BY:J.FARRELL FISHER, MAY 18-19,2019

IN JUDE 3-4 (BARCLAY’S TRANSLATION) WE READ: “FOR CERTAIN MEN HAVE WORMED THEIR WAY INTO THE CHURCH – LONG BEFORE THIS THEY WERE DESIGNATED FOR JUDGMENT – IMPIOUS CREATURES THEY ARE – WHO TWIST THE GRACE OF GOD INTO A JUSTIFICATION OF BLATANT IMMORALITY, & WHO DENY OUR ONLY MASTER & LORD, JESUS CHRIST.”

HUMANITY WORLDWIDE IS EITHER LIVING UNDER THE DARK CLOUD OF PERVERTED GRACE, OR LIVING IN THE “LIGHT” OF GOD’S PERFECTING GRACE! THEY HAVE RECEIVED EITHER A ‘TWISTED GRACE’ THAT LEADS TO HELL OR THE “TRUTHFUL GRACE” THAT LEADS TO HEAVENLY LIVING WHETHER ON EARTH OR IN ONE’S AFTER-LIFE “IN CHRIST”!

MUCH OF ‘FALLEN HUMANITY’ HAS BEEN DECEIVED BY ‘CHEAP GRACE’ OR ENLIGHTENED & EMPOWERED BY COSTLY GRACE! ONE EITHER WALKS IN DANGER TODAY WITH A TRIFLING GRACE OR HE/SHE WALKS IN CONFIDENCE & ASSURANCE WITH THE TREASURES OF SCRIPTURAL GRACE BECAUSE HE/SHE LEFT ALL TO FOLLOW JESUS!

PERVERTED GRACE ALLOWS COMPROMISE IN A ‘SO-CALLED CHRISTIAN’ (?) TO MAINTAIN HIS FLESHLY, SINFUL, LUSTFUL, ‘DO-YOUR-OWN-THING’ LIFESTYLE BECAUSE UNDER THE “GRACE”, THEIR ‘FLESHLY GREASE’,THAT THEY ‘LOVE’ (?), THEY WALK RELIGIOUSLY BLINDED TO GOD’S PERFECTING GRACE ! BE ASSURED! THERE ARE THOSE WHO “TURN THE GRACE OF GOD INTO THEIR FLESHLY LICIENTIOUSNESS!”

IN HEBREWS 12:14-17 WE FIND CONVICTING & ENLIGHTENING WORDS!! “FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN, & HOLINESS, WITHOUT WHICH NO MAN SHALL SEE THE LORD; LOOKING DILIGENTLY LEST ANY MAN FALL SHORT OF THE GRACE OF GOD; LEST ANY ROOT OF BITTERNESS SPRINGING UP TROUBLES YOU, & THEREBY MANY BE DEFILED;

LEST THERE BE ANY FORNICATOR, OR PROFANE PERSON, AS ESAU, WHO FOR ONE MORSEL OF MEAT SOLD HIS BIRTHRIGHT. FOR YOU KNOW HOW THAT AFTERWARD, WHEN HE WOULD HAVE INHERITED THE BLESSING, HE WAS REJECTED: FOR HE FOUND NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE, THOUGH HE SOUGHT IT CAREFULLY WITH TEARS.” HE CAME SHORT OF THE GRACE OF GOD? OH! AND THEN EXAMINE HEBREWS 10:29!! “OF HOW MUCH SORER PUNISHMENT, SUPPOSE YOU, SHALL HE BE THOUGHT WORTHY, WHO HAS TRODDEN UNDER FOOT THE SON OF GOD, & HAS COUNTED THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT, WHEREWITH HE WAS SANCTIFIED(OR ‘SET APART’), AN UNHOLY THING, & HAS DONE DESPITE TO THE SPIRIT OF GRACE?”

“PERVERTED GRACE OR PERFECTING GRACE”? IN ROMANS 6:12-18 WE HEAR GLORIOUS HALLELUJAH TRUTHS! PAUL WROTE: “LET NOT SIN THEREFORE REIGN IN YOUR MORTAL BODY THAT YOU SHOULD OBEY IT IN THE LUSTS THEREOF. NEITHER YIELD YOU YOUR MEMBERS AS INSTRUMENTS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO SIN, BUT YIELD YOURSELVES UNTO GOD, AS THOSE THAT ARE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD, & YOUR MEMBERS AS INSTRUMENTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO GOD.

FOR SIN SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER YOU: FOR YOU ARE NOT UNDER THE LAW, BUT UNDER GRACE. WHAT THEN? SHALL WE SIN, BECAUSE WE ARE NOT UNDER THE LAW, BUT UNDER GRACE? GOD FORBID. KNOW YOU NOT THAT TO WHOM YOU YIELD YOURSELVES SERVANTS TO OBEY, HIS SERVANTS YOU ARE TO WHOM YOU OBEY; WHETHER OF SIN UNTO DEATH, OR OF “OBEDIENCE UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS”? BUT GOD BE THANKED, THAT YOU “WERE” SERVANTS OF SIN, BUT YOU HAVE OBEYED FROM THE HEART THAT FORM OF DOCTRINE WHICH WAS DELIVERED YOU. BEING THEN MADE FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME THE SERVANTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

“PERVERTED GRACE OR PERFECTING GRACE?”

FIRST:PERFECTING GRACE IS THE GRACE THAT UNVEILS THE CRUCIFIED CHRIST & BRINGS MOURNING! IN ZECHARIAH 12:10 WE READ: “AND I WILL POUR UPON THE HOUSE OF DAVID, & UPON THE INHABITANTS OF JERUSALEM, THE SPIRIT OF GRACE & OF SUPPLICATIONS; & THEY SHALL LOOK UPON ME WHOM THEY HAVE PIERCED, & THEY SHALL MOURN FOR HIM, AS ONE MOURNS FOR HIS ONLY SON, & SHALL BE IN BITTERNESS FOR HIM, AS ONE THAT IS IN BITTERNESS FOR HIS FIRSTBORN.” DID YOU SEE ‘THE SPIRIT OF BITTERNESS’ OVER THE CRUCIFIED ONE WHOM FALLEN MANKIND ALL CONSENTED TO?

IN EPHESIANS 2:4-8 PAUL WROTE: “BUT GOD, WHO IS RICH IN MERCY,FOR HIS GREAT LOVE WHEREWITH HE LOVED US, EVEN WHEN WE WERE DEAD IN SINS, HAS QUICKENED US TOGETHER WITH CHRIST, (BY GRACE YOU ARE SAVED;), AND HAS RAISED US UP TOGETHER, & MADE US SIT TOGETHER IN HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST: THAT IN THE AGES TO COME HE MIGHT SHOW THE “EXCEEDING RICHES OF HIS GRACE” IN HIS KINDNESS TOWARD US THROUGH CHRIST JESUS. FOR BY GRACE ARE YOU SAVED THROUGH FAITH; & THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD.” GLORY!

IF YOU DIDN’T QUITE FULLY UNDERSTAND THOSE SCRIPTURES, EXAMINE HEBREWS 2:9-11 PLUS VERSES 14-15!! HEBREWS 2:9-11, “BUT WE SEE JESUS, WHO WAS MADE A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS FOR THE SUFFERING OF DEATH, CROWNED WITH GLORY & HONOR, TO MAKE THE CAPTAIN OF THEIR SALVATION PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS. FOR BOTH HE THAT SANCTIFIES AND THEY WHO ARE SANCTIFIED ARE ALL OF ONE: FOR WHICH CAUSE HE IS NOT ASHAMED TO CALL US BROTHERS.

NOW!! HEBREWS 2:14-15! “FORASMUCH THEN AS THE CHILDREN ARE PARTAKERS OF FLESH & BLOOD, HE 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.” PERFECTING GRACE? THE GRACE THAT FREES ONE FROM ITS SINFUL SELF? THE GRACE THAT BREAKS THE BONDS OF SATANIC BONDAGE? THE GRACE THAT DECLARES ONE COMPLETE IN CHRIST LACKING NOTHING? THE GRACE THAT RECONCILES US UNTO GOD?

SECOND, PERFECTING GRACE IS SAVING GRACE THAT BRINGS FORGIVENESS OF SINS & BONDAGE TO THE SIN-NATURE! EPHESIANS 1:7-8 “CLEARLY SAYS”: “IN WHOM WE HAVE REDEMPTION THROUGH “CHRIST’S BLOOD” THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE; WHEREIN HE HAS ABOUNDED TOWARD US IN ALL WISDOM & PRUDENCE.”

DARE “YOU” TO CONSIDER “THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE” THAT ABUNDANTLY FLOURISHES IN “THE FORGIVENESS OF YOUR SINS”? LUKE 1:77 DESCRIBES IT FROM GOD’S LOVING MIND, HEART, & SPIRIT AS FOLLOWS: “TO GIVE TO HIS PEOPLE THE KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION “BY” THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS”! CHRIST JESUS, ON THE CROSS, BOTH FORGAVE OUR SINS & FREELY GAVE TO ALL FALLEN MANKIND “THE KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION”!!

1 PETER 2:2 DECLARES, “AND CHRIST JESUS IS THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS: &NOT FOR OUR’S ONLY, BUT ALSO FOR THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD”! YET, “FORGIVEN OF THEIR SINS” DOESN’T MEAN “RECONCILED “TO” GOD” WITHOUT TRUE REPENTANCE & EARNEST FAITH IN HIS “FINISHED WORK”! (DON’T YOU FIND IT HEART-BREAKING TO KNOW, THOUGH ‘FORGIVEN’, THERE ARE THOSE WHO MISS OUT ON THEIR ETERNAL HEAVENLY HOME TO ‘DOWN-GRADE’ TO HELL, TO SATAN, TO HIS DEMON FORCES, &, YES, EVEN ‘BELIEVERS’ WHO COULDN’T, WOULDN’T, DIDN’T REPENT & “REST” IN CHRIST’S SHED BLOOD & HIS RESURRECTION PRESENCE?!!?

IN 1 TIMOTHY 4:10 PAUL WROTE: “FOR THEREFORE WE BOTH LABOR & SUFFER REPROACH, BECAUSE WE TRUST IN THE LIVING GOD, WHO “IS” THE SAVIOR OF ALL MEN, SPECIALLY OF THOSE THAT BELIEVE (OR “TRUST”,OR “RELIES UPON”!!).

THIRD,PERFECTING GRACE IS INSTRUCTING GRACE THAT CALLS GOD’S TRUE SONS TO “HOLY LIVING”! IN TITUS 2:10B,-15, PAUL SAID, “…THAT THEY MAY ADORN THE DOCTRINE OF GOD OUR SAVIOR IN ALL THINGS. FOR THE GRACE OF GOD THAT BRINGS SALVATION HAS APPEARED TO ALL MEN, TEACHING US THAT, DENYING UNGODLINESS & WORLDLY LUSTS, WE SHOULD LIVE SOBERLY, RIGHTEOUSLY, & GODLY, IN THIS PRESENT WORLD,

VERSES 13-15 SAYING, LOOKING FOR THAT BLESSED HOPE,& THE GLORIOUS APPEARING OF THE GREAT GOD & OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST; WHO GAVE HIMSELF FOR US, THAT HE MIGHT REDEEM US FROM ALL INIQUITY, & PURIFY UNTO HIMSELF A PECULIAR PEOPLE,ZEALOUS OF GOOD WORKS. THESE THINGS SPEAK, & EXHORT, & REBUKE WITH ALL AUTHORITY. LET NO MAN DESPISE YOU.”

“HOLY LIVING”? HEBREWS 12:14 SAYS, “FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN, & HOLINESS, WITHOUT WHICH NO MAN SHALL SEE THE LORD.” IN 1 THESSALONIANS 4:7 PAUL EXPLAINED: “FOR GOD HAS NOT CALLED US UNTO UNCLEANNESS, BUT UNTO HOLINESS.” YET, HOW MANY HAVE YOU KNOWN IN “THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY” (?) WHO,YES, “PERVERT THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST”? (GALATIANS 1:6-7)!

FOURTH,PERFECTING GRACE IS REVEALED CLEARLY IN THE LABOR OF LOVE THAT CAUSES & CHALLENGES MEN TO LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR OTHERS!! IN 1 CORINTHIANS 15:8-20 THE APOSTLE PAUL WROTE, INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, “AND LAST OF ALL,HE WAS SEEN OF ME ALSO, AS OF ONE BORN OUT OF DUE TIME.

FOR I AM THE LEAST OF THE APOSTLES, THAT AM NOT MEET TO BE CALLED AN APOSTLE, BECAUSE I PERSECUTED THE CHURCH OF GOD.BUT BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM: & HIS GRACE WHICH WAS BESTOWED UPON ME WAS NOT IN VAIN; BUT I LABORED MORE ABUNDANTLY THAN THEY ALL: YET NOT I, BUT THE GRACE OF GOD WHICH WAS WITH ME.

THEREFORE WHETHER IT WERE I OR THEY, SO WE PREACH, & SO YOU BELIEVED.NOW IF CHRIST BE PREACHED THAT HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD, HOW SAY SOME AMONG YOU THAT THERE IS NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD? BUT IF THERE BE NO RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, THEN IS CHRIST NOT RISEN; AND IF CHRIST BE NOT RISEN, THEN IS OUR PREACHING IN VAIN, & YOUR FAITH IS ALSO VAIN. YES, & WE ARE FOUND FALSE WITNESSES OF GOD; BECAUSE WE HAVE TESTIFIED OF GOD THAT HE RAISED UP CHRIST; WHOM HE RAISED NOT UP, IF SO BE THAT THE DEAD RISE NOT.

FOR IF THE DEAD RISE NOT, THEN IS NOT CHRIST RAISED: & IF CHRIST BE NOT RAISED, YOUR FAITH IS VAIN; & YOU ARE YET IN YOUR SINS.THEN THEY ALSO WHICH ARE FALLEN ASLEEP IN CHRIST ARE PERISHED. IF IN THIS LIFE ONLY WE HAVE HOPE IN CHRIST, WE ARE OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE. BUT “NOW” IS CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD, & BECOME THE FIRSTFRUITS OF THEM THAT SLEPT.”

AND “RAISED FROM THE DEAD” SPIRITUALLY, TO “NEW LIFE IN CHRIST”,AS JESUS LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US, DOES THAT MEAN, “THANK GOD I’M SAVED”, BUT YOU HAVE NO CONCERN FOR OTHERS WHO NEED TO KNOW, MUST KNOW, WILL KNOW, BECAUSE “YOU” ARE HIS PRESENT WITNESS OF AMAZING GRACE & MERCY & LOVE? IN EPHESIANS 2:8-10 PAUL ALSO WROTE, “FOR BY GRACE ARE YOU SAVED THROUGH FAITH; & THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD; NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANY MAN SHOULD BOAST. FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS UNTO GOOD WORKS,WHICH GOD HAS BEFORE ORDAINED THAT WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM.”

HIS WORKMANSHIP? HIS NEW CREATIONS THAT ARE CREATED FOR & ORDAINED BY GOD TO BE HIS WITNESSES OF “REDEEMED IN & THROUGH & BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB OF GOD,” CHRIST JESUS, GOD’S WILLING SACRIFICE, TO RECONCILE US UNTO HIMSELF?

AND “REDEEMED”, WE’RE NOT CALLED TO LAY DOWN OUR LIVES IN REACHING OTHERS WITH THE “GOOD NEWS”? ACTS 4:33 SAYS, “AND WITH GREAT POWER GAVE THE APOSTLES WITNESS OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD JESUS; & GREAT GRACE WAS UPON THEM ALL.” (OH, HOW WE NEED TO SEE AGAIN THE CHURCH , THE DISCIPLES, BEARING WITNESS TO “SAVING GRACE”!

FIFTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS “COMMITMENT” TO UNLIMITED OPPORTUNITY OF GRACE FOR EVERYONE! ACTS 11:18-23 TELLS US, “WHEN THEY HEARD THESE THINGS, THEY HELD THEIR PEACE, & GLORIFIED GOD, SAYING, THEN HAS GOD ALSO TO THE GENTILES GRANTED REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE."NOW” THEY WHICH WERE SCATTERED ABROAD UPON THE PERSECUTION THAT AROSE ABOUT STEPHEN TRAVELLED AS FAR AS PNENICE & CYPRUS, & ANTIOCH, PREACHING THE WORD TO NONE BUT UNTO THE JEWS ONLY.

AND SOME OF THEM WERE MEN OFCYPRUS&CYRENE, WHICH, WHEN THEY WERE COME TO ANTIOCH, SPOKE UNTO THE GRECIANS, PREACHING THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. AND THE HAND OF THE LORD WAS WITH THEM; & A GREAT NUMBER BELIEVED, & TURNED TO THE LORD. THEN TIDINGS OF THESE THINGS CAME UNTO THE EARS OF THE CHURCH WHICH WAS IN JERUSALEM; & THEY SENT FORTH BARNABAS, THAT HE SHOULD GO AS FAR AS ANTIOCH. WHO, WHEN HE CAME, & HAD SEEN THE GRACE OF GOD, WAS GLAD, & EXHORTED THEM ALL, THAT WITH PURPOSE OF HEART THEY WOULD CLEAVE UNTO THE LORD.”

SIXTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS GRACE THAT GIVES WARNING & THE CALL TO JUDGMENT! ACTS 13:37-43 TELLS US, “BUT HE, WHOM GOD RAISED AGAIN, SAW NO CORRUPTION.BE IT KNOWN UNTO YOU THEREFORE, MEN & BRETHREN, THAT THROUGH THIS MAN IS PREACHED UNTO YOU THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS: & BY HIM ALL THAT BELIEVE (OR TRUSTS HIS WORD!)ARE JUSTIFIED FROM ALL THINGS, FROM WHICH YOU COULD NOT BE JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW OF MOSES. BEWARE THEREFORE, LEST THAT COME UPON YOU, WHICH IS SPOKEN OF IN THE PROPHETS; BEHOLD, YOU DESPISERS (OR SCOFFERS!), AND WONDER, & PERISH:FOR I WORK A WORK IN YOUR DAYS, A WORK WHICH YOU SHALL IN NO WISE BELIEVE, THOUGH A MAN DECLARE IT TO YOU.

AND WHEN THE JEWS WERE GONE OUT OF THE SYNAGOGUE, THE GENTILES BESOUGHT THAT THESE WORDS MIGHT BE PREACHED TO THEM THE NEXT SABBATH.NOW WHEN THE CONGREGATION WAS BROKEN UP, MANY OF THE JEWS & RELIGIOUS PROSELYTES FOLLOWED PAUL & BARNABAS: WHO, SPEAKING TO THEM, PERSUADED THEM TO CONTINUE IN THE GRACE OF GOD.” “WARNING &A CALL TO JUDGMENT? ARE “YOU” READY FOR YOUR CALL?

SEVENTH,PERFECTING GRACE IS GRACE THAT LEAVES US THE REMNANT OF ENCOURAGEMENT! IN EZRA 9:8 WE READ, “AND NOW FOR A LITTLE SPACE GRACE HAS BEEN SHOWN FROM THE LORD OUR GOD, TO LEAVE US A REMNANT TO ESCAPE, & TO GIVE US A NAIL IN HIS HOLY PLACE, THAT OUR GOD MAY LIGHTEN OUR EYES, & GIVE US A LITTLE REVIVING IN OUR BONDAGE.”

DO “YOU” KNOW ABOUT WHAT “A LITTLE GRACE” MEANS FOR YOU IN YOUR TIME OF ‘TROUBLE’? TO SAY THAT BELIEVERS NEVER FACE TRIALS IS TO LIVE WITH A MIND BLINDED TO “LIFE’S REALITIES” OF A TRUE BELIEVER LIVING IN OPPOSITION TO THE WORLD, THE FLESH, OR TO SATAN & HIS DEMON-HOARDES, WHO ARE NOT PLEASED WITH “SOLD-OUT, UNAFRAID, SPIRITUALLY IGNITED SONS & DAUGHTERS OF GOD LIVING AS SERVANTS UNTO THEIR LORD & SAVIOR”!

EIGHTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS GRACE THAT SAYS WHAT CHRIST JESUS SAYS!! IN PSALM 45:2 PARAPHRASED SAYS: “YOU, LORD JESUS, ARE FAIRER THAN THE CHILDREN OF MEN: GRACE IS POURED INTO YOUR LIPS; THEREFORE GOD HAS BLESSED YOU FOREVER & EVER!” AND CHRIST JESUS POURS HIS GRACE ALL OVER EVERY TRUE BELIEVER TO GUARD US, GIRD US, GRIP US,GIVE US, & GLADLY GLORIFY US JUST AS HE IS!!

IN COLOSSIANS 4:6 WE READ, “LET YOUR SPEECH BE ALWAYS WITH GRACE, SEASONED WITH SALT, THAT YOU MAY KNOW HOW YOU OUGHT TO ANSWER EVERY MAN.”

NINTH, PERFECTING GRACE IS REIGNING GRACE! HOW “GIFTING” IS THE WORD OF GOD’S GRACE! IN ROMANS 5:15b-21 WE READ OF “GRACE”, NOT GREASE! “FOR IF THROUGH THE OFFENSE OF ONE MANY BE DEAD, MUCH MORE THE GRACE OF GOD,& THE GIFT BY GRACE, WHICH IS BY ONE MAN, JESUS CHRIST,HAS ABOUNDED UNTO MANY. AND NOT AS IT WAS BY ONE THAT SINNED,SO IS THE GIFT: FOR THE JUDGMENT WAS BY ONE TO CONDEMNATION, BUT THE FREE GIFT IS OF MANY OFFENCES UNTO JUSTIFICATION.(“JUST-AS-IF-I’D-NEVER SINNED!!”).

FOR IF BY ONE MAN’S OFFENCE DEATH REIGNED BY ONE; MUCH MORE THEY WHICH RECEIVE ABUNDANCE OF GRACE & OF THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL REIGN IN LIFE BY ONE, JESUS CHRIST. THEREFORE AS BY THE OFFENCE OF ONE JUDGMENT CAME UPON ALL MEN TO CONDEMNATION, EVEN SO BY THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ONE THE FREE GIFT CAME UPON ALL MEN UNTO JUSTIFICATION OF LIFE.FOR AS BY ONE MAN’S DISOBEDIENCE (ADAM) MANY WERE MADE SINNERS, SO BY THE OBEDIENCE OF ONE SHALL MANY BE MADE RIGHTEOUS. MOREOVER THE LAW ENTERED, THAT THE OFFENCE MIGHT ABOUND. BUT WHERE SIN ABOUNDED, GRACE DID MUCH MORE ABOUND: THAT AS SIN HAS REIGNED UNTO DEATH, EVEN SO MIGHT GRACE REIGN THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO ETERNAL LIFE BY JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.”

ARE “YOU” ON “SHOUTING GROUNDS” YET TO HONOR KING JESUS WHO WILLINGLY TOOK OUR PLACE ON THE CROSS THAT WE MIGHT TRULY BE BLESSED, GIVING US THE FREE GIFT OF FAITH & TRUST IN HIS WORK AT CALVARY, BECAUSE WHEN HE DIED THERE, HE CARRIED YOUR SINFUL NATURE WITH HIM THAT YOU MIGHT WILLINGLY & LOVINGLY YIELD TO THE RESURRECTED CHRIST WHO IS THE KING OF GLORY, DESIROUS OF YOUR REDEEMED LIFE BY HIS BLOOD BECOMING HIS “EARTHLY RESIDENCE” WHERE HE CONTINUES TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH YOU TO YOUR NEEDY WORLD! JESUS WANTS TO “REIGN” IN YOU & THROUGH YOU!

TENTH, PERFECTING GRACE “IS” GIFTING GRACE!! EPHESIANS 4:7-8 TELLS US, “BUT UNTO EVERY ONE OF US (THOSE “IN CHRIST”!) IS GIVEN GRACE ACCORDING TO THE MEASURE OF THE GIFT OF CHRIST. WHEREFORE HE SAYS, WHEN HE ASCENDED UP ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE, & GAVE GIFTS UNTO MEN.”

WHAT’S YOUR GIFT IF YOU TRULY ARE “IN CHRIST”? I SLOW DOWN WITH REVELATION 22:22! IT SAYS: (SPEAKING OF THE “NEW JERUSALEM”!), AND I SAW NO TEMPLE THEREIN; FOR THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY & THE LAMB ARE THE TEMPLE OF IT.” IN THE OLD “BROADMAN HYMNAL” FROM THE BROADMAN PRESS IN NASHVILLE, TENN., (COPYRIGHTED BY BROADMAN IN 1940,P.284), IS A HYMN THAT SAYS: “IT’S SO SWEET TO TRUST IN JESUS, JUST TO TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD; JUST TO REST UPON HIS PROMISE, JUST TO KNOW “THUS SAYS THE LORD.”

O HOW SWEET TO TRUST IN JESUS, JUST TO TRUST HIS CLEANSING BLOOD; JUST IN SIMPLE FAITH TO PLUNGE ME ‘NEATH THE HEALING, CLEANSING FLOOD!

YES, IT’S SWEET TO TRUST IN JESUS, JUST FROM SIN & SELF TO CEASE; JUST FROM JESUS SIMPLY TAKING LIFE & REST, AND JOY & PEACE.

I’M SO GLAD I LEARNED TO TRUST YOU, PRECIOUS JESUS, SAVIOR & FRIEND; AND I KNOW THAT YOU ARE WITH ME, & WILL BE WITH ME TO THE END.

JESUS, JESUS, HOW I TRUST HIM, HOW I’VE PROVED HIM O’ER & O’ER; JESUS, JESUS, PRECIOUS JESUS! O FOR GRACE TO TRUST YOU MORE!” AMEN?

BY:J.FARRELL FISHER,April 24, 2019

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 ‘pretenders’”!

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-obsorbed- 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”!! 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?

_{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,APRIL 28-29

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?”

By J.Farrell Fisher

July 6-8, 2017

There’s an interesting question Jesus asked while here in His earthly body in Luke 18:8b, “…when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” I’m sure, as a student of the Word, that you’re familiar with Jesus’ words about Old Testament Judaism coming to a close, and how there would be times of great deception, times of great open sin, but it would be foolish to say that Jesus wasn’t concerned about anytime but then when He asked that question!

“Will Jesus, when He comes again, find faith on the earth?” In our time period of human history, are there “good souls unredeemed”? Are there those who’ve never been confronted with why they’re here and why Christ died for them particularly? But we certainly know there are billions of people through history up until now who by His grace, mercy, and love, and through their repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross, have been “born again”, becoming a child of the King, “Godly spirits washed in Christ’s blood”!

Unredeemed souls or Godly spirits washed in Christ’s blood? Flesh-bent or Spirit-birthed? Here-and-now citizens of their fleshly kingdoms or the born-again into the Eternal kingdom of Christ? Devotees of the ancient who live in unbelief or the cherished sons and daughters of faith who live in the “washing”? Devotees of the ancient fallen world loving it more than God or the “renewed spirits” of grace and mercy living, yes, in the eternal in, with, and through the Resurrected Christ and Reigning God Almighty on His Throne? The ‘self-serving’ of the immediate present or the “selfless, crucified with Christ” and living to His glory in the here-and-now, AND to celebrate after earthly death in His eternal Presence around the Throne of God?

Unredeemed souls? Good souls as well as evil souls? “Flesh-achievers” who see no value in you as a believer looking to “Another”? “I believe in the supremacy of my existence without any concern about ‘His supposed plan for my life’?” It’s not a ‘modern-movement’ but birthed when Adam and Eve listened to Satan more than to the God who birthed them! Look through human history – you’ll be shocked by the number of people who lived “dreamless existences” apart from the “dreams of God-blessed, eternal meaning and reality, through the “blood-sacrifice” of the Son of God”!

Unredeemed souls? God-less existence? Masters-of-science but void of THE Master of life? Atheistic and atoned for but an believing one content to live ‘life’ apart from Holy God’s intent? It’s amazing to me what I read in Genesis 9:12-17! And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for the perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant (the rainbow) which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Yet how many godless souls are there who never consider the Sovereignty of God and His mercy toward them, yes, “drowning’ in the flood waters of sin and unbelief? How many? Merciful God is ignored, denied, cursed, and unbelievers live in carnal, self-composed, self-centered, self-absorbed thoughts about their ‘fleshly existence’ without a concern at all for the love, grace, and mercy of God! Godless souls, many of them, will live their lives in ‘fleshly, respectable goodness’, while also there are the evil, the morally wrong and shameless, like many known by “their evil dispositions”, unaware of the extent Satan will go to destroy them and all around them who need “blood redemption”! There ARE the “extremists”, yes, even of loyalty to their fallen sin natures!

Unredeemed souls? Some live with an attitude of despicable meanness while others live ‘peaceably’ with their absence of faith; some live, so at peace, with their ‘self-intent’ that they easily develop a ‘fetish’ and ‘worship’ and ‘allegiance’ to their ‘godless ways’! Unredeemed souls seldom, if ever, have any thoughts or inspirations about ‘reliance upon God?’- why, they’ll ask! “You don’t know me or my natural instincts, my incredible virtues, my self-centered personal impulses and incredible inner strengths – who needs your God?”

Unredeemed souls? Their ‘common sense’, besides Satan himself, is their worst enemy! Their ‘common-sense-carelessness’, related to eternal intent, becomes their strong foundation of infidelity, blinding themselves to the fact that their cares of their worldly dreams are as strong and blinding as Satan’s intent to sidetrack them to devotion of the Living God and Loving Savior! Have you ever witnessed in the faithless the despair which erupts when all they’ve worked for becomes meaningless to them? I’ve heard of some of the wealthiest men in the world, when it came time to die, who said, on their deathbeds, “What I worked for, what I gained, what I have now, means nothing to me as I face the grave.”

But it’s more than ‘a grave’ that one has to face! What does Proverbs 11:31 tell us? “If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner.” My Holman Study Bible, NKJV, footnote says, “But if God’s impartial judgment begins with the righteous, then the sinner will not escape” his own day before Holy God to give an account of his/her spiritual stupidity! Peter, in 1 Peter 4:18, quoted Proverbs 11:31!

Unredeemed souls? You’ve witnessed it: unredeemed souls walking with a ‘spiritual strut’ in self-pride and arrogance that breaks God’s heart! They major on the ‘common sense of godlessness’, majoring on ‘ordinary wits’, and blinded to the snares of Satan concerning the Lord Jesus’ vicarious intercession at the Cross and His victory over that which keeps unbelievers in their ‘graves of sin and death’!

Unredeemed souls? You are aware that Christ Jesus ‘chose’ the twelve disciples, not because He saw in them superb, ingrained natural abilities able to help Him in His task, but ‘vessels’ to be washed in His blood, crucifying all that they, and us, are in our ‘flesh’, resurrecting “the twelve” and you and me, designating US as “temples” in which His Presence can be manifested, honoring and glorifying His Father!

In Luke 18:31-34 we read, Then Jesus took the twelve aside and said to them (and to you and me?), “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken. (Oh, really? But modern-day folks? Neither do they know or understand the things which were spoken!

“They understood none of these things”? Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.159) wrote the following: “God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christ’s life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s. But what seemed failure from man’s standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God’s because God’s purpose is never man’s.

Chambers continued: There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes.”

Yet how many surround you in your modern world who have no grasp at all of what Holy God had planned through their available lives as they lived unavailable to Him for only what “pleases my flesh”! At the same time, are you aware of those who “pump” their flesh-mindedness of “how pleased God must be to have me with all my talents and gifts available to Him”! Really? Or is it, “They understood none of these things”?

I’ve often wondered how many ‘church folk’ live with a true passion and concern about living out their ‘life in Christ’ in such a way that all honor, praise, and thanksgiving goes to Him because they chose death to their old man and rejoice in the miracle of God’s grace that their “new man in Christ” has become His holy tabernacle and temple through which He’s allowed to be Himself in “vessels” of earthly bodies as the faithful take the sentence of death daily unto themselves that His resurrection life will be manifested in and through their mortal flesh – and that has nothing to do with one’s talents, one’s mind, or one’s willful determination to “be a good Christian”.

Again, Oswald Chambers said: (p.158), “The bravery of God in trusting us! You say – ‘But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing in me; I am not of any value.’ THAT IS WHY HE CHOSE YOU! As long as you think there is something in you, He cannot choose you because you have ends of your own to serve; but if you have let Him bring you to the end of your self-sufficiency then He can choose you to go with Him to Jerusalem, and that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.” (Aren’t you thankful that He only uses ‘empty vessels’ with nothing to brag about but Him?)

“Good Souls Unredeemed Or Godly Spirits Washed In Christ’s Blood”? I’ve always appreciated John Wesley’s writings of great Hymns. One entitled “O For a Thousand Tongues” says in the fourth verse, “He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.” But you hear the proud unredeemed souls asserting, “Your Savior (?) talks about the power of canceled sin when I don’t have any sin? He sets the prisoner free? I’ve never been in jail! His blood makes the foulest clean? What an insult! His blood was availed for ME? You Christians are mind-warped, brainless, and ‘charmed’ by a charlatan!” That’s many in modern-day America! They have no shame spitting on Christ Jesus, THE Savior and Lord, THE Redeemer, yes, THE ‘restorer’ of men’s souls!

In Psalm 23 David sang: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He RESTORES MY SOUL; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You (Lord Jesus) are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Do you see, celebrate, rejoice in, rest in, rely upon “The True Shepherd” who restores your soul to eternal intent, with the never-ending promise, “of goodness and mercy following you all the days of your life, assured you’ll dwell in the house of the Lord forever”?

Good souls unredeemed are blinded, by choice, to the declaration of Sovereign Care! Good souls unredeemed are ‘satisfied’ with ‘wilderness wanderings’ rather than “Promised Land Blessings”! Good souls unredeemed are ‘far from Holy God’ constructing their own ‘idols’ of imitation living! Good souls unredeemed make God’s desired plan of heritage an abomination! Good souls unredeemed walk after, live in, invest their lives in that which is actually consuming them with no eternal profit to the honor of God existing for them!

God said, in Jeremiah 2:11-13, “Has a nation (Israel) changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit. 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.”

And how many do you personally know whom “Loving God” led them ‘in the Way’, but they forsook Him and drifted into the wilderness of wickedness, unbelief, and ‘self-idol’ worship – degenerate plants of alien vines, ‘washing themselves in iniquitous soaps thinking they can fool God’, ‘playing the harlot,’ with their backs turned from the only Savior and Lord!

Again, in Jeremiah 2:19-22, God unveils not only Israel, His initial ‘chosen people’, but all men in every nation of the world who live, many, “compromised lives” before Him, and the “many” professing allegiance but are nothing more than “degenerate plants of an alien vine”, so foreign to the nature and character of Christ Jesus!

God’s Word came to Jeremiah saying, “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of Me is not in you,” says the Lord of hosts.

For of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds; and you said, ‘I will not transgress,’ when on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before Me into the degenerate plant of an alien vine? For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before Me,” says the Lord God.

I want to close this message about “Good Souls Unredeemed Or Godly Spirits washed in Christ’s Blood” with words from Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 1:17-24! The Apostle Paul said: “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 will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ (Prudent? ‘Self-figuring of what’s important to them from the best of human nature, but void of God’s Presence within them!). Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to). For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God AND the wisdom of God.”

By J. Farrell Fisher

September 2, 2016

There’s an interesting verse in Jeremiah 45:5 where the Lord Himself speaks: “And do not 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.” And, if God is no respecter of persons, (and He’s not!), then what He said through the prophet to Baruch, does the same hold true to you? Is YOUR “gutsy grit” what Holy God desires from you or a broken, repentant heart, and truly godly sorrow over the sinful state of your God-less life?

One of the saddest words in all of Scripture, so definitive of “fallen men”, is found in Proverbs 21:2 where the Word declares: “Every way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.” A gutsy, gritty heart or a heart of Godly sorrow? A gilded heart of showy appearances or a graced heart of Godly indwelling?

Do you sense any of “gutsy grit” around you, whether child, youth, young adult, or aging adult? Do you ever view the “culture of fleshly intellect” and shake your head as you visualize “cultural unbelief” and fleshly rejection of Holy God and His love and purpose for all fallen men?

Jonathan Edwards, in his writing, “The Freedom of the Will,” wrote: “The heart (that’s the heart of fallen men!) is like a viper, hissing, and spitting poison at God.” The hearts of “fallen men”, alienated and separated from Holy God, are yielded to the aim of pursuing and satisfying the ‘flesh’ and its indulgences with no consideration of eternal purpose or what pleases and honors Holy God with His desire that they be reconciled to Him through the blood of the Lamb of God!

“Fallen men”, large in prominence or known by few, are no different! Both are citizens of the kingdom of darkness and the devil, intent on satisfying all fleshly desires, accepting of “seeming shows,” indulging in vain delights, programmed by civilized ‘stupidity’, critical of true men of redeeming faith through the Blood, satisfied with mental allegiance apart from ‘heart-transformation,’ and certainly with “No fear of God” but only acknowledgement of His existence, even if that! Faith, to them, is simply an awareness of God, if even that by some, but absent from true repentance and redeeming faith and them becoming the temple of Holy Presence on earth! Faith, to them, is for far too many, even some pastors, the faith of possibilities, not the faith of divine realities, which is why ‘philosophy’, factual or fiction, at least governs some’s ‘mental allegiance’!

“Gutsy grit” is never able to translate or transform the ‘chord discords’ or ‘off-key’ fleshly realities into an ‘orchestrated-life-harmony’ apart from the grace and the mercy of God! It was Thomas Carlyle who once said: [“The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” edited by Frank S. Mead, Fleming H. Revell com., Westwood New Jersey,p.456], “There is but one thing without honor, smitten with eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be, and that is unbelief. He who believes nothing, who believes only the show of things, is not in relation with nature or fact at all.”

Do you remember Moses and Aaron going in to Pharoah of Egypt and telling him, (Exodus 5:1-2), “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.” Yet, in Exodus 14 we read of the destruction of the Egyptian armies AND Pharoah with Verse 28 telling us, “Not so much as one of them remained,” and certainly not “gritted Pharoah”! And, dare I tell you, FROM HELL PHAROAH STILL GRIEVES AND GROANS, BUT NOW VOID OF HIS GUTSY GRIT!

“Gutsy grit” by unbelievers and rejecters of Resurrection Life in Christ are men, past, present, and future, who will reveal to you, if you’re ever able to ask them, (I hope not!), “We know now only anthems of despair, the themes of avenging demons, the scary, constant, unyielding voices of devilish phantoms,” or Harriet Beecher Stowe’s words, “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.”

There is no evil so great as the evil of the rejection of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and life in and through Christ, just as Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:12b, “If we deny Him, He [the One True and Living God, the Resurrected Christ], ALSO will deny us.”

I find the anointed spirit of Paul so needed in this 21^st Century in our own journey of faith, and especially as one is cemented and grounded in the Holy Word, and fully aware of the fallacy of “gutsy grit”, and fully aware of the need of “godly sorrow”, “redemptive faith,” “and true repentance”! In 2 Timothy 2:23-26 he wrote: “But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that THEY MAY COME TO THEIR SENSES AND ESCAPE THE SNARE OF THE DEVIL, having been taken captive by him to do his will.”

Do YOU find that a frightening statement that unbelievers are those “snared by the devil”, functioning in their lives according to his wants, desires, and plans? Isn’t it amazing, shocking, awakening, alerting to you to even hear Jesus, in Revelation 3:9, even mention “those of the synagogue of Satan”? SO…let’s just call on “gutsy grit” to see us through in our earthly warfare with the devil and the powers of darkness – right? WRONG!

Examine Revelation 12:7-12! 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 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 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 the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

But, hear me! Whether it’s the world, the flesh, or the devil, Psalm 50:15 tells us: “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” What a promise! Dare I ask YOU? “Do YOU stand on the promises in “gutsy grit” or “REST” in the finished work of Christ “At Calvary”? What does the Holy Word tell us in Ephesians 6:10-18?

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord [ Does that sound like “gutsy grit” to you?] 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, [that’s imparted, implanted, imputed righteousness by the grace and mercy of God!], 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 –“

Dare I tell you that the day of your ‘helpless feeling’ can be, should be, must be, the day of full awareness of ALL God Himself wants to be and to do through you? Proverbs 3:1-6 is a powerful expression from God that should be the launching of your life of faith and trust through “Godly Sorrow” from a heart and life that does not lean on “gutsy grit” or “fleshly best” but God’s mercy, grace, and love! It says: “My son, do not forget my law (the wisdom and instruction from “trust” in the Lord!), but let your heart keep my commands; for length of days and long life they will add to you. Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, And SO find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.

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. [Look now at Verses 13, and 21-26]! “Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding.” That’s the wisdom of God and the understanding the Holy Spirit gives to you as you faithfully feed on His Word! Verses 21-26 says, “My son, let them not depart from your eyes – keep sound wisdom and discretion; So they will be LIFE TO YOUR SOUL and GRACE TO YOUR NECK.

Then you will walk safely in your way, and your foot will not stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid; Yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror, nor of trouble from the wicked when it comes; For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught.”

So…what does a fleshly, sinful, mortal man do to obtain his personal salvation? Do you remember Paul and Silas imprisoned for the faith in Acts 16 when the jailer came to them after a great earthquake, finding all the prison doors opened, and Paul and Silas still there! He was ready to kill himself, but went in to Paul and Silas asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And it wasn’t ‘saved from an earthquake but “saved from his sins”! And in Acts 16:31 Paul and Silas told him, “Believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to] on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

That’s: BE FINISHED WITH YOURSELF AND ANY ATTEMPT AT BEING “RELIGIOUS”, AND REST IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS! Have you never received, rested in, or relied upon 2 Corinthians 5:17? “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he IS a ‘new creation’; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

“In Christ” we sing a “new song”! “In Christ” we walk in “newness of life” and serve Him in “newness of spirit”! The Lord Jesus said in Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I make all things new…!” We’re ‘clothed’ with “new garments”, we “LIVE” by a “new and living way,” He grants us a “new name”, He bestows upon us out of our death the reality of “new-born”, a “new covenant,” a “new heart and a new spirit,” and as “newborn babes in Christ” we desire, hunger for, rest in, and are assured of His able-ness to keep what we’ve committed unto Him and to keep what He has committed unto us!

2 Corinthians 5:21 declares: “For He (God) made Him (Jesus Christ) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God In Him.” ARE YOU “the righteousness of God IN CHRIST JESUS”? Hear me!

“In Christ” we are no longer ‘mere men’ but sons and daughters of redemptive faith birthed by God to bear, share, unveil His Name!

“In Christ”, by God’s mercy, grace, and love, we’ve been set apart to be “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own special, blood-bought people”!

“In Christ”, ‘born again by the Spirit into the Holy Family of God, we are declared by Him to be the “righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”! We’re now “sons and daughters” of our Heavenly Father!

Our lives, now “in Christ”, are “hidden with Christ in God”! We’ve been “raised up to be seated with Him in heavenly places at the very right hand of God the Father!

Our lives “in Christ” are now identified as “ministers of reconciliation” and “ambassadors of Christ”! We’ve been counted worthy to walk with Christ, entrusted with His Gospel!

Christ Jesus is the Bridegroom – we’re “the bride of Christ”! We’re now “trustees of the ‘mysteries’! We’re “witnesses” of His Redeeming Grace! God even says of all repentant believers that they are “priests and kings unto Him.”

To God, we are the ‘fragrance of Christ,’ His ‘peace-makers’ in a troubled world, His disciples and disciplers, His “soldiers of the Cross”! We’re “more than conquerors” – we’re “new creations”!

“In Christ” we’re “living sacrifices”, eternal epistles, poems of the grace, mercy, and love of God! Doesn’t the Word declare the truth and reality, and visual presence of “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, or ‘disciples’ meaning “Followers of Christ”?

“In Christ” we’re “servants” of the King of kings and Lord of lords – we bear the image of the Heavenly Man, because WE ARE ‘the called, the separated, the anointed, indwelt by all the very fullness of God”!

“In Christ” we are His messengers, His proclaimers, the heralds of His gospel or ‘good news’! “In Him” we ARE the “glorious Body of Christ,” members of the Holy Body in particular!

“In Christ” we’re “vessels” through which God Himself reveals His Son, we’re “salt” and “light”, we’re the “Symphony” God sings about, the music of His heart, and over us He sings the sounds of joy and sweet pleasure!

It’s time to settle it for Eternity! Are you a ‘mere man’ or “the anointed, appointed, affirmed holy man of God, infilled by the Holy Spirit to be His holy messengers?

Are you a ‘mere man’ or the biblically-declared “mighty men of valor”? Are you a ‘worldly, anxious ant’ or an “ambassador of Christ”? Are you a ‘mere man’ or a son or daughter of the family of Father-God?

Are you a ‘mere man’ or a “true minister and servant of reconciliation”? Are you simply a ‘mere man’ or a true witness of Saving Grace, Master-Full Mercy, and overflowing in Calvary’s Song of eternal love and Christ-Alone “Blood Redemption”?

Are YOU a “witness” of “Saving Grace”? Are YOU “the elect,” the “set-apart”, the “chosen of God”? Are YOU “the apple of God’s eye”? Are YOU His “workmanship”? Are YOU a “partner with God”, a “vessel of honor before Him daily”, available for Him to do as He pleases through YOU?

Are You “clay in the hands of the Potter, being sculpted into His Holy Image and Likeness”? Are you a “partaker of the divine nature”, one with Him, the fullness of Him who fills all in all?

You do realize that a ‘roller coaster’, at least once in your life, ought to be fun to ‘play on’, but the “ups and downs”, the “around and around” moves you nowhere in life in relation to Holy God! A ‘ferris wheel’ at the State Fair will get you ‘up’ momentarily to look “over” for a brief glimpse of the beautiful side, but then it’s down again and around again to the same old circumstances!

And anonymous writer penned these words: “Do you know what makes man the most suffering of all creatures? It is that he has one foot in the finite and the other in the infinite, and that he is torn between the two worlds.” Are You “torn” or “settled” on the True Foundation of Eternal Life, Christ Jesus, our Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Reconciler of men to God?

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

AUGUST 20, 2014

It’s, yes, astounding to me that as I read Spurgeon for his pastoral insights and phenomenal handling of God’s Word, I come across statements that birth a new direction of preparation in preaching or teaching God’s Word. He said, [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.19, p.274], “The flesh sees honey in the drink, but faith at once perceives that there is poison in the cup.”

And there certainly is an eternity’s difference between man’s ‘flesh’ [his old, fallen sin nature] and God’s biblical faith. Spurgeon spoke about ‘flesh’ or ‘This sin is a very pleasurable thing, why should I not enjoy it? Surely I may eat this fruit which looks so charming, and is so much to be desired.” And you realize:

‘Flesh’ is blind to God and His Word. ‘Flesh’ is blind to sin, twisting Truth, distorting human personality and divine potential, grieving and gripping the inner man in Satanic slavery, promoting self-potential apart from divine intent, brutalizing divine purpose and plan, enslaving the ‘flesh’ to a godless life, omitting FAITH as THE DIVINE REMEDY OF AN IMPRISONED SOUL, substituting sin as the open door to true freedom when in reality it leads to chains and bondage and a cell or existence of fleshly limitation. ‘FLESH’ IS LIFE WITHOUT GOD!

Spurgeon went on to say so profoundly: “Faith spies the snake in the grass, and gives warning of it. Faith remembers death, judgment, the great reward, the just punishment, and that dread word – eternity. Faith sees the end as well as the beginning. Faith, while the feast is going on, reminds the revelers of the reckoning. Faith feels that she cannot buy the transient joys of earth at the countless cost of an immortal soul. ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

Blindness to God and His salvation is hopelessness with faithlessness as the uncertain foundation of one’s existence. Self-trust, self-determination, self-will, and self-rule are the four cornerstones of our empty dwellings but faith is the solid and sure foundation.

Without biblical faith, one is void of understanding of the very heart of God. In Ezekial 18:31-32, God speaks today to you personally: “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…? For I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”

That’s the very heart of the Lord God of Eternity – and He knows you, loves you, and wants you to be one with Him! It was John Calvin, in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” who wrote: “Faith is a knowledge of the benevolence of God toward us, and a certain persuasion of His veracity.”

It was Edwin Hubbell Chapin who said: “Skepticism has not founded empires, established principles, or changed the world’s heart. The great doers of history have always been men of faith.” So true!

And when it comes to human existence that is passionate for more, it’s only by faith that human existence is changed by Divine Presence through repentance toward God and FAITH in the finished work of Christ at the Cross! Truth-faith is “looking up to God,” “looking in to one’s heart-need,” and “looking around as to where one is to settle in serving and sharing our Lord and Savior”!

But, of course, multitudes live by ‘superstition’ rather than faith in God’s finished work. Others live by their mental superiority to the less fortunate because it’s ‘education’ that makes a man – not repentance and faith! Others have settled in to proving their own worth and value by what they do – not what has been done at Calvary’s Cross. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who once said: “All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word – faith.” It was Jesus who said in John 20:29, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed.”

Faith! What an intriguing, inspiring, entrusting word, that calls by personal examination, inward acknowledgement, and mind and heart full surrender to the God who blesses one with SAVING FAITH! Look at Ephesians 2:8!! “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…”

Romans 1:16-17 is so clear! It says: (Paul speaking), “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just [or justified or ‘just as if I’d never sinned’] shall live by faith.”

We WERE dead in our trespasses and sins, the Gospel is preached, the Spirit convicts and convinces, and by grace through faith, repenting, believing, and trusting, we are born to new life in Christ!

It was J.P.Scholfield who wrote the hymn, “Saved, Saved!” It says: “I’ve found a friend who is all to me, His love is ever true; I love to tell how He lifted me And what His grace can do for you…

He saves me from every sin and harm, Secures my soul each day; I’m leaning on His mighty arm. I know He’ll guide me all the way…

When poor and needy and all alone, In love He said to me, ‘Come unto Me and I’ll lead you home, To live with Me eternally…

Saved, by His power divine, Saved, to new life sublime! Life now is sweet and my joy is complete, For I’m saved, saved, saved!”

We’re SAVED BY FAITH, but I believe also that there is SECURITY IN FAITH! How could one ever believe that God saves, and yet His salvation is ‘insecure’?

It may be Old Testament scripture but it is the Word of God, and the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 26:2-4, said: “Open the gates that the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in. YOU [God] will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in YAH, the Lord is everlasting strength.”

In John 17:3 Jesus prayed to Father-God for us! He said: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

Oswald Chambers, in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.93], wrote: “God has ventured all in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in Him. There are spots where that faith has not worked in us as yet, places untouched by the life of God. There were none of those spots in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours…The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes one great romance, a glorious opportunity for seeing marvelous things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.”

For the true believer there is to be that steadfastness of hope in us that what God has started, He will finish! In Job 13:15 Job told his ‘friends’: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” The process of faith requires the patience of faith, yes, patience with yourself!

Robert Browning, in “The Ring and the Book,” wrote: “There is but one way to browbeat this world, Dumb-founder doubt, and repay scorn in kind – To go on trusting, namely, till faith Move Mountains.” That means “hold on” in the journey of faith; “don’t let go” in the stressful times; “eyes on the goal” as you press in to Jesus!

In Revelation 3:10-13 Jesus speaks to us who are in His ‘church’ today: “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

WE’RE SAVED BY FAITH, WE’RE SECURE IN FAITH, BUT ALSO THE JOURNEY OF FAITH IS A TEST OF CHOICE IN BEING EITHER INFLUENCED BY THE WORLD AROUND US OR OVERCOMING, YES, WORLDLY TESTS AND TEMPTATIONS BY EITHER REFUSING TO INDULGE IN THE FLESHLY STANDARDS IN THE WORLD OR TO LIVE SURRENDERED DAILY TO THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST! And I’m sure it’s both!

In I John 2:15-17 the beloved John challenges every believer: “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.”

It’s really interesting that Paul challenges all believers in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” when, sadly, too many professing believers will yield to a world spirit that will dishonor Christ, but the Holy Spirit emphasizes one daily being transformed “by the renewing of the mind.”

There is a vast difference in human existence between those enslaved to their old sin natures or freed by the blood of Christ and birthed into “a new creation” that is, yes, divine in nature! In Ephesians 2:1-3 Paul described those in bondage to the “old man”: “And you He made alive, who were dead [spiritually dead to God] 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.”

The ‘world spirit’ is powerful, tempting, lying, attractive and addictive with deadly alternatives and outcomes, enslaving, binding and bruising, contagious, producing sick spirits in the mind and heart, destroying, poisoning, entrapping, stripping of even common decency, which is what Paul was describing to Titus when in Titus 2:12 he spoke the opposite of worldly teaching that ‘covers’ or ‘denies’ ungodly and worldly lusts, but that true faith, saving faith, transforming faith, teaches us “to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”

Worldly people are aware of ‘spiritual failure’ or ‘spiritual darkness’ or ‘spiritual emptiness’ which drives them to find ‘something’ or ‘someone’ to fill them up with something, but what they seek and find never satisfies because true satisfaction in life only comes by our Lord’s Resurrection Presence!

And guess what? His Holy Word tells us: I John 1:7, “If we walk in the light as He [Jesus] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.” GLORY TO GOD!

I love Oswald Chambers’ statement in “My Utmost For His Highest” when he said: [p.268], “The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me.”

WE’VE SEEN THE FACT THAT WE’RE SAVED BY FAITH, WE’RE SECURE IN THE FAITH, WE FACE A TEST OF CHOICE IN OUR WALK, BUT ALSO WE ARE INSTRUCTED TO BUILD OURSELVES UP ON “YOUR MOST HOLY FAITH,” WHICH IS JUDE 20-21! It says:

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most Holy Faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life…”

You do understand “new birth” which tells us there are infants in the faith walk, children learning about the faith, teenagers tested about their allegiance to truth, young adults, maturing adults, senior adults, all growing in grace and gripping the truth practically of a sanctifying faith, understanding maturely they’ve been “set apart” in honoring our Lord and Savior!

I’m sure that much of our salvation -walk as infants in the faith and energetic children of faith is based upon, mostly, head faith, but as one matures in the faith-walk a person begins to discern ‘heart-faith’, that is, one willing to be led by the Holy Spirit of God and matured by faithfulness in and to God’s Holy Word.

No doubt this is why Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Saving, sanctifying faith is not in what I do, but what has been done through the sacrificial life of Christ and my absolute certainty and acceptance of His finished work on the Cross where He took me to the Cross with Him, and I was there crucified with Christ, and now He lives again and through my available body! It’s not “us” – it’s “Christ in us the hope of glory”!

There is such an illuminating word Jesus spoke in Luke 21:16-19. It says: “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience [steadfastness, disciplined walk] possess your souls.”

Does that relate to believers “putting on the whole armor of God”? Does that mean “seeking,” “searching,” “claiming,” “dressing,” “receiving,” all that our Lord has promised? I love Chambers’ words when he said: “Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love.” WOW! What are you building your life of faith upon?

The journey of faith is a joyous journey, but sometimes there are those who “depart from the faith” – and it’s you and Jesus only! In 2 Timothy 4:16-18 Paul told his spiritual son, “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!”

I wrote a message last week entitled “Dark Nights – Bright Lights.” Redemptive faith is not a dark night, but the “Bright Light” of Jesus Himself – His Light never grows dim!

I pray you understand that at times a militaristic call to arms does arise for true believers, but without a doubt, I believe, Paul is talking here about a war against your own flesh, a war against the world spirit of unbelief, and a war against Satanic and demonic activity!

Discern Matthew 24:3-14 as you personally choose to do so, but don’t ignore or try to ‘sugar-coat’ our Lord’s words as He talked about the signs of the times and the end of the age! Jesus said: Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the ends of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you.

For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.

Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

I hope you understand that what has been spoken by Jesus is to alert ALL of “perilous times.” Our Lord and Savior high-lighted some very vital truths about these particular times called “last days”. He said: 1]. It will be a time of great deception. Verses 4-5. 2]. It will be a time of great conflict. Verses 6-7. 3]. It will be a time of great suffering. Verses 8-10. 4]. It will be a time of open sin. Verses 11-12. 5]. It will be a time of great opportunity. Verses 13-14.

Are you prepared? Are you alert? Are you well-trained? Are you equipped? Are you prayed up? And, I would ask, ‘Are you ready to die for your faith?’

In Ephesians 6:16 Paul tells us, “above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”

LASTLY, HAS ‘YOUR’ FAITH LED YOU TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO STAND FAST AND STRONG? In Galatians 5:1 Paul wrote: “Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

You do know that if Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed – no more bondage, no more slavery, no more chains, no more fear of an eternal hell, no more entanglements of poor choices.

It was Robert J. McCracken who wrote: “We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.” Oh, that once again true American history be restored to our classrooms!

Again, 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.” I’m telling you, “standing fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,” is why John recorded Jesus’ word for us in Revelation 3:10, “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.”

It’s more than enduring and persevering – it’s standing tall before Holy God with a heart of thanksgiving and joy for His gift of FAITH!! “For by grace you have been saved THROUGH FAITH, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God!” Glory!

Ray Palmer and Lowell Mason wrote the hymn, “My Faith Looks Up To Thee.” It says:

“My faith looks up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior divine! Now hear me while I pray, Take all my guilt away, O let me from this day Be wholly Thine!

May Thy rich grace impart Strength to my fainting heart, My zeal inspire; As Thou hast died for me, O may my love to Thee Pure, warm, and changeless be, A living fire!

While life’s dark maze I tread, And griefs around me spread, Be Thou my guide4; Bid darkness turn to day, Wipe sorrow’s tears away, Nor let me ever stray From Thee aside.

When ends life’s transient dream, When death’s cold, sullen stream Shall o’er me roll; Blest Savior, then, in love, Fear and distrust remove, O bear me safe above, A ransomed soul!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“BLESSED ASSURANCE, JESUS IS MINE!OH,WHAT A FORETASTE OF GLORY DIVINE! HEIR OF SALVATION, PURCHASE OF GOD,BORN OF HIS SPIRIT,WASHED IN HIS BLOOD.

PERFECT SUBMISSION,PERFECT DELIGHT, VISIONS OF RAPTURE NOW BURST ON MY SIGHT; ANGELS DESCENDING,BRING FROM ABOVE ECHOES OF MERCY,WHISPERS OF LOVE.

PERFECT SUBMISSION, ALL IS AT REST, I IN MY SAVIOR AM HAPPY &BLEST; WATCHING & WAITING, LOOKING (WITHIN), FILLED WITH HIS GOODNESS, LOST IN HIS LOVE.

THIS IS MY STORY,THIS IS MY SONG,PRAISING MY SAVIOR ALL THE DAY LONG;THIS IS MY STORY, THIS IS MY SONG, PRAISING MY SAVIOR ALL THE DAY LONG.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALL TRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS , OR PERSECUTION, OR FAMINE OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD? NO, IN ALL THESE THINGS WE “ARE” MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUG H HIM THAT LOVED US.

FOR I AM PERSUADED, THAT NEITHER DEATH, NOR LIFE, NOR ANGELS, NOR PRINCIPALITIES, NOR POWERS, NOR THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME, NOR HEIG HT, NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CRE ATURE, SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” I CLOSE WITH ANOTHER HYMN THAT SAYS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’ And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.

Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

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

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

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

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

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

But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray…”.

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

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

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

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

You do understand! Walking in the “best effort of flesh” does not reconcile one to Holy God! In Romans 8:5 Paul said: “For those who live according to the flesh (or old sin-nature) set their minds on the things of the flesh…” saying in Verse 6, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,” continuing in Verses 7-8, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

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

With Christ Jesus explaining for us the ministry of the Holy Spirit in John 16:7-15, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is TO YOUR ADVANTAGE THAT I GO AWAY; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will GUIDE YOU INTO ALL TRUTH, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said to you that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

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

“BEST EFFORTS OR BORN AGAIN?”

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

REMIND THEM OF THESE THINGS, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words that have no profit, (“I tried”), to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetis are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.

August 6, 2016

In Hebrews 10:11-14 the author of Hebrews gives us an amazing unveiling of the awesome, unreserved release and availability of God’s omnipotent power to change hearts, birth eternal ministries, and equip “perfected saints”! It says: “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

BUT this Man (the Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, “God in Flesh”), after He had offered one sacrifice for sins FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. FOR by one offering HE HAS PERFECTED FOREVER THOSE WHO ARE BEING SANCTIFIED.”

And “the sanctified”, those “set apart” by the grace and mercy of God, have been “perfected forever” for the very purpose of extending Christ’s life, expressing His love, and proving His power, through you and me? Absolutely! The Holy Word declares it! God’s eternal desire is that He, Christ Jesus, be glorified THROUGH YOU as a true believer!

What does Ephesians 2:4-10 tell us? “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 with Christ, 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.”

It’s so interesting to me that when I read Revelation 3:7-8 Jesus clearly says, “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. (SO!) 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.” There IS an open door to Jesus!

But then in Revelation 3:19-22 the Lord Jesus declared: “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.” [And don’t you find this amazing that Jesus was speaking to those “in the church at Laodecia”?] THEREFORE, HOW EASY FOR UNBELIEVERS TO SHUT THE DOOR ON JESUS, BUT HOW HORRIFIC WHEN “professing Christians and churches” shut the door on Jesus?!?

And I remind you again of Jesus describing ‘believers’ as: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” [Ephesians 2:10!].

Repentant men of faith and trust in the work of Christ at the Cross accept their crucifixion with Him and receive with passion, joy, and celebration His forgiveness, His acceptance of us, and His desire to make each of us His earthly temple and dwelling, not a destroyed memory of a building in Israel, but temples of holy dwellings in the hearts of men in every nation of the world!

Notice, FIRST, what Ephesians 1:3 tells us of GOD’S GOODNESS, “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ…!” And what amazes me is Ephesians 1:4 tells me, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” and that with an eternal purpose: “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” And that’s ALL because of the shed blood of Christ for us and because of our ‘redemptive faith’ in (Ephesians 1:5-6), “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.”

That’s because of God’s goodness, His graciousness, and His sovereign will, which leads us to:

SECOND, GOD’S Gracious Birthing OF Redemption Through Jesus’ Blood, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE, which Ephesians 1:7-8 declares “which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.” Notice!

It’s only “divine wisdom” that reveals the sin nature, your sin nature and mine, was crucified with Christ, that the open door to His presence and purpose, was then fully revealed as the blood of Christ bought us out of slavery to sin, granted us forgiveness from the guilt of our sin, made us accepted In Christ, with Ephesians 1:12 telling us, “that we who first trusted in Christ SHOULD BE TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY”!

Colossians 1:13-14 declares: “He (God) 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.”

Are you aware of what Hebrews 10:12-14 unveils to true repentant believers? “But this Man, after He had offered ONE SACRIFICE FOR SINS FOREVER, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. FOR BY ONE OFFERING He (the Lord Jesus Christ!) has PERFECTED FOREVER THOSE WHO ARE BEING SANCTIFIED.” Sanctified? That’s “set apart”, repentant believers then, now, and future, who Repent For the Forgiveness of Sins, are washed in the blood of the Lamb, indwelt by Resurrection Presence, anointed in the power of the Indwelling Holy Spirit, and become “witnesses”, “ambassadors”, “evangelists”, who proclaim the “goodness of God” for His children of faith and hope in Christ alone!

1 Corinthians 1:30 says, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – Verse 31, that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” Having forgiveness through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, we realize, rest in, and rejoice, in the reality that our blood-bought faith has opened the door to us of faithfully participating, now and forever, in all God is!

I receive with joy and gladness Oswald Chambers’ words in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.255), where he said: “We have forgiveness through His (Christ Jesus’) blood. Identification with the death of Jesus Christ means identification with Him to the death of everything that never was in Him…God is justified in saving bad men only as He makes them good. Out Lord does not pretend that 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.”

THIRD, IN GOD’S WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING, OF BRINGING ABOUT WORLD REDEMPTION AFTER THE “FALL”, DID HE CONCEDE TO A MAN’S ‘BEST EFFORT’ AS A PARTICIPANT IN WORLD REDEMPTION, OR THE NECESSITY OF “NEW VESSELS”? Remember, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!” (Romans 6:23). “Fallen flesh” never reveals the nature, character, true vision of Holy God, but only ‘man’ defining ‘self’, ‘sinful self’, as a ‘worthy vessel’ even God should use! No!

Romans 6:5-11 unveils fallen humanity’s “old man, old nature, old identity as a slave TO SIN”, but then reveals “Victory In Jesus”! It says: “For if we have been united 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.

Now IF WE DIED WITH CHRIST, we believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to the fact) that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God IN Christ Jesus our Lord.” Far too many fail to understand the consequences of their sin and sin nature! That’s why Paul was inspired to say also in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God IS eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And if that is Biblically true, AND IT IS, does Jesus have to say the same thing to ‘modern-day’ Christians as He did to the “Sad-you-sees” (?) in Matthew 22:29, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”

And then, in Mark 9:1, to a crowd of people plus His own disciples, Jesus said to them: “Assuredly, I say to you, that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.” What a promise to them and to us!

Luke 4:13-14 there is a mind-boggling, heart-searching, disciple-questioning passage! It says: “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him (that’s Jesus!) until a (more) opportune time. Verse 14! Then Jesus returned in the POWER OF THE SPIRIT to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.” And “the news of Him”, Spirit-filled, is STILL being spread through available “vessels” who RECEIVE the Spirit’s anointing!

In Acts 10:34-38 we read about “Spirit-Anointed Peter” speaking Holy Truth! “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.”

Oh, but then look at the awesome extension of the Holy Spirit’s ministry beyond Peter and the early church even to today and beyond! It says in Acts 10:44-45, While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, BECAUSE the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.”

It’s really interesting as you study Isaiah 40 that you see in Verse 7 about “the breath of the Lord” (Do you believe that breath might be the Holy Spirit?) blows upon it; surely the people are grass. Verse 8, The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.” And the Word of God, the Living Word, IS “Christ in you the hope of glory”, men and women re-born and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, empowered by the Spirit to be the Lord’s “faithful witnesses” and “Royal Ambassadors” of Kingdom Living in and through Him and His Holy Spirit!

Do you remember what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:3-5? “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.”

The “Holy Temple” in Christ, in you, is built upon a strong and sure foundation, which is not only His Word, but His Spirit having His rightful place in you, over you, and around everything you are and everything you do! We’re not led by our “emotions” in the Christian walk but by the “emissions” or “emanating” of the Holy Spirit through your available life of faith and trust in Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit! Dare I tell you that Holy God desires to be and to do more through us, by His Spirit, than tragically, and often, we keep Him from doing?

In Revelation 12: 10-11 John HEARD the voice from 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!”

But, not only Old and New Testament histories, but ‘modern-day’ church “productions”, present to us many who “are at ease in Zion”, content as Pretenders rather than Converted and Transformed and Dwellings of His Resurrection presence!

In Isaiah 32:1 says, “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness…”, and if you didn’t know, that’s a prophetic utterance of the reign of King Jesus in the repentant, redeemed, regenerated, restored hearts of men to God’s eternal intent! And it then boldly described “lands” with thorns and briers, forsaken ‘temples’ or palaces, cities ‘of faith’ even ‘deserted’, but Verse 15 is filled with divine assurance and eternal confidence as Jesus states: UNTIL THE SPIRIT, (the Holy Spirit!) IS POURED UPON US FROM ON HIGH, when ‘the wilderness’ of a fleshly believer becomes a “fruitful field” through Spirit-anointing!

Dare I tell you that to live a victorious, overcoming, Christ-unveiling, Christ-revealing life is not by your “best-efforts” but by a “vessel’ anointed and overflowing in the fullness and fruit and eternal force of the very Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who “girts” us, “anoints” us, “empowers” us, and, according to 1 John 5:6b, “… And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.” And far too many “professing believers” never become “confessing believers” to others because there is no surrender to be led by Holy Spirit leadership – too many feel they can handle their own ministries, which sadly never occurs – they never become “voices” in life’s wildernesses because, if they ‘witness’, it’s usually about their own spiritual prominence rather than the importance of “repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ in and through Calvary’s Cross and the empty tomb”!

I’m an ‘old hymn’ kind of guy – repeated ‘choruses’, far too often in modern-day churches, leave preparation for preaching on “shallow ground”! But a hymn, like “Thou, Whose Almighty Word”, written by John Marriott and W.R. Braine, in the old “The American Hymnal,” [ Compiled and edited by Robert H. Coleman, the Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1933], says:

“Thou, (or You) whose almighty word Chaos and darkness heard, And took their flight, Hear us, we humbly pray; And where the gospel’s day Sheds not its glorious ray, LET THERE BE LIGHT!

Spirit of truth and love, Life-giving, Holy Dove, Speed forth Your flight: Move over the water’s face, Bearing the lamp of grace; And, in earth’s darkest place, LET THERE BE LIGHT!

Blessed and Holy Three, Glorious Trinity, Truth, Love and Might! Boundless as ocean’s tide, Rolling in fullest pride, Through the world, far and wide, LET THERE BE LIGHT!” How about “Light IN YOU the hope of glory”?

CHAPTER TWO

“STALL OR CALL?”

In Acts 24:22-27 we find an interesting, yet sadly, too often, passage about Felix, the procurator over Jerusalem, having been appointed by Rome. It says: “But when Felix heard these things, having more accurate knowledge of the Way, he adjourned the proceedings and said, “When Lysias the commander comes down, I will make a decision on your case (referring to Paul the Apostle).” So he commanded the centurion to keep Paul and to let him have liberty, and told him not to forbid any of his friends to provide for or visit him.

And after some days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning faith in Christ. Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, “Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.”

Meanwhile he also hoped that money would be given him by Paul, that he might release him. Therefore he sent for him more often and conversed with him. But after two years Porcius Festus succeeded Felix; and Felix, wanting to do the Jews a favor, left Paul bound.”

Felix, the procurator over Jerusalem, representing the Roman government, came very, very close to ‘surrender’ to Christ-allegiance, but he ‘stalled out’ and ended up neglecting ‘repentance toward God and faith in Christ alone’, maybe consent to Christ’s reality was enough for him, which it never is!

A “staller” is a man confronted with the reality of God and his need for Him, but far too often is a man who has invested in himself far too long, and has so invested in his own independence from God, to surrender to Him is painful! One doesn’t easily ‘sin’ and then want to commend himself to God without a heavy, heavy struggle with the necessity of repentance and faith in His Word! Sin confessed but not forsaken is not sovereign grace at work but sentimental, religious judgments that remain ‘deadly’!

What was it Felix said? “Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.” THAT could easily be defined as “procrastination”, or putting off a necessary decision, or delaying one’s commitment or lack of it, for ‘some other time – not now!’

Sometimes “stallers”, unimpressed by devoted followers, go on their own to “invent” what “tempers” their rebellion and unveils “desires” for the false and not the True or Christ, the Author of Truth! In Exodus 32 Moses was on the mountain-top fellowshipping with Holy God and the people were impatient with him. Exodus 32:1 says, the people ‘gathered together to Aaron’, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.

Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”

“Stallers” are creators who invent, create, or substitute “things” for the Living God, whether idols of their imagination, or “businesses” before which they bow, or ‘monies’ rather than God’s mercy, or ‘pleasures’ rather than the peace that passes all understanding, or ‘pretense’ rather than Divine Reality and Holy Presence in and through Christ’s Resurrection life, power, and hope! They settle for the ‘fleshly’ – not the Life of the Spirit of Christ!

And dare I tell you that “stallers” can be, and often are, inventors of their own altars, ‘fleshly fires’, and are verbal declarers of their imitation ‘faith’, inviting the world to follow them? And they have success. Many are ‘wealthy’ word-ers of their perverted, yet often, fleshly profound thoughts and ‘ideas’, and as Horatius Bonar once said, unbelievers promote two things: “a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God.” “Stallers” see themselves as individuals with a “perfectly full-orbed, man-made existence, worthy of the praise of a god if there is one”!

“Stallers” are really unbelievers. And Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher once wrote: [The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations, Fleming H. Revell Comp., Westwood, New Jersey,p.457], “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.” And its ‘stallers’, who are ‘unbelievers, who reward themselves with darkness and personal destruction, with some only gathering the full impact as the devil opens hell’s gate to welcome them!

“Stallers”, for the most part, are governed by their natural inclinations and in their fleshly manners have determined they are too intelligent to believe in or trust the God of Creation and the Cross to make any difference in their natural-born life! Some even attribute their unbelief to their studious thinking when a godless mind is nothing more than superficial insignificance to life itself! That’s ‘surface living’ with no true foundation.

Would you even consider “stallers” to be “pagans”? The Random House College Dictionary (Revised Edition of 1975) defines a pagan as “an irreligious or hedonistic person”, or ‘a worshipper of false gods’, or one who bows down to self alone! I love Frederick William Robertson’s statement from the same “Encyclopedia..” mentioned earlier, (p.464), “What the world calls virtue, without Christ, is a name and a dream. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Redeemer’s cross and in the power of His resurrection.” “Stallers” are like ‘passing shadows’ that take steps in God’s universe dressed in its’ ‘sensuality’ that is nothing more than the graveyard of one’s soul, waiting for the devil’s call rather than the call of God to the glorious destiny of a redeemed, blood-bought life through Christ!

“Stallers” are authors of the scripts of naked souls, the inventors of fleshly indulgences, sold out to the temporal but bankrupt when it comes to the Kingdom of God rule and reign! That’s like an “Esau” who in Genesis 25:33 sold his birthright! And, sadly, how many do you cross paths with every day who sell themselves for fleshly concerns, resulting in aching voids, and temporal impulses, unaware of the destinies of eternity? The bondage of fleshly indulgence is a soul enslaved to fleshly will, worldly aims, demonic intents, and slavish impulses – divine will to them is a “No, no”! And you are aware: there are many who want elbow-room away from God so they can do as they please without any sense of guilt! That’s why in 1 Peter 2:11 Peter said: “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul”; but sadly, the ‘staller’ yields to the flesh, indoctrinated in darkness!

Listen to Christ Jesus in Matthew 16:24-27! Then Jesus said to His disciples, “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 (and I say, 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? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. “

Do you think this just might be why Joshua was so inspired to write his challenge in Joshua 24:15? “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.” His name is Christ Jesus, Emmanuel (“God With Us”!), Messiah, Master, Savior, and Lord, the Son of God, the Atoner and the Atonement: “His shed blood on Calvary’s Cross”! Oh, but also the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords Who rules and reigns in the Kingdom of God now and forever!

SO, IF YOU’RE THROUGH WITH “STALLING”, WHY NOT “CALL” ON HIM? Do you recall the Word of God through Joel? Joel 2:28-32 declares: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; [Dare I say that there is not one person worldwide, then or now, who has not been “poured upon” by the Spirit of God to turn them from self to the Savior?] 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. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth; blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be SAVED. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.”

There was a “remnant” in Joel’s day – there’s a “remnant” even now – there will be another “remnant” in future days to come! They “hear the call” and they respond in repentance and trust of the saving power of the blood of the Lamb of God!

Aren’t you both convicted and enlightened, unveiled as the ‘sinner’ and revealed as the ‘saint’, through the blood of the Lamb? Isaiah so challenged every man, every lady, every boy or every girl, when in Isaiah 1:16-20 he was divinely inspired to write: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from 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.”

Are YOUR EARS, MIND, AND HEART ATTUNED TO THE MOUTH OF THE LORD THAT HAS, DOES, AND WILL SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN? I love Oswald Chambers’ word in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.12), when he wrote: “The call of God is not the echo of my nature; my affinities and personal temperament are not considered. As long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shall never hear the call of God. But when I am brought into relationship with God, I am in the condition Isaiah was in. Isaiah’s soul was so attuned to God by the tremendous crisis he had gone through that he recorded the call of God to his amazed soul. The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says. To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered.” Dare I ask YOU? “Have YOU been ‘profoundly altered’?”

Follow carefully 1 Peter 1:17-25! “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 by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest 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.”

Have YOU “called on the Father”? “IF” YOU call on the Father, the door of your redemption has been opened wide! “IF” YOU repent, the amazing grace of God is released for your divine transformation from a son/daughter of the devil to a son/daughter of faith in the family of God! Acts 3:19 says, “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 “presence of the Lord” IS Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!

Dare I tell you that “repentance toward God” is often denied, overlooked, or even considered unimportant, as long as one says, “I believe in Jesus,” and they fail to see the divine intent of being “vessels” through which God does through them what He did through His Son! In John 5:17-30, 35, 38-40 we find a powerful, convicting, unveiling of eternal Truth! It says:

But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” THEREFORE the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, [modern-day opponents aren’t interested in His death any more than they are of His Resurrected Presence at their heart’s door!], because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, MAKING HIMSELF EQUAL WITH GOD. Then Jesus answered and said to them (and to YOU?), “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son does also in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, AND NOW IS, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 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.

I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteousness, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. Verse 35, “He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in His light.” Oh, but then Verses 38-40 says, “But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe (trust in, rely upon, or 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.”

Have you received, leaned on, accepted the truth of 2 Corinthians 7:10? “For godly sorrow produces repentance LEADING TO salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Godly sorrow, true repentance, opening the door to Salvation, but fleshly, worldly sorrow never opens the door to divine transformation through the Resurrected Christ! That just opens the door to a local church assembly but not to oneness in Christ and His eternal, resurrected family of faith and hope! Oh, but when one sees himself as God sees him, “a sinner truly in need of the Divine Savior,” then a holy hymn of praise begins to be written about his/her life:

“My sins, borne to the Cross by God’s Lamb, my sins, not in part but the whole, my Savior willingly carried them Himself to be forgiven and freed from by His blood!

My sins, and its nature, deserving of death, He willingly accepted, and gave His own life for my soul; sin forgiven, death’s debt paid, my relationship to God fully restored!

My sins, so imperfect, closing the door to God’s kingdom of faith, He willingly accepted, and shed His blood that a new door would open, and access gladly given, as broken-hearted men reached out to God in His name and fame.

My sins, no longer the scar that defames, but my sins forgiven brings glory to His name; by my Savior’s offering on Calvary’s Cross, by God fully accepted, and my life of faith perfected in the Name above all names!

My sins, the closed door to God’s wisdom, His righteousness, His sanctification, His redemption, but faith in Christ Jesus and His finished work of the Cross, is clear indication of one’s desire to be dead to himself, but alive in Him, and an open door to all God desires to be in us.”

Receive 1 John 5:11-13! “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; and he who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in [trust in, rely upon, adhere to], the name of the Son of God, that YOU MAY KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, and that you may “CONTINUE” to believe in the name of the Son of God.” DO YOU CONTINUE TO BELIEVE, REST IN, ASSURED OF ETERNAL LIFE IN AND THROUGH CHRIST ALONE?

I was impressed and encouraged by Dr. Charles Stanley’s “In Touch” publication, April, 2016, entitled, “Qualifications for Sainthood,” [p.28], when he wrote: “Many people hold an unbiblical view of sainthood. Their idea of a saint is one who has led such an exemplary life that he or she is venerated by the church, but God’s Word presents quite a different picture. The Corinthian church struggled with all sorts of ungodly behaviors, yet Paul describes them as “those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints,” (1 Cor. 1:2)…saying in the closing paragraph: “Just think – God set you apart for a sacred purpose. That means you are here, not to live as you please but to bring glory to Him. He calls us to live according to our new position in Christ. When we accept this responsibility of sainthood with gratitude, we bring joy to the Father’s heart.”

Sainthood is not a position earned, but a declaration clearly made by God alone! No doubt this is why Asaph, one of David’s chief musicians sang in Psalm 50:2, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth,” and then in Verse 15 of the same Psalm, Asaph heard God say, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Yes! “The called of the Lord” are vessels through which God honors the Son and lifts the saints and they glorify God!

Don’t you rejoice in a Simone Biles, several times U.S. Olympic gymnast victor who openly professes her faith in Christ Jesus? And I’m sure she’s one who thanks God for her giftings physically but more importantly spiritually – she’s an ambassador of Christ Jesus as well as a U.S. sports representative – and she’ll strongly influence many aspiring youth in faith, fame, and fortune! Amen? She “heard the call”! And, I pray, she never “stalls” or “falls away”!

I’ve prayed for her that she never “stalls” out but remains firmly planted on the solid foundation of “Amazing Grace”, and continues to honor the Lord faithfully! By “Amazing Grace” she understands NO STALLING, but faithfully calling daily to Him as she leans, rests in, and presses into the King of kings!

Fallen mankind, alienated from God, independent of God mankind, is no more able to live the “blessed life” apart from grace than he is settling and controlling the universes and stars as God does!

Don’t you see, grasp, understand, or stand in His Word alone, that only the grace of God builds hope in the heart and life through Jesus Only? That’s Christ Jesus, the Son of God, bruised for our iniquities, crucified willingly on the Cross in and through Holy God’s willingness, and designated, by God, as the only redemptive way, by grace, for sinners to be reconciled to Him!

Has ‘church membership’ become the fallen man’s religious choice and his/her ‘self-made ticket’ to religious activity, affirming his/her harlotry, apart from accepting the Lamb’s Blood for death to self, washed in that blood, and affirmed by God’s grace as a true son or daughter in the Kingdom of ‘grace-fitted’, ‘God-implanted’ resurrection life, power, and hope?

Omnipotent grace has reigned, does reign, and forever will reign to assure the truly repentant and grace-gifted, and faith-lifted of our Lord’s victory over the devil, your enemy, and your weak or strong ‘flesh-nature,’ plus the deceiving influences of an enslaving world-mind-set, as if one ‘enjoys’ the world as he/she cooperates with Hell!

Do you comprehend that it’s only the grace of God that closes the door on the “stall” and brings you to the foot of the Cross and to the “empty tomb”, revealing to you the Resurrected, Reigning King of kings and Lord of lords? Loving God “calls” YOU by name, appealing to you to open your eyes and see the “Savior” AS IF it was FOR YOUR SIN ALONE He suffered, bled, and died on the Cross?

Hear me! “Stalling” and not calling, no death to your sin and old sin nature will NOT open the door to God’s mercy and grace, but only bind the door stronger to keep Christ out of your life! Deception about your sin is not deliverance from it! If a man refuses to open the door of deliverance from sin by Christ’s sacrifice, he/she reinforces the door from the Savior, Lord, Master of God-pleasing submission and obedience!

When divine sovereignty is denied or ignored, it interprets a life void of grace but still writing one’s ‘best-seller’ of meaningless existence, a marred imitation, and his/her ‘Master-less’ portrait of even a ‘religious self-effort’.

Have you ever come to the place of deep awareness and conviction of God’s ‘knocking’ on your heart’s door, but ‘self’, sin, the world, or the devil deceives you that reconciliation with Holy God is an unnecessary door to open because you’re ‘OK’ with the life you have under your own control and you don’t want to be governed by God, governed by His Word, or governed by His Spirit, or governed by “Emmanuel, God with us”?

No fear of God is not an open door into His presence! And grace IS the only key available to sinners that opens that door for those who fear Him! Where grace abounds in one’s life, though the devil wants you dancing to his tunes, Christ Jesus has you daily dancing to His “Amazing Grace”!

I pray, right now, and again and again, that YOU will not be one who “stalls” but one who “calls” on the God of Grace! I can tell you that it is an easy matter to cross the line from devotion to Christ to, yes, a ‘vile imitator’ of grace and faith, because someone told you that it’s OK to be a ‘disciple’ and ‘sin’ with the lusciousness of their old sin-nature still alive, and “God understands”. Really? Again, were YOU “crucified with Christ”? If so, when ‘sin’ calls, you immediately lean not to your former ‘mind-understanding’ of that old sin-nature, but “Look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith by His “Amazing Grace”!

Let the world go to hell in a handbasket; we’re going to heaven in a whirlwind. Amen? Glory to the Lord. God bless you.

Farrell Fisher

Introduction to the Book of Nahum
Okay, let’s take our Bibles and come to Nahum, the book of Nahum, one of the minor prophets. Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. I’m going to get you at the matter at hand. Page 104-5 in my Bible. The book of Nahum. I want to basically read the first three verses. We’re going to be talking about the great wind this morning. The book against Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite.

God is jealous, and the Lord avenges; 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.

Now, don’t you ever forget that.

The Lord has His way in the whirlwind.

You know, that ought to be enough for every one of us this morning.

The Holiness of God
It ought to be enough to settle in our hearts that we understand there is a holy God. There is a God who is jealous. There is a God who avenges. There is a God who executes judgment on the wicked. And it ought to settle in our hearts, our minds, that we’re going to live differently from the wicked. We’re going to live differently from those who are enemies of God. We’re going to live differently from those who repudiate the word of God. We’re going to make a choice because we know the reality and the truth that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God never changes.

The Great Need of Humanity
I think the great need of every human life is to get in on what God is up to. I’m going to tell you, you haven’t begun to live at all until you’ve revived in your heart you’ve been to be in on what God is up to. Most of the world around you, getting in on what their peer group is up to. Getting in on what even their ungodly family is up to. Getting in on what their local culture is up to. But wise men are those who realize that the greatest need of any human life is to get in on what God is up to. God is moving. God is active. God is involved in human affairs. And therefore I ought to be on God’s side rather than man’s side.

Repentance and Judgment
Here is Jonah with a burden against Nineveh. Here are two men motivated by a loving, praying, holy God to share a message with a city. Nineveh, the Bible describes it as that great city. In fact, it says it’s an extremely great city. And for the first time, it was a city of sinfulness. It was a city of wickedness. It was a city that was warned of God, that unless it repented, it would be destroyed. The Bible tells us that that city did repent. But then the Bible also says the Lord had His way in the very end.

Divine Retribution and Redemption
Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.

The Reality of Death and Eternal Life
It is appointed unto men once to die, and 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. For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.

Living in Light of God’s Truth
As we come to the end of the year and the beginning of a new, I encourage you to examine what is being sown in your life. Are you sowing seeds of blessing or curse, life or death, leading to the gates of heaven or the gates of hell? Remember, every one of us is accountable for our own lives before God. We can’t blame anyone else. God is God, and you’re on your own. You’ve got to answer to Him. Amen? Amen. Well, the Lord bless you.

Blessing
Y’all just have a good last week of the year. It’s just about upon us, folks. 1999, can you believe that? It’s right before us, 1999. We pray it’ll be one of the greatest years we’ve ever known, to see the hand of God, the purposes of God, the plans of God, and the presence of God. And we just rest in Him. Let the world go to hell in a handbasket; we’re going to heaven in a whirlwind. Amen? Glory to the Lord. God bless you.

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.”

By James F. Fisher, June 25-27, 2017

It is so good and gracious that God inspired Psalm 103:19 saying, “The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.” And that “reign of the Lord God” is over the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of darkness AND the Kingdom of the Savior and “Light of the world”!

It’s interesting to read Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 7:10 when he wrote: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but THE SORROW OF THE WORLD PRODUCES DEATH.” How clear is that to you?

“The world of darkness” is a Satan – authored and inspired song- and- life-situation of enslavement to the world, the old sin-nature, and Satanic rule, or at least, an attempt at deceiving and darkening your God-ordained life and eternal purpose! We just read, “godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted,” but there is a “cloud of sorrow” that most men have no understanding about why it hangs over them!

But at the same time, as the world of darkness reigns over and in a fallen man’s existence, so does the “world of eternal Light “ shine to unveil Christ Jesus as one’s only hope!

Jude was described in Scripture, his letter inspired by the Holy Spirit, as “a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, (writing to) those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.” [Does that include you?]. And HE certainly contended against and opposed those who walk in darkness, even in ‘religious’ darkness! Jude contended “earnestly for the True faith”!

In Verse 4 he described ‘certain men’, no doubt deceived by Satan, who “crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh, and then in Verses 5-7, Jude instructs us wisely to be aware of spiritual darkness and spiritual blindness in the world around us today! He wrote:

“But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but LEFT THEIR OWN ABODE, He (God) has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange gods, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

I pray you saw “the world of darkness and the kingdom of Light” colliding! Jude went on in Verse 12 speaking about “those who are spots in your love feasts”, describing some as ‘trees without fruit, twice dead’, ‘raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame’, ‘wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever’.

There IS the reality of “apostates” who are “professors without possession of the Indwelling Christ”, but Jude 14b-15 speaks about “apostates” who are depraved and live in a doomed state though they “primp up” as if they were truly “stars in the production of Christ”! “Behold, (the day comes when) the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints (metaphorically speaking), to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Christ Jesus.”

And you don’t think “ungodly sinners” speak against Christ Jesus inspired by Satan? You’re not aware of a despicable meanness, inspired by Satan, in attempting, by the world, the flesh, and Satan himself to dishonor Christ Jesus and befuddle ‘disciples’ about their ‘empty gains in Christ’? Satan himself LIVES in a state of rugged, ragged, ruthless impatience, because, as hard as he tries, Christ Jesus gains more and more of what ‘he thought’ was his world!

Oswald Chambers, in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.131), said, “The characteristic of the life to begin with is that it is maimed… There never has been a saint yet who did not have to live a maimed life to start with. But it is better to enter into life maimed and lovely in God’s sight than to be lovely in man’s sight and lame in God’s,” but saying also that through the finished work of Christ, “You shall be PERFECT, even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” assaulted by Satan in the flesh, but resurrected into the fullness of Christ in the Spirit!

If “the Son sets you free”, free from what? And, of course, what a blessing to be freed from the law of sin and death! But you’ve never considered, since the Fall, all men, yes, have been enslaved under Satan and the powers of darkness? Though Holy God made us for Himself, He knew he wanted sons and daughters of faith, free to be His or not be His, when, at the same time, Holy God understood fallen men would face the onslaught of Satan and demonic armies! But, Holy God wanted us “free to choose” – and, praise God, after the tenure under demonic powers, some want to be free of their chains in spiritual enslavement, living as liberated sons and daughters of the Most High God!

If, “the Son sets you free,” understand, it’s the mind and heart of God to see you tired of your natural individuality and ready to be “raised into newness of life,” yes, ready to be freed from Satan’s deceitful darkness into the Lord and Savior’s “Kingdom of Light”! 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 live which I now live in the flesh (earthly body) I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God…”!!

The ‘world of darkness’, ruled over by Satan and his kingdom of darkness, is out to enlarge his kingdom numbers, enslaving people proud of that natural individuality but unaware they have no need of God and just living ‘satisfying’ their fleshly enslavement under the deluding influence of Satan’s army of deceiving demon powers!

Satan kindles “fires of deception” in fallen mankind for sure, and, at least, attempts to inflame deception and a falling away of disciples (like Judas) from “grace living” to “grit at its best” for ‘disciples’ (?) of Christ, totally avoiding the “Victorious Path” over sin, temptation, and self-centered living, promoting the carnal rather than Spirit-Truth and Spirit-Life in Christ alone, and ending up, yes, as ‘slaves of darkness’ though the sin-filled, Satan-dominated walk is darkness in his brightest ‘light’ (?)!

A few words of Satan’s deception: “Easily kindling without Christ’s presence, the dark fires of Hell are easily resident; souls of the flesh are easily deceived, and the dark spirits of Hell reside indeed. But souls of flesh and evil spirits, as enemies of Christ, are nailed in the world as insignificant ‘rivets’, holding hearts and minds to interests of darkness, slaves to the one who would give them a room, forever cursed by his torture and gloom! But here came Jesus, the Savior of men, and shed His own blood “to save us from sin”, plus putting nails in the coffin of our enemy, releasing us fully from Satanic dilemmas!” [By James Farrell Fisher.]

Did I say, “Worlds of darkness Colliding with the Kingdom of Light”? But a godless intellectual community, evidenced sadly in many school settings today, openly ridicule, resent, even reprimand anyone who promotes the Word of God, preaching salvation by grace and faith in Christ alone, or exposing Satan’s, yes, works of darkness, will confine Biblical Truth about Satan or the Savior, determined that the Truth be “hidden by invisibility”, not allowing any Biblical Truth: “Not in our schools!”, even though “Satan walks about seeking whom he may devour!” And though those “teachers or professors” have long tenures in their schools, the day will come, when escorted by the devil of darkness, they’ll “wake up in Hell’s classroom”, never to leave!

I had to laugh when I read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writing in “Aurora Leigh,” (Bk. V11, l. 105), “The devil’s most devilish when respectable.” And do you realize how “respectable men (who are unbelievers and totally deceived by Satan) but ‘wise in their own hearts’ toward God’s “saving Grace”, are like Elihu who at least said to Job, (Job 37:24), “Therefore men fear Him; He shows no partiality to any who are wise of heart.” It’s true! Some, most, of unbelieving men, ‘wise in their own eyes’, priding themselves with their own ‘superior wisdom’, will, at least, reverence God in their wise hearts, yet never turn from their thrones of self-importance, self-centeredness, and, yes, self-rule, not knowing they already have their own seat-assignments in the classroom of Satan’s “school of death under Satan’s eternal tenure of teaching his darkness of unbelief “!

Individual self-importance and pride sadly missed God’s eternal purpose of human vessels who would give Him the place He desired to extend His love and prove His power, yes, over Satan who still says: “Has God really said…?”, but most, like Adam and Eve, didn’t and still don’t, have burning hearts to give God room to be Himself in and through them.

Satan, some unbelievers, some pastors, and some ‘church folk’, rather than taking the sentence of death unto themselves that Christ’s resurrection Life would be manifested in mortal flesh, never take the sentence of death to themselves but ‘accept’ that if they mindfully believe, the heart, the self-will, and the fleshly plans of self-importance will not be set aside but ‘religionized’ – and they can have, they think, “the best of both worlds”!

Satan thrives on unbelievers but also on pretenders! Satan rejoices that men call themselves “Christians” or “disciples of Christ”, but never receive “crucified with Christ”! Satan celebrates ‘emotional impressions’ without biblical Truth! Satan loves “high levels of emotions” that touch or impresses one’s mind but leaves the sinful heart unchanged! Satan gets excited when he knows, though never “born again”, that unbelievers often feed on their ‘imitation’ of Christ! Satan is uplifted when he sees “professing believers” in awe of their own honoring of their mortal flesh or sin natures without any concern at all of “Be holy, for I am holy” says God!

Satan, yes, encourages fleshly “grit” in all religious circles – while Christ Jesus celebrates the souls who rest only in His grace and mercy, and allow Him to establish His Holy Temple in their hearts! Satan will erupt in mindful pleasure when he sees “ believers who THINK ‘pure’ thoughts of ‘right’ or wrong”, but Christ Jesus said, “BLESSED are the pure in heart; for they shall see God”! A man can be ‘innocent’ related to civil law or innocent because he at least knows the difference between ‘right and wrong’ in the general public, but related to “the kingdom of God”, impurity shuts the door to the gates of Heaven because only the “blood bought” have an acceptable “pass” into Christ, the Holy Spirit, or to the Throne of God the Father!

Do you remember Christ Jesus “weeping over Jerusalem”? In Luke 19: 41-44 we read, Now as Jesus drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “IF YOU HAD KNOWN, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because YOU DID NOT KNOW THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION.”

It was Oswald Chambers who said in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.67), “Jesus had entered into Jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of Pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a “whited sepulcher.”

Dare I tell you? Satan gloats over “whited sepulchers”, Satan is gleeful when ‘darkness’ in one’s walk takes precedent over the Light of Christ, Satan celebrates when even ‘seekers’ are easily turned away, blinded to the Truth that liberates, but they accept Satan’s bondage to the Lord’s liberating grace and mercy! Do you understand? Satan can ‘blind’ your seeing eyes, contaminate your mind and heart, imprison you to his ways, even ‘darken’ your eyes if you’ve seen in the past, and NOW, “Now you don’t see, now seeing only what you want to see, he uses your culpable carelessness and sinful, selfish choices, to live with the awareness you choice, your selfish ambition to satisfy the old sin nature, and, as a result, came to a dangerous stage of life with the heavy heartache of “What Might Have Been!” I want you to follow John 16:25-33! It says: (Jesus speaking),

“These things I have spoken to you in figurative language, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about that Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from (or out of) the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”

His disciples said to Him, “See, now You are speaking plainly, and using no figure of speech! Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You. By this, we believe that You came forth (or out of) from God.”

Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. 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.”

Darkness and Light HAVE COLLIDED in the hearts and minds of all men – even now, in our ‘modern day’, Satan is busy trying to insure many will love his darkness and refuse “The Light of the world” whose name is Christ Jesus! As Christ Jesus has come into your world, is He gathering you to Himself or, sadly, you are turning away to the dark world of your ‘flesh’, your sinful ambitions, or your ‘pride’ of being in Satan’s “Hall of Fame” of “disregarders” to the True Faith?

Christ Jesus’ one desire is that YOU and all men “may have My joy fulfilled in themselves”, but far too many settle in to the world, the sinful flesh, and Satan’s kingdom of darkness! Don’t let it be you and yours!

OR THE ETERNAL TRUTH: “GOD LOVES ME”!”

APRIL 25-26, 2019 BY J.FARRELL FISHER

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 TUTN 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 N 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 EER 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 HIS “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!”

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, October 24-26, 2018

How prophetic and convicting do YOU find Jeremiah’s words from the Lord in Jeremiah 18:1-12? The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that kingdom against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”

And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.” THE MORTAL SPHERE OF MISGUIDED MEN!

The Lord Jesus so clearly understood the deception of earthly treasures and the opposite of it, being a life, a mind, and a heart set on the “true treasures of heaven”! In Matthew 6:19-24 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 destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 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.”

Examine carefully WHERE your mind, heart, will, and spirit is truly set! In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 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…”! IS THAT TRUE IN YOUR WALK AS A “PROFESSING DISCIPLE OF CHRIST JESUS”?

How sad that many, in comparison to the grace gifts of Christ, live unaware of the “flesh-bondage”, though some are even religious, but void of the power, freedom, and victory of His Overcoming Life over the flesh-nature, the world-spirit, and the demonic-deceptions!

Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, (pps. 185-186), highlighting 2 Corinthians 10:5, 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. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but to stand still in and see the salvation of God; but every theory or conception which erects itself as a rampart against the knowledge of God is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God’s power, not by fleshly endeavor or compromise (v.4).

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 those things and let Jesus bring another son to glory.”

How often have you witnessed, yes, seen ‘professing disciples’ who “stand still and see the salvation of God”, yes, being fully unveiled before them AND before Christ Jesus as He waits to see if, by the clouds, His people trust in Him? Have YOU flippantly read Revelation 1:7? John said, “Behold, He is COMING WITH CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him.” I truly often wonder if, at times, when dark clouds surround people, especially true believers, that those ‘clouds’ ARE the awareness for them of the Lord’s abiding Presence! If He says, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you,”, is that only true of peaceful times, or does it include perilous times? As well as the Word of God, I treasure the past hymns of the ages, and especially one hymn by H.G.Stafford and P.P.Bliss found in the old Broadman Hymnal published by The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1940. It was entitled “It Is Well With My Soul”, saying:

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, You have taught me to say, IT IS WELL, IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL.

Though Satan should buffet, tho’ trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And has shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought – My sin – not in part, but the whole –Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll, The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, “Even so” – it is well with my soul.

IT IS Well…with my soul,…It is well, it is well with my soul.” Is it ‘well with your soul’, cemented in Christ’s eternal victory over sin, over Satan, and, yes, over death itself? “BEHOLD, HE COMES WITH CLOUDS!”

Are you familiar with Psalm 97 which is so important for the ‘lighting up’ of “The Mortal Sphere of Misguided Men”? It says: Verses 1-2,“The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad! Clouds and darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.” Oh, but then reflect upon Verses 4-6! “His lightnings light the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, AND ALL THE PEOPLES SEE HIS GLORY”, followed by Verses 10-12:

“You who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; 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, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.”

In John 6:63 the Lord 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.” And the Lord Jesus was not speaking about human reasoning or human understanding, but human minds and human hearts enlightened by the Holy Spirit in the grace of “eating His flesh and drinking His blood”, and he or she who does so “abides in Jesus, and Jesus in him or her”!!

Are YOU aware of ‘religious folks’ who ‘mouth’ words apart from the WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT? Jude said the following in Verses 3-25, and I close this message with Jude’s powerful Spirit-anointed words! He said: “Beloved, while I was very 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 for all 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 our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day, as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.

These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” (That’s against Christ Jesus the Lord, Emmanuel, the Promised Savior!).

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

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.”

Are YOU a “contender for the true faith”, or have you been captured, chained, and been fully corrupted by, yes, your old sin-nature colored black and dark by Satan himself or his band of rebellious, renegade, run-amok-demons?

Why not “choose YOU this day whom you will serve through all eternity, choosing especially and literally, day by day, to be led by the Resurrected, Reigning, Victorious Christ over sin, over death, and over Satan? Amen?

By J.Farrell Fisher, December 11-13, 2016

It’s not an uncommon experience for a person to come under divine conviction, but the circumstances can or will vary for every individual. In the experience of Isaiah who became a prophet of God, during the time period when King Uzziah died, Isaiah said in Isaiah 6:1, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple”, and the Holy Presence shook him to his core!

Isaiah said, in Isaiah 6:5, “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.” Though he was ‘in the Temple’ regularly, only when Holy God unveiled Himself to Isaiah was he strongly and deeply aware of his need of blood redemption and true reconciliation to Holy God.

Isaiah 6:6 says, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand 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.” The Random House College Dictionary of 1975 defines a seraphim as “one of the celestial beings hovering above God’s throne…a member of the highest order of angels.”

In God’s office and ministry of Sovereign over men or nations, He’s not removed from His awareness of men and their need of reconciliation, and can or will do as He pleases to bring about awareness of one’s need for true repentance and the way of mind and heart-change in one’s life! In Isaiah’s circumstance, as it must be for any reconciled to God, he/she, in divine presence are brought to a full awareness of his/her uncleanness before God with clear understanding of the need of sin-purging, heart-washing, and the birthing of understanding of availability of one’s self to God in whatever ministry or calling or heavenly role HE ASSIGNS TO US!

In Isaiah 6: 8 Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” “Us”? The Holy Trinity! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! And in the midst of a needy world, “THEY” settle on assignments of all true servants of God, from the greatest to the least!

Oh, but then notice in Isaiah 6: 8, Isaiah responded in a truly yielded response, “Here am I! Send me.” How clear does Paul make it for us several thousand years later when in Romans 6:15-18 he, by the Spirit, unveiled the powerful path of holy obedience! “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 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? 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 (OR SERVANTS) OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Yet, in modern-day American churches, some call obedience ‘salvation by works’, so they ‘rest’ in their compromise, disobedience, and are perfectly satisfied to live their ‘faith experience’ fruitless, self-filled, demon-controlled, but feel “blessed by my religious identity” rather than their “Birth-Marks by the Holy Spirit”!

Don’t you find it so interesting and liberating to hear Jesus in Luke 4:18-19 quoting from Isaiah 61:1? “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.”

YOU WERE A SERVANT OF SIN! YOU WERE ENSLAVED TO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS! YOU WERE, APART FROM “BLOOD REDEMPTION”, A ‘SINATRA” FAN: “I DID IT MY WAY,” never understanding walking with Christ on the Highway of Holiness! Dare I ask you if you’ve truly been liberated, set free from the bondage of your old sin-nature, chains broken from demonic allegiance, yet possibly playing an Academy Award – WINNER of ‘Pretense’ rather than “Complete in Christ,” “Perfected by Grace,” and a testimony of “Spirit-anointing”, walking in His control, His fruit, and His power or anointing?

Do you remember Paul sharing his testimony, recounting his conversion experience, with King Agrippa in Acts 26? Beginning in Verse 13-20 we read: “..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 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.” GLORY!! WHAT AN ENLIGHTENING PASSAGE OF THE WORD!

I’m sure you remember, in Matthew 18:1-5, As the disciples came to Jesus, they asked, “Who then is the 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 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.” Is ‘humbling one’s self before Holy God and King Jesus and the Spirit of God’ the true and only door to Holy Presence and a Holy Life or have you ‘self-determined how able you are in yourself to please Him’? Willful, self-wits does not line up with “put on the new man”!

It was Oswald Chambers who wrote in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.270), “We deify independence and willfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength.” Does that ring true with you in, maybe only at times, a view of “I’m able! I can be like Jesus!”? No! He crucified you and me with Himself to end one’s conviction that our lives in Him consists of the ‘abundance of spiritual strengths we possess in ourselves’! In Romans 13:14 Paul wrote: “But PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts,” and spiritual pride apart from Christ is one of the suffocating ‘lifestyles’ of ‘self-made, professing disciples’!

But, did Jesus say, in Matthew 18:3, “Assuredly, I SAY TO YOU, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven”? Oh, and then what was it Paul said in Galatians 4:19? “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you”! And, ‘kids in the faith’ begin to truly mature and grow as they ‘lean not to their own understanding’, but learn to give Him His rightful place as they receive, recognize, and rest in “Christ in me the hope of glory”!

There’s a big “if” in 1 John 1:7 where the beloved John wrote: “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.” And, please tell me: How does a true ‘child of the King’ ever come to the place where he/she excuses their life of willful sin when the Lord Jesus took the sin and sin-nature to the Cross and shed His own blood that we might be free from its domination, degrading, and darkening impact of temptation and willful surrender to ‘it’ rather than to the eternal freedom of His Lordship?

Come with me now to Luke 2:25-35 which is the eternal track of faith I want our train of faith running on! It says: And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Dare I tell you that “the sword of the Lord” is double-edged? For unbelievers “the sword of the Lord” is the painful penalty of separation from God, the severing of an eternal relationship with Him because of unbelief, AND the ‘piercing of eternal death that never dies’, while on the other hand ‘the piercing’ is DIVINE CONVICTION that breaks the hardened heart and reveals the need of reconciliation to Holy God through the blood sacrifice of Christ at Calvary’s Cross!

In 1 John 1:5-7 John declared: “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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.”

When YOU professed Christ as Lord and Savior and Master and Lord over your “new-born” life, was there, in you, the understanding and the willful acceptance of your ‘death to sin’ and your ‘faith in the gracious gift of the impartation of His Resurrection Presence’, His total and complete perfection, and His unrivaled power to cleanse you from all sin and the sin-nature? Do you know that 1 John 4:17 declares, “…because as He is, so are we in this world”? You’re the ‘temple or tabernacle’ – Christ Jesus fills you with His Holy Presence!

How clear did the Lord Jesus make it for Nicodemus, a former Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews? In John 3: 3-6 Jesus told Nicodemus and Us, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (the water of the Word of God) 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.” Apart from the “new birth” there is no eternal testimony of the “new-born-life- in- Christ”!

In Matthew 10: 32-33 Jesus said: “Therefore whoever confesses (and keeps on confessing) Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Denying Christ before men can be “professing, church-attending pretenders” who know nothing about “being born again,” transformed, or regenerated by the Spirit of God into a “new creation”, and in Luke 12:56 Jesus described or spoke about some who are “hypocrites” or pretenders, religious ‘play-actors’!

God help us as modern-day disciples of Christ that we preach, teach, witness to, explain, and proclaim the “saving Grace and mercy” of a “new-born life” in and through the Holy Spirit! Jesus explained to the woman of Samaria in John 4:23-24, “But the hour is coming, AND NOW IS, when the TRUE WORSHIPPERS will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

You’ll remember that Christ’s encounter with the woman we just read about in John 4:23-24 came about after Jesus came to her, in Verse 7, saying, “Give Me a drink.” In Verse 9 she said to Jesus, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

What an awesome declaration of the difference between ‘water’ and ‘living water’, yet many drink from wells of water dispensing selfish satisfactions but have nothing to do with the “living water of the Word” that births new lives, new hearts, new intents to honor Holy God alone!

This may be why the Hebrews author was inspired to write in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently see Him.”

There’s an informative, inspiring, enlightening, liberating word in Jeremiah 29:11-13 for not only the captive Jews but for every sin-bound man or woman across the world today! It 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. THEN you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will search for Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

In Philippians 3:7-11 we find, not the piercing sword of fleshly awareness and attainment in “our best spiritual endeavor”, but the piercing sword of divine fulfillment as we allow His Word to birth us into “new lives”, signed by God alone! It says: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also have counted 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.”

Oh, but then Peter truly challenges us who ARE “followers of Christ Jesus,” His sons and daughters of redemptive faith, the appointed, anointed, and assigned disciples who are to touch our world with His saving grace, not to become lax, or possess any spiritual sluggishness or indifference to His calling and assignment of our lives, when in 2 Peter 1:2-15 he 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.

But also FOR THIS VERY REASON, [Because “in Christ” we’re so blessed AND partakers of the divine nature!], 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 short-sided, 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.

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 (earthly) tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”

I turned 80 years of age this past June 12, 2016. My grandfather Fisher died at 78 years of age. My father, Jim Fisher, died at 78 years of age. I see, without hesitation, that I am highly blessed of our Lord and Savior, and thankful for my loving wife, Sue, three sons and a daughter, nine grandkids, and great-grand kids that grow in numbers every year!

And then, in 2 Peter 1:16b- 19, an awesome word of assurance, trustworthiness in the revealed Word of God and Christ’s many promises as Peter wrote: we “were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He (Jesus) received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. AND so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;…”

What has Christ Jesus “confirmed” in YOU? Have YOU heard His voice, seen His ‘star’ of hope and heavenly blessing, and do you live with His “Blessed Assurance”?!?

To the Philippian congregation and the masses in this century who walk faithfully with Christ, Paul said, in Philippians 2:12-13, “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 with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

Is Holy God at work in you, transforming the old man into the “new creation” of the Resurrection Life of Christ in your mortal flesh? Does “the piercing sword of eternal Truth” remind you that it was YOUR SIN AND SIN NATURE that brought about the crucifixion of Christ? Again, what did Paul remind us of in Galatians 2:20-21a? “I HAVE BEEN CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh (bodily presence) 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…”! John Newton and B.B.McKinney wrote the hymn, “He Died For Me.” It says:

“I saw One hanging on a tree, In agony and blood; He fixed His languid eyes on me, As near His cross I stood.

Sure, never, till my latest breath, Can I forget that look: It seemed to charge me with His death, Tho’ not a word He spoke.

My conscience felt and owned the guilt, And plunged me in despair; I saw my sins His blood had spilt, And helped to nail Him there.

A second look He gave, which said, “I freely all forgive; This blood is for your ransom paid, I die that you may live.”

It was for me, upon a tree He died in agony, And now I give my life to live, For Him who died for me.” Has the Cross of Christ pierced through your heart and mind to wash you “clean and pure” with His blood?

By J.Farrell Fisher, December 11-13, 2016

It’s not an uncommon experience for a person to come under divine conviction, but the circumstances can or will vary for every individual. In the experience of Isaiah who became a prophet of God, during the time period when King Uzziah died, Isaiah said in Isaiah 6:1, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple”, and the Holy Presence shook him to his core!

Isaiah said, in Isaiah 6:5, “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.” Though he was ‘in the Temple’ regularly, only when Holy God unveiled Himself to Isaiah was he strongly and deeply aware of his need of blood redemption and true reconciliation to Holy God.

Isaiah 6:6 says, “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand 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.” The Random House College Dictionary of 1975 defines a seraphim as “one of the celestial beings hovering above God’s throne…a member of the highest order of angels.”

In God’s office and ministry of Sovereign over men or nations, He’s not removed from His awareness of men and their need of reconciliation, and can or will do as He pleases to bring about awareness of one’s need for true repentance and the way of mind and heart-change in one’s life! In Isaiah’s circumstance, as it must be for any reconciled to God, he/she, in divine presence are brought to a full awareness of his/her uncleanness before God with clear understanding of the need of sin-purging, heart-washing, and the birthing of understanding of availability of one’s self to God in whatever ministry or calling or heavenly role HE ASSIGNS TO US!

In Isaiah 6: 8 Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” “Us”? The Holy Trinity! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! And in the midst of a needy world, “THEY” settle on assignments of all true servants of God, from the greatest to the least!

Oh, but then notice in Isaiah 6: 8, Isaiah responded in a truly yielded response, “Here am I! Send me.” How clear does Paul make it for us several thousand years later when in Romans 6:15-18 he, by the Spirit, unveiled the powerful path of holy obedience! “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 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? 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 (OR SERVANTS) OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Yet, in modern-day American churches, some call obedience ‘salvation by works’, so they ‘rest’ in their compromise, disobedience, and are perfectly satisfied to live their ‘faith experience’ fruitless, self-filled, demon-controlled, but feel “blessed by my religious identity” rather than their “Birth-Marks by the Holy Spirit”!

Don’t you find it so interesting and liberating to hear Jesus in Luke 4:18-19 quoting from Isaiah 61:1? “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.”

YOU WERE A SERVANT OF SIN! YOU WERE ENSLAVED TO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS! YOU WERE, APART FROM “BLOOD REDEMPTION”, A ‘SINATRA” FAN: “I DID IT MY WAY,” never understanding walking with Christ on the Highway of Holiness! Dare I ask you if you’ve truly been liberated, set free from the bondage of your old sin-nature, chains broken from demonic allegiance, yet possibly playing an Academy Award – WINNER of ‘Pretense’ rather than “Complete in Christ,” “Perfected by Grace,” and a testimony of “Spirit-anointing”, walking in His control, His fruit, and His power or anointing?

Do you remember Paul sharing his testimony, recounting his conversion experience, with King Agrippa in Acts 26? Beginning in Verse 13-20 we read: “..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 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.” GLORY!! WHAT AN ENLIGHTENING PASSAGE OF THE WORD!

I’m sure you remember, in Matthew 18:1-5, As the disciples came to Jesus, they asked, “Who then is the 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 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.” Is ‘humbling one’s self before Holy God and King Jesus and the Spirit of God’ the true and only door to Holy Presence and a Holy Life or have you ‘self-determined how able you are in yourself to please Him’? Willful, self-wits does not line up with “put on the new man”!

It was Oswald Chambers who wrote in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.270), “We deify independence and willfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength.” Does that ring true with you in, maybe only at times, a view of “I’m able! I can be like Jesus!”? No! He crucified you and me with Himself to end one’s conviction that our lives in Him consists of the ‘abundance of spiritual strengths we possess in ourselves’! In Romans 13:14 Paul wrote: “But PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts,” and spiritual pride apart from Christ is one of the suffocating ‘lifestyles’ of ‘self-made, professing disciples’!

But, did Jesus say, in Matthew 18:3, “Assuredly, I SAY TO YOU, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven”? Oh, and then what was it Paul said in Galatians 4:19? “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you”! And, ‘kids in the faith’ begin to truly mature and grow as they ‘lean not to their own understanding’, but learn to give Him His rightful place as they receive, recognize, and rest in “Christ in me the hope of glory”!

There’s a big “if” in 1 John 1:7 where the beloved John wrote: “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.” And, please tell me: How does a true ‘child of the King’ ever come to the place where he/she excuses their life of willful sin when the Lord Jesus took the sin and sin-nature to the Cross and shed His own blood that we might be free from its domination, degrading, and darkening impact of temptation and willful surrender to ‘it’ rather than to the eternal freedom of His Lordship?

Come with me now to Luke 2:25-35 which is the eternal track of faith I want our train of faith running on! It says: And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Dare I tell you that “the sword of the Lord” is double-edged? For unbelievers “the sword of the Lord” is the painful penalty of separation from God, the severing of an eternal relationship with Him because of unbelief, AND the ‘piercing of eternal death that never dies’, while on the other hand ‘the piercing’ is DIVINE CONVICTION that breaks the hardened heart and reveals the need of reconciliation to Holy God through the blood sacrifice of Christ at Calvary’s Cross!

In 1 John 1:5-7 John declared: “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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.”

When YOU professed Christ as Lord and Savior and Master and Lord over your “new-born” life, was there, in you, the understanding and the willful acceptance of your ‘death to sin’ and your ‘faith in the gracious gift of the impartation of His Resurrection Presence’, His total and complete perfection, and His unrivaled power to cleanse you from all sin and the sin-nature? Do you know that 1 John 4:17 declares, “…because as He is, so are we in this world”? You’re the ‘temple or tabernacle’ – Christ Jesus fills you with His Holy Presence!

How clear did the Lord Jesus make it for Nicodemus, a former Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews? In John 3: 3-6 Jesus told Nicodemus and Us, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (the water of the Word of God) 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.” Apart from the “new birth” there is no eternal testimony of the “new-born-life- in- Christ”!

In Matthew 10: 32-33 Jesus said: “Therefore whoever confesses (and keeps on confessing) Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Denying Christ before men can be “professing, church-attending pretenders” who know nothing about “being born again,” transformed, or regenerated by the Spirit of God into a “new creation”, and in Luke 12:56 Jesus described or spoke about some who are “hypocrites” or pretenders, religious ‘play-actors’!

God help us as modern-day disciples of Christ that we preach, teach, witness to, explain, and proclaim the “saving Grace and mercy” of a “new-born life” in and through the Holy Spirit! Jesus explained to the woman of Samaria in John 4:23-24, “But the hour is coming, AND NOW IS, when the TRUE WORSHIPPERS will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

You’ll remember that Christ’s encounter with the woman we just read about in John 4:23-24 came about after Jesus came to her, in Verse 7, saying, “Give Me a drink.” In Verse 9 she said to Jesus, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

What an awesome declaration of the difference between ‘water’ and ‘living water’, yet many drink from wells of water dispensing selfish satisfactions but have nothing to do with the “living water of the Word” that births new lives, new hearts, new intents to honor Holy God alone!

This may be why the Hebrews author was inspired to write in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently see Him.”

There’s an informative, inspiring, enlightening, liberating word in Jeremiah 29:11-13 for not only the captive Jews but for every sin-bound man or woman across the world today! It 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. THEN you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will search for Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

In Philippians 3:7-11 we find, not the piercing sword of fleshly awareness and attainment in “our best spiritual endeavor”, but the piercing sword of divine fulfillment as we allow His Word to birth us into “new lives”, signed by God alone! It says: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also have counted 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.”

Oh, but then Peter truly challenges us who ARE “followers of Christ Jesus,” His sons and daughters of redemptive faith, the appointed, anointed, and assigned disciples who are to touch our world with His saving grace, not to become lax, or possess any spiritual sluggishness or indifference to His calling and assignment of our lives, when in 2 Peter 1:2-15 he 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.

But also FOR THIS VERY REASON, [Because “in Christ” we’re so blessed AND partakers of the divine nature!], 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 short-sided, 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.

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 (earthly) tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”

I turned 80 years of age this past June 12, 2016. My grandfather Fisher died at 78 years of age. My father, Jim Fisher, died at 78 years of age. I see, without hesitation, that I am highly blessed of our Lord and Savior, and thankful for my loving wife, Sue, three sons and a daughter, nine grandkids, and great-grand kids that grow in numbers every year!

And then, in 2 Peter 1:16b- 19, an awesome word of assurance, trustworthiness in the revealed Word of God and Christ’s many promises as Peter wrote: we “were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He (Jesus) received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. AND so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;…”

What has Christ Jesus “confirmed” in YOU? Have YOU heard His voice, seen His ‘star’ of hope and heavenly blessing, and do you live with His “Blessed Assurance”?!?

To the Philippian congregation and the masses in this century who walk faithfully with Christ, Paul said, in Philippians 2:12-13, “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 with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

Is Holy God at work in you, transforming the old man into the “new creation” of the Resurrection Life of Christ in your mortal flesh? Does “the piercing sword of eternal Truth” remind you that it was YOUR SIN AND SIN NATURE that brought about the crucifixion of Christ? Again, what did Paul remind us of in Galatians 2:20-21a? “I HAVE BEEN CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh (bodily presence) 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…”! John Newton and B.B.McKinney wrote the hymn, “He Died For Me.” It says:

“I saw One hanging on a tree, In agony and blood; He fixed His languid eyes on me, As near His cross I stood.

Sure, never, till my latest breath, Can I forget that look: It seemed to charge me with His death, Tho’ not a word He spoke.

My conscience felt and owned the guilt, And plunged me in despair; I saw my sins His blood had spilt, And helped to nail Him there.

A second look He gave, which said, “I freely all forgive; This blood is for your ransom paid, I die that you may live.”

It was for me, upon a tree He died in agony, And now I give my life to live, For Him who died for me.” Has the Cross of Christ pierced through your heart and mind to wash you “clean and pure” with His blood?