passed away,” then the “new-creation man”, indwelt by Resurrection Life in Christ, is then ready to “receive the Holy Spirit” to guide, direct, empower, and overflow in you and through you with, yes, “the gifts of the Spirit,” ready to reveal a redeemed, re-born, Spirit-filled, appointed, anointed witness to the glory and honor of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

In the old American hymnal of Robert Coleman’s, published by The Broadman Press in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1933, I came across the song By Horatuis Bonar entitled “I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say.” It says:

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, you weary one, lay down your head upon My breast.” I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and worn, and sad; I found in Him a resting-place, And He has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Behold I freely give The living water; thirsty one, Stoop down, and drink, and live.” I came to Jesus and I drank of that life-giving stream; my thirst was quenched, my soul revived, and now I live in Him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s light: Look unto Me, your morn shall rise, And all your days be bright.” I looked to Jesus and found in Him my Star, my Sun; And in that light of life I’ll walk Till all my journey’s done.”

Old man – “new man”; flesh – Spirit; the sinner’s man – His saint; the Undone – in Him a “finished work” complete in Christ lacking nothing; grit, grease, garbage, and gall – “in Christ” is grace, victorious virtue, “fresh springs”, and perfect “God-Likeness”; empty, insignificant, earthly dwelling of ‘human flesh’ – “in Christ” is eternal Life, Holy Presence, and All-Sufficient grace; ‘flesh-poverty? – how about “enriched in Him, heirs, sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, co-laborers in the Savior’s eternal, redemptive work, recipients of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessed with “amazing assurance”, divine anointings, holy callings, the natural crucified but resurrection Life amplified, Kingdom living and resident address, Kingdom presence, Kingdom power, Kingdom privileges, and Kingdom testimonies, visions and dreams, and Holy anointings in fulfilling His good and acceptable and purposeful will, citizens of the eternal Kingdom, members of the divine Family, appointees “in Christ” to the mission of world-wide “redemption” through our testimonies of “the blood of the Lamb and His Resurrection Presence in every “born-again” life! “Rise up, O men of God!”

CHAPTER FOUR

“MOUNTAIN PRAYERS – MOUNTAINOUS PRIVILEGES”

You’ll remember, no doubt, that in Luke 18:1 Jesus spoke to His disciples after the Pharisees had asked Him about the coming of the Kingdom of God, and said to them [and us!], Then He spoke a parable to them, that “MEN ALWAYS OUGHT TO PRAY AND NOT LOSE HEART, SAYING…”, and He illuminated the importance, the necessity, the faithful ‘heart-cries’ unto God, like the prayers of desperation of the widow who knew that in her life there was no hope except in the loving, caring, merciful God, who gives His kingdom-rule and presence, like “little children” who trust, lean, and depend upon Him ALONE!

Do you realize, comprehend, or discern why many “church-goers” are like many “American voters”, confused with true allegiance to “religion over relationship,” or “pretense over possession”, or a “fleshly substitute over the spiritual reality of you ‘must be born again’”, or “surrender to Christ’s Lordship”, or “yielded-ness to Resurrection Presence”?

In my Random House Collegiate Dictionary (1975, Random House Inc.), I read about “mountain-sickness” and wondered if that is illustrating many poor, praying, professing disciples of the Lord Jesus! It says: “Mountain sickness” is defined as: “a condition characterized by difficult breathing, headache, nausea etc. caused by the RAREFACTION OF THE AIR AT HIGH ALTITUDES.” “RAREFACTION? – “extremely high or elevated; lofty; exalted: rarefied thinking, understanding, or rarefied art”!!!

Have YOU ever heard that “prayer” or “the wings of prayer carrying one high and far” – even into the presence of Holy God and His Throne”? In Matthew 5:1, as Jesus saw the masses, the multitudes following Him, “He WENT UP ON A MOUNTAIN…” like, Exodus 19:3? “And Moses went UP to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, Saying…”! “Mountainous Experiences”? Mountainous experiences like “prayer”?

Several months ago I read Eric Metaxas’ book, “Miracles”, [Copyright@ 2014 by Metaxas Media,LLC], and in his ‘preface’ before his own Introduction, he quoted G.K. Chesterton, from his book “Orthodoxy”, saying: “But my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all; I believe in them upon human evidences as I do in the discovery of America.” Do I believe in the “miracles” of prayer? Just as assuredly as I believe in the historical discovery of our great nation”. Chesterton went on to say, “That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism – the abstract impossibility of a miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence – it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed.” [Would that be the “creed of self-actualization” apart from the need of any divine intervention?]. Chesterton went on: “But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartiality into certain miracles of medieval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred.”

Have YOU come to the conclusion in the 21^st Century that Holy God is still the God who hears and answers your prayers, with miracles or without one in your journey?

Oh, and then, in his “Introduction”, Eric Metaxas wrote, “Most readers will consider this volume a departure from my previous oeuvre, [ ‘the works of a writer, painter, or the like, taken as a whole,’], (Random House College Dictionary, 1975, Random House Inc.), and from my recent biographies it is certainly a departure. In fact, the subjects of those books, William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, do not seem to have had any experiences that could be described as miraculous, at least not in the sense of that word as it is used in this book. Their deeply inspiring lives – their extraordinary actions and accomplishments – were manifestly fueled by their passionate faith in the God of the Bible, yet we have no record of that God speaking to them or revealing Himself to them in any ways that would qualify for mention in a book like this SO perhaps we should let their exemplary lives stand as evidence that one can have a world-changing and even saintly life of faith without miraculous experiences,” which I too believe to be true, but not apart from the “prayer-life and ministry”, which should be the testimony of every true disciple!

In fact, please remember Christ Jesus, in Matthew 5:1, “went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him,” and He shared the blessed “Beatitudes”, but went on in Matthew 6:5-13, saying, “And WHEN YOU PRAY, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward ( what’s that? “seen of men” but not by God!). But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. [Isn’t that amazing to you? Jesus acknowledged that ‘heathen’ pray, even though with vain repetitions!]. For they THINK that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (Satan). For Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.”

Do YOU understand, grasp, and live by the inevitable, unceasing, empowering ‘heart-cry’ of the truly transformed? Psalm 145 is David’s song of prayer and praise to the Holy God of majesty and indescribable, unending, deserving worship, and never-ending availability to the humble, needy, yielded vessel of true faith and blood redemption! It says:

“I will extol You, my God, O King; And I will bless Your name forever and ever, (just not today?) (No!). Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable (Maybe even “indescribable”?). One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.

I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness. They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy.

The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. [Are YOU one of His works?]. All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, and Your saints (those “set apart” to His honor and praise!) shall bless You. They SHALL SPEAK OF THE GLORY OF YOUR KINGDOM, and talk of Your power, to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom. {Under God’s “Heaven on earth, what have YOU been waiting for, looking for, or hoping for ‘someday’ out there in “the sweet by and by”, when the Word declares His kingdom rule is for here and now in all true believers’ lives, whether they know it or not!!!}

King David went on in Verses 13-21, Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord upholds (even) all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down (ever been bowled over, bowed down by “tribulations” that Jesus said you would experience in your world, but, you realize, you know, you are not to “Lean to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him”, giving Him room to be Himself, in you and through you”! David went on:

The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in ALL HIS WAYS, gracious in ALL HIS WORKS. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and save them.

THE LORD PRESERVES ALL WHO LOVE HIM, but all the wicked He will destroy. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh shall bless His holy name forever and ever. “ { And “all flesh” praises Him forever, even if it’s while bound in Hell!}.

Psalm 145 declares: 1) The personal expression of praise and extolling God the King! Verse one.

2) It is the perennial occupation of the “redeemed”! Verse two: “Every day I will bless You, and praise Your name forever and ever.” Really?

3) It is the powerful overture of symphonic praise! Verses 3, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.”

4) It is to be a “passed-on priority”! Verse 4, “One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.”

5) It is passion for His majestic ways! Verses 5-6, “I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness.”

6) It is poured-out, overflowing, abundant declarations (even in YOUR prayer to Him, “The sacred instinct, the ‘natural’ spiritual state of one redeemed by the blood of the Lamb!”) Verses 7-9, “They shall utter the memory of Your goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness: “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.”

7) It is the inevitable heart-cry of the transformed, the royal revenue of a redeemed, regenerate heart, the holy heritage of hearts helped by Him, and the continuing, on-going, eternal ministry and thanksgiving and “hallelujahs” of the “blood-bought”, the “joint-heirs” of God “in Christ”!

Psalm 149:1-2 declares: “Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise in the assembly of saints. Let Israel (the people of God, the ‘remnant’), rejoice in their Maker; let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.”

“Mountain Prayers – Mountainous Privileges!” As Eric Metaxas started his book, early in the first chapter, (p.13), he stated, “It is vital that we do not have a “Disney” theology that only says “Believe!” – one that is ‘merely’ about childlike wonder – because if we aren’t careful with what we believe in, we will end up believing in anything”. How true!

But, at times, “professing believers” live in a ‘spiritual’ (?) state of blindness, even thoughtlessness, and often times even hyper-critical of God “for my present circumstances – where are You, God?”, and, with Metaxes, see themselves in “thoughtless gullibility on the one hand, and flippant, dismissive cynicism on the other”, while “prayers” are steeped in prayer-faithfulness, even IF it’s a long-time coming!

Are you aware of the humblest servant, the ‘least’ gifted, the unknown faithful witness of “amazing grace”, being used by Holy God to exalt, exemplify, explain, and interpret the Living Jesus through their ‘unglazed’ but “graced” walk of true discipleship? Do YOU discern, witness, and are heart-broken because of so much “pretense” apart from “faithful practice” and “faithful seeking” and “faithful proclamation and privilege of”, yes, “sharing Christ Jesus with others”? Is there such a thing as “biblical, redemptive, life-changing faith” that is “salt and light” to the unredeemed, ‘lost’, alienated and separated from God individuals, and, yes, even “dead religions” and “dying, though professing, godless nations”?

From “the mountain” our Lord and Savior was led to the Cross! Yes! “In the world you will have troubles – but, be assured, as I have overcome through prayer and faith in My Father’s finished work, even so you, trusting disciples, will walk through the valleys of the very shadows of death into the “mountainous privilege” of relationship, intimacy, blessing, and fulfillment and finishing of the redemptive work He is doing in you and through you!” Glory

B.B. McKinney, in 1929, wrote the chorus, “Over the Line”, which says, “Over the line, Over the line, Step over the line to Jesus; Out of your night, into the light, Step over the line to Jesus”; and there is “the line” between ‘darkness and light’, between ‘life or death,’ between “best efforts” and “Blessed Assurances”!

“Mountain Prayers – Mountainous Privileges”! Have you ever said: “Father-God, WHY am I here?” How profound, personal, praise-worthy, was the prayer of Christ Jesus in Matthew 6: 9-10, as He taught the disciples then and now, “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

YOUR prayers should be, must be, will be, the seeds of sowing for the ‘heart of God’ to find fertile fields through our available lives! And as Phillip Brooks once said, “Prayer is not laying hold of God’s reluctance, but (us) taking hold of God’s willingness”! Glory!

In fact, as we pray, as we search the Scriptures, as we witness the powerful testimony of our Lord and Savior, as we read dynamic testimonies of our overcoming “fathers of the faith” and “mothers of the mission” and “sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of the walk of faith”, we see “prayer-warriors” overcoming, “prayer-warriors” empowering the ‘saints’, “prayer- warriors” celebrating “the promises” and “the privileges” and even “the paths” Holy God directed them to walk upon and the fires, even, that He brought them through! Do you believe Romans 8:28 is as valid today as it was when Paul wrote it? Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that ALL THINGS work together FOR GOOD to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose,” going on to say in the very next verse that we were “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Do you remember Paul writing to the church at Colossae and us about our “Mountainous Privileges”? Colossian 1:15-23 declares, “He (Christ Jesus) IS the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. ALL THINGS WERE CREATED THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE”!

I challenge YOU to consider: “Does Christ Jesus HAVE PREEMINENCE IN YOU, IN YOUR MARRIAGE, IN YOUR FAMILY, IN YOUR BUSINESS, IN YOUR STATE, NATION, OR WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY YOUR PRAYER-MINISTRY?”

I do not know Samuel Henry Price. I came across a statement he once made, found in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” [edited & compiled by Frank S. Mead, and Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey]. He wrote: “The world is full of faces, black with anger, green with envy and red with shame, which could be made radiantly white with holiness and spirituality aglow by the transfiguring power of prayer.”

Dare I say, “enough of prayerless disciples, enough of prayerless preachers, enough of prayerless leaders wherever they reside”!?! Yet, how ‘the dark cloud of prayerlessness’ seems to ‘hang’ over lives, families, churches, states, and nations! Yes, passionate ‘pray-ers’ and prayers unleash divine willingness, not reluctance! Prayers open the “flood-gates” of divine willingness and sovereign desires and holy ambitions in lives, churches, cities, states, nations, whether political, social, or spiritual!

In Colossians 4:2-4 Paul wrote this challenging word to the Colossians and us: “Continue EARNESTLY in prayer, BEING VIGILANT in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains (imprisoned for the faith!), that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.” Is that word ‘ought”, yes, our own “holy mandate” and “sovereign commission” as “ambassadors for Christ”? Without a single doubt! Every believer, every disciple, every servant of Christ, every man, woman, child of faith, are Commissioned by Christ Himself to “pray without ceasing” and “persevere in endurance” to touch our world with sovereign grace, mercy, and love, as WE “pray them into the kingdom”!

Do you believe it? “If God created the world, and He did, can He raise the ‘spiritually dead’ to “life everlasting” in and through Christ Jesus”? Dare I tell you? Believe I will: “Faith in Christ Jesus, because of intercessory prayers, births “new-born” lives into the eternal kingdom of God in Christ, and “they” are the “pray-ers” interceding for “world redemption”! They lay hold of the horns of the altar, and they won’t let go!

CHAPTER FIVE

“IT IS DONE – IT IS FINISHED”

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”!

CHAPTER SIX

“THE ANGELIC SONGS OF THE REDEEMED”

In Psalm 91:9-16 (NASB) there is an awesome and amazing revelation about “the redeemed” and their “care-taker angels.” It says: “For you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor any plague come near your tent. For He [Holy God] WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU, TO GUARD YOU IN ALL YOUR WAYS. They will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent (dragon) you will trample down. Because he has loved me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name.

He will call upon Me, and I will rescue him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him, and let him behold My salvation.”

Has Holy God ‘given His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways? Have YOU ever experienced, been alerted to, aware of, and amazed by His “angelic presence” as the “Redeemed of God”, or just unaware of His angelic ministry?

Are you acquainted with “the heavenly hosts” that surround, stand by, and guard you, as a child of the King, in all your ways? Even though you may see yourself as a fleshly creature of mere existence, God, in His infinite wisdom, mercy, and grace, surrounds you with His ministering and caring angels.

Sadly, most men apart from Christ, are more familiar with demons than they are the caring angels of God for His children!

William Cowper, in his writing entitled “CHARITY”, (1.435), wrote: “When one holds communion with the skies Has filled his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, ‘Tis’ even as if an angel shook his wings.” HAVE YOU OBSERVED “THE SHAKING OF ANGELS’WINGS”?

I tell you, “Angels’ wings are not fiction but a taste of Holy, Heavenly Presence, with the awesome responsibility of unveiling redemptive faith, not reckless fiction! There’s an old French Proverb that once spoke of “young angel, an old devil.”

Gerald Massey, in his writing, “Ballad of Babe Christabel”, wrote: “In this dim world of clouding cares, We rarely know, till ‘wildered eyes’ See white wings lessening up the skies, The angels with us unawares.”

Don’t you think this is why Hebrews 13:2 tells us, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Are you not aware that often “the shepherds” who tend God’s flocks are not only pastors but angels?

Skakespeare, in his writing “Hamlet”, spoke of “A ministering angel shall my sister be.” Do you welcome “ministering angels”? Do you remember Mary giving birth to her first-born son? Luke 2:7-14 declares: And she gave birth to her first-born son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields, and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.

And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths, and lying in a manger.” Suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

But you are unsure about angels attending, watching over, caring for, encouraging every new-born son AND DAUGHTER OF Holy God through Christ Jesus? Religions birth demons – Jesus blesses His children with angels!

Several things we must be aware of concerning “The Angelic Songs of the Redeemed”:

FIRST, IN PSALM 91:11, WE READ IN THE BEGINNING, THAT “GOD WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU, TO GUARD YOU IN ALL YOUR WAYS.” Are you at all familiar with “green lights” or “red lights” or “yellow (caution) lights”?

If you’re a Word of God student, you know that in Hebrews 1:13-14, the author declared: “But to which of the angels has He ever said: ‘Sit at My right hand, UNTIL I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet’? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?”

In Titus 3:5-7 Paul taught Timothy and us, that “He (Christ) saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

And as “eternal insurance” caring God gives us not only His Word but His angels to see us through this dark maze of men’s and the world’s “self-imposed godlessness”!

Whether you as a true believer have heard it or not, whenever trouble comes to a son or daughter of faith, the angels sing about God’s divine protection! They sing of His abiding Presence every step you take in your walk of faith.

When trials come, the angels’ song of triumphant victory is sung, rings out, and covers you! When traps are laid by the powers of darkness, the angels sing about the door of deliverance! When the deep seas and oceans of life erupt in destructive waves by devilish powers, the angels are singing, “Peace be still!”

Can you even begin to imagine the roars of the Heavenly Chorus of Angels when the true believer takes his last breath of earthly, fleshly existence, and is then welcomed by the angelic chorus to the Heavenly Presence around the throne of God and the King of kings?

SECOND, THE ANGELIC SONG OF THE REDEEMED IS THE SONG THAT HONORS THE KING WHO STEPPED DOWN FROM HIS THRONE TO TAKE ON HUMAN FLESH, SERVE THE NEEDY, AND BLESS HIS PEOPLE IN SACRIFICIAL TESTIMONY AND GOD’S TRIUMPHANT WAY OVER SIN AND DEATH!

Do you remember Mary standing outside Jesus’ tomb weeping, and then, as she stooped and looked into the tomb where the body of Jesus had been lying, she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been lying. Then said to her, “Woman, Mary, why are you weeping?”

She said to the angels, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” Then Jesus appeared to Mary, and she initially didn’t know who the Resurrected Jesus was – she supposed Him to be a gardener! But Jesus spoke: “Mary!”

Dare I tell you, Mary grabbed Jesus and held on and in Hebrew called Him ‘Rabboni’! Graciously Jesus spoke to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brethren, and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”

John 20:21 says, “Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord, and that He said these things to her.” Do you think she may have sung “a new song”? Maybe B.B. McKinney’s “He Lives On High”? [The American Hymnal, by Robert H. Coleman, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee. 1933].

“Christ the Savior came from heaven’s glory, To redeem the lost from sin and shame; On His brow He wore the thorn-crown glory, and upon Calvary He took my blame.

He arose from death and all its sorrow, To dwell in that land of joy and love; He is coming back some glad tomorrow, and He’ll take all His children home above.

Weary soul, to Jesus come confessing, Redemption from sin He offers you; Look to Jesus and receive the blessing, there is joy and victory!

He lives on high, He lives on high, Triumphant over sin and all its stain; He lives on high, He lives on high; Someday He’s coming again.”

Yes, and He gently knocks on your heart’s door: “Open – and I will come in to sup with you, and you with Me!”

THIRD, THE ANGELIC SON OF THE REDEEMED IS THE SONG OF JOY IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ANGELS OF GOD OVER ONE SINNER WHO REPENTS.” THAT’S LUKE 15:10! A redeemed heart causes the angels to sing! A sinner transformed is the eruption of angelic hymns of praise and thanksgiving! A redeemed life is the key and the eternal note and music of angelic songs of praise and thanksgiving and the Hallelujahs of “Blessed Blood Redemption”!

Heirs of immortality, blessed with Holy Presence, are continually over-shadowed by angelic choruses of thanksgiving and praise! Recipients of Sovereign grace and mercy become the celebration ‘key-notes’ of Heaven’s Eternal Praise, Presence, and awesome angelic choruses of hymns and praise!

Psalm 34:7 declares: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.” And you’re unsure that “rescue angels” have a reason for singing?

Have you wrapped your mind, your heart, your spirit, as a redeemed child of God around Psalm 98? Do you think it just might be an angelic song about REDEMPTION? BLOOD REDEMPTION THROUGH THE MESSIAH, EMMANUEL, or “GOD WITH US”?

“O sing to the Lord a new song, For He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him.

The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the lands of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Shout joyfully to the Lord with the lyre; with the lyre and the sound of melody, With trumpets and the sound of the horn Shout before the King, the Lord.

Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and all those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains sing for joy Before the Lord; for He is coming to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”

HEAR ME!! SINGING HYMNS OF PRAISE is because redeemed sons and daughters of God join in with Heaven’s angels to exalt gratify, rejoice in, thank, and praise the King of kings and Lord of lords who came and sacrificed His life for you and me!

Again, what did Jesus tell the scribes and Pharisees about “one sinner who repents”? Luke 15:10! “I TELL YOU, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Angels sing? Angels rejoice? Angels celebrate THE “Amazing Grace” of a redeemed sinner blessed with the gift of Resurrection Life? Angels gather, angels take their trumpets, their horns of celebration, their drums of unceasing joy and blessing of God’s “new-born” sons and daughters of faith, and they sing?

Angels KNOW THE WORD OF GOD, not the flimsy reasons of pretenders and preachers, yes, many unsure of “everlasting life”? Yes, “there is joy in the presence of God over one sinner who repents.”

Angels HAVE HEARD JESUS SAY OVER AND OVER, (John 10:27-30), “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

FOURTH, THE ANGELS’ SONGS OVER THE REDEEMED ARE, SHOULD BE, MUST BE, THE CONGREGATIONAL SONG OF THE REDEEMED OF GOD’S AWESOME MERCY, OF HIS EMANCIPATING GRACE, AND HIS LIBERATING POWER TO THOSE YOU LOVE, CARE ABOUT, PRAY FOR, AND YOU CELEBRATE IN THE DEVIL’s KIDS BECOMING SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF ETERNAL FAITH AND HOPE, CELEBRATING THE “NEW COUNTENANCE” OF A REDEEMED HISBAND, OR A WANDERING WIFE BROUGHT HOME, SONS AND DAUGHTERS CAPTURED BY THE MASTER’S GRACE AND MERCY POURED OUT THROUGH LOVING PARENTS, OR THE BUSINESS ASSOCIATE ENSLAVED TO THE PASSIONS OF THE UNGODLY, FREED FROM BONDAGE TO CELEBRATE WITH YOU IN JESUS’ EVERLASTING PROMISE OF ONENESS WITH HIM, THE FAMILY OF GOD, AND WITH THE HOLY ANGELS!

Today, God calls for true heroes of saving faith, of the blood redemption through Christ’s Cross, that they be men and women whose heart’s desire is to honor their Master and Lord and Loving God and the Holy Spirit, through their awareness that Christ’s work of redemption is God’s willingness to establish the Kingdom of Heaven ON EARTH through their repentant hearts and their redeemed lives, becoming God’s gathering of born-again believers whose very lives become God’s Throne on earth, and their hearts and homes becoming “open doors” to a needy world.

Does it have to be said of You, “Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night”, because you live with a songless faith or purpose? [Job 35:10].

But what if you know “the angels’ song of TRUST”? Job 13:15, “Though He slay me, I will hope, I will trust in Him.”

HELL MAY ERUPT – BUT HEAVEN ON EARTH OVERCOMES! DEMONS MAY ROAR – BUT ANGELS AND SAINTS REJOICE. FALLEN HUMANITY, CURSED NATION,GODLESS GOVERNMENTS, may celebrate their decadence, but the redeemed of the lord and the heavenly chorus of the angels sing: “AMAZING GRACE”!!

CHAPTER SEVEN

“THE DIVINE MIRACLE OF A TRANSFORMED MIND”

I was recently reading a new book by pastor-friend, Jim Hylton, entitled “Being At Ease”, subtitled Thinking At Ease – Lessening Disease. It is a powerful, challenging, encouraging, informative read that every disciple of Christ ought to read. My son, Scott, bought the book for me and had Jim sign it with “To Farrell a special friend!” Jim Hylton, with a scripture reference, Luke 12:32, then shared Jesus speaking, “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

I’ve often wondered how many ‘pulpit pastors’ have majored on the reality of “kingdom living” through “The Divine Miracle of a Transformed Life”! Are you familiar with Romans 12:2 where Paul challenged the Roman disciples and us saying, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be [‘being’] transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

It was after the Bruce Jenner – Caitlyn Jenner diabolical disaster that Sue and I heard a psychiatrist, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, speaking about Jenner, and spoke of “the disorder of assumption” – and I’ve often wondered about how many so-called ‘Christians’ who are “pretenders” having never experienced, lived by, or taught the truth of “The Divine Miracle of a Transformed Mind,” but are, too many, ‘professors of faith’ who will someday fall into the perilous state of Hosea’s word from God when in Hosea 4:6 the prophet recorded Holy God saying, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.”

To be ‘found in Christ’ is what Jim stated as “the mystery of God” or the “secret of God”, quoting Colossians 1:26-27, [The Message Version of the Bible], “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of his or her background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you; therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple.”

But the sad reality for many, even some ‘professors of faith’, is never being possessed, owned, bought, indwelt by Christ, through repentance toward God and faith in His finished work at Calvary’s Cross, resting in “saved by grace through faith”, and being declared by God Himself as a true son or daughter of the blood redemption, but living with or contending with or conquered by the sad reality of a worldly mind with no eternal purpose, practicing mental and spiritual gymnastics apart from the thoughts and truths of God, even educational geniuses of worldly thought apart from the thoughts, truths, or mind of Holy God, or, yes, even a redeemed life with an uninformed mind or a born-again believer living on a starvation diet apart from the ‘bread,’ the ‘milk’, or the ‘meat of God’s Word’.

Pre-salvation is a state of mind and heart, void of redemptive faith, but governed by an attitude of “enemies of God”, “helpless”, “hopeless”, yet loved by God to the extent of the sacrifice of His Son on the cruel Cross that we might be redeemed through “the blood of the Lamb,’ reconciled, regenerated, restored to His eternal state and plan as sons and daughters of true redemptive faith, “sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling” (1 Corinthians 1:12), no longer enemies or pretenders or professors, but “possessors” of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope that is eternal!

In 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 Paul gloriously declared, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we thus judge: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God IN HIM.”

Are you at all familiar with Ezekial 11 as God informed the prophet and Israel and us of His “New Covenant” that was coming? Verses 19-21 declares: “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes (or My Word) and keep My judgments and do them, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord.

There’s a description in Isaiah 28:14 about scornful men in Israel who lived in deception, professing one thing, but living another, even the religious majority of Israel , living in deception with their idols, with sexual immorality, and the shedding of innocent blood as some offered their own children as bodily sacrifices in God’s Holy Temple! Isaiah 28:15 tells us of many in Israel who “made a covenant with death”, even admitting, “For we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

And in Isaiah 29: 13-16a Holy God prophetically declared for both then and now, Therefore the Lord said: “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, BUT have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder; [my son, Scott, described it as “shock and awe”!], for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.” Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord, and their works are in the dark; They say, ‘Who sees us?’ and, ‘Who knows us?’ Surely you have turned things around!” In fact, earlier in Isaiah 1:12-21, Holy God spoke:

“When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies – I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting !!! Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. IF you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword”; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. How the faithful city has become a harlot!”

What you’ve just read is a sad indictment against “pretenders” who “profess” religious loyalty but deny “blood redemption” through the sacrificial Lamb of God! It’s like Moses and Aaron confronting the Pharoah of Egypt with Pharoah saying in Verse 2, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go,” telling him, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness,’” eventually leading to Pharoah and his armies being swept away in the Sea of God’s judgment!

If you are familiar with the Psalms, you’ll remember in Psalm 1:1-2 that David described “the blessed man” who “walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night;” then stating in Verses 4-6, “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”

Psalm 2 then unveils “the realness of rebellion”, which is people plotting “vain things”, taking personal counsel against Holy God! As a result, in Verse 4-5, God describes “the rareness of personal laughter” because Holy God, yes, does and will “distress them in His deep displeasure”! Oh, but then in Verse 6, Holy God unveils “the revelation of compassion” as He sets His King on “My holy hill of Zion” called Mt. Calvary! Then, Verses 7-11, Holy God introduced “the richness of relationship”, Yes! “You are My Son, today I have begotten You,” with holy sons and daughters, “serving the Lord with fear, and rejoicing with trembling” faithfully “kissing the Son” because they no longer have any desire to experience God’s anger or perish in their self-centered ways, but long for, pursue, and rest in “the blessing” of putting their trust in Christ Jesus only!

“The Divine Miracle of a Transformed Mind”! I find Colossians 3:16 to be such a powerful word of encouragement as Paul wrote, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

How did David describe this attitude of heart and mind in Psalm 100? “Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.”

I, years ago, highlighted Psalm 34 as one’s “Lordship Ministry”, 1) Calling for a life of praise, “I will bless the Lord at all times,” 2) Calling for a life of continual seeking of Him and His will and Word, Verse 4, 3) Becoming aware of His “birthing changes”, Verse 6, as this Poor man cried out, the Lord hearing, and saving him out of all his troubles, 4) Verse 7, Awed by His release of angelic ministries, 5) Awed in Verses 15-16 by His fastened eyes and opened ears to the cries of His righteous ones, 6) Promising us deliverance, Verses 17-18, as the “righteous cry out to Him, God hearing, and God delivering them OUT OF ALL THEIR TROUBLES!” Hear me! Verse 18, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit,” 7) With a firm declaration of Lordship ministry! Verse 19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Our Lord and Savior transforms trouble into triumph, pain into praise, even ‘wars’ into righteous deliverance!

In the process of “The Miracle of a Transformed Mind”, at times the walk of a true disciple is faced with the clouds of terror, the clouds of temptations, the clouds of triviality, and, for some, the clouds of fleshly treason against the One True Living God and the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords, and even against the Holy Spirit! At the same time, God empowers His true disciples to exercise fortitude in the midst of faithless, formidable, frightening opposition! And “The Miracle of the Transformed Mind” is KNOWING there are consumers of religious fabrications or confessors of eternal Truth!

Some walk in their path of redemptive faith apart from the divine revelation and explanation of God’s eternal intent that His children of faith live, not under a man-made philosophy, but under revelation of holy truth and divine authority! In Colossians 2:1-10 Paul wrote:

“For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and YOU ARE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of all principality and power.”

How clear was Paul to the Ephesians and us, when he instructed “the saints who are in Ephesus, and [the] faithful in Christ Jesus”, testifying in the Lord, that [Ephesians 4:17-24], “you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, AND THAT YOU PUT ON THE NEW MAN which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” How awesome is that?!?

Do you understand, receive, and walk in “the new beginning”, that through Christ Jesus alone God has granted to you “a new spirit” under a “new covenant”, miraculously birthing “a new creation”, instructing us to sing to Holy God “a new song”, yes, with “shouts of joy”? The biblical command you read in the previous paragraph is: “put on the NEW MAN which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Colossians 1:6-7 declares: [NASB], “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord [or received Christ Jesus as Lord over your life], so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and NOW being built up in Him and established [or “made to stand”] in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”

If Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life”, and you are now “in Him”, are you experiencing day by day resurrection life, resurrection power, resurrection presence, and resurrection hope? Do YOU think, ‘as He is so am I’? If Jesus IS “the Light of the world”, and He now lives in you, how do you explain unfruitful works of darkness in your pilgrimage with Him? If Jesus ‘overcame’ and He lives in you, then why is there, in you, at times, the ‘overcoming spirit’ of the world of lawlessness, indifference, or ingratitude?

Or, for you, with Paul, does “the thorn in the flesh” speak to you at times? In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 the apostle alerted us, “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

“The Miracle of a Transformed Mind”? Though ‘birthed in the world with an old sin nature’, and ‘thorned in the flesh’ by the devil and demons, even ‘held captive by a godless world spirit’, the Savior came whose Name is Jesus, and the “new day” dawned for a blessed deliverance.

Though ‘birthed in bondage’ as a slave to the sin nature, blackened in mind and heart to a destructive life, void of trust in God’s eternal purpose, mankind wandered in a world of unending strife.

Though ‘best’ effort arose in place of a ‘blessed life’, humanity continued in godless strife; “I am able to do as I please” without a thought of sin’s dreaded disease – a state of mind, a darkened heart, a fleshly will that set God apart. No need of Him – we’re fit and trim, happy in sin, unaware of any consequences.”

Though ‘birthed in spiritual death’ sinners sincerely try to make sense of their emptiness, their godlessness, their imaginary happiness, even declaring for themselves that darkness is light, that self-determination is might, and that willful rebellion to Holy God is a fleshly right.

Though going through life in defense of self-will, they blind themselves to God’s holy will; and walking alone apart from divine purpose, fallen mankind walks in pride and arrogance, never knowing their spiritual emptiness and brokenness, never receiving the gift of God’s mercy and graciousness.

Though granted by God with an awesome free-will, most men in their selfishness never take time to be still; time to look inward, time to look upward, for most men is time to be selfish, time to be enslaved to the pleasures of flesh, but no time to look inward to their godless existence!

Though challenged by God and calling men out, most will relax in their sin-natures of drought, deaf ears to God and eyes that are blinded to God’s invitation and His awesome provisions – oneness with Him and His blessed intent to fill each new heart with Sovereign promises, His Holy Presence, and a heart of assent, raised from death to life, from poverty to wealth, a child of the King in His family of the blessed!

“The Miracle of a Transformed Mind”? I close with Paul’s words to the Philippians in Philippians 3:7-14, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have (fully) apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Amen?

CHAPTER EIGHT

CONSIDERING A WORLD OF ABSURDITIES

When individuals go through a God-created, God-ordained, and a God-sustained world without any consideration of His intent, desires, and pleasures, they void from their lives the awesome discovery of God-blessed lives. Without hesitation, a ‘God-less world’ is ‘a world of absurdities’!

An ‘absurdity’? The ‘Random House Collegiate Dictionary’ of 1975 defines it as “contrary to all reason, or common sense, illogical, ridiculous, untrue; absurd, ridiculous, preposterous, inconsistent with reason or common sense.” I then liked the dictionary telling me ‘preposterous’ “implies an amazing extreme of foolishness.”

That definition may be why the Holy Word of God tells us in Psalm 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

You do understand that highly distinctive people you meet in your lifetime can be superbly blessed people who look inward to themselves and their upbringing with no consideration at all of God’s divine intent or eternal purpose for His reason, desire, intent, or purpose for their existence – they just ‘journey’ in love with who they are and no consideration of “WHO” God IS! They ‘journey’ void of the awesome treasure of being “reconciled to Holy God”!

Just as sad is the person who acknowledges “God is” but has no intention of giving Him His desired place in their hearts and lives, content to make “my way in my world by my personal choice of ‘god unto myself’”!

A little more than two thousand years ago Holy God used strong, influential, political and religious figures of the day, powerful men, to bring about the awesome historical reality of the crucifixion of His Son, the Promised Messiah, not even understanding that they were ushering in His eternal plan of “blood redemption.”

Here’s God’s eternal heart: John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Superbly blessed people, endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, often “choose” in moral stupidity, to go their own way with no concern for the awesome love of God and His eternal purpose in and through His Son and the only Savior from sin and death! Multitudes turn blind eyes and deaf ears to His unchanging love and awesome sacrifice choosing recklessly to go their own way void of eternal intent and purpose.

Selfish utilization of divine intent is the “door-closer” to eternal intent of heavenly blessing! When Paul wrote Ephesians 2:10 he had been sovereignly blessed with the eternal awareness that he existed in the divine plan through the heavenly door of Resurrection Life, Resurrection power, and Resurrection purpose and intent: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Unselfish living is the “door-opener” to dynamic living of a life honoring the reality of the “Indwelling Christ”! It’s that “sentence of death daily that the Resurrected Christ may be manifested in mortal flesh.” There is not a redeemed person living void of eternal intent – every new-born believer has been “gifted” by the Holy Spirit, yes, in some dramatic way, to honor and glorify the Indwelling Christ as they willfully choose to express His love and prove His power.

In 2 Timothy 1:9-11 Paul testified about ‘the gospel according to the power of God’ that He “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, and apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.”

It should be so very clear to you that every disciple has a true, distinct, God-honoring call through Christ Jesus, their Savior, Lord, Master, and Guide to the Father’s glory. I want to major on two things in this teaching: First, Our Calling, and Second, Our Commission.

First, Our Calling. Did we just read in 2 Timothy 1: 9, that ‘the gospel according to the power of God’ is that He “saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,” which tells us of Creation, the Fall, and God’s determination of the need of “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.”

How clear do you find 2 Timothy 1:10 about “God’s own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN”, “now revealed (clearly) by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, WHO HAS ABOLISHED DEATH AND BROUGHT LIFE AND IMMORTALITY TO LIGHT THROUGH THE GOSPEL,” opening the Door to:

• Following Christ as Lord, Savior, and Master over our earthly existence, transforming fleshly life into Heavenly Presence! “Christ in you the hope of glory”! What did Jesus say to His first and all disciples after them? “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” When the Savior and Lord of life calls you it is the calling of hearing, submitting, and following His Sovereign leadership – a new door opened to touch the world around you with His love, grace, and mercy! We extend His life, express His love, and offer His power to transform others!

Paul said Christ “abolished (spiritual) death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,” and that ‘life and immortality through the gospel’ births disciples submitted to His Lordship and His eternal purpose, “I came to seek and to save that which is lost,” which results in

• Disciples who worship Him and submit to His Lordship and leadership! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but you do not do what I say?” Worship apart from submission? Worship apart from doing what He says? Worship apart from yieldedness to the divine intent of expressing His love, sharing His power, and expressing His eternal desire to reconcile all men to Himself?
• Are YOU the tree “planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither; and does what prospers and honors His Master, Lord, and Savior”?
• Examine “the fields” around you! In John 4:34-38 Jesus said: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
• Be ready, be prepared for His coming to you and for you! I often wonder if any consider regularly as they arise, “This may be my final day, hour, or breath. Am I ready to meet my Lord and Savior? Have I fulfilled all He asked of Me?” I tell you: This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Gladness or grief? Gladness or sorrow over His unfulfilled desires for your life, walk, and witness? Gladness in obedience or sadness in your failure to fulfill His calling?

SECOND, CONSIDER A WORLD OF ABSURDITIES! Did I begin this teaching emphasizing ‘a godless-world is a world of absurdities’? I said, “When individuals go through a God-created, God-ordained, and a God-sustained world without any consideration of His desires, His intent, or His pleasures, they void from their lives the awesome discovery of God-blessed lives”!

They ‘breathe’, and have no appreciation of God’s blessing – breath to them is ‘natural’, not super-natural, human without any consideration of divine intent, one’s fleshly ‘best’ without even a thought of eternal purpose, divine will, or sovereign significance!

• Consider a world of absurdities that there is willful sinfulness and no recompense! Have you never heard Romans 6:23? “For the wages of sin is death…”!

What did the Apostle Peter write in 2 Peter 2:1-22? But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;

And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked

(for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) – then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority.

They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.

But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime.

They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.

They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire’.”

Sin without recompense? That’s destructive heresy! Sin and no penalty? That’s the devil’s lie and the sinner’s reward! Sin and no judgment? That’s the destructive way of denying the word of truth and blaspheming the very Name of Christ! Sin and no consequences? Paul said under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Galatians 6:7-8, “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.”

• Consider a world of ‘profession’ but no possession. Our Lord and Savior declared 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.”

A profession but no possession! A talk but no walk of true faithfulness and submission. A song but the wrong writer, wrong theme, and wrong intent, which is ‘pumping flesh’ and strangling the Spirit! Though dressed like a sheep, they walk inwardly as ravenous wolves! That’s ‘planked eyes’ that cannot see revealed Truth! That’s lives hearing the sayings of Jesus but never does them because their ‘house of faith’ has no true foundation, and when the floods come and the winds blow and beat on that ‘empty house’ of professed faith, it falls – and great and sad and eternally lives with its reward: kinship with the devil and his demons and a condemned world of faithless people! Jesus will say, “I called, but you refused; I implored, but you ignored the call of the laid-down life; I entreated, but you retreated into your own spiritual world of ‘make-believe’ when I invited you to heaven on earth!”

• Consider a world of ‘claimed allegiances’ but with no responsibilities, accountabilities, or true devotion! To Titus Paul wrote in Titus 1:10-16, “For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.
• One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. THEY PROFESS TO KNOW GOD, BUT IN WORKS THEY DENY HIM, BEING ABOMINABLE, DISOBEDIENT, AND DISQUALIFLED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK.”

Profession is not possession! This is why in 1 Corinthians 1:1-3 Paul declared: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ THROUGH the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are SANCTIFIED IN CHRIST JESUS, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Called to be saints? That means “set apart” by God from enmity against God in the flesh to oneness in Him in the Spirit through the sacrificial death and resurrection of God’s Son and our Savior by repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross!

But, sadly, some have been deceived by the powers of darkness, that they cannot but sin until they get to Heaven one day when Jesus said, “Go and sin no more”!

I’m not surprised at all that Paul had to expose those who taught opposite of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, yes, denying the ‘doctrine which accords with godliness’, saying that they are ‘proud, knowing nothing, even believing ‘that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.’ [1 Timothy 6:3-13!].

Before Christ – alienated from God; In Christ – united with God! Before Christ – enemies of God; In Christ – one with God! Before Christ – owned, controlled, dictated to by the powers of darkness; In Christ – transformed into sons and daughters of the Holy Family of God!

Paul closed out his writing to Timothy saying in 1 Timothy 6:20, “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is called knowledge – by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.”

Some live by ‘grit’ apart from grace and receive an unbeliever’s reward rather than “blessed in and through Christ alone”! Sainthood is a life lived in continual gratitude to Holy God for His amazing love and awesome grace!

CHAPTER NINE

“ FAITHFULNESS OR DISTRESSING DISGUISES?”

I don’t know how you’ll respond to the title of this chapter because only you really know the secret chambers of your heart and mind. Why? Appearances can be deceiving; outward ‘show’ can be simply fictitious, uneventful heart-change, or a desire not to be exposed for what one really believes.

It was C.S. Lewis who once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because of it I see everything else.”

But then in a real world of life and death, success or failure, blessing and disappointment, true examples and pretenders, wise or blinded, divine fruit or diseased or dis-eased citizens, people will either “press in to Him” or fall away by their own free will.

Don’t you find it interesting, convicting, and challenging, that in Revelation 2:10b, Jesus tells us: “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”? Is it possible that some begin the walk of faith, are faithful for a period of time in what they know, and then walk away? “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Are bad turns made away from the highway of holiness that lead to ‘dead-end’ places? Does disappointment in one’s self or others mean, “I choose to be disappointed in Jesus also”? If a ‘Texas dust storm’ can restrict your vision, can a believer’s storm of doubt cast dark shadows on one’s devotion and allegiance and all-out surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords?

Oh, and hear me – can a preacher-pastor’s ‘falling away’ be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back,’ and you decide, “I want nothing more to do with ‘phony Christianity’?

In Ezekial 18:23 God spoke: “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” And whatever is opposite of the Word and the will of God and His ways is determined wicked and brings a judgment of death – and God says, “turn from YOUR ways and live!” He went on to say in verses 31-32, “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord. “Therefore turn and live!”

I know, and I assume you also know, that there are “distressing disguises”! It’s so evident by spiritual blindness, unholy hearing, willful rejection, painful indifference, yes, even deeply-wounded scars from spiritual events of the past that one holds on to, residence in a jail of unforgiveness because someone, somehow, somewhere led them down, they believe, to a place, a practice, a persuasion that didn’t line up with the desire for a ‘godly lifestyle’ but an ungodly lifestyle even when the Word declared and still declares ‘separate from sinners.’

I’m really sorry, but I do not see projected in God’s Holy Word ‘comfort’ or ‘comfortable’ or ‘pleasurable for the flesh’ in a world where Holy Truth is seen as needed to be suppressed and certainly worthless in schools, universities, or any governmental institution locally or nationally!

How dangerous is it for men of all standings, places, ranks, abilities or inabilities, education or the absence of it, to find themselves in a place they don’t feel comfortable, identifying themselves as men unreservedly sold out to Christ so they ignore the church Jesus loved and gave Himself for, going the way of “silent allegiance” when Jesus instructs us to identify ourselves as His true followers and devoted to build up, strengthen, and, yes, laboring for His church-body’s success?!? “Distressing disguises”? Are you ever confronted by those who once have known Truth and then, all of a sudden, because of multitudinous fleshly crises, the door was opened to cast doubt on the Word of God? Sadly, I’ve known men over the years who so devotedly shared God’s Holy Word, but crisis came from business, family, spiritual family, resulting in undefinable criticism, and like a wounded ‘puppy’ they crawl away from upholding Truth!

“Distressing disguises”? Are you aware of those who have been ingrained with partial truth and they profess “Peace, peace! When there is no peace”? [Jeremiah 6:14]. It’s as if the ‘gospel’ they held onto was ‘peaches and cream’ without Jesus’ word, “In the world you will have tribulation!” I would urge every disciple over the next three to four months to devote himself/herself to the four gospels and determine if Jesus ever talked about a ‘trouble-free walk of discipleship!’

“Distressing disguises”? Do you remember in the Gospel of John Jesus telling the scribes and Pharisees that denying Him was the result that they never knew the One True and Living God? In John 8:13 they told Jesus, “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.” In the eighth chapter alone Jesus told the ‘religious crowd’ about 4 times, similar to verse 21, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.”

“Distressing disguises”? I hope it doesn’t seriously offend you if I tell you that there are “sticklers” for legalism apart from God’s grace, mercy, and love! On the tablet of stone God carved out and imprinted Ten Commandments that exposed men as true ‘law-breakers’ in need of mercy, grace, and love, but deception blinded men to their true need of God because they graded by the ‘curve’, wanting acceptance by self-effort rather than acceptance through the finished work of Christ at the Cross, with God then writing His love, His law, and His liberty on a redeemed heart! How about your devotion? Is it by law or the very love of Calvary’s Cross and the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb and His present residence in Heaven at the throne of God interceding in your behalf?

“Distressing disguises”? Have you not wrapped your mind around the fact that fallen humanity is fully absorbed in the mind-set and heart-absorption of materialism, and the more one has, the nearer he/she is to God? Yet, our Lord and Savior and True Master of all of life has said, Matthew 16:24-26, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life [for himself] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

“Distressing disguises”? You’ll remember as Moses was leading Israel to the Promised Land there came a time when he went up on the mountain for an alone-time with God that became a long time – and his people became anxious.

They went to Aaron and told him, Exodus 32:1, “Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what is become of him.” Verse 4 tells us he, Aaron, received golden earrings from the people, and fashioned it with a graving tool into “a molten calf”; and the people said, “This be our gods who brought us out of the land of Egypt.” Then the end of verse 6 then tells us, “and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” God then told Moses, “your people, Moses, which you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.”

Has anything changed? What is it that has become your own ‘distressing disguise’? But reality also speaks so loud and clear as when Samuel said in I Samuel 10:19, about some in Israel, “And you have this day rejected your God, who Himself saved you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said to Him, ‘No, set a king over us!’”

At least David had the sane attitude of brokenness, repentance, and turning from that which scarred him and others so deeply. In Psalm 25:17-22 he prayed: “The troubles of my heart have enlarged; bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You.”

I’m sure you’ll remember Paul challenging the church at Corinth when he said in 2 Corinthians 6:12, “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.” And he paid a heavy price for standing in truth! He said to the Corinthians and us in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE. For when I am weak, then I am strong [in Him].”

Paul further testified in 2 Corinthians 13:4-6, “For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. 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.”

In Christ you are made to soar, not to sink; you’re a new creation in Him to live victoriously, not defeated; in Him you overcome the devil himself and his temptations, not swallowed up in a sea of denial of truth or ocean depths of drownings in deceptions opposite of Holy Revelation, Eternal Truth, and His ever-abiding presence in you!

“Distressing disguises”? I picked up again recently Mark Levin’s book entitled “LIBERTY OR TYRANNY,” sub-titled “A Conservative Manifesto.” I read it several years ago, but on the back cover of his book he had a statement of Abraham Lincoln, spoken in 1864. Lincoln said, “We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.”

Do you remember the unbelieving Pharoah of Egypt? In Exodus 5:1-2 we read, “Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharoah, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ And Pharoah 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.’”

It’s certainly not always true, but it seems, for some like Pharoah, that ‘wealth’ or ‘riches’ lead an awful lot of people to bow down in idolatry and not live in worship, praise, or thanksgiving, with adoration and submission and loyalty to the God who laid down His Son at the Cross! “That’s not MY calling!” – have you ever heard that? “I serve the Lord who blesses me,” yet the Lord God Almighty, Emmanuel (“God With Us”), Savior and Lord, Master of all of life said: Deuteronomy 30:14-20, “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, THAT YOU MAY DO IT. [“Why, YOU legalistic God! Who would want to submit to Your Word, Your will, Your way? Not me!”] See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God WILL BLESS YOU in the land which you go to possess. BUT IF YOUR HEART TURNS AWAY SO THAT YOU DO NOT HEAR [and some choose, ‘I don’t want to hear what God says!’] and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today THAT YOU SHALL SURELY PERISH; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

[And just as a reminder if you have questions about what you just read and its spiritual relevance to New Testament disciples, John 8:56 says, Jesus speaking: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”]

“Distressing disguises”! I pastored a church many years ago in which a very visible leader became involved in an adulterous relationship with another church member. In my office he denied it and assured me it never happened.

A few weeks later I received a late night call to hurry to a particular home where the police had already arrived. The church leader was in the home of his adulteress mate with an irate, almost uncontrollable husband.

The church leader had lied and then resigned his visible office in the church. I advised our church officers or deacons that this situation required church discipline, but they all said, “He’s our friend, and it won’t happen. He deserved better than having to care for a sick wife!” Within a short time, God moved our leadership role as pastor elsewhere!

When open sin is ignored it manifests itself in abundant rebellion to God’s Holy Word – I heard years later that adultery, broken marriages, and a suffering church had about died, until several pastors later God placed His man in a strong place of leadership – now, the church prospers spiritually.

“Distressing disguises”! Consider it, examine it, reflect upon it – what’s the result of half-hearted allegiance to a local body of believers, yes, the local body Jesus suffered, bled, and died for? What’s the result of the negligence of whole-heartedness; what’s the result of divided allegiance; what’s the outcome of ‘profession’ apart from possession of the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ; what’s the ‘fruit’ of a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude concerning a needy fellowship of believers?

Is it really possible that believers feel no sympathy for, devotion to, or commitment of their lives to a needy church fellowship or even comfort and healing grace to despondent saints, a battered pastor, or, yes, immature church members? But they find ‘their’ place where the crowd gathers, where the smiles abound, but in far too many living a “laid-down life” is omitted! It’s even happening today that ‘forsaking of the assembling of yourselves together’ is like an old ‘wives’ tale’ – “we don’t need the church assembling”!

I was reading Spurgeon recently. [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.15, pps. 78-79]. He said: “Is it so, that because you are yourself a member of a flourishing church, and because you enjoy all sorts of Christian privileges, you therefore harden your heart concerning dying churches and desponding saints? Do you imagine that the body can be sick, and yet you as a member of it will not suffer? I tell you, if the church of God goes aside it will be to your injury;’ if the truth of God be not preached you will be a loser; if Christian life be not vigorous you will be weakened.”…(p.80), “If you are not creating a holy warmth, the chill of sin is freezing you.”

‘Ice-berg city’ – the gathering of chilled believers! ‘Ice-berg city’ – the union place of divided allegiances! ‘Ice-berg city’ – the creeping sickness of unconscious allegiance to self-birthing of paralyzed infants who don’t know where they came from or where they are headed. The Lord Jesus said in Revelation 3:11, “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.” [It would be worth your effort and time to research about “your crown.”]

“Distressing disguises”! It was so interesting and challenging recently when in Luke 16:1-13 I read about the parable of the unjust steward. Read carefully and consider your walk as a professing disciple of Christ! Jesus also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.

So he called him and said to him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” [I pray you realize “stewardship” has much more to do in your walk than what you “give” in money!]

Then the steward said within himself, “What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.” So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Is Jesus teaching us about faithfulness in ‘little things’? Is He teaching us about money and its blessing or curse? Is He informing us about faithfulness in what belongs to another man? But now, let’s transition from “distressing disguises” to “FAITHFULNESS”! We’ve just witnessed Jesus talking about “faithfulness” in three ways. Is there more in His precious and powerful Word we should discern and apply?

It’s not difficult to grasp or understand or comprehend the subject of “faithfulness” – the battle comes when faith and faithfulness must be exercised and YOU must discern for yourself, ‘a walk of fleshly sight and its desires OR a walk of faith and faithfulness to honor the God of the Cross and the empty tomb!

I do not know or understand how a person reads or hears read Ephesians 2:4-8, 12-13, and determines to walk away from saving grace! It says: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…Verses 12-13, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH AND BY FAITH ALONE! That’s what you just read!

WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH! Examine Romans 3:19-26 very, very carefully: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Do you remember the lame man outside the temple asking alms as Peter and John were about to go in? Follow Acts 3:6-16, 19-20, 23, 26: Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them – walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God.

Then they knew that it was he who sat begging alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: ‘Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pontius Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.

But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.

Verses 19-20, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before..

Verse 23, And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people… Verse 26, To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”

WE ARE TO CONTINUE IN THE FAITH. In Acts 14:21-22 Paul was endeavoring to build a solid foundation in new disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. It says: “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND, RECEIVE, WALK IN THE WALK OF OUR HEART, MIND, SOUL, AND SPIRIT PURIFICATION BY FAITH. Acts 15:6-9 says: Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.”

WE ARE TO WALK IN THE PEACEFUL REST OF FAITH LIKE ABRAHAM. In Romans 4:1-8 we read of the faith of faithful Abraham: “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”

WE ARE TO BE EMPOWERED BY FAITH – NOT IN THE EARTHLY WISDOM OF MEN. I Corinthians 2:4-5 instructs us: Paul speaking, “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.”

WE ARE TO BE AT PEACE IN OURSELVES BECAUSE OF OUR FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS. Galatians 2:20 illumines our minds and hearts as Paul tells us: “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. Verse 21, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

WE ARE TO BE DILIGENT TO THE END BECAUSE OF OUR INHERITANCE OF GOD”S PROMISES. In Hebrews 6:11-12 we see our calling as true believers: “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

WE ARE TO BE WELL-TRAINED, PERSONALLY DISCIPLINED, AS A TRUE SOLDIER IN GOD’S ARMY, NOT GIVEN AN ‘AWOL’ SPIRIT, BUT DEVOTED TO HIM AND THE CHURCH JESUS LOVED AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR. Paul wrote young Timothy as a wise spiritual father, 2 Timothy 2:1-4, “You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

Earlier, in I Timothy 6:12, he told Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

You do understand that we serve a God and Savior who is so ever faithful to us! In Lamentations 3:22-27 Jeremiah shared both a broken heart because of Israel’s sin but also a peaceful heart and soul because He knew the faithfulness of God’s compassion:

“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: GREAT IS YOUR FAITHFULNESS!! ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!’ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.”

And I have no doubts that this is why Isaiah encourages us in Isaiah 25:1 because he knew God’s faithfulness: “O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.”

Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, His people sprout and bear His fruitfulness! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness to us, our faithfulness to Him is not to be a probability but a sure certainty! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, we don’t enlist for a seat in a church pew but a place in the front-line of a holy war! Because of our Lord’s faithfulness, we’re not to be inventers of simply religious activities but fully surrendered lives available to His presence, power, and promises to be expressed through our available lives!

It was the old “The Defender” who had this quote: “Faith is dead to doubt, dumb to discouragement, blind to impossibilities.” How true!

Off-key lives are invaded by the “Master-Tuner” and discords vanish and perfect harmonies erupt! When repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross finds a permanent home, empty barrels become the overflowing presence of His never-ending LIFE!!

Faithfulness is not a philosophy but Divine Presence, holy certainty, continual blessing, and a sacred marriage of eternal bliss!

Faithfulness is the Shining Sonlight of the resident Christ within, the evidence of God’s Holy Presence, and the certainty of the Holy Spirit’s fulfilling ministry in sons and daughters of faith.

It was B.B. McKinney who wrote the old hymn, “Have Faith In God.” “Have faith in God when your pathway is lonely, He sees and knows all the way you have trod; Never alone are the least of His children; Have faith in God, have faith in God.

Have faith in God when your prayers are unanswered, Your earnest plea He will never forget; Wait on the Lord, trust His Word and be patient; Have faith in God, He’ll answer yet.

Have faith in God in your pain and your sorrow, His heart is touched with your grief and despair; Cast all your cares and your burdens upon Him, and leave them there, oh, leave them there.

Have faith in God though all else fail about you; Have faith in God, He provides for His own; He cannot fail though all kingdoms perish, He rules, He reigns upon His throne.” AMEN?

CHAPTER TEN

“WHEN MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BIRTHING FATAL FORGETFULNESS”

I don’t know how you respond when you read a verse like Isaiah 27:11, but it does tell us our Lord is speaking of people who have “no understanding.” It then says, “Therefore He who made them WILL NOT HAVE MERCY ON THEM, and He who formed them will show them no favor.”

I love what Peter wrote about “mercy” as a heavenly inheritance when in I Peter 1:3 he said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” What did Peter call God’s mercy? ABUNDANT MERCY! But there are those upon whom He will have no mercy!

Why is that? It’s ‘fatal forgetfulness’ – mercy is not a ministry of God, an event of epoch proportions, they are interested in. Oh, they may at least on the surface be aware of the mercy of God, but it’s not a road they need to walk down – about like Solomon who said in I Kings 3:6, “You [God] have shown great mercy [Underline that! At least Solomon knew God’s mercy was great!] to Your servant David my father, because He walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.”

Solomon was saying what? “God, You’ve shown great mercy to my dad, and you were merciful giving me his throne, but as for me mercy is meaningless – merit is my ambition and I’ll earn whatever I set my mind to!” Does Solomon reflect at all on modern man today who find mercy meaningless to their existence? Look with me at Psalm 103:17-18,

“But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them.” The mercy of God is for WHO? Those who “fear Him,” to those who understand blood covenant relationship and keep it, to those who sense His commandments are to be kept! [Why do some miss ‘mercy’? “That’s salvation by works”!!]

But, sadly, many are blinded to the misery of fallen sin natures and sense no need to cry out to God for “mercy”! You’ll remember Jesus making that visit to His hometown in Mark 6:5-6 that says: “Now HE could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief…” Does that explain “mercy” as “meaningless” to some people?

Have you forgotten the Galatian dilemma? It explains tons of understanding about “when mercy is meaningless”! In Galatians 3:3 Paul asked: “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

And do you understand that meaningless mercy is not only for heathens or pagans or the self-assured – it’s for deceived masses in the borders of Christendom who substitute repentance for the rigors of personal disciplines and pats on the back of their self-sufficiency!

But…it’s not what YOU achieve but what you receive as a gift from God! It’s not what YOU earn but what you receive by His grace. It’s not a portrait you paint of yourself but the precious privileges God grants to you! It’s not “trying harder” – it’s trusting God more and more.

Deaf ears, blinded eyes, clouded senses to the nearness of God in a man’s life assign him to a meaningless existence weighed against the eternal purpose of God for one’s life. But put that up next to the story of Joseph! In Genesis 41:50-51 Joseph named his firstborn Manesseh and said: “It is because God has made me FORGET all my troubles and all my father’s household.”

But some men manufacture forgetfulness of God, establishing in their minds and hearts that “mercy is meaningless”, but God mercifully blots out our troubles, blessing us with the forgetfulness of man-made miseries and builds in us Heaven’s blessings!!

Men manufacture forgetfulness of God like a Pharoah who says in his mind and heart: Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” Men easily obliterate the memory of God because they’re bound to the god of self-rule, self-adulation, self-importance, and are comfortable in their state of godlessness and their paralysis of self-analysis!!

But God remains the same! Acts 17:24-31 says: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

In fact, in Matthew 5:45 Jesus said of Father-God: “…for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous…”

Listen to A.W. Pink in his “The Attributes of God – The Mercy of God”: “…let us note how vain is the presumptuous hope of the wicked, who, notwithstanding their continued defiance of God, nevertheless count upon His being merciful to them. How many there are who say, ‘I do not believe that God will ever cast me into Hell; He is too merciful.’ Such a hope is a viper, which if cherished in their bosoms will sting them to death. God is a God of justice as well as mercy, and He has expressly declared that He will “by no means clear the guilty,” [Exodus 34:7]. Yes, He has said, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, all the nations that forget God.”

The willful pride of blindness to God’s mercy, the fleshly forgetfulness of God’s graciousness and kindness, the soulish settling on “me, my, or mine”, deludes one into darkened, defeated, devilish, disillusioned misery with eyes, ears, minds, and hearts off of mercy, God’s mercy, into a state of despair, in which one is comfortable because he’s in control!

There are those who even unashamedly seek to defame, deny, disgrace, and seek to delude the ‘infinite efficacy of the Savior’s atoning death.’ IT WASN’T FOR THEM JESUS SUFFERED, BLED, AND DIED ON THE CROSS! Yet II Corinthians 5:15 clearly tells us: “and He [Jesus] DIED FOR ALL, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”

I was reading Spurgeon recently when he told of a man who decided to keep a ‘tame’ leopard in his home. The man had nursed it from a cub and allowed free roam in the house. The man was sleeping soundly one day when the growing cub licked his hand and it licked a cut where the blood was still seeping…and all the jungle instincts kicked in and the beast began to feed…awakened, the man knew he was in trouble – a life or death situation was before him and he knew it was his life or the leopard’s life.

There was a loaded pistol beside the couch and without hesitation he aimed it at the hungry leopard and killed it!….Whether you believe it or not the leopard of sin, rebellion, disobedience, unbelief, is out to drain your blood – give up your precious leopard of lust, livid sin, furious fleshly instincts – leave them at the Cross where Jesus willingly and gladly took them and yourself upon Himself and willingly laid down His Life for you!! Jesus killed your leopard sin-nature!

I know it’s so hard for prideful men and women to admit the bankruptcy of their births; it is so hard for some and so easy for others to acknowledge high treason against Holy God. In fallen man there are no glamorous genes or heavenly glories or personal worthiness that merits the favor of God!

There’s an amazing confession of King David in 2 Samuel 7:18-22! Hear it:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: ‘Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And yet this was a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God; and You have also spoken of Your servant’s house for a great while to come. Is this the manner of man, O Lord God? Now what more can David say to You? For You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, You have done all these things, to make Your servant know them. Therefore, You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” I ask you: ARE YOU LISTENING TO GOD?

And before you came to faith in Christ, I’m sure you wondered like David: “Who am I, O Lord God, that You’ve shown me YOUR MERCY?” Without faith in God, mercy is meaningless to many. Without Holy Spirit conviction, mercy is a futile term. Without the historic crucifixion of Christ, mercy is an insignificant, unimportant eternal truth.

But for those who know “the narrow way that leads to life,” they understand deliverance from the pit of destruction; they are aware of God’s lifting them up out of the miry clay of sin and deceitfulness; they clearly grasp freedom from a prison of sin, selfishness, and self-importance apart from God; they rejoice that God’s mercy is His eternal heavenly light, leading them out of the darkness of Egyptian bondage of sin, separation from His “Holy Land,” and the silence of the lightning bolts of eternal revelation and purpose. They know God has shown them HIS MERCY!

But still, for me, there rages an ever-building question, repeated often: “Why, for some, is mercy so meaningless? Why does intentional forgetfulness of God’s mercy dominate so many lives?” WHY?

FIRST, BECAUSE SOME WILL ACCEPT MERCY IF THERE’S NO CALL UPON THEIR LIVES TO WALK MERCIFULLY WITH OTHERS! In Micah 6:8 there is an illuminating verse that reveals why some miss God’s mercy. It says: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

How does one ‘do justice’ when he/she could care less about others? How does one ‘love mercy’ when he/she is so merciless toward others? How does one ‘walk humbly with God’ when they’re so proud and so self-sufficient, void of the need of God to be God in and over their lives?

Come to Matthew 18:23-35 which is such an eye-opening, heart-convicting story that calls for examination of ourselves, yes, testing ourselves to see if we’re truly of the Faith and the faithful: “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. [Before inflation that was about $18 million dollars!!].But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had,, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave the debt. But [THEN] that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; [about $18] and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt [$18 million!!] because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry; and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

What does Luke 1:50 tell us? “And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.” It’s why in 2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul wrote: “Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men…” Proverbs 1:7 tells us: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…”

Come to Proverbs 14:26-27. “In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death.” Beside this passage I wrote in my Bible the following statement – I don’t remember if I wrote it or it was a quote, but the sentence says: “Even what one likes, that is not necessarily evil, can become an entrapment of death, like cheese in a mouse-trap.”

Here is Jesus’ amazing challenge to those who believe or border on mercy being meaningless for them and hold no fear of God – Matthew 11:25-28 – At that time Jesus answered and said, “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. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

SECOND, FOR SOME MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THEY DENY SIN, CONCEAL SIN, EXCUSE SIN, OR ACCEPTING THEIR SINFUL STATE BEFORE HOLY GOD AS NORMAL OR NATURAL! But look at Proverbs 28:13!! “He who conceals his sins [transgressions, wrongs, violations of God’s laws] does not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes and renounces his sin finds mercy.”

Do you remember John’s word in I John 1:7? “But if we walk in the light as He [Jesus] is in the light…the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” I love what Oswald Chambers said about the truly conscious awareness of sin in a person: “The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me.”

Concealment is a covering and convincing of one’s self that sin may be a problem for others but not for the deceived mind. And because of that there are God-sent, God-mandated, even God-initiated consequences in one’s life – like an empty prosperity that never satisfies, like a barking, biting dog in the inner man that never quits or quiets down, like a rich man who loses all his monies because the bank within him is bankrupt, like a criminal who believes he’ll never be caught but lives every moment expecting arrest and final judgment!

I love the call of God on our lives as true believers as expressed by Paul in Galatians 6:1-2 [NIV], “Brothers, if a man is trapped in some sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself; you may also be tempted…Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.”

Listen to John Piper in his book, “A Godward Life,” [p.77], “Don’t be muzzled by the comment that you can’t force your religion or morality on others. You are not forcing it; you are commending it for serious consideration. Declaring and persuading are not forcing. Commending is not coercion. The fact is this: Everybody’s idea about what should be done is guided by some kind of prior commitment. Secularists as well as Christians have a world-view that governs their opinions. Every policy suggestion is rooted in view of how things should be.”

Exposing sin is merciful. Exposing sin is an act of grace. Challenging sinners with the claims of Christ builds foundations of possible super-structures in the new lives He can birth and bless!

THIRD, FOR SOME MERCY IS MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THEY’VE NEVER BEEN CONFRONTED WITH GOD’S CLAIMS OF JUDGMENT. I want you to come to Nahum 1:2-8. “God is jealous, and the Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts. The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at His presence, Yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him. But with an overflowing flood He will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue His enemies.”

Two things that are easily discernible here: 1) God is ‘slow to anger,’ and 2) God “will not at all acquit the wicked.”

In Spurgeon’s Sermons, his “Memorial Library,” the great English preacher preached on the verses we just read. Hear Spurgeon: “God ‘will not acquit the wicked.’ Let me unfold this, first of all; and then let me, after that, endeavor to trace it also to its source: God ‘will not acquit the wicked.’ How do I prove this? I prove it by this. Never once has God pardoned our unpunished sin; not in all the years of the Most High, not in all the days of His right hand, has He once blotted out sin without punishment. What say you, were not those in heaven pardoned? Are there not many transgressors pardoned, and do they not escape without punishment? Has He not said, ‘I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your iniquities?’ Yes, true, most true, and yet my assertion is true also – not one of all those sins that have been pardoned were pardoned without punishment! Do you ask me why and how such a thing as that can be the truth? I point you to a dreadful sight on Calvary; the punishment which fell not on the forgiven sinner fell there. The cloud of justice was charged with fiery hell; the sinner deserved it; it fell on him; but, for all that, it fell, and spent its fury; it fell there, in that great reservoir of misery; it fell into the Savior’s heart…It is Jesus suffering all the plagues of sin. Sin is still punished, though the sinner is delivered.”

It was Orin Philip Gifford who said: “You may juggle human laws, you may fool with human courts, but there is a judgment to come, and from it there is no appeal.” I pray you find God’s court of mercy, because in His court of judgment, Daniel 5:27 says: “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting.”

I want you to be confronted with God’s claim of judgment. In Jeremiah 5:3 Jeremiah asked the Lord, “O Lord, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.”

Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.”

Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you sense it right now for yourself? GOD DESIRES TO GIVE YOU “THE SURE MERCIES OF DAVID.” [Acts 13:34]. SURE MERCIES ARE REDEMPTIVE – God bought you out of slavery to sin that you might be servants of Christ.

SURE MERCIES ARE REGENERATIVE – God takes you out of spiritual death unto His ETERNAL LIFE.

SURE MERCIES ARE REFLECTIVE – we see no longer a man in his bondage and brokenness – we see Christ in His fullness.

SURE MERCIES ARE RESPONSIVE – in Jeremiah 29:11 God says: “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.”

Hear me! Jeremiah 31:3 says: “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”

And I say to you: Sense His tug, surrender to His Sovereignty, and side with our Savior and Lord!!

You may have denied it – but today is the day to side with Sovereign Mercy! It was Edwin Hubbell Chapin who wrote: “Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars – not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. It is the light that hovers above the judgment seat.”

This is why David came to say in Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

In the old Broadman Hymnal there is a song simply entitled “Calvary”. It says: “On Calvary’s brow my Savior died, It was there my Lord was crucified; it was on the cross He bled for me, and purchased there my pardon free…

‘Mid rending rocks and darkening skies My Savior bows His head and dies; The opening veil reveals the way To heaven’s joys and endless day…

O Jesus, Lord, how can it be That You should give Your life for me, To bear the cross and agony In that dread hour on Calvary!

O Calvary! Dark Calvary! Where Jesus shed His blood for me; O Calvary! Blest Calvary! It was there my Savior died for me!”

Do you grasp it when to you mercy has been meaningless? If you were the only person to have ever lived – past, present, future – what Jesus did 2000 years ago At Calvary, He did it just for you!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the never-ending care of God for each of us!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the measure of God’s forgiving, never-ending love!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the reality of God’s remedy of a godless life!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the explanation of God’s possession of the land of our souls and spirits!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is not man trying harder but hearing Christ say: “It is finished” as He died on Calvary’s cross!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the voice of God saying to a praying man: “Your prayer has been heard” [Luke 1:13].

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the stepping stone into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the open door into Holy Presence!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is God’s remedy for a man paralyzed by his past!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the healing grace of spiritual amnesia, fleshly blindness, and a darkened heart!

Mercy is not meaningless – mercy is the divine healing of a hurtful, harmful, hideous past!

In closing this teaching, please come to Luke 18:9-14, And He []Jesus] spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“ GOD AND GOVERNMENT?”

Fast approaching my 89^th birthday as of June 12, 2016, I’m disturbed to see a nation and people founded, yes, by God Himself as “one nation under God” but fast becoming, especially among leadership nation-wide as a nation by the people, of the people, and for the people – and, as in life, so in governments, the absence of God releases men to their own control, their own godless philosophies, their own reckless abandonment of “self, ‘my way or the highway,’ and certainly ‘less God because I want to govern myself, my family, my city as I damn well please’”, which reveals a people and nation on the fast road to fleshly decline!

To them, spiritual government is not ‘the American way’! Really? And, of course, they want the Holy Word of God out of government, out of schools and universities, out of homes and families and their own minds, and less and less and less of local and state over-sight – “Who or what government needs the advice or counsel of what some call Holy God, our Creator, Lord, Savior, and Master, because we can govern ourselves as we please, which to us means: keep the Bible out of our public domain and ways of godless living; He has no place telling us what we individually or as families, schools, businesses, or governments ought to be doing!”

It was King David, ruling over Israel by the grace of God, who, in Psalm 67:1-4, wrote: “God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us, That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You. Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations on earth.”

But do you hear a ‘modern-society’ saying more and more: “God is not necessary in our governments, politically, morally, spiritually, individually or corporately – leave God out of our governments and out of our schools, out of our lives!” Oh, and they mean it – “To us, God has no place in our affairs because ‘good government’ (?) is allowing us to do as we please!”, which means: “less Faith, less guidance, less watch-care, less protection, less blessing of God, less Sovereign-Rule, less divine love, less of His omnipotence and more of our impotence – with many of the warped opinion that, ‘yes, we’re smarter then God Himself’!”

I know that the people of our formerly ‘great nation’ have set aside any “fear of God”. But Psalm 25:12-15 tells us, King David speaking, “Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses. He himself shall dwell in prosperity, and his descendants shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.”

A “net of Godless rule” is a strong, powerful net that wraps itself around people so powerfully that they end up with spiritual curses, spiritual bankruptcy, spiritual ignorance, and a spiritual destiny they really should not desire. Numbers 22:31-34 is a wake-up call for some people, but, sadly, many national, state, and local leaders have plotted their course, omitting God, His Word and His will.

In Numbers 22:31-35 we read, Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face. “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to stand against you, because ‘your way’ is perverse before Me. The donkey saw Me and turned aside from Me these three times. If she had not turned aside from Me, surely I would also killed you by now, and let her live.” And Balaam said to the Angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know You stood in the way against me. Now therefore, if it displeases You, I will turn back.”

Do you sense today in America, in Texas, in the Bedford, Texas, area a political climate that is, by some, “perverse before Me”, Holy God, the Founder of government to be Sovereignly ruled by Him – not proud, fleshly, independent of and separate from His Holy Word, wiser than God men and women?

How clear are you about Peter’s words in 2 Peter 1:2-4 that so relates to God’s people as His instruments impacting ‘godless governments’ and lives in every community? Peter wrote:

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

Isn’t it a shameful position that some take, “Keep God and His Word and Truth out of OUR governments – we’ll take care of ourselves in our own way!”

But then, there are those with Peter’s wisdom and understanding! 2 Peter 1:10-11, “Therefore, brethren, [true sons and daughters of the Eternal Faith!], be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

You hear it in all political elections: “No God in our government – we do it our way, man’s way, the way of godlessness, and the way of fleshly compromises, alienating God and Truth from us!” Destructive heresies will seek to gain control, keep control, and hold onto man’s control and ways without heeding the Holy Word! “Alienate Truth and promote ‘our way’, which is the absence of God in our governments!”

Didn’t Peter go on to say in 2 Peter 2:19, “While they promise them ‘liberty’ [from being governed by God or His Truth!], they themselves are slaves of corruption, for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage;” Verse 22, But it has happened [does happen, will happen!] to them according to a true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

Are you aware of how many “professing believers”, having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, find themselves easily entangled again in them and overcome, [that their] latter end is worse for them than the beginning?

In 2 Peter 2:21 the servant of God tells us: “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.”

Now? Prayerful intercession that Holy God, once again, will teach men, political leaders, “the way in which God chooses” – not their supposed “grass-roots” electorate! Accounting Day does come before Holy God at the Judgment Seat for, yes, their ‘political decisions’ (?)! So, newly elected politicians: Will YOU be led by Holy God and His Eternal Word?

CHAPTER TWELVE

“WORLD PHILOSOPHERS OR WILLFUL PROMOTION BY GOD”

There’s an interesting couple of verses for you to examine carefully as you look at Psalm 75:6-7 where the psalmist says: “For promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge; He puts down one, and sets up another.”

In Psalm 147:6 it speaks of God’s Word AND His providence: “The Lord lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground.” All world philosophers are not “wicked,” but the majority are “too smart in themselves” to ever see God as necessary in their lives!

Didn’t Paul tell us 2000 years ago, in Colossians 2:8, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”?

Acts 17:16-21 is about philosophical “new things” in opposition to the Eternal Truths of God. Follow it: Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit provoked him when he saw that the city was given over to idols…

Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there…

Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection…

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”

For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

And if you follow it carefully, you’ll discern that ‘world philosophies’ are devotion to “wise things” that really have nothing to do with the heart – it’s all mental and divorced from the spiritual nature of fallen men!

Participants in world culture of which we all are a part does not mean we deny Him but affirm, surrender, and yield to our Lord and Savior who IS the King of kings and Lord of lords! It doesn’t mean we’re “not at home” unless we sell our souls as the majority of the world, but we recognize our “worldly home” is in need of God’s grace, mercy, and love.

World philosophers or willful promotion by God Himself! Read carefully Oswald Chambers in his writing, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [pps.175-176], “Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mount of God. If you don’t obey the light, it will turn into darkness. ‘If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is the darkness!’ The second you waive the question of sanctification [ it means: ‘set apart to the glory of God only’!] or any other thing upon which God gives you light, you begin to get dry rot in your spiritual life. Continually bring the truth out into actuality; work it out in every domain, or the very light you have will prove a curse…The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the smug satisfaction of an experience to which he can refer back, but who is not working it out in practical life. If you “say” you are sanctified, “show it.”… Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent”! What’s that? What pleases me and doesn’t line up with the Spirit of God who sacrificed His all!

World ‘philosophers’ are so adept at convincing people that belief, trust, repentance and faith in Holy God is so unnecessary for the ‘smart folks’ – yet the educated crowd can center their lives in the darkest darkness and call it ‘light’!

It doesn’t take long to discover the worldly, self-righteous individual, or the ‘professor’ of self-satisfaction – and if you stay around them very long you sense a spirit of discontent with all they know and an uncertainty of mind as unbelief always brings on fractures in what they really think.

So often when the Holy Word and the convicting Holy Spirit is shared with a world philosopher, you’ll see and sense degrees of dismay in many because they’re on the threshold of discovering their lost condition and separation from God!

In life as a believer, transformed by the mercy and grace and love of God, aren’t you shocked at times when you see the worldly crowd comfortably seated at a worldly table, easily laughing at any worldly, dirty joke, when in the innermost heart is a person at war with Holy God, embittered by their own set of circumstances, AND WILL NOT LOOK UP TO THE CARING THRONE OF GOD AT THE GOD OF CALVARY’S CROSS?!?

Psalm 4:2 says, “How long, O you sons of men, will you turn My glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood?” You realize there are “sons of men” and there are “sons of God”! You understand that there are those whose hearts are cemented in ‘earthly, fleshly values’ that are worthless in comparison to the heavenly treasures that increase in worth and blessing and true enrichment more and more!

In 2 Corinthians 4:1-4 Paul lifts the worldly veil that blinds or hinders true spiritual understanding of the gospel of Christ. He wrote: “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart…

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God…

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.”

And that will break your heart if it hasn’t already because there are those whom you know whose hearts are ‘veiled’ to truth and whose minds are ‘blinded’ by the god of this age – they at least feel comfortable in their spiritual state of lostness because they are not alone; tragically, they’re blinded to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, not knowing they reflect the darkness of the devil himself!

“World philosophers”? It was Paul in Colossians 3:2 who said, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” And because you received the death of Christ and your crucifixion with Him, and you died with the result that your life is now hidden with Christ IN GOD, verse 5, “therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

An ‘idol worshipper’? That’s the worldly ‘dude’ who has saved his life for himself because he loves the world and all that it offers, not God! I know that you are not totally ‘brain-dead’ because you look at our world today and you witness ‘civilization catastrophes’ that grow more corrupt and, yes, ‘sinful’ world-wide!

“World philosophers” certainly major on ‘riches’ any way you can get it! But they are void of understanding about what ‘great gain’ is all about. In I Timothy 6:6-10 Paul advised his spiritual son, saying: “Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out…

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition…

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” When did that change?

I believe when the author of Proverbs 14:24 spoke of “the crown of the wise”, he certainly was not speaking of “the crown of life” or “the crown of glory” because wisdom apart from God’s wisdom and revelations is a false righteousness that does not lead to repentance and true faith. It says: “The crown of the wise is their riches, but the foolishness of fools is folly.”

In Proverbs 1:28-33 the ‘wise-man’, inspired by God Himself, gives us ALL a word of warning: “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord…

They would [have] none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof… Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices… For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them…

But whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.”

“World Philosophers or Willful Promotion By God?” Oh, I tell you, God’s Word is so rich and man’s worldly philosophies are so bankrupt! Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Led by the world or led by God Himself?

What did Paul say in II Corinthians 4:3-5? “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age [the devil] 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. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.”

Willful promotion by God? Bound in the flesh to the world philosophies, ideals, earthly gains, human pride in self-effort, but freed in Christ to divine life, eternal principles, heavenly blessings, holy privilege in sharing God’s faithful provisions, joy in the Lord forever not fleshly happiness, and a crown of glory and rejoicing that does not fade away, with an eternal family under the Fatherhood of God and His Sovereignty!

Willful promotion by God? We’re no longer “slaves of Satan” bound in satanic chains – in Christ we’re “sons and daughters of God” in the Heavenly Family! We’re no longer ‘flavorless’ but we’re the salt of the earth! We’re no longer ‘darkness’ – we’re light in the Lord! We’re no longer empty in the inner man, but filled with the Holy Presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!

We’re no longer of the unrighteous descendants but men and women who through repentance and faith in Christ have been declared righteous in the very righteousness of God imparted and implanted in our washed vessel of trust in Him! We’re not the “happy hour” crowd – we’re the eternally blessed members of the Royal Family of God! Our identity is no longer slaves of Satan, but now the very children of Holy God! We’re not ‘impersonaters’ of our Lord and Savior, but possessors of His Resurrection Life, “vessels of the Victor”!

We’re not distant stars blinking in the darkened nights of men’s souls but “lights” on a hill that cannot be hidden.

Robert Browning, in “Paracelsus”, wrote: “If I stoop, Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp close to my breast; its splendor soon or late Will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day.” And even when destiny brings us temporarily to a “dark tremendous sea of cloud,” WE WILL EMERGE BRIGHTER THAN EVER BEFORE!

We’re sons and daughters of God’s eternal faith, and though doubt, at times, will try to rob us of light’s glow and meaning, and even when I find myself in my darkest moment as a follower, I choose to rest in Him!

I found it so interesting that the agnostic or atheist, Robert Ingersoll, at his brother’s funeral, spoke and said: “From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death, Hope sees a star, [but for him it was not the Bright and Morning Star whose name is Jesus!] and listening Love can hear the rustle of a wing.” Oh, that somehow he learned of the Love of God but I doubt he ever did!

If God gave you “existence”, did He do so apart from eternal purpose? Of course not! His one beckoning call is, “Be reconciled to God,” and in that ministry of reconciliation, the blood of Jesus takes center-stage, first place, the only door through which we can walk into the presence of God! It’s why in Matthew 5:8 Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.”

It was Thomas a’ Kempis who said: “Simplicity reaches out after God; purity discovers and enjoys Him.”

I so appreciate Noah Webster’s description of ‘providence’ in his 1828 Dictionary. He said: “Providence – in theology the care and superintendence which God exercises over His creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a ‘providence,’ involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence…By divine providence is often understood God Himself.”

The God who made you, is He unable to save, sustain, and complete you to His good pleasure? In Romans 3:24-26 God’s Holy Word tells us: “being JUSTIFIED FREELY by His grace through the resurrection that is in Christ Jesus…

Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Thank God for Chambers’ insight! Listen to what he wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest”: [p.247], “The Gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a certain pride in man that will give and give, but to come and accept is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom, I will give myself in consecration, I will do anything, but do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.” BUT THAT’S IT! IT’S ALL OF HIM and not us in the matter of our redemption, our re-birth, and our reconciliation!

He said a few sentences later, “He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves, we have to enter His Kingdom through the door of destitution.” WOW!

Oh, I’m telling you: Jesus is to every repentant believer the complete and whole treasury of God!

Remember – we’re looking at “World Philosophy OR Willful Promotion By God”!! And when “world philosophy” begins to surface strongly and willful promotion by God takes a backseat, you begin to sense a sad decaying of true faith, an allegiance to the flesh [your old sin nature – so anything goes!], even church attendance by many who have no intention of denying self and taking up His Cross [and our own], and suddenly the Word of God is set aside, truth is left outdoors, and doubt about the veracity of God’s Holy Word takes over the pulpit and the classroom!

Philosophy may give a few insights, but Christ Jesus births “new men”! It was the German theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, who said: “Not until man has become so utterly unhappy, or has grasped the woefulness of life so deeply that he is moved to say, and mean it: ‘ LIFE HAS NO VALUE FOR ME’ – NOT TILL THEN IS HE ABLE TO MAKE A BID FOR CHRISTIANITY.”

AND ALMIGHTY, HOLY, WISE, LOVING, CARING GOD STEPS UP TO REVEAL HIS UNCHANGING LOVE AND MATCHLESS MERCY TO WOUNDED HUMANITY BY OUR SELF-INFLICTED SIN NATURES!

John 3:14-18 illumines Heaven on earth! “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

He who believes 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.”

Paul built out of the Cross of Christ and His Resurrection eternal truth!! Look at Romans 5:6-11!! “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die…

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life…

And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

There’s an old hymn entitled “Grace Greater Than Our Sin.” It says: “Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt…Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured, There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled…

Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold, Threaten the soul with infinite loss; Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold, Points to the refuge, the mighty cross.

Dark is the stain that we cannot hide. What can we do to wash it away? Look! There is flowing a crimson tide, Brighter than snow you may be today…

Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, Freely bestowed on all who believe! You that are longing to see His face, Will you this moment His grace receive?

Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within, Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin.”

World philosophers or Willful Promotion By God? It’s your choice!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“SUICIDE A SIGN OF HOPELESSNESS IN CHRIST –

A SIGN OF HELPLESSNESS IN ONE’S SELF”

I’m not sure that even many ‘evangelical Christians’ will agree with my deep conviction about “suicide”, but I must share my despair over “suicide”, and especially when some “professors of faith” see it as a door to heaven! They say, “One doesn’t lose his/her salvation,” revealing that they don’t believe true salvation is believing in Jesus without any concerns about one’s obedience to Him or not, refuting His Word: “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I say!”

I say to you without any hesitation that “ suicide”, professing believer or not, is a chilling reality of unbelief and disobedience, a ‘cheap imitation of surrender and obedience,’ a dark shadow of death not life in the Spirit, and is nothing more than a spiritual famine, an inadequate supply of biblical faith, and a famine of true surrender and yieldedness to the King of kings and the Lord of lords! It is a devastating picture of the absence of Holy Presence and eternal purpose!

Suicide is a strange word and language to true people of faith, an enemy of Resurrection life, Resurrection power, and Resurrection hope. Suicide is a godless decree of Satan and a sad remnant of either unbelief or a decaying faith! It was Frank T. Marzials, in his writing: “Death as the Fool”, who said: “God help the fools who count on death [or suicide] for gain.”

What does Romans 8:6-11 tell us? Paul had just said, by God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin or because of its ruthless treatment of His created, that He condemned sin in the flesh, {but you believe you can ‘sin in the Spirit”? Give me a break!}.

Verses 6-11, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind IS enmity against God; for it (asserting its ‘self-will’) is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh (even as a professing believer!) cannot please God.

But you (In Christ) are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, IF INDEED THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLS IN YOU. Now if ANYONE does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you {Big “IF”!}, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit {IN YOU} is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him [God Himself] who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Even the word ‘suicide’ in any man, believer or not, leaves me with the deep conviction that unbelievers or professing believers do not understand, have no conviction about the very sacred nature of physical life but more important the gift of Resurrection Life, and even contemplating ‘suicide’ reveals a ‘train of faith or faithlessness’ both off the “tracks of God” as chief engineer!

Yes, to BE suicidal is the act of rejecting the “Author of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ,” yielding not to Him but the act of imitation ‘priests’, muted, blinded, unyielding to His Spirit and Word! As Christ Jesus is the Deliverer from death, ‘your salvation experience’ is either the modeling of His life and hope, or your oppression, deception, and blindness by the devil.

But, Yes, to be “in Christ” is to possess the Divine Spirit, Life, and Hope within, ruling and reigning, not to extinguish one’s life but extend and express His eternal life in you and through you. There’s nothing formidable or instructive about ‘suicide’ other than ‘pumping up’ the devil and his demons! They celebrate a suicide! Suicidal death is nothing more than an extreme expression of obstinateness and indifference to the will and Word of God and His honor. Suicidal deaths diminish, for far too many people, the Truth of Christ and His victory over spiritual death and spiritual strangulation!

Suicidal death is not a “master-piece” print-out of Resurrection Life but a cheap imitation of His promises. Self-death by human, willful means is one’s rejection of “spiritual life” by Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. Suicide is not “done with sin” but an open and willful celebration of sin in fleshly cares, woes, and pains!

Suicide is the door to the land of darkness and the shadows of that darkness, the door to the hellish celebration of the dead, the demons, and ALL of Hell’s constituents, plus the absence of any “fruit of the Spirit” but only the “rotten fruit of a misspent life”, honoring ‘flesh’, unbelief, disobedience, rebellion to the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Suicidal death is an announcement of darkness and one’s ‘changed mind’ or desire for it, and a rejection of “Life, Liberty, and the eternal Spirit and His fruit: Galatians 5:22-24, “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. IF WE LIVE IN THE SPIRIT, LET US ALSO WALK IN THE SPIRIT.”

Is suicide loving God or loving ‘dust’, loving the Savior or loving the sensual flesh and its never-ending disappointments, or loving the foolish setting aside Redemptive Faith? Suicide “sinks the soul, the spirit, the very life of true faith”! Suicide is being overcome by fleshly domination, being blinded to the God who saves, heals, and delivers; it is the exaltation and submission to the fleshly manifestations of fear, faithlessness, and the futility of ‘self-effort discipleship’ apart from His promises!

James 4:7-10 says, (This is from the brother of Jesus!), “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

Please, let me highlight, underscore, enlighten you more about “willful suicide”:

FIRST, IT IS SELF-ASSERTION RATHER THAN TRUE TRUST IN GOD’S CARE. In Jeremiah 29:11 the Lord God spoke: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Suicide is, yes, the act of willfully rejecting the Author of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ, and giving the devil himself more right to your life than the blood-redemption of Christ Jesus.

As Christ Jesus is the “Deliverer from death”, your salvation experience and continual event is taking the sentence of death to yourself daily that He might rule and reign in you, with you aware of the necessity of giving room daily to His model and eternal reality of divine life and eternal hope, not your oppression or deception by the devil that suicide is spiritually legal.

Suicidal death is honoring flesh, honoring a misspent life, honoring indifference, unbelief, and hopelessness! It’s the extreme manifestation of ‘self-will’, rejecting divine will, trusting my deception more than His Truth and His Trust, and more trust in my misspent mind than His peace, His design for me, and His future hope for me ‘In Him.’

SECOND, SUICIDE IS SELF-DETERMINATION RATHER THAN SOVEREIGN CARE BY HOLY GOD. Romans 6:23 is so clear! “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“The gift of eternal life”? But some disregard His gifts, His provisions, and His fruit, and substitute or give way to ‘best effort’ or a slavish indifference to His revealed truths!

It’s so interesting that in Hebrews 4:14 – 16 the author magnifies Jesus, the Son of God, and us ‘holding fast our confession’, then saying, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. LET US THEREFORE COME BOLDLY TO THE THRONE OF GRACE, THAT WE MAY OBTAIN MERCY AND FIND GRACE TO HELP IN TIME OF NEED.” Obtaining mercy and finding grace is not God agreeing one’s suicide is “OK” with Him!

There was a time in the psalmist’s life when he found “trouble and sorrow.” Psalm 116:4-9 is a powerful testimony. It says: “Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “Oh Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!” Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul. For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you."

Further on, in Psalm 118:5-17, there is a song, the psalm, of exalting and praising God for His everlasting, All-sufficient, and never-ending mercy! It says: “I called on the Lord in distress; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.

THE LORD IS ON MY SIDE; I will not fear. What can man do to me? The LORD IS FOR ME among those who help me; therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me.

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. All nations surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me; but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

They surrounded me like bees; they were quenched like a fire of thorns; For in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. You pushed me violently that I might fall, but the Lord helped me.

The Lord is my strength and song and He has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.

The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

And true believers, born the second time through the blood of Jesus, are raised up, not to give in to the devil’s suggestions, but to expose him and his evil ways – suicide IS an evil way of the powers of darkness! “In Christ”, we have the Great High Priest from whom we obtain mercy and grace to help in the times of need and our greatest ‘stress moments’!

THIRD, SUICIDE IS YIELDING TO ‘THE THIEF’ (SATAN) RATHER THEN YIELDEDNESS TO GOD’S PROMISED OVERSIGHT. In John 10:9-10 Christ Jesus declared, “I am the door. If anyone enters (the Kingdom of God) by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief (Satan) does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

And in strenuous times, dark clouds, heavy winds, testy storms, some who ‘professed’, like some ‘church-attenders’, yet, sadly, never ‘possessed’ the resurrected Christ, identified themselves, though loyal ‘Temple-attenders and observers’, as what Jesus described as “sons of the devil”! In John 8:43-47 Jesus said of, yes, the ‘religious elite’ of His day, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for HE IS A LIAR and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

FOURTH,SUICIDE IS THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF DISAVOWING THE SACRIFICIAL DEATH OF CHRIST AND HIS LORDSHIP, DETERMINING, THOUGH PROFESSING, ONE IS REALLY HIS OWN AND CAN DO AS HE/SHE PLEASES. In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Paul challenges every ‘professing believer’,

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and YOU (In Christ) are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

No “believer” has the right, the privilege, the choice, of choosing on his/her own what pleases or displeases God, what is “my decision” related to life or self-imposed’ death, or what road or path “I” am to walk on! “In Christ” is not a license to do as one pleases!

FIFTH, IT IS THE CLEAREST ACT OF BETRAYAL OF THE BODY OF CHRIST, OR ALL BELIEVERS, AND AN ACCEPTANCE OF THE WILL OF THE AUTHOR OF DEATH, REBELLION, AND DISOBEDIENCE.

Psalm 33:18-22 declares: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in you.”

The lack of the reverential awe of Almighty God, Christ’s Lordship, and the Holy Spirit’s authority and power, is the “open door” to what you believe satisfies you, not God, not the Spirit, not the Lord Jesus, and certainly, NOT HIS WORD: “You shall not kill.”

Colossians 1:19-23 is an awesome warning from the biblical word “if”. Do you know that word in your own spiritual journey? Paul said: “For it pleased the Father that in Him [In Christ!] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – (“GET READY”!), IF INDEED YOU CONTINUE IN THE FAITH, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister [or a Messenger].”

“IF” means “conditional” or “will you show Me your devotion by doing My will?” Paul had explained in Colossians 1:18 that Jesus is YOUR author in life decisions! “And He is the head of the body, the church, [all believers], who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE.” [And you believe it’s permissible to do as you please as a disciple, even committing suicide?].

SIXTH, SUICIDE IS A SUBSTITUTION OF PERSONAL DEATH FOR CHRIST’S RESURRECTION LIFE, RESURRECTION POWER, AND RESURRECTION HOPE! What did Christ Jesus Himself declare in 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 {by coming to Him rather than the devil, the flesh, or the world spirit!}, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

SEVENTH, SUICIDE IS A SUBSTITUTION OF FLESH RATHER THAN THE VICTORY OF CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK! There is a dramatic convicting passage of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 where again, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses against them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

The old has passed away? The old things of flesh indulgence and self-will, or self-determination of life choices, even suicide, has passed away? Is ‘self’ the controlling spiritual influence or “the Christ in you the hope of glory”? And If Christ is the hope of glory in the “new man” in Him, where does the “new man” find, in Christ, an open door to suicide? If God says that by willingness and obedience to Him, He gives the precious privilege of “eating” the good of His land, then its ‘OK” to indulge in the ‘flesh’, even “feeling good” about ending it all by suicide?

“In Christ” one is not granted the fleshly right to do as he/she pleases? “In Christ” one doesn’t have to discern “divine will”? “In Christ” is a lie and one is allowed, though saved, to choose for himself whether to live or die by his own hand? Even though ‘professing Christ’ is a legitimate expression, having done so, have I then the right and rule to determine for myself whether I choose to live or whether I choose to die by my own hand, and it will please the Savior and Lord and honor Him if I betray His Lordship and shorten, end, or cancel His eternal purpose He determined to fulfill through me?

Suicidal death is not the door to eternal life; suicidal death is not a hymn of one’s devotion to His Savior and Lord, but an ‘off-key’, un-tuned horns, phony words of ‘OK’ by the choir director of darkness, evil, and the satisfactions of all indulgent demons! It is corruptible, it is a devilish substitute for the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, it is ‘the end of life’, not a divorce from its sorrowful bents and turnings and witness, and it is not ‘debt paid for my failures, my rebellion, my indulgences, my rejection, and my determination, and loving God ought to be pleased that I won’t shame Him anymore, because I end my failing life?

Suicide is the devil sealing his ownership by default of trust, obedience, or honor of the Savior and Lord! Suicide is a “mastered piece of hellish art” by the devil of darkness who claims ‘light’!

“Unashamed the devil stands and claps his hands over the suicidal man. ‘Goodness’ to him is you ending your pain, sorrow and suffering in your estimation of your failures, worthy only of ripping your painting of your life off the wall, and letting him celebrate your rejection of God’s help!’”

If the devil walks about seeking whom he may devour, do you believe his invitations are those by which you dishonor God, destroy yourself, giving him room to celebrate another battle won?

It was Shakespeare, in his “Hamlet”, who once wrote: “The spirit that I have seen may be the devil; and the devil has power to assume a pleasing shape,” and in his “hellish, pleasing shape”, promoting his darkness, ‘suicide’ becomes for ‘doubters’ the open door to rest, peace, and good feelings! Give me a break!

Why not “rebuke the devil and he will flee from you”! Expose him not explain him! Resist his demonic temptations rather than receive his deathly trouble! The “suicide-tempter” IS the “unmasked devil” with the intent of one’s horrific death, dishonoring the God who made him, to the devil’s pleasure! You don’t keep the devil in your house – you kick him out! “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer – I (Jesus) have overcome the world and the devil!” Amen?

And if the Lord Jesus has “chosen” us, that is not the “choice” of freedom in Christ to do with myself as I please but yielded to His sovereign will in all circumstances of one’s life, and, be assured, Holy God doesn’t give His “Amen” to any believer’s choice of killing himself/herself but challenges all believers to “LIVE” for His glory, His honor, His praise!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“NATIONAL DAY OF ‘REASONING’ OR NATIONAL AGELESS-RECEPTION OF GOD’S REVELATION, REACHING OUT TO HIM, AND RESTING IN HIS BLOOD REDEMPTION?”

Did you happen to catch the national TV exposure of Prince George of England’s picture of him (a three-year old!) feeding a dog from his ice-cream cone? A ‘brilliant’ (?) British citizen vowed: “I will not rest until Prince George of England is someday denied the throne for feeding a dog an ice cream cone!”

That’s like ‘intellectual’ university professors and ‘intellectual’ boards of directors declaring “belief in God here, validating Him, affirming Him, upholding Him, will not be allowed in this university or our corporate businesses”, while they continue to seal their own ultimate doom by unveiling their ‘intellectual’ stupidity – ‘ national kids’ or ‘dogs’ fed by the immature players of “godless governments”!

But, if there is a ‘man’, a ‘family’, or a ‘nation’ that “FEARS” the Lord, what is the ultimate result? In Psalm 25:12-21 we read, “Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses. He Himself shall dwell in prosperity, and his descendants shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show “them” His covenant. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, for (apart from You) I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have (are, will be, about to be) enlarged; bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I Wait For You, the ONE TRUE AND LIVING GOD!”

“Nations” ‘taught’ in the way God chooses? Or “nations” dwelling in ‘spiritual poverty’? Are “nations” inheriting the earth or bankrupting themselves? Are “nations” recipients of the “blessings of the blood covenant in Christ” or blinded to those blessings? Are they “plucked out” of deathly situations or descending into them? Do their “troubles” enlarge or diminish, becoming “more desolate and afflicted”, or delivered by the very hand of God from them? Do nations today “wait upon the Lord”, yield to His sovereign leadership and protection and provisions, letting biblical integrity and uprightness preserve, sustain, and strengthen them? Is it “the Father’s world” or, temporarily, has it been confiscated by ungodly, unprincipled, selfish, self-indulgent ‘politicians’ and bankrupt citizens ‘trying’ their “best”, which does nothing but produces “godlessness” and introduces “divine judgment”?

Are you aware of how devoted many ‘nations’, ‘professors’, and ‘godless peoples and regions’ are, “devoted” to the ‘natural’ but incensed about the “supernatural”, opposed to the “seekers of divine Truth and His truths”, even “angry, resistant to, and diabolically opposed to national evangelism, mission, and allegiance to the God and Savior whose desire and intent is on ‘redeeming them’?”

Do you realize the choices, desires, programs, disciplines of spiritual nations in their willful intents of upholding, promoting, practicing, instituting, and honoring the God who birthed them, or fully aware of the “death-nail” deliberations, determinations, and decisions, that “God in politics” is unacceptable, un-national, and “not our ‘cup of tea’”! So they drink the “kool-aid” of “godlessness”!

Will it be the “movies” of the majority of Hollywood’s ‘brainless’, or the message of the revealed Word of God by His “privileged, appointed, anointed witnesses”? Will it be the “messages and basic principles of ‘ungodly professors’ and ‘proclaimers’ of ‘ungodly expositions’ of their “godless nations”, with the intent of constantly educating schools and universities and students in opposition to Eternal Truths, and especially opposed to “the Author and Finisher of True Faith”? Will it be in cities, states, nations, schools, universities, courts, the “expositions” of ‘godless men’ or the profound, prophetic, personalized “TRUTHS” of redeemed men, re-born servants of the Most High God, and available vessels of all the “Redeemer’s revelation- desires to save YOUR world”?

Will it be “living expressions, vibrant testimonies, miraculous occurrings and events and expectations, verbal declarations of transformation in the hearts and lives of men and women, inheriting the ‘good, acceptable, and perfect will of God’, and His mandate and His message and His “good news” to the warped, maligned, shamed images and opened-unveilings of sin’s captives and the devil’s disciples, with the clear, true, distinct proclamation of “new births”, “new names”, a “new covenant,” “new bottles” for the eternal ‘wine’ of holy presence, “new hearts”, a “new spirit”, a “new creation”, a “new name”, and recipients of a “new and living way” – and with all my heart and mind, I am fully convinced that Paul’s declaration in Romans 6:4 was God’s desire and intent, not only for individuals but nations: “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also (individually and nationally) should walk “in newness of life.”

Even in Romans 7:6 Paul informs us, both individually and, I believe, for the nations, “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we (as a nation or individually or corporately) should serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” “God, please, please, overrule the nations that do not want your compassionate governing and ruling and usher in the next “Great Spiritual Awakening” because of our heart’s desire and Your willful proclamation and willful intervention and divine pleasure!”

National days of reasoning, apart from God, are nations “void of divine counsel” and “victims of godless rulers” and, sadly, “veneers of superficial, fleshly appearances”, giving allegiances to their own ‘gods’, like Isaiah’s vision from God for His own ‘chosen nation’, Israel, (Isaiah 1:4), “Alas, sinful nation! A people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.”

It’s really interesting as you’re reading through the Word of God to come to a passage like 2 Kings 17:24-29, then Verses 32-36, and see a “nation’s professors” yet remain ‘religious’ apart from “possession” of His Truths!

2 Kings 17:24-29 says: Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “the nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the rituals of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and indeed, they are killing them because they do not know the rituals of the God of the land.”

Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there; let him go and dwell there, and let them teach them the rituals of the God of the land.” Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the Lord.

However every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt. {Oh, how delightful! They are really religious, but totally unredeemed!} The “pretense” continued! Look at Verses 32-36!

So they ‘feared the Lord’, and from every class they appointed FOR THEMSELVES ‘priests’ of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. They feared the Lord, “YET SERVED THEIR OWN GODS” – according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away.

TO THIS DAY they continue practicing the former rituals; they do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, whom He named Israel, with whom the Lord had made a covenant and charged them, saying: “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them; but the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, and to Him you shall sacrifice.”

[Dare I tell you? Hebrews 9:24-28 declares that the true redemption sacrifice is “Emmanuel” or “God in flesh”; THAT’s Christ Jesus!] Hear the Word! “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another – He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world;

But now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away SIN by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time apart from sin, for salvation.”

And dare I also say, because of one’s repentance toward God and faith in the Redeemer’s “finished work”, they become, you in Christ become, Temples of Holy Presence! “New Holy Temples”! You, me, the transformed, the redeemed, the blood-bought, yes, by “the blood of the Lamb of God” who is Christ alone!

But hear me! National allegiances to the world, the flesh or old sin nature, and, sadly, allegiances to the devil, the demons, or their dark, enslaving influences, are in many not simply ‘prominent’ but ‘preeminent’ over Holy God and His Holy Revelation and divine will, and in their lame assertions “men at their best efforts” deny Him, have no need of Him or His love, grace, and mercy, saying, “Why does your God think we can’t care for ourselves”?

Because in our own efforts there is no “blood redemption”, there is no “reconciliation”, there is no “seed” of “new birth”, and there is no fulfillment or blessing or miracle of divine transformation! This age of the 21^st Century is fast becoming the “age of grey”, not black or white, but “do as you desire” without any consideration of or devotion to the God of our creation and His Word, His will, His ways – the “age of grey”! But “White”- that’s “washed in the blood of the Lamb” and divinely declared as “white as snow” – not the pigment of one’s skin but the purity of his/her heart! Glory! And black? Hearts fully surrendered and bond in sin and death, bondage and misspent opportunity to know Him, love Him, and serve Him, and ultimately eternal separation in Hell under the awful domination of the devil and his demons, and miserable existence eternally with the “shattered-by-God” because of their stubbornness, unbelief, disobedience, and distaste for the Savior and Redeemer, King of kings and Lord of lords! Enough of “the old man”, the “fallen creation of unbelief” and the “world of rejection of Loving, Caring, Merciful Holy God”!

WHAT ABOUT NATIONS MADE NEW? In Revelation 22 John said, after hearing Him who sat on the Throne in Revelation 21:5 declaring, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” “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 (that’s overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil!) shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, 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.”

[I believe I would contemplate about God Himself declaring “a second death” that never dies!] Have you never seen that Revelation 22:1-5 declares, not something “out there”, “maybe thousands of years away”, but that as “Jesus comes quickly” into “new born lives” and “redeemed nations”, with Verse 7 assuring us, saying, “Blessed is he [individual or nation!] who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book?” For the sake of nations, please listen, receive, claim, stand on, proclaim Verses 1-5 of Revelation 22!!!It says:

“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree WERE FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS.

And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.” ARE YOU “IN CHRIST” IN THIS VERY MOMENT AND FOR THE REST OF YOUR EARTHLY DWELLING TRULY ALLOWING HIS LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH YOU?

GOD AND THE NATIONS OF FAITH? 1. God “designs them”: red, yellow, black or white, they are precious in His sight!”

2. God “delights in obedience or, yes, delights in separating alienating, and destroying the rebellious”!

3.God “delivers them” out of all their troubles, wars, famines, or from ‘godless’, disobedient, faithless rulers!

4. God “disciplines them” like immaturity, childish ‘brats’ until they become mature national “sons or daughters” of the redemptive faith.

5. God “dictates”! It’s His Word or the world’s highways, His Truths or the world’s temptations, His will or the world’s or the nations’ allegiance to their “free-from-God-spirit”!

Dare I apply Romans 14:19 to “nations” as well as “individuals, families, communities, states, or churches”? Paul said: “Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one (even “nations”?) may edify one another.” How do you relate, respond, or react, to the inspired word of Paul in Galatians 3:8-9 when he said, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you ALL THE NATIONS SHALL BE BLESSED’. So then those (individuals, families, states, and nations?) are blessed with believing Abraham,” which doesn’t insist all nations are submitted, surrendered to, or celebrate Holy God, but many nations KNOW the need of God as Savior, Lord, Redeemer, Ruler, Guide, Overseer, and Sovereign Administrator of their governmental affairs!

I want to close this teaching with a word from Barnabas and Paul about allegiances to “useless things”, (even “nations” doing so!): Acts 14:8-22, And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!” And he leaped and walked.

Now when the people saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Zeus, whose (pagan) temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and we preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” And with these sayings they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them.

Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.

And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”

Does that tell us that, yes, even “God-blessed” nations have, do, or will, face trouble, tribulations, and trials? Without a doubt! But, “In Him”, “WE SHALL OVERCOME!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“PRAYER BANKRUPTCY OR PRAYER BLESSINGS?”

If you examined “bankruptcy” in any dictionary, you’d find explanations of ‘individuals’ choosing ‘independence’ even from God, ‘mistrust’ of others including God, or a description of ‘insolvency’, ‘personal rule void of redemptive faith’, and, yes, even in one’s denial of ‘the sad reality of’ “utter ruin” and “total failure”, because, apart from’ “saving grace, mercy, and the love of God through Calvary’s Cross”, one “selfishly chooses” godlessness, faithlessness, darkness, shame-less-ness, indifference to eternal purpose and the need of God Himself to fulfill it! [And that would be, not only ‘unbelievers’, but “professing ‘believers’ in God” who never or seldom pray!].

You’ll remember from the previous chapter and its closing that I made mention of Acts 14:21-23, “And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, and EXHORTING THEM TO CONTINUE IN THE FAITH, and saying, We must through MANY TRIBULATIONS enter the kingdom of God”, but far too many modern-day ‘disciples’ believe (?) they can do so apart from faithful prayer? ‘Continue in the faith’ void of a prayer life?

Even Abraham Lincoln once said: “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go,” but ‘prayer’ only when one is desperate, ‘prayer’ only when he/she has ‘bankrupted’ the precious privilege of intimacy with God through prayer, or ‘prayer’ only when I’ve been ‘trusting my flesh-determination’ and not His desire to be my Spirit-power and Sovereign-direction through prayer to hear from and becoming clearer the man or woman He desires to ‘reveal through them’ His presence, purposes, and promises?

Prayerlessness is, as Hannah More wrote about in her writing, “Moses in the Bulrushes”, “O sad estate of human wretchedness; so weak is man, so ignorant and blind, that did not God Sometimes withhold in mercy what we ask, we should be ruined at our own request.” ‘Request’ apart from ‘revelation’? ‘Desire’ apart from surrender to divine will and purpose? ‘Asking’ when it is nothing more than abandonment of service, of trust, or of obedience to what Sovereign God has already revealed?

In fact, through Biblical revelation, didn’t Luke share the dynamic commission of Christ Jesus to His disciples then and now, (Luke 18:1), Then Jesus spoke a parable to them, THAT MEN ALWAYS OUGHT TO PRAY AND NOT LOSE HEART?

“Ought”? It’s the Greek word, “Dei” meaning “must” – it’s divine command not a professing believer’s ‘option’, not ‘sentimental requests’ or ‘fleshly desires’, but true faith, faithful obedience, not the ‘pleasurableness’ of fleshly desires, but faithful, total trust and desire and need of hearing from our Lord and Savior, and faithful yieldedness daily to, “Lord, what would YOU have me to do?”, not coming to Him as broken, repentant, servants to the divine will, purpose, and pleasure, but as a ‘den of a thief’ stealing ‘what I want’ that has nothing to do with His good, acceptable, and perfect will!

Are you aware of the large numbers of men and women and self-centered youths who major on exercise, physical disciplines, outward appearances, but know little, if any, of the faithful, yes, discipline of prayer, fellowship, and communion with the God who loves them more than they love themselves, never aware of what godless prayer lives lead to?

Modern-days are ‘open views’ into the existences of bad moms, godless dads, rebellious kids, phony politicians, faithless teachers and professors, governmental legislators that ‘opt out’, ignore, and even deny any responsibility toward the God who birthed them, desired their lives as vessels of His eternal will, or vessels “set apart” to ‘glorify Him on earth, in human, redeemed vessels, blood-bought, and daily available to Him through the Resurrection Presence of Christ within us as the hope of glory, the hope of Godly governments, and the hope of “glowing witnesses” as ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ’! And they, knowing that intent, can manage, if by the best of their own abilities, with no daily asking, “Lord, what would YOU have ‘me’ to do?”

How many do you know who see themselves as “sanctified vessels”, satisfied in ‘prayerless walks’, even sensing a spiritual nobility about themselves though they seldom pray? In Ezekial 36:26-27, (NASU), the prophet heard the voice of God Almighty: “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” If so, how do you stack up with the Word of Scripture in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 that says, “pray without ceasing”? That’s ‘consistently’, which doesn’t mean “on your knees every hour of the day”, but the awareness of regularly, frequently, consistently, calling out to the Lord and hearing His response!

I was awe-struck in reading in Jim Hylton’s new book, “Being At Ease”, sub-titled “Thinking At Ease – Lessening Disease”. He shared a word about a close friend of his: [p.203], “A friend of mine grew up in a fairly dysfunctional home. The most positive thing about his home was there was an attempt to honor God. Yet the image his family had of God led to religion as a duty that made God seem harsh and demanding.

In my friend’s heart as a child were thoughts about God that were pure and perceptive. He knew God loved him and had more for him than he could imagine. From childhood, his mind was wired for high voltage. He was equipped to think with God and ask God to show him His ways and His secrets. I’ll not go into any further details of Jim’s friend’s life story, only to say from a six-year-old visionary, great things are coming to fruition as a “sold-out adult” to the sovereignty of God! And Brother Jim stressed “the power of endless life (in Christ) gives us a sense of continuity and the satisfaction of endless fulfillment.”

And if that is God’s intent for every true disciple, WHAT ARE “YOU” HEARING FROM GOD ABOUT WHAT HE DESIRES TO DO IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU? Or have you just concluded for yourself, “There’s really nothing in me or through me that can benefit God”, rather than, “What is it eternal God wants to accomplish through me as an available vessel?”

1 John 2:5-6 declares, “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. BY THIS WE KNOW THAT WE ARE IN HIM. He who says he abides in Him OUGHT HIMSELF also to walk just as Jesus walked.” Did the Lord Jesus Christ “walk” the pathway of prayer faithfully?

G. Ashton Oldham put it like this: (a quote from the “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations”, Edited & compiled by Frank S. Mead, Fleming H. Revell Com., Westwood, New Jersey, p.345),

“Prayer is the chief agency and activity whereby men ALIGN THEMSELVES WITH GOD’S PURPOSE. Prayer does not consist in battering the walls of heaven for personal benefits or the success of our plans. Rather it is the committing of ourselves for the carrying out of His purposes. It is a telephone call to headquarters for orders. It is not bending God’s will to ours, but our will to God’s. In prayer, we tap vast reservoirs (or resources) of spiritual power whereby GOD can find fuller entrance into the hearts of men.”

PRAYER BANKRUPTCY? Prayerlessness is a desire within for “no shaking of God in ‘my temple’ of personal satisfaction”! Prayerlessness is the admission that “my time shouldn’t be wasted trying to see God, by my requests, sanctifying me, or making me complete, or assuring me through my prayers He’ll finish His work in me and make me whole, spirit, body, and soul? I’m OK as I am – pray to be preserved ‘blameless’? What spiritual childishness – mature ‘Christian (?) adults don’t need to pray!”

Prayerlessness is an attitude of ‘faith’ in one’s ‘common sense’, not the discovery of God’s will! Prayerlessness is because of fleshly pride in one’s self and one’s own abilities to prove himself/herself “worthy of God” by personal performance, not an answer in prayer to what He desires! One of the things Oswald Chambers stressed about a prayer-less life is “one losing sight of God (and His desires), and one becomes worship-less of Him, and we “become hard and dogmatic”. [“My Utmost For His Highest”, p.64].

Prayerless is confidence in one’s self to live the Christian life the “best” one knows how, short-circuiting the heart of God to hear our prayers and grant us His “best”, His all-sufficient supply of whatever HE KNOWS WE NEED! But some are ‘smarter’ than God, or so they think, and so they don’t pray!

Prayerless is avoiding petitioning God for an anointing ‘with power from on high’ because why ask, why seek, when you are already assured “I can live this Christ-life without God’s help,” so the ‘melody’ of the song of prayerlessness gets more ‘off-key’, more ‘out of touch’, and more ‘in the dark’ without ‘heavenly light’!

Prayerless? “If I ask in Jesus’ name what I need, that’s saying I don’t know what I already know, that’s saying that I’m not smart enough to figure it out, or that’s saying I can’t get His mission done in me apart from Him! He just doesn’t know me!”, so they stay prayerless in their spiritual self-conceit!

Prayer bankruptcy? If Job 42:10 tells us that “The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends”, even blessing him twice as much as he had before, but, “I’ll just trust myself to see me over the humps of life – I can handle it! And I don’t need God’s double blessing, I’m content with what I PROVIDE!” Resignation to dependence upon ‘self’ short-circuits divine intent and heavenly pleasure released from the Throne of God1

Are you aware that prayerless lives indicate no true compassion or concern for others? Job “prayed for his friends”, but for you that’s a ‘spiritual freedom’ from, not necessary as an intercessor for others? I’m telling you, hanging on by the skin of your own teeth spiritually apart from the Savior seeing you through miraculously, without praying, is the height, high height, of ‘self-trust’ – not dependence upon His power and desire to make the difference in us.

Prayer bankruptcy? Jesus said in Matthew 7:11b, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” But prayer bankruptcy is the personal notion, idea, thought, “I can handle my own predicament, my own problem, and through my own wisdom, determination, and fleshly wits, I can overcome whatever dilemma I find myself in!” God ANSWERS PRAYERS, but some foolishly live with no desire of being known as one, who through trust, obedience, prayers and faith, become monuments of His grace because they’d like to be known as a ‘gritted disciple proving, I’m able!” “God, help us!”

When you come to the Book of Colossians, Chapter 1, Verses 3-6, Paul the Apostle declared, “We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, PRAYING ALWAYS FOR YOU, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth…” continuing on in Verses 9-12, saying:

“For this reason [did you heart that? “For this reason…!”}, we also, since the day we heard it, DO NOT CEASE TO PRAY FOR YOU, AND TO ASK that YOU may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; [praying] that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the saints in the light.” [But you see no need for a faithful prayer life around you?].

What on earth was Peter talking about when in 1 Peter 4:19 he said: “Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.” Committed to Christ is committed to His mission, His cause, His Cross, with the clear understanding that all-out devotion to fulfill the will of God, even through the Cross, IS an open door to our crosses, and we must be faithful ‘prayer-warriors’ about being faithful to the mission, which often IS suffering, but ‘prayer warriors’ pray, God answers, and sees them through to ‘celebration day’!

Do you think I may be shifting to “Prayer Blessings” and away from “Prayer Bankruptcy”? In Matthew 6:5-13 Jesus taught His disciples about “faithful prayer ministries” in every disciple: “when you pray”, “when you pray”, “when you pray,” “In this manner, therefore, PRAY:!!!” It’s not an option I hold, if needed, but the faithful ministry out of an obedient heart in honor of our Lord and Savior, and trust in Him to meet every need we have according to His riches in glory! It’ not “selfish ambitions, fleshly desires, or wandering thoughts” but “shutting the door to selfish things” with the passionate desires of honoring Him through YOUR available vessel, family, or needy friends, as you request meeting yours or their needs!

“Prayer Blessings” are not “wasted air” but truly “eternal aims”! “Prayer Blessings” are the true heart-felt and mind-alerted needs of one’s self and others for the hand and help of Him who is the Living Source of divine help, divine healing, and the divine supply of ‘eternal intent’! “Prayer Blessings” are not fleshly, selfish, irrational requests, but spiritual, unselfish, rational wants of what truly honors and glorifies “Father-God” and the “Loving-Messiah”!

Richard Chenevix Trench, in his writing on prayer, said: [Out of previously mentioned “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” p.348], “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance; it is laying hold of His highest willingness.” That’s ‘like’ a pianist seeking ONLY the ‘blessed’ keys of Heaven’s Hallelujahs, or ‘like’ an artist mentally envisioning on his canvas ‘divine’ will, purpose, and plan, or ‘like’ a governmental politician ‘longing for’ eternal, heavenly intent through the political arenas of his service! “Not ‘my will’, but Your Will, God, be done in me and through me!” Do you understand what Dallas F. Billington referred to in the old ‘Akron Baptist Journal’?: “Do you know what is wrong with the world today? There’s too much theologian and not enough kneeologian.”

“Prayer Blessings”? Nehemiah gives us a ‘prelude’ of a ‘walled city’ in advance of our Lord’s desire to protect your life, your wife, your kids, your calling, your ministry, your mission as a disciple of Christ through “faithful prayers”! Nehemiah 7:1-2 says, “Then it was, when the wall was built and I had hung the doors, when the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, that I gave the charge of Jerusalem to my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the leader of the citadel, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many.”

And “new-born”, “newly-inhabited citadels of faith – your life”, is not a life of ‘prayer blessing’ for yourself, your family, your ‘faith-world’, even ‘world-wide-faith-communities’? GIVE ME A BREAK!!

“Prayer Blessings”? That’s the clear confidence, the blessed assurance, the unshakeable faith, that “ if I ask God for ‘bread’, He’ll not give me a stone”! I believe Revelation 3:14-22 is absolutely necessary here, at this point, as we consider our Lord’s ‘blessings’ through Godly prayer. It says:

“And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, I AM RICH, HAVE BECOME WEALTHY, AND HAVE NO NEED OF NOTHING – and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked – 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”, (or ALL disciples!). Are YOU ‘rich’ in the “prayer blessings” of a “Spirit-led disciple” of Christ Jesus?

“Prayer Blessings”? Does 1 Thessalonians 5:17 saying, “Pray without ceasing”, means that true ‘prayer warriors’ never get off their knees? I don’t think so, even for a second, but that true believers live with a consistent, faithful trust, and desire to hear from their Lord and Savior as they “lean not, even to their own understanding”, but give way to His faithful, Sovereign leadership!

One day, recently, I was reading the book, “George Whitfield”, (Volume 1, by Arnold A. Dallimore, [Cornerstone Books, Westchester, Illinois, publ. in 1979], in which Dallimore , contrasting Wesley’s work at Bristol and Whitefield at London, when Whitefield apologized later, saying:

“Alas! Alas! In how many things have I judged and acted wrong. I have been too rash and hasty in giving characters, both of places and persons. Being fond of Scripture language, I have often used a style too apostolic;…I have been too bitter in my zeal [Question: “Flesh or Spirit”?]. Wild-fire has been mixed with it, and I find that I frequently wrote or spoke in my own spirit, when I thought I was writing and speaking by the assistance of the Spirit of God. I have likewise, too much made inward impressions my rule of acting, and have published too soon and too explicitly what had been better kept in longer or told after my death. By these things I have hurt the blessed cause I would defend…”!

Question! In YOUR ‘walk of faith’, has ‘your walk of faith in prayer’ been ‘fleshly zeal’, ‘rash and hasty’, a ‘wild-fire’ without the Spirit of Christ, or His eternal purposes being fulfilled, even as YOU PRAY IN HIM, WITH HIM, and FOR HIM?

True prayer IS a life in tune with the Spirit of Christ in tune with the divine will, purposes, and plans of Holy God, even the “sacrificed life” on the altar of intercession in behalf of others! Prayer is not ‘irrational prerogatives’ but eternal alignments by ‘servants’ with the purposes and plans and power of God alone!

It was a powerful ‘prayer song’ of James Montgomery entitled “Prayer Is the Soul’s Sincere Desire”, published by the Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., by Robert Coleman, in his “The American Hymnal” in 1933. His song says:

“Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed; the motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh, The falling of a tear, the upward glancing of an eye, When none but God is near.

Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice, Returning from his ways; while angels in their songs rejoice and cry, ‘Behold, he prays!’

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, the Christian’s native air, his watchword at the gates of death; he enters heaven with prayer.

O Christ, by Whom we come to God, the Life, the Truth, the way, The path of prayer You surely trod: Lord, teach us how to pray!” Is that YOUR prayer?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“AWAKENINGS” NECESSITY?

“PIERCING THE DRAGON – PIERCINGS BY HIM OR PIERCING HIM?”

Revelation 12:7-17 is one powerful illustration showing both the original heavenly war between Holy God and “the dragon” AND the eventual war between “the dragon” and mankind! It says: “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. Do the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him (angels or very described as “demons”?).

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony ( “they”? The blood-bought, atoned for, recipients of “new life in Christ”, anointed in the Spirit, declared by God Himself to be sons and daughters of true redemptive faith!), and they did not love their lives to the death.

Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.

Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male”CHILD”. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished, for a time and time and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

Related to the passage you just read, is there a correlation to Isaiah 51:9 when the Lord spoke through him, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, and wounded the serpent?’, then followed in Isaiah 51:11 with, “So the ‘ransomed of the Lord’ ( the “blood-bought”, the “redeemed”, the “awakened”?) shall return (turn around, face the serpent, resist and conquer him), shall return, and come to Zion with singing, (“We have overcome” the dragon or the devil?), with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

At least 700-800 years later, maybe more, Paul wrote to the church at Colossae and us, Colossians 2:13-15 saying, “And YOU, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He (Christ Jesus!) has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” [Why not add in here James 1:12? “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” Don’t miss THAT!].

The foundation for this chapter, this message, is still being laid: Think with me about Ephesians 3:8-12 where Paul said: “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Christ Jesus; TO THE INTENT THAT NOW the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, IN WHOM we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.”

And when from the Cross, in the last moments before He died for our sins, did He say to the Father, “It is finished!” In that “finished work” by His own shed blood, was He pierced or did He “pierce the dragon”? Out of this scriptural ‘info’ let’s consider “PIERCING THE DRAGON – PIERCED BY OR PIERCING HIM?”

FIRST, NOTICE, PIERCING THE DRAGON BY CONFESSING THE ‘CURSE’ TO THE CONQUERING CHRIST! In Deuteronomy 28:1-2 initially, read carefully: “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God…”.

Then, notice Verse 15 which says: “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, THAT ALL THESE CURSES WILL COME UPON YOU AND OVERTAKE YOU..”

Oh, hold on!! Look at Deuteronomy 28:49-53! It unveils more fully the consequences of ‘the curse’! It says: “THE LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.

They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress.” Literal? SURE! IT HAPPENED! Metaphorical? What happened to Israel through the ‘curse’ comes in reality and further awareness on all men and nations who rebel against Holy God and His Word and will! A nation, a life, a family, a people, or, maybe, just a part? Ephesians 2:12 speaks of the ‘uncircumcised’ or unredeemed or unbelievers: “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of [promise, HAVING NO HOPE AND WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD…”].

The ‘curse’ is lostness, the ‘curse’ is unbelief, the ‘curse’ is compromise, the ‘curse’ is the choice to ‘go my own way without God’! In Acts 13 Paul and Barnabas were intent to see that Israel as the nation heard the Truth of their “Promised Messiah”, but most refused “saving grace” through Christ and settled for devotion to their religious practices! Acts 13:38-41 tells us, Paul speaking to the Jewish assembly and elders,

“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man (Christ Jesus) is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES [trusts in, adheres to, relies upon], IS JUSTIFIED [meaning “received as if they’d never sinned” – Jesus took sin and the sin nature to the Cross and it was put to death through Him!], IS JUSTIFIED from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: ‘Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.’ [That’s out of Habakkuk 1:5] which related to Israel’s coming judgment AND destruction! [Examine for yourself Matthew 24:35-44!].

Oh, but God help us AND the Jewish community of ‘unbelief’ and rejection of the “True Messiah”! Look at Acts 13:46! Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “it was necessary that the word of God SHOULD BE SPOKEN TO YOU FIRST (the Jewish community!); but since you reject it, AND JUDGE YOURSELVES UNWORTHY OF EVERLASTING LIFE, BEHOLD, we turn to the Gentile world!” Because Paul knew, at least, some of them would receive the witness of Christ’s “Blood Atonement” for men, if they repent and turn!

Consider, reflect upon, settle into Galatians 3:1-14, where there is powerful, enlightening, and redemptive words! It says: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, (O foolish Americans, O foolish ‘intellectual professors’ who are sure they know more than God, O foolish, unspiritual, rebellious, “my way or the highway” people, O foolish ‘church-haters’) before whose eyes JESUS CHRIST was clearly portrayed, (historically validated!!), among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain – if indeed it was in vain?

Therefore He (HOLY GOD!) who supplies the Spirit (the Holy Spirit of “conviction of sin”), are YOU now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain – if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit (the Holy Spirit of divine conviction) and works miracles among you (whether you see them or not!), does He do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? –

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” [Go to Genesis 22:1-18! Settle there for awhile, and see faith alone in the “Lamb’s sacrifice, and then come to correlate the Old Testament prophetic picture of the reality of “the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, slain for the sins of the world”, followed by John 20:19-29!! Take a break, and settle in to these marvelous, miracle-working, life-changing revelations!].Then, are you ready?

Please reflect upon 1 John 3:7-9!! “Little children, let no one DECEIVE YOU. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He (the Lord Jesus) is righteous. He who sins (and keeps on sinning) is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. FOR THIS PURPOSE THE SON OF GOD WAS MANIFESTED, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” Do you remember the angel speaking to Zacharias about his answer to prayer, that it was heard, and his wife, Elizabeth, was going to bear him a son, calling him John. And he was told, Luke 1:14-17, “And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from His mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

We, in the 21^st Century? We’re free from the call on John’s life as it was for him and him alone? What did the Lord Jesus on that mountain after His Resurrection? Matthew 28:18-20 declares is Jesus declaring to all disciples then and now, “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.

And to his spiritual son, Timothy, Paul wrote enriching, encouraging, and enlightening words in 2 Timothy 4, after he’d been arrested for preaching “The Truth”, Verses 16-18, saying to Timothy and us,

“In Christ” one is freed from the ‘curse’ of Satanic entitlement as Paul explained in Ephesians 2:1-10, “And you He [God] made ALIVE who were dead n trespasses and sins, IN WHICH YOU ONCE WALKED ACCORDING TO THE COURSE OF THIS WORLD, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and WERE BY NATURE children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us ALIVE (spiritually alive!) with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and RAISED US UP TOGETHER, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, THAT IN THE AGES TO COME (even in the 21^st Century!!) He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED THROUGH FAITH, and that not of yourselves; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS for good works, which God prepared beforehand that WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM,” to His glory, honor, and praise!!!

“In Christ”, free from the curse of Satanic entitlement, having “formerly walked according to the prince of the power of the air,” we now walk in the liberty by which Christ set us free! “In Christ”, free from the curse of Satanic disobedience, we now walk as true sons of obedience to the King of kings and Lord of lords! Glory!

SECOND, PIERCING THE DRAGON BY THE BINDING OF THE STRONG MAN! In Matthew 12:22-29 it begins with ‘Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He (the Lord Jesus) healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them,

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.”

Dare I tell you? I believe I will! In Luke 9:1-2 we read, Then Jesus called His twelve disciples together and GAVE THEM POWER AND AUTHORITY OVER ALL DEMONS, and to cure diseases (Maybe even cure “dis-eases”?). Verse 2, He then sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. (And you think, “That was then, but not now?”). It’s about eight days later, after the commissioning, Verses 37-43, – Now it happened on the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, that a great multitude met Him. Suddenly a man from the multitude cried out saying, “Teacher, I implore You, look on my son, for he is only a child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out; it convulses him so that he foams at the mouth; and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him. So I implored Your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Then Verses 41-43 tells us, Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” And as he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him. Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father. (How interesting that it was only days before, as we began Luke 9, that that very first verse of Luke 9 says, Then He called His twelve disciples together AND GAVE THEM POWER AND AUTHORITY OVER ALL DEMONS, and to cure disease!). But now they can’t?

Luke 10:1-2 begins: After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Oh, it’s getting eternally interesting. Look at Verses 8-9! “Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But please, look intently at Verses 16-20, and ‘buckle up’!

“He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.” Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And Jesus said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the AUTHORITY to trample on serpents and scorpions, AND over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

True authority to “pierce the dragon”? Revelation 12:11 says, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

And, be assured, the “dragon” isn’t happy or pleased! He intensifies his opposition to the people of God, the followers of the Lamb, the church, and, Oh!, he sure wants to keep “disciples” in the dark about their “commissioning” of “binding the strong man”!

How could a “God-led” people like “Israel”, led by God for forty years through the wilderness, ever forget WHAT GOD DID, but they did – and sadly many new disciples have never received divine instruction for themselves in their pilgrimages through life’s ‘wilderness experiences’! Deuteronomy 8:2-3 explains: “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”

Really? How does the New Testament interpret the previous Old Testament passage? Look with me at 2 Corinthians 2:10-11! “Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, LEST SATAN SHOULD TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US; FOR WE ARE NOT IGNORANT OF HIS DEVICES.”

A dear friend of mine, now deceased, Joyce Green, wife of Milton Green, now deceased, who was a “gifted”, prophetic teacher of the Word the last 10-15 years of his life, both in America and world-wide,( Joyce) taught one time on “The ‘fruit’ of flesh or the “fruits” of the Spirit and the Word”! Examine it, reflect upon it, and determine if your walk of faith is ‘fleshly or spiritual’!

‘Flesh fruit’? Hate or selfishness! Or Holy Spirit fruit? Calvary’s proven love! ‘Flesh fruit’? Sadness and disappointment! Or Holy Spirit joy and delight! ‘Flesh fruit’? Strife! Or Holy Spirit unfathomable peace! ‘Flesh’s’ impatience or irritabilities? Or the Spirit’s fruit of ‘patience’!

The ‘flesh fruit’ of despair or the Spirit’s fruit of ‘eternal hope’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘self-righteousness’ or the Spirit’s fruit of ‘imparted, implanted, Christ-righteousness’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘fear’ or the ‘Spirit’s fruit’ of ‘saving faith’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘scoffing’ or the ‘Spirit’s fruit’ of ‘biblical belief’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘pride’ or the ‘Spirit’s fruit’ of humility?

The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘malice’ or the ‘Spirit’s fruit’ of ‘kindness’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘arrogance’ or the ‘Spirit’s fruit’ of ‘meekness’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘suspicions’ or the ‘Spirit fruit’ of ‘trust’? ‘Uncontrolled outbursts of anger’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘gentleness’?

The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘rebellion’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘submission’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of a ‘life lusting for approval, lured into jealousy and strife’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘completed, fulfilled in Christ’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘cowardice, the fear of men’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘courage’?

The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘rejection’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘accepted in the Beloved’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘self-indulgence’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘temperance’? The ‘flesh fruit’ of ‘infidelity’ or the ‘Spirit-fruit’ of ‘faithfulness’? Let me narrow her list down, just a little bit:

‘Revenge’ or ‘forgiveness’, ‘injustice’ or ‘fairness’, ‘prejudices’ or ‘impartiality’, ‘slothfulness’ or ‘diligence’, ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘sincerity’, ‘lust’ or ‘contentment’, ‘retaliation’ or ‘mercy’, ‘immorality’ or ‘purity’, foolishness’ or ‘wisdom’, ‘worry’ or ‘rest’, ‘greed’ or ‘generosity’, ‘double-mindedness’ or ‘endurance’, ‘deceit’ or ‘Truth’, ‘ingratitude’ or ‘gratitude’, ‘death’ or ‘life’, ‘self-condemnation’ or “Christ-bestowed honor”?

I’m convinced Isaiah 35:8-10 is an affirmation of Joyce’s list! It says: “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road although a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Glory! Glory be TO GOD!

Now, in THIS day, THIS hour, “my time of testing”, even by “the powers of darkness”, can “we”, “Pierce the Dragon” By the Power of Prayer and Fasting? “You bet-cha”! In Matthew 17:14-21, follow carefully the words of Jesus and receive His provision for you!

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epilectic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus REBUKED THE DEMON, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.

Then…then…then…the disciples came to Jesus privately ( what ‘unbelieving disciple’ wants to be exposed publicly?) and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for ASSUREDLY, I say to you, IF YOU HAVE FAITH as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. HOWEVER, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Psalm 140:1-8 and Verses 12-13 gives “assurances” in “prayer” for deliverances, even from the “demons”! It says: “Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men, Who plan evil things in their hearts; they continually gather together for war. They sharpen their tongues like a serpent; the poison of asps is under their lips. {But YOU can’t see “demons” in those kinds of ‘evil men’?}.

Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men, who have purposed to make my steps stumble.{ But YOU can’t see “demons” doing that?}. The proud have hidden a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set traps for me.

I said to the Lord: “You are my God; hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord. O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, You have covered my head in the day of battle. {Are YOU ‘covered’ in the days of spiritual warfare with demons?}. Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked; do not further his wicked scheme, lest they be exalted.”

And then David wrote in Verses 12-13, “I KNOW that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor. SURELY the righteous shall give thanks to Your name; the upright shall dwell in Your presence.”

“PIERCE THE DRAGON” ALSO IS OUR CALLING THROUGH STRONG RESISTANCE TO SATAN’S ADVANCES! What did Peter tell us who are “the pilgrims of Faith,” “the elect,” “the sanctified, ‘set aside to God’s honor and glory’, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:1-2)? In 1 Peter 5:6-11 he personalized it, pointed us to our ‘warfare ministry’, and lifted us to the realm of faithful ministry under the God of all grace! Peter wrote:

“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 . Amen.” When “the dragon” comes, are YOU equipped for the “warfare” in Christ Jesus?

TO “PIERCE THE DRAGON” IS ALSO UPHOLDING THE LIGHT OF TRUTH BEFORE THE DECEIT OF THE WHOLE WORLD! Let’s let Revelation 12:7-11 give us a ‘hint’ about ‘spiritual warfare’ in the 21^st Century with the devil and his powers of darkness, the demons: “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels FOUGHT WITH THE DRAGON; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, WHO DECEIVES THE WHOLE WORLD; he was cast to the earth, and his angels (or demons!) were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of the brethren who accused them before our God day and night, HAS BEEN CAST DOWN. And they OVERCAME him (the devil, Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their own testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and sea (those who have no awareness of the defeat of Satan!)! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” Why? How?

Because some are not of God, but are ‘deceived’ by devilish influences, even his very presence, continually blinding their minds, suffocating their wills, and being ‘hood-winked’ by those ‘demons of darkness’ that divine encounter, divine remedy, divine restoration, is not possible, needed, or really happening, just some ‘religious spasms’ that ‘mask’ people from who they really are: the devil’s children, and, “the spirit of the Antichrist” is a good thing, not ungodly ‘like freak Christians tell you’!

Don’t you know this is why Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:7 that, “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 {exact likeness and identity!} of God, should shine on them.”

And then, we see the “blood-Redeemed” upholding the “Light of Truth” before the world and, yes, even the demon powers! 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “FOR IT IS GOD WHO COMMANDED LIGHT TO SHINE OUT OF DARKNESS, who has shone in our hearts (hearts of “born-again, Spirit-filled lives), yes, SHONE IN OUR HEARTS TO GIVE THE LIGHT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST.” The Knowledge? The Knowledge of the Glory of God? The Knowledge of the Glory of God In the Face of Jesus Christ, fully revealed in available ‘vessels’ ,like your repentant heart and life fully surrendered to honor Him “through you”?

TO “PIERCE THE DRAGON” IS ALSO THROUGH THE MIGHTY ANOINTING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN HIS RIVER OF LOVE THAT SWEEPS AWAY TAUNTS, TEMPTATIONS, TESTINGS, TRIBULATIONS, AND TRIALS ‘the dragon, your enemy’ HAS, WILL, DOES BRING AGAINST YOU – BUT “IN CHRIST” WE RECEIVE THE SPIRIT’S RESIDENCE, RELEASE, AND RESURGENT POWERS AS OVERCOMERS, NOT ONLY OVER SIN AND THE OLD NATURE, BUT OVER THE DEVIL HIMSELF AND HIS DEMON FORCES!

Romans 5:3-5 tells us about ‘disciples’ “justified by faith”, about ‘disciples’ “who have peace with God through Christ Jesus our Lord, with “access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”, not the demonic troubles or tribulations, who witness trouble and devilish tribulations having been overcome, because our heavenly hope is in Christ, and poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and given to us, yes, even to be overcomers over the devil’s temptations, tribulations, or testings!

Romans 8:37-39 declares, defends, defines, demonstrates a “redeemed life” filled with the Spirit, and heirs of God’s promises! “Yet in all these things (even devilish trials!) we are more than conquerors THROUGH HIM who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

IF “the kingdom is the Lord’s”, and YOU have committed yourself to His kingdom-rule, are you ‘blind’ to His divine ability, holy nature, and governing authority, yes, even over Satan and his demons?!? Isn’t it interesting to you as a “seeker”, that in Matthew 12:28, Jesus told the ‘religious, unrepentant, unredeemed Pharisees, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come.” The question of this moment: “In the midst of demonic activity all around you, are you firmly, faithfully, fully ‘marked’ as a true citizen of the kingdom of God, and ready, willing, able, and faithfully ‘piercing the dragon’?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE PRICELESS PURPOSE – A DIVINE AWAKENING NECESSITY?

Nehemiah 6:1-3 is a powerful insight into the reality of ‘temptations’ to take one away from eternal purpose or to lay hold of it, not deterred from it, but fully committed to His “great work”. It says: “Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, Gesham the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall, and that there were no breaks left in it (though at that time I had not hung the doors in the gates), that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, ‘Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me harm. So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?” [Any ‘insight’ in your reading there about ‘fleshly intents’ in place of “eternal purposes”?].

Now, relate that to 2 Timothy 1: 8-14!! “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings FOR THE GOSPEL according to the power of God, who SAVED US and CALLED US WITH A HOLY CALLING, not according to “our works”, but according TO HIS OWN PURPOSE AND GRACE which was given to us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, WHO HAS ABOLISHED DEATH AND BROUGHT LIFE AND IMMORTSALITY TO LIGHT THROUGH THE GOSPEL, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. FOR THIS REASON I also suffered these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, FOR I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED [‘trusted in, relied upon, adhered to’!] AND AM PERSUADED that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” Glory be to Holy, Loving, Merciful, Trust-worthy God!

Henry Brandt, Christian psychologist, has written: (“The Power of the Call”, p.208), “Generally speaking, our nation has followed the leading of the social scientist, who has sought to produce a Godless, valueless, permissive society as the answer to our needs. We have tried it for a half century. Where has the trail left us? We are headed for the rocks, but we are not there yet.” HOW FAR ALONG ARE YOU, (as a nation, a life, a family, a state or city, or even a ‘church’ or denomination), AWAY FROM GOD AND HIS REVEALED WORD AND MISSION?

David, King David, cried out in Psalm 119:37, “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, AND REVIVE ME IN YOUR WAY.” Do you realize how easy it is to be caught up in worthless things and not know “The Priceless Purpose”? Purposeless lives are what Peter called “this untoward generation”, which simply means a life not headed toward anything – AIMLESS, MEANINGLESS, an attitude of “what’s the use”, “do as YOU please”, “try to fill that ‘broken cistern’ that can hold no water – HELPLESS, HOPELESS, HELL-BOUND”!!

George Moore was a novelist of the last century. In one of his novels he wrote about ‘Irish peasants’ in the time period of the great depression, how the government had put them to work building roads, (kinda’ like the CC camps in the South in the 1930’s and early 1940’s after our ‘depression’).

It was a time for singing because they were at work again. But all of a sudden they realized they were building roads that led nowhere. When that truth dawned upon them that their job had been provided simply to feed them, they grew listless and stopped singing. Moore wrote: “THE ROADS TO NOWHERE ARE DIFFICULT TO MAKE. FOR A MAN TO WORK WELL AND SING, THERE MUST BE AN END IN VIEW.”

Listen to Chuck Swindoll in “The Quest For Character”,(p.99): “VISION. It is essential for SURVIVAL. It is spawned by faith, sustained by hope, sparked by imagination and strengthened by enthusiasm. It is greater than sight, deeper than a dream, broader than an idea. Vision encompasses vast vistas outside the realm of the predictable, the safe, the expected. NO WONDER WE PERISH without it!”

But again, listen to David, Psalm 28:7, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; THEREFORE (Do YOU have a ‘therefore’ in your life?)..my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him.”

“In Christ” WE’RE NOT LIP-SERVICE LIMPERS TRYING TO SURVIVE – WE’RE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE MOST-HIGH GOD, CALLED TO SERVE HIM AND HIM ALONE IN AND THROUGH THE FAITHFULNESS AND ASSURANCES OF HIS CALL UPON OUR LIVES!!

Everyone one of us, like Zaccheus, were up a tree, a tree of lifelessness, a tree of meaninglessness – and THEN, we heard the call: “Zacchaeus, come down,, today I must abide at your house,” AND THINGS CHANGE! “THE PRICELESS PURPOSE”! Purpose? God’s intension, God’s design, God’s blueprint, God’s eternal ‘counsel of His Will: Ephesians 1:11, “being predestined according to the PURPOSE of Him WHO WORKS ALL THINGS [in “your life of faith”] ACCORDING TO THE COUNSELF OF HIS WILL.”

Which thrusts us all who are “in the Faith” to “What is God up to in MY life?” In Psalm 139:16 King David wrote: “Your eyes God, saw my substance yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” I KNOW you’re familiar with the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 1:4, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ORDAINED YOU A PROPHET TO THE NATIONS.” Question! ARE YOU IN ON WHAT GOD ORDAINED FOR YOUR LIFE EVEN BEFORE YOU WERE FORMED AND BIRTHED?

FIRST, CONSIDER: PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE OF THE CALL OF GOD TO A GREAT AND GODLY WORK! Nehemiah 6:3, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot ‘come down’…!” Can we, in our modern-world so casually forget John 20:21? “…As the Father has sent Me, I ALSO SEND YOU.”

You know Jesus began with twelves disciples. Then in Luke 10:1 the Word says, “After these things the Lord APPOINTED seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.” Isn’t it interesting to you that Matthew 28:19 is called “THE GREAT COMMISSION”?

In 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 Paul reminds us and alerts us, saying, “NOW ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ Jesus, AND has given to us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ RECONCILING the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, AND HAS COMMITTED TO US THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION: NOW THEN, WE, “In Christ”, ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST!” How AWESOME!!!

Do YOU understand the awesomeness of a great and godly work like BOAT BUILDING? What about the awesomeness of a great and godly work of BIRTHING A HOLY NATION? We’re not ‘clueless’ about “rescue the Perishing and Care For the Dying”? But the question of this God-given moment IS: Am I sold out to “The story to tell to the nations” that by the love and mercy of Loving God “the darkness shall turn into the dawning, and the dawning to Noonday Bright, and Christ’s great Kingdom shall come to earth (through YOU and Me), the Kingdom of love and light”?

Hide all of 1 Peter 2:9 in YOUR heart!! “But YOU are a CHOSEN GENERATION, a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, a HOLY NATION, HIS OWN SPECIAL PEOPLE, that YOU may proclaim the praises of Him who called YOU out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

SECOND, PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF URGENCY! In Matthew 9:35-38, notice, Jesus was moved with compassion. He looked upon fallen humanity as “weary and scattered”, “like sheep having no shepherd”, seeing them as “the certain man (who) went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves – STRIPPED, WOUNDED, AND LEFT AS DEAD ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.”

Do YOU believe Jesus really understood the ‘sense of urgency’? In Luke 17:19, after cleansing the ‘lepers’, Jesus said, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well,” followed by Verses 20-31!

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; now will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God IS WITHIN YOU.”

Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say, to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them. For as the lightning flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. But first, He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man; They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. EVEN SO it will be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back.”

John Wesley once said: “I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye, while I stand on this isthmus of life between two boundless oceans.”

Sounds to me like “The Priceless Purpose” of “The Significance of Urgency”! That’s URGENCY BECAUSE A DAY IS COMING WHEN GOD ARISES AND SAYS, “Gentlemen, it’ closing time,” or URGENCY BECAUSE THERE IS A JUDGMENT SEAT BEFORE WHICH EVERY MAN MUST STAND, or URGENCY BECAUSE THE UNHOLY DEAD WILL STAND TO ANSWER WITH A ‘PONTIUS PILATE”, “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH JESUS CALLED THE CHRIST?”, or URGENCY BECAUSE THERE”S A LITERAL HELL WHERE THE WORM DOES NOT DIE AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED, or URGENCY BECAUSE GOD HAS PROVIDENTIALLY PLACED ON THE LEDGER OF OUR LIVES THE SOULS HE HAS COMMITTED TO OUR CARE, or URGENCY BECAUSE WITHOUT CHRIST THERE IS NO ETERNAL HOPE OR RECONCILIATION BEYOND WITH GOD APART FROM THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST IN OUR HEARTS!

THIRD, PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE OF THE AWARENESS OF AN ETERNAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST!!! Matthew 10:1 says, “And when He had called His twelve disciples TO HIM…”, that’s enough for this particular moment in the times of our lives – we don’t have to read any further, though we will!

Mark 3:13 says, “And He went up on the mountain and CALLED TO HIM THOSE HE HIMSELF WANTED. AND THEY CAME TO HIM,” and Matthew 10:1 then says, “…He gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sicknesses and all kinds of disease.” Look at Matthew 10:40! “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”

Charles Hodge, 19^th Century reformed theologian, in his “Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians,” (Grand Rapids, Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing, p.133) wrote: “A Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as God manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption; and who is so effected by a sense of the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to make the will of Christ the RULE OF HIS OBEDIENCE, AND THE GLORY OF CHRIST THE GREAT END FOR WHICH HE LIVES.”

Oh, but hear me!! 1 John 4:17, the last part, “…BECAUSE AS JESUS IS, SO ARE WE IN THIS WORLD.” What a priceless revelation or unveiling of the priceless purpose! Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote: “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.” Are YOU bewildered or blessed because who you are is not what “funny face” you wear but the FAITH-GIFT given to you that “Christ lives in me, and I live in the hope of His eternal glory, likeness, and provisions of ALL HE IS in His Resurrected, reigning presence!

FOURTH, PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE OF THE IMMUNITY FROM THE CRUCH OF CRITICISM!! In Matthew 10:16-23, and Verses 34-36, we read about, “Do You Know Who You Are And What You’re About?”

“BEHOLD, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as dove. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father for his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. BUT he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes….Verses 34-36, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household’.” Do YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT?

If you do, and you should know, what difference does it make if others are critical of your ‘Life Task’? You sell out to Christ, and on one hand you’ll get rose bouquets but on the other you may get red bricks! What is ‘social approval’ or the lack thereof if YOU have God’s blessing? Rebuke from a soiled society is water off a duck’s back!

Look at Luke 6:22-23, 26! “Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. REJOICE in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.”

FIFTH, PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING AND CONFIDENCE OF DEPENDENCE UPON HOLY GOD TO MEET OUR EVERY NEED!

Matthew 10:9-10, again Jesus speaking, “provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.”

In Psalm 4:8 David wrote, “I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Never doubt the Word of God or the words of God that come to you through the promptings of the Holy Spirit!

2 Corinthians 9:8 says, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”

When I was born again, February 1974, after being a Baptist pastor for twelve years, I became so attentive to God’s Word and His spoken words to me. Sue and I were in Arizona, 2000 miles from our home, and I heard God clearly say, “I want you to resign this church as pastor on such and such a date. Upon your resignation I want you to give away all of your savings. You are to be penniless and trust Me.” I went home at lunch to tell Sue and she said, “Did you ask Him what to do with the money from savings and in our checking account?” I said, “No” and Sue said, “It might be good if you ask Him.”

I did, and He told me three places to give the money. We did all He said, and just a day or two later I came home for lunch. Scott had walked from his High School for lunch and I opened the mail. There was a letter from a family in Ocala, Florida. It said, as cash money fell out and also a check, “Don’t know what God is up to in your live, but He told us a significant change was taking place in your family and we should be a part. Here’s a check for $5000 to use as you see fit – that’s from my husband – the cash is from me,” the wife said.

The cash was more money than we gave away and the check helped us settle in our home in Tennessee as a base for evangelistic outreach!!

SIXTH, PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE OF THE INCRREASING CELEBRATION OF THE AWARENESS OF PARTNERSHIP WITH GOD! Matthew 10:5-7, words to the twelve, Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

It’s so very, very interesting that 2 Corinthians 6:1 says, “We then, as workers together with God also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” What did we see there? “Workers together with God”! Oh, and then, Colossians 1:29 says, “To this end I also labor, striving ‘according to His working which works in me mightily.’”

In Henry Blackaby’s book, “The Power of the Call,” (p.116), he wrote: “The complexities of your background do not cut you off from God’s resources – nobody can do that.” [Are YOU grasping this yet for your walk?].

We don’t choose to be set aside in life as a disciple of Jesus. Disciples are chosen, called, set aside in the sovereignty of Holy God. We’re selected, elected, commissioned by God, in God’s timing, God’s place and placing, to serve God and God alone!

We’re not “man-pleasers”, but “God-blessers and the blessed”!! Romans 1:1-6 says, “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ…”

SEVENTH, PURPOSE IS PRICELESS BECAUSE PURPOSE KEEPS US OUT OF AND AWAY FROM THE PARALYSIS OF PESSIMISM! Remember, “I’m doing a great work and I ‘cannot come down’!” “I’ve been called of God, and I’ll not crumble, nor fumble, nor bumble, nor be a ‘believer’ that carelessly, blundering, blindly, stupidly lives in defiance to the Lord’s eternal will, purpose, or design!” “The world’s news is not my life barometer – it may be sad, uncertain, with gloom as a disease of its mind, heart, and spirit – BUT I’m MORE THAN CONQUEROR! I’M A CHILD OF THE KING! I HAVE VICTORY IN JESUS! I’M, IN HIM, AN OVERCOMER! I’M COMMISSIONED WITH A GREAT, HIGH CALLING, TO HONOR HIM!

J. Wallace Hamilton, in his writing, “Where Now Is Thy God”? (p.38). “Good men in all lands are asking it, how to keep faith in the imperishable values when they seem so wholly at the mercy of the perishable. Our age is characterized by a deep, subconscious pessimism and underlying mood of hopelessness. Gone from our hearts is the buoyant optimism of the frontier days which was so exhilarating a factor in the making of America. It is our fate to live in a time when a vast instability and insecurity and anxiety underlies all we think or do. Emotionally we are like people waiting for a catastrophe. A “what’s the use of anything” mood has settled on millions like a blight.” BUT NOT THE REDEEMED! NOT THE SENT! NOT THE CALLED! NOT THE APPOINTED AND ANOINTED! NOT NEHEMIAHS! What did Nehemiah say? “I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down!” “I’m doing a great work, and even though all Hell opposes me, I’m fighting on, I’ll finish the work with, yes, the desire of hearing my Savior say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’”!

Do you think this might be why Paul said the following in Colossians 3:23? “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.”

A paralysis of pessimism? How about an explosion of devotion? A paralysis of doubts and fears? How about a volcanic eruption of certainty, confidence, of consecration to be all God wants me to be and so much more than I ever dreamed I could be on my own?

I can’t wait to hear it – even the promise of it is sustaining: Matthew 25:34, Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

I pray that Jesus words might be yours: John 17:4, “I have GLORIFIED you on the earth. I have finished the work You have given Me to do.”

2 Peter 1:10 says, “…make your calling and election sure..!” We started with this chapter with a Henry Brandt quote – let me end with on from “The Power of the Call,” (p.163): “There is a spirit of faith available every day independent of circumstances, independent of people, and of people’s choices. On any given day, you have an option. You can submit your life to the Lord, but you do not have to. You can rejoice, but you do not have to. That leaves you with a daily choice. Which way will you choose?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“AWAKENINGS” NECESSITY?

“THE CALL OF TRUE DISCIPLESHIP – THE CALL TO DEATH!”

In Mark 8:34-38 we’re ALL confronted with Christ’s call to “take up the cross and follow Me,” When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him DENY HIMSELF, TAKE UP HIS CROSS, AND FOLLOW ME. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels”, and that’s not in some “fantasy” – future, cataclysmic event like a “Rapture”!?!

There’s a similar remarkable passage in Mark 14: 43-52 that tells us of the Lord’s betrayal and arrest. It says: And immediately, while He (Jesus) was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, with a great multitude with swords and clubs, came from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now His betrayer had given them a signal, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the One; seize Him and ;lead Him away safely.”

As soon as he had come, immediately he went up to Him and said to Him, “Rabbi, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. THEN they laid their hands on Him and took Him. And one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.

Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you come out as a robber, with swords and clubs to take Me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me. BUT THE SCRIPTURE MUST BE FULFILLED. Then they all forsook Him and fled.

Now a certain young man followed Him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.

Remember, Jesus talked about “take up his cross” – it’s “lose his life…”! I remember Moses Paulose of Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India, saying to me years and years ago, in one of the years of my ministry in India over twenty-five years, “Papa, the problem with the American church is that it really doesn’t believe the true message of the Gospel.” I said then, “What do you mean? The church is as strong in America as any place on the face of the earth.” Paulose responded, “They really don’t believe the call of the gospel is the call to come and die.”

I remembered the conflict in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life in Switzerland as he ran from Nazi Germany, and the Lord God confronted him. “What are you doing here, Bonhoeffer? Go back to Germany.” And he did. In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” he wrote: “WHEN CHRIST CALLS A MAN HE BIDS HIM COME AND DIE.”

I remembered the conflict of Paulose and his son, Israel, in a fishing village of southern India, where they were severely beaten! Israel responded afterwards to his father: “Daddy, isn’t it good? I’m going to be a martyr for Jesus.” And I also remembered a few years later experience in India, in my prayer time in preparation to teach that day 300 India pastors, PLANNING on teaching “Preparedness and Readiness”, and the Lord said, “The church of India will blossom but it will be by the blood of the martyrs.”

And months and months after that, I received a letter from Varghese Matthews of the Andaman Islands: “We’ve recently begun to receive threats on our lives as a family. May not see you on your next trip, but I’ll see you with the Lord in Heaven.”

Please remember and reflect: 2 Corinthians 7:3, “I do not speak to condemn you: for I have said before that you are in our hearts TO DIE TOGETHER AND TO LIVE TOGETHER.” That is one of the most dynamic, powerful, illuminating, liberating verses I’ve ever read! What does the world do? They live together so they can die together. But the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ? WE DIE TOGETHER SO WE CAN LIVE TOGETHER! And this isn’t the ‘Jim Jones” poisoned ‘kool-aid’ program but the prophesy of the Lord Jesus Christ: AS YOU CHOOSE TO DIE TO YOURSELF, YOU’VE FOUND THE “WAY TO LIVE FOREVER!” Think that just might be what Paul meant when he said: “I die daily”?

It’s not a casual hymn for comfortable church members but the truth of the Gospel: “I must needs go home by the way of the Cross, There’s no other way but this; I shall ne’er get sight of the gates of light, If the way of the Cross I miss… I must needs go on in the blood-sprinkled way, the path that the Savior trod; If I ever climb to the heights sublime, where the soul is at home with God. Then I bid farewell to the way of the world, to walk in it nevermore; For my Lord says, “Come”, and I seek my home where He waits at the open door. The way of the Cross leads home, the way of the Cross leads home. It is sweet to know as I onward go, The way of the Cross leads home.”

And I know, on the one hand, from the lips of Jesus, that it is a CHOICE. Mark 8:34 says, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

But the way of the Cross is more than a choice I make, it is a work Sovereign God providentially, circumstantially, and faithfully oversees: 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 says, “But we have this treasure in earthern vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. WE are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; WE are perplexed (at times!), but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live ARE ALWAYS delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is working in us, but life in you.” Does that sound like, “Your death-extremities for God’s opportunity?”

If you come with me to Matthew 16, you’ll find some more illuminating verses: Matthew 16:21-26 says, From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He MUST GO TO JERUSALEM, and SUFFER MANY THINGS from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and BE KILLED, and BE RAISED THE THIRD DAY.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Jesus, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

THEN Jesus said to the disciples [You and me?], “If ANYONE desires to come after Me, let him DENY HIMSELF, and TAKE UP HIS CROSS, and FOLLOW ME. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” HOW SOBERING IS THAT?

I had a friend, Alan Butt, who said once, “Peter could identify Jesus, but at this point, he couldn’t identify with Him.” And with all my heart, I say to you today as I do the world over, that many do identify Jesus correctly, but sadly they’ve never identified WITH HIM! What did Jesus say to His disciples and to us in John 12:24? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself ALONE; but IF IT DIES, it bears much fruit.”

The tragedy of much of the ‘church’ in America is that it has settled for ‘comfort’ when Christ Jesus called it “TO THE CROSS”! “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies…”?

Have you ever seen a ‘grape’ comfortable in a winepress? Have you ever seen kernels of corn comfortable under a millstone as it is crushed for bread? Have you ever seen an apple comfortable as a paring knife is thrust into it to prepare it for the ‘pie’?

And, I want you to know, I’ve never seen a ‘Christian’ comfortable as ‘he or she’ dies daily in order to see the fruits and fullness of the Divine Life of Christ released within them! John Wimber once said: “Jesus calls us out of this world to be perpetually uncomfortable!”

Do you remember what Jesus said to the church at Smyrna? Revelation 2:10, “…Be faithful until death, and I will give you a crown of life.” But the all-inclusive message of Christ is not only faithful until, but faithful unto death, daily! And if it’s a call in true discipleship to ‘death’, then what is it, for our practical, workable understanding?

FIRST, (So clearly!), IT IS DEATH TO ONE’S PERSONAL WILL: In Matthew 26:36-46 we read, Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” He went a little farther and fell on His face, AND PRAYED, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; NEVERTHELESS, not as I will, but as You will.”

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?? Watch and PRAY, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your Will BE DONE.”

And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. THEN He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.”

There is eternal insight to the last passage you just read when in John 5:30 you see this passionate understanding of “Christ in the flesh”, or His ‘human body’ as He said: “I can do nothing in My own initiative… I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”

And our appropriation of that truth in our lives? In 1 John 4:17-19 says: “Love (the love of God!) has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: BECAUSE as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in (Calvary’s) love. We love Him because He first loved us.” BECAUSE AS JESUS IS SO ARE WE!

No doubt this is why Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to write Romans 12:1-2! “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you PRESENT YOUR BODIES “a living sacrifice”, holy, acceptable to God, which IS your reasonable service (of worship!). And do not be conformed to this world, but be (being) transformed by the renewing of your mind, that YOU may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Oh, the true servant of Christ doesn’t even stop there with Paul’s powerful word, but extends it with Paul’s later word in Colossians 3:15-17! “AND let the peace of God RULE IN YOUR HEARTS, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you RICHLY IN ALL WISDOM, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. AND whatever you do in word or deed, DO ALL IN THE NAME of the Lord Jesus, GIVING THANKS (for the privilege of being a ‘vessel’ through which ) God the Father does His work, as He did through Christ” on the Cross!

SECOND, THIS WALK OF ‘DEATH” IS DEATH TO FLESHLY LIVING: In Romans 8:12-14 Paul explains this “death to fleshly living”! [Your “flesh” in biblical form IS “your old sin-nature”!]. “Therefore, brethren, (brothers AND sisters ‘in Christ’!), we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh (or your old sin-nature) you will die; but IF by the Spirit you put to death (daily) the deeds of the body, YOU WILL LIVE (victoriously in the “Overcoming Life of Christ”!). For as many as are LED by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

[Where does it come free that a ‘Christian’ can’t do anything but sin until he/she gets to heaven?]. Oh, but hear me! “In Christ”, those who have been “born again”, drawn to Jesus by the Father’s love, grace, and mercy, these “new creations”, NOW “raised up” are what? Galatians 2:20! “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 (the physical body) 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…” Glory!

What did Paul say in Galatians 5:13? “For you, brethren (“in Christ”), have been called to LIBERTY; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh; but through love serve one another.” “Best efforts”? No! Galatians 5:16-21 instructs us: “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another; so that you do not do the things that you wish.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, WHICH ARE: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God,” with Verse 24 then telling us: “And THOSE WHO ARE CHRIST’S HAVE CRUCIFIED THE FLESH (the old sin nature! And when Christ died YOU CHOICE to have your old sin nature crucified with Him!), Yes, with its passions and desires.”

Have you who profess “In Christ” allowed the old man of sin to dominate you unaware of the revelation and unveiling of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 to blind you to your future or will you allow 1 Corinthians 6:11 to be YOUR true redemptive testimony? Verses 9-10 tell us: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? DO NOT BE DECEIVED. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomities, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God!” But Verse 11? “AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God.”

Examine what the “beloved Peter” had to say in 1 Peter 4:1-2! “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh HAS CEASED FROM SIN, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, BUT for the WILL OF GOD.”

Are YOU “one with Christ”? Romans 6:14 declares: “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Followed by Verses 17-18, “But God be thanked that though YOU WERE SLAVES OF SIN, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. AND, HAVING BEEN SET FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME SLAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Then, carried to His ‘mountain of holiness’, we learn, Verses 22-23, “But now HAVING BEEN SET FREE FROM SIN, and HAVING BECOME SLAVES OF GOD, YOU, “IN CHRIST”, have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. FOR the wages of sin IS DEATH, but the GIFT OF GOD is ETERNAL LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.”

THIRD, THIS ‘WALK OF DEATH’ AND “LIFE IN CHRIST” IS DEATH TO A WORLD SPIRIT! In Galatians 6:14 the Holy Word instructs us: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

What commission to we receive from the beloved John in his letter, 1 John 2:15-17? “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father IS NOT IN HIM. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the (boastful) pride of life (in the flesh) – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

Yes, we are still in the world, but, as disciples of Christ, we are not to be of it! If we are as Jesus is in this world, what is it He is? Hebrews 7:26 says, “For it was fitting that we should have such a High Priest, Holy, Innocent, Undefiled, Separated from sinners, and Exalted above the heavens…” What does that mean?

• It’s Death to the world spirit of compromise and convenience! Psalm 15:1-2 says, “O Lord, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your Holy Hill? He who walks in integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart.” I love what Spurgeon once wrote in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons, (Vol.11, p.24), “Certainly, the highest point to which the best unconverted man can go might well be looked upon as a level below which the converted man will never venture to descend.”
• It’s Death to the world spirit of perverted pleasures, immoral madness, and lawless living. In James 5:1 & 5 James spoke of the ones who ought to weep and howl for the miseries which are soon coming upon them…Who are they? Verse 5, “you who have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure.” I found it shocking and amusing and puzzling to hear Colin Powell say years ago when he was prominent in the ‘public eye’, “God doesn’t have a legislative agenda…”, and one has to ask, “What about the Ten Commandments and the whole of His “legislative Word”?
• It’s Death to the world spirit of unashamed alleges to a fallen, crucified sin-nature. The prophet Jeremiah illuminated God’s concern in Jeremiah 6:15, highlighting His awareness of a ‘sinful people’: “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I punish them, they shall be cast down, says the Lord.”

“In Christ” we’re not shame-filled sinners – we’re sanctified saints; we’re not castaways – we’re the “chosen”; we’re not children of fallen, faithless men – we’re the children of Faithful God; we’re not earth-bound, groveling, wallowing men of a lower nature – we’re partakers of the divine nature and have been raised up to be seated with Christ in the heavenly places! We’re not the ‘slimy sinners of slippery streets carrying us to Hell’ – we’re the Savior’s sons and daughters set and sealed on the Highway of Holiness to the heavenly places!

You “In Christ” can serve those in the world, you can bless those in the world, but as children of God, we’re never to blend in “with them”, bend “with them” – we were ‘darkness’ as the world is, but NOW “in Christ” we ARE “Light in the Lord”!

• It’s Death to the world-spirit of devotion to the temporal, passing, fading, waning, earthly glory of this present world, as Jesus tells us in Luke 21:33-36! “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighted down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

FOURTH, THIS “WALK OF DEATH AND LIFE IN CHRIST” MUST BE ASSURED BY DEATH TO YOUR OWN IDENTITY! In John 3:23-30 we read, Now John (the Baptist) also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized. For John had not yet been thrown into prison.

Then there arose a dispute between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified – behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!’

John answered and said, ‘A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but ‘I have been sent by Him.’ He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. HE MUST INCREASE, but I MUST DECREASE.” Do you see it? Do you receive it?

Jesus MUST increase – I MUST decrease!

I don’t want to be known as James Farrell Fisher, but rather known as “follower of Christ”; not known as James Farrell Fisher, but known as “disciple of Christ”; not known in a ‘flesh identity’ but known as “Jesus’ good and faithful servant”; not known as Jim Fisher’s son, but known as “son of God”; not known as “a chip off the old block” but as “the apple of God’s eye”; not known as “ a trophy of devotion of man’s earthly best”, but known as “a trophy of dependence in God’s heavenly graces, mercies, and love”; not known as “one true to the best in men”, but “true to the best of God’s faithful provisions”; not known “as a man with a good reputation among kings and nations”, but “a man known and loved by the King of kings and Lord of lords”; not known as “a man with a passion for earthly success”, but “a man whose passion was, is, and forever will be LIKENESS TO GOD HIMSELF”!

Psalm 17:15 says, “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness: I will be satisfied with Your Likeness when I awake.” An old, old hymn from, I believe, the 1800’s, maybe earlier, I found in “The Editor’s Literary Estate, and Chatto & Windus, Ltd,” translated by Mary Elizabeth Byrne (1880-1931), says so much, entitled “Be Thou My Vision”. It’s importance here? This “Walk of Death And Life in Christ” MUST BE ASSURED BY DEATH TO OUR OWN IDENTITY! “In Christ”, He is our vision and reception of “eternal life”!

“Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Nought be all else to me, save that You art – You my best thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Your presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and You my true Word; I ever with You, and You with me, Lord; You my great Father, and I Your true son, You in me dwelling, and I with You one.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise, You my inheritance, now and always; You and You only, first in my heart, High King of heaven, my treasure You art.

High King of heaven, my victory won, May I reach heaven’s joys, O Bright Heaven’s Son! Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.”

I remember Paulose telling my co-teacher, Dwayne Weehunt, on one of our many, many trips together to India, “Farrell’s going to die for the faith in India. I’m trying to decide on his best burial place.” [Well, at 80 years of age, if God wants me back in India to preach and teach and die there, I’m ready! But hear me – it’s not where you die but for WHOM YOU FACE DEATH!

In Billy Graham’s book, “Approaching Hoofbeats…The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p.26, he wrote: “I look back on my many years as an evangelist, and I wonder, have I made the Christian faith look too easy? Even before I heard the expression, I have constantly borne in mind what Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace’.

Of course it is “by grace you have been saved through faith…not by works so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Of course our salvation was a result of what Christ has done for us in His life and death and resurrection, not what we must do for ourselves. Of course we can trust Him to complete in us what He has begun…But ‘in my eagerness’ to give away God’s great gift, have I been honest about the price He paid in His war with evil? And have I adequately explained the price we must pay in our own war against evil at work in and around our lives?”

I close this chapter with our Lord’s words as great multitudes went to Him. In Luke 14:26-29, and Verse 33 we read: “If anyone desires to come to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him…Verse 33, So likewise, whoever of you who does not forsake all that he has he cannot be My disciple.”

Ira F. Stanphill wrote the old Hymn “Follow Me.” (Copyright, 1953 Singspiration Music/ASCAP. The Benson Company, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee). It says: “I traveled down a lonely road And no one seemed to care, The burden on my weary back Had bowed me to despair, I oft complained to Jesus How folks were treating me, And then I heard Him say so tenderly, “My feet were also weary, Upon the Calvary Road; The cross became so heavy, I fell beneath the load. Be faithful weary pilgrim, The morning I can see, Just lift your cross and follow close to Me.

“I work so hard for Jesus” I often boast and say, “I’ve sacrificed a lot of things To walk the narrow way. I gave up fame and fortune; I’m worth a lot to Thee,” And then I heard Him gently say to me, “I left the throne of glory And counted it but loss, My hands were nailed in anger Upon a cruel cross. But now we’ll make the journey With your hand safe in mine, So lift your cross and follow close to Me.

Oh, Jesus, if I die upon A foreign field some day, ‘Twould be no more than love demands No less could I repay. “No greater love has mortal man Than for a friend to die,” These are the words He gently spoke to me, “If just a cup of water I place within your hand Then just a cup of water is all that I demand, But if by death to living They can Your glory see, I’ll take my cross and follow close to Thee.” Amen?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“CHAINED –A SUPERNATURAL AWARENESS AND BLESSING”

Come with me to Acts 26:24-29 where I, without hesitation, believe the sincerity of Paul when he said to Agrippa, after being accused by Festus who said of him, “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!” But he said, “I am not made, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and reason. For the king, before whom I speak freely, knows these things; for I am convinced none of these things escapes his attention, since this things was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe.” Agrippa then said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.” OH, and then Paul said: “I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains.”

Paul would have, in the flesh much rather been free of those ‘chains’ to travel and preach the gospel anywhere and everywhere, but the truth is those “chains” defined him.

On a particular occasion, the philosopher, Josiah Royce, was in his study at Harvard conversing with a young student when suddenly the student asked Dr. Royce, “What is your definition of a Christian?” And the philosopher responded, “I don’t know how to define a Christian…But wait,” he added, looking out the window, “there goes Phillips Brooks.”

And when YOU look at Paul, you say, “There goes Paul, ‘the prisoner of the Lord”! When you look to Acts 25, you find Festus, the governor, King Agrippa and his wife Bernice, and Verse 23 says they came “with great pomp, and had entered the auditorium with the commanders and the prominent men of the city, and at Festus’s command Paul was brought in.” Question?

WHO WAS REALLY FREE? The prominent men of the city or the precious disciple of the Christ? The commanders of earthly armies or the “Conqueror” in the Heavenly Kingdom? The governor or the one Godly-Governed?

Just because men walk paved streets doesn’t mean they’re free! Just as women are able to do as they please, it doesn’t mean they’ve been truly liberated! Just as ‘worldly teens’ throw off all restraints, it doesn’t mean they’re void of bondage!

The freest man in the king’s court was Paul, including the king who was “enslaved to his old sin nature”! And, what are ‘natural chains’ on a man’s heart when YOU ARE “free in the Spirit”? In John 8:32 Jesus proclaimed, “And you shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall make you free”!

And because of our “blood-bought redemption”, Romans 6:22 says, we, “HAVING BEEN SET FREE FROM SIN, AND HAVING BECOME SLAVES OF GOD.” WHAT A GLORIOUS BLESSING! From “slaves of sin, the old sin-nature, and the chains of Satan”, in Christ, through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s “finished work” at the Cross, we become “servants of God”, “Servants of Christ”, led by the Spirit of God to be instruments in the lives of others around us who are “chained” by the devil!

Roman 8:2 declares, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made “us” free from the law of sin and death.” And “in Christ” we who have been redeemed by His blood have been commissioned by our Lord and Savior as His ‘front-line’, ‘freedom-fighters’ , even if it means ‘chains’ like Paul!

Charles T. Leber wrote: “The church is a revolutionary power, but the Christian revolution is not a revolt of violence; it is the inevitable and righteous revolution which demands that things be changed and man made free.”

Even Abraham Lincoln, in the hour of his Gettysburg Address said ‘prophetically’: “…THAT THIS NATION, Under God, shall have a ‘new birth of freedom,.” So, Jesus said in John 8:36, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

In this Chapter, “Chained – A Supernatural Awareness and Blessing”, notice: FIRST, THE CHAINS OF DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN AS WE SERVE FAITHFULLY, TO BRING US FULLY INTO HIM: In Deuteronomy 6:23 Moses said: “Then God brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers.” WHAT A “BLESSING”! WE’RE NO LONGER “THERE”. We’re not in “Egypt” any longer, we’re not ‘slaves’ laboring with “mud and straw” building Satan’s kingdom, we’re no longer those subject to an alien, enemy-of-God power! But momentarily we’re not in “the Land” yet either – initially, it’s those ‘wilderness wanderings’ , headed toward the “land of Promise”, understanding our early days of “pilgrimage” MAY FACE That, and it wasn’t and isn’t “a piece of cake.”

That’s why we read in Deuteronomy 8:16, “God fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might test you, “TO DO YOU GOOD IN THE END –“. God said to Israel through Jeremiah (48:10), “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” Job 23:10 says, “But God KNOWS the WAY that I take; when He HAS TESTED ME, I SHALL COME FORTH AS GOLD.”

Too many are so ‘short-sighted’ in the things of the Spirit. Too often we don’t see beyond our noses! In Psalm 66:8-12 David sang: “Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard…Who keeps our soul among the living, and does not allow our feet to be moved…For You, O God, have proved us; You have refined us as silver is refined…You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs…You have caused men to rule over our heads; we went through fire and through water: BUT YOU BROUGHT US OUT TO RICH FULFILLMENT.”

I remember Mark Handy, on one of our mission-trips together, preaching: “We’re ‘money’ in God’s pocket and He can spend us as He pleases.” Why? Because God knows His desire for us in the finished product of His redemptive faith! And, yes, there will be, at times, “chains” of difficult circumstances, even as we serve faithfully, to bring us fully into Him!

SECOND, THERE ARE THE “CHAINS” OF OPPORTUNISTIC WITNESS: Here’s the Question: “Would God, who knows the End from the Beginning, allow chains, difficult circumstances, would He allow the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction in you, over you, around you, through you to give opportunity to you to bear witness to “saving grace”? And, the Answer? YES!

Paul was not only the “spiritual prisoner of the Lord”; He was also, at times, a “Literal prisoner of the Lord” (Ephesians 3:1, 4:1!). But listen to what Paul said to the church at Philippi in Philippians 1:12-13! “But I want you to know, brethren, that the things WHICH HAPPENED TO ME have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ…”!

Do you remember ‘the Philippian jailor’ in jailor in Acts 16 in ‘fear’ over a ‘great earthquake’ saying to Paul and Silas,? “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said “ Believe in (trust in, rely upon, adhere to) the Lord Jesus Christ, you and your household,” with Verse 32 telling us “they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.” “Opportunistic witnessing – the whole household received and rejoiced in the Truth!”

THIRD, THERE ARE ALSO “CHAINS” OF EXPERENTIAL ENCOURAGEMENT. In 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 Paul witnessed to the church of God in Corinth, with all the saints in all Achaia: “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 tribulation, 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 conflicts which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation.”

In Philippians 1:14 he wrote: “and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident BY MY CHAINS, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

William Barclay, in his commentary on Corinthians, (p.191), told of a Mr. Barrie whose mother lost her dearest son, and the living son said: “That is where my mother got her soft eyes and why other mothers ran to her when they had lost a child,” because, as it was said of Jesus, Hebrews 2:18, “For in that He Himself suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” ARE YOU CHAINED AS A SON OF ENCOURAGEMENT? DO YOU MAKE YOURSELF, ONCE CHAINED, TO BE THE MODERN-DAY MESSENGER OF ENCOURAGENT TO OTHERS BECAUSE YOU CLEARLY UNDERSTAND THEIR PAIN?

FOURTH, WHAT ABOUT SHARING “THE CHAINS OF CONVICTION” RELATING TO OUR “SUFFICIENCY”? Get ready! 2 Corinthians 12:7-11 Paul enlightens us all! He said: “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore MOST GLADLY I will rather boast in my infirmities, THAT THE POWER OF CHRIST MAY REST UPON ME. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Go back to 2 Corinthians 9:8 noticing what Paul wrote earlier: “AND GOD…(is that the explanation of your walk of discipleship or Poor Me – Strong Me – Weak Me – Independent Me – Able Me? OR.. “And God…”?!?!? “God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you, always HAVING ALL SUFFICIENCY IN ALL THINGS, may have an abundance FOR EVERY GOOD WORK.”

The question of the moment? “Are YOU chained to the conviction of God’s sufficient?” Philippians 4:19! “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

FIFTH, AND PLEASE BE AWARE OF “THE CHAINS OF RELEASE, BY GOD, TO AN EFFECTIVE TESTIMONY! What do you do with a John Mark who ‘fled’ when Jesus was being arrested, leaving the linen cloth behind, running away naked? And YET the totality of his experiences prepared him to be God’s “witness to testify and eventually write the Gospel of Mark?

How do you respond to a Peter who denied the Lord unless you see through even the pain of failure TO God’s release of a man to be an instrument in His hands to pen two precious epistles? What’s the significance of the Pauline epistles if you fail to see the blue flame of a disciple’s experiences warming believers hearts to a victorious, overcoming faith?

How do you fit a servant of God in exile on the isle of Patmos if you don’t see God’s preparations for all His future disciples that end the end are able to say, “WE WIN!”?

Whatever you find yourself going through, God is readying your release to an effective testimony for the sake of others! Helen Roseveare was a medical doctor in the heart of the African Congo. In 1965 she wrote a book entitled “Doctor Among Congo Rebels”.

In the book she described the horrific experiences that she and other missionaries there had to endure. She told of arrest, of unending questions, of imprisonments, of shameful indignities, of physical sufferings – even rape and murder.

What this precious disciple witnessed and experienced could have been her death physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, but because of her devotion to the Word and to the Spirit of Christ, she not only survived but conquered. Her book came out of her daily diary and her experiences. And on multitudinous pages she wrote prayers of thanksgiving, praise to God, testimonies of endurance – ‘RELEASED BY GOD FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS!’ Are you persuaded?

What did Paul say effectively to us? Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

SIXTH, WHY NOT NOW JUST CHOOSE TO ERUPT IN THE “CHAINS OF PROVIDENCE” BY GOD CHOOSING YOU TO BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS FOR THE LORD’S HONOR AND GLORY AND PRAISE! In Acts 9:15-16 we read, But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine, TO BEAR MY NAME, before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel…For I will show him how many things he must suffer FOR MY NAME’S SAKE.”

Do you remember Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers? But listen to this ‘man of faith’ when he was reconciled to his brothers: Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, you meant evil against me: but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, TO SAVE MANY PEOPLE ALIVE.”

Take the time as you read Philemon’s testimony squeezed in between Titus and Hebrews from the apostle! Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you – being such a one as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ – I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me.

I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.

For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave – a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay – not to mention to you that you owe me even your own self besides. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in the Lord.” Do YOU see the “Chains of Providence” in that and the resulting blessings?

Oh, and how about Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:8-10? “REMEMBER that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, EVEN TO THE POINT OF CHAINS; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also MAY OBTAIN the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” And those “chains of providence” are to be seen by us as “chains of privilege” in honoring our Lord and Savior!

SEVENTH, THE “CHAINS OF PRIVILEGE AND PROVIDENCE” ARE ALSO TO BE SEEN AS THE “CHAINS OF PRIVILEGE” IN LEARNING THE POWER OF PRAYER! Look with me at Acts 12:5-17! Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. And when Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers; and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. Now behold, an angel of the Lord by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, “Arise, quickly!” And his chains fell off his hands.

Then the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and tie on your sandals”; and so he did. And he said to him, “Put on your garment and follow me.” So he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord; and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him.

And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people.” So, when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked on the door of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer. When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her gladness she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter stood before the gate.

But they said to her, “You are beside yourself!” Yet she kept insisting that it was so. So they said, “It is his angel.” Now Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. But motioning to them with his hand to keep silent, he declared to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. And he said, “Go, tell these things to James and the brethren.” And he departed and went to another place.

Oh, but then look at the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, and what he learned about “the power of prayer”! In Jeremiah 32:1-3 and Verses 17-19 we read: The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon’s army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah’s house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it…; Then,

Verses 17-19 says, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. You show lovingkindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them – the Great, the Mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts. You are great in counsel and mighty in work, for Your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give to everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.” NOW

Jeremiah 33:1-3, and Verse 14! Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the prison, saying, “Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Verse 14, “Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah…”

Dr. Leonard Griffith, in his book on “Ephesians: A Positive Affirmation”, (p.170), wrote of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “He himself was a man of regular disciplined prayer. His daily devotions in the Nazi prison camp gave him such stability and calmness that his fellow prisoners and even the wardens sought every excuse to find comfort in exchanging a few words with him. Bonhoeffer’s prayer life made him strong in the presence of his enemies, even his last enemy, DEATH. Our last picture of him is the picture of a man praying on the morning of his own execution. It comes from the prison doctor who wrote many years later: “Through the half-open door of a room in one of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, still in his prison clothes, kneeling in fervent devotion and prayer to the Lord his God. The devotion and evident conviction of being heard that I saw in the prayer of this intensely captivating man moved me to the depths.”

EIGHTH, LET’S CONSIDER THE “CHAINS OF CONFINEMENT” WITH THE “PRISON OF PRAISE”! In Acts 16:22-26 we read, Then the multitude rose up against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep hem securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

[Please pause and reflect upon Isaiah 43:21! This is where the prophet Isaiah heard: “This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.”)

Now, hear me! Do you realize how many psalms of praise were birthed in the furnace of affliction? Do you realize how many songs of worship and adoration have overflowed out of the “flood stages” of the saints’ sufferings? Are you aware of the hymns of blessing about the name of our God that came out of the brokenness of one’s painful experiences?

And what psalmist or song writer would say, “It was useless, unfair” when their experiences brought them to the prison of praise? Psalm 118:15 says: “The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. What’s the ‘testimony’ of your tent?”

NINTH, EXAMINE THE “CHAINS OF EVER-OPENING WIDE AND EFFECTUAL DOORS” In Acts 19:21 we read, When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”! Another vital Word about those “chains of ever-opening wide and effectual doors”? Come to Romans 1:8-12! It says:

“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you in my prayers, making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established (or “made to stand”!) – that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

In 1 Corinthians 16:9 Paul wrote about “a great and effective door has opened to me..”. Oh, and then in Revelation 3:7-8 we read, “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens.’ “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.”

What is God up to in and through YOUR life? How Holy God so wanted to use and bless Israel as an instrument in His hands, but they would not allow it according to His purpose and plan. Holy God even challenged them through Isaiah when He challenged them, Isaiah 54:2-3, “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwelling; do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited.” Israel didn’t! Will you?

TENTH, LET’S EXAMINE BRIEFLY “THE CHAINS OF A PERFECTING PROCESS”! IN Hebrews 12:3-11 we’re enlightened about God’s passionate disciplines for our eternal delight! “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discourage in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

“The Chains of a Perfecting Process”? The chastening of the Lord? Rebuked by Him? Loved by Him ‘while He whips’ your ‘butt’? The Reminder of ‘forgotten exhortations’? ‘Rebuked by Him?’ ‘Chastened and scourged’ by Him? Readily in subjection to the Father of spirits in order to live the victoriously life? And as a result, receiving gladly and warmly ‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness’, because, yes, we’ve been trained by it?

LASTLY, LET’S REFLECT UPON “THE CHAINS OF THE UNVEILING OF THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST WITHIN”! Romans 8:29, “For whom He (GOD THE FATHER) foreknew, He also predestined to be CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON, that He (JESUS) might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

It was Robert J. McCracken who once said: “We on this continent (of America) should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs, but to secure liberty for their souls.”

Are YOU ‘secure in Christ’ and the liberty He promises? And there is NO TRUE LIBERTY until WE’RE WILLFULLY CHAINED AND STAMPED BY THE LIVING IMAGE OF CHRIST’S ABIDING PRESENNCE!

In the old “American Hymnal” published by THE BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, 1933, there is a hymn by C. Wordsworth and arr. By L. Mason, entitled “O Day of Rest and Gladness.” It says:

“O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light, O balm of care and sadness, Most beautiful, most bright; On you, the high and lowly, bending before the throne, Sin, Holy, Holy, Holy, To the great Three in One.

On You. At the creation, the light first had its birth; On You, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth. On You, our Lord victorious The Spirit sent from Heaven; And thus on you most glorious A triple light was given.

Today on weary nations The heavenly manna falls; To holy convocations The silver trumpet calls, Where gospel light is glowing With pure and radiant beams, And living water flowing With soul-refreshing streams.

New graces ever gaining From this our day of rest, We reach the rest remaining To spirits of the blest. To Holy Ghost be praises, To Father and to Son; The Church her voice upraises To You, blest Three in One.” AMEN?

CHAPTER TWENTY

“AWARENESS AND APPROPRIATION

OF DIVINE CONTENTMENT”

Daniel Webster’s “1828 Dictionary” defines “contentment” as: “a resting or satisfaction of mind without disquiet…satisfaction which holds the mind in peace…”.

Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent Congregationalist minister, professor, even strong political activist, and was called by some in the 1850’s to 1880’s (?) as one of the stoutest orators among the clerics in his day. The “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations” [Edited & Compiled by Frank S. Mead and published by Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood New Jersey] shared one of his statements: “There is a sense in which a man looking at the present in the light of the future, and taking his whole being into account, may be contented with his lot: that is Christian contentment. – But if a man has come to that point where he is so content that he says, “I do not want to know any more, or do any more, or be any more,” he is in a state in which he ought to be changed into a mummy!”

Proverbs 12:28 is very clear: “In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death.” That’s the “crossroads” thing; it’s the ‘free will of man’ choices of life or death, blessing or cursing, hot or cold, up or down, in or out, Spirit or flesh, righteousness or disobedience, contentment or discontentment, LIFE “IN CHRIST” or “pretense in self-will”?

If there is “The Life in Christ of DIVINE CONTENTMENT”, there must also be a life of selfish, devilish discontentment. If there is a Life of peace that passes all understanding, there must be a lack of peace that seems to stile the life’s clock. If there is the Life of divine rest, there must be a life of disturbing restlessness. If there is a celebratory way of Life, there must be a survival mode of life of trying to fill the emptiness.

If there is an explosion of Life at its fullest – exciting, fulfilling, satisfying, there must be an implosion of a life filled with boredom, dissatisfaction, even dismay, if one got ‘gut-level’ honest!

If there is a Life governed by the joy of the goal and the guarantee of its fulfillment, there must be a life so aimless, filled with sadness, and no hope of anything different, but you work at it, but it’s meaningless!

If there is a Life on the cutting edge of meaning and purpose, teeming with abundant blessing, then there must be a life so aimless, filled with sadness and disillusionment, and no hope of anything different!

If there is a Life of bountiful beauty, blue skies shining even through the darkest clouds, there must be a life of zero or little expectancy, dark clouds hovering over every avenue of one’s being.

If there is a life of ‘maximized manhood’ under the Master’s control, there must be a life of minimized, mixed, manipulated manhood under the Devil’s miserable control filled with false promises and ending with empty results.

If there is a life of openness to the broad places of abundant provisions, body, soul, and spirit, there must be a life shut in to dead-end streets, void of any ‘eternal’ victory, not overcoming but overcome, not rising high but falling further into a deep hole of hopelessness.

I there is a life where everything is “on target” because it IS God-centered, there must be a life where everything misses the mark because it is centered in SELF and not in the SAVIOR!

If there is a life based and blessed on the boldness of God’s unchanging, unceasing, unconditional love, there must be a life cursed by a famine of love, filled with rejection, disappointment, and emptiness.

If there is a life of God-chasing, filled with an unending passion to know Him, permeating with an insatiable hunger to live in His presence, resulting in the flow of Divine Life and that more abundantly, there must be a life of self-serving emphasis centered on me, my, and mine with the end result of a starvation diet producing only death, distraction, and discontent.

If there is a Life on “High Level”, the Upper Room blessing of Oneness with all Christ is, and the Glorious Light of His radiant presence showing “the Way”, there must be life on a low level, the lower dungeon-living of all I am without Him – prison-bars (most of my own making), cesspools of stinking, rotting, dead flesh, or ‘snakes’ and ‘dragons’ of demon powers feeding off my sin and iniquity, AND the darkness of the soul that curses and hates “the Light”.

If there is a life of DIVINE CONTENTMENT THAT SPIRITUALLY PROSPERS ME AND FILLS ME WITH ETERNAL PLEASURE, there must be a life of fleshly discontentment that bankrupts one’s soul and fills him with eternal displeasure – NOTHING EVER SATISFIES!

BUT THAT’S NOT US “IN CHRIST”! It’s not LIFE with a little ‘l’ but LIFE with the big ‘L”! God spoke to Jeremiah, (6:16), “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.’”

But here’s the Psalmist (16:11), “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

In Psalm 27:4 we hear from a “CONTENTED MAN”: “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” And there’s a reason:

Psalm 63:1-4 enlightens us: “O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for you in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory.

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.” “I SURRENDER!”

In John 10:10 Jesus is speaking: “The thief does not some except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I have come that they may have Life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

I want you to come with me to Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-23, and 3:10-12, 14-19. It says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He MADE US ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED.”

Verses 15-23 declares: Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come, (Plus)

Ephesians 3:10-12, 14-19, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.

Verses 14-19, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Receive words from Jonathan Edwards (Jonathan Edwards, “The Christian Pilgrim,” THE WORKS OF JONTHAN EDWARDS, Vol.2 (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974, p.244):

“The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the Ocean.” Let me remind you of ‘why’ our lives should be constantly filled with “Divine Contentment”, Aware of it and Appropriating it!

FIRST, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING OF “RESTING” IN THE FINISHED WORK OF ANOTHER, EVEN CHRIST THROUGH THE “BETTER” COVENANT OF GRACE.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed is the man who TRUSTS in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord…For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

The “blessed man” is one who does what? “Trusts in the Lord.” From that Holy Hill called Mount Calvary there came the cry of the “Conqueror” in conquest, even as He died, “IT IS FINISHED!!” The transaction was complete. The “blood covenant” fully implemented!

Follow Hebrews 7:22-27, 9:11-15, 24-28! “by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. Also there were priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

9:11-15, But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

9:24-28,For Christ has not entered the holy place made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another – He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”

We “REST” because (1 Corinthians 6:20), we’ve been bought with a price! That price according to 1 Peter 1:19 is “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” 1 Peter 3:19 then says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.”

Oh, and then in 1 Peter 2:24 we learn, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.” To Timothy (1 Peter 2:5) Paul said, “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.”

To the church at Ephesus (Ephesians 1:7) Paul declared: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the FORGIVENESS OF SINS, according to the riches of grace.” In Verse 143 he added, “In Him you also TRUSTED, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, HAVING BELIEVED (trusted in, relied upon, adhered to), you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise…”.

Edward Mote and William B. Bradbury wrote the hymn, “My Hope is Built”, (The American Hymnal, by Robert H. Coleman, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn.1933).

“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”

SECOND, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING OF EXCHANGED IDENTITIES! When Paul addressed his letter to the Philippians, he did it like this (1:1), “TO ALL THE SAINTS IN CHRIST JESUS…”! Even to the Corinthians he wrote: (1 Corinthians 1:2), “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those WHO ARE SANCTIFIED IN CJHRIST JESUS, CALLED TO BE SAINTS…”

“In Him”, we’re no longer ‘sinners’, not even ‘saved sinners’, but by His grace we’re declared ‘saints’! We’re not the unjust any longer, we’ve been justified! We’re not the ‘disqualified’ because of our sin or sin nature, but according to Colossians 1:12 we “give thanks to the Father who has QUALIFIED us to be partakers of the inheritance of saints in the light.” We’re no longer sons of men, but according to Ephesians 1:5 God “predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” That’s sons and daughters of God!

“In Him,” we’re no longer children of wrath, but according to Ephesians 2:3, what we were we are no longer; now we’re children of His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10), children of grace and mercy.”

The ‘old creation’ is dead; Now we’re “in Christ” the “new creations”! We Were of the First Adam – NOW we’re of the family of faith, the “Second Adam.” We were “tares” NOW? By transformation, we’re “Wheat”. We were ‘sons of the devil’, but Now we’re “sons of God”!

Paschal (Quoted in Foster, Devotional Classics, p.253)), has God saying this: “It is I who have made you and I alone can teach you what you are. But you are no longer in the state I made you. I created you holy, innocent, perfect, I filled you with light and understanding, I showed you My glory and My wondrous works. Your eye then beheld the majesty of God. You were not then in the darkness that now blinds your sight, nor subject to death and the miseries that afflict you. But you could not bear such great glory without falling into presumption. You wanted to make yourself your own center and do without My help. You withdrew from my rule, setting yourself up as My equal in your desire to find your happiness in yourself and I abandoned you to yourself.”

WHAT A DILEMMA! But God gave us deliverance! WHAT A SHALLOWNESS! But God gave us His salvation! WHAT A HELL-HOLE! But God gave us His help! Without Christ, there’s always a battle of insecurity and insignificance – a war to fill the vacuum of our souls with something – but “in Christ” we are blessed with a heavenly security of eternal significance.

We’re not the “guilty” – we’re declared innocent by the blood of the Lamb. We’re not the “hopeless” – we’re the “called-out ones”. We’re not the “meaningless” – we’ve been birthed into and equipped as soldiers in the army of Christ to advance the Holy Kingdom of God. We’re not “spiritual jail-birds” – we’re our Savior’s Jesus freaks and fools for His sake!

C.S. Lewis wrote: ‘Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut a branch here and there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. I will give you Myself; My own will shall become yours.” Then out of Larry Crabb’s book, “The Safest Place on Earth.” (Word Publishing, Nashville, Tenn., 1999, p.108)], he wrote:

“He (God) poured out His righteous anger on Jesus, who never sinned, so He could pour out His boundless love on people like us who couldn’t do anything but sin…It’s a position, a standing before Him in the courtroom that lets us walk away from the criminal’s docket fully acquitted, with no record of crime and no probationary period to see how we do…And then the judge steps out from behind the bench, puts on street clothes, and invites us to His place for coffee. We now spend time with Someone who is actually and completely pure – and we belong. We fit.”

Can YOU rest in that? Are you content with the “new identity: IN CHRIST”?

THIRD, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE WE’RE AWARE OF GOD’S UNENDING ACTIVITY IN OUR LIVES. Let’s go all the way back to that solemn picture of deliverance in the Old Testament and see its parallel with us! Deuteronomy 4:37-37 says, “And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; AND HE BROUGHT YOU OUT OF EGYPT (the World) WITH HIS PRESENCE, WITH HIS MIGHTY POWER…driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, TO BRING YOU IN, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day.”

GOD “In Christ” BROUGHT US OUT! TO DO WHAT? To leave us alone in a wilderness of incompleteness, short of our destiny and destination? No! God brought us out TO BRING US INJ TO THE FULLNESS OF THE BLESSING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST! Deuteronomy 8:3 says,

“So God humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone: but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”

Psalm 17:7 tells us that He “saves us by His right hand…” Psalm 31:15 tells us that “my times are in God’s hand…”. Psalm 32:4 says, His “heavy hand (is) upon me…”

Psalm 37:24 says, He “upholds him with His right hand.”

In Strong’s Concordance, six full pages in very small print, mostly tells us of the Hand of God in our lives! Church, disciples, followers, He does not leave us to ourselves! HE’S ABLY ACCEPTED FULL AND SOVEREIGN RESPONSIBILITY FOR US OF THE REDEMPTIVE FAITH IN CJHRIST JESUS!

I Peter 4:11 says, “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. AMEN.”

And, if you’re willing to receive Peter’s previous word, then stand in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” In Chapter Two of Philippians, Verse 13, Paul also said, “for it is God who works IN YOU both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” That’s ‘clay’ in the hands of the “Master-Potter”! In fact, I Thessalonians 5:24 declares, “He who calls you is faithful, who also will bring it to pass.”

FOURTH, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING OF ABUNDANT GRTACE AND THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT BIRTHED WITHIN ME THE REIGNING, OVERCOMING LIFE! Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, MUCH MORE those who receive abundance of grace and of the GIFT of Righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” With Verse 19 added, “…and by one Man’s obedience (whose obedience? One Man, even Christ alone!) MANY (does that include YOU?) will be made righteous.”

Now consider: Made righteous by what YOU do or by WHO and WHAT Christ Jesus did in your place? What did Paul say in Philippians 3:9? “…and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ (and I might add, ‘faith in Christ alone!), but the righteousness which is from God by faith.” HOW RIGHTEOUS ARE YOU? On a scale of 1 to 10, how righteous are you since you are “in Christ”?

F.J. Huegel, in “Forever Triumphant” (Zondervan, 1955,pps.17-18) wrote: “It cannot be too earnestly stressed that all Christians come into the same glorious inheritance. They have receive Christ, and all things are theirs for they are Christ’s. In Him they are complete. With Him they have been raised up, and with Him they have been made to sit together in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:5,6). In Him they died unto sin and were made alive unto God (Romans 6:11). Christ has been made unto them, of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1Corinthians 1:30). These things cannot, in a sense, be made more truly theirs than they already are. When God gives us Christ, His holy Son, to be our life, and this unspeakable gift is for all who will receive it by faith acknowledging themselves lost sinners in need of the gift; He does not do so by reservations. The whole gift is ours, not simply a part. We do not receive justification without sanctification. We are not brought into Christ piecemeal. Paul, in a sense, had no more of Christ than the poor drunkard, who only yesterday in some mission hall heard the Gospel, repented, believed, trusted, received Christ as his Savior and was born again.” So true! Born again to what? TO ALL THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST!!

1 John 4:17 says: “…as He is, so are we in this world!” 2 Corinthians 5:21 is just as strong saying, “For He (God) made Him (Christ the Son) to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

FIFTH, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING OF ETERNAL SIGNIFICANCE THAT I’M IN ON WHAT GOD IS UP TO IN THE HIGH AND HOLY CALLING OF WORLD REDEMPTION IN CHRIST!

In 2 Timothy 1:6-11 Paul is encouraging spiritual son Timothy to be fully aware of what the Father is up to in the Son through you and me as well as Timothy! “Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, To which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.”

The prophet Jeremiah heard God speak! Jeremiah 9: 23-24 says, Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord. [And Holy God chose YOU to share in the high and holy calling of world redemption in and through Christ, and you’re willing to be one of His ambassadors? “You shall BE My witnesses”!!

Look at 2 Corinthians 5:18-20! “Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

Larry Crabb again, (“The Safest Place on Earth”, Word Publishing, 1999,p.109) wrote: “A tabernacle in the wilderness once blazed with His glory. Now our souls radiate His presence in a dark world.”

John Piper, in “God’s Passion For His Glory” (Crossway Books, 1998, p.39), has written, “Our evangelistic task is not to persuade people that the gospel was made for their felt needs, but that they were made for the soul-satisfying glory of God in the Gospel.” Later, (p.109), Piper wrote: “The only public life of an evangelical that counts as virtuous is one that savors and celebrates the supremacy of God as the ground and goal of its public acts.”

SIXTH, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING OF EXPECTANCY OF WHAT GOD INTENDS THROUGH IT ALL, UNTO HIS ULTIMATE END. Let’s cut to the chase! Romans 8:28 says, “And we know (do we?) that ALL THINGS work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Then Jeremiah 24:5-7 is an exhilarating, uplifting passage! It says: “Thus says the Lord , the God of Israel: ‘Like these figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.” [At least the “remnant” returned but not all of Israel!].

1 Kings 8:56 says, “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses.”

Oh, and then the prophet Isaiah heard God because He knew there was going to be further work by God Almighty until, at least, the “remnant” of Israel relied upon what God said: Isaiah 48:10-11, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction…For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; for how should My name be profaned?”

I know at times “we” feed on that “bread of adversity and that water of affliction” – FOR A PURPOSE! CONSIDER JESUS! In John 12:27-28 we read, “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But FOR THIS PURPOSE I came to this hour… ‘Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again.”

Glory in the TROUBLE! Glory in the CROSS! Glory in the RESURRECTION! And do YOU sense it in your own pilgrimage? In Ephesians 1:11-12 Paul said, “in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will…that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”

Oh, and then in Philippians 1:12-14 he wrote: “But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel…so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ…AND most of the brethren in the Lord having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

It was September 10, 1999, when I boarded the Indian Airlines flight from Delhi to Amritsar. I was seated in 2D, right at the front. Across from me, with assistance, was seated Scott Chesny, a 29 year-old young man, paralyzed from the waist down by a rare stroke in his spinal cord at the age of 154. His wife was with him also. He was on a world tour doing several things: research, evaluation, and promotion of travel for the disabled, expanding awareness etc..I reached across the ailse and introduced myself. He noticed the book I was presently reading and asked if he could scan it quickly.

He told me they were presently going to see the Dalai Lama. And from within the Spirit of God moved and I began to pray for Scott Chesny. He was so open. I knew he was on a journey of discovery. I said to him, “Scott, 10 months ago I suffered from a horrible fall off my home-roof, destroying my left shoulder. I have an all-plastic shoulder now and it’s been so very painful. These 10 months I’ve sought to hear from God, “What is it in this You, God, have to say to me?” Then I said, “Scott, 14 years ago when you suffered your stroke, God was there. In His eternal love for you, He was calling you then and He’s calling you now. God has plans for your life far beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed. The Worthy Lamb waits for you to call Him out.”

Then Scott said, “Without faith, I would not have been able to make it. But the essence of His life within has seen me through thus far.” And I said, “Get ready, God has an ultimate goal for your life. Through it all, He wants to be honored through you.”

SEVENTH, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE ONENESS WITH CHRIST, LIVING IN THE FULLNESS OF HIS ABIDING PRESENCE, RELEASES ONLY THAT WHICH HE IS! In John 17:26 Jesus is speaking to the Father about us! “And I have declared to them Your name, and I will declare it, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Do we have a clue about this in Philippians 1:11? “being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

CONTENTMENT!! Because we’ve recognized that utter indispensability of Christ Himself within us, and we know He alone satisfies! We’ve found our highest prize! John Piper again, (p.173), wrote: “GOD PRIZES HOLINESS IN THE CREATURE, AND HOLINESS IS PRIZING GOD!”

This is why Paul cried out, (Philippians 3:8), “I indeed count ALL THINGS loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ, and BE FOUND IN HIM…”

Dr. Crabb made another interesting statement, (p.135), “Our strategies to preserve and enhance the SELF reflect the godless energy of people who are determined, at all cost, to find themselves, without yielding center stage to Christ.” That’s not my desire! I do yield “center stage” to Jesus! I’m determined at all cost to find myself fully in Him and Him fully in me!

EIGHTH, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE OF THE PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE OF “WALKING IN THE SPIRIT”, NOT STIFLING AND SUFFOCATING AND REMAINING OR DYING IN THE FLESH!

Ephesians 1:13 says, “…sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” In John 16:7 Jesus said, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away (necessary, expedient): for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I WILL send Him to you.”

Hear me! Jesus knew we couldn’t honor or glorify Him on our own. God the Father knew it. No provision or Person necessary for our Victory in Jesus was left out of God’s eternal scheme of things. It’s why Paul wrote to the Galatian church, (Galatians 3:3), “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?”

I think I hear the Spirit say: “Relax, children of faith. Take a deep breath and trust Me to honor Christ through you!” Is this why Paul said in Galatians 5:25, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit”? How about the daily prayer of: “Breathe on me…Breathe on me…Holy Spirit, breathe on me, take thou my heart, cleanse every part, Holy Spirit, BREATHE ON ME,” throughout my earthly journey and for eternity!

NINTH, WE’RE FILLED WITH DIVINE CONTENTMENT BECAUSE, AS THE REDEEMED PEOPLE OF GOD, WE REJOICE IN HIM ABOVE EVERYTHING-WE’VE FOUND OUR PURPOSE!! Isaiah 43:21 says, “This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise.”

What does Psalm 47:1-2 tell us? “Oh, clap your hands, ALL YOU PEOPLES! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth.” But just NOT YOU?

John Piper, in his book I mentioned earlier, (pps.36-37),wrote: “SIN IS SACRILEGE AND SUICIDE – This is confirmed in Romans 1:23 where people ‘exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image.’ That is the deepest problem with sin: it is a suicidal exchange of infinite value and beauty for some fleeting, inferior substitute. This is the great insult…In the words of Jeremiah, God calls it appalling. “Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 3:12-13). What is the essence of evil? It is forsaking a living fountain for broken cisterns. God gets derision and we get death. They are one; in choosing sugarcoated misery we mock the lifegiving God. It was meant to be another way: God’s glory exalted in our everlasting joy.”

Later, (p.79), Piper wrote: “…God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in,” followed by (p.108), “In other words, to delight in the good of all the universe, but not to delight in God, is like being glad that a candle is lit, but being indifferent to the rising sun.”

I believe the calling is not to be indifferent to but rejoicing in our eternal purpose of resting in and rejoicing in Him! Do you think it just might be why Paul wrote Philippians 3:12? “I PRESS ON, that I may lay hold of THAT FOR WHICH CHRIST JESUS HAS ALSO LAID HOLD OF ME”?

In Matthew 16:21 Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise’?” Again, John Piper, being an avid student of the life and teachings of Jonathan Edwards, in his Book, “God’s Passion For His Glory,” (p.47), wrote: “What I owe Jonathan Edwards for guiding me in these things is incalculable. I love his words, ‘The happiest of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.” But I also love to say it my way: “GOD IS MOST GLORIFIED IN US WHEN WE ARE MOST SATISFIED IN HIM!”

Satisfied? Contented in ‘flesh’? Or entered in to the Fullness? Blessed? Birthed, deformed, re-born, re-made, complete in Christ, lacking nothing?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“FLESHLY DESIRES AND FLESHLY INTERPRETATIONS OR THE FULL COUNSEL OF GOD?”

“Fleshly desires and fleshly interpretations”? I don’t know how any ‘sane’ person can read Ephesians 2:1-3 and not be fully away of what Christ Jesus saves ‘fallen humanity’ from unless they’re totally brain and heart-dead! Paul said, “And you He made alive WHO WERE DEAD IN TRESPASSES AND SINS, in which you once walked according to the course of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, just as the others.”

And, of course, the ‘fallen away from God’ crowd have no awareness or understanding of walking “according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.” It’s really interesting as one reads the Word of God that you discover so much about devilish deception that Satan himself heaps on unbelievers! In 2 Timothy 2:24-26 Paul said: “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.” How clear is that?

But it’s not only the ‘fallen’ who need awareness of the devil’s deception, but even true believers! In Revelation 12:17 we read, “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

This, no doubt, is why Paul was so Spirit-inspired to write Ephesians 6:10-18 where he encouraged proper spiritual dress in the ‘warfare’ of men and women of redemptive faith being attired in the ‘whole armor of God’: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints –“

But coming to one’s senses to escape the snare of the devil is of utmost importance, as well as being fully aware of the ‘deception’ one has to face about his/her own sin nature that has separated ALL sinners from Holy God! In James 1:14-15 the brother of Jesus exposed the sad state of all men who are away from God. He said: “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

There’s a “coming to one’s senses” in escaping the snare of Satan, but also coming to one’s senses about his/her willful choice of ignoring God, with no desire of glorifying Him or even thanking Him for the breath of life, but fully turned to futility in their thoughts, foolish in their hearts, being darkened even in their minds, exchanging the truth of God for the “lie”, (which means one can sin and not die!), willing in the “flesh” nature to not even retain God in their ‘knowledge’, and as Paul wrote in Romans 1:28-32,

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a DEBASED MIND, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

A “Christ-less life” is a life firmly committed to “fleshly desires” and “fleshly interpretations”, protecting those desires, even explaining them away as if there was no accountability before Holy God! And the majority, living under the ‘flag’ of ‘flesh-freedom’, have no understanding of what Paul said in Romans 5:6, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” “Flesh-freedom” is ‘without strength’, or spiritually helpless, or as Romans 6:23 declares: “For the wages of sin is death…”, spiritual death, separation from God, blinded to His intent, bankrupt of any heavenly blessing, and dominated by the powers of darkness!

Are you aware of “stones of stumbling” and “rocks of offense” that Peter told us about? He said that their “stumbling” lifestyle was because of “disobedience to the Word”! A “rock of offense” is the life of independence from Holy God, fully persuaded that fleshly lusts are normal and natural with no costly consequences!

Do you understand how easy it is to be conformed to a world philosophy of acceptance and conformity to worldly lusts, fleshly desires, and devilish ambitions which war against one’s soul? Are you aware of “the garment defiled by the flesh”? How destructive are “fleshly desires” and their FALSE “fleshly interpretations”? “It’s OK – we’re only human. God understands!” NO! He knows their deathliness and destruction and darkening of one in the blackness of hellish living under demonic domination! Jesus came to “set the captives free”! But most are content in their fleshly ‘chains’!

Have YOU been alerted to the ‘snares’, to the ‘traps’ of foolish and harmful lusts, to the very spiritual draining and, yes, drowning of foolish men and women in soul destruction, separation from God, and personal perdition that will eternally give them lives pierced through with unending sorrows and forever rooting of bad seeds with sick, sour, bitter ‘fruits’ served by the devil and his ‘flesh-force’ of demons every day, forever and ever in Hell?

“Fleshly desires and fleshly interpretations”? And some wage the war, at least, acceptable for themselves, without any consideration of “why did God create me, and what am I for”?, without one thought of divine, eternal intent. But Romans 1:18-19 declares: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who SUPPRESS THE TRUTH IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.”

Examine Romans 1:20-22! “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, BECAUSE , although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…”!

Do you sense, see, surmise how easy it is for large numbers of people to substitute the treasures of divine truth for the “trash” of fleshly indulgences and the “untruths” of fleshly interpretations? The psalmist was so on target when in Psalm 119:9 he asked: “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word, O God,” with his plea in Verse 10, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You!” It’s so true: “Sin will keep you from the Word of God OR the Word of God will keep you from sin!”

It was Oswald Chambers in his treasure of Truth, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, who wrote: [p.243-244], “Beware of “the cares of this world” because they are the things that produce a wrong temper of soul. It is extraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God. Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.”

If “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work,” then does Hosea deliver us in the 21^st Century convicting judgments of national or personal warnings? In Hosea 4:6-7, the prophet challenged Israel and us when he heard God say to him and through him, “My people (God’s people) are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because YOU have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, (the revelation, the unveiling of His Holy Word and will), I also will forget your children. The more they increased, the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame”!!!

But not Paul, not sold-out, surrendered, “spiritual” sons and daughters of redemptive faith and hope in Christ alone! In Galatians 6:14-15 Paul alerts us to examine ourselves: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For IN CHRIST JESUS neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” HAVE YOU ACCEPTED THE REALITY OF YOUR CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST ON THE CROSS THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO OR STILL IN BONDAGE TO YOUR OLD SELF AND OLD SIN NATURE?

Are you even aware that there can be, and often is, a ‘counterfeit of outward allegiance’ apart from the desire to be one with God through Christ alone? It’s so interesting that, as you read Paul and his relationship to some followers, you find some who ‘walked away’ from the faith! In 2 Timothy 4:10 he wrote to his spiritual son in the faith, “Be diligent to come to me quickly; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world…”!

If you are a true disciple of Christ, you ought to be blessed, uplifted, and protected by your Savior’s prayer in John 17:9-19! “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, AND I AM GLORIFIED IN THEM.” [That’s a worthy statement that ought to grip you strongly in your journey of faith!].

Jesus went on to say, Verses 11-19, “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified [set apart, surrendered to, relying upon] by the truth.”

“Fleshly desires and fleshly interpretations OR the full counsel of God”? In 2 Peter 2:4-10 we read, “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds) – then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and ESPECIALLY those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries.”

To WHAT or to WHO are you committed? Will YOU hold on to your right of self-determination, sinning and falling short of the glory of God, OR be one who truly understands, “being JUSTIFIED FREELY by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, WHOM GOD SET FORTH as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, BECAUSE in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just AND THE JUSTIFIER OF THE ONE WHO HAS FAITH IN JESUS.” [Romans 3:24-26!].

“Fleshly desires and fleshly interpretations OR the full counsel of God”? Fleshly desires promote fleshly pride that is spiritually powerless and cannot open the door to genuine blessing but only spiritual destitution and separation from the God who loves them, lost them, but even purchased salvation through the blood-shed of Jesus on Calvary’s Cross! There is no other way, but the way of the Cross, crucified with Christ, but then raised by the power of God TO the gift of the divine nature in and through Christ alone by His grace and mercy!

Romans 5:20b-21 declares: “But where sin abounded, grace abounded MUCH MORE, so that as sin reigned in death, EVEN SO GRACE might reign through righteousness TO ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.” There IS “the miracle of new birth” in and through Christ alone! In John 3:5-8 Jesus declared: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (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.” Is that the “Full Counsel of God”, and if it is, and it is, have YOU received it AND been “born again” or just “joined a church”?

Rich in personal self-esteem is paralysis against receiving “the full counsel of God” – who wants what God offers when one is so “rich” in himself!?! There is a world around you, sometimes even in some churches (?), where one “does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, but is proud, KNOWING NOTHING (spiritually), but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose godliness is (simply, for them) a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself. (That’s 1 Timothy 6:3-5!).

Fanny J. Crosby and Robert Lowry gave us the old hymn, “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” published in the American Hymnal of 1933 by Robert H. Coleman. It says:

“All the way my Savior leads me; What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who through life has been my Guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, Here by faith in Him to dwell, For I know whate’er befall me, Jesus does all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me, Cheers each winding path I tread, Gives me grace for every trial, Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter, And my soul athirst may be, Gushing from the Rock before me, Lo! A spring of joy I see.

All the way my Savior leads me; Oh, the fullness of His love! Perfect rest to me is promised In my Father’s house above. When my spirit, clothed immortal, Wings its flight to realms of day, This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.”

“Fleshly desires and fleshly interpretations or the full counsel of God”? Do you live by the resplendency of God’s glory in all its fullness? In John 1:14 John bore witness to the “full counsel of God” In Christ when he wrote: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, FULL OF GRACE AND FULL OF TRUTH.” Are you walking in His fullness with grace for grace?

In Ephesians 1:15-22 we see the “true fruit” of a life walking in “the full counsel of God”: Paul said: “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”

And, now, in the 21^st Century, in YOUR life, is He fully expressing Himself in His full counsel? Has He “made YOU alive in Him” to reveal Himself through YOU?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“AMIABLE REBELS OR ANOINTED RULERS?”

“Amiable”? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary defines ‘amiable’ as “having or showing a friendly, willing disposition” – and when it comes to a “rebel”, it defines one as “a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition; rebellious, defiant” – SO…amiable rebels may be ‘friendly to’ but not willing to submit to one’s authority, and especially to God Himself!

Amiable may be one who is ‘friendly’ to his ‘belief’ in Christ without being one fully surrendered to His Lordship of one’s life because they possess a ‘fetish’ of ‘unquestioning reverence or respect’ but not full surrender to Christ’s Lordship! I was reading Oswald Chambers recently when he said: “It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God.” [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.237].

The powerful Word of God is so illustrative of both ‘amiable rebels’ and ‘anointed rulers’ as, for instance, Matthew 11:1, where “Jesus finished commanding His disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities,” practically illuminating the difference between ‘amiable rebels’ and ‘anointed rulers’! True disciples of Christ are not ‘pretenders’ with vocal allegiances and no practical demonstration, but anointed lives in mission service to the King of kings and Lord of lords!

Early in this chapter I want you conscious of, alerted to, aware of conviction, conversion, and consecration. In Revelation 17 we are informed about those who are “of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.” Amiable rebels or anointed rulers?

In 1 John 2:15-20 there are highly descriptive words unveiling both the amiable rebels and the anointed rulers of any age, any country, any nation, even any church! The beloved John writes to both little children of the faith, to fathers of the faith, and to young men and women in the faith. He said: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. But YOU have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and you know all things.” DO YOU?

“Amiable rebels or anointed rulers”? I want you to come with me to 1 Samuel 12:13-15, and Verses 20-25! It relates to Saul’s coronation! “Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen and whom you have desired. And take note, the Lord has set a king over you. If you fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice, and do not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God. However (just how big do YOU think that ‘however’ is?), if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you, as it was against your fathers.”

Verses 20-25 then instructs us: Then Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. BUT IF you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

How very interesting is the life of Saul – ANOINTED BY GOD yet LIVING THE LIFE OF A REBEL! On one hand he confers with Samuel – on the other hand he consults a ‘medium’. On one hand he agrees with God’s prophet – on the other hand he does the very opposite. On one hand he appears sincere – on the other hand he revealed his true character. On one hand the molding seems sure – on the other hand he’s elastic, nothing sure or cemented in his heart or mind. On one hand he seems to be of a loving disposition – on the other hand there’s anger and bitterness and hostility!

Spurgeon said: (Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.3, p.248), Saul “was too much of a fool to be desperately bad, though too wicked to be at any time good…”! A very sad evaluation of an amiable rebel though anointed as a ruler of the people! Let’s look at “anointed rulers” who are truly “amiable rebels”!!

FIRST, AMIABLE RULERS ARE IDENTIFIED WHEN THEY DETERMINE THAT ALTERED CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER OBEDIENCE! Let’s look at 1 Samuel 13:4-14! Now all Israel heard it said that Saul attacked a garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel had also become an abomination to the Philistines. And the people were called together to Saul at Gilgal.

Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. And they came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east of Beth Aven.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in danger (for the people were distressed), then the people hid in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in holes, and in pits. And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, “Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me.” And he offered the burnt offering. Now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him.

And Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul said, “When I saw the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, then I said, ‘The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.’ Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.”

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

Are you really acquainted with Romans 1:5-6? Paul said, “Through Him (Christ Jesus) we have received grace and apostleship FOR obedience to the faith among all nations for His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ.”

And it is such a powerful and convicting statement Peter made in 1 Peter 4:17-19! “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey 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.”

SECOND, AMIABLE REBELS ARE UNVEILED AS THEY DETERMINE THAT PARTIAL OBEDIENCE IS THE SAME AS PURE OBEDIENCE! Wrestle with 1 Samuel 15:1-23 if you’re up to it! It’s so unveiling and convicting when one assumes partial obedience is acceptable!

Samuel also said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and lay in wait in the valley.

Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart, get down from among the Amalakites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from the Amalekites.

And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.

So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal.” Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”

And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said, “Speak on.”

So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”

And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? BEHOLD, TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE, AND TO HEED THAN THE FAT OF RAMS. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

Do you just happen to remember what the Lord Jesus said in Luke 6:46? “But WHY do you call Me, Lord, Lord, AND DO NOT DO THE THINGS WHICH I SAY?” And that, my friends, is a legitimate, convicting, LIFE-CHANGING QUESTION THAT MUST BE ANSWERED!

If you call Jesus Lord, why do you do some of the things He asks, but the rest you will not touch, try, trust, or attempt? Listen to Psalm 78:35-37!! “Then they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer…NEVERTHELESS they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied to Him with their tongue. For their heart was not steadfast with Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant.” [Are you aware of faithfulness to our Lord’s blood covenant?].

Psalm 81:8-16 reveals both ‘fleshly stupidity’ in professors of faith AND the ‘passionate heart of God’ in seeing those He loves fulfilling His Word, not pretending! It says: “Hear, O My people, and I will admonish you! O Israel, if you will listen to Me!

There shall be no foreign god among you; nor shall you worship any foreign god. I AM THE LORD your GOD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me.

So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels. Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries.

The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever. He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.” Are YOU ‘sinking’ or are YOU “satisfied” as you truly “rest” in Christ alone?

THIRD, AMIABLE REBELS ARE UNVEILED AS YOU SEE THEM DETERMINING THAT BLAMING OTHERS ABSOLVES THEM OF RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY BEFORE HOLY GOD! Again, 1 Samuel 15:21, Saul excuses himself and blames his own people! “But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

Where does “blaming behavior” come from rather than personal accountability before Holy God? Let’s go all the way back to Genesis 3:11-12! And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”…Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, SHE GAVE ME OF THE TREE, AND I ATE.” “Blaming behavior”?

In Exodus 32:21-24 we are confronted with another attitude of reckless, stupid, senseless, “blaming others” excuses: And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?” So Aaron said, “Do not let the anger of my lord become hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out.” Really?

FOURTH, AMIABLE REBELS EXPOSE THEIR TRUE COLORS WHEN THEY DETERMINE, FOR THEMSELVES, DELAYED JUDGMENT IS NO JUDGMENT! And this is clearly unveiled from 1 Samuel 15:23 – 1 Samuel 31!! (Take the time to read, receive, and rest in Holy revealed Truth!).

Ecclesiastes 8:11-13 says, “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him. But it will not be well with the wicked; nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he does not fear God.”

I’m convinced David understood one’s “coming judgment” before Holy God and His Throne when, in Psalm 36:6 he said, “Your righteousness, God, is like the great mountains…YOUR JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP…” {or FATHOMLESS}! And every man will stand before Him to give an account or try to explain their faith or lack of it!

The “deep judgments” of God ought to be a call to Deep repentance, deep reunion, deep communion, deep determination to honor and please our Lord and Savior, yes, daily taking the sentence of death unto ourselves that His resurrection life may be manifested in our mortal flesh!

Let me close this chapter with words from King David in Psalm 119:65-68, 71-72, and verse 75:

“You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to) Your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. You are good, and do good; Teach me Your statutes.

Verses 71-72 says, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes. The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of silver and gold.” And then,

Verse 75, “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.”

I don’t know why, for some, that it takes ‘affliction’ to open the door of redemptive faith – but whatever, come to Him in repentance toward God and faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! Do you remember the words of Isaac Watts from his “At the Cross”?

“At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away, It was there by faith I received my sight, And now I am happy all the day!” Amen?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE MOMENT OF TRUTH?”

In John 12: 20-28 is an awesome unveiling of the heart, the spirit, the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ! It says: Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who as from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus. 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. Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”

There are varying moments of truth in all of life – crisis moments – but nothing to compare to the ultimate moment of truth which I’ll unveil in a moment. I’ve personally never been in a world war as a soldier or in the midst of heated battles. I had uncles, when I was very young, who used to tell me extraordinary war-time stories, one as a soldier and the other as flight engineer on a bomber. And certainly in the life of a soldier his moment of truth comes – all basic training may have been passed with flying colors, but the moment of truth is still to come on the battlefield.

I’ve been on the athletic fields of endeavor, football, basketball, and baseball. I’ve seen athletes with exceptional abilities, but the moment of truth came, and something was missing for some. When one is “under the gun” and the real game is on, and it’s tough – you find out about ‘pretense’ or “the real thing”!

What about a businessman and his moment of truth? You see a man, and everything seems to be going just fine, but a break here and a break there, all bad, and something happens. His moment of truth came and exposed his inner most being!

How about that moment of truth for that Christian young lady, confronted with the stubbornness of her passionate ‘friend’ who says, “If you love me, you’ll give yourself to me intimately, married or not.” She’s confronted with the question, “What is true love?” She’s confronted with barriers God built for her own protection. Will she break down those barriers or will she save herself to be given in purity in marriage to the man God has chosen for her?

Another moment of truth: Pressures are brought to bear, youth faced with their peer group and the power of acceptance, of popularity, “of becoming”: “Come on, have a drink! Don’t be a chicken. Prove you’re no isolated, immuned, holy-roller, inoculated, innocent freak. Get with it! Take that pill, drink that beer, shoot that vein! Be a part of the ‘now’ generation!”

The moment of truth comes! It’s a playboy’s world. “Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow you may die.” “You’re free – do your own thing.” Forget God, forget eternal truths and principles, don’t let the love of a cross, faithfulness, obedience, a Christ-like life be your bag.” Moment of truth comes.

The young man and young lady face the future. Marriage is a vitally important part of that future. Who will I date? Who will I allow myself to fall in love with? To whom will I give myself to? What kind of home do I want? What kind of partner will I have? Am I concerned about Christian foundations in building my future home? Am I concerned about marriage as a divine institution, ordained of God, a theocracy, a three-way partnership between myself, my partner, and my God? The moment of truth comes!

It comes to the young lady already married to an unbeliever, or that YOUNG MAN ALREADY IN BONDS OF MATRIMONY with one who does not share, or know, or love your Savior. What will he/she do? Will he/she seek to lift him up through prayer, will he/she faithfully set an example, will he/she allow the Spirit of Christ to so permeate that relationship that he/she discovers experientially that “love never fails”. Or will he/she, rather than lift, lower himself/herself to the partner’s level rather than to Christ’s? Will he/she accept the challenge of a constant Christian witness before unbelieving partners? Will he/she, having done all, to stand firm in the Lord?

The moment of truth comes: the rough winds of life blow. God is silent. “Suffering is no longer an abstract philosophical problem for a Sunday evening’s discussion, but a tornado battering the shattered comforts of home and leaving one wrecked.” Health is momentarily gone. The resources and bank accounts are depleted. Personal strength and stamina seem drained to the last drop. ‘Should I just curse God and die? Should I allow the swellings of my ‘Jordan River” of life to just sweep me away from devotion, love, faith, or hope?’

The moment of truth comes. The unseen and seen powers of the darkness of this present world seem bent on paralyzing me, pulverizing all that is pure, holy, decent, and godly in my life. I’ve committed my life to the Lord Jesus, but the Ahabs and Jezebels of this world are against me. The world around you wants you and me to face a spiritual collapse. Some have sounded a retreat from active participation with Christ on the field of battle. With Elijah there may be times in your spiritual walk when you want to find a juniper bush, saying, “No one cares for me! Life is not worth living – the Christian faith is a farce – I wish I were dead!”

Maybe, like Peter, you’ve denied your Lord and Savior, not three times but often, and your moment of truth comes, “Will I live in the ordinary and go back to “fishing” with Peter, or will I live in the extra-ordinary and walk with Kinh Jesus? Will I live in the natural or the super-natural? Will I live by ‘flesh’ or live by redemptive faith?

Will I walk with Jeremiah disappointed, disillusioned, dismayed by all that surrounds me? Will I resign my commission as prophet, servant, ambassador? Will I tell God, “You’ve deceived me, Lord.” And some do say, ‘I was deceived; this walk of faith is too hard, the promises aren’t real, and the rewards so minimal. Who needs to be faithful, loyal, obedient, not me?’

All these moments of truth will bear in upon us. But let me bring you to the ultimate moment of truth for your life, and it’s this: “What then will you do with Jesus which is called the Christ?” That IS the ultimate moment of truth for every single individual on the face of the earth, past, present, or future.

The Greeks came and said: “Sirs, we would see Jesus.” And in that divine confrontation, in that heavenly communication, in the living witness and example of Jesus Christ , there are scriptural admonitions one should take when confronted in their “moment of truth’!

FIRST, WHEN THE MOMENT OF TRUTH COMES THERE IS A WILL TO BE FOLLOWED. In John 12:27 we see Jesus praying to the Father: “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.”

The verses we’ve read in John 12 tell us how Jesus felt as a human being overshadowed now by suffering and death. “What shall I say? ‘Father, deliver Me out of this hour?’” But no! For this reason He came to that foreordained hour!

The actual death of Jesus had not yet come, but the “hour” or the “time” was close at hand. There was an hour – the Bible says “The hour”, a certain hour, a determined hour, a set hour, when the Son of God was to be glorified. I call it the “moment of truth” for in that hour Jesus Christ proved Himself to be God in great power, not only in the cruel crucifixion, but His historic Resurrection, and actual ascension into the clouds of glory! The moment of Truth came and in that moment there was a will to be followed!

Matthew 1:21 says, “And she (Mary) will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” The will of God was to be fulfilled, and Jesus’ sacrificial death took place because Jesus, though saddened by the pain and suffering, said, “Father, not My will but Your will be done!” In John 3:17 we read, “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” A will to be followed! In Matthew 20:28 the Holy Word declares, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” An eternal will to be followed!

Doesn’t the Word of God clearly declare: “And they crucified Him…”, “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,”? God’s heart-felt, mind-full giving of His Son!

Yes, there is a will to be followed in the crisis moments of life! Whether soldier, athlete, businessman, daters, marriage, home, family, the Christian life and walk – in the life of every man there is the will to be followed, the will of God! Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” BUT… there is THE WAY which is right in the eyes of God, and its end is the Way of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! His name is Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, “God with us”!

There is a will to be followed in one’s attitudes toward life. There are conflicts in life with a will to be followed. There are decisions in life with a will to be followed. There is an aim, a goal, and a direction of life, and E. Stanley Jones nailed it when he once said: “A new measuring stick has been brought into being: it is not who you are but Whose.”

Off the seacoast of New England years ago a vessel sailed toward port through the teeth of a terrible North Atlantic storm. The ship began to break up, it lost its steering mechanism, and the ship smashed against the reefs. The captain and his men were thrown into the water and fortunately were able to climb onto a rock jutting out of the water from the reef. They spent the night on the rock in a raging storm. The next morning the tempest had subsided and the men were found, carried ashore, and then questioned. The Captain was asked, “When you were out on that rock all night weren’t you afraid? Didn’t you tremble?” The Captain answered, “Son, when I was out on that rock for the night, believe me, I trembled and I shook. But the rock that was under me, it never shook!”

As we go through the storms of life, as we face moments of truth, there is a Rock on which to stand…It never shakes! It’s the rock of the will of God!

SECOND, WHEN THE MOMENT OF TRUTH COMES THERE IS A PRICE TO BE PAID! Examine John 8:24! “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for IF you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

In John 10:18 the Lord Jesus declared: “No one takes My life from me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I received from My Father.” Our Lord and Savior, in John 15:13, declared: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

And there was eternal purpose behind that awesome truth of God’s love when Paul shared in Galatians 1:3-4, “Grace to you and peace from God the Father AND our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that HE might deliver us from this present evil age, ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF OUR GOD AND FATHER, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Yes, according to Holy Scripture, according to the pre-determined will of God, when the moment of truth came, there was a price to be paid! C.T.Studd once wrote: “If Jesus Christ be God, and He died for me, then no sacrifice is too great for me to make for Him.”

Yes, there IS a price to be paid! But too many ‘religious folk’ and too many ‘worldly folk’ live with an ‘easy, take-it-or-leave-it’ attitude, which is useless, nominal, ‘fair-weather’ relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, with far too many making ‘Christianity’ a ‘spectator sport’ for Sunday viewing only! But ‘the True Faith’ is not a spectator sport, but a life in the very arena of life as an active participant in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not even of the ‘substitute’ variety, but an ‘on-the-field’ active ‘player’!

So, what should I do when ‘the moment of truth’ comes, and I’ve discovered the will of God for my life? I want to challenge you, right now, to stand, not only beneath the cross of Christ or in the shadow of the Cross, but you come to the understanding that, though it may be foolishness to the world, we see the Cross as the emblem of God’s love for us, seeing His sacrifice for us, that it also IS the eternal sacrifice we make for others because of the One who sacrificed Himself for us, and therefore:

When the attitudes toward life and the Christian walk are to be determined, conflicts to be conquered, crisis met in victory, when decisions are to be made daily, and the aim of “my life” is being resolved, I will pay the price, I will glory in nothing else whatsoever in all of life, save the cross and glory of Christ in me and through me, and as Christ was crucified for me, so I willfully choose daily to take the sentence of death unto myself that the Resurrection of Christ might be manifested through my mortal flesh!

THIRD, WHEN THE MOMENT OF TRUTH COMES AND THE WILL OF GOD IS DISCOVERED AND THE PRICE TO BE PAID IS UNDERSTOOD, THEN THERE IS THE COMMITMENT TO MAKE! Look at John 12:25-26! “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”

Do you remember that just before Jesus spoke the above words after the Jews surrounded Him, they said in Verse 24, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” But I’m convinced, I have a strong suspicion, that their desire to “see Jesus” went deeper and further than John allowed us to see. One must fully surrender to Him! Matthew Henry once said, “Many a man hugs himself to death and loses his life,” but the one who hugs Jesus only gains the gift of eternal life in and through Him alone!

Jesus came not as the entertainer of life but the Energizer of Life. He came not as a show of life but the Savior of life. He came not to be the circumference around one’s life but the center of one’s life. Jesus came not as a failure in life because of the Cross but as the Fulfiller of all failures every one of us have experienced! John 1:4 declares: “In Him is life and the life is the light of men.”

Are YOU in darkness? Is there darkness because of your past, present, even future bent in the darkness of godlessness? Is there darkness about where you’ve been, what you’ve done, where you’re going, and what you day by day choose for yourself only without any consideration of God’s calling for your life? Is there darkness that you’re so aware of because of the vacuum, the emptiness, the meaninglessness of your present ‘existence’? Is there darkness about the paths you choose to walk on? Darkness about the course and character of the life you’ve chosen?

In John 1:10-13 we read, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in (trust in, rely upon, adhere to) His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but (BORN) of God.”

That tells me about Recognition, Reception, Repentance, Rest in His finished work, and the Release of His Indwelling Presence through a re-born life!

FOURTH, WHEN THE MOMENT OF TRUTH COMES, THERE IS AN HONOR TO BE RECEIVED! Verse 26b of John 12 tells me, “If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.”

Examine John 12:42-43 and weep! “Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; FOR THEY LOVED THE PRAISE OF MEN MORE THAN THE PRAISE OF GOD.” Has that changed in this modern day?

But there is “another side of the coin”! In Matthew 25:23 Jesus said, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”

Dave Breese, in his book, “This Is Your Destiny,” (p.97), wrote: “One day the pursuit of God will bring a quick step upward from this time and tempo world into the golden light of Heaven’s fadeless day. One last footfall in the darkness and earth will be no more. The shadow will become the substance and anticipation turned to glad fulfillment. Surely then from within the aura of His dazzling presence you will say: “This is reality.”

“Only one life twill soon be past, Only what’s done for (and In) Christ will last.” My testimony? “I once was an outcast stranger on earth, a sinner by choice and an alien by birth. But I’ve been adopted, my names written down, an heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown. I’m a child of the King, a child of the King. With Jesus my Savior, I’m a child of the King!”

1 Corinthians 1:9 tells us, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.”

We ALL have our “crisis moments of truth”, and every man faces the ultimate moment of Truth: “What then…?” Do YOU understand? There is a WILL to be followed, there is a PRICE to be [paid, there is a COMMITMENT to make, and, yes, there is an honor to be received!

Robert Harkness, years ago, 1921 in fact, had published his hymn, “Bearing His Cross For Me.” [Published in the old “American Hymnal,” Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee]. It says:

“I see my Savior with thorn-crowned head, Bearing His cross for me; Thorn-pierced His brow, as by soldiers led, Bearing His cross for me.

I see Him pass through the city gate, Bearing His cross for me; On midst the taunts and the people’s hate, Bearing His cross for me.

I see Him burdened with this world’s sin, Bearing His cross for me; Willing to suffer, all hearts to win, Bearing His cross for me.

Bearing His cross for me, Bearing His cross for me, Wonderful Savior, what anguish He bore, Bearing His cross for me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE SHOCK OF THE DESTINY OF DECEPTION AND DELUSION!”

It is vital, before I get into the main body of this teaching, to lay the ground-work with three definitions of the three major words in the titles of this teaching from Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.

First, DECEPTION! “The acts of deceiving or misleading…all deception is a misapplication of the established signs used to communicate thoughts…the power to mislead, or impress false opinions.”

Second, DELUSION! “The acts of deluding; deception; a misleading of the mind…false representation; illusion; error of mistake proceeding from false views…a beguiling.”

Third, DESTINY! “…ultimate fate…invincible necessity; fate; a necessity or fixed order of things established by a divine decree, or by an indissoluble connection of causes and effects.”

Beyond a shadow of a doubt there is ultimate fate and invincible necessity because of God’s fixed order of things He established by divine decree: “In Christ men are saved – without Christ men are lost!”

And there is an “Indissoluble connection of causes and effects.” Primary is man’s fallen nature “in the image of Adam,” no longer in the image of God apart from “new birth”, “second birth,” “born of the Spirit.”

Primary is the tendency to the supremacy of man’s wisdom and man’s knowledge that possesses no fear of God, fear of God being “the everlasting gospel”! Primary is a man’s invention of “fig-leaf religion”; it’s the “tower of Babel” confusion that still reigns in the hearts of most men because they want to “make a name for ourselves.” Primary is the work and works of the one the Bible calls “Devil” or “satan.” Revelation 12:9 says of him, “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast out to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” [Ever wondered what the devil and his demons are up to on the earth, in the governments and schools, in homes, even in churches and the major religions of the world?].

It was the Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, who 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.”

Henry George Bohn, in his “Handbook of Proverbs”, has written: “The Devil entangles youth with beauty, the miser with gold, the ambitious with power, the learned with false doctrine.” But if, and it is, the Word of God is true, and, “the god of this age has blinded the minds” of the learned with false doctrine, what are the blinded saying? “There’s more than one door into heaven; God is a God of love and would never consign anyone to Hell”, even though Matthew 10:28 says, Jesus Himself declaring: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him [God] who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.” What do the deceived say? “All Jews go to heaven just like Christians; you can refute the Bible and still go to heaven; you can deny the words of Jesus and still go to heaven; Oprah believes there are many ways to God, and so do I; Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, those of the Shinto ‘faith’ and Confusius will find their way to God’s throne; This ‘spiritual stuff’ all revolves around one’s own opinion and his devotion to It – and God will honor that; there’s not really a deceiving Devil, though there are spirits of evil – but God overcomes that with grace and just ignores our ignorance.” HOW PHONY DOES IT GET IN OUR MODERN WORLD?

Cotton Mather, in his “Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World,” has written: “That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from an ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.”

I heard over the years of pastoring churches, “I don’t care what the Bible says – that’s not what I believe.” My former teammate and classmate Baylor University and Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, my friend, my former fellow pastor, Dr. Bill Anderson, said to me once, “People have the God-given right to their opinions and beliefs. But they do not have the right to call themselves “Christians” if they refute the words of Jesus and the revelation of God’s Holy Word!”

Adam and Eve exerted their “rights” and their “opinions” with unbelief, and experienced “the Fall,” hiding themselves from the presence of the Lord God. [Are men and women today still hiding from God?].

The children of Israel exerted their “rights” and colored their “opinions” with unbelief, and with Aaron substituted a “golden calf” for the holy presence of God. Israel demanded of Samuel “a king to judge us like all nations,” and God said, “It’s okay, Samuel – they haven’t rejected you, but Me!” And sadly, later, “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul!” [1 Samuel 16:14].

In John 6:51 Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” In Verse 53 He followed up, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”

In John 6:57 Jesus added, “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” And what happened then – what happens now? John 6:66, “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.”

And the same thing is happening in our very time! Many do not know it, But, THEY ALSO CHOOSE NOT TO WALK WITH CHRIST ALONE! They align themselves with futile, fractured, fuzzy minds as to “Truth”; they walk with the crowd of “multiple religions,” and not the One Way; they’ll talk of tolerance and acceptance with those who brutalized the Christ; they’ll defend unbelievers and mock, slash, criticize the “Jesus Only” disciples; they’ll uphold false religions and denounce as “poor child – he, she just doesn’t know any better – so limited in his, her intellectual, mental skills and capacities – but WE KNOW!”

It was Horatio Bonar who once wrote: “In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God.” And those who deny the Word of God, the will of God, and the Way of God, speak out of their mouths revealing their hearts, that they hold a poor opinion of God and elevate their faithlessness to THE PLACE OF PROMINENCE IN THEIR MINDS AND HEIR HEARTS.

In John 8:37 Jesus said: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.” In fact, when Jesus sought to “win friends and influence people”, because He is so kind-hearted, in John 8:41, He said: “You do the deeds of your father,” to which the Pharisees said, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” And Jesus responded in Verse 42, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came [out} from God.” In Verse 43 He then nailed why there is so much deception and delusion! “Why do you not understand My speech? BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO LISTEN TO MY WORD…Verse 44, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, AND DOES NOT STAND IN THE TRUTH, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

Then, may fear and trembling arise in your minds and hearts when you truly hear Jesus in Verse 47! “He who is of God hears God’s words. Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in “The Cry of the Human,” who wrote: “There is no God,” the foolish saith, But none, “There is no sorrow”:

And nature oft the cry of faith In Bitter need will borrow. Eyes, which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.”

Jesus had just said for us that there are “Pharisees” who are of the Devil! I want you to follow carefully Romans 9:1-8! “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing witness in the Holy Spirit, That I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, Who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; Of whom the fathers and from whom, according to flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.”

But it is not that the word of God has taken no affect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but “in Isaac your seed shall be called.” That is, those who are the children of flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.”

Oh, but then look at Romans 10:1-4! “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear then witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

Are you sensing it yet? My righteousness or God’s righteousness – imputed, imparted, implanted by Him through faith in Christ alone! My way or God’s Way? My opinions or God’s revelation? My limited light or His Glorious Light? My ideas or His Truth? My attempts or “accepted in the Beloved?” Trying my best or born again of the Incorruptible Seed? My knowledge, my education, my worldly wisdom or “Thus says the Lord”? Secularism or saving faith? The philosophy of the best of humanism or the precious Prince of Peace who blesses me with God’s best? Measured by my attempts to be religious, whatever religion, or regenerated by the love, grace, and mercy of God at Calvary?

It was Jude, in Jude 3-4, who wrote: “Beloved, while I was diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to CONTEND EARNESTLY FOR THE FAITH which was once delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It’s not Jesus plus – it’s Jesus Only! It’s not many ways – it’s One Way! It’s not religion – it’s relationship by way of the second, spiritual birth! It’s not grit – it’s grace! It’s not merit – it’s mercy! It’s not apostasy – it’s ATONEMENT! It’s not “wild flowers” with a semblance of beauty – it’s fruit trees blessed by the fruit of the Spirit bearing the nature, character, and likeness of Christ! It’s not ‘spots’ or ‘hidden reefs’ in your love feasts at church – it’s ‘saints’ set apart to the Glory of God and His Son, Jesus Christ, Promised Messiah, and Lord Alone! It’s not wolves in sheep’s clothing – it’s won sons and daughters who bear His image and totally committed to the Lord Alone! It’s not wandering stars blown about by every religious wind – it’s divinely birthed, wonder-blessed sons and daughters walking by the leadership of God’s Holy Spirit! It’s not religion on the basis of my own lusts, ideas, and thoughts – it’s relationship, CONVICTED, CONVINCED, CONVERTED, and CONSECRATED TO CHRIST ALONE!

It’s not self-willed, soulish, sensual persons guided by their ‘feeling’ – it’s “kept in the love of God, looking (only) for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

It was James again, bother of Jesus, who wrote in James 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe – and tremble.” And certainly there is only one God – but there are multitudinous gods of men’s own invention, because he has not, will not submit to the One True Living God – fallen man wants ‘religion’ on his terms – not God’s!

It was John Dryden who said, “With how much ease believe we what we wish!” Well, relationship with God has never been and will never be on what we ‘wish’ but what He wills! And the will of God is your SALVATION, your SANCTIFICATION, and your SECURITY – and not because YOU are ‘religious’ but because you are “REDEEMED” by the blood of the Lamb!

It is “the Lamb of God” that takes away the sin of the world! It is “the Lamb of God” that reconciles us to Holy God! It is “the Lamb of God” that births and shepherds the sheep of redemptive faith! It is “the Lamb of God” ALONE that washes one white as snow! It is “the Lamb of God”, in fact, the blood of he Lamb of God, that causes God to “pass over” – nothing less, nothing more!

Dear, dear friends, do you not know, do you not understand, have you failed to comprehend the ultimate Truth that Christ “did not come into this world unappointed?” [Spurgeon}. I’m talking about “the Lamb of God” who shed His own blood, precious blood, “foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,” God-appointed, God-directed, God-given, for you, for me, for every man, woman, and child everywhere in the world!

That’s why there’s a mission call on every disciple and every true church. That’s why there are evangelists, missionaries, martyrs, churches with a world vision, touching our world with grace. [And, “God, help those churches and pastors and peoples, who never reach out, never proclaim, never evangelize, but sit around Sunday after Sunday rejoicing in what they’ve never truly experienced, because if they had, yes, the world, locally, nationally, and world-wide becomes their “mission-field”!

To say there’s another way is to slap the Lamb of God in the face, telling Him, “I know better than You!” To say there’s another way is to spit on the graves of the martyrs who died for the faith. To say there’s another way is to super-impose one’s fleshly, limited knowledge over the very heart of God “who proved His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” To say there’s another way is to scandalize the Gospel, the “good News”, the only hope sinful, separated souls have to be reconciled to God! To say there’s another way is to ridicule, insult, degrade, denounce “the ambassadors of Christ” and their loving Lord and Savior!

In speaking of “The New Jerusalem”, in Revelation 21:23, the beloved John said: “The city had no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it, for the glory of the Lord illumined it. THE LAMB IS ITS LIGHT.” From Genesis through Revelation, THE LAMB IS ITS LIGHT!

Chosen of God, through Christ Jesus – THE LAMB IS MY LIGHT! Loved of God, through Christ Jesus – THE LAMB IS OUR LIGHT! Cleansed of God, through His blood – THE LAMB IS THECHURCH’S LIGHT! Robed of God, through Jesus’ imputed righteousness – THE LAMB IS THE SERVANTS’ LIGHT! Kept of God for God, through Christ Jesus – THE LAMB IS MY ETERNAL LIGHT!’ Glorified in God, through Christ Jesus – THE LAMB IS MY GRACIOUS LIGHT!

There are several things I need to point out as I bring this truth to a temporary closing. We started on “The Shock of the Destiny of Deception and Delusion.” It all comes about because of several factors:

Number One, YOU ARE DESTINED TO EMPTINESS AND FUTILITY WHEN YOU GIVE PLACE TO THE DEVIL AS EVE DID! In James 4:7-10 hear the word of the Lord: “Therefore submit to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

But there is no lifting up when one refuses to bow, refuses truth about one’s spiritual condition, and refuses to resist Satan, but rather gives place to deception and delusion. And it is deception and delusion to say, “With Jesus there are many ways to God,” when Jesus Himself still says, “I AM the way, the truth, and the light. No man comes to the Father but through Me.”

YOU better wake up to the Devil’s deception and delusion!

Number Two, YOU ARE DESTINED TO DECEPTION AND DELUSION WHEN YOU RESENT, REFUSE, DENY THE WORDS OF JESUS. In John 6:63 Jesus spoke: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK TO YOU ARE SPIRIT, AND THEY ARE LIFE.”

It was Josh MacDowell who said: “Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or Lord God.” How do YOU see Him? [If I were you, I would spend at least a year reading and re-reading the four gospels – that’s Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John!].

It was Jean Jacques Rousseau who wrote: “I must confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me; the holiness of the Evangelists speaks to my heart and has striking characters of truth, and is, moreover, so perfectly inimitable, that if it had been the invention of men, the inventors would be greater than the greatest heroes.”

It was John Wesley, speaking to a friend while sailing to Georgia in 1735 who said: “Sir, if the Bible be not true, I am as very a fool and madman as you can conceive; but if it be of God I am sober-minded.” I AM SOBER-MINDED, and I willfully choose to be a fool for Christ’s sake because of His Word!

It really matters whether you believe it or not – “All Scripture is GOD-BREATHED!” Please read all of Acts 13 soon, but notice especially, after Jesus was preached as God’s remedy for man’s sin, notice what Paul said: Verses 40-52, “Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: ‘Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.’ So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has COMMANDED us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’ “Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from the region. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them, and came to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”

Do you grasp how serious it is to cast doubt on the words of Jesus and the Holy Scriptures? If you do, you stand in mortal danger of losing your soul to the Devil because Jesus has said: (John 12:46-50), “I have come as a light to the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words, and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him – the word I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, I speak.”

Did you notice Rousseau’s “so perfectly inimitable?” That word ‘inimitable’ means “incapable of being imitated; surpassing imitation.” [The Random House Collegiate Dictionary, 1975, p.685].

Number Three, YOU ARE DESTINED TO DECEPTION AND DELUSION WHEN YOU COMPROMISE “TRUTH” AND ADAPT YOUR LIFE CHOICES TO THE FLESHLY AND NOT TO THE SPIRIT OF GOD. Come to Romans 8:1-6, because Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit of Truth, affirms and aligns his life and beliefs to what Jesus has told us!

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached in London at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle for many, many years. Each Sunday morning there were 10,000 people in each service. Read carefully as I close out this teaching with Spurgeon’s introduction about “Neglecters and Nominal Followers of Religion,” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Volume 9, pps. 186-188].

“The sight of this vast arena, and of this crowded assembly, reminds me of other spectacles which, in days happily long past, were seen in the amphitheatres of the old Roman Empire. Around, tier upon tier, were the assembled multitudes, with their cruel eyes and iron hearts; and in the centre stood a solitary, friendless man, waiting till the doors of the lion’s den should be uplifted, that he might yield himself up for a witness for Christ and a sacrifice to the popular fury. There would have been no difficulty then to have divided the precious from the vile in that audience. The most thoughtless wayfarer who should enter into the amphitheatre, would know at once who was he disciple of Christ and who were the enemies of the Crucified One. There stood the bravely-calm disciple, about to die, but all around, in those mighty tiers of the Colosseum, or of the amphitheatre of some provincial town, as the case might be, there sat matrons and nobles, princes and peasants, plebians and patricians, senators and soldiers, all gazing downward with the same fierce, unpitying look; all boisterous for their heathen gods, and all vociferous in the joy with which they gazed upon the agonies of the disciple of the hated Galilean, butchered to make a Roman holiday. Another sight is before us today, with far more happy associations; but alas ! It is a far more difficult task this da to separate the chaff from the wheat, the precious from the vile, than in the day when the apostle fought with beasts at Ephesus. Here, in this arena, I hope there are hundreds, if not thousands, who would be prepared to die for our Lord Jesus; and in yonder crowded seats, we may count by hundreds those who bear the name and accept the gospel of the Man of Nazareth; and yet, I fear me, that both in these lifting hills on either side, and upon this vast floor, there are many enemies of the Son of God, who are forgetful of His righteous claims – who have cast from them those cords of love which should bind them to His throne, and have never submitted to the mighty love which showed itself in His cross and in His wounds. I cannot attempt the separation. You must grow together until the harvest. To divide you were a task which at this hour angels could not perform, but which one day they will easily accomplish, when at their Master’s bidding, the harvest being come, they shall gather together first the tares in bundles to burn them, and afterwards the wheat into Jehovah’s barn. I shall not attempt the division, but I shall ask each man to attempt it for himself in his own case. I say to you, young men and maidens, old men and fathers, this day examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Let no man take it for granted that he is a Christian because he has helped to swell the numbers of a Christian assembly. Let no man judge his fellow, but let each man judge himself. To each one of you I say, with deepest earnestness, let a division be made by your conscience, and let your understanding separate between him that feareth God and him that feareth Him not. Though no man clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side, shall go through the midst of you to set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations of this city, let conscience take the inkhorn and honestly make the mark, or leave the favored sign unmade, and let each man question himself this morning, “Am I on the Lord’s side? Am I for Christ, or for His enemies? Do I gather with Him, or do I scatter abroad?” “Divide, divide!” they say in the House of Commons; let us say the same in this great congregation this day. Political divisions are but trifles compared with the all-important distinction which I would have you consider. Divide as you will be divided to the right and to the left in the great day when Christ shall judge the world in righteousness. Divide as you will be divided when the bliss of heaven, or the woes of hell, shall be your everlasting portion.”

I close this chapter with the words of Jesus Himself, when in Matthew 10:34-39, He said: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

The destiny of deception and delusion OR the destiny of the divine-ones born again by the Holy Spirit through Ultimate, Eternal Truth whose name is “Jesus Only”? In John 15:9-13 Jesus said: “As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. IF you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your hoy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? ENDURING THROUGH OUR FAILURES, FIRES, AND FIGHTS!”

In Matthew 24 the disciples had asked Jesus about “the sign of His coming and the end of the age.” [The age of Judaism and Jerusalem!]. Jesus responded in this way: “The end of the age?” Verse 4, a time of great deception; Verse 7, a time of great conflict; Verses 8-9, a time of great suffering; Verse 12, a time of great open sin; and Verse 14, a time of great opportunity. And in the midst of this description of the end of the age (Israel’s demise!), NOTICE, Jesus said in Verse 13, “BUT HE WHO ENDURES TO THE END SHALL BE SAVED!” That’s “Enduring through our failures, our fires, and our fights!”

How many have started a walk with Jesus and end up disappointed, disillusioned, discouraged, detoured, and are “falling away” because they didn’t know or understand about “failing” in a ‘flesh walk of faith’ or about “getting up”, stumbling short of the goal they set for themselves, but not grasping or understanding, persevering, pressing in, resting in “Spirit-control”, not ‘trying my best’! Where does that come from? Not the Word, not the Spirit, and not from the true ‘disciple-makers, trainers, and equippers! At the same time, far too many don’t know or understand about “counting the cost,” or failing to see the cross in the walk before the Manifestation of Resurrection Power! Have you seen them? High pinnacles – fast falls; slippery slopes – muddy ditches with seemingly high walls they can’t crawl out of; stained banners of allegiance – rotting devotion and passion which is the end result of flesh efforts rather than Spirit-dependency!

Even though we are IMMORTAL IN CHRIST, as human followers , some have tendencies to fallibility, to failure, and to futility – and sadly, some accept that and settle in to being their petty little selves! Then some settle for RELIGIOUS SPASMS every now and then, but fail to press in to the High Calling!

Chuck Swindoll, in his book, “Come Before Winter,” has a chapter entitled “The Fine Art of Blowing it.” Do you know about which he speaks? Have you ever found yourself enveloped with a heavy fog of failure? John Maxwell’s book, “Failing Forward,” is so rich in REALITY. One of the dynamic truths Maxwell writes is, (Preface), “Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude!” With all my heart I believe God would have us all know and understand that failure in our walks as pastors or disciples IS NOT A STUMBLING BLOCK BUT A STEPPING STONE!

It was James Long who said: “One reason God created time was so that THERE WOULD BE A PLACE TO BURY THE FAILURES OF THE PAST!” “He who ENDURES to the end shall be saved!”

One of the saddest verses in all the Bible is Psalm 78:9, “The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, TURNED BACK IN THE DAY OF BATTLE.” Some of you as you read this today feel so hopeless, fearful, and doubt-filled. Some of you are determined to walk away from your calling, your ministry because you’ve conceived within yourself a sense of failure – and you’re brought to a crossroads: Escape or cope? Weakened or strengthened? Clueless or constructively enlightened? Human effort failing and falling or divine enabling strengthening you? Pushed down or pressing in? Wilting or working out your salvation in fear and trembling? Taken over by a defeatist attitude or triumphant through God’s promises and helps? A mind duped by its failures or a mind deepened in God’s truths recognizing by grace I have “the mind of Christ”? Debilitated by your mistakes or disciplined by God’s mercy? Adapting to your natural tendencies to failure or appropriating His supernatural provisions for Holy Success?

There IS such a Life-Principle of “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ!!” (Philippians 1:6).

Ken Hubbard wisely wrote: “There is no failure except no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.” But that’s FLESH!! In Christ we’ve become spiritual beings inhabited with His Resurrection Life and Purpose! Paul had to remind Timothy, and I remind you, (2 Timothy 1:9), that God “has saved US and CALLED US with a HOLY PURPOSE, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus, BEFORE TIME BEGAN.”

It was Pericles who wrote: “The brave are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet GO OUT TO MEET IT.” I love the old hymn that somehow needs to be resurrected: “Rise up, O men of God, have done with lesser things…”

Victor Frankel said it: “Everything can be taken from a man except the last of human freedoms – TO CHOOSE ONE’S ATTITUDES IN ANY GIVEN SET OF CIRCUMCTAMCES.” “He who perseveres or ENDURES to the end shall be saved!”

It was Louis Pasteur who once wrote: “Chance favors the PREPARED MIND!” But I believe it’s not only a prepared mind but a prepared heart that is so sensitive to the heart of God Himself!

Let’s look at PERSEVERANCE TO THE END BECAUSE OF THE PRECIOUS PRECEPT OF THE UNFAILING, UNCHANGING, UNCEASING LOVE OF GOD! Three statements out of 1 Corinthians 13 that ought to grip your heart right now as you consider God’s love for YOU!

Verse 4, “Love suffers long and is king…” Verse 7, “Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…” Verse 8, “Love NEVER FAILS!” When you think about the walk of Simon Peter, have you considered that Peter denied Jesus three times after his strong assertion that he never would? AND HERE COMES JESUS…!! What does He bring to Peter? A big stick? A harsh look? A mean stare? A sign saying, “Displeased, disappointed, doubtful of Peter?” No, Jesus came, not only with the look of love, but an affirmation of confidence, an acceptance of his person, and an aim for his life: “Feed My sheep!” You do know what Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

How could we interpret God’s love as conditional, as changing, as ceasing, with eternally THE CROSS OF CHRIST EVER BEFORE US? What does God say? “I love you only when you always get it right? I love you only when you never deny Me? I love you when and only you’re totally perfect? I love you only when you rank high as the best of human achievers and preachers? I love you only when you score all ‘A’s’ on the life exams? I love you only if you don’t look back? I love you only when you don’t stumble? I love you only when you don’t wear a mask or pretend? I love you only when you’re so pious, so spiritual looking, even wearing the right color of clothes?

Listen to John 15:9 and claim it: “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you, Abide In My Love!” When you’ve fallen, Jesus’ love is there to pick you up! When you’ve failed, Jesus’ love is saying, “You’re My success!” When you’re afraid of what tomorrow holds, “My perfect love casts out and overcomes your fear because I HOLD YOUR TOMORROW!”

Notice also, PERSEVERANCE TO THE END BECAUSE OF THE POWERFUL AWARENESS THAT PERSECUTION IS “THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE” FOR EVERY DISCIPLE! Are you ready? 2 Timothy 3:10-12 says, “But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, PERSEVERANCE…persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra – what persecutions I ENDURED. And out of them all the Lord delivered me…Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus WILL SUFFER PERSECUTION.” Has that changed because we’re supposed to be such an advanced culture?

To the church at Thessalonica, Paul made an even bolder statement: 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3, telling why he sent Timothy to them – “and sent Timothy, our brother and minister of God, and our fellow labourer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you and encourage you concerning the faith…that no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that WE ARE APPOINTED FOR THIS.” HOW SHOCKING! God’s Word is telling us, “We have and appointment with persecutions and affliction!”

Max Cleland is a former U.S senator from Georgia who had his legs and an arm blown off by a grenade in the Vietnam war and he boldly talks about “turning your scars into stars.” And yet, do you realize how many, at the first sign of trouble through persecution, easily walk away rather than pressing in to Christ? Or rather than walk away, they just get “down-in-the-mouth”, sad, embittered about what their ‘faith’ has brought them to.

Charles Allen, the former great Methodist minister wrote: “Valleys are for moving through, not wallowing in.” So true!! I’m always amazed when I re-read Paul talking to his Corinthian friends about his “light afflictions.” That’s 2 Corinthians 4:17. Then in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, he tells them: “…in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often…From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one…Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep…in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren…in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirstings, in fastings often, in cold nakedness…”

It was Aldous Huxley who wrote: “Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you do with what happens to you.” What did Jesus say in John 15:20? “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” And do you remember the rise of persecution against the early church in Acts 8:1? “…At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad…” WHAT HAPPENED FOLLOWING THIS? “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also!” “Great persecution?” So we ought to be sad, Right? “Great persecution?” So we ought to run and hide, Right? “Great persecution?” So let’s deny our calling and go back to fishing, Right? Listen to Jesus!!

Matthew 5:11-12, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake…Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In Luke 6, Jesus said, “…Leap for joy!!”

NEXT CONSIDER, PERSEVERANCE TO THE END BECAUSE OF OUR AWARENESS OF THE PRIZE OF THE UPWARD CALL OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS!! Philippians 3:13-14 says, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead…I press toward the mark for the PRIZE of the UPWARD CALL OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS.” And I don’t even know wha all of that means!

But…I read in 1 Corinthians 2:9, But as it is written, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” In Hebrews 12:2 I get an inkling of it, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith WHO FOR THE JOY that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand throne of God.” Did you hear it, sense it, become aware of it? 1) Finisher of our faith 2) Joy set before Him 3) Seated at the right hand throne of God!!

Listen to 2 Peter 3:11-13, "Th“refore, since all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness…looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?…NEVERTHELESS WE, according to His promise, LOOK FOR NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH IN WHICH RIGHTEOUSNESS DWELLS.” Paul said twice to the Romans, there’s “MUCH MORE” coming!!

LOOK AT PERSEVERANCE TO THE END BECAUSE OF THE POWERFUL PERSUASION OF OUR CONFIDENCE IN GOD!! Listen to 2 Timothy 1:12, “…for I know WHOM I have believed and am persuaded that HE IS ABLE TO KEEP WHAT I HAVE COMMITTED TO HIM UNTIL THAT DAY.” Confidence IN the GOD WHO IS ABLE!! Where is your confidence? Jude 24-25 says clearly: “Now TO HIM WHO IS ABLE to keep you from stumbling, AND to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…TO GOD OUR SAVIOR, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and FOREVER. AMEN.”

The great old hymn will never die!! “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

John Jasper may not be a name you recognize, but his story and faith was so powerful. Years and years ago he was pastor of the great black church in Richmond, Virginia, called Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Church. He was a tremendous preacher. Political figures from Washington,DC, whites included, would make their way to Richmond to hear him preach. There came a time they need to put a state highway right through Richmond which meant they’d have to demolish Jasper’s church. But local and national figures caused an uproar and they had to curve the road round Jasper’s church. He came late in life one Sunday morning to the pulpit and stretched his thinning skin on his hand and said: “Very soon I’m going home to be with God,” and his people in their characteristic way began to speak out, “No, Brother John, No. You can’t go home o b with God. You must stay here and be our pastor.” And Jasper responded, “Now hush, my children, Hush. I tell you what is going to happen. One morning soon the death angel will come and call my name, John Jasper, it’s time to go. Follow me. And I will follow, and he’ll lead me up to the Pearly White gates where I’ll meet that catachezing angel, and he’ll say, “Who are you?” And I’ll say, I’m John Jasper. And he’ll say, “John Jasper, you ain’t no good. You don’t have any right coming in here.” And I’ll say, You’re right, Mr. Angel, I’m no good, and I don’t have any right coming in here, but I’m not depending upon my righteousness, I’m depending upon the righteousness of Jesus who loved me and gave Himself for me. Then he’ll say, “Come on in, John Jasper, that’s the way we like to hear men talk.” Powerful persuasion of our CONFIDENCE IN GOD ALONE!

I’m certain you never knew, but I faced some heavy battles in my journey over a period of time after twenty-five years of traveling all over the world teaching and preaching, mostly in India, but areas all over Asia, with pastors’ conferences, open-air crusades, and church trainings. Some said, “He’s too old. He’s no longer important. The ministry will go on without him.” My dear friend, former classmate and teammate at Baylor University in Waco, where we played football together for the Baylor Bears, Dr. Bill Anderson, shared with me and with Sue, Psalm 138:7-8, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me… THE LORD WILL PERFECT that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.” And God will not forsake us!

OH, AND PLEASE NOTICE, PERSEVERANCE TO THE END BECAUSE WE MAKE OUR CALLING AND ELECTION CERTAIN! 2 Peter 1”10-11 declares, “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for is you do these things YOU WILL NEVER STUMBLE…for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Do you remember God taking those tablets of stone and writing on them and giving them to Moses, “The Ten Commandments”? And one of them says, Exodus 20:7, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” MAKE YOUR CALLING AND ELECTION SURE!

Have you been born again? Does Christ live within you? Are you the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? Are you alive in Christ? Have you been raised up and seated with Him in heavenly places? Do you have a new song in your heart and a new name to which you respond? Do you know with great assurance, “I am the Chosen of God”? Do you know, “Saved and called with a holy calling?”

LASTLY, PERSERVERANCE TO THE END BECAUSE WE ARE PERSISTENT!! Proverbs 24:16 says, “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again.” Did you hear it? We don’t accept our failures – we’ll not be half-hearted but whole-hearted, even if we stumble. We may fall on our face, but (with our Lord’s help!), watch us as we get up! Warren Weirsbe nailed it: “A realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned.”

Calvin Coolidge, one of the U.S.’s former presidents wrote: “Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of PERSISTENCE. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are OMNIPOTENT.”

Remember Luke 9:51? “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Jesus to be received up, THAT HE STEDFASTLY SET HIS FACE to go to Jerusalem.” Have you steadfastly, resolutely, determinedly set your face to persevere and endure to the end? In 1 Corinthians 2:2 Paul said, “For I have determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” WHAT HAVE YOU DETERMINED? Have you resolutely set yourself to live by way of the Cross so the Resurrection Life of Christ will be manifested through you? IS IT SETTLED? Steadfastly I AM PERSEVERING AND ENDURING AND PRESSING IN TO HIM!

Epictetus wrote it: “Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. REMAIN STEADFAST…and one day you will build something that endures: something WORTHY OF YOUR POTENTIAL.”

It was G.K.Chesterton who said: “I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them UNLESS they act.” Well, I am going to ACT! I am going to settle it! IT’S RESOLVED! And I challenge you, Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore brethren by the multitudinous mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world but BE BEING TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” It’s by an unknown author but speaks so loudly: “When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill…When the funds are low and the debts are high, and you want to smile but you have to sigh (maybe cry),…When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don’t you quit…Success is failure turned inside out, The silver tint of the clouds of doubt…And you can never tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems afar…So, stick to the fight when you’re hurt and hit – It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.” AND I WILL NOT QUIT! One of my dear spiritual sons called me and said, “Really, shouldn’t you slow down?” And I said, “You’ll know I’ve slowed down when they’ve closed the casket top!!”

Is there a ‘why’ in that? Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” God’s purpose for you or me, ended, over, finished? No!

Through it all, I’M BUILDING MY ALTAR AND PRESENTING MYSELF TO GOD ANEW EACH DAY! I believe it was about 75 years of age when it really began to happen for Abraham at a record pace!! I’m now 80 years of age – and just beginning anew in the things God has planned for me and through me! Sir Charles Villiers Stanford wrote: “Human excellence apart from God, is like the fabled flower, which, according to the Rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of paradise. Severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden – sad while charming and beautiful, BUT DEAD.”

“He who perseveres to the end shall be saved!!” Our lives, not memorials of a lost Eden, but testimonies of the Redeemed, are testimonies of those who persevere and endure. God, HELP US!!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION!”

In Philippians 1:6 Paul stated, “being confident of THIS VERY THING, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

To be in the flow of the ‘river of faith’, there has to be commitment …commitment to Christ Jesus and His finished work AT THE CROSS! In that flow of the ‘river of faith’, I know and understand that I am being carried along like a raft on the Snake River! The current carries me, I don’t have to carry myself! True faith is complete abandonment of any hope in myself to “redeem me”, or save me, or complete me by my best efforts!

In that flow of the “river of redemptive faith”, I believed, trusted in, relied upon the eternal truth that Christ Jesus was able to do what He said He could and would do: Hebrews 7:25, “…able to save (forever – completely) those who draw near to God through Christ…” Jude 24, “…able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy…” 2 Timothy 1:12, “…able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day…” 2 Corinthians 9:8 “…able to make all grace abound to you…” Roman 16:25, “…able to establish you (or “make you to stand!”)” Romans 4:21, “…able to perform…(what He had promised!).”

But do you realize that some riding that river raft of faith are fearful, even tormented, because they have not fully rested themselves in confidence and assurance on the bosom of Jesus in full and complete trust? Can you hear it?

“We’re not going to make it. The torrents of crashing waters (temptations?) against the rocks are intensifying. There’s a big ‘falls’ in the river down there. Look at all the boulders of opposition against us. Or, it’s too shallow, the raft won’t flow on dry ground. I’ve fallen out, no life jacket, I’m sinking.”

I’m going to tell you plainly, THAT’S A TERRIBLE WAY TO TRAVEL THE ‘RIVER OF FAITH’, your journey with Jesus, your pilgrimage with the Prince of Peace.

Reading one of those great English preachers of 150 years ago, (Spurgeon) on a message of ‘faith’, he had an interesting comment (Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.7,p.80), “Get then, Christian brethren and friends, get assurance; be not content with hope, get confidence; rest not in faith, labor after the full assurance of faith; and never be content, my hearer, till you can know your election, you are sure of your redemption, and you are certain of your preservation until that day.”

Now, what did Paul say to the Church at Philippi? “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect (or complete) it until the day of Christ Jesus.” “Complete?” the Greek word is “epiteleo”, a combination word: epi – on, or upon, & teleo – to bring to an end, complete, fulfill, finish! Notice, it is God on or upon us bringing to an end, fulfilling, finishing, completing what He started in us!!!

The word, CONFIDENCE, is from a primary verb, “to persuade, assure, put trust in…” Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines it as “a trusting, or reliance; an assurance of mind or firm belief in the integrity, stability, or veracity of another…”

Psalm 118:8 (KJV) says: “It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man.” Proverbs 3:26 says, “For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught.”

A two-fold explanation! “The Lord” – your confidence in the Lord! Plus the confidence of completion! In Ezekial 28:25-26 we read: Thus says the Lord God: “When I have gathered the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and am hallowed in them in the sight of the Gentiles, then they will dwell in their own land which I gave to My servant Jacob. And they will dwell safely there, build houses, and plant vineyards; yes, they will dwell securely, when I execute judgments on all those around them who despise them. Then they shall now that I am the Lord their God.”

“THE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION!” FIRST, WE CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION BECAUSE OF THE CHARACTER OF OUR GOD AND SAVIOR AND LORD! 2 Timothy 1:12 says, “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless, I am not ashamed, FOR I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED (trusted in, relied upon), and am PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE TO KEEP WHAT I HAVE COMMITTED TO HIM UNTIL THAT DAY.”

Paul didn’t say, “I know WHAT I have believed…” He said: “I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED!” Confidence comes from that precious intimacy with God Himself! Confidence comes from one’s personal knowledge of Holy God and His faithful Word! Confidence comes, not simply from mere acquaintance of Him, but an abiding love for Him.

I can say, “The Lord, He is God,” but until I can say, “The Lord is MY GOD”, there is no confidence! I can say, “The Lord is a Shepherd,” but it means nothing in the ‘ministered-to-life’ until I say, “THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD”! I can say, “The Lord is Savior of all the world,” but it builds no confidence and assurance until in my heart I know Him as “MY” Savior and Lord of MY life!

Paul KNEW God! He knew His omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence! 1 Timothy 1:17, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God alone who is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” In 1 Timothy 6:15-16 he said, “…He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords…who alone has immortality, dwelling in unappraoachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.”

Confidence comes as we know Christ Jesus the Lord! Do you remember Jesus asking His disciples, “Who do men say that I the Son of Man am?” And then to His disciples and us, “But WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?” What did Peter respond with? “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!!” Co-eternal, co-equal with Father-God! He was assured with John, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God!”

Redeemer! Savior! Lord and Master! Ephesians 1:7 declares, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” WE SERVE THE RISEN LORD! WE YIELD TO OUR PRESENT INTERCESSOR! WE BOW DAILY BEFORE THE UNCHANGING LORD WHI IS the same yesterday, today, and forever!” He‘s the Lord of Love! Romans 8:35-39 says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we’ re accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ YET IN ALL THESE THINGS we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul assured the Thessalonians when in 1 Thessalonians 5:24 he wrote: “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” Don’t you find it so amazing, encouraging, and uplifting to read Paul in 2 Timothy 4:14-18? “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. You also must beware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. BUT THE LORD stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. AND THE LORD WILL DELIVER ME from every evil work and PRESERVE ME for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!”

SECOND, “THE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION?” WE CAN HAVE THE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION BECAUSE OF THE CONSISTENCY OF HOLY SCRIPTURES! Never forget what Paul said to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:16-17! “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness…that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Receive 2 Corinthians 1:19-20 where Paul declared, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us – by me, Silvanus and Timothy – was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes… For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”

Even Davis had great confidence in God for his completion, (Psalm 17:15), “As for me, I WILL SEE your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.” Catch the spirit of it! More than HOPE, it’s Confidence and Assurance! How?

Because the Lord was his Shepherd!! So, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Peter spoke of (1 Peter 1:23), “the living and abiding word of God.” AND IT IS! But the living and abiding of the Word of God must be LIVING AND ABIDING FOR US!! WE STAND ON IT!!

THIRD, WE CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION BECAUSE OF HE CONSISTENT AND CONSTRAINING WOTK OF GOD WITHIN US: Again, Philippians 1:6, “…HE WHO HAS BEGUN A GOOD WORK IN YOU…” Look at Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who is at work in you both to WILL AND TO WORK (IN YOU!) FOR HIS GOOD PLEASURE.”

Go back and ret in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22!! “Now HE WHO ESTABLISHES US WITH YOU IN CHRIST (established? “makes to stand”) and has anointed us (empowered) is God…who also has SEALED US (stamped as His) and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, (a guarantee!).” Listen carefully:

God doesn’t “establish” us that we might fall or fail! God doesn’t anoint us to be leaking wells that run dry! God doesn’t seal us that we might say we are on our own! God doesn’t give us the Spirit to claim us as a devotee of the unholy spirit! No!

2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Now thanks be to God who ALWAYS leads us in triumph in Christ.” We are clay in the hands of the Potter, and the steps of a righteous man are ordered by Him!!

FOURTH, WE CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE IN COMPLETION BECAUSE OF THE COMFORTING TRUTH THAT WE CAN BE LIKE CHRIST WITH HIS CONSTANT AND CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE WHO MAKES IT A REALITY FOR US!! 2 Timothy 2:19 says, “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: (Like a two-sided coin!), “The Lord knows those are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

Paul said to the church at Galatia (1:15-16), “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…!!” In Galatians 4:19 he added: “My little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.” Thank God for prayerful, caring friends of the faith, yes, pastors, who intercede in our behalf before Holy God, urging the completion, the constant and constraining influence, in making it a reality in and through us!

Have you been laid hold of by Christ Jesus? Follow Paul in Philippians 3:12-4:1! “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I PRESS TOWARD THE GOAL FOR THE PRIZE OF THE UPWARD CALL OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS.

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this in mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. Brethren join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame – who set their mind on earthly things.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself. Chapter 4:1, Therefore, mu beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, SO STANF FAST IN THE LORD, beloved.”

FIFTH, WE CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION BECAUSE OF CHRIST-LIKENESS IN OUR OWN PRAYERS. In Philippians 1:9-10, receive Paul’s prayer for YOU: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Christ Jesus, to the glory and praise of God.”

How clear did the Apostle lay it out for us in Ephesians 1:15-20? “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places…”

Aren’t you thankful for men of prayer like Paul who became inspiration for all true seekers to be ‘prayer intercession like him? He made it even clearer when in Ephesians 3:14-21 he said to the Ephesians and us: “FOR THIS REASON I BOW MY KNEES TO THE FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, TO HIM BE GLORY IN THE CHURCH BY CHRIST JESUS TO ALL GENERATIONS, forever and ever. Amen.”

SIXTH, WE CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION BECAUSE OF THE CROWNING TESTIMONY OF ONE’S DESIRE AND PASSION TO GLORIFY CHRIST! Philippians 1:19-21 says, “For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

King David made a strong, exuberant declaration of trust and full surrender when in Psalm 27:4-8 he wrote: “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: THAT I MAY DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock (the Solid Rock?). And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” Are you experiencing that reality in your walk with Him?

In Verses 13-14 of Psalm 27, David also said, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”

And old hymn that has been one of my faith-walk’s most important hymn is entitled, “Be Thou My Vision.” Some say it’s as old as the seventh or eighth century. It says: “Be Thou, my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Nought be all else to me, save that You art – You my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping, Your presence my light.”

LASTLY, WE CAN HAVE CONFIDENCE OF COMPLETION BECAUSE OF THE CONQUERING VICTORY OF CHRIST’S CROSS AND HIS GLORIOUS RESURRECTION !

When from the Cross He said: “It is finished,” be assured, it IS finished! “Jesus Paid it all, All to Him I owe, Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow!

I love Oswald Chambers’ statement when he said: “The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ.” And didn’t Paul state, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings”?

True discipleship is confidence in what Christ has already accomplished for you, not what you “try” to do for Him in the best of human effort! Do you think this is why Paul talked about “taking the sentence of death unto himself daily that the resurrection life of Christ might be manifested through Him?”

Do you understand that redemptive truth “in Christ” is not His invitation for you to “try your best”, but to rest in the blood of His Cross at Calvary to transform you, not just enlighten you to a few biblical truths? Trying is not trusting! The Lord Jesus crucified, not only your sin with Him as He yielded to the will of God at the Cross, but your worst and your best, so that upon His Resurrection you’d receive not only forgiveness of your sins but His Holy Presence!

In Hebrews 2:9-10 we read: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“AWAKENINGS’ NECESSITY? THE KINGLY REIGN OF CHRIST!”

In 1 John 4:17-19 we have an amazing, life-changing, uplifting revelation: “Love (agape love) has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because AS HE IS, SO ARE WE IN THIS WORLD. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.”

Do YOU have a “new song” that you sing, like the twenty-four elders who fell down before the Lamb of God in Revelation 5:9-14? And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God BY YOUR BLOOD out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, AND HAVE MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS TO OUR GOD; AND WE SHALL REIGN ON THE EARTH.” Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ Then the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.’”

I find it so interesting, at times disheartening and discouraging, because too many ‘believers’ in Christ Jesus have no true foundational knowledge of their ‘identity’ “In Christ”! If “in Christ” ‘we are more than conquerors’, then why are some believers stymied in their journey of redemptive faith? In Romans 8:37-39 Paul wrote: “Yet in all these things (tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, or peril) WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. For I am persuaded that neither death not life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul clearly understood for his people in his day, and, yes, for the people of our day today who’ve put their faith in Christ Jesus. He said, Romans 8:25, “For He (Christ Jesus) MUST REIGN till He has put all enemies under His feet,” that was then, and it is now in your life and walk of faith: WE MUST BE DAILY YIELDED TO HIS LORDSHIP in all of OUR circumstances! “HE MUST REIGN”!!

Psalm 110:1-3a, David said, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power…”

It’s really interesting as you’re going through the Word to come across a passage like Judges 8:22-23! Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you and your son, and your grandson also; for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.” But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord (Himself) shall rule over you.”

And Micah 4:1-7 really gets interesting when you know 70AD was coming for the end of Israel, which is also true of any ‘fleshly reign or rule’! And you and I have a choice of Who reigns over us, in us, and through us! It says: “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days ( Last days of Worldly existence or last days of Israel?) that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it.

Many nations shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. For all people walk each in the name of his god, But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

“In that day,” says the Lord, “I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcast and those whom I have afflicted; I will make the lame a remnant, and the outcast a strong nation; So the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on, even forever.”

And who is that? Those who walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever! Does John 1:1-4 describe both the “true light” AND those who do not comprehend it? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. ALL THINGS were made THROUGH HIM, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

The next few verses tell us John was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of the Light, that all men through Him might believe. Verses 8-9 clearly says that John “was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of the Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.”

And then in John 1:10-14 John tells us, “He (Christ Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. BUT as many as received Him, TO THEM He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in [trust in, rely upon, adhere to], in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but [BORN!] of God.”

In 1 Timothy 4:8-10 we read: “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, BECAUSE WE TRUST IN THE LIVING GOD, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to!].”

I would think the legitimate question at this point would be: WHO or what rules over you? In Colossians 2:8-10 Paul warns us all! “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For IN HIM dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Several truths we must rest in:

FIRST, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE REALITY OF TEMPTATION! In Luke 4:1 we read, “The Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil.” Christ Jesus – filled with the Holy Spirit! Christ Jesus – led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Christ Jesus – tempted by the devil for forty days! Several lessons we must learn and rest in:

• The reality of temptation is no evidence of sin! In Hebrews 4:15-16 we read, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. LET US THEREFORE come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Later, in Hebrews 10:19-23, the author wrote: “Therefore, brethren, (brothers and sisters in the Faith!), having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God ( 2 Corinthians 6:16b declares, “For YOU are the temple of the living God!”), let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

• The reality of temptation is no sign of God’s Lack of Love for us because He allows temptation! Did we read in Luke 4:1 that Jesus “was led by the Spirit (the Holy Spirit!) into the wilderness, BEING TEMPTED FORTY DAYS BY THE DEVIL.” Jesus WAS tempted, loved of the Father! In fact, at Jesus’ baptism, in Matthew 3:17, we read: “And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And the very next event in the life of Christ? Matthew 4:1 again says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
• The reality of temptation is no implication of doubt about one being “a child of the King”! Again, the Son of God was tempted – the Eternal Son of God was tested – the “First-Fruit” tasted the fire of temptation to evil! It tells us that the Primacy of Sonship in Scripture FACED THE PERILOUS HOUR OF TESTING TRIUMPHANTLY – and so can you! Spurgeon, in “Spurgeon’s Sermons”, (Vol.18, p.339), wrote: “Temptation is a mark of sonship rather than any reflection thereupon.” So true!
• The reality of temptation is not an opened door for participation in the evil invitation or an opened door to penalty because of it! Temptation Never has to lead to sinful involvement! It’s said of Christ Jesus, “The same yesterday, today, and forever,” therefore one pure in Christ before temptation can be, must be pure in Him after temptation! How? 1 John 5:18b says, “…He that is born of God KEEPS HIMSELF and the evil one (the devil) does not touch him.” “Keeps”? That’s “to guard, to watch over, to be alert to, to keep one’s self, by prayer? Matthew 6:13, “And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil – For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. SO BE IT or Amen!”
• The reality of temptation is not a door of opportunity for murmuring and complaining, but the message that we’re not above or below our Master, Lord, and Savior! Luke 6:40 is Jesus telling us, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” And Jesus? Even if it’s Peter, not fully trained as yet, that Jesus confronted in Mark 8:33, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not (yet) mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
• The reality of temptation is not the way of suffering before the release of His reign! Hebrews 2:18 equips us by saying, “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” Yes, He stands at YOUR door, ready to be available to you in any moment of the devil’s onslaught! The writer of Hebrews said also in Hebrews 12:3, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners (and Satan!) against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” His invitation in your trial of faith by the devil? “Lean on Me,” Jesus says, over and over and over again and again! And is that “your performance” or His position, “your grit” or His grace and mercy, “your determination” or faithful dependence upon the King of kings and Lord of lords? Romans 5:17 says, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

SECOND, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TENDERNESS OF MY SYMPATHEITIC SAVIOR! In Hebrews 2:17-18 we read, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, HE IS ABLE TO AID THOSE WHO ARE TEMPTED.”

• I become aware of the Avenue of His suffering in temptation: The Avenue of EMOTION is involved! Did we just read, “in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted…?” In Spurgeon’s Sermons, (Vol.18, p.329), Spurgeon preached, “Many persons are tempted, but do not suffer in being tempted. When ungodly men are tempted, the bait is to their taste, and they swallow it greedily. Temptation is a pleasure to them; indeed they sometimes tempt the devil to tempt them. They are drawn aside of their own lusts and enticed; so that temptation, instead of being suffering to them becomes a horrible source of pleasure. But good men (godly men) suffer when they are tempted, and the better they are the more they suffer.” And if that’s true of good and godly men, then how must have it have been emotionally for the PURE AND PERFECT, SINLESS SON OF GOD? Spurgeon went on, “Our Lord and Master had such a delicate sensitiveness of soul with regard to holiness, that the sight of sin must have torn Him as a naked man would be torn by thorns, and thistles, and briers.”

The Avenue of PLACE is involved: Christ Jesus left His Eternal Home and came to the sin-infested earth! He was “rich, yet for our sakes He became poor.” He left the place where He could never be tempted to come to the place where temptation is a way of life – and He suffered! (Matthew 26:36-46).

The Avenue of Weariness is involved: We read in John 4:5-6, So Jesus came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour (or noon). Oh, and then we read in Hebrews 5:7-9, “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” Are YOU learning obedience by what YOU SUFFER when temptation comes your way?

The Avenue of Aloneness is involved: Do you remember Jesus crying out as He faced the Cross? “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ God hadn’t forsaken Him, but He had withdrawn temporarily, and for Jesus, it was if God had forsaken Him and it felt as if He’d been deserted! That’s like Job! “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His throne!” In Psalm 42:1-5 we read about those passionate FOR GOD in the midst of their distresses thinking they are alone!

THE AVENUE OF EMPATHY IS INVOLVED! In 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 we find the “Hallelujah Chorus” of comforted sufferers! 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 tribulation, 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.” How true is that to the true disciple’s walk of faith even today?

• I become aware of The Aid of our Sympathetic Savior. Hebrews 2:18 is so clear! “For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to AID THOSE WHO ARE TEMPTED.” I’m sure this is why we read 1 Thessalonians 3:5 when Paul said, “For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that THE TEMPTER MIGHT HAVE TEMPTED YOU, and our labor should be in vain.” It’s also interesting that we read in Luke 4:13, “And when the devil had finished every temptation (against Jesus), he departed from Him until a more opportune time.”

We are, yes, fully aware of the aid of our sympathetic Savior because HE OVERCAME TEMPTATION! Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.” In Galatians 2:20-21 Paul wrote: “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 Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…”! We are fully aware of our sympathetic Savior because He made toothless the tempter! In Colossians 2:13-15 we read: “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

Oh, but Martin Luther nailed it strong for us when he wrote the great old hymn, “A Mighty Fortress”! It says: “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Out helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing; For still our ancient foe Seeks to work us woe; His craft and power are great, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing, Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choosing. Do you ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth is His name, from age to age the same, And He must win the battle.

And tho’ this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God has willed His Truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim – We tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, For lo! His doom is sure: One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers – No thanks to them – abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also; The body they may kill; God’s Truth abideth still, His kingdom is forever.” AMEN?

THIRD, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TESTIMONY OF COMMON BELIEVERS WHO’VE OVERCOME WHAT I FACE! 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us: ‘No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man (to fellow believers, to true disciples!).”

In Philippians 2:10-16 we have, yes, true, powerful testimonies! “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.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.”

Did Paul say, “I press toward the prize or mark of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”? If so, then why would the true disciple turn downward rather than pressing in to the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ? The “present reign” of Christ is interpreted through faithful believers who reign in and through Him actively, purposefully, benevolently, judicially, and victoriously!

Hebrews 12:1-2 we joyfully read, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, the author and FINISHER of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

FOURTH, THERE IS THE REIGN OVER TEMPTATION WHEN I KNOW THE TRIUMPHANT NATURE OF MY FAITHFUL GOD! 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 says, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BE TEMPTED BEYOND WHAT YOU ARE ABLE, but with the temptation will also MAKE THE WAY OF ESCAPE, that you may be able to bear it.” What an awesome, encouraging word!

There’s a promise in Psalm 89:36-37 that says, “His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me; It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.”

Isn’t it amazing? Psalm 119:86 says: “All Your commandments are faithful…”, and He never falls short of upholding, sustaining, even rescuing each of His sons or daughters who yield to Him!

Proverbs 13:17b says, “…a faithful ambassador brings health”, and is not the author of fleshly sicknesses in one’s spiritual journey! Isaiah 55:3 speaks “faithful mercies”1

Look at 1 Corinthians 1:9 where Paul declared, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” And BECAUSE THE LORD IS FAITHFUL, 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, “Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.”

Doesn’t Revelation 19:11 speak about “heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.”

Do you understand that Almighty God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” It’s not in “the sweet by and by” but in the ‘here and now’ that the triumphant nature of our faithful God finds full release!

G.A. Young, in the 1930’s, wrote a hymn entitled “God Leads Us Along.” [Renewal by Lillenas Publishing Co., Owner}. It says:

“In shady green pastures, so rich and so sweet, God leads His dear children along; Where the water’s cold flow bathes the weary one’s feet, God leads His dear children along.

Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright, God leads His dear children along; Sometimes in the valley in the darkest of night, God leads His dear children along.

Tho’ sorrows befall us, and Satan oppose, God leads His dear children along; Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes, God leads His dear children along.

Away from the mire, and away from the clay, God leads His dear children along; A – -way up in glory, eternity’s day, God leads His dear children along.

Some thro’ the waters, some thro’ the flood, Some thro’ the fire, but all thro’ the Blood; Some thro’ great sorrow, but God gives a song, In the night season and all the day long.” Amen?

CONCLUSION

What an amazing two months this ‘trip’ has been in being greatly awakened and encouraged and inspired! Psalm 25:14 says, “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.” And the covenant of “Awakenings” is an eternal necessity!

I pray the book has inspired You, encouraged You, enlightened You, as to our Lord’s gracious and merciful faithfulness!

As I drew this book to a close, I was led again to the Lord’s prayer! “Our Father in heaven Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come (NOW!), Your will be done (NOW! Through Sue and I, our kids, grandkids, great grands, with more coming soon, our friends, former churches I pastored, and mission-fields world-wide where I planted the seeds of Your Holy Word!)….For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Yes, His Kingdom rule and reign through King Jesus continues to expand as He continually “awakens” us to His awesome presence, power, and purpose! How, under God’s blessed Heaven, can earthly men be so unbelieving of ALL our loving Lord has done through Christ faithfully for century after century, country after country, and, yes, family after family?

I challenge you, right now, in continuing your “faith journey”, to go to Psalm 27 and read it carefully. I entitled it in my Bible as “The Song of Sovereign Trust!” You’ll be blessed there in an amazing way! Seek Him, love Him, serve Him, share Him, as you continue to learn about “Awakenings’ Necessity”!

BY: J. FARRELL FISHER, SEPT. 3-4, 2017

Thank Holy God that Paul was inspired to write in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, AND is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

And don’t you think or consider that it is advisable, essential, absolutely necessary that we proclaim “Sour Grapes” to the insatiable devourers of those eating from the wrong tree? In Jeremiah 31:27-30 the Lord God Almighty spoke concerning His “chosen people” who were to usher in the blessing of His grace, mercy, and love to, yes, the nations of the known world, but something happened spiritually in their hearts and minds, and they ‘back-tracked’ to sin and self-indulgent ‘religious activity’ rather than the “Redeemer’s Ministry”! The Word says:

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that as I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to throw down, to destroy, and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ BUT EVERY ONE shall die FOR HIS OWN INIQUITY; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”

And, how deviant do you find those determined in their own minds and hearts that “Sour Grapes” is OK? Have you ever been around the unashamed “indecency of trash talkers and trash takers and trash tossers” who so desire for you to be a part of what they are up to in their, yes, reckless lives and old ‘sin-nature choices’?

Ezekiel 24 is a convicting, challenging, life-changing chapter if one has chosen “sour grapes” rather than “sure grace”! In Verses 13-14 Holy God arose! (Does He still arise at times to confront “abominable walkers” who believe “flesh choices are OK” if you “believe in the blood of the Lamb”? HEAR ALMIGHTY GOD! “In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I have cleansed you, and you were not cleansed, you will not be cleansed of your filthiness anymore, Till I have caused My fury to rest upon you.

I the Lord, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not hold back, nor will I spare, nor will I relent; According to your ways and according to your deeds they will judge you,” says the Lord God.’” And God’s charges against His “chosen people” Israel? Idolatry, sexual immorality, and shedding of innocent blood as they, yes, sacrificed their babies on His altar!

And a few verses down God told them: Verse 21, about their “arrogant boast, the desire of your eyes, the delight of your soul…and their sons and daughters they just left on their own, and THEY end up “falling by the sword”!

Oh, and true disciples in the midst of all this “sour grapes living” surrounding you, when His judgment falls, they’ll come running to you for an answer to their sin-stained lives and tattered existence! Ezekial 24:25-27, God speaking to a faithful servant: “And you, son of man – will it not be in the day when I TAKE THEM FROM THEIR STRONGHOLD, THEIR JOY AND THEIR GLORY, the desire of their eyes, and that on which they set their minds, their sons and their daughters: that on that day one who escapes will come to you to let you hear it with your ears. On that day your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped; you shall speak and no longer be mute. THUS YOU will be a sign to them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.” [But do they learn too late?].

I’m telling you: individual, married couple, family, friends, city, state, or nation: “It’s time to seek the Lord who has sought you out, even with a heavy-hand, to turn you from vainness, bad-choices, defiance, disobedience, and RECEIVE AMAZING GRACE AND MERCY to no longer be your own master, but fully desiring to be Mastered by the Master, King Jesus!” He’s not a bad king, but King of kings and Lord of lords!

In Ezekiel 34:25-27, how necessary to hear and receive these words!! “I will make a covenant of peace with them, and cause ‘wild beasts’ to cease from the land, (lions, tigers, jackals, fierce bears, poisonous snakes, alligators, crocodiles? I don’t think so! ‘Wild beasts’? How about ‘sinners’, cruel and callous mean men, super-intelligent, godless professors, independent owners of much of the world’s wealth, or the angry, poverty stricken who know nothing, really, about ‘deserving more’, or, yes, “the pretenders” who CAN BE the strongest roadblocks to the True Pathway to the fullness of the blessing in Christ?), Back to the passage!!,; and they (The established in the Faith under the True Shepherd!),will dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there SHALL BE SHOWERS OF BLESSING.

THEN the trees of the field (Who are they? The apples, the oranges, the mangos, the pears? NO! The trees of God’s field are His reborn, replanted, resurrected men and women planted, cared for, nurtured by the Holy Spirit!), then the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase. (Where YOU’RE PLANTED, GOD GIVES THE PROMISE OF INCREASE! DO YOU LET HIM?). They shall be safe in their land, and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. (Who’s that? The world, the flesh, and Satan!)….Oh, Verse 29!! “I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they shall no longer be consumed with hunger in the land, nor bear the shame of the Gentiles anymore. Verse 30-31? Thus they shall know that, I, the Lord their God, am with them, and they, the house of Israel, who are My people,” says the Lord God.” THERE WAS AND IS TODAY THE TRUE REMNANT! VERSE 31, “YOU are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God, “ says the Lord God.

Can you say, “Glory to the Father or Glory to God, Glory to the Son, Glory to the Spirit, the blessed “Three-in-One”? Can YOU say, “I know I am God’s child, birthed by the Holy Spirit through the “seed” of the Word of God”?

But, “Sour grapes”, or “wild beasts”? Does that describe “the perpetually desolate”? Are you aware, though they don’t see it or know it, there are folks, who are, according to Psalm 35:26, “Clothed with shame and dishonor who exalt themselves against Me”?

“Sour grapes”, “wild beasts”, independent, self-sufficient, the disdainers of God’s Truth, the worldly, self-centered, humanly sufficient crowd, the haters of knowledge, the refusers who choose to “fear the Lord”, the spiritually complacent though ‘glowing’ in their human attributes and abilities and attitudes and actions, constantly patting themselves on their backs with their own ‘self-imagined award winning of human capability’, and yet no true security or, for the day of death, no ‘door’ to eternal blessing but only the ‘door’ to Satanic oversight!

Dare I tell you? There is nothing ‘pleasant’ to the man who lives faithlessly, lives cemented in his fleshly desires, lives in the deep, dark waters of human abilities void of the “Life-Preserver” of true blood redemption, “New life”, “eternal purpose”, and the Word of God and the Spirit of God and the Family of God surrounding and overseeing, and boosting and encouraging your every step in His “blessed Kingdom-Rule”!

To be gut-level honest with you: I don’t know how any man, without Christ, lives a ‘confident life’ that has no true benefits, no spiritual provision, no wealth of the Word feeding Him the True Bread and the Meat of Life daily, and with No Spotter, (the Spirit), guiding His every step! It’s a “roll-of-the-dice”, but that was and is not God’s design or desire for YOU! Jesus said, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest!”

“Sour grapes”? Do you see, sense, yes, and sympathize for those who reject God’s compassion, mercy, and love, and choose for themselves to walk in the paths of sin and death, caught in the strong cords of sinful natures, entrapped by the ‘wild schemes of Satan’ like an animal-like man or woman laying their traps to take you down?

“Sour grapes”? That’s no desire to welcome at all God’s cords of conviction because ‘fleshly pleasure’ is their supreme desire, and “pleasing God” is the furthermost step away from them! Goodness even may be a trait of both the ‘lost’ and the “found”, but only Godliness is the fruit, character and nature of God alone, but He’s willing to live in you if you’re tired of a “sour-grapes mentality”!

Why not turn from, yes, your “sour grapes” but Merciful God’s “SURE GRACE”? Yet, sadly, many turn willful deaf ears and willful blind away from Eternal Truth about God and His love and man and his deceived sin-nature that, as I’ve already said, some ‘believers still give into, because of their ‘love affair’ with that old sin-nature, because the world looks down on the call to holiness, and because Satan himself deceives, lures, tempts, ensnares with his mocking ways of Kingdom living! [Why don’t you study and check out: “Imprisoned In Babylon”? Consider seriously, intently, purposefully about resolving the reality of Satan’s desire for YOU to choose ‘darkness’ OR to see the blessing of “walking in the Light”, studying “best effort still opening the door to ‘sin’” OR “Blessed by Emmanuel, “God in flesh” willingly laying down His life for the glory of God !].

And, if you resolve, yes, your dilemma about whether to “stay” devoted to your old nature or “rest” in Christ’s finished work at Calvary and the Empty Tomb, you may “see the Light”! And the angels will arouse all of Heaven to rejoice over you! In “sour grapes” living, you are definitely in the ‘world’ and a part of the ‘world’ that shuts the door into the Face of Almighty God! In the “old man dilemma”, YOU are surrounded by a dark cloud of sinfulness, But the Son shines on you, your ‘storms’ still blow, but He speaks and says, as they blow, “Peace be still!” Your problems may abound, intensify, try to overcome you and break you down, but King Jesus arises saying, “Peace, be still!” Your ‘problems’ invite Jesus, yes, to be YOUR “Problem Solver”, because not many flesh men can solve their dilemmas – they just try to survive them, but the “faithful in Christ” still says: “Peace be still!”.

Be assured: You’ll either lean on yourself, trying your best, or you’ll look to the Helper, you’ll either “look for another, better day, OR you’ll “rest” in Christ alone now, come what may! You also need to understand that those “dark nights of the soul” will be unveiled by the Light of the Lord Jesus Christ to shock the Hell out of every human soul that leans to his/her own understanding, closing out the Redeemer, The Victor, the Conqueror over anything you face!

What would you do if you secretly sinned and shamed the Savior, then He comes, He knocks on YOUR DOOR, and says: “I’m going to expose you – REPENT OR ELSE YOUR EXPOSURE COMES!” Yes, the day comes when Holy God is ready to pull back the curtains of one’s self-indulgent life, even in some ‘professing believers’, darkened in secret sins, and He comes not with ‘blind eyes’ but to let you know, He’s seen! Nothing, nothing, nothing is hidden unless “washed away by the blood of the Lamb of God, not to be resurrected or unveiled or broadcasted”!!

The ‘dark nights of the soul’ WILL hang around and seek to shudder the “Eternal Light of the Abiding Christ in you” that is your only hope of overcoming, yes, the darkness you allow! Many, yes, true believers are targets of their enemies, and their ‘enemies’ will do WHATEVER to split your allegiance, invert your eternal priorities, cloud your spiritual mind, pierce it, anyway possible, for leakage, heighten the, yes, at times, the influences, strong opposition, and deceitful doors they want to open to “bring you down” from “Throne-Living In and Through Jesus”, demoralizing your True Identity in Him and emphasizing the ‘pleasures’(?) of the world, the flesh and the devil!

Oh, but Christ Jesus is ALIVE AND WELL AND PRESENT AND DESIRES TO REIGN VICTORIOUS IN YOU AS ONE WHO IS MORE THAN CONQUEROR! He’s Redeemer, He’s Atoner, He’s Master and Lord over life, over death, over temptation, over deceit, over your ‘flesh’, over the demons of Hell who want you blinded to His All-Sufficient Grace, Mercy, and Love, and to be the “More than Conqueror in you as He fights your battles if you allow Him! “SURE GRACE”? Let me sum it up in Matthew 5:3-12!! “Blessed are the POOR IN SPIRIT, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek (teachable), for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those WHO HUNGER AND THIRST For Righteousness, for THEY shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart (washed in the blood of the Lamb!), for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. REJOICE and BE EXCEEDINGLY GLAD, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you!” “IN CHRIST” YOU are “salt of the earth”, “light of the world”, “Let YOUR light shine!”

IN THE HEART!”

BY:J.FARRELL FISHER, MAY 26,2019

A VERY SIGNIFICANT WORD OF GOD IS FOUND IN 1 SAMUEL 16:7 WHEN THE LORD SAID TO SAMUEL ABOUT ‘MOURNING FOR SAUL’, “LOOK NOT ON HIS COUNTENANCE, OR ON THE HEIGHT OF HIS STATURE; BECAUSE I HAVE REFUSED HIM: FOR THE LORD SEES NOT AS MAN SEES; FOR MAN LOOKS ON THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE, BUT THE LORD LOOKS ON THE HEART.”

WHAT AN AWESOME WORD FROM HOLY GOD! WHY? BECAUSE IT’S TRUE THAT ‘NATURAL MAN, BIRTHED IN ADAM,CHOOSING TO WILLFULLY SIN FLESHLY & IN THE BODY & MIND’, IS BIRTHED WITH THE CHOICE OF YIELDING TO THE ‘FLESH’ OR WILLFULLY SUBMITTING TO HOLY GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS BY, YES, REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK ON CALVARY’S CROSS!

BUT MAN, FALLEN AWAY FROM GOD IN HIS BIRTHED ‘SINFUL NAURE & CHOOSING TO SIN WITHOUT ANY CONCERN OF A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD’, WILL OFTEN CHOOSE ‘RELIGIOUS APPEARANCE’ APART FROM “REDEEMED BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD”, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! “TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART” ARE MEN, EVEN SOME ‘RELIGIOUS MEN’, WHO ‘LIKE’ RELIGIOUS APPEARANCE & WILL WORK FOR IT, BUT THE “HEART” IS TRULY SPIRITUALLY DEAD AND IN NEED OF THE “SECOND BIRTH THAT IS SPIRITUAL”, NOT “BEST-EFFORT RELIGIOUS ATTAINMENTS”!

DO YOU REMEMBER “THE ‘WISDOM’ OF SOLOMON IN PROVERBS 1:22-33? “HOW LONG, YOU SIMPLE ONES, WILL YOU LOVE SIMPLICITY? & THE SCORNERS DELIGHT IN THEIR SCORNING, & FOOLS HATE KNOWLEDGE? TURN YOU AT MY REPROOF;BEHOLD, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU, I WILL MAKE KNOWN MY WORDS UNTO YOU. BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED, & YOU REFUSED; I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HAND, & NO MAN REGARDED:

BUT YOU HAVE SET AT NAUGHT ALL MY COUNSEL, & WOULD NONE OF MY REPROOF; I ALSO WILL LAUGH AT YOUR CALAMITY; I WILL MOCK WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES; WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES AS DESOLATION, & YOUR DESTRUCTION COMES AS A WHIRLWIND; WHEN DISTRESS & ANGUISH COMES UPON YOU. THEN SHALL THEY CALL UPON ME, BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER; THEY SHALL SEEK ME EARLY, BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND ME;

FOR THAT THEY HATED KNOWLEDGE, & DID NOT CHOOSE THE FEAR OF THE LORD; THEY WOULD (HAVE) NONE OF MY COUNSEL: THEY DESPISED ALL MY REPROOF. THEREFORE SHALL THEY EAT ‘THE FRUIT OF THEIR OWN WAY, & BE FILLED WITH THEIR OWN DEVICES.’ FOR THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE SHALL SLAY THEM, & THE PROSPERITY OF FOOLS SHALL DESTROY THEM. “BUT”,VERSE 33, WHOSO HEARKENS UNTO ME SHALL DWELL SAFELY, & SHALL BE QUIET FROM FEAR OF EVIL.” OH, BUT THE “WISEMAN” WAS NOT THROUGH WITH HIS ‘RECEIVED, ACCEPTED, & WISE WORDS FROM HOLY GOD’!

IN PROVERBS 3:5-12, THE “WISEMAN” WROTE: “TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART; & LEAN NOT TO YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, & HE SHALL DIRECT YOUR PATHS. BE NOT WISE IN YOUR OWN EYES: FEAR THE LORD, & DEPART FROM EVIL. IT SHALL BE HEALTH TO YOUR NAVEL, & MARROW TO YOUR BONES. HONOR THE LORD WITH YOUR SUBSTANCE, & WITH THE FIRSTFRUITS OF ALL YOUR INCREASE.

SO SHALL YOUR BARNS BE FILLED WITH PLENTY, & YOUR PRESSES SHALL BURST OUT WITH NEW WINE. MY SON, DO NOT DESPISE THE CHASTENING OF THE LORD; NEITHER BE WEARY OF CORRECTION: FOR WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE CORRECTS; EVEN AS A FATHER THE SON IN WHOM HE DELIGHTS.” WHAT AN AWESOME, ENCOURAGING, INSPIRING WORD FROM A TRULY WISE MAN!!

QUESTION! “ARE ‘YOU’ A SEEKER AFTER HOLY GOD”? IT ALWAYS AMAZED ME TO READ THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, OLD TESTAMENT AS WELL AS NEW TESTAMENT, LEARNING THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE HE CAME, THAT GOD THE FATHER “PROMISED” THAT HIS SON, THE LORD JESUS, WOULD COME TO RECONCILE SINFUL MAN TO GOD THE FATHER BY HIS OWN SHED BLOOD ON CALVARY’S CROSS! IN ISAIAH 55:1-7 WE READ,

“HO, EVERY ONE THAT THIRSTS, COME YOU TO THE WATERS (THE ‘WATERS OF THE HOLY WORD OF GOD’?), & HE THAT HAS NO MONEY; COME YOU, BUY, & EAT; YES, COME, BUY WINE (THE ‘WINE OF THE WORD OF GOD’?) & MILK WITHOUT MONEY & WITHOUT PRICE. WHEREFORE DO YOU SPEND MONEY FOR THAT WHICH IS NOT BREAD? & YOUR LABOR FOR THAT WHICH DOES NOT SATISFY?HEARKEN DILIGENTLY UNTO ME, & EAT YOU THAT WHICH IS GOOD, & LET YOUR SOUL DELIGHT ITSELF IN FATNESS.

INCLINE YOUR EAR, & COME UNTO ME; HEAR, & YOU SHALL LIVE; & I WILL MAKE AN EVERLASTING COVENANT WITH YOU, EVEN THE SURE MERCIES OF DAVID. BEHOLD, I HAVE GIVEN HIM FOR A WITNESS TO THE PEOPLE, A LEADER & COMMANDER TO THE PEOPLE. BEHOLD, YOU SHALL CALL A NATION THAT YOU KNOW NOT, & NATIONS THAT KNEW NOT YOU SHALL RUN UNTO YOU BECAUSE OF THE LORD YOUR GOD, & FOR THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL; FOR HE HAS GLORIFIED YOU.

SEEK YOU THE LORD WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND, CALL YOU UPON HIM WHILE HE IS NEAR; LET THE WICKED FORSAKE HIS WAY, & THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN HIS THOUGHTS: & LET HIM RETURN UNTO THE LORD, & HE WILL HAVE MERCY UPON HIM; & TO OUR GOD, FOR HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON.”

ON JUNE 12,2019, I WILL CELEBRATE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY! IT IS AMAZING TO “ME” BECAUSE MY GRANDDAD FISHER & MY DAD, JIM FISHER, BOTH DIED AT 78 YEARS OF AGE! I’M SURELY CONVINCED THAT HOLY GOD HAS EXTENDED MY LIFE, EVEN FOR THE ‘SOVEREIGN PURPOSE’ OF HIGHLIGHTING, & I PRAY, INSPIRING YOU TO “REST” IN THE LORD LIKE “WISE” SOLOMON, “WISE” PROPHETS & TEACHERS & FOLLOWERS OVER THOUSANDS OF YEARS, WHO ‘WAITED’ IN FAITH ON CHRIST’S LITERAL COMING, HIS EARTHLY MINISTRY, & HIS SACRIFICIAL DEATH AS THE TRUE “LAMB OF GOD” SHEDDING HIS OWN BLOOD TO “WASH AWAY SIN & ITS NATURE” ON HIS “CALVARY’S CROSS”!! AND THE EMPTY TOMB PROVES IT! HE AROSE FROM THE DEAD AFTER THREE DAYS, & STILL, THOUSANDS OF YEARS LATER, SAYS, “COME UNTO ME, & I’LL GIVE YOU REST!”

IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” (P.84), (PUBLISHED IN 1940 BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.), IS A HYMN THAT IS ENTITLED: “REST FOR THE WEARY.” IT SAYS: “IN THE CHRISTIAN’S HOME IN GLORY THERE REMAINS A LAND OF REST; THERE MY SAVIOR’S GONE BEFORE ME, TO FULFILL MY SOUL’S REQUEST.

HE IS FITTING UP MY MANSION, WHICH ETERNALLY SHALL STAND, FOR MY STAY SHALL NOT BE TRANSCIENT, IN THAT HOLY, HAPPY LAND.

PAIN & SICKNESS NE’ER SHALL ENTER, GRIEF NOR WOE MY LOT SHALL SHARE; BUT, IN THAT CELESTIAL CENTER, I A CROWN OF LIFE SHALL WEAR.

DEATH ITSELF SHALL THEN BE VANQUISHED, & IT’S STING SHALL BE WITHDRAWN; SHOUT FOR GLADNESS, O YOU RANSOMED! HAIL WITH JOY THE RISING MORN.

THERE IS REST FOR THE WEARY, THERE IS REST FOR THE WEARY, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF JORDAN, IN THE SWEET FIELDS OF EDEN, THERE IS REST FOR THE WEARY, THERE IS REST FOR YOU; WHERE THE TREE OF LIFE IS BLOOMING, THERE IS REST FOR YOU.”

IN GENESIS 27:41-28:5a, WE READ ABOUT JACOB ESCAPING FROM ESAU WHO HATED JACOB & WANTED TO KILL HIM. SO INTERESTING WHAT ‘SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS’ DOES IN MEN’S HEARTS & MINDS & WILLFUL DISGRACE TO HOLY GOD! FIRST,GENESIS 27:41-46 SAYS, “SO ESAU HATED JACOB BECAUSE OF THE BLESSING WITH WHICH HIS FATHER BLESSED HIM, & ESAU SAID IN HIS HEART, ‘THE DAYS OF MOURNING FOR MY FATHER ARE AT HAND; THEN I WILL KILL MY BROTHER JACOB.

AND THE WORDS OF ESAU HER OLDER SON WERE TOLD TO REBEKAH. SO SHE SENT & CALLED JACOB HER YOUNGER SON, & SAID TO HIM, “SURELY YOUR BROTHER ESAU COMFORTS HIMSELF CONCERNING YOU BY INTENDING TO KILL YOU. NOW THEREFORE, MY SON, OBEY MY VOICE: ARISE, FLEE TO MY BROTHER LABAN IN HARAN. & STAY WITH HIM A FEW DAYS, UNTIL YOUR BROTHER’S FURY TURNS AWAY, UNTIL YOUR BROTHER’S ANGER TURNS AWAY FROM YOU, & HE FORGETS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO HIM; THEN I WILL SEND & BRING YOU FROM THERE. WHY SHOULD I BE BEREAVED ALSO OF YOU BOTH IN ONE DAY?”

OH, THEN FEAST ON THE FAITH OF ISAAC! GENESIS 28:1-5A: THEN ISAAC CALLED JACOB & BLESSED HIM, & CHARGED HIM, & SAID TO HIM: ‘YOU SHALL NOT TAKE A WIFE FROM THE DAUGHTERS OF CANAAN. ARISE, GO TO PADAN ARAM, TO THE HOUSE OF BETHEL YOUR MOTHER’S FATHER; & TAKE YOURSELF A WIFE FROM THERE OF THE DAUGHTERS OF LABAN YOUR MOTHER’S BROTHER. & MAY GOD ALMIGHTY BLESS YOU, & MAKE YOU FRUITFUL & MULTIPLY YOU, THAT YOU MAY BE AN ASSEMBLY OF PEOPLES; & GIVE YOU THE BLESSING OF ABRAHAM, TO YOU & YOUR DESCENDANTS WITH YOU, THAT YOU MAY INHERIT THE LAND IN WHICH YOU ARE A STRNGER, WHICH GOD GAVE TO ABRAHAM. SO ISAAC SENT JACOB AWAY.”

SECOND,QUESTION! ARE YOU A “DESCENDANT” OF A BLOOD-BOUGHT FAMILY OF FAITH & OBEDIENCE & TRUST IN THE COMMISSIONING & ORDERS & INSTRUCTIONS OF GOD THE FATHER THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD? IN GALATIANS 4:3-20, PAUL IN A LABOR OF LOVE ‘EXPOSED’ COMPROMISE AS AN ENEMY OF GOD WHEN HE SAID OF SOME ‘PROFESSING GALATIANS & EVEN ‘MODERN-DAY’ PRETENDERS,’ “EVEN SO WE, WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN, WERE IN BONDAGE UNDER THE ELEMENTS OF THE WORLD. BUT WHEN THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME HAD COME, GOD SENT FORTH HIS SON, BORN OF A WOMAN, BORN UNDER THE LAW, TO REDEEM THOSE WHO WERE UNDER THE LAW, THAT WE MIGHT RECEIVE THE ADOPTION AS SONS.

AND BECAUSE YOU ARE SONS, GOD HAS SENT FORTH THE SPIRIT OF HIS SON INTO YOU HEARTS, CRYING OUT, ‘ABBA,FATHER’! THEREFORE YOU ARE NO LONGER A SLAVE BUT A SON, & IF A SON, THEN AN HEIR OF GOD THROUGH CHRIST. BUT THEN, INDEED, WHEN YOU DID NOT KNOW GOD, YOU SERVED THOSE BY NATURE WHICH ARE NOT GODS. BUT NOW,AFTER YOU HAVE KNOWN GOD, OR RATHER ARE KNOWN BY GOD, HOW IS IT YOU TURN AGAIN TO THE WEAK & BEGGARLY ELEMENTS, TO WHICH YOU DESIRE AGAIN TO BE IN BONDAGE? YOU OBSERVE DAYS & MONTHS & SEASONS & YEARS. I AM AFRAID FOR YOU, LEST I HAVE LABORED FOR YOU IN VAIN.

BRETHREN, I URGE YOU TO BECOME LIKE ME, FOR I BECAME LIKE YOU. YOU HAVE NOT INJURED ME AT ALL,YOU KNOW THAT BECAUSE OF PHYSICAL INFIRMITY I PREACHED THE GOSPEL TO YOU AT THE FIRST. & MY TRIAL WHICH WAS IN MY FLESH YOU DID NOT DESPISE OR REJECT, BUT YOU RECEIVED ME AS AN ANGEL (OR MESSENGER) OF GOD, EVEN AS CHRIST JESUS. WHAT THEN WAS THE BLESSING YOU ENJOYED? FOR I BEAR YOU WITNESS THAT, IF POSSIBLE, YOU WOULD HAVE PLUCKED OUT YOUR OWN EYES & GIVEN THEM TO ME. HAVE I THEREFORE BECOME YOUR ENEMY BECAUSE I TELL YOU THE TRUTH?

THEY ZEALOUSY COURT YOU, BUT FOR NO GOOD;YES, THEY WANT TO EXCLUDE YOU, THAT YOU MAY BE ZEALOUS FOR THEM. BUT IT IS GOOD TO BE ZEALOUS IN A GOOD THING ALWAYS, & NOT ONLY WHEN I AM PRESENT WITH YOU. MY LITTLE CHILDREN, FOR WHOM I LABOR IN BIRTH AGAIN UNTIL CHRIST IS FORMED IN YOU. I WOULD LIKE TO BE PRESENT WITH YOU NOW & TO CHANGE MY TONE; FOR I HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT YOU.”

THIRD:DARE I SAY IT? BELIEVE I WILL! HAVE YOU EVER HAD ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT YOURSELF, OR ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT FAMILY MEMBERS, OR ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT ‘FRIENDS OF THE FAITH’, OR ‘DOUBTS’ ABOUT A WANDERING, MISGUIDED, WORLDLY INDULGENT TEACHER OR PASTOR? I READ AN ANONYMOUS QUOTE YEARS AGO THAT SAID, “A GREAT MANY PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS READY TO PRAY WHEN THE DEVIL GETS THEM INTO TROUBLE; BUT WHEN THEY GET OUT OF TROUBLE THEY SOON FORGET GOD.” IT WAS E.STANLEY JONES, IN HIS WRITING, “THE WAY”(P.235, ABINGDON PRESS), WHO WROTE: “THE CHRISTIAN UNDER TROUBLE DOESN’T BREAK UP – HE BREAKS OUT.” SO TRUE!

“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART”? IN ONE OF HIS WRITINGS ENTITLED, “HYMN” (ST.5), HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW WROTE: “O HOLY TRUST! O ENDLESS SENSE OF REST! LIKE THE BELOVED JOHN TO LAY HIS HEAD UPON THE SAVIOR’S BREAST, & THUS TO JOURNEY ON!” HAVE YOU ‘COLLAPSED’ AS A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST? HAVE YOU CRUMBLED? HAVE YOU SETTLED FOR A FAITH THAT TELLS YOU TO TRY YOUR BEST, EVEN IF YOU FAIL 0R FALTER, BUT NEVER TELLS YOU: “FINISHED WITH ‘FLESHLY BEST’ THAT CHRIST JESUS MAY BE MY ALL IN ALL – EVEN EVERY TROUBLING, DISABLING, STRUGGLING, HEART-BREAKING EVENT I MAY FACE?”

“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART”? MAYBE SO, BUT JOHN KEATS, IN HIS WRITING, “LETTER TO J.H.REYNOLDS” SAID, “THERE IS AN AWFUL WARMTH ABOUT MY HEART LIKE A LOAD OF IMMORTALITY.” FOR SURE, THE HEART OF MAN IS EITHER TAINTED IN SINFUL, SELF-INDULGENCE, OR TRIUMPHANT THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST, HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD, & HIS PRESENT REIGN ON THE THRONE OF TRULY REPENTANT, TRULY “BLOOD-BOUGHT SAINTS”, GUIDED & GUARDED BY THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE REDEEMED LIFE “IN CHRIST”!

FOURTH,“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART?” THAT DESCRIBES ‘PROUD’, ‘SELF-INDULGENT’ ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENDERS’ WHO SEE ‘RELIGION’ AS MEN’S MINDS TRYING HARD TO IMPROVE THEMSELVES RELIGIOUSLY, BUT VOID OF “WASHED IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”! MAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN “ESTABLISHED RELIGIONS” WORLDWIDE IS WHAT WALTER BAGEHOT SAID YEARS & YEARS AGO, THAT “MAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ESTABLISHED RELIGIONS WHICH ARE “STREWN WITH CREEDS & INSTITITIONS WHICH WERE INVALUABLE AT FIRST, & DEADLY AFTERWARD.” AGAIN, SO TRUE!

“TALL IN THE BODY & MIND, BUT TAINTED IN THE HEART?” THAT, TO ME, IS ‘ANTSY RELIGIOUS PARTICIPANTS BIRTHING ITCHY MINDS, FLESHLY WILLS, ‘DECENT PERFORMANCES’, BUT IT IS NOT “GRACED LIVING IN DIVINE PRESENCE WITH CHRIST REIGNING IN THEM AS THEIR THRONE OF ETERNAL GLORY!” HOLY GOD HAS NO INTEREST IN RELIGIOUS MEN’S “PRODUCTION” OF ‘AFFILIATED BIRTHING’ BUT NO “TRANSFORMED LIVES” THROUGH FAITH ALONE IN THE “SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST JESUS” THE CRUCIFIED “LAMB OF GOD”!

‘RELIGIOUS GENIUSES’ ARE INNUMERABLE IN THIS DAY OF RELIGIOUS ‘HISTORY’, BUT I WROTE YEARS AGO A WORD THAT CHILLED A GREAT NUMBER, EVEN CHURCH-FOLK WHO RESENTED IT! I SAID: “IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH MEN ESTABLISH RELIGIONS, & ALL OF A SUDDEN REALIZE THEY’VE ENTERED INNUMERABLE GORILLA CAGES!”

FIFTH,IN JAMES 1:26-27 THE BROTHER OF JESUS WROTE: “IF ANY AMONG YOU SEEM TO BE RELIGIOUS, & BRIDLETH NOT HIS TONGUE, BUT DECEIVES HIS OWN HEART, THIS MAN’S RELIGION IS VAIN. PURE RELIGION & UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE FATHER IS THIS: TO VISIT THE FATHERLESS & WIDOWS IN THEIR AFFLICTION, & TO KEEP HIMSELF UNSPOTTED FROM THE WORLD.”

IT’S MORE THAN ‘NORMAL’, IT’S “ABNORMAL”! “ABNORMAL” WHAT? THAT’S ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENSE’ VOID OF THE “NEW BIRTH, THE NEW HEART, THE CRUCIFIED LIFE MIRACOUSLY RAISED UP “IN CHRIST” BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT”! THAT’S ‘DECEIVED, RELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALS’ WHO CANNOT, WILL NOT ‘UNDECEIVE THEMSELVES’ BECAUSE “GOD SHOULD ACCEPT JUST AS I AM”, WHEN GOD “CRUCIFIED THEM WITH CHRIST” JUST AS THEY WERE OR STILL ARE IN, BECAUSE RELIGIOUS PRETENSE IS AS DEADLY AS ‘BORN IN SIN’!! ACTS 3:19 SAYS, “REPENT YOU, THEREFORE, & BE CONVERTED THAT YOUR SINS MAY BE BLOTTED OUT.” AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN! “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST” “IS” “THE ONLY WAY” YOUR OLD SIN-NATURE IS DONE AWAY WITH! “TRYING NOT TO SIN” IS NOT “TRUSTING IN OUR SAVIOR’S FINISHED WORK AT CALVARY’S CROSS!!!

IRA D.SANKEY & E.PAGE,IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL”, PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN., IN 1940, P.328, IS A HYMN ENTITLED “TRUSTING JESUS.” IT SAYS: “SIMPLY TRUSTING EVERY DAY, TRUSTING THROUGH A STORMY WAY; EVEN WHEN MY FAITH IS SMALL, TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IS ALL.

BRIGHTLY DOES HIS SPIRIT SHINE INTO THIS POOR HEART OF MINE; WHILE HE LEADS I CANNOT FALL; TRUSTING JESUS THAT IS ALL.

SINGING IF MY WAY IS CLEAR: PRAYING IF THE PATH BE DREAR; IF IN DANGER, FOR HIM CALL; TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IS ALL.

TRUSTING HIM WHILE LIFE SHALL LAST, TRUSTING HIM TILL EARTH IS PAST; TILL WITHIN THE JASPER WALL, TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IA ALL.

TRUSTING AS THE MOMENTS FLY, TRUSTING AS THE DAYS GO BY; TRUSTING HIM WHATE’ER BEFALL, TRUSTING JESUS, THAT IS ALL.”

SIXTH,BUT, GOD CALLED & YOU REFUSED? JESUS KNOCKED, BUT AWARE OF YOUR ‘SUPREME RELIGIOUS DEVOTION’ YOU SAW NO NEED TO OPEN THE DOOR & INVITE HIM IN TO DO ONLY WHAT HE CAN DO? THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTED YOU, BUT YOU CONVINCED YOURSELF “YOU’RE ABLE; TRY YOUR BEST, GUT IT UP, BE STRONG!”, WHEN IN GALATIANS 1:6-10 THE SPIRIT-INSPIRED WORD DECLARES, PAUL THE APOSTLE WRITING: “I MARVEL THAT YOU ARE TURNING AWAY SO SOON FROM HIM WHO CALLED YOU IN THE GRACE OF CHRIST, TO A DIFFERENT GOSPEL, WHICH IS NOT ANOTHER; BUT THERE ARE SOME WHO TROUBLE YOU & WANT TO PERVERT THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST.BUT EVEN IF WE, OR AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN, PREACH ANY OTHER GOSPEL TO YOU THAN WHAT WE PREACHED TO YOU, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. AS WE SAID BEFORE, SO NOW I SAY AGAIN, IF ANYONE PREACHES ANY OTHER GOSPEL TO YOU THAN WHAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. FOR DO I NOW PERSUADE MEN, OR GOD? OR DO I SEEK TO PLEASE MEN? FOR IF I STILL PLEASED MEN, I WOULD NOT BE A BONDSERVANT OF CHRIST.” ARE “YOU” ‘TRYING’ OR “TRUSTING”, ‘ATTEMPTING OR “ATONED FOR”, ‘STRIVING’ OR ACCORDING TO COLOSSIANS 1:11, “STRENGTHENED WITH ALL MIGHT, ACCORDING TO HIS GLORIOUS POWER…”, WHICH MEANS: “WE TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO OUSELVES, & ALLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT TO FAITHFULLY “GUIDE US INTO ALL TRUTH”!! AMEN? IN THE OLD “AMERICAN HYMNAL” OF 1933 PUBLISHED IN NASHVILLE, TENN., BY BROADMAN PRESS, IS A SONG ENTITLED “LORD, I AM YOURS, ENTIRELY YOURS.” IT SAYS: “LORD, I AM YOURS, ENTIRELY YOURS, PURCHASED & SAVED BY BLOOD DIVINE; WITH FULL CONSENT YOURS I WOULD BE, & OWN YOUR SOVEREIGN RIGHT IN ME.GRANT ONE POOR SINNER MORE A PLACE AMONG THE CHILDREN OF YOUR GRACE; A WRETCHED SINNER,LOST TO GOD, BUT RANSOMED BY IMMANUEL’S BLOOD.

YOURS WOULD I LIVE, YOURS WOULD I DIE, BE YOURS THRO’ ALL ETERNITY; THE VOW IS PAST BEYOND REPEAL, & NOW I SET THE SOLEMN SEAL.HERE AT THAT CROSS WHERE FLOWS THE BLOOD THAT BOUGHT MY GUILTY SOUL FOR GOD, YOU, MY NEW MASTER, NOW I CALL, & CONSECRATE TO YOU MY ALL!PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSING FLOW; PRAISE HIM ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW; PRAISE HIM ABOVE,YOU HEAVENLY HOST; PRAISE FATHER, SON, & HOLY GHOST.” AMEN?

CHRIST’S MIND?”

BY:J.FARRELL FISHER, JUNE 12-14,2019

PSALM 31 IS A POWERFUL WORD WHEN A MAN DOESN’T SETTLE IN TO ‘FALLEN-AWAY-FROM-GOD-MINDS’ THAT SADLY CAN’T DISTINGUISH BETWEEN ‘SIN’ OR ‘RIGHTEOUSNESS’, BUT JUST SATISFIED WITH A CARNAL MIND TO ‘THINK’ (?) “AS I WANT TO THINK OR BELIEVE OR DECIDE FOR MYSELF WHAT MY MIND & MENTAL STATE WILL BE AS I PLAN FOR MYSELF-REAL MEN DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES WITHOUT YOUR GOD’S HELP!!” & IN THEIR PRIDE & ARROGANCE THEY WAVE THE HANDS, THE EYES, THE FEET, AWAY FROM “ETERNAL TRUTH” BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DESIRE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING OR ANYONE WHO SPEAKS ABOUT ETERNAL MATTERS – “ALL THAT MATTERS TO ME IS TO DO AS I PLEASE – I HAVE A MIND OF MY OWN – & I WANT NO DIVINE INTERFERENCE IN MY LIFE – I’M SATISFIED WITH THE ‘TEMPORAL’, NOT THE ETERNAL; I’M SATISFIED WITH THE BEST MY ‘FLESH’ HAS TO OFFER –I’M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR GOD’S SPIRITUAL SLANTS; I’M SATISFIED WITH A WORLD VIEW THAT LEAVES GOD OUT – HE HAS NOTHING TO BRING ME IN TO HIS ‘RELIGIOUS JARGON’, I’M SANE, NOT SINFUL!” & YOU HEAR FROM A BLINDED MAN IN HIS FALLEN STATE AWAY FROM GOD’S LOVE, GRACE, MERCY, & HIS ETERNAL PURPOSE IGNORED BY A SELF-SUFFICIENT MAN WHO LIVES IN DISOBEDIENCE & REJECTION OF THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS.

“THE DIVERSIFICATION OF THE MINDS OF FALLEN MEN”? IN ROMANS 1:18-20 PAUL CLEARLY & CONVICTINGLY REVEALS “THE MUD, THE MIRE, & THE MISERY OF FLESHLY DECEIVED MINDS” THAT IGNORE SOVEREIGN GRACE & MERCY! HE WROTE: “FOR THE WRATH OF GOD IS REVEALED FROM HEAVEN AGAINST ALL UNGODLINESS & UNRIGHTEOUSNESS OF MEN, WHO HOLD (OR SUPPRESS) THE TRUTH IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS; BECAUSE THAT WHICH MAY BE KNOWN OF GOD IS MANIFEST (OR UNVEILED) IN THEM; FOR GOD HAS SHOWED IT UNTO THEM. FOR THE INVISIBLE THINGS OF HIM FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ARE CLEARLY SEEN, BEING UNDERSTOOD BY THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE, EVEN HIS ETERNAL POWER & GODHEAD;SO THAT THEY ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE.”

FALLEN MANKIND DOES HAVE A CHOICE! ACCEPT OR REJECT, RECEIVE OR REFUSE, CELEBRATE THE BLESSING OF KNOWING TRUTH OR CONDEMN THOSE WHO DO! PROVERBS 6:18 SPEAKS ABOUT THOSE WHO HAVE “A HEART THAT DEVISES WICKED IMAGINATIONS, FEET THAT BE SWIFT IN RUNNING TO MISCHIEF.” OH, & THEN, YOU READ JEREMIAH 23, ONE OF THE MOST ‘SHOCKING PASSAGES’ YOU’LL EVER READ! IT WILL (IF YOU HAVE ANY LEANING AT ALL IN YOU TOWARD HOLY GOD & HIS ETERNAL PLAN!); EXAMINE VERSES 1-22, “WOE BE UNTO THE PASTORS THAT DESTROY & SCATTER THE SHEEP OF MY PASTURE! SAYS THE LORD.(BACK TO THE ‘WORLD’ THE LORD LED THEM OUT OF, BUT ‘COMPROMISING PASTORS & PEOPLE SHRED THE FAITH OF MANY AS THEY, YES, CHOOSE TO LIVE ‘ADORING’ THE OLD SIN NATURE!).

THEREFORE THUS SAYS THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL AGAINST THE PASTORS THAT FEED MY PEOPLE; YOU HAVE SCATTERED MY FLOCK, & DRIVEN THEM AWAY, & HAVE NOT VISITED THEM: BEHOLD, I WILL VISIT UPON YOU THE EVIL OF YOUR DOINGS, SAYS THE LORD. AND I WILL GATHER THE REMNANT OF MY FLOCK OUT OF ALL COUNTRIES WHERE I HAVE DRIVEN THEM, & WILL BRING THEM AGAIN TO THEIR FOLDS; & THEY SHALL BE FRUITFUL & INCREASE. & I WILL SET UP SHEPHERDS OVER THEM WHICH SHALL FEED THEM: & THEY SHALL FEAR NO MORE, NOR BE DISMAYED, NEITHER SHALL THEY BE LACKING, SAYS THE LORD.

BEHOLD, THE DAYS COME, SAYS THE LORD, THAT I WILL RAISE UNTO DAVID A RIGHTEOUS ‘BRANCH’, & A ‘KING’ SHALL REIGN & PROSPER, & SHALL EXECUTE JUDGMENT & JUSTICE IN THE EARTH. IN HIS DAYS JUDAH SHALL BE SAVED, & ISRAEL SHALL DWELL IN SAFETY; & THIS IS HIS NAME WHEREBY HE SHALL BE CALLED, “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” THEREFORE, BEHOLD, THE DAYS COME, SAYS THE LORD, THAT THEY SHALL NO MORE SAY, THE LORD LIVES, WHICH BROUGHT UP THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT;

BUT, THE LORD LIVES, WHICH BROUGHT UP & WHICH LED THE SEED OF HOUSE OF ISRAEL OUT OF THE NORTH COUNTRY, & FROM ALL COUNTRIES WHERE I HAD DRIVEN THEM; & THEY SHALL DWELL IN THEIR OWN LAND. MY HEART WITHIN ME IS BROKEN BECAUSE OF THE PROPHETS; ALL MY BONES SHAKE; I AM LIKE A DRUNKEN MAN, & LIKE A MAN WHOM WINE HAS OVERCOME, BECAUSE OF THE LORD, & BECAUSE OF THE WORDS OF HIS HOLINESS. FOR THE LAND IS FULL OF ADULTERERS; FOR BECAUSE OF SWEARING THE LAND MOURNS; THE PLEASANT PLACES OF THE WILDERNESS ARE DRIED UP, & THEIR COURSE IS EVIL, & THEIR FORCE IS NOT RIGHT.

FOR BOTH PROPHET & PRIEST ARE PROFANE ( OR POLLUTED); YES, IN MY HOUSE HAVE I FOUND THEIR WICKEDNESS, SAYS THE LORD. WHEREFORE THEIR WAY SHALL BE UNTO THEM AS SLIPPERY WAYS IN THE DARKNRESS: THEY SHALL BE DRIVEN ON, & FALL THEREIN; FOR I WILL BRING EVIL UPON THEM, EVEN THE YEAR OF THEIR VISITATION, SAYS THE LORD. & I HAVE SEEN FOLLY IN THE PROPHETS OF SAMARIA; THEY PROPHESIED IN BAAL, & CAUSED MY PEOPLE ISRAEL TO ERR.I HAVE ALSO SEEN IN THE PROPHETS OF JERUSALEM A HORRIBLE THING: THEY COMMIT ADULTERY, & WALK IN LIES: THEY ALSO STRENGTH THE HANDS OF EVILDOERS, THAT NONE DOES RETURN FROM HIS WICKEDNESS (OR “LOCKED INTO IT! SOLD-OUT TO SELF-INDULGENCE! ‘TOP STUDENTS’ OF SATAN’S DECEIVED CLASSES OF CORRUPTION!”):THEY ARE ALL OF THEM UNTO ME AS SODOM, & THE INHABITANTS THEREOF AS GOMORRAH.

THEREFORE THUS SAYS THE LORD OF HOSTS CONCERNING THE PROPHETS; BEHOLD, I WILL FEED THEM WITH WORMWOOD, & MAKE THEM DRINK THE WATER OF GALL; FOR FROM THE PROPHETS OF JERUSALEM IS PROFANENESS GONE FORTH INTO ALL THE LAND.THUS SAYS THE LORD OF HOSTS, HEARKEN NOT UNTO THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS THAT PROPHESY UNTO YOU; THEY MAKE YOU VAIN (IN YOUR ‘IMAGINATIONS’);THEY SPEAK A VISION OF THEIR OWN HEART, & NOT OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE LORD. THEY STAY STILL UNTO THEM THAT DESPISE ME, THE LORD HAS SAID, YOU SHALL HAVE PEACE; & THEY SAY UNTO EVERY ONE THAT WALKS AFTER THE IMAGINATION OF HIS OWN HEART, NO EVIL SHALL BEFALL UPON YOU. FOR WHO HAS STOOD IN THE COUNSEL OF THE LORD, & HAS PERECEIVED & HEARD HIS WORD? WHO HAS MARKED HIS WORD, & HEARD IT?

BEHOLD, A WHIRLWIND OF THE LORD IS GONE FORTH IN FURY, EVEN A GRIEVOUS WHIRLWIND: IT SHALL FALL GRIEVOUSLY UPON THE HEAD OF THE WICKED. THE ANGER OF THE LORD SHALL NOT RETURN, UNTIL HE HAS EXECUTED, & UNTIL HE HAS PERFORMED THE THOUGHTS OF HIS HEART; IN THE LATTER DAYS (OF JERUSALEM’S HISTORIC PAST!) YOU SHALL CONSIDER IT PERFECTLY. I HAVE NOT SENT THESE PROPHETS, YET THEY RAN; I HAVE NOT SPOKEN TO THEM, YET THEY PROPHESIED. BUT!!,IF THEY HAD STOOD IN MY COUNSEL, & HAD CAUSED MY PEOPLE TO HEAR MY WORDS, THEN THEY SHOULD HAVE TURNED THEM FROM THEIR EVIL WAY, & FROM THE EVIL OF THEIR DOINGS.”

YOU’LL FIND IT VERY, VERY INTERESTING THAT I’VE LISTED THESE VERSES FROM MY “THOMPSON CHAIN-REFERENCE BIBLE” LAST PUBLISHED IN 1964! OH, & THEN I READ VERSE 28 THAT SAYS, “THE PROPHET THATHAS A DREAM LET HIM TELL A DREAM; & HE THAT HAS MY WORD LET HIM SPEAK MY WORD FAITHFULLY!” AND ALONGSIDE VERSE 28 I WROTE THE DATE: 3-10-83! AND 36 YEARS LATER, THAT HOLY WORD IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS IN JEREMIAH’S DAY AS IN MY DAY IN JUNE,2019!! OH, &, YES, VERSE 29 SAYS: “IS NOT MY WORD LIKE FIRE? SAYS THE LORD; & LIKE A HAMMER THAT BREAKS THE ROCK IN PIECES?”

IMPORTANT? VALUABLE? VIABLE?NECESSARY?ESSENTIAL? “GOD’S WORD LIKE FIRE?” “GOD’S WORD LIKE A HAMMER THAT BREAKS THE ROCK IN PIECES?” IN ROMANS 2:3-9 WE READ, “AND DO YOU THINK THIS, O MAN, THAT JUDGES THEM WHICH DO SUCH THINGS, & YET YOU DO THE SAME, THAT YOU SHALL ESCAPE THE JUDGMENT OF GOD? OR DO YOU DESPISE THE RICHES OF HIS GOODNESS & FORBEARANCE & LONGSUFFERING; NOT KNOWING “THAT THE GOODNESS OF GOD LEADS YOU TO REPENTANCE”? BUT AFTER YOUR HARDNESS & IMPENITENT HEART TREASURES UP UNTO YOURSELF WRATH AGAINST THE DAY OF WRATH & REVELATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT OF GOD; WHO WILL RENDER TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS; TO THEM WHO BY PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL DOING SEEK FOR GLORY & HONOR & IMMORTALITY,ETERNAL LIFE:

BUT UNTO THEM THAT ARE CONTENTIOUS, & DO NOT OBEY THE TRUTH, BUT OBEY UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, INDIGNATION, & WRATH, TRIBULATION& ANGUISH, UPON EVERY SOUL OF MAN THAT DOES EVIL, OF THE JEW FIRST, & ALSO OF THE GENTILE…”!! CONTENTIOUS TOWARD GOD, OR OBEDIENT, SUBMISSIVE, TRUSTING, SAYING “YES” MOMENT BY MOMENT & DAY BY DAY, TO “THE AUTHOR & FINISHER OF TRUE FAITH”, OR DISOBEDIENT, REBELLIOUS, ‘FIXED’ IN THE “DO AS I PLEASE MODE EVEN AS I PROFESS, I’M A FOLLOWER OF THE LAMB OF GOD”??

“THE DIVERSIFICATION OF THE MINDS OF FALLEN MEN”? THE ‘WARPED WILLS’ OF ‘RELIGIOUS FOLK’ LIVING UNDER THE DECEPTION OF THE AUTHOR OF DARKNESS, YES, SATAN HIMSELF? FEEBLE MINDEDNESS,A FAULTY LIFE OF FAITH FOUNDATION, THE ‘SHIFTING SANDS’ RATHER THAN THE “SOLID ROCK OF CHRIST FOUNDATION”? FLESHLY, YES, EVEN ‘RELIGIOUSLY-MINDED’ MEN, HAVE BUILT THEIR ‘LIVES OF FAITH’ (?) UPON A FAULTY FOUNDATION! IT WAS RICHARD CECIL WHOSE WORDS WERE PRINTED IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS,” (P.303), WHO SAID: “AN EXQUISITE WATCH WENT IRREGULARLY, THOUGH NO DEFECT COULD BE DISCOVERED IN IT. AT LAST IT WAS FOUND THAT THE BALANCE WHEEL HAD BEEN NEAR A MAGNET; & HERE WAS ALL THE MISCHIEF. IF THE SOUNDEST MIND BE MAGNETIZED BY ANY PREDILECTION, IT MUST ACT IRREGULARLY.” IRREGULAR ‘BEATING, SPIRITUAL HEARTS’ IS NOT THE EVIDENCE OF THE INDWELLING CHRIST BUT THE “BEST-EFFORT-MENTALITY” OF A RELIGIOUS BEING NEEDING THE MIRACULOUS “NEW-BIRTH” IN CHRIST JESUS THAT GOD CALLS THE NEW SON OR DAUGHTER OF FAITH TO LEAN UPON, NOT “GIVE OF YOUR BEST TO THE MASTER”, BUT RECEIVE FROM THE MASTER “THE BEST” OF HIS INDWELLING PRESENCE!!

THE INTEGRITY OF THE MIND IS NOT PERSONAL, INTELLECTUALL, HIGHLY-EDUCATED MINDEDNESS, BUT “DEAD INDEED TO THE MIND’S BEST THAT THE RESURRECTION, PRESENT, MIND-FILLED-NESS OF CHRIST HIMSELF MIGHT BE YOUR DAILY GUIDE! HEAVENLY FELICITY IS THE FAITHFULNESS OF THE INDWELLING MIND OF CHRIST HIMSELF – TRUE DISCIPLES LEAN NOT TO THEIR OWN UNDERSTANDING, BUT ALLOW THE CHRIST WITHIN TO OPEN & CLOSE WHATEVER NEEDS TO BE CLOSED & WHATEVER NEEDS TO BE OPENED TO HIS REVEALED WORD, HIS WAY, & HIS WILL!

IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” (PUBLISHED BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN., IN 1940), IS A HYMN BY WILLIAM O.CUSHING & IRA D.SANKEY, ENTITLED “HIDING IN THEE.” (P129). IT SAYS: “O SAFE TO THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER THAN I, MY SOUL IN ITS CONFLICTS & SORROWS WOULD FLY; SO SINFUL, SO WEARY, THINE, THINE WOULD I BE; YOU BLEST ‘ROCK OF AGES,’ I’M HIDING IN THEE.

IN THE CALM OF THE NOON-TIDE, IN SORROW’S LONE HOUR, IN TIMES WHEN TEMPTATION CASTS O’ER ME ITS POWER; IN THE TEMPESTS OF LIFE, ON ITS WIDE, HEAVING SEA, YOU BLEST “ROCK OF AGES”, I’M HIDING IN THEE.

HOW OFT IN THE CONFLICT, WHEN PRESSED BY THE FOE, I HAVE FLED TO MY REFUGE & BREATHED OUT MY WOE; HOW OFTEN, WHEN TRIALS LIKE SEAS BILLOWS ROLL, HAVE I HIDDEN IN THEE, O ROCK OF MY SOUL.

HIDING IN THEE, HIDING IN THEE, THOU BLEST “ROCK OF AGES”, I’M HIDING IN THEE.”

IS THAT “HIDDEN IN CHRIST ALONE” OR “HIDDEN IN THE ‘BEST’ ONE DETERMINES FOR HIMSELF/HERSELF”? IS THAT A ‘BLESSED EFFORT MENTALITY’ OR THE “BLESSED PRESENCE OF THE INDWELLING CHRIST BEING HIMSELF THROUGH AN AVAILAVLE VESSEL FULLY SURRENDERED TO HIS LORDSHIP & HEAVENLY REIGN”? HOLINESS IS NOT ONE’S BEST EFFORT FROM THE PRESENCE & REIGN OF THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDING YOU INTO ALL OF GOD’S HOLY TRUTH! HOLINESS IS NOT ‘SELF-DETERMINED’, ‘SELF-PRESCRIBED’, ‘SELF-EXALTED’ SPIRITUAL HABITS, BUT THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST WITHIN YOU, YOUR HOPE OF GLORY!

IT WAS MARTIN LUTHER, IN HIS OWN WRITING ENTITLED “TABLE TALK”, WHO ONCE SAID: “THERE ARE TWO SORTS OF HOLINESS, SUBSTANTIAL & ACCIDENTAL.ST.FRANCIS WAS ONCE SUBSTANTIALLY HOLY BY HIS FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, BUT AFTERWARDS HE BECAME INFATUATED WITH THE ACCIDENTAL HOLINESS OF THE HOOD, AN ACCESSORY WHOLLY FOREIGN TO HOLINESS.” SUBSTANTIAL OR ACCIDENTAL? SUBSTANTIAL IS THE BLESSED WORK & MINISTRY OF THE ABIDING HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFYING CHRIST, WHILE ‘ACCIDENTAL’ IS THE ‘BEST EFFORT’ OF FLESHLY, SPIRITUAL INDULGENCE, NOT THE “FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT”!! THE ‘MODERN-MISGUIDED-MALEDICTED-MALIGNANT’ TEACHING, VOID OF THE GUIDANCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN ALL BIBLICAL TRUTH, LEAVES OPEN THE DOOR OF ONE’S OWN ‘RELIGIOUS’ MIND WITHOUT THE SPIRIT OF HOLY TRUTH, YES, SUPERINTENDING EVERY THOUGHT & TRUTH UNVEILED IN GOD’S HOLY WORD –IT’S NOT ONE’S ‘BEST OPINION’ BUT THE REVELATION OF GOD-BREATHED, HOLY TRUTH THAT ONE MUST DEAL WITH, ACCEPTING, ABIDING IN, OR IS IT ‘SELECTING’ WHAT ONE IS WILLING TO AGREE WITH, BUT NOT ALL IF A ‘FLESH-MIND’ DOESN’T AGREE? HOW DISRUPTIVE IS THAT OF THE HOLY TRUTH OF “THE INDWELLING CHRIST”?

NO! ONE “IN CHRIST” TRULY TURNS FROM ZEALOUS PROTECTION OF ONE’S ‘SELF-DESIRES’ TO THE “SOVEREIGN PROTECTION OF GOD’S GRACE & MERCY & LOVE”! ZEALOUS ‘SELF-PROTECTION’ FOR YOU, OR TRUST IN, RESTING IN, ASSURED OF, THE DIVINE PROMISES OF GOD HIMSELF BEING HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOU IN,YES, THE “SOVEREIGN PRICELESSNESS OF HIS AMAZING GRACE”? BUT “YOU”HAVE A BETTER CHOICE THAN “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, AS YOU OFFER GOD, IF YOU EVEN DO THAT, “YOUR BEST”? NO!! THAT WAS ,YES, HISTORICALLY CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST!, BUT TO SPIRITUALLY DEAD MEN MERCIFUL GOD OFFERS, THE RESURRECTION LIFE IN CHRIST TO THE TRULY REPENTANT, TRUSTING HEART IN THE SAVIOR’S “FINISHED WORK”!!

IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” IS A HYMN WRITTEN BY MRS.M.P.FERGUSON ENTITLED “BLESSED QUIETNESS”. IT SAYS: “JOYS ARE FLOWING LIKE A RIVER, SINCE THE COMFORTER HAS COME; HE ABIDES WITH US FOREVER, MAKES THE TRUSTING HEART HIS HOME.

LIKE THE RAIN THAT FALLS FROM HEAVEN, LIKE THE SUNLIGHT FROM THE SKY, SO THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVEN, FALLS UPON US FROM ON HIGH.

WHAT A WONDERFUL SALVATION WHERE WE ALWAYS SEE HIS FACE! WHAT A PEACEFUL HABITATION! WHAT A QUIET RESTING PLACE!

BLESSED QUIETNESS, HOLY QUIETNESS, BLEST ASSURANCE IN MY SOUL! ON THE STORMY SEA JESUS SPEAKS TO ME, & THE BILLOWS CEASE TO ROLL.”

THERE IS “THE PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING” AS WE LEARN FROM (PHILIPPIANS 4:7)!

“PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING”? THE PROPHET ISAIAH WROTE IN ISAIAH 26:3, “YOU, GOD, WILL KEEP HIM IN PERFECT PEACE WHOSE MIND IS STAYED UPON YOU.” I’LL NEVER FORGET THE DAY IN A SOUTHERN CITY OF INDIA WHEN I WAS DAILY PREACHING ON THE STREETS WITH HUNDREDS OF THE CITIZENS OF THIS PARTICULAR CITY STOOD LISTENING TO ME PREACHING ON THE STREET THROUGH MY INTERPRETATOR, PASTOR ANAND, WHO PAUSED TO SAY, “PASTOR, IT’S NOT JUST THE TWO YESTERDAY WHO WARNED YOU ABOUT PREACHING ON THEIR STREET, BUT AT LEAST A DOZEN MORE MEN ARMED WITH CLUBS. I KEPT PREACHING, THEN I PRAYED – WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, THE TWO “GANG-LEADERS” WERE ON THEIR KNEEES BEFORE ME, & WE LED THEM TO FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, ENDING UP WITHIN A WEEK OF THE WHOLE “GANG” COMING TO FAITH THROUGH ANAND’S MINISTRY IN HIS LOCAL CHURCH!! AMEN?

IT WAS BAYARD TAYLOR, RECORDED IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”, (PUBLISHED BY FLEMING H.REVELL COMP., WESTWOOD,NJ (1965) P.327), SAYING: “LIKE ONE WHO LEAVES THE TRAMPLED STREET FOR SOME CATHEDRAL, COOL & DIM, WHERE HE CAN HEAR IN MUSIC BEAT THE HEART OF PRAYER THAT BEATS FOR HIM; RESTORED & COMFORTED, I GO TO GRAPPLE WITH MY TASKS AGAIN; THROUGH SILENT WORSHIP TAUGHT TO KNOW THE BLESSED PEACE THAT FOLLOW PAIN.”

HAS YOUR “TREE OF FAITH” IN CHRIST ALONE EVER BEEN SEVERELY SHAKENED BY AN UNBELIEVING WORLD AROUND YOU, OR EVEN A SATANICALLY-INFLUENCED OPINION ABOUT YOUR ‘PROFESSED DEVOTION’, OR EVEN ‘SELF-DOUBT’ ABOUT THE “TRUE FAITH IN CHRIST ONLY”? I CLOSE WITH WORDS FROM CHRISTINA GEORGIANA ROSSETTI FROM HER WRITING,”FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE”, SAYING: “ALTHOUGH TODAY HE (GOD) PRUNES MY TWIGS WITH PAIN, YET DOES HIS BLOOD NOURISH & WARM MY ROOT; TOMORROW I SHALL PUT FORTH BUDS AGAIN & CLOTHE MYSELF WITH FRUIT.”

GALATIANS 5:16-25 “SEALS THE EVIDENCE” OF THE, YES, TRUE FOLLOWER & DISCIPLE & REPRESENTATIVE ‘AMBASSADOR OF THE LJC”, SAYING:

REVELATION

BY: J. FARRELL FISHER

JULY – AUGUST, 2018

INTRODUCTION

It’s absolutely amazing as one walks with the Lord through the door of faith and trust: – the walk begins, you’re on the Way, and you believe that ‘soon this amazing walk of faith will be over’, but He reminds you, “You’ve just begun! There’s more to see, understand, receive, exercise, release as YOU then share with others!”

At 82 years of age, as of June 12, 2018, I’m STILL “awed” about more and more of His revealed, Spirit-inspired, necessary and essential, Word of Truth! The “inspirational part” NEVER LET’S GO! You know you’re “hearing from God Himself”, and that, it is not only for you, but all the world around you! By the Spirit, you KNOW you’ve opened the Book of divine revelation, even “GIVEN” understanding, that as human food is necessary to sustain the human body, so the Bible is ‘spiritual food’ to nurture the “new-born journey” into adult spiritual identity – without the Word, babes, children, teenagers, young adults, older adults, never come into the fullness of Christ!

The Word is our milk, our water, our ‘bread’, our ‘meat’, our necessary ‘food’, to mature us in our walk with Christ! We’re not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is”, nor should a true disciple ever be in his walk of faith void of devotion to the Holy Word of God! Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God!” Return to the Word so His Word may faithfully return YOU to Him in ‘fullness, completeness, and abiding joy’!

How many do you know who’ve “professed faith”, and yet, have not come into its fullness, because, sadly, the Holy Word of God has not been their spiritual nourishment in a ‘well-fed walk’ by the Word of Holy God being released in them and through them? Word-less ‘disciples’(?) live ‘deceived lives’ because, yes, they still feed on world wisdom, but not His divine revelation and eternal promises!

How many do you know who will submit themselves to every ordinance of man but stubbornly ignore the mandates of the Master?

It was Simon Peter who wrote so wisely and in eternal understanding, saying in 1 Peter 2:2, “As newborn babes, desire the ‘sincere milk’ of the Word, that you may grow.” Some “professors of faith” live ‘stunted lives of faith’ because they ignore the Holy, Spirit-inspired Word of God Almighty! AND He wants you blessed, anointed, maturing into the fullness of Christ! Let me help!

OUTLINE

CHAPTER ONE: REMAINING ‘FLAWED’ OR “FAITHING THE FINISHED WORK”?

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLING THE REALITY OF JUDGMENT BY ‘FLESH ALLEGIANCE’ OR IN “AMAZING GRACE”?

CHAPTER THREE:THE ‘ACTS’ OF TRUE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST!

CHAPTER FOUR:

CHAPTER FIVE:

CHAPTER SIX:

CHAPTER SEVEN:

CHAPTER EIGHT:

CHAPTER NINE:

CHAPTER TEN:

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

CHAPTER TWELVE:

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

CHAPTER TWENTY:

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:

CHAPTER THIRTY:

CHAPTER ONE

REMAINING ‘FLAWED’ OR “FAITHING THE FINISHED WORK”?

How aware are you of the ‘deception’ fallen men and women live with as they are confronted with Eternal Truth and minimize its’ importance in, they assume, the ‘supposed’ walk of faithful disciples as they, at least, admit to knowing about? How many do you know who will even ‘profess faith’ about Christ, but they hold onto “the heels” of a dead, condemned, Christ-less life, ‘hoping’, though hopelessly in reality, to maintain both the world, the flesh, and the devil, as they declare their ‘belief’ in Jesus, assuming by ‘head knowledge’ alone that one can be reconciled to God! Really? As they dance with the world, the old sin nature, and Satan himself, even enjoying the devil’s ‘fleshly music’?

Like a ‘government’ of ‘functional service’ apart from the grace and mercy of God, so, many ‘believers’ today in, at least, the ‘professing church’, PROFESS, apart from being “possessed” by the Indwelling Christ, but continue to live under the strong influences in an unbelieving world, adoring the seeming satisfactions of their sin natures, sadly avoiding but attempting to imitate Jesus in “best effort” demonstration and activity, blind to the reality that their ‘best effort’ was also crucified with Christ! But they continue, at least, every Sunday morning, the “Sabbath” day, to celebrate ‘IMITATION’, that is, yes, a ‘false impression’ of the True Christ, continuing to use His name, pretending Him apart from His Indwelling, Resurrection, Reigning Presence!

‘Sinners’, who are determined to remain as they are, still at times, will acknowledge the ‘name of Jesus’, ‘profess a flawed faith’, join ‘a church’, being ‘flawed disciples’, asserting their ‘faith’ as a believer, but within their mind and heart are blind to one’s “completion in Christ”, not by what they try to do, but by what He and He alone has done at the Cross and empty tomb, thus releasing a “new, eternal agenda” with Christ Jesus as the only “Commandeer-in-Chief” who rules, guides, inspires, comforts, empowers, and, yes, corrects, when necessary, through you by His Resurrection Presence!

You, no doubt have heard it, or at least sensed it, maybe said it: “Oh, I ‘believe’ in Jesus, as long as He allows Me to be myself. I want to be with Jesus, but if I must die to myself, to my old sin nature, forsaking devotion to a world philosophy and worldly pleasures, even, at times, agreeing with Satan’s false assertions and the desires of fleshly demons, I’ll just have to pay the price for a stubborn heart, mind, and life – ‘good-by, Jesus’!” So, by God, He decrees you: “Assigned to Satan, to the world spirit, and the bad fruit of your ‘flesh’ or old sin nature”!

Do YOU remember ‘Pharaoh of Egypt’ in Exodus 5:2 in response to Moses who confronted him for God? Pharoah said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.” It wasn’t long until God’s judgment WAS released upon Pharoah, as it will be released on every opposer, mind, heart, or will, of the grace, mercy, and love of God!

Fallen mankind does not truly KNOW God, though inclinations about Him remain hidden in their dark minds and dark hearts – maybe only a ‘reflection’, but they DO KNOW HIM! Men, unbelieving men, though spiritually ignorant, ARE birthed, by God’s design, with, at least a “primitive knowledge or awareness of the ‘CREATOR GOD’”, even though ‘fools’ say, “There is no God!” But, in spite of unbelieving stupidity, the awareness of God IS written on the mind, even if the heart remains ‘dark’, or ‘cold’ to the love of God!

The Bible does declare of unbelievers, “The way of peace they know not”, so they create ‘crooked paths’! Often one’s awareness of God is crowded out, shoved into the back recesses of the mind, or ‘short of God’s righteousness’, they fabricate their own, even giving God credit, though THEY “warped” their own view of Him, but they still wanted to verbalize His name without any devotion or commitment to His will!! They refuse to submit to “the righteousness of God”! “Blindness of heart” IS a serious disease or ‘dis-ease’, because one will never be “comfortable” with himself apart from “saving grace, mercy, and love of God”!!

In Jeremiah 4:22 God spoke about His “created people”! It says: “For my people is foolish (Is there a tribe, a nation, a brand of human people around that God didn’t ‘make, birth, or brand’?), they have not known Me; they are ‘sottish’ children, and have no understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to DO GOOD they have no knowledge.”

‘Sottish”? The Random House College Dictionary” of 1975, published by Random House Inc., New York, NY, defines it as: “stupefied with or ‘as with drink’” – that means “drunk”, and certainly, ‘strong drink, stupid thoughts, always intoxicates one’s mind, thoughts, and spirits’ – also the dictionary said: “given to excessive drinking” – unbelieving thoughts WILL stupefy!! ARE YOU SOBER OR STUPIFIED, OR “SET APART BY HIM TO HIS GLORY”?

In Jeremiah 6, as the prophet Jeremiah was sent BY GOD, yes, to His own ‘chosen people’, he wrote, in Verses 13-16, about God Himself speaking, Oh, so clearly and in convicting passion! “For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one deals falsely.

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Were they (My people) ashamed when they had committed abominations? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; THEREFORE they shall fall AMONG them that fall; at the time that I VISIT THEM they shall be cast down, says the Lord.

THUS SAYS THE LORD, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We, yes, have chosen not to walk THAT WAY any longer!”

Don’t YOU thank Almighty God for sending ON-TO-US-FIREY-PROPHETS to shock His own people in hopefully responding to His insightful Word?

In Jeremiah 7:23-24, again, God speaks: “But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they did not hearken to me (shutting their ears so they wouldn’t hear His voice of mercy), nor incline their ears, BUT walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went BACKWARD, and NOT FORWARD.”

Have you witnessed it? “Sold-out disciples of the Savior, deflecting their eyes AND heart AND will away from Him, absolutely ‘straying’ into what is absolute, infinite nothingness in place of the “fullness of the blessing of the Resurrected Life in Christ”?

And, I’m not highlighting ‘atheists’ or ‘agnostics’, even though they stupidly deny God’s existence, but “His own”, who, deceived by Satan, the old-sin-nature, and the world around them, are “led astray”, “caught up by ‘fleshly’ passions”, and intentionally ‘deceived by Satan and his demon forces’, are ‘turned’ away from Truth to be made spiritually ill by the disease of literal deception! Aren’t you aware that, yes, some believers are led astray by ‘spirits’, by uninformed Bible-believers who mix their ‘flesh-natures’ that were crucified, but won’t let go, and see no problem with holding hard to ‘untruths’ that they held before ‘salvation’, but now, though ‘saved’, decide it’s OK to pour their ‘old’ captive thoughts in with “Divine Truth”?

‘Compromising disciples, ‘intellectual’ preachers, ‘highly-fallible-folks, seeing themselves as ‘smarter than God Himself, immature, untrained, yes, neglected ‘babes in Christ’, WILL unashamedly wear “messy diapers”, and the “smell” is real! True disciples must not be betrayed by ‘split-allegiance-folks’ who claim Christ but unveil their spiritual stupidity!! Some ‘disciples’, yes, ‘set aside’, minimize, or, for a time, will forfeit ‘revealed Truth’ for “humanistic ideals, but absent of God’s Truth”!!

‘Compromising disciples’ often see themselves in their ‘spiritual fantasies’ as “Superman, Super woman”, living on the basis of fleshly, academic, worldly ‘truths’, promoted by ‘intellectual, spiritually ‘brain-dead’, men or women’, but ‘high-class’ in ‘godless theology’, or their ‘interpretations’, and,yes, with ‘religious minds’ but ‘godless hearts’! Reasonable revelation is forfeited for ‘restricted truths’ enlightened by their own persuasions, not guiding by God’s Spirit!

Have YOU ever even considered at all God’s INTENT in the ‘humans’ creation? If you haven’t, then I’m persuaded, for you, revelation-Truth is a ‘joke’ promoted by ‘religious fanatics’, and not to be ‘studied’, as a true disciple does!

What was Paul’s ‘inspired word’ to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15? “Study to shew yourself approved unto God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.”

Rather than ‘study’, too many ‘believers’ “rest themselves” on the divided explanations of ‘prophets’ or ‘teachers’ or ‘professors’ who, subtly believe, though you’d never hear them say it, that, really, they are smarter than God Himself!

Again, the Prophet Jeremiah quoted God, saying, in Jeremiah 23:21-22, “I have not sent ‘these prophets’, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they ‘prophesied’. BUT, if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they should have turned them from THEIR evil way, and from the evil of their doings.”

So, of course, the question remains: Are YOU, at all, concerned about what Holy God has spoken about, yes, the precious words of Jesus, and, also, what the Holy Spirit directs you to in “guiding you into all Biblical Truth”? Jeremiah 23:28-29 also challenges all “followers” of God: “The prophet that has a dream, let him tell his dream; and he that has My word, let him speak faithfully My word. What is the chaff to the wheat, says the Lord. Is not My word like as a fire? AND like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”

THE HOLY WORD OF GOD “IN CHRIST” DOES AND WILL SHATTER THE WORLD, THE OLD SIN-NATURE, AND SATAN WITH HIS DEMONS DAILY, ‘IF’ YOU “TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO YOUR OLD MAN THAT THE NEW MAN, LIVING BY HIS PRESENCE WITHIN, BY HIS ANOINTED POWER, AND HIS GRACIOUS HEART, AND GUIDING HOLY SPIRIT, IS, YES, WILLFULLY RELEASED TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU?

Far too many “professors of faith” live, behave, and share from a sad foundation of willful, ludicrous loyalty, while neglecting one’s “Life-Blessed Loyalty of the Indwelling Christ”!!

I don’t even know who said it, but I held onto it, over my 82 years of life, a statement someone wisely made that says: “Virtue in distress and vice in triumph makes atheists of mankind,” of course, knowing, as Psalm 14:1 declares, “The ‘fool’ has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’. For, they are corrupt, they do abominable works, none seeks the good,” because all ‘fallen men and women’ want ‘the good’ on their terms, not God’s will, Word, or His Way only in and through the Resurrected, Reigning Christ Jesus, the ONLY “Blood-Atoner”!

Have YOU ever turned to the ONLY “Blood-Atoner”? Of course not, because no man ever has “sought Him” without Him coming to “knock on your heart’s door and the intellect of your mind”, even offering “the gift” of understanding, from which, or out of His graciousness, one discerns the sad estate of his/her life, existence, and affairs, absent of His “abiding Presence”, but He says, “Open the door – and I’ll come in to make your life My “dwelling, My residence, My earthly Temple”!!

Do YOU “wait on the Lord” or continue ignoring Him, living in a self-initiated, fleshly lifestyle, ignoring the “knock”, strongly convinced you DON’T NEED HOLY GOD, because for you “self-determination and self-will” is sufficient to “fill’ your godless life, therefore no need of a Lord or Savior, even learning by biblical revelation, that He “knew” you before He ‘birthed’ you on earth!

One’s “true identity” is wrapped up in the eternal love of God for “coming mankind”, though as yet, you hadn’t even been born! Matthew knew that eternal truth when in his ‘gospel’, the ‘gospel’ according to “Saint Matthew”, in Matthew 1:1-17, there is found the historical record of God’s initiation of His own people and the birth of His Son through Mary! It’s so awesome! Verses 18-25 tells us: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, BEFORE THEY CAME TOGETHER (in holy wedlock!), she was found with child by the Spirit implanting Holy Ghost seed in her womb (though she “never knew any man in a physical, sexual relationship!).

Joseph was so confused: he was a just man and had no desire to expose Mary publicly, and considering his dilemma, Verse 20 says, “behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto yourself Mary as your wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.” Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, GOD WITH US.’

Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took Mary unto himself as his wife; and knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn son: and he called His name JESUS.” Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit who guides us into ALL TRUTH!

Not long after, God raised up John the Baptist to begin preaching “repentance” because, yes, the Kingdom of Heaven was to be established on earth as it is in Heaven, through redeemed prophets, disciples, evangelists, yes, “PREACHING CHRIST AS THE SAVIOR AND LORD OF ALL, AND ESPECIALLY IN AND THROUGH THOSE WHO REPENT, RECEIVE, AND RELEASE THE ETERNAL TRUTH OF CHRIST JESUS AS KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS OVER ALL!

EVEN HOLY GOD BEGAN TO SPEAK FROM HEAVEN, SAYING, “THIS IS MY BELOVED SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED”, with the continuing call even unto today, “Be clothed in the righteousness, through repentance and faith, that only comes when YOU make Christ Jesus Lord and Savior of your life!!”

T.O.Chisholm and C. Harold Lowden, in the old, “The American Hymnal, (Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee)”, wrote a hymn entitle “Living for Jesus” which should have been entitled as “Living IN Jesus”. It says: “Living (in) Jesus, a Life that is true, (yes), striving to please Him in all that I do, Yielding allegiance, glad-hearted and free, This is the pathway of blessing for me.

Living in Jesus who died in my place, Bearing on Calvary my sin and disgrace, Such love constrains me to answer His call (That’s daily, even moment by moment!), Follow His leading and give Him my all.

Living in Jesus wherever I am, Doing each duty in His holy name, Willing to suffer affliction or loss, Deeming each trial a ‘test’ in my cross.

Living in Jesus thro’ earth’s little while, My dearest treasure, the light of His smile, Seeking the lost ones He died to redeem, Bringing the weary to find rest in Him.

O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I (moment by moment) give myself to You; For Your, in Your Atonement, DID give Yourself for me; I own no other Master, my heart shall be Your Throne, My life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ in You alone.”

But many are so ‘fleshly soulful’ that BONDAGE holds until you know, lean on, and rest in His Word: “As God knocks on my sinful heart’s door, wanting residence in me, so that, through me, an earthly vessel, He can be Himself in Christ’s Resurrection Presence, yes, “guiding me by the ‘Spirit-Teacher’, the Holy Spirit, constantly, day by day, perfecting the Word of God faithfully, receiving, partaking, standing in, obeying the Eternal Word of God, because, the alternative, life without Christ, life without my “Trainer and Equipper”, life apart from being a member of His Holy Body, would be to disgrace God’s promises, deny His Spirit’s work, and shame the “Truth” He gave Himself for, that I might be free from guilt, godlessness, and ‘gory’ fleshly, sinful, imprisoned living under control of Satan and his demon soldiers, denying the blessing of the “gift of Eternal Life” living in the ‘curse’ of self-will, self-pleasures, AND satanic bondage!

Holy God, the true Heavenly Father, has said, and continues to say, “I called, I knocked, I atoned, I overcame the world, your sinful nature, and your devilish chains – but in unbelief and ‘fleshly resistance’ you chose the path of darkness, the deception of Hell’s ruler, the blindness of unbelief, so you could indulge, bow before, entertain, even worship the government of Hellish allegiance – you continue to ‘live’ with no thanks, no appreciation, even blinded to My “Amazing Grace”, – I gave “gifts” and the “gift of everlasting Life in Christ”, but YOU rejected Him, turned inward only, and continue to pursue your ‘own way’, your ‘darkened desires’, and your ‘devilish loyalty to darkness’, not allegiance to Him who IS the “Eternal Light”! You ignored your ‘cleansed ledger’, rejected my ‘deposit’ of Christ’s offer of eternal freedom through His shed blood; I even deposited on your eternal account, “Forgiven through Christ”, but you settled for the deathly participation in self-will, self-determination, and self-glory, REJECTING JESUS’ invitation, “Come unto Me, and I will give you “rest”! Yes! I deposited YOUR NAME in the eternal ledger, “Forgiven through My shed blood!”, but you refused to hear, you shut your ears to My loud

knock, you chose ‘self-indulgence’ over My grace, mercy, and love!” And, yes, sorrowing God has to say, “Good-by”, because YOU chose ‘sinful flesh’ over being His “new creation”!!

Is it for you, “Remaining Flawed”, or “Faithing The Finished Work?” P.P. Bliss, in the old, “The American Hymnal”, published by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1933, has a song entitled, “Almost Persuaded”. It says: “Almost persuaded” now to believe; “Almost persuaded” Christ to receive; Seems now some soul to say, “Go, Spirit, go Your way, Some more convenient day On You I’ll call.” Really? There are many who never answer the Spirit’s call! Will YOU?

CHAPTER TWO

SETTLING THE REALITY OF JUDGMENT BY ‘FLESH ALLEGIANCE” OR IN “AMAZING GRACE”?

By: J.Farrell Fisher, Sept.9-10, 2017

In Isaiah 44:8, Holy God said: “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no god,” saying again Verse 8b, “You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides ME? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

Would you, in your mind, heart, and spirit ever fall into the deception of “many gods”, and that we who are ‘Christians’ should not be concerned ‘who’ anybody else worships? According to the Word of God, 1 Corinthians 10:7, Paul said, “And do not become idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” False gods, idols, mind-made gods of marred men are nothing more than cheap, lifeless imitations of God, if even that, because ONLY GOD REIGNS – but foolish men reject Holy Scripture, reject His purpose in earthly life, and reject His Son, the Reconciler of alienated, separated from God men and women who decide ‘religious activity’ is more important to them than the “Blood Atonement”!!

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.” And whether ‘unredeemed’ or a part of the “best effort” of fallen humanity and, maybe, even attempting religious activity, ‘the natural man’, does not receive Truth, but rolls around “behaving like mere men”, which the natural man can get one of those ‘Hollywood – award winning’ medals for ‘cheap imitation’, and Paul says they are ‘behaving like mere men.’

Serving in the flesh “the god of coldness and deadness rather than the God of Heat and Life in the Spirit” is voluntarily and willfully choosing by a stubborn, self-sufficient mind to ignore the grace, mercy, and love of God, upholding, insisting, demanding, ignoring, and I say, ‘yes’, never surrendering one’s God-given right to attend the eternal funeral of one’s own independence, denying the need of the mercy and grace of God for a “new life” He longs to give!

But Galatians 5:24 declares: “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Independent, self-sufficient men and women are what I’ve entitled “godless ‘lapsers’”, accepting less than God promises! That’s ‘lapsing’ from grace and mercy and shutting the door of one’s heart and mind in order to fall away spiritually from “Amazing Grace”! God knocks – they refuse!

In Matthew 16:24 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Verse 25, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” To be lost, to be alienated and separated from God, to be a ‘self-promoter’ at the expense of missing out on Christ, to be the most ‘religious’ man in your community apart from the “New Birth” and a personal relationship with the King of kings and Lord of lords, is to willfully choose to be a part of spiritual coldness and deadness and indifference to the “shed blood of the Lamb of God”!

Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost For His Highest”(p.256), that “it is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought.” That’s: “Who rules? Sovereign God OR my ‘selfish flesh’?” Chambers went on to say:

“It is the things that are right and noble and good from ‘the natural standpoint’ that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Christ’s.”

In Galatians 6:14-15 the Apostle Paul wrote: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” Are YOU “new-born”?

“The ‘god’ of coldness and deadness”? It’s easily bowed to before ‘church-pretenders’ and unbelievers in the world because its instigator is Satan himself who is a ‘master deceiver’ who encourages ‘world opposition’, and then, like meeting Jesus Himself in the Gethsemane garden, he knows YOU have your own ‘garden’, and at stake is your ‘spiritual destiny’ inspired by him, or your ‘spiritual destiny’ designed, declared, and unveiled by Father-God for His Son and the Son’s re-born, regenerated, and released sons and daughters of “Follow Me”! And if the Lord Jesus, yes, suffered in His Garden of Gethsemane, settling His purpose, so you and I will find ourselves in opposition to the very powers of Hell itself – and YOU will have to settle who, yes, gets your heart, mind, and will – your own ‘self’ or a life to the honor of King Jesus!

“The ‘god’ of coldness and deadness” ?– and I say spiritual coldness and spiritual deadness! Dare I tell you that your enemy, Satan, has no desire for you to discover a “fire of God in your bones”! “The god of coldness and deadness” is not interested in seeing any man even turning an ear to the voice or Word of God, but is delighted when he hears that, sadly, there is no fear of God in many lives! So he encourages independent, fleshly walks with no eyes toward God or His Word! His major message to the unbelieving? “Trust yourself – you don’t need God!”

John MacArthur Jr., in his book, “Ashamed of the Gospel”, or sub-titled, “When the Church Becomes Like the World,” wrote: (p.28), having exposed a popular ‘market-driven’ ministry philosophy, said: “It caters to a people whose first love is with themselves and who care not for God – unless they can have Him without disrupting their selfish lifestyles. Promise such people a religion that will allow them to be comfortable in their materialism and self-love, and they will respond in droves.”

And reading recently, again, Chuck Colson’s book, “Burden of Truth,” (p.275), he was writing about “Costly Grace”, sub-titled The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, saying: “Costly grace led Bonhoeffer to stand against a turncoat church that mixed Nazi doctrine with Christian truth.” But it doesn’t matter if it’s Nazi doctrine or modern-day ‘intellectually elite’s perverted ideas’ (?) who deny the Word or even one’s own parents or family, God’s Eternal Truth still stands – and He bids you “Come to Me, and I will give you rest!”

BUT, ‘the god of coldness and deadness’ still seeks to hold onto what he’s already enslaved! And, are you acquainted with one of his favorite deceptions? “I am seeking to become the ‘best’ version of myself that I dream I may become”! Really? Eternal Truth is the last thing, yes, most Americans want to learn about! Oh, there are those who like the ‘sound’ of the bell of “church attendance”, but to “Take up YOUR cross and follow Me” which Jesus spoke, are words they consider too spiritual, reserved for just a few of the spiritual elite. But no cross, no death, no burial, and then, no resurrection life, hope or power!

Oh, but then in Hebrews 10:14 we read, “For by one offering (that’s Jesus’ death on the Cross!) He has PERFECTED FOREVER those who are being sanctified,” and “sanctified” is a life “set apart” for the glory of Christ alone, one’s Lord, one’s Savior, and the only Master of his/her life!

Dare I ask? Believe I will! Have YOU “in Christ” BEEN PERFECTED FOREVER because YOU no longer look inward into yourself but you “rest” in His finished work at the Cross AND the empty tomb and His ascension, seated at the right hand of God as VICTOR over sin and death and your representative before Holy God? I love Oswald Chambers statement in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.255), “Identification with the death of Jesus Christ means identification with Him to the death of everything that was never in Him.” Sinless Jesus took your sin and mine, and though He never sinned, He paid full price in our place for the sinful nature and practice of what killed Him!

And Hebrews 10:19 tells us: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” And dare I tell you the “pure water” is the water of the Word of God that applies the blood of Christ and washes us clean in the blood of the Lamb of God – Jesus?

Oh, and I do want to scare the Hell out of you! Hebrews 10:26-31 says: Are you ready? Do you have your marking pen out? It says: “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no longer a sacrifice for sins, BUT a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fiery indignation which will devout the adversaries.

Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. OF HOW MUCH WORSE PUNISHMENT, Do you suppose, WILL BE THOUGHT WORTHY WHO HAS TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT THE SON OF GOD, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge (Who?) His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Bu around you are ‘some’ who (Verse 39) “draw back to perdition”, rather than trusting, relying upon, obeying, and day by day, yes, forever, yield to the Savior, or daily bow before the King, and moment by moment walk in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit to moment by moment guide you in His Truth and expose your enemies!

Do you recall what Christ Jesus said in Matthew 12:25? “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, AND every city or house divided against itself WILL NOT STAND,” and that “STANDING” DIVIDED says to Satan: “My divided, compromising, on-again-off-again ‘romance’ with Jesus is truth – but I hope I don’t get what Jesus says I’m in for!”

Dare I tell you? Believe I will! Only Jesus, only the Christ in you can resist and resist and keep on resisting the powers of darkness because your old ‘flesh’ lives in doubt, defeat, and destruction by a yielded mind and heart to darkness rather than holding on to Eternal Light!

In Luke 11:20 & 23, Jesus said: “But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Verse 23, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”

Are YOU with Jesus or against Him? Are you “kingdom living” or religiously dying? Are you gathering in or are you a stumbling block to those blinded by the world, the flesh, and Satan Himself?

Are YOU extending His kingdom, expressing His love, and proving His power? The ‘church’, the family of God, the assembly of born again believers, the atoned, the anointed, the appointed are men and women, boys and girls, even young children who’ve met the Master and surrendered to His sovereign control and daily take the sentence of death to themselves that Christ’s Resurrection Life may be manifested in and through their mortal flesh!

It’s “Jesus, be Jesus in me”, or it’s “me being me in me” or “Satan being ‘me’ in me,” or “world, school crowd, neighborhood friends, you have your way in me.” Churches aren’t to be on the things you like about it but on the basis of its faithfulness, commitment, and stand for Eternal Truth!

Do you remember Psalm 23:4? “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me, God, and Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me,” and because YOU DO, Psalm 23:6 says:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER.” Is your room reserved in His eternal house forever? 2 Corinthians 13:5-6 says, Paul the Apostle speaking, “EXAMINE yourselves as to whether YOU are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified (the Apostles who all died for the True Faith!!).”

Look also at Colossians 3:3 where we read about “true believers”: “For you died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” What an amazing, awe-inspiring Word that necessitates taking that sentence of death daily that, yes, His “Resurrection Life” may be manifested IN our mortal flesh! Amen?

EVERY HUNGRY SOUL”!

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER,JUNE 28-30,2019

YES, IT WAS KING JESUS, THE PROMISED MESSIAH OF GOD FOR ISRAEL & THOSE OF FAITH WHO WOULD COME LATER, WHO IN MATTHEW 4:4 SAID, “IT IS WRITTEN, MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” SOME LEARN ETERNAL TRUTH, SOME NEVER HEAR IT, & SOME HEAR IT & WILLFULLY REJECT IT, WHILE OTHERS KNOW, YES, THERE IS A HEART & MIND HUNGER TO HEAR, RECEIVE, & WALK IN THE WORD OF HOLY GOD WHETHER THEY DO OR NOT! BUT WHERE DO YOU SIT, WALK, & STAND CONCERNING ‘YOUR SPIRITUAL APPETITE’?

IN 2 CORINTHIANS 13:5 PAUL STATED TO THE CORINTHIANS ‘FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST’ (?), EXAMINE YOURSELVES, WHETHER YOU BE IN THE FAITH (OR NOT);PROVE YOUR OWN SELVES. KNOW YOU NOT YOUR OWN SELVES, HOW THAT JESUS CHRIST IS IN YOU, EXCEPT YOU BE REPROBATES?”

GALATIANS 6:1-9 IS A TRULY CONVICTING, CHALLENGING WORD. IT SAYS,”BRETHREN, IF A MAN BE OVERTAKEN IN A FAULT, YOU WHICH ARE SPIRITUAL, RESTORE SUCH AN ONE IN THE SPIRIT OF MEEKNESS; CONSIDERING YOURSELF LEST YOU ALSO BE TEMPTED. BEAR YOU ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS, & SO FULFILL THE LAW OF CHRIST. FOR IF A MAN THINK HIMSELF TO BE SOMETHING, WHEN HE IS NOTHING, HE DECEIVES HIMSELF.BUT LET EVERY MAN PROVE HIS OWN WORK, & THEN SHALL HE HAVE REJOICING IN HIMSELF ALONE, & NOT IN ANOTHER. FOR EVERY MAN SHALL BEAR HIS OWN BURDEN.

LET HIM THAT IS TAUGHT IN THE WORD COMMUNICATE UNTO HIM THAT TEACHES IN ALL GOOD THINGS (THERE ARE ‘GOOD THINGS TAUGHT BY ALL MEN BUT ALL MEN WHO TEACH ‘GOOD THINGS’, MANY OR MOST, ARE ‘LOST’, ‘ALIENATED’, ‘SEPARATED’ FROM HOLY GOD, & APART FROM CHRIST’S BLOOD REDEMPTION & THEIR REPENTANCE, THEY MAY LIVE ‘GOOD LIVES’ BUT VOID OF THE PRESENCE OF THE LIVING GOD IN THEIR HEARTS & LIVES THROUGH BIBLICAL REPENTANCE & ACCEPTANCE OF THE GIFT OF TRUE FAITH’, NOT EARNED BUT MERCIFULLY GIVEN BY THE HEART OF GOD!!). BE NOT DECEIVED; GOD IS NOT MOCKED; FOR WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWS, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP. FOR HE THAT SOWS TO HIS FLESH SHALL OF THE FLESH REAP CORRUPTION; BUT HE THAT SOWS TO THE SPIRIT SHALL OF THE SPIRIT REAP LIFE EVERLASTING. AND LET US NOT BE WEARY IN WELL DOING: FOR IN DUE SEASON WE SHALL REAP, IF WE FAINT NOT.”

CONSIDER THE VAST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A ‘FARMER’ WHO PREPARES HIS FIELD FOR THE SPRING PLANTING OF HIS ESSENTIAL GARDEN TO SUSTAIN HIM & THE FARMER WHO DOES NOT PULL WEEDS, DOES NOT PLOW, BUT JUST “FEELS”, IF HE GETS SEED IN THE GROUND, WEEDS & ALL, THAT HE’LL BE ABLE TO SUSTAIN HIMSELF & HIS FAMILY! PROVERBS 19:15 SAYS, “LAZINESS CASTS ONE INTO A DEEP SLEEP, & AN IDLE PERSON WILL SUFFER HUNGER.”

WE CERTAINLY KNOW THAT IN PHYSICAL HUMANITY THAT A MAN CANNOT LIVE BY ‘PHYSICAL BREAD’ ALONE & THAT THE BODY, WITHOUT PROPER NOURISHMENT, MAGNIFIES IT’S SOON DEPARTURE – BUT, FAR MORE DISTURBING, IS THE MAN OR WOMAN WHO IGNORES THE SPIRITUAL CRIES WITHIN THE HUMAN HEART, BODY, SOUL, & MIND, NEEDING THE SPIRITUAL PRESENCE & PROVISION & PRESIDING & PRESERVING OF THE LIVING SAVIOR & LORD WHO KNOCKS ON EVERY HEART’S DOOR, YES, ASKING TO HAVE “YOU” OPEN YOUR HEART’S DOOR & ALLOW HIM TO COME IN!

REVELATION 3:20 TELLS US, JESUS SPEAKING, “BEHOLD, I STAND AT THE DOOR & KNOCK. IF ANYONE HEARS MY VOICE & OPENS THE DOOR, I WILL COME IN TO HIM & DINE WITH HIM, & HE WITH ME.” OH, & HEBREWS 12:25 SAYS, “SEE THAT YOU DO NOT REFUSE HIM WHO SPEAKS,” & THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING CHRIST, THROUGH HIS HOLY SPIRIT, KNOCKS & HE KNOCKS, & HE KNOCKS – HE LONGINGLY DESIRES TO ENTER & BLESS YOUR LIFE’S JOURNEY WITH, YES, HIS RESURRECTION PRESENCE!!!

THERE IS AN “ETERNAL MYSTERY” THAT, SADLY, TOO MANY WORLD-BOUND PEOPLE HAVE NO DESIRE TO HEAR ABOUT, UNDERSTAND, & BE BLESSED BY: COLOSSIANS 1:24-29!! “I NOW REJOICE IN MY SUFFERINGS FOR YOU, & 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 & FROM GENERATIONS, BUT NOW HAS BEEN REVEALED TO HIS SAINTS (OR ‘SET-APART-ONES’!). TO THEM GOD WILLED TO MAKE KNOWN WHAT ARE THE RICHES OF THE GLORY OF THIS MYSTERY: WHICH IS CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. HIM WE PREACH, WARNING EVERY MAN & TEACHING EVERY MAN IN ALL WISDOM, THAT WE MAY PRESENT EVERY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS. TO THIS END I ALSO LABOR, STRIVING ACCORDING TO HIS WORKING WHICH WORKS IN ME MIGHTILY.”

THE QUESTION OF THIS VERY MOMENT IS: IS YOUR WALK IN THIS MODERN WORLD A WALK OF A “HUNGRY LIFE KNOWING ITS NEED TO BE FAITHFULLY ‘FED BY GOD HIMSELF THROUGH HIS HOLY WORD’ DAILY?” IN MATTHEW 4:4 THE LORD JESUS, CHALLENGED BY SATAN HIMSELF, SAID, “IT IS WRITTEN, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.” [IN THAT HISTORIC TIME PERIOD, IT WAS ONLY THE OLD TESTAMENT, BUT PRAISE GOD, GOD PRODUCED THE NEW TESTAMENT THROUGH OBEDIENT SERVANTS WHO HEARD HIS VOICE & OBEYED FOR THE WRITINGS OF EVERY NEW TESTAMENT BOOK & ALL ITS CHAPTERS!]

THE LORD JESUS, IN JOHN 6:60-71,SPOKE TO, YES, MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES THEN, WHO “CHOSE” TO WALK AWAY FROM HIM! THE WORD SAYS: THEREFORE MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES, WHEN THEY HEARD THIS, SAID, ‘THIS IS A HARD SAYING; WHO CAN UNDERSTAND IT?’ WHEN JESUS KNEW IN HIMSELF THAT HIS DISCIPLES COMPLAINED ABOUT THIS, HE SAID TO THEM, ‘DOES THIS OFFEND YOU? WHAT THEN IF YOU SHOULD SEE THE SON OF MAN ASCEND WHERE HE WAS BEFORE? IT IS THE SPIRIT WHO GIVES LIFE; THE FLESH (‘OLD SIN-NATURE’) PROFITS NOTHING. THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK TO YOU ARE SPIRIT, & THEY ARE LIFE. BUT THERE ARE SOME OF YOU WHO DO NOT BELIEVE.’

FOR JESUS KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING WHO THEY WERE WHO DID NOT BELIEVE, & WHO WOULD BETRAY HIM. AND HE SAID, ‘THEREFORE I HAVE SAID TO YOU THAT NO ONE CAN COME TO ME UNLESS IT HAS BEEN GRANTED TO HIM BY MY FATHER.’ FROM THAT TIME MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES WENT BACK & WALKED NO MORE WITH HIM. THEN JESUS SAID TO THE TWELVE, ‘DO YOU ALSO WANT TO GO AWAY?’ BUT SIMON PETER ANSWERED HIM, ‘LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO? YOU HAVE THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. ALSO WE HAVE COME TO BELIEVE & KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.’ JESUS ANSWERED THEM, ‘DID I NOT CHOOSE YOU, THE TWELVE, & ONE OF YOU IS A DEVIL?’ HE SPOKE OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, THE SON OF SIMON, FOR IT WAS HE WHO WOULD BETRAY HIM, BEING ONE OF THE TWELVE.”

IT WAS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, IN HIS WRITING “MACBETH”, (ACT 1, SC.3,L.74), WHO SAID OF HIM, “STANDS NOT WITHIN THE PROSPECT OF BELIEF,” WHICH IS, SADLY, SO TRUE OF MANY PEOPLE WORLD-WIDE! IN HIS WRITING “THE ESSAYS: OF ATHEISM”, SIR FRANCIS BACON WROTE: “THEY THAT DENY A GOD DESTROY MAN’S NOBILITY; FOR CERTAINLY MAN IS OF KIN TO THE BEASTS BY HIS BODY; & IF HE BE NOT OF KIN TO GOD BY HIS SPIRIT, HE IS A BASE & IGNOBLE CREATURE.” WELL, THAT CERTAINLY DOESN’T SIT WELL IN AN ‘ATHEISTIC COMMUNITY’ OR STRICTLY UNBELIEVERS IN BIBLICAL SALVATION THROUGH CHRIST IN HIS CALVARY CROSS DEATH & THREE DAYS LATER HIS GODLY RESURRECTION! EXAMINE MARK 9:14-29! IT SAYS: AND WHEN HE CAME TO HIS DISCIPLES, HE SAW A GREAT MULTITUDE AROUND THEM, & SCRIBES DISPUTING WITH THE. IMMEDIATELY, WHEN THEY SAW HIM, ALL THE PEOPLE WERE GREATLY AMAZED, & RUNNING TO HIM, GREETED HIM. & HE ASKED THE SCRIBES, “WHAT ARE YOU DISCUSSING WITH THEM?”

THEN ONE OF THE CROWD ANSWERED & SAID, “TEACHER, I BROUGHT YOU MY SON, WHO HAS A MUTE SPIRIT. & WHEREVER IT SEIZES HIM, IT THROWS HIM DOWN; HE FOAMS AT THE MOUTH, GNASHES HIS TEETH, & BECOMES RIGID. SO I SPOKE TO YOUR DISCIPLES, THAT THEY SHOULD CAST IT OUT, BUT THEY COULD NOT.” JESUS ANSWERED HIM & SAID, “O FAITHLESS GENERATION, HOW LONG SHALL I BE WITH YOU? HOW LONG SHALL I BEAR WITH YOU? BRING HIM TO ME.” THEN THEY BROUGHT HIM TO JESUS. & WHEN HE SAW JESUS, IMMEDIATELY THE ‘SPIRIT’ CONVULSED HIM, & HE FELL TO THE GROUND & WALLOWED, FOAMING AT THE MOUTH. SO HE (JESUS) ASKED HIS FATHER, “HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN HAPPENING TO HIM?” & HE SAID, “FROM CHILDHOOD. & OFTEN HE HAS THROWN HIM BOTH INTO THE FIRE & INTO THE WATER TO DESTROY HIM. BUT IF YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, HAVE COMPASSION ON US & HELP US.” JESUS SAID TO HIM, “IF YOU CAN BELIEVE (TRUST, STAND ON, RELY UPON), ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM WHO BELIEVES.” IMMEDIATELY THE FATHER OF THE CHILD CRIED OUT & SAID WITH TEARS, “LORD, I BELIEVE; HELP MY UNBELIEF!”

WHEN JESUS SAW THAT THE PEOPLE CAME RUNNING TOGETHER, HE REBUKED THE UNCLEAN SPIRIT, SAYING TO IT, “DEAF & DUMB SPIRIT, I COMMAND YOU, COME OUT OF HIM & ENTER HIM NO MORE.” THEN THE ‘SPIRIT’ CRIED OUT, CONVULSED HIM GREATLY, & CAME OUT OF HIM. & HE BECAME AS ONE DEAD, SO THAT MANY SAID, “HE IS DEAD.” BUT JESUS TOOK HIM BY THE HAND & LIFTED HIM UP, & HE AROSE. AND WHEN HE HAD COME INTO THE HOUSE, HIS DISCIPLES ASKED HIM PRIVATELY, “WHY COULD WE NOT CAST IT OUT?” SO HE SAID TO THEM, “THIS KIND CAN COME OUT BY NOTHING BUT PRAYER & FASTING.” SO IN OUR MODERN-DAY CHURCHES, WHO IS IT WHO PRAYS & FASTS FOR THE HEALING & DELIVERANCE OF SIN-BOUND, DEMON-BOUND, WORLD-BOUND MEN OR WOMEN? IS IT HAPPENING AROUND YOU?

IF IT IS TO BE A PART OF A MODERN-DAY DISCIPLE’S WALK OF FAITH, WHAT IS INVOLVED IN TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF DELIVERANCE, HEALING, &, YES, A TRUE SALVATION MESSAGE? AND, “IS THERE FOR EVERY HUMAN SOUL AN APPETITE FOR, YES, THE GOOD, THE ACCEPTABLE, OR THE PERFECT WILL OF GOD?” DARE I SAY IT? BELIEVE I WILL! “”ALL” THAT MATTERS IS “THE PERFECT WILL OF GOD”! THAT MEANS SEVERAL THINGS OF ETERNAL IMPORTANCE!

FIRST, AS A PHYSICAL DOCTOR EVALUATES YOUR PHYSICAL CONDITION, DO “YOU” ALLOW GOD AS “THE GREAT PHYSICIAN” TO DIAGNOSE YOUR SPIRITUAL STATE OR CONDITION? HIS CONCLUSION? ROMANS 3:23, “FOR ‘ALL’ HAVE SINNED & FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD!” & WHAT DOES ROMANS 6:23 TELL US? “FOR THE WAGES OF SIN “IS” DEATH…! BUT THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.” (BUT HOW MANY PASTORS, CHRISTIANS, CHURCHES ARE THERE WHO TALK ABOUT, YES, “FORGIVENESS NOW – BUT ABIDING PRESENCE IN THE FUTURE”? THEY SAY, “GOD’S GIFT OF CHRIST IS KIND & GRACIOUS, BUT HE KNOWS OUR WALK (IN OURSELVES IN ‘BEST EFFORT’ WILL STUMBLE AT TIMES!”)” NO! A THOUSAND TIMES, “NO”! GALATIANS 2:20-21 SAYS, “I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST: NEVERTHELESS I LIVE; YET NOT I, BUT CHRIST LIVES IN ME; & THE LIFE WHICH I NOW LIVE IN THE (FLESHLY BODY) I LIVE BY THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD, WHO LOVED ME, & GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME. I DO NOT FRUSTRATE THE GRACE OF GOD.” UNDERSTAND! THE ONE “TRYING HIS BEST” HAS NOT CHOSEN THE GRACE OF GOD BUT HIS/HER ‘GRITLINESS’!

IN GALATIANS 6:14-18 PAUL WROTE: “BUT GOD FORBID THAT I SHOULD GLORY SAVE IN THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, BY WHOM THE WORLD IS CRUCIFIED UNTO ME, & I UNTO THE WORLD. FOR IN CHRIST JESUS NEITHER CIRCUMCISION AVAILETH ANYTHING, NOR UNCIRCUMCISION, BUT A NEW CREATION.

AND AS MANY AS WALK ACCORDING TO THIS RULE, PEACE BE ON THEM, & MERCY, & UPON THE ISRAEL OF GOD. FROM HENCEFORTH LET NO MAN TROUBLE ME: FOR I BEAR IN MY BODY THE MARKS OF THE LORD JESUS. BRETHREN, THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST BE WITH YOUR SPIRIT. AMEN.” WERE “YOU” CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST ON THE CROSS?

SECOND, THERE MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT & ACCEPTANCE PERSONALLY OF YOU IN YOUR FLESHLY HEART, MIND, & SPIRIT AS, YES, ‘THE SINNER’ SEPARATED FROM HOLY GOD! IN GALATIANS 5:19-21 PAUL UNVEILED THE DANGER OF “THE WORKS OF THE FLESH” WHEN HE SAID, “NOW THE WORKS OF THE FLESH ARE MANIFEST (UNVEILED), WHICH ARE THESE: ADULTERY, FORNICATION, UNCLEANNESS, LASCIVIOUSNESS, IDOLATRY, WITCHCRAFT, VARIANCE, EMULATIONS, WRATH, STRIFE, SEDITIONS, HERESIES, ENVYINGS, MURDERS, DRUNKENNESS, REVELLINGS, & SUCH LIKE: OF THE WHICH I TELL YOU BEFORE, AS I HAVE ALSO TOLD YOU IN TIME PAST, THAT THEY WHICH DO SUCH THINGS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”

DIDN’T PAUL ALSO SAY IN 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9, “KNOW YOU NOT THAT THE UNRIGHTEOUS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD?” WHAT YOU HEARD IN GALATIANS UNVEILED AS “THE WORKS OF THE FLESH” IS THE NATURALLY BIRTHED PHYSICAL EXISTENCE IN NEED OF BEING MIRACULOUSLY “BORN AGAIN”! PAUL TOLD THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH, (1 CORINTHIANS 15:50), “NOW THIS I SAY, BRETHREN, THAT ‘FLESH & BLOOD’ CANNOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD; NEITHER DOES CORRUPTION INHERIT INCORRUPTION.” IT IS A DANGEROUS, DEFILED, SIN-SICK LIFE THAT WILLFULLY DENIES, REFUTES, LIES ABOUT HOLY GOD’S CLEAR EXPOSURE OF A SIN-PRACTICING LIFE!

THIRD, IT REQUIRES “SPIRITUAL MEDICATION” FROM THE ETERNAL “GREAT PHYSICIAN”, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! IN MATTHEW 9:1-8 WE FIND OUR LORD’S HEALING MINISTRY AMPLIFIED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT! IT SAYS, “AND JESUS ENTERED INTO A SHIP & PASSED OVER, & CAME INTO HIS OWN CITY. & BEHOLD,THEY BROUGHT TO HIM A MAN SICK OF THE PALSY, LYING ON A BED: & JESUS SEEING THEIR FAITH SAID UNTO THE SICK OF THE PALSY, ‘SON, BE OF GOOD CHEER; YOUR SINS BE FORGIVEN YOU.’ & BEHOLD, CERTAIN OF THE SCRIBES SAID WITHIN THEMSELVES, ‘THIS MAN BLASPHEMES’. & JESUS KNOWING THEIR THOUGHTS SAID, “WHEREFORE THINK YOU EVIL IN YOUR HEARTS? FOR WHETHER IS EASIER, TO SAY, ‘YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN YOU; OR TO SAY, ARISE & WALK?

BUT THAT YOU MAY KNOW THAT THE SON OF MAN HAS POWER ON EARTH TO FORGIVE SINS, (THEN SAID HE TO THE SICK OF THE PALSY,) “ARISE, TAKE UP YOUR BED, & GO UNTO YOUR HOUSE.” & HE AROSE & DEPARTED TO HIS HOUSE. BUT WHEN THE MULTITUDES SAW IT, THEY MARVELED, & GLORIFIED GOD, WHICH HAD GIVEN SUCH POWER UNTO MEN.”

I want to lay the foundation for this chapter in Romans 1:16-24! Paul wrote: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for IT IS THE POWER OF GOD TO SALVATION FOR EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES (trusts in, relies upon, and adheres to!), for the Jew first and also the Greek. For IN IT the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written: ‘The just shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, (sponsored by Satan!) who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for GOD HAS SHOWN IT TO THEM. For since the creation of the world the invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God (knew He existed!), they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Darkened by the willful rebellion of Satan in heaven BEFORE THE WORLD WAS EVEN CREATED?).

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and (in cooperation with Satan!) changed the glory of the incorruptible God into ‘images’ made like corruptible man (and Satan himself!). Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves (as Satan does with his demonized partners!), who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, (“The Lie?” “Satan said, YOU CAN SIN AND NOT DIE!”), and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

Though fallen man does not realize it, he ‘worships’ Satan and his ways, even in the “best of ‘flesh’ adoration”! So… God gave Satanized-mankind up “to their vile passions,” “to debased, devilish minds,” ignoring “the righteous judgment of God” against Satan and his ‘disciples’!